My colleague Mike Plumbley and I have been talking a lot recently about musical 'melting pots' and there is a lot coming to the boil in this particular brew, with many of the ingredients having the flavour of a hot Eastern spice.
Mile Wide Smile - Hubble (Holistic HOLCD33)
Tracks: Poland, Stingray, Gravy Cherries, El Topo, Reaffirmation, The White Light of Venus, Mile Wide SmileAvailable from Steve Dungey, Holistic Records
phone or fax 44 (0) 171 582 8142
Joy of Cooking
by Vic KingThe multi-talented Rupert Brown, aka Hubble has produced an impressive debut solo CD. Shake the man by the hand. There are a lot of colours on this particular flag. Rupert plays drums and percussion on all tracks as well as adding moog snthesiser or guitar to most of them.
The opening track 'Poland' is an industrial Eastern European soundscape with the harsher edge of Bowie's 'Low' period. Rupert's moog buzzes on top of a mighty foundation. 'Stingray' has lighter touches and transports us further East into the mystique of a marketplace with its exotic dancing percussion.
It is no wonder that the likes of Rupert and his Holistic label mate Max Brennan are in such demand for film and TV soundtracks. 'Gravy Cherries' has spooky snyths and leads to 'Haiti' where sweeping flourishes of sarrod from the masterful Paul Athey embellish the superb percussion. The keyboards on 'El Topo' have echoes of Peter Gabriel's 'White Shadow' or even Neil Merryweather's 'Space Rangers'.
Athey's 'Bombay Calling' sarrod is back on 'Reaffirmation' with more Eastern suggestions. The Kaliedoscope perhaps? Not sure. Noel Black's violin on 'The White Light of Venus' is ELO for the 21st Century, with little Beatlesque touches creeping in. The last track, the title track, brings it all back to a more familiar jazz funk groove.
Well done all concerned, including label boss Steve Dungey. This is more evidence, if it was needed, as to what a good label Holistic is.
Also available: The Holistic Sampler