Posts

Rio Trevor Rabin

  There's a fire burning When you are fifty years in to your exploration of music, the same rules apply as they do to all the elements of your life, almost. It's not quite expand or die, more expand, circle or die.  From my first single, Martha Reeves & The Vandellas, Dancing in The Street, to yesterday’s Radio 3 jewels, gems and mysteries and everywhere in between I have been trying to hear music better. I hear harmonics, progressions and melodic connections that I could not have begun to appreciate in 1968. The nuances are more apparent the structure clearer and yet ultimately like all art more than anything in 2023 I want to be moved and touched. What of the other side of the equation, the musician whose age I share. Trevor’s stated intent for his first solo vocal project since 1989 was to grow his musical vocabulary and try literally anything and see what happens. At an intellectual level my one burning question was, would he be able to deploy all the experience he had

John Holden - Sakusei no tayasu-sa (Ease of Creation).

  Kintsugi With John's fourth project he has moved into an area rarely inhabited by the kind of bands that he and I share an interest in. Bands become a victim of their own momentum and feed on themselves. John on the other hand has no other consideration than to make music.  I have been thinking of artists that set aside naked ambition and just instinctively create. The Beatles "White Album" written in Rishikesh has that feel. Joni Mitchell's "Hijira" is more focused than "Hissing" it feels more naked, more to the point, as if you get a more clearly distilled vision of the artist. Perhaps Steve Winwood's "Arc of Diver." is an artist arriving at a destination rather than striving restlessly for more 'something.' Thats what I feel I am receiving with Kintsugi. Part of that is because John has taken more personal responsibility over the playing, part is due to his absolute determination to feed the songs rather than the arrangem

Alan White - Lights Out

  Alan White When Chris Welch commented on Bill Bruford leaving Yes in the summer of 1972 he said it was like Rolls quitting Royce.    Over the years since then all the talk has been about how complex Yes's music was by then and what a mammoth task it was for Alan to come in and learn all that stuff in a few days which he did in time for Dallas. That was only a small part of the story the reality was the way Bill and Chris worked was entirely atypical.  To break into that required a complete rethink for the entire band. Chris towards the end, on the fortieth anniversary of the Yes Album acknowledged that. Rick in late '72 found the change unsettling. It was as if the foundations of a building had been completely remodelled and the upper floors didn't sit properly afterwards.  When you sat in the Wembley Arena in 1977 and listened to Alan count in Starship Trooper you knew the journey had been made. Trooper, Siberian, Good People, And You and I, were BETTER than the original

Tiger Moth Tales - Spring Fever.

  Time Won't Wait For You and Me. I have to admit as the years role on for music to get passed my defences gets harder and harder. When I am becalmed somewhere in the world the sound track to my day is BBC Radio 3. Extra ordinary sonata's, symphonies, sacred music, jazz tumble out of my beloved Sonos. Today Janacek, Sibelius, Vaughn Williams all floated up into my loft. If I want to set the agenda it might be Holly Cole, Streisand, Sinatra as the sun falls out of the sky and supper beckons.  Jan Garabek, Jaco Pastorious, Hilliard Ensemble one could go on. I left tons of my teenage music behind years ago but if the stars collide I would happily sit in the theatre in "Chippy" and revel in the warmth of Fairport or the Nettlebed Folk Club where I have seen Home Service. So scene set whats this TMT like. Peter Jones Tiger Moth Tales has got behind my defences and its utterly wonderful.  When I listen to his bravura performances on "Spring Fever" words and phrase

John Holden - Casting the Net Wider

  Circles In Time  At 65 is music, indeed everything, nostalgia, merely a rerun of the familiar? Do we travel to the same location on holiday as we have for the last twenty years, do we simply listen to music that we did forty years ago? Is the objective simply to be reminded of the past? If I listen to music from 1971 "John Barleycorn Must Die," my first LP, I am testing both Stevie and myself, do we still speak to each other? In that instance, the offering of blue eyed soul, jazz and folk does speak to me now we are still "in a relationship." The 'getting it together in the country,' walking the Berkshire Downs still happens it still means something. As with everything I do not want more of the same, to simply go through the motions, I want to pass through an experience that says something unique, adds to the journey and then stays with me adding a layer or two. John Holden makes music for himself and on the evidence of this third project he has retained h

Brave The Storm whilst your Apart.

  John Holden & Friends The matter we are least prepared for is death. Ours, someone we love how do you unbundle watching someone die and then deal without them. Modern life, state sponsored, is about avoiding death putting it off endlessly ... without considering whether the life we have the 'epilogue age' is of value.  Some find energy in knowing they are close to death, that life is especially precious that time is limited and when we have that sense of hurtling towards it a special kind of energy is produced. This CD/project is intended to raise awareness of death from a particular condition but I suspect the personalities involved entire lives are propelled by the fragility of life of looking into the abyss of death and loss and setting it aside and climbing more 'mountains'. That seems to me a good reason why we would skip around our end.  This CD is a simple thing."I am not beaten I have more to say." When I put this collection 'on' I expect

Gryphon - Get Out of My Father's Car.

The Spirit of the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band Lives On...and others Get Out of My Father's Car After a furious intro, we settle into a wild zany piece which puts me in mind of Zappa's 'Mothers of Invention.' It's the wind instruments, in particular, that echo those offbeat sounds and shapes. But every so often the wistful elegance of Brian's Horning or is that Crumming emerge.  However, its the madcap vocal which takes me back to those Mothers Albums of the late '60s. Great Fun. A Bit of Music By Me Is entirely different a beautiful piece of flute playing leads into some very musical acoustic guitar and lovely sympathetic shuffling drums. This is where the Bonzo Dog influence comes in one minute a piece is mad, offbeat with tons of unorthodoxy and the next minute respectful beautiful.  As it moves on there is a little of that furious third album contrapuntal play but it is juxtaposed with humour and more bubbling from Brian. What always strikes me about Gryphon