Monday 30 December 2019

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.


Monday 23 December 2019

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

Friday 6 December 2019

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.


Wednesday 4 December 2019

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








Monday 2 December 2019

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.