Pops Staples in the studio in Chicago in June 1994. Source: Supplied
THIS week’s album reviews from The Courier-Mail (ratings out of five stars):
SOUL
POPS STAPLES
Don’t Lose This (Anti/Warner)
****
THE circle really is unbroken. Roebuck “Pops’’ Staples was born on a Mississippi cotton plantation, the youngest of 14 and growing up he heard local blues guitarists, now legends of the genre, such as Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson and Son House.
But gospel music was his calling and he formed his family band The Staple Singers in Chicago in 1948. No self-respecting record collection is complete without a set of their classics such as Uncloudy Day, When the Circle is Unbroken and This May Be The Last Time, later recorded by the Rolling Stones as The Last Time.
Daughter Mavis continues the family tradition, most lately with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy as her producer on her albums You Are Not Alone and One True Vine, and now Don’t Lose This, one final recording from her father. It is one that has taken a long time to surface.
The initial recordings date from the early 1990s. As Mavis tells it, this was meant to be the last release by The Staple Singers from a recording career that stretched back to 1950, but in the end the sisters decided to let their father take the lead.
With his health declining, the release wasn’t completed. One day he asked Mavis to bring the recordings up to his bedroom. After listening intently Pops told her, “Mavis, don’t lose this here.’’ His message was clear: he wanted people to hear this music.
Pops Staples - Don't Lose This
Pops died in 2000, and the uncompleted recording stayed within the family until Mavis handed them on to Tweedy, who set to work with the help of his son Spencer on drums.
Instead of the ’90s production values of the original, Tweedy strips everything back to the basic elements: Pops’ familiar electric guitar with its blues inflections and shimmering tremolo sound, and those gospel-fired rhythms.
Opener Somebody Was Watching has Pops up front with all three of his daughters answering his call as he concludes, “Now my bad time is better than my good time used to be.’’
There is a duet between Pops and Mavis on Sweet Home, which splits 50-50 between gospel and blues, the kind of song Pops would have heard ringing out across the fields in his childhood.
No News Is Good News sits atop a funky Spencer Tweedy beat and electric piano and there is a version of Blind Willie Johnson’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine with just Pops and guitar. Mavis takes the lead vocal on With Love On My Side, and it is as deeply soulful as anything she has ever recorded. The album returns to where it all started with a fervent Will The Circle Be Unbroken, the first song Pops taught his children, sitting around him in a circle on the living room floor. He signs off with a live take of Bob Dylan’s Gotta Serve Somebody.
With Don’t Lose This Pops Staples goes out the way he came in — faith unshaken, spirit unbroken passing on the flame to a new generation. It is spiritual music all right, but you don’t need to be a believer to hear what he is saying.
Noel Mengel
CLASSICAL
HENRI DUTILLEUX
Metaboles; <Symphony No. 1> (Erato)
***1/2
THE name Henri Dutilleux may not be as familiar as those of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven or other classical music luminaries, yet Dutilleux, who died in 2013, is considered one of the most important French composers of the latter 20th century. This CD coincides with the inauguration of the Philharmonie de Paris in January, with concerts conducted by Paavo Järvi, who directs the orchestra. Described as a “daring and probing” artist who conducts with visionary fire and exuberance, Järvi brings these qualities to the six vivid movements of Métaboles, with titles such as “flamboyant’’, and “torpide’’. On only one Chord, premiered in 2002 by dedicatee violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, played here with Christian Tetzlaff as soloist, displays Dutilleux’s lyrical precision. But Symphony No 1, an early Dutilleux creation, is 30 minutes of intense development, blending lyricism with big brass flashes. It demands attention from listeners who would miss the vigour of a challenging adventure if they eschewed Dutilleux for the comforts of Beethoven and Co.
Patricia Kelly
Foreigner - Juke Box Hero
ROCK
FOREIGNER
The Best of Foreigner 4 and More (Frontiers)
***
FEW bands dominated the ‘70s and ‘80s soft rock airwaves like Anglo-American hybrid Foreigner, who chalked up a string of power ballad hits in their prime. Like many groups of their ilk, the band today bear little resemblance to their original self, though founding guitarist and songwriter Mick Jones is still there steering proceedings (which is more than can be said for, say, LRB). As the title suggests, this live album — recorded late last year in Atlantic City, New Jersey — is weighted toward their breakthrough Foreigner 4 album but includes monster hits from throughout their back catalogue. Frontman of 10 years Kelly Hansen sounds more like Sammy Hagar than his iconic predecessor Lou Gramm, particularly on the heavier tunes, but channels Gramm on occasions such as Urgent, Waiting For a Girl Like You and Cold as Ice. A stripped-back take on Say You Will is another highlight. “C’mon, lemme see those lighters ... and those cell phones!” Hansen urges the crowd on the penultimate I Want to Know What Love Is .
John O’Brien
ROCK
BELLE AND SEBASTIAN
Girls in Peacetime Want to Dance (Matador)
***1/2
MORE songs about girls and Glasgow in the rain, then? Well, there’s that, but fans of the long-running indie pop collective — this year marks the 20th anniversary of their first gig — will be surprised to discover how much of the action takes part under the mirror ball of disco. It’s an album you can dance to on a Friday night, and no one ever said that about a Belle and Sebastian album in eight previous attempts. The band’s charm is still present, but songs such as The Party Line and Enter Sylvia Plath poundalong on strong four-four beats, twittering ‘80s synths and burbling bass. On Nobody’s Empire chief songwriter Stuart Murdoch ponders big questions while confessing “Intellect, ambition, they fell away/They locked me up for my own good.’’ It’s not disco but the kick-drum is way up front: The invitation is still there to dance. The melancholy of The Cat With The Cream and Ever Had a Little Faith are more familiar territory, but more often than not the album sounds like a band in the mood for a party, inclement weather notwithstanding.
Noel Mengel
ROCK
BROOKE FRASER
Brutal Romantic (Sony)
***1/2
BROOKE, is that you in there? You certainly wouldn’t recognise her if you come seeking the acoustic folk-pop of her formative work. Here she teams with producer David Kosten (Bat for Lashes) and it is shuddering synths, electro beats and towering choruses all the way. This sonic field is closer to her fellow Kiwi Lorde and Lana Del Ray, but it certainly suits Fraser and should find some new fans as well as keeping older ones intrigued, or at least the ones up for a new adventure. She has always had a way with a catchy hook and those still shine here on anthems like Start a War and Kings and Queens while the dramatic melodic leaps of Bloodrush make for a thrilling ride. Brutal Romance and New Histories set her warm voice against an ice-chamber of brooding electronica, but Psychosocial, with its thudding drums and huge choral treatment, boldly states the case from the outset. Thought you knew Brooke Fraser? Think again.
Noel Mengel
ROCK
POND
Man It Feels Like Space Again (EMI)
****
POND records always feel a little bit giddy, like your head’s in a spin and your feet in search of somewhere solid to stand. They’ve also been trying to distance themselves from the “psychedelic’’ tag for a while. Good luck with that, but Man It Feels Like Space Again isn’t so much about sonic architecture as about delivering a solid collection of songs. Elvis’s Flaming Star has a Bowie-esque flavour (circa Scary Monsters) with stomping beat and spice from a nicely-out-of-tune guitar. Sitting Up On Our Crane starts as dreamy reverie before shooting for the stars; Outside Is The Right Side is fractured funk with wah-wah guitars; Medicine Hat alternates between woozy acoustic guitar and walls of synths. Holding Out For You is as straight ahead as Pond have ever been, a scarf-waving anthem that should reach to the furthest parts of the European festivals they are sure to be playing this northern summer. All along they’ve had comparisons with Tame Impala, with whom they share a home city and some members, but Man It Feels Like Space Again shows a band with songs strong enough to wear that.
Noel Mengel
Hear folk artist Perry Keyes interviewed on ABC Radio National
FOLK
PERRY KEYES
Sunnyholt (Laughing Outlaw)
***1/2
FROM a long line of weary voices with lurid stories to tell (Tom Waits, Warren Zevon and Bob Dylan come to mind), Sydney cab driver and balladeer Perry Keyes shines a torch on elements of his home town that others swerve to avoid. His is a world of fractured families, smashed psyches and shattered dreams, sharply observed and shaped by plaintive horns, sombre strings, strangely jaunty keyboards, accordion and scratchy guitars. Meanwhile, the rhythms, often in 3/4 waltz time, try hard to rollick in defiance of the overriding funereal tone. If all this sounds a little on the bleak and melancholy side, that’s because it is. What makes Sunnyholt soar is Keyes’ jaundiced eye for detail and poetic wordplay: song titles such as Home is Where the Heart Disease is, Brylcreem, Alcohol & Pills and Mario Milano’s Monaro announce themselves, while Keyes’ characters — truck-stop prostitutes, landlocked surfers, souvenir sellers, drunks, junkies and petty criminals — are fellow travellers. To Keyes, Sydney’s western suburban wasteland is as colourful a character as any of his others.
Phil Stafford
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