What does it sound like?:

Stefano Bollani is a dazzling Italian jazz pianist whose lengthy CV includes work with Chick Chorea, Bill Frisell, Pat Methany, a fifteen year collaboration with trumpeter Enrico Rava and multiple performances with several classical orchestras. He is adventurous in any setting: solo, duo, trio, small band, big band or full orchestra. And a chameleon able to adapt to any musical style: stride, be-bop, fusion, free, classical. He seems to be capable of almost anything and to possess an unlimited range.

He fell in love with Jesus Christ Superstar at the impressionable age of fourteen. The music we obsess over in our teens stays with us. I can understand how Bollani was drawn to the musical. As an Italian, he would have been indoctrinated with Catholicism. At fourteen, he was at a stage in life when many start to pose some questions. The notion of Jesus as a rock star appeals to rebellious youth. Plus, the sympathetic depiction of Judas and Mary Magdalene may well have piqued his curiosity, let alone the wonderful melodies and powerful guitar riffs.

This album is an adaptation of the score for solo piano. The only vocal is on » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition is well known to many Afterworders because of Emerson, Lake & Palmer’s version, released at a budget price. In 1874, Mussorgsky composed the piece for piano as a tribute to his friend, architect and artist, Viktor Hartman, who had died suddenly from a brain haemorrhage. He was inspired by an exhibition of 400 of Hartman’s paintings, two of which were owned by Mussorgsky himself. Ravel was commissioned to orchestrate it in the early 1920s for the huge orchestras that were in vogue at the time. He adds colour and drama to Pictures At An Exhibition, confirming his reputation as a virtuoso orchestrator.

François-Xavier Roth’s Les Siècles philharmonic orchestra use period instruments to recreate famous performances as faithfully as possible. He often revisits the original transcripts to tease out essential details. For a large orchestra, Les Siècles is surprisingly nimble and uncluttered, deploying its power sparingly and with precision. As a result, Pictures At An Exhibition is vigorous and theatrical. The horns and woodwinds are particularly impressive and the strings rich and luxurious. It’s just how it should be.

Ravel’s La Valse is a distorted waltz. Written in 1920, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Conceived as a dire warning for mankind in the face of a climate change catastrophe, We Are Sent Here By History resonates even more powerfully as nature fights back and inflicts a mutant virus on us all. Listening to it just as the whole world is embroiled in the kind of existential threat the album describes is both a sobering and exhilarating experience.

Shabaka Hutchings is a restless soul, born in Barbados but raised in London, he is a wandering minstrel, who leads no fewer than three bands, the electronic dance influenced The Comet Is Coming, the polyrhythmic Caribbean-style Sons Of Kemet and these, The Ancesters. It’s no wonder he is drawn to the African tradition of griot, in which a dazzling showman, instrumentalist, and storyteller, travels from village to village to spread the news, connecting one community with another and the past with the present and the future.

Siyabonga Mthembu’s vocals, as the griot, are pivotal to the album. He chants in Zulu and Xhosa, he recites the visionary poetry of Lindokuhle Nkosi, he raps and he sings, he screams, he implores, he cajoles. He rails against God on You’ve Been Called, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

All of Agnes Obel’s albums are tender, elegant and graceful. Her first, Philharmonics, evokes the delicate, pristine beauty of a snowflake. Aventine, warmed by a deep blanket of strings, is auburn and gold. Citizens Of Glass expands her horizons with a sonic palate of unusual instruments and percussion. Her latest, Myopia, seems a step back to a long, introspective, moonlit night.

All her signature sounds are here: delicate, flowing piano lines, pizzicato cellos, a bassline that is felt rather than heard, and pure ethereal vocals. She pitches her own voice up and down to create backing by a sepulchral Obel choir. At the heart of it all is her and her piano and this time she adds as few instruments as possible to enlarge the sound. Although, the title track features an actual drum, overall, there is an austere feeling, a sparsity in the production, especially in the strings and the lead vocal, that stings. She doesn’t sing the words clearly, as though reluctant to reveal their secrets. The song titles are enough to be concerning: Camera’s Rolling, Broken Sleep, Island Of Doom, Myopia, Can’t Be, Promise Keeper and Won’t You Call Me. Three » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

How can you sum up a gargantuan career like Miles Davis’s in a single documentary or compilation of recordings? There are so many phases, all rich with depth and complexity, over a period of well over four decades. It starts in his teens with Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie (Be-Bop), then moves through his work with the nonet (Cool), the first quintent with Coltrane (Hard Bop), the Kind Of Blue era (Modal), concerto-style pieces with Gil Evans (Orchestral), the second great quintet with Herbie Hancock (Post-Bop), the conversion to electric instruments (Fusion), prolonged unstructured pieces (Free), the commercially successful return in the eighties (Pop) and touching on Flamenco, Soundtracks, Funk, Rock and Hip Hop in between, not forgetting The Blues, which is arguably at the heart of all his music. His constant, restless quest for inspiration and reinvention, plus his defiance of expectation and convention, drive most observers to give up and tackle the enormous elephant that is Miles Davis by focussing on one phase at a time.

Stanley Nelson’s documentary film features a large number of talking heads: musicians who worked with Miles ranging from Jimmy Heath through to Marcus Miller, including » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

1999 was Prince’s breakthrough album. Released in 1982, it was his fifth and yielded his first top ten singles, bringing him to the attention of a wider audience and giving him the platform for the mega-Michael Jackson stardom Purple Rain would bring. It marks the start of his imperial phase.

It’s a double LP. Although Prince had plenty of songs available, he fills it by extending the length of the eleven tracks, allowing his vivid, depraved imagination to roam free. He simplified the sound of its predecessors, Dirty Mind and Controversy, using mainly synthesisers and a Linn drum machine, plus some bass and electric guitars. He keeps the instrumentation tight, creating a stark, robotic, electro-funk that helped define the Detroit Sound. Afrika Bambaata’s Kraftwerk influenced Planet Rock clearly had an impact but it was the feel and tone of Blade Runner and its Vangelis soundtrack that impressed Prince most. Somewhat improbably, The Stray Cats inspired some experimentation with Rockabilly. The vocals are key. Across the album, he deploys five backing vocalists, mainly female, and shares lead vocals with two of them on the title track. However, Prince’s own singing is stunning. The textures and » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

In 1968, David Bowie had been dropped by his record label, Deram, and was on the scrap heap at the age of twenty-one. Undaunted, he continued to make music in any way he could, he tried some acting, joined a mime group and became part of a ‘Folk scene’. He fell in love with dancer, Hermione Farthingale, and formed a Folk trio with John Hutchinson, developing a fondness for verbose allegorical fables. By early 1969, Farthingale left him for Norway, he appeared in a Lyons Maid ice cream commercial, was third on the bill as a mime act beneath Tyranosaurus Rex and became involved in a Beckenham Free Festival. Fortunately, for Bowie enthusiasts, he often had a tape recorder playing nearby. He made numerous demos, recorded sessions for BBC Radio and had an audition for Mercury Records captured for posterity, an audition he passed. He also starred in his own promotional film, Love You Till Tuesday.

Most Bowie watchers will be expecting part five of the ‘Five Years’ box sets, which began in 2015 before Blackstar was released. Sadly, a dispute over Tin Machine royalties is causing a delay. In the interim, Conversation Piece » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

By all accounts, Ronnie Wood has spent his career in the Ringo role, the affable chap all the others like talking to. He’s a great companion on a long tour. In the studio, he makes the clock tick by that bit quicker when the engineers are tinkering with the snare drum. He has a nice little sideline in ‘art’, painting portraits of his band mates and selling them for a pretty penny. Experts rate him as better than Dylan but that’s not saying much. He also plays guitar.

It’s difficult to be anything other than condescending when confronted with this vanity project. Ron has gathered around him a group of musicians including a fine vocalist in Imelda May and a classy pianist in Ben Waters. The album is recorded live at Wimborne’s Tivoli Theatre, eleven tracks of Chuck Berry usual and not-so-usual suspects, bar Wood’s own imaginatively entitled Tribute To Chuck Berry and a Maceo Merriweather song, Worried Life Blues, that Chuck covered for a B side. The sleeve is ‘hand painted’ by Ron himself, a copy of an image most people will instantly recognise. The deluxe box includes LP, CD and a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Shelby brothers emerged from the tunnels of the First World War and proceeded to use their ingenuity and ruthless brutality to wreak havoc across the Midlands. Tommy is the brains of the family, Arthur its fists and Aunt Polly its heart. Peaky Blinders has enjoyed five successful TV seasons to date. It is shot in colour but looks black and white, mired in mud and smog. Key to its success is the Songtrack. The use of Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds’ Red Right Hand as the theme tune is pivotal. It defines the show sonically and atmospherically. Dark, ominous, dripping with blood, an outsider arises from the shadows. All else follows its template.

In an era of Spotify, it is easy to put together a playlist of Red Right Hand soundalikes. A soundtrack, such as this, needs to offer something extra and Peaky Blinders does not disappoint. There are brief snippets of dialogue from the main characters, none of which overstay their welcome. There are pieces of the score, setting the mood and, most importantly, some exclusive songs. PJ Harvey has two tracks on the set but adds a made-for-the-show cover of » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Sting attracted much criticism in May when he released an album of remakes of fifteen of his old chestnuts. There were no deep cuts, the arrangements were largely unchanged, there was a tendency to replace the drummer with a machine and his new vocals, never his strong point, sounded more weathered. It all seemed a bit aimless except that it fuelled the inclusion of more Sting compositions on Spotify playlists and it provided a setlist for a world tour, as documented on this live album.

Outside of the studio with a proper drummer, Josh Freese, two guitarists, Dominic Miller and Rufus Miller, Shane Sagar on harmonica, Kevon Webster on keyboards and Gene Noble and Melissa Musique on backing vocals, My Songs Live sounds like a straightforward live greatest hits package. The truth is, whatever you might think of him as a celebrity, Sting has written some great, great songs. Message In A Bottle, An Englishman In New York, Brand New Day, Every Breath You Take and so on, as played by a professional band, simply roll by. Sting’s vocals are raspy and ragged but, at least, he has resisted the temptation to adjust them » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

In 1994, an extremely large audience eagerly awaited the next R.E.M. album. The jangly pop of Out Of Time and the fragile melodies of Automatic For The People had established the band as mainstream, making all four members multimillionaires. Monster, when it came, gave their fans was a migraine of brutal guitar noise. Even so, sales held up well, the tour was a hit and two singles made the UK top ten but, overall, the reaction was mixed and Monster marked the beginning of their commercial and artistic decline.

If the transition between Out Of Time to Automatic For The People represents that between life and death, Monster is an act of self-harm. It quite deliberately turns away from the pin-sharp clarity and adulation of its predecessors and embraces distortion, obfuscation and artifice. Michael Stipe was bereft from the recent loss of his friends, River Phoenix and Kurt Cobain, and his writing contribution was blocked. He spent most of the time in a corner of the studio, away from his colleagues, contemplating his sexuality and his place in the world, his voice buried deep in the mix. Stipe came out during the album’s » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Let It Bleed was a turning point for The Rolling Stones. Their original musical leader, Brian Jones, made his last, albeit minor, contributions to an album and his replacement, Mick Taylor, contributed for the first time on just two of the tracks. Keith Richards had stepped up his game on Beggars Banquet but he redoubled his efforts for the follow up. He is the only Stone to play on all nine songs, solidifying his reputation as one of the versatile and imaginative Rock guitarists of his generation in the process and Let It Bleed as his finest work.

On the whole, it follows the template of its predecessor but Let It Bleed is far more than a transitional album or a Beggars Banquet part two. During 1969, The Beatles were in their bubble, busy obsessing over themselves, whereas The Stones captured the zeitgeist on an album full of dread and the threat of violence, not to mention all the sex and the drugs. Released with just one month of the decade to go, the day before Meredith Hunter was murdered at Altamont and just as the Manson Family were arrested, it sounded like a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Soft Parade is commonly regarded as the nadir of the Morrison-era Doors. Their distinctive, lucid sound drenched by producer Paul A. Rothchild’s strings and horns on their weakest collection of songs. Just as a sense of dread pervaded 1969, The Doors seemed to be out of step, brightening their sound and creating a more radio-friendly product. It did sell very well, especially in America, where it reached number six, and its lead-off single, Touch Me, peaked at number three.

The truth is that when The Doors convened in the studio, November 1968, there was no material fit for a fourth album. Morrison’s songbook was spent, he was exhausted with the strain of being the central focus of attention on a long tour and was consuming copious amounts of alcohol. As a consequence, Robby Kreiger, the guitarist, stepped into the songwriting breach while Rothchild, paranoid by excess cocaine, drove the band obsessively into new musical areas in a quest to be as groundbreaking as Jimi or The Beatles.

Fifty years on, nicely polished up for a superdeluxe edition by Bruce Botnick, The Soft Parade is a lot better than you may remember and » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Abbey Road represents The Beatles at their most professional. It is their most beautifully produced and most flawlessly played. The four of them had spent virtually every waking hour playing together for the best part of ten years. They knew each other inside out and had grown together as musicians. Having been semi-detached for much of The White Album and the Get Back sessions, George Martin was reinstated as producer-in-chief, his trusty lieutenant, Geoff Emerick, back by his side. Once the studio red light came on, they were focussed, disciplined and working almost telepathically as one.

The sessions grew from the Get Back recordings. Billy Preston was still present for the early versions of Oh! Darling and I Want You (She’s So Heavy), both of which you can imagine being performed on the rooftop. The Beatles had rehearsed thirteen of the songs during January 1969 at Twickenham. Only Come Together, Here Comes The Sun, Because, You Never Give Me Your Money and The End were new. Some had been demoed as far back as Esher mid 1968. In April, they recorded the non-album single The Ballad Of John And Yoko and its B » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

When Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory got together to create music, it was inevitable that their first album would have a creepy, cinematic atmosphere. After all, strange things happen after dark in Wessex and Will had already made a decent living crafting soundtracks. Factor in Alison’s sensual, breathy vocals and Felt Mountain, released in 2000, made many a critic’s knees tremble. Sales, however, were modest, the album just about breaking into the UK top sixty.

There was an adjustment in approach for the follow up, Black Cherry. In addition to the graceful mix of sustained chords, sweeping strings, weightless ballads, folk, cabaret, electronica and film noir, Goldfrapp added cheesy synths, infectious hooks and stomping beats, while cranking up the sex quotient in the lyrics. The result felt a little schizophrenic. Will had a new toy, a flute sound he deployed picking out a gentle tune in no less than three of the quieter songs. The new style works best on Strict Machine, co-written with Nick Batt, a bass heavy track, powered by a storming Glitter Band beat, buzzing with a frisson of naughtiness. It was the second single off Black Cherry, establishing them as » Continue Reading.