Antoine Fafard – Sphère (Timeless Momentum)
This is bass player and composer Antoine Fafard’s fourth album and features Gary Husband on drums, lead synth and piano and Jerry De Villiers Jr on lead guitar.
Album Reviews
Beltane Fire – Different Breed Expanded Edition (Cherry Red)
This is actually from 1985 but is now available for the first time on CD along with eight bonus tracks included. When it first came out Kerrang said it was a “distinctive and attractive alternative to the mainstream flow of things” and that’s as true in 2016 as it was then.
Shine A Light: Field Recordings From The Great American Railroad by Billy Bragg & Joe Henry
In March this year, Billy Bragg and Joe Henry carried their guitars on to the Texas Eagle train in Chicago bound for Los Angeles. During the journey, the pair recorded songs while the train stopped to pick up passengers. With one eye on the train, to make sure that it didn’t pull off without them, […]
Richard And Linda Thompson – I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight
This month John Scott breaks out Richard and Linda Thompson’s timeless classic from 1974.
Lung Dart – As I Lay Drying (PRAH Recordings)
I’m really not sure what to make of this album. That’s not to say that I’ve initially approached it only to then back away with a kind of “what the hell is this?!!” type of response, but moreover I’ve played this album some 20+ times and still really don’t have a clue what to make of it […]
Jon Hopkins – ‘Opalescent’ (Just Music)
I’ve been a fan of Hopkins’ work for a number of years. The eagle-eyed amongst you will already be aware that Hopkins has previously worked with Coldplay and his track “Light Through The Veins” was reworked into what became the introduction to opening track “Life In Technicolor” from Coldplay’s album ‘Viva la Vida Or […]
Eyes Of Blue – Crossroads Of Time (Esoteric Recordings)
The sleeve notes for Eye’s Of Blue’s Crossroads Of Time opens with a bit of an odd one “Sometimes a band can anticipate history to their own detriment. There is such a thing of being too far ahead of the game and finding everyone else is still playing by the old school rules…The story of […]
Various – Let’s Go Down And Blow Our Minds (The British Psychedelic Sounds of 1967) (Cherry Red)
When I was a youth I had the door to my bedroom painted with all psychedelic patterns, dragons, mushrooms and the like. Somewhere on the door I also had a poem that started “I am Bufo bufo, not yet rested from the great work” and on the frame over the door I had “It’s an […]
The Tomcats – Running At Shadows : The Spanish Recordings 1965 – 1966 (RPM)
The Tomcats were a British R&B/Mod band formed in Ealing in 1965 but it is in Spain they were most well known. The story goes that just before they were about to make it big on the R&B scene in London the band jumped in a van (bought by one of the band’s mum) and […]
Pink Floyd Saucerful Of Secrets.
This month, John Scott revisits the 1968 classic from Pink Floyd, Saucerful Of Secrets.
Michel Legrand – Bonjour Paris
This months offering from él records was recorded in 1956 and is Michel Legrand’s homage to the French capital where he was born in 1932. You may not necessarily know the name but you are sure to know some of his tunes as he’s got around 200 film scores to his credit and if you’re […]
Lyn Stanley – Interludes
Lyn Stanley is the darling of the audiophile community and she certainly knows how to press our collective buttons to get us all in a lather over her recordings. Not content with just releasing her music on CD, she also releases her output on Reel2Reel and very high quality vinyl too – you may have […]
The Great British Recording Studios – Howard Massey
Howard Massey knows a thing or two about the music industry and is a long-time music journo and consultant to the pro-audio side of things. He’s been a touring/session musician, songwriter, recording engineer and producer, not to mention having written a dozen or so books used in recording school curricula including Behind The Glass and […]
William S. Burroughs – Let Me Hang You
Choose a word from the following: Warped, debased, putrid, twisted. And one from these: Brilliance, originality, ingenuity, inventiveness. And there you have this album pretty much reviewed and condensed into two words. For the record I’d have gone for “Twisted Brilliance” for this is what you have here. Let Me Hang You is not for […]
The Fall – Wise Ol’ Man (Cherry Red)
Marc E. Smith’s The Fall divide opinion perhaps like no other band I can think of. On the one hand you have a devoted to the point of obsession fanboys, whilst on the other you have folk that just don’t get them. I fall (no pun intended) somewhere in the middle which is a bit […]
Silvia Telles – Young Love – The Music Of Antonio Carlos Jobim (él)
Continuing what has been a particularly cosmopolitan set of review CDs this month we have this album from the él stable. Nope, I’ve not come across the singer before and this is part of the reason I love él; never afraid to dig out the obscure and interesting and release it on the unsuspecting music […]