Record Collection N° 133: Edwyn Collins „Doctor Syntax” (Setanta Records, 2002)

Edwyn Collins, der schottische Pate des Britpop, beamt den Sound seiner Kultband Orange Juice ins neue Jahrtausend.

Wer Edwyn Collins nicht mag und das soll es – unglaublich – schon mal geben, nennt den 43-jährigen Schotten Edwyn Collins einen Verlierer. Verehrern gilt er als Kultfigur und als einer der Gründerväter des Britpop. Ende der 1970er, Anfang der 1980er versuchte Edwyn Collins, mit seiner Band Orange Juice so Gegensätzliches wie Punk, Motown-Soul, Velvet Underground und Disco zu fusionieren und produzierte jugendlich charmanten, hinreißend melodiösen Pop. Kultstatus garantiert, große Erfolge blieben aus, 1985 trennte sich die Band.

Edwyn Collins machte solo weiter, doch er entkam dem brotlosen Kultstardasein nicht. Er konnte froh sein, dass sein im Herbst 1994 veröffentlichtes Album Gorgeous George mit einiger Verspätung den Welthit A Girl Like You abwarf: Seither hat der Schotte sein Bankkonto saniert und in London ein eigenes Studio eingerichtet, in dem er tun und lassen kann, was er will. Dort hat er in aller Ruhe das brillante 1997er Album I’m Not Following You produziert – wieder ein kommerzieller Flop, was sonst?

Mit Doctor Syntax setzt Edwyn Collins noch einen drauf. Vielleicht ist es Zufall, aber es ist genau zwanzig Jahre her, seit er mit Orange Juice das superfunky Disco-Soul-Electro-Pop-Rock-Album Rip It Up veröffentlichte, die erfolgreichste Platte der Band. Mit Doctor Syntax schließt Collins wieder an diesen Sound an, den er perfekt draufhat.

Seine Soul-Stimme schmachtet oft so tief unten, dass man Barry White zu ihm sagen möchte. Die Songs suhlen sich in eingängigen Melodien, drumherum zirpen süße Chöre, raffinierte Gitarrenakkorde und fiepsende Synthesizer, an der Basis pumpt ein funky Bass Leben in die Grooves. Eine tolle Mischung aus  den Orange Juice von Rip It Up, unwiderstehlichem Disco-Groove á la Chic, grellem 1980er Electro-Pop, feisten Gitarrenriffs und herrlich schmierigen Gitarrensoli. Die Songtexte sind eine Klasse für sich, in der beißender Witz, verbitterte Sturheit und nostalgisches Sentiment gemeinsam die Schulbank drücken. Am bösesten: The Beatles, das den psychedelischen Sound der Beatles kopiert, sich aber zugleich über die nicht enden wollende Beatlemania mokiert. Sein Spott macht aber auch vor ihm selbst nicht halt: Gleich zu Beginn schimpft er sich selbst einen „Also-ran / Trying to get by any way I can.“ Mit Verlaub: Dieses Urteil ist viel zu hart für einen Könner wie Edwyn, der auf Doctor Syntax so formidable Songs wie Never Felt Like This, Mine Is At, Splitting Up, Johnny Teardrop oder 20 Years Too Late nur so aus dem Ärmel schüttelt. Von seinen früheren Meriten gar nicht mehr zu reden.

Edwyn Collins Doctor Syntax, Setanta Records, 2002

(now! N° 08, Mai 2002, komplett überarbeitet im November 2020)

© Doctor Syntax Pics shot by Klaus Winninger

B-Logbook 25.11.2021: BREAKING NEWS!

The Beatles: Get Back

9:00 o’clock, CET: Peter Jackson’s 3-Part-Documentary “The Beatles: Get Back” is now available for streaming on Disney+ . The final stages of the Fab Four, four musical geniuses who brought joy and light in the world. It will be a big blast, a revelation, a revolution.

B-Logbook 15.04.2021: Paul Weller Just Premiered A New Video For His New Song “Shades Of Blue”

In Advance of his upcoming new album Fat Pop Paul Weller just premiered a new video for his new song Shades Of Blue. Looks quite fine. But it does sound superb! Do I feel a Style Council vibe here? I do.  The Modfather’s on quite a roll.

Paul Weller’s new studio album Fat Pop (Volume 1) will be released by Polydor Records May 14, 2021. The Volume 1 in the title hints at  a second volume in the future, hopefully also this year.

Weller is joined on Fat Pop by his main band members (drummer Ben Gordelier, Steve Cradock on guitar and bassist Andy Crofts) and a number of guests including Andy Fairweather Low (Testify), his daughter Leah Weller (Shades Of Blue) and The Mysterines’ Lia Metcalfe (True). Still Glides The Stream, was co-written by Steve Cradock.

Fat Pop, a reportedly adventurous sounding record with each song being very diverse, is already heralded by the seedy swinger Cosmic Fringes,a pumping electro-pop-groover with deadpan Weller vocals, totally different from On Sunset’s sweeping California soul, the boldly orchestrated soul ballad Glad Times, and the more poppy, very soulful Shades Of Blue.

About Fat Pop the Modfather says: “It’s a celebration of music and what it’s given us all. No matter what situation you are in, and we’re in one now, music doesn’t let you down, does it?”

The full tracklisting for Fat Pop (Volume 1) is:

Cosmic Fringes
True
Fat Pop
Shades Of Blue
Glad Times
Cobweb/Connections
Testify
That Pleasure
Failed
Moving Canvas
In Better Times
Still Glides The Stream

Paul Weller Fat Pop, Polydor Records, 2021

Shades of Blue Song/Video © Polydor Records

B-Logbook 25.02.2021: A New Paul Weller Album Coming Again!

Paul Weller just announced his new studio album “Fat Pop (Volume 1)” to be released by Polydor Records May 14, 2021.

Despite Paul Weller’s latest grand album On Sunset, a N° 1 album in the UK, was onlyreleased ten months ago, the Modfather just announced that his 16^th studio album Fat Pop (Volume 1) will be released already in the middle of May. The “Volume 1” in the title hints at  a second volume in the future.

Weller is joined on Fat Pop by his main band members (drummer Ben Gordelier, Steve Cradock on guitar and bassist Andy Crofts) and a number of guests including Andy Fairweather Low (Testify), his daughter Leah Weller (Shades Of Blue) and The Mysterines’ Lia Metcalfe (True). Still Glides The Stream, was co-written by Steve Cradock. Fat Pop, a reportedly adventurous sounding record with each song being very diverse, is heralded by the seedy swinger Cosmic Fringes,a pumping electro-pop-groover with deadpan Weller vocals, totally different from On Sunset’s sweeping California soul. About Fat Pop the Modfather says: “It’s a celebration of music and what it’s given us all. No matter what situation you are in, and we’re in one now, music doesn’t let you down, does it?”

The full tracklisting for Fat Pop (Volume 1) is:

Cosmic Fringes
True
Fat Pop
Shade Of Blue
Glad Times
Cobweb/Connections
Testify
That Pleasure
Failed
Moving Canvas
In Better Times
Still Glides The Stream

© Fat Pop Pics by Polydor Records & Sandra Vijandi

Record Collection N° 176: Melody Gardot „Sunset In The Blue” (Decca Records 2020)

The iconic American songstress returns to the luscious orchestral jazz style of her breakthrough album “My One And Only Thrill”, but each of the songs here would also work perfectly without a lush orchestral sound.

Since Melody Gardot mesmerised the world in 2009 with her superb second album My One And Only Thrill, its irresistible hit single Baby I’m A Fool and the accompanying sassy bathtub-videoclip the American singer/songwriter has established as top soul-jazz chanteuse playing in one league with wonderful vocalists like Sade Adu. Gardot sings in her own, instantly remarkable vocal style, and she’s able to do the classics as well as creating new vibrant music.

On her fifth studio album Sunset In The Blue the songstress returns to the luscious orchestral jazz style of her breakthrough record in the plush opener If You Love Me,  the lovelorn You Won’t Forget Me, the beguiling title track, or the movie theme-like From Paris With Love. But inside the sweeping string arrangements and the glowing horns is a small impeccable jazz combo playing – including fantastic musicians like producer Larry Klein (of Joni Mitchell fame) on acoustic guitar and bass, Anthony Wilson (guitar), John Leftwich (bass), Vinnie Colaiuta (drums) and Paulinho Da Costa (percussion), German jazzer Till Brönner guesting twice on trumpet. Combined with Melody’s unbelievably refined and enchanting singing, each of the songs would also work perfectly without a lush orchestral sound. You can easily imagine them being played at night in the intimate setting of a small jazz club where you are literally attracted to the music on stage. So, nighttime is the right time for the aptly titled Sunset In The Blue, it’s a record for the late night hours – but as I’ve tried, I can tell it works equally fine in the wee small hours of the morning.

The New Jersey born Melody Gardot is now living in Paris and different places in the USA. Speaking fluently French and Portuguese, she sings in English and Portuguese. Besides the delicate torch songs the highlights on Sunset In The Blue are the even more elegantly grooving tracks sung in Portuguese: The graceful ballad C’est Magnifique, a duet with the Portuguese Fado singer António Zambujo, the bossa nova dancer Um Beijo, and the sublime jazz guitar afro-funk of Ninguem, Ninguem.

Both cover versions here are lovely: Lesley Duncan’s 1971 ballad “Love Song”, that the female British singer/songwriter recorded again in 1974 in a duet with Elton John. And Henry Mancini’s and Johnny Mercer’s classic ballad Moon River from the soundtrack of Breakfast At Tiffany’s. And finally Little Something, a neat duet with Sting, ends a very fine album properly.

Melody Gardot Sunset In The Blue, Decca Records, 2020

© Sunset In The Blue Pics shot by Klaus Winninger

B-Logbook 29.12.2020: Paul McCartney – Karriere-Rückblick in einer Doku-Serie?

Gerade erst hat der 78-jährige ewige Beatles mit dem großartigen Nummer-1-Bestseller McCartney III ein ganz und gar gegenwärtiges Album ohne große nostalgische Momente veröffentlicht. Für sein nächstes Projekt aber soll Paul McCartney einen Rückblick in Bildern planen – eine noch namenlose sechsteilige Doku-Serie über seine Karriere. Das Ganze soll mit McCartneys Jahren bei den Beatles beginnen und bis zur Gegenwart reichen. Parallelen zur achtteiligen Beatles-Anthology-Doku-Serie drängen sich auf, die erstmals 1996 zu sehen war und 2003 remastered auf DVD erschienen ist. Einen ersten Trailer in Schwarzweiß für die McCartney-Serie soll es laut dem US-Magazin „Deadline“ schon geben. Es sollen in der sechsteiligen Reihe erstmals auch Aufnahmen der Beatles gezeigt werden, die bislang im Archiv der Londoner Abbey Road Studios versteckt geblieben waren.

Record Collection N° 127: Popincourt “A Deep Sense Of Happiness” (Milano Records, 2020) [English Version]

It’s quite difficult to follow a super fantastic debut album like A New Dimension To Modern Love with a worthy, equivalent second album. Olivier Popincourt, the French singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist (guitar, organ, percussion) has mastered that task with his brilliant new record A Deep Sense Of Happiness.

Popincourt has worked for four years on the album. He was backed by some fine musicians and singers. Olivier Bostvironnois (grand piano), Fred Jimenez (bass), Hervè Bouétard (drums, percussion), Sèbastian Souchois (soprano saxophone), Quentin Ghomari (trumpet), the wonderful French Boutik vocalist Gabriela Giacoman (lead vocals for While The Ship Sinks In and backing vocals elsewhere), two other feminine backing vocalists) and a formidable string quartet. The grand horns and strings arrangements stem from Souchois, recording director was Bostvironnois. The fine graphic cover design comes from Serge Hoffmann (singer, songwriter, guitarist in French Boutik). The completed recordis worth the long wait, cause it’s a magnificent piece of art.

Even though Popincourt over the years has amplified his palette with more tone colours and musical styles, the music on A Deep Sense Of Happiness sails in similar waters as his debut. From the British guitar beat and the Californian Sunshine Pop of the 1960s to the British punk and new wave of the 1970s to the British indie pop of the 1980s, to Soul and Jazz anyway. You could name Popincourt’s influences and inspirations from A to Z, but what would that bring? After all is said and done and the last song has faded away, it’s clear that A Deep Sense Of Happiness is 100% Popincourt, no other artist makes music just like this.  

Mood wise Popincourt’s second album is a bit different from his romantic, love drunk debut. Whether autobiographical or written for a narrator, there are many songs here dealing with good-byes and new beginnings, thoughts of being young and getting older. They are not always full of hope, some are painfully soul-searching or even discuss the bad shape of the world. Maybe that’s owed to broken love affairs or the mean virus that has a stranglehold over the world. Who knows? But eventually positive, hopeful, uplifting feelings prevail.

Side A of the 180g vinyl LP, which sits in a magnificent fold-out cover, opens with The Grass Of Winter Morning, a cautious guitar beat that pursues the nature images of Popincourt’s sublime 2019 EP 4 Colours 4 Seasons. NeverGive All Your Heart, that seems to be a kind of warning to not fall in love too deeply, is an enchanting chamber music ballad with a baroque string quartet and a dazzling saxophone solo. Always Back (Like The Morning Dew) is a rousing guitar beat with beautiful sunshine pop harmonies and a soulful 60s organ. The emotive The Last Beams Of A Setting Sun sounds only for a few seconds like Lou Reed‘s Perfect Day, then a touching ballad evolves, sophisticatedly arranged and telling a short story about lovers that grow older and lose on the way their love, just like in the German poet Erich Kästner’s wonderful poem Sachliche Romanze. The title track has a fiercer beat and great jingling-jangling guitars in his veins and is maybe on the trail of a new love or a new start in life. My Whole World Is Falling Down explains itself in the title, but with its ringing guitars and nice sunshine pop harmonies doesn’t sound depressed at all.

Side B of A Deep Sense Of Happiness begins with one of the most beautiful songs of the album: the splendid melancholic ballad Where The Wind Never Blew which bewitches you with its touching sentiment and its sophisticated jazzy brass arrangement and Olivier Popincourt’s delicate Blue Note Records jazz guitar. French Boutik singer Gabriela Giacoman, charming as ever, takes over the vocals in the fierce 60s guitar beat groover While The Ship Sinks, she has also written its angry lyrics that bemoan the kaput condition of the modern world: „Let the last survivor turn out the lights“. But the wonderful guitar pop of Truly Yours lightens up the dark clouds, even though with a nostalgic glance to the past, upon which the following enchanting Spreading Golden Dust literally sprinkles gold powder. The charming ballad Once Upon A Time, a breath-taking beauty, is drifting once more between retrospect and re-orientation, but Popincourt’s melancholy melody and his delicate French accent are irresistible. The same goes for the conciliatory final song This Must Be Heaven, which is refined with soaring strings, a classical grand piano and Popincourt’s exquisite guitar solo with a touch of Pink Floyd.

I cannot say if Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, Roddy Frame, Paul Weller, or Burt Bacharach do know any of Popincourt’s music, but I guess they would like it.

Popincourt A Deep Sense Of Happiness, Milano Records, 2020

© The Deep Sense Of Happiness Pics shot by Klaus Winninger

 

B-logbook: 08.09.2020: Als Hot Chocolate in eine Stadt in der Nähe kamen

Hot Chocolate live in Enns – mein bestes und einziges Parkplatzkonzert ever.

Das genaue Jahr weiß ich nicht mehr, aber es war in den 1970er Jahren in der Gymnasiumoberstufe, Richtung Matura. Warum auch immer hatten es die englischen Hitparadenstürmer Hot Chocolate, mit dem charismatischen Sänger und Hauptsongschreiber Errol Brown und Bassist Tony Wilson, in eine Konzerthalle in der kleinen oberösterreichischen Stadt Enns geschafft, einer der ältesten Städte Österreichs. Ich lebte damals mit meinen Eltern in St. Valentin, einer noch kleineren, verschlafenen Marktgemeinde im niederösterreichisch-oberösterreichischen Grenzgebiet. Hot Chocolate zum Greifen nahe, das war eine Sensation. Ihr Konzert hätte ich gerne gesehen, aber aus Gründen, die ich nicht mehr erinnere,  schafften es mein Freund Norbert und ich nur auf den Parkplatz vor der Konzerthalle, wo wir auf seinen Cousin Edgar warteten, der Schlagzeuger in unserer Band war und ein Ticket für Hot Chocolate hatte.

Ob Hot Chocolate die vielleicht beste Black Music Band Englands waren, und ihr einzigartiger Sound so was wie funky Soul war, so ein Diskurs war mir damals nicht wichtig. Was zählte war, dass jeder ihrer vielen Hits, die sie in den 1970 Jahren hatten, voll groovy aus dem Radio pumpte. Heiß und prickelnd wie nur was, infektiös wie Grippe und Corona zusammen, und das bis heute. 

Die Musik von Hot Chocolate wummerte aus der Halle, wo die Band mit voll aufgedrehten Lautstärkenreglern ihre famosen Hits spielte. Die Beats und Bässe hämmerten, die funky Hooklines wie vom Winde verweht. Every 1‘s A Winner, Emma, Heaven Is In The Back Seat Of My Cadillac, So You Win Again, Brother Louie (nicht zu verwechseln mit dem 1980er Hit von Modern Talking) oder You Sexy Thing. „I believe in miracles / Where are you from / You sexy thing / You sexy thang you / I believe in miracles / Since you came along, you sexy thing“ – mein bestes und einziges Parkplatzkonzert ever.

Hot Chocolate Their 8 RAK Albums 1974-1983, EMI, 2011

B-logbook: 23.08.2020: Kevin Rowland’s “My Beauty”, Deluxe Reissue

Great news, Kevin Rowland’s fab 1999 solo album My Beauty, that was heavily underrated at its release, sold reportedly only a few hundred copies and buried nearly Creation Records, gets a deluxe edition CD and a pink vinyl LP release in September 2020. I’m quite curious if his glorious cover of Bruce Springsteen’s Thunder Road will be released now. Then it was only on the promo CD, I got lucky and do have one. But Springsteen denied an official release of his song covered in Rowland’s eccentric manner then.

Watch out for my music blog, cause there will be some stuff about it there, cause I did an intense hour long with Kevin Rowland in a London restaurant around the time of the release of „My Beauty“. In the Austrian pop magazine where I was editor in chief then, we made “My Beauty” album of the year. But I guess it didn’t sell a lot in Austria too. But maybe it gets what it would deserve 21 years later at its second coming.

Record Collection N° 111: Paul Weller „Days Of Speed” (Independiente Records, 2001)

Ein akustischer Live-Trip durch Paul Wellers Karriere.

Ein Mann, seine Gitarre, seine Songs. Songs aus 25 Jahren englischer Popgeschichte, die der damals 43-jährige Paul Weller als Sänger, Songschreiber und Musiker mitgeprägt hat. Nachdem er während seiner 1992 gestarteten Solokarriere sich oft weigerte, Songs seiner früheren Bands The Jam und The Style Council live zu spielen, brach Paul Weller letzten Frühling zu einer akustischen Solotournee auf. Gerade ohne Plattenvertrag, allein mit einigen Gitarren und einer Setliste, die alle drei Phasen seiner Karriere reflektierte.

Er eröffnet mit Brand New Start, einer 1996 veröffentlichten Single, die von Weller hier einmal mehr als Manifest verstanden und maximaler Eindringlichkeit gespielt wird. Über so simplen, kraftvollen Gitarrenakkorden singt Weller rau und beseelt.  Man kann spüren, wie er seinen Liedern so viel Gefühl und Wirkung wie nur möglich abringen will. Reduziert auf ihren Kern gehen die Songs unter die Haut wie nur was.

Die Songauswahl ist speziell: Gerne hätte man auch Start! von The Jam oder Long Hot Summer von The Style Council gehört. Doch Paul Weller lässt lieber Rareres wie The Loved,  Above The Clouds, Science und Amongst Butterflies in neuem Glanz erstrahlen und versetzt einen mit Love-Less und Back In The Fire vom damals aktuellen Album Heliocentric in Andacht. Mit That’s Entertaiment (frisch und gültig wie eh und je) und Town Called Malice von The Jam, Headstart For Happiness (mit lässig groovender E-Gitarre) und Down In The Seine von The Style Council sowie den Solo-Knallern Wildwood und You Do Something To Me erfüllt der Modfather den Fans noch einige Herzenswünsche.

Paul Weller Days Of Speed, Independiente Records, 2001

(Veröffentlicht in: now! N° 4 Dezember 2001/Jänner 2002, komplett überarbeitet im August 2020)