August 2010 new CD releases

Was August hotter than July?

Zen and the art of music reviewing

After a rousing performance by Gil Scott Heron on the last night of the 2010 Womad (World Of Music Art & and dance) festival we turned in, not wishing to dilute the lingering aftertaste with anything else. Rising next morning and breaking camp early enough to avoid the car caged crowds, firing up the Ducati and the Suzuki we thread through the fields to the waiting B-roads that follow the original route of the Roman Fosse Way North to our midlands home. The music of the Ducati L-twin chimes with Heather's silky Suzuki four and your old scribe can't resist an extra Micron piped throttle bark as we pass under a low arched bridge, downshifting for the following curve, the weekend's music playing in my head along with the staccato exhaust beat. The slight anticlimax that tempers the exhilaration felt at the end of any motorcycle ride is immediately mitigated by the presence of a package on the back doorstep as we dismount.

"Oh get on with it," urge plebs, stage left, "What place has this odyssey in an audio journal?"

The package on the doorstep was the latest batch of CD's arriving for TNT-audio listening pleasure.

First in the toploader Chevron Audio modified Shanling CDT100c is Mapleshade's sampler various artists: 13 Shades of Blue. Regular readers (and there must be some) know your old scribe loves compilations and samplers as perfect vehicles to introduce us all to new music far more convincingly than downloads, DAB radio or compressed for cars FM radio. This is no disappointment and would make a good introduction to the Mapleshade blues catalogue as well as to their rare dedication to top production and recording quality. If this disc does nothing else, it will convince listeners of the downward dynamic range hypothesis by Vacuum State's Allen Wright (the antipodean doyen of high resolution pre-amps) has it; that a system's capacity to resolve the tiniest signals in the presence of large amplitudes is what separates the highest end from the merely adequate

Mapleshade's founder and CEO, Pierre Spray has a clear philosophy from microphone, through analogue tape to digital sample rate and CD transfer, which he explained in an interview with TNT-audio's Arvind Kohli.

Predictably, this compilation is a show reel for Pierre's talents as much as for the musicians mediated there. The pitch perfect Alembic bass on the front cover reinforces this perfectionist zeal even if the opening track features upright bass. And boy what a bowed bass sound it is! Reviewer cohones could be dangled on public display with purple prose describing the smell of the cracked varnish, but the plebs chorus would soon shout "Utter b*ll*x" so we'll move rapidly on to question why artists like Seasick Steve, talented tho he is, become the voice of the moment while Ben Andrew's equally 'scarred by life' renditions (despite iTunes track-by-track availability at 79p a go) and Midnight Blue takes me right back to days of yoof hearing live jazz with my dad.

By track 5's opening bars you'll know this CD was money well spent... until you realise that it's gonna prompt purchase of at least 5 of the Cds it samples. Ho hum.

Purest Roots from Washington, never a parish on the island, but sounding like a lifetime's Maxwell Avenue strut up from the yards. The subtitle promises something different from the dancehall echo loops and reverberating rimshots pounding through banks of massive paper cone boxes, piled on the back of a flat truck. Inevitably, a reggae recording from minimalist purist Pierre Spray offers a new kind of soundclash. No wall of muddy bass bins and piezo tweeters ever sounded like this.

This is political rasta, not the predictable paeon to herb, but sophisticated philosophical lyrics riding rootsy riddims, at once both spare and spacious. The words more Shakespearean (as in Will) than the bass (as in Robbie), harking to earlier house band times on the cusp of rock steady. Lyrics loaded with metaphors, sophisticated puns, politics and Rasta sentiments are delivered over the steadiest rhythms, explicitly defined from the lowest growl of bass guitar to the lightest hi-hat flutter.

Brothers Vaughn (vocals) and Ron (keyboards and producer) Benjamin, line up with Tuff Lion (guitar - what a rootsy handle), Joe Straws (bass) and Dion 'Bosie' Hopkins (drums) for 10 original tracks committed to 15ips analogue 2 track in 1999. This is roots reggae delivered like never before, a different technical wizardry than mister Perry, Scientist or the equipment obsessive King Tubby, a new emphasis on subtlety and downward dynamic range, rather than on the traditional Carribean producer pursuit of timbre and density at all costs. All costs except riddim, here aplenty.

From their first visit to check out whether the studio suited them, Midnite knew the philosophy and vibe was right, but couldn't get the sound they desired. Finally after 6 months of experience, everything gelled and the whole album was laid down in one continuous session, each song in a single or second take. By 3AM bassist Joe Straws was drifting off to sleep while maintaining a rock steady beat.

Accepting only 3 microphones in real space for this opus, Vaughn Benjamen, Midnite's vocalist said of the six month struggle, at Mapleshade's Maryland studio, to get the sound they wanted, "I'm telling you, recording that way [without 48trax+fx] forced us to hear our music stark naked. I haven't had to confront myself like that since I was c15"

Rococo 1. n. (Fine Arts; Visual Arts; Architecture) fanciful but graceful asymmetric ornamentation in art and architecture that originated in France in the 18th century, characterized by elaborate but graceful, light, ornamentation. 2. n. (Music; Classical Music) an 18th-century style of music characterized by petite prettiness, a decline in the use of counterpoint, and extreme use of ornamentation. 3. n. ornate, florid or excessively ornamental style of speech or writing. 4. n. UK Prog Rock band, active from 1972.

Rococo 1. adj. (Music; Classical Music) (Fine Arts; Visual Arts; Architecture) denoting, being in, or relating to the rococo. 2. adj. Immoderately elaborate or complicated. [from French, probably alteration of rocaille, rockwork, from roc, rock, variant of roche, from Vulgar Latin rocca]

Rococo were among the pioneers of the musical form that became known as Progressive Rock (Prog) that flowered brightly in the UK and Germany, borrowing motifs and complexity from jazz and classical music and attaching them to blues driven rock. As the blues rockers of the 60s became more adept and sophisticated they wanted more from their idiom and delivered it to earnest audiences, spellbound by virtuosity. The distance and envy this invited from other potential audiences spawned punk rock, whose arrival with the slogan "Kill all hippies" presaged prog's immediate demise.

"But that's in the future as far as this is concerned, pop pickers", intone plebs, stage left,
"Not Arff!" replieth ye old scribe.

The excellent riff from 'Wildfire' was used most weeks by Alan Fluff Freeman on his weekly show Pick of the Pops throughout the 1970s. The track was the B-side of Rococo's first single and is a bonus track on this disc. The A-side is also here suggesting this CD is the summary of Rococo's oeuvre. Sound quality of the original masters slightly predates the increasing and eventually overwhelming use of compression later that decade and beyond. Good.

Some of this material shows its age too much, some sounding like feeble early 70's rock musicals and over produced, but there are still people who buy Queen records or attend the London tribute musical so perhaps there is a market for this stuff and Rococo do it better. The tracks your scribe dislikes on this CD are probably those most loved by the majority. Your old scribe can't bear Elaine Stritch style vocal delivery or poncey piano trills but conversely keyboard moments are also reminiscent of Keith Emerson (or it might be vice versa), a soupçon of 10CC, leavened with Curved Air, or possibly a collision between a Caravan and a Camel, this was never going to appear on the Stiff label, and indeed has never appeared before in any other format. Particular cadences and song structures appear equally familiar in Zappa's mid 70s stuff. Despite sell out gigs at the Marquee and tours supporting Ten Years After (rock Brummies who reached Woodstock), Thin Lizzy, and Climax Blues Band who were all REALLY BIG in the 70s, Rococo suffered the sinking fate of so many prog bands and sank, but not without trace as this CD testifies.

Rococo, formed by music press reviewers and ultimately suffering the fickle hand of reviewer fate as reactionary punk put paid to prog's progress, the scribblers' scag of the next moment, failed to comply with pop pigeon holes in the 70s as they still do now. Your bold scribe heard Queen support Mott The Hoople and said "Who were that shower? They'll never get anywhere," a statement repeated back to him with their every successive number 1 hit. Hopefully elderly audiophile audiences have broader minds and half of this CD will appeal to those like me and the other half appeal to those who still hear some relevance in Queen.

Uniquely British whimsical rock-jazz style, Cold River Lady (despite the cheap trucker girlie silhouette logo and henceforth CRL) are the second band to remind your old scribe of Caravan at their best, seasoned with extra prog, especially the song Hereford Girls. Competition for those Hereford Girls in those days included Mick Ralphs (Mott the Hoople and Bad Company)! The late Pete Farndon (later of The Pretenders) was bassist in the original line up that split in '76, the bottom end handled on Better Late Than Never by John MacKenzie and drums by session stalwart Bob Jenkins. October Love also has your scribe reaching for the Camel comparison for the second time on this page, a protracted noodling guitar solo allowing the listener to get as lost as in a Walnut Whip.

"Caravan and Camel twice on one page?" Jeer plebs chorus stage left, "It's like the Birmingham Odeon in the mid seventies all over again (and all over you, too), but what was that about getting lost in a 'Walnut Whip'? What's that all about", they continue to sneer.
A 70s advert for a 70s confection seems appropriate here, counters your old scribe.

Looking at the press release is a shock as the Caravan comparison is made there for CRL, so either great minds think alike... "Old fools seldom differ", counter plebs chorus, stage left

Various Artists: The Best of Homegrown 1968-1980