Rusty Shackle
Under a Bloodshot Moon
www.rustyshackle.com
★★★★★

RUSTY SHACKLE are a lively and energetic six-piece folk-rock band from South Wales and this, their fifth album, consists of entirely new songs written in an old dairy barn following the pent-up frustrations of lockdown.

Drawing from influences as diverse as Bruce Springsteen and Seth Lakeman, the songs blend elements of classic rock with traditional Celtic music. The opening song The Devil’s Pulpit looks at traditional folk themes such as temptation whilst Lantern talks about lighting the way to the end of the tunnel.
 
There is a defiant tone in Not This Time about slaving on the minimum wage but refusing to crumble and a more joyful one in Coming Home, officially the last track but then followed by a hidden track Drink Won’t Drown Your Sorrow.

Full of hope and optimism, this album is a joy to listen to.

STEVE JOHNSON

Joe Strummer
Joe Strummer 002: The Mescaleros Years
Dark Horse Records
★★★★★

A COMPREHENSIVE four-CD set of the punk poet’s post-Clash band, The Mescaleros, consists of remastered versions of their three studio albums, plus 15 rare and unreleased tracks including the first demos Joe wrote for the Mescaleros, as well as a previously unissued Secret Agent Man cut in 2002 — one of the last songs Joe recorded prior to his death 2002.
 
Along with unreleased tracks featuring Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols on guitar, including Fantastic and Ocean Of Dreams, there are also outtakes from Joe’s final sessions with the Mescaleros.
 
Mescaleros favourites are featured including The Road To Rock ‘n’ Roll, X-Ray Style, and Techno D-Day.

With a 72-page book, rare photos, interviews, lyrics, and memorabilia 20 years on from Joe’s passing, this is a wonderful tribute set.

TONY BURKE

John Yao’s Triceratops
Off-Kilter
See Tao Recordings
★★★★

THE three-horned dinosaur of a quintet led by trombonist John Tao, Triceratops, is at it again in their second album, Off-Kilter, full of engaging Yao compositions.

With audacious saxophonists Billy Drewes and John Irabagon, drummer Mark Gerber and bassist Robert Sabin, the New York band powers into Below the High Rise and navigates the musical maze of the Monk-like Labyrinth.

Ferber’s drums pulsate beneath the horns with an enticing magnetism all through the album. On Quietly the mood softens around Sabin’s bass but still rocks gently, with Yao’s slides poised ruefully, anticipating the earnest horn conversation of Crosstalk.

The sheer animation and inventiveness of the music makes the listener eager to hear the quintet play live, but Off-Kilter will more than do for the time being. Just imbibe the verve, punch and immediacy of the flying horns on the final track, and you’ll hear what I mean.

CHRIS SEARLE

SykesMartin
Unquenching Fire
Dragon Fly Roots
★★★★★

BRINGING together two accomplished folk singers Miranda Sykes (Show of Hands) and Hannah Martin (Edgelarks), this is an exciting collaboration resulting in an album of impressive re-workings of mainly traditional songs.

Starting with the classic standard Come All Ye Fair and Tender Ladies, some of the songs explore classic folk themes of love and betrayal as in Blow the Candle Out and Forsaken Maiden while Dark Eyed Sailor unusually has a happy ending with the lover returning to his sweetheart rather than being drowned at sea.

The song Flanders originates from Scotland and dates from the 18th century but has a timeless message about the horror and futility of war and the album ends with a rendition of the ghostly ballad Lady Margaret.

With beautiful vocal arrangements accompanied by fiddle and banjo this is a must for any folkie.

SJ

John Lee Hooker
The Healer
Craft
★★★★

HOOKER’S comeback album and his biggest selling record in a career that lasted from 1948 until his death in 2001, this is a straight vinyl/CD reissue of the 1989 award-winning album.

Produced by blues guitarist Roy Rogers in San Francisco, Hooker is joined by an array of blues and rock artists including Bonnie Raitt who joined Hooker on his classic I’m in The Mood (which won them a Grammy); Carlos Santana on the title track and bluesman Robert Cray, on Baby Lee.
 
Blues rocker George Thorogood guests on Sally Mae, a Hooker 1948 original; harmonica player, Charlie Musselwhite accompanies Hooker on That’s Alright and East Los Angeles Tex Mex band Los Lobos appear on Think Twice Before You Go.

Hooker also plays three solo tracks Rockin’ Chair, the ballad, My Dream, and the album closer, No Substitute.

TB

Betty Accorsi Quartet
Growing Roots
Betty Accorsi Music
★★★★

ALTO saxophonist Betty Accorsi’s first album The Cutty Sark Suite was a praise-song to Greenwich and its maritime tradition. In Growing Roots she moves to Brighton with her compadres — bassist Andy Hamill, pianist Daniel Hewson and drummer Scott MacDonald, in a sonic commentary on six photographs she took of her favourite places there.

She plays with a lilting lyricism, her bandmates entirely attuned to her horn. She floats on the sea in Ampollo, with Hewson’s solo beautifully pitched and MacDonald’s drums rampant, while the love melody of Like a Tree is softly moving and deftly played by all.

Hamill’s bass begins the zestful notes of Lively House before Accorsi’s lucid alto steps into the joyous venue, and Blue Wave searches the seafront again, its lapping notes and eternal waves giving inspiration and thoughts of transience as Accorsi attacks her tune with a Bechet-like fervour. Where will she go next?

CS

Jackie Oates
Gracious Wings
Needle Pin Records
★★★★★

THIS eighth studio album by Oxfordshire-based folk performer Jackie Oates is an intriguing mixture of traditional and more contemporary songs.

Recorded whist training to be a music psychotherapist at a hospice and dealing with her mother becoming ill with Alzheimer’s, the songs reflect the different places life can take us.

Starting with the traditional When I Was a Fair Maid, the second track Robin Tells of Winter was written during the winter lockdown when we were all hoping for some sign of summer. Another new song is La Llorona, co-written with Megan Henwood and inspired by a figure in Mexican folklore.

There are other traditional English songs like The Ship in Distress but also a song in the Basque language, Iruten Air Nuzu, about the art of making wool. Ending with a poignant cover of Time, Time, Time by Tom Waits, this is an album of both inspiration and reflection.

SJ

Miles Davis
Four Classic Albums
Avid
★★★★

THe classic albums here (across two CDs) feature four mid-1950s sets of originals and standards which Miles waxed for Prestige Records: Miles Davis And Milt Jackson Quintet/Sextet features four sides from August 1955 with Milt Jackson on vibes; Miles Davis and The Modern Jazz Giants — Bags Groove from June and December 1954 with Milt Jackson, Sonny Rollins on tenor sax and Thelonious Monk on piano with two takes of Bags Groove and But Not For Me;  The New Miles Davis Quintet — Miles from November 1955 with John Coltrane on sax and Miles — Miles Davis And The Modern Jazz Giants from October and December 1956  again with Jackson and Coltrane with two takes of The Man I Love.

A budget bargain, great sound, original album notes and full discography. Davis’s trumpet playing is as cool as you will ever get.

TB

Gunter Baby Sommer and the Lucaciu 3
Karawane
Intakt Records
★★★★★

HERE’S an amalgam of generations. Gunter Baby Sommer is a renowned free drummer, born in wartime Dresden in 1943. The three Lucaciu brothers from Plauen, Germany are four decades younger. Antonio plays alto sax, Simon piano and Robert bass.

Their album Karawane, recorded in Cologne, begins with a traditional tune exposing war’s dark cloud, Dunkle Wolken. Everything that follows falls under its consciousness, with Sommer’s relentless percussive drive sounding even in silence through the album’s every note.

Antonio is an expressively adroit hornman. On Zeitwandlerin he blows almost like a child with Simon’s stepping piano and Robert’s vibrating strings, while on Impressions of Little Bird his tone is full, his range dramatic.

As for the years-defiant Sommer, hear his gallimaufry of drums on Unter Jedem Dach ein Ach, while the album’s title tune rocks with his sonic glory and vocal exhortations as ages and eras are memorably unified.

CS