MUSIC: New Releases

Published on Thursday 1 May 2008 21:04

POP: ISOBEL CAMPBELL & MARK LANEGAN: SUNDAY AT DEVIL DIRT **** V2, £10.99

FOLLOWING the delighted reaction to the Mercury Music Prize-nominated Ballad of the Broken Seas, ex-Belle & Sebastian member Isobel Campbell and curmudgeonly old soak Mark Lanegan reprise their Nancy Sinatra/Lee Hazlewood dynamic once more – but it's still Campbell who wears the trousers, writing and producing the whole affair.

On this outing, she reduces her vocal contributions in favour of Lanegan's gruff rumble. Like Ballad…, Sunday at Devil Dirt has its fair share of wistful retro prettiness and sparse, bruised country folk laments but, in its standout moments, this is a steamier affair – Campbell takes teasing lead on the Tom Waits-influenced Shotgun Blues, while the lowslung Back Burner and the show-stoppingly sultry Come On Over (Turn Me On), with its string arrangement borrowed from Nina Simone, are marvellous creations.

WE ARE THE PHYSICS: WE ARE THE PHYSICS ARE OK AT MUSIC ***

THIS IS FAKE DIY, 9.99

GLASGOW'S self-styled mutant science punk rockers We Are The Physics are quite deliberately inviting trouble by choosing that title for their debut album, so why be a spoilsport by not taking the bait? We Are The Physics are launching themselves hell-for-leather at music if these 30 jagged minutes are any barometer. Their jabbering, here's-one-we-blurted-out-earlier cacophony will only appeal to a minority, but such seeming spontaneity and bite is still preferable to the considered works of any number of faux-angsty musical craftsmen. Best bit: when the band's three Michaels address each other briskly by name on Less Than Three.

THE POEMS: YOUNG AMERICA ***

X-PHONICS, 7.99

WITH guest contributions from Justin Currie, Isobel Campbell and Teenage Fanclub's Norman Blake, The Poems' debut album is awash with Glasgow faces.

Another of the city's music stalwarts, Robert "Bobby Bluebell" Hodgens, is at the centre of the pleasant, breezy action, though the main attraction is the lovely, pure voice of singer Kerry Polwart (sister of Karine) which is ideally suited to Young America's effortlessly tuneful pop songs. However, some darker edges or melancholy moments might have enriched this light, unchallenging listen.

CLASSICAL

BEETHOVEN SYMPHONIES: ANIMA ETERNA ***

ZIG-ZAG, 28.99

ARE there too many recordings of the complete Beethoven symphonies around? We're certainly spoilt for choice, in the stylistic sense as much as the interpretational, and this very specialised set by Jos van Immerseel's Dutch-based Anima Eterna Orchestra just makes things a lot more difficult for us.

That's partly because it has many good qualities – an essentially period instrument approach with plenty of punch and clean attention to detail, and a brisk setting of tempi that certainly gets the pulse racing. There are overtures as well as the symphonies, and a racy performance of Egmont is enough to tell you that Immerseel prefers the slick, no-nonsense approach.

But perhaps that example is perfect in illustrating the downside to these performances. In the quest for immaculate clarity, dry shock and fast living, there's a shortage of emotion, indeed of heart-stopping passion. If Beethoven's overture is all about capturing the essence of Egmont's complex character, this performance rather narrows that down to one of impetuous single-mindedness.

As for the symphonies, Immerseel's approach is never quite as one-dimensional, and in all nine there are instances where his clinicism opens up vistas that are both inspirational and fresh. But this is ultimately not about Beethoven the revolutionary or forward-thinker. There is too much of the neatly turned classicism about this playing to allow the visionary power of the symphonies to emerge.

Take the adagio of the Ninth Symphony, where a lack of expressive freedom in the solo lines is further neutered by a preference for bringing the ensemble to the foreground rather than single strands of melody. And in the Finale, with its theatrically underlined instrumental opening recitative, there is a sterility in Immerseel's preference for unadulterated thrust over wholesome evocation.

This is more an intriguing alternative than a must-have. Especially as box sets don't come particularly cheap.

JAZZ

KEN MATHIESON'S CLASSIC JAZZ ORCHESTRA: SALUTES THE JAZZ KINGS ****

LAKE RECORDS, 11.99

DRUMMER Ken Mathieson (no relation to your reviewer) leads his eight-piece band in a series of fresh re-workings of classic material from six early jazz masters, and throws in his own tribute to the late Kenny Davern for good measure.

The repertoire draws on familiar music from Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Bix Beiderbecke, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Waller and King Oliver, but Mathieson's thoughtful and cleverly constructed new arrangements avoid simply re-treading old ground, while suggesting the influence of a more contemporary figure, such as Gil Evans, in their use of colour and texture.

The combination of two brass (trumpeter Billy Hunter and trombonist Phil O'Malley) and three reeds (Konrad Wiszniewski, Dick Lee and Martin Foster) with the rhythm section of pianist Tom Finlay, bassist Roy Percy and the drummer provides plenty of scope for creativity in the arrangements, and Mathieson leaves ample room for the soloists to make their own cogent contributions.

FOLK

PATRICK MOLARD: DSGADH FIR NA BAINNSE – THE WAKING OF THE BRIDEGROOM ****

MACMEANMNA, 11.99

BRETON piper Patrick Molard ventures into the formalised world of "pobaireachd" or "cel mor", the "big music" of Scottish competition piping. Molard studied with two masters, Bob Brown and Bob Nicol of Balmoral, and his playing is both highly expressive and technically excellent in the classic pobaireachd style, with hints of his own Breton tradition here and there.

It should appeal to anyone with an interest in the intricacies of pobaireachd, but a word of caution may be required for listeners whose familiarity with pipe music has come through its less formal use in folk settings. Pobaireachd's deliberate tempos, elegant elaborations and rigid formal patterns can seem like hard work when set against the racier examples of contemporary piping served up by the likes of Gordon Duncan or Fred Morrison in unbridled "cel beag" mood. Sampling this before you buy it might be the wisest course.

WORLD

ETRAN FINATAWA: DESERT CROSSROADS ****

RIVERBOAT, 9.99

PAUL Borg, the producer of this second CD from the Sahelian group Etran Finatawa, claims he was first seduced by how these nomads looked, and indeed their image on the cover – resplendent in their robes on a patch of yellow studio sand – seems just right for the high-resolution of their sound.

They sing to tell the world about their threatened culture, but at the same time they clearly sing for pleasure: their lyrics talk of the beauty of the desert, and the comfort of tribal tradition, and their sound is a lovely melding of voices and simple acoustic instruments.

The guitar leads, of course, but there are also two kinds of calabash – one dry, the other wet – plus a penetrating wind instrument called the douandou, which they use for driving livestock across the savannah. It all has a bluesy feel, and the voices are irresistibly earthy.

THE UKRAINIANS: LIVE IN CZEREMCHA ***

ZIRKA, 11.99

THERE are no liner notes to this CD – just a few grainy photos of some middle-aged strummers performing at some gig somewhere. The assumption is either you know about The Ukrainians, or you don't.

Since I don't, I searched the internet, and discovered that they are in fact British, hail from Leeds, and have a long and colourful history, in the course of which they played on The Wedding Present's Ukrainian John Peel Sessions, plus sundry other celebrated fixtures. And this CD turns out to have been recorded live at the Spotkanie Folkowe Festival in Poland, where – judging by the rowdy, beery atmosphere – they went down a treat.

"We use electric guitars, mandolins, accordions, violin, electric bass guitar and drums," they announce on their website, "and we sing in Ukrainian."

I believe that, though I'm none the wiser as to what they are singing about, but that doesn't seem to matter. Sometimes they achieve a folky kind of Central European wistfulness, but it's mostly pretty rough stuff.