18. belday, March 4, 1988 North Shore News

music

Oysters make
pearl of an album

FOLK-ROCK troubadors with a strunge seafood name cross
over musically; a band from Hull, England releases a great
album and then breaks up; an Italian movie music master’s
career is caught on vinyl; the London sound machine spins
out anew contender; The Manhattan Transfer tap a
Brazilian breeze to inspire (heir ic est.

The Oyster Band — Wide Bluc
Yonder, Cooking Vinyl/Festival
Recordn 1987

Atlast, authentic Ruglish
troubndors to make sense of the
tlites we live and deliver it all with
a rootsy blast of Brit-Isle music to
move fo,

The Oysters cracked many a
hard shell at last year's Folk Festi-
val, The atbum ds a chance for
those who didn't catch theni live to
get an inkling of what all the fuss
Is about,

The Oyster Band is John Jones
on vocals and melodeon (a (ype of
nccordion); lan Kearcy, bass, #2-
string guitar, banjo and vocals;
Russell Lax, drums and percus-
ston: Alan Prosser, guitar and

MICHAEL
BECKER

music reviewer

vocals; Jan Tefler, fiddle, concer-
tina and keyboards,

- Together they manage to draw
on the robust folk spirit of a
bygone era and lyrically energize it
with issues facing real folk living
today.

On The Early Days of a Better
Nation, Tefler.crystalizes the two
worlds the. band successfully
strides: ‘‘I fall asleep with the TV
on; Wake with an ache, it’s
another week gone; Consider how
my light is spent; And where it was
that the real thing went; I asked a
wise man for advice; I told him
once and | told him twice; My life

-is one long damage limitation; He
smacked me hard around the head;
He handed me a card that read;
Work like you were living in the
early days of a better nation.” ©

Covers of Billy Bragg’s Between
The Wars and Nick Lowe’s The
Rose of England, round out a
striking collection of tunes.

The Housemartins — The People
Who Grinned Themselves To
Death, Go! Dises/MCA 1987

They look like four young fresh
fellows from the ’50s and sound a
little like a socially-conscious ver-
sion of Herman’s Hermits.

They never caught fire on the

continent from their base in Hull,
Sngland, but the Housemartins’
swan song stands melodic testa-
ment to the band’s sure-handed
mastery of light, bright melodic
pop fortified by lyrical insight
from the shared pen of P.d.
Heaton and Stan Cullimore.

The group's management an-
nounced carly January that “their
three-year recording project'’ had
come to an cod. The reason given:
In an age of Rick Astley, Shakin’
Stevens and The Pet Shop Boys,
they just weren't up to snuff.

But this release tells otherwise
with a heartfelt selection of bailads
and bouncy polished pop.

Ennio Morricone — Film Music
1966-1987, Virgin Records/A&M
1987

Ah-yi-ah-yi-ah...wa-wa-wal The
Good, The Bad and the Ugly
theme from the 1966 Sergio Leone
film by the same name provides a
suitable blazing opening toa
fascinating collection of film music
with big screen pretensions.

The 26 tracks composed, or-
chestrated and conducted by Mor-
ricone offer a sweeping retrospec-
tive and some satisfying in-
strumental musical moments,

From the moody romanticism of
Mosca Addio (Moscow Farevell)
to the haunting, full-blown
spaghetti Western sound of The
Man with the Harmonica, Mor-
ricone’s music has breathed life in-
to the epic and cinematic farce
alike.

The record includes several
selections from Morricone’s score
written for Roland Joffe's ’86
film, The Mission.

A great disc to have on hand
when you feel like you’re living in
a movie where the music is all
wrong and you're hungering to
add just the right edge to the scene
unfolding about you.

The Godfathers — Birth, School,
Work, Death, CBS Records 1938

The debut North American
release from this London band
jumps up and grabs you by the ad-
renal glands. Shades of the
Ramones meet the Byrds. The
group signed to the Epic label June
‘87 after several independent label
successes in England.

George Mazur’s drums and per-
cussion and Chris Coyne’s bass are
rock solid. Chuck Berry school-

OS

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RIDING THE crest of the folk-rock wave, The Oyster Band comes up with a string of pearls on its latest

release.

of-guitar licks alternate with
mind-squeezing hallucinogenic
guitar work from Kris Dollimore
and Mike Gibson. Guitar amp
feedback is hep once again. Pete
Coyne’s voice generates just the
right touch of raucous rage to tic it
allup.

The best of this boss mod crop
of tough new sounds is the nihilis-
tic tile cut Birth, School, Work,
Death; the pharmaccutical loss of
self recounted in Am 1 Coming
Down, Love Is Dead, the tale of a
gal who sets her prioritics straight
for success in a cynical world.

The Manhattan Transfer — Brasil,
Ailantic/Wea 1987

Smooth as Amazon delta waters.
The Transfer pick up the tracks
where Sergio Mendez left off with
the luscious Brazilian-textured
sounds of Capim, Hear The Voices
and Soul Food To Go.

Production by singer Tim
Hauser is neat with voices and in-
struments sharing the sound stage
as they should.

Following the vocalese jazz ex-
ploration on the album Vocalese,
this release returns to chart more
conventional jazz-flavored pop
sensibilities. So You Say stands out

ees

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EVERY WEI

as a beautifully soulful ballad of-
fering. Notes From The Under-
ground takes Pretoria to task in
song.

A fincly-crafted album with
some magical vocal moments.

THE MANHATTAN Transfer — mine for Amazon

gold in Brasil.

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