www.musicweek.com PRODUCTREISSUES YAZOO • LAURA NYRO • CRESSIDA • BILLIE/HAZELL DEAN/MARTINE McCUTCHEON
YAZOO • The Collection (Music Club Deluxe MCDLX 173)
Pioneers of electro dance, Yazoo gave Vince Clarke something to do between
leaving Depeche Mode and founding The Assembly, and introduced the world to Alison Moyet. Together for a mere year and a half, Yazoo nevertheless conspired to produce two superb albums – Upstairs At Eric’s (1982) and You And Me Both (1983). The highlights of both are included here, along with a mouthwatering collection of contemporaneous 12- inch mixes and subsequent reworkings of their hit singles. Moyet’s superb contralto gave light and shade to what would otherwise be fairly faceless but fearsome instrumental beds created on Clarke’s synths. The two worked incredibly well together, with Clarke’s cold but compelling runs on Only You being softened by
Moyet’s soothing delivery, follow-up Don’t Go showcasing a blistering Moyet vocal over a tinkering Clarke backdrop, and the haunting Nobody’s Diary showing that synth pop could have a heart.
VARIOUS • Sassafras & Moonshine - The Songs Of Laura Nyro(Ace CDCHD 1336)
Just 49 when she died in 1997, Laura Nyro was one of the greatest, if less
well-known, of her generation of Jewish/American singer/ songwriters, right up there with Neil Sedaka and Carole King. The title of the album is a lyrical reference to one of Nyro’s most exuberant and uplifting songs, Stoned Soul Picnic, which was made famous by The Fifth Dimension but appears here in a less familiar but gripping version by The Staple Singers. Wedding Bell Blues, another peerless vehicle for The Fifth
Dimension, is also here, in a nicely understated, prettily orchestrated version by Bobbie Gentry, while The Fifth Dimension themselves open proceedings with a scorching take on Sweet Blindness. Much of Nyro’s work had a spiritual, almost gospel feel, and whether it is The Supremes, post Diana Ross, extolling the virtues of Time And Love, Thelma Houston pleading with us to Save The Country or Esther Morrow vamping And When I Die, this album is a worthy appreciation of a gifted and much missed musician.
CRESSIDA • The Vertigo Years Anthology 1969-1971 (Esoteric ECLEC 22348)
Issued
simultaneous with the single disc Trapped In Time: The Lost Tapes,
which houses 1969 demos and recordings made prior to signing to the label, this double-disc anthology
includes every track that art rock/prog rock band Cressida cut for Vertigo, and adds previously unreleased BBC sessions. Digitally remastered, the tracks include their self-titled 1970 debut and 1971 follow-up Asylum in their entirety and reveal that, although commercially unsuccessful, the band intelligently avoided the excesses of some of their prog rock contemporaries. Instead, they delivered music that was very much keyboard-based and melodic, which should have earned them greater currency than they achieved.
BILLIE • The Singles Collection / HAZELL DEAN: Evergreen - The Very Best Of / MARTINE McCUTCHEON: The Collection (Music Club Deluxe MCDLX 170/168/171)
These are three very different low- price compilations of British female solo artists drawn
from the EMI archives. Billie burst
onto the scene in 1998 at the age of 15, with Because We Want To which soared straight to No.1, as did follow-up Girlfriend. She was never to reach such heights again but she was the perfect lightweight front to some likeable lightweight froth, and all the hit singles, rare B- sides and best album tracks are here. As a star of EastEnders, Martine McCutcheon aimed her music at an older demographic, and topped the chart with debut single Perfect Moment. Later singles met with less success, and McCutcheon turned to musical theatre. Songs from them all are here. Completing this varied trio, Hazell Dean was one of the earliest of a slew of artists to enjoy success with writers/producers Stock, Aitken & Waterman, scoring back-to-back Top 10 hits with Searchin’ (I Gotta Find A Man) and Whatever I Do in 1984, and helping to establish their hi-nrg style. Both are included alongside the rest of Dean’s UK hits, album tracks, unheard archive recordings and 12-inch mixes.
05.10.12 Music Week 43
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