Tag: Congleton Chronicle
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Klyne: Klyne
We’ve waited a long time for an electro/dance/pop album as good as CagedBaby’s* 2005 Will See You Now … and we’re still waiting. We had high hopes for Klyne, as the early tracks we heard were good. Like Cagedbaby, they were pleasant pop tunes played electronically and with edge and coolness. Obviously, the early tracks…
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Wendy Bevan: Rose and Thorn
Bevan sounds like she’s from the 80s but isn’t. She writes electronic pop that’s rooted in the electronic pop of the late 70s/early 80s, the kind of stuff the geriatric part of the Review Corner bought from A&A’s indie-band shoebox. The sound of early Human League, or even Visage; too arty to be New Romantic…
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Fritz Kreisler: The Complete Solo Recordings, Vol.7
It’s slightly misleading to call this classical: it’s a bloke playing popular tunes on the violin, so it’s really pop music, just pop from the days when a new tune was Dame Clara Butt singing Old Folks At Home. Austrian-born Kreisler was busy after WWI with a comeback in America, world tours, and a warm…
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Art of Noise: In Visible Silence
Art of Noise were momentarily big in the 80s, partly because they had one good song, Close (To The Edit), which the Review Corner bought on a 12” picture disk that looked like a piece of candy Willy Wonka would peddle to small children. They were odd even then, the label ZTT’s contribution to art,…
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Joseph Parsons: The Field / The Forest
This is a hard album to review. It’s not an album to write about; it’s an album for someone who buys one album a month and takes time to savour it, getting to know all the songs and developing favourite moments. Parsons is a singer/songwriter, but has a full band. He’s in the same ballpark…
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Liz Johnson: Intricate Web
This album is an odd mix of the accessible and the avant garde. One minute you’re struggling with some very modern sounds, the next it’s easy on the ear and almost hummable. For the performers (Fitzwilliam String Quartet) it’s probably a lot of fun to play, the intense moments broken up by the playful. CD1…
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Luke Sital-Singh: Time Is a Riddle
Luke S-S’s debut came out three years ago and we’d forgotten what a lovely thing it was, a rich, folky-pop album with a lot of soul. He has a very nice voice. This new album is different, but just as good. It’s like he spent the three years listening to Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac;…
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Sheryl Crow: Be Myself
After at least one album (the last one, anyway) of commercial country music designed to be played on a car radio on an open American highway, Sheryl Crow has gone back to the acoustic-based country pop-rock of yore. Also designed to be played on a car radio on an open American highway. It’s good, in…
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Stax Classics Otis Redding / Sam and Dave
Released as part of Stax Records’ 60th anniversary celebration, the Stax Classics series highlights some of the label’s biggest stars from the 1960s and 70s, budget-priced albums offering a dozen songs that “transcend the obvious hits”, as the PR says. (Also see the Bookers and Carla Thomas) According to one review, Otis Redding arrived in…
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Chiaroscuro Quartet: Joseph Haydn String Quartets Op 20 Nos 4-6 (Vol 2)
This lovely CD can be taken two ways. You can just listen to it; it’s gentle, refined and atmospheric. The so-called Sun quartets of Joseph Haydn’s Op 20 are said to be the benchmark that subsequent composers aim for. It’s the music you hear in a National Trust shop when they want you to imagine…
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