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Sarah L King: The Light Ahead
by Neil Duggan
Sarah L. King follows up her assured debut album, Fire Horse (ECN Music, 2024), with The Light Ahead. She maintains the format of the first album, mixing cover versions with eight of her own compositions. There is a clear shift in the tone of this release, with the focus being far more optimistic and celebratory. “I wanted to write something uplifting," says King. “All that matters is today -let's focus on that. Stop longing, stop wondering. Just be, and enjoy." ...
Continue ReadingJim Watson: Calling You Home
by Neil Duggan
Pianist Jim Watson's wide-ranging career has seen him collaborate with an amazing array of artists across the jazz and pop genres, including Manu Katche, Kurt Elling, Sting, Richard Bona, Chrissie Hynde and Meshell Ndegeocello, to name just a few. This versatility bears fruit in both his compositions and choice of covers on his solo album Calling You Home. A graduate of jny: Leeds College of Music (now Leeds Conservatoire) and jny: London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, ...
Continue ReadingDreamweavers: Woven In Time
by Neil Duggan
The group Dreamweavers is the vision of two guitarists, one who acts as the lead player and the other who predominantly acts as producer, also adding lap steel guitar and mandocello (the baritone member of the mandolin family) to the musical mix. Woven In Time is their first release and the result of their ongoing collaboration. Chris Allard, the lead guitarist, studied jazz and classical guitar at jny: London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama, receiving an honours ...
Continue ReadingSarah L King: Fire Horse
by Neil Duggan
Starting her musical path with coaching from Mike King, one of the UK's leading contemporary vocal coaches, Sarah L King (no relation), surfaced as a solo jazz vocalist, releasing an EP of standards and several singles. Her passage was helped by a family heritage consisting of an accomplished jazz trumpeter father and an orchestral conductor grandmother. An early career as a writer and director of short films provided the right impetus to be a compelling musical narrator. King's ...
Continue ReadingRay Russell: Fluid Architecture
by Mark Sullivan
Veteran British guitarist and composer Ray Russell has been active in free jazz, fusion and as a session player. His whole range of experience finds a voice in the opener “Escaping The Six String Cage," as he and synthesist Eric Baldwin explore a wide range of guitar sounds. Slide guitar gives way to lyrical volume pedal swells, followed by rhythmic loops leading into free playing. Lyrical delay evolves into an abstract soundscape, finally returning to slide. Several tracks ...
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Music
April
From: The Light AheadBy Jim Watson
Snow Blind
From: Fire HorseBy Jim Watson
Black Dog
From: Fire HorseBy Jim Watson
