TRAVIS
Ode To J Smith ****
Red Telephone Box PHONE004, £11.99The Glasgow quartet's riposte to their critics is a short sharp shock of a pop rock album, the first to sound like an old school guitar band since the raw raucou
s debut Good Feeling.
Since then Andy Dunlop's very electric playing has deferred to Fran Healey's winning way with a melody, and a banjo or two along the way. But while the single 'Something Anything' is bold and brash, with a typical Travis melody swimming against the thumping instrumentation, and 'Long Way Down' has a Libertines' lilt in addition to echoes of The Kinks' 'Dead End Street', the band's reinvention owed much more than a return to rock.
'Broken Mirror' is daringly spacious, Healy's voice sinister and restrained over Dunlop's controlled snarling riffs, and the band seems to be extending itself well beyond the limits of winsome smiles and handsome hooks.
The closest we get to a title track in the shape of 'J Smith' is all staccato chops, and an extraordinary choral middle eight section that evolves into some kind of musical exorcism. 'Get Up' burbles along on a hypnotic bass string riff, screaming out for a dance remix, as does Fran's funky vocal.
Essentially the group sound much happier than they have in years, pleasing themselves to hugely enjoyably effect. And it is done with a natural ease that makes Snow Patrol and the rest all seem rather contrived.
Download this: Song To Self, Broken Mirror
POP
THE ALIENS
Luna ****
Pet Rock PETROCKCD02, £10.99 The precarious talent of Gordon Anderson has never been better represented than on this second long player from the erstwhile Beta Band trio.
Luna is one glorious swirl of psychedelia, set in motion by the opening 'Bobby's Song'. Starting with flourishes of Midnight Cowboy moothie, this epic does a sea shanty along the Russian Steppes before wigging out Sixties-style with phased banks of vocals and coming to a warm, fuzzy conclusion.
'Magic Man' is a more conventional rock structure, if still happily far from the norm.
Download this: Bobby's Song, Everyone
MERCURY REV
Snowflake Midnight ***
V2VVR1051272, £11.99 A decade on from Deserter's Songs, which soared down from their native Catskill Mountains like a healing musical avenger, the Rev have been sidelined in the slipstream of contemporaries Flaming Lips. Snowflake Midnight is as ethereal as the title suggests: songs such as 'People Are So Unpredictable' and 'Dream Of A Young Girl As A Flower' even more so. 'Far Away From Cars' is closer to irritating, a whimsical escapism hopelessly adrift from reality, and 'A Squirrel And I' is every inch the dippy hippy nonsense it sounds, right down to the sampled baby's cry. Less ambience and more relevance please.
Download this: Senses On Fire
IGLU & HARTLY
And Then Boom *
Mercury 177878764, £10.99 Occupying the middle ground between the Polyphonic Spree, the Scissor Sisters and the Beastie Boys Lite, the Los Angeles trio expend a lot of energy without ever getting anywhere creatively.
The pop hook of 'In This City' will haunt you for days, but not in a good way. 'Violent And Young' also drawls into the memory banks, but this is bubblegum pop with even less substance than Vanilla Ice at his least inspired.
Download this: Jump Out Of Your Car
CLASSICAL
JS BACH
Organ Works *****
Challenge Classics CC72061, £13.99If Lon Chaney did little for JS Bach's Toccata And Fugue In D Minor, at least as thunderingly played in The Phantom Of The Opera, there's always the music itself to fall back on.
Although Bach was required to act as an organist in his earlier years, that didn't stop him composing for it, and in his youth he was enough of a fan to walk from Hamburg to Lübeck to hear the renowned organist Dietrich Buxtehude perform.
This, the fourth in a series of re-issues, features Jacques van Oortmessen in a variety of moods, giving a well-rounded and highly satisfying performance.
Download this: Toccata And Fugue In D minor
RAVEL, BORODIN, BIZET
Boléro, Music From Kismet, Suites From Carmen ***
Telarc CD-80703, £13.99There's a fine line in concert planning between 'pops' and 'pap'; this CD just about keeps itself above it courtesy of strong performances of Ravel's Boléro and of Bizet's Suites From Carmen.
Conductor Erich Kunzel's own reworking of Alexander Borodin's music is what lets this down: the composer's works were remodelled by Robert Wright and George Forrest for the musical Kismet, and Kunzel's new attempt adds nothing to an already popularised work for which Borodin, by then already dead for two-thirds of a century, failed to collect his Tony Award for 1953's Best Musical.
Download this: Danse Bohème
JAZZ
WARREN VACHÉ MEETS DEREK WATKINS AGAIN
I Can't Get Started ****
Zephyr ZECD 38,£13.99Quite why this album – or its predecessor – required a second trumpeter when it had Warren Vaché is a mystery, but, that gripe aside, this is an immensely enjoyable CD which finds both the American cornettist and his more heavily featured British counterpart on top form. Superb accompaniment is provided by guitarist Dave Cliff, whose featured number, 'How Insensitive', is sublime – as is the closing track, a touching ballad tribute (written by Vaché) to the late drummer Allan Ganley, who had been scheduled to play on this recording.
Download this: Juicy Lucy, Now That Ganley's Gone
JIMMY SMITH
Plays Fats Waller ***
Blue Note Records: RVG Edition 50999 2 15369 22, £9.99Hammond organ master Jimmy Smith paid tribute to the great pianist, organist, composer and all-round (no pun intended) entertainer Fats Waller with this 1962 album, featuring just his organ plus guitar and drums. His laid back, bluesy vibe makes such Waller evergreens sound fresh and he has an appropriately playful style but the best thing about this reissue is the fact that it might send you back to the original, classic Fats recordings which are considerably more ear-catching.
Download this: Honeysuckle Rose, I've Found A New Baby
FOLK
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Beginner's Guide To English Folk ****
Nascente NSBOX040, £9.99This bargain-price three-CD set reveals the highs (and some lows) of what a wacky music editor has dubbed 'English' folk music, although quite how he conceives Sweeney's Men (embryonic Planxty) or the Humblebums (Gerry Rafferty and Billy Connolly) as such escapes me. The three hours of listening does, however, throw up the late great folklorists and singers AL Lloyd and Ewan MacColl, captivating 1960s revivalists Anne Briggs and Dolly Collins, and representatives of every decade since.
Download this: Davy Graham, Anji
THE FIELD MOUSE CONSPIRACY
Freedom And The Dream Penguin ***
Well Maybe Next Year Recordings WMNYCD039, £13.99From the north of Ireland, around 50 musicians and singers (not all at once) perform songs and instrumentals written by their guitarist pal and veteran musical journalist Colin Harper.
'King Of The Sun' has Martin Hayes on fiddle and there are string quartet arrangements, but with Wings' Henry McCullough on lead guitar and a clutch of Van Morrison sidemen, this is essentially an acoustic/electric MOR rock album.
In a very mixed bag there's a song from 1960s Fairport vocalist Judy Dyble, and powerful vocals from Janet Holmes in 'Be The One'.
Download this: Passing Away
The full article contains 1222 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
