Tag Archives: New Release Reviews

New Release Reviews

Sam And Louise Sullivan – Love And Devotion

This is a record made by a duo who were raised, schooled, and immersed in the folk tradition but who wish to reach for something far away from that world sonically. In fact, they are looking at the whole other realm of FM radio with a sound that heavily references Buckingham and Nicks, the foundation of Fleetwood Mac’s gear change from blues purists to the dramatic pop sheen of their most celebrated era. There might just be something similar happening here, although the Sullivan siblings have not specifically grown a reputation within the folk world, if you listen close enough you can definitely detect the background embedded into the harmony rich, melodically memorable core of their songs. Take the opening track, which was also the lead single ‘Down On Love,’ the voices switch verses and take a chorus each as the song bounces along like the theme tune to a 70s sitcom, electric guitar fills adding to a mix that presents like a very polished pop brew. But hidden behind the modern production is a song that could exist very agreeably as an acoustic number, the drama belonging in the character driven approach of the leading male and female voices. Those vocals unite very well on the title track too, switching between long held falsetto backing notes and the semi spoken recitals of Sam whilst guitar lines send jolts of electricity through the mixing board.

So, who are the pair making these sounds? Well, Sam and Louise Sullivan’s story reads like a long, looping folk song beginning on an old farm school along the Tualatin River in Oregon, where the brother and sister first learned the American and British traditional tunes that informed their musical instincts. After moving to New York in 2001 Sam fell hard for the mandolin and the finger‑twisting guitar of Reverend Gary Davis, while Louise immersed herself in Manhattan’s Irish sessions and sang with the Young People’s Chorus of New York. As a family band they played everywhere from Carnegie Hall to sea‑shanty gatherings at the South Street Seaport, all while enduring the kind of formative, slightly chaotic road trips (Elvis and Woody Guthrie pilgrimages, contra dances, old‑time festivals) that tend to fuse siblings into lifelong collaborators. College brought literature and visual arts, Philadelphia brought ceramics for Louise and high‑school teaching for Sam, and eventually songwriting arrived as a natural extension of their creative lives together. What began as home recordings made on a USB mic between loads of laundry grew into a fully-fledged band once they met Kevin Basko and Emily Moales, who nudged them toward amplifiers, reel‑to‑reel tape, and a looser, more immediate way of capturing performances. Their records ‘Papier Mâché,’ ‘Sweet Enough,’ and now ‘Love And Devotion’ balance arena‑sized pop ambitions with the trad DNA they cannot shake: the ballads, the ’70s harmonies, the blood‑born blend that echoes the folk‑inspired ceramics of their mother and the offbeat Americana chronicled by their father. Even as they lean into digital textures, that sweet old‑time feeling remains stitched into every song as this album unfolds.

Continuing with ‘There You Go Again,’ dreamed into existence in those bedazzled half-asleep, half-awake moments, gliding on a breath of a repeated backing refrain and a corrugated guitar figure that holds it all together, the otherness of the sound double accentuated by a shift at the close not unlike a tape changing speed. ‘Ms Mercedes’ is a deceptively simple sounding character study and yet, the easy on the ear portrait manages to throw everything but the kitchen sink into the production and arrangement without ever overcrowding the space. ‘Since I Left’ is a harmony rich back porch banjo ballad fed through an electric folk power blender while ‘Doing Time’ has a kind of resigned exhale that suits the reflective nature of the lyrics perfectly. It finishes with a solo that has an unexpected bagpipe texture overcoating the guitars too. ‘My Guy’ arrives with seconds of hazy backwards tape effect that re-appear later, alongside other rapid dream state audio sensations, in an otherwise straight-shooting song where psychedelics are applied liberally, tastefully but far from overplayed. ‘After All These Years’ has the thrust and appealing verse resolve then chorus eruption of a hit record. ‘Irish Goodbye’ is an emotive ballad of letting go before we close on ‘Treehugger,’ a pop-rock song pulsating with an electro heart and clearly pointing to further sonic and stylistic evolutions for this duo. They are surely going places, the rich offerings of craft, ideas, and execution to be heard here alone convince me of that. ‘Love And Devotion’ may not beat you over the head with its quality, but it will subtly entice you in and then lay you out deliciously song by song. Excellent album.

Danny Neill

You can buy a download of the album via this link: https://link.amazon/B0i7uJArG

Sam & Louise Sullivan by Betsey Carroll
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New Release Reviews

Wills Van Doorn – Enduro

It might raise a few eyebrows if I were to describe making an out-and-out power pop album a brave move, in doing so creating a sit up and take notice statement release, but I believe this to be both and I am happy to make that call. The truth about writing and recording great pop songs in the classicist’s mould, is that it is actually a tough undertaking to get right but when someone does, the end results sound effortless. Taking the trouble to structure chord patterns that stimulate the senses to feel an emotion, then growing a melodic pattern that pulls a listener in and holds them there before finally icing the cake with lyrics that speak in easily understood, poetically inclined thoughts is a craft that needs a degree of talent to effectively realise. The other thing that relatively new artists, which Van Doorn still counts as, can enjoy is that they often have a lot of low hanging fruit in the ideas chamber of their mind. The simplest yet often most immediately memorable song ideas present themselves without inhibition to artists like Wills, who is still at the exciting early phase of his career where he can find a natural and honest sound without inhibition, free from the fear that he might be repeating his own previous work.

And so it is that we now find Wills Van Doorn really making some big music noise with ‘Enduro,’ ironic when you consider how quietly he has been carving out his own corner of Portland’s power‑pop underground. Wills building blocks were a handful of early home‑recorded releases which are now hitting full bloom with the fully fledged melodic craft on display in ‘Enduro.’ A multi‑instrumentalist with a fondness for bright hooks and tightly wired arrangements, Van Doorn first surfaced with the 2020 EP ‘Run With You,’ a lo‑fi glimpse of the tuneful instincts he is now sharpening and evolving today with this bold new album. Over the past six years Wills has embedded himself further into the city’s DIY ecosystem, writing and refining the songs that would become his debut album, all while developing a reputation for meticulous preparation in the studio. That discipline meets a streak of spontaneity on the new record which was produced in a whirlwind weekend by Johnny Payne and powered by the rhythmic drive of Beach House drummer James Barone. The album captures Van Doorn heading off down a new highway, one where his classicist pop sensibilities, the Big Star pop punch, the Lemon Twigs‑ish theatricality, all lock into place with a confident sense of momentum.

That assuredness can be seen in spades with a song like ‘Aero,’ which glides into view like a cloud raining sensuous George Harrison guitar washes over everything in sight; that it also has octave leaping verses and a heavenly chorus is almost incidental, a case of if the sound does not floor you then the song itself surely will. The title track enters with the jangle of Wills electric guitar, after which an off-mic count in launches the maximum, both juicy and chunky, guitar riffs with a bang and our lead vocalist sets in motion a journey into song. The classic sixties and seventies pop reference points pile up, ‘Ever Wonder Why’ ticks off subliminal ELO style textures, a suggestion but not overcooked helping of Beach Boys type backing vocals and a guitar solo that has so much trebly bite it might just blow your speakers. But my main point is that taking these incredible influences is all well and good, but it is what Wills is doing with them that makes the difference, he is making great sounding songs that are entirely his. And it is with these standard measures that the ten-track album plays on, refusing to sing with a solo voice when a harmonious, multi-voiced serenade will propel you to the ninety-ninth floor, steadfastly resisting to reprise a verse if a dreamily middle eight can open up another dimension but equally holding back when a pared down electric piano and vocal introduction (‘Wake Up’) is already hitting the spot without over decoration. But then that same song, clocking in at under three minutes, walks into another space aglow with a fruity organ break and slam-dunking fuzz guitar solo. This simultaneously complex yet oh-so simple pleasure of an album does so much in half an hour, it gets in and gets out grinning atop the enviable job satisfaction of delivering a power pop album par-excellence!

Danny Neill

You can get the album via this link: https://enigmaticbrunchrecords.bandcamp.com/album/enduro

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New Release Reviews

Almost Friends – Again, Not Again

I have found such delight in the discovery of this superb debut album by an act I had previously never heard of, that it prompted me to ponder with some frustration the crowded field they are about to occupy. There has to be a space for quieter music, for sounds that do not demand much, or any, amplification to hit their targets. But sometimes it can feel that the convenience of writing and recording for the bedroom artist leads to an introspection overindulgence. There are so many gentle troubadours staring at their feet, strumming a couple of chords at a painfully slow pace, whispering their woes into a recording device that the more cynical listener might enquire, is this really how you feel, or are you just performing like that because it is easy? I do wonder if a stricter critical ear might benefit these artists, injecting them with a motivation to work harder and actually write a tune that people will remember and enjoy listening to. I do not know if the acoustic duo Almost Friends had this kind of production encouragement (and given the main mans history I doubt they needed it anyway) but supposing for the sake of argument they did, it absolutely worked. This is a soft, delicate album of acoustic instrumentals and melodically rich songs that show definitively how it should be done. Furthermore, it is proof that when there is a finer quality to the music, composition that has been harvested from a pure grain, this kind of style resonates with as much power and impact as any rock band.

Almost Friends are an acoustic duo consisting of Aggi Vrettou and Arturo Barretti, and their independently released ‘Again, Not Again’ moves with the tranquil hum of songs written in the margins of ordinary life. Essentially, they are born of Konstantinos Protopapas, who appears as Arturo here but is also known to some as Gus Boggar. He is a Greek multi-project musician and songwriter, a founding member of Effigy who later flexed his psych/kraut muscles in Chickn as well as with Prins Obi. So far so Bevis Frond, so all good with me. This project is built on intimate folk, pop‑folk and sparse singer‑songwriter arrangements, the record lingers on repetition, memory and the strange comfort of returning to the same unresolved feelings. Arturo says of these pieces, they were “written quietly, in between things, in moments that did not seem important at the time.” They carry the hush of late‑night rooms and unsteady voices, tracing distance and closeness at once while drawing on influences from Dan Reeder and Bill Callahan to Josienne Clarke, Myriam Gendron and Elliott Smith. A track has already been selected for an upcoming FATEA compilation, with mastering on the recordings the work of Iraklis Vlachakis.

The album shifts between lead vocals from both Aggi and Arturo with a sprinkling of solo guitar pieces, which ensures the song sequence never sits still. The guitar pieces are especially engaging; the strings being picked with the composure and skill of a classical player. Take ‘Like Everybody Else’ as an example, it moves through distinct progressions in a way that reminded me of the early Genesis piece ‘Horizons,’ only this is better. Aggi’s voice has a softly glowing clarity, it feels almost whispered into the air yet beneath that gentleness you sense a deeper strength she never needs to fully reveal. It is a steady, ringing presence that cuts cleanly through the room, so opening the record with her unaccompanied vocal on ‘Valentine’ is a canny curtain raiser. When the subject matter turns dark, they cleverly counterbalance it with positive energy, like on ‘Lovely To Return After A Fall’ wherein depression is knocking on the singer’s door, but it is faced down with a banjo led stomper that is sprightly and defiant. By contrast, the Arturo vocal on ‘Leave Me Alone’ is a thing of brooding menace until he hits the satisfying release of the chorus. There are lighter numbers too, like ‘Fishing Blues’ that has the breezy air of old-time country blues. It all leads us to closing number ‘To Pray Or Not,’ which is something of an epic, pulling on all the dramatic arrangement structures Arturo gets to refine in his other, more sonically expansive, projects. By ending this musical journey in such dark, gothic splendour Almost Friends underline what a strong piece of work this is. The influences I mention are all valid but ultimately, this is an independently crafted piece that exists in a space of its own and I strongly advise both the connoisseurs and the curious to go and pay this album a visit.

Danny Neill

You can get a download or limited edition CD of the album here: https://gusboggar.bandcamp.com/album/again-not-again

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New Release Reviews

Andrew Sa – American Rough

It might seem like country music has done all its evolving by this point, that the end game has been arrived at with its current mainstream pop sheen success. Where can it go from here other than reach back and try to recapture that western grit and sawdust authenticity that made it such a vital staple of American roots music in the twentieth century? Well, no, it is not quite as simple as that because with this debut album by Andrew Sa, there is an undeniable sense of country music making one further great leap forward. Admittedly it is less to do with the music, which draws on a multitude of vintage styles and influences, but we will come to that, and more to do with the straight edged posturing the original country music establishment prided itself on. Those good ol’ boys did not care much for long hairs, for hippies, for different ethnicities and they certainly had no place for queers. All of which makes the arrival of Andrew Sa quite the bold entrance. His music is informed by the folk and blues storytelling traditions for sure, but the real country DNA to his sound reaches back to the mournful ballads sung by Patsy Cline and Webb Pierce. On top of that Andrew proudly sings with vulnerability, raw emotion and tenderness. He is free to express, to sing of his experiences in the gay community and demand his songs a place in the country canon without inhibition.

The most direct reference to his place in the lineage can be found in lead single ‘Lavender Cowboy.’ It is a purposeful shout out to his late friend Patrick Haggerty, whose early seventies band Lavender Country were a pioneering influence on gay activism in the country community, but were ultimately shut out by an industry hostile to their open sexuality. Of the song Sa says, “I was chasing that elusive happy/sad bop, writing most of the song on my tenor guitar in a hotel room near Seattle, WA following Patrick’s ‘Celebration of Life.’ He inspired countless people and I wanted to capture the essence of that. There’s an old novelty/humor song by the same name that’s rather homophobic, so I also hope to rewrite the narrative on the ‘Lavender Cowboy.’” The song is a thing of yearning, pedal steel enhanced sweeping, elegant beauty. The perfect theme tune that ‘Midnight Cowboy’ never had. It also provides an opportunity for Andrew to flex his vocal range, his voice a mix of the buoyant balladeer and the fragile, cracked up font that is wrestling not to be overcome with his heavy feelings. A similar combination can be heard on ‘You Turned Me On’ although this one leans harder into a southern soul groove, the horns pushing the chorus to an elevation that when it arrives, positively rains down on us with sumptuous glory.   

Andrew Sa’s path to ‘American Rough’ begins in the cab of his father’s ’86 Ford F150, packed in with his siblings and absorbing the emotional charge of Reba, the Eagles, and top‑40 country while his dad occasionally pulled a Gibson Les Paul from under the bed like a secret doorway into a former life. After his mother remarried and launched a karaoke business, Sa was nudged onto stages as a child, already gravitating toward Patsy Cline’s saddest songs, an early sign of the aching balladry that defines this debut. He wandered for a while, falling hard for jazz singers and discovering queer icons like Rufus Wainwright and k.d. lang, whose unapologetic artistry cracked open his sense of what a queer performer could be. Acting stints in the Bay Area and Portland came and went, but a songwriting class at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music rerouted everything, pulling him into a community of queer country misfits and collaborators (Liam Kazar, Sully Davis, Lavender Country, and the gloriously camp Cosmic Country Showcase) where his siren‑like croon became a fixture. By 2021, early sketches with Kazar led him to producer H.C. McEntire, whose raw, country rasp and emotional clarity felt like the missing piece. Together with co‑producer/engineer Missy Thangs and a wide cast of musicians, they built this album in North Carolina and Chicago; a tender, cinematic album meditating on queer longing, Chicago nights, and Sa’s evolving sense of masculinity, held together by the trust and vulnerability made possible under the guidance of two women at the helm. Ultimately this is an album that knocks down doors, not least to unleash an artist whose potential reaches way beyond the confines of a traditional community he is already pushing into a new era.

Danny Neill

You can get the album via this link: https://amzn.to/3QMIClY

Andrew Sa by Alexa Viscius
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New Release Reviews

Beth Orton – The Ground Above

Beth Orton first began to surface around thirty years ago, the charismatically detached voice that had featured a little on electronic dance tracks began to plough her own folktronica field with the release of debut album ‘Trailer Park.’ It was a graceful thing of acoustically decorated beauty, full of agelessly memorable songs instantly marking Beth out as an artist capable of pushing folk into bold new 21st century territories. I caught her live for the first time around then playing the Cambridge Folk Festival and it was immediately clear, observing the largely cross-legged crowd with the question “is it a folk thing?” that she did not belong in anyone’s club. As the subsequent albums and passing years have proved definitively, Orton is not in deference to a style aesthetic or servicing any musical eras and attitudes, she solely fuelling her art and the process of creativity. This, of course, has made Beth impossible to pigeonhole, it is a rare occurrence that a new album comes out from this writer that meets the pre-conceptions attached to it. If she were to ever produce a record worthy of the folktronica tag again, you can be certain it would arrive at the moment it was least expected. But the key detail to all the musical surfing Beth is free to explore is this, whenever she puts out new music it is always something worth digging into. Her peers and inspirations are not merely introspective singer-songwriters, instead she has the art project cache of a Tom Waits or David Byrne, forever tuned in and alert to the real-life stimulations and feelings that feed into her music, no matter what mode or texture the end product possesses.

That said, ‘The Ground Above’ dramatically stands out as a Beth Orton album like no other. If you are looking for that fanfare worthy lead track like ‘Stolen Car’ it is not here. Keeping an ear out for an americana inflected pot-boiler like ‘Concrete Sky’ will see you coming up short. For starters, the suite of eight songs is more like an ensemble creation than anything this artist has in her back catalogue. These pieces, especially at the front end of the record, are closer to meditations or celestial hymns than songs with locked in frameworks. That is not to say that they lack melody or even a rhythmical back bone, but there is a looseness to the vibes captured from these sessions that implies a group of musicians feeling and reacting as they recorded. A circle of trusted conspirators succeeded in turning the studio into a living organism, like a kind of communal breathing. Multi‑instrumentalists Shahzad Ismaily and Sam Beste (Vernon Spring) sketching out shifting emotional weather, drummers Chris Vatalaro and Tom Skinner pushing and pulling the momentum like tides, bassist Tom Herbert anchoring the undertow. Guitars from Dave Okumu, Grey McMurry, and Adrian Utley flicker in and out of frame, while Paul Butler’s presence lends a subtly glowing architecture. Within this constellation, Orton rises as producer, songwriter, singer, and bandleader with a clarity of intent. The music feels taller, more spacious even as Beth has learned to trust the air around and allow it to carry her voice towards a raw, open, vulnerable but honest place.

One of the most revealing insights Orton has offered ahead of this release is that all the songs “are looking through the prism of the years from many directions at once, I’m working with the unconscious, something like lucid dreaming.” This is overwhelmingly evoked during the eight minute plus title track, a piece in which Beth’s voice sounds absolutely choked amidst the stimuli and flashes of memory that engulf her. “Love is the only certainty there is” she sings, and in so doing she hits the mainline of lifeblood that is pulling her through. This music celebrates the kind of love that hits so hard it knocks us off course into new pastures, whilst never kidding itself that these lightning bolts are not closely accompanied by equal amounts of grief, hurt, and pain. As such it is the currency of universal truth Beth is dealing in here, “ecstatic as a mothers love, tearing through the sky to the ground above,” and these sonic landscapes absolutely burn thanks to the natural root ingredients. If it were not for the stuttering, trippy beats and waves of electronic ambience that bookend the piece, it could almost be described as free jazz and even though it is not that, there are enough sonic reference points throughout the album to make the connection. Each song progresses so satisfyingly that they surely were sequenced this way intentionally, a shining example of an album that needs playing in the correct running order. Without this, the joyous release felt on closer ‘Otherside’ would be lost, the sense of journey and passage nailed down as Beth sings of finally weeping while birdsong ushers in a new dawn. The sense of survival and desire to squeeze all the good out of life that we can lay our hands on is tangible here, on the other side of a night filled with the unsettling merging of thoughts and memories both lived and inexplicably inherited. It spins itself into a rousing finale that has our singer projecting out to the sky too, the crack in her voice now the product of strength rather than the punctures heard at the outset. After multiple plays, I am already recalibrating my Beth Orton chronology in readiness to acknowledge this as her greatest album. It clearly argues that she makes her best music not when shackled by the idea of recording a hit, but actually when free to paint the truest picture possible, from an unlimited musical palate, of the life and energy rotating all around her.

Danny Neill

You can buy the album on CD here: https://amzn.to/4vtQTds

Beth Orton by Kasia Wozniak
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New Release Reviews

Tift Merritt – Sugar

Country music is having a big moment these days, if anything it can plausibly be claimed this is the biggest era since the 1950s where the genre has become a major presence in the mainstream. And I am all for it, even though the real big hitters of our time seem to have a pop sheen so pronounced and polished that the actual country element of the music is reduced to some tassels, cowboy boots, and a brief push on the fiddle. But things getting watered down to suit mass consumption tastes are nothing new in the music world and I always rationalise, at least it opens the door a bit for the real talent to get heard; and when it comes to the real deal, Tift Merritt is exactly that. I first encountered her at a festival around 2005, by which time she was already a couple of albums into what became a distinguished recording career. She burst onto the stage, a fireball of energy and smiles, grabbing the audience by the ears and dousing them with her original country songs that immediately proved this most long running and storied of American music styles had a lot of mileage left in it yet. Tift rocked the festival crowd that day with the simple trick of just being very, very good at performing instantly loveable songs. And yes, Merritt was obviously serious about her art. I began collecting her music that day and these records remain some of the regular go to titles in my collection. If your life is hitting the heights so ecstatically you want to shake it like a tambourine, Tift can step up with the goods just as, at the other end of the scale, should you want to spend some time travelling alone, this songwriter has the writing depth to help us get by.  

Despite all this though, even with the most naturally gifted artists there are still periods where real life takes over and creative conditions shift into another realm, and so this new release ‘Sugar’ is actually a return to recording after a near ten-year gap. Merritt has continued to write in her radiant country‑soul vernacular, but she has also been living the wider life of becoming a mother, serving as a Practitioner‑in‑Residence at Duke University, helping reimagine The Gables as a collaborative arts space in Raleigh, advocating fiercely for musicians’ rights through the Artists Rights Alliance, and simply doing the slow, essential work of being a human being guided by her own instincts. Those years have opened new dimensions in her storytelling, refining her sense of what songs can hold and what they can offer. “Before I made this record, I was looking at the world and thinking, ‘I don’t know what to do except try to put some love out there.’ And for me, singing is the most honest, immediate way to offer love,” Merritt says. “My work has always been about trying to understand what it means to be human at that point in time. But that response has to make room for the personal and the joyful too, we can’t face everything with doom and gloom alone.”

That is a statement which cuts to the core of what makes Tift Merritt’s music so essential, she is honest in her reflections and reactions to real life but never loses sight of her natural desire to lift the spirits through music too. Take as a good example this new album’s ‘Someone To Watch The Band With Me,’ a rousing track in which Tift rages against the easy attainability of everything apart from basic human connection; as she strips all the modern ephemera and gets direct to the point, that basic desire scorches the surface as the chorus hits. Recording ‘Sugar’ in Nashville’s Gold Pacific Studios and putting the emphasis on capturing in the moment verve was exactly the right approach for music that thrives on feeling. ‘Look What Love Just Did’ is another stand out, soulful horns and a heavy sunset key steering the singer’s determination not to lose her wonder at the magic love can summon in a flash. There is a sense of urgency in these beliefs too, something that spills over in bright opener ‘Finest Feelings’ although the flipside of new love is addressed too, devastatingly so as Tift turns her insides out trying to release the hurt felt in ‘Generous.’ The confusion of the modern world appears in songs like ‘Mad Mad World’ and ‘Last Ditch Ultimatum’ (in which Jesus shuts heaven’s doors in frustration at the human race) but by the time we close on ‘Philosopher’s Song’ Tift is searching, with hope and purpose, for “any kindness I can find” again. Should there be any music fans out there unfamiliar with the magic of Merritt, ripe for a discovery that they can believe in today, then this woman’s work is a wonderful place to settle. Tift Merritt returning with songs as alive and vital as this is the kind of sugar we should all delight in.

Danny Neill

You can order a copy of the album here: https://amzn.to/3SrXeHJ

Tift Merritt by Ebru Yildiz
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New Release Reviews

Blue Earth Sound – The St. Louis Sessions EP

The EP remains an important format, that half-way house between an LP and a single, enabling recording musicians to get spontaneously realised cuts into the ears of listeners speedily, rather than waiting on the grander ambitions of an album project. That is exactly the scenario we are presented with here, the end result of some informal sessions that yielded potent produce. It is front loaded with a brace of heavy hitters, firstly ‘Chartreuse’ which is a stunning melange of influence, texture, tone and ideas. The slow shuffle beat brings a trip-hop foundation to the atmosphere, accompanying a deep bass backbone that not only holds the threads together but tantalises with the possibilities that this caught in-the-moment piece offers. With the addition of horns and understated keys, it transforms into a thing of late-night beauty in tandem with a sense of darkening and post-storm humidity. This is identifiably a jazz sound but one that has its dial tuned in to the vibrations of the modern city landscape. Next up ‘Japanese Green’ builds on a meaty groove thrashed out with firmly hit keyboard chords, all of which provide a landscape for some fine brass lines moving into watery keys that send wild explosions of oxygen straight to the surface.

This brand new Blue Earth Sound release was born from a period of momentum and widening horizons for James Weir, who launched the project in 2025 with ‘Cicero Nights.’ That was a debut coloured by late‑night Chicago wanderings, a renewed relationship with the piano, and a circle of collaborators who helped him pivot from his earlier post‑punk and synth‑leaning work into a more atmospheric and reflective mode. That record emerged from basement writing sessions in Humboldt Park and took on its character through sessions with players like drummer Patch Romanowski, trumpeter Will Miller, and engineer Dave Vettraino, establishing Weir’s blend of cinematic jazz, soul inflections, and gently psychedelic textures. As the album gained support from the big-name broadcasters Weir found himself travelling more, and a visit to St. Louis became the catalyst for the next chapter. A casual stopover with drummer and long‑time collaborator Austin LeMoine initially, it turned into a run of informal, living‑room sessions in LeMoine’s newly built home studio, where Weir arrived with loose demos and an openness to letting the music take shape in real time. Local horn players Jawaad Spaan and Josiah Burton joined the fold, and the group landed on a balance of improvisation and later sculpted production, capturing the spark of those spontaneous gatherings.

‘The St. Louis Sessions’ is a document of that loosely evolved creative moment, it actually plays like a natural extension of the world ‘Cicero Nights’ opened but now in new rooms, with new players and the sense of possibility that comes from stepping outside one’s home turf. It is a five-track release that makes its point convincingly in a short space of time and leaves the listener hungry for a directors cut. That said though, there is plenty for us to dig into, especially those aforementioned licks on the second track, there are break sections in here that a hip-hop producer could really make hay with. ‘Danny Boy Voicemail’ does exactly what the title tells us, although who Danny is exactly, I cannot say, before ‘Fresh Air’ equally makes good on its given name. This one is built around a bass line that nearly occupies the space of lead instrument, the ambience of the brass and electronic layers around it rise in the way that morning light breathes across a rain-washed street. Finally, ‘Missouri Midnight’ sets a natural piano figure in motion, giving the ensemble room to answer with a spacious, reflective grace. As extensions of jazz-based excursions go, this does a fine job of building on past foundations and pointing the way to paths yet walked. Keep an ear out for future dispatches.

Danny Neill

Get yourself a copy of the EP via this link: https://amzn.to/4fTjjZB

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New Release Reviews

Oral Habit – A Broken Chord

Isn’t it the truth that sometimes you do not know you are missing something until it comes right back staring you in the face? And so it was with this band, specifically my chance encounter with their song ‘Thin Trippin.’ It instantly summoned sonic senses that were once stimulated on a daily basis, the only thing is those days were over three decades ago. That grazing indie guitar sound, the playing that leans into groove as much as it plays for electric guitar posturing and the uninhibited way they are putting the song across thinking if folks were to mistake it for a pop tune, they could not care less. It has such strong echoes of the early nineties, of a time when UK bands in particular had a purity of intent, they were channelling the debris of the twentieth century cultural life lying around them, those sixties garage records shoved away in family lofts, late night TV cult film re-runs, the abandoned guitars and vintage organs which synthesised electro pop had tried, and failed ultimately, to make redundant, then building a reactionary sound of their own. Which is not to say that Oral Habit are revivalists of the original revivalists, but they are plugging right into those very appealing influences, all slowly abandoned as Britpop shifted the emphasis once again, and even better, they now have a far greater palate to work from. So Oral Habit are a band that also reference grunge, they trip out on psych, they push too hard with feverish college rock abandon, and they wrap their whole essence around a hard kicking rock melange of original songs that emphatically shout they are their own, unique force.

Oral Habit themselves come from a place that makes perfect sense of that unruly spark. The core trio of Charlie Hales alongside his brother Felix and bassist Tippi Lewis, operate with the kind of restless, sleeves‑rolled‑up determination that has always powered the best DIY scenes. Their sound seems born out of pushing whatever battered gear is within reach until it either sings or collapses, the sort of setup where overheated valves, misbehaving pedals and half‑broken amps become part of the aesthetic rather than obstacles to be tidied away. Charlie had been sketching out ideas alone long before the band officially coalesced in 2023, but once the three of them locked in, they quickly found themselves orbiting a wider network of like‑minded psych‑garage outfits scattered across the country; the kind of bands who have had their brains rewired by years of Osees and King Gizzard tours. They have already forged tight bonds with London’s Hot Face and caught the ear of Manchester’s Sour Grapes collective, whose catalogue of fuzz‑leaning misfits places Oral Habit firmly among their own. Most intriguingly, they have connected with the Krautpop! label now settled in Falmouth, a home for the more lysergic corners of the UK underground and a natural landing place for a group whose instincts lean towards the wild, the wired and the wonderfully unrefined.

Above all this is a debut album that sets out as many ideas as it can pack into eleven songs lasting just thirty minutes. Do not let the quickfire nature fool you into spotting a drought on ideas, if anything it is the exact opposite. Oral Habit are flying off on so many tangents they almost keep tripping themselves up as they go crash landing into the next song. It is restless, the opening title track setting out its A-B-C positioning, an avalanche of noise hammering the nail of their ethos into our heads before we explode into the ‘Surface Breaker’ riffage, two minutes of speed shifting, crunching gear changes that challenge the listener to keep up. No one is going to hold them still long enough to pin a label on them either, just as you catch yourself thinking that ‘Faux Fidelity’ has darker gothic shades you are fired into a spin of flanging fuzz guitars. Then we are parachuted into the kind of swampy grunge thrashing that Steve Albini would surely have been happy to put his name to. But they can do hooks as well, in fact the album is overflowing with them, it is just that they never settle in the same place for long. The psych pop connections are pretty real too, there is even a flash during ‘Chekhov’ that recalls Status Quo before they got comfortable in denim, but here again the track ends in a far different realm, heavy rock riffing in its purest mode, like all the unnecessary bits have been taken out. ‘Mystery Gash’ pulls a tantalising facility for tasty major/minor melodic writing out of the bag, hidden depths that are also uncovered on the becalmed organ led closer ‘Crooner & Moon.’ So, for all the whiplash turns and stylistic pile‑ups, there is a real craft at work here, a sense that Oral Habit already understand the value of instinct, immediacy and leaving the edges jagged. This is a debut bursting with potential, announcing a group with the nerve, imagination, and sheer appetite to make their own corner of the guitar‑rock universe feel alive again.

Danny Neill

You can download the album via this link: https://amzn.to/3Q0qip7

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New Release Reviews

Joan As Police Woman – Real Life Evolution

It was the summer of 2006 when I chanced upon Joan Wasser for the first time, performing in her Joan As Police Woman guise, at a venue called the Spitz near central London’s Spitalfields Market. I had no idea who she was, I had not attended the intimate club size room to see her, I think I was there on a press duty covering the support act but stuck around to see the main event. If my memory is correct Joan was playing a weekly residency there for a month. That name was a curiosity obviously, maybe this was going to be a stand-up comedy routine? But as she hit the stage with her trio, playing mostly from the piano stool although occasionally strapping on a guitar, it very quickly dawned on me that I was in the presence of an artist playing a set that I would be, and now actually am, talking about decades later. She had a real command on stage that night, an undeniable authority even extending to breaking a song off midway through to invite people talking at the bar to leave. In a music environment that suddenly seemed to be producing acres of fey introspective singer-songwriter types, over indulgently turning their dreary diary entries into equally dreary ballads, here was someone with a direct line to the core of the human experience, turning that connection into impossibly well-crafted songs that plugged straight into our emotive senses. That night Joan was performing songs from her debut album ‘Real Life,’ a record that sounded like an instant classic to these ears at the time and has not diminished in the slightest over the past twenty years, its quality remains true.

As well as being impressed by the material that night I was equally mesmerized by the musician herself. She clearly had a dexterity beyond your average troubadour; the piano work especially had the touch of a classical performer whereas the guitar songs shone a light on Joan’s harder edges. The same kind of contrasts were apparent in her voice as well, it could be as tender, pure of tone and heartfelt as a Karen Carpenter recital but again, you sensed a more streetwise cutting edge pulsing just below the surface. Joan was obviously a performer of a higher stripe, the kind who gets inside the music she is performing and equally, not the type who would find any artistic merit in dialling in a photocopy performance. Which brings me onto the motivation and welcome rewards that come from this new release, a full ten track re-recording and vivid re-imagining of the songs from ‘Real Life.’ Whilst this is technically an anniversary, there is nothing nostalgic about this project. Joan is reviving the material in this way because she wants to stay connected to it, like Dylan has been doing for decades, she wants to keep her best music alive and free from stagnation to both her audience as well as herself by breathing fresh air and exposing new light to the original templates. Add to that the inevitable changes an artist goes through having lived through another twenty summers, the wisdom and maturity realised, and instantly this work becomes as valid and worthy of immersion as anything in her impressive catalogue.  

It sounds like the songs were felt their way towards depending on Joan’s personal attachments to them in 2026. Nothing is radically re-worked for the sake of it, in fact there are certain tracks that stick respectfully close to their original form, although others feel like they were totally destroyed before being rebuilt from scratch. It is an approach Joan has discussed ahead of this release, stating that if she ever felt bored with older material she would “reinvent them until the joy came back, not as an act of revision, but of rediscovery. Songs live beyond their creators. Like us, they settle into themselves over time, finding their own equilibrium. That spirit is the pulse of this new album.” There is a totally fresh cast of collaborators for this project too, Iggy Pop being one of the headline names who infuses ‘Save Me’ with his own identifiable signature so effectively it now plays like a lurching, dirty rock beast. Then there is Krystal Warren who helps transform ‘Save Me’ into the slinkiest of soft-soul grooves, a radical departure from the original Anhoni collaboration. Also ‘We Don’t Own It,’ which I recall Joan saying back in 2006 was written in memory of Elliott Smith, now moves away from the hushed guitar ballad of before into a breezy slow reggae realm built on understated electronica.

Joan has taken care to highlight the pedigree of the other key participants too. She credits “from my current touring trio, Will Graefe brings his emotionally masterful guitar work and Jeremy Gustin his remarkable rhythmic sensibility. Parker Kindred’s inventive drum creations were the spark behind other [tracks]. Thomas Bartlett unlocked a new dimension of the title track and added Rhodes bass throughout. This album gave me the chance to reunite, decades on, with upright bassist Tony Scherr, guitarist Oren Bloedow, and funk bassist Danny Blume, musicians whose artistry has only deepened with time.” That title track, along with the gloriously open and vulnerable ‘Anyone,’ formed the strongest pillars of the original album and so they remain today. Indicative of how close to perfection Joan arrived first time around, these are the two songs that bare the closest resemblances to their originals. I hold the 2006 version of ‘Real Life’ in such high regard that I was actually a little nervous as it approached here, newly repositioned as the closing number. I did not need to worry, it is a little more lived in now but by the time we get to the line about never including a name in a song before, the goosebumps still rise up vigorously. And why does that happen? Because this is real life and so am I. And because ‘Real Life’ was, and remains in its modern rendition, an incredible album.

Danny Neill

You can buy a physical copy of the album here: https://amzn.to/4eCx2mh

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New Release Reviews

Raffy Bushman – New Life

Jazz’s critics often overlook the simple truth that when the wide ranging, often maligned, genre locks into a groove, it can be as rhythmically charged and dance‑inducing as anything on a club system. That pulse has been there from the earliest swing bands through the breakbeat gold of Blue Note and the fusion era, right up to today’s easy dialogue between jazz and hip‑hop. Raffy Bushman’s solo debut taps directly into that lineage. Across its seven tracks, moments of introspection sit inside an undeniable forward drive, the whole record coated in an infectious rhythmic sheen. The centrepiece, ‘Renaissance,’ is the clearest example. A springy double‑bass line sets the foundation before Bushman’s piano is at first coordinated with the bass riff but quickly pushes the tune into a rolling surge of ideas. When the trio suddenly drops away, he unspools a lattice of interlocking keyboard figures which are almost Bach like in their intricate, looping patterns that toy with time and tug the ear in multiple directions at once. The band then snaps back together for a final, exhilarating climb. This is music that balances complexity with immediacy, full of heat and precision, and delivered with the confidence of a trio who can play it structured and yet still sound loose, in the moment and totally responsive to each other.

Raffy Bushman’s path to his first solo album reads like a long, looping circuit finally hitting the home straight. He emerged in the UK jazz underground as a pianist with a sharp ear for the places where jazz and hip‑hop meet, building early projects around that rhythmic dialogue. As his ambitions widened, so did his ensembles: string‑laden classical‑jazz hybrids, chamber‑sized experiments, and collaborations that pushed him deeper into arranging and orchestration. Those years broadened his palette without ever pulling him away from the instinct that drives all his work, namely taking familiar forms and bending them into something newly alive. Today he is back at the piano trio format that first defined him, carrying the weight and clarity of everything learned since. With Matt Davies and Alec Hewes anchoring the rhythm section, he folds his arranging experience into a leaner setting, creating seven pieces that move fluidly between tender audio lyricism, tight, bouncing grooves and bursts of harmonic colour. The album plays through like a summing‑up of the journey so far; a musician whose roots in hip‑hop, jazz, classical and gospel have fused into a voice that is indisputably his own, and a trio sound buffed and polished by years spent exploring every corner of his musical identity.

The album’s lead single,‘The Leopard,’ arrives late in the running order but acts as one of its clearest statements of intent. Built on a deceptively simple three‑note riffing piano figure, it grows into a full‑bodied groove that lifts off with real force. Bushman tips his hat to the film that inspired the song title, echoing its themes of clinging to tradition, yet he twists that idea by blending bebop phrasing with a lightly Latin, swung backbeat. As he explains, “the foundation of the composition is the left-hand repeated figure, which I had on a loop in my head for about a year before starting to add the other elements. I like how this figure blends with the very slow legato melody – this piece is all about textures.” That interplay between repetition and colour gives the track its charge as we hear a simple motif transforming into something vivid and propulsive. The album is bookended by ‘Two Peopleʼ and ‘New Life,ʼ both of which offer serenity and a reflectiveness to the conversation, which are highly understandable when learning of the new relationship developments and impending fatherhood anticipation that was inspiring Raffy while this album came together. “’Two People’ was written for my partner,” he explains, “who encouraged me to record my solo pieces, whilst ‘New Life’ gave me the opportunity to step out of the strict stylistic aesthetic I normally work within, and just express myself, and how I feel about becoming a father.” Considering all these real life, circumstantial, musical and background elements that hit a timely synchronicity for the birth of this album, we can safely say that it instantly stands as one of the pivotal moments in a serious jazz artists career. Furthermore, ‘New Life’ has a timelessness and classicism about it that will ensure it endures far beyond the year of its creation.

Danny Neill

The album is available via this link: https://amzn.to/4vyHbGm

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