Nick Cave Goes All Reflective

For their 10th album – and follow-up to the cheery Murder Ballads – Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds explored more redemptive qualities. Originally released in 1997, gone were the menacing, troubled tunes of yore; instead, here was a selection of graceful, minimal, melancholic numbers that saw Cave reflect on spirituality, loves past and present, and almost atoning for past indiscretions. These are your actual songs of faith and devotion, and by Cave’s own admission his most personal album to date.

The opener is a modern-day classic. Into My Arms is a love song so perfect you wonder why any other composition of its kind bothers to go up against a ballad that all others should rightfully refer to as ‘Sir’. Cave opens his heart from the outset, the song beginning with the stunning line of "I don't believe in an interventionist God / But I know, darling, that you do". It’s the only Bad Seeds tune you’re likely to hear at a wedding.

His brief dalliance with Polly Harvey, whom he became infatuated with after their Henry Lee duet on Murder Ballads, is referenced on Green Eyes, Black Hair and the more direct West Country Girl. Comparisons with Dylan and – more on the money – Leonard Cohen are no bad things either. The religious motifs of Brompton Oratory, an album highlight, and There Is a Kingdom lend an air of a man coming to terms with his place in the world, with subtle churchy murmurs over drum machines. The Bad Seeds themselves play a blinder, with gentle and sympathetic elegance throughout.

It’s an audacious task trying to pin down the core essentials in The Bad Seeds’ catalogue, as there’s so much of it, but The Boatman’s Call would be labelled a classic in anyone’s canon. No band on their 10th album should have much more to say, but taking this turn for the reflective helped reignite The Bad Seeds and further secured their legacy. It is, in short, brilliant.

Shared under Creative Commons
Original review by Ian Wade at http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/6r3q/
Scoring by EB

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Physical Graffiti - Led Zeppelin's monumental double album serves as a primer of the band's entire oeuvre

By 1975 no one was bigger or heavier than Zeppelin. America was punch drunk after the quadruple whammy of their first four albums, each supported by tours that went from scene-stealing support slots to stadium-filling three-hour marathons, almost overnight. Even the slightly below average (ie. one or two sub-par tracks) Houses Of The Holy (1973) hadn’t dented their reputation one jot. The world, and its attendant pleasures, was theirs for the taking. At this point most modern bands would take 5 years off and forget each others' names. What did Robert, Jimmy, John Paul and Bonzo do? Produced a double album that some still hold to be their best of all time.

What really shines out is the sheer genre-defying eclecticism of it all.

Admittedly, a fair amount of Physical Graffiti was composed of offcuts and work-in-progress from their previous two albums though these were offcuts of startling quality. But what really shines out is the sheer genre-defying eclecticism of it all. Far more than just a crowd-pummelling hard rock act with the world’s beefiest rhythm section, these boys were able to do everything from folk (Bron Y Aur) and blues (In My Time Of Dying) to country rock (Down By The Seaside) and barrelhouse rock 'n' roll (Boogie With Stu). In fact Physical Graffiti serves pretty much as a primer of the band’s entire oeuvre.

And amongst these flights of dexterity we get some of the band’s best-loved numbers of all-time. Trampled Underfoot, driven by Jones’ stomping Fender Rhodes pulls off the remarkable trick of being both heavy and funky as hell. Custard Pie and The Rover are monster axe workouts, and of course Kashmir is still a juggernaut of incredible power: a blend of east and west inspired by Page and Plant’s mystical wanderings and underpinned by Bonham’s legendary rumble, famously captured in all its ambient glory in the huge hallway of Headley Grange Manor. And it all came wrapped in one of those fabulously intricate die-cut sleeves that make all people of a certain age long for a return to the glory days of vinyl.

A towering monument to the glory of Zeppelin in their high-flying heyday.

Nick Kent’s review in the NME casually mentioned that by this point Zep could seemingly turn this stuff out in their sleep. He was right. Six years of touring and recording had honed them into an unstoppable force, but tragedy lay in wait around the corner in the form of death, drug abuse and changing tastes. But Physical Graffiti remains a towering monument to the glory of Zeppelin in their high-flying heyday.




Review by Chris Jones shared from the BBC website http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/2xrg/

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Trees On The Shore - Definitely At The Rock End Of The Folkrock Spectrum

Trees released two records in 1970, The Garden Of Jane Delawney and On The Shore and that was about it for them. The effort and exuberance needed to record two LPs (neither bad) in the same year can be felt all through On The Shore: Their record company CBS applied pressure but not much money and so, due to lack of rehearsal and studio time, some of the musicianship suffers, and the original material is patchy. But the overall sound of this album is what is really impressive.

Cilia Humphris (now the voice of the Northern Line, fact fans) sings in an earthy and raw way sailing right down the middle of every note. On songs like Murdoch and Sally Free And Easy she sends a shiver up this reviewer’s withered spine. Murdoch also sports a rather natty ‘wall of sound’ ending which is aided on the remix by a wailing organ.

The musicians behind Humphris are where the real strength is. The twin guitars of Barry Clarke (lead) and David Costa (acoustic) are a muscular equal to the sometimes luminary bass of Bias Boshell and solid drums of Unwin Brown. The sound is bold and more psychedelic than Fairport and you feel a band who are really into their style if not their stride. This is what you might enjoy more about this recording than others of the genre: The energy of the performances. There is a Led Zep feel in there and I'm sure I spotted a future Iron Maiden riff somewhere. Notably there is a timid pedal guitar part on Geordie, another highlight, which was sampled for St. Elsewhere on the Gnarls Barkley album of the same name.

It leaves you feeling rather uplifted.

Cyril Tawney’s Sally Free And Easy pops up here and is one of the album's high points. A beautiful piano intro played by Boswell leads into low and sultry vocals from Humphris. Trees are oft-derided for their overlong arrangements and Sally... is no exception, except just when you are about to tire of this one Clarke embarks on a surprising guitar wig-out that crashes into another good ending. The whole thing is quite a hit and miss affair: Fool is fantastically irritating and While The Iron Is Hot lurches from harps and strings to prog-rock guitar and back. However taken as a whole it is enjoyable and it leaves you feeling rather uplifted.

The second disk contains remixes of some album tracks, nothing amazing here, just cymbals fiddled with and guitars jiggered. There is a BBC recording called Forest Fire which is pleasant enough, but the joys are contained in the original album, now restored to its full glory. Well worth discovering this summer....


Creatively and commonly shared from a BBC review by Greg McLaren 2007 (with numerical rating by E.B.)

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Between The Concrete and The Kinetic - Glyphic Bloom by James Joys

For those who can't quite make out the characters on the classy looking cover the name of the album from Belfast musician and sound artist James Joys is Glyphic Bloom. I'm not sure what it means but it seems to be a perfect title; the music within starts out glyphic and litreally blooms before your ears into something of rare beauty.

In eight relatively short tracks Joys covers a huge amount of ground. The album ends up very different to how it starts, surprisingly so.  Beginning with ambient sound effects, moving through industrial dance beats and ending in song, it's no mean feat to pull off such a work of interesting sounds and apparently disparate styles whilst maintaining a thematic continuity.

Sound effects knit tracks together. So a child's voice ends one piece, and then reappears early in the next piece. Static and glitch are never far away, and the sound of rain adds atmosphere more than once. But the one constant thread throughout is the amazing sound production which renders Joys' vision in stunningly vivid audio clarity. Put this pot-pourri of sounds through some good speakers or earphones and the sonic depth is astounding. Each crack, snap and pop is audible such that even a pin drop can be heard over a background of industrial clattering.

It constantly makes you stop and ask "what's that?" - several times I'm startled and look around as I hear (or sense) something I'm unaccustomed to on a record, or anywhere else for that matter. In the end, like the best music or art generally, you just accept the overall aesthetic and let the experience wash over you - it becomes what you want it to be, and in my case it makes me feel like I'm being taken on a journey across a landscape under heavy grey skies, along rivers, into caves, through iron doors and concrete jungles.

I'm not quite sure how he did it but the instrument list reveals an array of field recordings and "found" sounds which give a clue:

James Joys: oboes, clarinets, pianos, synths, oscillator lunchbox, zither, recorders, guitars, laptops, body sounds, twigs, branches, bones, stones, bridges, rivers, rain, fire, mbira, vocals, percussion, bells, SU10, car parks, subways, and tunnels.

One more thing. It's important to note with music like this that the sound effects and samples can so easily overshadow everything else. Here Joys has brilliantly crafted a highly original album that combines amazing sound with beautiful music. Everything has been meticulously placed - there is n't too little, or, more importantly, too much. Every sound has its place yet fuses together to form something where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It's an album that should be heard in one sitting from start to finish.

The album starts with heavily processed sawing strings that sound like bees. Then rips and tears echo through your head in sudden bursts of electricity. A new listener may assume (as I did) the whole album would be of such glyphic sound effects. But the avant garde soundscapes subtly settle into a form as beats gradually become more regular.

This blooming towards a recognisable structure occurs through standout track Land's End. An ominous organ hum builds over a slow beat which struggles to get going with thunderous rain in the background, ending with an empty eerie squeaky swing in an abandoned urban playground. The momentum has started to build and it's more fully realised in the following track which feels like the centrepiece of the album; Subterranean, which like Land's End builds its beats gradually, faster and faster, layer upon layer, louder and louder, eventually reaching full on rave mode. A 9-minute epic from the Autechre/Aphex Twin school, yet there is so much going on in this track that it seems longer.

Half way through the record the most surprising thing happens...  a stuttering guitar arpeggio ushers in lush mellotron chords, and a deep and sonorous vocal in the gorgeous The Face You Don't Recognise. The amazing thing to me is that it doesn't sound out of place.

Furthermore the album finishes with an ingenious off beat slow waltz with beautiful singing that gives a hint of Joys' new choral work about to be released. The deceptively simple structure belies the depth in the mix - off beat rhythms, children crying, cracks and hums, and that rain again. Who's That Creeping Overhead? is an almost religious experience, like the best of John Tavener's works. It's one of the most beautiful tracks I've heard in a long while - a stunning and unexpected end to an early contender for my album of the year.

https://jamesjoys.bandcamp.com/album/glyphic-bloom

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Hewn From The Catskill Mountains - Yonder Is The Clock by The Felice Brothers

The fifth album in three years from the Felice Brothers offers more of the same deliriously coruscated Catskill Mountains-rooted, folk-edged alt country. Happily unlike anything to come out of the States in recent years, the five-piece outfit (only three of whom are siblings) boast a distinctively muscular, rough-hewn, dirt-under-the-fingernails sound. It seems drawn not so much from grass roots experience as dug determinedly up from the very subsoil of American music.

Frenetically fashioned from frayed, washed-out vocals, lonesome drunken piano, garage-acoustic drums.

It’s voiced in a raucously poetic manner frenetically fashioned from frayed, washed-out vocals, lonesome drunken piano, garage-acoustic drums. Guitars are loud, jangly and electric and steel, as well as whispering, confessional and acoustic. Slicing through it all, there is an accordion that weeps and wails with wild cathartic abandon.

The imprint of Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and The Band is stamped through.

The imprint of Woody Guthrie and Bob Dylan (not least in lead singer Ian’s cracked nougat-and-nicotine voice) and the Band is stamped through Yonder Is The Clock like lettering through seaside rock. But that’s Mark Twain, the father of American literature, in the album’s title, his knowingly humorous homespun tropes also no less influential here.

Sailor Song, on the other hand, is pure Tom Waits, albeit after a good gargle. And there’s more than a hint of the mellifluous morbidity espoused by near-neighbour Leonard Cohen in the mournful Boy From Lawrence County. 

Joyful moonshine-fuelled delirium that sparks and spits like a cornfield on fire.

Not everything, though, sounds filtered; the feverish Memphis Flu is as close to an authentic tea-chest bass, washboard and hooch-bottle hay barn hoedown as you’re likely to find this side of the Atlantic. And lead single Run Chicken Run proves to be a joyful moonshine-fuelled delirium that sparks and spits like a cornfield on fire.

And beneath it all, a cantankerous disaffection peppers the sentiment, a troubling, treacherous undercurrent that threatens to sweep away happiness and drown dreams. Which just makes The Felice Brothers seem all the more admirable and Yonder Is The Clock all the more treasurable.


This review by Michael Quinn is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.

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Time To Visit The Bar Again - With The Felice Brothers

Hailing from upstate New York's Catskills Mountains, the Felice Brothers look like their entire approach was based on staring long and hard at the Band's second album cover: Beards, white shirts, hats and ill-fitting suits. The comparisons to Big Pink/Basement-era Dylan are also inevitable. Yet this second album proper from the three siblings and their bass player Christmas (an ex-travelling dice player, apparently) is so chock full of whiskey-soaked, ramshackle bonhomie that it'd be a hard-hearted music critic indeed who didn't succumb to the charms contained therein. The group have somehow taken Americana and wrung out some more good times. It's time to visit the bar again …

Equal parts travelogue, shaggy dog story, drunken lament and filched traditional fayre.

With most of the numbers croaked out by brother Ian, whose vocal chords draw most of the Zimmerman comparisons, this is a collection of songs that are equal parts travelogue, shaggy dog story, drunken lament and filched traditional fayre. They're all captured in gloriously scratchy lo-fi (complete with ambient chat, phone conversations and other audio verite) as befits a band whose last recordings were supposedly completed in a chicken coup on a two-track. And while their first album, Tonight At The Arizona, was a little too same-y when digested in one sitting, this is a much more varied feast.

Like Dylan, their self-mythologising puts them not in the modern age, but somewhere in the early part of the last century. Jaunty, piano-led ballads like Greatest Show On Earth or Take This Bread are lifted by parping brass and rollicking choruses, like a night out in a riverfront bar, filled with unfaithful women and gun-toting men (guns are mentioned in just about every song) bent on drunken revenge. Elsewhere the waltz time of Ruby Mae approaches a Tom Waits-like pathos. Whiskey In My Whiskey sounds like a murder ballad that's centuries old.

Yet all these tales are shot through with a red-eyed humour that sounds as authentic as their beards. This is how they manage to convince the listener. Frankie's Gun! with it's truck driving narrative and wheezing accordion is particularly hilarious. Rather than some studious authenticity, they sound like they're just having a good time. And that's just about the only recommendation you need to seek out this fine album …




Review by Chris Jones shared under Creative Commons with the original at http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/2jvr/

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The Velvet Underground's Loaded - Much Better Than the Banana One!

Much less celebrated than their famous banana covered debut, Loaded is often dismissed by die hard Velvet fans as not sounding like The Velvet Underground, which ironically is not necessarily a bad thing for many listeners!  Indeed by the release of this, their fourth album in late 1970, mentor Andy Warhol and his out of tune chanteuse Nico had both moved on, and drummer Moe Tucker was on maternity leave. John Cale, responsible for much of the band’s avant-garde edge with his electric viola thrashings, had also left following musical differences with Lou Reed who was now ready to write pop songs in response to the new record company’s request for an album “loaded” with hits.

She's got the power, to love me by the hour.

The change in style is evident immediately on Who Loves the Sun which is so reminiscent of the hippie pop coming out of California in the late 60s (and ironically the complete antithesis of early Velvet Underground) that somewhere there must be undiscovered kaleidoscope video footage of the band performing this single in flower shirts standing on round podiums.  The next three songs roll into each other almost indistinguishably; each a classic of efficient straight forward rock with infectious hooks and great lyrics: Sweet Jane (arguably Reed’s greatest ever song); Rock and Roll (“her life was saved by Rock and Roll!”); and Cool it Down (“she’s got the power, to love me by the hour!”). The first half ends with the anthemic New Age that builds gradually to a thrilling singalong climax:

Something’s got a hold of me, but I don’t know what.

The power subsides slightly on “side two” with the country rocker Lonesome Cowboy Bill, a pretty ballad I Found a Reason, and Train Round the Bend which is more characteristic of the Velvets’ earlier sound with Reed yearning for a return to the neon lights of the city. Again the half ends with a stadium-like anthem, the beautiful epic Oh! Sweet Nuthin’ with multi-instrumentalist Doug Yule’s lovely bass lines, and his brother Billy’s scatter gun drumming.

What is most evident throughout Loaded, and in contrast with the more primitive quality of their earlier (albeit more influential) recordings, is this band can really play. But despite containing some of Reed’s greatest compositions the hits did not materialise. Frustrated by elusive commercial success the leader of one of the most decadent bands in history bailed out and went home to live with his parents, before re-emerging a couple of years later to solo superstardom. 

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A Journey to Rockpommel's Land

I first heard this stupendous album at school; the cool guys were into Pink Floyd and Genesis, the even cooler ones were discovering Marillion and King Crimson, and then... there were the ones that went that little bit further!

One such excursion (along with I remember Nektar's Journey to the Centre of the Eye) was a visit to Rockpommel's Land with German prog rockers Grobschnitt (there, I've taken care to spell it right!).

The word Grobschnitt actually translates as "rough cut" but there is n't anything rough cut about the band's brilliant musicianship.

There are only 4 tracks. The old side one consisting of 2 x 10 minute epics and side two the shorter tuneful Anywhere complete with whistling solo, and the 20 minute plus title track.

The longer tracks each build on beautiful chord progressions to thrilling climaxes, particularly title track Rockpommel's Land where you can hear the strings squeaking as the acoustic guitarist shifts position.

Variations on simple, beautiful and hypnotic musical themes return throughout these multi-layered pieces. Particularly memorable is a gorgeous piano arpeggio that starts track 2. The only slight grumble could be the very Germanic vocals that sometimes encroach on the sumptuous musical passages and as for the lyrics - I can't say I've paid that much attention to the tale of Ernie and his flying friend Maribou. However this 70s prog has aged much better than some other contributions to the genre including the aforementioned Journey to the Centre of the Eye.

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Water Music From The Rain Forest

The much maligned term “world music” is entirely apt for Baka Beyond’s The Meeting Pool which records the coming together of a wealth of musical cultures. The group take their name from the Baka rainforest people of Cameroon with whom band leader Martin Cradick struck up a fruitful musical partnership following a visit to the region in 1992.

Field recordings provide much of the music’s African flavour (indeed the Baka people share writing credits and royalties are channelled into local development projects). With studio contributions from other African and European master musicians Cradick has created an intoxicating Afro-Celtic stew.

This multicultural infusion is most obvious on Meeting of Tribes; a traditional Cornish reel is played on Turkish and Arabic instruments, with African drumming and a didgeridoo drone! Its East meets West, North and South, modern and ancient; an organic melting pot of a dish that should taste overdone but is surprisingly delicious.

The understated but constantly hypnotic percussion and Cradick’s careful use of samples together with his circular guitar patterns preserve continuity throughout such myriad shifts in style. Furthermore unlike some less sincere world music dance projects that seem to do little more than paste some banging modern beats over traditional instruments The Meeting Pool is authentic and subtle (only in the final remix track are the traditional drums replaced with more electronic Western dance beats).

This wonderfully atmospheric album simply drips with water.

This wonderfully atmospheric album simply drips with water; from the lush green packaging to the ambient rainforest noises, the distant voices and laughter, the shakers and rain sticks, and the clatter of wooden percussion that permeates throughout each track. The upbeat opening Woosi hypnotises with an African guitar loop and Baka chanting. The gentle Ancestor’s Voice ebbs and flows before merging seamlessly into a tribute to the River Lupé via wonderfully evocative water slapping. Ohureo is a beautiful Gallic lullaby with Paddy Le Mercier’s violin soaring to the heights.  Despite the Irish influences his rootsy fiddle playing is far more Scarlet Rivera (as most celebrated on Bob Dylan’s classic Desire album) than Riverdance. On Journey the Frenchman also plays flute over another infectious groove laid down by Senegalese percussionist Sagar N’Gom.  The quiet Ndaweh’s Dream highlights yet another exotic instrument, this time a ngombi (forest harp), before the rousing finale Booma Lena.

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