Album Reviews

On December 9, 2010 at about 11:30 pm, I was standing in front of Johnny D’s, a now defunct and demolished Somerville, Massachusetts club, alone with Bert Jansch who about an hour earlier had finished an hour plus set. It was cold, in the twenties and sleet was becoming snow. Bert was holding his guitar, uncased, by the neck in his right hand.

The music of Foo Fighters is never a far cry from the band’s influences. That’s true with their 2021 release, Medicine At Midnight: an album that throws into a melting pot their rock tendencies, disco roots, and funk fascinations. If this sounds interesting to you, that’s because it is.

Spoken word or sung poetry? There’s plenty of both in the British Isles: the rolling, sprawling narratives of Kai Tempest; the angular Sinead O’Brien, smiling in Irish; the arch delivery of Dry Cleaning; the startling machine-gun rapping of Little Simz; a new collection on Decca by Cerys Mathews, the first in a series of “poem song” albums, pairing poets with musicians from Hidden Orchestra. From the defiant 70’s reggae of Linton Kwesi Johnson, to the many decades of the late Mark E. Smith, to the current dystopian punk barrage of Sleaford Mods, the British Isles has an abundance of musical poetry on record, joined now by Londoner Arlo Parks.

(Ed note: This is the first voice memo review on AnalogPlanet) Jacob Collier rightfully displays a childlike fascination with music. It would be a mistake, though, to confuse his youthful exuberance with mediocrity. The 26 year old, who released his first album five years ago, gets praise from music business legends. Herbie Hancock is in awe of Collier’s performance and production abilities. Quincy Jones, recognizing the multi-instrumentalist’s potential, signed Collier to his personal management division.

“Do we really need yet another version of Patricia Barber’s café blue? was my reaction upon hearing about IMPEX Records’ new $125 “One-Step” edition of this more than a quarter century old (1994) Premonition release.

Patrick Higgins’ 2016 album Bachanalia —a sonically adventurous compilation of Bach compositions transcribed for guitar—provided smooth and familiar musical sailing compared to this recently released double LP of challenging, provocative Avant garde chamber music.

Draw Me A Silence is the first long-player from Azu Tiwaline, a project of the electronic producer and DJ Loan, who has “origins which take root in the Sahara and El Djerid region in the south of Tunisia”. This new incarnation creates “a sound from the desert drawing on Berberian and Saharan trance music that connects human beings with Nature” according to her Bandcamp page.