At the start of their career are Morganway, a six-piece from East Anglia; success surely beckons. Founded by twin brothers Callum (vocals, guitar, bass) and Kieran Morgan (lead guitar, backing vocals) they sound like they’re from California, about 1976 … down on the surf, just after those Fleetwood Mac fellows from England switched from blues […]
Sunjay: Devil Came Calling
Sunjay has been seen at award ceremonies: he was a young folk award finalist in 2012 at Radio Two and the same year won the young performers award at the Wath Festival, as well as being a winner at the New Roots competition in St Albans. In 2014 he was nominated three times at the […]
David Gibb: Rolling Down The Road
Gibb is a familiar figure at Rode Hall’s Just So and played Bollington Festival this year. In a previous guise he was a finalist of the BBC Radio Two young folk awards in 2011. In 2013 he featured alongside musical collaborator Elly Lucas in an advertising campaign for Gola trainers. Success must have seemed close. […]
Olympia: Flamingo
There was a moment — track four, Nervous Riders — when we thought we were going to love this album, but sadly it’s a little too patchy. This is the second album by Australian singer-songwriter Olympia (real name Olivia Bartley, and from Wollongongand) and it’s psychedelic pop with leaning towards to indie. On the plus […]
Grateful Dead: Aoxomoxoa
The Grateful Dead inspire absolute devotion among their aging fans. We’re too young to be fans, but even so we trekked to the Dead’s house in San Francisco (we were in the city, it wasn’t a special journey). This album is a 50th anniversary reissue and it is reportedly their most experimental. While we’re still […]
Marie Ythier: Une Rencontre (An Encounter)
The warm tones of the cello are what make this CD a pleasure to listen to, which is good, because the sleeve notes are technical and the ideas behind it analytical. Composer Tristan Murail is, say the release notes, “without doubt” one of the most significant figures in European contemporary music circles, and one of […]
Caravan Palace: Chronologic
Caravan Palace is a French electronic music band based in Paris. They play electro-swing, which is as it sounds; possibly more popular on the Continent than this side of La Manche. Electro-swing combines swing and jazz mixed with modern dance. It can be an acquired taste; Mr Scruff and Jurassic 5 have written electro-swing tracks. […]
David Helbock: Playing John Williams
Austrian jazz pianist David Helbock loves John Williams, as do we all (even if we don’t know it). Helbock’s problem is to make the music we know inside out sound fresh, and the music we don’t know sound interesting. As Helbock says, the music in the films is often “magnified onto a grand scale”, and […]
Ed Sheeran: No 6 Collaborations
Sheeran has got to be an unlikely global star by playing bland tunes aimed at targeted demographics. You can snigger but he knows what he’s doing and he’s done better than you. You can’t get any bigger than global superstar so perhaps this album marks the end of his career plan phase one and a […]
Helen Habershon: Found in Winter
This is a very accessible collection — perhaps too much so for people who view themselves as “classical music” fans. The cd has television mini-series written all over it. Moby famously licensed every track from Play and we could see a similar thing happening here. Habershon is inspired by the natural world and it is […]
