Fuzzy Grass - 1971, album review

Lointain, Sort Of

By sixth track The Winter Haze we are thoroughly riff-hooked, with every song pretty much panning out to wall-to-wall psychedelic-blues noise, fuzzed as one would expect from the band’s name, but also elasticated throughout with wah-wah.

Tipped into this mode from the off, closer Shake Your Mind is riff-rife too, more a pounding forward shove than a classic repeating pattern, and as on all tracks, vocalist Audric Faucheux is his own forward drive of energy in a constant near-yell, occasionally joined by MS20 electronics from the band’s drummer.

It is genuinely no criticism to state there are few nuances here. Laura Luiz is a stand-out on guitar, addicted as I am to the two generic rock effects already stated, and Thomas Hobeck on bass and Clément Gaudry-Santiago on drums bring up the rocket on pulsing thrusters of rhythm.

A French quartet from Toulouse playing the universal language of far-out.

Eye Music 34

Some Awe's Best Of 2018

A little different this year - no prelims, and initially a list in chronological order of reviewing in 2018 on the basis that if I reviewed I like a lot [and it is still a selection from all reviewed], then a small list of those releases I intended to review but didn't for whatever reason, and might still do. Perhaps a top 5 or so at end, but I haven't decided... Clicking on album titles will take you to their reviews:

Richmond Fontaine - Don't Skip Out On Me

Joan as Police Woman - Damned Devotion

Andy Sheppard Quartet - Romaria

Chris Smither - Call Me Lucky

David Munyon - Planetary Nights

Kurt Elling - The Questions

Courtney Marie Andrews - May Your Kindness Remain

Ryley Walker - Deafman Glance

Nigel Kennedy - Kennedy Meets Gershwin

Lamont Dozier - Reimagination

Al Swainger's Pointless Beauty - After & Before

Kamasi Washington - Heaven & Earth

Marcus Miller - Laid Back

Jimmy LaFave - Peace Town

Steve Tilston - Distant Days

Boz Scaggs - Out Of The Blues
Oh Sees - Smote Reverser

Paul Simon - In the Blue Light

Low - Double Negative

John Smith - Hummingbird

Connan Mockasin - Jassbusters

Paul Weller - True Meanings

David Crosby - Here If You Listen

Bruce Springsteen - Springsteen On Broadway

Charles Lloyd & The Marvels + Lucinda Williams - Vanished Gardens

Cowboy Junkies - All That Reckoning

Darryl Way - Vivaldi's Four Seasons In Rock

Gretchen Peters - Dancing With The Beast

Josh T. Pearson - The Straight Hits!

Kandace Springs – Indigo

Lucy Rose - Something's Changing (Remixes)

Marianne Faithfull - Negative Capability

Mary Chapin Carpenter - Sometimes Just The Sky

Neneh Cherry - Broken Politics

Paolo Fresu Devil Quartet - Carpe Diem

Public Image Limited - The Public Image Is Rotten Songs From The Heart

Ray Davies - Our Country; Americana Act II

Richard Thompson - 13 Rivers

Roger Daltrey - As Long As I Have You

Roxy Coss - The Future Is Female

Ry Cooder - The Prodigal Son

Soft Machine - Hidden Details

St. Paul & The Broken Bones - Young Sick Camellia

The Mystery of the Bulgarian Voices – BooCheeMish

The Temperance Movement - A Deeper Cut

The Temptations - All The Time

Tim Garland - Weather Walker

Top Five 

Lamont Dozier – Reimagination: it’s the one I have played the most since first hearing, and though hard to separate these new versions from the greatness of their origins, I think Lamont does distinguish them through his own vocal and that of guests, for example Gregory Porter and, surprisingly [as I mention in review] Cliff Richards!

Chris Smither – Call Me Lucky: one of the greatest living singer-songwriters and superb guitarist, and I shall be seeing him again in January.

Low – Double Negative: I have become almost a complete softy in my overall tastes – my love of ‘pretty’ music – but I still do like it very heavy [the Oh Sees in list more than a token] and this album merges the beauty of harmony with the scorching noise of what accompanies it. Also probably my most apt review, inasmuch as what I 'feel' when listening is captured in what I say about it, this encapsulation I would be the first to admit I do not always achieve, though some music doesn't necessitate/warrent it.

John Smith – Hummingbird: probably the most perfect folk album that didn’t get produced by either John Martyn or Bert Jansch back in the day [and Ryley’s this year has a large jazz influence].

Steve Tilston – Distant Days: because he is one of our greatest folk artists as singer-songwriter and guitarist and this is as good as his first two gems, accepting the revisits.

David Crosby – Here if You Listen: I know, but he is like the secret track at the end of the album, and Crosby’s latest signals my leaning to the past and honouring those still producing their same excellence, as this does beautifully.

 

No Face Music 18

Dave Evans - The Words In Between, album review

Then and Now

Enjoying this, first released in 1971 when I didn't know it but would have liked loads at the time. Just out again, and it is perfectly of its era in the singer-songwriter mode, with the bonus of Evens being a fine folk guitarist, and the touchstones are Bert Jansch and Pentangle, Insanity Rag as an example of versatile slide and finger-picking, and Magic Man in the BJ vein vocally, with Now is the Time reminding firmly of Pentangle. I know this seems to take away from Evans, but it would seem he was influenced rather than influencing, though this too can be a making [or not, so to speak] of its moment. Nostalgic then, but fresh in that these are original songs from Evans, and I am always happy to immerse by listening in this kind of past. Sounds of early John Martyn too, with Beverly in particular, but that nascent folk sound.

Bird Head Music 4

Burl Ives - Master Christmas

Traditional

As with my preceding post, I freely admit to being a sucker for Christmas music/albums/interpretations. This stretches from pop hits to Country to soulful [as with the Michael McDonald reviewed] to choral and other traditional variations.

I think this Burl Ives collection hits the spot for two main reasons, and we'll start with the musical: Ives was as well as a popular actor in the 50s and 60s, a folk singer, and it is this folk-vocal that informs these generally 'classic' Christmas songs, and by that I mean your Silent Night and Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, and perhaps lesser known but still 'Christian' song-melody The Seven Joys of Mary [parts 1 and 2] - it is a beautiful voice, a sweet crystal-clear tenor, and I love it.

The second reason is entirely nostalgic. Listening to Ives I am reminded, largely subconsciously, of my American childhood, of his appearance in films I cannot recall at all but visualise him in so clearly, and the voice which is so distinctive, both in terms of the quality I have described, but also my having heard it so often on the radio and TV of my midwestern upbringing.

Ives' folk roots are so clearly evidenced in the two songs I have just listened to, King Herod and the Cock and The Friendly Beasts.

No Face Music 17

Michael McDonald - Season Of Peace The Christmas Collection

Well-Wrapped

It's Michael McDonald.

It's Christmas songs.

Tin and statement.

I've always liked Christmas songs [traditional and consumerism savvy] if played at this time of year. I have stated many times that one of my favourite all-time songs - I confess I have many in this generic category - is James Taylor's funky version of Jingle Bells.

This is an absolutely predictable soulful set of mainly interpretations, not new and compiled over a number of seasonal releases by the MM.

There are the upbeat jazzy and soul-infused versions like White Christmas Winter Wonderland with Jonny Lang on guitar, and two more traditional examples God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen which I rather like for its smooth and Christmas-sassy interpretation, and Wexford Carol with Amy Holland on accompanying/harmonising vocal.

Like AdBlock, unpause your bah-humbug tendencies and let the Michael swathe you in undemanding but well-wrapped festive presentations.

Eye Music 33

Allison Crowe and Band - Welcome to Us 1 and 2, album reviews

A Rousing Welcome

The folk home of Allison Crowe’s music on Welcome to Us 1 is a comfortable, warming habitat. Inside, as Hours opens the doors, an accordion plays that particular genre palette, and Crowe’s vocal paints her first of many vibrant and vibrating colours. As a live recording, Crowe’s chats to and with the audience are so full of enthusiasm and a warming sense of genuine modesty. There is no need for a fire around this humble hearth.

The next Juliana puts that vocal vibrato to the fore and it is on this performance an uplifting instrument. The slight dissonance in instrumental bent notes and the emotive dirge of the cello add to the brooding tone. The quintet of musicians on this and whole album are Allison Crowe (vocals, piano, guitar, fiddle, bodhran), Céline Sawchuk (cello, vocals), Sarah White (mandolin, guitar, vocals), Dave Baird (bass, vocals) & Keelan Purchase (accordion, 12-string guitar, bodhran, harmonica, vocals). A vocal chant/narration he kept her down sets a further haunt behind the beauty of Crowe’s singing on this song about an intentional drowning.

Recorded ‘on the lovely isle of Newfoundland’, the folk inclination is seafaring and contemporary terrestrial. It is often quite raw, as stated also on the album Bandcamp page, and by this it is in the natural, unadorned playing. There is a sense of the Bohemian in the song Silence, a slow polka with, again, those bending string notes and the accordion’s pump and puff, Crowe crystalline in her vocal role. I like this dip and sway and swagger.

A choric ensemble sweetens Verses, a narrative that leads to and breaks out in Morrison’s Jig; Crowe enthuses about the many Newfoundland songs learned and played as the intro to Tarry Trousers which is then delivered in a sublime vocal folk gem; Wedding Song once more places Crowe’s strong lead within the frame of sweet harmonising [beautiful again here], and there is another jig in the wonderfully named Gerald Thomas’ Burnt Potato.

Welcome to Us 2 is the second part of the whole performance, and it is just as fine. But opener I Might sets a jazzier tone, and Céline Sawchuk on plucked cello helps to spread the sassier ambience. As with the previous album, all songs are linked either by Crowe’s chats/narrative, or as here, segues to the next so Shifts of Light/Tones in Translation follows with a return to the folk tropes – living with water as a metaphor for learning and surviving, Crowe using tonal shifts to accentuate the emotion. That sentiment is conveyed through the next immediate segue to I Am the Air, and when we arrive at Lisa’s Song it is an emotive journey.

So the album is unified by the ‘rawness’ [really a relative term] of performance which is excellent, by Crowe’s varying links, including that natural ebullience, by the strong sense of strings and accordion [not ignoring the other] which establish the folksiness but also the often brooding tones, and of course Crowe’s vocal signature. This leads to what is a rightly well-known personal cover from Crowe of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah which I think sits here perhaps better than wherever I have heard it before as a recoding [all good!] because so much has set the tone for this – and maybe it has been my current reading too of Cohen’s The Flame.

There is much more here and across both discs, but I trust this conveys a faithful sense of a whole work informed by honest endeavour and considerable musical beauty. When you buy, you still have the prettiness and jauntiness of Rare Birds to enjoy, the singalong of Now I’m 64, more vocal accompaniment on penultimate Bird Set Free, and then the rousing close of the Suite.

WtoU1 here.

WtoU2 here.