113 f PHAMIE GOW
Beyond The Milky Way Wildfire 5060106500175
These ten original compositions for piano solo and string quartet were the featured album on John Brunning’s Classic FM radio show recently. This is Gow’s fourth piano CD and her ninth solo album. Phamie Gow first came to fame as a Celtic harpist, but her early musical roots lie in her studies with concert pianist and composer Ronald Stevenson before training at the Royal Scottish Acade- my of Music and Drama (RSAMD). Gow’s web- site informs us that she is currently the num- ber one most played artist in Caffe Nero UK and that her music is regularly featured on Classic FM. It is easy to see why. Her melliflu- ous piano music has a soothing peacefulness and a calm lyricism, which accounts for its huge appeal to Classic FM listeners stuck in the evening commute, and to Caffe Nero cus- tomers taking a break from the daily grind.
If you like Ludovico Einaudi’s piano music, or 2 Cello’s acoustic repertoire, you will enjoy this. Just lie back and chill out.
phamiegow.com Paul Matheson MARTIN CARTHY
An Introduction To Martin Carthy Topic TICD011
In this introduction, Topic show the depth, breadth and variety of Carthy’s music. Topic allowed Carthy to compile this release where- by we get a glimpse into which tracks are sig- nificant to Carthy himself. So… we have A Ship To Old England Came with Carthy on distorted electric guitar and Ben Ivitsky on what sounds like a creaking door; the plectrum-strummed King Henry, where Carthy gives his widely cele- brated blues thumb a rest and transforms his guitar into an Appalachian dulcimer. His instrumental cannon is represented by McVeagh from Right Of Passage; he engages an analogue synth on Palaces of Gold; David Ackles’ song His Name Is Andrew makes a wel- come appearance, possibly Carthy’s best vocal performance ever on record, with a moving guitar accompaniment to match; there are also two tracks with Brass Monkey.
No Steeleye or Albion band, no Water-
son/Carthy, no Imagined Village and no solo unaccompanied songs. What? No Creeping Jane? It’s true… outrageous! No Little Mus- grave and Lady Barnard? Unbelievable! That quite major beef aside, the CD does present us with a fascinating timeline from 1965’s Scarborough Fair through to Carthy’s last solo recording Waiting For Angels, and juxtaposes the musical changes he has been through. Vocally, his first recordings have something of the trained singer about them, almost bell- like in tone. Gradually this style gives way to a more elemental sound, more closely miked, more resonant, which is first evident on this recording on the song Prince Heathen.
Likewise, his guitar playing, although sympathetic and supportive on Scarborough Fair, was quite conventional for its time. Then suddenly… bam! We are hit with Byker Hill, a radical change in style. His playing is deliber- ately realigned into something more modal and unique to folksong, a style that was to develop over the next six releases into some- thing which would inspire a generation of guitarists. A timely release for younger listen- ers and lapsed Carthy fans, this serves as an excellent introduction to a man who, for many, requires no introduction.
topicrecords.co.uk Mark T. GWENIFER RAYMOND
You Were Never Much Of A Dancer Tomp- kins Square TSQ5531
Less an opening track, more an augury, the 57 seconds of down-tuned fiddle music that is Off To See The Hangman, Part I forewarns of something coming…
That something arrives in Sometimes
There’s Blood, as Raymond’s guitar announces itself on a killer riff amidst clang- ing peals and lightning-fast harmonics. Before the dust settles, it’s followed with a tremendous clawhammer banjo Idumea – with a few audacious string bends thrown in for good measure.
The album ranges from the contempla-
tive lament of Laika’s Song to the Pentecostal rapture of Oh, Command Me Lord! and from the manic banjo frailing of Bleeding Finger Blues to the slow, hypnotic bottleneck blues of Sweep It Up. Off To See The Hangman, Part II is a brooding behemoth of discord and intensity, while Sack ‘em Up, Parts I and II is a beauteous thing made of space and gentle propulsion.
It’s impossible to write about American Primitive without reference to John Fahey, and Raymond both acknowledges her debt and proves her worth on Requiem For John Fahey. While her music draws both from the 1960s guitar heroes and the old masters who inspired both them and her, hints of noisier, more recent influences are detectable to the keen nose.
In the same way that Lankum subtly con- temporise Irish music, Gwenifer Raymond digs deep into tradition from her place in the present and ends up reimagining and reinvig- orating the whole caboodle. Strikingly pack- aged, perfectly sequenced and devoid of self- indulgence, this is a landmark record by an exceptional talent.
gweniferraymond.bandcamp.com Steve Hunt Gwenifer Raymond
ZIMBAMOTO Tombai Zimbamoto 875531014105
Actor, teacher, singer and musician, Zimbab- wean born Kurai Mubaiwa now lives a very active life in Vancouver where one of his many activities is leading this quintet. His first instrument as a boy was the mbira thumb- piano which he learned from a number of older family members. Appropriately, this instrument plays a long introduction on the opening track before the rest of the band come in playing a distinctive Shona groove followed by Kurai’s searing voice on its own and then in lovely harmony with the other four. It’s quickly apparent that the listener is in for a very good time and the feelgood fac- tor increases as the album goes along. There is a fair amount of mbira on the album but there is even more of his other instrument, the marimba, which is widely popular in the countries of southern Africa and Kusai brings to this xylophone the same driving rhythms that he brings to his other simpler instru- ment.
Though it is clear who is the front man here, the guitar, bass, drums and second per- cussionist play in a confident, tight well- rehearsed and arranged way and the excite- ment level never drops. A particular mention should made of drummer Curtis Andrews who drives the band along in a similar man- ner to the way that Marshall Munhumumwe did with The Four Brothers, particularly when the band are soaring along in that exhilarat- ing six-time that the earlier band also favoured.
Another similarity would be the way that both bands would suddenly break into a dif- ferent rhythm. With the Harare unit, this usu- ally meant doubling the speed, here there are sudden switches into ska, reggae, Latin etc. It is very effective.
zimbamoto.com Vic Smith
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