Russ practice CD entry

Gil Scott-Heron, I'm New Here (XL Recordings)

by Russ Coffey

Some say Gil Scott-Heron invented rap. He certainly pioneered rhythm and blues poetry. And, famously, after an extraordinary career and just when he should have been old enough to know better, he lost his way to drug addiction. And now here he is, quite remarkably, back. He’s rediscovered his creative muse, showing again what substance there can be in hip hop lyrics. Because really that’s what this album is – a hip hop album. And ironically, given how often Scott-Heron has been sampled, here he turns the tables, borrowing sampled rhythms from rapper Kanye West.

Of course there’s also irony in the title, “I’m New Here”. Scott- Heron has been recording since 1970 and has never looked so old. At almost 60 he looks 105, having spent half the last decade hooked on cocaine and the other half in prison. But surely he is able to stage such a comeback because, like Johnny Cash before, he's still a soul struggling to make sense of the jumbled and fragmented reality he sees in front of him.

If it were not the crusading of Edinburgh publisher James Byng, this record would not have been made at all. Byng got London label-owner-cum-producer, Richard Russell to write to Heron in Prison, which is how it all started. And there’s nothing forced about the record Scott-Heron and Russell have made. It just seems that Scott-Heron has just decided that he wants to talk and make music again. He’s quit running, exhausted the possibilities of getting out of it, and is looking to what gave him peace all those years before.

The record is largely comprised of his compositions, although in places he uses other people’s words. Robert Johnson’s, “Me and the Devil” is given an electronic reworking, and the Smog song “I’m New Here” is sung straight, complete with finger-picking drone, to dolefully announce a return from an emotional hinterland. The soundscape that Russell has created makes the record contemporary; the beats are the sort of beats that label-mates M.I.A  or Dizzee Rascal, might employ. In fact given the complete change of musical texture it is surprising that the record sounds so immediately like the Scott-Heron of old. The voice is not split and ragged like Dylan’s. Spoken or sung the baritone is still rich. It’s just now a sad melancholy instrument.

Gone is the swagger of the young firebrand poet telling the world that the revolution will not be televised. It’s replaced by the reflections of a man trying to convince himself that no matter how many wrong turns you take it’s never too late. His focus may have turned from the world outside to the world within but Scott-Heron has returned with something to say and he says it well.
However, although “I’m New Here” is a good record, it is also an incomplete record. For a start it’s very short, about 27 minutes. And the accompaniments are too sparse and the balance from soul to spoken word leans too heavily to the latter.

But given how dangerously ill he looks no-one is going to begrudge him his work ethic. Rather we should be amazed at how a song like “I’ll take care of you”, sounds just like him at his peak. And if the album is short on commentary of African-American life, as some suggest, how refreshing it is to hear Scott-Heron look back on his life’s influences and conclude in the final seconds of the record “My life has been guided by women/ and because of that I am a man”.
Buy I'm New Here on Amazon

MIdlake, The Courage of Others (Bella Union)

by Russ Coffey


It seems if you cross Radiohead with Jethro Tull you get something a bit like the Fleet Foxes. Well on the evidence of Midlake, anyway. These bearded Texans used to play lo-fi indie pop but changed their sound when they started to listen to British prog rock. And, heart-warmingly for anyone who feared they might be just another bunch of fashionable hipsters, Midlake also actually claim to want to sound more like the perennially unfashionable Tull.

Like a few bands of the moment – Mumford and Son, First Aid Kit, Fanfarlo, not to mention the Fleet Foxes-  their sound is complex, accomplished and folky. And although it’s considerably heavier than some of the current crop  there’s no doubt who their label think will like them: the hip kids sitting in trendy coffee shops listening to Pentangle and other retro-folkedelia. Undeniably Midlake have been listening to such bands too. What is also clear is that they have been listening to Rainbow, and Rush and the ballads of a whole slew of rock bands whom have yet to be reclaimed by trend setters.

Which is why it will be unfair if they just get lumped in with the rest of the nu-folkers. Theirs is a much more authentically 70’s sound. It’s a combination of nostalgia, distracted vocals and melancholy and it that makes listening to the record often like driving through the forests of Oregon listening to am radio and feeling like Peter Fonda.

And yet none of it seems derivative or second-hand. It still sounds just like them, but a long way down a winding road from either their debut and sophomore offerings. And that It doesn’t necessarily mean it always sounds better, rather it sounds more evolved. The fact some of the lightness of 2006’s “The Trials of Van Occupanther” is absent here should not detract from the overall achievement. And tracks like “Fortune” and the title song truly deserve to be put on a loop.
Find The Courage of Others on Amazon.




Tom Mcrae, The Alphabet of Hurricanes (Cooking Vinyl)

by Russ Coffey



What is it with the Mercury Prize? Just as the X Factor is a springboard for talentless chancers to achieve chart success and tabloid adulation, Mercury nominees tend to slip into critically heralded obscurity. Mcrae was nominated 9 years back, and he stopped being the “next big thing” about two years later. Promoting his last album, the by then, indie artist, told an anecdote about how the only “people” who’d wanted to interview him were the BBC’s CEEFAX service. And it seems overwhelmingly probable that Mcrae’s latest offering is unlikely to bothering any chart soon. And yet the new album is possibly the most accomplished and definitely the most varied record he’s made. In “the Alphabet of Hurricanes” he’s built up a new musical vocabulary learnt from time spent in the US. And where he uses it is where he’s at his best. It takes the edge off the angst and provides an easier backdrop to explore Mcrae’s central theme; the fragile bonds between people.


This fifth record brings a much fuller sound than we are used to. Mcrae may have rented in an unheated Victorian terrace in Sheffield to record, but he has coaxed out of his band a sultry New Orleans funeral march (“A is for ...”) and several moments of what can only be described as alternative country  and western (“Me and a Stetson”, “Fifteen miles down a River”).
But it’s not just expanding the musical scaffolding beyond voice guitar and cello, that marks progression. Mcrae is beginning to explore his own vocal range, and finding that lowering his register can result in increased expression and expressiveness. Where he offers up soaring falsetto anti-torch songs like “Summer of John Wayne” or “American Spirit”, there is a sense of having been here before. But there’s no arguing with songs like “Best Winter” and “Still love You”. Mcrae fans seem to relish his relative obscurity – his London concert was sold out months in advance. But if at least half of this album is to go by, there’s every danger that their little secret yet might escape.
Buy the Alphabet of Hurricanes on Amazon