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Music Album reviews with Ian Sinclair: January 8, 2020

The Star reviews Karen Black's Dreaming Of You 1971-1976, Keith Jarrett's Munich 2016, and Craven Faults's Erratics & Unconformities

Karen Black
Dreaming Of You 1971-1976
(Anthology)
★★★★

KAREN Black is best known as a leading actress in US New Wave cinema, starring in films such as Five Easy Pieces and Robert Altman’s Nashville. However, while accounts of her life rarely mention it, Black was also a hugely talented singer-songwriter.

Produced by Cass McCombs, the 17 largely folky, previously unreleased tracks collected here are a revelation. Her childlike vocals on Dreaming Of You are surely a huge influence on contemporary artists like Joana Newsom and Aldous Harding, while she echoes the idealism and passion of Buffy Sainte-Marie and Joan Baez on Well I Know You’re Lonely Now.

Sung over a light country-tinged rock shuffle, I Wish I Knew The Man I Thought You Were is based on Black’s experiences with a professor while she was a student at Northwestern University in the 60s.

A brilliant rediscovery.

Keith Jarrett
Munich 2016
(ECM RECORDS)
★★★★

A RECORD of the last date of his 2016 European tour — a solo concert at Munich’s Philharmonic Hall — pianist Keith Jarrett’s latest album is a fine addition to his voluminous canon.
Like most of the 74-year old legend’s solo live performances stretching back to his mid-70s artistic peak the set is largely improvised.

He opens with an intense, sometimes difficult 14-minute piece, followed by the lyrical, often searching Part II, and the indiscernibly lovely Part III. Indeed there are many magical movements on this two-CD suite, with the rolling emotional drama of Part V a real highlight.

He ends with three standards, the piano practically singing on Answer Me, My Love, the mournful It’s A Lonesome Old Town and, of course, Somewhere Over The Rainbow.

Meditative and deeply affecting, it’s perhaps Jarrett’s best since his 2011 Rio album.

Craven Faults
Erratics & Unconformities
(The Leaf Label)
★★★

ERRATICS & Unconformities is the debut album from Craven Faults, active since 2017.

Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be any biographical information about the artist. At all. All we know is the record was produced in a home studio in Sheffield. And, according to the press release, that the captivating instrumental electronica contained within acts as a kind of soundtrack to a journey through post-industrial northern Britain.

With three synthesisers, a drum machine, an organ and various machines being played, it’s an intense, futuristic listen that brings to mind the work of Cabaret Voltaire (also from the Steel City) and Kraftwerk. Slack Sley & Temple is a claustrophobic track with shades of the Terminator soundtrack.

It’s definitely not for everyone — tracks like the rhythmic, repetitive 17-minute opener Vacca Wall will grate if you are not in the right mood.

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