Steve Cradock "Travel Wild, Travel Free" Review

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

The last few months has seen reviews piling up for this album all over the place online - all uniformly positive, and pretty much all expressing various levels of amazement that that bloke from Ocean Colour Scene could pull this out of his hat.
In all fairness while Ocean Colour Scene do have a habit of accentuating all of the worst elements from a bunch of fabulous vintage Brit boogie bands, Mr Cradock's stock has risen considerably with his other ventures.
Aside from a lengthy stint in Paul Weller's band, Cradock has also launched a solo career that has become progressively more interesting with each release and this latest, "Travel Wild, Travel Free" is the sort of album that's likely to lead to a large number of hats being eaten.
While he's shown signs of creative restlessness on previous solo outings, this is the first time that he's fully shrugged off the vintage trad rock mantle and embraced the latent psychedelia that one had always hoped was lurking underneath the surface, and the resulting album is a glorious outpouring of technicolour psychedelic pop music that occasionally reverts to the riffy rocking of OCS, but more often than not reaches the heady lysergic heights of the best of Carnaby Street's sugar coated psychedelic output.
There's still a slight mod edge to proceedings - nothing wrong with that if done well, but Cradock's vocals (and those of his wife who features in a supporting role) are treated with all manner of trippy effects, and Cradock himself often reverts to an effecting falsetto that negates any traces of lad rock.
The cover itself is a pretty good indicator of the contents - a paisley tinged "Tupelo Honey" - full of honest soul with a nicely lysergic sheen.
At its best its like a mod Beaulieu Porch and frankly, it's at it's best for most of the running time.
A fantastic psychedelic mod-pop album with an everything but the kitchen sink approach that sounds like something the engineers at Abbey Road spent all of 1968 labouring over.
Abandon all prejudices here, and prepare to be wowed.

Available on vinyl, digital and CD here.

Dodson & Fogg Interviewed.

Interview by Grey Malkin (The Hare & The Moon).

Dodson and Fogg are, to this writer’s mind, one of music’s finest and most intriguing exponents of modern psychedelia. So, to mark the release of their latest opus ‘The Call’, I asked Chris Wade (the multi-instrumentalist who effectively is Dodson and Fogg) a little about his past, his present (including the new album) and also about what the future holds for this unique and accomplished artist.

I’m curious as to what factors inspired you to start recording music; what led to the first Dodson and Fogg album? What was your vision for the band and your music?

Well I have always been interested in recording. My brother and I used to record a lot as kids on tape recorders and 4 track machines. I got one myself in my late teens and would mess around on it. The most you could do was at most 5 tracks though. The extra one I found out, you could overdub something as you converted it on to a proper tape, so I started learning about mixing and recording back then about 10 or so years ago. I then had a band with my brother and sister but it kind of ended and I took up the writing thing instead. It was only last year that I started recording songs again on my home set up, getting together some older ideas and some new ones. When Celia from Trees agreed to do some backing vocals I was thrilled, so from then on I started putting my all into it. If I had a vision or have one it is to keep releasing albums of varied music that pleases me and others. It's a natural development and a proper outlet for me too, so I suppose it is just going to flow on like this hopefully. I love the fact there is a small cult following interested enough in what I do to keep wanting albums. It's a childhood dream of mine to be releasing albums, so I am just enjoying the feedback.

Dodson and Fogg are hugely prolific, with ‘The Call’ being your third album this year. How do you manage to write such an amount of consistently strong material; what are your working methods? Is strong coffee involved?

I do drink a lot of coffee and tea actually, always nipping off to the toilet for a pee. I have coffee from when I first get up and also sort the cat's litter tray out first thing in the morning, and when you have three cats this is definitely the way to wake yourself up. Oh sorry that's horrible...But I do work everyday on the music now, whether it be promotion, writing lyrics, just playing the guitar and coming up with ideas, phrases, melodies. I sometimes come up with a little lyric melody and record it, maybe hum ideas into the microphone and get it down for later when I start recording it properly. So really, working from home as I do, there are no set hours and there is no time cut off either, so I could be recording at 8 in the morning or at midnight. It's like not having a turn off switch. I am only ever a few feet or metres away from my instruments. Also, to me, the three albums this year have been at a reasonable pace because I have more time to write and record than other artists who might be out touring a lot. Also, writing and recording is my job so I need to keep at it in that respect too.

There have been a number of high profile and illustrious guests on your albums such as Celia Humphris of Trees, Amanda Votta of The Floating World, Nik Turner from Hawkwind and Alison O' Donnell of Mellow Candle. How do these collaborations come about? And who would you like to collaborate with in the future?

Well with Celia I was a big fan already, and had interviewed her in 2010 for my Hound Dawg Magazine, so I still had her email address. I honestly did not think she would say yes, but she did and I still cannot believe she sings on my songs. Trees were brilliant and her voice is better now than it has ever been in my opinion. It's a finely tuned instrument itself. It's good that they seem to get more popular as time goes by, because I think they are the best of that magical folk rock era. There is something special about those two albums. With Nik Turner, I heard him playing on an old Hawkwind track and thought he would sound good on some songs for the first album, so I got in touch with him and he was really nice and approachable and just sent them back to me when he had done the flute parts. I heard Amanda on a radio show I had been played on, might have been Sideways Through Sound or something, and I got in touch with her, same with Alison from Mellow Candle. It's basically that, I hear them and just think it's worth a try to ask them if they'd like to collaborate. It's really exciting when they say yes, and I love mixing their contributions into the songs. I'd like to work with Alia O Brien from Blood Ceremony. She was going to do a track on the Call but I was releasing it before she could get to the studio, but she wants to do something next year on the next album. One person I would love to work with is Ray Davies, one of my heroes. I always loved Lou Reed too, not that I would have ever got the chance to work with him though. Alison Goldfrapp has an amazing voice, so she would be amazing too, but I doubt that would ever happen.

Your music is uniquely your own yet I detect elements of 60’s British rock such as Syd Barrett, British psych and the Kinks. What influences do you have and which do you think are visible in your songwriting?

Yeah I love the Kinks, one of my very favourite bands. I love Arthur and Village Green, that lovely era where their music sounds magical. I love The Beatles, Floyd especially with Barrett, Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground. I like a lot of stuff, Donovan, Jethro Tull, Leonard Cohen, Zappa, Lindisfarne, Trees, Dylan, Goldfrapp, Sabbath, but I am not sure how they influence it. I never set out to replicate a band or sound, but I think the influences probably seep through into the music subconsciously like they probably do with a lot or artists. If people can spot my favourite groups from listening to my music though it must show the influences are there. The way I see it is I like to record music I can listen back to myself for pleasure. I do not get people who say they cannot listen to their own music, but then again we are all different. I just like the thrill of recording a decent track and putting in different sounds and the process of mixing and adding and taking things away. Listening back to a mix and being proud of it is such a great feeling. Hearing an album back from start to finish and being satisfied is even better, as you know yourself.

As well as your music you have had a number of other media projects on the go such as working in comedy and writing, including penning books on The Incredible String Band and Black Sabbath. Tell us more about these ventures.

The writing started in about 2008 when I did my first fiction book Cutey and the Sofaguard. That story started as a laugh really because I worked in a stationery shop and me and a friend there used to write down weird character names and odd stuff. Weird things used to happen there anyway and a lot of it got lumped together in my head and I made a full fiction story out of it. In my head I had Rik Mayall as the narrator as I wrote it, as a kind of guide for the story. When I finished it and released the book online, I one day had the idea of releasing an audiobook of it and as a spur of the moment thing I emailed Mayall's agent to ask if he would like to read it. They said they might get back to me in a month or so, so I sent it along via email and thought nothing else of it. A few days later a reply came in saying Rik wanted to do it, and I went down there to meet him, to go over the script and stuff, and a week or two later we recorded it in a dodgy studio down an alleyway in Shepherd's Bush. Really surreal. From then I started doing my free magazine, some fiction and non fiction, as well as comedy podcasts with my dad and all sorts of odd stuff. I haven't done as much of all these things since Dodson and Fogg started though.

In my humble opinion ‘The Call’ is your strongest set yet; what have been your favourite Dodson moments or the tracks you are most pleased with?

Thanks, I'm really happy you like it. I am really happy with the new album. Mystery is my personal favourite I think, and I am very proud of the work Celia has done on the new album and the other albums for that matter. It's hard to pick highlights, but I think this new album is the one I am most proud of. I think it's a confidence thing, knowing what you can do at home on a basic home set up, learning and growing as a musician, as you may agree with your own music. Suddenly off the new album is a favourite too, Ricky Romain the sitar player is astonishing. I also like Crinkle Drive off the first album with Nik, as I first wrote that song as a teen and I am really proud it has seen the light of day with him playing flute on it. All Day Long and Meet Our May as well, they were old ones I originally wrote in a different form years ago, and Celia does amazing vocals on them.

What is next for Dodson and Fogg? Any live dates? How would this work with you being effectively a one-man band?

I keep wanting to do them but I just like recording really when I think about it. I don't really personally know any musicians who might want to do it and every time I get in touch with some interested people I never commit to it. Maybe I'm not meant to do it until it's all right and fitting into place perfectly. I guess I could go out with a bass drum on my back, a guitar, a flute up my.... no..... not that. I think I will stick to recording for now. The next thing to do is to write more songs and get an album together for some time next year. I have some ideas at the minute, been messing around recording today actually, but I am going to take my time over the next one.

Links:

Grey Malkin's review of "The Call"

The Dodson & Fogg Website.

Dodson & Fogg on Facebook.

The Space Lady - "The Space Lady's Greatest Hits" Review

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

Back in 2000, "Songs in the Key of Z, Vol. 2: The Curious Universe of Outsider Music" appeared on the scene featuring a startling casiotone / vocal interpretation of the Electric Prunes' "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" credited to the Space Lady.
The internet being the universal embracer of all things weird and wonderful, it wasn't long before word was spreading and now finally in 2013 we have the first widely available commercial collection of her music available.
Susan Dietrich (that's The Space Lady to you) was apparently a regular sight performing on the streets of San Francisco in the late seventies and eighties, with a particularly strong following in the Haight and Castro communities.
Armed only with a casiotone keyboard with inbuilt drum machine, she tackled popular hits that ranged from "Fly Like An Eagle" to "Puttin' On The Ritz" running them through her own unique filter, and the results are unlike anything that you're likely to hear anywhere else.
Let me also clarify that the Space Lady is in no way a novelty act. While the eccentric elements of her music and costuming would naturally lead one to that conclusion - at least on paper, the recordings on offer here transcend their confined trappings and are something very special indeed.
Dietrich's voice is heavily treated with echo and phaser, giving it an otherworldly beauty that makes even the most familiar of these tunes sound impossibly exotic, and her fragile, crystaline phrasing often brings to mind a psychedelicized Judee Sill.
Originally recorded for a self released 1990 cassette tape (complete with mood enhancing but never distracting analogue hiss), these tracks are deceptively complex interpretations of often quite simple songs, which refuse to be pigeon-holed but would nestle comfortably among the Pram, Silver Apples, Broadcast and Fifty Foot Hose albums in your collection.
Highlights are numerous - I like "Born To Be Wild" with it's mind expanding space pop breakdown, but literally anything plucked from here will make an impression.
And the best news?  Dietrich has returned to making music after a considerable time away.
You can stream the whole album through the Soundcloud widget below (please hit refresh if not visible).

Available here.

Charalambides' Tom Carter Needs Your Help!

Deserted Village "For Tom Carter"

Deserted Village are delighted to announce the release of this epic, 99 track, download compilation “For Tom Carter” curated by David Colohan and Gavin Prior. 100% of the proceeds from this release will go towards Tom Carter’s medical bills. In June 2012 Tom fell ill with pneumonia while on tour in Germany with Charalambides. He had to cancel the rest of the tour as well as spend several weeks in hospital and several months convalescing upon his return to the USA. Christina Carter, his partner in Charalambides, set up the Robert Thomas Carter Irrevocable Trust to provide for his medical costs. Tom has recovered well and has returned to touring and recording. However he still faces huge medical bills even after the outpouring of support from around the world and the success of last year’s compilation organized by the trust.
“For Tom Carter” is first and foremost the result of the generosity of our favourite musicians around the world. It’s also the product of 10 years of releasing music, tape-trading, touring, record collecting, promoting shows and having many of our musical heroes sleeping on our couches including Tom himself. Deserted Village has been online for 10 years now and we have made our entire catalogue available as (mostly free) downloads to mark the occasion.
As well as names from the underground little-known outside of Ireland, we’ve called on friends made on our travels from Korea to California, Australia to Norway and many places in between. Closer to home, Richard Youngs and Valerio Cosi were happy to send us exclusive tracks. Of course Tom’s native land is well represented by fellow travellers in exploratory music including Sunburned Hand Of The Man, MV & EE, Bobb Trimble, Stone Breath, Heather Leigh and Marissa Nadler.
You will hear fierce free jazz, drone, traditional folk, noise, sacred harp singing as well as music not fitting any of these catagories. The diversity of styles on this compilation, shows the futility of trying to pigenhole the fertile global underground into genres and how people working in such disparate areas have been inspired by Tom Carter’s music.
Tom Carter is best known for his work with Charalambides, which he co-founded with Christina Carter in 1991 but has recently been focusing on his duo with No Neck Blues Band co-founder Pat Murano; Sarin Smoke, his duo with Pete Swanson; and his solo performances and recordings.

For more information visit helptomcarter.org.

You can download through the link below - it's only a minimum of 7.50 Euros for 99 tracks. Please give generously.

Alpha "Alpha.Blueneck" Review

Reviewed by Dedric Moore

Everyone says “this music sounds cinematic” to the point of uselessness as a descriptor. So I won’t call Alpha.Blueneck cinematic but it would be perfect for the cinema. You know what else? It’s perfect for headphones and large speakers.
Alpha has been part of the electronic community since the 90’s but in all this time they have never sounded so ominous, so intense, so heavy. This isn’t angst we are discussing but there is a weight to the music that makes the listener FEEL that what is happening in their ears is important. In today’s grab and go music environment, putting out a full-length album of remixes and making it feel like a musical statement is rare. Most remix albums are a grab bag of styles and or artists so to have Alpha spend an album remixing one artist is a bold musical statement. It pays off for Alpha. The amazing feat is how much it sounds like an Alpha album of originals.
On to the music then, shall we?
First, here is a little history for those just finding out about Alpha. Alpha were signed to Massive Attack’s imprint on Virgin Records. Come From Heaven was released in 1997 and blew our collective minds by taking the essence of trip-hop and expanding it beyond the basic funk beat with female singer status quo. Alpha became critical darlings but they always stayed more on the psychedelic side of things with spaced-out samples, layers of atmosphere and really accented the trip part of trip hop. While most of the bands from that era disappeared or stagnated, Alpha kept moving branching out to include new singers, new tempos, new effects, dub, but always kept the core of stellar songwriting and performance bolstered by lushly arranged string sections.
Excited yet?
Alpha.Blueneck is the twelfth official release and is starts off with Sawbones. This song ebbs and flows from quiet musings with electronic bleeps that jump to a head-nodding groove and back again. Strings swell, intensity rises, vocals reverb and delay from ear to ear, and then build it up again. Armando is classic Alpha. Picking acoustic guitar, dreamy vibes, slow BPM, buzzsaw synths growling in the background threatening to take over the song but are kept at bay by vintage synth tones holding their own as the vocals mediate as the centerpiece.
Elipse and Le:465 move into glacial territory with slow-motion vocals and piano and then with atmosphere and synths respectively.
The Guest starts again with synths and vocals but then surprises with a big full-band build that Coldplay should probably listen to for inspiration because this is how dramatic music should be done. 
Industrial Junk is an instrumental jam with heavy synths and guitars riding a swinging funk beat. HEAVY VIBES but not metal thankfully. Lilitu steps up next and adds in nine minutes of steady build. Revelations continues the focus on guitar and synth steady swelling and holding the groove. Follow that up with Low at just over ten minutes and the guitar amps are now proudly hot with glowing tubes. The Last Refuge calms things down and adds in a mellow Burt Bacharach vibe sans cheese and makes the album a complete listen from start to finish.

Available on CD here.
 

Sir Psych "The Sir" / "Lo-Fi Circa '67" Review

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

The Smoking Trees' Sir Psych has had a busy year, with promo for their "Acetates" album which was picked up by Ample Play and Burger Records early in the year as well as the release of a solo album "Hello Echo". That would be plenty to keep most artists occupied, but not this restless soul who has just released another two solo projects over the last few weeks.
First up is "The Sir", a new seven track solo E.P that's still got that new paint smell - in fact it was published on his Bandcamp page within 24 hours of receiving the final masters.
It's a beat-heavy psychedelic pop odyssey with sitars and harpsichords rubbing shoulders with Martin's heavily treated vocals - a knowing tribute to the sixties records that he loves filtered through a thoroughly contemporary mindset.
Epic closer "Frozen Winter Mind" even finds ways to coerce some distinctly tudor sounding harpsichord flourishes into its complicated hip hop beats.

Following up on this is "Lo-Fi Circa '67", an archival release recorded in Summer 2011 which is presented as the instrumental versions of an album he was working on at the time.
These are far more than backing tracks though and stripped of Martin's vocals it's evident how much of an influence hip hop has had on his musical upbringing.
There are stringy moments that recall the grandeur of David Axelrod and DJ Shadow, but more often than not it's the baroque pop and psychedelic toytown  melodies that these tunes are laced with that leave the most lasting impression - well, that and the memorable beats that provide the backbone for each of these tracks.
After 36 tracks (!) you'd think this would get a little tired, but Nunez is a skillful beatsmith who manages to keep things fresh with well placed samples, sparing use of scratchy turntableism, and more than anything else, an innate awareness of when to add a layer of melody.
Two fabulous early Christmas presents here, and both available as free downloads from Sir Psych's Bandcamp page here:

BBC Radiophonic Workshop "BBC Radiophonic Music" / "The Radiophonic Workshop" Review

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

The Music on Vinyl reissue label is a contrary creature that can't seem to decide whether it wants to produce pricey (but high quality) reissues of albums that even the most casual browser would have no problem finding within five minutes in their nearest charity shop, or genuinely rare blinders that there's a huge demand for. Fitting firmly into this second category are these two new selections - without a doubt their most exciting acquisitions to date with both being the subject of numerous protracted, and ultimately unsuccessful ebay battles for this writer.
Originally released in 1968 and and 1975 respectively, these two showcase LPs for the BBC's fabled Radiophonic Workshop are essential documents of groundbreaking electronic music that have proven hugely influential as a major source of inspiration to Boards of Canada, various Ghost Box artists and the like, as well as highly listenable entities in their own right.
"BBC Radiophonic Music" showcases the work of John Baker, David Cain and the artist most associated with the Workshop - Delia Derbyshire.
Having only recently acquired their first synthesizer at this point, the selections mostly showcase their painstaking musique concrete cut and paste tape methods, as well as early use of oscillators. While this approach may sound perfect for creating moody backdrops for eerie Alien planets, there's also plenty of melodic content. Baker and Cain's pieces often have a childlike jingle appeal, belying their earlier careers as a jazz pianist and jazz bass player respectively, but it's Derbyshire's pieces that cast the longest shadows with extremely spooky pieces like "Pott au Feu" and "Blue Veils and Golden Sands" leading the imagination down all sorts of darkened corridors.
1975's "The Radiophonic Workshop" casts the net a bit wider and features plenty of younger blood, with an emphasis on the various synthesizers they'd acquired by this point (particularly the EMS VCS 3 and the EMS Synthi 100),  rather than the primitive but effective tape splicing techniques that the Workshop initially became known for. It's slightly less innovative as a result but I'd argue more listener friendly, and full of marvelous vintage synthesizer textures and extremely evocative tunes.
This is what the future sounded like in 1975, and while it's more than a little disappointing that the future actually ended up sounding like Nickelback and One Direction, we can still recline in our polyester best and marvel at the limitless invention of these pioneering musical boffins.
Absolutely essential listening for anyone with an interest in the evolution of electronic music - and Mark Ayres' careful remastering makes these sound better than ever.

"BBC Radiophonic Music" available here.

"BBC Radiophonic Workshop" available here.

Check out the amazing documentary "The Alchemists of Sound" here:

Any Version Of Me "We Are You" Review

Reviewed by Tom Sandford

It could be the premise for a wacky French sitcom: Guillaume Lepine, thirty-something Parisian, works as physical education teacher by day, but moonlights as a musician that sounds like Lennon and writes like McCartney. And yet improbably, through a series of unheralded, self-recorded, self-produced, impeccably crafted albums stretching back to 2008, Lepine (aka Any Version of Me) has been doing exactly that.
Any Version of Me’s early recordings were adept Beatles/Beach Boys pastiches that featured Lepine’s adenoidal, Lennon-like vocals over jaunty, Macca-liciously pulsing piano/guitar-driven singalongs (I remain convinced that ‘Mrs. Alpert!’ from his first album was inexplicably left off Revolver; please don’t try to tell me otherwise). What sets Lepine apart from any other Beatles-influenced performer, however, is an uncanny ability to compose benevolent, wholly original earworms that echo the spirit of his influences without ever copying them. Starting with 2008’s Backward Forever, through Home Alone (2009), Wasted Sun (2010) and A Matter of Time (2012), Lepine quietly – and with no press whatsoever – released a remarkably consistent body of work that followed this charming Beatles/Beach Boys chamber-pop pattern.
That’s why We Are You, AVoM’s 2013 offering, feels so different from its predecessors. Oh, there’s still the odd, unspeakably catchy singalong here and there, but at its core, it is the darkest, most ominous-sounding album of Lepine’s career.
That is no accident.
“I was going to record my fourth album (2012’s A Matter of Time) in a real studio with a band,” says Lepine, who has recorded every one of his albums “home alone” in his Parisian loft. “We had rehearsed for almost a year. We had the producers. The studio was booked. It should have worked. But my mother fell badly ill at the same time and I had to be with her. After [she died], it was too late.”
A sense of loss, frustration, grief and disappointment suffuses all of the material on We Are You. But the music – usually relentlessly upBeat(le) – has taken a decidedly dark turn. The peppy opener ‘Can’t You See’ feels like a typically bubbly AVoM effort, but the second track, ‘Six and Three,’ dispels that notion and marks a shift in tone that pervades the rest of the album. A moody and pounding ‘80’s-styled number, it begins like a Jake Bugg knockoff, but ends up sounding like Human League in their darkest hour.
‘We Are You’ and ‘The Things That Matter’ are further evidence of this initially unsettling shift. The atmosphere in both is funereal and reflective, yet – and this is the real wonder of Lepine’s gift – the melodies are still uncommonly top-notch. How can anything this sad be this effortlessly catchy? Seriously, the guy has more hooks than a pirates’ convention. But the shock of his mother’s death and the daunting setbacks in his career would appear to have been channeled into his music. Make no mistake: it’s not just about the hooks. This music packs a considerable emotional wallop too.
‘Goodbye’ and ‘Get Me Out of This Place’ are pounding rockers that would have been more convincing had they been powered by the full band that Lepine alluded to. But even as solo products of Lepine’s home studio, they are strong, propulsive songs that provide temporary respite from the haunting, melodic gloom.
For an album that’s already been an emotional tour de force, it is the extraordinary final song, ‘Omaha,’ that provides the most moving moments, and quite possibly the finest song of Lepine’s career thus far. I dare anyone to listen to him sing “It’s getting hard to watch your dreams go by” – and the subsequent mellotron passage that rips the air from one’s lungs – and not find oneself profoundly moved.
One of Lepine’s earliest efforts, an uncanny, note-for-note recreation of The Beatles’ ‘Nowhere Man’, used to be posted on his Bandcamp site. It is no longer there. Presumably this is because Lepine feels – and quite rightly so – that he has emerged from the shadows of his heroes.
The first time I heard Any Version of Me, it was a song from his 2008 album Backward Forever, called ‘More.’ Back then I was certain I’d discovered not only my new favourite songwriter, but also a undiscovered musical talent of the highest order. We Are You is further evidence I was right.

CD or Name Your Price Download Available Here:

The Magic Theatre "The Long Way Home" Review

Reviewed by Nathan Ford

What a gorgeous and diverse baroque pop gem this is!
Album number two from the duo of Dan Popplewell and Sophia Churney follows up their unfollowupable debut 2010's "London Town" and wisely ditches the concept album trappings that they perfected first time out in favour of a more loosely connected set of songs with a subversive undercurrent of lyrical darkness.
The Magic Theatre's success hasn't been as immediate as my introduction may suggest though. The duo have been working together since the late nineties when their band Ooberman briefly flirted with the top 40 with their single "Blossoms Falling", followed by two critically lauded albums that refused to translate that acclaim into notable sales.
This history together has forged an instinctive, distinctive and memorable sound that recalls baroque pop forefathers like the Left Banke, without ever sounding like a throwback.
Popplewell otherwise earns his keep as a library music composer and his diverse arranging skills are set loose here to follow whatever whim he sees fit whether it be the whirling dervish of "Festival of Fire", the percussive cha-cha of "I Got The Answer" or the much more contemporary sounding "Cathedrals of the Mind" which has moments that sound like something Damon Albarn would cook up in a particularly inspired moment.
And check out the arrangements on opener "The Sampler" - it's like someone reined in Danny Elfman to score an Eleanor Rigby christmas special - OK, that would probably make a really miserable movie, but the arrangements here are just lovely.
Churney's voice is the perfect foil for Popplewell's rich arrangements, inhabiting these songs with the same sort of effortless pliability that Vashti Bunyan exhibited on her early Immediate recordings, with her vocal on the closing title track being a hanky grabber for all but the most cold hearted.
A perfectly conceived baroque pop album for the 21st century.
Sublime.

Available on Vinyl, Digital Download, and CD.

Watch Roy Harper Live on Norwegian TV in 1969/1970

Considering the news over the last few weeks or so, it may be unfortunate timing for me to discover this now, but here's an extremely precious half hour set from Roy Harper filmed for a 1970 Norwegian TV show. It's lineage is hard to trace but Harper seems to think that it was likely filmed in 1969.
According to his offical youtube channel: "Roy has some vague recollection of the session but can't remember the 'where' or 'when'. We're working on that. Because of the songs being played, and the way some are being played, he thinks this session couldn't have been recorded after 1969."
Whenever it comes from, it's a stunner - a lovely solo acoustic performance, in remarkable shape for it's age and a joy to watch:

Track 1: One For All
Track 2: Today Is Yesterday (Original working title Garden of Gethsemane)
Track 3: Hell's Angels
Track 4: How Does It Feel
Track 5: Forever