DELTASONIC, £11.99 FIRST The Futureheads lose some of their quirky essence on their new album, and now The Zutons get the third-album creative blues too. Gone are the voodoo vaudeville stomps and the more demented sax breaks and
in comes the bog-standard (by Zutons' standards) indie boogie.
In the meantime, someone has rattled singer Dave McCabe's cage, as he delivers some of his most vitriolic lyrics to date – yet he somehow just can't muster a portion of the bluesy passion he invested in the wonderful Valerie. The glam stomp of current single Always Right Behind You is at least catchy but, when your best effort sounds like something Mud dragged in in 1973, it's nothing to shout about.
ERRORS: IT'S NOT SOMETHING BUT IT IS LIKE WHATEVER
***
ROCK ACTION, £12.99A DEBUT album of some potential from this Glasgow quartet who are emerging as a cerebral electronica act for all seasons. Bar some rather self-conscious, plummy-voiced spoken word from fellow DIY electro boffin George Pringle on Cutlery Drawer, It's Not Something… is an entirely instrumental offering, eschewing the catchy vocal hooklines of more obviously commercial acts such as Hot Chip and Underworld, but keeping the warm, classy synthscapes on opening track Dance Music; adding xylophones and analogue synths to the mix on Still Game and hypnotic post-rock rhythms and electro drone on The Bagpipes.
CARLY SIMON: THIS KIND OF LOVE
**
HEAR MUSIC/UNIVERSAL, £11.99 STARBUCKS is continuing to buy up singer/songwriters of a certain vintage, its latest acquisition being Carly Simon, who follows contemporaries including Joni Mitchell and ex-husband James Taylor on to the coffee chain's label to release her first album of original material in eight years. This Kind Of Love is simultaneously soothing and snoozy, comprising mid-paced MOR pop songs which are too navel-gazing for their own good, plus some stealthy quasi-spoken word tracks such as People Say A Lot, which are reminiscent of a less obtuse Laurie Anderson. Much of the material is dressed up in bossa nova arrangements, inspired by Simon's rediscovery of Brazilian music, but are composed by Jimmy Webb in strictly easy listening style.
FIONA SHEPHERDWORLD
THE ROUGH GUIDE TO AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL MUSIC
****
RGNET, £8.99
IF THE title sounds familiar, it is: eight years ago an identical disc was put out on the same label. But even though some of the dramatis personae are the same, there are differences: the earlier version has more field-recorded songs for birth, initiation, and rituals of village labour and life, while the new one has more guitar-accompanied urban lyrics.
As its compiler rightly argues, this is a truer snapshot, since that is the core of this thriving tradition. The issues are the same – the stolen generations, land rights, black deaths in custody – but the musical mode has moved on. Yet it's still pervaded by the rhythms of the land rather than of the urban dancefloor, and it still radiates the gentle refinement – even in rap songs – which characterises Aboriginal culture.
We still get didgeridoo-led ensembles – no other instrument is so suited to dreaming – plus the voices who have defined this music from the start: Alan Maralung, Alan Dargin, and Archie Roach, with whom I once had a memorable meeting at his house on a council estate in Melbourne, where he told me his archetypal story. He was abducted by government agents from his parents at the age of three, and then "assimilated" into white society via a series of fosterings. "Then, when I was 14, my sister wrote to me that my mother had died – and I didn't know I had one. I didn't know who or what I was any more." He sang, as so many others still do, as a way of finding out.
YUSA: HAIKU
****
TUMI, £16.99 FORGET the Havana of Buena Vista Social Club: this is a cool, youthful, and jazz-inflected evocation of that city by a singer-songwriter who has often been compared to Joan Armatrading, and who on this new CD evinces a lovely expansiveness. "Intimista" is her word for this music, which is exact.
MICHAEL CHURCHJAZZ
SCOTT HAMILTON & FRIENDS: ACROSS THE TRACKS
***
CONCORD JAZZ, £11.99
FORGET about fashionable fusions and exploratory new directions – if it is top-class, straight-ahead mainstream jazz you are after, Scott Hamilton can be relied on to satisfy the demand. The saxophonist has been recording for Concord for three decades, and has survived the transfer to corporate ownership that followed the death of the label's founder Carl Jefferson, a loyal devotee and promoter of his work.
This latest outing echoes earlier projects involving the classic Hamilton combination of tenor saxophone with a Hammond organ-led trio, in which blues guitarist Duke Robillard slips comfortably into jazz mode alongside organist Gene Ludwig and drummer Chuck Riggs.
Hamilton is in his usual authoritative form on a selection of swinging jazz standards, meaty riff-based workouts and tender ballads, all recorded by the doyen of jazz engineers, Rudy Van Gelder, at his New Jersey studio.
FOLK
CARA DILLON: THE REDCASTLE SESSIONS DVD
***
PROPER FILMS, £16.99 IRISH singer Cara Dillon has taken the last 18 months out from her career following the birth of her twin sons, but this DVD release will be followed by a new album in the autumn. The singer and her husband and principal collaborator, Sam Lakeman, were keen to avoid a standard-issue concert DVD, and instead opted for a Transatlantic Sessions format.
Director Robin Bextor shot the resulting gathering of musicians in a house beside Lough Foyle in Donegal. The relaxed setting and sympathetic accompaniments – ranging from a duet with young singer John Smith to rockier full band outing – brings out the best in the singer in polished and evocative interpretations of songs from her traditional-style repertoire. The disc also includes interviews with Dillon talking about her family roots and upbringing in Derry and Donegal, intercut with brooding footage of the local landscape.
KENNY MATHIESONCLASSICAL
BERLIOZ: BENVENUTO CELLINI
*****
LSO LIVE, £11.99 WHEN the London Symphony Orchestra launched its LSO Live label several years ago, it did so with the magical pairing of Berlioz and Sir Colin Davis. That was a spectacular recording of The Trojans, which epitomised Davis' especial affection for the delicious eccentricities of Berlioz's operatic style. This time, Davis turns his attentions to the joyously unorthodox Benvenuto Cellini in the label's latest blockbuster, and the results are exceptionally good.
There's no escaping the inordinate difficulty of this work, its soaring title role taxing the technique of the greatest lyric tenors, the dazzling unpredictability of the music posing a keen challenge for any orchestra. But Davis has impressive vocal resources to hand, and an LSO on vibrant form to help him.
Right from the start they capture the glorious iridescence of the overture, before unleashing the drama – a story based on the adventurous and self-exaggerated life of the 16th-century sculptor Benvenuto Cellini – with a freshness and spontaneity that is as flamboyant and inflated as the character himself.
A cast headed by Gregory Kunde as a radiant Cellini and Laura Claycomb as a luminescent Teresa ensure that every morsel of Berlioz's imaginative writing has relevance and impact. A punchy LSO Chorus completes the starry line up.
For reasons of scale, this is an opera rarely staged in UK theatres. Hearing this concert version simply whets the appetite to see it staged in all its colourful glory.
KAREN GEOGHEGAN: BASSOON
***
CHANDOS, £11.99 YOUNG Scots bassoon player Karen Geoghegan made her mark as a finalist on BBC 2's Classical Star, as much for her cheery character as her characterful musicianship. Much of that comes over in this mixed recipe disc, which opens with the work she performed in the contest final – Hummel's playful Grand Concerto – and closes with an unlikely version for bassoon and orchestra of Gershwin's Summertime.
Geoghegan produces consistent results in these and other performances, ranging from Elgar to Weber. Unfortunately the Orchestra of Opera North, under Benjamin Wallfisch, isn't always so captivating, merely ordinary.
KENNETH WALTON
The full article contains 1361 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
