Tricky’s debut album “Maxinquaye” came out in 1995 and is now, some eighteen years later, regarded as not only his best work, but also one of the most inspirational and best examples of the trip-hop genre which first appeared in the early nineties.  The pressure for him to repeat the success and the sounds contained on “Maxinquaye” seem to have been so great that Tricky has actually stated that this, his tenth album, (I know, it shocked me too) is a return to the essence of his debut and also of him as an artist. This doesn’t sound like the successor to “Maxinquaye” in that an updated version would have to be terrifyingly experimental and claustrophobic, sticky and dark, but “False Idols” is soulful, mature even and the predominant feminine psyche (something which Tricky has always been very much in touch with in both his music and the images that have accompanied it) is represented and presented as vulnerable and maybe damaged but wilful and intact.

This is a fifteen song album and only “Passion of the Christ” features Tricky on his own with no female support and probably sounds exactly as you might imagine it would. There are three female vocalists featured here and the one male guest is the lead singer of The Antlers singing a version of one their own songs. The women here sound and sing like Martina Topley-Bird, not featured here, who performed vocals on Tricky’s first four albums and is rightly considered his ultimate collaborator and muse. “Maxinquaye” was a sample heavy album and Tricky has demonstrated a continued greed for bizarre cover versions (the “Wonder Woman” theme, “Slow” by Kylie, “The Love Cats” and “Happy Talk” amongst others all appear on previous albums) which hasn’t diminished here but these are his most successful interpretations to date.

“Somebody’s Sins”, which is a cover of Patti Smith’s interpretation of Van Morrison’s “Gloria”, is beautifully economical; just Francesca Belmonte’s small but confrontational voice, a bassline and the sound of a muted bee buzzing in a jar and, at barely three minutes long, it’s an impressive opening track. “Valentine” sees Tricky duetting with Chet Baker’s “Funny Valentine”, “Hey Love” uses a two note, instantly recognisable sample from Japan’s “Ghosts” and “Does It” is actually a pretty loyal, albeit more minimal, cover version of the brilliantly threatening “Love  Is A Chain Store” by The Ropes. Along with the swooping Massive Attack-lite of “Nothing’s Changed” and Nneka, criminally given only one track, recalling “Raw Like Sushi” Neneh Cherry on “Nothing Matters”, this collection actually sounds like one of the more polite trip-hop releases from the late nineties. Tricky may well have wanted to avoid this but it’s something that he can’t seem to escape and in this instance, it’s not a criticism. Lyrical themes of isolation, class, betrayal and sex remain and occasionally, such as on the low-slung, stop-start funk of “Is That Your Life” where Francesca Belmonte narrates a typical dealer’s day and Tricky mumbles ‘you does your bird, you keeps your word’, it can be clumsy and clichéd and somewhat retrograde.

“False Idols” is occasionally menacing but overwhelmingly intimate, quiet and quite lovely. Admittedly there is filler here and if it were a twelve-track album then a lot of its problems would be solved, but it’s also Tricky’s most cohesive collection in a decade; “False Idols” is maybe a more revealing title than initially assumed. Tricky has made the album he wanted to and has declared that he proudly stands by every song featured.  He’s clearly a variation on the person he was almost two decades ago; not the same man but why would he be? To put him on a pedestal and expect him to recreate what’s now considered to be his masterpiece again is naive and misplaced. Tricky has moved on and this album proves that he has to ability and imagination to make material that is maybe minor, but is valid and engaging nonetheless.

 

If you check out MusicRiot regularly, you’ll know that our contributors have one thing in common; they’re all passionate about (maybe bordering on obsessed by) music.  All of the Riot Squad (John Preston, Louie Anderson and, most recently, Klare Stephens) love music of all styles and the reason we do this is because we want to share our passion and maybe get a few more people to listen to the music we love, whether it’s live or recorded.  Also, because music is such a personal thing we like to bring that element into our contributions; opinions are always subjective, but at least we’re upfront about it.  Often it can feel like shouting in the dark: then you have a weekend like the one I’ve just had.

Last week I published a review of the excellent album “Closer than you Know” by The Kennedys and I was invited to review their gig at Kings Place in London on Friday.  I also had a gig lined up for Sunday night, going to watch the Billy Walton Band in High Barnet with some good friends.  Both gigs were superb in very different ways; you can read The Kennedys review and previous Billy Walton Band reviews here on MusicRiot and work out for yourself that I’m impressed.

The live performances by these bands, however, are only part of the story.  All of the musicians at these two gigs (Pete and Maura Kennedy, Billy Walton, William Paris, Rich Taskowitz and John D’Angelo) are extremely gifted musicians who love what they do and love to interact with their audience personally and online. Both bands mix with the audience when they aren’t actually performing (and sometimes when they are; yeah that’s you Billy and Rich) and have a huge amount of respect for their fans, fellow musicians and songwriters.

Both gigs were superb in different ways; The Kennedys stripped down their songs to arrangements for two acoustic guitars and two voices while the Billy Walton Band played raucous r’n’r (and blues and soul and the rest) in the way that bands from New Jersey do.  Both bands were happy to play requests from the audience regardless of the setlist they had prepared.  Most importantly, both bands were obviously having a good time.  So far, so good, but excellence is pretty much what I expected from these two bands and this weekend was about much more than that.

I’ve been reviewing gigs in London and elsewhere for MusicRiot for six years now and sometimes it can be a bit depressing; you watch incredibly gifted bands and artists performing to audiences which just scrape into three figures and most of them are friends of the band.  I’ve been to blues gigs where the majority of the audience at least twice as old as the musicians.   It was great to see two very different gigs this weekend where the ages of the audience ranged widely and everyone was there to hear great live music and have a good time.  And that brings me on to the reason why we all contribute to MusicRiot.

We don’t ignore the established bands at MusicRiot; we had two reviews of the Daft Punk album last week and we’ve reviewed albums by Bruce Springsteen, Scissor Sisters, Lana del Rey and Saint Etienne in the last year or so.  We also love to discover a diverse range of bands and artists that you might not have heard of and tell you all about them so we’ll carry on telling you all about artists like The Kennedys, the Billy Walton Band, MS MR, Sally Shapiro, Tomorrow’s World, Lilygun, Stoneface Travellers, Dean Owens and many more.  We’ve even got some pretty good photos for you to look at.

If there’s one lesson that I’ve learned from six years at MusicRiot it’s this; whatever you hear on daytime radio, there’s always good music out there if you know where to look and that’s why the Riot Squad do what they do.  And thanks to Richie Taz for the title.

Very occasionally you go to a gig expecting to see a good show and you actually see a brilliant show; The Kennedys at Kings Place was one of those nights.  The venue is in a fairly new building behind Kings Cross Station and all of the staff make a real effort to ensure that the audience have a good time; that’s important, but it’s a very small part of tonight’s story.

I feel really guilty that I only heard of The Kennedys for the first time a few weeks ago when they’ve been writing and playing great songs for so long.  I reviewed the latest album “Closer than You Know” this week and it’s a great album which you should all have in your collection but, after tonight’s show, I think any true music fan should at least have a copy of their greatest hits package “Retrospective” in their collection as well.

The Kennedys live show is a perfect blend of musical talents; Pete is an incredibly good guitar player (more about that later) who also adds vocal harmonies to the mix while Maura is great country/folk/pop singer who is also a great rhythm guitar player, and that matters when it’s just two people, two guitars and two microphones up there.  Truly exceptional songs are the ones which stand up when you tear away all the layers of studio production and there were an awful lot of songs standing proud at this show.

Apart from the musicianship, which is exceptional, there are a lot of things to admire about The Kennedys.  They are very generous in their support for fellow songwriters, giving the audience some background (and usually a little anecdote) for most of their cover versions.  They engage with the audience, both on and off stage, and each one allows the other space to shine.  So, I’m guessing you might want to hear what they actually did.

The set started with a few old favourites featured on “Retrospective”, including “Life is Large”, “Breathe”, “Midnight Ghost” and “9^th Street Billy”.  Each of the songs is given a spoken introduction to help give it a context in the show and to help build a rapport between the performers and the audience and this, combined with The Kennedys willingness to play requests, gives the evening the feel of a house party hosted by some very talented friends.  It certainly creates an intimate atmosphere.

The tour is partly in support of the recent (excellent) album, “Closer than You Know” and about half of the songs from the album are featured, including “Cradle to a Boat”, “I’ll Come Over”, “Marina Dream”, “Big Star Song” (thanks guys) and the U2 cover “Wild Honey”.  All of these songs shine in their stripped-down live arrangements and stand up well in comparison with the songs they perform by other songwriters such as Nanci Griffith (“Trouble in the Fields”), Dave Carter (“When I Go”) and John Stewart (“Jasmine”).  Pete and Maura are always generous in their praise for their fellow-writers and performers.

I might have mentioned that Pete is an incredibly good guitar player; his playing throughout is superb, but particularly during his solo instrumental pieces. Tonight he played a jazzy version of “Somewhere over the Rainbow”, a contemporary setting of the Bach piece “Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring” (with harmonics and fret-tapping, no less) and a version of Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” played on an Ovation ukulele which left me speechless and, trust me, that doesn’t happen often.

So add in the traditional English balled “Matty Groves” and the obligatory “Eight Miles High” and that’s just about it for the two sets apart from the anthemic, and very timely plea for tolerance and diversity, “Stand”. 

The Kennedys are very accomplished musicians who are completely comfortable with their performance and happy to mix with their audience during the intermission and after the show; they really deserve to be seen by a much wider audience.  This tour continues until Thursday 06 June, so you still have a chance to check them out.  You won’t regret it.

 

I think this is a first for the Riot Squad.  I probably shouldn’t be surprised that two of our contributors wanted to review this album.  Instead of choosing one or the other, we thought it would be great to publish both reviews.  They come at the subject from different directions and experiences but the conclusions are… well you can read that for yourself.

 

 

Daft Punk are an act with nothing to prove. Given the amount of work that’s gone into “Random Access Memories” it’s easy to think otherwise but when you consider how the world fell at their feet upon the announcement of the album and the success its pre-release single, “Get Lucky”, achieved it’s fair to say it’s become clear that they’ve earned their place in the sub-consciousness of today’s pop world. Everything surrounding this new album almost allows it, in some people’s minds, to transcend the notion that the new release can be considered simply that: an album, which after all is all we’ve received here. Many bands whose status grows to the heights of an act like Daft Punk’s feel the need to use a new release to reignite the world’s passion for them, they craft a new statement defining their existence and remind everyone why they’re even here to begin with but here that’s not the case. With “Random Access Memories”, Daft Punk are simply paying tribute to the music that inspired them and the world and reminding people why we love it so. This album’s not about them, it’s about something much bigger and that’s nice.

This is most clear on the third track, “Giorgio by Moroder”, featuring a monologue from the almost-synonymous producer detailing his early music career. It begins as less of a piece of music, more a vocalised autobiography punctuated by a backing instrumental, however it evolves into a huge-sounding clash of Daft Punk’s usual electro-house sounds and a live orchestra, featuring  rather explosive drumming. This song is where Daft Punk’s motive behind the creation of this album is most prevalent and obvious and is actually very exciting. It’s one of the moments where it feels like the duo truly deserve the status they’ve garnered over the years, at once displaying their skills at creating both futuristic and boundary-pushing musical landscapes and producing something an listener can relate to and enjoy. However these moments are actually few and far between. That’s not to say the rest of the album is bad by any means, although there is a lot of filler, just that much of it seems dwarfed by the ambition and scale of some tracks.

For example when you consider “Touch”, a sprawling eight-minute epic featuring Paul Williams on vocals which seems to try and explore all kinds of musical styles, including both the sounds of music halls from the 40s and string-laden power ballads, and compare it with something as simple as “The Game of Love”, a smooth, funky, soulful, robot-voiced jam that Daft Punk fans will be very used to by now, it feels like a lot more care and thought has gone into the tracks featuring the rather impressive list of collaborators.  The duo’s solo tracks suffer and pale in comparison, feeling like bridges over the gaps between collaborations. Often it seems like extraordinary measures have been made just to distinguish them, like the bizarre Disney-esque fanfare pinned to the start of “Beyond”.

However it is these collaborations which save the record so the focus they’ve received is understandable (or perhaps the converse is true). Personal highlights include the irresistible Julian Calasblancas-featuring “Instant Crush”. His vocals are run through pitch-shift software which makes him sound like a falsetto version of one of Daft Punk’s own robot voices. The catchy, rhythmic runs in the chorus are nearly the most memorable moment on the album. “Doin’ It Right”, featuring Panda Bear from Animal Collective, is by far the simplest track here and is gorgeous. It is literally just AnCo vs. Daft Punk with the collaborator singing over a spine-tingling ascending robot vocal loop with very little else interfering. Nile Rodgers’ presence is made very clear, with his signature staccato guitar licks gliding infectiously over three tracks, including of course the full album version of the previously heard “Get Lucky” which now flows properly and feels fully formed in its extended album version.

The most consistent thing on “Random Access Memories” is the meticulous production values, ensuring that every track at least sounds meaningful and organic. Every instrument is crisp and warm, with overall soundscapes feeling very spacious yet united. Daft Punk often seem to try and recall the sound of seventies disco, free it up, give it a cleaner quality with more room to breathe and mix it up with their own unique feel, all the while pushing everything in a new direction. It’s a very sincere venture and elements which feel borrowed rarely seem to act as a crutch.

“Random Access Memories” is a pleasing but flawed album. When you strip away the notions of this release acting as a movement or an event and look at what is displayed front to back on a disc, what’s here is largely enjoyable; not consistently but the highs remind us why Daft Punk are now so highly-revered. While nothing is as instant or probably as memorable as hits of old like “One More Time”, several tracks here do deserve to be remembered and the overall product is very warm, it’s just that the duo’s sights seem to get distracted along the way. If you go in listening to this as you would any old album then there’s enjoyment to be had to a degree. If you fancy believing the promises made that this is the new best album ever, please calm down.

Louie Anderson (3 stars)

The best thing to do with an album is just listen to it; I’ve been doing this for 35 years now and can testify to its effectiveness. In the small, market town that I grew up in, I visited the tiny, local independent record shop almost every day for at least 2 months after school and Saturday mornings, waiting for Grace Jones’ “Nightclubbing” album to appear. The 2 staff, sick to the back teeth of seeing me , weren’t exactly sure when it was going to be released; it didn’t seem to be confirmed anywhere and then one day, there it was, this mysterious, magical disc. No inner sleeve notes, no guest producers or artists, no media assault and no idea how it would sound. I almost certainly ran home and then consumed every second of this amazing record, it helped me deal with the problems of being an outsider and influenced me in ways that I certainly didn’t understand then. It has since become an album that is considered a classic, a glimpse into the future which still doesn’t sound dated now and the house band of Sly and Robbie and the late Alex Sadkin (collectively known as the Compass Point All Stars), the ultimate in session musicians, are now stars in their own right. I can’t imagine what it would like if this album were to be released today.  The hype that would be attached to it would probably break the internet.

I’ve been listening to Daft Punk’s fourth album proper, ”Random Access Memories”, on and off during the last week; on headphones, on my stereo at home, on my iPad. I’ve heard it in some of the few remaining record shops in central London and in a couple of bars, blaring out. It is without doubt an album that is ambitious, outrageous and gorgeous sounding, but try if you can to turn down the noise of the hype, the incredible marketing campaign which still hasn’t given us a full video for one song but has turned this album, by a band who were merely popular before but now appear to be reinvented as ‘iconic’, into a full blown event.  It’s even been claimed that these two French men who are never seen without their robot heads, have rescued dance music from something; I’m not sure what exactly. This is all of course quite amazing, but what is it you can actually hear? You just need to try and listen.

Nile Rodgers is one of the two men, the other being the late Bernard Edwards, responsible for The Chic Organisiation, words that my still make my heart beat a little bit faster when I see them. Chic made their own intelligent, beautiful and sometimes euphoric, sometimes sad dance records and Rodgers and Edwards, along with their own session band and singers, went on to produce other artists such as Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, David Bowie and Deborah Harry.  Rodgers plays guitar on this album, most predominantly on the first track released from the album, “Get Lucky” and this song has really struck a chord with music buyers such is its immediate, enormous success; with Pharrell Williams’ falsetto,  it has a strong melody line and its lyrical optimism is welcomed in what is globally, a pretty bleak time. Compared to the Chic canon of hits how would this one measure up? Well, it’s not “Good Times”, “Le Freak” or “I Want Your Love”.  Lyrically, structurally and rhythmically “Get Lucky” would be a minor Chic record, more reminiscent of their 80’s work where a looser, less urgent and less staccato sound came to the fore and their success began to wane. “Lose Yourself To Dance” is not “Lost in Music;, Rodgers’ guitar, when it appears after the false start, is still so beautiful and so fluid but the song plods and is a good example of repetition not working although it can be a key component to some great dance music. Maybe I shouldn’t be drawing parallels between these two songs to Chic compositions but surely that’s what Daft Punk have tried to recreate here? Harking back to a time where music, dance music in particular, was more organic, soulful and, somewhat ironically for two men who have never been seen without their robot helmets glued to their heads, human. It would be their own fault if comparisons are made.

“I Feel Love” is not a song, it’s a place which Giorgio Moroder, record producer extraordinaire, and disco goddess and his most accomplished muse, Donna Summer, built together in 1977, took residence in  and have never left; people still get lost in it and will continue to. Play it now and it still sounds like it’s from the future; its other-worldliness and beauty intact. Moroder himself explains how he came to make music on the second most audacious track here called “Giorgio by Moroder” and it’s one of the few tracks where, like “I Feel Love”, something happens in your brain which makes it respond to what it can hear in a very visceral way, a physical urge to react, with the last third of this nine minute opus in particular being a complete oral riot and making me grin like a crazy fool. An amazing bass line, synth hook, scratching effects, strings, live drums and an energy that is not matched again here and, despite the structure of the song, which is more like a suite and is very in keeping with Moroder’s more ambitious work (the original sixteen minute version of “McArthur Park”), this still sounds like a Daft Punk record, the aims of this album being very much achieved here.

“Touch” is a silly, show-off mess of a show tune, not a good show tune but a pretentious, overblown, rock-opera cheesy one made up of four different parts playing over eight minutes. The most divisive track on “RAM”, it has a full orchestra and a choir and is the only time you will hear a female voice albeit one blended with other vocals during the album’s seventy-five minute running time. This is one of the main flaws regarding the decisions made by Daft Punk in their choice of collaborators.  Here’s the list in full; Pharrell Williams, Nile Rodgers, Paul Williams, Giorgio Moroder, Chilly Gonzales, DJ Falcon, Todd Edwards, Panda Bear and Julian Casablancas from The Strokes. A complete boys club then and it’s an odd decision to exclude any kind of female presence when the genre which is being honoured, or being paid tribute to here, was one where the female vocalist was key, a generation of women who had almost dysfunctional levels of intimacy with the producer and who went on to record seminal pieces of work.  No sign of that here though but Pharrell Williams, to his credit, has already, quite rightly, put Madonna’s name forward.

There are four, maybe five, tracks which have the trademark, sad robot vocoder sound or are completely instrumental.  They noodle and doodle around a bit, electronic keyboards and soft rock guitar, quite beautifully arranged and played but seem created to fulfil the cliché of music made for the background, something that their previous output could not be accused of.  Julian Casablancas’ very heavily treated vocals probably get the best actual song on here with the sombre, minor key “Instant Crush” and the minimal, electro jolt of “Doing It Right” with a  bright, white Panda Bear vocal recalls a lesser “Digital Love”. The choppy  chords on the opening track, “Give Life Back to Music Again”, again featuring Rodgers and his magic guitar, bring back memories of and sound a lot like Oliver Cheatham’s “Get Down It’s Saturday Night”, nice but hardly inspired or original.

I have had a long term love affair with Daft Punk’s 2001 album, “Discovery”. It samples Barry Manilow (an early clue maybe?) and features at least four incredible songs which will contribute in helping to define a decade in music and culture generally. “RAM” announced itself loudly and long before its actual arrival and now it’s here it feels underwhelming and is nostalgic, clinical, and occasionally brilliant and will be a musical trainspotter of a certain age’s treasure trove. I’ve been guilty of indulging that part of me in this review. Giorgio Moroder speaks about his desire of wanting to create the sound of the future  here, something he achieved with little fanfare, a bit like Grace, and this is what “Discovery” sounded like to a lot of people when it appeared some 12 years ago. The fact that it influenced pop (and r’n’b, which ended up becoming the new pop) to the extent that it did is still unbelievable; it sounded so underground, so consigned to a club!  And this album is apparently a reaction to the further progression of commercial dance music labelled EDM (electronic dance music), which Daft Punk vocally dislike but are of course partly, and probably quite a large part, responsible for. Instead of looking to the future though, the duo now seem content to swoon over the past, a decision that will excite many I’m sure but in terms of their own evolution, it’s hard to hear anything that hasn’t been heard many times before. It’s clear though that the ultimate message being conveyed with “RAM” is that by aligning themselves with two of the best, most prolific and important dance producers and writers of our time, Daft Punk  also consider themselves part of that gang too; only time can tell. Ask Giorgio, he’ll tell you.

John Preston (3 stars)

 

This album’s been around for a few months but it slipped under the MusicRiot radar until we heard about The Kennedys touring to support it in the UK, so I guess that justifies telling you all about it a little late.  This is the twelfth album the husband and wife team, Pete and Maura Kennedy, have released as The Kennedys, although they have both also been involved with various side projects.  The Kennedys are one of those “well-kept secret” bands that have devoted fans but, for some reason, have never quite become massively successful.

“Closer than You Know” is an interesting piece of work.  Just for once I agree with a statement from a press release; this is “pop for grown-ups” and, more importantly, it’s music for people who really care about music.  There isn’t any filler on this album; all of the songs are good and, in my opinion, at least a couple are great.  It’s difficult to define their style, but if you take folk-rock as your starting point, add a bit of Celtic seasoning and throw in 60s UK pop and The Byrds, you won’t be far off the mark.

The opening song “Winter” sets the scene for the album with Pete’s finger-picked guitar backing  Maura’s breathy, multi-tracked, vocals before moving into the country-tinged “Rhyme and Reason”, followed by the story of a second generation illegal immigrant “Marina Dream”, which has a Celtic folk feel  and a rhythm that evokes perfectly the flight and pursuit experienced by the girl at the centre of the song.

The middle section of the album moves across a variety of styles instrumentally and vocally featuring laconic Richard Hawley style-guitar, discordant synthesised strings and classical nylon-strung guitar arrangements.  I’m not dismissing these songs by any means, because they’re all good but, for me, after a couple of listens, the album builds up to one focal point.

From the opening sus4 chords of “Big Star Song” I was hooked.  The song is a celebration of Alex Chilton’s work and a lament for his passing;  it’s a perfect marriage of words and music which evokes an earlier era while sounding completely contemporary.  Like many great songs, this has several layers and, lyrically, it’s also about losing something or someone other than Alex Chilton.  I don’t know what that something else is and I suspect it’s so personal that I don’t really want to know.  Whichever way you look at it, this is a great song.

“Big Star Song” is followed by a U2 cover, “Wild Honey” , “Happy Again” (which has more than a hint of Rosanne Cash vocally) and “Winter Lies”, which completes the cycle.  I would have reviewed this as a good album without “Big Star Song”, but with that song, it’s a very good album indeed.  You can hear loads of influences at work here (you can probably add Stevie Nicks and maybe Emmylou Harris to the ones I’ve already listed), but this is fresh and original. 

My only general criticism is that the album feels slightly over-produced at times.  This may be a reaction to working as a duo because it must be natural at times to over-compensate by throwing too much at the production and adding another extra guitar part or vocal harmony. It’s a minor criticism and I’m really looking forward to hearing the live interpretations of the songs later this week.

“Closer than You Know” is out now (Catalogue No. TK1208), distributed by Proper Music Distribution.

Some of my Closet Classics are there mainly on musical merit, some mainly on the strength of memories they evoke, but this earns its place on both counts.  I first heard the songs on this EP during my Freshers’ Week at the University of Dundee and I still say that “September”, featured on this EP, is one of the finest pieces of guitar-playing I’ve ever heard live.

Cado Belle was one of 3 bands I saw in a hectic week (the other 2 were Frankie Miller’s Full House and Skeets Boliver, if you must know) that set the scene for 4 years of watching great bands, DJing and generally having a good time.  I did a bit of studying as well, when I had to.  I went along to the gig with my new mate Steve J (still my mate now and a bloody good bloke) in his yellow ex-GPO Morris van, which was great if you were in the passenger seat, but a bit agricultural otherwise.  It had the added advantage of being absolutely impossible to lose in a car park.

We knew nothing about the band, but it was Freshers’ Week and we were determined to do everything that was on offer, especially if it also involved having a few beers.  We discovered that Cado Belle, fronted by singer Maggie Reilly, was a great Scottish soul band with a line-up of drums, bass, keyboards, guitar and sax.  Blue-eyed soul was huge in Scotland in the mid-70s; it was actually a criminal offence to have a band in Scotland without at least 1 sax player at that time.

It’s fair to say that it wasn’t a capacity audience, but we were enthusiastic and the band was exceptional, playing material from their first (and only) album and the eponymous EP.  The set was packed with superb playing and singing from a very accomplished band (we all said “tight” in those days) and we were all having a great time.  And then the band started to play “September”.

Anyone in the audience who had ever picked up a guitar was absolutely speechless as Alan Darby’s guitar gently wept its way through the beautiful extended intro using perfectly controlled feedback over a wash of electric piano to lead the song into Maggie Reilly’s ethereal vocal.  You expected recordings of guitarists to be this good, but it was incredible to see it live.  I won’t say that it changed my life, but it was one of the events that made me realise guitar-playing was only ever going to be a hobby.  When you analyse it, it’s not really much of song because it’s only really one verse but it’s an incredibly evocative piece of music; if you were pretentious, you might even call it a tone poem.

Obviously, I bought the EP as soon as I could get my hands on it and it’s a perfect little mini album.  The other 3 songs are “It’s Over” (a Boz Scaggs classic), “Play it Once for Me” (written by Stuart MacKillop, the band’s keyboard player) and “Gimme Little Sign” (as made famous by Brenton Wood and covered by many others since, including Peter Andre).  All 4 tracks on this EP stand up on their own merits and my vinyl 12” copy has been played to death since I bought it.  I’ve played it to many people including some very gifted musicians and it always gets the same response; stunned silence followed by queries about the band and then the inevitable “Why haven’t I heard this before?”

The band split up in 1979, but maintained loose ties and worked together occasionally.  Colin Tully (saxophone and woodwind) composed the music for the Bill Forsyth film “Gregory’s Girl”, Stuart MacKillop worked with ABBA and continues to work regularly with Maggie Reilly, along with bass player Gavin Hodgson.  Maggie Reilly went on to have hits with Mike Oldfield (including “Moonlight Shadow”) and is still recording and performing.

As for Alan Darby, he’s currently working on the Queen musical “We Will Rock You” in London, but if you run a quick search, you’ll be amazed at what he’s done and the artists he’s worked with.  Strangely enough, Alan Darby’s name has cropped up in conversations decades apart with various people.  In the early 80s, a friend of mine managed a cocktail bar in Covent Garden and told me that Alan worked there as a doorman for a while, which may or may not be true.  Twenty years later, in the early Noughties, during one of many late-night chats with the late Allan Mawn, the subject of Cado Belle came up again.  Allan (who genuinely seemed to know every musician in Scotland) told me that he’d recently spoken to Alan Darby just after his return from a tour in Japan with the Bay City Rollers and that he was currently working with Lulu’s band.  It’s a long way from playing to 150 students at Dundee University Students’ Association and, no doubt, a fascinating journey.  Normally, I would fill a piece like this with links to the music but, unfortunately it just isn’t out there.  If you want to hear a little more Cado Belle, try their MySpace page.

These 4 tracks, and “September” in particular, have been favourites of mine for over 30 years.  They still sound fresh even now and they’ve created a whole set of memories and associations years after they were initially released.  Great songs and playing never get old.

I reviewed MS MR’s quite special debut  4-track  EP “Candy Bar Creep Show” late last year and may have even, in a moment of rare generosity, given it 5 stars. During its release the boy-girl, goth pop duo from New York were already speaking excitingly about their first album being almost ready to go and I remember thinking at the time, that’ll be good, something to look forward to. Well now it’s here and, although some of it’s good, it’s not really that special.

“Hurricane” was one of the best pop singles of last year; it swaggered beautifully.  Lizzie Plapinger’s strong, clear vocals moaned about the foul contents of her mind; it was a helluva song. It was part of the aforementioned EP, the other three remaining tracks being equally strong, if subtle, shifts on the same sonic theme. It’s a big mistake though to include all 4 songs again here and especially to front load the album with them. Apart from another couple of songs, which also include the bombastic single “Fantasy”, again released as single before this album, the best tracks here are, disappointingly, still these same 4 songs and the decision for them to dominate the first quarter of the album only succeeds in hammering this point home.     

Of the remaining 8, unheard, tracks only “Think of You”, which follows the same, already established, template with a catchy-as-hell chorus that, instead of being bellowed, is thankfully more reflective and the Lana Del Rey-indebted ballad “BTSK”, which actually stands for Big Teeth, Small Kiss  (you can see why they decided to abbreviate it),  has drama and build with another big but dumber chorus,  comes close to the quality heard eight months ago on “CBCS”. Like Florence’s second album in particular, which MS MR’s brand of broad, glam pop has, rightly to a point, been compared to, the set up for every track is almost identical and that kind of repetition can of course work, but only if the songwriting is strong enough to support it. “Salty Sweet” is the one variation musically and is a lilting, feather-light reggae mistake.  A song like “Twenty Seven” (as in the age, at which it’s hoped one will live past)  feels so set up to soundtrack a Tumblr account of pop cultural clichés, is too shallow and under-written to penetrate in the way that it wants to. By the end of the album one song blurs into another and any strong sense of identity that may have been established at the beginning of the album has all but disappeared.

There’s a sense here that maybe there was a pressure to get this album out as soon as possible; MS MR have the feeling of a band who are very of the moment and dangerously hip. I’m sure that their moment hasn’t passed, half of this album is certainly good and enjoyable enough to make an impression and get them noticed, but if they want to headline Glastonbury, their ultimate dream, they’re going to need more than 1 EPs worth of cracking material so let’s hope that they can deliver on that initial promise.

It’s been a while since Lucinda has graced the UK with her presence and tonight she fitted in a Festival appearance as part of her north European tour.  ‘An Intimate Evening With…’ is a chance to showcase her last album, 2011’s “Blessed”, probably her best offering since “West” in 2006.  But she does not take to merely promoting her most recent work, instead preferring to cherrypick songs from over three decades for the festival crowd.  But make no mistake, this is no greatest hits package as defined by sales but, thankfully, carefully selected songs from a vintage singer/song-writer.   A few technical issues of sound and dry ice distract initially (“We’re not Whitesnake, y’know, I feel like I’m playing in a smoky bar!”)

She kicks off with “Passionate Kisses”, the Grammy-winning track she wrote for Mary Chapin Carpenter.  The concert continues her themes of heartbreak and loss, but it takes a specialist to dissect the human heart without merely going over the same ground and Lucinda succeeds.   Although repetition is a strong feature of her writing style in terms of turning some of her songs into drawling incantations of powerful lines, there’s not enough of this for me tonight as her song choices on the whole avoid such relentless intimacy.  Writing prowess aside, an artist like Lucinda was born to tell her tales live and she certainly is a powerful performer and effective communicator; she also plays a mean acoustic guitar backed only by bass and lead guitar.

Lucinda is “so in the moment” that she forgets her set list and instead works her way through the ballads in her folder, before upping the tempo slightly.  Williams’ voice attracts every Bourbon-soaked cliché but let’s just say she really sounds like she’s been there, and probably on more than one occasion, but at 60 years she still walks with her vulnerability; tonight we hear more of the songwriter and less of the singer.  First person experiences form the bulk of her canon, which ranges from ballad to blues to rock edge which makes Lucinda an exciting live ticket. Long regarded as a competent live artist, Lucinda delivers those contrasts in tempo well, building the energy of the set that peaks at the much requested “Drunken Angel” and angry anthem, “Joy”.  The audience are Lucinda’s contemporaries age-wise and sadly there are very few younger converts in evidence here and mostly festival goers taking a punt on a recommendation, but a core of fans enthusiastically make themselves known between songs.

Most of her albums were represented here including “Jackson” from “West”, the album that did the best, chart-wise in the UK and she showcased 2 new songs including “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, hopefully from a forthcoming disc as she admits that she is longing to get back into the studio.

The encore was an acoustic rendition of Nick Drake’s “Riverman” followed by the gratitude anthem, “Blessed” and it was all over after an impressive set of over 100 minutes.  A quick mention is deserved for Jimmy Livingstone, support act who had his moments also on a singer/song-writer ticket.

Last time around Little Boots lost out to La Roux and no one was expecting it. Little Boots was hyped to the point where it was inevitable that she would become, at least for a year, a Very Big Star indeed, but this didn’t materialise. Following her big, underground blog hit and debut track “Stuck On Repeat”, still many people’s favourite LB track, the first big, official song “New In Town” came with a misjudged video and after a quick appearance in the top ten, it was gone. RedOne, massive at the time because of his involvement with the newly hatched star Lady Gaga, was roped in to produce the next single “Remedy” (subsequently very popular at the Olympics I’ve been told) and again, another terrible video and another song that failed to dominate. An album, “Hands”, was eventually released to very mixed reviews (it’s actually a very solid debut) and then La Roux crept in and became the Very Big Star with a number 1 single, a number 2 album and USA success resulting in a Grammy. That was, somewhat terrifyingly, 4 years ago now and neither LB nor LR have followed up their debuts; until now that is.

“Nocturnes” is an album that had a considerable history before it was even released; massive rows with record companies, lack of creative control and scrapped sessions finally resulting in Victoria Hesketh aka Little Boots releasing the album herself. One of the reasons for this act of ultimate control was obviously to allow Little Boots to release the album that she has been trying to make for the last 4 years with no absolutely no restrictions or compromises and this is why it is so bewildering that the end product is most definitely and disappointingly a flawed one. Little Boots knows her dance music and with co-writes from members of Hercules and Love Affair and Simian Mobile Disco and the album being produced by Tim Goldsworthy of DFA, sonically this is a change from the first album where Phil Oakey was a guest vocalist and eighties electro synth pop was cited as the main influence.  There are overlaps of course but this sounds different. This is an album that wants to take its time and stretch out, languish; two tracks are over 6 mins long (and they are both mid tempos and down-hearted) but Boots is still writing 3 minute pop songs which can rattle around a bit in the overly extended time frames given to them here.

Three of the best songs on “Nocturnes” have been released before but the general tone this time is more serious. “Shake” is a straight-up chunky house track, the structure of the song, the repetition, it’s not a pop song and it holds up; you play this in a club and people dance. “Motorway” sounds like Saint Etienne (Hesketh and Sarah Cracknell also sharing similar sounding vocals) doing Bronski Beat’s “Smalltown Boy” (a good thing) and “Every Night I Say a Prayer” is old school vocal house with a lovely, dreamy piano riff. New tracks don’t do as well but “Confusion” has some lovely, intricate details and is a successful stab at disco (unlike the chicken in a basket, flabby Kylie album track, “Beat Beat”) and “Crescendo”, which is a real oddity, a pop ballad stretched out to 6 minutes that is lovely and sad for about 4 of those until it starts to morph into Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” and things become stretched to breaking point. The songs are here on the whole but the energy is oddly not, which is by far the biggest difference between this and her debut, and this is meant to be a dance album. Minutes go by where nothing happens and awkward synth lines or a lonely syndrum fill time where anther song could have taken their place; she must have written more than 10 in the last 4 years?

Little Boots reminds me of Cocknbullkid, another young, talented British singer-songwriter who has failed to engage with their target audience. Both are slightly self-conscious, intelligent women who can’t seem to fully inhabit the role required to be a successful pop star; arrogance and posturing is absent and it isn’t just this aspect that La Roux gets right.  She is admittedly outspoken but she also has an almost instant iconic appearance which she knowingly, smartly exploits. I doubt most people could identify Hesketh by picture only, music lover or Daily Mail reader. Boots’ strength is her song writing and “Nocturnes” will establish her place in the touring circuit as a dedicated artist that needs to create and I hope she finds a way to continue to do this without becoming the massive pop star that initially it looked like she would be.