Eye Music 48

The Commonheart - Pressure, album review

Stormin' Soul Soundscape

There's bound to be more, but I missed this one for my 'best of 2019 preliminaries', and listening to it again now confirms that would be a massive unacceptable error if not corrected.

So corrected, with a little more than a reference, though not much more as we are so near the end of 2019. Without question, the driving momentum of this forceful, soulful, glorious album of songs is lead vocalist Clinton Clegg, summoning up Pickett and Redding with the gusto of innate reverence.

A Pittsburgh octet of stormin' power, the track Do Right is a pulsing soul soundscape.

You can listen and get here.

Citroen Music Again

Some Awe's Best of 2019 - Preliminaries

Baiju Bhatt - Eastern Sonata

Devendra Banhart – Ma

Masaki Batoh – Nowhere

Gerry Beckley - Five Mile Road

Black Oak Arkansas - Underdog Heroes

The Black Capsule - The Black Capsule

The Black Wizards – Reflections

Pieta Brown - Freeway

J.J. Cale - Stay Around

Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds – Ghosteen

Paul Cauthen - Room 41

The Claypool Lennon Delirium - South of Reality

Theo Croker - Star People Nation

Rosalie Cunningham - Rosalie Cunningham

Dead Feathers - All is Lost

The Delines – The Imperial

Lana Del Rey - NFR! Norman Fucking Rockwell

Dire Wolves - Grow Towards the Light

Lou Doillon – Soliloquy

Damhnait Doyle - Liquor Store Flowers

Justin Townes Earle - The Saint Of Lost Causes

Steve Earle & the Dukes – Guy

Kelly Finnigan - The Tales People Tell

Hat Fitz And Cara - Hand It Over

Chuck Hawthorne - Fire Out of Stone

Hifiklub & Mike Cooper - Aran Stories

Hiss Golden Messenger - Terms of Surrender

Beth Gibbons And Krzysztof Penderecki - Henryk Górecki Symphony No. 3 “Symphony Of Sorrowful Songs”

Rhiannon Giddens - There Is No Other

Gorilla Mask - Brain Drain

Hammock - Universalis

Beth Hart - War In My Mind

Brittany Howard – Jaime

Charlie Hunter & Lucy Woodward - Music! Music! Music!

Husmo HAV – Ripples

Shawn James - The Dark & The Light

John Ghost - Airships are Organisms

Joe Jackson – Fool

Durand Jones & The Indications - American Love Call

Rickie Lee Jones – Kicks

Seba Kaapstad – Thina

Kalle Kalima & Knut Reiersrud - Flying Like Eagles

Nils Lofgren - Blue With Lou

Shelby Lynne – Sunrise

Mahatmosphere - Beautiful Dirt

Jesse Malin - Sunset Kids

Larry Miller - The Sinner And The Saint

Allison Moorer – Blood

Sarah Jane Morris - Sweet Little Mystery [The Songs Of John Martyn]

Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real - Turn Off the News, Build a Garden

Nerija – Blume

The O'Jays - The Last Word

Oh Sees - Face Stabber

Adam Page - The Colours Of Grief

Iggy Pop - Free

Charlie Porter - Immigration Nation

Genya Ravan – Icon

Tim Ries - Life Changes

Baby Rose - To Myself

Lucy Rose - No Words Left

Santana - Africa Speaks

Marco Spedaliere - A Funky Supercazzola

Sturgill Simpson - Sound & Fury

Kefaya & Elaha Soroor - Songs of Our Mothers

Bruce Springsteen - Western Stars

Mavis Staples - We Get By

The Suitcase Junket - Mean Dog, Trampoline

SUSS - High Line

Chip Taylor - Whiskey Salesman

The Teskey Brothers - Run Home Slow

Richard Thompson - The Cold Blue

Robin Trower - Coming Closer to the Day

Tanya Tucker - While I'm Livin'

Sharon Van Etten - Remind Me Tomorrow

Trixie Whitley - Lacuna

Neil Young & Crazy Horse - Colorado

Into the Distance Music 95

Edgar Winter - Fresh Takes, album review

Return to Sender?

These re-recordings [here ‘fresh takes’] are often because of copyright where the original writers/artists didn’t get a fair share for their original creativity, but with these as rock’n’roll standards that wouldn’t seem to be the case. They are essentially AOR-polished with a cloth as smooth as velvet – no sandpaper roughing up edges that need to maintain their snags and abrasiveness. Titles like Good Ol’ Rock ‘N Roll and Nitty Gritty are therefore oxymoronic in the context of their actual ‘revised’ performance. Pleasant enough this morning as I have checked emails and social media, but I’ll revisit the great Edgar’s original recordings if I want a different kind of polish [like his jazzier instrumentations] or the wildness in vocals like that on Tobacco Road.

Into the Distance Music 94

Judy Collins & Jonas Fjeld - Winter Stories, album review

Q&A

Q. Is this ‘pretty’ music?

A. Yes.

Q. Is this twee?

A. No.

Q. Is this Christmas music?

A. No, not overtly, though relates, as with a lovely cover of Joni Mitchell’s River. And it is ‘seasonal’: see album title.

Q. And Judy’s vocal these days?

A. As sublime as ever.

Q. And the musicianship?

A. Chatham County Line, who I have always liked, provide a bluegrass backdrop, and Norwegian artist Jonas Fjeld [new to me] adds fine guitar work and some lead vocal.

Q. Recommended?

A. Extrapolate…

Space Music 32

John Ghost - Airships are Organisms, album review

Organisms are Airships

Unable to trace a mystery of my inversion over the original tease. Sublimely rather than subliminally. Location of the root in a lineage of jazz. An aerostat propelled by the properties and rhythms of life. Is it possible this can become the review? Mine is a deconstruction too, deferring on the notion of adoration beyond composition and playing. Percussion slows then bursts like the trajectory of sternutation. To embody is to live. Organisation of time-travel by drones. Dirigible by the virus that has driven me these past two weeks. Musically speaking, ambience is fused with loop and the percussive, sounds with nomenclature dancing like rabbits. And all jazz is cloning.