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June music reviews

Arctic Monkeys: Favourite Worst Nightmare

Domino

With the distinctive vocal stylings and story-telling of Alex Turner, you could never really mistake Sheffield’s Arctic Monkeys for anyone else. Starting with a bang with Brianstorm, the band rarely let up on their highly infectious follow up to Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not.

Fluorescent Adolescent is a great example of the way the band combines their own brand of guitar driven pop/rock music and interesting lyrics into a track that builds and builds to a glorious ending.

Sure the Arctic Monkeys are just one of the many UK guitar bands that have appeared in the past couple of years (Bloc Party, Maximo Park, The Kooks etc) but there is something of a dance groove to many of their numbers (a bit like Franz Ferdinand), and a definite Englishness. This gives them a charm and uniqueness that’s not always obvious in some of their contemporaries.

The album is consistently good throughout. Favourites at the moment are the previously mentioned Fluorescent Adolescent, the drum-driven Do Me A Favour, and the more reflective closer 505, which may well be a sign of a possible future direction for the band. It makes for a strong close to a strong second album. If you liked the first album you can buy this one with confidence. If you’re not familiar with the band, then this album wouldn’t be a bad place to start. Douglas Lang

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Bread: The Sound of Bread

Rhino/Warner

Another confession. I really admire this group, one of the few 70’s pop groups that I connected with, admittedly knowing little about them when I received the Best of Bread for Christmas – over 30 years ago!

So a proverbial blast down memory lane if ever there was one. The first thing you notice is how high David Gate’s voice is – what was with those super tight jeans we squeezed into back then, and then you notice how short each song is, a classic example of the single length pop masterpiece, track after track. Diary, If, Guitar Man, Make It With You… they are all there.

Technology in the house has changed somewhat over the years and here was the biggest surprise – these are generally extremely well produced little gems. On the down side you can here the multi-over dubs covering the odd high note that even back then Gate’s struggled with but if you’ve been waiting for a well filled package with better than okay mastering then it’s time for a nostalgic wallow. Allan McFarlane

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The John Butler Trio: Grand National

Jarrah/EMI Music

This is the follow up to 2003’s multi platinum album Sunrise Over Sea and sees The John Butler Trio extend their reach to cover a variety of musical styles – albeit all based around a rootsy ‘real instruments’ feel. On this album you’ll find plenty of examples of the trademark roots groove that fans love so much. But you’ll also find reggae in Groovin Slowly, a funky feel to Used to Get High and variants in between.

As you’d expect from a band that has been plying its trade for many years, the playing is excellent. I’ve seen the Trio live a number of times and each time they bring a smile to my face. They seem to really enjoy making music and this album does a good job in giving you a sense of the feel you get at one of their live shows.

John Butler is never afraid to sing about what he sees as wrong in the world: he’s anti-Bush, pro-environment, pro-love, anti-war. On this album he deals with a number of the recent big issues – including what he sees as the US Government’s woeful response to Hurricane Katrina in Gov Did Nothing:

Now I don’t wish to offend
No I don’t wish to start a fight
But do you really think that the Gov would do nothin’
If all those people were white?

The quality of the songs is universally high and I’m sure this album will sell as many, if not more, than Sunrise over Sea and introduce a whole new audience to an artist that makes music with heart and soul, emotion and meaning. Douglas Lang

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Alessandro Carabelli Group, featuring Franco Ambrosetti: Aphrodite

Nagel Heyer

Pianist Carablelli assembles a competent Italian trumpet, tenor, guitar, bass and drums jazz sextet for 11 original tunes in this somewhat confused collection. Some tunes are very derivative of jazz standards by major pianists Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, and Chick Corea. Vally suggests the sweet Evans’s classic Waltz for Debbie, Abuela resembles Jarrett’s moody Belonging, and Black Notes is quite like Corea’s Lifeline.

Others songs are pleasant compositions but just don’t get stretched out enough to become involving jazz music with the exception of Prayer. On this tune, saxophonist Diego Mascherpa briefly wails away like dear departed jazz great Michael Brecker.

The liner notes describe this as a concept album in appreciation of great beauty, through, and in music. Grandiose notion, though it never managed to get grooving or be “in the pocket”. It didn’t grab me with trick phrasing nor get a brain-eating line going in my head. It’s another Sunday morning “jazz lite” disc with too little steam for my auditory cappuccino machine.

Recorded quality is the usual excellent Nagel Heyer label up close, clear and clean sound. Nearly perfect, except for the double bass of Marco Conti that is mixed too strongly above the other players. Scanning the fine print reveals that he edited and co-mixed this recording. Stay on the bandstand Marco! John Paul

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Michel Camilo: Spirit of the Moment

Telarc

Grammy award winning jazz pianist Camilo, with excellent bass and drum accompaniment, develops clever treatments to eight original and four classic tunes.

Getting new “grooves” out of the old tried and true piano-bass-drums set up is no easy thing. The Bill Evans, Scott Lefaro, Paul Motian trio pretty well established the modern format in 1959 where each player developed the tunes improvisational limits while simultaneously supporting each others efforts within the tunes structure. Considerable technical musicianship and interpersonal empathy are essential for keeping this trio approach immersed in the “groove” of the tune. Otherwise it’s a dogs brekkie or plain old tired rumpty-tump, piano with optional boom thump and tinkly bits.

Happily, these three Caribbean natives have advanced classical training technical skills and buoyant Latin rhythmic attitudes that allow for complex time signatures and unique melodic and harmonic approaches to their selections. An example of this is Cuban bassist Charles Flores who always plays tight, solid lines but also deep soulful arco (bowed) parts in several tunes.

Drummer Dafnis Prieto, also from Cuba, follows the notions above with 9/8 time treatments of jazz standards Nefertiti and Nardis. And these do sound very different, but still quite cool.

I dearly hope we will be hearing more from Michel Camilo because his piano trio stylings are inventive, sensitive and a fresh breath of life into what was once, but no longer, a predictable sounding format. John Paul

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Natalie Cole: Leavin’

Verve

Right from the opening shout you are in no doubt that here is a true artist, one with a world (30 plus years now) of experience, but one who clearly still loves her art. Then you’re filled with “I’ve heard that before” thoughts, and further research reveals some unlikely sources for the material on this album as all except one track are covers of other artists material, that Cole has well an truly made her own, punched out with a full R&B arrangement.

Beginning with Fiona Apple’s Criminal who would have expected Neil Young’s Old Man as the next track. Not me but it works. Having been subjected to episodes of “Idol” in this house it is so refreshing to hear a non-pretender who delivers with such authority and professionalism.

Aretha Franklin, Shelby Lynne, Tom Jones, Kate Bush and even Sting get covered but throughout you know you’re listening to Natalie Cole. Refreshing, engaging, uncompromisingly sung, this is worth checking out of you want a belter of a good R&B release. Allan McFarlane

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Ry Cooder: My Name Is Buddy

Nonesuch

Boy, was I excited to receive this one in the mail! I have all the ‘classic’ Cooder albums but I tried to remember back to the last one I actually bought? I think it was the rather appalling late eighties effort called Get Rhythm, a nasty, thin and over-compressed rock ‘n roll screecher. Since then of course all we Cooder fans have enjoyed watching Ry work with a series of brilliant ‘world’ artists. Most famously his beautiful ‘rediscovery’ of the Cuban artists in the excellent Buena Vista Social Club. Great stuff but not much Cooder in there.

More recently Mr. Cooder’s Chavez Ravine, a socio-political narrative about the bulldozing of a Mexican-American neighbourhood to put up a baseball stadium, was easy to admire in sentiment but I found it hard to enjoy it very much.

My Name Is Buddy is ostensibly the story of a cat named Buddy and his adventures with a mouse named Lefty. In fact it is a rather obvious left-wing political allegory, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t jam packed with great playing and tunes. It’s a record that’s easy to put in the CD player and simply enjoy on a musical level. There’s blues, soul, dustbowl ballads, country… an endless pastiche of styles that somehow work together beautifully. The highlight for me, and one that brought ‘laugh out loud’ hoots, was Green Dog, a jazzy ‘semi-Cuban’ excursion about Lefty and Buddy crossing the desert that morphs into the standard Misty, albeit sung with new lyrics by an alien who looks like a green dog! It’s wacky and it works.

I heartily recommend My Name Is Buddy to Ry Cooder fans, or anyone who wants their musical imagination fired up. Sure, it’s not Boomers Story or Paradise & Lunch… No, I think it may be better than anything Ry Cooder has served up before. Darren Watson

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The Decemberists: The Crane Wife

Capitol

Music of consummate conviction, driven by poet and orchestrator Colin Moloy who recounts his Hardyesque tales with a voice reeded in trad folk resonance and wholly blended with the taut heartbeat verve of the instrumentation. The band are full-blooded and deft, and stitch insistent threads, with banjo and glockenspiel, accordion and cello, through the vivid lyrics (“curlews carve their arabesques”, “this skein of skin is all too few/ To keep me from you”). Moloy’s words conjure a bleak but lovely pastoral landscape laced with stories of drowning and betrayal, pistols, passions and plotting. At times, it’s perhaps too protracted: The Island triptych is drawn out boldly, but within its episodic Foxtrot/Thick as a Brick-style framework some passages risk sounding over-portentous.

Yet if Moloy and his troupe might be intermittently guilty of sounding stagily serious, they nonetheless handle the grave and sobering with intricate tenderness. Lucid proof of this is Yankee Bayonet – a rueful dialogue between the spirit of a Civil War soldier and his bereaved sweetheart, which with uncompromising imagery (“the bellies and the bones and the bile” of battle) and rousing refrains delivers a dynamic sense of the beauty and cruelty of life. Take it seriously. Paul Green

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Rickie Lee Jones: Sermon on Exposition Boulevard

New West Records

Contemporary devotional music is sometimes uplifting but more often cringe worthy. Thankfully this sermon has not produced a typical triad of multiple Halleluiah’s. Based on Lee Cantelon's modern rendering of the words of Christ, RLJ explores her non-secular beliefs. Generally more than other recent releases the music is more organic and at times meanders for a time before finding it’s way. While tracks like Falling Up and Circle in the Sand rock, others are a more challenging listen. Donkey Ride with its “interesting” guitar tuning is typical of the more freestyle approach used throughout the album.

The sound quality of the album and musicianship is typically very good. RLJ has a habit of using top session musicians. The question really is does this album get filed in the strange or great bin. At times you can see the gritty street smarts that gave us the Rickie we know and love and at other times it appears a little eccentric. Personally I think it’s great. Richard Nelson

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Alison Krauss: A Hundred Miles or More - A Collection

Rounder

My fan-ness for Alison Krauss is well documented on these pages and elsewhere. It is the mixture of a wonderfully pure voice, harmony and good old fiddling and picking that adds to my enthusiasm.

This is an overdue compilation that while introducing five new tracks, brings together the side projects Krauss has been involved on into one neat package. Her acappella rendition of Down to the River to Pray from O Brother, Where Art Thou? would have introduced her to many, while others will not have known the voice behind some hauntingly good soundtrack work for that and Cold Mountain. Other tracks have appeared, and sprung from the original releases as very worthwhile, now nicely packaged into a single set.

It is fantastic to have this snapshot of Krauss’ work all in one place on this generously filled CD, a CD that belongs in any collection. Marvellous. Allan McFarlane

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Opshop: Second Hand Planet

Siren Records

It’s been a while coming but finally fans of local band Opshop have some new material to get their teeth into. This is Opshop’s second album and for it they brought in producer Greg Haver who had previously worked with the likes of the Manic Street Preachers, Lost Prophets and Tom Jones!

The band has reduced to a four piece since You Are Here was made and their sound has changed a bit as a result. One thing of note is the increased prominence given to Matt Treacy’s guitar playing, which carries the melody and drives a number of tracks. There are definitely some Edge-like licks on display here, particularly on Helpless and One Thing Worth Preserving (a glorious riff fest which will undoubtedly become a live fave).

Jason Kerrigan’s distinctive and powerful vocals provide plenty of grit and emotion on 11 tracks of primarily guitar-based rock. You’ll already be familiar with Maybe – the first single from the album – which builds in intensity throughout and is a good indicator of the style of the album.

Kerrigan covers a number of subjects in his often ambiguous lyrics. There’s everything from global warming (Noah) to frustration with the press’s tendency not to be very brave in looking at alternatives to the mainstream/official view on things (Cosmonaut’s Boot).

One thing Opshop have always been good at is switching between high octane rock tracks and more contemplative numbers. They don’t disappoint in this regard on this album with the likes of Nothing to Hide and One Day closing the album and ably showcasing the emotional quality of Kerrigan’s vocals.

Good job boys. I’m already looking forward to the shows that will hopefully happen in the next few months. Should be a huge show! Douglas Lang

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Grant Lee Phillips: Strangelet

Magnetic Field Recording/Cooking Vinyl

I’ve been enjoying the work of previous Grant Lee Buffalo front man Grant Lee Phillips for a decade plus now. Guilty of “enjoying the early releases’ syndrome it is pleasing to report that here is a return to form that these ears have found highly listenable and consistently rewarding. Enjoying an almost cult like following there is no doubt that Phillips is a rare beast, a truly gifted and hard working talent.

This is his fifth solo outing and finds him in a more intimate mood than recent work. This works well as lyrically he finds a narrative depth that along with his gift for melody and an unashamed likeness for a sing-along chorus that really does work. Here we have an mistakenly individual voice, one that manages to growl and dive into depths while somehow maintaining a well crafted lyricism, that deserves more exposure than it will receive and therefore is all the better listen for it. Seek and investigate, an intimate well-crafted listen awaits. Allan McFarlane

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Plain White T’s: Every Second Counts

Hollywood Records

Chicago five-piece Plain White T’s make an upbeat sound which reminded me at times of 80’s powerpop (The Knack, The Cars) and the likes of Duran Duran. The band have played support slots for the likes of Jimmy Eat World and AFI so if you’re familiar with the sound these bands make, you’ll know what to expect from Plain White T’s.

This is clean-cut, well executed guitar pop. It’s all catchy, well-sung, and well-played, but for me there’s something missing. I’m not quite sure what it is, but maybe it’s all a bit too clinical and lacking in a bit of emotion and guts for me. I’ve been playing the car on the car stereo, and it works well in that environment.

Many of the songs cover relationships and is aimed at a teenage/early 20s audience. Some of the lyrics leave a little to be desired and seem to be a bit too 6th Form style, for example - ‘Hate is a strong word, but I really really don’t like you’ from Hate – I Really Don’t Like You.

This album won’t change your life, but it’s worth a listen if you like the likes of Jimmy Eat World or AFI and want to explore similar bands. Douglas Lang

The Idan Raichel Project: The Idan Raichel Project

Recorded in 2002, musician Idan Raichel has created an exciting album, which is a fusion of music styles from Israel, Africa and Ethiopia. Recorded from a studio in his parents’ house in Israel, Idan invited musicians to contribute to this project of traditional and modern forms of musical expression.

From the middle eastern tune Mi’ Ma’ amakim (Out of the Depths) to the wonderful African upbeat track Ayal-Ayale (The Handsome Hero) this is truly a world music experience! Favourite tune is the reggae inspired Be’ Yom Shabbat (On Sabbath). Anthony Fong

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Relient K: Five Score and Seven Years Ago

Capitol

I have to confess that I haven’t heard any of Relient K’s four other albums so I can’t offer a view on whether this is better or worse than their previous efforts. What I will say is that this is a highly entertaining and energetic album.

Relient K are one of an increasing number of Christian bands from the US who have crossed over successfully into the mainstream. Having said that, if you didn’t know it, you could miss the Christian element, as the religion isn’t ‘in your face’ obvious. However, once you are aware, you can see how references to ‘you’ in a number of tracks can be interpreted as being about God/Jesus or a girlfriend. For example in The Best Thing they sing:

All my life I’ve been searching for you. How did I survive in this world before you
Cause I don’t want to live another day without you now
This is the best thing, the best thing that could be happening

A simple but effective way to embrace both a Christian and mainstream audience. (Not that I’m suggesting that this is some calculated marketing ploy!)

Musically, Relient K operate in a similar place to the likes of Elemeno P, Green Day, Blink 182 and Good Charlotte. This is guitar driven pop–punk complete with catchy tunes, powerful choruses and tight playing and production.

Stand out tracks are the uplifting Must Have Done Something Right, sing-along I’m Taking You With Me, and Up and Up complete with chant chorus.

The final track, Deathbed is an 11 minute epic which tells the story of someone on their deathbed, dying from lung cancer, reflecting back on their life. It starts with a plaintive piano intro and emotional vocal line…

I can smell the death on the sheets covering me
I can’t believe this is the end
But this is my deathbed
I lie here alone
If I close my eyes tonight
I know I’ll be home

…and finishes with the voice of Jesus. An unexpectedly good way (if a little OTT) to finish a fine album! Douglas Lang

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Richard Swift: Dressed Up For the Letdown

Secretly Canadian

This is the first major label release for Richard Swift – a sometimes romantic, sometimes melancholic artist whose instrument of choice is the piano.

This is an album that grows with each play, slowing getting under your skin. The feel is understated, early 70s but also with a bit of a music hall element to it. Sounds weird huh? Well it’s certainly a unique sound, but a goodie at that. You won’t hear many other albums like this in 2007. The Songs of National Freedom reminded me of Mungo Jerry if that gives you a clue!

Artist and Repertoire is a bit of a caustic commentary on Swift’s difficulty getting record company attention and includes the line ‘Sorry Mr. Swift but you’re much too fat, and could I persuade you just to wear a cap’. Ballad of You Know Who takes a stroll along a piano, strings and keyboard road and asks plaintively ‘My God what have I done?’. Strong stuff.

Swift has a great knack for putting together a good tune and interesting lyrics in a way that allow the listener to find new elements to the music and words on each listen. Million Dollar Baby is a good example – cheery tune, dark lyrics – ‘I wish I was dead most of the time, but I don’t really mean it.’

One that will get repeat plays over coming months – and worth checking out if you’re into the less obvious singer songwriters. Check out Swift’s Myspace page. Douglas Lang

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Otis Taylor: Definition Of A Circle

Telarc

I’d never heard this guy, though I had heard a lot about him. Otis Taylor gets huge praise in the music press for his ‘spooky, hypnotic blues’.

After five or six listens to Definition Of A Circle I’m afraid just don’t get what the fuss is all about. The grooves are samey and the vocal doesn’t get much above average and monotonous. To hear this idea milked to its natural conclusion just check out anything recorded by Howling Wolf. A lot of the tunes are one chord jams. Wolf could pull this off because he had a voice that would rip the wallpaper off the walls. Otis Taylor doesn’t possess anything like that. This CD is full of blues clichés both musical and lyrical.

When he does stray from the one chord jamming we get something like They Wore Blue, a four chord jam with truly awful female backing vocals and simply atrocious guitar and mandolin. It checks in at over seven minutes!?! I guess it’s about Hurricane Katrina because someone says ‘Katrina’ almost all the way through. This is a C-grade Woodstock era jamming. I’ve heard much better in guitar stores and local blues club jam nights.

Overall it’s an album that lacks groove and imagination and tries to make up for it with repetition.

Hypnotic? Yawn. Next. Darren Watson

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Various: Gypsy Groove

Putumayo

Putumayo have done it again! Another top of the shelf groove compilation of world music, this time from Eastern Europe. Think of traditional gypsy music with a slightly faster beat and funky beat and you end up with the sound of Shantel from Germany with their beer drinking track Bucovina. Move to The Czech Republic and Gipsy.cz bring us a hip hop rap Jednou European style!

If you want to know what’s the latest groovy sound in Europe, then check out this album! Favourite track is by Balkan Beat Box (USA/Bulgaria) Sunday Arak. Anthony Fong

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Various: Super 70s One Hit Wonders

EMI

40 one hit wonders?! Oh my God, what have I taken on here? How does one review something like this?

Sure, the seventies produced a lot a great albums and long-term superstars. This album is full of tunes that climbed up the singles charts and failed to translate to long-term success for the artists involved. (Although several characters are still heavily involved in the music industry to this day.)

Wonderful pop productions like The Boomtown Rats I Don’t Like Mondays, Buggles’ Video Killed The Radio Star and Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street, through to woeful nuggets like Walter Murphy’s A Fifth Of Beethoven, this album runs the gamut of styles and tastes. In many cases a total lack of taste.

Worth having just for five or six good tracks? Well, I’d almost pay the admission price to have They’re Coming To Take Me Away.

Hah, hah, hee, hee,
to the funny farm
where life is wonderful all the time… Darren Watson

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The Very Tall Band: What’s Up

Telarc
Oscar Peterson, Ray Brown and Milt Jackson

Universally acknowledged supreme masters of jazz piano, double bass and vibraharp are joined by drummer Karriem Riggins for seven very solid, swinging tunes.

The Very Tall Band title refers to the original session disc featuring these gentlemen which was released in 1999. It also refers to the highly elevated stature these artists will always enjoy in the jazz world.

As a follow up album from the same live sessions at the Blue Note, you might think the producers were just packaging the less desirable pieces. Not here. The mostly blues based titles are all beautifully constructed, tightly executed small masterpieces of jazz interaction and creative artistry.

Sound quality, as expected, from this Telarc recording is excellent with fine instrumental clarity and definition between the Deagan vibes and Bosendorfer piano. Listen to Dizzy Gillespie’s signature tune Salt Peanuts for the simultaneously played melody lead line that gets both these difficult to record “live” instruments perfectly onto this disc. Sonics from the alert and very capable drummer K. Riggins are also ideally balanced with the gorgeous tones of Ray Brown’s double bass. Great liveliness throughout, with just enough audience “feel”.

These gents show with infectious virtuosity how it is supposed to be done. Toe tapping, repeated happy jazz listening guaranteed. John Paul

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Turtle Island Quartet: A Love Supreme – The Legacy of John Coltrane

Telarc

Another bunch of classical musicians trying to get “funky and jazzy”? Thankfully, a very resounding, NO! Not at all!

In discussing categorising, or pigeon holing genres, Coltrane fan Duke Ellington once said “there are just two kinds of music, good and bad”. On this disc, it is very good with what emotionally feels like four jazz horns rather than the actual classical quartet of two violins, viola and cello.

The Turtle Island Quartet has a cello player who plays very good, crisp, propulsive foundation bass lines, and a viola player who understands baritone sax and piano left hand rhythm and harmonies. Two skilled violinists with trumpet and alto or tenor sax harmony and lead improvisation notions make for very interesting jazz licks. Note that all these fine players frequently body tap, string strum, and get sounds from their instruments quite like drum kit, guitar, and other rhythm keeping devices.

They heroically tackle jazz standard Coltrane compositions Moment’s Notice, Naima, Countdown, and the four part Love Supreme suite and do interestingly passionate improvisational and ensemble service to this book. They darkly smoulder on Coltrane’s old partner Thelonious Monk’s ‘Round Midnight with particularly gorgeous harmonising in the final course.

Naturally, there isn’t the fantastic power and tension that came from ‘Trane and drummer Elvin Jones in his original quartet. But some of that is made up for with excellent ensemble arrangements that capture the melodic essence and offer enhanced harmonic re-interpretation of Coltrane’s great music.

Saying this is crossover jazz is incorrect, it is simply very good jazz with interesting and enjoyable novel instrumentation. John Paul

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Neil Young: Live at Massey Hall 1971

Reprise Records

Previously unreleased, Live at Massey Hall presents Neil Young solo with just guitar, piano and microphone. Not even a harmonica spoils the setting. It is a unique look into the genesis of his trademark songs like Old Man and Heart of Gold. Neil Young’s voice has never sounded so good, clean and clear. Live at Massey Hall is a warts and all look at a truly talented new star.

Long before anyone coined the phrase “unplugged”, Neil was doing it. Neil Young sits close to his microphone giving his voice an intimate, in room presence. The size of the venue and crowd are captured by a couple of mics. This is great recording that allows you to hear every nuance of guitar and voice. The simplicity and honesty of the recording shows though. This is Neil Young sitting close and personnel in your lounge. Richard Nelson

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Elina Garanca: Aria Cantilena

Deutsche Grammophon
Elina Garanca (mezzo-soprano); Various guests; Staatsopenchor Dresden; Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Fabio Luisi

Much has been written about the huge talent that is Latvian mezzo-soprano Elina Garanca. For once it all rings true as I make her acquaintance via this release, her first for the golden label. First impressions had me favouring other known performances of the chosen pieces but I am so pleased I have come back to this disc. It really is a “grower” and the subtleties that Garanca finds take a few playing to be revealed.

Selecting “songs from the roles that have already bought her stardom, plus gems from her concert repertoire” makes perfect sense and brings an obvious insight to the pieces to hand not easily given to fresh repertoire.

Blessed with a wonderfully rich and wide-ranging voice, a polished technique that is at times simply breath taking, Garanca is indeed capable of spell binding artistry that makes this an essential listen.

Take for example the Nacqui all’affano from Rossini’s La Cenerentola. Here virtuosity in the extreme is required, while contrasting dynamics and a clear sense of musical shape add so much to the performance.

The highlight for me is the few extracts from Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, where not only the Garan?a is majestic but also the glorious Staatskapelle Dresden is allowed full bloom. A wonderful indulgence, highly recommended. Allan McFarlane

Mendelssohn and Bruch: Violin Concertos

Decca

Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto in E minor, Op.64. Bruch: violin Concerto No.1 in G minor. Op.26; Romance in F major for viola and orchestra, Op.85
Janine Jansen (violin); Gewadhauserorchester conducted by Riccardo Chailly

It is almost de rigueur to boring introduce a new violinist’s concertos recordings with a Four Seasons then a Mendelssohn/Bruch release. Ho Hum. Until you listen sometimes and this is one of those occasions.

Okay, the young (born 1978) Dutch violinist enjoys an enviable reputation in Europe and particularly in her home country where her releases achieve platinum status, and it could be argued that to take on these two major works that have such a length and at times legendary recorded history shows the confidence of Decca’s A&R, and to be fair it nearly works.

The Mendelssohn is first on the CD and it is wholly convincing. Authoritive, well shaped both in overall thought and individual phrasing with a number of detailed points that show a care without vulgar over emphasis. The Bruch is not as convincing given the plethora of excellent renditions cluttering the catalogue, the Romance make a nice addition but will not change your life while the accompaniment and recording do not distract or divert from the main focus of this release.

A monumentally important new release? Hardly. A rewarding listen (and a cheap concert!)? Yes. Allan McFarlane

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The Sixteen and Harry Christophers: Into the Light

Decca
The Sixteen and Harry Christophers featuring Kaori Muraji

I am not quite sure what Decca is up to with this release. My guess is they are trying to recreate the success of the ECM release featuring the Hilliard Ensemble and Jan Garbarek (vocal group and saxophone) with this combination of The Sixteen (vocal group) and Kaori Muraji (guitarist).

Fine though each is in their own right the combination is simply frightful. The glorious accuracy and vocal blending of The Sixteen does not welcome the intrusive plucking of a guitarist no matter how good. And she is very good indeed as we hear on the few solo tracks we are given.

One of those releases where it simply seems that someone walked into the wrong studio at the wrong time. If this is your cup of tea, fine, but I’ll stick to an unblended variety thanks. Allan McFarlane

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