Jonathan Jeremiah - Horsepower For The Streets

 

Fifth album from London singer-songwriter out now from PIAS Recordings

Recorded in a renovated monumental church near Amsterdam, with a 20-piece string orchestra, Jeremiah has imparted a heavy European influence into his new work.

The new album was written during a break of a European tour in France, the sort of time devoted to long walks in the fire. Upon first listen of the album, this listener realised how good of a vinyl listening experience the LP would provide.

The opening title track features imagery of road racing and reminiscing with a vibe of positivity bursting from the seams. The orchestral element of the arrangement helps elevate the composition, and this will become a recurring theme throughout the album - soulful vocal delivery married with sweeping strings.

Sounding like Michael Kiwunaka or Gregory Porter supplanted from the 1970s, the album has many highs and comes across as a warm blanket of comfort like a flavoured latte from your favourite coffee shop in the run up to Christmas.

Jeremiah is a very visual storyteller, he admits being introduced to German painter Neo Rauch - and this approach of 'art influencing art' for him. Using imagery to his advantage in the tales he tells putting you in the position of the protagonist, JJ must enjoy people watching as he sips on that coffee after a midday stroll through his local village.

A self-confessed detached character, JJ is not immune to love and tells those stories in his songs. This detachment is paramount on a song like 'Cut A Black Diamond' a song where he wrestles with his emotions, the backing vocals being the devil on his shoulder.

'Restless Heart' is a tale of triumph, a train that will reach the end despite the hill he must climb. This album begs for re-listens and appreciation on many a scale. 

Quiet, unassuming and humble, Jonathan Jeremiah is an artist I was unfamiliar with but one eager to explore more of in the future.

Horsepower for the Streets is out now from PIAS Recordings and on all platforms

In Plain Sight - Neal Francis

 

Second album from Chicago based singer-songwriter Neal Francis from ATO Records out 5th November

Encompassing a changing of personal momentum and relocating back to his hometown after a break-up, Neal Francis' second album In Plain Sight is an honest collection of new songs about resilience and overcoming adversity soaking up influence of rock and soul into a dreamlike state that is both absorbing and gratifying.

Produced by Grammy winning producer, Dave Fridmann (The Flaming Lips, MGMT), who has experience of working with off the wall production; Francis takes the basis for the second album his debut Changes which was a New Orleans RnB effort that drew comparisons with Allen Touissant. High praise indeed, yet the music of this album is more rockier drawing inspiration from the Chicago jazz and rock scenes and for this listener you cannot ignore the influence of early Elton John when he was in true trubadour honky cat days or that of Leon Russell; that joie de vivre of piano performance.

The opening track of the album 'Alameda Apartments' kicks off as more a statement of intent than anything else; full of untethered melodies, luminous grooves and lyrics that find the protagonist drifting from despair to craziness as it tells the story of moving into a haunted apartment following another break-up.

Lead single 'Can't Stop the Rain' is perhaps the standout track of the album, a real tour de force combining the power of unabashed piano with anthemic guitar riffs, written with a friend David Shaw who came up with the refrain and incorporates a message of hope despite the prospect of rain, "You can't stop the rain/It's always coming down/It's always going to fall/But you're not gonna drown"

The album was recorded by Francis and his band in a defunct church (St. Peter's UCC) setting and on tape, to help grab the power of live music performance and a band in sync; such as the guitar-heavy 'Prometheus' which features Francis on St. Peter's pipe organ in combat with an electric synth. 

The surreal and odd nature of living and performing in a church infuses the album with this religious and spiritual context; you do not have to have faith to get the power of this album as the piano Francis plays is able to connect many a listener but the piano is Francis' tool for redemption and ultimately transformation for a person who has overcome addiction problems and is now happily sober in 2021.

The album is a pleasing and rocking joy to finish this most tumultuous of years, through it all we shall always have rock and roll.

In Plain Sight is out from ATO Records on 5th November 

Neal Francis is on tour in the UK headlining O2 Academy Islington on January 23rd 2022

My thanks to One Beat PR for the review opportunity.

Peter Oren - The Greener Pasture

New album from singer-songwriter Peter Oren out 24th April from Western Vinyl

FFO: Eerie Gaits, Bon Iver, Rayland Baxter, Bob Mould

His first new release since 2017's Anthropocene, Oren has recorded this album himself in his hometown of Nashville, Indiana. This is the first project he has mixed, mastered and produced himself and recorded mostly in seclusion at a cabin near his hometown surrounded by hilly and wooded acres totally 60.

The album involved him trading files with fellow musicians some he has never met in person, yet he has produced an album that is at both times about connecting in this large world, and in these unsettling times of pandemic that theme of unity and togetherness is even more telling.

Highly rooted in the history of Americana roots, blues and country and western, while it is indebted to that rich history of American musical genres, Oren is writing about prevelant first world problems so not tales of backwater gangs but as in 'Ones and Ohs' it is about excessive phone usage and becoming a slave to this modern technology at your fingertips.

'Fun Yet' (track 6 on the album) concerns the need to have fun despite all the ability at those same fingerprints. 'John Wayne' is about the search for heroes and icons in these times of trouble. So this album is as much about looking forwards as looking back in its stripped down woozy wonderfulness.

Opening single 'Gnawed to The Bone (Come By)' is about feeling isolation understandable when recording in isolation and the theme coming through the album is about Oren combating this period of isolation and having to overcome those fears of vulnerability and gain a voice amongst the chaos and loneliness.

That first single was released on 19th February, here we are two months later and the world is very much different to then. We are all coming together in periods of reflection and contemplation, and it is works like this that will help us do this - becoming a voice for the people who themselves are seeking answers amongst this weird dystopia we find ourselves living in.

The Greener Pasture is a rich work of individualism for the people, it is out on all platforms from 24th April from Western Vinyl.