Album Review: Natacha Atlas - Strange Days (2019)

Craig Stephen steps beyond the blog’s comfort zone to share some thoughts on Natacha Atlas’s latest album …

Strange Days: now wasn’t that an album by The Doors?

Indeed it was, and you can but wonder if Atlas was referencing the title of Morrison et al’s second album when she set off on her latest musical journey. But these are far stranger times than the world was in 1967, where the summer of love was a sweet memory by the time The Doors’ second album came out, and the two words have almost become a byword for a world in which populism and environmental destruction are now part of the lexicon. 

Atlas has a fascinating background, where East meets West: British and Egyptian parents and being brought up in Belgium. She is multilingual, and crucially multi-talented, with stints in Transglobal Underground and Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart.

For her 15^th solo work - a double album - Atlas dips into jazz and maintains her background in Middle Eastern music.

 The first time I heard Atlas as a solo artist was on an EP covering the James Bond film theme ‘You Only Live Twice’, giving it a whole new dimension. So it seems appropriate that Atlas here returns to the 60s and another notable item from the era: James Brown’s ‘It’s A Man’s World’. It’s fitting that such a song has a feminine voice to give it credence, and Atlas’s version supplies that first-party emphasis.

On an album sung in both English and Arabic, the opening track, ‘Out of Time’, mixes the two, breaking with the universal tongue but, after some jazz-style solo play, Atlas switches to her father’s vernacular to immense effect. As the song segues into ‘Maktoub’ Atlas now fully focuses on Arabic, which she has always made sound equivocal.

Soul star Joss Stone appears on ‘Words of a King’ - which was released as a single - and this is likely to attract diverging opinions for fans of both artists. From the point of view of this writer it lacks the poise of the album and is a humdrum exoteric duet in which the voices complement each other but don’t have the spark that’s required for a truly great team-up.

The man very much involved in this work is Samy Bishai, who as well as claiming co-composer credits for much of the material here, arranged all the music. Utilising a string quartet and a jazz quintet, Bishai creates a sound world in tune with Atlas’s unique delivery and delicate tonal inflections. This is obvious on ‘Lost Revolutions’ at the end of side three, a truly monumental atmospheric track with the singer at her most haunting as she laments the general failure of the Arab Spring, and in particular the one in Egypt where hope has now mutated into fear and repression.

As the title suggests, it’s an album that’s never quite what it appears and contains plenty of mystery. The music is gentle and intimate, yet highly charged with emotion, melding disparate musical elements from Western and Middle Eastern influences. It may not appeal to the jazz or world music purist but this is an album that essentially transcends labels and is a great example of fusion.

Classic Album Review: John Lennon - Rock N Roll (1975)

With a new John Lennon solo career retrospective released last week, and fresh consideration being given to his post-Beatles work, I thought I'd publish an album review I wrote years ago for another site ... 

Rock N Roll was John Lennon’s sixth post-Beatles “solo” offering - recorded prior to Walls And Bridges but released after it - and it finds the New York-based fabster returning to his earliest roots and influences with an entire album of covers from an even earlier prehistoric era. The iconic album cover photography, an early Sixties shot of John Lennon loitering in a Hamburg doorway, is probably more widely celebrated than any of the recorded material found on the album itself, but that’s not to suggest Rock N Roll is anything other than a fairly decent collection of songs. Given that it was essentially something of a contractual obligation release for the semi-comatose and soon to be semi-retired Lennon, some of it is surprisingly good.

The album was recorded and co-produced by Phil Spector during the second half of 1973, but due to a series of major legal wrangles and some initial mystery over the whereabouts of the master tapes (!), it wasn’t actually released until early 1975 - subsequently going on to make the top 10 in both the UK and the US album charts. Of course, Lennon was enduring his infamous “lost weekend” period and was separated from Yoko Ono (see the inlay production credit to May Pang … “production coordinator and mother superior”) at the time this work was produced, so we perhaps shouldn’t be too surprised that its release was delayed to the extent that it was. 

From all accounts the recording sessions for Rock N Roll were a fairly debauched alcohol-infused process, with the reputedly bad atmosphere in the studio more than partly attributable to Lennon’s own aggression and prevailing sense of angst (all you needed was love, John). In saying that, the presence of Spector doubtlessly added further fuel to the flames if revelations about Spector’s own work habits have any element of truth to them. Let’s be honest - Lennon and Spector present a pretty explosive combination. In fact, after completing the similarly ordinary Walls And Bridges album in 1974, Lennon would return to the Rock N Roll master tapes (eventually secured off Spector) to touch up the less than impressive (read: drunken) vocals, fix some of Spector’s more obvious technical failings, and according to reports – Lennon even went so far as to record nine new tracks. 

Personally, I find the raw non-manufactured nature of classic Rock in general, and early Rock‘n’Roll specifically, completely contrary to the production excesses of Spector and his ilk, so he probably wouldn’t have been my choice to produce an album like this in the first place, and I’ve always felt it was an oddity that Spector is often associated with Rock’s most primitive era. For me, Lennon needed this album to embrace that stripped back, raw, almost-DIY-like ethic for it to have fulfilled its true potential. It is decent enough, just not all it could have been. What we get is something of a compromise. An in-betweener. Yet another great idea spoiled by flawed execution. It would be Lennon’s penultimate solo album - excepting the excellent compilation Shaved Fish (released later in 1975) - and we’d have to wait another five years for Double Fantasy to emerge following the birth of son Sean. 

My CD version is the Yoko-inspired 2004 reissue containing four bonus tracks, including Spector’s own ‘To Know Her Is To Love Her’, and Arthur Crudup’s ‘My Baby Left Me’. 

Best tracks: ‘Be-Bop-A-Lula’ (some classics are timeless regardless), ‘Stand By Me’ (a top 20 single), a compelling take on the controversial Chuck Berry gem ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ (previously ripped off by The Beatles as ‘Come Together’ and supposedly part of the reason for this album’s very existence), plus an especially fine version of Fats Domino’s ‘Ain’t That A Shame’.

Gig Review: The Beths, San Fran, Wellington, 9 October 2020

The Beths last Friday night at Wellington’s San Fran was either the third or fourth occasion I’ve managed to catch the band live on stage. But it was my own first live experience for a number of months (beyond DJ sets) thanks to the way Covid-19 has played havoc with the live music scene, both here in Aotearoa and overseas. It’s fair to say then, that this gig, the first of three successive sold out nights for the band at the same venue, was one I had long looked forward to. I was never likely to be disappointed.

One of the best things about a Beths live set in 2020 is the fact that the band now have two full albums worth of material to draw from, in addition to an earlier EP. Even better, is that virtually all of band’s tunes translate effortlessly in a live environment. In fact, it could be argued that loud and live is easily the best way to consume the music of The Beths. 

Before the gig was even 10 minutes old we’d already been treated to a punchy power pop masterclass with the band drawing one track from each of those three releases; opening with ‘I'm Not Getting Excited’ from Jump Rope Gazers, followed by ‘Great No One’ from Future Me Hates Me, before hitting an early peak with long-time crowd favourite, ‘Whatever’, which first appeared on that underrated debut EP. 

And for the next 70-odd minutes, as we traversed our way through the band’s catalogue, zig-zagging between releases, it was all about tight compact tunes, high energy levels, and charming pop hooks. Jonathan Pearce threw in the odd rock-god mini-solo, but as ever, it was the unassuming nerdy presence of Elizabeth Stokes nonchalantly guiding the band to new heights on tracks like ‘Jump Rope Gazers’, ‘Little Death’, and encore highlight ‘You Wouldn’t Like Me’. 

As gigs go, this one was close to perfect. One minor, very minor, quibble: I realise it’s election time and there’s a cannabis referendum to tick ‘’yes’’ to, and a Green Party to help get across the line, or a women-in-rock initiative to promote, but each time the band stopped to share their “message” they flirted with the prospect of losing hard-earned momentum. It just felt a little contrived and it interrupted the flow just a bit. And given all the saturation electioneering happening elsewhere, it was probably unnecessary anyway (ok, boomer!). 

A shout out too, to support band Vera Ellen, a local six or seven-piece with some amount of attitude. There was a sense that they were all about seizing the moment, throwing everything at us, from psych-freak-outs to edgy punk, and discovering that a whole lot of it was able to stick. Definitely one to keep an eye on. 

As usual, in my semi-drunken state, I took a whole bunch of photos and filmed a few clips, but unsurprisingly none of them turned out to be blog-worthy quality. Even poor hobby-blog-worthy ...

Classic Album Review: Massive Attack - Blue Lines (1991)

Perhaps only Portishead’s 1994 album, Dummy, can rival Massive Attack’s Blue Lines for the accolade of the No.1 trip hop album of all-time. Partly because the genre appears to have died a slow and relatively obscure death (death by a thousand non-entities?), partly because it was a niche genre in the first place and provided us with just a few key exponents, but mostly because Blue Lines and Dummy are the sort of albums that, regardless of any genre classification, have demanded repeated listening long after the initial hype or fuss subsided.

Each album provided a landmark work for the Nineties “dance”/club scene, not to mention a whole raft of remixing opportunities for an ever-increasing number of DJs or producers eager to make their mark. Trip hop is basically a fusion of hip hop, low bpm techno, soul, funk, and jazz, with elements of dub, and Blue Lines is an album which encapsulates all of the above with such carefree nonchalance it becomes pointless trying to resist. It’s one of the few albums of any era that can safely lay claim to being both a Saturday night album and a Sunday morning poison of choice; there’s something for almost everyone on Blue Lines - a critical factor behind its mainstream success and longevity as an established “classic”. 

Massive Attack’s main protagonists at the time of making Blue Lines were Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja, Grantley ‘Daddy G’ Marshall, and Andrew ‘Mushroom’ Vowles (the group’s core), but it was the variety provided by vocalists Shara Nelson, Horace Andy, and Tricky, plus a cameo appearance by Neneh Cherry, that helped elevate Blue Lines to the acclaimed status it enjoys today. There simply isn’t a dull moment; from the monumental opener ‘Safe From Harm’ right through to the climactic closer ‘Hymn Of The Big Wheel’. At various points in the middle we get three other major highlights – ‘One Love’, the seminal ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, and one of my favourite slices of Seventies-flavoured soul ever, ‘Be Thankful For What You’ve Got’, which just oozes retro cool. 

The only potential fault with Blue Lines is its tendency to sound a little dated in parts - thirty or so years later, that’s hardly surprising - but if you can look beyond that, and one or two other minor issues with production, the album will prove a thoroughly rewarding listening experience.

Album Review: Alicia Keys - Alicia (2020)

As I get older I find I’m getting more entrenched in my listening habits, always reaching for the tried and trusted, and all too readily dismissing the musical styles or genres I have no real affinity for. In short, placing self-imposed boundaries on the stuff I’m willing to expose myself to.

There’s a multitude of reasons not to listen to modern R&B … not least autotune, commercial radio saturation, and a wider sense that today’s sounds bear little relation to those heard during the genre’s 1960s/1970s heyday - think of legendary artists like Marvin Gaye and Diana Ross. 

Alicia Keys, however, is not one of those reasons. In fact, as things stand in 2020, she might just be the saviour of the genre. 

While I have no doubt many tunes from Keys’ latest album, Alicia, will have been subjected to that pesky commercial radio saturation thing - with seven singles lifted from it so far - I was hugely relieved, possibly even thrilled, to discover that there is very little autotune (a pet hate) on the album. If any at all. 

And it strikes this old greybeard that sure enough, much of it appeals as an authentic and genuine throwback to the aforementioned halcyon days of R&B and soul. One day in the not-too-distant future, we will surely rank Keys right up there with the likes of Gaye and Ross. If she’s not there already. It isn’t always the case that “things were way better in the old days”. 

Put simply, Alicia is a superb album. Full of quality tunes, powerful socially conscious lyrics, and even those radio-friendly hooks don’t grate too much. It’s full of life-affirming positivity, introspection, and self-empowerment. All good things. And a solid supporting cast, with names like Jill Scott, Sampha, Khalid, and Miguel all contributing at various points. 

It takes something quite special to bring a confirmed sceptic who sits well beyond Keys’ regular target demographic into the fold. But Alicia is *that* good. Universal and broad in appeal. Widescreen and inclusive. 

During a year full of (mostly extremely downbeat) surprises, this was one of the better ones. And the fact that your blogger is going on record to throw praise at an album that sits within a genre he usually avoids like the plague itself, only goes to show what a topsy-turvy world it is. 

Need further proof but don’t necessarily want to listen to the whole album? … try these tracks: ‘Underdog’, ‘Good Job’, ‘Time Machine’, ‘Jill Scott’, and ‘Wasted Energy’. But really, do listen to the whole thing. Even you might be surprised.