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| Updated: 28/01/08 | © 2008 Cool Bunny Media | Da Cool Bunny sez 'Splank that Plank, Baby!' | |
#6 |
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Graham
Parker & The Rumour - You Can't Be Too Strong Subtitled "An Introduction To Graham Parker & The Rumour" this new compilation acts as a primer for one of the very best of the 'new wave' bands that surfaced in the wake of punk in the mid-1970s'. In fact Graham Parker & The Rumour weren't even new wave, they burst out of the short-lived pub rock scene playing a scathing soul-tinged rhythm and blues that blew most other groups away at the time. The Rumour were the remnants of pub rockers Brinsley Schwartz, an influential but commercially unsuccessful band that featured the early talents of Nick Lowe. When Lowe ssplit to work solo and with various artists on the Stiff label, the rest of the band linked up with nascent songwriter Graham Parker and the rest is history. This collection is comprehensive and includes landmark tracks White Honey, Soul Shoes, Heat Treatment, I'm Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down, New York Shuffle, Heat in Harlem, Hey Lord Don't Ask Me Questions amongst the sixteen tracks on the CD. Parker's punk-soul snarl sounds just as good as it did the first time around [yes, dear reader, I was buying his singles back then!] and the Rumour ranked alongside Ian Dury's Blockheads as one of the hottest bands in the country. So for me this CD brings back a lot of memories, as it will for anyone who lived through that time. This is a superb intro to the band and I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone becoming fed up of anaemic manufactured pop groups and wants music with flesh and attitude to it. Rizwan-Muazzam
Qawwali - A Better Destiny For the unenlightened Qawwali is Sufi devotional music and originated in the part of Asia that includes Pakistan, India and Afghanistan - and it's also becoming very popular in Bollywood movies. The man who broke this striking style of Asian music onto the world was the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, a man whose incredible voice struck the soul of everyone it touched. The Rizwan-Muazzam Qawwali group comprises two nephews of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan plus the secondary singers and musicians, and what a glorious sound they make on their latest album A Better Destiny. While this style of choral singing and call and response sounds 'strange' to the western ear it is as spiritual and uplifting as western religious music. When this group get going they rock like shit and there isn't an electric guitar or synth in sight! The album consists of six lengthy tracks, ranging between nine and twelve minutes in length - time loses all meaning. It is impossible to pick out highlights from this album as every track is brilliant. Yes, this album is exotic, and yes, the musicians come from an area of the world that is in conflict with the West, but don't let that stop you exploring music from an area rich in culture. Not everyone from the Middle East is a terrorist... Various
Artists - Urban Grooves The title of this compilation is a bit of a misnomer as the music comes from Africa, the least urban [and urbane] continent you can imagine. Having said that, the music here is sixty-six minutes of prime Afro-Funk by Osibisa, Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, Manu Dibango, Kassav and Swede Swede. Now, I wouldn't exactly call Osibisa's Sunshine Day funky but it's a great opening track and a reminder that they were exploring and fusing different strands of world music together long before the rest of the world realised what was happening. Next up is Fela Anikulapo-Kuti and Odoo, an epic thirty minute slab of fleet-footed funk that reeks of hot nights playing wild in Nigerian compounds. Listen to this and you just know that the music of James Brown and Isaac Hayes has been absorbed and re-shaped by Fela into his own style. Manu Dibango hails from the Cameroon, and his style is much more jazzy on the tracks A Freak Sans Eric and Canta. Congolese band Swede Swede drop the horns and guitars and use percussion and voices on the chant-like Mama Kadi. That leaves Kassav and Love & Ka Dance, a beat heavy track with disco-style synth-drums. This is one of the best African music compilations I've heard in a while, it certainly will go down well in the clubs. It's shame that the CD is packaged in such a drab and unimaginative cover, with few sleeve notes to introduce the artists on the album. Still, it's worth buying for the music. I seldom receive singles for review and this exception to the rule is more than welcome. F.O.B. stands for Family of Barry, the Barry being Barry Drake who wrote, produced and most probably played all of the instruments on this slice of old-style soul music that wouldn't have been out of place on Atlantic or Stax back in the 60's or 70's. Indeed, vocalist Tanita Gaines has something of Aretha Franklin about her voice and adds a lot of class to the track. This single is completed by the obligatory instrumental remix of the 'A' side. The song is a classy mix of blues and soul, with a tight melodic backing that thankfully refrains from using drum machines or beat boxes - it's pure class all the way, and better than the single charts deserve. I'd love to hear an album by this group of musicians and singer. I've always been a sucker for Latin American music - it's an fast antidote to the Seasonal Adjustment Disorder we Brits suffer from forthe six months of the year we call Winter... So when the unceasing rain and snow get too much I pop on something spicy from Latin America, and currently that something is a hot little cd by a young and upcoming latino, Micky Cruz. Cruz was born in Nicaragua, lost his family to the war there and basically grew up on the streets while moving around Central America. Music was his only escape route from poverty and he made his first album at 15. Later, a chance meeting with Bo Diddly and Dulces Recuerdos was the result. But as is the way with what we now call 'world music', Cruz has absorbed a variety of influences and come up with an very commercial version of his own that incorporates reggae, swing, ska and of course all the different types of latino music. It's a real high class stew and extremely listenable while retaining its authentic roots. In other words this isn't Ricky Martin. While the prime aim is to get bums out of chairs and dancing, Cruz isn't too blasé to look back to the past and buff up the odd Latin classic such as Guantanamera. With songs such as Tequita and I'll Never Love Again this album is very radio friendly and will appeal to many. Pihr is a duo consisting of multi-instrumentalists/vocalists Natasha Blanco-Dominguez and Paul Broome. The short opening track Adventure is a nice synth electro instrumental, all chunky sounds and restrained pounding rhythms, but it's over far too quickly. Unfortunately, it sets the listener up to expect an album that is going to be techno or trancy. In reality the rest of the tracks feature Natasha Blanco-Dominguez's rather flutey and willowy high pitched voice over a synth and string samples background. The songs almost all have a slow, almost funereal, gothique feel to them, setting up an atmosphere of gloom. There's a strong suggestion of the art house movie all the way through this album. Even after several listens I'm still not sure that I like Reborn - I DO like the instrumental side of things, there is a lot of potential there in the use of string samples and synths, but I found the rest not really to my taste. If you are into goth or student angst or the art cinema scene then this might make a lot more sense to you. Give it a try - you can find downloadable samples at the Pihr website and at www.mp3.com/pihr. InfoPoint
Contact: Pihr, 51 Gold Close, Nuneaton, Warwickshire, CV11 4XZ, UK. Email:
pihr@pihr.co.uk This is the latest album of music by one of Ireland's foremost composers of traditional/classical music. It might sound like the sort of music used in Riverdance, but this is deeper stuff, music exploring the cultural history of Ireland itself. Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin may draw on traditional sources for his inspiration but this music is a mix of orchestral and choral, utilising a symphony orchestra and large choir. While there are eleven tracks on the CD the music move easily from one track to the next, offering a continuity similar to a symphonic suite. The opening track In Search of Ancient Ireland was used for a tv soundtrack, but it also provides the subtext for the album itself. The music here is far removed from the cliched Irish music that is offered up to the tourists - the music here comes from the lyrical heart of an ancient land and culture. Templum is an album for musical explorers, it's as simple as that. Various
Artists - Spirit of Africa Spirit of Africa is a compilation album specially produced in collaboration with the Mercury Phoenix Trust to help raise funds and awareness of the Aids epidemic in Africa. Real World have brought together an impressive rosters of African contemporary talent: Papa Wemba, Maryam Mursal, Tama With Assitan Mama Keita, Youssou N'Dour, Remmy Ongala, Omar Pene & Super Dianomo De Dakar, Mzwakhe Mbuli, Ayub Ogada, Hamid Baroudi, Bernard Kabanda, TASO Choir, Imbizo, The Drummers of Burundi and Dr Hukwe Zawose & Michael Brooke. Quite simply, the 14 superb tracks here offer a wide variety of styles from all over the vast continent of Africa, and acts as a journal from the front line. The songs warn the listener about Aids or tell stories of the outcome of the disease. Several of the artists here have lost family to the disease, the TASO choir is made up of Aids/HIV sufferers and Bernard Kabanda died from it. It's a chilling fact that over 25 million Africans have contracted Aids or HIV in recent years and the problem is growing worse, with a third of the continent's teenagers dying from the disease. This album may be simply entertainment for us in the west but the money raised from its sales will be used to help ease some of that suffering. I think that's worth dipping into the pocket for... |
Ray
Charles - The Definitive Ray Charles
Mount Vernon - All Of Us Free (MoveMusic 1)
There are six tracks on the cd: Sandlot, Morning, Feel The Light, Here I Go, Back Down and Breathe, and none of them leave that deep 'Americana' feel. Indeed, there are no weak tracks throughout the album, the sound is big 'n' beefy all the way, with more flashes to Dr John, Van Morrison, Ray Charles, even a little Bob Marley. But the truth is that Mount Vernon are just eight people: Brad Cook, Phil Cook, Trevor Hagen, Keil Jansen, Sara Jensen, Scot Sugden, Justin Vernon and Joe Westerlund, and by God do they rock! I want to hear more... We Can Look Up predates the recently released All Of Us Free [which I reviewed on this website] by a few years, and is a fascinating glimpse into a group that were still a little rough around the edges, but even then they were a regular powerhouse as the track Thompson shows with its pounding finale. At the same time the group can do gentleness, listen to the late night jazziness of Alexander, with its sax solos, or So Red and its Ska-lite feel. The album feels more brass heavy than the newer All Of Us Free, with many songs being carried forward by solo trumpet or flugelhorn passages. In fact there is an encouraging restraint of the usual rock instruments in favour of brass and acoustic instruments which gives the album an overall timelessness. And then there is a track like Superstatic that seems to run through the whole gamut of musical genres in six minutes in a breathtaking display of musicality. There are ten tracks on the cd: Sprinkler, High Five, Today Is Just A Day, Thompson, Alexander, So red, We Can Look Up, Happy Song, Superstatic, and Black Pearls. All have what is now called the Alt. Country or Americana sound and owe a debt to earlier alt country bands such as Wilco, Smog and Lambchop, and someone has definitely been listening to a lot of old time jazz as well. Mount Vernon contain the talents of nine people: Brad Cook, Phil Cook, Trevor Hagen, Keil Jansen, Sara Jensen, Scot Sugden, Justin Vernon, Becca Katz and Joe Westerlund. If you are of an experimental yen and are searching for musicians that have gone their own way to produce music of rare individuality you can't do better than try Mount Vernon. You can find out more about this album and Mount Vernon by going to www.movemusic.net.
Stand Up was recorded in 1969 and with Anderson taking over full creative control and Martin Barre replacing Mick Abrahams as lead guitarist this album is pretty much where the first classic era of Jethro Tull starts. The blues influences were toned down and folk, jazz and ethnic influences absorbed and assimilated. Stand Up was the result, a rockier and mellower sound than before, but also the template for the next few albums. Classic tracks include A New Day Yesterday and Bouree, while Living In The Past, Driving Song, Sweet Dream and 17 are added as bonus tracks. Nowadays Tull seem to exist in their own little time dimension, where the band and its fans exist apart from all other music fads. And more importantly still produce high quality rock music that cuts it whatever way you want it to. The millions of hard core fans will embrace these early artifacts warmly, but I wonder if they will attract new listeners... Gary Moore is a rock guitarist who has been around for quite a long time, been in a variety of bands [most notably Thin Lizzy - at least twice] and had varying periods of solo success. One of these periods was during the mid 90's onwards when he decided to explore his blues roots and recorded several albums of blistering blues-rock and collaborated with some of the blues grand masters such as BB King and Albert King. This collection brings together the best tracks from these albums and include: Oh Pretty Woman, Still Got The Blues, Separate Ways, Story of the Blues, Texas Strut and many more. In fact, there are seventeen cuts on this CD, including the non-blues rock classic Parisienne Walkways [a collaboration with ex-Lizzy mainman Phil Lynott]. Listening to the variety of the tracks on this collection you can begin to get an idea of how wide an interest Moore has had in the blues. While there are the blistering fast paced Chicago blues of Too Tired, there are also heart on sleeve ballads such as Separate Ways and Need Your Love So Bad where his guitar playing cuts through your heart like a knife. This is a great compilation made even better by the addition of a limited edition live album featuring many of the tracks listed plus many others - all live and some duets with the blues masters I mentioned above. I'm not sure how long the live album will be included, so grab this bluesfest ASAP and crank the volume up for some of the best blues and rock of the last decade.
The music on this CD is hot, literally and figuratively - it might not have the turgid beats of the techno or house club music but it is vibrantly alive and only the braindead are able to resist it. None of the tracks on the CD will be widely known here in the UK, except to aficionados of a few clubs where African dance music is played. But that doesn't mean that tracks such as Iyole, Zing Zong, Liza and Cantique won't win your heart, mind and dancing shoes. An album to bring the smile to your feet! There are times when simplicity works the best, and this album is a case in point. Chuck Brown is a pianist and Breathe is a collection of relaxing instrumentals. The album begins with the achingly beautiful Give Us A Smile, Alicia, followed by Remind Us To Breathe, another lovely tune backed by cello.Tthere is a restrained backing by a small number of musicians on many of the tracks, but it is sometimes so restrained in the mix at times that it sounds ghostly. I'm at a loss as to how to classify the music on this album - I'm sure many would classify it as 'New Age' or even [God Forbid!] 'Easy Listening'! But both categories have become the catch-alls for the most horrible and insidious blandness in recent years, and this music is certainly not bland. Perhaps 'Contemporary Instrumental' will do... Either way, this album is designed to relaxe you and reduce those urban stress levels. One of the other nice touches is that the album is dedicated to the late Dudley Moore, which is a moving gesture from one musician to another - check out You Never Know, for this musical tribute.
The album contains a mixture of original songs and a selection of classic blues from Muddy Waters, Lonnie Johnson, T-Bone Walker and the not so bluesy but heavily rootsy Steve Earle. In terms of style the album covers them all: rural country blues, urban blues and of course, the hot city variety that made Chicago the blues capital of the world. I'm hard pressed to pick out highlight tracks from the fourteen [plus a hidden lengthy jam session track] on this cd, the variety and quality is just so high. If you're a blues aficionado you'll love this album! InfoPoint
Jazz music was always a bastion of freedom for many living in [and fighting against] the Soviet sphere of influence during the cold war. One of the best jazz composers and bassists to come out of that region is Lithuanian Leonid Sinkarenko and Le Bolero is his latest album. The opening track, Nuki Nooki, starts with a classic walking bass riff and then explodes into this big band number. Comparisons are always odious but I would say that Sinkarenko has been listening to Weather Report and the interplay of Jaco Pastorious' bass and Joe Zawinul's keyboards. But that style has been put through the blender and the rhythms and folk tunes and the traditional instruments of Lithuania have been incorporated with dazzling effect. Track two, The Beauty of Cognition, switches to a cocktail jazz-type vibe, with a lovely vocal by an unidentified woman vocalist followed by some cool piano and bass solos. Hooligan Song follows, a fast paced epic-length piece that bounces from late night sophistication to free jazz dissonance [albeit briefly] and ends on a latino vibe. Le Bolero has an eastern theme running throughout the bass and voice workout, with that unnamed woman vocalist, ending in a sax blast solo. Liamblues open with some Oscar Peterson-style piano before Sinkarenko's bass weaves in, followed by a sprightly muted brass section - its all very very cool and Miles Davis-ish. Final track is Morning in the 'Oz' Village - a brass and voice led uptempo swinger that ends the album with a lot of style. From the evidence of this powerful and impressive album jazz is alive and well in Lithuania, and Leonid Sinkarenko is a musician who should be much better known on the international stage. Buy this album with confidence.
So, The Jenny... is a collection of songs and readings - the songs based on traditional songs and tunes of the period, the readings taken from contemporary accounts. In style, The Jenny... reminds me of the groundbreaking semi-documentary albums that Ashley Hutchings and the Albion Band made back in the 70's, but the musical line-up here is 100% acoustic, with no rock trappings. The seventeen songs and narrations describe a stark lifestyle for most of the workers in the mills, many of them uneducated children. As a historical document of a time long gone this album is a fascinating example of the genre, and musically a fine folk album as well.
Mental
Insect - Live at the Big Horse Lounge
Hook The Captain - Temple (Promo EP) Hook is Washington DC musician Justin Katz and Temple is a nine track showcase of his electronic keyboard skills. The overiding style is dance, but thankfully not of the monotonous techno/drum'n'bass type - the beats vary and are leavened with washes of ambience, samples, and vocals. While nine tracks show up on the cd player, the press release lists only seven, so I'm not going to pick out highlights in case I give them the wrong title. What I can say is if you go clubbing or do the Ibiza run every summer then the contents of this cd, and I assume the other albums by Hook, should please you. Electro dance music isn't one of my faves, I prefer the more melodic 'spacey' stuff, but Hook is an impressive musician who certainly knows his way around the gear in his studio and there was senough tunes and interesting sounds to keep me listening. InfoPoint
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Ray
Charles is one of those landmark musical figures that you know by reputation
but have a hard time placing when you start to think about it. This new
double CD compilation goes a long way to establishing once and for all
that Ray Charles has been a musical giant for the last fifty years, his
talent straddling rhythm 'n' blues, soul, country, pop and rock. The Definitive
Ray Charles contains forty-six tracks, including Mess Around, I've
Got A Woman, What'd I Say, Georgia On My Mind, Hit The Road Jack, I Can't
Stop Loving You, In The Heat Of The Night, Rainy Night In Georgia, Unchain
My Heart and many, many more. Whether they are his own songs or those
by some of the best writers around, including Lennon & McCartney,
Tony Joe White, Buck Owens, Hank Williams, Johnny Mercer and Hoagy Carmichael,
this is all high quality stuff. Thankfully for a compilation like this
the recordings have been digitally cleaned and buffed to a high sheen,
and the inlay booklet contains a well written essay on the musician plus
there's a reasonable selection of photos. All in all Rhino have put together
a superb anthology of Ray Charles's best material - it's the finest place
to start for a latecomer like myself.
I've
played this new mini-album by Mount Vernon several times now and it gets
better and better all the time. I understand the band hail from Wisconsin,
not a state I've ever attributed musical greatness to in the past. However,
All Of Us Free is a majestically approachable album, funky and bluesy
at the same time - for some reason I keep flashing to The Band and The
Allman Brothers Band when listening to this cd. Perhaps its the brass
section, and the massive range of different instruments the eight musicians
have at their command. With so much modern rock and pop music being literally
factory manufactured hot air [at least that's the case here in the UK!]
the cd is heavy on real musicality, tapping a direct line America's rich
veins of blues, country and rock 'n' roll. 
The
Jethro Tull album catalogue is currently undergoing the standard remastering
and clean up that precedes and reissue campaign, and this brace of albums
are the latest fruits. This Was was the Tull's debut album in 1968
and contained a series of blue-rock workouts and a little eclectism hinting
at future experiments. The original line-up was Ian Anderson, Mick Abrahams,
Clive Bunker and Glenn Cornick - it lasted little more than the ten months
it took to get to the point of this album, then Abrahams left, and so
did the blues. Overall, the sound is solid and more like a flute led John
Mayall's Bluesbreakers than the substantial cult rock band Tull would
later become. As with most reissues there are some extra tracks added
to attract the fan: One For John Gee, Love Story and Christmas
Song, and the album contains early Tull classics Dharma For One
and A Song For Jeffrey.
Africa
provides one of the richest mixing pots where musical styles from all
over the continent [and beyond] come together and create new offshoots.
Soukous is one such style - mix together Cuban rhythms and Congolese traditional
music and dances and you had a hot new dance music that exploded across
the Congo and West Africa. One of the biggest stars of Soukous is Kanda
Bongo Man and this new compilation pretty much puts together the definitive
introduction to one of Africa's heroes.
There's
something reassuring about the blues - its popularity dips and rises periodically
but it always survives all the musical fads and comes back rejuvinated
with a raft of new musicians at the grassroots level. So welcome to a
new bluesman - Steve Arvey hails from Chicago [how more authentic can
that be!] and his new album Soul of a Man is an excellent showcase
for his band and his own mastery of the electric and acoustic guitars.
This album is so vibrant and rocking that I guess it would be fair to
rank Arvey up there with other white bluesmen such as Gary Moore, Stevie
Ray Vaughan and Clapton. Indeed there are times when I flashbacked and
thought I was listening to the classic British blues and r'n'b band Lee
Brilleaux and Doctor Feelgood! Mind you, when Arvey roars out the blues
you'd believe for a moment that Howling Wolf had crawled his way out of
the grave.
As
far as I know this is the only album recorded and distributed by Baltimore-based
composer and keyboardist Anatoly Pritsker. Utilising a range of Yamaha,
Kurzweil and Roland keyboards Mr Pritsker has created a good showcase
for his musical talents. The style is somewhere between cocktail jazz
and electronica jazz fusion - think of Bob James's theme to the tv sitcom
Taxi and that will give you a starting point. In many ways this a good,
commercial-sounding album that is radio-friendly and ideal for that long
car journey or for just relaxing to after work. There are eleven tracks,
all varied, some work better than others - the keyboard harmonica sound
on the opening track Harmonica Eve doesn't really convince but
it's an irrepressible melody nonetheless ... Smooth Melody is exactly
that, gossamer smooth ... and Evening in May would be ideal as
the theme for a romantic comedy movie. I don't have space to describe
all the tracks but there's enough here to show that Mr Pritsker is an
extremely capable musician and composer able to whip up some mellifluous
melodies to please the ears.
Folk
music has always had an edge over most other types of popular music in
that it is used to record history through song. This new album by guitarist/vocalist
Pete Castle is a 'concept' album telling the story of Richard Arkwright
and his Cromford Mill, and specifically the rise of the cotton industry.
This was the dawn of the British industrial revolution, and the longstanding
rural workforce were slowly moving to the towns to find work in the huge
mills and factories which quickly appeared to benefit from the inventions
of that time.
Mental
Insect hail from Chicago, so it's no surprise that their hard rock trio
format with a blues feel have gone down well there. This four track live
"mini-album" is an excellent showcase of the band's live sound,
there's tons of brooding [and pounding] drum work from Nathan Wienken
underpinning the bass and vocals of Frank Joseph Zirbel and the guitar
of Jim Glass. Indeed, the drums tend to overwhelm the bass and guitar
a little too much, which is a shame as there is some interesting and powerful
playing going on there as well. Perhaps the sound engineer has a thing
for drummers... Anyway, the cd contains four tracks: Street Attack,
Exit 99, Starting From Zero and The Idiot [a possible tribute
to Iggy Pop, perhaps?] - all of them reminding me a little of Motorhead,
the Ramones [and indeed The Iggster himself], and Crazy Horse, which is
no bad lineage to be coming from if you want to be a real rock band.