Category: Uncategorized
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John Dhali: EP
Dhali is from Congleton and this is a most impressive EP, with no sign of that “local artist, budget production” thing going on. The sleeve is nice and the music even better. Dhali has a folky troubadour style, somewhere between Willy Mason and Jake Bugg, with a splash of Jeff Buckley on the vocals. Opener…
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Natalia Andreeva: Russian Piano Music (Vol 11) Galina Ustvolskaya
This double CD of piano music is for people who like a touch of bleakness to their listening. Galina Ustvolskaya was a shy and introspective composer known, according to the sleeve notes, as “the lady with the hammer” because of her unrelenting rhythms. The sleeve notes talk about her distinctive notation, which as far as…
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George Crumb: Voices from the Morning of the Earth; Complete Crumb Edition, Vol 17
More Crumb (it’s about the third this year — we’ve quite become fans) and the opening piece on this, the title work, has the strapline American Songbook VI, which is an early warning for avant-garde takes on popular tunes by the likes of Bob Dylan (Never mind “Judas” when he went electric!). It’s a hypnotic…
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False Advertising: False Advertising
We’ve played this a lot in the past couple of weeks and despite its charms it’s just failed to hit the spot. We can’t make a connection with it in the way you do with albums you really like. False Advertising are from Manchester and play grunge; you could add “indie punk” to that description…
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New Order: Music Complete
We can’t have been alone in wondering how New Order’s first new album without Hooky would sound and here’s the answer: a classic. We remember Hooky talking about Waiting for the Sirens’ Call and his basic critique on any track was how much of his bass there was. He’s an iconic player but any band…
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Stimmwerck: Flos Virginum, Motets Of The 15th Century
As far as we’re concerned you can’t go wrong with heavenly voices from the 15th century (at least, modern musicians singing heavenly music from the C15th), and this is about as good as it gets. Admittedly there’s not a lot of variation but Stimmwerck, a German vocal quartet, prove that the human voice is the…
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Gary Clark Jr: Sonny Boy Slim
The only thing that’s traditional electric blues about this new CD from Clark is the title. For a man who could presumably get very rich playing formulaic blues with lengthy solos, it’s a good move. Who wants to play dull music for white men in cardigans, after all? Eric Clapton’s got the market covered. Instead…
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Darktown Jubilee: City of Light
This is the second album from Manchester band Darktown Jubilee and it’s accomplished and mature. We did an internet search thingy and among their recent gigs was Knutsford Beer Festival. Honestly! Talentless no-hopers on television being milked by Simon Cowell on one hand and a talented band playing for tipsy Knutsfordonians on the other. Pah.…
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