Album reviews: Cyndi Lauper | Ida Maria | XX Teens | Dvorak | Rachmaninov and Shostakovich | Haftor Medbøe | Kerfuffle

Published on Thursday 24 July 2008 20:00

POP CYNDI LAUPER: BRING YA TO THE BRINK *** RCA £11.99

DESPITE a career encompassing acting, activism and penning music for films and TV, Cyndi Lauper will probably never shake off her image as the shock-haired screecher who proclaimed that Girls Just Wanna Have Fun. But this album, recorded in collaboration with a bunch of "top dance producers" I've never heard of (and Basement Jaxx), goes some way to broadening her profile.

In much the same way as Armand Van Helden retooling of Tori Amos's Professional Widow, Lauper is unexpectedly recast as a dancefloor diva. Many of the tracks just sound like vacuous club mixes but, happily, Basement Jaxx are on hand to produce another signature infectious, quirky Afropop number, while the sultry gospel and soul-infused hip-hop feel of Lyfe and the old school disco-plundering Set Your Heart don't require any studio tinkering.

IDA MARIA: FORTRESS ROUND MY HEART

***

WATERFALL 10.99

BIG things are anticipated for this ballsy Norwegian singer who communicates a great, natural energy on her debut album. In less enthusiastic hands, this likeable indie pop collection would sound a lot more prosaic (remember Echobelly?) but, powered along by her tight band and garnished with her gritty voice, these pithy songs never linger long enough to expose their adequacy.

Queen Of The World kicks up its heels, Stella rewrites Jimmy Mack as a punk pop belter and opener Oh My God has unfettered verve running through it like lettering through a stick of rock.

Overall, though, Fortress Round My Heart feels more like one-night-stand material than music with which to forge a lasting relationship.

XX TEENS: WELCOME TO GOON ISLAND

****

MUTE 9.99

LIKE many art school bands, XX Teens rip off The Fall with impunity. Unlike many art school bands, they don't sound like they're trying too hard, making Welcome To Goon Island a gleefully anarchic collection, featuring "songs" about drinking, amputees, seeking spiritual enlightenment and anti-war campaigner Brian Haw, plus other random nonsense. Sadly, their former single How To Reduce The Chances Of Being A Terror Victim is not included.

FIONA SHEPHERD

CLASSICAL

DVORAK: SYMPHONY NO 9 & SYMPHONIC VARIATIONS

***

NAXOS 5.99

MARIN Alsop's association with Naxos continues fruitfully despite her transatlantic ascendancy last year to music director of the fine Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. A double dose of Dvorak features in this first release of a planned trilogy of the composer's symphonies taken from live performances in the orchestra's Baltimore home.

Alsop draws a ripeness in both the glittering Symphonic Variations and the Ninth Symphony (From the New World), making this maiden recording a fine sign of what is yet to come. The range of expression inherent in these performances is exhaustive, from floating pianissimos to raging and radiant fortissimos.

There is tremendous subtlety, too, in such details as the distinctive woodwind solos and the thoughtful shapeliness of Alsop's phrasing, although a tendency to reiterate certain mannerisms in the opening movement leads to a slight sense of predictability, diminishing its spontaneity.

RACHMANINOV AND SHOSTAKOVICH: SONATAS FOR CELLO AND PIANO

****

DELPHIAN 13.99

SOME 33 very significant years separate the cello sonatas of fellow Russians Sergei Rachmaninov and Dmitri Shostakovich. Rachmaninov's 1901 Sonata in G minor, Op 19, with its virtuosic piano accompaniment (written for himself at the piano, of course) and richly melodic cello line, comes straight out of the same late Russian Romantic stable as the popular Piano Concerto No 2. Its darting second movement enjoys some near deliberate borrowings.

By the time Shostakovich penned his D minor Sonata in 1934, Russia was a very different place, and Rachmaninov's music had been temporarily banned by the cultural tsars of Soviet Russia. Yet in Shostakovich's beautiful opening movement there is an unmistakable spirit of sentimental reflection that draws this pairing of chamber works together. Add to that two gloriously affectionate performances by Scots duo Robert Irvine (cello) and Graeme McNaught (piano) which respectively capture both the expansiveness of the Rachmaninov and the delicate nuances of the Shostakovich, with its unmistakable nods towards the neo-classicism of his famous Piano Quintet.

One little quibble: Delphian might have been more consistent in its spelling of Rachmaninov.

KENNETH WALTON

JAZZ

HAFTOR MEDBE GROUP: NEW : HAPPY

***

FABRIKANT RECORDS Website exclusive

NORWEGIAN guitarist Haftor Medbe is a well established figure on the music scene in his adopted Scotland. He continues to evolve his exploration of evocative jazz-rooted but pop-aware instrumental forms in this latest outing with his fine group, now featuring Danish bass player Eva Malling.

Medbe's new compositions pay characteristically careful attention to intricacies of musical texture and timbre with interwoven electronic effects, but the slower moving and more impressionistic elements are balanced by highly energised accelerations that raise both the temperature and momentum of the music.

The guitarist's own focused soloing is augmented by powerful contributions from two of the best horn players on the current Scottish jazz scene, Konrad Wiszniewski (sax) and Chris Greive (trombone), while Malling and the Icelandic percussionist Signy Jakobsdottir add both shimmering colour and rhythmic drive according to the shifting demands of the music.

FOLK

KERFUFFLE: TO THE GROUND

***

ROOTBEAT RECORDS 11.99

KERFUFFLE are a young English band originally formed back in 2002 by two brothers, fiddler Sam Sweeney (also a member of the much lauded Bellowhead) and bass player Tom Sweeney, and singer and accordionist Hannah James. The original trio are now joined by guitarist Jamie Roberts on this fresh and agreeable set of songs and instrumentals, most of which are arranged by the band from traditional sources.

James's voice may be a little winsome for some, but she is an expressive singer, and their four-part vocal harmony on Arise, Arise are very effective. The instrumental playing is assured on the up-tempo tunes, including Dr Letcher's Favourite and a version of Bonaparte's Retreat. At the other end of the scale, they invest the melancholy Betty Corrigall's Lament with a brooding gravitas.

KENNY MATHIESON