singer-songwriters
Lisa-Marie Ferla
It could be Katie Crutchfield's voice: in the moment, its ragged timbre packs the punch of a cross-my-heart whispered secret. It could be the songwriting itself: stories half-told in two minute bursts, frank and funny and even contradictory the more you listen to the album as a whole. Or it could be some combination of the two that makes Cerulean Salt feel like an undiscovered treasure, a 33-minute mystery between you and your headphones.Only it's not like that at all, because Crutchfield grew up fronting enough girl-punk bands for this to be old hat to her and this album is in fact her Read more ...
Russ Coffey
Long before the release of Tom Odell’s debut, certain critics’ knives were drawn ready to give this middle-class lad a good stabbing. The recent stories about his dad ringing up the NME to complain about his no star review, and the contents of that piece, say it all. The reviewer wished there was a “particular place in hell” for this daddy’s boy and bridled at the idea he might be “all over 2013 like a case of musical syphilis”.But although Odell has been primed for success by his early Brit award, it’s ludicrous to suggest that he’s as bland as the face of 2012, Emeli Sandé. It’s true he may Read more ...
Jasper Rees
It’s the cross Lloyd Cole has to bear more than any songwriter of his vintage. His first album landed squarely in the record collections of sensitive young brainiacs in the Eighties and, at least to that constituency, nothing has ever quite matched up. To anyone who’d had their fill of chaps in eyeliner plinking on synths and was seeking a Dylan for the Thatcher age, Rattlesnakes - with its jingle-jangle cod-philosophical noodlings fed through Cole’s gorgeously cracked larynx - was profoundly seductive.Funnily enough, Standards is the product of a commission to review the septuagenarian Dylan Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Dr. Feelgood: Taking No Prisoners (with Gypie 1977-1981)The departure of Wilko Johnson in April 1977 ought to have finished Dr. Feelgood. More than their guitarist and songwriter, he was vital to their stage persona and as much frontman as singer Lee Brilleaux. Yet after roping in temporary fill-ins for already scheduled live dates, by the end of April they had new guitarist John Cawthra on board. Quickly rechristened Gypie Mayo, he was on the road in May and soon forced to become a songwriter. This handsome box set is the full story on the Mayo-era Feelgoods.Spread across four CDs is Read more ...
Kimon Daltas
Comebacks may be all the rage but Elvis Costello just keeps on going. It's the third year running that he has taken his band The Imposters on the Revolver Tour, featuring The Spectacular Spinning Songbook: a giant carnival wheel of songs which audience members are brought on stage to spin and dictate the set list.Not everything is left to chance, however, and the evening began with a rollicking medley of “Welcome to the Working Week”, “No Action”, “Strict Time”, “Accidents Will Happen” and “Next Time Round”. In what was the middle of three consecutive nights at the Albert Hall, you might Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
That KT Tunstall has released probably her most introspective album to date is unsurprising, given that the past year has seen both the end of her marriage and the death of her father. But the trouble with introspective albums is that, without a certain rawness, they’re not always the most engaging listen. Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon contains some of the most beautiful music of the St Andrews songwriter’s career but, like when people tell you their dreams, it isn’t always very interesting.The album’s name reflects its two halves, recorded in separate sessions in the Arizona desert with Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
Few albums evoke the essence of wind, but landscapes buffeted by the elements are vividly depicted on Phildel’s The Disappearance of the Girl. With frost-coated but warm-centred songs about darkness, sacrifice and the wolf as a dispenser of penitence, this could be gothic. Instead, despite the coffin, funerals and a switchblade, The Disappearance of the Girl is tonally nuanced, more the soundtrack to its subject’s search for equilibrium than a series of single vignettes.What’s actually on The Disappearance of the Girl is in danger of being upstaged by its creator's admittedly compelling back Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
I suppose that whether Once I Was An Eagle appeals may depend on whether you consider "underwhelming" a synonym for "disappointing". It's the word that surfaces most, the more I listen to the fourth album from newly Los Angeles-resident Laura Marling; but I use it to conjure the lack of flashiness, of anything overpowering about the record rather than for its negative connotations.Neither respect nor acclaim for the young songwriter has ever faltered, even in those circles where those she once performed and socialised with have become the butt of jokes. From album to album her songwriting has Read more ...
Lisa-Marie Ferla
Neko Case wasn't about to launch a Yeah Yeah Yeahs-style pre-emptive strike aimed at the Village Underground's amateur camera-wielders. She doesn't mind the odd photograph, she said; just don't try to film her. It makes her feel a little uncomfortable. Didn't we all use to just remember?She's 23 now, with the sort of voice that can instantly hush the chattiest Shoreditch crowdAly Spaltro (below right), the songwriter better known as Lady Lamb the Beekeeper, remembers. It's in her songs, and in her stories: being 20 years old and getting refused entry to an over-21s Neko Case show in her Read more ...
peter.quinn
Jamie Cullum's sixth studio album is about as good a pop record as you'll hear all year. Newly signed to Island Records, the singer-songwriter has seemingly raided ideas from the entire history of pop music, such that low-fi vintage synth lines and jazzy piano breaks rub shoulders with heart-on-sleeve soul belters and subtle electronica. The kind of stylistic pluralism that directly reflects Cullum's own musical loves, in other words.The mash-up of opening salvo “The Same Things” is typical of the album as a whole, combining a deep, New Orleans-type rolling percussion groove with stacked up Read more ...
peter.quinn
Some vocal jazz can be so anodyne that it barely registers on your consciousness, as anyone who's ever heard a jazz wannabe dusting down “My Funny Valentine” will know. A Liane Carroll gig, on the other hand, offers a roller coaster ride of emotions: joy, pain, hope, loss. With the ability to make every song sound like a personal experience, Carroll is one of the few singers who can make your spine tingle for an entire set.Launching her exceptional new album Ballads last night in a newly refurbed Pizza Express Jazz Club, a luxuriant first set featured the singer with exquisite string Read more ...
Kieron Tyler
The Gainsbourg-Birkin dynasty is akin to a gift that keeps on giving. Just when it appears to be dormant, another member of the extended family reveals a new role. Lou Doillon, daughter of Jane Birkin and film director Jacques Doillon, is best known as a model and actress. Last September her debut album, Places, was released in France and its belated arrival over here is sure to make a few waves. Hopefully not because of who she is, but due to it being first-rate.With Places, Doillon is some way ahead of half-sister Charlotte Gainsbourg, whose albums are written by others. All the songs are Read more ...