Eye Music 36

The Sonic Dawn - Eclipse, album review

Yes, A State of Mind

The musical manifesto of opener Forever 1969 is fair enough both in intent and production, for example the ‘some say that we are out of our time’ and ‘times may change but the struggle remains the same’ as well as ‘’69 is another state of mind’, though this latter is exactly what all of what it is - yet having watched today a further episode from the new Star Trek where its ship Discovery has found itself in a parallel universe, we can all continue our hopeful imaginings.

I mention because on the band’s Bandcamp page it is stated,

Inspired by personal events and the current meltdown of the world as we know it, ‘Eclipse’ deals with a feeling of despair that many will recognize.

However, the music is more multicolored than ever, because the path to a better future starts out in the mind. Eclipse is a journey out of the darkness. Some might say a trip

and I am inclined to advise that they stick within the generally fine parameters of their authentic ’69 sounds, those of us who lived before and through 1969 knowing only too well where such social and political idealism got us.

That may sound quite pessimistic, and I am not inherently so, but I just think the musical nostalgia makes more sense than promoting a world-order long beyond recreating. Indeed, the overall range of songs are sweetly reminiscent of the sixties, in reverb and harmonies, and second Psychedelic Ranger hints at the rockier move at the turn of its original century.

I am inclined to such nostalgia and this record is an addition to that rather than a startling encapsulation. There is even a naïve pop-psyche sensibility to many of the songs, especially lyrics, suggesting earlier psychedelia pre-1969 – like Christiana that remind more of Clear Light than, say, a Jefferson Airplane – and taken with this expectation, it is an easy, pleasant listen.

Hands Music 47

David Bowie - The Dream Anthology 1966 1968

Beginnings

Enjoying this recent compilation, listening as I write, [itself a shortened version of the 1997 Deram one – note the ‘joke’], more novelty than anything else, though incipient musical roots so clear at times, especially in the clarity of Bowie’s distinctive vocals – so utterly twee English in these early 60s tunes: ‘while a little chappie’…!

Many are familiar, many are new to me. The pop narratives are redolent of their times, seemingly homespun – Uncle Arthur – but also teeming with comic eccentricity at times. Sell Me a Coat has a folk-esque sweetness to it, the orchestration of horns again so much an echo of the time. But the vocal is as it would be throughout his career.

Rubber Band
There's a rubber band that plays tunes out of tune
In the library garden Sunday afternoon
While a little chappie waves a golden wand

Rubber Band
In 1910 I was so handsome and so strong
My moustache was stiffly waxed and one foot long
And I loved a girl while you played teatime tunes

Dear Rubber Band, you're playing my tune out of tune, oh

Rubber Band
Won't you play your haunting theme again to me?
While I eat my scones and drink my cup of tea
The sun is warm but it's a lonely afternoon

Oh, play that theme

Rubber Band
How I wish that I could join your Rubber Band
We could play in library parks throughout the land
And one Sunday afternoon, I'd find my love

Rubber Band
In the '14-'18 war I went to sea
Thought my Sunday love was waiting home for me
And now she's married to the leader of the band, oh

Oh sob... I hope you break your baton

Songwriter: David Bowie

Rubber Band lyrics © Emi Al Gallico Music

Into the Distance Music 86

Colin Linden & Luther Dickinson - Amour, album review

Attesting to Amour

Slide and reverb-heavy guitars dominate a roots’n’blues set that exudes emotional armour, opener Careless Love laying down a lament-drenched instrumental. The upbeat stomp-rock of next Don’t Let Go also demonstrates that love does win, vocalists Rachael Davis and Ruby Amanfu joining in the celebration.

That reverb gets a shimmy slide on third Honest I Do, Davis pushing the love boat out on this love-lake, and she sings again on the following vocal turn of the album’s opener, romantic country tones joining with the plaintive fiddle of Fats Kaplin in a slow waltz of warbled beauty.

Closer Forget to Remember to Forget, featuring Jonathan Jackson, pushes the reverb through the vocal and adds this to fuzz and feed-backed pulse in the guitar’s empathetic wail.

A fine album attesting to love's musical arc.

Eye Music 35

Masaki Batoh - Nowhere, album review

Everywhere, Really

Redolent of 60s/70s acoustic singer-songwriter material, opener Nowhere has sweet if imperfect [as in not auto-tuned] self-harmonising, and this sets that nostalgic mood and tone. Next Tower of the Silence is graced with considerable guitar work, itself reminding of Jansch et al, so the influence not unexpected, though an interlude played across the fret’s harmonics adds variation, as does the mix of Japanese and English vocals and the rise near the end that is a clear echo of a roused Roy Harper.

So I’m in a comfort zone with this.

The Bandcamp music blurb is itself reminiscent of a spacey articulation of a message,

We come from nowhere and fade back there again. Masaki Batoh’s ‘Nowhere’ reaches out of that darkness, with strings of steel and voices echoing out of time — a vast space echoing with the music of many eras, played and sung in tongues of many nations. Batoh is opening the door for you — if you are able to pass through, ‘Nowhere’ is waiting for you.

and I’m content enough with this folk-psyche encapsulation too.

There’s mellotron on Tambourine, and fourth Devil Got Me is a wonderful blues amalgam of classic slide, harmonica and again Japanese vocal merging backgrounds. Goucho No Sora and Dum Spiro Spero [Latin for ‘While I breathe, I hope’] add further exotic tangents, the latter played with banjo and sung in Latin in a fragile falsetto. Penultimate Sundown is electric and psychedelic and the music expands, Hawkwind-esque I guess, with harmonica, and closer Boi-Taull is a 16 minute acoustic guitar traverse across styles, including Spanish and occasional avant-garde.

So this album of six delicate songs, plus one heavyish and one solo instrumental, is also distinctive within its otherwise familiar framework and I especially like it for that.

Get it here.

No Face Music 19

Marco Spedaliere - A Funky Supercazzola

Sweet and Effects

The title tells us of the funk, but listening to the whole lets us in on its sweet deliveries as well. There is a 70s feel to this listener, with more contemporary effects in the overdubs and other. But yes, the timelessness of its funk is the core from this fine French saxophonist and accompanists. Sassy and staccato sax interplaying on the title track. Punchy and at times whirling unaccompanied on closer 'Picking the Nose' - it's gonna bleed.

Space Music 28