Album reviews: Rocket Juice & The Moon | VCMG | Classical | Jazz | Folk | World

The Scotsman’s team of music critics lend their ears to the latest offerings from the music world

WORLD

Rocket Juice & the Moon: Rocket Juice & the Moon

Honest Jons, £12.99

Rating: ****

IF AFRO-FUNK space jazz odysseys anchored by a virtuoso rhythmic dream team and orchestrated by an upstart indie auteur doesn’t sound like something worth stroking your chin for, then look away now because Rocket Juice & the Moon, comprising the unholy trinity of Damon Albarn, esteemed Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen and ace bassist Flea, has landed.

While the latter pair are the engine of the album, they are surrounded by a supremely talented ensemble cast, including Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara and Ghanaian rapper M.anifest.

Over liquid bass, the Hypnotic Brass Ensemble lend a Sun Ra Arkestral blast of funk to Hey Shooter, while Erykah Badu plays their seductive Alice Coltrane. When Albarn finally takes the lead on Poison, the song’s pop structure and his familiar beseeching tone make for a beguiling contrast.

POP

VCMG: Ssss

Mute, £12.99

Rating: ***

THE VC and MG who make up this superduo are Vince Clarke and Martin Gore, making music together for the first time since Clarke left Depeche Mode in 1981. Ssss is something quite different for these renowned melodic synthpop writers, being a seamless, streamlined suite of instrumental electronica which doesn’t care much for a hookline. Composing via e-mail exchange, the pair have indulged their shared love of minimal techno to create a meticulously sculpted set which, from the ominous surges of Lowly, through the metronomic pulse of Zaat, the controlled judder of Spock and the hint of industrial flint on Bendy Bass, would probably go down a storm in the Slam Tent at T In The Park but is less satisfying as home listening.

Lee Ranaldo: Between The Times and The Tides

Matador, £11.99

Rating: ****

FOLLOWING his bandmate Thurston Moore’s unexpectedly tender foray into acoustic territory on his recent solo album Demolished Thoughts, Sonic Youth guitar terrorist Lee Ranaldo indulges his more melodic side on this diverse but accessible album without entirely sacrificing the sinister edge of his guitar sound when required on Xtina As I Knew Her. Fire Island (Phases) is as classic a slice of riffola as he has produced, while the acoustic numbers range from the rawness of Hammer Blows to the softer country pastoral Stranded.

FIONA SHEPHERD

CLASSICAL

Handel: Theodore

only available from glyndebourne.com

Rating: *****

HERE, 16 years on, is the evidence that supports the hyperbolic critical reaction that greeted Peter Sellar’s 1996 staging of Handel’s late opera Theodore for Glyndebourne Opera. Of course, this is merely the musical evidence, recorded live by a stellar cast and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under William Christie, but no less revelatory than the visual experience it most surely was. The orchestral playing is lean and visceral, the musical flow impulsive and theatrically driven, and the performances by the likes of Frode Olsen (Valens), David Daniels (Didymus), Dawn Upshaw (Theodore) and the late Lorraine Hunt-Lieberson (Irene) are vintage. There are laughs and much cheering from the audience, giving you a sense of actually being there, or at least, wishing that you had been.

KEN WALTON

JAZZ

Blue Touch Paper: Stand Well Back

Provocateur Records, £10.99

Rating: ****

WE HAVE grown used to hearing the music of composer and keyboard player Colin Towns performed by contemporary big bands like his own Mask Orchestra or the NDR Bigband, but this sextet gives a different twist to his output. Towns freely mixes genre influences – jazz, rock, classical, film music – in his own eclectic and highly satisfying fashion, although the electric-era feel of Miles Davis is a palpable presence on the disc. The line-up reflects the Anglo-German axis of much of his work over the past decade or so, with the excellent Mark Lockheart on saxophones and Troyka’s Chris Montague on guitar, supported by powerful drumming and percussion from Benny Greb and Stephan Maass. Bassist Edward Maclean completes the line-up, and Towns even ventures into a vocal contribution, albeit more recitation than song. Catch them in Edinburgh in May.

KENNY MATHIESON

FOLK

Arthur Johnstone and the Star Band: Doon Through the Years

Fairpley, £9.99

Rating: ***

THIS live album – recorded at last year’s STUC Mayday celebrations – takes Scottish folk right back to its political protest roots, as well as reprising a singing career of more than four decades. Johnstone, now 70, delivers with gusto and real heart, backed by the similarly seasoned Star Band –Brian Miller, Charlie Soane, Gavin Livingstone and Alan Matthews on bass providing rousing accompaniment.

You may regard songs such as H-Bomb Thunder and Playboys and Playgirls as Cold War period pieces, but as Johnstone points out in his notes for Matt McGinn’s I’ll Pack Up My Bags, about the iniquities of unemployment, they remain as grimly relevant now as they did then.

Other Clydeside classics include Fairfield Cran and Hamish Henderson’s John MacLean March, which Johnstone first recorded with The Laggan in 1972. Light relief includes the unashamedly sentimental waltz-time of Annie McKelvie, stepping out doucely with Soane’s fiddle.

JIM GILCHRIST

WORLD

Kuljit Bhamra, Jacqueline Shave, John Parricelli

Postcards from Home, £11.99

Rating: ****

WE’RE used to having musicians from different traditions melding their musics, but this confluence is in a class of its own, maybe because all three players are accustomed to cross-cultural collaboration. Tabla player Kuljit Bhamra was a key figure in the British Bhangra explosion of the 1980s, and has worked in every corner of the music business including films and jazz; Jacqueline Shave is a top-flight classical violinist whom one often sees leading the Britten Sinfonia, but she has also played with Peter Gabriel; John Parricelli’s guitar style is in the understated Jimmy Giuffre jazz tradition, but he has also worked with Mark Anthony Turnage. Together they make a most beguiling magic.

They are also clearly a democracy, sharing the honours in contributing liner notes, and in performance generously letting one another shine: as a result, each track is a decorous musical conversation. Initially the violin’s sweet tone is balanced by the most delicate finger-picking on the guitar, while the tabla underlines the pulse; then things let rip a little – but never upsetting the measured, gentle momentum. Kuljit’s contributions tend to draw on Turkish and Tibetan influences, while Parricelli’s reflect Paris, Spain and Brazil. For me the most engaging tracks are those dominated by Shave, who goes on an extended odyssey to the Islands in Sounds of Harris, but brings echoes of Arvo Pärt and late Beethoven (“I imagine him tramping the heather hills, perhaps even smiling”) into her Celtic mix. The whole thing is blessedly unpretentious, with an old-fashioned grace and refinement, and it makes a lovely hour.

MICHAEL CHURCH