69 f


a set of rants. On this track and on a number of others, he is accompanied by the vamping piano of Will Chamberlain; old fashioned, nothing flash but very effective indeed.


The overall impressions from this delightful album are that here is a major tal- ent whose material is very well researched and chosen and whose love of the tradition shines through every note that he plays. This must rate as one of the most exciting albums of English traditional music playing to be released in some time. www.veteran.co.uk


Vic Smith RAINBOW CHASERS


The Best Of 2004-2010 Talking Elephant TECD164


CHRIS WHILE & JULIE MATTHEWS


Hitting The Ground Running Fat Cat FATCD022


Silver shoes on the cover, are they going to set off down a yellow brick road? Is it the same one that The Rainbow Chasers have been travelling for the past few years? Not always getting the exposure they perhaps should, Ashley Hutchings’ unplugged cre- ation has nonetheless consistently delivered, their albums an opposite to the Albion Band’s bucolic celebrations; instead this is cerebral, certainly English but littered with poetic ref- erences and echoes of the pastoral. Like the creations of Nick Drake – remembered in one of the selections – Rainbow Chasers demand your time, it is music which needs attention to understand. Not that everything here is on the shoulders of The Guv’nor, his three com- panions are a diverse crew and chip in the majority of the songs. Ruth Angell, lest you forget, pitches in with Mabon and Jo Hamil- ton’s solo album from last year was astonish- ingly diverse; these people have form. Gui- tarist Mark Hutchinson has since moved on to be replaced by Joe Topping whose bluesy style gives them yet another dimension. Note to completists, huge chunks are previously unreleased; a live segment gives a window on their current harmonic, slightly more electric sound. Thoughtful items, more from the par- lour than the plough.


www.talkingelephant.co.uk – distributed by Proper; www.rainbowchasers.co.uk


The last time I was at a While & Matthews gig, a supposed fan held forth with – and I quote – “Oh yes, they’re the female answer to Show Of Hands”. It was meant as a compliment I think, but would probably have Chris and Julie tearing their hair out. I raise it not as a Smart Alec way to start a review, but as an illustration of the way that those only half listening can get the wrong impression, even if they think they’re spot on. Chris While & Julie Matthews have always been about considered, effective songwriting which gets to the core and if it has something to say, does so in a gentle, stimulating way; all topped off with great melodies, memorable lyrics and peaches and cream harmonies. Which is a pretty good description of Hitting The Ground Running; our heroines are in particularly fine fettle here, this fresh crop of songs crafted from the road, experience and history. All that plus a decent bit of exposure for the excel- lent Howard Lees, mate of Clive Gregson no less, much underrated, a great guitarist, acoustic or electric.


Julie Matthews as ever is the one who digs the deeper for her material and here scores mightily with Carved In Stone, a reflec- tion on what we leave behind when we pass away; Rock Of Gelt was written for Along The Wall, a heavy duty rocker with Celtic touches from Troy Donockley, Joe Broughton and


Paloma Trigas on pipes/ fiddles respectively; Ghost Of You is a minute of regret set to a lilting piano line to die for whilst a string sec- tion accentuates the pain behind the words. Chris While balances with the folksy strum and run of The Coldest Winds Do Blow which sounds for all the world like a trad item, though she probably holds the key track with The Darkside Wood, a number destined to remain in their set for as long as they play. In essence a tale of survival through disaster, it romps and rolls with bounce and crunch, the band right on the money and While, obvious- ly on a breeze, delivers a gritty vocal relating a ballad of remarkable courage and not inconsiderable luck.


To these ears, Hitting… is the best they’ve delivered in some time, harmonic, subtle and crafted. Here come the girls…


www.fatcatrecords.com – distributed by


Proper; www.whileandmatthews.co.uk Simon Jones


CHIN NA NA POUN Au Cabanon Buda Musique 860190


Chin Na Na Poun are a trio from Provençal with an unusual combination of instru- ments: Manu Théron sings lead and plays percussion, Patrick Vaillant provides man- dolin and Daniel Malavergne tuba. Tonally, the trio’s sound is minimalist and unusual with the mandolin tinkling in the upper reg- ister, the booming tuba hitting the bass notes and not a lot in-between. The strange band name is an onomatopoeic representa- tion of brass instruments.


The originality of their sound is also its limitation. As if to compensate for the lack of textural variety, they draw material from a broad range of sources, which includes an Andalucian copla, a Neapolitan canzone, Provençal folk material and original compo- sitions. The mandolin and tuba are like a musical Laurel and Hardy, which tends to cast an atmosphere of levity and joviality over everything, which begins to become tiresome. By the last track, La Java Des Bombers Atomiques, the band have aban- doned any trace of restraint and everything imaginable is tossed into a mess of a song that includes musical jokes, laughing, strange noises and dogs barking.


Chin Na Na Poun have an original sound and unusual approach, which is refreshing when you first hear it, but their comedic approach is not always appropriate to the material and hard to sustain over a whole album. Distributed in the UK by Discovery.


Michael Hingston


ANDREW CRONSHAW The Great Dark Water Acrobat TRACD6502


In 1982 when The Great Dark Water first appeared, Andrew Cronshaw was part of a nexus of British musicians blurring what counted as folk or jazz. Prior to this album, he hadn’t made an album under his own name since Wade In The Flood for Transatlantic four years earlier. It seemed as if he was more content to play live and to expand his sound palette and library of musical ideas.


The team that realised his visions here were the folk mafia hit squad of Fred Thelo- nious Baker (electric bass), Micky Baker (drums), Dave Bristow (piano and synth), Jonathan Davie (electric bass), Vo Fletcher (guitar), Ric Kemp (electric bass), Rachel Perry (oboe), Ric Sanders (violin), Martin Simpson (stringed things) and June Tabor (vocals). Stylistically, it has great flair and wit. In 2010 The Wexford Carol triggers memories of the Cronshaw-Sanders touring duo. A Galician Processional foreshadows one strand of his


‘82 model Cronshaw


later musical adventures. Empty Places, with Bristow’s synth swoops and dives, sounds much like out-take music for Anglia Televi- sion’s Tales Of The Unexpected. And Tabor’s take on The Ship In Distress now sounds like a portent of her sea-themed programme, debuted at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in September 2009, in which it also appeared.


Since there is nothing in the way of con- textual notes here, after The Great Dark Water came projects aureoled in the folk chronicle, notably his work with June Tabor on her albums Abyssinians (1983) and Aqaba (1988). Never in a rush to whack out albums, his next work under his own name was Till The Beasts’ Returning (1988) and The Lan- guage Of Snakes (1993) – stories for another time. The Great Dark Water was previously restored to the marketplace in its entirety as part of Topic’s now out-of-print The Andrew Cronshaw CD in 1989 and to have it back is nothing less than a joy.


www.acrobatmusic.net cloudvalley.com/darkwaterlp.htm


Ken Hunt TOM ZÉ & BANDA AO VIVO


O Pirulito Da Ciência Discmedi Blau DM 4853-02 [CD] / DM 4854-05 [DVD]


Tom Zé diehards will have already snapped up this CD and DVD. For everyone else, trying to distil the essence of Zé invites allusions to the likes of José Martí, Bola de Nieve, Victor Jara, Chavela Vargas, Berthold Brecht, Lenny Bruce, Mose Allison, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morri- son, Frank Zappa, Tom Waits and then some. The spirit of this extraordinary artist and his work –musical theatre, one might call it – is as courageous and uncompromising as any of his spiritual antecedents, and equally beyond category. Recorded live in São Paulo in August 2009, O Pirulito Da Ciência (The Lollipop Of Science) reveals Zé at his sharpest, a relentlessly cosmopolitan poet, musician, bandleader and social critic most at home on stage and (literally) in his audience, playfully, outrageously funny, and dead seri- ous in his outrage over the casual devasta- tions that late capitalism has wreaked upon Brazil and the rest of the planet.


In Companheiro Bush Zé calls out the for- mer US president for the manipulative, bald- faced lies that justified the invasion of Iraq, asserting that “Bush sold Iraq the bomb”. Zé is no friend of military regimes, having been –


Photo: Ian Anderson


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100