• Home
• Forums
• Archives
• Dealers
• About

September music reviews

Buddy and Julie Miller: Written in Chalk

New West Records

This is the kind of package that reminds me why we bother. Great booklet, lyrics with some depth, tidy production and a sum that exceeds expectation. Buddy and Julie Miller are alt-country heroes that happen to be husband and wife, are back in the studio together after an eight year hiatus produce three different sounds on the one release. Hers, his and theirs to sum it up. The nasal vocals of both are tempered with a few guests – Patty Griffin. Emmylou Harris and Robert Plant though their contribution is minimal and frankly the Plant track is not the reason to buy this. The song-writing itself is delivered with convincing belief which takes us past the banal, while the tracks they really hum on are where they share the light in equal measure. Take the final track The Selfishness of Man as a great example and you will hear why this album is one of those “growers” that while not world changing certainly enhances our stay. Keep the stereo for another week and seek this out. Allan McFarlane

Paolo Nutini: Sunny Side Up

Atlantic

A ska-raggae opener but first impressions end there. We’re kept on our toes with a constant change of genre on this very busy album.

Coming up easy and Tricks of the trade draw you into the folk era of Dylan, as does one of the shortest tracks, Chamber music. This is a great acoustic track, combining the penny-whistling of Gaelic folk music with Dylan-type lyrics. In his pursuit of multi-genre music, he could have been mistaken for a Motown crooner when he lunges into No other way and for good measure, a calypso-style My hopes are high followed by a honky-tonk ragtime Pencil full of lead, to ensure he covers all audiences. A constant change of genre nearly every new track, makes it difficult to pin down the mood of this album; you’re not sure whether you’re coming or going.

Sadly, Paolo’s magnetic husky voice has been toned down and overridden by instruments throughout the album. Sunny Side Up with its assorted styles is a muddle of tunes. Furthermore, the album ends in a disappointing morose down beat mood so there’s a struggle to like the album. Patricia Evans

Mark Olsen and Gary Louris: Ready for the Flood

New West Records

Hailing from the ‘90s alt-country band The Jayhawks, Mark Olsen and Gary Louris have long been credited with helping to bring Americana to the great mass of mainstream America. Personally I’m sure there was always a following with the labelling of genres only helping to confuse and alienate. Is there really a huge gulf between The Jayhawks and say the Eagles? Having said that it is probably a lot more fun being top of an Americana chart than 98 on Pop/Rock chart. It also gives credence to a radio station playlist that wants to avoid both Kenny Rogers and/or anything with a hint of rap/hip-hop.

So while it is apparently some fourteen years since these two collaborated on Jayhawks tunes, primarily on the excellent Hollywood Town Hall, it has taken until now for them to reunite and combine their obscenely well matched voices into a new set of tunes. The excellent tracks are truly wonderful, while some will out twee their stay all too soon. Harmonically they remain as well matched as ever, guitar wise name your hero without moving to the virtuoso jazz freak and you’ll get the idea. Simple songs, well crafted, a message or two, good harmonies, though not too complicated which you will see as either good or bad. Perhaps too “nice” for some, certainly missing the edge of the full band of days gone by, but a welcome listen none-the-less. Allan McFarlane

Boh Runga: Right Here

Universal

Music that’s too often begging to be pared back. With two of her LA backing men also claiming the critical territory of production, arranging and mixing, the Boh vocal performance we’ve come to know is repeatedly swamped by a tide of too much intrusive guitar and over-stated percussion. Choruses are particularly vulnerable to this emphasis overload approach, but the verses too get it in the neck in most of the songs. Ultimately, you just want the plugs pulled out.

Left with the woman and not much more than her guitar, we’d have space to appreciate the lyrics – which usually offer a plausible enough weave of idiomatic home truths (“You’re out there on your own/Collecting memories to bring back”), but which can also stumble clumsily (“The sky tells the earth there could never be another/And the earth smiles cos she knows she speaks the truth”). Aligning that lovely voice with more astute studio personnel will hopefully be part of the terms of the lady’s return to New Zealand. Paul Green

Simon & Garfunkel: Live 1969

Sony Legacy

Before the release of Bridge Over Troubled Water, their final studio album, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel went out on the road touring around America. Several of the performances were taped for a future album release, shelved when the duo broke up. But the future is now, as excerpts from these recordings are here as Live 1969.

The Bridge recordings were in the can, but this tour was the first time that the audience heard these now well-known songs. It seems weird now that the beginning of Bridge Over Troubled Water is not drowned out in applause, as it would be from now on.

Accompanied by a four-piece band of seriously good but understated studio musician, Simon and Garfunkel traverse through their entire catalogue. The performances and sound quality are both excellent. Michael Jones

Patrick Watson: Wooden Arms

Secret City Records

You’ll probably respond with ambivalence and write off further exploration if brighter compact songs of orthodox structure are generally your favoured choice. Patrick Watson seems dedicated to articulating more ephemeral and confounding aspects of living, and in pursuit of the elusive his work has drawn criticism for being sometimes disjointed and indulgently fragmented.

But there’s a character in this eschewing of convention that is inventive and disarming. With a marvelously versatile vocal range (encompassing Devendra Banhart-style giddiness, the musing of Nick Drake, or Coldplay angelic angst) and detailed passages of instrumentation that interlock with enterprising counterpoint, there’s rarely any drift or over-dramatisation. Instead, referencing iconic influences, we are spun along – in Beijing by insistent piano arpeggios reminiscent of Phillip Glass alternated with haywire percussive interludes, in Wooden Arms by plucked then bowed cellos and a his and hers duet that shimmers ruefully a la Leonard Cohen, and in the reeling Traveling Salesman by vaudeville horns and discordant lead guitar redolent of a burly Tom Waits ballad.

There’s constant adjustment of pace and rhythm, of mood and texture. And as we dip and twist from crescendo to diminuendo, through phrases that are never over-worked, there’s a real feel here for those seams of consonance and dissonance that underpin us all. Paul Green

Repin plays Brahms

Deutsche Grammophon
Brahms: Violin Concerto in D, Op.77; Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, Op.102. Vadim Repin (violin), Truls Mörk (cello), Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Riccardo Chailly

The Russian violinist Vadim Repin is often billed as the greatest violinist of his generation. Having not warmed to his Beethoven I’m pleased to report that here we are on much more suitable ground. Here is a true romantic violinist in full flight. This is as close to the legendary Heiftz performance as I have encountered, with the added benefit of 21st century technology. Big toned, full vibrato risk taking yet with gloriously accurate playing that the All Blacks can currently only dream about. Indulge urgently. This is great fun. Allan McFarlane