|
2000 | 08 Richard Ashcroft, Manu Chao, XTC
RICHARD ASHCROFT - Alone with everybody (Hut Records)
It doesn't happen very often, that an album hypnotizes me from the first tune on like this one. "Alone with everybody" is a sensitive symphonic love letter to his wife Kate Radley. Strings, choires and Ashcroft's voice melt together in great arrangements. He left the way, he went with 'The Verve' in another direction and it's only sometimes that some of the psychedelic riffs of the past shimmer through. Some moments even create melancholic memories of Peter Murphy at his best but are immediately wiped away by Ashcroft's timeless energy. "Alone with everybody" contains the best songs, Ashcroft has ever written - and with everytime you hear it new dimensions open up. (wh)
|
|
|
MANU CHAO - Clandestino (Virgin)
Yep, yes, I know! I'm a bad person. Because I don't like only dark-mooded songs by notorious dark-mooded singers. No! I also love merry tunes. And colourful songs. And the casualty of the south. And I love Manu Chao and his music. And because of this I also love his latest single "Clandestino", taken from his recent album. And it is at least as merry, colourful and casual, as a party at some South American beachbar. So everybody who has no time for a longer holiday at such nice places (like me) should play the record, sip a gimlet (probabely the best drink in the world) and softly shake his hips! And then you can relax and listen how the ex-singer of Mano Negra succeeds in singing a song about migration misery and illicit work so happily, that you almost hum along. Apart from this the little rascal looks extremely good - but that's no harm anyway! In any case I'm very much looking forward towards autumn, when Manu Chao will be back with his second solowork. (ks)
|
|
|
XTC - Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2) (Idea/Cooking Vinyl)
Since the long-gone-by days of punk XTC warm our hearts with nonconformistic jewels that always escape Zeitgeist yet surprise with their innovation and unpredictableness. Andy Partridge, cheeky frontman and mastermind, has produced a new album that recalls the early days of guitar-songs in a new coat. The track "Stupidly happy" beautifully describes with its summerlike tingling riffs the album's athmosphere. In between he scatters some of his romantic and sentimental journeys like "I'm the man who murdered love" and "You and the clouds will still be beautiful". Wasp Star, the follow-up within the "Apple Venus Project" of a likewise beautiful but brittle predeccessor is an excellent album in the acknowledged Partridge way. (wh)
|
|