Starring
Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham, Andy Bell and Masal, Hayden Thorpe, Honeyglaze, Lylo, The Peter Cat Recording Co, Villagers
The Front Runners
Ness : Hayden Thorpe
This album is a hymn to nature and a stunning realisation of Thorpe’s feelings for the natural world. It’s a very different listening experience, a mix of classical, jazz and spiritual folk that grows beyond all those influences.
Hayden Thorpe grew up in the Lake District and that’s helped to make him the musician that he’s become. He has connected with walking and nature writer Robert Macfarlane who is credited on the cover with ‘Words’.
‘Ness’ is an album that totally immerses you in nature so that you see and feel it from within. In the midst of this, when you listen to one of the more conventional songs, say ‘They’, it feels as if you are coming up for air. The songs seem inspired by the rhythms of nature, and the sense of awe, love and wonder triggered by that.
The words are as important as the music, These songs are prose set to music as well as poetry. ‘It’ sounds as if the words are sung from the page and made to fit. It’s not as awkward as that sounds and it brings echoes of religious ceremonies into the music, perhaps a mass sung in Latin. They’re recited as much as spoken or sung, incantatory in their power.
The woodwind that features across the album is gorgeous. It’s like dripping water or creaking branches and, more than anything, it triggers the sense of bucolic joy that infuses the songs. It also brings the rhythm of a natural dance to songs like ‘V’ and ‘In The Green Chapel’.
There is an inescapable feeling that Thorpe has found, and wants to communicate, something spiritual in nature. His vocals feel as if they have seen wonder and splendour and are filled with awe. He makes the natural world seem strange. There are moments in ‘WTF Is That?’ and ‘Song of the Bomb’ that are darker and put you on your guard but they’re reminders of how nature can change, not the main story.
This is a welcoming and relaxing visit to a strange but wonderful place that’s all around us.
Taster Track : In The Green Chapel
That Golden Time : Villagers.
One word - gorgeous.
This album is the work of a man who’s been let down too many times by governments, friends and other people. He can reflect on what’s happened and it disappoints him, but he can’t see behind the curtain of the future and that worries him.
It means that the times have chimed with his strengths and uncertainties, and that means that he’s accepted an open goal to score a wonderful album.
On recent albums he’s grown into something more lavish. He could never drop his gift for golden melodies but they’ve been prominent in the mix, less the mainn reason for listening. That’s not the case here. ‘Truly Alone’ which opens the album is almost totally exquisite melody. ‘First Responder 'grows and flourishes with a melody that leads you into the fuller, lusher sounds of recent work, stays with you and leads you safely out the other side. And that’s the pattern of the whole album.
This is intimate, heartfelt pop. It’s full of delicate guitar, beautifully arranged strings and simple melodies to die for. It’s all I want and need from pop. His gift for vulnerable, faintly complaining, melancholy vocals holds strong. At times this is as close as he has ever come to collapsed heartbreak. Sad and melancholy it may be, but it avoids darkness and gloom.
The big productions are still there when they’re needed. ‘That Golden Time’ takes in the bigger picturethat Ireland’s lost opportunities require. ‘No Drama’ is the one track that builds fully from a song into a full blown production. The melody of ‘Keepsake’ keeps it afloat in a turbulent, electronic sea.
I started with one word, I’ll finish with three - his best yet.
Taster Track : First Responder
The Chasing Pack
Tidal Love Numbers : Andy Bell, Masal
Andy Bell’s band is shoegaze rock outfit Ride and his alter ego is electronic auteur Glok. Masal are a psychedelic mix of Turkish and Western music. Together they’ve made an album that Andy Bell rightly describes as night time music.
More than most, this is an album that you have to be receptive to. Listen to it with your eyes closed. Trust that it will take you to safe spaces. Don’t look for a hummable tune, wait for the feeling of perfect tranquility. If you’re lucky it will transport you away from stress and towards a restorative tranquil state.
You will find all that in their 15 minute opener ‘Murmuration of Warm Dappled Light on her Back After Swimming’. It shifts, swirls and evolves, wrapping you in its glissandos, throbs and pulses. There’s a bassline that holds it all together even when it’s almost hidden by the business around it. You’ll find it too in ‘Tidal Love Conversation In That Familiar Golden Orchard’. It’s ambient but full of motifs that draw you gently along.
This is music for the Garden of Eden. It’s lovely but there’s a serpent lurking there. That serpent appears in the other two tracks, ‘The Slight Unease Of Seeing A Crescent Moon In Blue Midday Sky’ and ‘A Pyramid Hidden By Centuries Of Neon Green Undergrowth’. These are less restful pieces. They’re like the harsh interruptions to a soothing dream - the blare of a nearby siren or the sound of a hurtling train. They both have a busy fuzziness disrupting the flow and they edge towards white noise. In this battle between the trance and trauma, peace and beauty still manage to battle through.
That makes it a challenging album, but a rewarding one, and the rewards are truly gorgeous.
Taster Track : Tidal Love Conversation In That Familiar Golden Orchard
Cuningham Bird : Andrew Bird and Madison Cunningham
He’s a creator of lovely, sometimes challenging, off kilter albums. She’s a star in the Americana world. This is what happens when they cover a significant but hard to find album from 1973.
That album was ‘Buckingham Nicks’, the only studio album by Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. It was a commercial failure on release and has never been reissued or made available digitally. Effectively though it became their audition performance for Fleetwood Mac. They were the missing piece in the jigsaw that created the classic line up of the band. I believe they became quite successful - or so the rumours have it!
Cunningham Bird is not, perhaps, an obvious pairing. To put it bluntly, she’s quite mainstream. He isn’t. But this partnership works for one very good reason. It sounds like much more than an academic, technical exercise. The treatment of these songs contains genuine feeling. In songs such as ‘Don’t Let Me Down Again’ they fully inhabit the music and the personalities that made it in the first place.
Musically this is an Andrew Bird album. He’s added the strings. His style with strings is distinctive. He renders them as pixelated gems bent gently out of shape and all the more attractive for that. Madison Cunningham takes a slight lead on the vocal side, rendering ‘Crystal’ as haunting as the later Fleetwood Mac song ‘Songbird’. It’s when they duet though that the true charms of this album are revealed.
Two of the tracks -’Stephanie’ and ‘Django’ - were originally instrumentals. Here though they’re given a more dreamlike quality by Cunningham’s sweet cooing in the background.
There are four people in this album. Bird. Cunningham. Buckingham. Nicks. They all contribute to the lovely sound of this record, best described as chamber pop with a Laurel Canyon feel.
Taster Track : Without A Leg To Stand On
Real Deal : Honeyglaze
Honeyglaze offer powerful, post rock music with witty lyrics. They’re impressive, admirable and lovable all in one.
There’s a cadre of new bands out there at the moment , including The Last Dinner Party and English Teacher, who have arrived seemingly fully formed. This may be their second album but Honeyglaze are in that group. Confident people are attractive whatever their milieu. There’s a massive confidence spilling from this album, a well founded belief that they have delivered something special.
The crunching opening to ‘Hide’ sets the scene. It’s a showcase and calling card wrapped u[p in one. They grab your attention and then command it. This is strong, angular music with unexpected turns that Radiohead would be proud to call their own. It may not be music that flows but it’s a big sound, even in its quieter moments, and it moves with power, not grace. The drumming catches the ear, the bass is inventive and the guitar blows you away.
I’m impressed by the music, but I love the lyrics and Anouska Sokolow’s vocals. She speaks her way musically through the songs, They bring immense personality in their wit and delivery. Try these examples:
“I know exactly what they want. I just enjoy the conversation” (‘Cold Caller’)
“But I’m in touch with my feminine side. I always wear pink.” (‘Pretty Girls’)
And above all, this from ‘Ghost’ complete with its emotionally desperate delivery.
“You can see me naked, without taking off my clothes.”
On the page they’re like jokes that have to be explained. In your ears, they’re things of emotion and beauty.
There are times when the songs feel like a therapy session. The lyrics and vocals make their mark with their honesty, directness and phrasing. The music communicates the emotional energy behind them.
Honeyglaze are a complete package, absolutely the real deal.
Taster Track : Ghost (It will be one of the songs of the decade, otherwise I’d have chosen ‘Don’t’.)
Thoughts of Never : Lylo
Lylo’s soft rock with a generous helping of white 80s soul is a pleasant listen but not a stirring one.
It’s easy to mock this gently as an out of time tribute to Hall and Oates album tracks that no one remembers. Equally though, everyone needs a warm comfort blanket of a song now and again. This is as good as comfort blankets come. It’s music for unwinding after a trying day, music that makes no demands. There are no rising climaxes here to disturb the mood. It’s gentle, pleasant and smooth but not memorable. They move seamlessly from one song to another like an unchanging view glimpsed through the window of a very long car journey.
One of Lylo’s claims to fame is that they were Cassandra Jenkins' backing band for a few years. It’s also the case that the two most interesting songs here are the two collaborations with Esme Dee and Alore. That suggests a band that doesn’t want to push themselves forward, that lacks the one thing to help them stand out. They’re laid back to a fault, but they’ve prepared a pleasant place to wallow.
Within their chosen field they do everything right. The vocals are smoothly seductive. The quiet bass funk is a defining feature and lends the kind of momentum you might find moving slowly around the swimming pool at a spa. The backing vocals are nicely arranged though and the songs have a lethargic beauty. They float into the air and hang there.
This is fine. If you’re a fan of 80s AOR for smooth lovers, you’ll find something here to like, perhaps quite a lot.
Taster Track : Hush
Beta : The Peter Cat Recording Co
This record is a mess, but in the midst of the mess are some moments to remember.
Let’s get the major criticism out of the way first. At an hour, this album is simply too long. For reasons I hope to make clear, you have to dig for the jewels. Over an hour I lost focus and switched off. Reduce the running time to 40 minutes and you’ll keep me on board.
The Peter Cat Recording Co, are an Indian group from Delhi. In a way that fits because this music is as chaotic as any Indian city. They’re a rock band though, if unlike any other I can call to mind in the 21st century.
From the opening explosions on ‘Flowers R Blooming’ they position themselves as a band that are defiantly travelling their own trail. I’m not completely sure that they even know where it is heading. The singer holds true to the song, the lyrics marching steadfastly to a conclusion while the musicians do their own thing around him.
Come ‘People Never Change’ though and you realise that it’s a wondrous achievement to blend so many influences and components into something that makes no sense at all but remains listenable. There are Indian tones and rhythms, lounge jazz, bluesy vocals, pop melodies and cabaret performances. This is a band with the air of a showman, all extravagant gestures and a devil may care attitude at its core. Sometimes they even march in step with mainstream pop, but never for long and never for a full song.
Some of their songs sound as if they are singing for themselves, letting their hair down at the end of a late night in a members’ club after everyone has left. There’s an element of 70s soulful crooners in the way they stretch the lyrical lines to fit with the musical ones. Every step of the way there’s something unexpected and unexplained - a muffled explosion or two, a shrieked “BABY BE NICE” at various points in ‘Something About You.’ The biggest surprise might be how mellow and soulful the brass sounds. It’s a highlight in itself.
This is a highly individual set of songs. They have the same disregard for what is expected as can be found in Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart or Scott Walker. It may be too much to take in during one sitting, but allow yourself to sample it at least once.
Taster Track : People Never Change
As ever this week's Taster Track playlists can be accessed at https://open.spotify.com/playlist/42qDXrw3nLMlCSg45kCnRy?si=4499207642034207 or via the Spotify link on the Home Page.
The link to the Youtube playlist is https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwV-OogHy7EjHZr5_M3m0Zn5LEu_F3fMm&si=OhQF-ZPaBjUn4VMT
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