| REVIEWS - May 5th | ||
This week's featured artists: Click on the names to see the reviews Angelina | Anna Neale | The Beat Maras | Billie Holiday | Boxcar Willie | Dizzy Gillespie | Elakelaiset | The Flying Burritos | The Happening | Jimmy Page | John Legend | King Charles | Lazy Habits | Lonnie Johnson | Luomo | MS Din | Slashed Seat Affair | Sly & Robbie | Simplex | Soweto Gospel Choir | Works in Progress | Yungun | |
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The four headed rock beast of a band that are Slashed Seat Affair (you might have seen ‘em on the road with the likes of The Guillemots or Nate James) are currently putting the finishing touches to an as yet untitled debut record with a big shot producer who’s worked with everyone from Velvet Revolver to Belle and Sebastian (how’s that for diverse?). The soaring vocals, nail you in place drumming and rough and ready, radio friendly riff rock that Slashed Seat Affair (who number Ellie Mules on vocals, her song writing partner Darren Mitchell on bass, Rob Meehan on drums and Noel Martin on guitar) do so well will find itself on a record put out by Fill The Void come the end of 2008. |
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Ahh, John Legend – men want to be him, women want to be with him, and he presumably spends all his time when not performing just grinning inanely about how lovely his life quite probably is. Thrown in to the spotlight by the success of the song ‘Ordinary People’ and its parent album Get Lifted in 2004, John Legend has refused to move from it since, garnering an incredible batch of eight Grammy nominations and walking away with three of ‘em (including one for Best New Artist) and selling, oh, three million copies of that debut LP. He says the sales don’t matter, mind – it’s all about the music, the soulful, subtle and warming sound he does so well. Whether you believe that or not is your call. |
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For millions of us around the world, the invention of the guitar solo is as important a moment in history as the invention of the wheel. And we’ve got Alonzo ‘Lonnie’ Johnson to thank for its existence, being as serious historians credit him with being the first musician ever, ever, ever to record a single note guitar solo. A rather pioneering fellow, born at the turn of the last century, though he spent time toiling as a hotel porter in obscurity for a while, he eventually revolutionised the sound of jazz guitar though his work with the likes of Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong. If you think about it, we’ve got him to thank for everyone from Hendrix to Slash – which makes us pretty thankful indeed. |
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Since the dawn of the current Millennium the ears of Europe’s in the know experimental pop-house fans have been caressed by the work of moody genius Sasu Ripatti, known in the trade as Luomo – a Finnish producer, performer and songwriter extraordinaire. After working with the likes of Craig Armstrong and Massive Attack, the Luomo project was created to exercise Ripatti’s dormant pop muscles, but the project soon took on more importance and has since birthed three full lengths and a host of rapturously received tours. And though it might have a pop heart, there’s something strangely, delightfully weird about it also – surreal genre bending, curiously dark dance and deeply hypnotic layered sounds abound to startling effect. |
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With the disintegration of the pop song, grass roots rhythm and blues music has never had such a significant place, or such a statement to make; in modern music, original pioneer of the Mississippi blues sound, Son House being the motivation for artists as far back as Johnny Cash and the early days of what we now know as Americana country. Having spent time in prison before going on to have a five-decade spanning recording career, his ‘chain-gang’ style was adopted by the southern US states as the defining sound of an uprising generation, his rhythmically straightforward and wonderfully poignant songs are still a source of inspiration today. |
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Up there with Scratch Perry and Bob Marley as some of the most influential Jamaicans in music ever, Sly and Robbie have been making and producing tunes for themselves and others since way back in 1975. They estimate they’ve had a hand in over 50,000 tracks, cementing their status as Jamaica’s most in demand production duo, called upon by everyone from Bob Dylan to Sean Paul to deliver their trademark blend of unfathomably heavy dancehall and upbeat reggae vibes. Such is their influence, the world will be a much sorrier place if and when they ever call it a day – let’s up the appreciation levels whilst they’re still around, eh? |
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Far more a classic soul vocalist than anything more immediately recognisable as modern R&B, Angelina’s move towards Amy Winehouse via Whitney Houston has given her a charm so unyielding she’s already the poster-child for real singers making circles against the grain of over-hyped and underdeveloped British female songwriters. Easily comparable to Regina Spektor, besides her Russian descendency, her witty and nonsensically accessible lyrics are mischievously garnished with hammering pianos and moments of hip-hop. All this takes her into a sub-genre all of her own, shining out of the budding London scene with unproblematic brightness, intensity and expression.   Back to top |
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This stunning songsmith knows that the song is the thing, and when the songs are as approachable and life-affirming as Anna Neale’s, there’s little room for falling short of pop bliss. Comparable to Sheryl Crow, her American-rock influenced pop songs are at ease within the company of The Cranberries, with a lunge into folk, almost Celtic, guitar strikes that bind in to her sonic flashes of vocal treats. Her voice is proficiently faultless and though often grouches a far harder approach is generally best suited to her more emotional and self-motivated movements with which she will surely be associated before too long. Back to top |
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The Beat Maras - Miscellaneous Part dark-pop, part experimental rock, The Beat Maras have more than a few Cure-like tricks up their sleeves, with hints at Echo and the Bunnymen and gigantic leaps towards new pioneering bands such as Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man cushioned with a flair for big, ballsy riffs in the vein of Lenny Kravitz. Old school rock ‘n’ roll is very much the order of the day with this wall-of-sound London project, seething 6-string ricochets to the former Manchester and Liverpool heyday with bites of more contemporary arrangements and melodies, grinding and often bewildering vocal nods towards Jim Morrison and co. Back to top |
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Regarded as one of the first people to ever sing against racism, Billie Holliday’s tone is to this day so rightly associated with the rise of black culture in America and her songs are still felt as movingly now. With a voice so unique and powerful it thumps the realm of mediocrity with such an effortless power, and splendid grace, you can only imagine what it would have felt like to hear her play for the first time as a disillusioned black youth in 1930’s New York. ‘Strange Fruit’ and ‘Summertime’ are admirably rich songs that will outlive generations, retaining a timeless affection built on the back of Holliday’s particularly striking and moving dexterity as a vocalist. Back to top |
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Box Car Willie isn’t just important to country music, he’s pretty important to the USA in general, seeing as he was in many ways the living embodiment of the American Dream. Born in a small railroad shack in the thirties, the son of a farmhand, Box Car Willie lived in a three room tool shed with his entire family. With history like that, you’re pretty certain of becoming a country music artist – you can probably even scientifically plot the likelihood of it on some graph. To Box Car’s credit, he ran with it – his ‘original hobo’ style of country (so named after the hobo get up he would wear on stage) endeared him to the hearts of the American public and the world at large, as did a relentless touring schedule that saw him on the road for 300 days a year for an entire decade. Not bad from the humblest of beginnings, eh? |
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So influential is his craft that if you close your eyes and picture a jazz musician, you’re probably picturing the inflated cheeks and customised trumpet bell (at a trademark jaunty 45 degree angle) of John Birks ‘Dizzy’ Gillespie, whether you know it or not. Easily the most recognisable face in all of jazz, he revolutionised the genre in the 40s by pioneering what was then a new style, now known and loved as bebop. Throughout a career decades long he championed Caribbean, Cuban and Brazillian rhythms in jazz that still dominate the genre to the day. Also seen on stages with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington, his use of aggressive ornamentations, complex harmonic alterations and rhythmic exploration are so important that you start to suspect he wasn’t being arrogant when he claimed the sounds he was making would, in the distant future, be regarded as classical music – he just knew. |
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Eläkeläiset are a Finnish band who have become notorious throughout our fair planet for their ‘Humppa’ style covers of classic rock and pop songs – and to find out exactly what Humppa is, you’ll just have to cock your ear to the five piece’s… unique sound. Is it any good? That doesn’t even seem to matter – the band (whose name means ‘Pensioners’ in their native Finnish tongue) describe their gigs as ‘the worst live shows on Earth’, but they’re also the self proclaimed ‘hottest band in the universe’. Their tongue might be so stuck in their cheek that they find it difficult to sing, but there’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun now is there? |
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At a time when California was still engulfed in a post-British invasion and the Beach Boys marked a certain era in sounds and production, The (Flying) Burrito Brothers carved themselves away from the movement, making psychedelic country that embraced all the ideals of a free America, with a certain homage to the bands that had crafted its history. Their new breed of country-rock was later to inspire the likes of The Eagles and Jackson Browne; and even today, their lyric and riff-led melodic country vibes can be found in acts such as Bright Eyes. The (Flying) Burrito Brothers themselves are still making extraordinary albums under the same guise of undemanding, heartbreaking simplicity. |
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As the guitarist behind one of the greatest bands to ever reform, Led Zeppelin stringster Jimmy Page has been noted as one of history’s most significant rock performers with songs only definable as ‘legendary’ under his belt, it’s his solo material that’s of possibly more intrigue though. With the spotlight fixed on Page, his prowess to dissolve the steel-string dream without pretension is what makes him so central to nascent guitarists; the effortless stride of his fretwork and bewilderment, almost psychosis, that he displays in some of his finer licks reaching the stratum of truly great musicianship. One finds it hard to use words that describe sounds which in themselves convey volumes of narrative in expression, Jimmy Page’s more succumbing works presenting the finest in classical axe-manoeuvres. |
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King Charles -Singer / Songwriter Charming London acoustic indie pop type King Charles just wants to make your life a better place, remind you of niceties like feeling the sun on your face, picnics, drinks with friends and the like. Yet to release their debut album, given that their sound already nods towards legends like Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones and yet also sits comfortably alongside the current crop of nu-folkers like Laura Marling and Noah and the Whale, we suggest you let them do just that. The songs are encouragingly even more impressive than King Charles’ hair – and that’s some hair, let me tell you. |
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Spine-tingling samples of old jazz records play as the scenery to Lazy Habits’ distinctive form of New-Orleans influenced hip-hop, a crossfire of classic jazz and British grime showing, for a rare momentary spell, the high levels of expression that the British youth can reach through genre experimentation. Though the music is mischievous and engaging, it’s the lyrics which Lazy Habits lean themselves on; be it biblical or sociological in subject matter, they offer an insight into the collectives joint manifesto personified through these coherent and well thought-out compositions. Easily one of the most extraordinary up-and-coming cooperatives performing in London today. |
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As a side project to London’s Red Eye Banquet, songwriter Michael Shearer aka MS Din puts the latter Housemartin years into bed with modern examples of the traditional as Malcolm Middleton does; convincingly conceived acoustic ballads that score channels at a 1950s rock ‘n’ roll era with high regard. An ageless scope for a song and a voice so enlivening that backs against the chirpy, transcendent structure of his barbershop-esque façade, MS Din applies a place in an overindulgent music society rarely visited by the speechless, mumbling also-ran vocalists that Michael so brilliantly shouts out against, his jubilant music giving you reason to find new noise, his adventures in the lyric an utter enchantment. Back to top |
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The Happening is what, well, happens when Jamie Cato, of Faithless and One Giant Leap, decides to indulge himself a little bit. Inviting a whole cast of talented friends and acquaintances in to Dave Stewart’s studio – including musicians more customarily seen aiding the likes of Oasis, Beck and The Hothouse Flowers – the plan was to record an entire album of completely improvised music, similarly to how Miles Davis would work back in the day. The result is a subtle blend of funk, soul and chilled out vibes that sensually soothe due largely to the fact that you can almost literally hear the lack of pretension that comes from the sound of talented people just having fun for the ruddy hell of it. |
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Though their strings cry Madness, their vocals take Works in Progress more towards Jurassic 5 or The Specials with a deep and howling spoon for turning life into a party moreover dispelling mundanity with solid urban poetry. Fast, twitchy and engaging, their music is part reverence to the likes of Bob Marley, undoubtedly in subject matter, brought into the contemporary age with a conflict of melodies and upstart, funk vibes which flavour Works in Progress’ tracks with the kind of underground movements you’d expect from a band sincere about the genre they’re singing about; heavy, stocky bass lines and rising arrangements that make them worth anybody’s attention. Back to top |
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Widely regarded as the shining light of the burgeoning UK hip hop scene, Yungun has been assaulting the ears with his rich blend of funk beats and soulfully delivered rhymes (delivered in both English and Spanish) since his debut full length, The Essanance, dropped on Janomi in 2004. The African-English Londoner has since gone on to collaborate with the likes of Gangstarr legend Guru, be bigged up by Nas and Mark Ronson and see his second disc, Grown Man Business, named one of the greatest UK hip hop albums of all time by Hip Hop Connection. Not bad for a man who, all the while, has been qualifying as a professional solicitor! Not particularly rock and roll, that last bit, we grant you. But it’s another example of the intelligence of the man that sets him apart from the macho posturing in much other hip hop that Yungun strives against. |
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The minimalist-techno appointments of Simplex are best served in those transitory moments of dancefloor chaos and come-down dissension; the beguiling last few tracks of a frenzied night with the lasers overhead reminding you that life’s for living. Their otherworldly sounds, repetitive bass murmurs and often playful house beats, stand their tunes out as transonic flights of blissful melancholy, compulsorily pushed into the headspace of club desolation. The rattle of knob-twiddling and deck-firing, their music is the descending trap of reverberations that you’d want, or even need, at various points in your day. |
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Soweto Gospel Choir - World Music Although their music is a call to native Africa, with high production values; efficient, vibrant sounds meandering into absorption, you can associate Soweto Gospel Choir with Paul Simon’s Graceland album to find a steadiness of the rich, dynamic tone that fluently meets a reachable Western ear. Their take on songs such as ‘Oh Happy Day’ are designed to provoke a primitive prayer in its listeners, the goal of the choirs music to motivate worship and in that, their songs find intention and drive; without the immediate undertone of spiritual blitz.
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