Author: jerobear
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Ida Sand: My Soul Kitchen
The PR for this says Sand loves “sweet soul music”, and the emphasis is on the sweet for this collection of covers and originals. She’s got a honeyed voice and the band is tight but — in the best possible sense — it most reminds us of a live band you’d get in a classy…
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Yaniv d’Or: Exaltation
We went to a wedding in Turkey the other weekend — as you do — and then spent a week listening to Tatar music, with artists from Mongolia down to Poland. And all the time we were hunting out exotic sounds we had this on the desk. It’s a programme of music from Medieval and…
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Josh Groban: Bridges
Groban is a proper singer; his voice has been called a tenor by some and a baritone by others (G2 to B4, lower than the tenor range on the low end, and above the baritone range, on the high end), and on his rise to fame, he depped for a poorly Andrea Bocelli at the…
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Twenty One Pilots: Trench
Twenty One Pilots are one of those bands who passed us by, but turn out to be massive. We thought they were emo/rock and the first track, Jumpsuit, did not dissuade, with its heavy bass and touch of screaming towards the end. Track two Levitate takes it off in a different direction with fast rapping…
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Lorraine Baker: Eden
This came a while back amid a pile of country albums — were we wrong to assume “Lorraine Baker” was a C&W singer? Much to our dismay, playing it reveals she’s a drummer and does jazz, and this is a very cool album. Baker is our kind of drummer, with plenty of skills on display…
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Disturbed: Evolution
We assume the title is ironic — Disturbed is the least evolved creation that ever walked the earth (after Status Quo). Despite hitting a more mainstream audience with a cover of Sound Of Silence, they play the same formulaic rock with which they hit the big time. Bands like Linkin Park at least made an…
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Sheridan Smith: A Northern Soul
We read that Smith’s debut album, Sheridan, was last year’s second-best selling debut by a UK woman, beaten only by cool pop singer Dua Lipa (although Smith sold 100,000 copies and Lipa 1.2m, so it’s not a close-run thing). That collection of covers was a little patchy, but this new one is more of a…
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Suzanne Shulman: Serenades and Sonatas for Flute and Harp
This programme has been gathered from a selection of pieces inspired by English gardens, including Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves, as well as French and Italian music. It’s a nice touch of spring as winter approaches. The opening piece is Fantasia on Greensleeves, which sets the tone. We’d say pastoral rather than fluffy, though it’s…
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Penguins Go Pop: 20th Century Pop
This is an album we wished we’d heard 30 years ago — it’s one of those albums you love in your youth, and ever more it remains a musical comfort blanket. It’s not quite garage rock and it’s too layered to be called DIY, but there’s an endearing homemade quality to it. This is not…
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New Vic: Wind In The Willows
The latest Christmas production at the New Vic, Newcastle, is a re-telling of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows — 110 years old this year — the tale of anthropomorphised animals in a pastoral version of ye olde England as progress, in the form of motor cars, arrives. It’s the best Christmas show the…
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