This week’s musical interlude is courtesy of the Miguel Atwood Ferguson Ensemble, performing Donny Hathaway‘s Someday We’ll All Be Free. This video was shot live a few weeks ago at California Plaza in Los Angeles.
Bilal Oliver does a fine job shadowing the original vocal style of Mr Hathaway on this song. He will have his own album Air Tight’s Revenge out in September… could be worth checking out.
This week I was lucky enough to host Tim Guy for a couple of nights in Paris. Tim is a New Zealand-based singer-songwriter and is currently touring his solo show through Europe alongside Sam Prebble (Bond Street Bridge).
Sam and Tim played to a small but dedicated audiance at Espace B in the 19th arrondissement on Thursday. They’ll be making a circuit of the open mic nights in Paris over the next few days, before heading on to Switzerland and Germany. The objective of this tour is to get their music out there and make some contacts for another trip next year.
Although born in Australia, Tim has lived in New Zealand for the past five years, and calls our islands home. His music has developed over that time to carry many the traces of other great kiwi musicians such as Don Mcglashan, the Finn brothers, Anika Moa and Bic Runga. Here’s a taste:
Here are the next European dates for Sam and Tim’s tour. If you’re nearby, these are two musicians who are both well worth checking out!
26 Aug 2010 21:00 Cafe Kairo Bern, SWITZERLAND
28 Aug 2010 21:00 Cafe Galao Stuttgart, GERMANY
2 Sep 2010 21:00 Hafen 2 Offenbach, GERMANY
3 Sep 2010 20:00 hasenshaukel hamburg, GERMANY
14 Sep 2010 21:00 east of eden berlin, GERMANY
18 Sep 2010 21:00 The Royal Oak Prague, CZECH REPUBLIC
It is a rare and exciting day when you hear a musician of the calibre of Eddie Palmieri in concert. One of the founding fathers of New York salsa and a great innovator in the Latin jazz of the 1970s, Palmieri brought his Afro-Carribean All-Stars to New Morning in Paris last Friday, and they blew the roof off.
Eddie Palmieri, Concert Pique-Nique, Reims France, 17.07.2010. Image: Eulsteph
Two hours of music stretched out over a pair of sets, suffused with humour and generosity. It was hard to suppress a giggle when Palmieri threw a quote from Salt Peanuts into one of his famously overblown solo passages. The grinning complicity between Palmieri and his bass player, Luques “Salsa” Curtis was evident throughout the gig.
Brian Lynch, Concert Pique-Nique, Reims France, 17.07.2010. Image: Eulsteph
The presence of trumpeter Brian Lynch in the touring band was a particular pleasure – an incredibly technically accomplished player, Lynch has been a regular collaborator with Palmieri since 1987, and directed the Grammy-winning album Simpàtico in 2006.
The music traversed Palmieri’s jazz catalogue (including tunes from Simpàtico and 1990′s Palmas) and included a steaming Latin version of Monk’s In Walked Bud, a nod to one of Palmieri’s own stylistic influences on the piano.
Palmieri apologised that the band wouldn’t be playing his salsa hits (Vamonos pa l’Monte, Cuidate Compay…), because of a lack of vocalists in the group. But with the energy on show last Friday, nobody went home disappointed. This is a gig I’ll remember for a long time.
My blog is currently subtitled “A kiwi in Paris, sweating on the metro“, and this week I have fully lived up to this moniker. In celebration of the official heatwave in Paris, and faced with news it’s only going to get hotter, here’s a “really-can’t-be-arsed-writing-anything” post.
Have a play with this tone matrix (you’ll work it out), and think of all of us in Western Europe who are perspiring into the night.
I was busy as a bee in Brussels over the weekend. It was basically my Belgian baptism: beer, bandes dessinées and bilingualism. It was, to be blunt, bloody brilliant.
Saturday morning sun among the guildhalls in the Grote Market
It must be time to check in with Stornoway again. At the end of May they released their first full-length album, Beachcomber’s Windowsill on 4AD. Which is nice.
For those who already own Stornoway’s independently released EPs, many of the songs will already be familiar, but new standout tracks like Fuel Up and I Saw You Blink make this album well worth picking up. Alexis Petridis at The Grauniadliked it, in any case.
Here’s the band playing “unplugged” in the fernery in Oxford’s Botanic Gardens. They may not be the most innovative group out there, but they’re still probably my favourite British band right now. And I think I want one of those squeezy portable harmoniums…
In May 2009, I remixed a track by O’Spada, and this Swedish band haven’t looked back since. They’ve now released their first album, Pay Off, a disc that is poised to furnish lounges and clubs around the world. It’s out now on Despotz.
O’Spada‘s debut album is chock-full of spiky, swaggering funk tunes, built around the in-your-face vocals of singer and principal songwriter Julia. Here’s a taste:
If I called their music “bulletproof prog-disco assembled by an unholy alliance of astromech droids and the Daleks “, then I would be guilty of using too many ridiculous metaphors, but I will have come close to describing the O’Spada sound.
The tone of the album tends towards darkness but there are bright moments. The shuffle-time Rainbow (with its ooo-wah vocals) edges towards Motown and provides a respite from the brain-freezing grooves that dominate the rest of the disc.
Most of all, O’Spada comes across as fresh, and rather unlike any other band I know. There’s a Swedish accent in the vocals, jangly rhythm guitar, irony-free slap bass, and ferocious sawtooth synthesizer licks that sound like they’re played by a dude with a Patrick Swayze haircut.
What more could you wish for?
Well, a tour maybe. O’Spada are in London in mid-June to promote the album. If you’re in town make sure you catch them before they’re Bigger than Bieber-Hur.
London city tour dates:
14 Jun Hoxton Bar And Kitchen
15 Jun Dublin Castle
17 Jun St. Pancras International
17 Jun YoYo @ Nottinghill Arts Club
18 Jun Last FM presents… @ Big Chill House
20 Jun The Luxe
Batucada Sound Machine is one of the many bands that grew out of Auckland’s funk/soul scene in the early years of the century. As far as I can recall, the scene congealed around a certain number of DJs and musicians. Club nights and the audience followed.
The scene was characterised by large-scale bands such as The Hot Grits, Tangent, Opensouls and one million dollars. If one were poetic and lazy one might say that the music reflected Auckland’s urban and cosmopolitan identity: jazz, soul, hip-hop, afrobeat, latin and funk congealing in one big sweaty mess.
Sound engineers either relished or dreaded the prospect of setting up a stage for a dozen musicians including horns, berimbau, harmonicas, surdos and multiple vocalists. A 24-channel desk was a minmum requirement. As were fun but low-budget music videos:
Of course, apart from a few forays to Australia, the sheer size of these bands has meant that they haven’t been heard often beyond New Zealand’s shores. BSM is an exception – a 2006 tour saw them play venues across Europe including WOMAD Reading.
This year they’re back in Europe for a month of gigs across the continent and the UK. They are definitely worth catching if they’re playing in a town near you. You will like them, and you will dance.
Here are the full tour dates:
June 11 2010 Blossom Festival, Alfândega da Fé, Portugal June 12 2010 Ollin Kan Festival, Vila Do Conde, Portugal June 15 2010 Music Box, Lisboa, Portugal June 18 2010 Sala Caracol, Madrid, Spain June 19 2010 Sala Joplin, Segovia, Spain June 25 2010 Bitterzoet, Amsterdam, The Netherlands June 26 2010 Afro Latino Festival, Bree, Belgium June 27 2010 Wereldfeest, Utrecht, The Netherlands June 28 2010 Colos-Saal, Aschaffenburg, Germany June 30 2010 Universum, Stuttgart, Germany July 1 2010 Café Hahn, Koblenz, Germany July 2 2010 Scala, Leverkusen, Germany July 3 2010 Bar Du Matin, Brussels, Belgium July 4 2010 Lustspielhaus, Munich, Germany July 5 2010 Spectrum Club, Augsburg, Germany July 7 2010 Guanabara, London, UK July 8 2010 The Stables, Milton Keynes, UK July 9 2010 Durham International Brass Festival, UK July 10 2010 Norwich, UK July 11 2010 Mouth of the Tyne Festival, Newcastle, UK
I get a lot of messages in my blog inbox from bands and promoters wanting me to review and post their new music. There’s simply too much to listen to, and since this is not just a “music” blog, I tend to only post stuff when I really like the music and if the artist’s message is nice, and particularly if it’s personalised.
This week I got one such nice message from Paper Swords, an folk-rock quintet from Southern California, which has been quick off the mark into the studio – according to their biography they only formed this year! Here’s a little taste…
The band consists of Ryan Myers (vocals, guitar, banjo, harmonium, piano), his brother TJ Myers (drums), Patrick Grant (bass), Russell Fletcher (trumpet, banjo, guitar, harmonium, vocals), and Teresa Ramallo (vocals, piano/keys, guitar).
If you like rich orchestrations and interesting songs, they’re worth checking out. They do a particularly nice job of meshing TJ’s angular drumming with more traditional “folk” instrumentation – in this way they remind me a little of Laura Veir‘s erstwhile backing band Saltbreakers.
Regular readers of this blog will know I’m a sucker for time signatures, so I have to recommend their song Bethseda, which is written in 21/8: but you’ll have to buy their EP “Wax Moon, Wane” to hear it! As a statement of intent, the EP is very impressive – hopefully there’ll be more music forthcoming soon!
