superb voice on a typically well-chosen selecti0n of strong songs, and the usual fabulous sessron band augmented by a tastefully utilised string section on the title track, Recommended — and a gig in Scotland is long overdue. (KM)
INSTRUMENTAL The Hellecasters
Hell lll — New Axes To Grind (Pharoah) ****
The Hellecasters are Gerry Donahue, Will Ray and John Jorgensen, three hot guitar players With Widely diverse backgrounds and playing styles. That eclecticism is reflected in the music on this latest all Instrumental set, which dips into rock, country, blues, Jazz, folk and ethnic music, and various even less readily classified scurces of Inspiration. All three players are heavyweight studio dudes, and this band allows them to cut loose and have fun doing what comes naturally, which is playing energised, inventive, intricately interwoven guitar music. (KM)
a The Hellecasters play at Edinburgh ’5 La Belle Ange/e on Sat 6 Dec
JAZZ
Vienna Art Orchestra 20th Anniversary (Verve) 1r sir a: a:
Mathais Ruegg's exploratOry VAO celebrate two decades in the front-line of European cutting-edge Jazz With a three-disc set, selling at around £25. The material is all of recent origin, and offers a cross-section of their work, With the live Powerful Ways Nine Immortal Non-Evergreens for Eric Dolphy the pick of the three Quiet Ways is a ballad collection featuring eight eminent singers (including Betty Carter and Sheila Jordan), while Unexpected Ways is more overtly compositional (Kfvl)
FOLK
Eilidh Shaw Heepirumbo (Greentrax) Jennifer and Hazel Wrigley
Huldreland (Greentrax) at w. a *—
Greentrax releases two albums of fiddle music from the finest of Scotland's yOung traditional, and female, players Not that they are confined by the folk police -
both albums stretch the boundaries
using session musos and friends from the
consistently Vibrant Edinburgh folk/Jazz
crossover scene While Shaw's is the most off-the-wall, produced by ace guitarist Ian Kerr, and features some marvellous
off-beat arrangements, eyebrow-raising 7 titles like 'BOwiob', laid-back low-life expl0rations of trad airs, and
hallucinogenic keyboard harmony from Brian Kellock, it also shows off the family roots, with mum and dad on bOx and
; fiddle in the 'st'aight' dance band
medley 'Scott': Dance Band Heaven' On
. the other album, Hazel’s piano and guitar 3 w0rk a diffcrent magic underneath her
: twin sister's sometimes double-tracked
fiddle in a rich collection of mainly self-
penned tunes and tempi that, while straying less from traditional forms, is everywhere infused With humOur, passion and astonishing skill The twins' Scandinavian-Orkney roots don't often show. but when they do, as in the eponymous air, the result is stranger ravishing. (NC)
BLUES
Kelly Joe Phelps
Roll Away The Stone (Rykodisc) ****
This maior talent from the US played a marvellous first gig in Edinburgh recently. A phenomenal blues-based aCOustic gurtarist, whether playing it flat on its back, slide style, or more conventionally picked, Phelps also has a wonderful, smokin sincere vorce, sounding sometimes like a Windswept John Martyn. His background in Seattle Jazz joints produces electrifying extemporisation, oblique chords, and a tightrope-walkers ability to keep it all together. A Blind Lemon and a Skip James' country blues track fit in With his own deeply felt songs to make an album that shines With emotioiial honesty and clasSy fingerwork. It's hard to believe it was recorded in his home studio 'between airplane take-offs, and police sirens, deep in the winter of 1996'. (NC)
“REE- Idlewild
Chandelier (Fierce Panda) 4: a
This Edinburgh four-piece came second in the In The City Unsigned Band thingy earlier this year The major labels are waving their wads about but independent label Fierce Panda got there first for this single It's fast and beefy, like a Buzzcocks for the 90s It's also not that far removed from a bucketful of bands like them There's nowt wrong With it either so progress Will doubtless come (JT)
fukuyama GO BY Sound (Wurlitzer) w. “v «r
craig b and natasha n hail from Dunblane, a town short of surnames
and uppercases They sound like a minimalist Many Star, a little bit weird and a little bit Wispy More interested in
slow, rolling textures than songs, this is engaging although, since each track seems to last only 30 seconds, it's like
j haying nothing more than a nibble of something delicious when you really E want a plateful (JT)
Naomi Personal Touch (Gut) 3’? a s
Despite the fact that sne's only eighteen, Naomi has a Surprisingly strong and
smoky vOice Allied to a backing that
starts on a Becksian funk, creak and roll
before turning all dark and angsty.
Naomi sings like she's had a turbulent life but y0u really want to hear about it (JTi
Lovebabies
Explore (V2) a w a: Spooky little buggers, the Lovebabies
Echoes and whispered n-gntniares rumble arOund a rrienacinr: beat before everything turns a bit girly and St Etienne Imagine a Portishead set that keeps on being gate-crashed by little bursts of happiness Ahh (JT)
I Grand Drive
Tell It Like It ls (Vaclav Records)
karat:
Alert the authOrities, now' Wilco, Son Volt and Crowded House have all
metamOrphosed into this Australian
|
pair of brothers who live in London yet SOUle like they were raised on melancholy in the American Midwest Organs groan, gUitars strum mournfully and hearts are broken. Marvelloust downbeat. (JT)
Sting And The Police
Roxanne 97: The Puff Daddy Remix (A&M) a a
In which Puff Daddy says 'yeah yeah yeah, pause, yeah‘ and raps about the player lifestyle while Sting c’roons 'Roxanne' like he's about to burst into tears, while records are scratched and beats are boomed, and this \Nl” get into the Top Ten and Will be the slow one that ends the night at 'discos' across the country throughout the Christmas period, and what the fucks the p0int7 (JT)
record reviews MUSIC
The Dave Pike Set Mathar: The Original lnoian Vibes (Outcaste) tr * t s
We like a bit of this This bloke plays the sitar like he's an lncfian \.'(’l\l(}"i of firm Hendrix fv/feanwhilw, churn, rft‘ this finger clickin', hin rinpz'irt rhythm that leads up tc: an ;r e rool, little shimmy, bringing to mind a bfls clanc e party that has a 90s DJ on the (let is i")
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE:
Norman Chalmers, ,fxiastair .".1abl)ott, Kenny f/‘lathiewn, Aim fvli;rr:son, Peter Ross, Lawrie Thomas, Jonathan Trew, Paul Whitelaw
STAR RATINGS l a air it a « Unmissable at a t t Very 00d it a or Wort a shot 3 x * Below average i at You've been warned l
LIVE IN DECEMBER mon 15th GLASGOW 13th note wed 17th EDINBURGH attic
BREATHING SPACE (single) 8: 18 CARAT (mini-album) out now
superstar
as seen on Later with Jools Holland
‘>~l8 Dec 1997 THE “ST 51 fl