Tag 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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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

Night Beats – Outlaw R&B

Jump back five years and the Night Beats were one of the bands offering up authentic rough edged garage rock infused with roadrunner rhythm & blues. The bands 2016 album, their third LP release, ‘Who Sold My Generation’ was one of the standout records of that year and, after catching them on their UK tour, I felt certain that they were headed into the same space occupied by Jack White and the Black Keys. The Night Beats, since their formation in 2009, have always been the musical vehicle for singer and songwriter Danny ‘Lee Blackwell’ Rajan Billingsley and he has been the only constant member in an ever-rotating line up. This can be problematic for bands with this kind of set up (the Waterboys are a good example who spring to mind) because the elevation of the music can be dependent on the central artist finding a similarly tuned in group of players to realise the vision and let it fly. With that 2016 album he had Black Rebel Motorcycle Club bassist Robert Levon Been playing and producing; a combination resulting in the Night Beats really locking into something. But Been was not a permanent member and these constant changes resulted in a drop in momentum after 2016.

All this made it even more of a welcome surprise and delight that, with ‘Outlaw R&B,’ the Night Beats appear to have spectacularly locked back into their mojo. Written and recorded in the aftermath of wildfires in Blackwell’s hometown of California and lockdown, the singer says of the release that it is aimed at “those whose minds aren’t sold by perfect pitch and clean fingernails.” If by that he means it is a step away from the 2019 Dan Auerbach produced ‘Myth Of A Man’, a record made with more senior session hands and with a rather more polished sheen, then he is bang on the money. ‘Outlaw R&B’ is a return to the very sound and groove that gave the Night Beats their stand-out edge in the first place; sixties garage echoes, pounding aggressive bluesy grooves and melodious songs that leave the listener wanting more. It revs its engines from the off, ‘Stuck In The Morning’ crashing in propelled by a marching beat and punctuated by resonant, dramatic swings on the chiming electric guitar. Album openers are, generally, positioned to tempt you to dive into a record, if this doesn’t do exactly that then my recommendations are not for you; there is simply nothing not to like here.

‘Revolution’ is the first of many sugarcoated hooks, its lyrics celebrating the action of turning your heals and pushing a rebellion of the mind into real motion, the whole tune is brilliantly shadowed by wild fuzz guitar lines. ‘New Day’ has a break of day freshness while ‘Hell In Texas’ is the sound of fuzztone rock ‘n’ rollers crawling through the hot desert; in fact, it’s rather like a distant cosmic cousin of ‘Ghost Riders In The Sky.’ ‘Thorns’ prods your ear lobes with its insistent hooks and sharp twangy edges while there is more than a tiny hint of the Velvets white light and heat with ‘Never Look Back’ (a track which features Robert Levon Been). Again though, it is those sixties primitive brush strokes that make the tune a welcome nugget, the jubilant backing vocals, and the pure pop punch of the top line. ‘Shadow’ has a spooky drone vibe then ‘Crypt’ demolishes brick walls to emphasize that, in essence, the Night Beats have a rock ‘n’ roll soul. ‘Cream Johnny’ indulges in spiraling psychedelics, falsetto vocals and deep space squelches that disappear into orbit and make way for an acoustic guitar fronted section. ‘Ticket’ drives us off a cliff into the darkness and closer ‘Holy Roller’ sends the album off in a puff of Stooges-like acoustic/electric riff-toting smoke planting a seed of lingering fuzz guitar spreading through your brain. This is 40 minutes and eleven songs worth of pure, wild, raw, thumping goodness.

You can buy a copy of the album here: https://amzn.to/4uzPlOB

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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

Silver Synthetic – Silver Synthetic

Silver Synthetic are a New Orleans band born out of the punky fuzz excursions of that city’s Bottomfeeders. Around 2017 they found that amid the rough-edged garage creations they had built up there were other kinds of songs emerging. These tunes were crying out for a different sort of treatment, they didn’t seem to belong to the current bands style, sounding far more in need of a group with a facility for variation, refined flourishes alongside an ear for melody and texture. So it was that the creator of this tantalizing pile of songs, Chris Lyons, recruited long time musical cohorts and fellow Bottomfeeders to form Silver Synthetic. This self-titled debut album, the end result of their journey, is an artfully crafted jewel of Alt-Americana, timeless in its clarity and surely a record that will delight those who discover it for years to come.

Opener ‘In The Beginning’ sets its stall out with easy country-rock vibes, there is an unmistakable hint of Beachwood Sparks in the air and a curiously inviting tone to the expressive electric guitar playing. ‘Unchain Your Heart’ is pure acid-country gold, a momentum fueled rhythmic guitar chug that makes the simple plea to “unchain your heart, bring it back to me.” Its that classic killer number two album track that puts a record on the front foot with the listener, locking them in for the duration. You just cannot fail to get into this track, it is the very definition of infectious simplicity in terms of lyric and ear worm hooks but on top of that there’s still space for a burning, bending guitar solo that lifts the track even higher.

This happens again on ‘Around The Bend,’ in which the song hangs itself deliciously around lush guitar hooks, chiming folk-rock chord changes and yet another easy on the ear chorus. About two thirds of the way through there’s a gear change, everything speeds up and the track literally accelerates its way to a conclusion. Simple musical furnishings these may well be, but they are tried and tested movements that will always work when executed, as they are here, by a band that sound totally locked into each other.

The entire album is without fault, every song enhances the collective tone. ‘Chasm Killer’ is mellower but just when you think you are familiar with the formulae here, Silver Synthetic throw the heaviest of golden chord changes in the chorus and let rip more sumptuous melodic fuzz guitar ploughing. ‘Out Of The Darkness’ is appropriately urgent, reminding me a little of the way the Velvet Underground took a charge at a song like ‘Foggy Notion.’ ‘Unholy Love’ floats on a vacillating sea of summer harmonies, forlorn guitar strokes and a soft underpinning of organ; in other words, it is rather exquisite. ‘Some Of What You Want’ arrives with drive, this time the band show how seemingly straight forward arrangement ideas can result in head spinning excitement; they do this by opening with a guitar solo then breaking down to a middle-eight section that lands right before the final chorus. Finally, LP closer ‘On The Way Home’ sets the sun down on a song collection that has warmed the heart and mind of this listener and with just eight songs to thrill over, Silver Synthetic have definitely left me wanting more.

Danny Neill

You can purchase a physical copy of the album here: https://amzn.to/3Q5rQ0K

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Fruit Tree Records Of The Year, Records of 2021

Esther Rose – How Many Times

What Esther Rose proves here is that tradition only comes alive when an artist inhabits it fully; and she does so with a conviction that make her songs on this album feel anything but inherited. By that I mean, Esther’s sound is wholly classic country in its tone, it has acoustic guitar alongside tasteful electric and steel guitar textures, rolling fiddle, easy swinging drum strokes and is topped off with a voice that is achingly pure. The songs, especially on this collection, sing of heartbreak and relationship crisis points but they are varnished with hope, resolve and a lust to kick back from these bumps in the road. Above all though and the main reason why my opening sentence carries some weight, is that these are fantastic melodic songs that have insistent repeat-play worthy pleasures. This is great songwriting, and the album serves the songs so well, with simple vintage style production breathing life, heartbreak and soul into every tune.

It became an album of 2021 for me primarily because it delivered on the ingredient that all the essential albums should; every song was a winner and across the whole set the standard did not drop. OK, it is a shorter than average album clocking in at 35 minutes, but then there are classic Beatles albums that only run to the half hour mark and essentially, this is a record that does all it needs to do within its time. Esther did make some reference to a relationship break up at the time of the release, which maybe explains why there is so much feeling and belief injected into every performance. The tune ‘Songs Remain’ is a splendid example of this as it appears to fondly yet a little mournfully, recall music indelibly connected to a partner. She sings the heavily loaded line “I am glad it was you who broke my heart, because it had to be you who broke my heart” seeming to suggest that the hurting has only served to instill those songs with greater meaning. The fade is quite poignant too, as the sound of a rocking western style tune cuts through to the backdrop of pouring down rain, like a brief audio flashback.

Even though heartbreak is a recurring theme on the record, it doesn’t ever become a song cycle that brings the listener down. Quite the opposite, even on the title track opener Esther is asking “how many times will you break my heart?” while the music is somehow celebratory, as if already picturing the day she emerges from this ordeal a stronger person. ‘Are You Out There’ acknowledges that there is no one on a New Year’s Eve or Saturday night that the singer wants to kiss, but as she asks the question the song sets out by name, there is more certainty than doubt bleeding into the enquiry. All the way the singer is finding strength even as she stands alone. This is an album that anyone determined to pick themselves up after a fall should make part of their musical life. The poppier moments, such as ‘Keeps Me Running,’ slide and swing like audio medicine that can only be administered on a honky-tonk hardwood floor while the more reflective numbers, such as the beautiful ‘When You Go,’ massage the heart strings and shower this set with the many shades of emotion tied to a relationship ending. The ace in Esther Rose’s pack though is that you do not really have to get too deep and heavy into those details to enjoy the record, these songs are just so musically satisfying, like sweet vintage sonic honey.

Danny Neill

Get a physical copy of the album here: https://amzn.to/4va78f2

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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 share 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.

Danny Neill

Get a vinyl pressing of the album here: https://amzn.to/49wTZEG

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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 allows a free reign to drink copiously from that Velvets stream without inhibition.

That said, they are no mere 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 as well, 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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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 they 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. 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.

Danny Neill

Find a physical copy of the album here: https://amzn.to/4vqYJUV

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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 receiving 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 two examples I just mentioned is simply that, to my ears, 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 a very predictable and dull listening experience.

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 with a natural grace 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 any 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.

Danny Neill

Find a physical copy of ‘Man Made’ here: https://amzn.to/42Rs5zD

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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 sounder-in-chief, 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 bait that hooked him from the outset, the music. In the intervening years you were as likely to spot Greg around guitar and vinyl stores as you were a recording studio and typically, he did not countenance any return to record making until hitting a rich vein of songwriting form. 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 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 and their collective enthusiasm for a 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 peril when Greg goes for broke and lays bare the tragedy in the back of his mind, all show a musical maestro in the primitive style. 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, driving 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 retreating 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 one others 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 falling back 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.

Danny Neill

Find a physical copy of The Reigning Sound’s ‘A Little More Time With’ here: https://amzn.to/4tR6D8Z

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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 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, 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 of 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 heard in 2021 music.

Danny Neill.

Find a physical copy Emma-Jean Thackray’s Yellow here: https://amzn.to/3RBhNAW

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