Ephemera

I am not always sure anymore that the Django open reference is a plus for all productions. Of course it allows fans and afficionados to recognize the file quickly but it may drew to an halt all the other ones. Diknu Schneeberger is an excellent player, way up most of the usual archetypal guitarists in…

Micky Green has been heavily working out her looks and concept. If you don’t catch the album just from its cover, she would have missed something already. So did I, curious of how what I first saw would sound like. Does such a title as »White T-Shirt« also mean: write whatever you like on? Musically…

From the way they sound I immediately look for places and particularly origins. This only happens in the States, you don’t get that sort of deep fried fat rockin‘ shuffling sound elsewhere normally. Although plenty of influences may cross your mind at times, they take over easily with strength and power. Classic Rock from before…

Got that one obviously too late: »The Kick« celebrates 2008’s Euro Football thing, that already happened now. Lyrics are juicy like hell, and suddenly flashes you back to the long-long history of (dull) single albums accompanying some event, celebration, opening and so on … »This Little Ball / Is International / Kick it!, Just Kick…

I feel a bit like arriving in the middle of a familly dinner, while I play that album. First I have no clue to the »Vol. 1«, not much more to Boine’s latest releases and even further less to what a »remix« album can look like this year. »While It Gently Whispers …« is generally…

Is there a life before, and therefore after too, such a group as »Passport«? Is German tenor saxophone fame Doldinger the Dave Sanborn, Jan Garbarek or Wayne Shorter or else from the country? Who does still know who are were and will always remain Sigfired E. Loch and Joachim-Ernst Behrendt ? Questions are probably wrong…

A classic piano trio (bass & drums) melting with pop and electronics, songs and looped grooves. I don’t mind a certain dose of fusion and easy music so that I’m rather pleased to hear such a combination of grand piano and open chord changes. Overall it’s very classy and sounds like peaced music. Vogt as…

The cover shows you a Les Paul guitar more or less vintage and supposed to get you into the whole idea via references (from Jimmy Page to Michael Bloomfield and countless other blues rock Les Paul Players). But when you open the case and take the CD out what you see is a computer screen…

In the pure tradition of Organ Blues Soul Jazz combos once more. I guess if you can play and record things like that in 2006 you could have done so in ???66, ???86 or ???98. So what makes people want to go for it over and over again? Well the reason is extremely simple: It…

Directly baked from the Norah Jones academy (featuring herself on piano and vocals too), »Slow New York« is a real ode to the city and a certain way of life pre-911 somehow. Drop Suzanne Vega, Woody Guthrie and add Stefan Grossman plus Paul Simon and you may get a certain picture. Julian’s voice is definitely…

A single white page booklet in a thick recyclable double cardboard sleeve (blue, silver and natural abstract prints). Six tracks »Recorded and composed« over 2003-2005 by the still young (Zürich based) artist. »Thermo« (19 minutes) opens the album with a soft industrial atmosphere and classic electronica clicking patterns while »Wüste« (track # 2) emphases on…

Charlie Hunter is more known for his Groovy Jazz trio albums and performances as an all-man band on guitar (can’t quite remember if that was 7 string guitar or something around that made him sound like a »Hammond organ on guitar« kind off thing). The label proudly insists here on the fact that for this…