Music Record Reviews
JAZZ RICHARD FAIRHURST’S TRIPTYCH Amusia (Babel Label) ●●●●● Richard Fairhurst won 1994 ‘Young Jazz Pianist of the Year’, and caught the ear with a
series of albums with his group Hungry Ants, but has not really made the impact that his early emergence suggested. Nonetheless, he remains an individual presence on the UK jazz scene, and this new group with Danish
bassist Jasper Høiby and American drummer Chris Vatalaro offers a fine platform for his music. The compositions are
mostly Fairhurst’s (including revisiting tunes from earlier albums), but choosing
POSTHUMOUS ALT-POP DANGER MOUSE AND SPARKLEHORSE Dark Night of the Soul (EMI) ●●●●●
The recent suicide of Mark Linkous, aka Sparklehorse imbues this posthumous release with oppressive waves of melancholy, but this often-inspired record – heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure – rises above such considerations to stand as a testament to the talent of all involved. And it’s quite a roll call. Besides Danger Mouse on shared production
and songwriting duties, we get appearances from The Flaming Lips, Julian Casablancas, Iggy Pop and many more, including, rather brilliantly, David Lynch. The overall style is not a million miles away from Sparklehorse’s output – plaintive, fragile indie with a brilliant ear for nursery rhymes, a penchant for obfuscatory noises and bursts of punkish mayhem.
Surprisingly for such a star-studded exercise, most have brought their
A-game, something which is a credit to the orchestrators. ‘Revenge’ could easily sit among The Flaming Lips finest material, while Gruff Rhys’s ‘Just War’ is a wonderful slice of pastoral pop. At times the ghost of Linkous hangs heavy over proceedings, most
noticeably on the two contributions from female singers. Linkous’s duet with long-time collaborator Nina Persson of The Cardigans on ‘Daddy’s Gone’ is almost tear-jerkingly beautiful in the simplicity of its refrain, while Suzanne Vega has never sounded so close to the edge in ‘The Man Who Played God’. As the closing title track wheezes and creaks to a ghostly close,
complete with wobbly piano, vinyl scratches and Lynch’s crazed hillbilly vocals, it’s hard not to shed a tear for a huge talent lost. A fitting epitaph. (Doug Johnstone)
68 THE LIST 8–22 Jul 2010
Powerful and inventive music of a high order. (Kenny Mathieson) WORLD MIRIAM MAKEBA South Africa’s Skylark (Nascente) ●●●●●
Forget Shakira: the benchmark song of World Cup 2010 was a reworking of Miriam Makeba’s 1967 hit ‘Pata Pata’. Johannesburg- born Makeba, who died in 2008, was nicknamed Africa’s Skylark, evoking the beauty of her voice, but falling short of capturing the empowering nature of her infectious songs.
A major 20th century international female singer, Makeba sang for black people, and for white, all the way through the apartheid years, going into exile, championing Mandela’s cause until freedom came. A timely compilation of thrilling songs from an amazing woman. (Jan Fairley)
WORLD VARIOUS ARTISTS Yes We Can – Songs About Leaving Africa (Out Here Records) ●●●●●
Pulsing beats from hip hop to dance make up this stirring collection, telling contemporary stories of today’s Africa. Most compilations are an easy forage through label back-catalogues. All salutations to Rose Skelton then, whose intrepid journalism in West Africa has inspired her to search out stunning songs that map the omnipresent dreams and realities of Africans that lead them to risk life crossing the Sahara or journey in makeshift craft across the Atlantic to enter
ALSO RELEASED
The Coral Butterfly House (Deltasonic) ●●●●● There are touches of 60s pop psychedelica here, but that’s just not enough to make it interesting. The album ends up being very pedestrian affair; as if they should have released the greatest hits and left it there. The Haggis Horns Keep On Movin’ (First Word) ●●●●● Solid if slightly generic funk release from Mark Ronson’s backing band, thankfully devoid of any overt Scottish influence (ie bagpipes) that the name might suggest. Admiralty Wireless The Stories Sailors Tell (self-released) ●●●●● Guitar-led indie-pop record that sometimes sounds far too influenced by artists such as Sting. Collapse Under The Empire The Sirens Sound (Sister Jack) ●●●●● Proggy German post-rock with occasional flourishes of greatness, this album’s weakness is a slightly belaboured reluctance to get to the point. Dios We Are Dios (Buddy Head) ●●●●● Off-kilter indie mash-up that borrows ideas from Eels, Damon Albarn and Marc Bolan, but fails to pull them off with the required flair. Peter Katz First of the Last to Know (Curve Music) ●●●●● Heartfelt acoustic tunes that sound like they could be on the next must- have indie movie soundtrack, which may well be a by- product of Glen ‘Once’ Hansard’s involvement. (Niki Boyle)
fortress Europe. The music buzzes with the creativity of musicians from Ghana to Nigeria, Senegal to Somalia. A cornucopia; this makes its way on to this critic’s 2010 best album list. (Jan Fairley)
Triptych as the group’s name suggests the shared responsibility and interactivity evident in the music. His trademark lyrical melodies and complex rhythmic shifts are all there, with a few excursions into a freer approach to structure and improvisation. Piano trios are plentiful at the moment, but Fairhurst and co. succeed in finding their own absorbing niche. (Kenny Mathieson) JAZZ NEWT NeWt 2 feat. Silke Eberhard (F-IRE Presents) ●●●●●
The unconventional Edinburgh-based trio of trombonist Chris Greive, guitarist Graeme Stephen and drummer Chris Wallace already embraces three nationalities (Australia, Scotland and America respectively), and are augmented here by German alto saxophonist and clarinettist Silke Eberhard, courtesy of a Scottish Arts Council grant. She greatly expands the tonal range of the music, and joins wholeheartedly in their no-holds-barred approach to both free and structured improvisation. The expanded
instrumental palette gives them more to play with than on their eponymous debut release, and they make full use of the possibilities. More structured episodes are interspersed with bouts of fiery free improv mayhem, and the effects employed by Greive and Stephen add further layers of intrigue to the mix.