The Ghost Of A Saber Tooth Tiger - Midnight Sun album review

Package Delivered

I haven’t really followed Sean Lennon’s musical career so come to this second album by him and partner Charlotte Kemp Muhl as The Ghost of a Saber Tooth Tiger with few expectations other than being intrigued by the long band name – here at Some Diurnal Aural Awe there is an empathy for such linguistic deliberation.

Not surprisingly, there are a number of clear Beatles affectations in this unashamedly 60s/70s psychedelic pop construction, not least Sean’s vocal echo of his father John, but as other reviewers have rightly noted [so there is no point pretending this is my original aural take] there is also a modern reflection of current psychedelic sounds via the likes of Tame Impala, this in the heavier manifestations of its broad timewise but genre-defined focus, and as on opening two tracks Too Deep and Xanadu. There are exceptions, like the pop of Charlotte on fourth Johannesburg which is playful if rather throwaway, and this poppier jollity is continued in sixth Last Call and I think the two are certainly having a good time at all times, but some is lighter than elsewhere. 

Sean and Charlotte also enjoy their photo sessions and I do believe this entire package as The Goastt is all a part of the celebration. The two can, however, seriously sing and there are beautiful harmonies in the cleverly orchestrated eighth track Golden Earring [and Don’t Look Back Orpheus] so this package from the past and delivered through the now does have substance. Others have noted the echoes of Pink Floyd in some of these orchestrations, so a nod again to that observation from them, but I also hear a little of King Crimson in the mellotron used here and there, not that this is a remarkable discovery. 

The album ends on Moth to a Flame which is a complex amalgam of all I have mentioned already, and this richly layered song [with a clear Pink Floyd debt] exemplifies the musical creativity that greatly usurps the simple intrigue of a band name.

Manfred Mann - Lone Arranger album review

I Do, But Not Loads

To date I’m sure the most iconoclastic music produced by Manfred Mann when compared with his well-known pop persona is the eponymous album Manfred Mann Chapter III with its jazz and psychedelic pronouncements [reviewed here].

This has been trumped by I-cannot-calculate proportions [because where to start/contextualise/draw a reality-check breath?] with his latest album Lone Arranger. This ‘covers’ compilation – it is, but it isn’t – is so unexpected both in its choice of originals but also in the range of transformed genres that one cannot make a remotely familiar point of reference from which to draw comparisons easily.

Let’s start with the relatively straightforward: the jazz interpretation of perhaps one of the most solidified songs in terms of expected familiarity – Free’s All Right Now – is pleasingly peculiar, the muted trumpet stabs and Carleen Anderson’s vocal establishing its crossover alteration with acceptable ease. Yes, we prefer the original; yes, this is a jaunty jazz tribute that is cool enough.

Then there’s the other side of the coin, flipped into the stratosphere before landing back on a side we cannot recognise as the other side: Queen’s We Will Rock You [here just Rock You]. The tune – as we know it Jim – is a simple mirrored sample, and then it launches into a quick-fire vocal with punchy orchestrations and some vestiges of jazz from the previous Free track. There are pseudo-operatic vocal inserts too. It is – it IS – different.

Fourth Footprints (En Aranjuez Con Tu Amor) is made interesting by the spoken vocal of Kris Kristofferson, a captivating voice because so distinctive and probably best now as a spoken offering as his singing is so vulnerable; sixth Light My Fire is more jazz inflection [the German trumpeter Till Brönner having a significant contribution throughout the album, as does violinist Billy Thompson, beautifully so on this track] but it is a version that ranges way beyond the borders of its recognisable features; seventh I Heard It Through The Grapevine is quite funky, mainly instrumentally so with some vocal chorus, and did I mention the Kanye West appropriation? No? There you go.

And have I mentioned the hip-hop influences/inserts? Well, I should have because these are the bits that actually make the ‘remotely familiar’ reference of earlier have some credence [because in some respects this isn’t out there that far all of the time] and they are scattered about here and there, unexpectedly. They would be.

There’s twelfth Bang a Gong which is a take on T-Rex’s Get It On and this too is a funked-up plaything. The Doors’ The Crystal Ship gets perhaps the straightest rendition over 2 minutes. And then there is the finale, One Way Stand-Up that gets a sampling from that great earlier step outside the expected, One Way Glass from Manfred Mann Chapter III, and this is patched to The Prodigy’s Stand Up riff.

Do I like it?

Sorry, am I meant to answer that?

One Hand in the Air opens the album. It is a take on West’s So Appalled, apparently, and that’s essentially what threw me.

Sequence isn’t everything.

Soil & 'Pimp' Sessions - Brothers & Sisters album review

Lively and Live

The cover art for this album is a fanciful find, though I recognise one or two of the faces from my ’66 high school yearbook, and its cultural remove from this Japanese jazz band is countered by echoes of traditional 50s/60s jazz forms, like the bop opening to Black Tie, though this soon rises to the frenetic pace of most of the tracks across its two discs. That frenzy is most often conveyed through the driving piano and percussion, but the sax and trumpet breaks are also gloriously lively. A track like Roots of Soul opens with a driving piano/drum duet and is joined by cascading sax and other, the pounding beat taking over to its crescendo and then the piano riff reasserts and a freeform sax solo builds to another peak. Classic enough; brilliantly played. There are more raucous offerings, like third Nothin’ Girl which has a wilder sax break and a found spoken insert – but always within this are pulsing riffs. There are lounge/Latin sounds too, as on Sonido Del Mar, and the overall eclecticism keeps us on our aural toes. Seventh Shout! puts effects on the staccato sax bursts; eleventh Two Naked is even more effects driven on a sax and drum battle [these all on Disc 1]. This is immediately followed by a more laid-back and groovy return to earth with twelfth Spartacus Love Theme. Disc two is more of the excellent same, live, and that would be something to see and hear. 

The Doobie Brothers - Southbound review

Indubitably Doobie

There was little chance I wouldn't like this - loving the Doobies and loving Country - and I had read just a little online angst about whether this was a tribute or a duets or a [platitude alert] combination of both album, none of which was going to matter to me as the whole mix of whatever was bound to be fine. And it is. Mighty damn. It's the hits with extras and there is no intention, presumably, to replace the originals, so the approach to listening and enjoying is a piece of pleasure. And presumably no one could be unaware of The Doobie Brother's country roots along with most of this kind of classic American rock. There are the bigger differences in a great track like What A Fool Believes that starts with its trademark piano riff but then has Sara Evans take lead vocal before the indubitable Doobie voice of Michael McDonald asserts its anchoring [with similar impact and effect on You Belong to Me and the lead vocal of Amanda Sudano Ramirez ahead of MM]. Otherwise it is largely wonderfully familiar with the likes of Blake Shelton, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Chris Young, Vince Gill and the Zac Brown Band adding their contributions. You can hear a couple of live examples from the recent CMAs here.

Hal Ketchum - I'm The Troubadour

Staying Power

This is the solo singer-songwriter writ large - the 'troubadour' traditionally a performer of lyric poetry, and here Hal Ketchum sings the poetics of the folk/country artist with a beautiful voice having recovered enough and adapted from a debilitating nervous condition that surely tested his physical abilities but also surely not the creative impulse to continue. It is gorgeous stuff, a song like Stay Forever epitomising the glory of his singing.

The Delines - The Tunnels, Bristol, 4th November, 2014 gig review

Consummate

Enjoyed a great gig by The Delines at The Tunnels in Bristol as the band began their UK tour having just returned from New Zealand and Australia. The show was supported by the band’s, and Willy Vlautin’s, Portland-based good friend Fernando Viciconte who played a fine acoustic set having returned to performing after a longish spell of being ill. Fernando was clearly very pleased to be playing, and he was a warm and enthusiastic person to talk with. His songs are largely intense personal stories sung with a powerful, emotive vocal that reminded me of Jimmy LaFave. You can hear one of his latest songs The Dogs here, and there are further downloads available here.

Fernando at The Tunnels

The Delines played a wonderfully engaging set including key tracks from their album Colfax, including Calling In, Colfax Avenue, The Oil Rigs at Night, State Line, Flight 31, and in the encore, I Won’t Slip Up [all reviewed here]. I don’t need to say much more really on how highly I rate these, but as with Vlautin’s other band Richmond Fontaine and their last album The High Country, on which Amy Boone also took the storytelling vocal - here - the despondency and [if it isn’t an exaggeration] everyday nihilism of the narratives are less foreboding when performed within the high spirits and band repartee of a live gig. This doesn’t in any way diminish the emotive impact when being sung live by Amy where they are in fact even more poignant. But as a live experience it is as uplifting as it is a touchstone to the power of consummate storytelling about the often harsh realities of our lives.