Into the Distance Music 103

 

Sam Amidon - Sam Amidon, album review

Ditto the Music Too

I reviewed the album Bright Sunny South from 2013 here, and this eponymous latest continues the quirky but traditional trajectory of Amidon's folk journey. There are electronic backgrounds to traditional songs to merge the then and now (putting it simplistically), and some of the dissonant accompaniment as well as saxophone and flute playings along with banjo provide junctures of original interpretations. A lovely album. 

Into the Distance Music 102

 

Fuzz - III, album review

Literally

This trio of  Charles Moothart, Ty Segall and Chad Ubovich have named themselves as literally as could be to mirror the heavy power trios of yore, and this is a heavy trio set, though perhaps not quite as heavy as I anticipated. But it is riff driven - perhaps the core tick that needs to be ticked and is ticked - and the guitar work is the most frenetically heavy, the best example on Time Collapse. I do find the vocal a little lightweight, but the occasional harmonies compensate at times. One of the more riff-central tracks is penultimate Blind to Vines, the lead vocal here a little like T-Rex Marc Bolan. I have certainly enjoyed its rousing panorama of the past in this morning's listen.

Pickup Truck Music 12

 

Sonny Green - Found! One Soul Singer, album review

Found Again

My review found in the Little Village Foundation promo:

True old-school soul and blues and funk.

No Face Music 48

 

David Sylvian and Robert Fripp - The First Day, album review

Funk and Grace

A friend gave me a cassette copy of this 1993 album at the time and I loved it then and am revisiting with the same fondness now. Standouts are Darshan with its sustained funk across seventeen minutes, as well as the jagged guitar throughout, and then God's Monkey which apes the funkness. Gracefulness is in the beautiful signature sound of Fripp's guitar on Firepower.

No Face Music 47

 

Eagles - Live From The Forum MMXVIII, album review

Hotel Eagles

Well, it could be: plush and polished; refurbishments faithfully restored as if nothing has changed.

But I need to hurry to catch up with a few months of not reviewing, though definitely not not listening to loads of good music.

So this is simple - if you like the Eagles and their hits, this will be a hit. Recorded in 2018 with the addition of the great Country guitarist and singer Vince Gill and Glenn's son Deacon Frey, this is a brilliant re-presentation. Perfect in that mirroring. There are other artists and a band/orchestra, this latter most gloriously presenting itself on Funk#49.

I got through most of the Eagles albums living in my cottage at Belstead Village. Many memories; wonderful West Coast sounds.

Volkswagon Music 4

The Loft Club - Dreaming The Impossible, album review

Symmetry of Sound

Symmetry: here we are on a hot summer’s day in Devon and I’m listening to a hot new band from Devon. The ‘new’ is relative, as is the heat in as much as we might expect more of it in August, but the weather is transitory as much as it is fickle. The Loft Club formed in 2015, and that is still newish, but their sound can trace its lineage back to the one thing that does stay constant and survives: good music, theirs most noticeably for me thriving on harmonies you might like to tag as West Coast but which actually informs any good use of such, as in Americana, another tag, that some of their songs suggest. It’s all in the hearing and the liking. As a general comment, the music they play can be reminiscent of what I liked in the mid to late 60s, but it is also the music Ronnie Sullivan would walk on to in the World Snooker Championships.

The album title track and album opener begins with sways of guitar chords that break into 90s’ return-rock echoes and this reminds too from where the influences, but also current fine song-writing, emanates. Second Heard Her Say keeps the rockier underscore in tight rhythms but also ‘lalala’ vocal inserts that play with its pop sensibilities – an expanded atmospheric break just over halfway through leads onto some other playful bass and drum runs before the ‘lalala’ returns. It’s third I’m Just a Man that punches more, introductory feedback setting up a catchy Beatles-esque groove.

This is the nature of the songcraft and performance. True Love is a sweet ballad with a sweep of those guitar swathes and matching vocal harmony rises, a genuinely pretty song that does remind of Crowded House, as it does a little in the next Keep Me Coming Home: a touchstone, like any others, as compliment to quality and recognition there will always be links and that ‘lineage’ I mentioned earlier. Let it Slide is once more blessed with great vocal harmonies, the guitar work fuzzed through for grittier impact and a bass line dancing pertinently: I have a natural inclination to that ‘heavier’ sound and this is catchy, the drumming joining in the outrun that gets almost psychedelicised.

Now, Made in England, let’s be clear, is no post-Brexit paean, served with a ‘cup of tea’ and other lyrics I need to spend some more time listening to – the point is this first hearing picks up on the musicality and there are clearly more depths beyond that. Penultimate song Waves rolls on its shore with a brooding start and breaks into more of those strong harmonies and guitar surges as signature; the closer Flicker features Grammy Award winning Lisa Leob so there’s a noteworthy coup, but only if it works – and it does: this is upbeat and shines in the vocal pleasantries that have been a significant feature throughout. 

The band: Daniel Schamroth - Vocals/guitar; Jamie Whyte - Bass/vocals; Kieran Chalmers - Drums; Amy O'Loughlin - Vocals; Sam Piper - Guitar