POP
THE TING TINGS: WE STARTED NOTHING ****
COLUMBIA, £9.99AS YOU read this, Salford DIY duo The Ting Tings – singer/guitarist Katie White and drummer Jules De Martino – are heading to the top of the singles chart with one
of their rudimentary, catchy, punky chants. They're not strictly do-it-yourself anymore – signing to a major label generally puts paid to that – but this debut album still manages to capture the raw, untutored spirit in which these songs were conceived. Nevertheless, the likes of Great DJ and That's Not My Name are unabashed pop songs at heart and there is more where they came from, mostly executed with a playful attitude. In contrast to their singles, Traffic Light is an unexpectedly sweet, girlish acoustic waltz and the flourish of soulful horns on the closing title track is the cherry on top.
A BAND CALLED QUINN: SUN, MOON, STARS ***
TROMOLO RECORDS, £9.99A BAND Called Quinn have been knocking around for a fair while now, chipping away at the pop coalface and carving their own niche in their native Glasgow with the running of their indie cabaret night Club Tromolo. Musically, they make sophisticated, sultry pop with a light electro touch which, with this album anyway, places them in the same seductive ballpark as Goldfrapp. Louise Quinn has a lovely, effortless vocal style and the songs all waft pleasingly around the ears without ever trying too hard.
BONNIE "PRINCE" BILLY: LIE DOWN IN THE LIGHT ****
DOMINO, £10.99HAVING seen a darkness, and then passed it on to Johnny Cash for an even more morose reading of his folk noir, Will Oldham, aka Bonnie "Prince" Billy, is embracing a sunnier musical perspective on his latest collection Lie Down in the Light. There is still an underlying bleakness and isolation in some of his lyrics, but he at least entertains the possibility of satisfying intimacy on the likes of So Everyone. His palette of instruments is warmer on this occasion too, with some lovely, mellow jazz clarinet gracing For Every Field There's a Mole. But keep a hanky handy for standout track Missing One, featuring some of his most beautiful, affecting lyrics to date.
CLASSICAL
MATTHIAS GOERNE SCHUBERT EDITION, VOL 1 *****
HARMONIA MUNDI, £12.99THE pairing of baritone Matthias Goerne and pianist Elisabeth Leonskaja gives this Schubert lieder disc a distinctive quality all of its own. Goerne's probing interpretations colour the opening settings of the composer's one-time roommate Johann Mayrhofer (the demonic Fahrt zum Hades and the fatalistic Freiwilliges Versinken) with expressive breadth and tonal gravitas. Even at its most tender extremes, such as the irresistible tunefulness of Der Winterabend, his voice has a melting allure that draws you in completely to the sentiments of the song, and the disarming beauty of Schubert's music. These are largely substantial settings, but even in the shortest examples – the restless energy of Der Schiffer, or the hymn-like serenity of Hoffnung – Goerne and Leonskaja capture the moment without any temptation to overindulge. Their approach is one that lets the music speak entirely for itself. These performances glow in various lights, rounding off a truly excellent first volume of an ongoing Schubert series in which Goerne will work with various distinguished pianists.
MAHLER: SYMPHONY NO 6 ****
LSO LIVE, £7.99IF YOU simply can't wait for August's visit by Valery Gergiev and the London Symphony Orchestra to the Edinburgh Festival, here's something worthwhile to get your teeth into now. Gergiev plunges straight into Mahler's Sixth Symphony with an extravagance that is Straussian, but equally with a brilliantly judged directness that brings clarity and incision at every turn. The emotional heat is shot through with definition and, more often, a blinding ferocity.
JAZZ
NICOLAS MEIER: SILENCE TALKS ***
NAIM, £11.99NICOLAS Meier is a Swiss guitarist resident in London, but his music is strongly marked by a passion for the music of Turkey (his wife is Turkish) and the Middle East. He is abetted in that by the presence in his band of Israeli saxophonist Gilad Atzmon and drummer Asaf Sirkis, with Tom Mason completing a tightly knit quartet. The various influences in Meier's compositions seem more fully integrated than on his earlier discs, and are explored at length. The guitarist has shed some of the more overt Metheny-derived directions in his playing, and continues to develop an individual voice on a range of acoustic guitars, including the "glissenar", a fretless 11-string instrument used to atmospheric effect on the title track.
FOLK
VARIOUS ARTISTS: A CELEBRATION OF THE MUSIC OF GORDON DUNCAN ***
GREENTRAX, £10.99A SOUVENIR of the tribute concert held as a celebration of the music of the late Gordon Duncan at Perth Concert Hall last September, this warts-and-all live recording captures something of the mood of the night along with some fine music. Gordon's father, Jock, is no respecter of recording technology, and regularly wanders off-mic with his imaginary horses during his ebullient rendition of The Plooin' Match. It is rightly included despite that glitch, alongside songs from Maggie MacInnes, Kris Drever and Dougie MacLean. Needless to say, pipes of various descriptions are prominent, with Allan MacDonald, Jarlath Henderson and Ross Ainslie among the featured soloists, and the Atholl Highlander's Pipe Band and the National Youth Pipe Band supplying the ensemble variety.
WORLD
GABI LUNCA: SOUNDS FROM A BYGONE AGE VOL 5 *****
ASPHALT TANGO, £12.99WHERE would we be without such enterprising labels as Asphalt Tango? The new volume in their ongoing Bygone Age series is a corker. Gaby Lunca – the supreme Gypsy diva of Romania's musica lautareasca – may have been locally superseded by meretricious turbo-pop singers, and is now mostly to be heard in Pentecostal churches, but she was once a much-loved daily fixture on radio, as well as a sought-after wedding performer. The tracks here come from the 1960s and 70s, and they work like a drug. Permeated by that wonderfully lazy, limping beat which first endeared Taraf de Haidouks to Western audiences, they showcase her equally wonderful voice, darkly suggestive of all the pleasures of life. Heaven.
ENTRE DUNES ET SAVANES: DESERT BLUES 3 *****
NETWORK, £21.99WHEN Christian Scholze and Jean Trouillet released their first double album on the music of the Sahara, they set a ball rolling which has been gathering speed ever since: "desert blues" is now an established genre, and hugely in vogue. This third volume brings together all the griots who have become synonymous with this music, plus the best-loved musicians on the international touring circuit, as well as other less familiar names. Thus Djelimady Tounkara, Ali Farka Toure, Oumou Sangare, Toumani Diabate and Habib Koite sit alongside the experimental Algerian songstress Souad Massi, the blind duo Amadou & Mariam, and those ubiquitous Touaregs, Tinariwen. Rokia Traore duets with the Kronos Quartet, while Khaled takes another bow.
The full article contains 1150 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
