Category: Artists (by group or surname)

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2021 Artists (by group or surname) L Lickerish Quartet Music Reviews Non-Soundtrack Music Year

The Lickerish Quartet – Threesome, Vol. 2

3 min read

Order this CDThe second EP release from the trio (yes, not an actual quartet) of reunited Jellyfish alumni arrived just in time to give 2021 some good music, proof that surely it would be a better year than the one before it. Well, okay, maybe the jury’s still out on that one, but Threesome, Vol. 2 is some good music.

“Do You Feel Better?” and “Sovereignty Blues” offer a one-two power pop punch that serves as a reminder that not only did everyone in the band previously belong to Jellyfish, but they’ve still got the chops – snappy songwriting with great hooks, off-the-scale musicianship, great vocal harmonies, and production with just the right retro touches when needed. The lyrics of “Sovereignty Blues” seem kind of prescient in terms of recommending a leaner diet of news…or, at the very least, stuff passing itself off as news. It was already a catchy song, but I can totally get behind those lyrics, particularly in this decade.

The real attention-getter of this collection is “The Dream That Took Me Over”, which slides into a slightly more recent sound with touches of early ’80s new wave and a great bass groove throughout. It’s a deliciously relistenable treatment of a well-written, nicely-performed song. (It also got a music video of its own – see below – which seems to be a giveaway that the band also knew this was the best thing on this particular release.) Further visits to this kind of early ’80s sound would be welcome – I’m not suggesting that they try to form a new TV Eyes, but Manning’s involvement with that album proves that he’s really good at hitting that sweet spot.

3 out of 4Just like the first volume, there’s one song on here that doesn’t quite land with me, but even so, there’s stuff I like about “Snollygoster Goon”, from its brief flashes of a “Bohemian Rhapsody”-style wall of vocals, but this song doesn’t get replayed as often as the other three. But three out of four isn’t bad – and I’m sure “Snollygoster Goon” is probably somebody else’s favorite somewhere. Lickerish Quartet’s continued short releases are nice little doses of a band that really gets songcraft and doesn’t think it’s been rendered obsolete by software and trendiness. Keep ’em coming.

  1. Do You Feel Better? (5:05)
  2. Sovereignty Blues (3:50)
  3. The Dream That Took Me Over (4:40)
  4. Snollygoster Goon (3:16)

Released by: InGrooves / Label Logic
Release date: January 8, 2021
Total running time: 16:48

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2021 Artists (by group or surname) F Forenzics Music Reviews Non-Soundtrack Music Year

Forenzics – Shades and Echoes

3 min read

Order this CDAs with many things in the early 2020s, this album arrived in a different form than expected. First announced in 2020, just as everyone was hunkering down for lockdown, the then-upcoming Forenzics album was said to be under construction by some key founding members of Split Enz, and would involve making entire new songs out of the catchy transition pieces that were commonly used to connect wildly different sections of early Enz songs. And, starting with the lead track “Walking”, that’s what Shades and Echoes delivers – along with something else. At roughly the same time in 2019-2020, keyboardist Eddie Rayner assembled an ad hoc band of friends to jam out some songs of their own; he asked Tim Finn to help come up with some lyrics for those. By the time Shades and Echoes landed, it has absorbed the “band jam with lyrics added later” project as well, and the result is probably better than either project would have been on its own. The band jams gained Finn as a lyricist and vocalist, and Shades and Echoes was freed from being tied down to rehashing even small nuggets of Split Enz songs.

The Split Enz-derived material is inspired – “Walking” builds upon a very brief interlude from “Walking Down A Road”, but is otherwise a new song with completely new lyrics that only briefly mention their inspiration. “Abandoned” uses the mandolin riff from “Matinee Idyll (129)” as its point of inspiration. “Chances Are” is more tied to its inspiration than most, heavily referencing the echoing guitar riff of “Spellbound”. “Empty Nest” builds on Rayner’s piano outro from “Bon Voyage”, an atypical dip into the ’80s Enz repertoire (most of the “shades and echoes” that serve as starting points for new material here hail from the band’s early ’70s art rock phase). You really have to pay attention to pick out “Strange Stars” getting its inspiration from “Under The Wheel”, or “Autumn” getting a boost by way of “Without A Doubt”, so not all of the Split Enz lifts are obvious.

The other half of the album, however, derived from Rayner’s jams with his group of colleagues dubbed Double Life, give it a whole different flavor, preventing the album from simply being a sonic scavenger hunt for Split Enz fans. “Unlikely Friend”, “Rules”, “Premiere Fois” and “Europe Speaks” are the choice cuts here, the first two in particular distinguishing themselves with vocal duets between Finn and Megan Washington (who also contributed vocals on one of his later solo albums). “Unlikely Friend” is jazzy in a way that one doesn’t necessarily expect to hear from any project that has even a partial Split Enz reunion in its DNA, and it’s the runaway favorite of the whole project.

4 out of 4If this had been something only for listeners who wanted to pick out Split Enz riffs, that might’ve lessened the wide appeal of Shades and Echoes. It was a wise choice to widen the album’s appeal – there are a lot of gems that no one was expecting here, and it makes for compulsory repeat listening. This album is really one of the best things that has hit my ears in 2022.

  1. Walking (4:57)
  2. Rules (3:58)
  3. Abandoned (3:17)
  4. Chances Are (3:19)
  5. Empty Nest (4:25)
  6. Premiere Fois (3:47)
  7. Europe Speaks (3:55)
  8. Shut The Door (3:14)
  9. Love Is (4:20)
  10. Unlikely Friend (3:39)
  11. Strange Stars (4:34)
  12. System Overload (3:58)
  13. I Spy (4:00)
  14. Autumn (3:45)

Released by: Warner Music NZ
Release date: February 4, 2022
Total running time: 55:08

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10cc 1976 2020 Artists (by group or surname) Azimuth Barclay James Harvest Blue Mink Emotions Hamilton Jefferson Starship Joe Frank & Reynolds Liverpool Express Music Reviews Steve Miller Band Year

Bob Stanley presents ’76 In The Shade

4 min read

Order this CDWhat with the pandemic and all, the 2020s, as decades go, have been one hell of a long century. One of the things I’ve sought refuge in has been music. Soundtracks, of course, but also rolling back the clock and reacquainting myself with old favorites like Parliament (of which more later), and somehow, an Amazon search brought me to this compilation, curated by Bob Stanley of Saint Etienne. It’s not the only such compilation that’s been assembled by one or more members of Saint Etienne, but if they’re all as good as this one, that’s a collection I need to expand upon, because ’76 In The Shade is nothing short of amazing.

As the well-written liner notes point out, Stanley is trying to recreate what was being heard in England’s sweltering summer of 1976. But that doesn’t mean just what was on the radio. It means what random instrumentals were being played under the BBC’s pre-sign-on TV test cards in the morning. It means what pieces of production music were heard under other things, be they commercials or radio interstitials. And then, yes, there’s also what was on the radio, but even here, Stanley reaches deep into the playlists he remembers and rescues some true gems from undeserved obscurity, so while there are a few well-worn radio staples here – 10cc’s “I’m Mandy, Fly Me”, Jefferson Starship’s “Miracles”, Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds’ “Fallin In’ Love” – there is much here that has either been forgotten, or just seemed new to my ears on this side of the Atlantic.

The most obvious quality of all of it, aside from being really good music, is that it’s so mellow. This compilation is so laid-back that the hardest-rocking thing to be found is a Cliff Richard song (!), but even that selection is so sweetened by its production that it fits alongside the rest of the album without seeming jarring.

Some of the real gems are the instrumental tracks, many of them from production music library LPs that would’ve been in circulation at radio and television stations at the time. On the non-instrumental side, there are gems like the Motown-style “You’re The Song (That I Can’t Stop singing)”, credited to Hollywood Freeway although it was basically the songwriter’s demo of his new song. It was later covered by Frankie Valli, though I find myself preferring what turns out to be the original version of the song with its lush instrumentation and falsetto vocals. Other tracks by Liverpool Express, Sylvia, and Blue Mink make it seem like their producers had only just discovered reverb and were determined to drench these entire songs in reverb. It’s not unpleasant, but boy, are the results sometimes a bit on the trippy side.

4 out of 4Some of the songs here I remember from my childhood, and the rest I’m delighted to make their acquaintance here. Various artist collections are sometimes a bit of a crap shoot, engaged in a tug-of-war between what the issuing label can afford to license from other labels, or for that matter what’s even available at the time the compilation is assembled. But ’76 In The Shade is remarkably well-curated, and since I discovered it in 2021, it has gotten a lot of repeat listening time over these past couple of sweltering 21st century summers. It’s a nicely selected, relaxing album that, even though it contains only a handful of songs I recognized from my childhood, managed to take me back to that time.

  1. Walking So Free – Spike Janson (3:33)
  2. Sugar Shuffle – Lynsey De Paul (4:00)
  3. Miracles (Single Version) – Jefferson Starship (3:29)
  4. Get Out Of Town – Smokey Robinson (4:49)
  5. I’m Mandy, Fly Me (Album Version) – 10cc (5:20)
  6. Stoned Out – Simon Park (2:17)
  7. Nothing To Remind Me – Cliff Richard (2:59)
  8. Discover Me – David Ruffin (4:12)
  9. You’re The Song (That I Can’t Stop Singing) – Hollywood Freeway (3:10)
  10. You Are My Love – Liverpool Express (3:15)
  11. Liquid Sunshine – John Cameron (3:00)
  12. Not On The Outside – Sylvia (3:03)
  13. Stay With Me – Blue Mink (3:17)
  14. Wild Mountain Honey – Steve Miller Band (4:50)
  15. Fallin’ In Love – Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds (3:12)
  16. Flowers – The Emotions (4:28)
  17. Montreal City – Azimuth (3:18)
  18. Rock ‘n’ Roll Star – Barclay James Harvest (5:18)
  19. Miss My Love Today – Gilbert O’Sullivan (3:46)
  20. Music – Carmen McRae (3:29)

Released by: Ace Records
Release date: August 11, 2020
Total running time: 74:45

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2019 Artists (by group or surname) Music Reviews Raymond Scott S

Raymond Scott – The Jingle Workshop

8 min read

Order it from theLogBook.com StoreIf popular music fades out of fashion quickly, then what about the seemingly disposable music in the background of the commercials that play between popular songs on the radio? This unusual 2-CD set contains two shiny round things capable of transporting you back in time – a time that, it must be said, is barely recognizable from a 21st century vantage point. A time when commercials had to very carefully point out that new RCA color televisions were compatible with the existing black and white transmissions of TV stations. A time when brands of beer and bread did battle over the airwaves to see who could hire someone to make the catchiest, jazziest jingles. A time when Sprite was such a new thing that it required a jingle to explain what it was (and that it might be used for mixed drinks), and yet other jingles implored consumers to buy soft drinks bottled in glass bottles. And on the downside, a time when the airwaves were also choked with commercials for tobacco products.

“Someone who could make the catchiest, jazziest jingles” fortunately could simply be pronounced “Raymond Scott”, which is why the renowned bandleader amassed enough of this kind of work to merit a two-disc set. Scott was a double threat – he could bring the light jazzy sound that was in demand in the day, and then when the airwaves were so full of such commercials that entire commercial breaks started to run together in a blur, his electronic tinkering, mad-genius side came into play, putting some of the first radiophonic music into the ears of a mass audience in the United States. The Jingle Workshop‘s tracks end up being about 75% jazzy and 25% electronic, and it’s probably because the producers of this compilation didn’t want to have too much overlap with previous compilations like Manhattan Research Inc. and Three Willow Park, which were both devoted entirely to Scott’s early analog electronic music.

Some pieces – such as the “Vibes & Marimba” piece for an unknown sponsor, or the “The Tingling Tartness Of Sprite” instrumental – feature traditional instruments run through so much reverb that they land in an uncanny valley between the purely acoustic and the electronic sound that Scott was beginning to formulate in his head. The early Sprite jingle “Melonball Bounce” makes a repeat appearance here (it was also featured on Manhattan Research Inc.), representing Scott’s fully-electronic compositions.

There are some moments of unexpected sheer beauty peppered among these tracks; instrumental performances for products like Scott Family Napkins and Mastland Carpet are magnificently orchestrated and performed, as much as a testament to the players Scott hired as to his skill in composing the pieces. Scott’s wife, Dorothy Collins, features as the female vocal on most of the tracks (and busts up laughing in the rehearsal for a jingle for Esso gas stations). Whoever sequenced the album has a pretty good sense of humor too – see the one-two punch of tracks that close out the first disc: “Let’s Have a Sackful of Krystals” (for a fast-food burger chain) followed by “Ex-Lax Helps You”. If there’s one major surprise in this collection, it’s that Collins is not the only vocalist – Mel Tormé features on a couple of tracks.

3 out of 4A collection of radio spots and jingles from a bygone era won’t appeal to everyone, and admittedly, even though I’m a big fan of Raymond Scott’s work, I have to be in a certain frame of mind to sit and listen to it all in one sitting. The instrumental cuts are the only thing preventing The Jingle Workshop from being an 80-minute commercial break, often for extinct brands, and that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, but I still come away with an admiration for the sheer artistry of the extremely small, scrappy, underdog advertising production operation Scott and Collins were running.

Disc One

  1. When You Bake With Gold Medal Flour (Demo) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:49)
  2. The Taste Is Great (Tareyton Cigarettes) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:46)
  3. When You Shop at a Food Town Store (Vocal) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:02)
  4. Move Up to Schlitz – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:44)
  5. It’s Compatible (RCA Victor TV) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:15)
  6. Male/Female Scott Family Napkins Themes (Instrumental) (02:33)
  7. Road-Tuned Wheels (Mercury) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:59)
  8. It Outsells Because It Excels (Duquesne Beer) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:34)
  9. Hangover Dirt (Instant Fels Naptha) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:00)
  10. Think of a Carpet (Masland Carpets) [Instrumental] (01:02)
  11. Stop at the Esso Sign (Rehearsal 1) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:19)
  12. S-W-E-L (Swel Frosting) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:30)
  13. Song of the Milk Bottle Moppets (Glass Container Institute) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:19)
  14. So Good, So Fresh, So Southern (Mel Tormé) [Southern Bread] – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:02)
  15. The Tingling Tartness of Sprite (Instrumental) (01:02)
  16. Use Vicks Medicated Cough Drops (Electronic Version) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:29)
  17. Stuckey’s Theme (Vocal) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:02)
  18. DX Super Boron (Sunray DX Oil Co.) [Demo] – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:01)
  19. Vibes & Marimba (Instrumental) (01:02)
  20. Miller Beer Theme (Instrumental Rehearsal) (01:20)
  21. Uptempo Theme With Vibes (Instrumental) (00:26)
  22. The Big M (Mercury) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:31)
  23. Be Happy, Go Lucky (Lucky Strike) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:24)
  24. There’s a Tingle in the Taste (Fitger’s Beer) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:45)
  25. Way Ahead in Flavor / Almost Like Magic (My-T-Fine Pudding) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:47)
  26. Scott Family Napkins Guidance Tracks – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:54)
  27. Melonball Bounce (Sprite) [Instrumental] (00:59)
  28. Go Greyhound – Leave the Driving to Us – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:59)
  29. Today’s Best Buy (Plymouth) [Demo] – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:29)
  30. Who Took the Beer? (Hamm’s Beer) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:59)
  31. The Fashion to Be Fashionable (Ford Galaxie) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:02)
  32. Dirty Carburetor #1 & #2 (Atlantic Imperial) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:01)
  33. Bottled Soft Drinks Serenade (Glass Container Institute) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:18)
  34. All-Purpose Breeze (Demo) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:38)
  35. The Only Candy Bar (Fifth Avenue) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:30)
  36. Better Get Some More Beer [Hamm’s Beer] – featuring Mel Tormé and Dorothy Collins (04:07)
  37. Nothing Works Like Listerine – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:01)
  38. Let’s Have a Sackful of Krystals (Krystal Hamburgers) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:01)
  39. Ex-Lax Helps You (Demo) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:03)

Disc Two

  1. Lady Gaylord (Ideal Toys) [Alternate Instrumental] (01:00)
  2. Lilt Home Permanent (Procter & Gamble) [Demo] – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:20)
  3. Think of a Carpet (Masland Carpets) [Vocal] – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:01)
  4. Seven-Minute Fluffy (Swel Frosting) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:02)
  5. Super Cheer Detergent (Procter & Gamble) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:23)
  6. Look for That Hotpoint Difference – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:48)
  7. Let’s Have a Sackful of Krystals (Krystal Hamburgers) [Instrumental] (01:00)
  8. The Tingling Tartness of Sprite (Vocal) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:30)
  9. Good News – Here’s Hamm’s Beer – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:11)
  10. What’s New, Bokoo? / An Unusual Name – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:04)
  11. Buy a Carton of Lucky Strikes – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:42)
  12. Right Car, Right Price (Chrysler) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:08)
  13. Wave Your Hair With Hudnut Care (Richard Hudnut) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:44)
  14. It’s the Ice-Creamiest (Russell’s Ice Cream) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:00)
  15. Stuckey’s Theme (Instrumental) (00:58)
  16. WQXI Bumper Montage – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:43)
  17. Use Vicks Medicated Cough Drops – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:01)
  18. Delicate Theme (Instrumental) (00:59)
  19. Use Trushay – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:24)
  20. Tingle in the Taste (Fitger’s Beer) [Duet] – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:22)
  21. The Big Change (RCA Victor TV) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:36)
  22. Use New Instant Autocrat (Autocrat Coffee) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:31)
  23. Hamm’s Beer Theme (Instrumental) (00:59)
  24. Trushay Theme 1 (Instrumental) (00:19)
  25. DX Super Boron (Sunray DX Oil Co.) [Instrumental] (01:02)
  26. Melonball Bounce (Sprite) [Vocal] – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:00)
  27. Stop at the Esso Sign (Rehearsal 2) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:01)
  28. Watch the Vibrations of a Tuning Fork (Bulova Accutron) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:25)
  29. Breeze Along With Ease – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:22)
  30. Have a Duke (Duquesne Beer) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:31)
  31. RCA Victor High Fidelity Theme – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:10)
  32. RFK, Liz & Dick, Nudity in Movies (Look Magazine) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:28
  33. When You Shop at a Food Town Store (Instrumental) (01:02)
  34. Good News – Here’s Hamm’s Beer – featuring Mel Tormé and Dorothy Collins (04:01)
  35. Best Looking Buys in Each Size (Mercury) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:46)
  36. New Sensations in Sound (RCA Victor TV) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:23)
  37. Make Him a Legend in His Own Time (British Sterling) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:20)
  38. Living Curl / They Did It! (Revlon Hair Spray) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:32)
  39. Lady Gaylord (Ideal Toys) [Trumpet Effects Instrumental] (00:57)
  40. Keep on the Go With Atlantic (Atlantic Imperial) – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:29)
  41. Look at That Sunbeam Bread! (Demo) – featuring Dorothy Collins (00:44)
  42. Tart and Tingling (Sprite) [French Version] – featuring Dorothy Collins (01:00)
  43. Trushay Theme 2 (Instrumental) (00:23

Released by: Modern Harmonic
Release date: December 13, 2019
Disc one running time: 40:31
Disc two running time: 41:18

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1999 2016 Artists (by group or surname) C Crowded House Non-Soundtrack Music Year

Crowded House – Afterglow (Deluxe Edition)

5 min read

Released several years after the breakup of the original lineup of Crowded House, Afterglow was a collection of songs that had been relegated to B-sides, to soundtracks, and sometimes to the cutting room floor, never making it to an album but becoming a favorite in the band’s live show. There was material concurrent with all four of the band’s studio albums at the time, and it was something of a bittersweet revelation of how prolific the band was.

But if the original release was a fond reminder of that, the deluxe expanded 2-CD edition is a jaw-dropping revelation. It was known that, after the departure of Paul Hester from the drum seat, an attempt was made to soldier onward with Peter Jones, who had toured with the band after Hester’s abrupt mid-tour exit in 1994. Jones was heard on drums on the original Afterglow‘s incredibly atmospheric track “Help Is Coming”, so obvious some recording was done with him. But the biggest surprise of the second disc is a stretch of material revealing just how much was recorded with Jones – a series of songs that basically amount to an album side. So yes, the deluxe edition of Afterglow brings us half of a Crowded House album that could have been, and really should have been, because the studio demos are so polished – and just as atmospheric as “Help Is Coming” – that they’re sharper than some bands’ final studio masters, and they reveal a band that could very well have continued despite the unplanned personnel change.

After Neil Finn’s home demos of such songs as “Instinct” and “Everything Is Good For You”, the Finn/Seymour/Hart/Jones lineup returns with “Anthem”, a song Finn unearthed from the archives as a charity single a few years earlier, and while it lacks the polish of a finished track, it does show an arrangement that’s been worked out an honed, complete with vocal harmonies. The next track by this post-Together Alone lineup is even more surprising, featuring Mark Hart singing lead on a song that he wrote, “I Don’t Know You”. Again, the song is presented in a somewhat rough state, but one with a lot of promise. Hart eventually reclaimed “I Don’t Know You” for his solo album Nada Sonata, but there’s something stripped-down, bluesy, and incredibly catchy about the Crowded House rendition that may well make it superior to Hart’s final studio version. This should’ve been a single, though one wonders how a single without Finn’s voice (or writing credit) front and center might have been able to navigate the band’s complex internal politics.

Even more songs follow, including the trippy “A Taste Of Something Divine”, which could almost be in late ’90s U2’s wheelhouse rather than what anyone would’ve been expecting from Crowded House. If this is what the band could’ve accomplished with Jones on drums, it’s kind of a glimpse into an alternate universe where Together Alone was followed by even edgier, more out-there changes in style.

Following a nice, folksy rendition of “Spirit Of The Stairs” (a favorite in the Crowdies’ live set), this lineup drops one last surprise with a hard-hitting rendition of “Loose Tongue”, a song which eventually migrated to Finn’s first solo album, 1998’s Try Whistling This. Upon hearing that album in 1998, I remember asking myself “Why was it necessary to break up Crowded House to do this album?”, and this version of “Loose Tongue” really brings that question back. There was very little of Try Whistling This that couldn’t have been done by the full Crowded House lineup.

But the alternate timeline in which Crowded House with Peter Jones in tow ventures into more adventurous musical territory ends there; the rest of disc two is rounded out with the three “new” songs from the 1996 greatest hits album, “Instinct”, “Not The Girl You Think You Are”, and “Everything Is Good For You”, all of them “safer”, more traditional Crowded House songs with 4 out of 4Mitchell Froom at the mixing board and Paul Hester on drums.

The musical equivalent of deleted scenes is what Afterglow was always about, but the expanded edition offers a truly eye-opening glimpse into what could have been if Together Alone had been but the beginning of an experimental phase, and not the end of one. Very few expanded reissues of existing albums justify the double-dip like this one does.

Order this CDDisc One

  1. I Am In Love (4:37)
  2. Sacred Cow (3:36)
  3. You Can Touch (3:45)
  4. Help Is Coming (4:48)
  5. I Love You Dawn (2:33)
  6. Dr. Livingston (3:56)
  7. My Tellys’ Gone Bung (3:10)
  8. Private Universe (4:07)
  9. Lester (2:19)
  10. Anyone Can Tell (3:35)
  11. Recurring Dream (3:23)
  12. Left Hand (2:57)
  13. Time Immemorial (4:06)

Disc Two

  1. I Am In Love (Home Demo) (2:07)
  2. Instinct (Home Demo) (2:03)
  3. Spirit Of The Stairs (Home Demo) (3:39)
  4. I’m So Scared Of Losing I Can’t Compete (Home Demo) (2:11)
  5. Everything Is Good For You (Home Demo) (3:14)
  6. Not The Girl You Think You Are (Home Demo) (3:00)
  7. Anthem (3:31)
  8. I Don’t Know You (Studio Demo) (3:40)
  9. A Taste Of Something Divine (Studio Demo) (4:14)
  10. Spirit Of The Stairs (Studio Demo) (4:55)
  11. Loose Tongue
  12. Rough Mix (3:51)
  13. Instinct (3:06)
  14. Everything Is Good For You (3:52)
  15. Not The Girl You Think You Are (4:08)
  16.  

Released by: Capitol Records
Release date: November 18, 2016
Disc one running time: 46:51
Disc two running time: 47:31

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2016 Artists (by group or surname) D Non-Soundtrack Music Rob Dougan Year

Rob Dougan – Misc. Sessions

3 min read

From 2016 through 2019, Rob Dougan – an artist who had been absent since making a splash in the early 2000s when instrumental versions of some his music were included in key scenes of The Matrix Reloaded – resurfaced in the crowdfunded music arena to see if there was support for him to make new music. With Dougan, whose signature style is to add his rough-and-ready, almost-spoken-word vocals to a string section and either a live drummer or a drum machine, this was going to take a bit of investment from his fans. (As someone who enjoyed Dougan’s previous solo effort, Furious Angels, I was one of those pitched in.) The result was a series of EPs, released as the songs were recorded two, three, or four at a time.

The Misc. Sessions was my runaway favorite of this series of EPs. It’s the one that bears the most resemblance to Furious Angels in its lyrics and music, and it forms a kind of short, bittersweet song cycle unto itself, chronicling either the end of a relationship or perhaps the simultaneous end of several relationships. “She’s Leaving” is pretty self-explanatory, a kind of musical travelogue of what’s left of a home once shared by two, name-checking the things that she deemed unimportant enough to leave behind as reminders.

But the next two songs, “Undone By London” and “Open Sore”, are the real heart of the song cycle, dealing with the aftermath of what was described in the previous song. These two songs flow together nearly seamlessly – one begins in the same key and the same chord with which the other ends – and Dougan’s vocal delivery in “Undone” borders on unhinged the further he gets into the song. “Open Sore” is a bit more calm and accepting of what’s happened, but still darkly bittersweet. “Miscellaneous” is a bit more light-hearted, catching up with where she winds up next, and then we revisit the unhinged anguish of “Undone By London”…by playing it backward as a kind of twisted coda.

If Dougan’s voice doesn’t do it for you – which I get, his tuneful-but-about-as-smooth-as-sandpaper delivery is an acquired taste – the entire song is then repeated in two forms: instrumental (everything except Dougan’s voice and any backing vocals) and “orchestra only” (eliminating not just vocals, but drums, piano and other more conventional “band” instruments). These repeated tracks boost the EP to LP length, while also offering those interested a chance to study Dougan’s orchestral writing and arranging more closely. (It’s here that you really get a feel for how seamlessly “Undone By London” segues into “Open Sore”.)

4 out of 4It’s a lovely package, though for me the appeal is…I really like the songs. They hit me at a time when I myself was recovering from being undone (though not in London), from walking into a home that was suddenly empty of other people, and this little abbreviated song cycle helped me work through some of that. There may have even been a few cathartic, bloodletting singalongs – you’d have to ask my cats.

Order this CD

  1. She’s Leaving (4:19)
  2. Undone By London (4:27)
  3. Open Sore (4:58)
  4. Miscellaneous (3:53)
  5. Undone By London (Reprise) (4:01)
  6. She’s Leaving (Instrumental) (4:03)
  7. Undone By London (Instrumental) (4:25)
  8. Open Sore (Instrumental) (4:59)
  9. Miscellaneous (Instrumental) (3:56)
  10. Undone by London (Orchestral only) (4:02)
  11. Open Sore (Orchestral only) (4:40)
  12. Miscellaneous (Orchestral only) (3:51)

Released by: Rob Dougan
Release date: October 23, 2016
Total running time: 51:34

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2020 Artists (by group or surname) L Lickerish Quartet Non-Soundtrack Music Year

The Lickerish Quartet – Threesome, Vol. 1

4 min read

Order this CDLickerish Quartet is a collision of former members of Jellyfish and/or offshoots of Jellyfish, two categories you’ll often find in the same record collection. Jellyfish lasted long enough for two albums; a posthumous box set of live cuts, demos, and collaborations rounded out the band’s legacy, but still left a lot of potential on the table. Many a Jellyfish fan (like the scruffy fellow I occasionally spy in mirrors and other reflective surfaces) obsessively follows the individual former members of the group through their solo careers and later work with other artists – and sometimes minor family reunions like this one. With Jellyfish founding member Roger Manning and Spilt Milk-members (and former Umajets) Tim Smith and Eric Dover aboard, Lickerish Quartet is indeed something of a family reunion. The plan is for the band to gradually write, record, and release a series of EPs, each supported by fan pre-orders, so that the end result will be about an album’s worth of music.

Threesome Vol. 1 is the first of those, with the “threesome” in the title describing the band; “quartet” is actually a better description of the number of songs on this first volume, somewhat confusingly. But that’s the kind of perversely anarchic humor that we’re expecting from Jellyfish alumni, right?

That sense of humor also extends into the first song, “Fadoodle”, whose lyrics can best be summed up as “I cleaned house and did some chores, can I get laid now?” (Pro tip: guys…you should be doing your share of the housework because it’s part of the unspoken social contract of sharing space with other human beings, not because you’re expecting sex at the end of said chore.) Maybe I’m just showing my age here, but these lyrics and their dancing-between-sung-and-spoken-word delivery didn’t land with me, even though the music itself is fine; there’s a great bass line that makes it all incredibly catchy, and the instrumental bridge may be the best thing about the song.

“Bluebird’s Blues” is a definite improvement, and perhaps should’ve been first song (though I do get it, if you’re banking on the Jellyfish connection, “Fadoodle” sounds more whimsical and Jellyfish-esque than anything else here). Together with “There Is A Number”, “Bluebird’s Blues” really digs into that ’70s power-pop sound, which is really what I hope to hear out of a reunion of any configuration of Jellyfish, a lot more than I hope to hear whimsy. They’re both excellent songs, though I get a chuckle out of the first lyric in “There Is A Number”: “I never meant to cause you too much pain.” Is there really some acceptable amount of pain one can cause others before a line is crossed? (As with the playful lyrics of “Fadoodle”, I’m probably overthinking it here.)

“Lighthouse Spaceship” was the song most heavily promoted prior to the EP’s release, and with good reason: where “Bluebird’s Blues” and “There Is A Number” are classic bittersweet ballads, “Lighthouse Spaceship” is a straight-up, unapologetic rocker that reaches for – and just about achieves – a late ’60s/early ’70s psychedelic rock flavor with both its lyrics and its 3 out of 4instrumentation. At over six minutes, I get why this wasn’t the lead track, but it seems obvious that the band realized this was the strongest thing in this particular track listing.

It’s all worth a listen, and perhaps best of all is the promise that more from this lineup – and perhaps even better material – is yet to come.

  1. Fadoodle (3:46)
  2. Bluebird’s Blues (4:31)
  3. There Is A Magic Number (4:14)
  4. Lighthouse Spaceship (6:26)

Released by: InGrooves / Label Logic
Release date: May 15, 2020
Total running time: 18:57

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1979 Artists (by group or surname) Non-Soundtrack Music T Tourists Year

The Tourists – Reality Effect

3 min read

The Tourists seem to be doomed to forever occupy an odd footnote in history, relegated to the description “the band Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were in before they started the Eurythmics”. Technically, that’s not inaccurate, but there’s quite a bit more to it than that. Led by Peet Coombes, the Tourists were a new wave five-piece that rocked harder than some of their peers, leaving real guitars and drums in the mix as quite a few other bands in that genre abandoned them for wall-to-wall synths and drum machines. In many other respects, though, the Tourists were an absolutely typical new wave group, doing more modern cover versions of older songs (such as Dusty Springfield’s “I Only Wanna Be With You”, which was a moderate hit from this album, probably due in no small part to an early music video that demonstrated that Lennox was both a sonically and visually arresting performer).

But let’s not forget that Dave Stewart was in the Tourists as well (it’s bad enough to keep having to remind everyone that he was half of the Eurythmics). His classic rock guitar riffs are unmistakable, and give the Tourists a sound that wasn’t typical in those early days of new wave.

The wild card that really defines the Tourists’ sound, however, is Coombes’ duets with Lennox throughout. Their harmonizing is a sound unique to the Tourists; even on songs where one or the other seems to be taking the lead (as Lennox does on the aforementioned cover of “I Only Want To Be With You”), the other is a prominent co-lead, and their similar vocal ranges make for a unique sound. Really, the Tourists end up barely fitting into the new wave category, perhaps more due to their look than their sound, because in most respects they were very much a classic rock band, applying some of the new aesthetics of the late ’70s and early ’80s to rock ‘n’ roll. The highlights include “Nothing To Do”, “So Good To Be Back Home”, and “In The Morning 3 out of 4(When The Madness Has Faded)”, but even in less stand-out-ish tracks such as “In My Mind (There’s Sorrow)”, there’s a lot to love about the Tourists’ sound (and Coombes’ songwriting).

Are the Tourists just the Eurythmics with three extra people tagging along? Hardly. You can hear, in Lennox’s vocal stylings and Stewart’s precision guitar work, some of the seeds being planted, but if the Tourists had scored a bigger hit before breaking up, the ’80s music scene might have taken a very different shape with regard to one of its major success stories.

  1. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way (3:38)
  2. I Only Want To Be With You (2:21)
  3. In The Morning (When The Madness Has Faded) (3:57)
  4. All Life’s Tragedies (3:43)
  5. Everywhere You Look (3:11)
  6. So Good To Be Back Home Again (2:33)
  7. Nothing To Do (3:22)
  8. Circular Fever (3:00)
  9. In My Mind (There’s Sorrow) (4:37)
  10. Something In The Air Tonight (4:04)
  11. Summer’s Night (3:16)

Released by: Epic
Release date: October 19, 1979
Total running time: 37:42

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2014 Artists (by group or surname) Non-Soundtrack Music R Royksopp Year

Röyksopp – The Inevitable End

4 min read

The Inevitable End isn’t the inevitable end of Röyksopp as a recording entity; the grimly titled album was their farewell to the album as the format in which they’d be releasing their work. That’s a very sad farewell indeed, because some of Röyksopp’s back catalog, including Melody A.M. and Junior, convinced me that maybe the album still had something to offer, and that the entire world wasn’t giving up to the whims of streaming and issuing singles only. And ironically, The Inevitable End falls into that category as well – an album so thematically cohesive that listening to it in one sitting is more rewarding than just hearing any one song from it in isolation.

The theme that recurs most often on The Inevitable End doesn’t become evident until you’re a couple of songs past the inevitable beginning. Beginning with “Sordid Affair”, whose subject matter is quite literally what it says on the box, the album seems to be chronicling different stages and perspectives of an extramarital relationship of some kind. (I always question this as subject matter for a song, especially since the songwriter’s going to be subjected to a lot of scrutiny afterward, i.e. “did you write this as a result of a personal experience?” “Sordid Affair” and “Compulsion” describe the rush of the illicit relationship while it’s happening, and “You Know I Have To Go” and “Save Me” explore the end of it from two perspectives. “I Had This Thing” mourns the relationship, and in a way, “Rong” does too, being an almost classically-flavored piece with a single repeating lyric (“what the f___ is wrong with you?”).

Röyksopp has become famous for its all-star line-up of guest vocalists, and while Robyn is all over the first two tracks of The Inevitable End, the real standout MVP who emerges is Jamie Irrepressible, vocalist on “You Know I Have To Go”, “I Had This Thing”, “Compulsion”, and “Here She Comes Again”. He’s got an incredible range and a great sense for dynamics, as his usual hushed delivery on “I Had This Thing” suddenly explodes into something more pleading and anguished toward the end of the song. (Spoiler: Röyksopp has continued as an entity that issues singles, and they continued to work with Jamie after this album, notably on the excellent “Something In My Heart”, so obviously they know a good thing when they hear it.)

“Coup De Grace” deflates the album’s somewhat steamy topic, filling the obligatory instrumental-only slot that’s become a tradition since “Röyksopp’s Night Out” on the first album. The album closer (and the farewell of Röyksopp as a duo that turns out albums) is “Thank You”, which works as effectively as part of the album’s storyline as it does without any of those trappings.

4 out of 4I’ll really miss Röyksopp as an “album band” – their best work has reminded me of the heyday of the Alan Parsons Project, both production-wise and as proponents of concept-based theme albums. It’s sad to hear them giving up on the latter. The singles that have arrived since The Inevitable End have been fantastic – “Never Ever” and “Something In My Heart” would be highlights of an album if they were on an album. But, I get it, album sales aren’t what drives iTunes…especially if no one wants to continue making them.

Order this CD

  1. Skulls (3:46)
  2. Monument (TIE Version)(featuring Robyn) (4:46)
  3. Sordid Affair (featuring Man Without Country) (6:19)
  4. You Know I Have To Go (featuring Jamie Irrepressible) (7:31)
  5. Save Me (featuring Susanne Sundfør) (4:38)
  6. I Had This Thing (featuring Jamie Irrepressible) (5:46)
  7. Rong (featuring Robyn) (2:32)
  8. Here She Comes Again (featuring Jamie Irrepressible) (5:04)
  9. Running To The Sea (featuring Susanne Sundfør) (4:52)
  10. Compulsion (featuring Jamie Irrepressible) (6:57)
  11. Coup De Grace (3:14)
  12. Thank You (6:15)

Released by: EMBAS
Release date: November 21, 2014
Total running time: 61:40

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2020 Artists (by group or surname) M Non-Soundtrack Music Paul Melancon Year

Paul Melançon and the New Insecurities – The Get Gos Action Hour!

3 min read

There’s certainly no shortage of practitioners of power pop, but I’m always happy when one of my favorites resurfaces, as Paul Melançon has done after a lengthy spell punctuated by side projects, live shows, and an EP or two. Melançon’s 2002 opus Camera Obscura is still one of my favorite specimens of the power pop genre, and while he’s an excellent guitarist, his voice may be his most potent instrument, capable of straight up belting out a song in the best rock traditions as well as handling all the nuances of his homemade singer-songwriter fare. I couldn’t even point you to anyone I can honestly claim he sounds like – maybe a little hint of Robin Zander at the height of Cheap Trick’s popularity? – because he just sounds like himself, and I’m a big fan of that sound.

Armed with a three-piece backing band that perfectly complements his sound, and a clutch of new songs exploring some experiences he’s had confronting chronic anxiety in recent years, Melançon delivers a surprisingly sunny musical meditation on mental health that you’d expect to have been the result of 2020’s non-stop roller-coaster of mental-health-challenging events, but instead it arrived, pleasantly enough, right at the beginning of it, and it’s been one of my go-to albums for my self-quarantining playlist. Some of the songs are obvious with the subject matter – “Hyperventilate” conjures up images of a drowning man – while others make the listener work a little harder to get to the song’s center. Which is an absolute delight, since each song is coated in layers of ’70s-inspired pop-rock confection. There are hints of something new in Melançon’s musical vocabulary here too – I definitely picked up on a newfound love of a good freeform jam, which crops up such songs as the jaw-droppingly hummable “The New Decay”, among others. (And when Paul and the New Insecurities bust out a jam like this, they’re not kidding around either. It’s heady stuff.)

Highlights include the aforementioned “New Decay” and “Hyperventilate”, as well as “St. Cecilia”, a fantastic ballad with – yet again – that terrific ’70s vibe, and “Here And Now I Was” and “When Do We Get Smaller?”, the two songs most reminiscent of Camera Obscura. “Fitzcarraldo” is a mesmerizing mid-tempo rocker that challenges you to figure out which is the verse and which is the chorus, but when the whole song sounds great, does it matter? “Mareación” is an eleven-minute journey in the form of a self-contained, 4 out of 4interconnected song cycle that also features that jamming element mentioned earlier. It may be the album’s most challenging listen, but it’s a mini-epic that earns the “power-pop-era” label on the front cover.

All of this is wrapped up in a package suggesting some lost, band-centric 1970s Saturday morning cartoon, an element that also carries over to the videos produced for some of the songs here. In short, this album has just about everything that power pop fans love – new music wrapped up in a dash of nostalgia, and it’s really good new music to boot. Highest recommendations.

Order this CD

  1. Theme from The Get Gos Action Hour! (0:40)
  2. Permanent Makeup (2:34)
  3. Robot World (3:14)
  4. This Shaky Lullaby (2:40)
  5. Hyperventilate (3:56)
  6. The New Decay (5:00)
  7. St. Cecilia (4:36)
  8. When Do We Get Smaller? (3:54)
  9. Fitzcarraldo (3:45)
  10. Mareación (11:09)
  11. Here And Now I Was (4:29)
  12. The Answer Is Yes (3:40)

Released by: Paul Melançon and the New Insecurities
Release date: April 10, 2020
Total running time: 49:37

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