Neil Young & Crazy Horse ‘Toast’ - heart and balls in equal measure. When Neil’s this sincere that’s all she wrote;
Genesis ‘And Then There Were Three’ - Genesis’ last fully satisfying LP (for me, anyway) contains some great songs that are comparatively unsung in their extensive canon, the dreary ‘Follow You Follow Me’ excepted;
Elton John ‘Rock Of The Westies’ - as far removed from the relative introspection of ‘Captain Fantastic’ (released only a few months earlier) as it’s possible to imagine. This is Reg in his rockinest, raunchiest pomp;
The Smile ‘A Light For Attracting Attention’ - a strange, powerful and often beautiful record. There are fascinatingly disconcerting times when Thom Yorke seems to be intoning a different song over his esteemed colleagues’ backing;
Al Stewart ‘Orange’ - Al’s disowned most of his self-confessional early albums like this in favour of bland soft rock. A shame. This is an excellent, melodic record with a stellar line up of backing musicians including Bruce Thomas, Brinsley Schwarz and Rick Wakeman. Worth hearing for ‘Night Of 4th May’ alone;
Swell Maps ‘A Trip To Marineville’ - much as I continue to love the pseudo-Buzzcocks elements of this wonderful band, its the more experimental stuff here that attracts me now. I find it incredible that the music on this amazing record is at least 43 years old, so fresh does it sound despite its low-fi origins;
Bob Weir ‘Ace’ - Deader than Dead solo platter which is a whole lotta fun; leading appropriately to
Ace Frehley S/T - the guy was as wiped out making this as the song therein bearing that name but my, does this rock. I place this marginally behind Paul Stanley’s contemporaneous album but still love it enormously;
Thin Lizzy ‘Jailbreak’ - a great record that proves the lie of rock being dead before punk came along. Sobering to think that Phil Lynott has now been as dead as long as he was alive;
Van der Graaf ‘The Quiet Zone/The Pleasure Dome’ - a relatively forgotten epic of Hammill’s vast back catalogue, this ain’t dated a jot. Such a shame that this string driven lineup didn’t last;
Stevie Wonder ‘Songs In The Key Of Life’ - timeless, genre-free music almost as fundamental as life itself. Was there ever a more joyous utterance than ‘As’? This is that unique thing: a double album (and a bit) with hardly any clunkers on it;
Maynard Ferguson ‘MF Horn 2’ and ‘Alive And Well In London’ - Maynard’s early 70s spell in England gleaned these sparkling big band takes on contemporary songs, superbly arranged by the great Keith Mansfield;
Haydn: String Quartet in E flat, Op.33 no.2 (Coull Quartet) - smile inducing music is all;
Frank Bridge: String Sextet (Raphael Ensemble) - haunting, autumnal sounding early work by Bridge, beautifully rendered here;
Beethoven: Symphonies 2 & 4 (COE/Nezet-Seguin) - lots of instrumental details emerge in this new recording but overall the interpretations lack a little verve;
Mozart: Symphonies 17 & 34 and Schubert: Symphony no.9 (BPO/Boehm) - old fashioned, big band Mozart rendered with taste and style. The Schubert record is simply a classic;
Beethoven: Symphony no.9 (BPO/Giulini) - a stately, measured take on this most grandiose of symphonies;
Bach: Brandenburg Concerto no.6 (AAM/Hogwood) - straight, musical performance on period instruments.
Have a great week, all
Dave x
|
