Author: jerobear
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Andrew Combs: Canyons Of My Mind
You could call this country — he’s a Texan based in Nashville — but much of the music leans towards the classic ballady pop of the likes of James Taylor, or the folk of Gordon Lightfoot, with “proper” country only cropping up in a couple of tracks. The classic/old-fashioned nature of his approach continues in…
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Little Dragon: Season High
Eight or nine years ago the Review Corner was in a trendy shop that sold ornaments and knick-knacks, and Little Dragon’s debut (called Little Dragon) was playing. We stopped to chat with the owner about how good Little Dragon were, how much we liked them and how they deserved to be big. A decade on,…
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Elizabeth Jordan and Lynsey Marsh: Mind Music
It’s a game of two halves in this approachable programme from Elizabeth Jordan and Lynsey Marsh (clarinets and basset horn, with the Northern Chamber Orchestra and Stephen Barlow). And it’s all in a good cause — profits go to Parkinson’s UK. The programme features music written and/or performed by people who either suffered from a…
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The Orwells: Terrible Human Beings
The Orwells occupy the ground somewhere between landfill indie and genius. Landfill indie, for those lucky enough to have forgotten, was a guitar-based rock of the lowest common denominator, designed to appeal to young lads on lager and with lyrics to match. The Orwells’ sound is that, and every song sounds a bit like something…
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Giacomo Carissimi: Eight Motets
Some church music is intended to instill awareness of the immenseness of infinity, some to sing along to and some to be reverential but pleasing, and this CD is in the last category. You could listen to it for its relaxed but respectful religious tones, or just play it to relax. Showing the timelessness of…
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Dutch Uncles: Big Balloon
This is Marple band Dutch Uncles’s fifth album. We thought we’d missed some early ones but it turns out we heard their first two, Dutch Uncles and Cadenza (both good, particularly the latter), and it was the next two that slipped under our radar. Not surprising: while Cadenza was quirky and charming, O Shudder (the…
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Laura Marling: Semper Femina
We’ve missed a couple of Marling albums; she was always good but if this new album isn’t her best, we must have missed some crackers. The music is slickly delivered but intimate, and slightly downbeat. It takes in several genres; some parts are country, some folk, some jazz, a mix of English folk and 60s…
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Fleetwood Mac: Tango in the Night
You should all have heard this, or parts of it. It was the Mac’s second-best selling album after Rumours and some of the tracks are as well-known as the Rumours classics — Seven Wonders, Caroline, Tango in the Night, Little Lies and Family Man among them — so there’s not much to say on the…
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Jarrod Dickenson: Ready The Horses
Good as Laura Marling is, she’s beaten into second place by this superb album from Dickenson. From the moment it starts playing, it’s a joy. Hailing from Waco, now living in Brooklyn, Dickenson has a honeyed, soulful voice and writes semi-acoustic soulful blues and country tunes. Like Marling, the music is reflective and mature, and…
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Heroines of Love and Loss
The way things work in general is that classical albums take a couple of plays to get into, whereas it’s the pop/rock tunes that have instant appeal; until now, we’ve never had a classical album with that “must play every day” thing you get with a catchy pop tune. Until now; Not that a collection…
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