Album reviews: The Futureheads | Lightships | Dr John | Classical | Folk | World

Our team of critics lend their ears to the latest musical offerings

POP

The Futureheads: Rant

Nul Records, £11.99

Rating: ****

Fans of their angular guitar sound may be a bit nonplussed by The Futureheads’ latest album, on which the fine Geordie four-piece down instruments and perform entirely a cappella. But their strident harmonies have always been what marked them out from the indie pack and it’s a pleasure to hear their robust voices woven together on Rant, which features stark vocal arrangements of some of their own material (Robot, in particular, suits its new incarnation) alongside folk standards – including a lusty rendition of traditional drinking song The Old Dun Cow – and curveball pop covers of Sparks’ No.1 Song In Heaven, Black Eyed Peas’ Meet Me Halfway and the song which started this fruitful odyssey, Kelis’s Acapella.

Dr John: Locked Down

Nonesuch, £12.99

Rating: ****

THE esteemed Dr John knocks his New Orleans heritage act reputation into touch with Locked Down, downplaying the boogie-woogie rhythm’n’blues he has fallen back on in his later years in favour of that spicy gumbo he served up on his classic early albums.

The good doctor writes his own distinctive prescription with the rogue N’Awlins spirit of Big Shot, the tribal rhythms of Ice Age, the Afro jazz of You Lie and the voodoo princess backing vocals on Kingdom of Izzness, but you can hear the influence of his new producer, Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach, in the garagey swagger of single Revolution and acid guitar solo on Getaway. Together, they cook up some medicine you’ll want to sample.

Lightships: Electric Cables

Geographic, £11.99

Rating: ***

WITHIN the mellow democracy that is Teenage Fanclub, Gerry Love is one of three songwriters contributing equally to their albums. Left to his own devices on his debut solo outing, he chooses not to push at boundaries, but to wrap himself in a comfort blanket of pretty arrangements, rendered by an ensemble of familiar players including former Fanclub drummer Brendan O’Hare.

The filigree guitar work on Silver and Gold, featherlight flute-led instrumental The Warmth of the Sun and the summer langour of Stretching Out have whimsical charm, but the songs themselves are not stand-outs in his catalogue and Love’s breathy vocals tend to sap the colour from the whole palette.

FIONA SHEPHERD

CLASSICAL

Erik Chisholm: The Piano Concertos

Hyperion, £12.99

Rating: ****

TEN years ago, the name and music of Glasgow-born composer Erik Chisholm were virtually unknown. Thanks to his daughter, and his biographer John Purser, that is no longer the case. More importantly, recordings of key works are beginning to appear, including this helping of the two piano concertos. Each plays on singular inspirations – the beguiling reinterpretation of Scots bagpipe music in the Piobaireachd Concerto of the 1930s, and his more exotic exploration of Indian raga in the 1949 Hindustani Concerto. Both, with their heavy leanings towards Bartok, are played with alluring self-belief by pianist Danny Driver and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Rory Macdonald.

KEN WALTON

FOLK

Rachel Hair Trio: No More Wings

MARCH HAIR RECORDS, £12.99

Rating: ***

HARPIST Hair’s third album is her first with her present trio of Jenn Butterworth on guitar and vocals, and Euan Burton on double bass, joined here by Fraser Fifield on soprano sax, percussionist Signy Jakobsdottir, and Angus Lyon on keyboards and accordion.

Hair’s playing is bright and fresh, dancing over Butterworth’s snappy guitar chording, as in the title track, aimed at dispelling angelic clichés about harps. Angelic or not, however, I’m not entirely convinced by the occasional use of extraneous-sounding wordless vocals, or by Butterworth’s country-style delivery of Cyril Tawney’s great old song The Grey Funnel Line.

Elsewhere, however, Fifield’s lyrical sax tootles long nicely with nimble harp in Swedish, a pairing of tunes from Gotland in Sweden, and adds glowing textures, along with Burton’s woody bass tones, to The Eccentric’s Emporium. In contrast is Hair’s wistful solo harp air, Home and Happy, from The Simon Fraser Collection.

JIM GILCHRIST

WORLD

Songlines Music Awards 2012

SPLC006, £7.99

Rating: ****

SINCE Radio 3 ditched its annual awards, Songlines magazine has picked up the torch, and now it’s here that anyone curious about current trends can find a barometer of taste: the 16 tracks on this CD represent all the nominees – selected by a combination of Songlines readers and the general public – for this year’s forthcoming Songlines awards. Some of those nominees were very predictable: Touareg band Tinariwen went from nought to 60 the moment they hit these shores, and they have been speeding along ever since; likewise Anoushka Shankar, whose latest album, Traveller, investigates the links between north Indian music and the flamenco tradition in Spain. Some of the groups reflect the gamiest of fusions – notably the Marseille-based collective Watcha Clan led by the Jewish/Polish/Berber singer Sista K, and Dub Colossus, who mix Ethiopian sounds with dub and reggae. And it’s nice to see integrity and persistence rewarded with nominations for the Syrian-Iraqi oud player Khyam Allami and the prolific Egyptian percussionist Hossam Ramzy. Meanwhile, 65-year-old Ry Cooder gets recognition for his protest-song collection Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down, as does the irrepressible accordionist Kimmo Pohjonen for his interesting collaboration with the Kronos Quartet. And here too is the endlessly experimental Yo-Yo Ma, courtesy of his bluegrass collaboration with Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan, and Chris Thile. One of my favourites is also one of the most encouraging signs for the next generation of Wassoulou singers from southern Mali: Fatoumata Diawara may now be based in France, but her sound places her in the great Malian tradition. All will be revealed later this month as to who gets the gongs, but to paraphrase Alice in Wonderland, this is one of those occasions where everyone should have prizes.

MICHAEL CHURCH