By Various Artists
Fifteen quite individual tracks - and yet there's more than a hint of overall unity to this. Not sameness: far from it, but a feel that it wouldn't be impossible to cook up a narrative thread plotting the journey from minute 1 to minute 59, and so award concept album status as well as whatever other accolades are coming to BYT 2007.
It kicks off well with All Your Peers - good voice, one or two clever ideas in the riff and lyric content of 'All Fours' and a good flying overture before a sort of acoustic slow movement encompassing the next three numbers - 'I Don't Want To Say Goodbye' from Katriona Gilmore and Jamie Roberts; 'Winslow's Melody' by Peter Wright; 'Good Times' by Decree; and regaining some tempo with Dan Smith's 'Ignoring Messages.'
Then follows Rob J Madin, who stakes a claim on attention with 'Fly Get Out of My Room.' Quality of performance adds stature to the idiosyncratic material, only partly classifiable indie music-hall psychedelic jazz. Track 7 hands the baton of pace to The Guests who grasp it cleanly and use it well in 'All at Once'. Martin Wickham's 'On Repeat' brings a return to acoustic, with a bit more body and a few more tricks than the earlier cluster of acoustic contributors.
And then comes Rob Galloway's delicious little punky thriller 'Girls Are Meaner than Boys', beautifully judged in every way, including the question of whether this song hurts more than it pleases. 'The Game' is more good stuff, from Helena Gee who shows us a type of drum and bass that Peggy Lee could have made use of.
The last third of the compilation is announced by Wintermute's angular and absorbing 'Ask A Stupid Question', and although 'Love And Trains' from Sketches in Technicolour has a yawny acoustic aspect there's something solid about it too. The Whippets' 'Plebian Society' moves along well enough with lyrics almost stated rather sung at times, leading to 'Revolver' from Daigoro, who progressively rock their way through a convincing 5min22, leaving the job of rock-finale to The Touch with 'That's What You Gotta Do': the right choice, being positive and strong, and ending with a question.
Yes, everybody involved in this project, it's a success. What comes next?
All replies to this article. Log in to post a reply.
On 23rd March 2007 at 15:37 thirties wrote...
Personally I thought the 'yawny acoustic' tag applies to rather too much of this album - not just Sketches in Technicolour. The offerings by Wintermute, the Guests and All Your Peers are all pretty lively, though, and it's not too bad for a freebie CD!
