Reviews

The diva turns into the grand dame she's supposed to be - again.

The bell ringer re-imagining of the Musica Universalis theory makes heard the sound from within.

It's all about curvy shapes and grand schemes again, but when it's Mike Oldfield's idea of resonance it can't be bad, and this, his newest orchestral work revisiting some of the tubular themes unfurls a rich tapestry. "Harbinger" sets the master's serene acoustic against the anxious strings in a new age fashion with an occasional brass thunderbolt, while "Silhouette" marries Oldfield's guitar to Long Long's blissful piano, and "On My Heart" introduces Hayley Westenra's ethereal vocals. The second part of the programme could do with some more energy, though there's an immense delicacy in "Harmonia Mundi" and the folk undercurrent of "Aurora" is delightful. "Musica Universalis", a sort of grand finale, takes the listener some 35 years back, yet there's no Big Bang, so the hidden depths will make no head go vertigo. Still, the cosmic flight is a joyride.

****

The first official release of much-bootlegged historical document. The Man In Black pays a visit.

1978 was a transitional time for Ian Gillan who'd just roped in John McCoy with a prospect to turn the jazz-tinged IAN GILLAN BAND into something tighter and harder in order to please his old fans longing for the DEEP PURPLE time. Cue GILLAN, with the IGB keyboard master Colin Towns, old McCoy's friend Steve Byrd on guitar and drummer Pete Barnacle. Having released the so called "Japanese Album", the line-up tested their collective muscle on The Marquee club legendary stage. And it's from these December 1978 dates that this recording, well-known to collectors, comes from. The sound quality is not the best, still - be warned, that's an audience tape, - but now the players finally get paid, and the performance is worth it.

Here, the opening "Secret Of The Dance" comes on as hurricane-like as the closing "Lucille" which sees Ritchie Blackmore bowing before his former bandmate's blistering vocal work, and of course, three of their tunes - romping "Woman From Tokyo", "Child In Time" and "Smoke On The Water" - get an airing. But the real delight lies in less famous songs such as massively sprawling yet tightly grooving "I'm Your Man" and the jazzed-up "Back In The Game" that this short-lived line-up take to like hungry vultures, with unrivalled energy. No wonder Ian Gillan turned down the offer to join RAINBOW: the future shock was on the horizon.

****

Adventurous drift from the calm Continental place: here be monsters.

The seed the mighty bird didn't pick up on... but if it did there'd be a high flight.

The end of the '70s saw the new rise of the classic ATOMIC ROOSTER line-up of organist Vincent Crane, singing guitarist John DuCann and drummer Paul Hammond, but it was too short - which was strange given the NWOBHM's debt to the band. Yet with all the contractual problems, the hopes were high, and, from 1977 to 1981, DuCann set to write a set of demos that partly made it to the band's eponymous 1980's album. The rest is here, so this is not the ROOSTER: this is what could have become their LP, plus a couple of great singles to show the sound these recordings lack. As fine as they are, they're the bone in need of Crane's meaty keyboards.

One can easily imagine the creepy beast to be borne out of "Make Me Strong" or "C.O.D." had they been fleshed out in more colorful garb than the tentative riffarama. More so, "Leopards's Skin" is nearing "Devil's Answer" and "Tomorrow Night", both featured on the bonus '45s in concert versions, while "Mind Over Matter" and "The Devil In Me" feel like pure infectious pop the ROOSTER would have hardly pump the evil in. In demo form, though, there's a certain continuity which binds it all into a sort of a concept album with nightmare-ish "Cat The Wire" the most ATOMIC centerpiece, and "Open The Sky", the dark ballad that re-projects the "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood" motif. Unfortunately, history knows no "if's", and it makes no sense to think how massive ATOMIC ROOSTER might become if the essence of the demos were shaped into vinyl - yet to have them on plastic is great anyway.

**1/2

Hushed brass, wild imagination: on, where even Robert Wyatt feared to tread, Hugh Hopper hopping onboard.

Four saxes are what it takes to render beatiful one wonderful idea of a record which works two ways. A casual listener is welcomed to an avant-garde kind of lounge bliss, while a SOFT MACHINE rider is in for a special treat that present these 14 cuts of the band's tunes re-imagined by modern composers and laid out for the reeds quartet. Imagination leads into the deep here, with the deliate "Dedicated" built around the lead-in notes of Hugh Hopper's titular number and the meister himself adding bass to "Facelift", where Chris Caldwell's baritone, Graeme Blevin's soprano, Peter Whyman's alto and Tim Holmes' tenor gentle beasts sing in unison before running amok each on its own to get back in the pack again. Talk about blessing, then, as the London's Kingston University resident ensemble's other guest is MOTT THE HOOPLE's organist Morgan Fisher providing otherworldly vocals and hurdy gurdy for "Outrageous Moon", a handsome bastard son of "Moon In June" and "Out-Bloody-Rageous". Program it all right with the stately "Noisette", and the consise alternative version of "Third" comes into the light.

The most quirky the drift gets when the foursome harness their own wind with the classic spirit to fill the sails of "You". Yet while the soprano solo of "Everything Is You" whispers Faure, the burlesque jive of "Mousetrap" removes all suspicions that the players take it all all too seriously. That's the secret of all the joy here, so there's no excuse now for those who weren't listening the first time around. Bravissimo!

*****

Fooling about on Fools' Day 2007 can't get more elegant than this. Who's fooling who, then?

Toil and trouble? Rather a reason for a rhyme! Get pricked on the thorns.

In time to reclaim their legacy, the forgotten heroes of heaviness step up lively.

Unfashionable, they fell between hard rock and the wrong times, tapping into Spinal Tap way before the glove was smelled by the masses, and they were massive in their bluesy stomp. They were STRAPPS, a concoction of Australian belter Ross Stagg and drummer Mick Underwood who served time with many a great ensemble including those with future DEEP PURPLE members, and QUATERMASS this quartet can be thought as a continuation of - which by the mid-'70s was out of favor. Still, the bunch knew how to rock. Opening with tight but loose "Pain Of Love", the band swing on Joe Read's bass riffs with Stagg cutting it with guitar ever so sharply, and Noel Scott's organ beefs up the groove for the audience to get hooked on the spot.

Their goal might be to promote the STRAPPS' second album, "Secret Damage", and here the band perform six out of the LP's seven tracks, but the guys were confident enough - not a feat with tunes so infections - to deliver one unreleased song, funky "Understand It", featuring Underwood's blistering work. There's enough commercial gloss in the likes of "Child Of The City", but who listened? Surely, not punks who could relate to "Down To You". Surely Ian Gillan for whom the foursome opened that night and who snatched his old pal Mick for GILLAN and thus effectively put an end to STRAPPS before they fell out of grace with amazing wigouts like cosmically orgastic "I Wanna Know". And before deep-felt ballads like "Violent Love", wonderfully linked on-stage with the charged "Secret Damage", became fashionable again. All of this sounds rather modern three decades on, so it's quite a time for the band's studio albums proper re-issue, three bonus tracks on this CD hinting at some treasures in the vaults.

****4/5

As retro as it sounds, it's all about the future sounds.

Old age blurring into the new millenium: inspirational hymns played by the too-relaxed maestro.

The Dame gets hipper by the year, the lame stick out attentive ear.

What's in a name? This time you can judge a book by the cover. But there's more than only covers.

Gathering no moss, the old nuggets get turned one more time.

When the blues come knockin' at the wrong time, they might be led astray.

They didn't fly high, but that night the blues brigade were over the top for the Switzerland crowd to enjoy. The problem was the band sped the blues up to make it rock and roll, yet the early '80s treated the genre bad, and even a singer as great as Maggie Bell found it hard to do what she does best, and with the group as good as this. Still, they sound like winners, and do so by the sheer power they attack the hurricane-like "Too Much To Lose" and the opening "Hey Boy" with, Tony Stevens' bass chopping the air for Ant Glynn to thread the guitar riffs on.

More soul to the mill with "Love Games" written and propelled by the drummer, Dave Dowle, that's where the groove seems most right. But it's when Chris Parren's piano leads the heartfelt ballad "Rough Trade", that MIDNIGHT FLYER soar. And it's when they go into the deep with "Penicillin Blues" after a bass solo take on Monti's Csardas, that the real power of the ensemble strikes to celebrate the spirit in the company of Taj Mahal and Albert Collins who were on the bill that night and came wailing with Maggie for two pieces, including infectious "Chain Gang", each. Talk about the unrealized potential yet, without this recording, the history of modern British blues can't be complete.

***1/2

The pure faith's restoration with a tamed spirit of prairie rebellion.

"You can't go wrong with that Creedence song", goes a refrain of, er, "Creedence Song". John Fogerty's right with that, though he never really broke up with rock 'n' roll which seemingly is being revitalised here. What he's back with, indeed, is Fantasy, the label the veteran's been fighting against for more than 30 years. Now, "Zanz Kant Danz", isn't an option, the belligerence factor not as prominent on this record, and even the anti-war sentiment comes off well-hidden.

Instead, there's an enviable ardor in the idealistic optimism of "Don't You Wish It Was True" and youthful serenity of gospel-based "River Is Waiting". A deja vu feeling may pay a visit all too often, but there's no room for self-parody: Fogerty can't be anyone other than himself, even though "Summer Of Love" presents him in the CREAM guise. Easier still, John plunges for the scintillating swamp rockabilly that's "It Ain't Right" which ends abruptly only to gain speed and break into "I Can't Take It No More", an almost atomic result jolting close to "Travelin' Band". Emotionally, critical mass is not quite reached, yet the album's title feels justified.

***3/4

The snotty's little poem book which weaves into yer psyche.

That's a paradox. Pete Doherty's more exposed a scandalous lad now but it's Music, with a capital "M", that everybody expects from the fella. Talk about THE LIBERTINES' legacy, then. His new band, BABYSHAMBLES, aren't up to the standard yet, though their second album feels too good to overlook.

The opener, "Carry On Up The Morning", so elegantly throws a listener back into the tuneful '60s that one can't be un-sympathetic towards Pete. The same goes for the follow-up, "Delivery", two-and-a-half minutes of top-notch garage rock. But then there's alienation when, in "UnBiloTitled", Doherty poisonously, if gently, tells his lover to fuck off, and plays a fragile Jim Morrison in "Crumb Begging Bughead". Often, he's brusque but acoustically delicate in "Unstookie Titled", while "There She Goes" shows vaudeville-like playfulness: these mood swings make the singer much more human than tabloids want him to be.

Still, Doherty knows his weaknesses, and taking bows with a tender ballad, "Lost Art Of Murder", is not accidental. He knows he's loved and there are hopes heaped on him, and now these big hopes are starting to get real.

***1/2

They do records, don't they? Once in a while, and right on the money, though not one for the money.

A zoom out of the gloom, the Scottish flower in the fool bloom takes the whole world in her room.

Maybe Kate got bored to be playing a nu-urban-folk princess or she'd like to embrace the wider audience, but here she is, different yet not as much as her new album's title suggests. Wrapped in a full band cloth but still acoustically driven, Tunstall unleashes her pop side, kickstarting the proceedings with an electric take on the fans' fave, "Little Favours", and holds her head up almost to the end, where it all goes awry with a couple of back-to-the-roots sad ruminations on life. Quite an opposite is "Hold On", an optimistic slab of Latin dance resignation that etches a "world will turn if you're ready or not" notion into one's subconscious. Still, the in-your-face approach comes as an option, and in "White Bird" the singer sounds very vulnerable, almost Nick Drake-like, while "Funny Man" radiates friendly warmth. She's a bit detached in the upbeat ditty "Saving My Face" with just a little touch of the rasp that makes Tunstall so close to the listener's heart. It's a rare entity, a big-time artist as natural. And there's a bigger time ahead.

****

Rough an' ready but still not duded up: the earliest concert tapes of the brain capers.

Their rawness have always shone through the glam, and if the roughness was the quintet's quality marker, this recording is the best one can get, especially if the one's a fan, as the fans have been hunting for these tapes for decades. So here they are, officially out for the first time and remastered under drummer Dale Griffin's eye. Guy Stevens, the mad shadow behind the band, considered the tapes below par, and was wrong, at least in retrospective. But it's much more than a mere nostalgie factor which is at play here, with a relenltess energy oozing out of every piece that follows the opener, "Ohio", the only previously released track on the offer, where Ian Hunter does a great Neil Young impersonation.

Overend Watts' bobbing bass propels the hairy drive of "Rock 'n' Roll Queen" which comes linked to the red-hot potpourri of the evergreens such as "Keep A-Knockin'", "I Got A Woman" and "Shake, Rattle & Roll": so much for the influences. Yet there's a shaggy soulness to "No Wheels To Ride" with Verden Allen's organ interspersed with the singer's piano splashes and topped with Mick Ralphs solemn guitar solo, and a vertiginous cinematicity in "Thunderbuck Ram". Altogether, it's a charged set, so there's a little surprise the punters, beckoned by such an electric storm, stormed the stage during the performance. It's a rather short show, and a handful of bonus tracks from five months later gives the package the weight - which, fully-fledged it doesn't need so much.

*****