Imogen Heap - Ellipse

My one complaint about so many albums today is lack of consistency. How often do you get one cracking track in amongst a load of mediocrity? When I came to transfer all my favourite music onto my iPod recently I found that I ended up downloading 3,000+ tracks from1,000+ albums, in other words an average of about 3 tracks per album. It’s a mark of a good album when you iPod the whole thing and this was the case with Imogen Heap’s Ellipse.

Ellipse is a delight from beginning to end, the music mesmerising and flowing, but it’s chill-out with a bite. This is no collection of songs that is going to send you to sleep. As every track ends you await what follows with anticipation and intrigue. This is exquisite electronic layering of sound with synthesisers and classical instrument dancing together in rhythmic patterns.

Imogen Heap is such a huge talent; she produces, engineers, programmes, arranges, songwrites and sings. She could probably play most of the instruments as well (proficient at keyboards, guitar, strings, percussion) but does get the help from some big names here including Leo Abrahams, famous for his collaborations with Brian Eno and Nitin Sawhney, who has had four albums as a solo artist in his own right.

Imogen’s songwriting is mature, slightly oblique but well suited to the music that she writes. Who would expect straightforward lyrics with such complex music? Her voice is slightly husky but strong and powerful, and blends in beautifully with the instrumentation throughout. The immense vocal range is very evident on Swoon, one of my favourite tracks on the album. Other highlights are the intimate Between Sheets and the sublime Canvas.

This is the 32-year-old Londoner’s third solo album and in my mind her best. Her creativity is seemingly effortless and unending which augurs well for the next decade.

Gary Go

This is an album that I have been playing a lot in the last 6 months and must rate as one of my favourites of 2009. It’s a collection of really melodic songs with great hooks that will reverberate in your brain for weeks to come. The production is big, the musical accompaniment of strings, piano and brass is stunning and the voice is warm and effortless.

The first album by 24-year-old Londoner, Gary Baker (alias Gary Go) personifies everything good about British pop music. Unfortunately though, the album didn’t receive huge recognition in the U.K, the highest position being 22 in the album charts, and the artist continues to be under-rated.

The problem is Gary Go is probably too clean-cut (Clark Kent look alike!) and too much of a Mr Nice Guy for much of the British public. He falls outside the spiritual New Age set and his age precludes him from adulation by female teenies or the over-40s Take That brigade.

This is all a bit of a shame as in these days of ego driven pop stars it is refreshing to have someone as honest and humble as Gary Go. The words are obviously so really important to him and the way he puts them across is so sincere.

The songs have all been crafted together meticulously and are of a high standard. There are shades of Jamie Cullum (Honest) and Gary Barlow (Life Gets In The Way). There may also be a slight feel of a 2000+ version of Elvis Costello here but if there is it comes with a much harder edge to it.

Favourite track on the album is undoubtedly Wonderful which is an absolutely wonderful anthem for today. Again the words are inspiring and uplifting and I love the ending verse, “cause we are all miracles, wrapped up in chemicals, we are incredible, don’t take it for granted, no, we are all miracles.” Again, this deserved to do better than peaking at 25 in the singles download charts. Other tracks on the album which I love are Open Arms, Engines and the heavier Refuse To Lose.

Reading the reviews on Amazon one of the words that crops up more than once is epic and this sums up Gary Go’s debut album well. This guy has potential so let’s group together and make him big in 2010!

A Fine Frenzy - Bomb in a Birdcage

If there’s a girl’s voice I could die for it’s definitely the 25-year-old American, Alison Sudol’s! The full gamut of emotions are covered on this album ranging from deliriously happy on Blown Away to heart wrenchingly exposed on The Beacon. Whatever mood the song takes though, her voice is always wonderfully melodic.

Bomb in a Birdcage is the second offering from A Fine Frenzy and like the first, One Cell in the Sea, this is a must buy. Gone though is much of the innocence of the first album and in its place there is a much more assured and confident artist. You can sense this almost from the album cover, where Alison’s new image is sophisticated, almost sassy.

Like many a great artist there’s indications already that Alison will not want to be typecast. If the first album was more folk, this is probably more pop, but whatever you might think you can’t get away from the fact that this girl can certainly write insightful lyrics and a great song. The new ground is evident in tracks like New Heights, Electric Twist, World Without and Stood Up, (Electric Twist would make a great single!) but in case any of the fans of the first album are put off there is still a whole clutch of hugely beautiful, simple, poetic songs like Happier, Swan Song, Elements and Bird of the Summer.

The sound is more electric/ electronic than the first album but the use of different instruments is as before very varied. Piano, guitar, strings, percussion and even a flute are used to add colour and depth.

Above all else though this is a vehicle for Alison’s biggest asset. The competition amongst female artists is very keen at present but if you want to listen to a voice that effortlessly flows across several different styles in truly pleasing fashion then give A Fine Frenzy a try.

Leddra Chapman - Telling Tales

Leddra Chapman joins the ranks of hugely gifted female singer/songwriters that are currently hitting the music scene. It seems to me that females are currently outnumbering males and groups as far as talent. Because of this it needs something special for a girl to stand out from the crowd. Well, Leddra with crystal clear voice, highly accomplished guitar and piano playing and a batch of the most thoughtful, beautiful and catchy songs, certainly makes the grade with her recording debut.

What’s more Telling Tales is a really classily produced album, Leddra having called upon the help of Peter-John Vettese. He started his career playing with the legendary prog-rock band Jethro Tull and later became an arranger and producer for a huge number of big stars ranging from Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Pet Shop Boys, Bee Gees and Clannad.

Leddra is being classed as folk but this is not mainstream folk, her music has got a big chunk of good old-fashioned English pop running through it. There are shades of singers like Beverley Craven, Vanessa Carlton, and more recently the excellent Amy Macdonald, but this is a unique folk/pop that defies comparison.

From the opening track Story, which sounds like something Paul McCartney would be proud of, to the concluding ballad Wrap It Up, which has the intensity of a Joni Mitchell creation, this is a stunning collection of songs. There are only 10 tracks in total but they are all quality and written with maturity that defy her eighteen years. For one so young she writes with great sensitivity but also with a lightness and humour that adds variety. As the album title suggests this is telling tales but it is also a work depicting real life emotions.

In these days of Xfactor and crazy celebrity status there are still artists who are trying to take more traditional routes to stardom. Leddra has been honing her craft since she started to learn to play the guitar at the age of 12. Later she produced demos of her songs in a small home studio her Dad built at the back of the family’s garage. When old enough and with enough repertoire of songs she played small clubs and concerts wherever she could. Her resourcefulness has continued with more recently a job combining her singing and modelling as European brand manager for clothing company Quicksilver.

So here we have an artist who hits the target with her first offering. Excellent musician, classy model but above all else that very special attribute that not even a Joe or Olly has and that’s an extreme song writing talent.

Katy Perry - One Of The Boys

Great debut album from Katy Perry who pitches in nicely between the likes of the angst driven Avril Lavigne and Miley Cyrus and the lyricists Lily Allen and Kate Nash. A modern day Cyndi Lauper maybe!

Certainly Katy is uniquely different, she has classic film star looks and has a lovely guttural rasp to her voice, which particularly comes out when she sings with emotion such as on 'Thinking of You.' This in my mind is the class track of the album, one of the best ballads of the 'noughties', a tale of being torn between 2 lovers and backed up with a great video.

The rest of the album has a variety of songs, she seems to like to write songs with sexual innuendo but I can't see any are offensive. In fact, Katy Perry has been packaged to create a clever image of herself, a tease who is maybe offering forbidden fruit, so aptly portrayed on the splendid album cover, and yet is also the actress who is sophisticated and well in control.

None of the lyrics should be taken too seriously. The girl with the red lips sings, "I kissed a girl and I liked it, The taste of her cherry chapstick, I kissed a girl just to try it, I hope my boyfriend don't mind it." It rolls of the tongue so well, isn't it all part of the creation of art?, if that's what we call it! Well maybe not, but she could just be the next big female pop icon.

Favourite tracks are Thinking of You (*****), Hot 'N Cold (*****), One of the Boys (****), I Kissed A Girl (****), Ur So Gay (****). Five out of twelve tracks have been put on my iPod and that's quite good for me! The whole album is respectable though the quality and catchiness of the songs probably fades slightly in tracks 8 - 12. How often this seems to happen on albums today! Production and backing instrumentation is excellent. All round, a great first effort!

Fever Ray

As it says in the album notes Karin Dreijer Andersson is Fever Ray. The 34-year-old Swede created the concept and content of the Fever Ray project during a period that followed the birth of her second baby in 2007. At this time she became highly creative with her mind in an awake but exhausted state that seemed to heighten her senses.

The results of this most fertile period of her life are encapsulated in one of the most intriguing and enjoyable albums of 2009. Fever Ray is constructed on highly original electronic foundations, the sound having an almost far eastern or Japanese flavour to it but played with traditional instruments such as guitars and congas. The atmosphere is dark, brooding but mysterious throughout. The lyrics are abstract and oblique, such as “we talk about love, we talk about dishwasher tablets, and we dream about heaven.” The two voices integrate cleverly with the instrumentation, the higher female one obviously Andersson’s, but the deeper one, not credited on the album, so maybe it’s Karin’s again pitch shifted.

Similarities? Well, Bjork would be a fair one to put forward. Both are diminutive characters and strange in nature. But I would suggest the strangeness is different; Bjork is very much trying to push out to the extremes of what constitutes music while Karin is very much aiming to blend inside what she has created. This is borne out at interview where she has said, “I just think if you create good music, as art it has its own value, and I don’t think so much that it has to do with the person behind it. My music is a lot of everything.” It’s no surprise then that the live performances and videos often have the Andersson face blotted out with extravagant white paint and wild hair extensions.

Perhaps then a better comparison would be Tangerine Dream. The Tangs used to hide themselves behind their stacks of electronic equipment on stage and the emphasis was very much on building mood through mesmerising improvisation. There is the same feel in a way with Fever Ray but the music is somehow less self-indulgent with variety being built into much shorter pieces. In fact, this is where the album really scores because it is constructed around a conventional 12-track format with the individual songs sufficiently strong to leave a real lasting impression.

It’s a shame then that Fever Ray after being busy throughout 2009 will play their final concert on 5th December at the Forum in London. Karin will probably return to collaborating with her brother Olaf in the group called the Knife, who produced two very well received albums prior to 2007. Whatever she does though her name is certainly one to look out for.

Favourite tracks on the album are When I Grow Up, Seven and I’m Not Done. Having said this the whole album is consistently good and when I came to burning the album on to my iPod all twelve tracks went across. This is a rare occurrence for me and the sign of an exceptional album.