Riverhead

Goldenhorse - Riverhead (2002) 

****

Nominated by: KS

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Maybe Tomorrow

Goldenhorse are new to me. I realise they are quite popular but it slipped past my radar in 2002.

I must confess, I wasn't too fussed the first time I heard Riverhead. I struggled to differentiate the songs and the female voice was cool, but she was maybe a bit too cool? I'd had a hard day and the album didn't suit my mood.

Subsequent listens though - and I get it. 

Actually, I grew to love it. This was a slow burn. That first listen in my car on the commute homeward did it a disservice.

Listening at home, in the evening after a long day at the brick factory, was a way better experience.

I'm glad I persevered. The vocalist - Kristen Morrell (I did some research) is terrific. Her style shapeshifts a lot - she seems to adopt a slightly different style in service of each song.

Highlights popped up after the third listen with regularity. I think I like her singing on Maybe Tomorrow best, and the noisier guitar stylings of Spice Islands really appealed.

Riverhead, the song, is another highlight - it develops really well, and the male/female interplay works. 

One slight negative is that side one is (much?) stronger than side two. Maintaining quality over a whole album is tricky. I also don't quite know what to make of Baby's Been Bad - the dip into a kiwi version of ska is a tad off putting - a good B-side I would have thought.

Still, those are just slight niggles. They get back on track with the playful American Wife and the last track is a nice change of pace. It has a darker, quieter mood which is needed by this point with some lovely folky guitar and harmonies which develops into some heavy electric guitar - I'm a sucker for this type of song!

Champion selection Mr Simms. I'm actually going to look for a copy of this one! That's high praise - it's only the third such purchase (after The Chills - which you bought for me - smiley face, and The Waterboys. I have circled back to that album a lot GK.

All my lonesome

Caamp - Lavender Girl (2022) *** 

Nominated by: GK

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Apple Tree Blues

By now, in 2023, there is a danger that Americana tropes have evolved towards cliché.

The hushed, down-home vocals, the warm acoustic based instruments (a touch of banjo - nice), the gentle pace (no frenetic bluegrass style hoedown hootenannies on show), and folksy lyrical material (apple trees, hiding in the cotton, you'll bring your snowshoes, looking cute in the garden). In the increasingly overcrowded Americana world, all land just short of country if you squint your eyes.

The good news is that Caamp skirt around the danger but don't succumb (well maybe at times they do - Fever frinstance).

I enjoyed Caamp - it's pretty innoculous stuff so it would be churlish to do otherwise. But (sorry - there's a but), it felt like something was missing. Grit.

Each time the album finished on Spotify it moved onto other Americana acts and I realized that what Caamp really needed was a female vocalist as a foil for the males. I really like Ocie Elliot with their duo approach and feel that Caamp would benefit from the variety and textures thrown up by that male/female duality. Just an idea.

It's not too surprising that GK likes this easy on the ear material. Some of the tracks reminded me of solo Mark Knopfler, and the singing style is also of the same bent.  

I get why he likes to mostly listen to this kind of music these days. I guess, that's why radio's stratified genre format was created - to cater to what individual people like.  

All up - an easy on the ear, lopping kind of soundtrack for some of my commute this week. 

My feathers arrived at my destinations unruffled. Thanks Biggie Gee

Hello Miss Lonesome

Marlon Williams - Marlon Williams (2015) ****

Nominated by: K Simms esq.

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Hello Miss Lonesome

Marlon William's solo debut begins with a hiss and roar with two cracking songs. Hello Miss Lonesome is a confident Ghost Riders In The Sky style gallop that launches his solo career and this album in brilliant fashion.

Second track, After All, changes tack with a different vocal style and a kind of kiwi take on classic British RnB, and he keeps the pace up admirably.

By the third song, Dark Child, we're straying into darker, Nick Cave style ballad territory and I'm starting to wonder who the real Marlon Williams is, and whether that actually matters. I decided in the end, that it doesn't, in case you were wondering.

He seems very comfortable to slide around various genres and is adept at a variety of vocal looks. He's very versatile in other words.

I'm Lost Without You is a superb song and I mean no disparagement by suggesting that Mr Lee Grant or John Rowles would have loved to have that song to sing back in the day. 

The acoustic country licks of Lonely Side Of Her and Silent Passage make me think of old Westerns from the fifties when a Cowboy at a camp fire would whip out a guitar and the cowpokes would gather round to do the backing singing. Choice!

Somehow Marlon carries this all off with aplomb. Music wise, nice touches abound (love that pedal steel in Silent Passage and the choir in I'm Lost Without You), and Marlon's smooth, confident delivery sells every song.

Downside for me is the profusion of mid paced songs and downer mood that envelopes the last 3 songs on side 2. I get that murder ballads are a big deal in some quarters but I'm a day person. So I tended to skip the last three songs and go back to Hello Miss Lonesome for another jolt of energy and fun!

Excellent choice Kev.

Cracks

Vincent Gallo - When (2001) ***

Nominated by: Alex

Music club: MNAC

MNAC playlist addition:  My Beautiful White Dog

Alex is true to form - supplying another album/artist that I've never heard of before. 

I found a lot of the album startling, in that the plinking minimalist piano and noodling guitar sounded quite proggy in places and Gallo's vocals sound like a torch singer baring their soul (sort of).

I'm not sure if Gallo plays everything or not, it sounds like he does. The stop start drums on My Beautiful White Dog sound like he's on the kit (sampled and then repeated I'm guessing) but maybe not. I really like this track as it unwinds and fuses all sorts of swirly sounds together.

In fact, it's the instrumentals I like the most, I think. Maybe it's that jazz/prog noodling that gets me. Although When is fascinating and hooks me every time as well. Interesting.

Not an album I'd ever come across without the assistance of MNAC. Thanks for broadening my outlook Alex.

Yes I do

L.A.B - IV (2020) ***

Nominated by: GK

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Yes I Do, No Roots

First of all and I struggle to get past it - what's with the name? It makes no sense. It's not an acronym for anything and why punctuate it that way? Stoopid.

Okay, I can move on now. Luckily, it's very easy to like the music made by L.A.B because it's an amalgam of successful antecedents - Motownphilly, reggae and blue eyed soul.

The strengths are obvious - great singer, excellent production, catchy songs, proficient playing. There's nothing much original about it all, instead you can just relax and groove along and it all seems somehow familiar.

The first half of the album is top notch. The second half (from Operator onwards - those disco strings jar and seem out of place) is patchy with only My Baby matching the first 7 songs.

The decision to finish with two versions of one song (Natural) is plain bizarre. It's an okay song - surely it would have been better to leave the acoustic version for a B side of a single or something.

So - mighty fine - three stars for me (that originality thing and the patch second half).

I struggle to differentiate the albums btw - I have the first four and they each travel the same musical road (those influences). Enjoyable fersure, but where to from here for L.A.B? More of the same, I guess - and why not - it clearly has given them a big audience in Aotearoa.

Thanks for a pleasant blissed out week with L.A.B GK.

Soul rebels

The Gladiators - Trenchtown Mix Up (1976) ***

Nominated by: Lewis

Music club: MNAC

MNAC playlist addition:  Soul Rebel

The Gladiators' debut album in 1976 completely passed me by in 1976 and in the subsequent years until 2023!

I have a dozen or so reggae compilations and not one of them features The Gladiators. That's strange. They must be relatively obscure then.

While I enjoyed the experience of listening to it, I couldn't help but wonder why, of all the reggae albums out there by the heavy hitters, he chose this one as MNAC's debut reggae album.

To my ears it sounds older than it really is, as in - it wouldn't sound out of place on a compilation of sixties reggae recordings from Studio One. Maybe it's the decision to cover a couple of Bob Marley's older songs, or else it's the dated sound. Not sure. Maybe it's just that they didn't move on from their sixties sound.

In comparison, Bob Marley released Rastaman Vibration in 1976 - a modern reimagining of reggae.

I can't help compare the too, and The Gladiators invite the comparison by taking on Soul Rebel. Why? They don't change it at all and don't improve on the original.

Although there's nothing to dislike on the album, there's also nothing making me rush out and search for other Gladiators' albums. Believe I'll be sticking to The Heptones instead.

 

Highest branch on the apple tree It was my favourite place to be

Crowded House - Together Alone (1993) ****

Nominated by: Kevvy

Music club: Wander to Wozza's

Playlist addition:  Private Universe, Together Alone

This one is world famous in New Zealand. I've written about it on my music blog before - see this link on  Goo Goo G'Joob.

So, I'm on record as saying this is my favourite Crowdies album:

Fourth album... is my favourite - mainly because of the enormity of the stand-out tracks: Pineapple Head; Private Universe; Distant Sun and Together Alone, but also because it feels like a proper album, rather than some great songs mixed with other songs.

Kudos to Youth and Bob Clearmountain for their expertise in making these songs sound great!

So there it is! I stand by those comments.

I've also written about the Distant Sun single when I did a run down of all my singles. Go here for that one.

I summed up that song with:

Distant Sun sounds like a Macca outtake circa Red Rose Speedway. That's a good thing btw. It's a cool song and a stand out from Together Alone.

Again, I stand by that. But what about the album as a whole?

Well, there's a palpable darkness and sense of loss to these songs that is kind of appealing. The cheeky chappy Crowdies of the earlier albums are replaced by something different this time out. If I didn't know better I'd say Neil suffered some traumas as a child that surfaced in his writing during Together Alone: 

• We're standing in a deep dark hole beneath the sky as black as coal (In My Command)
• You my companion run to the water on a burning beach (Nails In My Feet)
• To the depths of despair you will crawl (Black and white Boy)
• There is time yet to fall by the way from the cradle to the grave from the palace to the gutter (Fingers Of Love)
• If you choose to take that path I will play you like a shark (Pineapple Head)
• The view when I look through the window is an altarpiece I'm praying to for the living and the dead (Locked Out)
• It's a tight squeeze but I won't let go, time is on the table and the dinner's cold (Private Universe)
• I will run for shelter (Private Universe)
• At odd times we slip slither down the dark hole (Walking On the Spot)
• An eerie shadow falls (Walking On The Spot)
• Will we be in our minds when the dawn breaks? (Walking On the Spot)
• Lounging on the sofa maybe see the living room die dishes are unwashed and broken all you do is cry (Walking On The Spot)
• As time slips by, and on and on (Distant Sun)
• Bad moon is rising again (Catherine Wheels)

That's a fair dollop of bad juju right there.

Given those lyrics and themes, I'd assume some purging of bad experiences was taking place, however, I know Tim and Neil and their two sisters had a great childhood in Te Awamutu, and that Dick and Mary were terrific parents. 

So what's going on?

I guess you could put a lot of this down to poetic license, but it does seem like Youth unlocked some weird and wonderful lyrics in Neil. Maybe it was all the electric puhu that they were smoking! Maybe it was the isolated location in their hired house and the eventual cabin fever. Maybe Nil decided to unleash his visceral Lennon  side. Or maybe he was channeling Tim's darker persona. Who knows. No one's saying.

There's also a great sense of experimentation going on in the music on this album. Mark Hart brings a lot to the party. And Youth's hippie presence and tendency toward wild abandon helps tracks like Black And White Boy, and Locked Out take on U2 style guitar edge (see what I did there?). Generally though, it appears they all went a little bat shit crazy in KareKare.

What I also love about the album is the unified sense of love for place and person that bookends things.

Opener, Kare Kare, is all about celebrating the place where the album was recorded, and final song Together Alone is surely about brotherly love in general and Tim/Neil in particular. The use of Maori choir, brass band and Pasifika log drummers are great touches. They throw everything at this song and everything works. It could only ever be the final track.

The parting words of the album are all about an enduring love that the brothers share (and by extension their parents):

Rangi the sky-father is above/ The earth-mother is below/ Our love for one another/ Is everlasting.

It's not perfect as an album, so it gets 4 stars from me. A couple of the tracks (Nails In My Feet and Fingers Of Love) I find either unconvincing or too Nil Funn mannered in the vocal inflection department to really enjoy whole heartedly.

But, that's nit picking really, as this is, overall, an outstanding achievement from an outstanding band.