Relatively uneventful, and all anyone can seem to ask (because they've worn out the Who/WhatCollege/Where/WhichCorps questions) is "How was your first day?"  The emphasis seems to imply that they actually have something to say about their first day, but I'm honestly having difficulty finding an appropriate answer.

"Oh, well, you know.  Pretty much exactly like induction, only longer.  A little long, a little boring, but all good info just not packaged extraordinarily brightly.  No teaching, just sitting so it's not like I had much to worry about."  That's really all I got.

I'm not trying to say there's nothing exciting happening.  I'm just trying to say that the real self-conscious feelings of "Oh my gosh these kids are judging me" or "I can't believe they didn't respond well to my lesson plans" or "Why can't they learn this, God, why?" or "What am I doing wrong?" or "Why is that one kid picking that other kids nose?".  All of that fun hasn't started yet, so it's like we've had the politely small starter salad at the most expensive French restaurant in town, and the appetizer hasn't even come out yet.  Maybe we're not even to the salad.  Maybe we're still on breadsticks.  I really should have thoroughly thought that simile through before I ran with it.  Ah! The mistakes of youth and idiocy and future educators molding the minds of America's impressionable youth.

I would write more, but I"m crashing in a major way, and have no more sarcasm left in me after a hard, hard long day of under-the-breath on-the-sly comments to whomever was sitting next to me about the latest silly thing the presenter just said.  It's tough work, but hey...

This is also a really unceremonious post because I really had nothing to write about.

Once I'm in the thick of it and have something (read: complaining) to write about, that's when this blog will really get kick-started.  But that won't be until next Monday, so until then...

PS.  Correction on a former entry: Due to the controversy, I don't think I'd actually kill an Asian baby, I'm retracting that statement.  Although I might could throw it a few feet out of extreme rage (worse than the Florida Road Rage of US DHMV Infamy) so that only partially permanent damage would ensue throughout a deformed life.  Is that better Colleen?

On the claim of a psychic, school officials reported that an autistic child in their school was being molested.

Colleen Leduc's weird tale began on May 30, when she dropped young Victoria off for class at Terry Fox Elementary and headed in to work, only to receive a frantic phone call from the school telling her it was urgent she come back right away.

The frightened mother rushed back to the campus and was stunned by what she heard - the principal, vice-principal and her daughter's teacher were all waiting for her in the office, telling her they'd received allegations that Victoria had been the victim of sexual abuse - and that the CAS had been notified.

How did they come by such startling knowledge? Leduc was incredulous as they poured out their story.

"The teacher looked and me and said: 'We have to tell you something. The educational assistant who works with Victoria went to see a psychic last night, and the psychic asked the educational assistant at that particular time if she works with a little girl by the name of "V." And she said 'yes, I do.' And she said, 'well, you need to know that that child is being sexually abused by a man between the ages of 23 and 26.'"

Not only is the mother understandably upset that administrators reported her to the Canadian equivalent of Child Protective Services on such specious evidence. She comes complete with dramatic flair.

"They reported me to Children's Aid," Leduc declares, still disbelieving. "Based on a psychic!"

Assuming Children's Aid Services works anything like the CPS, and assuming that teachers up in the Great, White, Barren North are beholden to the same laws, the school staff was required to report that claim. Schools are not allowed to interpret even the silliest, most incongruous rumors from the most ridiculous sources --- it might, just might, be true. Instead, schools are required report those rumors to the appropriate government agencies. The job of CPA --- I assume it works like the American CPS --- is to investigate the claim, either exonerating the accused or reporting them to the district attorney.

I can't help but feel sorry for the demonized administration here, and I certainly can't help but feel angry at the overconscientious --- at the very least uninformed --- psychic. The psychic doesn't need the attention, because and the very last thing psychics need is greater scrutiny. She probably thought that this was just some simple, white lie. Not so much.

Consequences for not reporting even the barest suspicion of child molestation don't stop at simple stuff, like losing your job. If you're a teacher, not reporting directly to CPA directly could mean a hefty fine, or even jail time at a prison.

The way I hear it, if there's one kind of convict that serial shoplifters, axe murderers and high-profile inside traders don't like, it's child molesters. You will be the lowest rung on the smokes-for-favors ladder, and even though you didn't molest the child yourself, don't expect other prisoners to make that distinction.

By law, you could be treated as if you were directly party to the offense. That's what was going through the mind of the school staff, and it would be wrong make fun of them for how they treated the psychic's suggestion.

Sure, sane psychics are liars and shouldn't be trusted. By law, even the allegations of liars have to be reported.

I did like the fact that it was fairly simple and they didn’t have girls dressed as flower fairies popping out of hand made gilded boxes, waving Prada napkins and doing synchronised swimming to a string quartet.  I’m a less is more kind of girl when it comes to weddings.  I thought her dress (Marchesa) was quite nice, although a bit swirly for my liking.  But at least it wasn’t bloody Vera Wang, whose wedding dresses are everywhere like a rash, and yet are all very, very, very boring indeed.  I'm glad she didn't go for Alice Temperley, who is the other hot name in wedding dress design amongst the boho chic crowd.  I love Alice Temperley but I, like Colleen am a curvy, short woman with bosoms.  Alice designs dresses for people who resemble gyrating pencils and who, if there were a crowd of thirty of them in a crowded room couldn't rustle up even a 36 AA chest between them.  Lovely, but not for the likes of us.

I didn’t see the shoes, because her dress was too long.  I expect they were alright. She usually does quite well on the shoe front. In my infinite fashion wisdom, as I sit here in a tatty Banana Republic tracksuit and my third best Converse trainers, I’m prepared to give her eight out of ten for shoes. Like she gives a crap!  Luckily I don’t think she’s a big fan of my blog.  She won’t be after this particular rant.

Now I’m sorry but what the hell is wrong with that girl? She seems half decent, not brain of Britain, unlikely to take up a visiting professorship in quantum physics at Harvard university, but alright.  She clearly likes her cake, which is no bad thing, and she is one of the few people, who when given tons of cash unexpectedly, doesn’t turn into a glittermongering whore, dripping with tasteless Versace bling and teeny weeny, emaciated dogs in pet carriers that cost more than my house (unless I just haven't had the misfortune to see those pictures yet).  Her taste is not always my taste, but she has shown signs of having some taste.  I wouldn't have gone for Hen Bingo as my hen night personally.  In fact I didn't have a hen night because I really can't be doing with all that stuff, and the thought of congaing round the cocktail bar with an inflatable condom on my head makes me want to vomit before I've even had a drink.  But, each to his own.  So, as I said, she does seem to exhibit some taste.  Except when it comes to her choice in men that is.

Is it just me or is Wayne Rooney repellent?  I don’t care how much money he has, or how good he is at football. If I were to suddenly announce tomorrow that I had fallen in love with Wayne Rooney my first hope that is that you, as some of my closest friends, would be not taking no for an answer and would be speedily motoring me up to the nearest hospital for a brain scan and blood tests for mad cow disease.

Now I understand that not every man is blessed with good looks.  I can also totally understand the allure of falling for someone's massive intellect.  We have discussed before my strange attraction to Gerard Depardieu, who looks like a bison who's been squashed by a bus.  But, he has sex appeal.  He is Gallic.  He is down and dirty.  He has vineyards.  He reads novels and can act.  He has skills that a woman could appreciate, even if she had to squint hard to love him.  I know for a fact that Wayne Rooney doesn't have that indefinable 'x' factor when it comes to sex appeal.  He is the kind of person only a mother could love.  He may be brilliant at football, but I can't picture nights on the Tuscan loggia discussing the intricacies of the off side rule as a precursor to a frantic night of passion.  I would be willing to stake my 27p of credit with the bank that he's never read a book in his life without being forced at gun point by a burly man called Dave.

It’s not just that he looks like a half baked jacket potato.  It’s not only that he has already got a receding hair line at the tender age of twenty two.  It’s not even that he cannot wear anything at all without making it look like he borrowed it off his bigger, fatter, brother and didn’t even bother to iron it before he put it on.  It’s that he looks like a cross between a serial killer and a mangel wurzel farmer, particularly when he smiles, and here’s the clincher for me.  He pays women for sex.  HE PAYS WOMEN FOR SEX!!!! He pays women for sex while he’s going out with a perfectly attractive woman, who most men wouldn’t turn away, and who, despite his frankly repulsive looks, seems to love him for who he is and clearly doesn’t make him go round the house with a bag on his head, or wake up screaming when faced with his gurny little face across the pillow in the morning.  He’s a lucky, lucky, bloke.

I hear that all this paying women for sex thing is now in the past, but the fact that it has ever even been on the radar at all would be enough to make me round him up against a wall and shoot him.  I can just about understand the fact that someone might just fall head over heels in love or lust with person B and fall into bed with them while they’re supposed to be seeing person A.  It’s not the best endorsement of a healthy relationship, but shit happens.  What is difficult for me to understand is the planning element of the whole paying for sex thing.  A person just doesn’t do it on a whim.  They think about it.  They go to the bank machine.  They drive to the house of ill repute.  They probably sometimes ask for VAT receipts and reclaim it under expenses.  It’s just wrong, wrong, wrong.

Now, if Wayne were single, which without Colleen and a large pay packet would be probable, I wouldn't have a problem with him paying for sex.  It's not the paying for sex thing that bothers me overmuch.  I mean, I wouldn't want to do it myself.  I pay for things like loaves of bread and washing powder.  I don't pay for sex.  If I did pay for sex it would bring it down to the level of my Ocado order and somehow I think the allure would be gone, which would kind of make the whole operation pointless.  When you start equating sex with pop tarts you know you're in trouble.  Nevertheless, it is a fact of life that some men do equate having an orgasm with buying a newspaper or purchasing a particularly troublesome car.  If that's what they want to do, then fair play to them.  It's when they do it to prop up a relationship that surely cannot be working that it bothers me.  If I were Colleen I'd be forever wondering about my prowess, my attractiveness, my thighs and god knows what else after that.  If I were with someone like Daniel Craig it might be worth the effort, but worrying about all that constantly for a little runt like Wayne Rooney seems somehow far too much like hard work.  And now she's got to worry about him for the rest of her life, because if she wasn't prepared to leave him before, she definitely won't be leaving him now will she?  Which means he's got another forty years of hot dinners and folded underpants to look forward to in the safe knowledge that he can dip his wick wherever he feels like it, and even if she knows about it the worst he can expect is some sulking and having to fork out for more shoes.  It just doesn't seem right to me.

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Vanessa Carlton
Heroes & Thieves ••
Universal

Poor piano-popster Vanessa Carlton might have felt the sting of inevitability about her second album, Harmonium. Coming off the back of her smash hit debut it was a relative commercial and critical failure, peaking at a lowly 33 in the US Billboard 200 charts. Part of the problem was that the whole album sounded too much like her debut single ‘A Thousand Miles'; basic, boring piano-pop with no innovation or flair for variety. Carlton soon found herself receiving a cold "thanks, but no thanks" from her record label, A&M. All was not good, until R&B supremo Irv Gotti (Ashanti's backer) decided to take a chance on her by producing her third album, Heroes & Thieves.

Carlton's frustration with A&M bubbles to the surface in the album's first number, ‘Nolita Fairytale'. Immediately recognizable as standard Carlton fare, its lyrics ("Take away my record deal / go on, I don't need it") might strike some as being somewhat petulant; sadly, that is by far the least of the song's problems. Although it is competent, it is certainly nothing special; despite Carlton's powerful voice (reminiscent of a young Sheryl Crow), her enunciation is so weak that it's something of a strain to distinguish between words and understand the song's heartfelt lyrics. This is a shame, because Carlton's skill as a lyricist is actually pretty good. Next track ‘Hands On Me's tale of youthful, unrequited love works well with Carlton's yearning vocals, although it feels somewhat overwhelmed by a intrusive percussion - a common problem throughout the album, as it happens, and something Carlton would do well to avoid in the future.

Although most of the tracks sound rather samey, there are a few standouts. Carlton's multilayered vocals in ‘The One' take on a rich close harmony that could tie the Puppini Sisters in knots, and ends the song with a remarkably wistful coda. ‘My Best' shimmers with a lullaby feel, filled with the sweet chimes of an electric piano to create a very pleasing track, and proving that, when she tries, Carlton can be very impressive. However, what should have been the album's best number - ‘Home' - fails to live up to its potential; at first Carlton eschews percussion, opting for a simple, near-perfect combination of piano, violin, harp and voice. Sadly, this quiet mastery is shattered by needless drums for the last two minutes, wrecking what could otherwise have been a welcome recognition that innovation is at least as important as convention.

Unfortunately, it seems that the pull of ‘A Thousand Miles's success is just too strong, leading Carlton to return to the same, sterile sound again and again. Sometimes this sort of dependence on a tried-and-tested formula works well; it certainly hasn't done J-Lo any harm. However, she has international fame and a somewhat slavishly devoted fan-base to rely on, whereas Miss Carlton is - for now, at least - dancing at the fringes of being a one-hit wonder.

So, will Heroes & Thieves see her storming back from her long holiday from public recognition with a smash-hit single? Unlikely. Vanessa Carlton might not be over and done with, but if she wants to justify Gotti's faith - and prove A&M wrong - she will have to throw in a little more variety and forget the winning formula of ‘A Thousand Miles'. It's had its day; one hopes that Carlton now chooses to look to the future rather than depend upon the past.

Andy Wasley

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Neko Case
Live From Austin, TX ••••
New West

I admit it; I grew up with old school country music. My mother had a coveted collection of Patsy Cline 45s and my father spent Saturday nights attempting to get an old AM radio to tune into a Nashville radio station that would broadcast the Grand Ole Opry. So as I grew up in music, I learned to appreciate that which Austin City Limits has as its beginnings. Fast forward to 2007. Country music has become mainstream pop and the Grand Ole Opry has become somewhat of a caricature of itself. While in recent years, ACL has moved way from being a country and folk showcase into more current and relevant music, it still keeps to its roots of strong performances and is more successful today than ever.

So it was with pleasure that I picked up the live disc from Neko Case at Austin City Limits in Austin, TX. Neko has been something of an indomitable force in music through the last few years, both as sometime accompanist to Canada's New Pornographers as well a stellar solo artist. Most recently, Case shined with one of the most well deserving critically acclaimed albums of 2006, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood. Selections from three earlier albums, Blacklisted, Canadian Amp and Furnace Room Lullaby are showcased in this set of 14 songs recorded in August of 2003.

Fans of Case will ask, didn't she already do this with 2004's The Tigers Have Spoken? Well, they would be partially correct. Tigers... was released with the help of full band, The Sadies whilst this album scales back the performance to a minimal backing band and one backup singer. Where The Tigers Have Spoken showcased a grand scale of musicianship and range, Live from Austin, TX puts Neko herself square into the spotlight.

Not surprisingly, this minimalist formula works extremely well. Neko has one of the strongest set of pipes in the music business, and they soar here. From the moment her voice takes flight on opener ‘Favorite' to the closing rolling steel guitar in ‘Alone & Forsaken', she takes control of each note flawlessly. The setlist appears to be chosen specifically to highlight her strengths, including an interesting selection of covers. What might be sacred ground to many artists becomes artistic license to Case, as she takes classics by Dylan (‘Buckets of Rain') and country legend Hank Williams (‘Alone & Forsaken') and gives them a tender twist. The band, Jon Rauhouse and Tom Ray with Kelly Hogan on backing vocals, accent Case with sparse yet substantial steel guitar and banjo.

Released as a DVD both in the UK and Stateside in 2006, the disc's audio companion is slimmed down from the original performance, cutting to 40 minutes from 90. Perhaps it's this production choice that at times makes the recording feel a bit rushed. With little to no banter between artist and audience, or even artist and bandmates, the recording lacks the depth normally standard of Case's live performances. The production is at times touch and go as well, with Neko's overwhelming vocals pushed so much to the forefront it occasionally drowns out everything around it.

Despite these minor problems, Live From Austin, TX shows the depths of an artist who was just coming into her own skin when she stepped on that stage in 2003. It is here you first hear ‘Maybe Sparrow', which evolved just slightly for inclusion on Fox Confessor..., and gives the listener a hint of just what Neko was to become.

Loria Near

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Mary Chapin Carpenter
The Calling ••••
Zoe / Rounder

From the opening piano chords of ‘The Calling' it's clear that New Jersey's finest country export is back. When Mary Chapin Carpenter's distinctively smoky voice makes its entrance a few bars later it's clear that she's back with a vengeance. And vengeance may just be the appropriate word. While sonically the album contains all Carpenter's signature sounds there's a distinct change in lyrical content. The songs still inhabit the contemplative side of the psyche that is so typical of her songwriting but with a newfound edge, exploring the big questions which the events of the last few years make increasingly hard to ignore. Faith, racism, commitment, bigotry, the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the jingoism which led to the Dixie Chicks's trial by radio, personal responsibility and free will...each steps into the spotlight across the baker's dozen of songs presented on the disc.

As a whole, The Calling is a magnificently mature statement, demonstrating music's unique ability to move and evoke a feeling of empathy, however difficult the subject matter. The album also represents a range of watershed moments of the artist. It's her first album for Rounder Records and her first Nashville-recorded album. In addition, along with her regular collaborators she's also thrown a couple of Music City studio legends into the mix in the form of veteran and drummer Russ Kunkel and guitarist Dean Parks (allegedly the most recorded guitar player in the history of modern music).

And the quality shows. The Calling is perhaps a little mellower overall than some of her best-known songs - there's no ‘He Thinks He'll Keep Her' nestling among the set. However, the restraint perfectly complements the mood and it doesn't betray some form of mid-career ennui. Even where the songs do up the BPM count a dignified spirit remains; again, the word ‘mature' springs to mind. That said, there are still plenty of moments to get the foot tapping - ‘We're All Right', ‘It Must Have Happened', ‘Your Life Story' and ‘One With The Song' all supply the janglesome country pop that has become a Chapin Carpenter trademark.

Careful not to leave proceedings on a down, the album closes with a pair of uplifting ballads - ‘Why Shouldn't We' and ‘Bright Morning Star' - which speak of empowerment and hope. A fitting conclusion to this artist's most mature and thoughtful collection yet.

Trevor Raggatt

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Client
Heartland ••••
Loser Friendly

Back in the mid-1990s, a Yorkshire lass by the name of Sarah Blackwood hit the pages of the NME fronting indie-pop trio Dubstar, whose debut album Disgraceful notched up two Top 20 singles (the rather brilliant 'Stars' and 'Not So Manic Now') and found them surrounded by weird and wonderful dolls, flowers, dogs and anything else vaguely psychedelic they could put on their artwork without finding themselves on the wrong side of kitsch. Sadly the hits dried up all too soon and the band's millennial demise went virtually unnoticed.

Not long after, the mysterious Client emerged from the shadows shrouded with intrigue, its two unnamed members referred to as simply 'Client A' and 'Client B' and their faces left out of the press shots. Still, it was hardly a secret that Blackwood was involved, especially given how distinctive her vocals are. Client are certainly a far cry from Dubstar and who would have imagined such a transition? Gone are the slightly twee stylistics; now it's PVC, slick photography and black as the new black. Oh, and 'electro' displaces 'indie' as the prefix to '-pop'.

Previous albums Client and City were surrounded by substantial media buzz (in certain circles at least), included collaborations with ex-Libertines members (spawning their only Top 40 hit, the rather uninspiring ‘Pornography' featuring Carl Barat) but resolutely failed to ignite any real interest in the general public. The problem was that they were marketed as a slightly pretentious electroclash outfit when in fact, they themselves claim they were surprised to "find themselves relevant". Whether or not their intention was to front this so-called scene, the result was that they didn't quite deliver what seemingly was promised. Heartland, however, is quite another matter. While earlier songs such as ‘Rock 'n' Roll Machine' or ‘Radio' were fantastic in essence, but quite sketchily produced, just short of the spark they needed to be surefire hits, the sound on Heartland is much tighter, the vocals infinitely more honed and, on the whole, the songs much stronger. Finally, Client have produced an album that shows them off as a force to be reckoned with.

Successfully aping the ‘80s (and ‘90s come to think of it) and slightly camp, Client's sound on Heartland is essentially what more of their first release should have sounded like. It's slick, often catchy and achingly cool. ‘Drive' and the fantastic ‘It's Not Over' are relentlessly hummable, while ‘Monkey On My Back' and ‘6 In The Morning' are suitably strange, risqué and provocative, with enough tongue in cheek lines to add a certain edge that keeps them serving the darker side of pop. There are obvious allusions to Goldfrapp on ‘Lights Go Out', which sounds like a homage to ‘Train' (although it is in itself rather good), and comparisons with acts that have already achieved success with a very similar sound is unavoidable. It's a shame that the initial batch of songs in 2003 hadn't sounded as full as this, as by now Client could have been pretty big.

The album isn't without its downfalls. As was more evident on previous releases, Client sometimes revert to clichéd lyrics that are lazy and predictable. ‘Where's The Rock & Roll Gone' is dull and, bizarrely, lead single ‘Zerox Machine' is one of the least interesting tracks on the record. Instrumental ‘Koeln' is an odd inclusion on an album dominated by strong vocal hooks, although not a wholly unwelcome one. Despite its weaknesses, Heartland is a largely good album and even if their earlier efforts left you cold there's a lot to enjoy here. Blackwood's vocals are truly back on form, pop gems are in abundance and it makes you feel like dancing. At least just a little bit.

Rod Thomas

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CocoRosie
The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn ••
Touch & Go

Never an outfit to unify the listening public, CocoRosie may have produced their most divisive album to date with the their characteristically quirky and surreal third album. The Brooklyn sisters appear to have taken a similar turn to fellow eccentric Patrick Wolf in producing a record that simultaneously harbours their most radio-friendly moments (‘Rainbowarriors' as a prime example) and also their weakest work. Though it's as varied and obscure as any previous outing and contains a similarly vast array of "instruments" (take this noun as freely as possible - coins, scissors, bicycle bells and pretty much anything else that was close to hand plays the part of percussion), the problem is that it's just not as interesting third time around. To give the sisters credit, brains have well and truly been wracked in order to orchestrate the songs with as diverse a selection of sounds as possible, but there are other forces at work here.

The main problem with the album - admittedly a standard feature of their work - is the vocals. Now, a certain amount of leniency is allowed for artistic expression, but Bianca's vocals on ‘Japan' are, for want of a better word, repulsive. The song itself is an unforgivable assault of unfunny references to rape ("but you like it / so say thank you!") and pseudo-political views topped off by one of the most excruciating vocal deliveries of recent times with Bianca's scratchy brat-like vocal, hammed up even further with cod-patois tones, decimating everything in its wake. It's hard to believe that anyone can naturally sing in such a manner, and the need to adopt this tiresomely impish affectation escapes me. It might seem an unfair point of focus, but now more than ever it's a very, very thick layer of ice to dig through to appreciate what lies below.

On initial listens, tracks such as ‘Werewolf' and ‘Promise' are fine background music if not paid too much heed. Then, when more attention is finally given and lines such as "I suck dick" ruin any ambience created, are we supposed to be shocked? Or impressed at their intelligence? This is the album's core irritation - that beauty is promised but destroyed at birth by mercilessly contrived lyrics and indescribably grating vocals. I really wanted to fall in love with CocoRosie and so much of The Adventures Of Ghosthorse & Stillborn begins to offer the opportunity before they spin around and spoil it by doing something woefully insubstantial.

Superficially, CocoRosie are incredibly talented as the album's production values clearly display but their creative vision is riddled with flaws. Their lyrical images are often mundane, and even when more obscure they are predictably so, almost in the manner of a caricature. In a strange way, CocoRosie appear to have embellished the vices of their previous work and positioned themselves as very easy targets for criticism.

As harsh as the evaluation sounds, fans of previous work will likely find moments, even minutes, of beauty in this work. Many songs are decent enough efforts, but for an outfit as self-consciously styled as the Casady sisters, you might expect better. Even the presence of Devendra Banhart's writing on ‘Houses' offers little benefit to the equation. Occasionally glorious composition is shot dead by thoughtless lyrics; Sierra's gorgeous operatics are strangled by Bianca's painfully overwrought vocals - ultimately, while trying too hard, it is far too lazy.

Rod Thomas

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Colleen
Live at the Sacred Trinity Chapel, Salford •••½
June 12, 2007

Some artists paint on canvases metres wide with broad brushes, spattering colour and ideas everywhere. Others content themselves with Jane Austen's "two inches square of ivory", finding freedom in restriction. French multi-instrumentalist Colleen is very much in the latter camp, teasing intricate songs out of sometimes as few as four or five tones played variously on the guitar, clarinet, the Baroque instrument, the viol, wind chimes and even music boxes.

Her concert at the Sacred Trinity Chapel, a tiny red sandstone church washed up by the ebb and flow of the Industrial Revolution at the edge of Manchester city centre, to promote her new record Les Ondes Silencieuses (‘silent waves') was a mesmeric rather than exciting experience. Playing to a respectful, if slightly solemn crowd of people scattered over pews and lounging earnestly on jute mats on the floor, her seven-song set brought to mind the incidental music that accompanies a sinister European fairytale, the kind where the princess gets her hand cut off in the spinning wheel and bleeds to death slowly in the forest.

Employing a sound poised somewhere between French baroque composers such as Rameau, electro-pastoral shoegazers Slowdive and the avant-garde minimalism only to be found after 11pm on Radio 3 means Colleen is unlikely to trouble the charts anytime soon. Yet her sonorous, occasionally stiff, looped soundscapes have an undeniable charm, particularly in her guitar and viol-based work. Her painstaking approach to building songs out of tiny fragments using a pedal loop yields results that make a guitar sound like sleigh bells, and can transform her rather ponderous clarinet playing into something rich and strange.

All this, however, pales into insignificance compared to her work layering the sound of chimes or music boxes over one another. Not only do they exemplify her approach to making music, using just a few repeated notes so that the drama and variation in each song emerges at micro level, but the resulting sound is also weird enough to stick in the mind. A single song, in which a distorted music box melody plays backwards and forwards over an Elizabethan-sounding guitar line sums up everything Colleen does best: building wilfully odd art out of fragments.

Chris McCrudden

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Judy Collins
Sings Lennon & McCartney ••
Wildflower

There's no denying the pedigree of Judy Collins, a singer as fine as they come with a career that has thus far spanned nearly 50 years and 44 albums. Throughout the 1960s, she earned herself quite the formidable reputation as a masterful interpreter of other people's songs - early recordings featured songs by Baez, Mitchell, Cohen, Dylan, Seeger and more, all cosseted by her pure soprano vocal. Given that her landmark 1966 album featured, and took its title from, a Beatles track (‘In My Life'), it's remarkable that Collins has waited another 40 years before attempting more entries in the Lennon and McCartney canon. Set in this context, an album on which Collins explores the Beatles oeuvre in greater depth should be a cause of the hushed anticipation.

Sadly, the reality is a disappointingly lacklustre affair. There's no denying the pure beauty of Collins's still-crystalline voice, but the arrangements and interpretations are inexplicably disastrous. The players on Sings... rank among the greatest musicians the session world has to offer, yet, unaccountably, too many of the songs come over as tiresome jazz noodling that would be below par even in some mediocre Manhattan cocktail bar. Imagine the inspired spoof combo which closed each episode of 'Alas Smith & Jones' and you have in a nutshell the Collins takes on ‘And I Love Her' and ‘I'll Follow The Sun'.

Some, mostly McCartney-penned, numbers fare a little better. The sweetness (or at least bittersweet tone) of ‘Blackbird', ‘Hey Jude' and ‘Yesterday' acts as a sympathetic context for Collins's trill. But there's no escaping the fact that Collins simply doesn't have sufficient grit, world-weariness or cynicism to convince on tracks like ‘Golden Slumbers' and ‘We Can Work It Out'. Elsewhere, ‘Norwegian Wood' veers way too close to department store muzak fodder for comfort. And ‘When I'm 64'...? Let's not even go there.

It's frustrating that what should have been a glorious canter through one of the all-time classic songbooks is such a disappointment. Perhaps another repertoire (Berlin, Porter, Gershwin...even Coward!) and a more engaging production would have reaped better dividends. As it stands, however, this particular collection will remain the preserve of Collins completists only.

Trevor Raggatt

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Shawn Colvin
Live at Shepherd's Bush Empire ••••
June 18, 2007

The Shepherd's Bush Empire is no easy place to play solo. The gaping maw of the auditorium must be daunting for even the most seasoned pro and bands of any number. So kudos goes to both performers this evening for having the cahones to face up to this alone.

Husky, tousled and bescarfed support Jack Savoretti, only slightly showing his nerves, provides a soundtrack of lilting and earnest acoustic numbers that greet the punters. While he seems to be somewhat thrown by the hushed tones between tracks, this is probably a trick of the acoustics as the audience there to witness his set seem pretty grateful to be rewarded for turning up early by a more than half decent support.

There is no danger that Shawn Colvin is going to be concerned about a lack of appreciation. Decked in a shiny plastic patterned halter-neck, blue jeans and platforms, she looks every bit the part of a Midwestern trailer mom casually strolling onstage with just an acoustic guitar. But this unassuming demeanour disguises one of the finest singer-songwriters, which the audience, in appreciative applause before she even plays a chord, knows only too well.

Opening with one of the less popular numbers from her largely forgotten covers album might not be the most auspicious start, but she follows this up with two songs from last year's These Four Walls. Excellent on record, ‘Fill Me Up' and the title track are even more poignant live, stripped of any production, the quality of Colvin's voice and poetry resonating loud.

Having spent a long time touring live and playing the New York folk scene before making a record, Colvin is completely at ease despite her assertion that this is her largest ever London gig. Apologising if the set recapitulates a Union Chapel show from the back end of last year she says that she can't remember what she played, to which an audience member calls back that "neither can we", without pausing for breath she retorts "We're the same age then".

Culling a set from throughout her career, Colvin has wide-ranging and nuanced perspectives on life, loves and relationships, from the fatalistic ‘Trouble', which fizzes with venom, to the mournful, glacial and soaring ‘Shotgun Down The Avalanche'. Colvin's lyrics are deceptively sharp, and coupled here with the raw immediacy of her live vocals, which effortlessly switch from piercing soprano shaking the cornices of the domed ceiling to a desert parched scratch on demand, she entrances the audience before drawing us back from adulatory rapture with between-track quips.

The glorious lovesong ‘Polaroids', a list of images making a flickbook animation of a relationship and the triumphant tale of escape that is ‘Sunny Came Home' elicit two of the greatest rounds of applause of the night. But even lesser known tracks are delivered with such poise that at the end of 16 songs the standing ovation is heartfelt and well deserved.

Returning for an encore of mostly covers, we are treated to an ‘ad hoc' version of Neil Young's ‘Birds' inspired by it being played before Colvin came onstage. A reworking of Gnarls Barkley's ‘Crazy' could be embarrassing for someone of Colvin's maturity, but she manages to breathe new life into a song played to death. And ‘Killing The Blues', a standard in her live set for many years now, totally floored this reviewer.

For all her Grammys and critical acclaim, it is near criminal that Colvin is not better known and better respected by the public. Anyone who can, without pretence and so confidently, hold such a masterclass in performance deserves to be much much more highly regarded.

Peter Hayward

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The Concretes
Hey Trouble •
Licking Fingers

As most people will probably remember, Swedish collective The Concretes caused quite a stir a few years back with their self-titled debut and its almost-instant pop classics such as ‘You Can't Hurry Love'. Fewer will remember the follow up In Colour that failed somewhat to live up to expectations, and even fewer still will be aware that they're still going, despite losing Victoria Bergsman's majestic lead vocals to a brief affair with Peter, Bjorn & John and, ultimately, her solo career as Taken By Trees. For those faithful hangers on who've been wondering what the band might sound like without her, the wait is over. And the answer is, sadly, really not great. Though it starts off pleasantly enough, it soon becomes clear that Ms Bergsman made a well-timed departure from a once-great musical force now reduced to making dishwater music. What once sparkled now grates - the retro production values, the slightly twee edge and the faux-naïve lyrics; Hey Trouble appears to faithfully adhere to the formula of their debut, but recapturing the chemistry eludes the band completely.

At times the album, or rather the mixing and arrangements of the album, veer towards Belle & Sebastian at their more electronic (‘Keep Yours'), and at other times The Supremes (a major, long-held influence). Certain moments are sufficiently well arranged and lavishly orchestrated, but it's all bogged down by its chugging monotony. One line in ‘A Whale's Heart' (a song whose title is vastly more interesting than the song ever dares become) declares "it's straight-to-DVD hell". If this album were a film, this line would be the most apt in the script.

Alarm bells should really have rung upon hearing lead single ‘Oh Boy', a limp attempt at reintroducing the Swedes into the limelight. Part of the problem is that many bands have jumped on the retro bandwagon since The Concretes first emerged - such as fellow Scandinavians Shout Out Louds, the aforementioned Peter, Bjorn & John, and even The Radio Dept - all of whom have become much more interesting and relevant than them. Hey Trouble is unrelentingly boring from start to finish; not a single track comes anywhere near to rivalling the pure joy of their earlier work, or even matching the energy of their successors. Lisa Milberg, who had the unenviable task of replacing Bergsman on vocals, flounders miserably, rendering any beauty in the songs impossible to hold on to. She lacks any real variety in delivery, and on the whole sounds entirely nonplussed, barely aware of the lyrics she is singing almost robotically.

In theory, the songs are fine, but they are just that: fine. They just about scrape by, but lack any real defining qualities or values that display why this album was made, or even why the band are still together aside from a contractual obligation. The ideas on this record have all been done before, often to death, by countless other bands. As harsh as it may seem, The Concretes have delivered an essentially pointless record. Hey Trouble sounds strangely empty despite the layers and layers of careful instrumentation, and, more's the pity, achingly insincere.

Rod Thomas

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Laura Cortese
Blow Out The Candle •••
Self-released

Laura Cortese: fiddler, singer, dancer, songwriter, polymath, sometime purveyor of dog-house bass for old-timey outfit Uncle Earl...there's no denying that the woman's got talent. Her latest release, a mini-album sequel to 2006's full-length Even The Lost Creek, finds her in pared-back, live and acoustic mode. Recorded straight from the mixing desk at a number of shows across the US and Canada, every one of the seven songs here demonstrates Cortese's energy and skill.

Drawing heavily on material from Even The Lost Creek, with just one pick (‘I Must Away Love') from her solo debut Hush and a cover. But the bare-bones nature of the recording - a simple mix of fiddle, guitar and percussion - leaves Cortese plenty of room to breathe. The rock ‘n' reel style of ‘Mulqueens' amply shows why her fiddle playing has been so lauded on the Stateside Celtic circuit, while the other excerpts from her previous release are nicely stripped down retreads of the studio material.

This is particularly effective on the raunchy traditional number ‘Jack Orion' where brooding sensuality rubs shoulders with snare and brushes and spookily cello-like riffing on an octave fiddle. Of course it doesn't end happily. Traditional ballads rarely do. The real surprise here is a tender cover of Kelly Clarkson's ‘Breakaway' (co-written by fellow Canadian Avril Lavigne), as far away from American Idol sk8r punk as you can possibly imagine. But the transformation of the song to fit Cortese's country-folk style is seamless and the perfect foil to her lyrical fiddle playing.

Being picky, the technical quality of the recording isn't as smooth as some ‘live' offerings, but what we lose in smoothness and overdubs is more than repaid in energy, honesty, authenticity and connection between player, listener and music. Which would you rather have?

Trevor Raggatt

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Melora Creager
Perplexions ••½
Filthy Bonnet

The old maxim about never starting a band with a woman because she'll want to go solo has never been tested more than when applied to Melora Creager. Of course, the mythical band of this epithet wasn't Rasputina, nor was its lead singer the notoriously eclectic Creager who, as the founding member, is the nucleus around which the organised chaos of Rasputina's ever-shifting line-up revolves. The difficulty of the solo album already becomes apparent: can we extricate Creager from Rasputina when she is arguably the band's driving force?

There is no doubt that Creager has delivered an accomplished album, replete with the quavering vocals we have come to love. In many ways, Perplexions represents a 'back to basics' approach for the singer, showcasing her voice, the cello and piano in arrangements that seem less complex than her collaborations with Rasputina. There are exceptions in ‘Sky Is Falling' and ‘Krakatowa', but these rather noisy affairs are dwarfed by simple voice and cello pairings like the mournful ‘American Girl'. Opening track ‘Girl Lunar Explorer' has a gorgeous string-plucking jazz quality to it that Creager would do well exploring further in other solo projects. The all too short ‘Itinerant Airship', meanwhile, features layered vocals over mellifluous cyclical cello.

Perplexions is only seven tracks long so seems like a rather embryonic solo effort. An inevitable problem of the album is that many elements, most notably the signature use of cello, hark back to Rasputina and do little to assert Creager's individual identity as a musician. However, the cello is such an intrinsic part of her repertoire that it may be impossible to fully separate the two entities. For the moment, however, Creager's work with Rasputina should be more than enough to satisfy her eager fans while she finds her musical bearings.

Siobhan Rooney

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Jill Cunniff
City Beach •••
Militia Group

Although a lot of musicians can boast an authentic claim to the 'cool' moniker, they don't come much hipper than Jill Cunniff. Born and raised in NYC, at just 13 years old she had her birthday party at the legendary CBGBs; at 14 she taught herself to play the guitar; and at 15 found herself playing in garage underground punk bands alongside future members of the Beastie Boys. When Cunniff joined forces with fellow New Yorkers Kate Schellenbach, Gabby Glaiser and Vivian Trimble, Luscious Jackson were formed and promptly signed to Grand Royale. After five full-length albums and notable indie success, the band amicably called it quits in 2000. So, it's fair to say that Jill Cunniff has paid her dues, musically and credibly speaking.

Since 2000, Cunniff has worked on some pop projects and worked with Emmylou Harris, continued writing her own material and even found time to learn the art of production, sampling and mixing. The result is her debut solo album City Beach, dedicated to New York's Coney Island, a faded, atmospheric city beach famous for its lively past. In an attempt to bring the beach to the city dweller, this album is full of hot Brazilian beats, and deliberately laid back breezy tunes. Indeed, on the track ‘Warm Sound', the listener is urged to start the century again, at a slower pace. The whole album is something of a contradiction, combining genuinely lazy sounds with an urgent and constant message of the need to slow down.

In the same way that a beach rarely belongs in a city, this insistence feels a little out of place here, perhaps consciously so. With a vocal style very similar to Nelly Furtado, the exotic hip hop beats and samba are perfectly accompanied, evoking a real world music feel that touches on several styles, including jazz, soul, Latin, electronica, pop, trip hop, funk and so on. Although essences of Luscious Jackson are evident - mostly in the sampling and beats - this has far less edge and, well, less NYC hipness, compensated for with ambiance. City Beach is a summertime album for sure and the mood is bright.

Of the 12 tracks, Cunniff wrote seven single handed and co-wrote the other five, and while the intended mood is definitely caught, the songs themselves aren't strong. Themes of lost love come second place to the regular insistence of taking it easy, and the lyrics are simplistic and a little clichéd. It doesn't help that the true standout number ‘Lazy Girls', with its danceable upbeat rhythm, is situated right at the beginning.

Perhaps arriving a little too late to capture the chillout or ambient audience, the appeal of City Beach may suffer from not fitting into any particular nook. A little too soft for the indie audience and too mature for the spiritual types, the album may well contain too many disparate elements to pin it down sufficiently. Whether bringing the beach to the urbanite or the hustle and bustle to the coastal dweller, City Beach evokes a time and place unknown to either, where nothing is rushed and the atmosphere is relaxed and blissfully simple.

Stephanie Heney

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Camera Obscura
Let's Get Out Of This Country ••••
Elefant

The habitual comparisons with fellow Scots Belle & Sebastian seem somewhat overstated when listening to this, the fourth full-length album from Glaswegian sextet Camera Obscura, fronted by Traceyanne Campbell (no relation to Isobel). Although there are occasional hints of the distinctive B&S indie-pop sound here and there, Let's Get Out Of This Country is so much more than imitation. In fact, the listener is treated, tour guide-style, to a veritable history of pop music.

There are moments of pure pop breeziness on first single and album opener ‘Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken', a song written in answer to the final track on Lloyd Cole's classic debut, Rattlesnakes, and again on the title track, where St Etienne's catchier sunshine moments are emulated well. Indeed, the witty lyrics and upbeat mood recall a female-fronted Divine Comedy covering Cole himself in his prime. However, the real beauty here lies in the lounge country sway elements of the album where the pace is slower and more bittersweet. ‘Dory Previn' and the French waltz of ‘The False Contender' are enchanting and have the wistful qualities of a last dance with their unhurried melodies and sophisticated folk-pop tenderness. We're transported to an abandoned, creaky back porch where timeless themes of longing and lost love are all encompassing.

Fittingly, everything goes back in time to the retro high school prom queen heartbreak of ‘Come Back Margaret'. With its clever doo-wop production that could quite believably have been recorded by Connie Francis, a saccharine tune right out of the ‘50s accompanies innocent lyrics of despair and teenage dramas. Further vintage melodies are explored with The Supremes-esque sound of ‘I Need All The Friends I Can Get', a full on charming disco number complete with hand claps and tambourines. In terms of emulating older styles, nothing quite tops ‘If Looks Could Kill', a song that lodges in your head and refuses to budge, cramming in everything that made those Phil Spector-produced Ronettes classics so great, right down to the glorious Wall of Sound and organ accompaniment.

It's a testament to Camera Obscura's songwriting talents that such a collection of retro styles can still sound so fresh and vibrant. Not content with simple pop sweetness, the band tackle sombre themes of broken relationships and lonely yearning for romance and love. The closing track, ‘Razzle Dazzle Rose', is a beautiful farewell that sounds like it was recorded in a deserted ballroom. Tracyanne's haunting Julee Cruise-like vocals perfectly express the ghostly atmosphere and a trumpet solo rounds up the magical history tour. Far from under-achievers, Camera Obscura sound like a band who have really hit their stride - not just unafraid to explore different eras and styles, but mastering each of them.

Stephanie Heney
originally published June 5th, 2006 

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Camille
Le Fil •••••
Virgin France

The word ‘chanteuse' is bandied around rather too often these days, but rarely does an artist fit the bill more perfectly than 27-year old Parisian Camille. Though she is arguably most famous for singing on Nouvelle Vague's self-titled album of bossa nova interpretations of New Wave classics, Le Fil is actually her second solo release. The title translates as ‘the thread', pointedly relating to the hum that flows constantly throughout the record, undulating beneath the complex and luscious vocal layering and melodies, creating a fluid and bound piece of art. Though the album is sung almost entirely in her native tongue, a few strands of English appear in some songs, but French speaking friends assure me that, though the lyrics are indeed wonderful, the allure of Le Fil lies in its complex and beautiful sound.

One of the album's most striking elements is the heavy dependence on a cappella arrangements. Conventional intruments have a limited presence, comprising mainly of bossa nova percussion and occasional horns and slap bass, but it is the diversity of Camille's vocal arrangements that make it so impressive. In particular, the richness and variety of her vocalisations on ‘Ta Douleur' are astounding and it's not hard to see why it was chosen as a single in France; as one of the most upbeat songs on the album, there is a wider berth for interesting noises - raspberries, squeals and squelches. Much like Tanya Tagaq's Sinaa, if it weren't for the 5" circular proof in your stereo, it would be hard to even entertain the thought that the human voice can make such sounds. On the slower songs (most notably ‘Vous'), the background ba-ba-bas and high-pitched vocals are reminiscent of the multi-layered and rich harmonies characteristic of Alisha's Attic.

But it's not just the voice parts that make Le Fil so spellbinding; the orchestral chord changes should not be underestimated, nor should Camille's clear understanding of how to write a moving piece of music. Opener ‘La Jeune Fille Aux Cheveux Blancs' is the most luscious composition of them all; the orchestration is as pure as a sunrise, unscathed by sin and cynicism. The chordal and melodic movements are so genuinely perfect they'll make the hairs on your neck stand to attention. On the flipside, Camille doesn't shy away from getting positively filthy, and ‘Janine III' is especially explicit; her rasping snarls are layered and looped, sounding for all the world like a group of bickering wrinkled women in a small-town market square. Le Fil often feels incredibly modern in the sense that the clarity and complexity of the vocals is fresh and original, but a folky, traditional Gallic slant is also at play. Some of the melodies possess such world-weary wisdom that they may well have been passed down from generation to generation of singers. Rather like a thread, in fact. Even disregarding the lyrics completely, Le Fil is one of the most astonishing musical works of recent years.

Robbie de Santos
originally published December 19th, 2005

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Isobel Cambpell & Mark Lanegan
Ballad Of The Broken Seas •••½
V2

Weird partnerships in music are no new phenomenon. Remember Bowie and Crosby? Cave and Minogue? So what about Campbell and Lanegan? With her Mia Farrow-type features and sugar-sweet fairytale tones, Campbell could seduce even the most hardened of music fans into listening enraptured. Since leaving Glaswegian pop collective Belle & Sebastian in 2002, she has recorded a number of albums under various guises and with Ballad Of The Broken Seas, Campbell once again shows her knack for choosing allies wisely.

Lanegan, the growly-voiced former Screaming Trees frontman and sometime guitarist with metal heavyweights Queens Of The Stone Age, makes for a somewhat odd collaborator but even more bizarrely, it works. In fact, Lanegan has never sounded quite so dirty and gruff as he does on the folksy opener 'Deus Ibi Est'. As his wicked tones slide against Campbell's soft, ethereal vocals you almost feel part of some kind of amoral liaison between them. Hell, even the artwork locates them in a seedy hotel room. Of course, it's all designed to play out in our heads - the pair of them have barely even been in the same room together, recording their respective vocals hundreds of miles apart.

Campbell is responsible for writing most of the songs, though Lanegan has a go with the alluring 'Revolver', a low-key number with sexily whispered vocals, steady percussion and delicate strings. The vocal contrast between the two is by far the most engaging aspect of the record. Some songs are designed to throw Isobel's ghostly innocence into sharp relief against her craggy companion. The old Hank Williams standard 'Ramblin' Man', for example, is a welcome inclusion, complete with a cracking whip and countrified guitars, while the title track sees Lanegan playing to type again, deliberating the ravages of drink. Less obvious are 'Black Mountain', which vaguely recalls a softened 'Scarborough Fair', and 'Saturday's Gone', a wistful haunting tune on which Campbell's vocals are truly laid bare.

Later songs, however, settle less well with Campbell's purity. '(Do You Wanna) Come Walk With Me's Lanegan-sung lyric "There's a crimson bird flying when I go down on you" highlights the fine line between seductive and creepy. Whatever effect she was hoping for when she enlisted Lanegan, Campbell has obviously done her homework well and has hit upon that rare quality, a tangible chemistry between two unusual voices, and the attraction is compelling. You expect Lanegan to be the lascivious devil on Campbell's celestial shoulder, but in fact the opposite also happens - Campbell's vocals often hide a sinister side, and that aspect alone is worth the price of admission.

Helen Ogden
originally published May 22nd, 2006 

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Isobel Campbell
Milkwhite Sheets •••½ 
V2

Once upon a time, in a mysterious and supernatural world far, far away, there lived a blonde girl with big eyes, a captivating smile and slightly wonky yet chic fringe. She lived high up in a tower overlooking a beautiful bay where the ocean was clear and the sand was golden. Life would have been good for her if her tower wasn't surrounded by shimmering mermaids who, every time a ship appeared on the horizon, would call and sing their tempting song, flicking their tails in delight as, one by one, the sailors within were called to their deaths. The blonde girl had to watch these handsome and brave men drown each time and, for each one, she would compose a lament, mourning the fact that another chance of true love was gone, borrowing harmonies from the ghosts that went before and melodies from the dreams of escape she held dear. If she ever did, she thought, she would wear deeply coloured velvet and spill glitter wherever she walked.

This, believe it or not, just about sums up what you should expect to hear on Miss Campbell's latest album. Confirming her rather offbeat romance with traditional folk, Milkwhite Sheets takes a tentative and seemingly innocent step away from her indie/country-rock former amalgamation, instead transforming into a magical creature whose fuzzy beauty is best caught in morning light. A meandering journey back to days of yore, the former Belle & Sebastian vocalist and cellist steps into a new spotlight of her own, a more ambient one to that of her Mercury Music Prize-nominated collaboration with Mark Lanegan, but bright nonetheless.

This is an album that teaches us to listen. Though it may at first seem like the slight, shy offerings of some whispering goddess sitting next to James Iha playing the lute, it soon becomes apparent that the almost pagan-like rituals found herein are making a much bolder statement. Indeed, the power in Campbell's music is that you have to really dig deep to notice what is there. Beginning with the lilting 'O' Love Is Teasin', Campbell's slightly unsure voice merges with desolate strumming, building up the tracks that follow, often dramatically, with haunting cello and wistful arpeggios to create something quite primeval and barely-there beautiful. From the reworked traditional offerings 'Willow's Song' and 'Hori Horo' to the contrasting indie menace of closing track 'Thursday's Child', Campbell's quiet exultations and the simple structure of what are essentially love songs makes Milkwhite Sheets extra special indeed. It is not afraid of doing something different, and like-minded people are therefore invited in to have their cockles warmed by this rawest of British talents.

Anna Claxton
previously unpublished

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Kate Campbell with Spooner Oldham
For The Living Of These Days ••••½
Large River

Like a fine vintage wine, Kate Campbell just gets better and better. Since the release of her debut album Songs From The Levee in 1995, she's mined the rich seams of folk, country, gospel, soul and blues in ever deeper and more fulfilling ways. Along with Iris DeMent and Lucinda Williams, Campbell has an ability to distil a variety of Southern music traditions into the space of a single song. Drawing deep from the well of tradition, she takes the music forward and infuses it with a resolutely contemporary sensibility.

Her new gospel album is a collaboration with veteran Spooner Oldham recorded at the legendary Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Oldham has worked with Campbell on many of her previous records (including her first gospel release, Wandering Strange), but here it's just the two of them, resulting in an uncluttered approach that allows each of these fourteen songs to shine. The album combines ancient hymns with songs by Woody Guthrie and Kris Kristofferson and a couple of excellent Campbell-Oldham originals. Backed only by Oldham's stately Hammond B3 organ, piano, Wurlitzer and guitar, Campbell raids the Baptist hymnal for a lovely rendition of ‘There's A Wideness In God's Mercy', while ‘God Of Grace & God Of Glory' gets a particularly powerful and urgent treatment. And should anyone doubt the contemporary relevance of this material, just listen to the plea to "cure Thy children's warring madness" or the reference to being "rich in things and poor in soul" in the latter hymn. The beautiful ‘Prayer Of Thomas Merton' sets a Trappist monk's prayer to alternately aching and assertive piano accompaniment, while Campbell and Walt Aldridge's haunting ‘Dark Night Of The Soul' is a stunning centrepiece that sounds like an instant classic.

As ever, Campbell's compassionate, unaffected and effortlessly soulful vocals pull the listener into the heart of each song. Moreover, without ever resorting to facile polemic or easy didacticism, Campbell has always smuggled sharp-eyed social and political commentary into her work, and here she finds the vein of dissent and worldly dissatisfaction that links old hymns to contemporary protest songs. Both Guthrie's ‘Jesus Christ' and Bobby Braddock's pointed ‘Would They Love Him Down In Shreveport' reach disheartening conclusions about Jesus's probable reception in the contemporary world, while Kristofferson's ‘They Killed Him' despairs at humanity's tendency to dispose of its most valuable teachers. But, like all of the best country musicians, Campbell refuses to dwell in despondency for too long, and both the Civil Rights-themed ‘Faces In The Water' and the timeless ‘There Is A Balm In Gilead' offer hope and consolation. 

Ultimately, while For The Living of These Days may not top Campbell's last record, the sublimely affecting Blues & Lamentations, it deserves to take its place alongside DeMent's Lifeline and Johnny Cash's My Mother's Hymn Book as a stirring example of all that is good about American gospel music. If there's something missing from this record, it's the wonderful narrative sense, vivid character portraits and wry humour that have distinguished so much of Campbell's earlier work. Nonetheless, she and Oldham have produced that rarity - a contemporary album that can truly be said to be good for the soul. Amen!

Alex Ramon 
originally published October 14th, 2006

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Laura Cantrell
Humming By The Flowered Vine ••••½
Matador

Country music is a much maligned genre, and not without some justification. The gross excesses of the Nashville country scene are enough to turn the stomach of even the most hard-bitten music fan. However, for every Billy Bob Stetson or Dwayne Yokel with their tasselled shirts, ten-gallon hats and horrific mullet haircuts, there's been a Nanci Griffith, a Steve Earle, a Mary Chapin Carpenter or a Lucinda Williams who has been there to haul the genre rightly back from the ridiculous to the sublime. Laura Cantrell thankfully resides in this latter category. Indeed, she has received such widespread acclaim that many regard her as the rising star of the alt.country genre. Influential DJ John Peel proclaimed her debut album, Not The Tremblin' Kind his "favourite record of the last ten years, and possibly my life" and Elvis Costello quickly enlisted her as a support act and was quoted as saying "If Kitty Wells made Rubber Soul it would sound like Laura Cantrell." High praise indeed.

Humming By The Flowered Vine is Cantrell's third album and her first for large indie label Matador, in whose pastures she runs alongside some less than likely label-mates, including Cat Power, Belle & Sebastian, Mogwai and Guided By Voices, and is fearlessly brimming with the confidence of an artist who knows she's coming of age. Though her style is pure country, drawing on much of the language of the genre - slide and steel guitar, high third harmonies, traditional folk ballads, fiddle and accordion - Cantrell never allows these elements to add up to a cliché, but rather blends them successfully with a contemporary bent, though sometimes choosing one path or the other. Fittingly, this seems to reflect her life's journey. Having emigrated from Nashville to attend college in New York City, Cantrell kickstarted her long-running college radio show ‘Tennessee Border', which explores both the history of country and its diverse modern expressions, and learnt her trade playing in the city's trendy coffee bars alongside more folk-based artists. Remarkably, her first two albums were recorded while holding a full-time job in a Wall Street investment bank.

Without the day job devouring her time, Cantrell has turned in her finest album yet. The opener, ‘14th Street', commences proceedings with a light country-pop paean to her adopted hometown and features exquisite harmonies from Mary Lee Kortes of Mary Lee's Corvette. Second track, ‘What You Said', has tinges of bluegrass, with Kenny Kosek's fiddle and Jon Graboff's mandolin hinting at the breadth of styles to come. There's slow-burning rock ('Letters', an obscure Lucinda Williams original), post-war Western swing akin to the likes of Bob Willis & His Texas Playboys with pedal steel and fiddle aplenty (‘Wishful Thinking') and a traditional murder ballad from the 1920s (‘Poor Ellen Smith', also covered by the likes of Kristin Hersh). The pairing of ‘And Still' and ‘Khaki And Corduroy' packs some serious emotional weight, with the latter perhaps just nudging it for the album's most affecting contribution. Here, acoustic guitar and bass, brushes and sparse piano create a melancholy evocation of memories of lost times and old friends.

Elsewhere, ‘California Rose' is Cantrell's own tribute to Rose Maddox from the Depression-era group, Maddox Brothers & Rose. It's an unforgettable story of that indomitable spirit of a strong woman forging her way against the odds. The biggest surprise here comes with the closer, ‘Old Downtown', which fuses some pretty diverse styles into a delectable slab of modern country rock, as perfect as it is unexpected. It takes some imagination to mix early Steve Earle-style guitars with a heavily syncopated, almost Madchester drum and bass groove, and then to seamlessly segue to an outro of eBow guitars and pedal steel combining into a psychedelic, ambient soundscape. Oh, and all this comes complementary to classic Americana lyrical imagery. It's easy to see why Cantrell is seen as both curator and innovator within her chosen field.

Humming By The Flowered Vine neatly establishes Cantrell as a force to be reckoned with. The production by JD Foster, former bassist for Dwight Yoakam, brings out the best of Cantrell and her musicians, delivering an album of great sonic clarity. There's no filler here either; the disc spins for just 39 minutes, leaving the listener hungry for more rather than fully sated. With songs this strong and backed by a bigger label, Cantrell will almost certainly garner wider, more mainstream recognition and success. Here's hoping this propels her onto equal or greater achievements.

Trevor Raggatt
originally published October 20th, 2006

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Rachael Cantu
Run All Night •••½
Q-Division

This short but sweet eight-track mini-album may not make your ears prick up with its originality or variety, but it will undoubtedly tug at your heartstrings. Californian Cantu is a former rock chick now treading lightly in the footsteps of accomplished singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Ani DiFranco, but sounding a bit like Luscious Jackson's Gabby Glaser in the process. Taken at face value, Run All Night may simply be another pretty, wistful woman with a beautiful voice strumming an acoustic guitar, but once you've immersed yourself in it, you may find that Cantu's appeal lies in her music holding some kind of familiarity that the others do not.

Epitomising all that is human, Cantu's touchingly honest lullabies are performed with a subtle intensity that commands the attention of even the most unfeeling listener. The title track, for example, is about a moment we've all had that you just don't want to end; at risk of sounding clichéd, this is one album that you won't want to finish up either. In little under half an hour, and with a smidgen of help from her friends on cello and organ, Cantu wends her way through every emotion, oozing loneliness, regret and, of course, that ole devil called love, from every pore.

Run All Night may be minimalist in approach but it's extremely powerful when given a chance to take full effect and, although it's likely that she'll need to bring something completely different to the table next time if she's to go the distance, this is a confident debut that will surely get under your skin. It made me blub quietly anyway. Great stuff.

Anna Claxton 
originally published September 17th, 2006

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The Cardigans
Super Extra Gravity •••
Stockholm Records

Although The Cardigans' last album, Long Gone Before Daylight, was a dark gem of a record consisting mainly of bleak and distinctly ‘grown-up' lyrics set to acoustic pop tunes, commercially it was a relative dud. Whether this injustice knocked the confidence of Nina Persson and co. is unclear, but something has gone awry in between that record and this, their sixth in just over a decade.

Never one-dimensional, The Cardigans have always been a pop group with a slightly sinister side (after all, they are famously fans of Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath), and that lyrical edge remains; opener ‘Losing A Friend' dwells upon mortality and sets a black-humoured tone. The trouble here is that the music is too often tortured as well; the sweet sound that used to set the band apart from their peers has dissipated almost entirely. Gone too is the icy electronic sheen of their Gran Turismo-era hits, ‘My Favourite Game' and ‘Erase/Rewind'. Instead, the band have opted for a more pedestrian pop-rock sound that proves somewhat unengaging over the length of the record.

That's not to say that this is a bad record; it simply suffers in comparison with the past achievements of a very talented band. The witty lyrics of ‘Godspell' stand out strongly, attacking the perils of organised religion (or the "great big swindle" as Persson refers to it) with vigour. Elsewhere, the driving wall-of-sound force of ‘Good Morning Joan', tempered by sweetly tinkling bells, is sublime. However, revisiting a track from Long Gone... as the band do on ‘And Then You Kissed Me II' is a mistake; gone is the infectious pop melody that the first instalment possessed, only to be replaced by a drawn-out and discordant inferior with strangely hollow backing. The band themselves have described the relationship of Super Extra Gravity to its predecessor as an obnoxious teenager to its mature older relation. Unfortunately, this acne-and-all approach has exposed some of their less attractive qualities.

Anticlimactically, it turns out that the lead single from the album, the spiky and brilliantly titled ‘I Need Some Fine Wine & You, You Need To Be Nicer', is also its finest track. On the bright side, however, it's an undeniably fine composition, and like Super Extra Gravity's other highlights, it serves as evidence that The Cardigans can still write sophisticated, bristling pop songs for adults, even if they now do so with slightly less consistency.

Danny Weddup
originally published December 12th, 2005

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Mariah Carey
The Emancipation Of Mimi ••••
Island/Def Jam

These days it's too easy to focus on the problems Mariah has been through over the last few years, but on the evidence presented here, her tenth album, she herself certainly isn't wallowing. If last album Charmbracelet reflected Carey's mourning process, then The Emancipation Of Mimi sure ain't the wake. This is an upbeat, light-hearted party record, reflected perfectly in the opening track and first single, ‘It's Like That'. Harking back to 1980s R&B (via the SOS Band) yet with a pounding kick-drum that The Neptunes would be proud of, it's a snappy, simple number that relentlessly invades the brain.

It's no coincidence then that it's one of the four songs on ...Mimi that Carey crafted with long-time collaborator Jermaine Dupri - together they have created some of the most memorable songs of her 15-year career. Second single ‘We Belong Together' maintains that trend, blissfully encapsulating the very best aspects of their union. The finest ingredients are to be found here - a distinct and sumputous melody carrying a universal theme, a classy arrangement and the perfect ratio of smooth to belted vocals. Elsewhere on the album, the party continues with tracks like the Prince-inspired ‘Say Something', the infectious ‘Stay The Night', vocal workout ‘Your Girl' and ‘Get Your Number', which samples Imagination's 1980s hit, ‘Just An Illusion'.

In the past, Carey has best impressed when backed by live musicians, and ...Mimi builds on these successes. ‘I Wish You Knew' takes you straight to the concert with its energetic crowd effect, and is reminiscent of early Diana Ross, while ‘Circles' has a classic early '70s groove without sounding like the wannabe retro peddled by, for example, ultra-bore Joss Stone. This track, and indeed the entire album, benefits from Mariah's maturation as a singer - where once she might have indulged in warbling and melisma, here she has learnt to rein in those early vocal flourishes and sounds all the better for it. Her voice is strong throughout, and a new-found clarity and diction makes much of ...Mimi more accessible then some previous efforts. Although the album as a whole is intended to be light-hearted, closer ‘Fly Like A Bird' is a spiritual number set among stunning live instrumentation and climactic vocals. It feels like closure.

What The Emancipation Of Mimi shows is that, when Carey is put into a position where she feels she has nothing to prove, that freedom translates into her music and allows it to convey a more relaxed energy. Though her popularity in the UK will never scale the heights of her US success, and though many music fans and critics have written her off, Mariah has no reason at all to be bothered. In terrific contrast to the usual, by blinkering herself to much of the outside world's opinion, she has returned with a purer and much better distillation of her craft than anyone could have expected.

Adrian Roye
originally published September 3rd, 2005

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Mara Carlyle
I Blame Dido EP ••••
Accidental

Legend has it that upon her arrival in Libya, Dido, the founder queen of Carthage, was permitted to buy only as much land as could be covered by a bull's hide. Being a wily little minx, she thus proceeded to slice the skin into slivers so fine that they encircled an area of several acres, upon which she built her city. As such, the phrase "to cut up didoes" came to describe an extravagant behaviour.

On first impression, the title of Shropshire-born Mara Carlyle's new EP may seem like an attempt to sever a chunk from the crown of our own queen Dido, perhaps the very antithesis of extravagant, but is in fact "entirely coincidental". That is, according to the cheeky-faced creator of last year's most aptly titled album, The Lovely. Recorded over several years and completed on a secondhand laptop in a north London flat, The Lovely displayed a staggering yet homely virtuosity paired with through-a-glass-darkly operatic vocals that placed Carlyle somewhere along the continuum between early Joan Baez and the gentle lilt of Kathryn Williams.

Continuing the cutting theme momentarily, that album opened with the unforgettable combo of eerie vocals and bendy DIY essential that was ‘The Saw Song' (Carlyle once played in a trio called The Weeping Saws; clearly, she knows her way around a pun or two) but it's the sweeping, smoky ‘I Blame You Not' that finds its way onto this EP. Sounding for all the world like a lost Dusty Springfield in pensive mode classic, it would have sounded equally at home on Feist's Let It Die. With its muffled piano, soft jazzy drums and soothing background coos, it singlehandedly dislodges the stake from the heart of the torch song hammered in by the likes of Katie Melua and the soporific Norah Jones.

The Carthagian connection arrives in the form of a cover of ‘Dido's Lament' from the Henry Purcell opera, ‘Dido & Aeneas'. This was not, as it happens, wholly inspired by the baroque original, but by a spirited take by the dearly departed Jeff Buckley. "Baroque music was meant to be filled with passion when it was written" says Carlyle, "But these days people are too reverential about it." The result is a distinctly tasteful rendition that builds in intensity to a dreamy multi-tracked refrain of "remember me, my fate." It's measured, certainly, but never dull. Carlyle returns again to essential listening territory with a bizarrely soulful cover of labelmate Dani Siciliano's ‘Walk The Line' from last year's Likes... album. Maybe it's the slightly comical baritone beatbox on the blink, but its charm is infectious and somehow improves on the original.

Frankly, anyone who compares opera singing to "weight lifting whilst reciting poetry from memory whilst convincingly acting like you're about to cry / laugh / kill / shag someone" is more than alright by me. If you loved The Lovely, this is like manna from heaven. Else, if you somehow missed out, get this as an entrée and proceed to the main course directly; do not pass Dido, do not regret £10.

Alan Pedder
originally published July 26th, 2005

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Caroline
Murmurs •••
Temporary Residence

With Murmurs, Tokyo's Caroline Lufkin has created an album of such light, polished precision and crystalline sonic clarity that it ought to stickered ‘handle with care'; so soft and feathery are proceedings that you fear you might just scare her off if you sing along too loudly. It's odd then that the first track ‘Bicycle' recalls the theme to ‘Coronation Street' - unknowingly I suspect - the trumpet conjuring images of tiled rooftops and athletic cats. But unlike the sometimes ugly world of Weatherfield, gentle is the buzzword here as Caroline's self-harmonies are accompanied by the tinkling of a triangle and muted, fuzzed-up electronic beats.

Sounds familiar, right? Murmurs is barely a stone's throw from the hipster coffee table qualities that propelled Röyksopp to the top of the charts and made the more radio-friendly moments of Goldfrapp's Felt Mountain the soundtrack du jour to every advert/trailer/furniture outlet going. Many of the songs have an ambient, Zero 7 quality and one suspects that all she needs to make it big is the help of that all-important endorsement - Peugeot or perfume? Who knows! Elsewhere, ‘Pink & Black' features glacial harp reminiscent of Vespertine-era Björk; indeed, the number of comparisons that the album brings to mind is quite revealing. Whilst the songs feature absolutely top-notch production and perfectly crafted soundscapes, Murmurs as a whole holds precious little we haven't heard elsewhere before.

At times, the relentlessly chilled-out vibe seems at odds with the lyrics. "You drove me to the wall / I put my car in stall," she sings on ‘Drove Me To The Wall', yet the tone doesn't differ markedly from, for example, ‘Bicycle', about the nostalgia of looking back on a childhood romance. After few tracks you'll be longing for something jagged to shatter the calm, if only momentarily - a guest vocal from Kat Bjelland or a Diamanda Galás piano solo, perhaps - but it isn't forthcoming. The reverie is broken momentarily on ‘Everylittlething', where an Erasure-esque synth beat and menacing electronic effects briefly flourish, but the song does not fulfil its promise and fails to take off as you might hope.

Thus, the album's title proves to be a fitting description of its contents. These are beautifully crafted murmurs, but murmurs nonetheless. Then again, like a nice cool breeze on a warm summer's evening, Caroline's music is entirely welcome if you're in the mood for something relaxing and ambient; music for drifting off to sleep to, intentionally or not.

Danny Weddup 
originally published August 30th, 2006

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Lori Carson
The Finest Thing •••
One Little Indian

For all the emphasis we place on the lyrical, it's sometimes a simple la la la that can grip you like a tendril. Take Kylie Minogue's 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' for example, where the nagging vocalisations do exactly what it says on the tin, for hours. Fear not though, reclusive indie chanteuse Lori Carson won't be sashaying half-naked across your TV screens any time soon. If anything, her first album of new material since 2001's House In The Weeds sees her picking up the baton from ex-Dead Can Dancer, Lisa Gerrard, and flirting with the ethereal. These seven songs plus one reprise constitute something of a concept album, though not an overt one. In this subtle series, life itself is the concept with all its accompanying dreamscapes and sadness. Carson herself refers to them as "meditations" rather than songs and she has a point - much like meditation, this album takes patience but in return bequeaths a degree of serenity. However, with five of the tracks overrunning the seven-minute mark and many containing prolonged passages of monosyllabic, light as air whisperings, you might want to have a good book handy.

Only ‘The Finest Thing' and ‘Hold On To The Sun' approach the confessional singer-songwriterly melodiousness that has been Carson's stock in trade. Both are delicate wisps of songs anchored by acoustic guitar. The title track is a swooning, aching realisation of how rare and fleeting are moments of sheer contentment. Similarly, ‘Hold On To The Sun' is a more grounded expansion of the same theme - the spiritual salve of hope. The standout piece, ‘Glimmer', wraps her vulnerable soft vocals around very sparse, almost skeletal instrumentation. Tellingly, it's the one long track that doesn't feel like it and you wish it could go on. Elsewhere, there's a certain compelling sweetness to ‘Coney Island Ride'. While it doesn't quite conjure all the fun of the fair, Carson successfully regresses the listener to their first rollercoaster ride, only this one arcs through clouds and there's no rib-crushing safety bar. You're free to float in the slipstream should you so desire.

Sadly, none of these songs survive intact when listened to out of the context of the album, and it's this insular quality that is both the record's most precious and most limiting factor. While The Finest Thing is a sonically adventurous and welcome diversion for Lori Carson, it is not without its tedium. By virtue of patience, however, the filmic beauty of it all is something that's easy to treasure.

Alan Pedder
originally published May 25th, 2005

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Neko Case
Fox Confessor Brings The Flood •••••
Anti-

It would be too easy (and not to mention a bit unfair) to begin and end this review with the statement that this is the best album of 2006, considering that it's only April. However, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, the fourth solo studio effort from Neko Case, is easily one of the most anticipated albums of recent months. An ambitious record that's been two years in the making from concept to glorious finished product, it's safe to say that its been well worth the wait.

With a voice that's often compared with Patsy Cline, Brenda Lee and Loretta Lynn, Case is clearly getting comfy in the role of the country noir chanteuse. But Case draws on more than these media-driven comparisons, transcending the limitations of genre and forging instead a new style of her own. Strong, resonant and reminiscent of a smoky bar at last call, her rich, luxuriant vocals invoke a walk after midnight, lit only by la lune and heartbreak. And while there are certainly echoes of Cline's mournful croon on the opening track ‘Margaret vs. Pauline', she just as easily embodies the three-minute, pure pop gold of ‘Mamas' Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot on the exquisitely twangy ‘Hold On, Hold On'.

The songs on Fox Confessor... are unprecedented illustrations of Case's superb lyricism and growing skill as a storyteller and poet. Reflective and compliant yet optimistic, the songs weave their way through metaphors and myths. ‘Margaret vs. Pauline' sees her weaving words into melodies that at first seem to only illustrate the difference between the two titular women; however, a closer look reveals a flawlessly executed character study full of minute detail - "Ancient strings set feet a'light to speed to her such mild grace / no monument of tacky gold / they smoothed her hair with cinnamon waves".

On the title track, Case completely abandons any notion of standard structure with a beautiful tune that bypasses anything as laughably conventional as a chorus, instead wending its way through an imaginative storyline based on an old Ukrainian folk tale: "Clouds hang on these curves like me / and I kneel to the wheel / of the fox confessor on splendid heels / and he shames me from my seat". Another of the standout tracks, ‘Star Witness', weaves a love song into a contemporary country tune, but dipping into the darkness of a 1950s murder ballad telling the grisly story of a lover's untimely demise: "go on, go on scream and cry / you're miles from where anyone will find you / this is nothing new, no television crew / they don't even put on the sirens / my nightgown sweeps the pavement, please".

While Case is the lyricist and primary songwriter, the many skilled collaborators and guests on this album include Kelly Hogan, Visqueen's Rachel Flotard, The Band's Garth Hudson, Joey Burns and John Convertino of Calexico and former Flat Duo Jet Dexter Romweber, not to mention longtime bandmates Jon Rauhouse and Tom V Ray. This diversity of talent is certainly not wasted either. Feedback fills the title track, a reverberating and deep orchestral strength rises in ‘Dirty Knife' (a song based on a decidedly un-cosy family story passed down from her grandma) and a lazy surfer backdrop gives a stunning sense of atmosphere to ‘Lion's Jaws'. And when talking about atmosphere, it wouldn't be right not to mention the haunting gospel tones of ‘John Saw That Number', a traditional folk song with new music added by Case, recorded in the stairwell of Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern. It's what spines were really made to tingle for.

Monumentally diverse and damn near impeccable, Fox Confessor Brings The Flood is a tremendous portrait of poetics and storytelling that will surely stand the test of time. Always something of a cult artist out on the fringe of recognition, especially this side of the Atlantic, it could be that Case's light has finally outgrown the bushel beneath which it has been hidden for so very long.

Loria Near
originally published March 6th, 2006 

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Rosanne Cash
Black Cadillac ••••
Capitol

There is a rule and a paradox that has existed since melody was first used to communicate emotion. The rule: that classic songs tend to deal in the darker elements of life. The paradox: that, for a dark song, someone somewhere has to suffer. Music can heal the deepest wounds and turn the bitterness of lost love into the rose-tinted hue of fond memory. Experts in the art of songwriting continue to educate us and we never tire of the lesson. In just over a year, Cash lost her father, mother and stepmother, leaving her the bearer of a 50-year old torch and the Carter-Cash family (who, to some, were the American family) in tatters. You're unlikely to see again a dedication carrying the weight and legacy of a musical dynasty as popular and critically acclaimed as the one Cash has printed on the sleeve of Black Cadillac.

With the very stuff of life and death at her fingertips then, it was natural that the follow-up to 2003's Rules Of Travel would be both a personal goodbye and a meditation on loss. The music at the wake occasionally makes for painful listening. That Cash hasn't resorted to primal scream therapy, but instead maintained her impeccable reputation for clever, insightful wordplay and gorgeous melody, is to her credit and our gain. Black Cadillac leaves its listeners in conflict with themselves; you sing along, until you remember what it is you're singing.

The highlights are many. Throughout ‘I Was Watching You', the album's recurring themes of loss and love run like a raw nerve through a simple, layered, piano-driven melody, at once ghostly and viscerally tangible, personal yet universal. ‘Like Fugitives' comes on like Bryan Adams' ‘Run To You' without the ‘80s bombast or formulaic, lighter-waving middle eight. Instead, it's the bitterest lyrical pill in Cash's medicine cabinet: "It's a strange new world we live in where the church leads you to Hell / and the lawyers get the money for the lives they divide and sell". Elsewhere, the title track rolls in on an earthquake-like bass riff, not unlike her father's voice talking beneath a stolen U2 guitar part, while ‘Radio Operator's poignant message simply "...will not end".

The overall tone is one of sadness, but never defeat. For every heartbreak, there is acceptance that life continues. Implicit in the journey is hope, expressed beautifully in another standout, ‘God Is In The Roses', in which Cash takes a deep breath and smiles ruefully whilst singing "My whole world fits inside the moment I saw you re-born / God is in the roses... and the thorns". For 20 years now, Rosanne Cash has created an exquisite blend of country, pop and rock that tends to get overlooked in the final reckoning, but remains one of the cognoscenti's best-kept secrets. With Black Cadillac, she has triumphed; it's a masterclass in living with the paradox, providing more of life's truths, and laying to rest with dignity and beauty some of her troubles. Buy it. Empathise. Feel better.

Paul Woodgate
originally published March 11th, 2006 

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Cat Power
Speaking For Trees ••
Matador

As anyone who has endured the wretched soulwreck that is seemingly every other Cat Power live date will tell you, to witness Chan Marshall's shambolic disassembly of self on stage is to feel like you are spying on a very private decline. It's intensely uncomfortable and you wonder how soon the whitecoats will come and lift the shuddering, incoherent thirtysomething from her lonely little stool. Not that she is incapable of performing so publicly - her 2003 set at Islington's Union Chapel was by all accounts mesmeric. Thus, providing she was having a good day, a live DVD seemed an ideal compromise, yet 'Speaking For Trees' manages to be as maddening and restless as Marshall is in the flesh.

Set in a noisy, chattering woodland clearing and filmed in an interminably dull single shot, supposedly in homage to the probably equally excruciating art films by Andy Warhol et al., the 100-minute long main feature could, much like Vogon poetry, extract a confession from even the most hardline criminal. Either that or put them to sleep. Shot on digital video rather than film, a barely distinguishable Chan Marshall stands at least 15 feet away from the camera for the entire feature, her face either blurry or hidden behind her trademark hair.

At first this seems like a wonderfully apt way in which to capture the reluctant indie heroine, alone with her guitar in the woods. Then, as she strums and mumbles her way through nearly 30 songs, several of which are simply alternate takes of the same tunes - ‘Night Time / Back Of Your Head', ‘From Fur City' and ‘Knockin' On Heaven's Door' appear no less than three times each - the gritting of teeth inevitably sets in. In fact, the greatest variation for our viewing pleasure is when the filmmaker Mark Borthwick overexposes the image and gives a moment's white respite.

There are nine covers in all, the best of which is Marshall's version of M. Ward's ‘Sad, Sad Song' which appears a generous twice. When not drowned out by crickets rubbing their legs or birds singing as though their lives depended upon it, her voice is as exultantly morose and beautiful as ever, particularly on some of her more recent songs such as ‘Evolution' and ‘I Don't Blame You' from the album You Are Free. Fortunately, it's not all a big letdown as Marshall also includes a CD with the package containing a single 18-minute epic, ‘Willie Deadwilder', which features the aforementioned M. Ward on guitar. Giving anything as conventional as a chorus or bridge the widest of berths, she weaves a charming rambling tale based around a rather naïve melody and easily gets away with it. It's an indulgence for sure, but anyone who enjoyed You Are Free will find moments of transcendence in the song, which was taken from the same sessions.

Sadly, this is perhaps as close to a coherent Chan Marshall live performance as most are ever likely to witness. Those lucky enough to see her sing sans meltdown will continue to regale us with stories of how amazing she can be and we who miss it will continue to believe in this elusive confident character. Of course, there will be those who say that appreciating music shouldn't be this hard and they'll certainly have a valid point. Whatever your slant on the matter, the music industry would be a lot worse off without mercurial icons like Marshall and this blip just comes with the territory.

Alan Pedder
originally published May 25th, 2005

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Cat Power
The Greatest •••½
Matador

In case you didn't know, Cat Power is the very singular Chan (pronounced shawn) Marshall and she's something of a wilful enigma. Since emerging in 1995 with Dear Sir, she's released a string of albums so acutely recognisable as her own, where universal themes - you know, life-loss-love, the tension between creativity and artifice, the whereabouts of the toothpaste cap - are explored using lo-fi instrumentation often as sparse and direct as her lyrics are oblique and wrong-footing. Possessor of a prematurely timeworn voice that somehow manages to be both rich and soulful and aridly aching at the same time, her records encompass hushed folk balladry, country stylings, blues sensibilities, and moments of spiky almost-punk. Critics being what they are, Marshall's highly personal mix of styles has seen her fêted in certain quarters as one of the planet's foremost songwriters; but for me, she often sounds like a sulky adolescent who's discovered the recording studio in a weird uncle's woodshed.

But what's this? For her no-it's-not-a-best-of new effort, The Greatest, Marshall decamped to Ardent Studios in Memphis, previously graced by Bob Dylan and Stax Records among others, and enlisted the help of some genuine soul veterans: Mabon ‘Teeny' Hodges, Al Green's songwriting partner and guitarist, his brother Leroy ‘Flick' Hodges on bass, and drummer Steve Potts of Booker T & The MGs. Certainly, this marks a different approach to her previous record, 2003's You Are Free, an enjoyable if rather inconsistent effort which featured Dave Grohl on drums and (ulp!) Eddie Vedder on vocals. Whether she's simply after a bit of mainstream accessibility or getting back to her roots, maaan, the added space and warmth imparted by her new band is apparent from the first notes of the opener.

‘The Greatest' starts with meditative piano then adds pattering drums, flecks of strings and half-heard backing vocals before Marshall gets to musing on the vagaries of her chosen career: "Once I wanted to be the greatest / no wind or waterfall could stop me / and then came the rush of the flood / the stars turned you to dust". Such a declaration of bravado and disappointment echoes what I've heard of her live shows, where she's almost legendary for clamming up and departing the stage in tears; but something in the new-found sunshine of the music gives some hope of reconciliation between her studio and live personas.

The clement weather brightens further on second song, ‘Could We', as bursts of Memphis horn illuminate the song's gentle swing. ‘Lived In Bars' starts off more mopey and more like your usual Cat Power fare, but halfway through she gamely hitches up her skirts and starts to dance upon the tables. Almost. Elsewhere, there's a couple of songs that wouldn't sound out of place on previous albums, such as the piano ballad ‘Where Is My Love' ("In my arms, finally") and the spare ‘Hate', beamed from a Southern porch through a poisonous whiskey haze ("I hate myself and I want to die"), and on these we're back in the woodshed.

Overall, however, this album encapsulates everything that's positive and risky about such a project, in which an established outsider attempts to refract her muse through a different prism by reconnecting with her musical heritage. Marshall's music on The Greatest is undeniably likeable and pleasant, which may be almost an insult to aficionados of her earlier work. But whilst there is no question of a Liz Phair-esque U-turn, the fact of the matter is that most people will find these songs more palatable than any of her previous missives, thereby making it a convenient entrypoint for the curious to start.

Adam Smith
originally published December 19th, 2006

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Kasey Chambers
Carnival ••••
Warner Bros.

Kasey Chambers is the undisputed queen of Australian alt.country, a title she was destined to inherit with her extraordinary childhood story of living in the wilds and singing in her parents' band The Dead Ringer Group from the age of nine. Not enough credentials for you? How about the fact that her first two albums went straight to the top in Australia (as did Carnival earlier this year) or that she's befriended and toured with the likes of Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris - the US royalty. She's even had her moment of flirting with Nashville but she's certainly not your typical country starlet.

That Chambers is not originally from America's country music capital goes at least some way to explain her appeal; by not allowing herself to be drawn into a formulaic recording process, Chambers hasn't spent time making the same ol' record over and over. Carnival sounds so fresh and genuine that it feels completely natural and free of any industry influence. Chambers has given herself free rein to express her thoughts and experiences whilst nudging from an alt.country framework into other genres. Whether she dabbles in a more typical singer-songwriter style, rock or blues, Chambers sounds completely comfortable and without a hint of awkwardness. Given that the album was recorded in just one week, there's also a tangible sense of spontaneity.

Album opener ‘Colour Of A Carnival' refers to the Mardi Gras atmosphere in the studio with her brother and long-time producer Nash Chambers and a circle of talented friends and players. "I live in a circle running around and around" is just one of those lyrics that nails a phrase you know you've lived through too. Chambers may have dined on much more than the average slice of life but her lyrical themes are easy to relate to. It's not hard to hazard a guess why much of Carnival is a positive, enriching listen; the wisdom that comes with motherhood and her marriage to US singer-songwriter Shane Nicholson are obvious influences. That's why "the sign on the door says lonely don't live here any more" (‘Sign On The Door') and why ‘The Rain' is more about hope and renewal than a grey and miserable day.

That's not to say she doesn't strut or lay on the sass; ‘Light Up A Candle' has the ultimate babydoll swagger with its cool blues and wah-wah guitar, while the similarly effective ‘You Make Me Sing' is irrepressibly gutsy. On a couple of tracks, she even pushes the pop element further than ever before. ‘Nothing At All' is the more successful of the two with a very simple but clever approach that's not a million miles away from one of Lisa Loeb's finer moments, while ‘Surrender' perhaps strays a little too far. Elsewhere, on the curious ‘Railroad', Chambers trips out the verses almost as if she were rapping in the rhythm of the sound of a train. The two duets are worthy inclusions too. ‘Hard Road' is an unpretentious pairing with Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning and is full of torn, soulful harmonies, while You Am I frontman Tim Rogers joins Chambers in full- on rock out mode on the feisty ‘I Got You Now'. Fans of Kasey's earlier work will be sucked in immediately by ‘Dangerous', a deceptively tender song that drips with melancholia. There's a subtle difference this time though; it's written from someone else's perspective - yet another first for Chambers on this album. 

Chambers has been quoted as saying, "You know, when I used to listen to music, if I didn't hear any influence of Hank Williams, I wasn't interested, I was so closed- minded." Throwing away the rulebook might be hard for those holding a similar viewpoint but it's hard not to love her regardless. Just sit back and let these catchy songs and Kasey's charming vocals speak for themselves. 

Sara Silver
originally published November 23rd, 2006

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Charalambides
Vintage Burden ••••½
Kranky

Christina Carter
Lace Heart •••½
Many Breaths

The core Charalambides duo of former spouses Christina and Tom Carter churn out so much music that they really must believe in what they do - that's droning, intimately psychedelic folk musings, since you ask, that don't so much stare into the sun as reflect the moon in widened eyes. Whilst their release schedule hardly approaches that of, say, Acid Mothers Temple for sheer market overload, the steady stream of limited-run CD-Rs, cassettes etc. that issue from multiple group formations, individual efforts and frequent collaborations suggest a muse both restless and overclocked. And although some releases - or, more accurately, parts of nearly all of them - tend toward blank, acid-folk noodling, so much of their back catalogue is worth checking out that Charalambides must surely be up for some sort of consistency award.

In amongst all their underground activity, the band find time to release proper grown-up CDs on reasonably sized labels like Kranky; still obscure enough to retain the all- important auteur vibe, but sufficiently established to ensure that at least some of their oeuvre is readily available outside of their devoted fanbase. A Vintage Burden is the latest of these, following 2004's spooked and sprawling Joy Shapes, and comes at the same time as a solo disc from Christina on her own Many Breaths imprint. The two are so complementary in mood and style that they are best assessed as a pair.

It's immediately obvious from the get go that, as a duo, the Carters have stepped back and opened out since Joy Shapes. In place of that record's suffocating rituals, opener ‘There Is No End' is a spare, slowly unfurling meditation on a single guitar figure by Tom, over which Christina's multi-tracked vocals delicately hover - "there is no end / to your beauty". Wherever they are, the leaves definitely let in more light these days, for ‘Spring' is warmer again, its chiming shards of guitars and lovely refrain of "let it shine... it will shine" encapsulating the hopes and new beginnings of the season. Speaking of simpler things, ‘Dormant Love' is the most nakedly songlike construction Charalambides have attempted in ages, a conventional acoustic strum chased by fireflies of electricity that gather, swarm and eventually overwhelm Christina's gorgeous vocal melody.

Elsewhere, the instrumental ‘Black Bed Blues' gradually unfolds in classic Charalambides manner, its keening slide stabs adding a bucolic feel to the widescreen vistas mapped by the intertwining electric and acoustic guitars. This hallucinatory, immersive music - largely improvised yet startlingly immediate and heartfelt - is the most compelling reason for Charalambides' reputation yet, and deserves to gain the group a much wider audience. ‘Two Birds' is similarly amazing, a welter of perfectly chosen acid n