What song are you listening to right now? (Page 382 of 392)

Oli Brown & The Dead Collective - Prelude (EP) 2023

So, here's the debut outing for Oli Brown's new outfit, The Dead Collective, and it is a beauty. Working along side Wayne Proctor, who drummed for Oli back in his Blues days, this may not be as heavy as Oli's previous project, the power trio that was RavenEye, but nor is it easy listening Blues: it's the perfect bridge between both aspects of Oli's music progress thus far. The drums may be like rolling thunder and the guitars scream, but Oli's vocals have lost none of their range and power while Oli has learned to express the angst without falling into histrionics. Certainly shows scope for hopefully an full album before too long.

Here we're given 3 great tracks, Heard It All Before; Sinking Ship and Haunted, which also has an evocative semi-acoustic version; cello backed, this is really atmospheric.

Oli has been concentrating on his bespoke silver jewellery lately but since releasing the 4 tracked Unreleased EP in Summer 2020 (1st music product since 2017's RavenEye - Nova), Oli has been honing his skills at Superfly Studios in mixing, mastering and producing, as well as some writing, which we got a taste of on Toby Lee's debut (original) album Aquarius as well as popping up on The Mentull's most recent album.

This is why it was wise to reserve his seat at the big table - welcome back, and try the fish...

Wille & The Bandits - The Kernow Sessions (2023)

A "live", in sessions album from Wille & the Bandits recorded on 20th October last year, featuring Wille and the band. plus a couple of friends sitting in (Chris Haddon on Guitar & Helm Devegas on Rhodes piano) and having a romp through family & fan favourite tracks from their back-catalogue so far.

Love the artwork of the album's cover, by Cornish artist Marielle Newton who specialises in evocative seascapes. This "pairing" between the artwork and the music works especially well. Consider Cornwall as that spur of land in the Atlantic, splitting the ocean into the Irish Sea and the English Channel; at one moment the sea is benign & beguiling or sharply turns to threatening & turbulent; moody & majestic - much like the music of WATB.

If you've never yet tried any of WATB's music, this is the perfect intro; some of the older tracks have been beefed up since the days the band was a 3-piece, but their essence is still there, retaining their unique sound. As a young friend recently said, these guys are more than just the coolest band name.

Bad News - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9__FXpTf6oI
1970 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A0PDyM7GKA
Still Go Marching In - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrRJTCSt-Ag

The Who - Quadrophenia (1973)

So, Pete & Roger have lined-up some early Summer dates, doing an orchestral tour of this seminal album to mark it's 50th Anniversary (lot of it about....). Realising I'd never actually heard it in it's entirety (pause as Curby falls off his chair.. recovers and gets back up), thought it was high time to remedy the situation...

Flippin' 'Eck!! this is powerful stuff. though how the devil they'll do this without Moony's drumming is beyond me.

Those Deadbeat Cats - This Ain't Rockabilly, This Is.....  (2023)

So, big question, if it ain't rockabilly, then what is it? Some may call it skiffle, and I wouldn't disagree. Arguments aside though, this album is actually good fun. Take the "ultimate" 1980's hits compilation and strip the songs of the "everything but the kitchen sink" style of production, and this is what you get. Everything from Guns 'n' Rose to Culture Club gets the treatment here. And before anyone gets picky, I know Creep came out in 1992; by the same measure, Tainted Love may have been a bigger hit in 1981, but it was first released in 1964 (Gloria Jones) and this arrangement is the closer match; the same year The Munsters hit the TV screens.

So, who are the archetects of this? Well, it's Ron Sayer backed with Daryl Blyth on drums and Wayne Beauchamp on double bass, and I have yo say, the do a fun job. It certainly isn't as earnest as current hot rockabilly revivalists His Lordship, but the deconstruction of these songs is masterful.

Ubangi Stomp - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM4lkXybwbw
Ace of Spades - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P7x3cdo8TQo
Creep - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRM8wQ1aoHU

Love Sculpture - Another Helping  (2020)

Mentioned this a few days ago on Curby's Dave Edmunds thread. The album here is made up from 3 "live" radio sessions the short-lived Love Sculpture did for the BBC in 1968 & 1969. It was the first of these that spawned their monster chart hit, the frenetic take on Khacaturian's Sabre Dance (from Gayane), originally done aa a session piece, but was released as a single due to listener pressure. The track was inspired by the sort of arrangements being done by Keith Emerson and played much in the style of TYA's Alvin Lee.

Most of the other tracks in the sessions fall into Blues rock, with others being covers of what are now rock'n'roll standards, very much setting the template for Edmunds later, and more lucrative solo career. That didn't stop another Classics cover appearing, this time, the technically superb take on Bizet: Farandole (from L’Arlésienne). (On the band's 2nd & last album, they also interpreted Holst's Mars from The Planet Suite, but it wasn't licenced by Holst's estate for UK release.

The band split in 1970, following a US tour and Edmunds went on to a career as a solo artist and with the collective known as Rockpile, sharing lead duties with Nick Lowe. The guitar flash may have taken 2nd place in this time, up to his retirement with an instrumental covers album in 2015 and then altogether from the music industry in 2017. Whatever the style, he certainly played with aplomb.

Sparks - The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTAxPhxADo0

Laura Cox - Burning Bright (2019)

If I remember right, this is a name a gig buddy pushed my way a few years back while we were chatting about the other emerging French fret-burner Felix Rabin. (Think Gary here is also a bit of a fan.) Okay, so Laura is half English, half French, but she can't half rock it out.... There's a lot more grit to it than anything the girls on RUF Records are putting out, not quite as bluesy, but there's plenty of flash.

Puzzles me though, why I had to find it marked down in the CD bin at HMV: you'd think they were clearing out CDs to make way for vinyl, which will never catch on IMO... (Going in a music store now, it's like stepping back into the 1980s...)

Hawkwind - Church of Hawkwind (1982)
Right then, a 2023 re-pressing of 2010's remaster of 1982's little gem of a Hawkwind album from that early 1980's period when they were quite prolific in their mainstream releases; not to mention their own series of bootleg releases (known as Weird Tapes) and their own fledgeling Flicknife label.  Hot on the heels of the likes of Levitation, Church immediately followed Sonic Attack and preceded Choose Your Masques, and to be fair, it strikes a balance between out-takes of the former and demo's for the latter, and produced by "Dr Technical" which was probably a nom-de-guerre for Dave Brock.

So we get synth and guitar workouts such as Nuclear Drive, Star Cannibal, Fall of Earth City, Light Specific Data and Looking in the Future (which was on the Weird 7 album). We get synth pieces such as Phenomenon of Luminosity, Joker at the Gate and The Last Messiah. For the bonus tracks we get an extend version Angel Voices. It's the most disappointing track on the album so extending adds nothing, Harveys Sequence which is a nicely atmospheric synth piece, Fall of Earth (alternative version) might be the better version, Water Music (Light Specific data) which is a messier version and a similar version of Looking in the Future which morphs via a synth section into an alternative version of Virgin of the World, one of few the highlights of Sonic Attack.

The remastering itself (on all of the tracks) gives a clearer soundscape than the first CD release, without following the current trend of adding huge amounts of extra bass, so is mostly good. Overall rather splendid stuff, though not classic stuff, and besides Choose Your Masques perhaps the best Hawkwind album of the time, until Chronicle of the Black Sword came along.