Author: jerobear
-
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Skeleton Tree
Cave has been getting progressively more ambient (or at least playing more atmospheric, dark piano ballads) for a couple of albums, possibly because of the time he devotes to soundtracks. This new album is no different, and there’s a companion film, One More Time With Feeling. Clearly this one is different: while the album was…
-
Fleetwood: Mac Mirage
The Mac is a machine and that machine has a sound, very evident on this re-release. Mirage (1982) followed 1979’s edgier Tusk but came before the generally better Tango In The Night, which we remember being hailed as a return to form. That Mac machine sounds like it always does, but only firing on one…
-
Monocled Man: We Drift Meridian
This album combines late night jazz with electronica; the overall mood is like being out on a foggy night when ships are lost at sea; a stranger is shuffling towards you out of the fog, probably with a treasure map in his hand. It’s all a bit mysterious. That’s not surprising: the concept is obscure…
-
Asylums: Killer Brain Waves
Asylums are a DIY band and this is out on a label run out of a back bedroom in Southend-on-Sea, but the lack of external, objective control is perhaps their Achilles heel. There are some outright excellent songs on this album, which falls short of greatness by a lack of focus. The tunes fall into…
-
Rob Richings: Parka and Boots
Sometimes you want to forget about seminal and influential albums and listen to nice music. The CDs that have the most legs with us are just good songs — Crash My Model Car and Martin John Henry might not have sold many albums but they get played a lot in the Review Corner. We were…
-
Apothek: Apothek
Apothek are a duo from Oslo, and have that Norwegian sound to them, which is lo-fi and sounding like it was recorded in a cosy room with a big fire (which it might have been, given their climate). It’s got the same intimate air as Choir of Young Believers, also from Norway. Musically, it’s subtly…
-
Still Corners: Dead Blue
This synth pop album from songwriter Greg Hughes and vocalist Tessa Murray is a pleasant listen. It’s undemanding electronic pop with an eighties synth feel but mid-way through its fifth or sixth play we realised that its existence was making us feel happy, never a bad thing. This is possibly because it taps into old…
-
Kate Jackson: British Road Movies
Jackson was in The Long Blondes, one of those bands we always thought we should listen to more but never did; slightly worthy indie. This solo effort, coming eight years after songwriter Dorian Cox’s ill health caused the Blondes to split, is much more appealing. A reasonable thumbnail of this would be a UK indie…
-
August Wells: Madness Is The Mercy
August Wells is a duo, the Dublin vocalist and songwriter Ken Griffin and John Rauchenberger, a New York pianist. They’re one of those bands with cult superstardom written over them, thanks to the sumptuous arrangements and Griffin’s distinctive voice (baritone?). Griffin is of Irish bands Rollerskate Skinny and Favourite Sons, the former apparently being popular…
-
Tom Winpenny: Williamson, Organ Music
If often helps to understand a composer: an on-line obituary to Williamson compared him to fellow Oz ex-pats Barry Humphries, Germaine Greer and Clive James, leaving a “culturally deadening” Australia. The obit noted: “It is possible that some of his headline-making indiscretions at the expense of the fashionable would have remained private if he’d been…
Review Corner 