You are allowed to enjoy this…

Phil Manzanera is, most undoubtably, the most underrated modern guitarist of his age. For those of you who aren’t aware of him, he is most famous for being the plank spanker in Roxy Music. He is also famous for producing Brian Eno’s “Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)” album and being the brains behind the 801 Live band/album.

His solo career has been patchy…and that’s coming from me, a fan who cites this guitarist as one of his main influences. His first solo “Diamond Head” is an essential purchase and is a who’s who of rock at the time. His subsequent works have veered from OK (K-Scope, Listen Now) to brilliantly futuristic (Primitive Guitars) to mediocre (Southern Cross).

Luckily, 6PM owes more to “Diamond Head” than to any other of his albums and features many of the performers that appeared on that original 1975 release. Brian Eno, Robert Wyatt, Paul Thompson, Andy McKay and Bill McCormick all appear and are augmented by performances from Chrissie Hynde and David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. To quote PM himself, this is an album he has waited 26 years to make.

The opening track “Broken Dreams” is a paean to his dead father and his a direct nod to the acid-rock of the late sixties. It sounds like Floyd amongst others. “Green Spikey Cactus” is far more left-field and features some incendiary harmonica from Chrissie Hynde. With a superbly catchy chorus, this track is a real summery song. Come on, let’s come together right now!

This upbeat feeling continues with “Love Devotion”, song about love obviously, but trust me, it isn’t mawkish. It’s a love song for boys, OK? Again, it is up (with a bit of down) and has another sing along chorus. “Wish You Well” is a much more sombre affair and is a tribute to Ian McDonald (not that one – the one who played on 801 & Diamond Head) who committed suicide last year and features a bass solo from his brother, Bill MacCormick. With a few dodgy couplets, this is prolly my least favourite track on the record.

The title track is guitar-led instrumental, which features some signature playing from PM and when you hear this, you will hear the precise tone and playing that inspires my own noodlings on the electric banjo. Then it is back to the songs again with “Waiting for the Sun to Shine” which is most apt in this wash-out of a British summer we are experiencing and is my “Song of the Summer”. Again, it is catchy, upbeat and if it was fronted by some blond 20-year-old lad, it would be a massive success on the hit parade.

Towards the end of the record is a series of songs that are linked together…yup we are talking prog, my friends. The Cissbury Ring – as that’s what the collection is called – is a musical journey around the South Downs. Starting with “Cissbury Ring”, another upbeat track that sounds like it has been nicked from my old pals Supergrass. “Porlock” is an instrumental that features the ethereal trumpet of Robert Wyatt (I forgot to mention that RW plays his share of the drums on this record too, yahoo!). The collection ends with the trilogy of songs “Shoreline/Always You/Sacred Days” which veer from bleak to introspection to optimism. The last two tracks feature some strong guitar playing from David Gilmour…in fact the last track features some guitar sparring from DG & PM.

I must admit that I didn’t have any expectations when I heard about this. Luckily, the album didn’t disappoint and it is a very strong collection of songs. They aren’t going to be to everyone’s tastes – some might dismiss them as being a little light or a little fey, but I think that this is the strongest collection of songs PM has put out since Diamond Head. I was also surprised by PM’s vocals. His influences are worn on his sleeve from Pink Floyd to Robert Wyatt to Kevin Ayers. It’s all here if you know what you are looking for. It’s a very English record.

I am thoroughly enjoying this record and recommend it. And the packaging is pretty snazzy too (if you like digipaks, that is).

This concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall marked the end of the 10th Rhythm Sticks festival, which celebrates all manner of percussion and drum music.
I’m not a big jazz fan, so I don’t know if I am sufficiently educated to give a critical view of the concert, so I’ll just fluff my way through with some general thoughts.
The opening band “Polar Bear” are a four-piece band augmented by a female singer and a guy who makes terrible noises on an Apple Mac laptop. The band itself started off well and I was very impressed with the interaction between the drummer/band leader Sebastien Rochford and double bass player Tom Herbert. In fact, I enjoyed Herbert’s contribution the most as he was a good solid player and provided a good foundation for some of the free-form stuff going on. The two saxophonists, Peter Wareham and Mark Lockheart, blew very well and they took it in turns to solo and react with each other. It was a 45 minute set and the band started off very well, flagged in the middle, and caught our interest again with the final stomper of a song “King of Aberdeen”. Interesting and if I see their CD around, I might even give it a go.
The main attraction was this expanded Earthworks band, featuring members of Tim Garland’s Dean Street Underground Orchestra. I’d never seen Earthworks before and I knew with this configuration I was flying into uncharted waters. Tim Garland was the band leader for the night, leading the group through a combination of material from the Earthworks and Dean Street Underground Orchestra. A lot of the Earthworks material was almost unrecognisable because it had been re-tooled for a 9-piece band. There was lots of great soloing and it was all good fun. I had a few issues with the mix – I couldn’t hear the drums and bass clearly enough – but I think this was down to the sheer amount of sound coming from the stage. There was even a namecheck to KC from Tim Garland during the show.
It was a really interesting and engaging evening of music I had never heard before. The Missus pointed out that this was the first gig where NO GUITARS were present. That was refreshing, indeed. Now I really want to hear Earthworks as a four-piece!

This is the 13th album from the Aylesbury-based band and this time they decided to pull out all the stops and produce a double CD collection of songs for the faithful. Once again, the fans paid the band in advance so fund their promotional push for this record and, if we are lucky, the band might just get a number 1 single out of this.
As a band that complains that they aren’t progressive rock, the album opens with a 12-minute track called “The Invisible Man”. This song builds on the loops and atmospheres laid down by “This is the 21st Century” from their previous album and is quite an atmospheric opener, despite some of the lyrics owing a nod to TS Eliot (naturally).
Throughout the album there are four smaller tracks called “Marbles I-IV” which provide the narrative thread. These songs deal with that sense of loss that goes hand-in-hand with getting older and that loss of innocence.
The song “Genie” seems catchy enough, but “Fantastic Place” seems as if it is a track from “Holidays in Eden” and “The Only Unforgiveable Thing” is completely throwaway. The first CD ends with another epic track called “Ocean Cloud” that deals with isolation and introspection again, the isolation of the ocean rower sailing across the Atlantic. Clocking in at nearly 15 minutes, this veers from quiet reflection to excited dynamism, but, for me, doesn’t quite manage to get off the ground.
The second CD fares much better. “The Damage” and “Don’t Hurt Yourself” instantly clicked with me and by the time the new single “You’re Gone” hit the speakers, I realised that we were onto something here. “Angelina” slows down the pace and is not a track that I am particularly enamoured with and then the album picks up again with “Drilling Holes” in which the band sound as if it has been listening to too many Beatles records.
The album closes with “Neverland” another mighty prog-rock epic. This time around though, the band nails it. It is the perfect closer to this record and sweeps you along from the get go.
The main problem with this record is the fact that it spans two CDs and for your money you get nearly 90 minutes of music. While some of you might think this is a good thing, I think the band could have made an extremely good 72-minute single album. Saying some of the tracks are filler would be unfair, but some songs naturally stand out more than others. The first disc feels a bit aimless while the second disc grabs you by the neck and drags you along.
So do I recommend it? Of course. Is it any good? Some of the music on Marbles is the best the band has done in a while. It is just a shame that there’s just too much music to get through in a single listen.