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December 2019 = |
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The Greek
Theatre |
Dhidalah |
Dodson & Fogg |
Caedmon |
The Green Ray |
Mighty
Baby |
Joan Shelley |
Malcolm Morley |
Cass
McCombs |
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Home
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THE
GREEK
THEATRE - WHEN SEASONS CHANGE
(SUGARBUSH
SB064)
Sweden's
duo The Greek Theatre have graced the ears of
2019 with a truly stunning new album. The
instrumental "Twin Larks" starts things off with
swirling sounds which yield to a wonderful
acoustic guitar introduction that is accompanied
by a delicate and beautiful flute piece, setting
the stage for what is yet to come. "Laurence of
Laurel Canyon" wastes no time getting down to
business and is pure Greek Theatre with a
dizzying array of textures, reminding us that
Forever is indeed still Changing. The guitars
and keyboards mesh perfectly and you quickly
realize this is a very special record with
top-notch musicianship. The song cleverly
transitions into "The Post-Factual Jam" as we
hear the band unleash a feedback-drenched
psychedelic workout that is a most pleasant
surprise, delivering on Laurence's earlier
promise of blue cheer and purple haze. Switching
the polarity, "Old Jawbone" opens with a
gorgeous flute that is paired with the signature
acoustic guitar magic that we know and love this
beloved outfit for, all framed with a wonderful
string arrangement.
"Bible Black Mare", the album's centerpiece, is
a truly majestic offering which captures that
rare vibe that was so prominent throughout David
Crosby's solo masterpiece, "If Only I Could
Remember My Name". Time ceases to exist and the
listener is transported to an entirely different
state. This track alone practically contains an
entire album's worth of music. It is up to the
listener to mine all the riches that have been
carefully hidden between the notes. "Open
Window" proudly displays the quintessential
Greek Theatre sound. I can only assume that the
lyric "broken circle" is a clever reference to
their excellent sophomore long player. "The
Streets You Hold" features some of the loveliest
harmony vocals that you are likely to find
anywhere, along with plenty of sublime, jangling
12-string guitar that brings to mind the very
best moments of Roger McGuinn and The Byrds.
"The Cabooze" is another instrumental piece, so
cinematic that it would fit perfectly as a
soundtrack to a film - a film that I would love
to get lost in. It effortlessly fades into "A
Different Place", which evolves into a
mind-blowing guitar jam - a dream from which we
are awoken. Was it a dream?
No, ladies and gentlemen, we are not floating in
space. Rather, the haunting "Sail Away (Part
Two)" reminds us that we are still "lost at
sea", where this strange and magical journey all
began, not drifting in the firmament, rather
looking up at it, with the sun shining warmly on
our faces in the daytime, but with the "nights
getting cold" as the seasons change. They've
managed to accomplish the near-impossible. That
is to say, they've raised the already high bar
that their relatively short career has already
set. This, my friends, is a bona fide
masterpiece.
Watch for this limited release on the excellent
Sugarbush Records label.
(Kent
Whirlow)
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DHIDALAH
- THRESHOLD
(LP/Digital on Gurugurubrain
Records)
Tokyo’s heavy psych trio Dhidalah started back in
2007 and, building on recent successes, bring us
their long-awaited debut album Threshold, courtesy
of the seemingly infallible Guruguru Brain. By all
measures, it’s worth the wait. Following 2017’s
excellent No Water EP, the band expand their brand
of instrumental stoner doom to the long player.
Dhidalah are Ikuma Kawabe (guitars), Kazuhira Gotoh
(bass, vocals, synthesisers and “noise,” of which
there is plenty), and drummer Konstantin Miyazaki.
Taking their name from a centuries old mythological
being called a Daidarabotchi, whose footprints were
so enormous it was said to have created countless
lakes and ponds, Dhidalah bring the same sense of
massive scale and force to their sound. The album’s
about the evolution of the human race and the
beginning of the universe, according to Gotoh.
While it’s up to you whether you pick that up from
listening, you can’t fail to be impacted by their
massive sound.
The album literally begins with a crash of explosive
thunder, announcing Dhidalah’s unmistakable
arrival. This leads into the krautrock-influenced
“Neuer Typ.” The pounding beat is punctuated by
Ikuma Kawabe’s soaring and searing guitar work. The
three band members pack a whole lot of sound, adding
distant voices and dark atmospherics to the basic
trio of instruments.
“Adamski” is all molten sludge, with all three
pounding away mercilessly at your brain as if their
life and yours depended on it. Dhidalah lets you
catch a momentary breather while they take a
starship tootling around the cosmos, before resuming
the massive assault. These guys play for blood.
Lengthy side two opener “Jovian Sky” comes in with
some nice Mellotron, adding a little bit of color.
This is inevitably overtaken by more onslaught, with
Kawabe’s guitar playing just relentless. The
Mellotron and effects occasionally weave back in and
out, always overtaken by Dhidalah’s crushing
punch-press attack. I wondered how Miyazaki had any
arms or drumsticks left afterwards.
Finally, “A.U.M.” starts off with a snare sounding
like a high-powered rifle shot, which Miyazaki
repeats to great effect. “A.U.M.” is slightly
Sabbath-like, with Kawabe displaying some Iommi-type
techniques. After some distant vocal chants from
Gotoh and a bruising middle section, Dhidalah lift
off for a high-spirited less-heavy jam, all three
firing on all cylinders and featuring some of
Kawabe’s finest guitar work, before crashing back to
Earth for the finale.
Dhidalah forge a punishing, take-no-prisoners
approach, heavy psych without sweeteners or Miss
Manners’ etiquette. If you like some adrenaline to
pick up your day, don’t miss it.
(Mark Feingold)
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DODSON
AND FOGG – SWIM
(Released on Wisdom
Twin)
Chris Wade wraps up another prolific year
with his third release under his Dodson and Fogg
alter ego, bringing his output to nearly two
dozen releases since his eponymous 2013 debut,
about which we exclaimed, “A fine album that
will remind you of the joy of living!" As with
other recent releases, Wade plays everything,
but it’s his double-tracked guitar interplay
that once again amazes. ‘Blue Skies’ is another
thousand yard stare into cloud formations, bird
flight patterns, and solar/lunar celestial
interplay, all woven around crystalline electric
guitar solos weaving around a steady acoustic
backing.
The
western-tinged
singalong ‘Let Us Be’ is campfire fodder for the
masses, while ‘In The Moment’ is a lovely,
intimate picture of a romantic interlude with
the one you love. A musical Valentine card, if
you will, as is the dreamy ballad, ‘She Is My
World’. A jaunty ‘How Long’ has a Hot
Tuna-meets-Rockpile groove with a touch of
Bolan’s boogie for good measure, and the funky
‘Coming Down Sideways’ evinces a bluesy swagger
that Wade has been successfully exploring of
late. Tasty fingerpicking and a Booker T-styled
organ ride highlight the hard-driving instro,
‘The Lost Cyclist’ and we wrap with the epic
seven-and-a-half minute instrumental workout
‘The Garden’, a languid stroll through a forest
of tweeting birds with a pleasant reminder of
Roger Waters’ ‘Grantchester Meadows’
occasionally tickling the memory banks. There’s
also a bit of a gypsy groove provided by Wade’s
dancing mandolin (?) that sets the toes
a-tapping and the heart a-fluttering. Another
excellent entry in a distinguished discography
that continues to exceed expectations.
(Jeff Penczak)
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CAEDMON
- RARE
(Caedmon’s
Return 002)
Christian
folk
rock band reconvene for their third album in 41
years. Their debut album is a bit of a Holy
Grail; its value has risen over the ensuing
years to become one of the most sought after
albums in the acid folk genre. Self released in
1978, it showed an assured band and the surprise
is that they never made a follow up until 2010;
there is currently one of these originals online
with an eye watering price of £1500! I managed
to find a copy of a reissue a few years back on
the Acme label for a tenner and I was surprised
by how great the band sound; the songs were also
very good with fine soaring female vocals and
lashings of lead guitar.
For
this new album we have 7 recent tracks and five
tracks dating from 1975, plus a bonus of another
live track recorded in 1978.
The band comprises of Ken Patterson -
cello, keyboards, guitar and brass. James Bisset
- lead guitar. Angela Webb - vocals. Simon
Jaquet - mandolins, percussion and guitar, plus
Simon Wilson - bass and guitar. With guest
artists Caroline Brown, and Sally Jaquet,
contributing a few extra vocals. Have the
ensuing years been kind to them? Well yes is the
answer, this new album is pretty good indeed.
Opening
with a lengthy eight and a half minute gem,
based on a 7th century fantasy in the form of
‘Dream Of The Rood’. Angela took some coaxing to
participate in this new album and it's Caroline
who tkes the initial lead vocals which
reveals her slightly deeper tones, the song is
an excellent one, it’s quite proggy too, with
some terrific octave mandolin, deep cello tones
and some fluid lead guitar breaks. ‘Go’, has a
nice feel; it’s firmly in the funk/folk area,
acoustic with some nice percussion. ‘Sky Song’
is a sister song to their most popular song ‘Sea
Song’ and shows an older more reflective side to
them, in a 6/8 time signature; ostensibly about
a mother goose, it even ends with the arresting
sounds of honking geese.
‘Runaway’,
follows this with a folk rock song loosely based
on Jonah and the Whale, enlivened by Sam’s
supple bass playing. ‘Mustard Seed’ is a short
song in the renaissance style, based on the
mustard seed parable. ‘Rare’ the title track,
has a mellow spiritual vibe with Sam Wilson’s
voice caressing the ears. The mandolin, ‘cello,
keyboard, fugal horn, bass and acoustic guitars
ease us along through a folk ballad, a
story. It’s the tale of a one-off 1978 album
being duplicated, then re-released, pirated and
becoming a collectors’ ‘Grail’. It’s an
allegorical tale following a potter at the wheel
which keeps on turning. ’Peace’, is a gentle
hymnal, which has some beautiful cello lines and
a terrific guitar figure by James.
Ken
provided
me with the following background on the
unearthed 1975 tracks, which
were recorded in The Netherbow Studio, in
Edinburgh. “A digitising firm provided
us with a USB stick of these long buried tracks
at best quality and we were left with six usable
tracks with sufficient integrity for us to
re-master and put on the new record. The
selection of songs all feature lyrics from other
writers with music composed arranged by members
of the band. Five are from a studio session in
1975, when the band was just consolidating its
particular feel and sound. Only the studio
version of fans’ favourite ‘London Psalm’ is
driven by searing electric guitar. It juxtaposes
with a 13/8 time signature sawn out on distorted
‘cello and acoustic guitar”.
‘London
Psalm’, introduces these 1975 mono studio
recordings, recordings which showcase Angela’s
beautiful soaring vocals and James’s searing
lead electric guitar and make me feel all
nostalgic for an early 70’s London, the writer
of poem London Psalm has so far to date not been
traced, Sam composed the music. ‘Death Knot’ was
written by Lance Stone who is a friend of the
band, it’s firmly in the folk rock vein. ‘God Is
Love’ is a traditional hymn lashed to a folk
rock beat. ‘Born To Die’, this one sees them
firmly in Pentangle mode, invested with some
lovely harmonics and mandolin. ‘Tears May
Linger’ is an up-tempo Psalm written by Simon
Jaquet and exists nowhere else but here on these
recordings. The album ends with the live 1978
recording of ‘Now The Green Blade Riseth’ a
traditional Easter song with some lovely deep
‘cello guitar, recorder, guitar and bass, again
no other Caedmon recorded version exists. There
is also a hidden track ‘Heaven Haven', a snippet
of a Gerard Manley Hopkin verse for solo voice
and guitar.
This
is a wonderful return for the band and I hope
that they can return to the studio again fairly
soon. Available from December the 23rd and
distributed by Guerssen Records www.guerssen.com
(Andrew
Young)
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THE
GREEN RAY - FIVE POINTS OF LIGHT
www.sugarbushrecords.com
vinyl 300 copies
The Green Ray swiftly follow up 2017’s excellent
Half Sentences with another gem, also on the
same label. The band currently comprises of
Simon Whaley - lead guitar, bottleneck,
acoustic. Martin James Gee - vocals, electric
and acoustic guitar. Mark Cullum – drums. Dave
Mackenzie - bass. Along
with backing vocalists Wayne Worrell and Duncan
Kerr on a couple of tracks plus Jeff Gibbs and
Howard Plug Davies on bass and drums, for a
couple of tracks. It was recorded at Antform
studios.
Things kick off with ‘Sangsara Shanty’, a loping
tune which is slow to coalesce, like some
workingman’s dead out take, the acoustic guitars
ring and the drum and bass anchor the tune, it
has some fine wah wah guitar fills too, fading
out to the sound of gently lapping waves. ‘On A
Sixpence’, the next song continues in the same
vein, a proper song with some lovely snaking
fluid lead guitars. ‘Small Springs’ follows and
is written by Ken Whaley it’s expansive, with
Quicksilver flashes from the guitar, I’m
reminded of ‘What About Me’ but without Dino’s
histrionics, it’s taken at a similar pace too,
all darting lead guitar runs and a sympathetic
rhythm section kicking things along.
Side two begins with ‘Clouds Away Tomorrow’, this
one is a little more up-tempo, a touch of later
period Byrds, there are nice harmonies, Martin
has an unforced and relaxed style of singing
which serves these songs well, some nice twin
guitar intertwining throughout, very nice.
‘Before The Fall’, this starts with a little
bird song, before a guitar figure appears that
sounds so familiar but I just can’t seem to
place it, the guitars really sound fabulous on
this track, so good. It’s
an excellent song and one of my favourites,
elemental in nature. The album’s title track
‘Five Points Of Light’, is lent a swampy vibe,
mainly due to the bottleneck acoustic guitar,
it’s a little more acoustic too. This sets
things up nicely for final track ‘Close (To
Afar)’, my favourite on the album, what a great
song, the band being able to really stretch out,
some blistering lead guitar and a cooking rhythm
section with a great wig out at the end, fans of
Help Yourself, Man and Quicksilver form an
orderly queue.
(Andrew Young)
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MIGHTY
BABY – AT A POINT BETWEEN FATE AND DESTINY:
THE COMPLETE RECORDINGS
(6CD box set released on Grapefruit
)
What we have here is nothing less than the
holy grail for Mighty Baby completists: six CDs
comprising both studio albums (with
acetate/demos of most tracks), non-LP singles,
demos for a potential (unreleased) third album
(actually recorded between the two “officially
released” albums), plus two full CDs of live
performances, including previously unreleased
recordings from their legendary 1971 Glastonbury
appearance, highlighted by their complete
36-minute version of John Coltrane’s ‘India’
(aka ‘A Blanket In My Muesli’). WOW! The booklet
includes co-compiler David Wells’ 30-page,
12,000 word essay which details the recording
sessions (supported by material from the Action
biography In
The Lap Of The Mods, keyboardist Ian
Whiteman’s unpublished autobiography The Average Whiteman and Ptolemaic
Terrascope’s own 1995 interview with
Martin Stone), as well as numerous period
photographs and adverts to complete the picture.
Disc
One pairs their eponymous 1969 Head debut
with a previously unissued acetate featuring
occasionally significantly different versions
(lyrics, song length, mix) of most tracks. Two
exceptions (mono versions of ‘Egyptian Tomb’ c/w
‘I’m From The Country’) were coincidentally
released as a single which was only issued by
Philips in France (and are included on Disc
Three). To make room for ‘I’m From The
Country’ and the track that gives this box set
its title (a dreamy navel gazer featuring what
may be the band’s finest CSNY-styled harmonies),
two other acetate recordings were dropped from
the final track listing. Both the heavy-lidded
‘Ancient Traveller’ and the revved-up,
Freakbeaty ‘Messages’ would have been worthy
additions to the finished product, but guitarist
Martin Stone conjectures it was not the band’s
decision to omit them and they may have been
victims of the album’s overall running time.
Major
differences
on the acetate include the absence of the de riguere phased vocals and drums that were added to the released
version of ‘A Friend You Know But Never See’;
the country blues and honky tonking ‘I’ve Been
Down So Long’ (title seemingly inspired by
Richard Fariña’s
semi-autobiographical
novel) is over a minute longer, slightly slower
and all the better to enjoy Martin Stone’s
blistering soloing; some lyrics were also
modified before the final mix; ‘Same Way From
The Sun’ also employs different lyrics and is
likewise about a minute longer than the released
version. Again, Stone’s finger-bleeding solo is
a highlight, although the curious
dead-in-the-tracks drop off halfway through
still gives the coda an anti-climactic vibe (as
if added from a different session!) In its
favour, the acetate version eliminates the few
seconds of silence that probably had the heads
of the day thinking the song had ended! Personal
favourite ‘House Without Windows’ is also a bit
rawer and the chugging, bluesy boogie ‘Trials Of
A City’ also includes lyrics that were modified
in the final product. While most of these
changes may appeal primarily to completists (as,
of course will an entire box set of material
from a band that only released two proper
albums), the extended jams and different mixes
will find favour with all fans of top shelf ‘60s
psychedelia. And more bonus points to Grapefruit
for replicating the stunning gatefold sleeve!
Disk
Two features the second (released) album,
Jug Of
Love, a more countrified set which brings
their Grateful Dead comparisons to the fore (the
title track and ‘Slipstreams’ could easily have
set on Garcia’s contemporary solo debut),
although I also hear a lot of similarities to
contemporary British country rock albums by the
likes of Brinsley Schwarz, Plainsong, and Help
Yourself. The songs are looser (Stone confesses
that the debut was “poppier”), the jams more
organic, heavy-lidded, and laid back, and the
performances more assured. Most tracks top six
minutes (several approach ten), with Stone’s
tasty licks on the languid ‘Happiest Man In The
Carnival’, their own ‘Keep On Truckin’ (‘Keep On
Juggin’!), and the dreamy ‘Virgin Spring’ among
the many highlights. An alternate version of the
latter (released as the flip to non-album single
‘Devil’s Whisper’ – think New Riders-meet-CSNY)
is a revelation – a crisper production
highlighted by Ian Whiteman’s classical piano
touches, Stone’s arpeggio guitar runs, and a
more upbeat vibe create an entirely different,
albeit 2½-minutes shorter artifact.
Most
of Jug of
Love was rehearsed in a friend’s basement
and instrumental excerpts make up most of Disk Three. The title track is highlighted by Stone’s exploratory
runs that differ significantly from the final
product and aside from similar loose jams, the
rehearsal quality is mostly for completists and
musicologists interested in listening to the
songs in their embryonic stages.
Returning
to Disk Two, the band’s transition from cult Mods The Action to “the
English Grateful Dead” with a taste for pot and
LSD is documented by five 1968 demos previously
released and attributed to The Action on the
“Action Speaks Louder Than” EP. Admittedly rough
ideas and not intended for release in their
current format, they bear neither the quality
nor style of either band and are mostly of
archival interest only, although ‘Dustbin of
Rubbish’ surprisingly presages Ride 20 years
early, ‘My Favourite Day’ sounds like Whiteman
exorcising his Rick Wright daemons, a la the
latter’s similar ‘Remember A Day’ contribution
to A
Saucerful of Secrets, and ‘A Saying For
Today’ is Floyd gone Freakbeat!
Disk
Four presents demos for a proposed second
album (Day
Of The Soup) that fell by the wayside when
their label owner was busted and the band found
themselves without a label, manager or booking
agency. Besides the decidedly proggy ‘Winter
Passes’ (featuring rare female vocals from
American duo Emily Muff (Kathy Bushnell and
Janet Dourif, actor Brad’s first wife), we’re
left with essentially another 35-minute-plus
instrumental jam riffing on Coltrane’s ‘India’
(nominally divided into the four-part ‘Now You
Don’t’, an answer title to the 15-minute
instrumental jam ‘Now You See It’ that features
on the three-song excerpt from their March 1970
Lanchester University gig. This may be the best
synthesis of their live gigs captured in the
studio (compare it with their monumental live
treatments at Malvern Winter Gardens in February
’71 on Disk
Five and Glastonbury four months later on
Disk Six)
and is yet another reason that the present box
will appeal to more than just diehard fans,
completists, and collectors. This is some of the
finest psychedelicised music from the dawn of
the ‘70s performed by any band at the time.
Disks
Five and Six highlight the live Mighty
Baby experience, which like many bands of the
era, was possibly the best way to experience
them. Disk
Five features the February 1971 Malvern
Winter Gardens gig, highlighted by the
aforementioned 22-minute ‘India’, an early
version of ‘Trials Of A City’ with different
lyrics called ‘Woe Is Me’ and ‘Goin’ Down To
Mongoli’, which previously appeared in their
earlier Lanchester set on Disk Four under the embryonic title ‘Sweet Mandarin’.
Disk
Six may be the box highlight, particularly
for fans who have already purchased the expanded
albums and bonus live material previously
available through Richard Morton Jack’s numerous
archival releases on his Sunbeam label. The
band’s 1971 Glastonbury performance has been
whispered about in hushed reverential tones for
nearly half a century, with only a severely
edited rendition of John Coltrane’s
aforementioned ‘India’ (essentially less than
half of the 30+ minute jam) and their chugging
blues workout on Gram Parsons’ ‘Lazy Days’ that
evinces more of a Canned Heat than Grateful Dead
influence having thought to survive. But here
for the first time, we can experience full
versions of a half dozen more performances,
including ‘Keep On Juggin’ [actually appended to
the end of Disk Five], a dreamier-than-usual ‘Virgin Spring’ introduced as “a
really slow song”, ‘Trials Of A City’ [still
titled ‘Woe Is Me’ and introduced as “a number
for anyone that’s straight”!], and the complete
37-minute ‘India’, which may have lost some of
its lustre having appeared earlier in the box,
but is still the mindblowing masterpiece it was
always rumoured to be.
The
cassette
source tapes have been noticeably baked for
maximum enjoyment and minimum wobble, and the
sounds of fans sharing joints and other
enhancements audible adds to the heady ambience
and putting right along the stage with them.
So,
six CDs, sixty tracks and nearly seven hours of
music is probably a bit much for one sitting and
is certainly geared for super fans interested in
hearing everything the band has recorded under
the Mighty Baby moniker. But the package is
incredibly detailed, full of period adverts,
press clippings, and photos, the sound quality
is stellar throughout (considering the age of
the tapes), and fans coming at it with any
apprehensions can be assured they’re definitely
getting their money’s worth.
(Jeff Penczak)
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JOAN
SHELLEY – LIKE THE RIVER LOVES THE SEA
(LP/CD/Digital
on No
Quarter)
Like
the River Loves the Sea is Louisville, Kentucky
folk artist Joan Shelley’s latest offering.
In many ways, Shelley brings us a shelter
from the big, bad world around us, a warm, calm
oasis where you’re among loved ones, so kick off
your shoes, throw a log on the fire, and cuddle
up with a glass of wine.
Shelley
has, not just a beautiful voice, but rather a
voice that she sings beautifully with, if that
minor distinction makes any sense.
Perhaps it will after a listen.
And it’s easy with that voice to overlook
her fine guitar playing, but yes, she is also a
talented guitarist.
For the album, she has built a small, but
all-conquering team, consisting of frequent
acoustic guitar collaborator and fellow
Kentuckian Nathan Salsburg, and co-producer and
multi-instrumentalist James Elkington (who also
produced Steve Gunn’s The Unseen in Between,
another album I dearly loved in 2019).
Shelley wrote all the songs.
The melodies are all amazingly lovely,
and Elkington’s arrangements, all soft and
glowing, whether they be bare acoustic guitars,
light strings, harmonium, etc., are all spot-on.
It’s a less-is-more approach that works
perfectly every time.
The
album was recorded near Reykjavik, Iceland with
all aboard. Local
sisters Sigrun Kristbjorg Jonsdottir and Pordis
Gerour Jonsdottir contributed violins, viola and
cello, while Albert Finnbogason contributed
Wurlitzer. The
cover art by Kevin Earl Taylor looks like a
bucolic Icelandic scene.
Joan tells a funny story about how, for
the gorgeous, majestic “Coming Down For You,”
she wanted a banjo, which she also is known to
play. The
crew had brought all their guitars, but nobody
thought to bring a banjo, and lo, there was nary
a banjo to be found in all of Iceland.
So the clawhammer sound you hear on the
acoustic guitar on the finished piece is Shelley
playing the guitar as she would’ve played it on
banjo.
But
make no mistake, this is a Kentucky affair, with
pretty songs that regale us of comforting
pastoral scenes and a love for her home.
And you can sense the source of the
“river,” from whence all these lovely green
songs came, the ancestral hills, fields and
streams of England and Ireland.
Joan
brings along singers Cheyenne Mize and Julia
Purcell from her previous singing group Maiden
Radio to sing harmony on three tracks.
But the album’s finest moments bar none
are her collaborations with another fellow
Kentuckian Bonnie “Prince” Billy, aka Will
Oldham, who sings with her on two little aching
masterpieces, the aforementioned “Coming Down
For You” and “The Fading.”
Oldham’s accompanying vocals are so
subtly brilliant; he sings in a slight
stutter-step from Shelley, giving daylight and
breathing space from her voice, not unlike Rick
Danko, Levon Helm and Richard Manuel did in The
Band’s classic songs.
In “The Fading,” Shelley packs so much in
a verse, including perhaps a nod to climate
change “And old Kentucky stays in my mind/it’s
sweet to be five years behind/That’s where I’ll
be when the seas rise/holding my dear friends
and drinking wine/When it breaks down/Oh babe
let’s try/to see the beauty in all the fading.”
If
I have a slight nit to pick, it’s with the
subject matter for most of the album being
overwhelmingly about love and romance.
Perhaps we unfairly expect folk artists
to write more meaningful lyrics above all other
music styles, but a seasoned veteran folk artist
should be able to come up with more to sing
about than that, although Shelley at least gives
the romantic treatments nuance and poetic style.
Like
the River Loves the Sea is a beautiful work from
start to finish.
As our hard times just seem to get
harder, Joan Shelley combines her flair for
melody, her unforgettable voice and James
Elkington’s tasteful, understated,
letter-perfect production to be the ideal
soothing we all need.
(Mark
Feingold)
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MALCOLM
MORLEY
- INFINITY
LAKE
(CD
on the Aurora
label)
Well,
what have we here?
The latest material to be released by the
Enigmatic Enigma that goes by the name of
Malcolm Morley that’s what.
For those of us long in the thrall of his
talent these moments become more treasured as
the years pass for us all.
This
release is his first full length release of new
material for some 18 years from ‘Aliens’.
Style wise it’s pretty close to the
material he released under the vinyl 10" single
‘Raw’ in 2014. For
those who saw him live preceding that release
they would have enjoyed the Morley originals of
‘Summerlands’ and ‘Where The River Bends’.
They were recorded in an acoustic setting
but this new release comes with a fuller sound
with some excellent playing as regards both
guitar and organ.
For anyone needing some reference points
I can but best suggest this release reflects a
mature artist giving nine originals and one
cover, all wrapped up in a style that has an
easy-going confidence – besides the music there
are some great lyrics – not so much songs as
narrative tales.
In
an attempt to embrace any potential new recruits
to those of us long and loyal in the tooth – if
you like JJ Cale, Michael Chapman, Springsteen
when he’s not in rock mode, but most of all I
found myself thinking Bob Weir with his
excellent ‘Blue Mountain’ as comparable musical
bedfellows. Malcolm’s
voice now bears a rich smoky timbre and the
imagery in his lyrics carries a certain world
weariness of the experiences of life.
As
for the tracks themselves, proceedings open up
with ‘To Evangeline’ – a mid paced effort with
the aforementioned organ nicely to the fore.
The couplet regarding the woman and the
babe on the bridge is nothing short of brilliant
by my book. It
almost has the feel of being from the lineage of
‘Paper Leaves’ – one of the early Morley
classics that still sounds so good today.
Next up is ‘Forgotten Land’, and this has
a feel about it not a million miles from Tony
Joe White – we tend not to have too many swamps
in the UK, maybe we could settle for some
fertile moist woodlands with a moody groove.
‘A
Walk On The Water’ carries some great biblical
imagery in its lyrics.
‘What Hurts’ has a JJ Cale swing and
growl to it. The
only cover here is ‘Two Brothers’ and is an
American Civil War tale – anybody else remember
the early 60s TV series ‘The Americans’ – the
Clanfield family where Jeff joined the
Confederates and his brother Ben the Unionists ?
You’ll be impressed by Malcolm’s acoustic
picking. ‘Broken’,
as with ‘All Washed Up’, the mood belies what
the title may lead you to suppose.
Not for the first time, you will find the
lyrics intriguing in their imagery. Some lovely
organ breaks courtesy of Daisy Rollins.
‘Must
Be The Devil In Me’ – sounds as though it could
be an old Blues Standard. The title track,
‘Infinity Lake’ comes across as perhaps the most
perfect piece among those on offer here – the
understated music allows the lyrics to bite and
hit. ‘All
Washed Up’, although hardly a joyous sentiment,
the track kicks along with another set of
quality lyrics.
Matters conclude with ‘Rambling Boy’ and
its tone is perhaps the closest to that which
Malcolm put to such good effect on the
previously cited ‘Summerlands’. There is a
magical air to its rural purity and imagery.
Malcolm
has certainly rediscovered his love of the
electric guitar, mind you, his acoustic picking
remains atmospheric and full of character as
backing to the tales he recounts.
These narratives are close to be
conversation pieces at times – he uses some
familiar turns of phrase that are maybe not the
common garden prose.
We can but hope that this release garners
some sympathetic reviews and good few more wake
up to a man who has been plying his trade for 50
years. I’m
not talking “chart action” but just a healthy
return sales-wise for the quality of the
material on display here.
A final wish – may there be more to come
from the Enigmatic Enigma when the muse deigns
to pay him further visits.
(Richard
Gould)
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CASS
McCOMBS
– TIP OF THE SPHERE
(LP/CD/Digital
on Epitaph)
On
Cass McCombs’ ninth studio
outing, the singer-songwriter brings his
frequent West Coast laid back sound, enigmatic
lyrics and some experimentation in the back
half. McCombs
is coming up on 20 years making
records, and he’s not out to prove anything this
time out or make bold
statements.
The
first half of the nearly
hour-long album is bathed in cosmic folk and a
Dead-like sensibility that goes
down real easy.
I’m also hearing some of
Kurt Vile’s quiet, reflective art, and some
buried Jackson Browne Laurel
Canyonesque vibes.
Opener “I Followed
the River South to What” is built around a
single 7th chord, very
much like the one in the break in The Who’s
“Bargain,” but is not a drone in
the broad sense.
It unfolds into a
Terrapin Station-like jam, with McCombs taking
on the Garcia licks.
The more rocking “The Great Pixley Train
Robbery” is a narrative about an actual 1800s
heist. “Estrella”
is a very appealing
guitar-centered track in a song form McCombs has
tackled before.
A tribute to late Mexican artist Juan
Gabriel, “Estrella” teams McCombs’ smooth guitar
work with bass from Dan Horne,
who played with McCombs in The Skiffle Players
and also earned his
Dead-inspired chops in Circles Around the Sun.
“Real
Life” is another
sweet-sounding mellow groover, with acoustic
guitar, piano, and hand percussion,
which turns on a dime late in the song, ups the
tempo and ends in a laid-back
jam. Like
much of McCombs’ work, the
smooth sound belies depressing, often
inscrutable lyrics.
The
album’s second half is
somewhat less accessible, indie rock sometimes
taking on the feel of 80s or 90s
work by Bruce Cockburn or Lou Reed, and the
lyrics get a bit darker.
“Prayer for Another Day” breaks that up
somewhat, with McCombs sounding like he’s lying
happily in a hammock on a sunny
day riffing lazily on two chords and doodling on
his guitar. “American
Canyon Sutra” is a total departure,
sliding somewhere between rap and beat poetry,
with McCombs musing on the decay
of the American dream, with Wal-Mart culture
taking over, the stores, the
employees, and even small dwellings for them to
live in “like coffins.”
“Tying Up Loose Ends” could be a lost
Dire
Straits track, with McCombs going through some
old family photographs and
wondering who all these distant strangers are.
The ten minute “Rounder” er, rounds out
the album, and, after starting
out cosmic country, returns to the Dead-type
jamming which opened the album,
including some nice Fender Rhodes work by Frank
LoCrasto (Okkervil River,
Parquet Courts).
There
you have it. Tip
of the Sphere will appeal to West Coast
sound fans (even if it was recorded in
Brooklyn). If
you made a letter “C” with your hand, your
hand and outstretched fingers would represent
the breezy, endorphin-releasing portion,
and proportion, while the empty space would be
the hard-shelled remainder within.
Happy Holidays to all.
(Mark
Feingold)
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