Toni Tubna with The Stockholm Tuba Sect - When The Magic Went Wrong

Alter egos and warped tales. Papernut Cambridge leader gets conceptual.

If the mention of concept albums makes you think of long-haired, serious-minded musicians and gatefold LPs featuring sleeve art by Roger Dean, then you're living in the '70s man. Time for a re-think as the concept album is alive and well. Papernut Cambridge's Ian Button has recently released this fine album featuring a set of songs about fictional magician Toni Tubna. (Anagram fans will no doubt work out how Ian arrived at the character's name.)

It all goes back to a running joke that Ian shared with bandmates in The Catenary Wires, about him having a past life as a magician. Over time and and a series of emails back and forth Ian wrote a number of short stories about his spell as a conjuror. Whether that spell was real or imagined matters not as the resulting songs are sure to put a smile on your face.

They're now available on a CD which comes with a mini book containing the stories. Alongside these stories are illustrations by Fay Hallam. All in all quite an immersive multi-format package, one that evokes warped nostalgia and faded seaside glamour – think summer seasons, end of the pier variety shows, old music hall tunes, and that fondness for eccentrics and doomed endeavours that's somehow ingrained in the English psyche.

Anyone familiar with the mighty Papernut Cambridge will know they're in safe hands. Button's melodic and vocal gifts are showcased over a variety of musical styles, be it 'The New Assistant' with its tango feel, or 'The Painting' which comes across as a melancholic English folk song. It's the stories that drive the album however. Be prepared for tales of dubious morals, seedy undertakings, a smidgeon of Shakespeare and encounters with a whole host of supporting characters including, bizarrely, the mayor of Bridlington.

Give it a go, there's nothing else quite like it around at the moment. As Tubna/Button sings on the album's opening and closing songs “It probably never even happened”. Possibly not, but imagining that it did is entertainment enough.

 

 

Click here for Tony Tubna on Twitter

Click here for Stockholm Tuba Sect on Twitter

Click here for Gare Du Nord Records

 

Magnus Carlson - A Nordic Soul

(This review first appeared in issue #84 of Shindig! magazine.)

Carlson has been a big star for over two decades in his native Sweden, firstly as a founder member of indie rockers Weeping Willows and latterly via several collaborations and a successful solo career. This is his first full-length solo outing in the UK and focuses on his deep love of northern soul. Recorded in part by long-time Paul Weller associate Andy Lewis at the Modfather's Black Barn Studio, it's stacked with uptempo dance-floor fillers, all taut grooves, punchy horns and melancholic high strings. With any justice it will bring Carlson the wider audience he deserves.

If side one is about being on the floor shaking some talc, side two broadens out into more of a comedown feel, most successfully on the lush orchestral ballad 'Broken Promise Land', which features backing from Carlson's Weeping Willows band-mates. Medway modernists will also be pleased by guest appearance of Fay Hallam on 'Now That It's Over'.

Fay Hallam - House of Now

(This review first appeared in issue 60 of Shindig! magazine.)

Well Suspect CD / LP

Aided by acid-jazz supremo Andy Lewis (Pimlico, Paul Weller etc.) in the producer's chair, Hallam's latest album holds on to her modernist Hammond-groove roots but reaches new conceptual heights. Thirteen tracks, loosely held together by themes of spirituality and an unspoken religiosity, they sound like they belong to a early '70s counterculture inspired musical. Hallam and her assembled band are on killer form with a sound that's somewhere between Julie Driscoll's psych-infused R&B and the big-hearted orchestral soul of Marta Kubišová. The Medway modette still has it.

Further sonic territory is explored via the spacey soul-searching of 'Fragment', the Robert Kirby style strings on 'Heart Cries Out' and the lover's lament of 'Colours'. Though for the most part finger-snapping soul beats brush up against Latino-funk on an album that exudes both cool sophistication and an exuberance that pushes you towards the nearest dancefloor. All that and fuzz-guitar breaks! What more could you want?!