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VV/AA - Having a Rave Up! British R’n’B Box Set - Cherry Red Rec. - 3CD box set
Cherry Red always makes a well-compiled and well-researched box set, and perhaps it is necessary. Selling CDs nowadays (yes, this is a CD box set) is more difficult with the drift towards vinyl or streaming. But overall, it's worth dusting off these boxes from the CD player. I'm sure we all still have one somewhere, even if it's in the car. The full title is Have A Rave-Up! The Sounds of British R&B in 1964, with this four-hour 3CD, described as 'a hard-hitting anthology of British R&B from the genre's pivotal year'. A mix of hit singles, key album tracks, cult classics and the main highlight: unreleased recordings. According to the Cherry Red compilation's contributors: 'While 1963 belonged to the Merseyside-driven beat boom, the following year saw the emergence of homegrown R&B when the Rolling Stones' market leaders were joined on the Thames delta by a host of equally young, raw and enthusiastic British blues-hounds. The Pretty Things, The Yardbirds and Manfred Mann would all rise to national prominence, but many other supposed king bees - The Artwoods, Downliners Sect, Ronnie Wood's early band The Birds - would have to settle for a more localised audience. Other struggling heroes trying to pay the rent included The Who (as The High Numbers), Steve Marriott (as leader of The Moments) and Rod 'The Mod' Stewart (with The Hoochie Coochie Men), who all gave notice of their developing talents to an indifferent world. As a new wave of acne-scarred teenage degenerates emerged from the primordial soup of R&B, the R&B revolution spread across the country: Newcastle's likely boys, The Animals, were topping the charts, Birmingham's The Spencer Davis Group also made their first commercial breakthroughs, while The Betterdays were initially banned from Plymouth dance halls for playing what the local Mecca dancehall manager described as 'n***** music'. Although more musically sophisticated Flamingo Club regulars such as Georgie Fame and Zoot Money are also represented, the emphasis on "Having A Rave-Up!" - The British R&B Sounds of 1964' is on what would later be labelled garage R&B/punk, with the biggest names joined by equally naive up-and-comers such as The Fairies, The Cops 'n' Robbers, The Authentics and The Primitives." There are plenty of long and short player classics, tracks from rare private pressings and numerous unreleased tracks, including a 'pulverising six-minute rave-up' from The Tridents, featuring Jeff Beck shortly before he decided to join The Yardbirds. 91 tracks, a 48-page booklet with rare photos and memorabilia and a release date set for 21 June 2024.
Scasso 23/04/2024
Jesus and Mary Chain - Glasgow Eyes - Fuzz Club Rec. - CD/LP
Seven years after their reappearance on the scene with 'Damage And Joy', a work that looked insistently back to the band's past output, their eighth opus 'Glasgow Eyes' cautiously makes an attempt to break away from it at least in part, with a sort of homecoming in a nocturnal Glasgow, among shadows and memories of inordinate excesses linked to drug abuse, seasoned with synthesisers, dark electronics and kraut-rock steps, incorporated into the noisy recipe between pop, post-punk and alt-rock conceived by Jim and William Reid. The discrete opening is entrusted to the battered electronica of the dynamic 'Venal Joy', a track sung with Fay Fife of the Rezillos and illuminated by motorik licks, which serves as a manifesto and shows the album's general sound sentiment. It is followed by the vacuous 'American Born', which looks back to the songs of 'Automatic', reworking their rhythms and layered textures, and the missed opportunity 'Mediterranean X Film', which is sufficiently good for the good sound cues provided by the bass progression in the first part, but gets lost in the unnecessarily long and sluggish finale. The guitar trademarks of the Reid brothers' great classics peep out triumphantly in a hallucinated and synthetic key in "Jamcod", delivering a divisive result that could have represented a decisive turning point, putting further distance between them and their comfort zone. Discotheque" wins the prize for the most pointless (and ugly, if you will) track, whose dark notes take off towards robotic space-rock shores, while "Pure Poor" seems to decompose and unleash the guitar-riffs of a pseudo-ballad like "Nine Million Rainy Days" from "Darklands" in slow motion. The psychedelia and melodies of the Fab Four mingle with hard-rock guitars in "The Eagles And The Beatles", leaving the way clear for the much preferable wait, sustained by the hypnotic rhythms of "Silver Strings" and the distant echoes of "Chemical Animal", until the semi-ballad "Second Of June", which brings us back to the mood of the tracks from "Stoned And Dethroned". The light "Girl 71" shifts the focus in a power-pop direction, concluding with "Hey Lou Reid", whose title uses a play on words between the beloved frontman of the Velvet Underground, to whom the band have always been devoted (and you can hear it in the track in question), and the surname of the Scottish brothers. "Glasgow Eyes" is constantly on the razor's edge, alternating between several pleasant ideas and several blanks, resulting in yet another missed opportunity for an effective relaunch of the Jesus And Mary Chain project. However, knowing the highly provocative character of the ironic Reid brothers, you can bet that the result obtained is exactly what they wanted, out of any possible definition whatsoever. A testament album? A transitional album towards something really new? It is the case to say that 'good or bad, the important thing is that it is talked about', and here there will certainly be no lack of discussion topics.
Scasso 22/04/2024
Kula Shaker - Natural Magic - Townsend Music Rec. - LP/CD
Two albums in less than two years. And what an album: not the filler albums that old glories so often need to keep their name alive and justify new tours. Here they really play, both in the studio and on stage, and in case anyone out there still had doubts about Kula Shaker's new-found form, already amply attested by '1st Congregational Church Of Eternal Love (And Free Hugs")', 'Natural Magick' is destined to sweep away the clouds from even the most reluctant souls. If in their previous work, the eternal young Crispian Mills and his companions had concocted a great work that once again emphasised the spiritual aspect of Indian religion, here that aspect, although always present (as it has been for the past thirty years), takes second place to the successful attempt to create a repertoire of songs that are easy and immediate, catchy in the best sense of the word. Less sophisticated but still more direct, then, both conceptually and musically, 'Natural Magick' plays the 'all and sundry' card, winning in fact because even today no one like Kula Shaker is able to write melodies that are not banal and at the same time capable of enticing on first listen. The opening triptych formed by 'Gaslighting', 'Waves' (released as a single in 2023) and 'Natural Magick' is enough to make peace with that sound made up of lightning-fast guitar hooks, rattling Farfisa croaks and enthralling refrains (the chorus of 'Waves' is perfect, to say the least), catapulting us into that Britpop-soaked psychedelia that has never ceased to look back as much to the 1990s as to a certain non-trivial idea of rock with a more classic meaning of the term, ever since the mythical beginnings of 'K'. It is no mystery, moreover, that the British 60s and 70s are also alive in Kula Shaker's music, as can be seen in 'Something Dangerous', which is a direct descendant of groups such as The Kinks or The Yardbirds, but also in the sweet finale of 'Give Me Tomorrow', an old-fashioned ballad that, together with 'Stay With Me Tonight', renews the Kula Shaker tradition of love songs. There is no shortage of uptempo "Indian Record Player" and "Whistle And I Will Come" (destined to be even more successful live), the raga rock of "Chura Liya (You Stole My Heart)", which with "Happy Birthday" reinforces the link with India, the anti-militarist funk "F-Bombs" (also in "Idontwannapaymytaxes" Mills recites: "I don't wanna pay for World War Three") and a "Kalifornia Blues" that tells as best as it could the carefree and light-heartedness that dwells in Kula Shaker's music. They have not replicated the album of two years ago, in every respect, but in return they give us another fine example of their art.
Scasso 19/04/2024
Miles Kane - One man band - Modern Sky Entertainement Rec. - CD/LP
With One Man Band, Miles Kane releases what is undoubtedly his best solo album to date, showing, after years of waiting, that he can succeed in what had hitherto seemed impossible: to actually be a solo artist with a talent for songwriting and not a sparring partner of Alex Turner We left him in 2022 with Change The Show, with its nice Northern Soul influences, and so One Man Band arrives almost as a surprise; evidently Miles Kane has found the will to try again and take a leap forward. He does so in the company of his cousins James and Ian Skelly of The Coral, on production and drums respectively, Tom Ogden of The Blossoms, Kieran Shudall of Circa Waves and Jamie Biles, who helped him write several tracks. To tell the truth, the album gets off to a bit of a slow start, in the sense that Troubled Son, also chosen as the lead single, and The Best Is Yet to Come, reintroduce the 'usual' Miles Kane in a rather muscular version, but without too much appeal. However, the title track comes in to lift the album's fortunes, pushing it in a much better direction. A little further on, another highlight is The Wonder and, immediately afterwards, Baggio: I was eight years old when I first saw Baggio on TV, during the 1994 World Cup. I was impressed by his presence, his looks and his talent. It was the first time I had seen such a different and unique man. Seeing Baggio led me to be obsessed with that Italian football team for many years. I grew my hair and that was the beginning of my obsession with clothes, fashion and everything Italian. It was the beginning of my desire to become what I am today. The homage to the Italian footballer is perfectly successful: Baggio, you're showing me the way / When I was feeling lost and dejected / I used to sit and watch you steal the show ...and even the music manages to be evocative of an era that was clearly important to Kane. The ballad Ransom stands out in the second half, briefly slowing the pace, but this One Man Band sees a decidedly upbeat Miles Kane, and all the songs seem to be designed for live performance. It closes with another good song, Heal, and the acoustic - but less convincing - Scared of Love. With a fairly basic line-up of guitars/bass/drums, One Man Band certainly does not pretend to innovate; Miles Kane is firmly anchored to the 60s sound that he loves and that he re-proposes in a modern form, which takes into account the evolution of the genre through proposals such as those of the Jam, Brit-pop, and the Last Shadow Puppets themselves. It is hard to expect much else from him but good songs, and compared to the past here we have finally found them.
Scasso 18/04/2024
Ride - Interplay - Wichita Recordings Pias - CD/LP
It has been ten years since the reunion of Ride, the seminal shoegaze band. It arouses a lot of sympathy to think that to date the four from Oxford have been together longer than their first incarnation. They want to stay and are betting everything on 'Interplay' (Wichita Recordings/PIAS, 2024), an album that made us a big promise during its promotion: to converge in a single work all the sounds explored from the early days to the present day. Promise kept. "Interplay" takes the frenetic guitar attacks, hypnotic grooves and dreamy melodic hooks of their early work and places them in a more expansive sound pattern, including synth flourishes, psychedelic folk, electronic rhythms and noir-pop soundscapes. The lyrics combine classic Ride hallmarks such as escapism, dreams, dissatisfaction with modern life, longing and freedom, with a sense of defiance and resilience. It is a record about perseverance, about sticking together, about finding a way forward. 'Interplay' is a record that is a child of the old school, giving us a rich and flowing listen from start to finish, at times urgent and formidable, at others pensive and melancholic. It really sums up the sound of a great band and marks another peak in their output. Ça va sans dire, a comparison with the acclaimed predecessors 'Nowhere' (1990) and 'Going Blank Again' (1992) would be in bad taste towards this record. Yet Ride, ten years after getting back together, continue to rewrite their history. The album excels in the rhythm section, confirms melodic expectations, occasionally lapses in architecture. With a sound inspired by 80s pop gems, Peace Sign and Last Frontier are the perfect introduction. Light in a Quiet Room hypnotises and detonates with a sweeping narrative. In Monaco and I Came to See the Wreck, synth pop manifests itself in its purest form. Stay Free and Last Night I Went Somewhere to Dreamspeak the rhythm in a scholastic manner, and are perhaps the album's plateau. The same would be true of Sunrise Chaser and Midnight Rider, were it not for some very catchy bass lines. Portland Rocks is the track most reminiscent of early 90s shoegaze, Essaouira is a sweet gem. Lastly, Yesterday is Just a Song, without much pretension. In 2014, Ride reformed, finding a global scene full of indebted bands and their peers (Tame Impala, Beach House, Slowdive). Today, in 2024, shoegaze is back in vogue, having gathered a new wave of Gen-Z fans via TikTok, with artists such as DIIV, bdrmm and Just Mustard. A quarter of a century after their formation and with a new generation discovering their music, 'Interplay' proves that Ride can reach new creative heights.
Scasso 17/04/2024
Starsailor - When the Wild things Grow - Townsend Music Rec. - LP/CD
Reuniting with Rick McNamara of Embrace, Stairailor look to the future with their first album in seven years, 'Where The Wild Things Grow'. Born in the wake of frontman James Walsh's divorce and made during a global pandemic, change is at the heart of the record, which offers some of the band's strongest work since their early 2000s albums. The title song refers to the band as it is today, drawing on a range of influences from 1970s rock while delivering the track with a natural ease and confidence that comes from more than two decades under their belt. The opening number, the five-and-a-half-minute Into The Wild, proves that the band isn't doing anything by the numbers this time around, while the single Heavyweight taps into the ups and downs of life for a band approaching its 25th anniversary next year. Better Times stands out as another anthem of the set that, coupled with more reflective tracks like After The Rain and Hard Love, shows the spectrum of the band's musicality and their continued desire to evolve and push their sound further. The single Dead On The Money - with its double-meaning title - is destined to become a sing-along moment in their live shows, having already proven to be a fan favourite since its release..In the closing number, Hang In The Balance, Walsh is at his most reflective, singing "If we hold on tight we'll suffocate him / If we give him too much space we'll wipe him out" and opens up a world of emotions that have run through the band's most recent recordings and helped bring long-time fans back into Starsailor's musical universe. Arriving on the eve of the 20th anniversary of their debut album, 'Love Is Here', Starsailor's gaze has shifted firmly from the past to the future - and while the lessons of days gone by may echo through their lyrics, they serve as pointers to live by as the band enters tomorrow with one of their best albums to date!
Scasso 16/04/2024
Liam Gallagher John Squire - omonimo - Wagner Music Rec. - CD/LP
Two high-sounding names, two influential figures who, with different artistic weapons, marked an era, that of the celebrated 'Madchester', which then overflowed into the rest of the United Kingdom (and beyond) who now find themselves sharing a project that smells of nostalgia. John Squire and Liam Gallaghers are classic characters for whom it is pleonastic to dwell on historical digressions. Rather, it is interesting to dwell on the dynamics that led them to share and make together the self-titled album that brings them powerfully back into the limelight. The ex-guitarist of the Stone Roses had long since eclipsed the musical world, devoting himself mainly to his boundless passion for painting, also due to a somewhat polemical view of the current sound panorama that did not seem to stimulate his overly proactive ambitions. Over the years, he had also composed a few tracks, but relegated them to pure archive material, shared at most with his close family members. The friendship with Liam goes back several years. It was Squire himself, who had been one of the triggers for the Britpop bombshell of the 90s, thanks above all to his debut album with the Stone Roses in 1989, who had declared his dissent from that movement, which was then generated, but making an important exception for Oasis, whom he considered to be the only ones to possess the necessary quidnecessary to write history. It was not by chance that in 1996, also as a sign of overt recognition, the Gallagher brothers invited Squire on stage at their legendary concert in Knebworth, to shine his inimitable guitar in 'Champagne Supernova' and in the Fab Four cover 'I Am The Walrus'. That was precisely the moment when the relationship between John and Liam began to settle down in an imperishable way. The esteem and progressive contacts intensified over the years, with continual certificates of esteem launched in the various press organs, until those days in early June 2023, when a now solo Liam invited Squire back to Knebworth to join his band again on 'Champagne Supernova', just as it had been almost thirty years earlier. It was there that the reinvigorated Squire introduced Liam to some unreleased tracks, confiding to the peppery ex-Oasis frontman that only his distinctive voice and charisma would be perfect to finally make sense of his compositions. Liam didn't let this be said twice. Squire went on to write with renewed verve, which had been covered by layers of dusty boredom for too long. The rest is encapsulated in these ten pleasant tracks, which are easy to listen to. The esteem and progressive contacts intensified over the years, with continual certificates of esteem thrown around the various press organs, until those days in early June 2023, when a now solo Liam invited Squire back to Knebworth to join his band again on 'Champagne Supernova', just as it had been almost thirty years earlier. It was there that the reinvigorated Squire introduced Liam to some unreleased tracks, confiding to the peppery ex-Oasis frontman that only his distinctive voice and charisma would be perfect to finally make sense of his compositions. Liam didn't let this be said twice. Squire went on to write with renewed verve, which had been covered by layers of dusty boredom for too long. The rest is all packed into these ten enjoyable tracks, which are easy to listen to. One thing must be made clear right away. As mentioned at the outset, the greatest value that rises up when listening to the microgrooves of this album is that of finding the two bad boys having fun and entertaining listeners, as they have not done for far too long, using the exact procedures that have built gigantic golden bridges in their respective years. It is equally honest, however, to state that it is not in here that one will be able to unearth novelties or juicy previews, an ambition that, to be honest, does not seem to have been taken into consideration in the slightest by the two Mancunians. Squire appears in perfect form, at last, with his unmistakable, granitic guitar riffs that emanate blues from every pore, as does the good Liam, with his characteristic timbre, obviously a little marked by the years and excesses, but always magnetic and difficult to equivocate. The latter, as usual never banal in his interviews, admitted that the songs are totally written by John, that he is the real hero of the artistic project. The dirty work done is all his doing. Says Liam in a recent interview with a national radio station: 'John did all the work, I appear at the end and put the ball in the net. He had the songs written, he had it all mapped out, it was all done. I sing and it's beautiful, I didn't have to come and spoil the party. I just did my part, which I found very simple. It's great and I think it worked well".
Scasso 15/04/2024