Carina Round has certainly been around for a few years but I’ve only discovered her in the last 18 months at best. Her latest album is nearing completion so I think it’s high time we gave her some love here at Higher Plain Games and told you all to buy her most recent EP “Things You Should Know”.
Opener “Backseat” is stunningly beautiful working from a simple ditty on a keyboard to slowly swell up with strings, brass and a chorus of vocals singing over and over the same two lines as is bursts into a fanfare. It feels like you’ve burst into a new life. In contrast the sultry “Please Don’t Stop” feeds off sparse guitar arrangements and strong vocal performances as the song ebbs and flows in places that song’s aren’t traditionally supposed to. The result is something fresh and effecting as it evolves and builds into a rocking finale.
“Thief in the Sky” is another excellent track which is acoustic guitar led but gets leg slapping angsty for the choruses. It leads perfectly into the epic “Do You” which is predominantly a guitar/vocal track that is hypnotic and enticing because the vocals are so hushed and the guitar melodic you don’t expect it when Carina suddenly bursts into frenzies at certain points in the track. The closer is the title track and it is wonderfully understated with its marching percussive edges muted behind the collage of guitars and vocals.
Carina Round shows that while she can easily rock it out with massive riffs, she can equally match them with some of the most smoulderingly beautiful melancholic quiet rock too. One of the best EP’s in recent years.
Lauren Edman’s debut solo CD “It’s Always the Quiet One” is quite fantastic – as we’ve said below. We got the chance to chat to Lauren about her first solo album and the processes and thoughts behind it…
Firstly, congratulations on the fantastic album “It’s Always the Quiet One”! How do you feel now your baby is out for public to enjoy?
Thank you! It actually feels really weird. I’m glad it’s out, but it is a strange feeling. These songs were kicking around in my head for so long, and for so long I was the only one who’d ever heard them. I’m a private person, but this is a really personal album, so coming to terms with that has been interesting for me. It’s weird also to think that these songs are finally “done” after so long, and that when I get to making my next album, I will be working on an entire set of completely different songs! I probably sound silly saying that because it’s just… obvious, but there it is, that’s how I feel.
Reading up on your bio, most of the album seemed to be conceived in the early hours of morning – did that have an overall impact on the sound designs and writing as a whole? I would describe it as a secretly nocturnal album!
There was a period of about three years during which I got the impression that my best creative time was at 3AM. I was awake past then every night due to my late work hours – I slept until noon every day – and the music ideas would just kind of flow around 3AM. I would say my most sprawling, somewhat dark songs were written during that time: “Charge,” “Be the Light,” “Slate.” I don’t know if that was a coincidence or not. About half of the songs on this album were written then. I guess generally I do prefer writing songs when it’s dark outside, though now that’s more likely to be around 9 or 10PM.
You’ve had such a diverse musical backgrounds previously with bands – how do you narrow down your sound for a specific album when you cover so many genres in general?
It’s really difficult to do that, actually. I naturally write in a wide variety of styles – it’s just whatever I’m in the mood to write, and I’ve been like that as long as I’ve been writing songs. I like doing that too much to want to try to limit the genres I write in. So the music itself is all over the place, and any kind of production that gets applied to those songs has to fit both with the song itself as well as in the context of the album as a whole. I had more songs I wanted to put on this album, songs I really like, but style-wise they were just too far removed from everything else to work here. I chose these ten songs because not only could I make them work as part of a whole in terms of the direction of the sound, but I was able to tell a story with them.
Sometimes the production of one song was guided by the song that came before it – “Red Wings” had to somehow form a bridge between “Sweet Girl” and “Desperate Times.” I didn’t start work on the production to that song until both of the surrounding songs were complete, and I let the feel of “Sweet Girl” guide the way I wanted “Red Wings” to come in, and what tempo it should be. “Red Wings” was actually much slower when I made my original demo of it, very ambient and washed out with the vocal harmonies. I felt that if I were to leave it in that style for this album, I would need more songs that sounded like that because otherwise it just sounded too out of place. I’ve also read about how you came across the banjo which is an excellent read from your behind the scenes posts you place on your website. Do you have any other stories of discovery about the album you could share with us?
The slide guitar sound in “Sweet Girl” has been mentioned a little, but I’ll go into more detail about that. I’ve had a thing for the lap/pedal steel sound for a while now. I wasn’t sure how I wanted it to fit in my album, but I was thinking I wanted it on there somehow. I went to Craigslist looking for a lap steel player and got a few responses, but I didn’t know what exactly I would want an actual player of the instrument to do, so I never did anything with them. I got out my acoustic guitar to tinker around with it somehow, seeing if I could make convincing sliding sounds with anything I already owned. I tried a bunch of devices as a slide: a ceramic shot glass, an empty beer bottle, some sort of metallic item that I can’t remember (no, not a beer can). But this one glass makeup bottle I had – makeup that I don’t even use but still had – actually sounded pretty good. I put maybe five different effects on it to stretch out the notes as much as possible. While it’s not lap steel, I got the sort of effect I was going for.
One thing that stands out on the album is your vocal harmonies. How do you manage to create such a beautiful collage of voices?
In some cases I write specific harmonies, but other times I just go through and improvise harmonies along with the track and record whatever comes out. Some of it inevitably sounds terrible because I have no idea what note I’ll be singing next (I chop out the terrible notes), but I like doing it that way because I end up coming out with really interesting harmonies that I wouldn’t have thought of if I’d actually been thinking about it. Usually I have an idea of what I’m going for – tone, mood, vocal range/register – but not the specific notes planned ahead of time before I start recording. I like the ethereal, angelic stuff, so that is usually the vibe I go for with harmonies- but sometimes I want more of an epic sound, sometimes a happy sound, sometimes a little weird or discomforting. For example, all of the vocal harmonies in “Be the Light” were improvised except for the ones in the bridge, which I had planned specifically. I really wanted that song to sound pretty but also a little creepy at the same time, especially at the very end where all the odd vocal parts start coming in.
Any plans to do some live shows to support the new album?
Yes! I’m working on writing live arrangements of the songs. I won’t be trying to replicate my album’s sound. I like having “live versions” of songs, as opposed to just playing it exactly the way it sounds on the album. So I’m going to have a group of instrumentalists playing with me, and we’ll see how that sounds.
As an instrument enthusiast, are there any new instruments you’d like to include or learn for future projects?
I’d really love to learn bass, but if that doesn’t work out well for me I’ll definitely involve a bass player on my next album. Electric guitar, too. I’ve got songs that need those sounds. I’ve got a plucked psaltery hanging around that I didn’t use on this album, so it would be nice to find a place for that in the future also.
Do you have anything you enjoy to get up to as a break from recording / song writing?
Yeah, sometimes I would get up in the middle of mixing a song and bake a quickbread or cookies or something. Cooking was generally my distraction during the process. I’ve actually been cooking less extensively since finishing the album, which I find strange.
Lastly, as a truly independent artist, do you have any advice on any other artists wishing to get their music out there and how valuable is the internet as a tool for your musical adventures?
I haven’t exactly mastered this arena – I have a hard time reaching out to people for the purpose of promoting myself, and I always feel awkward doing it – so I’m not sure I’m a good person to offer advice on this! I do think it’s still important to have an actual, decent looking website with general information on it as opposed to just relying on a social networking page. And I personally think it’s cool for that website to have interesting content on it, related to the music, that isn’t already posted on Facebook or Twitter, etc. to give people something to really latch onto. Beyond that… I guess try to be less shy about it than I generally am, and try to have someone other than yourself promote your music for at least a little while if you can.
Thank you very much Lauren – best of luck with the excellent album that you can grab on iTunes and Lauren’s website.
Francis Bowie is a Danish singer/songwriter/artist/painter/sculptor/design/gallery owner. As you do. As a result of that cluster of arty goodness – we get a slice of rather excellent pop! Here’s Franny!
Kim Edwards is a singer/songwriter whom branches off into various styles of music although more of it is underpinned by guitar and piano. Her voice is beautiful and her brass marching single “The Show” is wonderfully whimsy.
Having been privileged to play a few sets before her once a few years ago in Essex, Cara Winter has returned with her third disc release which will be reviewed later. For now though feast of “Butterfly” which has been re-recorded for the new CD.
Lauren Edman released her debut album “It’s Always the Quiet Ones” earlier this year and after dipping into a couple of genres alongside other artists and bands, it’s nice to see what standalone Lauren can do.
Opener “Wasting” is a nice juxtaposition of serenading wispy vocals alongside a gritty bassline. The track doesn’t go for the jugular, instead it chips away at making an atmospheric haze, much like a reminiscence of drama gone past. I love the vocal montages that appear here and also in “Slate” which brings Lauren’s soft vocals to the fore while swirling piano echoes and percussion is faded to the very background to create a dreamlike soundscape. The result is hypnotic and heady. “Change” then rolls back to electronic pads and a more dramatic tom heavy drum loop. Even in these more dramatic tracks Lauren’s vocals remain like a siren – warm, soaring, delicate and enticing. “Be The Light” is the first track that breaks that mould as Lauren lets her reins go in the choruses in a beautiful song full of lots of interesting quirky electronic keyboard effects.
“Sweet Girl” reminds me strangely of Soft Cell due to the metallic pulsating rhythms that the song exudes. It’s the closest the album gets to a straight forward single with simple chord structures and an immediacy to the track as a whole. “Red Wings” is a softer ballad full of lush vocals.
“Desperate Times” sounds almost like a musical with its chord structure on the piano and along with “Silent” form a more olden edge to the album. The latter specifically has the piano and banjo have a certain filter on them to sound almost honkytonk ! “This Is It” gives us the first acoustic guitar lead track on the album with an excellent use of the banjo to act out the lead melody. I really connected with this track and Lauren’s vocals hit the spot perfectly. The closing track “She’s Not Here” is a beautifully broken down track with sparse piano for verses slowly thawing into fluid melodies and vocal collectives for the choruses.
Lauren Edman’s début is beautiful from start to finish. It’s one of those albums that you’ll listen to the first time and it may not grab you immediately but then that is where the album title comes in. The album is quiet and sparse. It will chip away at you and suddenly you’ll have favourites on repeat without really noticing or picking up some of the expertly penned lyrics. Then you’ll realise that is was the quiet ones that got you all along.
Fiona Apple returns! Hurrah! Trying to give Kate Bush a run for her money at productivity rates, Apple returns with a new album later in the year but for now we have new single “Every Single Night” which is very stripped back and mellow yet intensely vocal.
Winning our album of the year in 2011 with the devastatingly awesome “Dancing on Needles”, Charlotte Martin returns with “Hidden Places”, an EP/Live Concert hybrid that’s sure to excite fans.
The live concert is superb and although it only clocks in at just over an hour, showcases a lot of songs from last years album and a few others in piano/vocal fashion. Each song translates effortlessly across and sounds fresh and new. In particular Animal, Dancing on Needles, Truth Cerium and The Dance show such raw emotion, power and range you are frequently blown away. What is apparent however is that the concert is filmed from two static cameras and while there’s good production values to try to keep things from looking very static, the camera work doesn’t quite do the concert justice. Interspersing the songs are little clips of Martin chatting away about her music, her ordeals and her inspirations which is great to see.
The CD accompanying the concert has eight tracks. Three of which are acoustic versions of previously released tracks. “The Dance” and “Stromata” are massively powerful and sound brand new. “Animal” actually feels more fragile when stripped back and feels newer and sadder than before – something I didn’t feel would be possible! Of the new tracks “Mission Control” feels like a natural progression from her more recent work, once again veering towards the more electronic edges of her world with catchy choruses and sweeping electronic workings. “Tough” is delicately beautiful and feels like a lost song from aeons back as does “The Last Song” are they both feature some beautiful piano work and have that whimsical reflective sway to them. “In a World” features some big tom drums to up the ante which pound out hard towards the end of the song which feels like Charlotte Martin’s ode to Lion King in some ways. “Warrior” closes the EP in typically disarming fashion with some light pads and strings supporting a fragile song in which the vocals absolutely win you over from start to finish.
As always with Charlotte Martin, you know you are getting something special. While the bonus tracks are great to have and should find their home in any fans collection, the concert shows a truly magical live performer in her element, that even a budget recording cannot blemish it.
One of my most pleasant surprises of 2011 was reviewing Marcus Singletary’s album Smokin’ which came at me entirely unannounced and with aplomb. Back this year with new album “Holy Guitar” can he repeat the feat?
Not one to do things by halves, the opening track “Occupy” is just a mere seventeen minutes long and opens with a strange background car journey which bases the entire track’s background. It cleverly runs adverts done by an offbeat robot host and has ambience as you pop out of the car. It seems to bounce around between genres when the music is playing, although regardless of it being lounge jazz or grungy trance, Marcus is usually at the helm displaying his excellent guitar talent which is obviously the main draw for the track. It doesn’t seem to follow a specific route or pattern and waiting for eight minutes of ambience and fake commercials is bold, but certainly not for everyone.
“The Pennsylvania Pull” is a kooky waltz that sounds like it’s been lifted from an old 1920′s film soundtrack. It’s delightfully playful and well structured – a complete swing from what we had previously. There’s some excellent brass work here too. It fades into “Highway Patrol” which veers off into some minimal electronica that just forms a background for a five-minute guitar solo. We then veer suddenly back to the cute and quaint jazz in “Chicago Stomp” which works well as it just feels like a great jamming session. “Friends” continues the theme and also some of the albums interesting reverb settings, almost like it’s been recorded live in a large hall – like a bootleg. “Echo Park” sits somewhere between the lot of it with some well picked guitar strings over some nice beats.
“Boys of Summer” is essentially the three minutes that a rock gig ends and the guitarist goes nuts as they smash-up their gear. It’s utterly freeform and completely Marmite. “Ensign Parker” seems to follow the same pattern but is a bit more structured before “Move” seems to want to be some kind of sexy chill out bar background music. It’s definitely the most sensual the album has to offer before “Man of Steal” closes the album with a drum/electric guitar solo freak out.
After the album had finished, I really didn’t quite know what to think. It’s an album that veers off so deep into the experimental genre, to try to tell people you’ll like it or hate is almost impossible. For me personally, a lot of it left me cold as it just sounds structureless and while that may be the point – one man just doing his thang – I couldn’t connect with it at all aside from two of the tracks. Guitar purists may find a lot to unravel here but as an outsider looking in – I was flummoxed.
Soap&Skin’s debut album was an absolute corker and one of my favourite album obscura’s as I like to call them. Returning with an eight track album entitled “Narrow”, Anja’s music still holds the same scary drama as before but is fuller than before.
“Vater” the opener starts of as a simple, by Soap&Skin’s standards piano and vocal track that then flips into some angry and harsh electronic percussive explosion towards the end. The track, as the rest of the album feels like, is almost so lethargic and deconstucted, everything feels like it’s beautifully falling apart. “Voyage Voyage” has some beautiful string arrangements while Anja’s vocal’s lament over lots of minor chords. Again, darkly intimate.
“Deathmental” is like a sibling to DDMMYYY and the wholly electronic side of Anja’s music with beeps, beats and lots of chewed up vocals being spat out like an angry elf on a rampage. “Cradlesong” is the quiet track that along with “Wonder” feel like they belong side by side. The latter is especially emotive with its softly hushed vocal layering over rolling arpeggios and underplayed bass piano notes. It’s perfectly pitched to make you feel melancholic and introspective.
“Lost” is a very short track which to me feels strangely like a hymn or a Anja’s Christmas Carol! “Boat Turns Towards the Port” takes some of the electronica side and merges it fully for the first time really into a usual song structure instead of making it a stand alone set piece. The result is a powerful song that showcases everything Soap&Skin stands for with aplomb. The closer “Big Hand Nails Down” is a darker tone than the previous entry but seems to be setting us up for where Anja is heading with the merging of the two sounds – reminding me of a more dramatic and aggressive Zola Jesus.
Narrow is a fantastic album. If I had to complain, it’s too short – but that’s a testament to how fantastic the material is and how much I’m left yearning for more.
Charlotte Martin returns next month with a CD/DVD album entitled “Hidden Places”. You can hear the track Mission Control here. My winner of best album in 2011 may well have it 2 years running…
Ian Narcisi whom we featured last month, released a 3 track EP back in 2010 and while he works on his first full release we felt it was time to shout about this little nugget of goodness.
“Absent Today” is a wonderful kaleidoscope of keyboards, guitar harmonics and smooth vocal montages. Far more than your average performer, Ian seems to be able to pick up any instrument and rock it with some great synth brass floating around the speakers to make things stand out.
“Five Below Nothing” opens with a grande piano solo which then gives way to some of the strangest time signatures I’ve witnessed in a rock song in ages. It takes a few listens to really get the extra funky verses that free flow beats all over the shot. It’s one of Ian’s best features – being able to showcase the unusual in a usual light.
The closing track “Behind the Dawn” is the most straight forward track, a dark and damp rock anthem with lots of ethnic twists on the guitar. Ian’s vocals burst into a more angry void from the more hypnotic tones of the earlier tracks and here things are more visceral.
It’s a wonderful introduction to some stunning musicianship and Ian’s handle of instrumentation is of the highest calibre. If you want to be impressed by a new rock artist – Ian’s your man.
Garbage are returning in 2012 and have just in last few minutes released “Blood For Poppies” for a free download ahead of the album release later in the year. Click here to be taken to their download site. It’s fresh yet strangely familiar.
With their début album God of Love about to hit the stores in the next few days, we grabbed Stereo Alchemy’s Christopher Tin for ten minutes to go over what is undoubtedly a smashing album in waiting and all the juicy bits behind it:
Stereo Alchemy is a collaborative effort. Tell us how you came into being and what attracted you to working together?
Kametron and I have known each other since college. Over the years, he’s worked on a number of projects with me, playing Japanese taiko, programming beats, etc. We’d always talked about doing some sort of collaborative project together
Two years ago, I was contacted by a fashion photographer named Yu Tsai, who was doing a video for Lindsay Lohan, and needed something that was dark and trip-hoppy… sort of like Massive Attack. I gave Kametron a call and said that this would be a great way to kick off a project, and so within a matter of a few days, we wrote our first song (“A Rapture”), had it placed in the Lindsay Lohan video, picked a band name, set up a website, and basically launched the project. Since then, we’ve been pecking away at the full release while juggling our own commitments (I have my scoring work and solo orchestral work, he has his world-fusion bands that he plays in and produces). Finally this winter we were able to finish off the album and launch it.
Working together as a duo, you’ve created your début album “God of Love” – tell us about the fun concept behind it, as we here at HPM do like a concept!
We’ve basically taken Renaissance and Romantic Era poems about love and death, and turned them into dark and melancholy electronica! It all started with the aforementioned Lindsay Lohan job… we were in a rush to get a song together, and didn’t have any ideas for lyrics. Then I remembered a poem that I read in college (I was an English Major) called “A Rapture” by Thomas Carew, a Renaissance poet. It was highly erotic, and worked brilliantly in the context of the video. We then decided that the rest of our songs would follow a similar pattern, and started scouring old anthologies for poems that fit well into the context of our album.
The Lindsay Lohan video, by the way, can be seen here:
With each of the ten tracks on the album veering off into different types of electronica, how did you work together? Would say Kametron supply a rhythm for you to work from or would the melodies come first?
It went both ways, really. Sometimes I’d come in and Kametron would play me a beat or a synth riff that he was working on, and I’d say, hey, that’s great, let’s add some verses and chorus to that. Then we’d crack open a few books, look around for something that fit, and then make it work. Sometimes I’d be sitting at home reading a book of poetry, and I’d find some fragment of text, and a melody would immediately jump into my mind. Then I’d sketch that out and send it over to him, and he’d add a beat to it. It was a very fluid process. Some songs got reworked over and over and over. Some ideas got initiated in one song, then ported over to another. The idea of a dubstep wobble bass, for example… Kametron was really insistent that we try to incorporate that somewhere, and at first I was hesitant. He put it into “God of Love” first, which was a song that I initiated. I sort of freaked out at that point… I’ll admit, I hated dubstep when I first heard it, and I was thinking to myself “What is that god awful noise that you’re sticking into my beautiful song?” (I’ve since become more of a dubstep fan.) Then we ported the dubstep sound over to another song and tried it out there, but that didn’t work either. Finally we ported it over to Monster of the Sky, and that seemed to be the most natural place for it. And now I’m a fan, and I’m glad he was so insistent that we incorporate it somewhere. (I’m still glad that it’s not in “God of Love”, though.)
Tell us about the guest vocalists that came on-board with the project as they really add a depth to the album too, almost as a separate voice to the work.
We have a trio of great vocalists: Melissa R. Kaplan (of the bands Splashdown and Universal Hall Pass), whom we turn to for our darker, more trip-hoppy songs. Mozez (from Zero 7), who handles all our male vocals. And Lia Rose (singer/songwriter) whom we turn to for our more pure, innocent, and dream-poppy songs. They’re all great singers, and each brings a different energy to their songs. It’s nice to have variety.
With all the success from your previous solo work “Calling All Dawns” being rooted firmly in the classical/world genre – this is a completely different side to Christopher Tin we’re seeing. Do you see the projects as completely separate? Is there anything you prefer being part of Stereo Alchemy over being a solo artist or vice versa? Or is it just about being free to express each layer of music you’d like to explore?
The two sides don’t have much to do with each other, really. I’m just exploring something that I’ve wanted to do for awhile, and having fun doing it. At the same time, I’m still working on my orchestral/world releases. I just need a change of scenery from time to time, that’s all. There are pros and cons of working in a collaboration, and working as a solo artist. It’s just nice to be able to balance both.
As a team of many genres of music – are their any particular influences that set up the “God of Love” sound, because in a very fresh way, it feels like a homage to a certain period of music?
I sort of see it as an homage to maybe a mid-90s way of doing things. We sometimes joke that the name ‘Stereo Alchemy’ is really more of a 90s-sounding name… a little bit pretentious, a little bit on-the-nose.
Now that the album is finished about about to be released, where can we find it and will we be seeing you at any promotional events to support it?
It’s online at iTunes, Amazon, and our own website www.stereoalchemy.com. It’s also on my solo website, www.christophertin.com. We’re looking into some potential live possibilities… some of which might really appeal to HPM fans, in fact. Hopefully more will develop. We’ll see.
On a personal note, how does it feel to be a Grammy winner?
Pretty good, man. Pretty good.
Thank you so much to Stereo Alchemy for giving us their time and we wish them best of luck with God of Love.
Lila Rose’s new album “Heart Machine” is a wonderful work of art. Genre bending to the point where it becomes a new genre in itself, I could brand it Alt-Pop but it wouldn’t do the album justice.
“Obsession”, the album opener is a slow burning waltz full of layered vocals, swirling keyboards and clunky percussion. The result is something slightly off kilter yet haunting and intriguing to make you sway like the undead. The title track Ft Lynx then veers off to something like a more angrier My Brightest Diamond track with growling bass and guitars simmering away under lots of vocal technical trickery and rumbling drum beats. There’s something very lethargic about the production too where everything feels like it’s about to give up and break down and it gives the whole sound a certain charm.
“Like Champagne” then rolls over to a pop route with sexy beats, straight forward riffs and a collection of vocal bending antics to keep you amused. It reminds me a bit of Nelly Furtado. “Casting Shadows” with Eric Denniston then jumps to Bat For Lashes with some fantastic vocal work and some of the best creepy chorus lines I’ve heard in a while. Every nail is hit square on the head. Perfect.
“Lost Your Senses” takes all broken bones of the first four tracks and turns it into something almost dance worthy with a track the straddles a perfect balance between catchy and arty. It’s not something you’ll have in a club by far, but it’ll stick in your head to jig to all day long. “Unbroken” is dark but sweet ballad which has a wonderful middle section which is effectively a vocal solo where Lila’s wonderful voice soars and bellows in epic beauty.
“Give You My All” is pretty much the first time a guitar is heard clearly in this quiet track which slowly stumbles musically while Lila speed sings over the top. It’s a nice breather before the dark gets bloody in “Get Gone Again” which some fantastic chord changes a vocal flick that reminds me of the Cranberries. It’s just wonderfully realised – as the album is throughout. “Bang Bang” is another track that isn’t afraid of going all out with some great percussive work to work the titles theme. It’s a track that stands out on first listen for one reason but stays with you because it grows on you insanely quickly.
“In the Dimmest” brings all the electronics to the fore in what is a relatively low-fi and smooth track in comparison to the rest of the album but it is very catchy and immediately accessible. “Couldn’t Have” is the most upbeat track on the album with a great bass line and a swinging beat as the piano flies around the place. The album closes with the equally magical “And the Beat” in typically dark industrious fashion with quirky vocal delivery, euphoric bridges and hauntingly alluring riffs that pulsate in your mind long after the track ends.
Heart Machine is a stunning album. It holds a dark industrial atmosphere that encompasses everything shown on the front cover. It’s the perfect marriage between technical wizardry and really dark thoughts. It’s easily the most impressive album I’ve heard from a new singer/songwriter in 2012 to date and firmly sits in the middle of fight for our 2012 Album of the Year Podium. This is an album that fans of the thinking mans pop can not afford to miss.
Some artists do enjoy going back to their older songs and revisit them, tweak and sometimes improve them for a new pair of shoes to be walked in. Gregory Douglass has recently done that with eight of his tracks for Retro Active 3.
“Time” is a Gregory classic and is reworked into a more ethereal version tuning from an anthemic track to one that is still catchy but one that’s more layered and without drums it still has a real push behind it. “Innocence” sounds even darker than before with some great new electronica workings. “American City”, a very early track is given the Lucid treatment full of smooth, warm keyboard expertise. “North Star” is given the piano/cello stripped down edge and is every bit as dramatic as the original.
“Hard” is too given a Lucid feel with lots of glistening keyboard twinkles and bells while “Rotunda” is taken from a rocking growling menace and something that sounds like Soft Cell could have written in their Last Days in Sodom era – spooky and gritty. “Slipping” and ”"Hang Around” turns the fantastically catchy originals into a heart wrenching piano/cello/vocal ensemble which packs a real punch and closes the collection perfectly.
Gregory Douglass manages to keep the spirit of the originals whilst moving their goalposts and this will be a must have for all fans.
Martyrs of Sound specialise in meditative music. Clean, simple, warm and full of the essence of music, Radhe’s Dream is simply a heavenly joy to close your eyes to.
Opening with “Song of the Universe” the music is dominated by the warmth of a slowly plucked 12 String Guitar with minimal keyboard swirls in the background and the occasional other acoustic instrument echoing in the background. Seamlessly flowing into “Soul’s Awakening” which adds in piano to the original track and slowly some soft vocal hums and some lovely rain stick work too. “Soul’s Emergence” continues to grow on the four chords that have been gradually weaved upon with some tuned percussion and some stereo electronica work before “Song of the Beloved” adds in some wonderful electric-acoustic guitar work over the top. The whole album carries a certain cyclic feel throughout and is absolutely hypnotic even by track four. Even though it is effectively a four chord repetition and doesn’t feel like it.
“Radhe’s Dream” starts a new phase of the album where the same chords are kept but not with the same pitch as the guitar softens and is taken up an octave before “Radhe’s Dream” itself kicks in and finally we have our first vocal lead with soft harmonised and doubled up vocal patterns. It’s about as close to a single as you can get on the album and is easy to enter into as a standalone track although the album works best played as a whole entity. The guitar work throughout is beautiful.
“Govinda’s Dream” enters a third phase of the cycle as we enter a shimmering sparkling world and the four chord pattern becomes a single droning Raj. Guitar freeflows over the top while an electric percussive beat pans beautifully from ear to ear. “Om Shanti” takes things further with a more complex arrangement merging the Asian with the blues. It’s the blues that wins out in time for “Soul’s Tantra” which starts to repeat a riff that has been present over the last few tracks but in a more subtle way while the vocals take more prominence here and in “Song of Jai”.
By this point you should be utterly relaxed as the Raj gives way to “Soul Awakening Reprise” which soon returns to the beautiful four chord structure and “Radhe’s Dream Reprise” shows that actually, the Raj and four chord structures were together all along and we just hadn’t felt them both in our presence at the same time. As if then being pulled out of the circle and being cleansed “Beautiful” then appears to close the album with all the elements that we’ve had throughout the album brought together in one beautifully heart-wrenching and ethereal track.
Martyrs of Sound have achieved a wonderful album. This is ultimate relaxation music. Enhanced with a warm bath, candles, maybe even drifting off with a loved one – I whole heartedly recommend this to anyone into acoustic relaxation music with heart and substance – not the tepid and soulless meditation music that’s all about a single phasing keyboard note. This takes you literally to a Higher Plain of Music.
