Album reviews: Broadcast | Pere Ubu | Southern Tenant Folk Union | Folk | Jazz

OUR music critics review the rest of this week’s album releases

POP

Broadcast

Berberian Sound Studio Original Soundtrack

Warp, £12.99

Star rating: * * *

The companion piece to one of the most highly regarded films of 2012, this was Trish Keenan’s last work with James Cargill before her untimely death last year. Cargill skilfully laces elements of dialogue into the music, which takes inspiration from Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai – reference points entirely in keeping with the film, which tells the story of a recording engineer unravelling in an Italian film studio. Haunting and atmospheric with no visuals required.

CS

Download this: All

Pere Ubu

Lady From Shanghai

Fire, £11.99

Star rating: * * *

Thirty-five years after releasing their challenging debut, Pere Ubu show no demonstrable signs of mellowing or creeping 
toward the mainstream. On Thanks, which opens the doors on a collection of typically twisted tunes, David Thomas coos “you can go to hell” to the tune of Anita Ward’s No 1 Ring My Bell 
over something resembling an Adam & The Ants drum track.

Thomas’s voice is warped and wonderful throughout, and his continued determination to deviate from the norm is impressive.

CS

Download this: Musicians Are Scum, Thanks

Southern Tenant Folk Union

Hello Cold Goodbye Sun

Johnny Rock/Proper, £12.99

Star rating: * * * *

More banjos and strings from the Edinburgh-based collective on their fifth album, which lacks none of the charm of its predecessor, Pencaitland, and seems destined to win even more hearts and minds.

Going to inordinate lengths to emulate Krautrock gods such as Can, the five-string banjo of Pat McGarvey is harnessed to a tea towel to recreate the arpeggios of the analogue sequencers pioneered by Tangerine Dream, and it sounds fantastically Dreamy. A strong record to add to a burgeoning reputation.

CS

Download this: Crash, Days By The Seaside With Ice Cream

FOLK

Matheu Watson

Dunrobin Place

Seer Records SEE001, £12.99

Star rating: * * * *

Playing a score of instruments, and the composer of more than half of the tunes, this is young, but very experienced Matheu Watson’s second album, a calling card that reveals all of his still evolving abilities. At its heart it is Scottish, and traditional in its form, or I should say, forms.

The music is mainly up-tempo and performed on all species of guitar with the picked frets of banjo, ukulele, mandolin and bouzouki, and also featuring flute, whistle, keyboard organs, lap steel, ebow, fiddle and viola. Densely orchestrated dance music dominates, with breathing space supplied by a recasting of some of the styles he’s been swept into during his last few of years of international travel.

Norman Chalmers

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JAZZ

Andrew McCormack Trio

Live In London

Edition Records, £13.99

Star rating: * * *

This is only pianist Andrew McCormack’s second album as a leader, but he has built a substantial reputation in his duo partnership with Jason Yarde and in other settings. Here, with sympathetic support from bassist Chris Hill and drummer Troy Miller, he sounds like a musician who has bided his time to good effect. Recorded live at London’s 606 club in August, the trio’s set features a half-dozen of McCormack’s own compositions alongside interpretations of Bye Bye Blackbird (a nod, perhaps, to the influence of Keith Jarrett) and Smoke Gets In Your Eyes. McCormack’s refined, thoughtful approach often brings to mind the example of Jarrett or Brad Mehldau, but he is very much his own man.

Kenny Mathieson

Download this: Bye Bye Blackbird