This Week's Album Reviews

THIS WEEK'S ALBUM REVIEWS

Jazz/ Blues/ Roots

Gary 'Grip' Flaherty  -  Back To The Blues (Flatbuck Records)

This is guitarist Flaherty's fifth self-released album since the Northampton blues veteran was dropped by Blu-tone Records a decade or so ago, and marks his first since the death of long-term sidekick Hari Harris. On this occasion Flaherty is backed by his teenage son Wolf on both bass and drums. Wolf delivers some spirited and loud drumming on the instrumental Get To Grips, but overall it has to be said that Flaherty's music continues to disappoint, and that in reality his career stalled soon after his youthful stint in Bob Pritchard's Blues Artillery in the late 1960s. The predictability of inane 12-bar numbers such as Guitar Blues, Blues In The Night or Feelin' Sad is painfully compounded by the fact that they are all in the same key. Flaherty's guitar playing has noticeably suffered the unfortunate recent onset of finger cancer, made all too apparent on the aptly-named Losin' My Grip. Sadly, one has to wonder just how much Flaherty has left to offer.

Pop/ Dance

Tiny White Pacino  -  Louche (Hackney Glasses)

Mercury nominees TWP light up the catwalk with the angular retro-synth pop of brothers Sidney and Rodney Haircutt, though it's frontgirl Mindy Almeida who is the true star of the show. Mindy is breathily girlie on Push Me Sometime where she adjusts her stockings, while Trippin' Much finds her shouting in tune and jiggling up and down, and we get a cheeky glimpse of a nipple. Some of the outfits she wears here simply have to be heard to be believed, and it would be no great surprise to see her scoop a major award while she's still attractive.

Classical

Borislav Skrlj  -  Complete Later Works Box Set (Stenograph BMI)

This immaculately packaged but enormous collection of fifteen double CDs does not always make for comfortable listening. Skrlj has divided the critics right from the start of his often controversial and tortured career, when he was expelled from his native Yugoslavia in reaction to public outcry at performances in which he would incorporate acts of violence and masturbation. Indeed, frustration and anger are something of a recurrent theme throughout this collection, nowhere more so than on the three-hour Argus Vex for string quartet and prepared percussion. There, Skrlj documents the pain of murdering his father by repeatedly striking a violin throughout the piece with his father's army spoon until it breaks. 

Unfortunately, Skrlj is no doubt best remembered for the notoriety he achieved among animal rights proponents for his composition Panoply of Discomfort, which includes a dog being shot. On this recording the dog was killed with an RSPCA officer present. In spite of the fundamentally unlistenable nature of Skrlj's later work, it does pose some awkward questions which are perhaps too difficult, bleak and awful to answer. Also included is the disturbing unfinished piece for screaming noseflute the composer was writing when he died of rabies in 1989, which alone is worth the surprisingly reasonable price of £969.99, that also includes a packet of cigarettes. 

World / Foreign

Nano Noncini  -  Always We Dance (Vongole Discs)

Noncini is a legend in his native Italy: he sold out the Coliseum in Rome for a record thirty-three nights in 2010. After conquering South America, he now turns his attention to the Anglophone market with an English-language (bar the baffling Hai Karate!) set of standards. While it is certainly professionally made, one really has to marvel at the way that those Europeans still fail to get it. On this record Noncini more or less struggles through an uninspired set of heart-sinking choices. When he drops the aitch on Lionel Ritchie's 'Ello, he sounds more Italian cafe owner than celebrity crooner. Noncini's throat piles on the gravel for the pacier numbers, growling like a tramp. The lowpoint arrives in the form of a reggae version of Imagine featuring Andrew Ridgley. His fans will love it.