Country: USA
Rating: 7/10 - Review: Young, New Orleansbased
singersongwriter’s
feral debut
Jack White likes 
Rating: 8/10 Review: Former Feist
collaborator unveils
mellow gold
“I’ve got all the time in
the world – don’t you want some of that?” asks
Afie Jurvanen four songs into his third album.
Like his pseudonym, it’s indicative of the
Toronto musician’s laidback, warm nature:
Bahamas Is Afie drifts effortlessly from such
easygoing, blue-eyed soul – also evident on the
brassy “Stronger Than That” – to autumnal
campfire acoustics, reminiscent of the work of
overlooked fellow Canuck Paul Hayden Desser.
Blessed by an amiably husky voice, Jurvanen
unfurls elegant melodies amid intelligent,
economical arrangements, with the delightfully
understated strings and flute of “Can’t Take
You With Me” a particularly tender highlight.
Rating: 6/10 - Love and death during
the Great Plague
Playwright Mark Ravenhill
and composerConor
Mitchell’s song cycle
about the 1665 bubonic plague debuted
at the Edinburgh Festival in 2011 before
moving to Wilton’s Music Hall in Tower
Hamlets, East London. Written specifically
for Almond, it followed a year in the life of
a London-dwelling survivor and his struggle
to come to terms with the death of friends and
family, and the near destruction of his city.
Accompanied only by piano in this studio
recording, Almond has certainly been in
better voice, although he still manages to
bring enormous depth and poignancy to
Ravenhill’s libretto and its echoes of the
AIDS crisis.
time of the last
survivor
IGGY AND
ISAAC HAYES
BLACK ANGELS
ALAN HULL
Nelson or something, those
World music's new frontier: Snowdonian trip-hop Where their 2009 debut was stuffed with traditional Welsh balladry, Tincian (meaning ‘dazed’) is almost all original work by singer Lisa Jen and musician Martin
Hoyland. The duo have refined their approach too, matching Jen’s crystalline voice to equally spare arrangements of harp, guitar, drums, keyboards, and electronic toy box. They have a distant cousin in Portishead, but 9Bach’s flavours are lighter, more mysterious and more uplifting. The traditional “Pa Le?”
gets the full harp and finger cymbals treatment, while on “Plentyn”, Jen turns Bushesque againt a female chorus. Despite some ponderous moments, Tincian is a captivating original.
Verdict: 70/100
Cautionary Tales picks up where End Times left off. The style of the two
albums is similar and it seems like the stories are extensions of that
album. This is dark Eels, not the happier, funkier, more produced Eels
of the past. E is at his best with these stories.| British | American |
Canadian |
Australian |
 |
 |
 |
 |
