COUNTRY POP
Keith Urban
Pop and country - Keith Urban's new album is a sleek combination.
RIPCORD
(EMI)
★★★
On his ninth solo album, Australia's expatriate Nashville star Keith Urban threads a tight needle, updating the slick contemporary American country sound he long ago mastered with the warm washes and bright punctuation of pop music. It is, at first suggestion, an almost ludicrous concept, but it's testament to Urban's craftsmanship that the record is dexterous and pleasing. Some touches are coolly bland, such as rapper Pitbull's generic guest verse on Sun Don't Let Me Down, but the same song has invigorating elements – vamping guitar parts courtesy of Nile Rodgers, and whimsical keyboard stabs. From the panoramic opener Gone Tomorrow (Here Today), where fiddle intertwines with funk bass, assertive rhythms push the songs forward. Country convention demands a song about making out in a pick-up (Getting' In The Way), but the ticked boxes are outnumbered by the surprises, such as the soulful, swinging The Fighter, a terrific duet with Carrie Underwood. Urban doesn't take as many chances lyrically, but the studio idiosyncrasies definitely add some charm.
Craig Mathieson
GUITAR SOUNDSCAPES
Ben Monder
AMORPHAE
(ECM)
★★★★★
Master-drummer Paul Motian's death stopped this album in its tracks. Guitarist Ben Monder had planned it to be duets between the two of them, and a session in late 2010 generated two astounding tracks. Motian died before they could return to the project, but thankfully Monder did not abandon it, instead creating some solo guitar pieces of astonishing beauty, two duets with another lion of jazz drumming in Andrew Cyrille, and some trios with Cyrille and synthesiser player Pete Rende. Monder and Motian were made for each other with their love of establishing atmosphere with the tiniest musical gestures, much as a great painter might do with minimal brush strokes. On Oh, What a Beautiful Morning (from Oklahoma!), they eliminate the song's blitheness in favour of a startling evocation of the drama of dawn, with streaming effects from the guitar and primal drumming. Fans of Motian's late-period abstraction must hear this. Cyrille also opts for texture-oriented minimalism, and is superb in cross-hatching the shadows of Monder's extraordinary and often forlorn imaginative flights.
John Shand
FOLK ROCK
Trembling Bells
WIDE MAJESTIC AIRE
(Tin Angel)
★★★★
Lavinia Blackwell's voice is some kind of natural wonder that can storm battlements with the force of a hundred trebuchets, the force of it knocking down resistance, smashing stone as easily as splintering wood. When held back it can make as big an impression, as in the powerfully romantic title track of this EP, which complements and extends last year's wonderful folk-rock-meets-psych gem, The Sovereign Self. Blackwell can also take a listener wending through forests and along brooks, as in the traditional carriage of Swallows Of Carbeth that opens up to a dancing violin at the end. In the wheezy medieval air of Show Me A Hole (And I'll Crawl In It), Blackwell reminds that she can be regal and quietly intimidating. That's before the distorted guitar, swirling organ and rolling drums intrude and complete the picture of this most English, but decidedly not ye olde English, group.
Bernard Zuel
AUSTERE AMBIENT
Mette Henriette
METTE HENRIETTE
(ECM)
★★★★
Norwegian saxophonist Mette Henriette may well be a fan of the Necks. The sort of minimalism she espouses on this double album certainly overlaps with their particular brand of minimalist sonic necromancy, although the differences are just as significant. Most obviously, Henriette eschews long improvisations in favour of short compositions, nearly half of which last less than two minutes. Therefore any improvising must be concise and primarily about maintaining a given piece's stark, ghostly or ominous ambience, while casting a halo of enigma. On the first disc it is often as though her tenor saxophone is being blown on a cold day, so you hear little more than a cloud of steamy breath rising from the bell, and her collaborators, pianist Johan Lindvall and cellist Katrine Schiott, are equally restrained. In contrast, the 20 pieces on the second disc are scored for 13 players (including brass, strings, bandoneon and rhythm section), and while the same sparse aesthetic sometimes applies, elsewhere the music erupts into massive density, and Henriette unleashes scalding tenor solos.
John Shand