reviews cd reviews

Paul Gunn The Ludwig Suite

Based in Tunbridge Wells, Paul writes music for his five-piece band with cello soloist and piano. The music includes Latin Rhythms, the Baroque, The Modern Era and popular culture of the 60s and 70s. His band is made up of musicians from the four corners of the Commonwealth and Europe.

This is an amazing piece of work. It is self-penned, Paul writing the piano, cello and vocal parts and this is added to by sax, drums and bass, left to the musicians' interpretation. The album has four tracks. 'The Dandy Dogs' has particularly lush vocal harmonies and a gritty cello solo. 'Rattle My Cage' is Paul’s response to being locked down; a creative cry for freedom! It features an amazing sax solo by Josephine Davies. 'Gaby of the Green Eyes' celebrates the memory of Gaby Lhéry the lover of Claude Debussy. 'Ludwig's Nice Bottle of Red' marks the 250th anniversary of Ludwig Van Beethoven, he was partial to a snifter, and Anastasia Stahlmann guests on violin.

Throughout there are echoes of Frank Zappa, Chick Corea and John McLaughlin’s Mahavishnu Orchestra, to name but a few. The result is an outstanding piece of music that transcends boundaries and styles.

You are invited to purchase the digital album for any price from £0 upwards, it’s up to you. To do so visit www.paulgunn.bandcamp.com where you will also find more information about Paul and the band.

Milton Hide The Holloway

Milton

Hide are Sussex-based Jim and Josie Tipler. On the album’s cover it states ‘To walk along a holloway is to tread a well-worn, ancient path. Shafts of sunlight guide you through a tunnel of intertwined trees’. And that sort of captures the sound of this album; self-penned folksy songs, pleasing harmony vocals, Jim’s very cultivated guitar work and Josie’s occasional clarinet. The cover of the CD is an impressionistic painting by Josie of a holloway.

Double bass, bodhrá percussion and strings on some tracks beautifully augment the fundamental melodies of the pair’s songs.

The upbeat first track 'All Gone South' is not an allusion to what some women fear, but a treatise on moving to the sun and questionable economics.

'Found Drowned/A Perfect Place' begins a cappella and turns into a pleasing guitar and clarinet piece.

'The Ballad of Gabriel Oak' and 'Widows Revenge' show the depth of experience the two must have with folk music, I would guess we have two folk aficionados at work here. These two songs could have been written centuries ago, echoing love and hate stories with twists, as many folk tunes do, with very accomplished melodies. Honestly, these songs wouldn’t be out of place on a Sandy Denny or Steeleye Span album.

The title track is the last on the album. A beautiful, very short instrumental with guitar and clarinet conjures up the peace and tranquillity of walking a sylvan holloway, and is a fitting ending to such a rustic and charming album.

Visit www.miltonhide.com for full information.