This folky duo  have been around since ’94 although they evolved out of the much respected Albion Band and have already produced a “Best Of…” in 2006 so they are not short of musical and life experience to write about and this CD definitely focuses on interesting subjects rather than doomed love. The themes might not surprise you in this folk/country genre: dying babies, war and a tribute to the oldest holocaust survivor, who died earlier this year. “Who We Are” is their ninth studio outing for the Fat Cat label. They are frequent nominees as well as winners of Radio 2’s Folk awards and they have been covered by many acts including Mary Black, Fairport Convention and Barbara Dickson.

This is no acoustic camp-fire session though; the instrumentation is quite rich and diverse, allowing for some creativity with the arrangements.   The overall effect is that of sounding more expensive, but with disciplined production values; the outcome is balanced. My issue with it is probably one of tempo, which is a bit samey. The ballads tend towards upbeat while some of the other songs could use a little more energy.

This collection of all-new songs starts in a jaunty mood with “If This Were Your Last Day” with its bright jangly guitars and vocal harmony that asks us to ditch our regrets; ‘Would you do it another way/ if this were your last day?’ This is the most obvious single of the set, with its catchy chorus and daytime radio-friendly lyric. Their voices blend effortlessly and to great effect, my only comparison might be vaguely to the Indigo Girls. The musicianship is of a consistently high quality throughout, lending this album a sophisticated, professional atmosphere.

My favourite tracks are: “Drop Hammer”, a rhythmic vocal composition about women’s war effort in the Sheffield steel mills and “Mad Men”, a more contemporary arrangement, focussed on planetary ecology. I’m sure this collection of songs will keep the fans happy but I just don’t know their back catalogue well enough to know if this is their best yet.

So there we were in Macclesfield having arrived by boat and having looked around the local gigs and jigs we saw that Lucy Zirins was due to play The Wharf Inn and with it being but a few strides from the canal, it all seemed like a sensible thing to do. Lucy Zirins comes well backed; a lot of specialist radio airplay especially on community stations and Radio 6, a well – received first album in “Chasing Clocks” and a gig schedule including some of the most prestigious blues festivals this year, not to mention a string of Award nominations from the British Blues establishment and you have a ‘what’s not to like?’ cocktail which deserves to be sampled at the very least.

The Wharf Inn is a very independent-looking boozer with a natty line in whacky beers like smoked stout (no kidding!) and a keg beer called Syrup and Figs. They also have reputation locally for decent live music nights. So, nice intimate little venue to hear Lucy Zee go through her paces.

About 9PM and she starts her set to the usual Saturday night pub mix of folks who have come in to see The Turn and folks who have come in to drink and socialise and rather see The Turn as a distraction at best and an annoyance at worst. Not an easy balance keeping everybody happy in that situation, but she did so with the easy grace and charm of someone who has been treading the boards for a while now and has been doing so rather successfully.

She launches into “Ready to Fall” from “Chasing Clocks” and plays an acoustic throughout the first of two sets; it’s pleasant enough, nice voice, nice tune, decent enough lyrics, well played. She then goes into a range of songs taken largely, but by no means exclusively, from the album and each song is politely if hardly ecstatically received by the audience, which she works quite adeptly, recognising and mentioning by name a couple of guys who went to a recent festival, a number of local folks she knows, and a local radio DJ who did an early session with her. Her inter-song raps have a homely Lisa Stansfieldesque quality about them and we are shortly invited to enjoy a refreshing beverage whilst she takes a break.

When she returns she has dropped the acoustic for a blingy dobro which she plays extremely well. Stand-out songs in the set are “Home”, a bit of a ‘road’ song, and “The Last One”. But I find myself becoming increasingly fidgety, and it isn’t just the distance from the gents making me feel uncomfortable. For I honestly thought I was coming out to hear the blues tonight – and I don’t hear ‘em. I hear a very competent and quite likeable singer / songwriter and a very adept musician. Occasionally I hear a country singer and player. True, we get a bit nearer blues-sounding stuff once the dobro becomes the weapon of choice and sure enough there are a few classic covers in the second part of her set including a fun singalong version of ‘Little Red Rooster’ and an encore of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Don’t Stop’ but all told, I seemed to be watching an artist confronted by the same problem I’ve seen loads of talented people unhorsed by over the years.

I don’t think she’s a blues singer, as such. I really don’t. But the thing is, the flag of convenience known generally as the blues means that if you hang your hat on that particular peg, to mangle metaphors horribly, They Know What To Do With You. You get to play blues festivals, you get to do gigs like these and the broad church of ‘blues’ fans will give it a go, record / production companies understand what to do you with you; there’s a process. If you’re singer / songwriter, no fixed artistic abode, you sort of drift around trying to connect with an audience, which, well, isn’t all that big and lacks ‘focus’. As I say I’ve seen many musicians over the years trying to ‘shoehorn’ themselves into ‘the blues’ and it becomes painful to watch.

So if you like a female singer songwriter with some good original songs, but as yet no out-and-out killers, with a good voice and is a very good musician, you could do a lot worse than a night out with Lucy Zirins.

But if you’re looking for a night on the Blues, I’d look elsewhere.

So it’s kind of a bittersweet moment then; the last gig ever for Vera Lynch and it’s at Barfly Camden. The bar service and the lighting are basic, but at least the sound is good. I managed a very quick word with singer Guy Harries before Vera hit the stage for the last time and the inside track is that the split is just one of those things that happen in the music scene today. No-one fell out, no-one got killed and all of the band members looked like they were really enjoying their final gig. It’s always sad to see a good band split, but I’m sure we’ll see the various Veras cropping up in various guises before too long.

The final set was a compilation of favourites from the two Vera Lynch EPs, including the crowd-pleasers “Dog in the Club”, “Horror Doctor”, “Child of Jago” and “Stormy Weather”, which finishes perfectly with “The End of the World”, from the second EP; it’s a lovely note to bow out on. It’s wonderful to see the band giving all they’ve got to make it a memorable final gig and especially to see Guy terrifying the front row of the audience during “Horror Doctor”.

It may be a small ripple on a small pool, but I’ll miss Vera Lynch: I saw the band four times in just over a year; they were always entertaining and bloody nice people as well. There’s a big hole out there now waiting to be filled by a band that can distill evil cowboy punk with mutant funk and camp theatrics; any takers?

So, here’s an interesting one; “My Black Arts” is the second album from The Dream Logic. The core of the band is singer and guitarist Charles Compo, bass player Jerry Brooks and drummer Camille Gainer but the album also features cameos from guitarists Eric Krasno (Soulive) and Vernon Reid (Living Colour). As far as trying to pin a genre on the band, I’m sticking to guitar-based at the moment.

The first track, “My Red Heart”, opens with some guitar and percussion noodling before dropping into a groove that echoes “Gaucho”-era Steely Dan (right down to a sprinkling of atonality in the guitar solo) with clean guitars and keys under Charles Compo’s very distinctive vocal, which has more than a hint of Sweet Pea Atkinson (more about that later). From here on in, the band takes on a variety of different disguises, as it tackles a range of musical styles.

“Cisco Kid” and “When I Go” have a bluesy feel, the first funky, and the second a slow blues with very clean picking in the style of Albert Collins before a coda which shifts to mid-tempo before a paint-stripping guitar solo. Drums and bass are fairly funky throughout and the songs “”Just Can’t Quit It”, “The Way That I Want It” and “Think I’ll Stay” stick fairly closely to a funk template.

“It’s Murder”, with its driving bassline, “I Hope It’s Real”, with a catchy guitar hook and guitar fills in the verses, the Southern swamp boogie of the single “Drunken Monkey” and the all-out driving tempo of “Headlights Into the Darkness” (with a hint of pastiche in the backing vocals) all help to establish the band’s rock credentials while “Don’t Judge” has slow 70s style soul arrangement with nice laid-back, almost jazz, guitar.

The remaining three tracks are the seasoning which gives the album its unique flavour. “Biznasty” (with a lyric about a music business sleazeball) is propelled along by Stones-style intertwined guitar parts with an added sitar to give the song its individual style. And then things get weird. “Trying to be a Buddha”, a slow piece which evokes 80s-era Prince meeting Tom Verlaine is almost a mantra, while the closing (and title) track, “My Black Arts” is a loose jam which perhaps made a lot more sense in the studio than it does here.

On the positive side, the playing is superb throughout, particularly when the arrangement is for two guitars. There’s a lot of variation; it’s never boring because you just don’t know what’s coming next and the band sounds fairly convincing across all of the genres they tackle. The negatives are that there’s probably too much material here (14 songs) and the title track, “My Black Arts”, comes over as a bit self-indulgent and aimed at the band rather than the listener. The band is obviously influenced by a tremendous variety of styles and the finished product here feels mostly like Steely Dan interpreted by Don and David Was (who also had a penchant for including half-finished jams and other bits of weirdness on their albums) with hints of many other styles. It’s not a bad album at all; it’s a good album which might have been even better with a tighter focus.

 

Imagine a world where musicians master their instruments and voices by playing (solo and as a group) until they know that their music is good enough for the public to hear. Where musicians get together to play music that they believe in; music that’s passionate and inspired. Where success is measured in emotional response, not midweek chart positions. Where the playing is more important than image, and integrity is more important than overnight success and bread and circuses TV shows. Where bands play live and it sounds better than the vinyl/CD/download because it’s not all about clever production and autotune. Where a singer isn’t some deluded hyper-melismatic Whitney wannabe. Where bands actually respect their audiences. I visited that world two nights ago when I saw Stone Foundation headline the Delicious Junction fifth birthday party at The 100 Club.

After a variety of short support sets, including one from Simon Wells, who was unfairly ignored by most of the audience (despite a guest appearance from SF’s Gary Rollins), it was time for the main event. It was big smiles all round from the audience, and the band, playing their third sell-out 100 Club gig this year; and it was bass player Neil Sheasby’s birthday. The band opened with the title song from the latest album, “To Find the Spirit”, and from that point on it was their night. Stone Foundation doesn’t make any distinction between support and headline sets; the guys just get on and give it the beans. This is a gang in the great tradition of Dexys; it’s not about individual egos, it’s about the big picture and this picture’s a masterpiece where every element counts.

Underpinning the band’s sound is the rock solid rhythm section of Neil Sheasby and Philip Ford; it’s not necessarily fussy, but it provides the core for everyone else to lock in to. They’ve played together for a long time now, and it shows. New recruit Robert Newton’s congas add a subtle new flavour to the live sound, while Ian Arnold’s keys and Neil Jones’ guitar fill out the mid-range and add some melodic flourishes. Neil Jones is one of those singers who sound better live than recorded (and I’m not saying that he sounds bad on the albums). And then there’s the icing on the cake; the horns. Gary Rollins (sax), Spencer Hague (trombone) and Gareth John (trumpet and flugelhorn) are spot on as an ensemble punching in three-part fills but individually they all take solos which fit perfectly with the songs without going over the line into self-indulgence. As an old Stax and Atlantic fan, I’ve always loved the Hammond and horns combo, particularly when it includes the more subtle flavours of trombone and flugel, and these guys are the real deal.

The set was split between songs from “To Find the Spirit”, including the title track, the epic slow groove of “Don’t Let the Rain” and “Wondrous Place”, and old favourites like “No More the Fool” and the stomping “Tracing Paper”. There was even a surprise during the encore as the band motored through a cover of “Jumping Jack Flash” and then it was all over. Oh, and a bit of DJ set from Paolo Hewitt as well; what more do want from a gig?

It’s been a good year for Stone Foundation; “To Find the Spirit” charted well in the independent chart, Paul Weller endorsed it, they’ve had national radio play and Sky Sports is using tracks from it regularly. The band has had support slots with The Selecter and The Blow Monkeys and toured as headliners, and with Nolan Porter. They’ve also had a DVD out over the summer, put together by Lee Cogswell and they’re doing a Japanese tour in November. This is a bunch of people who are passionate about their music and willing to put in the hours and the miles to bring it to the public, whatever it takes; I truly admire them for that dedication and I hope their star continues to rise in 2015.

Maybe it’s time to welcome the new soul vision.

‘Flights, in the night’ sings Nancy Whang conspiratorially during a quiet portal in the impressively detailed “A Place Called Space” that opens The Juan Maclean’s third album proper. Nothing sums up Whang and Maclean’s manifesto quite as perfectly as that line. Alluding to a retro glamour which no longer exists and a promise of a decadent and clandestine other world where the only light is artificial and strobing. This line, better still if it were morphed into a song title, could have been uttered on any number of Donna Summer’s tracks which featured on her most essential, electronic and nocturnal albums made between 1977- 1979 and produced by Giorgio Moroder. As if to hammer this point home Whang has simultaneously released an EP under her own name which is a collection of Casablanca records cover versions, it includes a faithful interpretation of Summer’s slippery and melancholic “Working the Midnight Shift”. “In A Dream” is a record that may wear its influences heavily on its sleeve but the cluster of magnificent songs and the vocal dynamics honed between the two prevents it from falling into a potentially deep hole of nostalgia and tribute.

If their 2005 debut album was an accurate record of the post-electro clash, nihilistic and disco-damaged DFA early days and the follow up and homage of sorts to British synth pop and handbag house then this record is where the pair decide to reach back even further. There has always been a vivid and brattish clutch of songs that have been hard to ignore in The Juan Maclean’s back catalogue, screaming and shouting for attention and not fully formed. “In A Dream” has eliminated these kinds of distractions and is all the better for it; Nancy Whang is afforded full vocals on six of the nine tracks here and is having a ball in the process. Her voice is not that of a disco diva although frequently this is precisely what the sonics would appear to dictate. It has a flat and disinterested quality and still, somehow, considerable charisma, and Whang can interchange between dismal, withering betrayal and a warm optimism that dominates for example the gradually unfurling and uplifting ten minute closing track “The Sun Will Never Set on Our Love”. Tellingly this is their first album to feature just Nancy Whang as the cover artist, overshadowing a metallic bust of a physically absent Maclean.

“You Were a Runaway” has a choppy and to-the-point Grace Jones type pop structure. “Running Back To You” with its gorgeously padding synth swirls and reference to Imagination’s slinking 1980 hit “Body Talk” is the album’s only mid-tempo song and sees Whang softened but not entirely submissive. “Love Stops Here”, which may have the album’s strongest melody, puts Maclean upfront and sounds like a very good LCD Soundsystem song with washes of New Order guitar along with Whang’s glorious ‘do do do’ refrain popping up for the very last moments. “I’ve Waited for so Long” is a tight and confrontational “Don’t You Want Me”- styled trade-off between the two vocalists. It borrows the bassline from Cerrone’s “Supernature” but like so much of the material here the duo detail and layer the soundscape to the point where it isn’t pilfering but perfecting a sound that is, within the confines of this album, completely theirs.

Two of the most complete and satisfying songs, the aforementioned Moroder-indebted “A Place Called Space” and the penultimate track “A Simple Design”, both featuring a dominant Whang vocal, see The Juan Maclean finally solidify an effortless and endearing personality. Since “Less Than Human” the couple have spent a decade attempting to gel in a way that allows them both to share the lead, a hard feat indeed as Whang is not just a ‘front woman’ and neither is Maclean an invisible producer in the mould of, say, Goldfrapp. With Maclean cast in the role of an outsider and a muted and occasional vocalist to boot, you feel that he is now happier to concentrate on perfecting the world that surrounds the two and less inclined to push his voice to the front in a way that has read as self-conscious before. It is impossible to imagine him for example delivering the stand-off line ‘time after time, when what you’re hoping to find is not a simple design but a headache!’ from “A Simple Design” with the same brutish gusto as Whang does. Both roles are of equal importance and “A Place Called Space” sees The Juan Maclean arrive at their ultimate destination; confident, possessed and prepared to share it with us. We should think ourselves lucky.

So when I was offered the chance to see Federal Charm (who I’ve already seen a couple of times) and Ian Hunter (who I’ve never seen) at Shepherds Bush Empire, I jumped at it. Not literally; obviously I caught the Central Line, and I could write a whole article about that experience alone. It’s instantly obvious that Ian Hunter’s playing tonight; there’s an incredible variety of t-shirts on audience members, starting from his Mott the Hoople days and going all the way to his latest album, “When I’m President” (2012).

As I sidle into the photo pit, I’m surprised by the size of the crowd pushing up against the barrier. Actually I’m worried because if they’re staking out a place for Ian Hunter, then their bladders won’t hold out till the end of his set (two hours, in the end). So I’m pleasantly surprised (and relieved) when Federal Charm stroll onstage and the crowd behind me erupt; it feels like a significant moment in the band’s history.

It’s hard to believe that Federal Charm have been together for less than two years, they have the confidence and swagger of a band that has been together for a lifetime. And it’s obvious that they really enjoy what they do. From the opening Page-like riff of “I’m Not Gonna Beg” Paul Bowe, Nick Bowden, L.D. and Danny Rigg hit the ground running and the crowd, their own fans and Ian Hunter’s, are with them all the way. It’s a short set, featuring songs from their first album so after about thirty minutes we’ve had “Too Blind to See”, “No Money Down”, “Somebody Help Me”, “Tell Your Friends”, the show-stopping “Reconsider”, “Reaction” and “Come on Down” and the crowd is nicely warmed up for Ian Hunter. The band pulls together some traditional rock elements (the big riffs, two lead guitars and strong songs) to create a powerful sound completed by a voice that has no right to come from someone with Nick Bowden’s physique. They’re working hard and it’s paying off.

Ian Hunter has surrounded himself with a bunch of great musicians (Andy York, Steve Holley, Paul Page, Jack Petruzzelli, James Mastro and Andy Burton) giving him the freedom to play a bit of acoustic, bit of piano and a bit of harmonica with a solid band to back him up. After watching him play a two-hour set, it suddenly occurs to me that he’s only five years younger than my mum; incredible really.

As there’s no album to promote on this tour, it’s pretty much a greatest hits set running through the Mott the Hoople hits and solo material from a career spanning almost forty years. The only Mott hit in the main set is “All the Way from Memphis”, but I think we all know what’s coming at the end. Second song in is one of my favourites, “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”, his first solo hit and from here on every song is a Hunter classic including “Now is the Time”, “When I’m President”, “All American Alien Boy”, Irene Wilde”, “Wash Us Away”, “Girl from the Office”, “Bastard”, “Ta Shunka Witco” and the Velvets cover, “Sweet Jane”. I don’t think any Ian Hunter fan is going to complain about that set list.

And then comes the encore and the band seems to have expanded; yep, that’s Mick Ralphs up there as well for a rollicking run through “Roll Away the Stone”. The next song, “Life”, shifts seamlessly into the crowd-scene anthem, “All the Young Dudes” with all of the backing vocalists and Federal Charm onstage to help out with the choruses and then, with one quick chorus of Leadbelly’s “Goodnight Irene”, it’s all over. I really didn’t know what to expect from Ian Hunter but he’s obviously still got it and deserves his rock legend status and his faithful fans. As for Federal Charm, they’re still on the way up and I don’t think the peak is even close yet. Keep your eyes and ears open for them.