David Sheppard has received critical acclaim for his work with the group Phelan Sheppard. He is also a founder member of Ellis Island Sound and a member of Smile Down Upon Us, The Wisdom Of Harry, and Continental Film Night. Phelan Sheppard released the album Harps Old Master on The Leaf Label in 2006. A collaborative single with Niandra Ladies was released on Static Caravan in 2007. On Some Faraway Beach, David’s rather large biography of Brian Eno, is out now in the US through the Chicago Review Press.
Tenniscoats / Ichnichi
The Japanese duo of Saya and Ueno recorded their album Temporacha in a miscellany of outdoor locations, allowing the musique concrète of the world to become a legitimate component of their sound. Ichnichi is constructed from little more than wheezing accordion bellows, guitar harmonics and the surround-sound of birdsong. It may sound studiedly naïve and somewhat contrived on paper, but it works: music as total sensual seduction.
Charles Spearin / Mrs Morris
Sometime Broken Social Scene bassist Charles Spearin conceived The Happiness Project album after making vérité recordings of his Toronto neighbours’ musing on notions of happiness. The accompanying music was sourced from the very cadences of verbal utterance. On the track Mrs Morris, the titular lady’s utterly disarming musings on love are matched by an echoing, fluttering sax, to sublime effect. If you’ve been moved by Steve Reich’s Different Trains or Gavin Bryars’ Jesus Blood Never Failed Me Yet, investigate this immediately.
Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra / The Introduction
Over forty years old, but still vital, Haden’s ensemble recast the jazz big band as a thing of politicised folk music. A gorgeous brass tune, swathed in arabesques of counterpoint harmony, The Introduction pulls you from jazzy intrigue to full on joyous euphoria in an economic one minute and fifteen seconds.
Blind Blake and The Royal Victoria Hotel Calypsos / Love, Love Alone
Not the blues singer of the same name, but a nowadays forgotten Bahamian calypso potentate. Love, Love Alone offers a timeless, summery sound and sentiment (although it’s actually written about the ill-starred romance between King Edward VII of England and American socialite Wallis Simpson). It’s like bottled joie de vivre: resistance is useless.
Michael Andrews / Goldfish
Best known for his soundtrack to Donnie Darko, Mike Andrews’ finest work appears on his criminally overlooked solo album, Hand On String, and his soundtrack to Miranda July’s charming movie, Me And You And Everyone We Know. From the latter comes Goldfish, a piece of lovely, ‘organic’ electronica made from heavily modulated and treated Casios, along with other processed rinky-dink keyboards. It’s other-wordly, lo fi ambient atmosphere and lovely smoke rings of melody are irresistibly immersive.
World Standard / Alabaster
The title track to a great album by Japanese instrumentalist Sohichiro Suzuki (never properly released in the UK, but hopefully still available in the US), this is the work of a gifted haiku musician. With plucked acoustic guitar and a smattering of piano, violin and xylophone, he creates a rich, bucolic chamber folk which wafts from the speakers on gossamer wings. A sublime soundtrack in search of a slow, yet emotionally engrossing movie
Yo La Tengo / The Fireside
The last track on Yo La Tengo’s Popular Songs album (not out until September, but I am fortunate enough to have an advanced copy), it’s an eleven minute long dronescape, judiciously decorated with lush guitars and Ira Kaplan’s gnomic murmurings. Imagine Fleetwood Mac’s Albatross re-imagined by Brian Eno and Tom Verlaine and you’re close.
Little Boots / New In Town
It feels a little token-ist to put in an offering by one of the currently ‘hot’ UK nu-pop princesses, but Little Boots’ Hands album has been getting some heavy rotation chez moi this summer. It makes you dance, it makes you sing along, it makes you smile. That’s the definition of great pop music right there.
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