M&G reviewers take time out to listen to some sounds from a range of interesting genres
Basia Bulat: Heart of My Own (Just Music)
Toronto-based Basia Bulat presents a soulful, emotionally charged second album of indie folk. She crosses the subtle lines between Neko Case’s honky tonk and Tracy Chapman’s sorrowful vocal drownings, with a bit of Joanna Newsome in the mix.
But her voice is rather special and she manages to pull off what could be a jump on the female singer-songwriter bandwagon with impressive originality.
This album is unashamedly about love and pain and her voice adds intensity, with gorgeous, imperfect trembling.
The album is diverse in its genres, jumping between upbeat swinging tracks and down tempo, heart-wrenching ballads.
The overall sound is embellished by the addition of strings and brass to create an instrumental feast, although the vocals are still the focus of the music.
Sweetness is the key word in this superb collection of tracks, helping to make an album filled with yearning, melancholy, humanity and, most of all, sincerity. — Ilham Rawoot
Jack Rose with D Charles Speer & The Helix: Ragged and Right EP (MIA)
Released after Jack Rose’s premature death in December 2009 at the age of 38, Ragged and Right offers a wild and woolly recording session as a fitting tribute to this Virginian native.
And the results are so good it’s a pity that the band laid down only four tracks.
The germination of this recording session began in 2008 when Jack Rose and D Charles Speer & The Helix were touring the United States together.
Regular tour bus listening sessions to Scorpio Women and In the Pines as recorded by Link Wray fired up Rose’s imagination and led to the booking of session time at the Black Dirt Studio. During one night, the band laid down these four tracks live, with no overdubs.
Opening with Prison Song, a piano-driven country number reminiscent of legendary songwriter Warren Zevon, Ragged and Right is a fascinating document of one whisky-fuelled night in New York State.
Rose’s Linden Avenue Stomp is a orgy of electric lap steel, electric mandolin and pedal steel that will have country-music fans jumping for joy, though the real highlight has to be their take on the traditional In the Pines as made famous by blues singer Leadbelly and later Kurt Cobain.
This EP may be short on quantity but it’s all quality. — Lloyd Gedye
Kris Kristofferson: Please Don’t Tell Me How the Story Ends: The Publishing Demos 1968-1972 (MIA)
Kris Kristofferson would have secured his place among country music’s legends even if Me and Bobby McGee and Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down were the only songs he ever wrote.
His songs have also been recorded by everyone from Johnny Cash to Janis Joplin and from Merle Haggard to Waylon Jennings.
Now 21 albums and 40 years into his recording career, the publishing demos that he recorded between 1968 and 1972 are finally seeing the light of the day.
So what can you expect?
Of the 16 publishing demos collected here, the majority appeared in different forms on Kristofferson’s first four albums released between 1970 and 1972, with only five appearing on albums after that.
The last to be officially released was Come Sundown, which appeared on the 1979 album, Shake Hands with the Devil.
The quality of these recordings is astounding and it seems trivial to try to select some standout tracks from an album that is as consistently great as this one, but the stripped-back, almost haunting, version of Me and Bobby McGee is a highlight and as a fan of country music I couldn’t resist the acoustic version of If You Don’t Like Hank Williams with its chorus of “you can kiss my ass”.
With Bob Dylan’s publishing demos still to be released this year, it looks like a good year for American reissues. — LG