Category Archives: On record

Switched On – Heavenly Remixes 1 & 2 (Heavenly)

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heavenly-1

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

The celebrated record label Heavenly, one of Britain’s most durable independent record labels, was built in part on the art of the remix. It is therefore only right they celebrate the craft with a quartet of compilations. The first two were released in late 2021, while the much-missed Andrew Weatherall who made their first remix, gets the third and fourth volumes all to himself early this year. This review covers the wide selection of music housed in the first two releases.

What’s the music like?

Hugely enjoyable. The great thing here is the planning on the part of the label, who have skilfully blended remixes old and new into a logical order without losing the sheer enjoyment of the process.

Among the many highlights is the now legendary Underworld remix of Saint Etienne’s Cool Kids of Death, with spacey pianos flitting in and out of the picture. This is in contrast to the blasts of distortion given to Jimi Goodwin’s Terracotta Warrior by Andy Votel. The Mother remix of Espiritu’s Los Americanos brings the funk, while a surprise Cherry Ghost cover of CeCe Peniston’s Finally has a meeting with The Cure’s Lullaby in an unexpected turn of events from the studio desk of Time and Space Machine.

The more recent material includes a windswept take on Unloved’s Why Not from Gwenno, while Raf Rundell struts out in the company of the synths of Harvey Sutherland, an excellent take on Monsterpiece. The spatial effects applied to Midlife’s Automatic from Jono Ma Ascend are also a treat for the headphone listener, and the loping beat of Confidence Man’s Out The Window, as managed by Greg Wilson & Ché Wilson, is brilliant.

heavenly-2

The second volume has a similar old-new profile, which once again is brilliantly managed. The enjoyably gritty Monkey Mafia remix of Saint Etienne’s Filthy is very much of its time, with big beats and heavy bass, while The Orielles succumb to a great piano-led house treatment from Dicky Trisco & Pete Herbert on It Makes You Forget. The artfully restrained Mikey Young remix of Boy Azooga’s Face Behind Her Cigarette is nicely done, and leads into typical glittering excellence from Lindstrøm, as he takes Doves’ Jetstream to the cleaners. R. Seiliog’s swirling take on Gwenno’s Chwyldro is a compilation highlight, making a heady impression, while in a similar vein M. Craft’s Chemical Trails is wispy and rather lovely when passed through the studio of Beyond the Wizards Sleeve.

Does it all work?

Yes. A few of the remixes show their age but why shouldn’t they? It all adds to the appeal of a compilation that will leave its listeners more than a little misty-eyed, but will give the rush of familiar vocals in unfamiliar settings. The wide range of styles only makes the package more attractive.

Is it recommended?

Without hesitation. Anyone with a passing interest in dance or indie music will take a lot from listening to these two volumes, and some of the components will fill valuable gaps in many a collection. It is a genuine thrill to hear a remix album as good and as fun as this collection is.

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On record – Hail Caledonia: Scotland In Music (City of Glasgow Philharmonic Orchestra / Iain Sutherland) (Somm Recordings)

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Trad. arr. Sutherland The Black Bear Salute
Docker Abbey Craig (1974)
Tomlinson Cumberland Square (1960)
Coates The Three Elizabeths – Elizabeth of Glamis (1944)
Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 56, ‘Scottish’ – Vivace non troppo (1842). Blake Take the High Road (1980)
MacCunn (arr. Sutherland) Sutherland’s Law (1886/1973)
Docker Faery Dance Reel (1958)
Sutherland Three Scottish Castles (1966)
MacKenzie (arr. composer) Benedictus, Op. 37 No. 3 (1888/1895)
Bantock Two Heroic Ballads – Kishmul’s Galley (1944)
Arnold Four Scottish Dances, Op. 59 (1957)
Williamson (arr. Sutherland) Flower of Scotland (1967)
Trad. arr. Sutherland Amazing Grace
Whyte Donald of the Burthens – Devil’s Finale/Reel o’ Tulloch (1951)

David Wotherspoon, Iain MacDonald (bagpipes), City of Glasgow Pipe Band, City of Glasgow Chorus, City of Glasgow Philharmonic Orchestra / Iain Sutherland

SOMM Ariadne 5014 [79’32”]

Digital Remastering Paul Arden-Taylor

Live performances at Royal Concert Hall, Glasgow in 1995 and 1996

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

SOMM releases via its Ariadne imprint this compilation of shorter pieces and arrangements which, between them, afford a wide-ranging and not at all hackneyed overview of ‘Scotland in Music’, realized with great flair by Iain Sutherland and the City of Glasgow Philharmonic Orchestra.

What’s the music like?

Whether or not the fastest regimental march in the British army, The Black Bear Salute duly launches proceedings with a gusto continued by Robert Docker’s breezy take on battle-song Scots Wha Hae in Abbey Craig. Ernest Tomlinson furthers the jollity with his amalgam of traditional Borders tunes in Cumberland Square, to which the quiet rapture of Eric Coates’s ‘Elizabeth of Glamis’ (central panel of The Three Elizabeths triptych) provides an admirable foil. The scherzo from Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony makes for an ideal interlude in its rhythmic vivacity and formal ingenuity, then come pieces made famous through association with television series – Arthur Blake’s atmospheric theme-tune for the soap drama Take the High Road and the corresponding sequence for crime drama Sutherland’s Law, derived from Hamish MacCunn’s overture Land of the Mountain and the Flood as has regained its place in the concert hall. Docker’s contribution to the light-music repertoire is typified by his Faery Dance Reel, a lively and infectious medley of traditional tunes that wears its heritage lightly.

Iain Sutherland displays his compositional skills (with respective nods to Arnold and Coates) in Three Scottish Castles with its evocative tribute to those of Stirling, Dunvegan (Skye) and Edinburgh. Next comes a contrasting brace of pieces – the burnished eloquence of Alexander MacKenzie’s Benedictus here followed by the unfailing extroversion of Kishmul’s Galley by Granville Bantock, whose immersion in all things Scottish was enduring. Malcolm Arnold’s Four Scottish Dances are then given a memorable reading which points up the trenchant gait of ‘Strathspey’ or the latterly inebriated progress of ‘Reel’, before ‘Hebrides’ casts a suitably rapturous spell that is summarily curtailed with the headlong energy of ‘Highland Fling’. One half of influential folk duo The Corries, Roy Williamson created his own standard in Flower of Scotland, here given an opulent arrangement comparable to that of the ubiquitous Amazing Grace – after which, the closing section from the ballet Donald of the Burthens by Ian Whyte (founder conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra) makes for a scintillating finale.

Does it all work?

Yes. Compilations such as this are often no more than the sum of their parts, however enticing those parts may be, but Hail Caledonia is one to sample at leisure as well as worth playing at a single sitting. It helps when the City of Glasgow Philharmonic renders all these pieces with alacrity and enthusiasm, aided by being captured on various live occasions, and owing in no small part to its founder Iain Sutherland. A familiar radio presence over several decades, he brings an authority to music whose outward flair is not without its corresponding substance.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. The remastered sound lacks nothing in realism or immediacy, while there are detailed and informative notes by composer, critic (and no doubt ecosophile) Robert Matthew-Walker. Any listeners who are looking to add such a compilation to their collections need not hesitate.

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You can discover more about this release and listen to clips at the SOMM Recordings website, where you can also purchase the recording.

On record – Havergal Brian: Symphonies 3 & 17 (New Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra / Stanley Pope) (Heritage)

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Brian
Symphony No. 3 in C sharp minor (1931-2)
Symphony No. 17 (1960-61)

Ronald Stevenson, David Wilde (pianos, Symphony no.3); New Philharmonia Orchestra (Symphony no.3), Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (Symphony no.17) / Stanley Pope

Heritage Records HTGCD153 [67’26”]

Recorded 12 January 1974 and 23 June 1976 at BBC Maida Vale Studios, London

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Heritage has followed its release of Charles Groves’s centenary accounts of Havergal Brian’s Gothic Symphony (Part One) and In Memoriam with this first official issue of the composer’s Third and Seventeenth Symphonies, as given in their first performances under Stanley Pope.

What’s the music like?

Although he left few commercial recordings, the London-born and Geneva-based conductor Pope (1916-95) was highly regarded in music from the 19th and 20th centuries. These studio performances are among the best premieres that Brian received, not least the Third Symphony which at almost 55 minutes is his lengthiest after the Gothic. Little is known about its genesis, but the 20-minute opening movement has a complexity and emotional breadth that suggest a suitably high-flown inspiration. Two pianos mark off crucial junctures in its formal trajectory, besides enriching the texture vis a concertante underpinning such as surges forth in the stark chordal cadenza prior to the coda. Had Brian stopped there, this would still have been among his most ambitious symphonies, and the three remaining movements afford intrigues aplenty.

The slow movement continues in similar fashion in its combining of textural audacity with a melodic immediacy (notably for flute and violin) as makes this an ideal entry-point for those new to Brian, and though its expressive ambience is by no means easy to define, a feeling of heroic fatalism comes to the fore during the climactic stages and in a coda of moving pathos. By contrast the scherzo is as direct in its appeal as anything that Brian wrote, not least a trio whose ingratiating charm provides suitable contrast with the boisterous music on either side. With its slow overall tempo, the finale builds in sonorous paragraphs – to whose Brucknerian grandeur Pope is especially attentive – toward a stormy culmination and heightened recall of earlier ideas; thence into an epilogue whose unequivocal finality is rare in Brian’s maturity.

Nearly three decades later, the Seventeenth Symphony offers a very different perspective on Brian’s creative outlook. Last in a series of five single movement such pieces, it is markedly elliptical as to formal unfolding and expressive follow-through – yet, even more than with its masterly predecessor, a continuous and metamorphic ingenuity is perceivable right from the pensive introduction then throughout the three- (or even four-) in-one sequence that follows. Confident and yet ruthless in its triumphalism, the coda is decidedly music for its ‘present’.

Does it all work?

Almost. The Third is the most inclusive of Brian’s orchestral symphonies in its intricacy of texture and (ambivalent) range of expression. Drawing four such diverse movements into a cohesive whole is no easy task, but Pope succeeds more completely than does Lionel Friend (Hyperion) and probes more fully than Adrian Leaper (Naxos) the disquieting obliquities of the Seventeenth. The playing of the New Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras is testament to the skill of British players in tackling such complex music on limited rehearsal.

Is it recommended?

Yes. Heritage has done a fine job in opening-up the 1970s sound (the BBC’s notoriously dry Maida Vale studio) and John Pickard contributes his usual insightful notes. The 1974 account of Brian’s choral Fourth Symphony would be an ideal next candidate for such rehabilitation.

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You can discover more about this release at the Heritage website, and you can read more about Havergal Brian here

Switched On – vaghy: Minimalism (Théque Records)

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vaghy

reviewed by Ben Hogwood

What’s the story?

After 20 years of playing as part of a band, Hungarian pianist Tamás Vághy is striking out on his own, with little more than a piano and some electronics. His aim was to strip music back to its bare elements, and to rediscover his own art as a performer and composer.

While vaghy plays the piano for the main melodic lines, he also provides the accompaniment through a clutch of analogue synthesizers and even a heavily manipulate zither.

What’s the music like?

Minimalism is a brave title for a new album, for although in this case it means a ‘back to basics’ approach, it also forms in the listener expectations that vaghy’s style will be close to that of Steve Reich or Philip Glass.

That proves not to be the case, but not in a bad way, for this is a thoughtful and often enlightening piece of work. It is also not a straightforward piano album, thanks to vaghy’s treatment of sounds. This is immediately apparent on the opening Rush, with dampeners applied to the tones so that the piano makes a lovely, mottled sound.

vaghy writes with a good deal of movement in his music, but with a stillness at the heart of it where the listener can position themselves. The style also bears similarities to Michael Nyman’s piano work but the tones are lighter on the ear and more evocative.

As Minimalism progresses so there is increased light and shade – the former present in the airy touches of Backwash, which has a lovely rippling effect. The latter qualities are evident in the darker Tripping, with its shuffling rhythm track.

Meanwhile the likes of Lonely and Dawn Light find a special, inward-looking intimacy, while Intention has a lovely turn of phrase and some complementary effects with the Moog, which blossom to a full-bodied and powerful conclusion.

Does it all work?

Yes – Minimalism has enough craft and descriptive colour to stand out from the crowded field in solo keyboard repertoire. Its loops become strangely hypnotic and the attention to detail invested by vaghy is repaid through music of character and subtle shades of colour.

Is it recommended?

Yes. If you like keyboard players such as Nils Frahm then vaghy’s music will definitely appeal, and its subtleties will work their hypnotic touch on many a listener. This is a quiet album – and if you make space for it, the rewards are plenty.

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On record – Lindberg: Aura, Marea & Related Rocks (Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Hannu Lintu) (Ondine)

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Lindberg
Aura (1993-4)
Related Rocks (1997)
Marea (Tide) (1989-90)

Emil Holmström, Joonas Ahonen (pianos/keyboards), Jani Niinimäki, Jerry Piipponen (percussion) (all in Related Rocks), Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra / Hannu Lintu

Ondine ODE1384-2 [66’59”]

Producer Laura Heikinheimo; Engineers Anna-Kaisa Kemppi, Antti Pohjola, Enno Mäemets October 2019 and bDecember 2020 at Music Centre, Helsinki

Recorded October 2019 and December 2020 (Marea) at Music Centre, Helsinki

Written by Richard Whitehouse

What’s the story?

Ondine continues its extensive coverage of Magnus Lindberg with this retrospective volume of works mainly written in the 1990s; at a time when the Finnish composer was moving away from his overtly avant-garde stance to an accommodation with the contemporary mainstream.

What’s the music like?

It was when Lindberg was writing Aura that Lutosławski died, hence the memorial dedication of a piece which represents a conscious summation of what the younger composer had striven for to that time. Its almost 40-minute duration and its division into four movements led some commentators to attribute a symphonic conception; something that the predicating of gestural over motivic continuity effectively refutes. That said, the initial section does have a feeling of exposition in its respective dynamism and stasis; ultimately arriving at a seismic unison chord from which its successor unfolds along the lines of ‘slow movement’ with an initial emphasis on the rhetorical interplay of brass and strings, followed by an evocative episode with tuned percussion and woodwind to the fore. Another unison leads to the third section, its animated motion nominally akin to a scherzo though with only a halting momentum on the way to the final section; a finale inasmuch as it takes the piece through to a threnodic conclusion, albeit with only a tangential bringing of the overall structure formally and expressively full circle.

Although the trajectory of Lindberg’s output thereafter was toward greater harmonic clarity and tonal directness, there have been numerous ‘curve balls’ – not least Related Rocks with its electronic gloss on the favourite modernist line-up of two pianos and two percussionists. Nor is there anything remotely proscriptive about one of this composer’s most effervescent and playful works (not least via a doubtless coincidental allusion at one point to the theme-tune of the 1970s snooker programme Pot Black), as retains its appeal a quarter-century on.

Finally, to Marea – central piece in an informal trilogy of works for chamber orchestra that exemplify Lindberg’s music towards the end of his first decade of creative maturity. At just 12 minutes, it might also be considered a template for those curtain-raisers often found in the composer’s recent output; though the level of incident and intricacy of texture, underpinned by an upward-striving trajectory, evinces a simplification too often replaced by superficiality once the composer arrived at an idiom lending itself gratefully to international commissions.

Does it all work?

Mainly, given Lindberg was seeking to extend his musical language onto a wider expressive canvas without veering towards the diluted idiom often informing his idiom thenceforth. No doubt that, whatever its formal issues, Aura stands among of the crucial orchestral works of its period and Hannu Lintu’s take is a worthy successor to the pioneering account from Oliver Knussen (DG). Marea summons a feisty response by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, while those keyboardists and percussionists render Related Rocks with scintillating virtuosity.

Is it recommended?

Indeed. Those who dislike the rebarbative feel of Lindberg’s early music or are unpersuaded by his latter-day output ought to find something worth engaging with in these pieces. Neither the high-impact sound nor booklet notes by Kimmo Korhonen leaves anything to be desired.

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You can discover more about this release at the Ondine website. You can read more about Lindberg here. The Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra are here, and their conductor Hannu Lintu’s website can be accessed by clicking here.