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August music reviews

Eric Bibb: An Evening with Eric Bibb

MC Records

If you don’t yet know Eric Bibb then I wonder where you have been for the last decade. He is simplest the warmest most accessible modern exponent of original blues. What we have here is a beautifully captured night at the Sydney Basement nightclub that is intimate and varied.

The night flows from the sensitive Needed Time through the familiar Lonesome Valley to the foot tapping Don’t Ever Let Your Spirit Down. He is never far from his gospel roots and with music like this in my childhood I wonder if I would still be at the Mt. Roskill Chapel, but then again, they did preach an awful lot, which is not a feeling that you get with Eric Bibb. Even when he gets stuck into the politicians in Got to Do Better you get the impression that he is speaking for us all, not at us. He does keep things light however. Who else could make a delightful song simply out of the process of breaking in a Panama Hat, which on a deeper level is about patience and appreciating his lover who cannot be with him.

One is left with the impression of having spent the evening with a modest, insightful and thoroughly nice guy. It is like making a new friend. Go introduce yourself. John Groom

Crooked Still: Still Crooked

Signature/Ode

Labelled as dark-folk and alternative bluegrass, this is the third album from the Boston string band who offer atmospheric traditional songs with a masterfully muted dynamism. Lyrics about being lonesome or betrayed, about graveyard revenge or a lover lost through drowning, are intoned with an elegant earnestness that spirits their themes out of the American traditional country landscape into a contemporary context; what our forebears learned about “wading deep waters” can still clearly teach us a lesson or two.

And the platform for the message is a wonderfully woven combination of precision-picked banjo and soulful fiddle, accented with baritone ukulele and tenor guitar and given robust breadth by the double bass and cello. This is music that evades the ‘parent’ genre inclination towards the prim and maudlin. The tones are wry, elusive and whimsical – and really quite irresistible. Paul Green

Toumani Diabate: The Mande Variations

World Circuit Records

Getting used to world music is not always a matter love at first hearing. I must admit that when I first heard Toumani playing with his mate Ali on their early recordings the word that came to mind was “relentless” though this did soften with further exposure to “nice dinner music”. Then a music loving and very green member of the family bought us a copy of the duos In the heart of the moon. This was more like it. Still not a demanding and fulfilling hi-fi experience, but the recording has often provided a background listen that is a delightful mixture of relaxation and fun.

The Mande Variations however is a different kettle of fish. It is a solo recital from Toumani without accompaniment or overdubs. The recording is sparklingly clear and present and the music vibrant varied and up lifting. He plays the Kora, a kind of African harp. If the word harp for you means lightweight distant and classical, then forget it. These are powerful improvised pieces and what we would call jazz. The instrument is closer to the western harp known as the double strung harp, which while technically difficult gives a full satisfying sound that is tonally rich. I am learning to play the double strung harp at present and this recording leaves me overwhelmed, delighted and inspired. I think it is the beginning of a new love affair. John Groom

Elemeno P: Elemeno P

Universal Music NZ

Although it has an eponymous title, this is actually the third studio release from Auckland’s (North Shore) favourite cheeky pop/punk/rock exponents, Elemeno P.

Always one of my favourite live acts, I’m pleased to report that the album goes a long way to capturing the energy and ‘joie de vivre’ that is associated with their gigs. Any of you who managed to catch them over the summer will have heard a number of the tracks on the album as they were showcased in those gigs.

There is a bit more light and shade on this album compared with their first couple of releases – signs of a more grown up and confident band?

The catchy first single Baby Come On will be familiar to all (especially now it’s been featured in Telecom’s YouTube style TV advert). Other stand outs are the slower paced Anna Don’t Let Go (about the concerns and uncertainty of being a teenager); the shout along gypsy like jig that is Louder Louder (sure to get the crowd going mad at future gigs) and album opener Beverley Laurel.

The album closes with the down beat Some Things which seems to be about the end to a relationship and is a fitting close to a well executed, mature, and honest piece of local art.

Nice work! Douglas Lang

John Hiatt: Same Old Man

New West

John Hiatt is an immensely gifted songwriter. His recording career, which spans well over thirty years, has been patchy at best, with 1987’s Bring The Family probably his best known and strongest work to date. His acoustic album from 2000 Crossing Muddy Waters is also worth checking out. Interestingly enough it revisits some of the same themes as Family…

Same Old Man marks his debut for New West Records and they seem to have let him make this one on his own terms. It’s self-produced without the label interference that has dogged his record output up to now… sounds like a good idea in principle, huh? Unfortunately it doesn’t work and if it’s not short on interesting material, Same Old Man really suffers from a chronic lack of production values. The vocal sound in particular is grating over the length of the CD and makes it hard to appreciate the at times hilarious lyrics and delightful melodic twists inside. The playing is rough and ready, and not in that good way that made Bring The Family come to life.

To my ears these recordings are really good demos for an album… it’s not a good record but hey, anyone who can write lines like “they were smoking something in the audience that night smelled exactly like cat pee”, can’t be all bad? I think this guy is aching for the Rick Rubin treatment. Darren Watson

James Hunter: The Hard Way

Hear Music/Universal

Deep soul singer and guitarist James Hunter is back with his first album since his 2006 breakthrough People Gonna Talk. In his previous album, Hunter sounded like he had teleported straight from the 1960s – the title track could have been a lost Sam Cooke classic. With The Hard Way Hunter continues the theme with a few updates.

Recorded in analog – very rare these days – at the delightfully named Toe Rag Studios in London, The Hard Way builds on the success of his earlier album. Showcased is Hunter’s amazing soul voice, with a little bit of Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson, but still unambiguously his own voice.

The arrangements are with Hunter’s basic band – tenor and baritone sax, double bass, organ, drums and Hunter’s own guitar – with some additions from Allen Toussaint’s piano, a vibraphone and small string section.

The results are extraordinary. Every single person who I’ve played this and Hunter’s previous album to has wanted to buy a copy. You will too, just as soon as you hear it. Michael Jones

Cyndi Lauper: Bring Ya to The Brink

Epic/Sony BMG

Cyndi does a Madonna/Britney - only better!

Bring Ya to The Brink is Lauper’s first collection of original material for a while, and it’s a gem. Very much dance- based it brings together Lauper’s production talents with those of a number of the current top dance producers (including the likes of Basement Jaxx and Scumfrog).

There is a real mix of dance styles on show here from the opening High and Mighty which melts into the hook-laden Into the Nightlife – both of which sound very ‘now’.

As a contrast, there is a bit of a Lisa Stansfield feel to the vocals on tracks like Lyfe and Raging Storm. Echo begins with some industrial sounding synth before it breaks into a gorgeous chorus. Same Ol’ Story is a personal favourite courtesy of the 70s sounding production (very Donna Summer/Georgio Moroder) and the hook. The album closes with the slightly slower paced Rain on Me, which is beautifully sung and a great end to the album.

There’s not a bad track on the album, which is consistently strong throughout. It’s also varied enough to suggest that it’ll stand up over a period of time too. The album is mixed in a way that tracks tend to run into each other – perfect to keep the punters on the house party dance floor. Expect to hear a lot more of Cyndi once the weather heats up. A summer special! Douglas Lang

James McMurtry: Just Us Kids

Lightning Rod Records

It seems to fashionable to complain about the political content of this new James McMurtry offering. I don’t quite get why as I can honestly say I hardly noticed and secondly as a songwiter he has never been afraid of telling it as he sees it. As one commentator said “how many right-wing singer songwriters do you know?”

Just us Kids is a collection of well-crafted songs, self-produced by McMurty. You are left in no doubt that here you have a man at the peak of his considerable skills overseeing his finest release since the landmark Too Long in the Wasteland.

Fire Line Road and Ruby and Carlos are two stand out tracks. One takes on a tale of child abuse while the other touches on the aging of us all and the journey we are on. McMurtry also doesn’t miss an opportunity to rock with tracks like Bayou Tortous making a punchy impact. Americana fans should investigate with haste. Allan McFarlane

Madonna: Hard Candy

Warner Bros

That Madonna and her promotional strategists still regard the persona of Queen Paramour as the prime route to sustaining fortune and fame is made explicitly clear with the axis of crotch, cleavage and salacious mouth which accosts the viewer of this cd cover.

And a loose listen to the lyrics confirms that trumpeting the strumpet within is what it’s largely all about. The opening song gets no further than the crude metaphor of “my sugar is raw/I got candy galore/you’ll be begging for more” – adorned with a repeated gushing promise that she is “sticky and sweet”, in case you hadn’t caught her suggestive drift. Elsewhere on the album, it’s a similar unsubtle signal: “Give it to me – yeah/I can go on and on and on”, or (insincerely asserted) “Sex with you is – Incredible”. It all comes with the accompaniment of grizzling sleazy synthesizer jingles plus automated orgasmic utterances, and it’s generally bereft of further meaning.

Only in Miles Away, a sombre reflection on a love that works when it’s long-distance rather than face-to-face, does Madonna sound emotional and elegant and like she’s got something to say.

Pre-eminently, a vain duty production. Paul Green

Donna Summer: Crayons

Burgundy

Fifty-nine year old disco diva makes accomplished compulsive come-back album – an absolute ace-up-the-sleeve for party-host djs with its driving dance rhythms, textural richness and, soaring and sweeping through it all, Donna’s regal soulful voice. Engineered to fizz with impact and purpose (open yourself up and move – now!), these songs have a delicious immediacy and verve, and a promise that they can hold you indefinitely in their mesmerising grasp.

This is mostly disco power music: lithe and taut instrumentation, anthemic swell, expansive hesitations before a chorus chant floods back through, sassy, irresistible. Yet it’s not all relentless step-up action, with the lady delivering sincerely alongside an acoustic guitar in Sand On My Feet, mixing it with country blues mouth harp in Slide Over Backwards, and handling the slow and stagy introspection of Be Myself Again with a mercifully minimal quotient of cheesy grandiosity. Just about everywhere you go here, La Donna is a marvel – determined, vital and reaching deep. Joyous. Paul Green

Otis Taylor: Recapturing the Banjo

Telarc Blues

Now here’s something as compelling as it is different. Otis Tayor is joined by some banjo plucking /guitar strumming mates – look at this line up carefully before you diss anything with the word banjo in the title – Guy Davis, Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Keb’ Mo’, Otis Taylor and Don Yappie. Whoa.

What has captivated me about this release is that while the prominence of the banjo is obvious the different settings and arrangements these guys find to showcase their artistry is surprisingly diverse. Electric guitar solos over-laden with blues harmonica and the ever present pluck of a banjo. Certainly the blues is all prevailing, a hint of bluegrass is totally unavoidable but the presence of a cornet and traditional French tunes comes as a delightful surprise. And that’s the word really, this is delightful surprise, truly unexpectedly successful. Well worth tracking down. Allan McFarlane

The Ting Tings: We Started Nothing

Sony BMG

A two piece from Salford (male drummer; female singer) in the UK – I’m confident that, even if you don’t think you have, that you will have heard the Ting Tings already. Their single That’s Not My Name has been getting a lot of airplay on mainstream as well as the more alternative stations. If you’ve not heard this then you will definitely have heard Shut Up and Let Me Go which Apple have been using for the latest iPod TV ad.

So the sound is stripped back electronica/pop/new wave with a big of a dance feel to it. Much of the album reminds you of something else that you can’t quite pin down. It’s pretty inoffensive and instant. However, like bubblegum I have a feeling the taste will wear a little thin over time, but for the time-being it’s still fruity and fresh.

The previously mentioned ShutUp and Let Me Go is funky and fresh and will get you dancing round your living room. At times I was reminded of Blondie (Be the One) and of The Photos (Keep Your Head) - a much underrated band from Birmingham from the 80s.

The other bands currently playing in a similar sand pit are CSS and The New Young Pony Club – dance based electronica and female vocals, so if you like either of these bands you may well like the Ting Tings.

In summary, likeable and inoffensive, but may start to annoy after a while! Douglas Lang

Various: Verve Remixed 4

Verve

Remixed, rearranged, reprogrammed, re-engineered, reproduced – ad infinitum from the inexhaustible Verve back catalogue. Some work: a swinging Nina Simone Gimme Some; the Cinematic Orchestra take on Ella singing I Get A Kick Out Of You. Some struggle: the laboured James Brown There Was A Time; a directionless and bland Bim Bom which is unlikely to enhance Astrud Gilberto’s credibility on the electro-dance circuit. By and large, it’s hard to escape the sense of gratuitous software indulgence in the bowels of Verve HQ – execs and engineers locked in re-cycle mode, hunting the ultimate ‘cool’ re-capture (and big buck back-pat). No problem with this if you feel that those steering the re-construction have invested heart and heat in the task, but too many of these erstwhile gems are bogged down in churn-’em-out soullessness, and idling cold rather than inspiring cool. Paul Green

Mozart: Requiem

LSO Live
Marie Arnet (soprano); Anna Stéphany (mezzo soprano); Andrew Kennedy (tenor); Darren Jeffery (bass); London Symphony Chorus; London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis.

This is a classic example of issues that should not see the light of day. Just because the LSO has its own label and clearly the live performances to record doesn’t mean that a permanent record is always justified. Here we have a chorus with some quirky mannerisms, details of intonation and ensemble that would not have passed go in a studio setting and soloists that at best could be described as adequate. If you must have “big band” Mozart look elsewhere. Allan McFarlane