Tag: entertainment

The Plum Magnetic Cooks up a Musical Gumbo

 

What do you get when you put an electric 6-string banjo, a tabla, guitar, bass and drums together? The Plum Magnetic! And don’t you just love that name? Terms such as ‘world music’ and ‘fusion’ are bandied around a lot, but this group of musicians has embraced these musical areas with a passion on their album, Terra Animata (released 23rd February 2013).

They are a quartet from New Orleans and with a cooking pot full of different ingredients, just like New Orleans itself, this musical stew bubbles away, spitting out jazz, reggae, classical Indian music, country, Latin and more; each time you listen to a track, you get a different flavour. Only the most accomplished musicians could carry this off. In the hands of the less able, it could have been a mish-mash. Other instruments used include saxophone, trumpet, steel pan and cello.

The cover art for the album is infused with the spirit of William Blake and promises something epic and dramatic, but what we get is something far more gentle and subtle.

Comparisons to Bela Fleck, Talking Heads, The Grateful Dead and the Mahavishnu Orchestra will only take you a little way in knowing what to expect from these eight tracks. This music doesn’t hit you over the head; it kinda seeps into your brain like a raga, and the high level of musicianship keeps your interest. Four of the eight tracks are over nine minutes long, but they aren’t self-indulgent; it just takes that long for the complexities to develop. Every note on this album was probably carefully rehearsed, but sometimes it sounds like an impromptu jam.

Spring is the opening track, softly lapping the airwaves with echoing a-cappella, harmonic vocals. At just 25 seconds long, it’s a gentle introduction and unlike anything else heard on the album. Apart from Spring, I prefer the tracks without vocals, which I don’t think are of the same quality as the instrumentation and for the layers of sounds to carry me along undisturbed. Standout tracks for me are The Electric Jungle, with melodic banjo and cello (it’s not often you see those two instruments in the same sentence), Shesh Besh, one of the more straightforward rock tracks, led by melodic guitar and The Delicious, a gentle jazz, country and rock track  with banjo and guitar weaving in and out. As for the closing title track, Terra Animata, it’s the most complicated, with some pleasing Latin rhythms and Tijuana horns, but overall, I think the vocals definitely detract from it.

Terra Animata is an ambitious project, and it’s good for fresh things to drip into your ears. Certainly, jazz on the banjo is a new and welcome sensation for me! The juxtaposition of different instruments is intriguing, and it’s interesting to try to deconstruct it. But for all the complexity going on, my favourite tracks are the ones where less is more.

 

https://theplummagnetic.bandcamp.com/album/terra-animata

 

 

 

Happy Christmas TV!

So, what will you be watching on television this festive season? Or rather, what won’t you be watching? It occurred to me while browsing the upcoming TV highlights yesterday that, in these days of digital enlightenment, the second of these two questions is the easier to answer. To explain, let me go, as I often do, back a few years…

Who can recall those bygone days when you generally had to be at home to receive a phone call? Or when you wanted to gather some random tidbit of information like, say, the names of all the capital cities on the African continent? Naturally, you would have to heave a great encyclopaedia off a shelf, blow the dust off its cover and then leaf through its cluttered pages, wouldn’t you? And who is seasoned enough (by the passing of time, not the addition of salt and pepper) to remember when we had far fewer options when it came to what to watch on TV? Fact is, until March 1997, we in the UK only had four channels to entertain us. Seems almost beyond belief now, doesn’t it? And if you go back to November ’82 there were just three! I mean, how in the world did we cope? And in case you’re now curious, BBC1 first aired in November ’36 (as BBCTV), then came ITV in September ’55 and then BBC2 in April ’64 (at which point BBCTV became BBC1).

With only four channels to choose between it was a relatively easy task to plot a course through the ocean of programming over the festive period. With full belly and dragging energy levels, the time spent in front of the TV often took up a significant portion of the holiday. Of course, there were grumblings about the repeats – particularly the scheduled movies – “How can that be on again? That was on last year. Why couldn’t they have shown so-and-so instead? I haven’t seen that one in ages.” At one time, James Bond’s appearances during our post-lunch snoozings were as regular as the Queen’s speech. But we would watch those repeats all the same, moaning as we did, but nevertheless enjoying their festive familiarity.

And that’s the difference today. Assuming that TV still has priority over all other forms of entertainment, we don’t need to sit through repeats anymore. Unless that’s what blows your hair back, of course. With many of us now having more channels to watch than we can shake a remote control at, not to mention the shelves of DVDs we own as well as computers that can stream virtually anything that’s ever been filmed, we are able to watch pretty much anything we like. And if we miss something because we were out or it clashed with something else we were watching, there’s always ‘catch-up TV’. Which means the good old Christmas TV schedule seems to have lost its influence a bit, doesn’t it? And yet…

The self-titled ‘Legendary’ double edition of the Radio Times is perhaps one of the most eagerly awaited magazines of the year and has been for as long as I can remember. Prior to 1991 of course, we had two magazines to buy and to study because the TVTimes was the only place to read the ITV and Channel 4 listings. Now though, both magazines give the same information so really it’s just a question of taste (perhaps an interesting article or interview within the pages of one) or loyalty as to which one we carry home with our shopping.

Today, menus and schedules on our TV screens may tell us what we’re currently watching and what’s coming up but I, for one, still enjoy turning every page of the Christmas Radio Times, red pen in hand, marking everything that’s of interest. I’m quite positive I won’t get to watch half of it but it’s nice to see it’s on. These chronicles are inventories of our viewing pleasure and whether we cheer or grumble as we leaf through them, most of us now have the power to go ‘off-piste’, so to speak, to take control of our own screens.

A headline caught my eye today which stated that Downton Abbey is scheduled to go head to head with Eastenders on Christmas day in the battle for ratings. Once upon a time, this would have meant disappointment for some household members and possible arguments for others as one of these shows would have to have been missed. Unless you had a video recorder. And let’s face it, using one of those was always a bit of a rigmarole. Today we just push a button on the remote and watch one show straight after the other. There’s not even any need to heave our turkey-stuffed selves out of our chairs. Really now, we’ve never had it so good.

And so whatever you end up doing this Christmas, whether or not it involves catching some of the festive TV and, yes those obligatory repeats, I wish you and yours the best of the season and a Happy New Year.

 

The Power of Kicking Down Borders

Jason Garriotte is a beard and checked shirt type of guy, as seen on the video for The Power To Be Alive remix.  Give him an acoustic guitar and he’s the quintessential folkie.  His voice is rich, sounding quite powerful, and his guitar style is crisp.

The original version of The Power To Be Alive appeared on his debut EP, Reflections of Reality, which came out in January 2012.This folk acoustic  set of songs has been given a ‘folktronica’ remix as a result of Garriotte’s love of collaborating. The Chords of Truth project, as it became known, saw numerous versions of the EP’s tracks, with different producers and performers bringing their take from the world of electronic music.

Reflections of Reality (The Chameleon Acidfolk Remix) was released on 3rd December 2013.   Electronic producer, The Chameleon, has enabled Garriotte to take his songs into another realm on these remixed versions. For The Power To Be Alive track, the folkie singer songwriter teamed up with the rapper, Man-u-iLL, resulting in what has been described as acidfolk/hip hop.

This song urges us to achieve our goals, giving out a positive message – “the world is yours”, with Man-u-iLL underlining the message in rap. It’s well produced with vocals upfront and clear. For me, some raps detract from the enjoyment of existing songs when they’ve been parachuted in, but Man-u-iLL’s contribution adds to this song. When comparing this to the original, the ‘fills’ are welcome and the rap part is a bonus. It’s two worlds colliding and it shouldn’t work but it does. Equally a blend of disparate worlds, the video is entertaining and intriguing. Both cityscapes and rustic scenes are the setting, whilst the two performers do their thing. However, they are joined by a strange presence – a man in a mask playing keyboards and wandering around kinda menacingly.

All in all, then, both song and video throw out surprises. Uplifting messages cross all boundaries, and I hope this helps to dispel any genre prejudices people may have.

Official Music Video (released 10-22-13):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ73WSXTlEA


Streaming Links:
http://soundcloud.com/chordsoftruthremixed/sets/reflections-of-reality-thechameleon-acidfolk-remix/

 

Sound Strider Goes Further

 

Sound Strider (real name, Sam Waks) is an exponent of ‘intelligent dance music’. His music on this 5-track Intrepid Travels EP (released 5th November 2013) has been couched in descriptions I struggle to understand, electronic music not being something I listen to a lot. I really should listen to more, as some of it appeals to me, whilst other stuff leaves me cold. So, versed only in The Chemical Brothers and some electronica from the 1970s, I approached with interest, the cover art having instantly intrigued me.

What appealed to me, even before listening, are the ideas behind the concept. Electronic ambient sounds fused with psychedelia promises to bring the past and the future together in some sort of mind-expanding hybrid out in space. As for intelligence, Waks has explored worlds beyond reaching oblivion on the dance floor. Spoken word samples and voice effects add another dimension to keep our interest; some discordant notes actually add interest, too.

Going for rhythm rather than melody, I won’t pretend to know how a lot of these sounds are achieved. Loops that don’t get bogged down in endless repetition, synths and samples make up the EP, along with inventive percussion, particularly inventive on Betoniere. With beats driving the tracks along, I could easily run or work out to them.

Waks says he was inspired to make this EP after reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. This is an account by Tom Wolfe of the exploits of Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters in the 1960s. This merry band went across America in a gaily painted school bus dubbed ‘Further’, as seen on the cover of the EP, stopping to party with the aid of hallucinogenic drugs and light effects. On the cover, however, the bus is speeding past Saturn. Waks makes the point that Kesey’s movement was a forerunner for the dance parties of today. The tracks have got some psychedelic elements, but it doesn’t invite us to tune in and drop out, so prevalent in the hippie era. It’s more of a stimulant to the senses than an invitation to dream.

Another link to Ken Kesey is the use of one of the track’s titles, namely Menlo Park. It’s surely not a coincidence that Kesey worked as an aide at Menlo Park Veteran’s Hospital, where he also volunteered to participate in studies into certain drugs. Kesey’s experiences as a hospital worker and medical volunteer inspired him to write One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Opening track, The Stakes, is chock full of ideas. These include  a rocket launch countdown and the speech from President Lyndon Johnson’s infamous 1964 advertising campaign, called Daisy, when he implores the American people to protect their children and vote for him rather than Barry Goldwater, who was gung-ho about using nuclear weapons.

This music is sometimes very complex, as in Childhood’s End (is this title taken from Arthur C. Clarke’s novel?), a complex array of disparate sounds that somehow manage to dovetail together.

Sam Waks has brought fresh ideas to the electronic genre and been disciplined enough to make each track about the right length. He has lived in many places, been involved as a producer and as a DJ and explored many genres before discovering electronic music as a means to express himself. Like a Merry Prankster, he’s on a journey; his destination is ‘further’.

 Soundcloud (https://soundcloud.com/soundstrider/sets/intrepid-travels-ep).


 

 

 

Classic TV Review: The Professionals

It was sad to read that Lewis Collins had died a few days ago (Nov 27) aged 67 following a five year battle with cancer. He was an underrated actor whose career was blighted by his being typecast as the tough guy, the character type that, ironically, made him a household name in the late ’70s. I’m talking, of course, about Bodie of CI5.

I wasn’t yet a teenager when The Professionals and its high octane opening titles exploded onto our TV screens late in 1977 and quickly became must-see action drama. I forget the time it aired – probably 8pm – but it was a show my parents allowed me to watch (bed straight after) and I just lapped up the fast-paced cocktail of car chases, gun fights and punch-ups. Of the three main characters, Bodie was my favourite – hard as nails and yet suave and well-dressed. I remember one Christmas getting an annual as well as a Corgi model of Bodie’s silver Ford Capri 3.0S complete with three tiny figures posing dramatically inside the box.

For those in the dark about the show, CI5 is a fictional law enforcement agency tasked with stopping all kinds of terrorism and threats to the UK. It is made up of highly capable individuals – the elite of the elite, if you will – and the man in charge is Cowley (Gordon Jackson). His two best men are Doyle (Martin Shaw) and Bodie (Lewis Collins). They are obedient to their superior but aren’t afraid of breaking the rules (as well as the law) if it brings results. Their partnership and friendship is symbiotic and with Cowley giving the orders, they are a great team. To complement the show’s action there are humorous moments between the leads and there is also detail in the police procedures although not as much as in many of today’s crime shows.

The show was created by Brian Clemens who was in part responsible for numerous classic TV shows of the ’60 and ’70s including The Avengers, The Persuaders!, The Protectors and The New Avengers. A total of 57 episodes over five seasons of The Professionals were aired between ’77 and ’83 however, the final episode of season one – Klansmen – was never transmitted on terrestrial TV in the UK because of its racial content.

I’ve caught an episode or two of the show over the years and yes, it filled me with a warm nostalgia but this morning, I happened upon an episode on ITV4 being shown as a tribute to Lewis Collins. This time, poignancy made me pay an even greater level of attention to the screen than normal. The episode was the fourth of season one – Killer with a Long Arm. It is about a Greek sniper who travels over from the continent with a mission to assassinate a Greek Royal at the Wimbledon Tennis Championships in order to make a political statement. The pacing of the story is excellent and the tension builds nicely all the way to the rooftop climax. The plot is believable (with the possible exception of the zoom on the sniper rifle scope) and the writing intelligent. There is mention of forensics and the overall, the action is minimal. I seem to remember some episodes being a lot more gung-ho but maybe these came later when the writers may have struggled for ideas. There are some humorous moments too between Bodie and Doyle and so to put it in a nutshell, it is a terrific episode of an exciting show.

Lewis Collins still commands my attention when he’s on screen. He has great presence and his natural manner, which can change from charming and friendly to threatening and brutal in a second, is totally captivating. His onscreen chemistry with Martin Shaw is great too, which probably helped make the show the success it was and one would assume they had an absolute blast while filming. The two actors had previously shared the screen playing villains in a 1977 episode of The New Avengers and creator Brian Clemens, who had already got Martin Shaw on board as Doyle, brought in Lewis Collins on the strength of this previous pairing. I haven’t watched it but apparently Collins’ character in that New Avengers episode (Obsession) signs off with the comment to Shaw’s character, “Maybe we should work together again. We’re a good team.”

Indeed they were. Lewis Collins may have passed away and I’m sure our hearts go out to the loved ones that survive him but the character for which we all recognise and love him, will live on for as long as humans watch TV.

The Savage Beauty of Stoney

Mark Stoney, aka Stoney, is a multi-instrumentalist songwriter whose escalating career has made waves, both in Britain and America. His first full length album, The Scene & The Unseen, gained column inches in major British newspapers and airplay on BBC Radio. Stoney has played at such iconic festivals as Glastonbury, Leeds/Reading and Austin’s SXSW and toured with big names such as the Arctic Monkeys, Athlete and Laura Marling. Some of his previous songs have even appeared in UK and US films and TV programmes. So does his latest release, More Than Animals (January 14th, 2014) live up to expectations? Thankfully, yes.

Stoney plays almost all instruments on More Than Animals and produces too. He has been likened to many artists and genres, but his style is not easily distilled. What shines through is an ear for a rollicking good rhythm, crisp vocals and some of the most expressive, inventive lyrics I’ve ever come across.

He certainly straddles the Atlantic, having originally come from a London suburb, moved to Sheffield, that hotbed of original talent, and finally relocated to Austin, Texas. Whatever he’s soaked up on the way, More Than Animals emerges as his original take.

Some songs have an epic, theatrical quality, with soaring choruses that, for me, rekindled 1980s sounds, as on Sweet Release and The Score, the latter a worthy nod to online casino Gary Numan.  There’s even a hint of musical theatre in terms of melody, albeit with a rock sensibility. But Stoney can be softly delicate too, on the slower, sparser acoustic tracks such as We Belonged, Albatross and Wanderlust. Bittersweet melancholy is part of his DNA.

Devil On My Back is a prime example of his talent for a driving rhythm, this one enhanced by dark lyrics narrating a spiral into despair. Also destined to bring out the beast in you is Round Here, a quiet bit of bluesy slide guitar kicking into hillbilly aggression. Cock of the Walk’s rhythm carries a rant against conforming to mediocrity. Stoney has been compared to David Bowie and The Kinks and that isn’t wide of the mark. However, House of Mirrors reminded me of Steve Marriott channelling his Artful Dodger persona.

Stoney delivers crisp, precise vocals, which is fortunate because his lyrics are so damned good. Often expressing the dark corners of his soul and love’s cruel twists, his arresting imagery is equally adept when loving or when aggressive. And he does express love so beautifully. Listen to Albatross and weep, but We Belonged, if you’ve ever lost someone, will bring you to your knees. A radio-friendly ballad with catchy melody and acoustic guitar, its accompanying video has childhood sweethearts, a wedding, a funeral and a tree motif. Just for my personal taste, I would have preferred the video to be less literal.

The title, More Than Animals refers to a line in Bedpost, about an encounter that shouldn’t have happened, wherein the question is posed, “will you even mark the notch into your bedpost?”, the conclusion being “we’re no more than animals”.

Despite its dark take on life, this is a surprisingly healing set of songs, with a melancholic truth that’s sometimes astonishing.

https://soundcloud.com/stoneystuff