I’ve been sent quite a pile of albums for review recently, and thank you to everyone who has me on their mailing list. To avoid falling too far behind I’m going to put up some slightly shorter reviews than usual over the next few days of the ones that I think you should give a try to …
Kate Ellis – Spirals
The blurb for this album tells us “Spirals’ is a record that allowed Kate Ellis to take the whirlwind in her head and put it to song. Kate is an Americana/Folk singer-songwriter who was born in Louisiana, raised in New York and is now based in London. Her southern country-folk roots come from her dad who as a young man once played guitar with Hank Williams on the famous Louisiana Hayride, where Elvis and Johnny Cash started out.”
It’s a fairly straightforward slice of Americana, with occasional Celtic touches not a million miles away from The Corrs. Learning that she is an American living in Britain comes as no real surprise as the influences and touchpoints for the music are a blend of both places. There are a couple of outstanding songs here, and nothing drops below the level of pretty darn good. ‘Bluebirds and Rye’, ‘Scars’ and my current favourite ‘Other Side of the Street’. The violin on songs like ‘Spirals’ are probably where the Corrs comparison comes from, but Ellis’ music never drops into the slightly antiseptic mush that the Irish band can be guilty of. Her voice has touches of Kirsty McColl about it which is no bad thing. A fine album albeit with nothing outstanding or revolutionary.
Space Age Travellers – Satellite Shuffle
Dutch guitarist BJ Baartmans latest project is an all instrumental guitar album. Describing it as: “Rock & Roll, Surf, Jive and Spaghetti Western instrumentals with a free jazz twist,” is pretty accurate. Dick Dale, and the Shadows pop up in the sound regularly but the main influence for the sound is Bill Frisell. I’ve seen this reviewed in several places including Rock and metal magazine Fireworks who were slightly perplexed by some of the more gentle sounds. Monk’s Mood, as you might imagine, has more than a pinch of Kenny Burrell about it. ‘Charlie’s Pick Up’ presumably an homage to Charlie Christian is a fun piece, and sits firmly in the
I wonder if Bill Nelson has heard this album as pieces like ‘Satellite Shuffle’ are not a million miles away from his recent style, and as a fan of Frisell I suspect he would like it. The drummer, Sjoerd van Bommel, turns in to Animal from The Muppets at times on this tune, but like the rest of the album the playing is fine but not so showy as to distract from the overall effect. Saturn 3’ is a fun piece of Ska meets Surf, and should be enough to get you bopping round the kitchen on a Saturday morning. The whole album in fact is great fun. I have no idea what Genre to file this under on iTunes, but that doesn’t matter when the music is this much fun…
Back tomorrow with a few more…
