Record Reviews
📝 2096 reviews| Artist | Title | Review |
|---|---|---|
| Rory Gallagher | Defender | <p>Released five years after his last effort (an eternity for the prolific Irish blues guitar slinger who had been churning out at least an album a year throughout the '70s), Defender is another quality blues-rock offering. Although Gallagher is in fine tough form here and it was his debut release for his own indie label, there is little difference between this and some of his less stellar '70s albums like Top Priority and Photo-Finish. The pounding, guitar-heavy opener "Kickback City" sounds more like hairy rockers Bad Company than anything approaching the deep Chicago and country blues Gallagher dearly loved. The quality picks up substantially as the volume subsides on "Loanshark Blues," but by-the-books crunch-rockers like "Failsafe Day" and the unfortunately titled "Road to Hell" don't bode well for Gallagher moving out from an increasingly formulaic pigeonhole. There are a few corkers here like "Continental Op," a blazing riff that stands with Gallagher's best work and revisits his familiar cloak-and-dagger theme. The swampy, less abrasive "I Ain't No Saint" also pushes the quality up a few notches, as does his gritty version of Sonny Boy Williamson's "Don't Start Me to Talking," the bluesiest song on the disc and one of the few times he pulls out his greasy slide. "Seven Days" is the lone acoustic track and it's a good one, with piano and harp accompaniment and Gallagher singing like he means it as he takes the part of a criminal fleeing from the electric chair. The 2000 reissue adds a pair of rugged bonus tracks (along with a cleaner sound mix), which are actually better, or certainly as good as the best cuts on the rest of this competent but hardly essential Rory Gallagher disc.</p>— <b>Hal Horowitz</b> |
| Rory Gallagher | The Essential Rory Gallagher | <p>UK 28-track digitally remastered 2-CD set with tracks drawn from 15 albums [11 studio, 3 live and 1 posthumous], including 'Laundromat', 'I Fall Apart', 'In Your Town', 'Crest of a Wave', 'Walk on Hot Coals', 'Who's That Coming', 'Shadow Play', 'Cradle Rock', 'A Million Miles Away' and many more plus live recordings of 'Brute Force & Ignorance', 'As the Crow Flies', 'I Could've Had Religion', 'Tattoo'd Lady' & 'Bullfrog'.</p><p>— <strong>Amazon.com</strong></p> |
| Jan Garbarek | Dis | <p>Dis is an album by Norwegian jazz composer and saxophonist Jan Garbarek recorded at the Talent Studios, Oslo Norway Dec. 1976 and released on the ECM label in 1977. Jan Garbarek and Ralph Towner on 12 string and 6 string classical guitar and Den Norske Messingsekstett on brass on "Skygger" and the use of a Windharp (#1, 3, 6) built by Sverre Larssen by gusts of wind coming in from North Sea, creating tones and overtones and enhanced in a resonant body). Gives this session new textures and direction to sound within and keeps your ear wanting more.</p><p>—<strong>Rick Ransom</strong></p> |
| Jan Garbarek | Legend Of The Seven Dreams | <p>Though in step with its time, this release suffers from excessive reliance on ambient synthesizers, which litter much of the recording, rendering it only slightly more interesting than many of the Windham Hill new age recordings of the same era. Unfortunate, because the disc opens with strength and gradually peters out by the end. The disc opens with "He Came From the North," which features a melody based on a traditional Lapp joik from the artist's native Norway and progresses into a longer section with an interplay that is both sparse and rhythmic. The sax line here is astonishingly beautiful. The second piece, "Alchuri, the Song Man," a sax and percussion piece, is energetic and lively as well. And from here the energy gradually diminishes. Much can be attributed to popular styles of the time, but this release simply does not stand up to other music of its genre that came later.</p><p>—<strong>Mark Allender</strong></p> |
| Jan Garbarek | Ragas And Sagas | <p>The saxophone is not an instrument usually associated with Pakistani music. And Pakistanis are not especially famous for collaborating with Norwegians. But that is what listeners have on this incredible recording. The music is predominantly Pakistani in sound, tonality, and structure; voice, sarangi, and tabla improvise along with Garbarek's saxophone on every track. For aficionados of Indian or Pakistani music, this is a great recording; Garbarek's lines are right in step with the traditional styles of improvisation. Listeners unacquainted with these traditions will find this recording a mesmerizingly exotic disc. Those familiar with Garbarek's work will be very surprised. This is a completely unique recording for him; one can only hope that he makes further explorations in this vein.</p>— <b>Mark W.B. Allender</b> |
| Jan Garbarek | Madar | <p>On this CD Jan Garbarek (doubling on tenor and soprano) is accompanied only by Anouar Brahem on oud and Ustad Shaukat Hussain's tabla. Garbarek shows off his distinctive tones and lyricism on a set of gradually developing group originals, two of which are based on traditional Norwegian melodies. It may take some time for listeners to get into this music and notice the fire beneath the ice but the close communication between the players is apparent from the start. Jan Garbarek has succeeded in carving out his own unique niche in improvised music and Madar (which also has individual features for Brahem and Shaukat) is a good example of how he can create a great deal out of what seems like very little.</p>— <b>Scott Yanow</b> |
| Jan Garbarek | Twelve Moons | <p>Recorded in 1992, this album emphasizes production value and slick performances. Largely a feature for Jan Garbarek's soprano sax (he only plays tenor on three tracks), each song is dreamy and quite mystical. Compositionally, Twelve Moons is a curious blend of light jazz and Norwegian folk melodies. This is especially apparent on "Psalm" and "Darvanan," both of which feature female vocalists, while "Huhai" borrows from a traditional folk tune.</p><p>Fans of Garbarek's penetrating, English horn-like soprano sax sound are treated to some inspired playing throughout, and drummer Manu Katche, best known for his work with Peter Gabriel and Sting, shines on every track. Additionally, there is nice interplay between Garbarek and the band on "Witchi-Tai-To," a remake of a tune first recorded by the saxophonist on a '74 album of the same name.</p><p>—<strong>AllMusic</strong></p> |
| Jan Garbarek | Visible World | <p>Apart from David Sanborn, probably no living saxophonist has a more instantly recognizable voice than Jan Garbarek; actually, given the fact that Sanborn's sound is so widely copied, Garbarek's may be easier to identify in a blindfold test. This album in particular puts that sound front and center. Garbarek's the show; he composed all of the music, and is essentially the only soloist. The music (much of which was composed as soundtrack material for film or video) is quintessential Garbarek, full of the world music influences that have characterized his work since the 1970s. Garbarek's resonant, carefully articulated tenor and soprano tone suits the spacious, minor/modal themes. He's as much a singer as instrumentalist. Garbarek also plays digital synthesizers, mostly as string or flute pads underneath the folkish melodies. The record's most notable secondary player is Garbarek's ECM labelmate, the bassist Eberhard Weber, whose lyric sensibility is a virtual mirror of Garbarek's. This is quiet, contemplative music for the most part -- attractive, but not superficially pretty. Its grooves are less celebratory than melancholic. There's an intensity here borne of deep concentration and commitment to beauty. Garbarek has come a long way since his early days as a quasi-free jazz experimentalist. This music is not jazz, nor is it experimental. But it is compelling in its way, representative of a first-rate creative musician, beyond category.</p><p>—<strong>Chris Kelsey</strong></p> |
| Jan Garbarek | Rites | <p>Since the late '70s, Jan Garbarek has been carving out a place within jazz for the folk and spiritual traditions of the indigenous peoples of Scandinavia, the Netherlands, and finally of those people all over the world. Rites, a double CD, is his attempt at forging a synthesis that takes improvisation into the heart of ritual music and creates a new form of spiritual from them both. Using a strategy for each of the discs, the first one digs deep into the spiritual and mystical side of his language. Garbarek plays soprano and tenor as well as synthesizers, drum machines, and samples — always understated, always elegant — and utilizes the talents of some of his running mates as well as new ones. Rainer Bruninghaus appears sporadically throughout, as does bassist Eberhard Weber, and drummer/percussion wizard Marilyn Mazur is ubiquitous. The music is slow, tenuous, and repetitive. It hardly matters — on disc one, anyway — which of the pieces are being played. All of them have spare, chant-like melodies that are lifted by myriad percussion instruments and keyboards, which provide a spacious ambience in which to enfold them both. Even Garbarek's trademark icy saxophone — usually made more so by Manfred Eicher's production — is warm, watery, and deeply entrenched in this warm mix that falls over listeners like a fine meditation blanket; like that blanket, it begins to stir emotions from deep within the heart of the listener. While these songs all segue into one another, it is worth noting that Garbarek recut "It's OK to Listen to the Grey Voice" for this collection, where it's performed with deeper conviction and fits better than it did on the album it was named for. Disc two of Rites is a bit of a different story. While the music is indeed intended for ritual, it comes from the celebratory side of the aisle rather than the contemplative one. Here are dances, Garbarek's versions of gospel shouts, processionals, festival waltzes, and all manner of joyful ceremonies completing the circle. On one collection, listeners get music for prayer, contemplation, and grief, as well as a funky European read of indigenous music for moving to and celebrating. Clearly this is what sets Rites above Garbarek's other recordings, him taking that balance he possessed so early in his career back again and putting it to work in a near-sacred setting.</p>— <b>Thom Jurek</b> |
| Jan Garbarek | Mnemosyne | <p>Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble waited nearly five years before trying to follow up their surprisingly successful Officium album, but finally they came through with an even more adventurous two-CD set of jazzman-meets-early-music-voices. Here, their range straddles no less than three milleniums (just missing a fourth by a couple of years), from the "Delphic Paean" of Athenaeus circa 127 B.C. to a lullaby by the contemporary Estonian composer Veljo Tormis, with intervening contributions by Hildegard von Bingen, William Billings, and Thomas Tallis, Iroquois Indians, Basque and Peruvian folksongs, and many more far-flung choices. Most daringly, the four voices themselves now start to improvise on scraps of ancient material culled from old book bindings and the like, though it's hard to determine exactly where this occurs (probably during some passages of wordless vocalise). Ultimately, despite the freer methods, the results are often pretty much the same as Officium on disc one -- soothing, timeless sonic frescos reverberantly recorded in the same Austrian St. Gerold monastery, with Garbarek soaring over or threading through the texture ever more sparingly. Yet on disc two, Garbarek and the Hilliards start to move into other worlds, breaking into something more disturbing and even atonal in that ancient "Delphic Paean," the syncopated harmonies of Garbarek's own "Loiterando," or a strange-sounding Russian Psalm from the 16th century. This is a collaboration in transition, and one hopes it will continue to evolve.</p><p>— <b>Richard S. Ginell</b></p> |
| Jan Garbarek | Rarum | <p>Jan Garbarek is the quintessential ECM artiste -- adventurous; disdainful of categories; in possession of a wailing tone well-suited to producer Manfred Eicher's reverberant, airy sonic tastes; and a devotee of the school of wide open spaces without clutter. The latter two points are important, for they unify what might otherwise be a wildly scattered collection of shooting asteroids into a single orbit. Giving all of this eclecticism some general shape, disc one of Garbarek's Rarum volume deals with his sessions as a leader, often with the ethereal mood in play, while the second disc is devoted to the Norwegian saxophonist's collaborations with his celebrated friends from Europe and America over a 22-year span. The first disc has a carefully terraced sense of flow from start to finish, with the opening horn calls of "Skrik & Hyl" and "Viddene" sounding as if they came from high on a mountaintop, with bass, then guitar, then pipe organ as backdrops. With "Lillekort," things get moving in a light Brazilian bag with Nana Vasconcelos providing the groove and the nicely striding "It's OK to Listen to the Gray Voice." The set then veers into some ethereal solo tracks, where Garbarek works with tapes of himself on excerpts from the albums All Those Born With Wings and Legend of the Seven Dreams and reaches a peak of energy on the penultimate track, the title tune of the Twelve Moons album. Within this overall context, the lengthy "Raga I," with a host of Indian musicians, seems not at all out of place, nor is Shankar's playful "Song for Everyone" on disc two. Paying homage where homage is due, four of the first five tracks of disc two are some of Garbarek's collaborations with Keith Jarrett in the '70s -- ranging from the esoteric (the lugubriously orchestrated "Windsong" from Luminessence) to some snapshots of the Jarrett European quartet that put Garbarek on the map. Interestingly, in Jarrett's Rarum volume, the pianist writes that he would have liked to have included "Sunshine Song" (from Nude Ants) and a track from Luminessence on his own collection. What he doesn't say is that they turned up on Garbarek's album instead. A coincidence of telepathic tastes -- or concealed collusion? Aside from the European quartet tracks, the disc reverts to Garbarek's spare, freewheeling conception of sound, featuring sessions led by guitarists Ralph Towner and Egberto Gismonti, and finally a taste of Garbarek's audacious yet lovely collaboration with the early music Hilliard Ensemble. Alas, Garbarek's liner notes aren't of much use as a guide; he is merely content to thank some of his co-conspirators -- mainly Eicher and Jarrett.</p><p>—<strong>Richard S. Ginell</strong></p> |
| Jan Garbarek | In Praise Of Dreams | <p>It has been six years since saxophonist/composer Jan Garbarek issued a new recording under his own name. For In Praise of Dreams Garbarek enlisted violist Kim Kashkashian and frequent collaborator Manu Katché on drums. Garbarek, who composed the album's 11 selections, plays saxophones as well as a host of keyboards and percussion, while Katché plays acoustic and electronic drums along with Kashkashian's viola. In many ways this is the most radical recording that Garbarek has ever issued, but not because it's outside — quite the opposite. This is easily the warmest, most accessible outing Garbarek has ever issued because though there are no vocals, Garbarek has clearly written "songs" on this set, with identifiable structures that are followed almost throughout. Though he is no stranger to the form, having employed it almost continually for the last 20 years, he has never engaged it so thoroughly and completely. Previously, he has engaged improvisation to get song to the breaking point and move it somewhere else. Here it is always present; surprise happens inside the formal frameworks of these compositions. Beautiful, soulful lines underscore and recontextualize the saxophonist's trademark Nordic iciness of tone on the opener, "As Seen from Above," with its spiraling soprano, lush keyboards, and hypnotic loops. In its warmth, it comes very close to a distinctly European kind of groove/soul-jazz.</p><p>The interplay between Kashkashian and Garbarek on the title track offers rounded, multidimensional sonorities winding through the intro before spilling into a call-and-response melody. The repetitive keyboard line and Katché's mantra-like drumming under the loops draw the listener inside the song's heart and extend the edge for the front line. The restrained romanticism shown by Kashkashian on her nocturnal solo intro to "One Goes There Alone" is nearly breathtaking. As it gives way to the tune itself, it's slow, reflective, and rooted deeply in the tension created between percussion and Garbarek's minimal backing response lines. When he solos later in the tune, he's clearly blowing blues into her elegiac line. The blues notion continues in his phrasing on "Knot of Place and Time," slipping through the landscape of Kashkashian's elegant, near heartbreakingly poetic soundscape. And so it goes. Things get more speculative on "Scene from Afar" and "Cloud of Unknowing," but it hardly matters since these song forms are nonetheless immediately recognizable, presenting the nether side of the equation. It emerges again with "Conversation With a Stone" and whispers to a close with "A Tale Begun," a mantra-like duet that closes this strong set that will undoubtedly, if it gets the opportunity to be heard, garner Jan Garbarek some new fans. Poetic, moving, and marvelous, In Praise of Dreams is a welcome return.</p>— <b>Thom Jurek</b> |
| Jan Garbarek | Elixir | <p>Elixir is the first album Danish percussionist Marilyn Mazur has recorded as a leader for ECM in 14 years. It is an interesting number for Mazur, because she has also spent 14 years as a member of saxophonist Jan Garbarek's recording and touring ensembles. He appears on about half of Elixir as Mazur's only collaborator (apart from producer Manfred Eicher). That said, the solo pieces are the first remarkable aspect of this set. When Mazur works alone, her pieces defy everything we think we know about solo percussion recordings: there is a warmth and directness in these proceedings that is songlike rather than merely hypnotic or virtuosic. There is much to tell here, not merely to show. These short works are, in effect, aural stories. They arise from her intuitive understanding of an instrument and sound as well as her improvisational abilities as a percussionist, but they emerge as almost sung narratives told on her array of bells, marimba, bowed vibraphones, log drums, udu, cymbals, gongs, waterphone, hang, and metal utensils -- instruments and tools from all of the earth's continents. They are startling vignettes, because they offer a connection to something earlier to be sure, but also to something very universal in their accessibility as a kind of folk art. When she works with Garbarek, the sheer intuitive nature of their communication is simply startling. They do know one another well, but this is truly out of the ordinary. To be honest, as fine as Garbarek's own records have been, listeners haven't really heard him play like this for many years. The structured melodies and dynamic reaches in "Orientales," for instance, come from a very simple idea that he modulates on and returns to over and over again, but his intonation and sense of attack are very different than on his own records. Likewise, the tribal-sounding "Dunun Song" allows for the saxophonist to take his tenor and dance along a thematic idea that is as rooted in blues and New Orleans music as it is in African cultures. The relatively free abstraction in "Winter Wish," the longest of these 21 improvisations at a little over four minutes, is nonetheless measured by Mazur's sense of pace and space, and how her own measured tones offer another voice for her collaborator. The beautiful cymbal, cowbell, and log drums on "Creature Walk" are knotty, ever shifting in pulse and timbre, but always toward rather than away from the listener. The nocturnal waterphone on "Metal Dew," with the longish tones of shimmering small bells and rubbed cymbals, presents another piece of musical alchemy that, while sounding utterly strange and almost exotic, is nonetheless fantastically approachable and beautifully nuanced. In fact, the manner in which this album is structured draws the listener from front to back without once being overwhelming. Indeed, if anything, one is drawn increasingly and with great fascination into these gorgeous rhythmic poems, as if to a new land that is simultaneously welcoming and strange. Fantastic.</p><p>—<strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p> |
| Jan Garbarek | Dresden | <p>It's hard to believe that after recording as a leader for 40 years, Dresden: In Concert is Jan Garbarek's first-ever live album. He has recorded sparely in 21st century thus far, but he has toured regularly. For those who think that Garbarek abandoned jazz some time ago, this will be a shock. Dresden is an engaged, kinetic, double-disc, two-hour performance of his quartet playing in the modern jazz idiom and using all of its tenets -- from complex harmonics and rhythmic invention to extended lyric improvisation -- to create a tour de force that honors all the music he holds dear.</p><p>Garbarek plays tenor, soprano, and the selje flute; he is accompanied by his regular group that includes drummer Manu Katche, pianist/keyboadist Rainer Brüninghaus, and electric bassist Yuri Daniel. There are 16 compositions that include tracks from his own albums -- some of them radically but exquisitely revamped for this quartet and performance. There are also tunes by his bandmates, and an extended, stellar reading of Milton Nascimento's gorgeous "Milagro Dos Piexes," that features some of the most inventive and dynamic dialogue between Garbarek and Brüninghaus on record.</p><p>The forcefulness of Garbarek's own playing will surprise casual listeners while making veteran's reference his earliest recordings for ECM. His solo on the opening cut, "Paper Nut" (a tune he composed for L. Shankar's Song for Everyone album), is immediately recognizable, yet is startling for its forcefulness and physicality. Likewise, Katche's double-timed yet groove-laden syncopation provides a backdrop for the saxophonist to move his harmonically extended meditation to the margins. And he does so in the middle, recalling the fireworks of his earliest recordings. His knotty arpeggios go head to head with his drummer, who simply cannot be shaken. When the ensemble comes together in the middle of the tune, they swing hard, and are added to by a gorgeous solo from Brüninghaus. Katche's in an amazing foil for Garbarek, because he understands not only the intricate shapeshifting and intensities in jazz, but has street grooves and rhythm & blues shuffles down cold -- in both vintage and modern contexts -- as well. Garbarek radically reworks "Once I Wished a Tree Upside Down," a piece he wrote for Trilok Gurtu's Living Magic album. Whereas the former was comprised mainly of hand drums and synthesizers, this version, introduced by Brüninghaus playing a South African township cadence on the piano and Katche's breakbeats, is both streetwise and folk-rooted while being utterly redolent of 21st millennium jazz. The ballad "There Were Swallows" (one of the tunes from 1992's Twelve Moons album) loses none of its graceful restraint here, fueled by Brüninghaus' piano and sung poetically by Garbarek's soprano. The final track on the set, "Voy Cantando" from 1988's Legend of the Seven Dreams, clocks in at over 11 minutes and is arguably the toughest thing here; it's funky but with a long modal excursion in the middle and a very complex, tenor solo from Garbarek. "Maracuja" carries within it an easy sense of swing, a reggae backbeat, and contains killer basswork by Daniel, all within a folk song. The same goes for "Heitor," which commences with a folkish melody and extends itself into the hinterlands of creative ensemble playing while losing none of its ability to swing.</p><p>In sum, Dresden is an event, not only in Garbarek's career, but in ECM's as we'll -- after all, it's their 40th anniversary this year, too -- in the same way that the Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert or the Out-of-Towners' trio date was. It's a live concert recording capturing nearly all the energy, creativity, and presences of sound and dynamics on compact disc that audiences in the seats encountered.</p><p>—<strong>Thom Jurek</strong></p> |
| Peter Garrett | A Version Of Now | <p>Peter Garrett was never made for politics. A passionate idealist, how he kept sane whilst his environmental policies and integrity were constantly sold out in the name of party politics, is anyone's guess.</p><p>Ironically, after resigning amidst the turbulence of the most pathetic era of Australian polutics (sic) – an era where our leaders (such as they are) and their integrity (if you can find any) became ever more one dimensional, spineless and blatantly dishonest – hindsight shows us that his charismatic, pre-politics self is arguably the Prime Minister this country needs more than ever, rather than the scumbags who are actually in the running for the job.</p><p>It seems inevitable, then, that he's come back to music, reforming Midnight Oil (despite vehement protestations by the organisation that that was NOT an option not too many months ago), and finally releasing his debut solo album.</p><p>Musically, A Version Of Now occupies the same sort of territory as The Oils. Lyrically there is a treasure trove of snippets which personal and political observers will (and have) leap upon to feed their theories about the whys and wherefores of his political career. To Garrett's credit, however, he doesn't use the album as a podium for mudslinging and muckracking – in fact, if anything, he defends his integrity, insisting in I'd Do It Again, 'I went of my own accord to do what I could/I got my hands dirty I had a go.' Can't blame the guy for trying.</p><p>Freed of the need to compromise his beliefs and integrity in the name of (what is laughingly called) "the greater good", Garrett is surprisingly sanguine about a chapter of his life that simply didn't live up to his aspirations. The closest he gets to commentary on those often dark days is in Tall Trees, stating, "I saw the best of men and I saw the worse/I saw the best of woman too, from governor to nurse" and "While all the glory hunters were basking in false smiles/Twisted egos and ambitions mile after mile/I went to find a quiet place away from the madding mob/To try and make a difference get on with the job and do it again". It's cutting, but measured as well, and no doubt after swimming in those murky waters the need for a return to home and family life was strong, hence the inclusion of not only two love songs to his wife Doris, but also his three daughters singing on the album.</p><p>Having delivered this very restrained (and very nice) album, and with an autobiographical memoir coming very soon, the time is ripe for Garrett to deliver a proper follow-up (under his own name or as Midnight Oil) that is full of the fiery political statement that he was famous for in his younger days.</p><p>—<strong>Shane Pinnegar</strong></p><hr/><p>The fourteen years since the last Midnight Oil album have been eventful for Peter Garrett. Moving from music to politics, he spent much of this period as a part of Australia's labour government party, which included many controversial choices during his years of service, only finding himself retiring from government work as recently as 2013. Now that this period is over, however, it's no surprise that Garrett finds himself once again creating music; A Version of Now may be his first solo album, but it'll sound familiar to most Garrett fans, even if it acts as a better lead-in to more Midnight Oil material than it does as a solo introduction.</p><p>Stylistically, A Version of Now is extremely straightforward and simple. The focus is always placed on Garrett's easily identifiable, heavily accented singing, filling in the gap behind his voice with the music so they work in harmony rather than fighting for dominance. The lyrics cover what many would expect them to, from addressing his political career and the choices he made throughout it on I'd Do It Again, to simply announcing his return to music on the opening track Tall Trees. Meanwhile, Homecoming covers the period in which he returned home after his political career, with its sentimentality showing through clearly.</p><p>There's nothing truly groundbreaking to be found on Garrett's solo debut, but its familiarity is ultimately what fans will enjoy most out of it. Glimpses of his catalogue with Midnight Oil pop up throughout, and there's the added bonus of songs like Homecoming not requiring any bells and whistles on top of their simple arrangement to truly stand out. The only truly unique moment on the album is when he approaches talk-singing at its extreme on It Still Matters, not quite at rapping speeds but covering much more lyrical ground than he does anywhere else, tying the album together nicely as he races to convey his message.</p><p>While it won't win over any new fans, Garrett is more than ready to prepare fans for the return of Midnight Oil with A Version of Now, as if he were conveying his memoirs through this alternate channel to quickly address the political situation before launching back into band material. There's no real groundbreaking moments on the album, and its one-note style would come close to dragging if it weren't such a short album. Regardless, A Version of Now has its merits and sits well in Garrett's discography.</p><p>— <strong>Michael Smith</strong></p> |
| Terry Garthwaite | Hand In Glove | |
| Dick Gaughan | A Different Kind Of Love Song | |
| Crystal Gayle | We Must Believe In Magic | |
| Genesis | Abacab | |
| Lowell George | Thanks I'll Eat It Here | <p>Thanks I'll Eat it Here is strikingly different from the fusion-leanings of Little Feat's last studio album, Time Loves a Hero. Lowell George never cared for jazz-fusion, so it should be little surprise that there's none to be heard on Thanks. Instead, he picks up where Dixie Chicken left off (he even reworks that album's standout "Two Trains"), turning in a laid-back, organic collection of tunes equal parts New Orleans R&B, country, sophisticated blues, and pop. George wasn't in good health during the sessions for Thanks, which you wouldn't tell by his engaging performances, but from the lack of new tunes. Out of the nine songs on the album, only three are originals, and they're all collaborations. That's a drawback only in retrospect - it's hard not to wish that the last album George completed had more of his own songs - but Lowell was a first-rate interpreter, so even covers of Allen Toussaint ("What Do You Want the Girl to Do"), Ann Peebles ("I Can't Stand the Rain") and Rickie Lee Jones ("Easy Money") wind up sounding of piece with the original songs. George's music rolls so easy, the album can seem a little slight at first, but it winds up being a real charmer. Yes, a few songs drift by and, yes, Jimmy Webb's vaudevellian "Himmler's Ring" feels terribly out of place, but Lowell's style is so distinctive and his performances so soulful, it's hard not to like this record if you've ever had a fondness for Little Feat. After all, it's earthier and more satisfying than any Feat album since Feats Don't Fail Me Now and it has the absolutely gorgeous "20 Million Things," the last great song George ever wrote.</p> —<b>Stephen Thomas Erlewine</b><p> </p><p>Few musicians mirror Los Angeles's tradition of rock chameleons better than Lowell George, son of a Hollywood furrier and the brilliant, short-lived auteur that shaped Little Feat's '70s sound and fury before retreating to allow a more democratic if less gripping chemistry to surface. George's hearty but lyrical, blues-rimmed voice, signature electric slide guitar, and infectious, often surreal songs defined the band--as did his production on their pivotal mid-decade albums, which convinced more than a few listeners that they were Southerners. His 1979 solo album, recorded shortly before his untimely death, mixed new originals ("Honest Man," "Cheek to Cheek," "Himmler's Ring," and the touching "20 Million Things" among them) with smart R&B covers from Allen Toussaint ("What Do You Want the Girl to Do") and Ann Peebles ("I Can't Stand the Rain"), dressed in tight brass choruses and sleek backing choruses, and fit snugly with the Feat canon.</p>— <b>Sam Sutherland</b> |
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