Alice Di Micele – Interpretations 1
Singer/songwriter/guitarist Alice Di Micele (pronounced Dee-Miss-Ellie) has released 16 albums of almost all original music since 1988. She has spent the last 35 years touring, singing, writing, playing, and learning. During lockdown she started learning songs that she had always loved but had never had time to work on and arrange. So this seventeenth album pays homage to writers and songs that have long inspired her. The collection includes songs by Neil Young, Kate Wolf, Reverend Gary Davis, Christine McVie, Tom Petty, Abbey Lincoln, the Grateful Dead and Sting.
I normally wouldn’t think of putting a covers album as my most impressive album of the month. But, frankly, her voice and performance is captivating and mesmerising. Alice is self-effacing: “There is a reason that singer comes before songwriter and singing these songs reminds me that although I strive for originality, my music has been influenced by a long legacy of incredible writers and singers. I am but a small link in a long chain of music.”
But what I hear is awesome. She is Americana folk with a little jazz and blues to produce a sound that not only entertains but inspires. Sublime and breathtaking vocals. And a five octave range to boot! Her expressive voice can go down to a low register but just as easily hit those higher notes without any loss of quality whatsoever. She’s like early Joni Mitchell, she has an essence of Rickie Lee Jones, she’s a little bit Bonnie Raitt. She’s unique though. You can’t fail to groove, to empathise, to become embroiled or involved. Embracing.
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Session Americana – The Rattle and the Clatter
Late one Sunday night in October 2003, Session Americana had its first jam around a table in the back of Toad in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It’s been a natural, almost inevitable evolution from a loose bunch of friends sitting around swapping songs in a bar, to a weekly residency, then to a touring collective. Along the way, the band has made nine records (so far), played far and wide, and gathered many friends and collaborators. Featuring contributions from Anaïs Mitchell, Kris Delmhorst, Laura Cortese, Jefferson Hamer and Dietrich Strause, the current line-up is Billy Beard, Jon Bistline, Ry Cavanaugh, Dinty Child and Jim Fitting with a return to the fold of guest Eleanor Buckland.
These songs transcend era and genre, mixing the contemporary with musical history. I’ve said it before but you’ll hear evocations of James Taylor, REM, the Band, Kenny Rogers, Rickie Lee Jones, Stevie Nicks, Dolly Parton and much, much more. You get Old World charm and New World grit, performed by a collective of talented musicians giving the music the respect it deserves and putting their own unique twists to it. Respect.
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Vanessa Peters – Flying on Instruments
Originally Dallas, Texas, she’s a now Italy-based folk-rock/Americana singer-songwriter, releasing album after album of well-crafted folk/rock gems for nearly two decades! Co-produced by Grammy-winning producer Joe Reyes, the album takes its name from ‘How Long’, which deals with the unpredictability of everyday life. Vanessa explained, “in the context of the song, ‘flying on instruments,’ refers to having to keep going forward even though you can’t see ahead, which is a common theme on this album. We loved the dual meaning of the phrase so much that we decided to make it the title of the album.”
While her previous release, Modern Age, was raucous and rowdy, Peters’ new album, Flying on Instruments is a heart-rending return to her favoured format. This collection of songs is introspective and hopeful. For years Vanessa Peters has showcased her songwriting ability, releasing albums that have run the gamut from indie-pop to alt-country to experimental folk to 70s-era throwback singer-songwriter rock. With Flying on Instruments, Vanessa and her band have once again crafted a beautiful album that is powerful yet sensitive, brimming with hope and empathy. Precious.
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Pawn Shop Saints – 45 American Lies
This is a mammoth new 45 track triple digital-only album. An epic, almost spontaneous undertaking, recorded earlier this year, 45 American Lies was recorded fast, without much fuss or fixes, just after completing their recently released album, Weeds. Jeb Barry explains, “Some days we’d spend a couple hours…other times only an hour…sometimes we went a few days without any studio work… No autotune (obviously) and any mistakes were usually left in place. So, you get to see the scars and all. The songs…well, some are a couple of decades old, while many were written in the past two years or during recording. Most deal with the hard side of life, but we did throw in a couple of brighter relationship songs…but just a couple….”!
Jeb Barry has been the driving force and songwriter behind Pawn Shop Saints since the band’s inception in 2012. He is a prolific songwriter, grounded in Americana, with songs traversing many genres, and has been compared to the likes of Steve Earle, Jason Isbell and Townes Van Zandt. It’s rough at times, warts and all, richly raw and lo-fi. What you get are sparse, weary songs from the darker side of life, exemplifying Americana at its simplest and finest. World-weary. Honest.
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Matthew Robb – History Before it Happens
UK born Robb’s style of songwriting developed from the playing of old-time country blues and his love of poetry and the spoken word. With his distinctive take on the Americana genre coupled with intelligent and thought provoking lyrics he regularly tours and performs internationally, and residing in Cologne. Singer/ songwriter Matthew Robb‘s fourth album of original material is recorded live at the Musikkollektiv studio in Cologne by Ekki Maas, with Tobias Hoffmann on electric guitar, Frank Schönhofer on bass, Marcus Rieck on drums, Wolfgang Proppe on keys with Matthew supplying vocals and acoustic guitar.
The songs try to make sense of a rapidly changing world, politically, socially and morally. Protest is Matt’s native tongue but there’s also sweeter moments where “the light rises at the heart of the world“ and “rivers run like the veins of the earth“. It captures the Zeitgeist of this rapidly changing and uncertain world. Elements of blues, folk-rock, and country all honed to their own distinctive sound. Nine adventures on the frontiers of thought in a kind of song-poetry. As so often, in the bleak, there remains chance and hope, a hope that the human spirit will light the path forward as in the lyric “Sacred heart shine your light this way, as the sun that breaks at the start of every day“. Almost religious. Thought-provoking.
Brooks Williams – Diamond Days
Statesboro Georgia born but now UK Cambridge resident, Brooks Williams has released his first solo recording in four years. Recorded at Red Kite Studio in Wales with both Martin Levan (Andrew Lloyd Webber and John Martyn) and Mark Freegard (The Breeders and Del Amitri), Williams chose to record this one without a net. Simply one singer and one guitar.
Diamond Days is a love-song to his guitar, and to the songs and stories that fuel the rich tapestry of the three-decade long singing life. The songs are rich narratives including Palomino Gold (a story passed down the generations), Gone And Done It Now (a post-Civil War vignette), London Road (an ear-worm of a chorus) and Bob Dylan’s Nettie Moore (here with a bottleneck slide). The guitar style is effortless, the performance authentic, and the creative spark admirable. Idiomatic.
https://brookswilliams.com/home
Niall McCabe – Rituals
Irish folk singer-songwriter Niall McCabe earned a reputation as one of Ireland’s finest singers and songwriters, performing extensively with his folk-soul group, The Niall McCabe Band, over the past decade and more recently Beoga, Irish trad-fusion. Born on Clare Island, Co. Mayo, McCabe grew up in the family run pub awash with strong musical influences from traditional Irish and folk to rock and soul. Hence his musical appetite and distinctive style and voice.
Niall McCabe is an accomplished finger-style guitar player and has produced a captivating body of work. With self-effacing humour and stories told of growing up on a remote Irish island, he possesses an effortless charm and like the wild Atlantic landscape of his Clare Island home his songs feel timeless and natural, belying the dense shaping of a dynamic creative force. Deft, intricate guitar work brings a lightness to the weight of island isolation with the sound, soul and stories of McCabe’s life and experiences breathing a deep cultured sense of discernment through his vocals. Charming.
Spirit of Progressive Rock 