Although the sound quality is slightly boxy, the opening track on CBGB’s 1985 is a treat. “Gardens” is on a line between first-album Rain Parade and Unhalfbricking-era Fairport Convention, it’s hard to tell from this live album whether Rochester, New York’s Absolute Grey – grey, not gray – caught the attention of their subdued-seeming Manhattan audience four decades ago while playing NYC’s prime roots-level venue. Now, though, it’s clear “Gardens” is top-drawer folk rock-inclined psychedelia which demands instant attention.When a studio version of “Gardens” – recorded in July 1985 – was Read more ...

Comparatively speaking, Rotherham appears in the news more than most British towns of an equivalent size. And much of that news is not good. Much of it is representative of poverty, social disenfranchisement, and the ugly face of flag-waving Britain. But self-released, 2020s grass roots indie rockers The Reytons offer a reminder of working class community power, a band who hark back to the days when the only way out of big city estates was through football and pop.Their last couple of albums (of four, including this one), made it to No.1 and No.2 in the UK album charts, respectively. This Read more ...

VINYL OF THE MONTHJohn R Miller The Great Unknowing (Rounder) Image John R Miller’s youth was spent in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, an area where he imbibed Americana-folk fiddle music and began his career. The fiddles are mostly long gone but the feel of them is retained on The Great Unknowing, his fifth album. Miller combines raw country songwriting with a rough-edged bar-blues guitar twang. His voice is world-weary and his songwriting literate but catchy, dosed up on the blackly humorous cynicism found in the best country music Read more ...

The only break in the flow comes just before the last song, “Toppling.” There’s a need to tune the guitar, so what – until this point – is an uninterrupted, pell-mell rush through what seems to be seven other songs is briefly halted.“Seems to be” as it’s hard to detect when one entry in the breathless half-hour set bleeds into the next. Individually, the songs have stop-start structures, handbrake turns from one time signature to another, and sudden outbursts of noise which abruptly give way to short passages which hint at a reflectiveness. Then, boom, off into the next swirling slab of Read more ...

The key track gives the album its title. “Where the Fades Meet” opens with swelling strings, which are swiftly underpinned by groovy, shuffling, percussion. The lyrics are carried by a chorale singing of a “fading signal”, “stillness” and “shadows.” It seems to about what lies in the gaps between the perceivable. The melody has a vaguely eastern Mediterranean lilt. Overall, it leans into evoking an exotica-inclined Rotary Connection – the late-Sixties/early Seventies outfit that was a core influence on acid jazz.“Where the Fades Meet” is the sixth track on the seventh album – there has also Read more ...

There’s a long and rich tradition of scabrous indie rock lyricism from Yorkshire. Sheffield’s Jarvis Cocker and Alex Turner tend to get the plaudits, but the particular kind of gimlet-eyed social observation and pub philosopher’s knack for a toothsome phrase can be found from Hull (Paul Heaton) to Rotherham (Rebecca Lucy Taylor), and Todmorden (Sydney Minsky-Sargeant of Working Men’s Club). And Leeds has its whole own strain, starting with the screeds of The Mekons and Gang of Four, running through David Gedge and Ricky Wilson in his spikier moments to Lily Fontaine of English Teacher and, Read more ...

It is never a great sign when a local authority is forced to comment on a music festival. The opening night of the In The Park series of shows at Newcastle's Exhibition Park forced such a reaction from the city council, after claims of overcrowding to see headliner Lewis Capaldi perform, on a day of sweltering heat. Nothing amiss was found according to the council, and by this night, the final one in the series of shows, there were thankfully no issues to cause concern. Instead the sunshine was accompanied by a light breeze to create an atmosphere more suitable for picnics than rock Read more ...

Ever since he crashed into the world with that eerie masterpiece, Maxinquaye (1995) – an album that has never aged – Bristol-born Tricky, once a maverick member of Massive Attack, has mined a vein of suffering and pain, extracting, disc after disc, the essence of his troubled shadow and ancestry. The new solo venture, hot on the heels of a rich diversity of collaborations, is no different. This is the music of a haunted man, whose wounds have nourished streams of musical consciousness that speak to all of us, and never feels like maudlin navel-gazing or confessional self-indulgence. Read more ...

Mould are a post-punk sounding trio from Bristol. The press release says that their debut album is “13 tracks that explore the horrors of the outside world and the internal minefield of the brain”. A nice description, and very post-COVID in aspect. Also correct. The lyrics are the best thing about Hoping as a Coping Mechanism, born of prosaic nihilism and boredom, with a seasoning of desperation.Musically, Mould’s angular energy makes up for what they lack in musical originality, and the whole thing is done in about 35 minutes so they don’t outstay their welcome. They veer from harsh Idles- Read more ...

The most up-front factor defining the 10 tracks of Sweet Thief’s 26 minutes is Zoë Randell’s voice. Figuratively, she does not – vocally, that is – break a sweat or get agitated. On “Wanna Get Free,” she sings “put down your weapon.” Yet there is no sense of experiencing imminent danger. The lyrics of “A Better Truth.” which musically evokes Leonard Cohen's "Susanne”, tell of “troubled men… anger, shame, building to cycles of misery and strife.” Again, there’s that distance, a cool, the sense that Randell is a detached though acutely aware observer.Luluc are the duo of Zoë Randell and Steve Read more ...

VINYL OF THE MONTHEd O’Brien Blue Morpho (Transgressive) Image The last thing theartsdesk on Vinyl thought it needed was a solo album from Radiohead’s guitarist but Blue Morpho, Ed O’Brien’s second album, spikes expectations. The opening “Incantations” is fab, a low-rolling, bongo-tastic thing hazed in mysticism, like a particularly stoned offcut from Plant & Page’s No Quarter project. The album was, apparently, a healing exercise for O’Brien, who was having brain doldrums. It feels that way, lightness touched with sadness, like that Read more ...

Shadows opens with “The Lone West,” a short, desolate instrumental featuring a simple keyboard refrain with a flute-like quality and what may be an early Seventies drum machine. There’s a bit of Young Marble Giants in there. The Brian Eno of Another Green World, too. The Ghost Box label’s characteristic nebulousness is also apparent.The next track features a vocal. Sailing over a similar musical bedding, Cate Kennan’s voice on “Shadows” is distant, etiolated, devoid of colour. A twangy guitar plays single notes. There is some Santo and Johnny-esque lap steel and sparingly used castanets. The Read more ...