Reviews Roundup – Jeff Jensen vs. Close To The Hedge vs. Ari & Mia
JEFF JENSEN
Road Worn And Ragged
Swing Suit
He’s been rocking the blues for a long time now, but this is only the third album from Jeff Jensen and his band. And it’s a good one, a fine mix of originals and well chosen covers from the likes of Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters and Tom Waits, as well as some choice guest appearances from Victor Wainwright and Brandon Santini.
“Road Worn And Ragged” isn’t just an album title, it’s a statement which sees him looking at love, life and the vagaries of a travelling musician with songs such as ‘Brunette Woman’ and ‘Goodbye Portland’ chock full of potent imagery. The best of the covers is his take on ‘Heart Attack And Vine’, which whilst not up to the Screaming Jay Hawkins version, is still a peach of a tune.
Although he’s a blues rocker, there are elements of swing on show, and he can even turn his hand to an excellent slow blues, as he does on the jazz standard, ‘Gee Baby Ain’t I Good To You’, originally by McKinney’s Cotton Pickers, but probably best known from the King Cole Trio version. All in all, an excellent offering.
Various Artists
Close To The Hedge
Pink Hedgehog
Well, here he is again. The man who has had more farewell announcements than Frank Sinatra, Simon Felton, is back with another Pink Hedgehog album. No, really. This time around he’s persuaded / blackmailed / threatened / cajoled bands, artists and friends of Pink Hedgehog Records into contributing brand new and unreleased tunes to this “Close To The Hedge” release.
Which means there are swathes of songs from folks who will be well known to Pink Hedgehog followers, such as Anton Barbeau, The Bitter Little Cider Apples, the black watch, Cheese, Garfields Birthday, Hamfatter, Peter Lacey, The Lucky Bishops, Mondo Jet Set, Schnauser, Steve Wilson, Eye and Freak Circus, as well as some lesser known (to me) names such as YO MA MA, Triops, Des’n’Al, Electrasy, Chandler Fredrick, Hallelujah Bay and Stephen John Kalinich.
You won’t be surprised to learn that it never strays far fromthe power pop / psych pop / paisley pop template that defines the label. There are brand new songs from Peter Lacey and Garfields Birthday, a new recording of an Anton Barbeau classic featuring Robbie McIntosh on guitar, as well as unreleased tunes from Cheese, The Lucky Bishops, Hamfatter, Eye and Electrasy. All told there are 20 tunes on offer, with at least half of them worth the price of admission, which is a very reasonable fiver. After all, what can you get for a fiver these days. Not even a hand shandy outside of Andersons.
It’s only available via bandcamp, where you can it as a digital download, and there is also a very limited (100 copies) digipak CD versions of the album. If you buy the CD version, you also the download of the album, with pdf liner notes, full of credits, artist photos etc. So get a shift on.
http://closetothehedge.bandcamp.com/
Ari & Mia
Land On Shore
Ari & Mia
Among the many people to go down the Pledge route of crowd funding their new album are Ari & Mia, Boston’s Americana sister act who mix up folk, Americana and fiddle music into a very pleasing new whole. It’s predominately original music with a few, legally required, Trad Arrs for good measure.
They split the vocals with Mia taking care of fiddle, gourd banjo and guitar, while Ariel adds cello, piano, Wurlitzer, Hammond organ and harmonium to the mix. As befits classically trained musicians, the musicianship is flawless, but that can sometimes take away from the emotional content of folk music. But not here. It’s not dirty by any stretch of the imagination, but even though they are several steps removed from the music they’re influenced by, you can still feel the connection.
As an old fogey, I prefer the tunes which put Mia’s fiddle to the fore, rather than the more mainstream moments, but there isn’t a moment where you throw your hands in the air and curse. Rather, there are good songs and very good songs. A pleasure.
This is Ari & Mia
And this is a Peter Lacey video
The Rocker 