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November 6, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Rhiannon Giddens with Francesco Turrisi: There Is No Other

Rhiannon Giddens w/ Francesco Turrisi There Is No Other Nonesuch From her time with Carolina Chocolate Drops and now through her solo albums and shows Rhiannon Giddens spans decades and bridges musical genres bringing both a warmth and show-stopping dazzle to the old-time music of Americana past. She’s been a TV star (Nashville), an opera-trained […]

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November 4, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Jimmy “Duck” Holmes: Cypress Grove

Jimmy “Duck” Holmes Cypress Grove Easy Eye Sound In a musical sense, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes is a direct descendant of Skip James – Holmes is one of the last surviving practitioners of the Bentonia School of blues guitar playing, as pioneered by the unrecorded Henry Stuckey and passed down to Skip James, Jack Owens and […]

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July 30, 2019 by Simon Sweetman

Al Fraser: Toitu Te Puoro

Al Fraser Toitu Te Puoro Rattle Alistair Fraser has been a prolific composer and collaborator across the last decade – working as part of projects or with bands including The Whoolshed Sessions, STROMA, NZ String Quartet, Trinity Roots and the NZSO. Raised in Dunedin – and surrounding himself with conventional band instruments – Fraser then moved to Wellington to […]

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March 19, 2018 by Simon Sweetman

The Vinyl Countdown # 422

Ry Cooder, Jazz (1978) Ry Cooder made a series of albums across the 1970s – “genre” albums – he took on blues and country and the various permutations. Here it was overt – Jazz – but we’re talking old; we’re talking, too, of a time when jazz was dead or dying (the mid/late 70s). All […]