Birds Of Chicago

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J.T. Nero’s (AKA Jeremy Lyndsay) 2011 release, Mountains/Forests made it into our top ten of 2011 albums with its honeyed capturing of a sun dappled laid back soulful past. Blabber’n’Smoke compared it to early seventies Laurel canyon songsters with a touch of Van Morrison around the time of Tupelo Honey thrown in for good measure. Po’ Girl singer, Allison Russell featured heavily on Mountains/Forests harmonising beautifully with Nero and the vocals were indeed the highpoint of the album. Now Nero and Russell have taken the plunge and come up as a fully fledged pairing under the moniker Birds Of Chicago and huddled within their nest are the majority of musicians (garnered from Po’ Girl and Nero’s band The Clouds) who contributed to the very fine musical backdrop of Mountains/Forests. In essence (aside from the change of name) Birds Of Chicago is Mountains/Forests part two and apart from Russell writing two songs and taking lead vocals on several of the offerings there’s little to distinguish between them, indeed both stand as fine examples of fine song writing and singing.
Having said that there’s a broader palette at play here with some forays into Louisiana territory and a more rustic feel to some of the songs that at times recalls the late Ronnie Lane’s freewheeling celebration of travelling folk best captured on Cannonball where Nero sounds uncannily like Lane. The burbling bass line of Russell’s Sans Souci does recall vintage van Morrison but overall the sound is less reliant on past times as they stamp their own personality on some superb songs.
Trampoline kicks off the album in fine style with both singers swapping verses as the band kick up a funky dust and the vocals coalesce in the chorus. Russell’s Before She Goes is an eulogy for a departed one and introduces the Humboldt crows, perhaps the eponymous birds of Chicago who watch and wait. The crows reappear on the song Humboldt Crows which again appears to be an eulogy this time for Chicago itself. Nero does wax poetically in his writing with the best example, lyrically and performance wise to be heard in the amazing Moonglow Tapeworm that is part savvy street poetry, part surrealism. However the best is saved to last with the closing The Wide Sea where both singers unite with Nero’s cracked delivery perfectly balanced by Russell’s purity as the band surges with the unstoppable strength of a tide coming in.
Nero and Russell will be touring in the UK in April although as far as we can see there are no Scottish dates as yet.
website

And some video here of some of the songs.

Birds Of Chicago | Audiotree.

Top 10 2012

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Don’t think we’ve done this before but it looks like everyone in the world this year has come up with a “best of” selection. So, here’s our tuppenceworth.

1. John Murry The Graceless Age. Bucketful of Brains
A narcoleptic diary of hard times that shimmers with a beautiful heat haze.

2. Cahalen Morrison & Eli West. Our lady of The Tall Trees. Independent
Songs carved from old wood and turned into objects of beauty

3. Dan Stuart. The Deliverance of Marlowe Billings. Cadiz Music.
Back from the almost dead with a vengeance

4. Deadman “Take Up Your Mat and Walk” Blue Rose
An Americana primer, they gather in their influences and forge a fresh sound

5. Otis Gibbs. Harder Than Hammered Hell. Wanamaker Recording Company
A solid set of songs of the working man that packs a Southern punch.

6. Nels Andrews. Scrimshaw. Independent
A delicate and impressionistic set of tales from New York

7. Giant Giant Sand. Tucson. Fire Records
Expanded and emboldened Howe Gelb delivers a country rock opera as only he can

8. Petunia & the Vipers. Petunia & The Vipers. Trapline Productions
Left field country pop and rock with yodelling and guts

9. The Illegitimate Sons. American Music. Independent.
Bourbon soaked rootsy rock delivered with panache

10. Sacri Cuori. Rosario. Décor Records.
Italian band delivers some superb instrumental Americana that channels Calexico and Ry Cooder

Honourable mentions

Calexico. Algiers,
Chuck Prophet. Temple Beautiful,
For Fear the hearts of Men Are Failing. The Wonderful Clatter
Mark Lucas. Uncle Bones,
Malcolm Holcombe. Down The River
Richard Hawley. Standing At The Sky’s Edge
Michael Rank and Stag. Kin
Heritage Blues Orchestra. And Still I Rise
Ry Cooder. Election Special
Neil Young & Crazy Horse. Psychedelic Pill
Marvin Etzioni, Marvin Country!
Lincoln Durham. The Shovel vs the Howling Bones
Grant Peeples, Prior Convictions
Hat Check Girl. The Road To Red Point
Woody Pines. You Gotta Roll
Hurray For The RiffRaff. Look Out Mama
Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three. Live In Holland

Topic Records to make out of print material available digitally

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Topic Records logo

Weird how things happen at times, synchronicity, chance etc. On Friday, the 21st December I was busy ignoring the end of the world message from the ancient Mayans while browsing in a record bin in a charity shop in the city centre eventually coming up for air with a fine find. A Martin Carthy album, Because It’s There, on Topic Records, score! Later that day (ahem, Mayans) this press release popped up regarding a plan to make the Topic Records catalogue available on line. For folk nuts this is big news. Details below.

From January 2013, the venerable and redoubtable Topic Records (now 74 years old) will be making available another of its ‘gifts to the nation’, in the form of The Great Big Digital Archive Project. Thereafter, a programme of 6 – 10 additional titles will be released every month throughout the year. With the possible exception of Smithsonian Records in the US, this will probably constitute the largest digital project of its kind undertaken by an independent record company anywhere in the world.
Topic has always had the underlying philosophy of making traditional based music as widely available as possible. The ambition of the label is now to make as much of its vast historical catalogue available using the current format – digital. What makes this project distinctive is that at the moment, digital delivery all too often divorces the audio recording from all artwork, documentation and sleeve-notes. The plan at Topic is to restore and include all of the information that accompanied the original releases of the past.
In January 2013, 84 of these albums will be available to download complete with digital booklets. The digital booklets will be available from the Topic website as well as iTunes. There will also be a short YouTube film explaining the project in detail and the content of specific digital booklets.
The first tranche of 84 digital releases will include albums originally released on vinyl LP in the late 1950s, the 60s, 70s and 80s. Many have been out of print for twenty years or more and include titles which were championed by John Peel and other influential broadcasters.
Much of the repertoire on the field recordings included in the Topic archive has fed into the latest British folk revival, whilst many recordings of Irish traditional music are of cultural and political significance and date from a period when there were few domestic labels in Ireland releasing such music.
Example :
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The original recording of Davy Graham’s ‘Angi’ was made in Bill Leader’s Camden Town basement flat in 1962 and released on the seminal Topic 7″ vinyl EP – 3/4 AD. The vinyl release appeared in three different sleeves during the early 60s and with slightly different sleeve notes by Alexis Korner. Our digital booklet will incorporate all the sleeve notes and illustrate the variant sleeve designs. ‘Angi’ is widely regarded as one of the cornerstone compositions of the sixties’ acoustic guitar movement, famously recorded by Bert Jansch, Paul Simon, Ralph McTell, etc.

Topic Records

Vanessa Peters. Stephanie Fagan

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Ms. Peters is a new name to Blabber’n’Smoke although she did get a fair amount of press around this time last year when she released The Christmas We Hoped For, a collection of Christmas songs as you might have guessed. A Texan and would be novelist she fell into the music scene when she took a gap year in Italy and stayed there teaming up with an Italian band, Ice Cream On Mondays. They split a few years back and Peters returned to Texas and recorded the Christmas album. One Kickstarter campaign later she has The Burn the Truth The Lies to offer us. With a very pleasing voice Peters delivers some jaunty sounding folky songs that disguise a sometimes bitter, careworn world. She’s at her best on No Decision where she condenses a sense of alienation and allies it with a wonderful band performance that shimmers like wet city streets reflecting neon.

website

In contrast to the cerebral notions of Peters Stephanie Fagan initially appears to be a bit of a good time cowgirl going by the album cover. However, and as the man said you can’t judge a book by the cover. Fagan, from South Carolina, doesn’t let a whoop or a holler escape her lips here and actually shares some territory with Peters, singing songs about lost loves and regret on Heart Thief. She has a whispery and smoky voice and the first few songs are delivered with an airy acoustic guitar and mandolin to the fore giving the album the sense and feel of early Joni Mitchell. At times Fagan dips into a bluesy mood such as on Blow with its lonesome midnight trumpet but she does best on the songs that could have come from a cowgirl, however reserved. Prodigal is a Dobro driven gospel plow while You Are The Devil allows a clattering banjo to drive it along. A very promising effort.

Wealthy Orphans. Throwing Glory

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Blabber’n’Smoke first came across Rick Beerhorst just over a year ago when his album A Little piece of Pie cast a warm glow on some late winter nights. “Quirky,” we said at the time while admiring the literate vocal delivery and the naive art rock Sturm und Drang. At the time Beerhorst said that a band, Wealthy Orphans, grew out of that recording and one year later they’ve delivered their first baby. While it’s still essentially Beerhorst’s offspring the concentration of just four musicians (as opposed to the long list that populated Pie) allows for a more unified and uniform sound. Beerhorst (who writes all of the songs, sings and plays guitar and Victrola horn) is keen to note that the end result is a collaborative arrangement with his fellow band members (Michael Schaeffer, accordion, melodica, Adam Thompson, bass guitar, vibraphone, percussion and DJ Viernes, drums, percussion).
A painter and printmaker as well as a community activist one gets the sense that Beerhorst has a fair degree of knowledge regarding theatre and in particular cabaret as several of Throwing Glory’s songs have a theatrical bent to them with a whiff of Brecht and Weill as well as contemporary artists such as The Tiger Lillies. The accordion affords a European feel and together with Beerhorst’s laid back vocal delivery it’s reminiscent at times of The Colorblind James Experience although Wealthy Orphans keep the polka element to a minimum. Broken Dreams and The Young Become The Old both swing and sway like a flea-bitten orchestra pit band from the Wiemar Republic while Dangerous Places is delivered as if it were by Nick Cave backed by a gypsy accordion band and is particularly impressive.
Elsewhere Wealthy Orphans maintain Beerhorst’s love of New York art rock antecedents with Baby Who Have You Been With coming across like a European son of Talking Heads while Looking For My Muse is Antony & The Johnsons without the falsetto. A lovely song Looking For My Muse benefits from the fine playing of the band with some very sympathetic accordion and vibraphone and while they play well throughout the album they reach an apogee on Never Pass This Way Again where the plucking, picking and squeezing paints a wonderful backdrop that swells to a climax of Penguin Cafe Orchestra proportions. In the midst of this Beerhorst delivers his finest lyrics that recount a litany of failures and decay, an understated gem of a song.

Richard Thompson album news

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There are certain musicians who have accompanied Blabber’n’Smoke throughout the journey from adolescent to gray haired wisdom and Richard Thompson is one of them. From his days in Fairport Convention to the fabulous pairing with then wife Linda which produced classic albums I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight and Shoot Out The Lights, followed by his lengthy solo career he’s always been one of our favourites. Perhaps the quintessential UK guitarist he’s been a beacon for an Anglicised rock and folk sound since the sixties so we were intrigued to hear that for his upcoming release, Electric, he’s teamed up with Buddy Miller, ace producer of numerous Americana icons. Miller produces and guests on the album include Alison Krauss who of course, with Miller and Robert Plant delivered the very fine Raising Sand album a few years back.
Electric’s not released until next February but here’s a sneak preview of one of the songs, Good Things happen To Bad People. which will be released as a single. Can’t wait to hear the rest of the album.

Thompson will be touring in support of the album release, no Glasgow date so far but he does play Edinburgh’s Usher hall on February 28th.

Angie Palmer. Old Sticks To Scare a Bird.

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Lancashire’s Angie Palmer is one of the best kept UK singer/songwriter secrets. Despite the likes of Bob Harris championing her and a slew of fine releases she steadfastly remains just slightly under the radar. A pity really as she’s one of our most literate songwriters and capable of delivering songs that wouldn’t be out of place in Joni Mitchell’s oeuvre.
For her latest album, Old sticks To Scare a Bird Palmer continues to offer some sublime Mitchell type sojourns with Postcard From Paris a lilting slice of reportage detailing a Paris morning while William Of The Desert is a desiccated dream poem that recalls Sandy Denny with some wonderful playing from her band. The album is sequenced as if it was a two sided vinyl affair with side two dedicated to Palmer’s delicate musings while the first half allows her to let her hair down and rock out a little. In reality this just means that the majority of the songs on side one are a little fuller, more fleshed out with instrumentation and strings. She does rock out on Dirty Little Secret which is a funky little blues rocker with guitarist Billy Buckley letting rip. Truth be told and despite it being a fine performance in its own right its almost akin to finding your parents making out on the sofa. You might admire their panache but it does upset the equilibrium. Little By Little is another up-tempo number but it flows much more smoothly with sparkling mandolin from Richard Curren and a driving rhythm that harks back to Mitchell’s Hejira. Time Of Thunder closes the first half and it’s a more successful amalgamation of the fire and earth that make up the album as Curran’s violin and Buckley’s guitar gimble and gyre like the venerable Fairport Convention back when Richard Thompson was a member. The rhythm section drive the song along as Palmer wallows again in the Denny stream. The most successful song on side one is Raising Hurricanes where Palmer tells a witchy tale of revenge that marries the traditional narrative of English folk song with a slinky Dobro driven southern states feel.
Side two starts off with the straightforward Song Of Drowning Sailors, a traditional sounding folk tale. Aside from the aforementioned Postcard From Paris and William Of the Desert Palmer offers two sides of the story of a failed love in the two part Haunted By A Stranger, his tale is wintry while hers is brighter and optimistic. She closes with the wonderful Fresco which is breathtaking in its delivery with a tender guitar solo, almost like a singing saw, casting light on a perfectly sung oblique love song. The ghost of Sandy Denny and the spirit of Joni Mitchell hover around this but ultimately Palmer owns this sublime song as she sings gloriously throughout it. Tender, affecting and passionate this is an almost perfect song which deserves to be heard by one and all.

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Craig Hughes. Hard Times Volume 1

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Writing on the (assured) presumption that all those who frequent Blabber’n’Smokeland have a copy of Jim Dead’s tremendous Ten Fires to hand we direct you to the fiery guitar therein, much of it provided by local blues colossus, Craig Hughes. Much like his fellow blues traveller, Dave Arcari, (a guy who looks like he’s possessed by the devil while delivering his blues damnations), Hughes puts his all into a performance commanding the stage, growling for all he’s worth while turning out some awesome picking be it electric or acoustic. Fortunately he’s a dab hand at conjuring up this magic in the studio as well as he has demonstrated on the Jim Dead album, his recent forays as part of the uber heavy Dog Howl Moon or solo as on this, his latest EP.
His debut album, Pissed Off, Bitter and Willing to Share was considered by a Canadian publication to be the best UK blues album of 2009 while his shared platter with yet another local bluesman, Sleepy Eyes Nelson won plaudits galore. Now he unleashes Hard Times, Volume 1, a six song EP that runs the gamut from acoustic blues to rockabilly mayhem.
Promises, Promises sees Hughes running down the blues as he slides away on acoustic and growls his resolutions to give up drinking, fighting and lovin’. Straightforward and excellent and a fine opener. He Loved Her and Sent Her To Hell stomps along with drum assistance from Ally Tennick as Hughes delivers a cautionary tale that wouldn’t go amiss on a Nick Cave album. Hard Times Every Day is less pugnacious although as a diatribe against the recession it follows in the grand tradition of songs like Buddy, Can You Spare A Dime as Hughes captures a sense of futility and failure singing “It’s hard to keep your chin up when you’re face down in the dirt.” Tapes For My Walkman lightens the mood on a banjo driven send up of a guy sticking to obsolete technology (apart from the needle for his stereo, still a must folks). The slide guitar returns for Left To Crawl as Hughes displays his songwriting and playing skills to great effect as he whizzes around the fretboard with a fair degree of wizardry while his words capture a poignant memory of a relationship that foundered and as the woman goes on to have a family the protagonist draws into himself. This is a great song and it recalls the likes of Richard Thompson’s early solo work. For the finale Hughes puffs up his chest and goes into Cramps mode with Cave Full Of Woman Bones. Fuzz guitar fuzzes and drums stomp on this caveman rocker that good old Lux would have loved.
So, six songs, all crackers. Hughes acknowledges the modern world and as such he’s offered the disc for download on a pay what you will basis on his Bandcamp site. However if you care to have a real life artefact in your mitts then it’s yours for the measly sum of £4, the price of a pint almost. Whatever way you get it I’m sure you’ll dig it.

bandcamp page

Charlie Lankester And The Mojo Killers, Song In A Minor Key (Midmoor Music)

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A few days ago we had no idea who Charlie Lankester was then, serendipitously, Glasgow Bluesmeister Dave Arcari alerted his Facebook fans that he was supporting the said Lankester and then this album plopped into sight. Strange days indeed compelling us to follow this particular Mojo magic. A quick search revealed that Lankester is an Australian who dropped out of medical school to follow his muse back in the seventies. Failing to hit the big time down under he busked around Europe eventually ending up in London where he trained as an osteopath and played the local circuits as a piano for hire. Last year he gathered some of his compadres on the circuit (Derek Mandel and Mark Hawkins ,guitars, Dave Cuthbert, bass, Daniel Howard, drums, Paul Silver saxophone, Gavin Broom, trumpet and Nick Mills, trombone ) and together they strode forward under the moniker of The Mojo Killers for what is his debut solo album. So far so good but as they were finishing off the album Lankester was diagnosed with a liver cancer, a blow which might have felled lesser men. Several months later however he’s well enough to tour in support of the eventual album release.
His particular Mojo must be working.
Mojo is the operative word here. With its magical and mystical hoodoo voodoo blues roots it’s as good a way to describe the music here. Lankester draws deep from the well of the masters of the genre. Tom Waits, Muddy Waters, Ben Sidran, Dr. John and dare I say it Richard Hawley. All of these and others are picked up and thrown into a gumbo stew that hubbles and bubbles with an intoxicating come on.
They kick off with Greed, a dramatic Tijuana flexed workout that sounds as if Jacques Brel came from Mexico, the trumpet is the sleazy underbelly of Mexico, think of Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil, monochrome and bad. Drink My Blues Away slinks along with an early Tom Waits vibe while Brixton Road recalls Waits’ latter work. The Spinning Of The Wheel is the masterstroke here. The horns amplify a grim tale of street life, almost like a Scorsese movie as the guitars squeal and bend and Lankester turns the old Blood Sweat and Tears song upside down. The clattering and skeletal blues of In My Time Of Time Of Dying is another highlight while the title song pins the Hawley connection. A pining love song beautifully dramatised by a bluesy trumpet it swaggers and sways in a magnificent woozy fashion.
Suffice to say that this is a cracking slice of modern rythym’n’blues, the grooves crackle and burn and the band are superb. Coupled with Arcari their gig at the O2 ABC Glasgow it looks like it should be a blinder. It’s on Sunday 9th December, be there or be square, it’s the only Scottish date, the others are on the
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Klak Tik single release, Reborn.

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Klak Tik is the brainchild of Danish musician Søren Bonke. Based in London, Bonke and fellow band members Matthew Mitchieson and Jonathan Beyer released their debut album, We Must Find A Winner in 2010 to some fine reviews. Compared to the likes of Sufjan Stevens and Grizzly Bear they could be neatly filed under dreamlike orchestral folk music, much beloved of telly advertisers these days.
For their forthcoming second album they did the time honoured thing of getting it together in the country, in this case heading off to Penrhos, Wales where they even ventured into an abandoned copper mine in order to record some vocals in the reverberating cavern. The results will be available when the album, The Servants (named after the sixties band Bonke’s father played in) is released early next year. As a taster the single Reborn comes out on November 26th. Its pastoral lyrics are driven by a thumping rhythm while a mournful brass section tugs at its sleeve.
You can read about Bonke’s sojourn in Wales here