The Schmoozenbergs – Mouse
Well, don’t ever tell me you don’t get a bit of everything in this monthly roots review. Based in Bristol, UK, The Schmoozenbergs started life as the living room guitar twiddling of old friends Sam Stennett and Tom Brydon-Smith. Double bassist Ron Phelan joined in 2015, and violinist Gina Griffin joined in 2017. In 2017 they recorded their first album of classic jazz tunes (their great musical influencers, the likes of Django Reinhardt, Stéphane Grappelli, Duke Ellington and Fats Waller). In 2019 with Arts Council England support they recorded their second album, a collection of original music entitled ‘Awaken’.
And now to album 3. This album is full on, in your face, not to be forgotten, full of life and personality – or to be accurate – personalities of the band members. Take the mood of 30s Paris, flavours of eastern music, high energy folk traditions from Gypsy jazz to Klezmer, Celtic, Balkan and beyond. Occasional moments of serenity allow you to take breath between the infectious joie de vivre, the energy and eclectic mix sweeping you along breathlessly. High octane playfulness indeed with rhythmic intensity and joyful improvisation. Swept away.
Ma Polaine’s Great Decline – Molecules
Clinton Hough joined Beth Packer’s soul and blues band “Beth and the Black Cat Bones” in August 2010, and it was February 2011 when a failed attempt at re-working the blues classic “My Babe” stumbled into the first Ma Polaine song, “Pigfoot Blues”. This new song wouldn’t fit into the Black Cat Bones set, so it became a new project, song after song written and leading to the November 2011 release of the “Ma Polaine’s Great Decline” EP, and to date the pair have three albums and five EP releases to their name.
With influences in blues, jazz and country Ma Polaine have drawn comparisons with references to Billie Holiday, Tom Waits and a “moody Mary Margaret O’Hara”, but like others, I reckon Ma Polaine’s sound is very much their own. Beth’s distinctive, emotive vocals coupled with her evocative lyrics create a compelling mix of abstract tales, dark humour and raw beauty, whilst Clinton’s understated guitar style provides rich chords and gritty riffs. Supported by Nick Pini on bass, Jimmy Norden on drums, the album flowed over three days releasing feelings about the necessity of connection, the fragility of companionship, and an acknowledgement of so much and so many of our passions and emotions. Raw beauty.
Giulia Millanta – Only Luna Knows
Is this the first bilingual album to be reviewed? Non lo so! Giulia Millanta is a singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas via Florence, Italy. Giulia began her life in music as a child of eight years when taught to play guitar by her father she began to perform traditional folk songs. Performing at the Acoustic Guitar Meeting in Sarzana in the spring of 2010 her accomplished guitar style and songs earned her the “New Sounds Of Acoustic Music” award. After two albums she expanded her horizons in a move to Austin Texas and six more albums have followed along with a novel “Fratture” and an upcoming Italian cookbook “Dinner with Giulia – Flavors, Songs and Stories of a Florentine Troubadour”.
Recorded at Crinale Lab studio in the hills of Tuscany with producer Don Antonio, this is a dark, sensual and mysterious confession, made all the more beguiling through the language. There is a sensitive allure, an intertwining of folk essence and alt-rock. Her expertise on guitar and ukulele is evident. Her voice has the depth and allure of Natalie Merchant or Norah Jones, but as always she has her own distinctive voice. The bilingual narrative enriches the concept with passion and a shady mystique, leaving you with an expressive sense of the complex beauty of two woven cultures. Eccezionale, as some might say, exceptionally.
www.facebook.com/julia.millanta
www.instagram.com/giuliamillanta
Heather Little – By Now
This is Texan singer-songwriter’s first release since 2013. It features contributions from an all-star cast of musicians and vocalists, including Patty Griffin, Audley Freed, Duke Levine, John Deaderick, Jared Tyler, Crystal Bowersox, Ronnie Bowman and Van Plating. “I just want to make good music. Whether it’s rock or country or blues or earthy acoustic, good music moves people. That’s what it’s about for me. I write songs about my life and real life things; even the hard stuff. We live real lives. I write real songs about that.
It’s not a light album, in the sense that the stories are compelling: ‘Hands Like Mine’ is an unflinching look at the difficulties of marriage. The gut wrenching ‘Razor Wire’ takes on the topic of abandonment. Abuse, in two different relationships, deals with an all-too common situation. ‘My Father’s Roof’ chillingly evokes growing up in a house infected with evil, and ‘Gunpowder & Lead’ closes the album with the story of a wife taking matters into her own hands when the system fails to help her. Good music.
http://www.heatherlittlemusic.com/
Phoebe Rees – Bring In the Light: Si Kahn’s Songs of Courage and Resistance
This is the multi-instrumentalist and folk singer’s debut, the result, possibly, of a childhood where her Mum worked in a music shop, bringing home clarinet, recorder, ocarina, concertina, and accordion, who grew up listening to recordings of Schubert, Bob Dylan, traditional Bolivian dance music, and living and playing in the Scottish Highlands, studying classical viola in Edinburgh and London. She herself worked in community projects in San Paulo and Mumbai. All factors combine to draw in inspiration from Celtic, English, and American folk traditions.
And she’s a passionate commitment to social justice. Long-time organizer and musician Si Kahn asked Phoebe Rees to release her first full-length album, in celebration of his 80th birthday this April, and to carry his music forward long after he’s gone. She’s exactly the kind of person Si most likes to partner with: Deeply decent, with a strong sense of responsibility, and a lovely soft sense of humour, a pleasure to work with in every way. Phoebe’s performing style is energetic, engaging, quietly charismatic. Unlike so many singers who use only one instrument on stage, Phoebe creates excitement and diversity by accompanying herself brilliantly on violin/fiddle, piano, and viola, by singing a capella, and by creating original arrangements of traditional songs and ballads. What more can you want?
www.facebook.com/PhoebeReesMusic
Holly Lerski – Sweet Decline
Life, especially the more emotionally raw side, can be a source of inspiration. Personal circumstances led to a road trip across America’s West Coast in 2019, and that, a miniature guitar and inspirational muse has led to this observational release, produced by multi-instrumentalist Matt “Truck” Roley. She immerses herself in startling scenery, literary history and people, her songwriting process gathers momentum in a confessional and story telling style.
This album offers both a fierce reckoning with inevitable self-doubt, but also an route of healing from the growing repercussions of disconnection. The duo create a landscape of tonal colour, subtle strings, rhythmical variety and sharp textures to generate openness and space. Her pleasant vocal range is evocative and emotive. Her songs explore rich sonic detail, providing dynamics and providing meaningful lyrics as part of a musical journey that you become part of. Embrace it. Live it with her. Immerse yourself.
Small Town Jones – Kintsugi
Small Town Jones is effectively singer-songwriter Jim Jones in collaboration with long-time friend, drummer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Michael Reed. Alongside them is guitarist Dave Little and bass guitarist Nathan Layland, with additional instrumentation from David Smale on double bass, Rebecca Balzani Barrow on violin and the Holly Carter on pedal steel.
Beautiful things break. You can look at the cracks and repairs when it’s put back together as flaws, or you can see them as part of the story; scars telling their own tale. It’s the philosophy of the Japanese art of kintsugi (“golden joinery”). Kintsugi the art form invites us to embrace imperfection, admire the artistry in repair. The album celebrates reunion, examines our emotional scars, finds joy in our flaws. And, above all, it hopes that the re-joined can be as beautiful and whole as what was broken. Intimacy about important moments, soulful and unpretentious, there is a power and a beauty to be admired. That is for you to decide in the artform, but I’ve decided in the case of this album, it is admirable.
www.smalltownjones.net
www.facebook.com/smalltownjones
www.twitter.com/@smalltownjones
www.instagram.com/smalltownjones
OTHER RELEASES
Twm Morys and Gwyneth Glyn – Tocyn unffordd i lawenydd (One-way ticket to happiness)
This is the first offering of the singer-poet Twm Morys (front-man of the folk-rock group Bob Delyn a’r Ebillion) alongside the poet-songstress Gwyneth Glyn. This album is a journey. It takes us from Llangywer to 42nd Street New York, past Ffynnon Gybi, the trenches of Flanders and the harbour of Rio. The borders between yesterday and today, and between the traditional and the original, disappear. The album is a collection of multi-layered arrangements of folk songs and original material. Though it’s hard sometimes to tell which is which!
Spirit of Progressive Rock 