Hifi Pig

Peter Eden produced twenty albums between 1968 and72, which were labelled “progressive British jazz”, fr labels such as Deram, Harvest, Argo and Island, but he also released three albums on his own Turtle Records imprint in 1970 and 71and ot is these three recordings we have here.  More »

It’s that time of the month again when I eagerly open the padded envelope containing a CD from record label él. I say this every time I review one of their offerings, but it’s a great experience not really knowing what you are going to get. And so here we have Percy Faith “Malaguena: The Music Of The Cuba/Kismet: Music From The Broadway Production”… so two albums on one CD essentially.  More »

Some readers will know the name Cymande (Sah Mahn Day) from their three albums (Cymande, Second Time Round and Promised Heights) released in the early to mid-seventies, whilst others will be aware of some of their tunes (The Message) via samples used by De La Soul, Gang Starr and others. More »

Music has power.  The power to stir emotions and paint pictures in our imagination.  When Pink Floyd released their high-concept double album The Wall in 1979 its listeners were left to flesh out the storyline that the music and lyrics provided with whatever visual concepts their own brains provided.  Like no album before it though, The Wall called out for visual interpretation.  Pink Floyd’s live performances of the album mixed music and visuals in a way that no band had done before – building a physical wall between the band and audience and then projecting Gerald Scarfe’s animated interpretations of the story onto it, accompanied by huge, grotesque marionettes.  Alan Parker’s 1982 film adaptations of the story provided a fully realised visual framework for the storyline, the music  being somewhat relegated to a supporting narrative role. More »

Geoff Downes and Chris Braide released “ Pictures Of You”, their debut album as The Downes Braide Association, in 2012 after meeting at a Buggles reunion show in 2010.  Downes was already familiar to me from his work with The Buggles – I’m a big fan of their Age Of Plastic album – Yes and Asia.  Chris Braide was a new name to me but he has written and produced songs for Beyoncé, Lana del Ray, Paloma Faith, Christina Aguilera and Marc Almond amongst others so his pop pedigree is beyond doubt. More »

Let’s get this straight from the outset… the él record label is absolutely nuts!!! And I love its quirkiness and bottle for putting out albums of music that otherwise would be unlikely to see the light of day. Regular readers will have read other reviews I’ve done of the label’s output and it is nothing if not varied and eclectic. And this album is a continuation on that devil may care, plucky stance, for here on Escape In Time we have a collection of 24 popular British television themes of the 1960s and some incidental music from The Prisoner tacked on the end.  More »

Now I don’t often buy music on spec but when I heard this album playing in the local supermarket (of all places) I had to enquire what it was…I assumed given the track that was playing that it was something new from Neil Young that I’d not heard about. More »

Eloquence, The Complete Works’ is a compilation of ex-Kraftwerk percussionist Wolfgang Flür’s “pop” tunes from 2002 to today.

“I selected the tracks on ELOQUENCE to show the width of my artistic possibilities from lyric writing, melody development, working with my voice and my being involved in collaborations with interesting international artists” says Flür, continuing “With Kraftwerk, I was a drummer and device inventor. I only detected my own more melodic musicality after I left my former group. If Kraftwerk played minimal electro, then I now play ‘maximal electro’; for example, I have nothing against the sound of a trumpet in a song if it fits well, as in my track “Best Friend’s Birthday”. In this respect, ELOQUENCE charts my development from a drummer-boy to a melody inventor and story–telling man and it’s been a great journey for me which makes me happy.” More »

Kompakt’s Pop Ambient series of records has been going now for over ten years but still shows no signs of becoming tired or struggling for new and relevant material and artists. More »

Hawkwind have a loyal following and you only need to look at the bust up between Nik Turner and Dave Brock and the camps fans have aligned themselves to understand that passions’ run high when it comes to this iconic space rock band.

Love In Space was originally recorded in 1995 whilst the band were on tour promoting the Alien 4 Album and was then released a year later. The line-up is Ron Tree on vocals, Dave Brock, Alan Davey and Richard Chadwick and to be fair to Ron Tree he does a great job in bringing a good deal of the feel of the original Bob Calvert to proceedings. Alan Davey is without a doubt my most favorite of bass players and he doesn’t disappoint here. More »

As the daughter of The Band’s Levon Helm, Amy Helm has spent her life surrounded by music.  The Band took a mix of rock and roll and traditional American music and invented the Americana genre, decades before the term became popular.  A particularly impressive feat considering that 4 out of the 5 members were Canadian, with Arkansas native Levon being the sole American.   More »