What does it sound like?:

Pretty Things are a ‘cult’ band, meaning they enjoyed little commercial success but attracted a loyal and fervent fan base. This year, their lead singer and lyric writer, Phil May, the only constant member through the decades, sadly lost his life, effectively ending the band as a going concern. This 50th anniversary edition of Parachute, their fifth album, serves as a fitting tribute.

Pretty Things began by playing ugly, unkempt rhythm and blues. Their debut is more than a match for The Rolling Stones’ for raw excitement, except for the fact it came out the following year. Early singles bothered the UK charts. They missed the wave of The British Invasion in America, spending much of 1965 touring the Southern Hemisphere, their drummer, Viv Prince, wreaking havoc wherever he went. They flirted a little with Soul (they even signed to a subsidiary of Tamla Motown) but the drugs Phil May started taking made him see himself as a sweet, sensitive poet, aspiring to be T.S. Eliot. Their sound became more psychedelic and they created the first Rock Opera, S.F. Sorrow, in 1968. Parachute, produced by Norman Smith in Abbey Road, is the follow up, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Joni Mitchell spent a lot of her career bristling against the label “Folk Singer” but here she is in 1963, at the age of nineteen, recording for her small town radio station in Canada, undeniably a Folk Singer. She is singing House Of The Rising Sun, a year before The Animals transformed it, with a confident yet tremulous voice, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar. Everything Joni Mitchell is about is there. The brave yet vulnerable demeanour, the purity of her mezzo-soprano and a strong right hand, her left, weakened by polio at the age of nine, protected by unusual guitar tunings. She has a core inner strength enabling her to stand alone, away from the crowd, her whole life exposed under a spotlight. There is also an innocence soon to be lost.

The recordings on this box are mostly live with some demos, single takes almost without a flaw, documenting a period of personal turmoil up to her first album. They are presented in chronological order and the sound quality is almost uniformally excellent. It starts in her home town radio station, CFQC AM, moves to The Half Beat, Toronto, for two sets, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

By the time The Doors settled down in the studio to record their fifth album in November 1969, they, and Morrison in particular, had endured a difficult year. Morrison was facing two court cases, both of which carried potential jail sentences. He had been arrested for alleged ‘indecent exposure’ at a gig in Miami that March and ‘skyjacking’ during a flight to Phoenix to watch The Rolling Stones. One tour had to be abandoned because of the bad press and their records were blacklisted by many radio stations. In July, The Soft Parade, with its horns and strings, was greeted by accusations of a sell-out. Morrison surrendered his Lizard King leather trousers, grew a beard, gained weight and attempted to steer clear of drugs, an effort undermined by an increase in alcohol consumption. His relationship with Pamela Coulson became even more wild. It must have been a relief to return to his real family: the other members of the group, producer Paul Rothchild and engineer Bruce Botnick.

With opener Roadhouse Blues, Morrison Hotel immediately sounds the polar opposite of The Soft Parade. Kreiger’s growling guitar, Manzarek’s whorehouse piano, John Sebastian’s bluesy harmonica and a » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Robert Plant has been a solo artist for forty years. He was Led Zeppelin’s lead singer for just twelve. This two CD collection is effectively a playlist to accompany his successful podcast, Digging Deep, in which Plant looks back on his songs and discusses how they came about. There are thirty tracks taken from ten solo albums with three previously unreleased ‘exclusives’: Allen Toussant’s Nothing Takes The Place Of You from the 2013 film, Winter In The Blood, Charley Feather’s Too Much Alike, a gentle-paced rockabilly duet with Patti Griffin, and Charlie Patton Highway (Turn It Up – Part 1), a teaser for the upcoming Band Of Joy Volume 2.

His solo career had a shaky start, beginning in 1980 with Plant engulfed in grief. He’d lost his best friend, his band, his five year old son three years before and his marriage three years later. It took him some time to find his voice both artistically and literally. Surgery for nodules had changed it for ever. There would be no more shredding with his characteristic Led Zeppelin high pitched shrieks. He found it difficult to abandon bombast and turned to drummers such as » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

If you are capable of doing anything, why not do everything at once? Sign “☮︎” the Times is Prince’s definitive statement, a double album displaying the full spectrum of his gifts, delving into all aspects of his bizarre imagination and stunningly performed almost entirely by himself. It is a musical embodiment of Prince’s flibbertigibbet personality and may well be the peak of his career.

In 1986/7, you’d think he had nothing to prove. Purple Rain had been an enormous global success, establishing him as a bone fide film star who could also effortlessly fill stadiums. He was a superstar, charisma oozing from his pores, living life exactly as he pleased, mostly writing, performing and recording his own songs. However, the movie Under The Cherry Moon had been a critically panned flop and he’d broken up his band, The Revolution. Some had been with him since the seventies, but they had become unwieldy and unruly with the addition of members of The Time and three so-called Bodyguards. Still, his restless creativity threatened to overwhelm him. A full band double album, Dream Factory, a pseudonymous alter ego project, Camille, and a proposed triple album, Crystal Ball, » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

There are two watershed albums in the entire career of The Rolling Stones. The first is Their Satanic Majesties Request. Compare and contrast their musical style pre and post that album. There isn’t just a step change. It’s almost a completely different band. The second is Goats Head Soup.

Goats Head Soup is the sound of men on the cusp of thirty considering the possibility of becoming responsible adults. In the songs, they look back on their Rock’n’Roll lifestyle, reflect on past relationships, and weigh the meaning of adulthood. By 1973, The Rolling Stones were a complex adaptive system bordering on the edge of chaos. The pall of heroin, clinging to them since 1967, incapacitated both Keith and Jimmy Miller. Various drug busts over the years restricted their ability to remain tax exiles. Jamaica was one of the few countries that would allow them all entry but there was no respite from dealers. The Caribbean sunshine couldn’t eradicate the murk and mire of the basement at Nellcôte where they recorded most of Exile On Main Street. Bill felt intimidated by The Stones’ own armed guard and a break-in to his hotel room. Hunter » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

Absolute Beginners is a film that can’t make up its mind if it’s a musical or a series of pop videos. It fits into Julien Temple’s directing style quite logically. He likes to string together a series of short segments featuring cameos by celebrities, distracting from any lack of narrative or character development by deploying showbiz panache and lots of energy. The Great Rock And Roll Swindle and It’s All True made him a popular turn-to director for eye-catching music videos, a reputation confirmed by Jazzin’ For Blue Jean for David Bowie, a light-hearted twenty minute short you might have seen supporting Company Of Wolves. Goldcrest, a British film company, riding high on the critical and commercial successes of Chariots Of Fire, Ghandi, Local Hero, The Killing Fields and A Room With A View, enlisted Temple for a big budget film of Colin MacInnes’s excellent novel on Afro-Caribbean and hipster culture in 1950’s Swinging London with a view to exploiting the best of British talent in Pop music, acting, writing and film-making.

In the mid 1980s, England was enjoying a revival of smooth jazz with a kindred spirit to the music described in the » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

After the recent sad loss of Kraftwerk founder, Florian Schneider, it’s an opportune time to re-evaluate their catalogue. It’s helpful that Kraftwerk, still led by Ralf Hütter, have released most of it digitally, for streaming or download, in stereo and Dolby Atmos/HD Surroundsound best appreciated via Amazon HD or Tidal. You can now enjoy the eight core studio albums from Autobahn to Tour de France Soundtracks in their 2009 remaster and the 2017 3-D Catalogue in both English and German. Autobahn, Radioactivity and Tour de France have only one set of vocals but Trans Europe Express, The Man Machine, Computer World, Techno Pop and The Mix were issued in German for the German, Austrian and Swiss markets, and English for the rest of the world. For Kraftwerk purists, the German versions are the definitive ones.

Kraftwerk began as experimental Krautrock group, flirting with atonality and repetitive motorik rhythms. By the time of Autobahn in 1974, they had found their niche. Impressed by an exhibition by Gilbert and George, two similarly suited men with narrow ties, influenced by the Bauhaus aesthetic in wanting to make their lives into a work of art, Kraftwerk decided to » Continue Reading.

What does it sound like?:

The Revolutionary Army Of The Infant Jesus first formed in Liverpool in the mid eighties and released two albums and two EPs over a decade. They were silent until 2013 when French label Infrastition offered to repackage their back catalogue and have been enjoying a flurry of creativity since. They start from a Christian outlook, but are more influenced by Eastern European Orthodoxy where Church art is sacramental rather than illustrative and beauty is discovered in the pursuit of divine truth, not created by mankind. They mix Folk with Gregorian chants and Drone Music, but are willing to roam far and wide, even into Electronica and field recordings, to express their musical ideas. They know their scriptures and they know their poetry and philosophy, from West to East. They understand that Christianity is a broad church and that faith encompasses doubt and long, dark nights of the soul. After all, their name is a reference to the terrorist group in Luis Buñuel’s 1977 film, That Obscure Object Of Desire, ‘a quixotic treatise on lust and love’, that they probably saw in the original French.

They are a record company nightmare, shunning the limelight, » Continue Reading.

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.