Reviews

Yann Tiersen might be one of the most successful film composers without ever actually being a film composer. The French musician makes piano-based albums that reach out to tranquility, take a wee trimming and propagate new minimalist seedlings. But tracks from his first three albums were compiled to form the spine of one of the most mainstream-successful French films of modern times – Amélie.

Since then, he’s written for orchestra and smaller ensemble, adding electronic textures and also retreating to pure, solo albums with minimal orchestrations. Read More »

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September 23, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Frank Kimbrough: Ancestors

Frank Kimbrough

Ancestors

Sunnyside

Frank Kimbrough was one hell of a piano player – and he leaves behind a legacy across composition, covers and improvisation. His sudden death at the end of last year a shock, a great sadness and it makes listening to this first posthumous album (recorded in 2017) bittersweet. Read More »

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September 22, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Genesis: The Last Domino?

Genesis

The Last Domino?

Atlantic Catalog Group

Something made me very nostalgic about this – a Genesis compilation that no one actually needs, and maybe hardly anyone wants. This material is available already and has been compiled several times over. But this exists to plug the farewell tour, for it is – basically – the setlist. In the order the band will be playing it. Read More »

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September 16, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Billy Idol: The Roadside (ep)

Billy Idol

The Roadside (ep)

BFI Records, Inc, under exclusive license to Dark Horse Records/BMG rights

This is one of the first sets of recordings by Billy Idol in nearly a decade. He’s been on the circuit touring but not much in the way of new music. I’m sure many of his fans are just happy with the hits anyway and don’t need any “toilet-break” songs, and you might think that returning with just an EP after seven years or so suggests there’s nothing much in the tank, but The Roadside finds Idol pumped and perked-up – and sounding consistent with his post-80s material. Read More »

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September 15, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Joseph Bishara: The Spiderweb Meditations

Joseph Bishara

The Spiderweb Meditations

Void Recordings

Joseph Bishara works, primarily, as a soundtrack composer – and has credits for sound-design, engineering and producing – he’s collaborated with people like John Carpenter and Diamanda Galas; even Ray Manzarek of The Doors, and appears to be the go-to composer for James Wan, right up and including a recent score for Malignant. Read More »

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September 13, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Moritz von Oswald Trio: Dissent

Moritz von Oswald Trio

Dissent

Modern Recordings

The Moritz von Oswald Trio is back. First album in six years. New line-up, two-thirds of the trio replaced. It’s amazing how the name-player in the trio is almost never the star, just the constant; the conduit. The music filters through him – indeed his electronic processing of the music, the little granular tweaks and twists he gives to help shape it are in the end the sound of the trio, but he relies on the work of others to provide the opportunities. Read More »

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September 11, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Clickbait: TV

It’s a Netflix show, so much like Russian Doll and You and, er, most Netflix shows, it’s made to be watched in the background while you also scroll through your phone. It’s also probably pretty sure it’s a lot smarter than it is. This is Netflix.

Starring Adrian Grenier (Entourage) – though to say he ‘stars’ is affording him and the show a bit too much credit – Clickbait does hook you in with a mildly intriguing premise. Nick has been kidnapped. He’s there (somewhere) holding up a sign that says he abuses women. And that if the video he appears in – mildly beaten up, hangdog expression – gets five million views he will die. Read More »

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September 8, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Charlie Hunter Trio: Live At The Memphis Music Mansion

Charlie Hunter Trio

Live At The Memphis Music Mansion

CHM

Recorded in 2017, and finally available for all to hear this version of the Charlie Hunter Trio (recording a laidback set at the Memphis Music Mansion) features the wonderfully laidback blues/soul/jazz drummer George Sluppick and Michael Blake (Soprano, Tenor and Baritone saxes) alongside Hunter and his magic trick of playing bass and guitar at once on his hybrid 7- an 8-string instruments. Read More »

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September 7, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

F.S. Blumm & Nils Frahm: 2X1=4

F.S. Blumm & Nils Frahm

2X1=4

LEITER Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, in cooperation with BMG Rights Management

Across the last decade Nils Frahm and F.S. Blumm have got together on four separate occasions to make albums; remarkable enough but actually rather staggering when you consider that they each have busy solo careers and wear many hats. Frahm is a film composer and touring artist with several side-hustle ventures including working in music as a technician and record producer outside and awayr fom his own records. Blumm (b. Frank Schültge) is also a producer, has a solo career and is an author. Read More »

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September 6, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Bobby Gillespie and Jhenny Beth: Utopian Ashes

Bobby Gillespie and Jhenny Beth

Utopian Ashes

Third Man Records

We love those heartbreak albums and duets. Emmylou Harris and Gram Parsons, the Richard and Linda Thompson devastation that played out over a half dozen records but was so brutally captured on one in particular – and as an aside to that, sometimes linked, the male/female duet across country-soul and baroque balladry, from whoever Serge Gainsbourg could find to creep on (including, ew, his pubescent daughter) to the careful staging of Nick Cave with Kylie Minogue and the more recent pairing of Isobell Campbell and Mark Lanegan. Both of those couplings – and this one right here too – seem largely in dutiful tribute-service to the all-timer: Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood (but let’s chuck in Dolly Parton and Porter Wagoner while we’re at it). Read More »

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September 5, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross & Nick Chuba: Dr. Death (Original Series Soundtrack)

Atticus Ross, Leopold Ross & Nick Chuba

Dr. Death (Original Series Soundtrack)

Lakeshore Records

I don’t know if enjoying is the right word – but I’m watching Dr. Death and I’ll probably work through all of it, intriguing story, decent performances – but the score grabbed me immediately. So I hunted that out for an isolated listen and it’s become essential music to me. Regardless of what I end up thinking of the show. Read More »

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September 5, 2021 by Simon Sweetman

Linda Lavin: Love Notes

Linda Lavin

Love Notes

Club44 / PROVIDENT

Say the name Linda Lavin quickly and it almost sounds like Living Legend – and fair enough too! She’s been a star of stage and screen across several decades, a Broadway star, a singer of standards, show tunes and originals and an award-winning actor – back in the 70s and early 80s she was the title character in the sitcom Alice for some 200 episodes (and of course she sang the theme song too). Read More »