Despite contemporary cultural zeitgeist fair zingin’ with reappreciation of under-celebrated female artists of previous eras, Girlschool haven’t been much shouted about.
It’s 15 years since Judy Collins last stepped out at the Cambridge Folk Festival. She was a mere 68 then and, in the time since, little has changed except her hair, the famous rock-star mane lopped so that she now resembles the cover of those classic early Sixties’ albums.
Although Dark Horse is Maria Wilman’s first album, it feels as though it’s the latest entry in a string of releases. The songs are fully formed. The delivery is assured. The overall character of what’s heard is cohesive, suggesting the person who recorded these 12 tracks draws from previous experiences with framing what they want to express, and how it should be expressed. But there it is, Dark Horse is a debut.
Restraint wasn’t the watchword. Around March 1965, Heinz was in Joe Meek’s North London recording studio taping “Big Fat Spider,” which became the B-side of his April single version of “Don’t Think Twice it’s Alright.” A run-through which didn’t end up on the record found guitarist Richie Blackmore tossing off blistering lead runs so frenzied, so spikey, so wayward they might – had the track been issued – have caused radio producers to check whether the single had a pressing fault.
Music from the Temple of Light has for its cover image a minimalist 17th century representation of Tantra. In this instance, a deep blue field bordering on black, scored by a golden yellow square, an arrow hanging down from the square’s centre, and a break in that arrow opening up near its tip.
It’s an absorbent and contemplative representation of forces rarely seen and beyond our control, and there’s a strong golden thread of the contemplative and of forces from beyond embedded in the album’s music, and its sacred edge.
In 2012 Dexys returned with their fourth album, and first in 27 years, One Day I’m Going to Soar. It was a concept piece, original and funny, chewing over the volatility of love, containing wonderful set-pieces, most especially a trio of songs at its centre (“I’m Thinking of You”, “I’m Always Going to Love You” and “Incapable of Love”) which humorously excoriated the fickleness of romance.
It’s probably an unconscious action. Sat on a stage-centre chair, Julie Byrne sings. The two acoustic guitars she plays for about half the set are beside her, on their racks. One hand is above the other, palms down. Each moves side-to-side in a chopping motion. It’s not simultaneous with the song’s rhythm and independent of the meter of the lines. It’s not obvious what's being complemented or ticked off, but it must draw from something concealed by the exterior.
This album promises to be an expansion of the sound and ideas of its 2021 predecessor Heart Shaped Scars, and boy does it deliver. HSS was the Scottish singer-songwriter Dot Allison’s first album in some nine years, and only her seventh in the 28 years since she first appeared with the space-dub-country-torch-song trio One Dove.
“This wasn’t the day to wear white suede boots,” says Django Django’s singer Vincent Neff, midway through the band’s Friday evening set.
He’s not kidding.
Blackbox Life Recorder 21f may have been originally touted as a mini-album but, in reality, it’s an EP with four tunes spread over just under a quarter of an hour and one of those is a remix of the title track. However, it is also the first new material released by Richard James, under his Aphex Twin moniker in five years.