FRONTIER LULLABY (cdbaby.com/Artist/AlesaLajana) 7.5/10 This was eight years in the making, with Alesa Lajana wandering Australia, researching post-invasion interaction between blacks and whites. The lunar right and their shrill apologists will hate it. They prefer using terms like “black armband view of history” to sweep away inconvenient truths about atrocities.…
Category: Album Reviews – Archive
TAKE ME TO THE ALLEY (Blue Note) 8/10 Gregory Porter’s singing and song-writing may have been spawned by a love of jazz, but r&b elements have grown ever stronger until Marvin Gaye now seems at least much of a precursor as Nat King Cole. The lavishly romantic streak present in…
ATMOSPHEROS (Move) 8.5/10 What a sound! If a boa constrictor could sing it might sound something like Christopher Young’s bass clarinet. Often this instrument is moody or demur, but in Young’s mouth – and on this reverb-laden recording – it becomes monstrous, boasting an urgency that continually blisters the music’s…