Plum (And Me, Will!), Sherman Cymru Theatre

(Morning Star, 19 December 2009)

A musical quartet bedecked in stripes and every colour of the rainbow greets the audience of Plum (And me, Will!) - the perfect first step in a show which both enchants and entertains. Louise Osborn, responsible for last year's successful Cinders, has once again created a magical world for young imaginations. The protagonist, Katy Owen's Will, is a boy with a 'tiger temper' - causing him to break his mother Hannah McPake's prized traditional Christmas decorations. With only a night to get the elf, soldier and fairy Plum mended before his father gets back from 'across the sea', Will goes on the adventure of a lifetime, battling pirates and tigers to right his wrongs.

Delightful and exuberant, the children watching were spellbound by the original story and audience interaction, and the themes of family and responsibility for one's actions are well integrated into the tale. A touch of modernity does cloud the timeless production, however, when the reason for Will's father's absence becomes clear.

Plum (And Me, Will!) runs until 2 January 2010. Visit www.shermancymru.co.uk for more information.

Emmy The Great - First Love

(Morning Star, Albums of 2009 round up)

Rammed with the sort of DIY production that makes indie fans swoon; Emma Lee Moss’ debut longform record is one of 2009's classics. Pop culture offers many lyrical touchstones, but there's a timelessness to Emmy's greatness, from namechecking Leonard Cohen to 'aah aah aahs' aping 60s girl groups, all shot through with delicious melancholy. The lovely 'MIA' is the high point of both heartfelt wonder and quirk overload, but really, all of Emmy The Great's songs are bewitching stories - we are merely blessed with the ability to listen to her in wonder.

Allo, Darlin’ - The Polaroid Song

(Muso's Guide, December 3, 2009)

Single review

There’s a special place in every girl’s heart for twee pop. The Cardigans doing ‘Carnival’, Belle and Sebastian doing, well, any of their songs - it’s enough to make any red-blooded chick wear Hello Kitty slides in their fringe, get a uke and wear their boyfriend’s ratty brown cardigan.

Incidentally, making this sort of music have ‘Allo Darlin’ veer the same way - kooky, uke-y, and, on ‘The Polaroid Song’, very Lenka.

Elizabeth and Bill are from Australia, Mike and Paul are from Kent, but they’ve come together here in the UK to make the sort of fey indie pop that we should all demand more of. ‘The Polaroid Song’ is an upbeat, uptempo pop classic with its feet firmly in the past, telling tales of camera film of old.

The backing vocals add a richness to Elizabeth’s sweet vocal, and the whole thing is the aural equivalent of a hot chocolate packed with marshmallows - sweet, comforting and repeated consumption is never enough.

What would have been, in days of yore, the ‘B-side’ is the seasonally appropriate ‘Would You Please Spend New Year’s Eve With Me?’.

Steeped in some of that lovely ukelele tunefulness, Elizabeth’s breathy voice is both sweet and sultry, as she suggests we “hide in my bedroom and watch cartoons all night”. There’s a special place in every girl’s heart for that, too.

Jesca Hoop - Hunting My Dress

(AU magazine, December 2009)
Album review

It would take a brave man to suggest that Californian kook Jesca Hoop is anything other than the next big thing. Having received notable endorsements from Tom Waits - who she used to nanny for - and Guy Garvey, she is on her way to success, whether you like it or not. And you might like it - gentle and feminine, she hits the high notes with aplomb and regularity, before plunging to the long, low ones with surprising skill. So, vocal range, interesting celebrity friends and a lot of moxie - a pretty good package if you throw in insistent radio-friendly hits like 'Whispering Light' and soulful reveries like 'Murder of Birds'. Off the wall and on her way.

Warpaint - Exquisite Corpse

(AU, December 2009)
Album review

Despite inexplicably naming their debut - and themselves - for some sort of death metal alter egos, LA female trio Warpaint have started on an excellent footing - an album mixed by RHCP guru John Frusciante and opening for The Slits. This dreamy, hazy excursion smells like teen spirit with My Bloody Valentine's album tucked under its arm. The driving drumbeats push the songs on relentlessly, but instead of sounding harsh and rocky, there's a hypnotic beauty to the music here, a real creation of soundscapes. With song lengths ranging between four and seven minutes, it's clear these chicks love to play, but it's haunting ephemera at its very best. Opener 'Stars' kicks into something rather special, while mournful 'Billie Holiday' (sic) is an acoustic meander through an elusive wonderland of pain and pulchritude. If you met Exquisite Corpse at a party, it would smell of dead roses and chain smoke, and you would be mesmerised.

Mr Hudson- Straight No Chaser

(AU magazine, November 2009)

One of the great pop humourists, Mr Ben Hudson is back - sans Library - to offer more amusing takes on musical styles. He has enlisted label boss Kanye West to perfect his satirical swipe on humourless hiphop and makes sport of the tired old clichés that blight the charts. From the Hoff-style Europop of 'White Lies' to the 80s synth pap of 'Knew We Were Trouble' to the vocoder-drenched title track, Mr H is an accomplished mimic - even doing an uncanny monotone Akon on 'There Will Be Tears'. It's an hilarious excursion, and one for which he should be lauded. Unless it's not actually a joke...?

Steven Wilson - Nsrgnts Rmxs

(AU magazine, November 2009)

From the frontman of Porcupine Tree comes an album which bears the hallmarks of a vanity release. The mini-album is made up of six songs which are remixes of tracks released earlier this year on the album Insurgentes. Equal parts Massive Attack and Thom Yorke (solo), there is a haunting darkness that slices through the Wilson remixes which makes it worth at least a listen, but it's not one to get under the skin of the casual observer. One of the remixes, 'Abandoner (Danse Macabre mix)' was selected through a competition on Wilson's website. So at least that guy will be buying this record.

Sunny Day Real Estate - Diary

(AU magazine, November 2009)

If you have a wonky fringe and tell everyone black is your favourite colour, Sunny Day Real Estate are your patron saints. 'Emo' before everyone knew that's what it's called, this reissue of their critically-acclaimed debut coincides with yet another rematch in their 'will they/won't they' recording history. It's easy to hear Diary and see how various members fitted in so well with the likes of the Foo Fighters. It's American college rock as was, all 'quiet bit/loud bit' and some really rather touching harmonies, especially on 'In Circles' and the mellower 'Shadows'. From the Slint school of 'way back cool', buy it and use the tracks on mix tapes to woo similarly emo members of your preferred gender.

Sunny Day Real Estate - LP2

(AU magazine, November 2009)

The Seattle sound of yoof is given a slight maturity check on this, Sunny Day Real Estate's second record. Originally released in 1995, at the time two of the band's members were already playing with the Foo Fighters, and the collaborative efforts show in the tunefulness on unavoidably rocky tracks like 'Theo B'. The tune seems straight outta the Grohl stable, as well as being drenched with the tried - tired? - and tested volume changes favoured by the Pixies. The album was originally given to Sub Pop without a title or artwork, which gives something to its mythology, and the band's impending break-up seems impressed in every note, from the plaintive '5/4' to the inspiring 'Waffle'. Not as complete as debut Diary, it nonetheless boasts a fragility which is even more alluring.

Robbie Williams - Reality Killed The Video Star

(Muso's Guide, 22 November 2009)

Album review

Post-Take That, Robbie Williams was a renaissance in motion. Drinking, smoking and actually living after so many years in boyband servitude, his spirit was released and his nascent music career sputtered to life.

Sputtered initally, until the might of ‘Angels’ swept through karaoke bars from Fochabers to Fowey and back.

With the guiding hand of Guy Chambers on the tiller, the good ship RW made a beeline for legendary status, and he got halfway there. But time - and ego, having landed - lay heavy on the writing partnership.

After a few years in the wilderness of LA, Rob is back from following Martians, rehabbing, balancing his chi, or whatever else the gossip rags are saying. He wasn’t putting any thought or effort into the big ‘comeback’, if a listen to Video Killed The Reality Star is anything to go by.

The album kicks off with ‘Morning Sun’, which is itself preceded by the mouth organ part from ‘Thunder Road’. That human touch is forgotten as the track swells into an adenoidal torch song with Elton John at its core, all bombast and insincerity. The incongruity of an ‘I Am The Walrus’- style chant amongst the cloying strings only serves to underline RW’s egomania - there ain’t nothing that he can’t carry off, this legend in his own mind.

Single ‘Bodies’ doesn’t get better with repeated listens, coming from ‘Wild Wild West’ and merging into a Backstreet Boys B-side. The issue of Williams’ lyricism comes to light starkly here. He seems to be bent on making clever-clever puns and pop cultural references, but it is at the cost of any comprehensible meaning- “God gave me the sunshine/Then showed me my lifeline/I was told it was all mine/Then I got laid on a ley line/What a day, what a day”. For a lead single, it’s not much of a leader, but it’s sort of the best we got.

From there it’s onto the Showaddywaddy swagger of ‘You Know Me’ - sappy as Sarah Brown and twice as outdated, ‘Do You Mind’ - like the J. Geils Band without a sense of humour complete with the exhaustively self-aware line “This is a song full of metaphors” and so on.

The low point would have to be ‘Blasphemy’, a track that insists on giving RW a low piano/rich voice singing part that he simply doesn’t have the range or resonance in his voice to carry.

The title of the record was hailed by tabloids et al for its chutzpah, but really it means nothing - just another lame attempt by this pop music has-been to regain some of that old renaissance magic.