Category Archives: Fruit Tree Records Of The Year

Records of 2023

Top Twenty Albums of 2023

20) Kassi Valazza – Kassi Valazza Knows Nothing

A fine and captivating slice of cosmic Americana with added splashes of fuzz and crazy horse indebted wonder…

19) Joanna Sternberg – I’ve Got Me

Singer-songwriter fare with a style and range that harks back to the glorious seventies eloquence from the likes of Dory Previn and Gilbert O’Sullivan; there’s an almost musical theatre flourish built into their songwriting…

18) Quasi – Breaking The Balls Of History

A welcome return from this fuzz rockin’ duo on a set without any dips; just to hear Janet Weiss trashing her drum kit again in this exuberant way was a timely reminder of exactly what her former band Sleater-Kinney are missing in their most recent work…

17) Sunny War – Anarchist Gospel

This was a brilliant realisation of the punk/folk grain Sunny has been refining over the past five years. An assured album with a band that included David Rawlings and Alison Russell, highlights include a punchy and pounding ‘No Reason’ and a Ween cover in ‘Baby Bitch’…

16) Margo Price – Strays

Not the only Margo Price release of the year but the one that teared down the walls between the Alternative rebel rousers and the Country mainstream establishment, a place that should be proud to have an artist as naturally gifted as Margo among its numbers…

15) The Murlocs – Calm Ya Farm

This merry band of Aussie Psych-heads have impressed in the past, especially with their authentic garage rock rough edges but there was a pleasing adventurousness to this album, taking in country rock inflections and many a Brit leaning instrumental embellishment…

14) Oracle Sisters – Hydranism

An example of a band getting the basics right; they played a fantastic set at End Of The Road festival and I kept coming back to this album thanks to the many earworm melodies built within that were like sweet audio honey to these ears…

13) Zoe Rahman – Colour Of Sound

In a decade that is shaping up to be one in which Jazz as an artform is firmly re-establishing itself back into the mainstream, artists like multi-award winning pianist Zoe Rahman are enjoying a reciprocal canvas on which they can develop their sounds and ideas. The best of those, as heard here, are recording music that demands repeated listens and is surely built to last…

12) The Nude Party – Rides On

Not just an album highlight of the year for me but a live one too. I saw these psychedelic rodeos back at the Red Rooster festival and they brought the summer sun to the skies in every sense. I recall one audience member saying the singer was “just the right side of Jim Morrison” which made me wonder what the wrong side would be? Maybe just being Jim Morrison perhaps?…

11) Nick Waterhouse – The Fooler

Nick is an artist known for his authentic channelling of fifties and sixties production values, producing music with a delightful analogue warmth that would be easily passed over as retro were it not so classily executed. He brings these sounds into the modern vernacular alongside the many ghosts and fading memories of a bygone San Francisco that stitch these songs together so cohesively…

10) Aja Monet – When The Poems Do What They Do

As debut albums go this is one of the most eclectic, it belongs in a box entirely its own. The Brooklyn based poet and activist incorporates elements of jazz and experimental freeform brushes into sound and these are far from conventional poetry structures. They are a tumbling torrent of words, thoughts and emotions because, as Aja has said herself, “who’s got time for poems when the world is on fire”…

9) Esther Rose – Safe To Run

Here’s another artist building a reputation for dependably great album releases. This one is perhaps the boldest in her catalogue, there is evidence of more grit and dirt in this alt-country sound not to mention a heavy dose of climate crisis anxiety hanging in the air…

8) Lisa O’Neill – All Of This Is Chance

Whilst it was her fellow Irelanders Lankum who deservedly topped a lot of folk lists in 2023, for me it was this mesmerising album that demonstrated just why folk music appears to be in such a healthy place right now. Lisa is just so tuned in to the natural and spiritual worlds, her work is like a polemic for the way the human race has disconnected from the things that really matter with all this technology surrounding us. Some people just seem to exist in a better place…

7) Shana Cleveland – Manzanita

In which the La Luz lady cuts some solo rug and delivers a dream-like suite of hazy, wavy-gravy songs apparently direct from the twilight zone of her mind. It is hypnotic from start to finish and charming the whole way too. Somehow Shana has captured that brief moment of consciousness between our waking hours and sleep in a cloudburst of audio finery…

6) Lael Neale – Star Eaters Delight

It is no surprise that this one rated highly among the alternative-sixties type of crowd. It pushes all the right period buttons, not just in its Warhol factory freakbeat style but also in the girl-group look Lael pushed to the forefront in her music videos (all Quant minis and multi coloured umbrellas) and artwork. I am no fan of retro indulgences just for the sake of it but if the artist is creating great pop music and writing superb songs as the back bone, as is the case here, then I might just find the work as hard to resist as this is…

5) Say She She – Silver

It seems so obvious now, just marry the pop hooks of the Sugababes to the chic style of seventies Pointer Sisters, throw in some deliberately arch disco referencing production and dance shapes that look like they were worked up for a laugh in the back of a club and put it all together in a shockingly loveable album. This is class…

4) Peter Gabriel – i/o

Back in the eighties Peter Gabriel said in an interview he didn’t like easy listening, he preferred “difficult listening”, music that only reveals itself depth after a few plays. As these tracks arrived with every 2023 new moon, I would give them a listen and, to be honest, be a little underwhelmed. However, with the arrival of the full album at the years end and with the opportunity to experience the whole work on repeat in detail the fact became clear; this is a top drawer collection and Gabriel has retained the integrity present throughout his career…

3) Cleo Sol – Heaven

Everything Cleo Sol does is absolutely overflowing with quality. I have nothing but admiration for the way she has retained an air of mystery around herself, refusing to play the regular media game and never saturating her exposure in the usual way an artist would when promoting a new album as strong as this. This approach has the appropriate effect of making everything about the music which is crucial because this is soul music that harks back to the classic values of the sixties and seventies but sings in a language and wears a relevance entirely belonging in the modern day…

2) Cleo Sol – Gold

So the same artist occupies two of the top three spots in my list of the year but I cannot place it any other way. Cleo just happened to release two sensational albums in the space of a month and they both had ‘soul classics of the future’ written all over them. I am listening to Cleo’s two new albums almost every day at the moment and it has been that way for a month or more. When you listen to a lot of different music both new and old, I cannot exaggerate how rarely this actually happens. But there is an argument that says Cleo Sol is the best thing around at the moment, if quality of music were measured by sales and status she deserves the level of a Taylor Swift, although she appears to have too much integrity to ever let that kind of cultural monopolising ever tarnish the thing that matters to Cleo the most, the music…

1) Jaimie Branch – Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((World War))

If only I didn’t have to write that this is now a posthumous album, in all likelihood a final release. That Jaimie Branch passed in 2022 at the age of 39 is devastating, her music had been one of the most alive things in Jazz for a few years by then, infused with a punk attitude and a take-no-prisoners strength of character it seemed on a perpetual upward trajectory. We will never know how many doors she could have kicked open, how much life enhancing music has been lost but at least her family and collaborators were able to put together this final penetrating artistic statement, the third in a trilogy of thematically linked records that put the boot in on the state of America today whilst never losing sight of the desire to make things better aspect of the human spirit. “Don’t forget to fight…”

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The Wave Pictures – When The Purple Emperor Spreads His Wings

I have no doubt signposted the fact that the Wave Pictures red hot double LP ‘When The Purple Emperor Spreads His Wings’ is my favourite album of the year in earlier posts. I have made no secret of my love of this album and whilst I do not want Fruit Tree Records to merely be a Wave Pictures appreciation outlet, I am keen to be honest in my assessments and this one has been the one I keep going back to above all others. They are a three-piece indie-rock band whose lyrics and presentation in general have a down-to-earth, homespun charm and their vignettes throwing a wry, often droll and witty, self-aware and occasionally a bit dippy and helpless eye on 21st century living in the UK are almost always a joy. Their eye and ear for the finer details, the miniature of love and relationships, hits the right notes frequently with me. To give you a sample lyric, from the obscenely uplifting ‘Blink The Sun’, they can sing words like “blink the sun from your eyes and run into the sea, I know you running fast and falling free, I love you” and absolutely pin you to the floor with the sincerity of the delivery.

This album is split into four, five-song sections, one for each of the four seasons and they do manage to capture an essence of each period. Just as you can feel the sun shining down on summers ‘French Cricket’ so too can you catch the passing of summer in the air on Autumns brilliant ‘Smell The Ocean.’ That the sequence concludes with Spring is apt too, for despite all the turbulence, hurt and vulnerability that emote from the music of the Wave Pictures, there is always something optimistic bubbling underneath the water, I feel that the Spring with its fresh hope and renewal is the place this band belong in. But above all, the reason this record has caught me in such gushing admiration (they are a band who have put out a lot of music over the past two decades) is that they really seem to have captured what they do best with this one. The ballads are appealingly tender and fragile but there is also a sizable proportion of the album that, for want of a better phrase, simply rocks out. And even though you may not guess it to look at them, this band can put a rocket up a room or a festival crowd with crushing effectiveness. In no small part thanks to the guitar brilliance of David Tattersall, when they put their foot on the accelerator there are few rock trios around to match them. I have said it before, but I want to reiterate it, the Wave Pictures are one of the best bands in the UK today, they are criminally undervalued and this album across twenty songs without a duffer in sight, proves my statement to be indisputably true.

Buy a vinyl copy of the album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/23825507-The-Wave-Pictures-When-The-Purple-Emperor-Spreads-His-Wings

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Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

This is an extensive double album in which Big Thief are so tuned and locked into each other as a collective unit, that it feels like all they must do is turn on their tap and let the wonder of their sound pour forth unrelentingly. They are the premier folk-rock band of our time and furthermore, a band that have been astoundingly prolific over the past seven years and yet they can still put out a collection of twenty songs like this without any dips in quality. Big Thief sail effortlessly across musical styles, this record has distinct echoes of Americana, Country, Psych-Blues and dusty Folk balladry but the core facility that surely marks them out as one of the greats is in how they retain at all times that core essence of Big Thief sound. They are one of a small number of acts who, no matter what type of song they perform, you know instantly the band playing thanks to that unique sound and the individualistic approach of the characters making up the group.

They perform that way as well, rarely have a band looked so on a wavelength, not unlike a four headed, eight-legged beast, there is some invisible force binding them together. Even band photos look unusually close, the body language is all pointing to how intimately connected these four are, in most other occupations that kind of open touchy-feely-ness could be a bit vomit inducing but with Big Thief we have the music as reward to overshadow such in-your-face communion. Across the whole sprawling set heart wrenching moments are tempered by flashes of outright playfulness, just check out ‘Spud Infinity’ for proof of this with its hillbilly goofiness and what might be an elastic band being plucked throughout. Still, the emotive segments are so powerful that you need a bit of relief, we are dropped into one such moment at the outset with the classic-sounding ‘Change’ and its asking “would you live forever never die why everything around passes?” It is a song that appears to recall the days when a relationship, now shattered, was in full bloom yearning for lost irretrievable moments. It is a solid example of why Adrianne Lenker is so rated as a songwriter in the American folk tradition. However, what most of this album proves decisively is with the expressive range of Big Thief surrounding her she taps into her writing potential most potently.

Across all four sides there are recurring highlights, in fact the hit rate is indecently high considering the large amount of music overflowing from these grooves. The title track floats by like a summer days mountainside dream whereas something like ‘Time Escaping’ is positively crashing with energy. The strength with Big Thief is in how they can push all the buttons that the greatest bands can. What I mean by that is there are certain acts who you turn to for specific moods or needs, be it rocking out or diving into something demanding a little time and concentration. Then there are bands like Coldplay who are there for people no longer bothered what they listen to as long as it slots in inoffensively. But the greatest bands of all time, the Beatles and Velvet Undergrounds and R.E.M.s of this world can do it all, make you laugh, cry, dance, sing, think and colour your life in a thousand separate ways; Big Thief have fast become a band working to that high standard. They are one of the greatest musical things happening today, an absolute classic four piece doing their own thing and developing in ways that are impossible to measure; Big Thief are happening right now and anyone choosing to bathe in their genius is doing themselves a massive favour.

Buy a vinyl copy of the album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/22078948-Big-Thief-Dragon-New-Warm-Mountain-I-Believe-In-You

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LIUN & The Science Fiction Band – Lily Of The Nile

Here is another album that solidifies my belief that Jazz and the multifaceted scene surrounding it is the single most groundbreaking and innovative music style of our times. Everything that people assume to be the cutting edge, be it Dance, Grime, Rap, EDM or whatever all sound fairly generic to my ears, I rarely hear things that do not rigidly sound like something already created. Jazz, on the other hand, is positively boiling over with groundbreaking musical cross pollinations and progressive mash ups. And among the players to be found cooking away in the engine room of these hybrids there are visionary musicians enviously furnished with talent. I mention jazz because one of the two primary players in LIUN & The Science Fiction Band is Wanja Slavin and one of his major instruments is the saxophone and yes, it does indeed sound very jazzy at times on this album. But after that familiar musical reference point, things get very blurry indeed.

Wanja built the band as an open and inclusive vehicle for the music he makes with vocalist Lucia Cadotsch. She is also something of a maverick, piercingly vibrant as a singer, Lucia is impossible to pigeonhole but then nobody should be looking to do that, the excitement in the music this band makes is all in the unpredictability of it, not to mention the unrestricted license they grant themselves to go anywhere sonically. They themselves describe the musical landscape as “a phantasmagorical world that mirrors our contemporary state as an absurd, but wonderful combination of natural and virtual elements.” Well, I can confirm that the overload effect on your ears and mind when listening is quite dizzying but, as with all the best things in music, a few plays reveal a tapestry of thrills constructed by artisans.

Progressive is a word that springs to mind a lot when listening to ‘Lily Of The Nile’ and if I can make one retro-fitting comparison to the past, it is that the interweaving of classical and orchestral styles is executed with eloquence, by hands that can command the language of melodic passages transcribed to harps, trumpets, flutes and trombones with the same confidence classic Prog Rock groups displayed fifty years ago. There are flashes of this in ‘Let’s Make Love’ but as the tempo builds the kamikaze piano soloing is pure jazz, absolutely flying with expression. Holding it together is the human ingredient of Cadotsch’s voice and the key, warm and lustful simple message of the suggestion in the songs title. ‘F***in’ Comp’ highlights her range of tonality too, leading a piece that again sails through pumping grooves, seductive flutes and a saxophone break underpinned by piano and synths. What I love is that these break downs do not let the songs drift, they are densely packed with vital movements before the groove returns and we spin off anew.

You have simply got to listen to this album, then listen again and listen some more. It is the sound of now, the noise of all life around us rolled up into a heavy-tumbling audio cannonball. In a world where the simple act of just focusing on one thing without distraction is a challenge, an environment seemingly intent on quick gratification and short attention spans, here is an album that represents that chaos whilst simultaneously existing in defiance of it. The actuality of a record so wonderfully carved into being, sitting out there humbly below the radar waiting for people to chance upon it is enough to give me great hope and anticipation for the future of music in general, with artists as impossibly brilliant as LIUN & The Science Fiction Band making albums things are never going to be that hopeless, are they? This is simply incredible.

Buy a copy of the album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/25014124-LIUN-The-Science-Fiction-Band-Lucia-Cadotsch-Wanja-Slavin-Lily-of-the-Nile

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Kathryn Williams – Night Drives

My first awareness of Kathryn Williams ‘Night Drives’ was noticing someone online declaring it ‘a classic’. That kind of fanfare can prejudice you against a release, is it possible to announce something ‘classic’ immediately on its release? I recall Shindig! Magazine declaring an album by the Lemon Twigs, roughly around 2017, as a surefire album of the year contender in January and it so obviously was not that and I do not recall giving the Twigs much listening time thereafter. That said, I have always liked Kathryn and I had to give her new album a listen. First impressions were good, but I still wondered if the hype was necessary. However, for the second six months of this year it has really become one of those albums I frequently return to, these are songs that open up over the course of multiple listens. They have depth and the writing is of such a high standard that it merits such lofty accolades. It may have had something to do with the production of Ed Harcourt, but I would assume that it is more to do with the ever-evolving musical grain of Kathryn Williams as this does indeed sound like a modern baroque-pop masterpiece.

So many of my favourite albums have a theme, a concept or a tone and mood that stitch the songs together, making them work as a set in which everything down to the sequencing is placed deliberately for maximum impact. So it is with ‘Night Drives’, all these recordings have a tangible sense of the nocturnal, the echoes of darkness. They also seem to resonate in your brain just as night voices do when we have the business of living and relationships rattling through our mind in those black, silent midnight hours. With the Beatle-like mellotron sounds and melodies that navigate major/minor contortions, every song is a mini audio symphony. At the core of every track is a lushly composed song that has multiple sonic levels, unexpected bursts of unsettling noise or a wallpapering of strings and orchestral serenity. Williams is thought of as a folk singer because of the strong acoustic, singer-songwriter thread to her sound, but this is not really what she does. She has produced, for many years now, music that references the styles of great British pop songs and ballads, with a melancholic heart and an ear for beauty that is uniquely hers.

‘Radioactive’ is an essential example of her strengths, built around a throbbing pulse of a riff, she is serenading someone at the dawn of the day, continuing to describe how her subject instigated the writing of a song, thinking of it as song writers do as being snatched from the ether. Next her head is in the clouds, dreaming of all the people around and how they “captured me with all their hearts”. Kathryn becomes submerged in this dream world, the subconscious tangents of our minds where music finds its way into our souls and she is hoping her new song connects on this level too, all the while the production of the tune has landed with a thumping beat and undeniable weight. It is, as so much of Kathryn’s work is, a deep dish of a piece that pays in full to those investing in repeated listens. ‘Moon Karaoke’ has a similar air of a song that must have been around for years, it feels so right. The chorus begins “everyone’s having fun but me” before a grand sweep of orchestral lushness enters the scene, playing like a could-be national anthem for introverts as it continues “I’m just trying to be me”. Maybe Kathryn sees herself as an introvert, she certainly comes across that way at times, but I’d argue she is more of an introvex; Kathryn Williams music presents itself with the confidence and assuredness of a master and this album is one of her finest.

Buy a vinyl copy of Night Drives here: https://www.discogs.com/release/24259688-Kathryn-Williams-Night-Drives

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Nicole Cassandra Smit – Third In Line

Nicole Cassandra Smit caught my attention in late 2021, a track called ‘Strong Woman’ popped up out of thin air (you know how it is when you hunt around the internet for new sounds, I cannot remember where it appeared, most likely a radio show or an algorithm offering me something I might like) and the appeal was instant. A funky soul-style hook and a voice with confidence, poise and control in equal measure. One of those occasions where I playlist a track immediately and make a note of the name as one to keep an ear out for. So, when I saw in 2022 that an LP called ‘Third In Line’ was in the pipeline it had to be checked out and wow, this one certainly did not disappoint.

I love it when an artist is at this stage, when they are still a bit mysterious and there is a lack of obvious signposting in the music as to the path they may end up travelling. This is especially true of Nicole, I mean last year I probably thought she was a purveyor of fresh sounding modern soul with a nice vintage, analogue edge. While this is not way off the mark, the opening track on this record immediately throws a whole heap of other ingredients into the melting pot. ‘Wolves’ is a big sounding production job, it has an almost James Bond like drama to it, with its cinematic strings and rousing movements. Vocally, Nicole is proving from the word go that she has the pipes to own this kind of material and as a pot-boiling starter on a debut album, well this should guarantee that anyone with functioning ears continues to listen.

The thing that is mouth watering to the extreme is the massive pallet of musical references that Nicole creates from. ‘Lily Of The Valley’ swings from tree to tree in a forest of sound with horns that reflect early jazz and sensational Afrobeat rhythms. ‘Sundown’ has a rap interlude and strings that aptly conjure visions of the orange glow of the songs title. At times she lets her soulful instincts take the reins, but you can hear in these vocals that the influences run deep and wide; there are hints of the blues when Nicole intones passion and pain and the arrangements are rising out of modern pop-soul and innovative jazz in equal amounts. Then you are slapped in the face by a funky track like ‘Quest’ which pours all those styles into one irresistible mix as a clearer future comes into focus. So, in summary, a stunning debut album from a singer with an authentic voice capable of propelling her to places few can reach and a vision that suggests a panorama of endless possibilities. Get on the Nicole Cassandra Smit journey now, at the bottom step of the ladder, for soon she may be out of reach.

Check out more about Nicole Cassandra Smit here: https://nicolecassandrasmit.bandcamp.com/album/third-in-line

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Michael Wollny Trio – Ghosts

Sometimes an instrumental jazz album, in this case by a piano trio coming out of left field, can knit together far more cohesively if constructed around a theme. There is an abundance of that kind of glue trickling down on ‘Ghosts,’ because the unity relates to a number of factors. There is the literal sense in which ghosts are present in the subject matter, mood or atmosphere of these songs. It is an album largely made up of interpretations of other people’s material, opening with George Gershwin’s ‘I Loves You Porgy’ and traveling across a vast terrain of disparate sources; we hear work throughs of Nick Cave’s ‘Hand Of God’, ‘Ghosts’ by David Sylvian and Timber Timbre’s ‘Beat The Drum Slowly’ all of which sit comfortably alongside traditional folk waves in ‘She Moved Through The Fair’ and a nod to jazz heritage with Duke Ellington’s ‘In A Sentimental Mood’. Sat in between are some Michael Wollny originals such as the dramatic ‘Hauntology,’ bringing a binding effect on all the titles presented in this collection.

But this is not the only way in which ghosts are present. There is also Wollny’s personal relationship to the music itself, which he has described as being like ghosts that inhabit a place in his head. There must be truth in this because he is able to fully deconstruct these pieces with a jazzers eloquence, diving deep into their very essence and manipulating them to almost breaking point without ever drifting so far from the DNA that they become something unrelated. It does not end there either, as all the music here is played with a mild hint of the ‘hammer horror,’ especially on songs like the title track that invite this kind of treatment, awash as it is with eerily tense chimes of piano string and a doom-laden church organ sound towards the end. The atmosphere remains intentionally spooky all the way, all three of these players tapping into the dark spiritual potential each of their instruments has to offer.

The overriding reason that this is such a great album remains Michael Wollny’s capacity for melodic exploration. His own ‘Monsters Never Breathe’ for instance is built around a deep dewdrop of a tune that needs no audio effects to enhance the melancholy, the tune he picks out on the piano does it all. The same can be said for the heavy play on Franz Schubert’s ‘Erlkonig,’ this is a ferocious piano pounding with a rhythm section matching the adrenaline all the way before the bubble finally bursts and vanishes. Best of all is the version of ‘Willow Song,’ which you may recall as the standout song on the soundtrack to seventies folk-horror film ‘The Wicker Man.’ This was always a haunting piece but indelibly linked to the dampened acid-folk vein atypical of the post-psychedelia UK scene of fifty years ago. Well that is no longer the case, in fact by appreciating that it needed no great gear shift away from the gothic presence already there, Wollny respectfully stays close the vocal melody of the original, stroking his way around the tune proving that less can be more and ‘Willow Song’ was just waiting for a jazz trio to get their hands on it. ‘Ghosts’ is a wonderful album, play it late at night with a bottle of wine under candlelight and this music, not to mention the odd spirit in the air, will definitely speak to you.

Buy a vinyl copy of the album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/24686237-Michael-Wollny-Trio-Ghosts-

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Lady Wray – Piece Of Me

I do wish that albums like this were not saddled with the label ‘retro’ because it reduces what is, in this case, an outstanding piece of work. All that an artist is doing in producing music with this much analogue style warmth, is treating soul music with the respect it deserves and taking the trouble to do the job properly. Soul music is all about feel and vibe, at its best it should move both your heart and feet and the magic way this style of music connects with people is down to its human element. Its roots are in Gospel and that big church sound is something that clearly resonates with Lady Wray, driving down this road for a while now having initially broke through in the late nineties via Hip-Hop and an audition for Missy Elliot who, in those early years, was Nicole Wray’s Svengali figure. Over the years though she has been pushing hard to find her own voice and it has led us to this, her most fully realized album to date singing about her own life (she gave birth only shortly after this albums completion) with a sound that feels like her very DNA pouring into the grooves.

The album flies straight in with ‘I Do’ and its unexpected bass funk pillars, sudden bursts of gospel backing chorus on speed, vintage trumpet wallpaper and a commanding Lady Wray riding the waves testifying “nothing can trouble these waters.” It informs the listener nothing will be predictable within the oncoming record. ‘Through It All’ kicks the door down with a real uplifting pop style chorus while the bedrock of the track has a kind of used vinyl rawness, it sounds like hip-hop sampling even though it is surely a new track. The LP title song displays the depth of creation in these initially quite simple sounding, instant whip masterpieces. ‘Piece Of Me’ is a song about trying to find enough of yourself for the loved ones who need a lift, an ear or words of advice and encouragement. The vocal itself bleeds with compassion but there is far more layered into the Leon Michels production; flute embellishments bring a natural breeze, there is a pensive heartbeat of a bass whilst echoing piano chords summon up spirituality and as Wray sings “I let you take a piece of me, I hope you get the piece you need” a wrecking crew style guitar part sits just underneath the voice in perfect accompaniment. This is just so classy, right down to the little intervals where the music breathes as everything other than the bass and drum fall away for a moment.

There are some tracks, such as ‘Come On In’, that were developed out of live studio jamming but the important detail is that everything here was worked up into a fully developed song. ‘Where Were You’ is an out-and-out modern R&B classic. With a lyric that asks where an acquaintance was hiding while the singer endured hard times, refusing to sugar coat the turmoil she experienced; “drinking wine in my room all alone, I need a friend, I need a dog, I need a loan. Dreams come true but not for me, you went and kept it all for you. Where were you when I was just sleeping in cars?”. It opens with ten seconds of drumming, setting up a swinging soul beat that does not relent, before a full-blown assault of electric keyboard trills, dramatic melodic string strikes, a piercing fuzz guitar, backing vocals demanding an answer to the question “where were you?” all merely supporting Lady Wray’s emphatic appreciation of the good times she finds herself in. ‘Games People Play’ has a similar feel of time-honoured treasure about it, reflecting on the “silly shit you do when you’re young”. All the way though, this is a standout record in which Lady Wray fully expresses the avalanche of music ideas she possesses, a collection proving the best things really are worth waiting for.

Buy a vinyl copy of the album here: https://www.discogs.com/release/21903340-Lady-Wray-Piece-Of-Me

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Caleb Nichols – Ramon

It is quite a bold move to base a conceptual project around a song character on a classic album then moulding it musically to the style of pop masters like The Beatles. If you want the audience to accept your premise you must at least create something that can sit in tandem with work established as amongst the greatest of all time, otherwise it looks like mere bandwagon riding. In taking the Mr. Mustard character from ‘Abbey Road’ and imagining him as a queer icon, digging into the early twentieth century life that shaped a man who would end up in 1969 living in a park, yelling at people with a ten bob note up his nose, Caleb Nichols set himself that very challenge. Opening tune ‘Listen To The Beatles’ lays Caleb’s cards on the table from the outset, although it should also be noted that a favourable comparison to Elliott Smith would be wholly appropriate with the tone of this song. No shame there, if ever there was an artist who processed and brilliantly reconfigured the bittersweet essence of late sixties Beatle music it was Elliott. ‘Dog Days,’ with its driving rhythms and destabilising section of head voices sitting jarringly underneath this pure pop tune, shows an artist with the range to operate on a similar level. ‘Run Rabbit Run’ realizes the considerable feat of tapping into both McCartney’s love of an elaborate, juicy melody and simultaneously Lennon’s world-weary, laid-back posturing.

The tiny details that the Beatles sprinkled over their own studio work are lovingly applied here; ahead of ‘Ramon’ there is a burst of applause a-la ‘Bungalow Bill’ but Caleb is alert to the power in a contrast between tracks revisiting the Elliott/George Harrison mode and a wonderful dash of melancholy it is too, ending with the most Beatle-esque of shifts into a solitary, gloriously sunny, major chord. And whilst I make these fab comparisons, it must be emphasised that these are all superbly written, totally new songs that are merely working within the same open-minded pop template as the Beatles and executing it with class, there is a major difference between this and a bland pastiche. ‘She’s The Beard’ is a knowingly bonkers slice of rocking psychedelia and a splendid example of what Caleb has done. The strength in the song is all in the musical elements, the lubricious descending chord patterns of the chorus especially; that is the thing that made Beatles music so timeless. Yes, they mastered the art first, but I would argue that if you want to make perfect sounding pop this is still the way to go.

Brevity can be a powerful weapon in this context also and this suite of eleven songs do fly past in thirty-six brilliant minutes. The central character, Mean Mr Mustard, is addressed directly in ‘Captain Custard’ alongside a teetering McCartney la-la-la chorus line while album highlight ‘Jerome’ is a sprightly, earworm of a tune that crystalizes everything wonderful about Britpop across the decades. The treasures do not abate, within moments ‘Mustard’s Blues’ showers the listener in sexy fuzz guitar soloing. That yearning indie-folk element returns on ‘I Can’t Tell You’ but once more, this is a great song almost guilty of getting out too quick, thus underselling the brilliance in the writing. ‘From A Hole In The Road’ stares into some unending dark abyss before falling gloriously into the stars with the words “I still dream of you” spiralling around our heads. We end with a serene and moving acoustic ballad ‘I Fell In Love On Christmas Day’ which, for such a Beatle related project seems apt, love is all you need after all. In our modern musical landscape there is so much Beatle Juice around, there has been for decades and blatant association is not enough in itself to make a great record. But when you approach the task like Caleb Nichols has, like the Beatles themselves did, by making the nuts and bolts of melodic song writing and imagination within your lyrical flourishes the core elements of the work, then brilliant music can still result; that is exactly what has happened with ‘Ramon’, a real hidden gem buried in the debris of 2022 album releases, check it out.

Buy a vinyl copy of ‘Ramon’ here: https://www.discogs.com/release/23691227-Caleb-Nichols-Ramon

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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2022

Laura Jurd – The Big Friendly Album

The four-piece band that trumpeter Laura Jurd rose to prominence in, Dinosaur, are a wonderful explosion of expressive free-flowing jazz-fusion occupying their own unique niche. Not exactly heavy, neither is much of their music an easy listen, it is a complex, often fast paced, mash-up of electronic jazz stylings with a progressive rock edge and echoes of Miles Davis late sixties Avant Garde makeover; Dinosaur are a cavalcade of modern and vintage sound that command attention. However, for Jurd and fellow Dinosaur keyboard player (and husband) Elliot Galvin real life has conjured up some magical fusion of its own thanks to their becoming parents. The profound and practical impacts this new phase brought to their music was stunningly displayed within this years Laura Jurd solo project, ‘The Big Friendly Album,’ a record on which Laura has really been able to propel her horizons down far more unrestrictedly melodic avenues.

Still, the story is not as straight forward as that. Firstly, the body of composition presented on the album was worked up in the early months of 2020, prior to the couple’s baby even being part of the conversation. Secondly, Laura had the name of the project in mind from the outset, this was always designed as an exploration into more traditionally built music with a big jazz band sound. She envisaged something that was joyful, a music that invited you in and when waving goodbye, it ensured you left with a smile on your face. Which leads me to one further misconception one might take from the records title, that this is anything but a children’s record. That said, it is jazz music of a kind that would not send children (or jazz detractors) diving for the nearest exit. This music is all sublime and pulls off the rare trick of appearing simple whilst there is so much occurring deep within those grooves.

‘Sleepless’ is a fitting example (a knowing title that speaks to many new parents no doubt), it is built around an insistent electric bass riff played by Ruth Goller. That, along with some guitar parts that work around the same pattern with rather rock sounding references, provide a spine of a pattern that imbeds into your head even as the hooks break down midway through, making space for some Jurd soloing and elegant piano flourishes, when the riffing returns you barely notice so much is going because everything is so easy on the ear. These juxtapositions feature throughout, the band do indeed offer a big, almost New Orleans-esque, sound in places but they contrast it with jagged intervals where Jurds wide ranging progressive background comes into view. She has hinted in recent interviews that this thread to her work will not be a one-off, the onset of parenthood necessitates a more ad-hoc grip on creative spaces in both her and Galvin’s lives. This can lead to less deliberation over decisions, a greater instinct and inevitably sometimes a more immediate sounding, accessible end product. That is exactly what we have with ‘The Big Friendly Album,’ a collection that wins you over thanks to the joy and delight of its creation heard pouring out of your speakers, it also happens to be rather fine music deserving of a large audience.

Buy a vinyl copy of the album here: https://laurajurd.bandcamp.com/album/the-big-friendly-album

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