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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

Chelsea Carmichael – The River Doesn’t Like Strangers

Chelsea Carmichael is a saxophonist, composer and arranger who released this, her solo debut, in 2021 and added more lush sparkle onto a music style that has been on fire for me in recent years. My journey into Jazz appreciation came at a late stage, at least compared to other genres that I remain heavily into. I began to soak up the classics as an entry point, the Miles Davis and John Coltrane’s that you always read about before branching out and often backwards to people like Sidney Bechet and Dave Brubeck, as well as digging into the groove of so much classic Blue Note material. There was new stuff on my radar too but nothing close to the explosion enjoyed for the last five years. It was roughly that long ago that the emphasis shifted and Jazz became a principal component to anything exciting and original I was hearing from the area marked ‘contemporary music.’ Yes, my imagination had been captured by the artists the press had herded together and labelled the ‘New London Jazz Scene.’

Now, even though that catch all title is still very much in use, I think there is a wider understanding by those in the know that it is a bit of a fiction. The artists at its core are UK wide and beyond and even though there is much cross pollination between performers, that in itself is hardly anything new in Jazz; they do though all share a visionary outlook that is far more panoramic than to be confined to the style and sound of just one city. That said, I believe the thing that did stimulate me was that, of all the new Jazz I ever listened to, this loose collective of people shares a sound that could only be generated in the modern world. I am talking about The Sons Of Kemet, Ezra Collective, Nubya Garcia, Seed Ensemble, Kokoroko, Ruby Rushton and Moses Boyd plus others. Theirs is Jazz played with a pulsating beating heart, a sharpened street wise city edge and wide-open ears that have absorbed everything from Hip-Hop to Be-Bop and have the chops to bring vibes that have gone before into a bubbling melting pot to serve up a banging, heavy brew.

Sons Of Kemet main man Shabaka Hutchings is a key figure in the whole scene and pretty damn important to the Chelsea Carmichael story too. It was his invite that led to Chelsea recording the first full length LP on his new label Native Rebel Records. Sure enough, the resulting record not only fizzled with the va-va-voom that typified so many of the ‘London Scene’ releases, but it also shone a light on Chelsea’s own emerging gift for composition, something which maybe had taken a back seat as she worked with, amongst others, the Seed Ensemble (whose ‘Driftglass’ was one of my albums of 2019) and Outlook Orchestra with Theon Cross. Now, with ‘The River Doesn’t Like Strangers,’ she has un-corked a forward-thinking musical grain of her own that appears to be spilling over with melodic and sonic progressions. Take that title track alone, it is propelled by deep, lolling bass lines but Carmichael’s saxophone progressions develop in a never-ending splintering of directions, each one as worthy and moreish as its predecessor.

And that only scratches the surface, the whole album is a nine-track blast rammed with ideas that are executed with class and style. ‘There Is You And You’ positively throbs, its joys are truly head spinning and by the time the piercing slashes of guitar enter the picture you really do feel like your mind could split open. That is where Jazz music is really doing its job, starting you out on a journey where, if you climb aboard and trust in the magic, you are going to be lifted to a better place. But it is not going to hold your hand and spoon feed you its sweet tastes, you have got to commit. Do that and you will surely enjoy the finest rewards in music. This stuff is important and what you listen to should not always be limited to the background or to enhance other activity, sometimes you need to give it your all. Just as Chelsea Carmichael did with the making of this album, the end result is a collection of music where the grooves are absolutely loaded with imaginative, soul cleansing, sonic pleasures and they come at you in an overwhelming abundance.

Get a vinyl pressing of the album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/22787624-Chelsea-Carmichael-The-River-Doesnt-Like-Strangers

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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

The Surfing Magazines – Badgers Of Wymeswold

I came to the Surfing Magazines in 2017 when they put out a brilliant, grungy eponymous debut album. It took me a little time that year to realize they were actually more than half a combination of one of my favorite bands of the decade. It took a YouTube video for me to click, the light suddenly coming on as I recognized “hang on a minute, that’s David Tattersall and Franic Rozycki out of the Wave Pictures.” Well of course… Wave Pictures / Surfing Magazines… it was all there staring me in the face. No wonder the sound of this apparently new band grabbed my attention so much. They also consist of half the members of Slow Club and so are a perfect amalgamation of the two bands; I received the news that a second album would land in 2021 with excitable anticipation.

There are a multitude of reasons I love the Wave Pictures, but one significant string to their indie-rock bow is the way they can inhale the grinding, pulsating essence of the Velvet Underground at their scuzzy, rocking peak and sprinkle this gold dust over their own music. When they hit the mark with this trick, which they do too often for it to be a fluke, the resulting music is truly special. I am aware this is a big statement so; I will present you with the track ‘The Woods’ from their 2013 album ‘City Forgiveness’ as exhibit A in my presentation. If we are in agreement, then read on because with this Surfing Magazines project David and Franic along with Charles Watson and Dominic Brider allow themselves free reign to drink copiously from that Velvets stream without inhibition.

That said, they are far from a one-trick guitar distortion beast, far from it. David Tattersall’s songwriting has always kept a keen eye on the pop world, in that sense these are like a slightly old-fashioned eighties indie band, before Britpop took the format overground, producing brilliant little vignettes that reference every strain of outsider pop, the kind that would treat troubling the lower reaches of the charts as a badge of honor. Take the slow, gangster strut of the title track ‘Badgers Of Wymewold;’ there are echoes of classic garage rock in that groove, a hint of shoegaze head grinding in the aggressive guitar punctuations and even a taste of experimental Jazz in the saxophone intervals. This is a musical project where everything is on the table.

I hear the Pixies too, especially from around the time they embraced surf-rock into their sound with ‘Bossanova.’ I could bring Jonathan Richman into the equation too, just listen to the child like vim the Surfing Magazines bring to the tune ‘Pink Ice Cream.’ That said, I only like to bring direct comparisons into a review if I believe the act I am writing about take those influences, develop them, toss them up in the air and construct something new and brilliant with them and that is exactly what the Surfing Magazines do. As such they are in themselves a band that deserve appreciation for being far more than a side project to the respective bands they come from. If anything, this is where David Tattersall has captured most effectively the full range of underground rock wonder and tender, bruised balladry that bleeds into all his best work. This album is worthy of the attention of anyone with ears that work properly.

Get a vinyl pressing of this album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/22554830-The-Surfing-Magazines-Badgers-of-Wymeswold

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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

Gloria – Sabbat Matters

French psychedelic pop finery from a group who first caught my attention with their 2016 debut album ‘In Excelsis Stereo’. Five years on, all that I had heard in the intervening period that these were still a going concern was a couple of, admittedly superb, EPs amid reports in the press that there had been a change in personnel. Now a sextet, their second album realized the stunning potential apparent on that first album then added to it in waves. ‘Sabbat Matters’ was an incredible record absolutely spilling over with heavy melodic adventurousness, lyrical vim and wonder. A dizzying, head-in-the-clouds, musical dream bursting into reality.

Maybe not to younger ears for whom the popular sounds involve a bit of electronic modernism, a rap segment or an autotuned vocal track, but for me this is out-and-out pop music. OK, so you could argue that it is a pop music sound that found it’s big moment in the charts more than fifty years ago when Shocking Blues were frugging ‘Venus’ and fuzz guitaring their way through the ‘Hot Sand’, but if pop remains built around songs and tunes, especially ones that are instant, alive and played with joy and passion, then this can be called nothing other than pure pop. This is a ten-track record without filler, it fizzes, sparkles and hits its mark on every single track.

Up front the group build their sonic wizardry around a trio of female vocals who all caress the lyrics in that precise way that mainland Europeans do when singing English language words. But this is, in part, why the music is so vital, because as much as there is a feeling of looseness and opportunities to wig out a bit instrumentally are not denied, this never slips into indulgence or sloppiness; these tracks are as carefully and creatively constructed as the lyrics are meticulously enunciated. Then add to that the late sixties, early seventies period stylings of playing, but playing that is alive with feeling as it breathes life into these songs. So, a near perfect retro pop record then, but only because the compositions are so strong; retro sounds for the sake of retro sounds are never that exciting to me.

Nothing this good was ever built for the sake of it though. Yes, the pagan and sabbat themes may well conjure up images of fifteenth century witchcraft, ‘The Wicker Man’ and acid-folk queens, which are far from the topics on the lips of the average pop kid, but choose to embrace the vintage eastern vibes, the overwhelming smell of incense and peppermints, and a kaleidoscopic pop experience is here waiting for you. This is the reason music aficionados like me dig around the margins, there may well be a lot of unwanted and unloved dross fallen to the wayside, but there is also an abundance of rare and beautiful gems either waiting for discovery or ripe for rediscovery. This is music that needs to be heard by anyone with a love for strong, colorful, gorgeously sung pop music with a late sixties psych-pop, fuzz heavy, freakbeat flavor. Yes, it really is that good, go and check it out immediately.

Find a vinyl pressing of this album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/17252311-Gloria-Sabbat-Matters

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Monthly Playlists

May 2022 Playlist

I have been working as a music journalist for nearly twenty years now and in all that time have never seriously tried to make it the main focus of my occupation. Most of the time my interest in music discovery and collecting are my primary driving forces, wanting to write about it is a by-product, although I will admit the urge to write can sometimes be overwhelming. But writing about music? I can’t help but think that this is a very silly thing to do, surely the thing to do with music is just go off and listen to it? Music is so much like magic in the range of responses it conjures, and you don’t bother trying to describe magic, you experience it. But there it is, the frequency in which music discovery inspired me to want to write and spread the word is too ever present to ignore, it’s pretty much a daily thing and so, I have spent two decades regularly finding the time to put pen to paper on the subject.

In the early days I did go for it a bit harder, a few published reviews in national magazines pushed me to accepting any writing opportunity that came my way, for a time. Composing enthusiastic recommendations for artists you love is a great feeling, especially when you get a little feedback (mostly indirect but occasionally first-hand) that the artist themselves enjoyed and appreciated your efforts. But as the album reviews in particular began to snowball, inevitably I would have to write about records that I was not so keen on, or even on occasion downright detested. The sour taste this left in my mouth is the reason that, nowadays, I mainly just put my efforts into championing the things I really rate and get excited about. There is nothing clever about slagging off someone else’s work, people have their lives wrapped up in their creations. Why should they be pissed on by someone like me, who has never had people part with money to hear him perform? Someone who has never written a song, let alone mastered an instrument or created an albums worth of music? My only qualification is an avid listener with a fairly wide range of tastes; someone who would quite like to share with people with a similar ear, but that is all I have. I quickly realized that I did not feel comfortable pouring cold water on someone else’s dreams, particularly if their only crime is their music did not meet with my own tastes.

My turning point came around 2005 when I wrote a critical review for a singer-songwriter artist making his debut. I have blocked the episode out sufficiently to have forgotten his name, all I can remember was that the Waterboys leader Mike Scott had discovered this chap busking on the London Underground and offered him words of encouragement. Let me be clear, I would never suggest that I know more about music than Mike Scott, one of the greatest songwriters to come out of the twentieth century and still very much in possession of the spark of genius to this day, but you would not know that from my review. I also recall that the singer had a day job as a teacher, so I tackily ended my review with a condescending comment of the “must try harder next term” variety. Seeing that in print did not feel good, it felt even worse when a few weeks later I went to a gig at the Cambridge Corn Exchange and found that this artist had been the support act. I had missed his set but saw him standing there on the merchandise stand, looking friendly and welcoming, basically just a nice bloke who did not deserve a snide little two hundred word take down from me. And no, I did not bravely go over and introduce myself either.

So, from that moment on, I had a bit of a lukewarm attitude towards writing bad reviews of people. What is the point? I mean, if you actively dislike them why put yourself in a situation where you need to listen to their album more than once or stay for a whole performance? Far better to just put your time and efforts into the things that inspire and lift you. That said, if everything you write is all just praise then that does cheapen the positive words, I guess? For that reason, I do still occasionally kick down, in writing, at someone who I think is over praised or enjoying success that is out of kilter with the measure of their talent. Yes, I am looking at you Ed Sheeran and Coldplay. But these people aren’t going to even notice what I say, let alone be hurt or damaged by my words.

And the reason I have written this today? Well in the last week I was, in a situation out of my own control, exposed to a song by the band Stereophonics, in which they were singing about some graffiti on a train. Despite my ongoing mission to only write about things I love, I still made a mental note to myself that if ever there was a band sounding audibly bored with their own music, this was surely it. Who knows what the graffiti on the train was saying? With sludge-like music like this death-crawling its way to an exit, surely no one could bring themselves to care. It might have been something profound, but unfortunately the crowded room I was in were clearly not all feeling it either. Before too long someone shouted, “turn that shit off;” in my mind there is no way the graffiti on the train could have put it more succinctly than that!

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Monthly Playlists

April 2022 Playlist

One of the many wonderful things about record collecting, in contrast to say collecting art or decorative homeware, is that vinyl records were the ultimate mass-produced product, especially in their 60s, 70s heyday. There are millions of these things still sitting in people’s cupboards, hidden in their lofts, tucked away under some shelves in sheds (running the risk of damp frustratingly) or even still being enjoyed in living rooms for their intended purpose. As I am doing right now as I write this (with my early seventies UK Charisma pressing of the Genesis progressive thrilling Nursery Cryme if you are curious). So, unlike many other areas of collecting, where the chances of stumbling upon that bit of true buried treasure will be so limited as to represent a once in a lifetime occurrence, with records you can, if you’re prepared to put the time in hunting around, really expect to turn up something truly exciting and revelatory every single week, or daily if you’re able to build your life around it.

I might be making this all sound too good to be true, but I am speaking from personal experience built up over thirty years so there is some substance to this claim. If there is a downside, well maybe it is the amount of crap you must plough through to hit those jackpots. Yes, you will become over familiar with the record covers of Jason Donovan and Jim Reeves, just go and flick through the vinyl at your local charity shop for proof of this. If you, as I do, run adverts for purchasing peoples unwanted record collections, you will answer the phone to many a caller informing you they have masses of records from the fifties and sixties, “you name it it’s in there somewhere, way too much to tell you about over the phone”. So off you’ll go, dreaming that this is the day you’ll be returning home with those original issues of ‘Village Green Preservation Society’ and ‘Odyssey and Oracle’ under your arm, already planning to set aside the evening for a good bottle of wine as I drop the needle on potentially long sought after hot collectables from the fifties and sixties, only to be presented with the actual big sellers of the period. Yes, it is often said that the good stuff can rise to the top slowly, there is no better evidence of this when you consider the albums that are today regarded as the essential classics of the period against the albums people bought by the truckload at the time. The Sound of Music soundtrack, cheap sound-a-like Top Of The Pops compilations, Readers Digest box sets and if that is not bad enough the ever-present artists you find are, far more than the Beatles and Rolling Stones, they are Ken Dodd, James Last, Tom Jones, Engelbert Humperdinck and the aforementioned Jim Reeves.

But if the downside if having to look through a lot of rubbish, the sweetener is that there is always a chance of something wonderful popping up, even among the collections like I just described. There can be many reasons for this, or no explanation at all beyond random luck. Older people selling a collection pulled out of a dark corner of their attic may have had children, and offspring rarely share their parents’ musical taste. So it is that some hard-to-find Reggae or C86 Indie can crop up among the Andy Williams and Tijuana Brass dross. Sometimes an album way off the regular listening habits of the receiver may have been given as a gift, which is exactly how an unplayed fifties Blue Note Jazz original could appear inside a box of predictable Trad Jazz, folk rarely play gifted music that is not to their taste. But to return to my mass-production thread, there really still is an abundance of this stuff hiding out there waiting to be discovered and you genuinely cannot predict what will turn up. I mean, even limited-edition private pressings generally had at least 500 or 1000 copies produced, which is rather a lot when you think about it.

This is on my mind because in the past week I had one such wonderful find. Browsing through a collection of, admittedly unusual but still, quite uninteresting seventies UK middle-of-the-road country, mainly privately manufactured by performers without distribution deals who sold their product around the pub circuit (which is why most of these records turn up signed by the artist with a personal dedication), I found a lovely 1980 album by Mandy Morton on Polydor called ‘Sea Of Storms’. Despite the year, it is a delightful bit of mildly psychy freak folk with its sensibilities firmly rooted in the decade just passed rather than the one already commencing. It surely represented the original owner making a mistaken purchase outside of their usual comfort zone, or this was a speculative present from a more musically clued up relative trying to fight the good musical fight like we all do, us who love to share the good stuff about. You can imagine it, “let’s get him off the Don Williams and open his eyes with a bit of Mandy Morton, he’ll be thanking me for years.” Anyway, the immediately found its home on the Fruit Tree Records shelves and one of the many superb tracks on the album appears on this month’s playlist.

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Monthly Playlists

March 2022 Playlist

Given the horrendous unfolding world events at the start of March 2022, just sitting here writing a blog post to accompany the monthly playlist feels a rather privileged position to be in. People are fighting for their lives, losing their lives, refugees are fleeing across borders while property and architecture is bombed and obliterated at this very moment. With all that going on in the background, everything else we fill our time with, especially writing about music collecting and discovery like this, feels rather indulgent.

Still, we are all carrying on as normal because that is all we know. As someone who approaches his playlist curation as sonic diary entries, just as much as they are intended as wide-ranging journeys of discovery for those with similar tastes in melodically rooted thrill seeking, I had to resist selecting too obvious tracks nodding towards current events. With the fear of nuclear attacks feeling more real than any time in my lifetime, I kept thinking the obvious opening number should be Bob Dylan’s ‘A Hard Rains-A-Gonna Fall’ and perhaps following that up with Sting’s ‘Russians.’ I played Phil Ochs feeling certain that many of his sixties political songs would speak to me directly reflecting current fears and travesties. And they did, Phil remains one of the most undervalued topical songwriters that ever lived, but like the man himself in his classic ‘I Ain’t Marching Anymore,’ I chose to turn away.

Why did I make that choice? Well, if there is any point in sharing a few hours of music in March 2022 the only effective use I can settle on is that it might open a window of distraction, as well as maybe offer a bit of a lift. Let us try and not forget that is what music can do, I always believe the magic in the range of feelings and reactions it can spark is what makes it so endlessly addictive. And as always, there has certainly not been a shortage of supply in music for me to get excited about lately. It is not all upbeat, it never is with me I am afraid, you always need a bit of mellow calm introspection to contrast the louder faster stuff, but I believe it is all worth hearing and certainly never dull. Inevitably these days, there are a couple of nods to giants of the music world who left us this past month, news arriving of Procol Harum’s Gary Brooker and the far too young Mark Lanegan’s passing on the same day.

By the time I write the entry for the April playlist will things be better? We all live in hope, the idea that in the 21st century human nature has not evolved far enough to have learned to tackle any dispute without death and destruction does not fill me with hope. Yes, there are millions who do know a better way, but the universal truth is that those people are rarely the ones in power. As Phil Ochs once sang, “it’s always the old who lead us to the wars, always the young to fall.” Peace talks are continuing while bombs and aggression rain down on Ukraine from all sides. Watching on the news footage of an entire country’s architecture and cultural landmarks being obliterated should make us all appreciate the fleeting nature of all the culture we assume to be permanent. It is not, this is all just a temporary thing. So, whether you are attending a musical performance at a historical venue like the Royal Albert Hall, hustling to secure your tickets to see Paul McCartney at Glastonbury this year or simply filing your vinyl collection alphabetically on shelves at home, enjoy what we have right now for a little way east across the globe is the reality, this can all be gone in seconds.

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Monthly Playlists

February 2022 Playlist

Firstly, for those who are following my albums of 2021 features, please understand the time I am taking in writing about my twenty favorites is simply down to the fact that this is how I like to do it. They are all worth spending some time with; proper listening undistracted by other goings on so that is how I am approaching it. They were my stand-out LP discoveries of the year and I maintain the philosophy that a great album is worth spending time with and digging in deep. Not only that but it has been a busy month getting back into action after my Covid experience.

The monthly playlists I compile have always been presented on Spotify, mainly because that was the streaming service I signed up with first eleven or so years ago and I just stayed with them. But this month two of my top artists, Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, pulled their music from the platform in protest at a podcast spreading Covid vaccine misinformation. It is not a podcast I have heard and it does not sound like something which would appeal, but regardless I cannot argue against the ethics of the stance. If this podcast is supporting any anti-vax nonsense, then that is an opinion that should not be supported as it could potentially cost lives. And let us not overlook the fact that Spotify deserves more dissension than that received around a dubious Podcast it hosts. Yes, they have provided musical convenience and ease of discovery for all of us but artists routinely complain of not being paid adequately whilst Spotify get rich off their intellectual property.

So, my own response to this has been to look elsewhere for streaming as well. Whilst I suspect Spotify will ride this storm out, they may even coax Young and Mitchell back one day, those two alone leave so many holes in my various playlists that I have investigated Apple music and been quite impressed by the quality on offer there. From now on, the playlists will be available from both Spotify and Apple Music. Please remember though, the mission drive of the Fruit Tree Records website is to point readers in the direction of fantastic vinyl records for their collections, the playlists should really be viewed as try before you buy selections. As for Spotify podcasts, well there are many that I enjoy so I can hardly pretend that I am going to completely flush them away. One that is on the way out however is ‘The 500 with Josh Adam Meyers’. He is covering, album by album, the Rolling Stone Magazine top 500 albums list published in 2012. Admittedly he acknowledges that he has never been a music connoisseur, but this week he featured Richard & Linda Thompson’s 1982 classic ‘Shoot Out The Lights’ and gave it a kicking I cannot get on board with. Yes, he and his co-host did grudgingly give some kudos for guitar sound and a couple of decent songs, but the repeated calling Richard “Dick” and the general piss taking was way out of order.

They said Richard has a face you want to keep on punching on the cover, has Josh Adam Meyers not looked in the mirror lately? I know he would take me down for voicing this opinion and yes, maybe I am taking it all a bit too seriously as I agree that writing about music is a fundamentally pointless and unnecessary activity, just go and listen to stuff. And no, I am not defending Richard Thompson for cheating on and then leaving his heavily pregnant wife but they did take some shockingly inaccurate liberties with lyric analysis to further their Richard roasting agenda. The music is what the podcast claims to be discussing and the private lives of the artists should not be the main factor in assessing musical content. If we took wrongheaded domestic behavior into account, then music the sadly departed Ronnie Spector made with Phil Spector producing would be avoided like Gary Glitter. I am firmly on the side of Richard Thompson here as Josh Adam Meyers podcast got this one horribly wrong, even adding insult to an already infuriatingly ignorant position by mentioning Tears For Fears as a better call from the early eighties! Richard, with his boring looking 1980s geography teacher appearance, has struggled to receive the kind of acclaim his talent really does deserve so he hardly needs a bell end like Meyers putting the boot in. A shame because certain other episodes of his podcast had been laugh out loud funny, what a pity it was one of my favorite artists on the rough end of this shoddy treatment. Couldn’t he have saved that for the Red Hot Chili Peppers? (Maybe he did, I haven’t actually listened to that many).

Loving so much music from the fifties,sixties and seventies onwards does have a dark edge in 2022 because every month it now seems like artists who are beloved among the record collection pass away. Two of the great female singers have left us in January, Ronnie Spector and Norma Waterson, both were in their own way masters of the form in which they were most celebrated. Ronnie’s voice enriches the soul of that early sixties, post rock ‘n’ roll and pre-British invasion wall-of-sound pop era. For me and many others I am sure Norma was the authentic voice of UK folk music. It comes back to that word soul again as when Norma sang you really heard the heart of the song, these voices could move you tears then lift you back up again and believe me, they have frequently done just that and continue to do so with their indelible legacies.

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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

Greentea Peng – Man Made

The reason music lovers such as I get labelled as “snobs” is because we are dismissive of many (not all) of the big selling mainstream names who receive mass acceptance as representative of current tastes. And yes, I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to pouring cold water on Ed Sheeran’s acclaim or reacting with repulsion at the latest Coldplay offering. But hear me out, this is certainly not because I resent success or popularity, I am a massive Beatles fan for starters and you do not get more pop than that. The thing about the aforementioned is simply that, bleeding through every note of clinically clean music they produce is the sound of marketing. The stench of music created not because an artist was struck by a lightning bolt of inspiration, more the need to fulfill a criterion to supply new ‘product’ and from there on in, the overwhelming impression of demographic pleasing boxes being ticked is hard to ignore. In my opinion, it just makes for very predictable and dull music.

As for exciting pop and especially mainstream success, well I am all for it. There is nothing more delightful, even today when charts are all but irrelevant, than seeing a musician who has created something stunning, fresh, inspired and entertaining getting the recognition they deserve. I mention all this because in 2021 Greentea Peng made an album that did just that, it grabbed attention in all the right places by virtue of just being very, very good. This was an album bursting at the seams with ideas, both musically and lyrically. Wit and wisdom were in abundance and the whole record seemed to splash your face with its freshness. So, it was no surprise to me when reading an interview with the artist in The Guardian last year to see a prediction that, should her career ever become about anything other than music, she would take a step back from it.

Greentea Peng is the performing identity for Aria Wells, it was a name lifted from packaging of Peruvian green tea and includes the slang term for attractive, Peng, because a lady on there was depicted wearing only tea leaves. Aria was born in Bermondsey and to this day retains a kind of Amy Winehouse-like cutting edge that firmly places her in England’s capital, although she pointedly presents herself as a citizen of the universe, not belonging to just one location. Aria found her voice while travelling, literally when she got herself noticed at an open-mic night in Mexico and landed an invite to front a local covers band. She pretty much took that starting point and ran with it, having earned her living from music ever since. The journey took in an attention-grabbing TV appearance on Jools Holland and hot tips as one of the BBC’s sounds of 2021, but the real arrival has been with the debut LP ‘Man Made’.

If there is an over-riding vibe to ‘Man Made’ then it is mellow, with a soulful edge and a savage punch behind the blissed-out textures. It is very dubby, very London or at least what I think of as London. Wells did state in interviews around the time of the release that the theme could be summed up with the word ‘austerity’ which, for a creative artist, is suitably open-ended. That said though, dive into the grooves here and you do feel the realities of modern-day post-Brexit Britain seeping through, maybe more than the austerity it is the inequalities that stand tall. Opening number ‘Make Noise’ breezes in like a dream, floating on a bedrock of vintage vinyl crackle and right there in the middle of the deep bass and the cloud busting synths is that central, pure voice. A real sound, one that gets straight to the truth, dedicating what is about to come to those who stand alongside her and the dearly departed. An invitation, a throwing open of the door with an offer to make noise; what follows does just that with conviction.

Now I do not want to diminish credibility on my music critic credentials by admitting that I made my mind up about a record two tracks in, but that is exactly what happened with this one. From the second that juddering, funky bassline that beats through the heart of ‘This Sound’ rattled my ear drums all I could think was “yes, I’m having this!.” Greentea Peng is using the tune as a calling card for her music, but it succeeds in not actually defining the sound she makes, more throwing all the cards in the air and daring the listener to make sense of this if you can. It lifts you, it can be danced to, there are elements of jazz in the little trumpet fills and an urban nu-soul texture as she calls you to groove to it but really, what is this sound? It feels free, it feels boundless and that is what is so exciting. It is not trying to be anything, it just is; Wells may get a kick out of teasing us with suggestions like physical and metaphysical, but the real source is just a singular soul expressing herself with freedom and joy. Seriously, if your ears do not respond with positivity to this sound, you are going to need to check you are using them properly.

And that is the pure pleasure of this album in a nutshell. It is free, nothing is discarded in the pursuit of the right vibe. Be it open aired flute flourishes in ‘Be Careful’ or the smooth, keyboard touches that underpin ‘Nah It Ain’t The Same,’ a song that cannot stop evolving as a brilliant second phase introduces drum ‘n’ bass rhythm and an unexpected honky piano part. Even when things get real on ‘Suffer,’ a tune that brings acoustic textures and a nightmarish sonic template that recalls Tricky and his darkest Trip-Hop experiments, there remains at heart Greentea Peng’s healing hand, offered in solidarity to all suffering and collectively enduring these modern times. That is the key constant element throughout this wonderful album. Across eighteen tracks that rebound from the laid back to the urgent, Greentea Peng has built a psychedelic soundscape that will not pander to anyone’s rulebook, it simply shines bright by following its own thoroughly eclectic muse. Kick back and enjoy this.

Find a vinyl copy of Man Made here: https://www.discogs.com/release/19007347-Greentea-Peng-Man-Made

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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

Reigning Sound – A Little More Time With

It may only be 2014 since the Reigning Sound last released an album but still, ‘A Little More Time With’ did arrive in 2021 feeling like a reformation. Happily, unlike many bands who get it together again after a hiatus, this one returned strong and with barely a hint that they had ever been away. That can be attributed to the attitude which itself should be credited to main man Greg Cartwright. If ever there was a man with a healthy regard of success it is Greg. He remains singularly unphased by the trappings of acclaim and recognition, never losing sight of the thing that brought him to this place from the outset, the music. In the intervening years you were as likely to spot him around guitar and vinyl stores as you were a recording studio and typically, he did not countenance any return to record making until he hit a rich vein of songwriting. That is why this one stands out as an end-of-year highlight, it is because the songs are just so damn good.

One of the greatest things about pure Garage Rock is its simplicity. The uncomplicated directness of the music, the lack of fuss in lyrics that refuse to overcomplicate what they convey and the way Garage Rock never loses sight that its roots are in Pop music. Just look at the opening track here, a Greg Cartwright original ‘Let’s Do It Again’ wherein he eagerly anticipates the return of someone missed. Once they used to turn down the lights and play records all night and he knows they will be doing it again real soon. The music has a joyful bounce to it and you must assume there is a passing reference to the reformed Reigning Sound themselves and their collective enthusiasm for this new album. This is a mood that continues throughout an LP which features all, bar one, Greg Cartwright new compositions.

Of course, Garage Rock would not echo with so much lovelorn emotion if it did not feature a little heartbreak, something which appears immediately on track two ‘A Little More Time.’ The way the organ pattern swirls between a major and minor bedding before stabbing out a little peril when Greg goes for broke and lays bare the tragedy in the back of his mind, show what a musical maestro Cartwright has become in this song form. The album could never be an old boy’s footnote with songs like this to play. That said, even the cover of Chris Andrews ‘I Don’t Need That Kind Of Lovin’ kicks ass with its punky ‘Summertime Blues’ style riffing.

The pace eases for a moment of late-night spookiness on ‘I’ll Be Your Man.’ Is Greg dreaming as he sings about travelling between two points in space time, having set out by asking his driver to turn the car lights off at night and travel in the dark as the road disappears? It may not be as fantastical as that, maybe Greg is throwing all his cards in with this dark number as the refrain of “…and I’ll be your man…” repeats at the close? There are similar layers on ‘Oh Christine,’ far from a loving ode there is more overwhelming sadness on display. Greg is wrapping in blankets but still feeling the cold as he waits for separation tears to start flowing. The crying will start when he has stopped driving but for now the key detail is the “rind from your tangerine still sitting on my dash, speeding down the 1-15 counting cities as they pass. Oh Christine you are free at last.”

‘You Don’t Know What You’re Missing’ revisits a staple of the garage rock lyrical repertoire, the turning away from a good thing song. The pained shrug of the shoulders turning away from the girl who does not know what she wants. The music offers an arm around the shoulder to the narrator, who is certain he will be fine no matter what. It is all in the way Greg sings that title, making it clear that this is a pay-off not an ever-extending olive branch. The man is offering himself up, he is all ears but he cannot tell the object of his affections what she wants, that part is down to her. ‘Make It Up’ kicks the door down with guitar chugging intent and that organ sound that underpins the number is life blood. Again, the tune is tying itself in knots over everyday relationship tribulations. This time though the singer is focuses on making things right, “if I really broke your heart, let me make it up to you!”

After side one closed with ‘Moving And Shaking,’ ‘A Good Life’ is the albums second out-and-out, lush country ballad complete with yearning pedal steel as Greg sings to the simple pleasure of living the life you want rather than the life others would impose. The opening chords of ‘Just Say When,’ so crispy and brown in their semi-acoustic textures, could be trademarked as the sound of Autumn. This is clearly intentional as the opening salvo describes falling leaves and long shadows. It feels on this one like it is a song of retreating into the arms of love, a suggestion enhanced by the dramatic descending keyboard pattern in the chorus which carries a Bond-theme like punch.

‘You Ain’t Me’ has a deceptive sixties pop sheen glossing over a lyric that seems to be wrestling against depression. Greg is trading salvos with a partner, or just himself, to justify his handling of the problem. He argues that you can “cry while you’re laughing” and bats back efforts to pull him out of his despondency. So, if the you, who ain’t me, of the title tries to find a silver lining when waking to find the sun still shining, Greg does not need to know about it. He underlines this with “it’s hard to raise my head, but I’m trying.” Dig deep on that one and it is quite a dark moment, buried away as the penultimate number.

‘On And On’ closes the album with a universal truth though, for while the strains of Country remind the listener of the hurt and loss that is all around in life, the primary lyric states for certain that we can still believe in love if we let ourselves. “Yeah, love is still a choice” sings Greg and I do not take that to mean we can take it or leave it as if a commodity. What he seems to be saying is that love is still the thing that keeps us going, the air that we breathe because ultimately “we’ll still need love to carry on.” That is the thing I keep returning to when listening to perfect garage nuggets like this album, that the best things in life are the simplest and purest. And there are few greater things musically than three-minute pop songs built around electric guitars, bass, organ and drums, recorded with gritty analogue warmth and played with raw feeling. It does not get much better than that.

Find a vinyl copy of The Reigning Sound’s ‘A Little More Time With’ here:

https://www.discogs.com/release/18823081-Reigning-Sound-A-Little-More-Time-With

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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

Emma-Jean Thackray – Yellow

One of the most infectious Jazz based debut records of the year, ‘Yellow’ introduces itself with ever increasing waves of cosmic vibrations on opening track ‘Mercury.’ As a scene setter, this sort of tells the listener all and nothing simultaneously. Yes, you may well deduce that what will follow is going to be something of a spiritual journey, but no way in hell could you be anticipating the explosion of styles, tempos, moods and explorative diversions that are about to unfold. For that reason alone, Emma-Jean Thackray’s debut album deservedly caught lots of attention in 2021; it was a unique calling card, a showcase even, for a jazz artist with no respect for genre and a singular approach that placed her in a scene all her own.

As with so many releases in 2021, the gestation period for the album had occurred around the 2020 lockdown, you remember the one where people really could not go out? Emma-Jean had caught Covid in the summer of 2020 and found that this had negatively impacted her trumpet playing. It left her briefly having to alter her approach, blowing shorter phrases, something that can be heard on the album within some of the modalism and moments of Bop style experimentation. That though is far from the over-riding mood that pumps out of these grooves, there are a myriad of elements here such as the progression in her music displayed in the singing. This is an area in which Emma-Jean admits she had to overcome some hesitancy, eventually rationalizing that Chet Baker had done it so why shouldn’t she? It was a strong move, for the singing here shows a range of modes that you would not expect from one with such initial reticence.

It is in taking these instinctive strides forward musically that Thackray displays a sure footedness and independence. While she does acknowledge her association with the big names of the London Jazz Scene, she does not necessarily belong at around the center of it. She is originally from Yorkshire and in fact grew up playing marching music in a brass band. To this day there remains something of the outsider to Emma-Jean Thackray, a level head and a lack of showboating in her approach to music that sets her apart from the crowd. At the same time however, it cannot be ignored that the sounds she creates and the range of ideas incorporated are truly remarkable. Anyone who has seen her band live has witnessed the astonishing telepathy between her and her bandmates. This has found a way onto the record, released on Emma-Jean’s own label Movementt, by way of live samples woven into the mix. At this stage, those early outsider years around Yorkshire, when her interest in Jazz cast her into a solitary vein, are starting to pay dividends in the shape of a singular talent; time inside your own head can indeed brew an inner determination to follow your own path.

So, the highlights on this LP are many and the opportunities for comparison are plentiful too but Emma-Jean never allows them to submerge her own sound and vision. There is a hint of Alice Coltrane on the track ‘Yellow,’ which begins with an organ sound that is so fruity you can practically taste the juices squeezing out of it. ‘Rahu & Ketu’ is one of several celebratory numbers in tone, a strong element that gives the album its undeniable addictiveness. The out-and-out Funk sections take ‘Yellow’ into delightfully seventies sounding conscious Soul territories. At times, the album is so firmly focused on groove and movement that it crash-lands directly into a distinct house music and modern club feel. Now there is an area of music that so often leaves me disinterested, sounding too much like a genre that has hard locked into formula and abandoned any ambitions to creativity. It is so refreshing to hear new artists, primarily in the jazz world it has to be said, still determined to find ways of injecting these styles with forward momentum.

Emma-Jean Thackray’s net casts wider than most. One of the tracks at the dramatic heart of this LP is ‘Spectre,’ the way it pulls in strands of cinematic tension and teases the listener with mind-bending sci-fi style lyrics is captivating. Therefore, it is unsurprising that Thackray has confessed to being a fan of dystopian science fiction. The video for ‘Say Something’ was based on Logans Run and earlier in 2021 she had explained to Bandcamp about the accompanying video and song that “it starts off quite housey, then there’s a bridge to a different section where the time signature’s different and it’s a lot more raucous”. But having indulged the interviewer with a little insight into one of her passions, she reeled the topic back to the essential detail, the message of the song. “The message is really don’t say things for the sake of it, be real.” You could wholesale lift those sentiments and apply them to Emma-Jean Thackray and this swirling, head-spinning wonder of a debut album. If ever a jazz artist stood tall and firmly, independently, announced that they are the real deal it surely happened here. Setting genre aside because you simply must, ‘Yellow’ is simply one of the finest journeys in music heard in 2021.

Find a vinyl copy Emma-Jean Thackray’s Yellow here: https://www.discogs.com/release/19437127-Emma-Jean-Thackray-Yellow-

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