Album reviews: Air | The Twilight Sad | Classical | Folk | Jazz

Published on Monday 6 February 2012 00:00

Our team of music critics lend their ears to the latest offerings in the music world.

POP

Air: Le Voyage Dans La Lune

Virgin Records, £12.99

Rating: ****

HAVING already embarked on their own Moon Safari and the heady esoterica of the Virgin Suicides soundtrack, French duo Air are suitably cut out to compose the score for a restored colour print of Georges Méliès’ silent sci-fi short Le voyage dans la lune, even if its proggy arpeggios and chorus effects are forged more in the style of Goblin’s Dario Argento soundtracks rather than a spirit of magical adventure and exploration. They do, however, capture a sense of wide-eyed trepidation on Seven Stars, an innocent reverie sung by Victoria Legrand of Beach House, which is undercut by the sinister patter of drums, sonorous piano and the portentous countdown to take-off.

The Twilight Sad: No One Can Ever Know

Fat Cat, £11.99

Rating: ****

LIKE Sons & Daughters on their recent Mirror Mirror album, The Twilight Sad find themselves gravitating towards the dark side of the Korg on their third full-length outing, drenching their songs in the ominous Berliner synthesizer sounds of early Simple Minds, the deep, driving basslines of New Order and, in the case of the closing Kill It In The Morning, the gothic urgency of Killing Joke and Siouxsie & the Banshees. There is a certain degree of repetition as songs and arrangements start to bleed into one another but No One Can Ever Know still represents a full, flavoursome soup of dark, anthemic Caledonica.

FIONA SHEPHERD

CLASSICAL

Berg & Beethoven: Violin Concertos

Harmonia Mundi, £13.99

Rating: *****

ALBAN Berg’s Violin Concerto is one of the most remarkable statements of early 20th-century music, not least its masterful collusion of dogmatic 12-note composition and the sensual lyrical quality that sets Berg’s music apart from his Second Viennese School colleagues, Schoenberg and Webern. Violinist Isabelle Faust teams up with Claudio Abbado and his hand-picked Orchestra Mozart for a recording that gets right to the emotional guts of the music. The orchestral playing – right down to the rasping bass trombone – is electrifying; Faust’s performance is no less biting. And that’s just half the story. Beethoven’s Violin Concerto is there too, again robustly presented, though never lacking in poetic finesse. A triumphant pairing.

KEN WALTON

FOLK

Treacherous Orchestra: Origins

Navigator Records, £12.99

Rating: ***

AN ENGAGING broth of pipes, fiddles, accordion, electric guitar and more, drum-driven and spliced with grungy electronics, from this inventive, dozen-strong band. The album’s a bit short on lasting melodic interest and at times somewhat repetitive, but not wanting for excitement, as reels dissolve into a prolonged flicker of riffs or the lumbering March of the Troutsmen, with its echoes of Led Zeppelin in Kashmir mode, suddenly whips into a high-speed pipe reel. There are other nice moments: a brief piano Prelude (seemingly recorded over hissing rain) gives way to Sea of Clouds, with its sighing gusts of guitar chording and low whistle, and the snappy Wade on the Watter shifts into a mellow drift of strings before working up a beefy casbah ceilidh. The finale, Sausages, has it all, silly voices, reggae, frenetically looping riffs… the works.

JIM GILCHRIST

JAZZ

Kenny Wheeler Big Band: The Long Waiting

CamJazz, £13.99

Rating: ****

KENNY Wheeler is now into his eighties, but remains as dedicated to his music as ever, as this fine big band outing recorded last September amply demonstrates. His impeccable control over intonation and register might not be quite as flawless as of old, but his gift for turning lyrical and surprising melodies remains intact, and his compositions for the ensemble have the unmistakably original Wheeler harmonic and rhythmic stamp. He concentrates solely on flugelhorn on this session, and is supported by a 17-strong British band conducted by Pete Churchill that includes veteran Scottish saxophonist Duncan Lamont (a fellow octogenarian) and pianist John Taylor, and looks like something of a Who’s Who of current UK jazz. Diana Torto contributes wordless vocal improvisations to several compositions that may not be to everyone’s taste, but Wheeler fans should not be disappointed with this outing.

KENNY MATHIESON

Logged in as:

Comment here. Start typing your comment here:

Post comment

Please adhere to our Community guidelines

Your view

Please sign in to be able to comment on this story.