Author: jerobear
-
Alexandra Stréliski: Inscape + Chilly Gonzales: Solo Piano III
Classical piano albums aimed at the masses are like buses: you wait ages (after Chilly Gonzales’ last one and James Rhodes’s Bullets and Lullabies) and then two come in the same week. Without being gender-biased, we’d say Stréliski goes for the emotion, Gonzales for the brain: Stréliski’s is for those who wish all piano was…
-
Claudia Gold: King of the North Wind, The Life of Henry II in Five Acts (book)
This dramatic history of the man who could have been up there with England’s greatest kings is more like a story in three parts than the author’s five. Part one is the biblical section: who begat whom and who killed whom in the vestry with a blunt instrument. Necessary but a little slow. Part two…
-
Sons of Bill: Oh God Ma’am
If anyone complains to us that “there’s no good music about any more … not since <insert name of briefly popular band> split”, we’re going to perform drastic dental surgery with this CD, which is both excellent and new. (Why do people say that about music? No-one ever says, “There’s no good paintings any more,…
-
Larry And His Flask: This Remedy
The most surprising thing about Larry And His Flask are that they’re not from the UK: their festival-friendly Mumfords-meets-Pogues drunken folk is akin to Brit bands such as Skinny Lister and Ducking Punches, but this crew hail from Oregon and not English suburbia. We guess they’re great live, a band for dancing and spilling beer…
-
Johann Rosenmüller: Laudate Dominum / Sacred Concertos
This came out in February but once we missed its release we’ve sat on it (not literally) until the season of goodwill approaches: some of you will be wanting church music that sounds devotional and provides atmosphere, without mentioning a jingling bell or even a passing gloria. Rosenmüller (1619-1684) was German and studied theology at…
-
Fatherson: Sum Of All Your Parts
An apt title, as Fatherson are indeed the sum of all their parts: Coldplay, Biffy, Incubus…. Opener The Rain replicates the sound of one of those emotional rock bands of a decade ago, with shimmery guitar and massive bass, and that’s pretty much the modus o perandum. It’s all radio friendly and crowd-pleasing; proficient anthemic…
-
The Juniper Project: Fragments
Some flute-based releases we’ve reviewed have included the words “challenging” or “for lovers of technical flute playing”, euphemistically used for “verging on unlistenable”. Now comes this delightful album. It’s the music from a heavily costumed romance drama, the scene where the lovers float down the river on a sunny day (in a boat, obviously), the…
-
John Butler Trio: Home
Butler is one of those unfortunates who made his best album early on — Sunrise Over Sea —which fans love. We’re fans and we love it beyond reason; we’d happily pay to see him tour and just play Sunrise year after year, with a couple of other songs to stretch the set out; some newer…
-
Darwin Deez: 10 Songs That Happened When You Left Me With My Stupid Heart
Deez had his success around 2010, with an eponymous album and well-played tracks such as Constellations, Radar Detector and Deep Sea Divers. He came over as a nerdy guy, slightly baffled by relationships, making music in his bedroom with a cheap synth but lots of energy. The music was crisp and almost dry, and a…
-
Mike Batt / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Holst, The Planets
Amazingly, it’s The Wombles’ 50th anniversary this year — the furry rodents first appeared in 1968 — and to celebrate, Mike Batt has released this special edition of Holst’s The Planets. OK, so that’s only partly true: this new recording actually marks the centenary of the first performance of The Planets (29th September 1918, since…
Review Corner 