Category: Album Reviews

Four Foot Shack – Les Claypool’s Duo De Twang

Four Foot Shack is the debut album of Duo de Twang, they’re country music duo formed by my favourite bassist and vocalist Les Claypool and M.I.R.V. guitarist Bryan Kehoe.

The album contains one original song and fourteen cover songs (although many of the covers are Primus or Les Claypool songs which is a bonus). 

It was released on the 4th February 2014 by ATO Records. The genre of the album is Country and Bluegrass. The album lasts for 57 minutes roughly, and it’s definitely worth your time if you’re a fan of Claypool or Primus, or looking for something new to get into or to get some work done. 

The aptly named twosome features Claypool’s signature bass playing and guitarist Bryan Kehoe’s guitar work coloring in and out of the lines of some good ol’ chicken-fried, well, twang paired with sparse percussion. 

A bluegrass version of the Bee Gee’s ‘Stayin’ Alive’ is one thing. It is epic to hear an era-defining classic with belching slap bass and Claypool affecting a swamp-drenched vocal style. But naturally, we’ve come to expect this from Les, a man who takes “not to be taken seriously” more seriously than anyone else in music.

The “ah-ah-ah-ah”’s from the original become “howh-howh-howh-howh” in Claypool’s hands while Kehoe unleashes a funky guitar solo in place of the original’s bridge. Then there’s their take on “Man in the Box.” Here, the grunge anthem is turned into a chugging, Tennessee Three-sounding jamboree, over which Claypool – with his tongue embedded into his cheek at this point – takes Layne Staley’s vocal melody into cartoonishly operatic territory. Elsewhere, their amazing take on a fairly accurate (relatively speaking, of course) recreation of “Battle of New Orleans,” turn Primus’s “Jerry Was a Race Car Driver” into a surprisingly serpentine sprint, and somehow manage to translate the definitive surf-rock track “Pipeline” into a coherent, Western—style soundtrack. You can see the tumbleweeds drift by as Claypool sings the song’s melody with as much satirical gusto as anything he’s recorded.

The album isn’t any kind of milestone or career-defining collection; then again, it isn’t supposed to be, either. I enjoy it greatly as it is a new take on some of my favourite tracks. But in reality it’s simply Les Claypool dicking around with other people’s songs. And, you know what? It’s still more fun than most of the Top 40!

Migration – Bonobo

Migration is the sixth studio album by British record producer and DJ Bonobo. 

It was released on the 13th January 2017 under the ‘Ninja Tune’ label. On November 28, 2017 Migration was nominated for Best Dance/Electronic Album at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards; the single “Bambro Koyo Ganda” (Feat. Innov Gnawa) was nominated for Best Dance Recording.

The genre of the album would be considered all of the three in which being Electronic, down-tempo and experimental. The album lasts for 63 minutes roughly, and it’s definitely worth your time if you’re trying to get some work done and or chugged out.

Migration is a fairly impressive improvement over their other album, The North Borders, and easily the most listenable record of Bonobo’s fifteen-plus year career. It’s a record with equal appeal for electronic music fans and general listeners, something you could put on anywhere. Essentially, it rejuvenates down-tempo as a genre with more potential than party music which is pretty naff anyway.

I’m pretty sure that it might not be the best music that our world is looking for, but it helps eliminate background noise which is a major distraction for me at least as my ears have to be doing something whilst I work otherwise I go off task. 

The opening track, “Migration,” is a lovely, wholesome piece. The song slowly builds up on an ghost like mid-range keyboard and piano. Eventually, some distant drum sequences begin to form up and make up a solid foreground, the arrangement lets the drummer play before soaring into a vast and epic finish.

“Break Apart” uses a wide range of percussive tracks that blend and groove together as one. The marching snare finds itself in the distance behind many hand claps, finger cymbals, and a consistent bell rhythm. The vocalist Michael Milosh provides an ambient, melancholy melody, thus the listener begins to see why the theme of the album is so deeply rooted in travel, distance, movement, and shape shifting. 

To me the overall theme is very moving, when I do go an travel or take long walks it makes me think about how open and free we can all be if we take a step back from technology and the rest of the rubbish that has kept us in shackles for an awful long time.

The album is worth to put on in the background if you’re looking to unwind after a long hard day which is how I was introduced to it. If you want me being brutally honest, you wouldn’t catch me listening to this album making daily commutes as I don’t think it fits my mood. 

Tapestry – Carole King

By the early 70s Carole King’s legendary status was already assured by her work as a staff writer in New York’s Brill Building during the previous decade.

To me ‘Tapestry’ is definitely one of the most successful albums in pop music history. It’s a fairly remarkably, expressive and intimate record non the least, it’s a work of pure craftsmanship and precision all in one album.

The album was released within 1971 under a record label called Ode Records and it was produced by Lou Adler.

Her second album still to this day overflows withe emotionally honest, subtly soulful singing; masterfully written pieces that merge many genres like Pop, Folk, and R&B; this is all wrapped up with a toasty, organic but very smooth and laid back production.

The sheer intimacy right from the beginning with the album which is what hooked me in personally at an instant, the steady pace and pulse make the songs very enticing for everyone listening to join in and enjoy what they’re about to experience. “I Feel the Earth” is my favourite track with its piano riff right from the start which is soon led on by the inviting bass part alongside the guitars input!

Highlights such as “It’s Too Late” and “You’ve Got a Friend”, perfectly demonstrates how compassionate Carole is when it comes to song writing and production even upon her second album, it’s clear that she is more than capable to create many masterpieces at her very fingertips.

As a lover of Primus, Ghost, and all things fun – it may come as a surprise to say that this is one of my all time favourite albums to just pop on whilst working or trying to calm myself down to get to sleep eventually.It is a timeless and gorgeous album with lyrics that are still relevant to today.

When Carole King started making music, she was just writing, that was the thing in the early days of pop – there are writers and performers – this is what makes this album different to most of the others from the time and what makes it a crucial part of music history!

For the following reasons not only did it become the best selling solo album of all time (until Michael Jackson’s Thriller) but it became a cornerstone of every thinking woman’s record collection and a new edition to mine.

Tapestry will always remain a classic because it never forgets the innate urban r&b understanding of great pop while it covers itself in patchouli, satins and silks.

I highly recommend that everyone goes out and gets a copy of this album on any platform and or all of them, I could go on for pages about each of the songs but we’d be here for days so I kept it short and sweet, because her songs should be how you see them and not how other people do. It’s practically an essential album for any and everyone no matter what you listen to, without her we wouldn’t have the music industry we have today.

 

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