Times 2 - UK (2020-11-13)

the times | Friday November 13 2020 1GT 9

music reviews

After a bruising experience with a

major label that led to the band she

formed with her brother being

dropped before they got going, the

Bristol songwriter Katy J Pearson

has gone back to basics.

This charming, personal album of

country rock, soul and indie is about

being lonely, meeting people and

generally getting through the whole

adventure of being in your twenties.

Take Back the Radio and Fix Me Up

are, respectively, catchy tunes about

the power of music and finding

someone else to resolve your

problems, and the whole album is

marked out by the arresting quality

of Pearson’s Kate Bush-meets-Dolly

Parton vocal delivery. A bit of a gem.

Katy J Pearson

Return

Heavenly

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You couldn’t go wrong either with

the pianist Martin Helmchen, whose

previous release in his Beethoven

concerto series recently earned him

a Gramophone award. The present

issue, the finale, features Concerto

No 3 and the Triple Concerto, both

performed in the athletic, thoughtful

and unpretentious manner that makes

Helmchen performances so agreeable.

Other pleasures keep pouring out

from Andrew Manze’s bouncy

direction of the Deutsches

Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Perhaps

there is more to explore in the

concerto’s furthest depths, but the

relaxed pleasures of the Triple

Concerto, with Antje Weithaas’s violin

and Marie-Elisabeth Hecker’s cello,

are wonderfully fulfilled. A pity there

was no solo part for Avital’s mandolin.

Geoff Brown

Avi Avital

Art of the

Mandolin

Deutsche Grammophon

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Martin

Helmchen

Beethoven

Alpha Classics

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T

his critic grew up with two

musical instruments

knocking around the house,

both remnants of his parents’

frivolous years. Making

rude noises on my mother’s accordion

was enjoyable, but I usually neglected

the mandolin, mentally associated

only with chinless wonders in

PG Wodehouse stories footling about

in a punt. Thank heavens the Israeli

musician Avi Avital didn’t think the

same, otherwise the world wouldn’t be

able to enjoy this delight of an album

Art of the Mandolin.

For six years Avital has been the

world’s only mandolin player with

a big recording contract. No

Wodehouse character could even

dream of the tactile subtleties at his

command, the colour range or the

flamboyant dexterity immediately

revealed in Vivaldi’s G major Concerto

for two mandolins. Most of the music

featured comes from Mediterranean

countries, and every plucked sound

from Avital’s fingers, variously joined

by a harpsichord, guitar, harp and the

Venice Baroque Orchestra, radiates

warmth and dazzling light.

The 20th and 21st-century pieces

bring some of the album’s liveliest joys.

Henze’s Carillon, Récitatif, Masque of

1974 couldn’t be more playful if it tried.

Giovanni Sollima’s solo Prelude, fiery

and folksy, and Paul Ben-Haim’s

warmly exotic Trio are equally

enjoyable, as is (despite its title) David

Bruce’s Death is a Friend of Ours,

a bustling quintet featuring driving

rhythms and Sean Shibe’s guitar. If

you ever need a shot of sunshine

during the winter months, I prescribe

Art of the Mandolin.

classical

salesman gripped by a rebellious urge

on the M1 and thinking, “Sod it, I’m

going up to 75.” Nobody comes to

AC/DC for the answers to life, but this

takes meaninglessness to a new level.

With impressively clear vision,

Malcolm Young realised in 1973 that

Australia was filled with factory

workers, sheep shearers and others

whose needs were not being met by

soft pop and progressive rock. So he

decided to form a band that would

sound good in bars, especially after

your fifth beer. The formula remains

unchanged on Power Up. As Johnson

once said: “People like to explore.

Good luck to ’em.”

reunion album come from Malcolm

Young, with the absolute minimum

of ingredients added. There is a

soporific thud from the rehabilitated

Rudd, solos from Angus Young that

consist of little more than distorted

Chuck Berry licks played incredibly

loud, and Johnson screaming about,

well, not a great deal really.

On Rejection he warns us that

disrespecting him will result in pain.

An inconclusive report from a fortune

teller on Witch’s Spell prophesies that

his future “could be sinister... or

maybe not.” On Code Red we find him

“Speeding down the road, tearing up

the highway code” like a travelling

From left: Cliff Williams,

Phil Rudd, Angus

Young, Brian Johnson

and Stevie Young

AC/DC

Power Up

Columbia

{{{{(

Heavy rock’s great

survivors are back

in the ring to take

another swing, says

Will Hodgkinson

H

alfway through the latest

album by the world’s biggest

heavy rock group, which

takes the maxim “If it ain’t

broke, don’t fix it” to its

ultimate conclusion, comes a typically

basic boogie called Kick You When

You’re Down. “As you’re slipping down

a wall, when you’re heading for a fall,

why do they kick you when you’re

down?” asks Brian Johnson in his

throaty roar, while the guitarist Angus

Young, still dressing like a schoolboy

even though he can now claim for his

free bus pass, answers in the only way

he knows how: with a blistering riff.

AC/DC have survived for almost

50 years by being impermeable to

fashions, world events, and anything

resembling musical growth. Life

catches up with all of us eventually,

though, and in 2014 Young’s elder

brother Malcolm, the architect of the

Australian band’s brutal sound, was

diagnosed with dementia. He died in

2017. Also in 2014 drummer Phil Rudd
      was charged with attempting to
      procure murder, like a real-life take on
      AC/DC’s contract-killer classic Dirty
      Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. That charge
      was withdrawn, but he admitted
      others of threatening to kill and drug
      possession and was put under house
      arrest. Johnson, who joined after the
      former singer Bon Scott died at the
      end of a massive drinking spree, quit
      in 2016 after his doctor said that more
      concerts would leave him profoundly
      deaf. Bassist Cliff Williams, also facing
      hearing issues, left later that year.
      Now all of them are back together.
      Not even death can stop a band who
      once played a gig in the Australian
      outback where a fan showed his
      appreciation by running riot with a
      meat cleaver. Most of the riffs on this

pop

Paris Jackson

Wilte d

Republic

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Don’t come here expecting anything

remotely like her father Michael’s

hook-laden pop funk; Paris Jackson

has gone the other way and headed

toward meandering, hippie-friendly,

acoustic folk-rock. She has a nicely

languid voice, best showcased on the

gentle love song Repair, and there’s

real pain in the lachrymose break-up

piano ballad Eyelids.

Much of this would sound lovely if

22-year-old Jackson were strumming it

out by a campfire on a beach at sunset,

ideally in Malibu, and although it isn’t

dynamic or original enough to make

an impact, there’s something sweet

and sincere about it all.

Jackson has risen above her demons

to make a debut album with promise.

You can imagine great things from her

when she finds her own voice.

Good pluck: the joyful sounds of the mandolin

Liraz

Zan

Glitterbeat

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Brought up

in Israel in

a Sephardic

Jewish

family

who

moved

there

before the

Iranian

revolution, the

actress and singer

Liraz Charhi wanted to make an

album to celebrate the women of her

mother country. So she collaborated

with composers and musicians from

Iran — in secret, away from the glare

of Tehran’s secret police.

The result is beautiful, from the

sentimental balladry of Shab Gerye to

the 1970s Persian disco of Joon Joon

to the floating mystery of the ancient

lullaby Lalei. With its combination

of traditional Persian instruments,

primitive electronics and Charhi’s

dramatic delivery in Farsi, Zan is

a glimpse into another world.

JOSH CHEUSE

A change of style? Hell no, let’s rock!

p

c

the

d singer

Jazz album

Dave Brubeck reviewed

at thetimes.co.uk/arts