As with last month, it’s all about the new releases as we take a look at what filled the racks of the nation’s record shops during February. It has been a very strong start to 2025 and there are some really rather special things to get your ears around in this edition of the column. Some very familiar names mingle with a clutch of emerging artists that have many of the hallmarks of becoming mainstays. There’s all this, plus a handful of the finest Blue Note offerings in some time. Maybe hold off saving up for your RSD zoetrope picture discs for another week or two?
Freshly Pressed:
It was with a degree of trepidation that your columnist split open the shrinkwrap on the latest Doves album, ‘Constellations for The Lonely’. Their debut, 2000’s ‘Lost Souls’, is an absolute classic and their original run of four records had an impressively high strike rate. However, their 2020 return with ‘The Universal Want’ didn’t work for me despite being well received in the main. Add in the news of the band touring without frontman Jimi Goodwin and the fear was rising once again. Thankfully, this one is full of heart and less concerned with being performatively epic. ‘Cold Dreaming’ and ‘In The Butterfly Home’ hark back to their earlier sound, with guitar motifs that could only be Doves, more melancholic atmospherics and tricksier vocals. The former, in a reminder that there’s always been more than one voice in the band, features the brothers Williams singing while the treatment on Goodwin for the latter calls to mind some of the more haunting elements of their initial pair of records.
Having said this, their sixth is not a pastiche of what went before which, were I looking to be provocative, I could argue its predecessor was. These are beautiful songs with their own creaky, woozy and affecting identities. Whatever the intricacies around touring, it’s easy to see why the band wanted to press on regardless with material of this calibre. Side one closer ‘A Drop In The Ocean’ is a simmering, gothic exploration of loss while ‘Last Year’s Man’ is sweetly nostalgic, even deploying a harmonica solo. The vocal layers in ‘Saint Teresa’ manage to hark back to ‘The Cedar Room’ without feeling at all calculated and, through the whole album, the unmistakable Doves DNA is there, feeling like it has naturally evolved in an entirely unselfconscious fashion. Matt Colton delivers a robust mastering with plenty of width and an excellent vinyl cut that has been pressed near-silently by Optimal.
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Popular Arctic Monkeys tribute band The Lathums return with their third, ‘Matter Does Not Define’. Opener ‘Leave No Stone Unturned’ is shameless in its chilly ape aping but that doesn’t stop it being a majestic melodic burst of the highest order. They know how to do what they do and they do it very well. Upbeat indie jangle with choruses the size of your local Tesco Extra, this is euphoric jangle designed to be belted out with muddy knees and a tepid pint swinging in the air above you. Graeme Lynch keeps the mastering from being too heavy and Alex Moore’s vocals are given decent presentation at the heart of their sound. Not sure what’s going on with the accent in ‘Stellar Cast’ though – faint flashbacks of Sting on his collaborative record with Shaggy* from that one. A rather eye-catching sleeve contains a pin-drop silent Optimal pressing that is really rather crankable, if you’re so inclined.
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The fourth album from Nadia Reid is arguably her best yet. ‘Enter Now Brightness’ is a record full of instantly striking melodies and rich, beautiful vocal performances. Sample the chorus of ‘Emmanuelle’ or the entirety of ‘Second Nature’ to get a sense of it in its purest form, but stick around for some majestic arrangements. The uphill percussive wonk of ‘Cry On Cue’ is hypnotic and ‘Baby Bright’ is utterly heartbreaking in the most compelling way. It is one of your correspondent’s favourite songs of this year so far and the songwriting is superb throughout. D. James Goodwin’s mastering is excellent, affording Reid a great deal of space at the heart of the soundstage and plenty of headroom for the surrounding instrumentation. The pink vinyl edition, as with other variants, has been produced by GZ and, unfortunately, suffers with some light surface noise at various points. These songs need to be heard, so a bit of perseverance is recommended.
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Singing bishop Andrew Rumsey released one of Just Played’s favourite albums of 2023 and now returns with ‘Collodion’. Named after a substance that is most commonly known for its capacity as an especially durable glue, the record is a lithe, sparse showcase for a singer-songwriter with a faintly raspy caramel voice, still somewhere between Frank Reader of the Trashcan Sinatras and the peerless Gavin Clark. Close to the mic, he is at the heart of the soundstage and it’s a record that holds your attention throughout thanks to Ian Button’s impeccable mastering. ‘Pulling On A Thread’ is a slow-burning triumph while ‘Instead Of A Heart’ is an utterly gorgeous, deeply moving highlight among many. Recorded on one day in August 2024 in a Wiltshire church dating back to the eleventh century, Rumsey is again joined by David Perry for harmonies, organ and additional guitars, along with a touch of double bass via Cameron Saint. The British pressing is, thankfully, pretty quiet and the artwork is a simple but effective monochromatic portrait that suits this enchanting record.
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The Coral’s James Skelly takes on production duties for a gleeful soul explosion by Brooke Combe, ‘Dancing At The Edge Of The World’. This is the Scottish singer-songwriter’s debut, having built a profile around a selection of resolute earworms and well-chosen covers prior to this point. ‘Guilt’ is truly sensational and sounds so assured I spent several minutes trying to figure out who recorded it originally before establishing Combe had written it with Skelly. That song alone justifies giving this one a spin, but there’s plenty more where that came from. Her band are tight and Sean O’Hagan’s string arrangements are given plenty of room to breathe. ‘LMTFA’ is whipsmart songwriting while ‘Butterfly’ unfurls in stately fashion. Marking a remarkable place from which to begin a career, these eleven tracks are an incredible statement of intent. Just Played sampled the pretty quiet baby blue vinyl pressing via GZ that comes in an alternative sleeve design for reasons I don’t fully understand. A black edition using the same parts is also out there.
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Legendary British funkers Cymande have found their reputation ever-emboldened by time and now opt to deliver their second post-reunion album ‘Renascence’, hot on the heels of a recent documentary about their career. Opener ‘Chasing An Empty Dream’ puts paid to any concerns about them having lost their magic and the presence of Celeste and Jazzie B serve to situate them in the worlds of several generations beyond those with whom they first connected. Ben Baptie deserves plenty of credit for the recording, mixing and production of this record, which manages to be effortlessly vintage and truly current also. The sweep of ‘Road To Zion’ is luxurious and ‘I Wanna Know’ goes cinematic from the off. Caspar Sutton-Jones’ mastering is sensational, conjuring a vast but ever so delicate presentation that commands volume and flows from the speakers with ease. This is a very, very good sounding record indeed and the pressing, via BMG’s own German plant, does not disappoint.
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The endearingly titled ‘Blame It On My Chromosomes’ is the latest from Belgian-Japanese jazz pianist Alex Koo. There are some neo-classical and ambient tinges at play on the record, but it is primarily a collection of compelling, partly-improvised explorations of humanity. The driving momentum at its heart is undercut knowingly with titles like ‘Doritos Everywhere’ and ‘Hey Man, We Should Play Sometime’, the latter as arresting an opening track as Just Played has heard in some time. The reverb-heavy whistling on ‘Eagle Of The Sun’ prior to the arrival of his soaring voice shouldn’t work, but it really does and the title-track has to be heard in situ at the album’s close. Frederik Dejongh’s mastering has gone bold and brash, which suits these pieces perfectly. There’s a free CD copy too, tucked in with the fairly quiet disc pressed at Vinyl de Paris.
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Digital editions of recent albums by the Manic Street Preachers have had a tendency to be a little shrill and it has often been the role of the vinyl version to provide the best-case scenario for the sonics. For their fifteenth, ‘Critical Thinking’, the pressing roulette wheel has been kind to them after a number of noisy variants for 2021’s ‘The Ultra Vivid Lament’. This time, Matt Colton’s cut gets the Pallas treatment and is well served by such consideration. Your correspondent has written elsewhere about this set of songs, but it’s worth reiterating the lightness of touch evident on the genuinely beautiful ‘My Brave Friend’, the weary self-reproach of ‘Hiding In Plain Sight’ and ‘Dear Stephen’ and the genial bombast of ‘Brushstrokes Of Reunion’ and ‘Out Of Time Revival’. The band’s preferred sound means this will never be one to float effortlessly from the speakers, but the top end has space and clarity while Nicky Wire’s bass work is nimble and defined. The aforementioned endeavour by Pallas is near-silent throughout and available in several colours plus two different sleeves for chart bothering purposes which didn’t quite pay off.
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A collection of live interpretations of Herbie Hancock tracks by Mama Terra arrives with the title ‘Chameleons’. Conceived out of a recreation of the 1973 release ‘Head Hunters’ for a Jazz FM classic albums commission, the Acid Jazz act’s readings of those tracks expanded to include ‘Cantaloupe Island’ and ‘Butterfly’. Hancock’s distinctive synth is switched out for alternative methods at the hands of the soulful jazzers, tenor sax and Rachel Lightbody’s soprano sharing the role. The opening (near)title track ‘Chameleon’ is a remarkable statement of intent but the depth of ‘Watermelon Man’ pours from the speakers. As a curio, it’s very well realised and the arrangements are excellent. Ross David Saunders has done a solid job of the mastering, even if a little more room in the top end would be appreciated. It’s a reasonably quiet GZ pressing in a minimalist sleeve, but this one is all about the music and the accompanying insert contains two sleevenotes which convey the excitement behind it all.
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Who doesn’t love a little Canadian glam rock in their life? ‘Serene Demon’ is the fourth album by Art d’Ecco and it’s very obviously great fun from the second the needle drops onto the white vinyl LP. Disco rock that may well appeal to fans of Franz Ferdinand – more on whom shortly – it also nods to Sparks, Roxy Music and John Grant to these ears. ‘Cooler Than This’ is a great demonstration of the complete lack of restraint here, excess upon musical excess building to something gloriously instinctive. Side two is all about the seven-minute-plus title track that starts with a foot in the early Seventies and a nod to Bolan before mutating through three further phases into a funk workout. Noah Mintz has delivered a decent master, with a good amount of space in the highs and nothing excessive in the bottom end. It’s a fairly quiet pressing via GZ’s Canadian wing, Precision. Fans of pointless OBIs will also be delighted.
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‘The Playful Abstract’ is the latest record from KALI Trio, who are marking their tenth anniversary as a collective this year. Very much an act who understand aesthetics, everything about the package is appealing, from Bureau Mia’s artwork to Control Upright’s typeface and – despite my usual disdain for such things – the lava lamp-inspired vinyl colouring. It just works, alongside an album of largely improvised electro-ambient-jazzscapes. Swirling across the soundstage, the group went searching for sounds in the studio that would capture the floating world around us. ‘Mos3’ is a highlight, building rather stridently to something oddly intense while still awash with the glacial beauty of the album as a whole. Simon Lancelot’s mastering is excellent and the Optimal pressing is pretty quiet considering the novelty design.
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Seth Lakeman is one of those names that we all know thanks to a mid-Noughties Mercury nomination at a time when ‘token folk act’ was something of a cliché. He was always far more than that, of course, favouring the fiddle and guitar, but a truly accomplished multi-instrumentalist. On new album ‘The Granite Way’, his distinctive voice is joined at times by Alex Hart and the whole thing is meticulously paced. As an opener, ‘Louisa’ is irresistible, with a pile-driving chorus that connects straight to the soul, bypassing any critical faculties. From there, things regularly get darker but the variety is key. After a decent clean, the GZ pressing played with only very minimal surface noise. Crucially, Barry Grint at AIR has done a grand job of the cut, managing to balance the sense of a folk band locked into service of the music and the necessary nuance to allow it to really tantalise the ears. The more emphatic moments of ‘One More Before You Go’ and ‘The Huntsman And The Moon’ highlight this fully.
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Eight years on from the very well received first instalment, Mr Bongo have assembled ‘The Original Sound Of Mali 2’. Not wishing to mess with a winning formula, French wrtier Florent Mazzoleni and the label’s David Buttle have set about restoring and curating highlights from the post-independence music scene where traditional aspects mixed with modern influences. Funk and soul nods are present, with Tjiwara Band De Koti’s taken on ‘In The Midnight Hour’ and Les Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako’s incendiary ‘Get Up James’. The latter act also pop up with the more languid but no less beguiling ‘Matou Kagni’. As with the first volume, a hugely informative A5 booklet provides all of the context behind this truly special music. Two near silent discs from Optimal are housed in a sturdy gatefold, although there was a little light warping, presumably from the presence of the booklet, which thankfully didn’t affect play.
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Sadly, the intended review copy of the latest Franz Ferdinand album, ‘The Human Fear’, didn’t arrive ahead of last month’s deadline. If it had, the pick of January may well have been different and it is for that reason that your correspondent is squeezing it into the February round up. Not only is it their best in at least a dozen years, but the vinyl edition is another Matt Colton special. Given the focus on rhythm in their songs, the bottom end needs pinpoint accuracy when being committed to our favourite format and if one man can, Matt Colton can. And has. From strident opener ‘Audacious’, through the unshiftable patient of ‘The Doctor’ and on to charmingly weird side B moment ‘Black Eyelashes’, these songs fill the room and reach back through and past the speakers. There are those who feel the songwriting lacks some of their prior vitality, but Just Played was just as taken with the tunes as the exemplary, near-silent Optimal pressing. Better late than never.
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All Kinds Of Blue:
In Tone Poet land, we’re off to the early Sixties for Horace Parlan’s ‘Up And Down’, some soulful bop from a tight quintet. The pianist is supported by Booker Ervin on tenor sax, George Tucker’s bass, Al Harewood at the drums and Grant Green’s inimitable guitar work. When the latter cuts loose on opener ‘The Book’s Beat’, it is a pure joy and the presence of that playing in the mix perfectly captures the magic of these all-analogue Kevin Gray outings, seeming to reach out directly into the room with a fully three-dimensional rendering. Tucker’s work on his composition ‘Fugee’ is endearingly nifty and the whole album is pressed to a silent disc by RTI. The production quality is identical for the other title.
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This one takes us back to 1958 for a superb recording conducted at the Decca Studios in London by Dizzy Reece, ‘Blues In Trinity’. As such, this means there’s no gatefold with studio photography but the pay off, as ever with such editions, is a superb fresh sleevenote from the always insightful Syd Schwartz, who truly understands how to elevate a story from the page. The specifics revealed around the geography of the project’s genesis are a delight that I won’t spoil here. It may well have already registered on certain readers’ radar because of the involvement of one Tubby Hayes on tenor sax. He doesn’t hold back on the title track and is in fierce form throughout, able to stand out despite the involvement of Art Taylor on drums and Donald Byrd’s trumpet playing. The sonics are strong for an earlier selection and the width and range of the soundstage is bewitching. Do not miss this one.
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The Classics series offers up a gorgeous sounding all-analogue mono cut of the 1957 Sonny Rollins outing referred to as ‘Volume 1’. Wynton Kelly is on piano, Gene Ramey delivers the bass, Donald Byrd is on trumpet and Max Roach is already a seismic figure on the drums. The butter-curl of Rollins’ tenor sax on ‘How Are Things In Glocca Morra’ closes side one in opulent fashion and the rhythm section are in infectiously vibrant mood for ‘Plain Jane’. A silent Optimal pressing of the Kevin Gray cut is housed in a poly-lined inner and it’s hard to fault.
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The same is true of February’s final excavation from the Blue Note vaults, Dexter Gordon’s untouchable 1963 release, ‘Our Man In Paris’. A lean quartet centres around our man’s tenor sax, adding Pierre Michelot on bass, Kenny Clarke on drums and the irrepressible Bud Powell at the piano. His playing is as much about where he leaves space as when he piles in and a separate listen to the album trained solely on his role is a pleasure everyone should allow themselves. The oddly visceral ballad ‘Willow Weep For Me’ is a particular highlight, although Gordon is superb throughout. The percussive clarity on that track in particular is another of those moments that advocate for analogue cuts of vintage recordings. This was as good a month for both reissue programmes as we’ve had in a while and there are some intriguing choices in the pipeline too.
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Going Round Again:
Your correspondent loves a good Acid Jazz reissue and, luckily, they never disappoint. However, they’re gone especially big this month with a 2LP dust off The James Taylor Quartet’s ‘In The Hand Of The Inevitable’. Marking the album’s thirtieth anniversary, this edition is the first time that the original tracklist has appeared on vinyl and the whole thing has been mastered from the original analogue tapes. It’s eminently crankable from the off and what a start it has, ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’ being one of three tracks with the force of nature that is Alison Limerick on lead vocals. The tight swagger on this is utterly timeless and by the time John Willmott solos it’s almost too much, so full is my soul from what has come before.
Timed to perfection, this set captures both band and label at the peak of their powers and a whole year was spent getting exactly the right combination of tunes for this thirteen-track classic. ‘Free Your Mind’ is the purest form of earworm, while ‘Good Thing’ plays the Ronseal card. Boisterous instrumentals, big band workouts and songs that sound like they could have been number one for weeks all brush shoulders over four near-silent GZ pressed sides. Dean Rudland’s sleevenote is the kind of effusive enthusing that adds value to a purchase such as this, evoking the era superbly. Highly recommended.
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Decca and Verve have decided it’s time to reissue Muireann Bradley’s debut record, ‘I Kept These Old Blues’, as the first pressing of the 2023 release (via pivotal Stateside label Tompkins Square) flew out after she benefitted from a Hootenanny boost at the turn of the 2024. This version appends recent single ‘When The Levee Breaks’ to the original record. A teenage artist with an old soul, Bradley channels the sounds of the US through the pastoral tones of life just outside Ballybofey in County Donegal. She has a remarkable voice and the performances are delightfully intuitive, captured in very few takes. ‘Shake Sugaree’ is a neat encapsulation of her evident talent and ‘Delia’ lingers long in the memory after listening. The artwork is thoroughly charming and Kevin Reeves’ mastering is gloriously open and three-dimensional. The Optimal pressing is fairly quiet, although the sparse recording means the odd patches of surface noise are palpable.
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Mr Bongo remain the market leaders in “I didn’t know I needed that but I really do” reissues and their officially licensed restoration of Alfredo De La Fe’s ‘Alfredo’ is further proof of why. The 1979 debut by a legendary Cuban violinist, this is a gleeful onslaught of Latin disco and funk that bursts from the speakers. The percussive intricacy of ‘El Casabe’ exists at the extremes of the soundstage and it resonates far out into the room on this gorgeous new cut. As ever, the artwork is lovingly replicated to match the original and the music is presented on a silent pressing via Optimal. Side two opener ‘Hot To Trot’ was a renowned Larry Levan favourite during sets at NYC’s Paradise Garage and it does not disappoint. Once the drums kick in, things begin to ascend and the precise but organic bass sound is a real pleasure to experience. Affordable and, as ever, done with so much love and care, this is the impeccable label doing what they do best.
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At The Front Of The Racks
The new record by Polly Paulusma is a quite remarkable thing. Across three LPs, ‘Wildfires’ is presented in two parts, ‘Sparks’ and ‘Embers’. Each of the nineteen tracks that make up this ambitious project is prefaced with a spoken word passage that sets the scene, featuring found sounds from the Preseli Hills at the heart of beautiful Pembrokeshire. Working with Ethan Johns, Paulusma had expected the sizeable list of songs, the outcome of an intensely productive eight-month period of writing, to be whittled down to a conventional album but the renowned producer had other ideas. And how grateful we should be, as this is arguably her masterpiece. While some tracks take time to unfurl their charms, others are immediately striking. ‘Wild Swimming’ is instantly insistent, considering the potential for an unexpected later-life reunion with tingling mandolin accompaniment from Johns.
Opener ‘Paper Cathedral’ was used to announce the record and works perfectly as a scene-setter, clearing the decks before what follows. It’s immediately evident how well Paulusma and Johns have combined with pianist Neil Cowley and bassist Jon Thorne as the core quartet at the heart of ‘Wildfires’. ‘Eyes On The Road’, ‘Long Goodbye’ and ‘You Are Everything’ are just three further moments of splendour should you be keen to sample proceedings. While songs can be cherry-picked, it does work well as a coherent piece. Both the mastering and vinyl cut were undertaken by Miles Showell at Abbey Road and the quality of his work is evident on the consistently vast, rich and precise soundstage. Optimal have delivered a necessarily quiet pressing with only a few little clicks discernible across the six sides of the copy Just Played sampled. While the scale may seem a little daunting if Paulusma is a new name to you, it’s well worth the commitment. And, at under £40, that is some very competitive pricing from One Little Independent for such a superb sounding release.
*Yes, that’s real. I didn’t make it up.
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All titles reviewed above were cleaned before playback using the ultrasonic record cleaning machine, Degritter. A full review of its capabilities can be found in a previous column and you can find local dealers at www.degritter.com
Words: Gareth James (For more vinyl reviews and turntable shots, follow @JustPlayed on Bluesky)
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