We continue with our Best Albums of 2014, as mentioned before these are not listed in any order of merit.
Enjoy
See all entries here (more to come in January)
I Draw Slow – White Wave Chapel
Full Review by Paul Woodgate
The standard of musicianship is excellent. Thankfully, the kitchen sink has remained unused and a core of traditional instruments find more than enough breadth and depth to avoid the need for multiple tracks of esoteric string, reed and percussive apparatus. Guitar (Dave Holden), double bass (Konrad Liddy), banjo (Colin Derham), fiddle (Adrian Hart) and voice (Louise Holden) is all I Draw Slow need. On this album they sound as a band who’s been playing together since 2008 should; tight and relaxed at the same time, none more so on Hide and Seek, with its reference to Mockingbird at the end, and the final track Old Wars which is head and shoulders above the rest of the album in terms of song-writing. A beautiful guitar ballad, it signals an exciting wait for I Draw Slow’s fans – as a taste of things to come, Old Wars shows a maturity and class suggesting this band is really going places.
United Bible Studies – Doineann
Full Review by Thomas Blake
Despite a fluid and ever-changing membership (not to mention an admirably diverse collection of musical instruments and noise-making gadgets) United Bible Studies have honed an original and at times unmistakeable sound in their prolific thirteen-year recording history. To put it in perhaps overly simplistic terms, they have one foot in the ambient/drone camp and the other in wyrd world of psych-folk. But more important is their willingness to embrace unconventional musical structures and at times do away with these structures altogether, instead creating collage-like, improvisational pieces that owe more to sound art and contemporary composition than they do to traditional or popular music…[Doineann is] an album full of natural grandeur and musical inventiveness.
Bastard Mountain – Farewell, Bastard Mountain
Full Review by Thomas Blake
Bastard Mountain is far more than a sampler of Edinburgh’s impressive musical talents. Residing firmly in the unexplored territory between Brit folk, alt-country and droning experimentalism, it is proof that a confluence of musical minds with a collaborative and improvisational approach can create something that transcends the sum of its parts.
Eddi Reader – Vagabond
Full Review by Simon Holland
The overall sound is quite lush and that adds to that feeling of maturity. It’s a grown up sound that isn’t afraid to delve into a classic palate, but benefits from impeccable taste, borrowing only what is worth preserving. Add some absolutely fantastic playing, as the orchestration shimmers with really clever use of pedal and lap steel guitars, there are little details, a line picked out by accordion, guitar, piano, even mandolin and ukulele that suddenly take the attention. Every track sparkles instrumentally in one way or another. Above all it’s the vocal performances – Eddi has never sounded better but the ensemble’s voices are used brilliantly throughout – luxuriant, like crushed velvet, with the odd cheeky twist…
Harp And a Monkey – All Life is Here
Full Review by Simon Holland
On receiving the new CD from Harp And a Monkey three things immediately grabbed me. The first was a passage in the press release, which informed me that the band and their sound came about by happy accident. Tired of treading over the same ground, the trio of long term friends Martin Purdy, Simon Jones and Andy Smith conspired to buy one musical instrument each that they had never played before. They reasoned that getting to grips with a new instrument per man might necessarily simplify their playing styles and at least prove interesting. The second was the handsome CD package with its Red Riding Hood referencing front cover (actually a photo of a family dog in a nightgown) and nicely annotated booklet. The third happened when I slipped the CD into the player. I’m not going to spoil it for you, but the intro immediately had my attention.
Thisell – I
Full Review by Alfred Archer
In 2010 Peter Thisell brought together a group of musicians to record an album in an abandoned school in southern Sweden. The school served as both recording studio and home for the band’s families, friends and animals. This gave the band the space to take time with their debut recording, spending a week rehearsing together and perfecting the songs before recording the sessions live. As with the recordings, Thisell have also taken their time releasing the album. Only now, almost four years after the recordings were made, is this extraordinary album ready to be released. It is well worth the wait.
McNeill & Heys – Any Other Morning
Full Review by Simon Holland
Over the course of their albums, it’s fair to say Jack and Charlie have grown to fully trust their instincts and make a gradual, gentle drift towards the left field. Playing with song structure, form, tempo, arrangements and lyrical themes, but all realised with a grace and elegance, it makes their new album, Any Other Morning, a work of profound and mysterious beauty.
Two Wings – A Wake
Read Full Review by Thomas Blake
Far from being completely aligned with any single genre at any given point, A Wake takes its influences from the strangest of places. This cut-up approach is at its most satisfying on You Give Me Love, where folky flutes trade places with soulful horns, or on the lovely, leisurely closing track, Go To Sleep, where the band (including second vocalist Lucy Duncombe) swap sweet harmonies before Reynolds’ typically fried guitar battles for supremacy with a horn section that is at one moment funereal, the next exhilarating. It is a suitable way of ending a beautiful album that proves that the venerable Glasgow music scene still has plenty of life and originality left in it.
Blue Rose Code – The Ballads Of Peckham Rye
Full Review by Simon Holland
They used to talk about, “The difficult second album,” a scenario where the promise or hype surrounding an acts debut was not matched by the follow up. It undoubtedly holds a certain truth, with some artists perhaps feeling the time pressure of writing a follow up, the vagaries of record company politics, budgets and so forth or even the fickle hand of fashion creating an artistic void. Thankfully The Ballads Of Peckham Rye turns such conventions on their heads, as it takes everything that was good about the debut release from Blue Rose Code and does it better.
Fish & Bird – Something in the Ether
Full Review by Paul Woodgate
There’s a line in Lonely Resonator, track five of Fish & Bird’s fourth studio release Something In The Ether that summarises one angle of their alt-folk; ‘..the tune sounds Appalachian and the words are modern’. I say one angle, because there are many; the journey isn’t linear, the approach varied and the influences wide. The PR provided by their label suggests Fish & Bird are re-imagining folk for a new generation, but there’s a couple of clues in their bio that suggest to me they regularly go backwards before they go forwards, not least the words ‘experimental’ and ‘opus’. I do believe we may be listening to prog-folk here…
Rob Heron & The Tea Pad Orchestra – Talk About the Weather
Full Review by Rachel Devine
Step forward Rob Heron and the Tea Pad Orchestra. A combination of offbeat, quirky lyrics and wonderfully tight and inventive musicianship raises their new album Talk About The Weather firmly out of the humdrum. Heron’s smokey, expressive vocals and keen sense of dynamics inject a sense of continuity into a varied repertoire of upbeat ragtime and swing numbers, country songs and a mambo. There is a real sense of fun and occasion that runs throughout the album.
Sam Amidon – Lily-O
Read Full Review by Helen Gregory
Sam Amidon’s new record Lily-O was recorded with frequent collaborators Shahzad Ismaily (bass) and Chris Vatalaro (drums) in just four days at Greenhouse Studios in Reykjavik under the watchful eye of producer Valgeir Sigurðsson (with whom Sam has worked on two previous albums). The sessions also featured Bill Frisell, one of the leading jazz guitarists in music today. The result is a very ‘live’ sound (overdubs were kept to a minimum) which retains Sam’s trademark banjo and fingerstyle guitar playing and introspective vocal style while adding a clarity and sense of space to the proceedings which allows Bill Frisell’s contributions to shine through.
Alice Gerrard – Follow The Music
Read Full Review by Helen Gregory
Follow the Music is a superb record in every way, it exudes a gentleness borne of strength, revealing its heart and soul, its depth and beauty, in its own sweet time, over successive listens. In my opinion it’s easily the equal of 1994’s Pieces Of My Heart, regarded by many as her finest work and is already near the top of my personal shortlist for best album of 2014.
Fernhill – Amser
Read Full Review by Helen Gregory
Their effortless ability to fuse ancient and modern, Welsh and English traditions into a seamless and coherent, contemporary whole without compromising any aspect of this multitude of strands marks Fernhill out as one of the finest folk groups we are blessed to be able to witness today. By turns enchanting, absorbing and powerful, Amser is a very human masterpiece of lyrical and musical creativity which will provide sustenance for your heart and soul for a long time to come. I simply can’t recommend it highly enough.
Oliver Cherer – Sir Ollife Leigh & Other Ghosts
Read Full Review by Simon Holland
There is something very English about this CD, at times it has a Canterbury-esque sound reminiscent of the folkier end of Kevin Ayers work, futher enhanced by Oliver’s voice, which is almost like a more sonorous Robert Wyatt. But more than that, this is a record that intrigues and captivates on all kinds of levels, there is always something happening, either musically or lyrically that sparks a chain of thought, a line of enquiry and discovery, or just simply a sit-back, eyes closed moment of audio bliss. The thoughts keep returning to ghosts on the fringes, ideas of some ancient pagan folklore, or some future society where beliefs have regressed to something more in tune with nature. The release notes reference Russell Hoban’s Riddley Walker, the plot of which is certainly in keeping with that idea. It’s a book I’ve not read, but n the strength of this CD I think I’m going to have to. I’m sure Oliver will be more than happy to be the source of that inspiration. But for now, it’s time to press play again and return to the dreamstate.
James Varda – Chance and Time
Full Album Review by Mike Davies
A Suffolk-based teacher, folksy singer-songwriter James Varda released his debut album, Hunger, in 1989. He didn’t release a second until 2004. A further nine years passed before his third, but he’s been a little less tardy producing a follow-up this time round with Chance and Time…25 years on, Varda remains as much an enigma as he did then, still preferring the music to provide his biography. He may release another album in a couple of years or he may simply disappear back into the mists once again, whatever the future holds, this is a memory to cherish.
Preab Meadar – Preabmeadar
Read Full Review by Neil McFadyen
I’ve been listening to this album for a week and have barely scratched the surface. It’s so easy to become completely engrossed in the unique, ethereal beauty of the music itself, but there’s so much more in this recording to explore, to revel in, to wonder at. There are extensive sleeve notes for those who’d like to know more about the influence those ancient poetic metres have brought to bear on the work. And more still, on the archaic stories retold in this captivating modern setting. Preab Meadar is far more than a recording; it’s a contemporary window on the work of the earliest bards, on the origins of poetry itself. Preab Meadar is also further reaching than academic study – it reaches into the ancient, inherited consciousness of the listener, it brings the voices of the past to the modern ear. Daire & Lorcan’s understanding of their art has resulted in a highly enlightening piece of work. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.
Lutine – White Flowers
Read Full Review by Thomas Blake
While White Flowers is more restrained than many 1970s-influenced acid folk albums it nevertheless carries a whiff of that era. The traditional Death and the Lady replaces the sackbut of Shirley Collins’ definitive version with droning harmonium – the result falls somewhere between Collins and 1972 Nico album The Marble Index…they occupy the shifting, elemental space of their songs – a space that is sometimes airy, sometimes watery – in a way that is both effortlessly minimal and somehow whole. The result is a beautiful lucid dream of a record.
Jonnie Common – Trapped in Amber
Read Full Interview by Roy Spencer
Jonnie Common’s half-sung and often humorous poetry, along with the sped up voices, slices and echoes of musique concrète and electro beats are woven into his compositions with considerable skill. If there is any musical similarity to be drawn, then perhaps it is to the early 1980s electronic experimentation of bands like Eyeless in Gaza. With Trapped in Amber, He has taken sounds that are so bizarre that in isolation could be used by enterprising town councils to scare away feral pigeons. But in his hands, they make ultimately listenable, interesting electronic pop with charm, depth and plenty of surprises.
Rachael Dadd – We Resonate
Read Full Review by David Weir
As Rachael states above, it is the light and the dark elements that make something relatable and lifelike and this is certainly what she’s achieved with ‘We Resonate’. ‘Let It Rise’, the final song on the album verifies this with the optimistic: “We can rise above all of these buildings and when we fall back down, it can be the right place”.
See all entries here (more to come in January)