REVIEW: LONDON GRAMMAR - CALIFORNIA SOIL

 

4/5

Grammar Points West.

London baby! By way of Cali. Out in Tokyo, Japan this writer also moonlights as an English teacher. So how about a grammar lesson (even if it is my weakest point)? Let's get down to the soil of things. Hailing from Nottingham like a Robin Hood arrow, London Grammar are one of the United Kingdom's capital acts on the radio. The inspired indie pop sound of Hannah Reid, Dan Rothman and Dominic 'Dot' Major is exactly his second name to the tee. Like if the Black Keys of Dan Auerbach collaborated with 'Brooklyn Baby' Lana Del Rey down on the chemtrails 'West Coast' permanently. Or it was a case of Florence and the drum machines. Their debut extended play 'Metal and Dust' gathered more than that like a rolling stone. Whilst LDN's full length opener 'If You Wait' was worth all that eager anticipation. The number 2 UK album may have not hit the top spot, but who cares? It went platinum...twice. Who can say that these days outside of Taylor, Gaga and Bey? Grammar did reach number one with their 2017 sophomore smash hit though. Their signature 'Truth Is A Beautiful Thing' speaker hallmark deceleration is a certified classic. Their Ministry of Sound is famous like their Chris Issak covering 'Wicked Game'. Trailering with the BBC's Birmingham mob hit 'Peaky Blinders' (rest peacefully Helen McCrory). So how do you follow all of that? How about Hollywood for their great America conquer? Well, I guess that was more like a history lesson after all for a band already over a decade in under the sun. Now in these California nights in LA, London give you an album Bethany Cosentino would be proud of a year after her 'Always Tomorrow'. This is 'California Soil' for your soul. This is the Best Coast.

Burning up in temperature, mood embraces have never stirred the twilight senses quite like these orange and pink hued skies in a CA night. After an inspired 'Intro' that really shows you the roots of Reid's vocal range on a cinematic canvas we get down to the 'Californian Soil' of the albums lead title track that's even more evokingly and uplifting in its after hours euphoria now all the clubs are closed. "I left my soul/On Californian soil/And I left my pride/With that woman by my side/I never had a willing hand/And I never had a plan/But I'm glad I found you here/But I'm glad I've got you here," Hannah harmonises. Right before the moving 'Missing' were she sings, "She's in the kitchen, best believe in that/ She's cooking up a real storm for you/Traditional mixture", with lyrics and themes that take aim at misogynistic beliefs in this modern world. Beliefs that are outdated as any nostalgia to those ignorant ideas. Keeping hers on 'Lose Your Head' Reid is a revelation. 'Lord It's A Feeling' and one of the 'Californian' albums most amazing tracks she really sings for the heavens and the earthbound feeling of lost love. "I saw the way you made her feel/Like she should be somebody else/I saw the way she tried to hold you/When your heart was just a shell/I saw the words she wrote that broke my heart /It was a living hell/I saw the way you laughed behind her back/When you f##### somebody else." Red raw truth for a time were we have no belief for anything else. Praise be. 

'How Does It Feel'? Like the bands best album to date, even next to their breathtaking breakthrough, 'Truth Is A Beautiful Thing' (see?!). This just feels like the act of an established group in their stunning stride. Riding like the Cali highways that take them to the top of the world. 'Baby It's You', just like the lamenting lyrics, "All these lights are changing, see them everywhere/In my veins like lightning, I don't even care/And the crowd is heavy, I don't wanna move/All these colours in me, but all I see is you/And nothing else matters". All for the soaring single that was this bands first in three years to introduce this long awaited and eagerly anticipated 'Truth' follow-up. It's a beautiful thing. Just like 'All My Love'. 'Call Your Friends', because these songs will take you higher. Even further than the substance of a Saturday night, or the sobering nature of Sunday morning. From the club to the church. This exists somewhere in-between. Like the mid-nite hour alone. When it's just you and your headphones streaming through your consciousness and all your minds mesmerizing thoughts. 'Talking' to yourself with Grammar and lasting lyrics like, "Oh-oh-oh, all of these changes/Keep on following me/Visions that wake me relentless", and all of the 'oh-oh-oh' Hannah harmonies. As uplifting as a Norah Jones 'Sunrise' in the same week this woman in music like the hallmark Haim from the valley releases her latest live album, ''Till We Meet Again'. Melodies like this just make music heal all the hurt and coming our of a coronavirus inflicted lockdown at home, this London ministry that still misses the speaker sound of nightclubs in concert reminisce on how much they want those epic evenings on 'I Need The Night'. All before these new Californian Kings and Queen by way of the big smoke give us an ode to 'America' that feels like a classic from one of the land of the frees very own greatest as a closer. Joni to Janis. Talking about "chasing America" forever like Razorlight. Singing,"And I hope that you find it, all that you need/I hope that you stay young and wild and free/You'll have America/And I hope that you're better than all of your friends/I hope that they hold you until the end/You can have America/Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm." Even without a green card you can add this one to the great American songbook. Um-hum. It's California Grammar now my London lights. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Missing', 'Lord It's A Feeling', 'America'. 

REVIEW: MAX RICHTER - VOICES 2

 

4/5

The Richter Scale.

Gathering all of amazing actor Elisabeth Moss' most powerful performances, which is the best of the best? Obviously most would point with two fingers in salute to the praise that be 'The Handmaids Tale'. The latest series in bloom on Hulu this season with its cowl creative flower arrangement. A raw red reveal that shows just how many Oscars will eventually follow all the epic Emmy's for Elisabeth. But how about 'Us'? Or even all she showed in 'The Invisible Man' as she flipped the script and turned the bandages on the classic Universal 'Dark Universe' story that was set to star Johnny Depp (could you even tell if it did in the end?)? Shining a light on the dark corners of domestic abuse and the bruised souls that hide behind more than heavy clothes and fragile excuses. Or perhaps it's even an episode of 'Mad Men' for the small screen queen who began her compelling career in the Oval Office of 'The West Wing' as the Presidents daughter. Well, like a TV dinner game show, uh-uh. All those answers are incorrect. The most affecting performance from this powerhouse came in a music video...yeah I said it. Back in the Canadian cold of a 2018 Winter. On the deserted streets of the 'Handmaid' shooting spot, filming location of Toronto, Ontario. Years before COVID-19 kept us all at a distance, Moss is sat in a diner alone, gathering her thoughts. She's just received a phone call, the nature to which we know not. All we do is that it was evidently very disturbing. Bad, bad news. The look on her face conveys it all (signs of a great actor in all their nuance). She walks out the deadbeat rest stop like her soul had left already and proceeds to walk these cold streets that now require you to bunch up your coat even tighter. The simmering point of breaking down is captured on every corner as the trained camera focuses on her face and when it all explodes, it's an eruption of a fire inside that no one can hide, but appears no one sees. Without a word...or lyric its a poetic meditation of grief. A masterful performance. All set to the score of Max Richter's 'On The Nature Of Daylight'. Possibly the most moving modern day ode to our broken hearts and seared souls. If it doesn't reduce you to spent tears, I'd question yours as this does more without words, than pages of dialogue. If you don't feel it, it's time to go back to Martin Scorsese's 2010 psychological horror classic 'Shutter Island' with Leonardo DiCaprio. Were off the soundtracks scale Richter mixed this with soul icon Dinah Washington's 'This Bitter Earth, for a pure pain to swallow in our lumped throats that really delved into the darkness of this amazing movie and DiCaprio's haunted classic character conflicts. This further rhyme to the reason that taking it to the max, this German/British composer is only movie matched by the great German Hans Zimmer.

Framing the perfect portrait of the planets pandemic last year, Max Richter stayed by our side as we stayed at home. Like a piano in the corner of our room, playing it again Sam in that same calender cycle. He gave us all 'Voices' and now following our most haunted year here's one sequel we do want to see even though cinema showcases are still shut for the soundtrack leading man. Atmospheric and almost at seven minutes of run-time, the 'Psychogeography' outstanding opener really takes you places. Ones you haven't seen since the cinematography of the iconic big-screen. Or the morning sun burnt off the rain of last night's storm. It feels like a brand new day, just like this sequel. One that segues into the reflection of 'Mirrors' and this moving auditory piece that feels at one with you after our troubled times in this morning after the mourning were we can finally bear with looking at ourselves again. In full bloom, giving us his maximum, Max transcends with the floating 'Follower' taking the lead for us with fellow instrumental voice Mari Silje Samuelsen and Robert Ziegler for this classical composing big-three showing us the way for this modern day when we all are in need of a little direction right now. After the solitary 'Solitaires' it only gets bigger for the holy trinity, out the confinements on this 'Movement Study' that really let's the world and their subtlety soaring and stunning soundscape breathe again. Samuelsen's profound sounding 'Prelude 2' to the vibrant, kaleidoscopoc spectrum of the 'Color Wheel' is truly something though. Just like Mari's moving 'Origins (Solo)', that shows that Richter's latest allows for more 'Voices' than just the ones you don't hear from him too.

Requiem from a dream, you won't want to wake up from the cello version of 'Little Requiems' and how these strings stir you from the senses no matter how lost and alone you might feel in this age of anxiety amidst the planets pandemic. Showing in all its string section beauty just how effervescent this evoking sound feels. Richter really would provide the perfect pitch for fellow renaissance modern artist Lo-Fang. The singer/songwriter who shaped up John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John's 'You're The One That I Want' from 'Grease' into a classic chello version and Chanel commercial. My mind is set on this collaboration. THIS is the one that I want. Get your teeth into Fang's 2020 lost in the woods 'Near Other Worlds' volumes of you don't believe me. Pushing the envelope all the way to a paper plane flying through the trees of a foggy forest forever. 'Don't Be Cruel', this man even took the King, Elvis Presley out of this world into other ones in outer space. Before all that happens though, how about a 'Mercy Duet'? Because in the aftermath of a calender when we all needed that word, Richter gives us everything we deserve with this classic closer from the classical contemporary composer. Simply put Richter's rich body of work is like an art gallery of music. It's time to take yours and really explore from the epic to the electric eclectic. He has a soundboard for all your moods. One that rings true even more than the scores he tracks for filmographys. The only library worth more is his discography and with this latest book he brings you some amazing audio were you can read more into every emotion without so much as a word spoken. Hear this. Sometimes you don't have to say it. You can just play it here. And that's what gives Max and us the loudest voices too. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Psychogeography', 'Mirrors', 'Mercy Duet'. 

REVIEW: NORAH JONES - 'TIL WE MEET AGAIN

4/5

Stay At Home With Me.

Pandemic shut behind the lid of her piano last year, singer/songwriter icon Norah Jones gave us more home concerts than we had Zoom meetings for her remote work in COVID-19's 2020. But that wasn't it. Imagine. The Grammy award winning classic jazz standard talent had already followed her new style 'Begin Again' playlist album with a Christmas card and 'Dear Santa' EP reunion with her Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper supergroup Puss N Boots in 2019. But to start a year we'll never forget (even though we don't want to remember), she was already on a tear before the virus hit and forced us to start a new hobby from the (dis)comfort of our own homes. Her big-three Boots act strapped theirs back on, following their EP under the tree with the 'No Fools, No Fun' country follow-up 'Sister'. And after this act before lockdown Jones was already putting the finishing touches on her latest smouldering solo set. So who else could have been better to 'Pick Me Up Off The Floor' than her? Now from the stage of the cutting room one it looks like Norah has more to tide us over before her next album, or live show...if we ever get to see one again. Despite deluxe adding some live takes and classics to the expanded edition of 'Pick Me Up', Miss Jones is back with a live album of stirring standards and inspired instrumental interludes set to keep you in your seats. Looking forward towards a time we can come together again like The Beatles for gigs in human touch concert that soaring like Springsteen will have us screaming more than showing up at Ed Sullivan for four bowl cuts. All under a spotlight and beacon of hope to heal amongst all this hurt and see a new day from behind these masks kept at arms length. All until we make it back where we belong...as one. All 'Til We Meet Again'. 

"Come away with me in the night", Norah Jones once sang in the diamond days. If only. Could it all be so simple again? The New Yorker coming off a year of strange transmissions and something that wasn't "such a beautiful disease" brings back some of her best broadcasts on the live concert circuit. Giving this cold world Hank Williams' 'Cold, Cold Heart' to start from Luther Burbank, Santa Rosa, California, circa 2018. Straight off her ten million seller for this Blue Note jazz first live album despite all the bonus tracks and the unofficial 'Live From Austin, Texas' for you bootleggers. It is 'It Was You' though that really captures us compellingly and the new start of 2019's 'Begin Again' we all wish we could see once more like a rebirth. From Dana Point to Perpignan, France for this au revoir to how things were. Yet it's 'Those Sweet Words' we want to hear that could bring us back like those three little ones in a world too addicted to likes to have the heart for something real. Giving Rio, Brazil a carnival of subtle beauty. Just like the French romantic gentle yearning of 'I've Got To See You Again' that is just pure Norah Jones 'je ne sais quoi'. In Milan, Italy 'After The Fall' we get a glimpse back of Norah Jones back at her enveloping pushing best when right now all we can do is sign, seal and deliver an e-mail. It's as potently powerful and poignant as the Motown legend Mavis Staples duet, 'I'll Be Gone'. Norah nuances in harmony with the stirring soul, "there's a place far from here/Gonna make it my home/It's where I long." Beautiful, but crucial words in a time where this crucified world needs that balm. 

Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong for The Everly Brothers. The Peter Malick group. The Little Willies, Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi. Featuring Miss Jones, Norah has collected with everybody from Ray Charles to Talib Kweli. But it's here all alone with a piano and a microphone were she truly shines like a star as the spotlight stage is replaced with a lamplight and desk. This is more than a live greatest hits package for label profit. Its the symbol of an artist alive with a collection of classics. In these times we need so much more than music, but we are all still so aware of its power to heal the hurt and Jones does this more than 'Just A Little Bit', giving us bed bound souls somewhere soft to land after all this 'Falling'. For every 'Tragedy', there is a 'Sunrise' and those unmistakable "ooh's". On the 'Flipside' the original Norah is back like what we hope the world will once be again as 'Day Breaks'. You can hear it on the first song we ever heard coming away with her, 'Don't Know Why'. We may have a myriad of questions right now, but Norah Jones remains undeniable without a single query to her legendary name. Staring down the 'Black Hole Sun' of Audioslave, auditory meditative cover of the late, great Chris Cornell at the Fox Theatre, Detroit, Michigan for this catalogues curtain. If you can't feel the love tonight like another piano maestro, I'd check your beats. This one could more than meet you halfway until the end of time...or I'm sure the next album she'll have out this year for the record. This is an ode to you from one of our generations greatest, hands down on the ivory. Play it again. And to the one who got away like last year at home where the heart is and the place we should always stay, I'd love you to 'Come Away With Me'. But that's a different way. A different time. Be safe and take good care. Until we meet again my love. TIM DAVID HARVEY.

Playlist Picks: 'Cold, Cold Heart', 'Begin Again', 'Black Hole Sun'. 

PODCAST REVIEW: BARACK OBAMA & BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN - RENEGADES : BORN IN THE USA

 

4/5

Talk In The USA.

Born to run. For President. Or driving all night in your car. All the way to an iconic album tuned into the stereo heartland of a runaway American dream. All the way to the promised land. The one President Barack Obama (who recently released his third autobiography after 'Dreams From My Father' and 'The Audacity Of Hope' in 'The Promised Land') brought us with the change he made. The one Bruce Springsteen (who has just followed his 'Springsteen On Broadway' run and 'Western Stars' movie with his latest 'Letter To You' album) always sang about, strapping on his boots for the blue jeans of America's working man, woven into the pressed consciousness like denim. Now the former Commander and Chief and the Boss meet in the land of hope and dreams...that looks somewhat like Springsteen's ranch as the former leader of the free world is affectionately called "brother B"...if there is anyone who could get away with that and still make it sound so respectful...it's Bruce. But post-Trump, in former vice, Biden's America, working and podcasting on a dream, for 'Rengades: Born In The USA', Obama and Springsteen could be anywhere. Your office for a break at lunch. Your car as you drive all night. Live in your living room with today's paper as the love of your life on your lap rests her head after you both put the kids to bed. Together these two are with you like they have been through America's opportunities and it's oppression. Its hope and its hurt. Its dreams and its nightmares. Its past and its present. Every step of the way for this train that carries both losers and winners. When Springsteen who came back after 'The Rising', post 9/11 when a fan from a passing car in New York shouted, "WE NEED YOU", returned with that 'Working On A Dream', 'Magic', fellow Jersey boy Jon Stewart was doing the same thing with 'The Daily Show' (like the terrific Trevor Noah does today), knowing something special was coming from a young man running with 'The Audacity Of Hope' because Rosa Parks sat. Back then in a real time to be alive I compared the Springsteen/Stewart New Jersey singer and journalist storyteller combo as a modern day Muhammed Ali (who here Springsteen actually lists at the top of his American heroes) and Howard Cossell, but now with these renegades you have something else. Like Kennedy joined the party. Or Martin Luther King Jr. and Bob Dylan got together. Or better yet Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen themselves actually. Because these two 'Renegades' are their own men and legend. One that 'Born In The USA' will live and be told on in the great American songbook and world history.

Putting all the world to rights in Springsteen's home studio. Surrounded by more guitars craning their necks like giraffes than a forest of Gibson's. Bruce and Barack get to work and talk it out. First they talk about how they first became fast friends, the Boss joining the then presidential candidate on his campaign trail, rocking the vote. But it's not longer before they get into deeper issues like race in America, or what it means to be a man in this so called land of the free. How sweet the sound when Obama recalls and replays the time he sang 'Amazing Grace' so beautifully after another tragic shooting. Because, quite simply, there was just nothing else he could say or do for perhaps his most famous speech. They even talk about their favourite music growin' up and serendae each other sweetly like the time me and Mrs. Jones had a thing, "gooooing on." it's the perfect soundtrack to tune into like the two of them talking as they ditch the Presidents Secret Service detail and hit the open road like a Springsteen song. In all the romanticism from a man who couldn't drive until he was 25 (it's OK Boss, I'm 35...and still can't). All before the loss of innocence that comes when you run out of gas in your youth and the road is still long in this life. This is when 'Every Man For Himself' they talk about class divides and how hard it is when this country, industry and society puts more on wealth than someone's worth. All in as they mock those 80's Michael Douglas, Gekko 'Wall Street' phones bring a time the bandana of Springsteen was 'Born In The USA' and Obama was trying to make a dollar. There's no sense in consumerism over the compelling vision of a person's foresight, but it's hard to forewarn when we're so used to this life that runs on likes instead of love like it was currency for these current affairs. On this open, long and winding highway without a road map, it's especially hard when you don't know where you're going, or when you have no one to guide you. When these two brother B's talk about their relationship (or lack of one) with their respective fathers that's when these American men and 'Wrestling With Ghosts' and if you can relate when it comes to your relatives, this might just haunt you into the night your listening to it in. The lack of the human touch of a man in the house didn't stop these two from being leaders however. From the boss of all bosses to the President of Presidents, from the spotlight stage to the Oval Office.

And then how about how they're actually fathers themselves as Bruce tunes his guitar and Barack sits back with his arms folded. Or wrapped around his guitar like you would think it was the thing he loved most in this world. But think again. On one of the most heartfelt and beautiful episodes of this first season of spoken word, the two men reveal they would be nothing...nothing without their women or their girls. Michelle and Patti grounded these great gentlemen and showed these Kings of their respective arenas who really wore the crown in the throne of their home. Barack calls both their families, "the most important anchor" and after several miscarriages, when Michelle gave birth to their first child, Malia, Obama truly found and realized what "the baseline of unconditional love" was, is and will always be. The Boss himself said that after Patti experienced bleeding during pregnancy he would have moved a lion in the waiting room, or anything they asked him too for his heaven and earth. And that is love. From two men who have it in abundance. From song and speech, the crowds that show at their rallies in concert, to the ones they have in their huge hearts. But when you look in the eyes of something that means more than you. That's when you know just what it takes to be a real man. And these two are tougher than the rest giving the world hope, when other born into this USA just claim they want to make it great again. These two could retire into the wind with all they have built at home, but its clear its sending them on a path to the open road to a better America they've been working on like a dream for years. They got to that promised land once before, but if we didn't know then, we surely do now, that once you get there you have to keep going...or you just may lose it all in the end. But just like these States looking to be United once again, we can always get it back. And what podcast called 'Born In The USA' would be a real state of discourse without Springsteen talking about his seminal hit of the same name that's been taken the wrong way. Yes it's patriotic, but what patriot doesn't question its country when it's not waving the flag for everybody? Springsteen talks about writing the song after meeting wheelchair bound Vietnam vet Ron Kovic inadvertently at a roadside motel just after picking up his book 'Born On The Fourth Of July' (that turned into Tom Cruise's most powerful performance) at a drugstore and reading it along the road. And the pair talk about how much it means more now and how different too in this appropriating age were they even debate Elvis, The Beatles and Chuck Berry. That's right before bringing it all together they get to the "center of America"...Lincoln. All he wrote, all he addressed, all he freed and all he gave now. In these two men. Like these two men. The real American way. One thing that these renegades give you in these times 'a changing like Bob Dylan (who Barack says is "a little bit like Picasso" as they wrap up this series with their musical, sporting, political and spiritual American heroes) and Sam Cooke told us about is hope. And that's not something that's born in just the U.S.A., but all our hearts too. TIM DAVID HARVEY.