Sara Lowes - Back To Creation

In-demand Mancunian pianist finally gets round to making her own record.

The album title possibly referencing the fact that she's finally got around to making a solo LP, Manchester's Sara Lowes has long been in demand as a musician for hire, having toured and recorded with several name acts including King Creosote, Jim Noir and Micah P. Hinson, along with a long standing association with UK/US folk-psych outfit The Earlies.

Recorded at The Earlies studio, with Christian and Nicky Madden from the band on production duties, the album has a lovely analogue warmth which is sustained over the whole album despite all the changes of mood and style.

Having been schooled in classical music from an early age, and coming from a family of accomplished classical musicians, Lowes' skill as a pianist is apparent from the off; title track “Back To Creation” opening with searching piano chords and a vocal harmony wash before getting into it's Ben Folds style pop stride. It later offers a stylistic nod to Geno-era Dexy's Midnight Runners (always a good thing in this reviewer's book). 

Click over the jump for more on Back To Creation.

The Leisure Society - Into The Murky Water

Joyously kaleidoscopic 2^nd album from the UK's top indie-folk collective.

The Leisure Society return with their follow up to 2009's The Sleeper. It sees them build on the sound of the first album, and the demos and B-sides collection A Product Of The Ego Drain.

The album opens with the title track “Into The Murky Water”. A few bars of portentous drum fills and marimba riffs give way to a sound which can only be described as Vaughan Williams challenging Jethro Tull to a musical version of the game Twister. Like many of the nine songs that follow it contains a chorus that will get under your skin like a tattoo. If we still had milkmen in this country no doubt they'd be whistling it.

It's a very English sounding record, with plenty of strings and folksy arrangements but there's also an American West Coast thing going on with some of the backing, most similar to Arthur Lee's Love. (Love's track “Alone Again Or” actually gets a mention at one point.) And “You Could Keep Me Talking” sounds like Jethro Tull's “Living In The Past” (them again!) covered by the Beach Boys.

Click over the jump for more on Into The Murky Water.

Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Soul Time!

Taut funk grooves, and soulful social commentary from the world's greatest contemporary soul band.

The soul powerhouse that is Daptone Records is the closest thing we have to a modern day Motown or Stax Records. Continuously putting out great singles and albums that hark back to the classic soul and funk era of the 60's and 70's while satisfying a thoroughly modern desire for something authentic, human and emotional. They stand as a beacon of hope in the avalanche of plasticity that is modern day conveyor belt pop. Soul time indeed.

The Dap-Kings of course are well known for having been Amy Winehouse's backing band of choice. So if you're not familiar with the records they've made with Sharon Jones, chances are you'll have heard them on Back To Black or Rehab. It's backing Sharon Jones however where it all slots into place. Like Aretha Franklin she possesses a voice that commands and demands respect, along with the ability and emotional range to sing dance-floor shakers, vulnerable ballads, and social protest anthems. All of which take their place on their latest platter.

Click over the jump for more on Soul Time!

Butch Walker And The Black Widows - The Spade

Life's a blast! Top US producer step out of the control room for latest album of scorching rock-pop.

Producer of choice for Weezer, Pink, Fall Out Boy and Avril Lavigne among others, Butch Walker proves with his latest record that his songwriting skills are also up there with best of them. The Spade is a ten-song blast of feelgood rock, full of good humoured observations about being middle aged but still rocking. There's also some telling recollections from his (partly misspent) youth, with references to Bryan Adams, Duran Duran, Iron Maiden, and bizarrely Frank Poncherello. The songs are interspersed with snippets of studio banter, and contain lyrics which show Walker as being as good with words as he is with melodies. A good story teller like Walker is not the only raconteur on the album, his friend Patrick Keeler (Yes he of The Raconteurs and The Greenhornes) is on kick-ass form on drums throughout.

There's no pushing of musical boundaries, the songs all being in the mould of classic American guitar rock but they're catchy as hell and literally jump out the speakers at you. Listening to the album is like meeting up with a valued and jovial friend down your local pub, it's familiar but at the same time fun and you know there'll be new stories, laughs aplenty, and you need its rejuvenating effects.

Click here for Butch Walker's website.

Click over the jump for a video of the track "Synthesizers".

Richmond Fontaine - The High Country

A novel idea. Portland, Oregon four-piece release dramatic song-cycle for their tenth studio album.

We're constantly hearing about the death of the album as an art form, or about how people's attention spans are somehow shorter due to the prevalence of shuffle culture. Reassuring then to be presented with an album that demands to be listened to from start to finish. For their tenth studio album Richmond Fontaine have opted to make a song-novel. Part love story, part mystery, part thriller, the tale is set among a remote rural logging community in Oregon. The main characters are a young woman trapped in a loveless marriage and dead-end job at an auto-parts store, and a mechanic who returns to the area to look after his ailing father. The pair fall in love and conspire to leave and find a better lives for themselves. Nothing is ever going to be so simple though as other characters enter the tale, including speed addicted ex-army psychotic and a drug dealing bar owner. 

Click over the jump for more on The High Country.

J Mascis - Several Shades Of Why

Debut solo album from Dinosaur Jr. noisenik.

J. Mascis is that rarest of creatures, a prolific slacker. Best known for his sonic assaults in bands Deep Wound, J. Mascis & The Fog, Witch, the criminally overlooked Sweetapple, and of course Dinosaur Jr. The perennially long haired Mascis has finally got round to releasing his solo debut album.

Back in the late 80's before grunge went overground, indie guitar music was subject to hollow bodied guitar snobbery, I'm thinking of Orange Juice, The Smiths, Everything But The Girl et al. Until the likes of Teenage Fanclub and Dinosaur Jr broke through with their Jazzmasters and Jaguars and dragged indie out of the sixth form common rooms and back onto the streets. (OK, that may be slightly revisionist but you get my drift).

Click over the jump for more on Several Shades Of Why plus the video for Is It Done.

Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire De Melody Nelson - 40th Anniversary

One for the hipsters. In depth re-issue of Serge's greatest LP.

You have to hand it to the French. As a nation they know how to “do cool”. And Serge Gainsbourg did it better than most. With a genre-straddling career over 4 decades, his status as a national treasure was assured via his genuinely controversial and provocative lyrics and music. It's difficult to imagine a UK artist generating a similar amount of admiration and love were they to release records dealing with incest, under-age sex, nazis, along with dub-reggae versions of the national anthem. His funeral in 1991 brought a shocked Paris to a standstill. It's a shame then that the world's most famous Gauloises smoker is almost as well known over here for what he said to Whitney Houston on a French chat show. Doubtless though the quality of his music which will win out over time, and where better to start than what's often cited as his greatest album, Histoire de Melody Nelson, now being re-issued with added bonus material 40 years after it's initial release.

Click over the jump for more on Histoire De Melody Nelson.

Various - The Spar Records Story - Nashville's Great Unsung Indie Label

3 x CD treasure trove of under-the-radar 60's pop, soul, country, doo-wop, R&B, ballads and all points between.

Just when you think you have the sixties sussed, and feel that there's no musical stone left unturned, that every release has been pored over a million times, a compilation appears that shows just how rich the pickings of that decade are.

Spar Records was set up in Nashville in 1961 and became most famous for being a “sound-alike” label, releasing cut-price cover version records of the hits of the day on their Giant Records imprint, and distributing them through outlets that didn't normally stock records. The irony was that many of those recordings were as strong as the original versions, in some cases better. In fact if the original version was recorded in Nashville, it was highly likely that the same session musicians would end up playing on the sound-alike version. Musicians playing on this compilation also played on big hit records by the likes of Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, The Monkees, George Jones, Linda Ronstadt, Neil Young and Johnny Cash among others.

Click over the jump for more on Spar Records

Grey Reverend - Of The Days

 

Alternate tunings ahoy! Beautiful, timeless, exploratory folk from sometime member of The Cinematic Orchestra.

Brooklyn based musician L.D. Brown (Aka Grey Reverend) was born and raised in Philadelphia and grew up on a musical diet of jazz, blues and late 80's indie bands such as Dinosaur Jr. and My Bloody Valentine. After first taking up the saxophone Brown later switched to the guitar, and learnt his craft in a succession of Philadelphia bands as well as immersing himself in music theory and jazz improvisation.

Brown relocated to New York in 2006 and began playing solo gigs at various venues around the city. One of the venues in which he plied his trade was a coffee shop run by his sister. Fortunately for Brown the shop was frequented by Jason Swincombe, leader of British electronic jazz outfit The Cinematic Orchestra. After being suitably impressed by Brown's sparse, low-key folkish songs, Swincombe commissioned a cover of his band's song “To Build A Home”. This in turn led to Brown singing with the group on tour as well support slots performing his own material.

Four years on from that first meeting Brown is ready to release his first album on Swincombe's Motion Audio label. Predominately solo performed with just an acoustic guitar, though a plaintive harmonica appears on “Forsake”. 

Click over the jump for more on Grey Reverend's Of The Days.

Nitin Sawhney - Last Days Of Meaning

Ninth studio album from award winning composer, DJ, social commentator and national treasure.

It seems there's not much Nitin Sawhney can't do. And what he does do, he does very well. Never one to shy away from big themes, for his latest studio album he subtly explores the prejudice and embittered viewpoint of fictional character Donald Meaning via 11 songs interspersed with spoken word passages from Meaning, expertly played by Sawhney's friend, the actor John Hurt. (The pair met as a result of Hurt narrating for Human Planet, the BBC series scored by Sawhney).

The music ranges from the bluesy soul of “The Devil And Midnight”, complete with vocal from Yolanda Quartey to the sadly reflective “I'm Done” featuring Hannah Peel. It's the raga influenced music featuring Indian instrumentation where the album truly shines, as on the virtuoso sitar and groove of “Kite” and the mournful flute of “Daydream”.

Meaning is presented as a fully rounded person, embittered though not without likeability and redeeming characteristics. It's a timely and much needed reminder that understanding and common human ground is an area we need to explore rather than blaming scapegoats. A fine and thoughtful album, sadly in danger in being drowned out by rhetoric from all points on the political spectrum. 

Click here for Nitin Sawhney's official website.