UK’s greatest exporter of experimentation, Leo Records, has released a pair of fresh sounds.
Carolyn Hume plays piano and keys along with Paul May on drums and “intimate metals” on this collection of spontaneous feeling originals. Duke Garwood adds vocals to the ambient “Shape of the Night” and Bernd Rest’s guitar veers around May’s high hat on the sizzling “Poison Melody”. There are lots of atmospheres created between the two, sometimes rumbling as on the spacey “Fatal” or creating vast visions as on the playful “Bill & Marty”. Deft densities.
A richly textured and pastoral album is put together by the team of Sonja Morgenegg/voc, Florian Mayer/vi, Arkady Shikloper/horn, John Wolf Brenan/p-mel, Ratus Flisch/b and Tony Majdalani/perc-voc on this album of both originals and interpretations of rock songs. Of the latter, themix of voice and strings is gorgeous on Supertramp’s “From Now On” while the prog rock jam of Focus’ “ Hocus Pocus” featuring Shilkloper’s horn is a gas. Paul McCartney’s “Dress Me Up As A Robber’” features some nice bass work, and Bill Bruford’s “Springtime In Siberia” as wonderful interplay between Brennan and Majdalani. OF the originals, there’s an alluring folk feel to pieces like “Soseli Roseli” “The Melody Of The Earth” and a calming mood on “ The Melody Of The Earth”. Life affirming.