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.

What does it sound like?:

Who’d be a Blues Rock guitarist in the Twenty-First Century? Blues Rock, a genre that came into being over fifty years ago and reached its peak in the seventies. The electric guitar, an instrument that hasn’t exactly fallen into disrepute but is no longer the centrepiece of the modern world of music.

The answer is plenty of people and here are two of them. Danny Bryant is English and has been a professional guitar player for over twenty years. His skills impressed the likes of Buddy Guy and Carlos Santana enough for them to want to work with him. He’s made numerous albums and tours regularly, going down particularly well in America. He makes a decent living doing something he loves. Means Of Escape is ten tracks of classic seventies Blues Rock with loud, stomping riffs and some reflective acoustic songs. The key instrument is actually the Hammond organ. A sustained organ chord behind some stylish guitar ‘solo’ing is very effective at getting the pulse racing. The trouble is that Bryant is too much of a purist. Means Of Escape could be preserved in aspic from four decades ago as it sounds exactly like » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Complete Matrix Tapes by The Velvet Underground is four and a half hours of the best Rock music ever recorded. It consists of four complete live sets played over two days during a week long residency at The Matrix, San Fransisco, in late November 1969.

By that time, The Velvet Underground were boiled down to the essence of a Rock band, into its four elemental parts of guitar, bass, drums, organ. Andy Warhol’s artistic patronage, Nico’s glacial cool and John Cale’s maverick experimentation were long gone. The raw, basic sound strips away the brash hedonism of the songs and reveals a poignant tenderness at their heart. They highlight the fragility of the human condition, populated as they are by drug addicts, pimps, prostitutes, people living precariously on the edge of a society that rejects and despises them, composed by a tremulous hand, one of their own, someone who understands and loves them. These are amongst the greatest Rock songs ever written, crafted from blood, spit and a heated spoon, because, even though most of us will never encounter the characters and situations described, we can all relate to the emotions expressed in the relationships. » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Michael Hutchence was the charismatic focal point of INXS. He possessed all the ‘presence’, ‘aura’ or ‘magnetism’ but still managed to be a part of a band of brothers that stuck together through thick and thin. His photogenic looks, flowing hair and ability to turn heads attracted love and devotion from a legion of fans, a string of gorgeous celebrity girlfriends and the other members of the group. He was undoubtedly a star, whose Rock Monster lifestyle and tragic early death have converted him into a legend. Mystify is a film documentary of his life (reviewed in Nights Out by Junior Wells) and now we have the pleasure of the soundtrack, sub-headed as A Musical Journey With Michael Hutchence.

The documentary is put together using mainly existing footage, including home recordings, by Richard Lowenstein. Despite having a long relationship with the band, dating back to their early videos, and the film presenting Hutchence within the INXS phenomenum, he had a problem obtaining the music. INXS refused permission. It took the intervention of Tiger Lily, Hutchence’s daughter with the equally tragic Paula Yates, to obtain nine tracks. Lowenstein showed her the film on a laptop. » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

We’ve all done it, haven’t we? Had a night out with the lads, drank a few too many beers, smoked too much spliff and come up with a hair-brained scheme, quickly abandoned the next day. In 1968, Mick Jagger, Pete Townsend and Ronnie Laine dreamt up the notion of combining a live Rock Show for TV with a circus and calling it The Rock And Roll Circus. Mick saw it as an opportunity to promote Beggars Banquet and whet the Stone’s appetite for live work, as their last performance had been in April 1967. Before long, a BBC sound stage was booked, a distressed big top was arranged and a troupe of clowns, acrobats and fir-eaters were hired. Michael Lindsay-Hogg was put in the director’s chair and a number of bands were lined up to perform. The audience was invited from The Stones’ fan club.

Recording began at 2pm on 11th December 1968. It took so long to set up between acts, the headliners hit the stage at 5am the following morning. Both performers and audience became increasingly refreshed and exhausted as the evening dragged on. Those acts who got in early fared best.

» Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

A Prince demo is no ordinary demo. Besides the usual synthesiser, drum machine and click tracks, most of the demos on Originals include overdubs, backing vocals and horns. Fourteen of the fifteen here were made between 1981 and 1986, a period when Prince functioned in a different time zone, working for more hours than there are in a day, without the need for sleep, and at a super-human rate. He recorded Controversy, 1999, Purple Rain, Around The World In A Day, Parade and Sign O The Times, plus numerous quality B sides and outtakes. He also undertook four major tours and wrote and performed in two movies. It was a time when Prince was smarter, quicker and more exciting than anyone else.

These are no throwaways, studio discards donated to a worthy cause. They are songs conceived, created and arranged with particular artists in mind, ones he’d recruited deliberately and specifically as part of his master plan to put together a roster of Prince acolytes. Other than The Bangles and Kenny Rogers, these acts were almost entirely dependent on Prince for any success they scored. Prince benefitted too. Writing for another voice gave him » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Dylan LeBlanc is a sensitive soul. He writes personal, evocative songs. His voice is sweet and gentle, almost feminine. He has his demons. His parents divorced when he was an infant. His father, James, moved to Nashville to pursue a career writing country songs, so little Dylan had two homes. He ended up in rehab before he finished high school. He has an open, trusting face, high cheekbones and long flowing locks. A good-looking sensitive musician with issues should be a big hit with the ladies but his early albums are bleak Southern Gothic, the kind that warns people to keep their distance.

Dave Cobb is a highly professional producer with a long cv ranging from Sturgill Simpson to Jason Isbell. You’d expect him to provide a slick ‘Nashville’ production for LeBlanc and his longstanding band, The Pollies, even though Renegade was recorded over just ten days. It is, indeed, nice and clean with smooth curved lines but the surprise is that there is barely a Country note in it. This album is mainly Power Pop but with the power turned down down to seven. Think of eighties radio music, such as Journey » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Wovoka Gentle are a trio from London: twins Imogen and Ellie Mason and William Stokes. The music they make is an eclectic sound collage. They can all turn their hand to any instrument they care to reach for but they tend to use synthesisers, drum machines, samplers, effects units and guitars, lots of guitars. Steadfastly refusing to be pidgeon-holed, they have no respect for genres or musical styles and have the attention span of a gnat. A Wovoka Gentle track could be a Pastoral Folk song with Electronic squelches set to an African beat, topped with ripe, close harmonies, suddenly handbrake-turning into New Order, lurching onto a sea shanty and finishing up with Johnny Cash. It’s as though they’ve randomised the most diverse playlist they could think of and flit from one track to the next before each has finished.

At first, Start Clanging Cymbals is as challenging a listen as its title suggests. However, coherence improves as the album goes on and over repeated listens. The youthful vibrancy of the music is infectious. The sound is warm and bright. There is some beautiful playing here. They are all skilful musicians. The vocals » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Jamie Freeman is evangelical about Americana. He isn’t just a member of the Americana Music Association UK, he is also their designer and a dedicated volunteer. He has spent many thousands of hours practising his musicianship and writing songs. He organises gigs for Americana bands and is the MD for Angaleena Presley of The Pistol Annies when she tours Britain. He spends half his life in Nashville, playing, learning, supporting, even producing. The only thing he lacks is a beard. He is a man utterly in love with the music and totally committed to the cause.

Dreams About Falling is his third LP but his first for six years. He has exploited his connections to the full. It is well produced by Neilson Hubbard in Nashville. The songs are co-written with some of Americana’s best known: Michael Logan, Amy Tudor, Ben Glover, Brandy Zdan, Amy Speace and The Wild Ponies, Telisha & Doug Williams. The lyrical topics covered are worthy and suitably dour: the strain within personal relationships, the return home of a damaged Gulf War war veteran, the Grenville fire, the effects of having to cope with an alcoholic father, sibling rivalry and » Continue Reading.