Category: Reviews

  • Party-Keller Vol. 3 album review – various artists (DJ Florian Keller)

    Party-Keller Vol. 3 album review – various artists (DJ Florian Keller)

    Florian Keller has indulged his love of rare funk 45s by running Munich club nights since the early ’90s. He has the collector’s lust for the quirky or offbeat, but unlike some aficionados he isn’t rooted in the past. This selection is a mixed bag of old and new, ranging from classic rare grooves to […]

  • LateNightTales album review – various artists (The Cinematic Orchestra)

    LateNightTales album review – various artists (The Cinematic Orchestra)

    Anyone assembling a compilation that includes folksy guitarist Nick Drake, minimalist composer Steve Reich and MOR crooner Burt Bacharach should be carted off to an asylum. There’s no way these acts belong on the same playlist but that’s exactly what Jason Swinscoe, the man behind The Cinematic Orchestra, has done — and done well, it […]

  • Living In The Moment album review – Prince Sampson

    Living In The Moment album review – Prince Sampson

    The somewhat cheesy album cover suggests the songs on this disc are of the “smooth jazz” variety — a much-maligned genre that’s regrettably heard when, let’s be honest, you’re at your most exasperated: bored in a lounge, on hold on the phone, trapped in an elevator. But fusion — as it’s also known — is […]

  • Radio Silence album review – Neil Cowley Trio

    Radio Silence album review – Neil Cowley Trio

    Neil Cowley must be getting fed up of critics’ veiled digs. His trio has, for instance, been characterised as an outfit prone to pull “the plug on improvisation” (The Guardian). Really? As if mindful of such gibes, Radio Silence is a more serious affair than 2008’s Loud… Louder… Stop!. Consequently, it has to be spun […]

  • New Amerykah Part Two: Return Of The Ankh album review – Erykah Badu

    New Amerykah Part Two: Return Of The Ankh album review – Erykah Badu

    Badu’s 2008 album, New Amerykah Part One: 4th World War, attracted heaps of press, perhaps because it was her first release for five years. New Amerykah Part Two (Return Of The Ankh), in contrast, struggled to raise a murmur until… Badu got her kit off in a video. Cue much head scratching as fans tried […]

  • Yesterday You Said Tomorrow album review – Christian Scott

    Yesterday You Said Tomorrow album review – Christian Scott

    Judging from Scott’s scowl on the album cover, you don’t want to mess with this dude. And when you hear his moody opener K.K.P.D. — which, incidentally, stands for “Klu Klux Police Department” — that impression is reinforced. Add to that, tracks entitled Jenacide and American’t, and you sense this 27-year-old New Orleans trumpeter has […]

  • 4hero presents EXTENSIONS – various artists (4hero)

    4hero presents EXTENSIONS – various artists (4hero)

    When an artist records someone else’s song in the pop world, it’s called a “cover”; the same thing in dance circles is a “remix”. Now, judging by this release, there’s a third category: an “extension”. Strictly speaking, it’s neither a cover nor a remix because the original artists — in this case, Marc Mac and […]

  • Two album review – Silhouette Brown

    Two album review – Silhouette Brown

    If you’re reading this review, you almost certainly belong to a clique of musos that already owns the eponymous debut album Silhouette Brown. Congratulations on unearthing that recording because Kaidi Tatham and Dego’s 2004 CD is among the world’s best kept secrets. It was the archetypal “cult hit” — fervently loved by few — and […]

  • The Light album review – Deborah Jordan

    The Light album review – Deborah Jordan

    If Janet Jackson had been born in England, she might have wound up sounding like Jordan. There’s a delicate quality to Jordan’s voice that brings to mind the wardrobe-malfunctioning starlet. Those similarities were never apparent when Jordan sang with broken beaters Silhouette Brown, but on this debut album the parallels are apt. The Light is […]

  • Got The Bug 2 album review – Bugz In The Attic

    Got The Bug 2 album review – Bugz In The Attic

    Like Domu’s One Offs, Remixes And B Sides compilation, which shows off Dominic Stanton’s talents better than his solo album, Got The Bug 2 does the same for this west London collective. Their 2006 album Back In The Doghouse doesn’t quite reach the heights of 2004’s Got The Bug compilation or this superb follow-up. From […]