If anyone has earned the right to mess around with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons it is Nigel Kennedy, the violin world’s Marmite violinist. Remember how fresh he made this music sound on his recording of a quarter-century ago? This latest version offers a ferment of all he’s played since – concertos, jazz, Jimi Hendrix. It’s affectionate and irreverent in equal measure, and Kennedy and his Orchestra of Life never sound less than riveting. Pretty much all Vivaldi’s notes are there; around, above and in between them come interjections, overlays and linking passages involving guest musicians from jazz and rock: Orphy Robinson, Damon Reece, Z-Star and others. Spring is welcomed in by a distant-sounding intro on an electric-guitar. Summer’s storms bring forth bursts of crazily sampled static. Autumn tears off at a cracking pace, but with a jazz trumpet sauntering lazily over the top. It all sounds like a colossal jam session from the inside of a Botticelli painting.
Midge Ure, mastermind of Ultravox, founder of Band Aid & Live 8, Grammy Award Winner & Brit Award Winner presents his new studio album 'Fragile'. 'Fragile' is the first collection of new, original music from Grammy and Brit award winning musician Midge Ure in over a decade. "I have recorded various things over that period" Ure states "a covers album of favourite songs, a few live CD's and of course the latest Ultravox album Brilliant, so I haven't been slacking. I just never felt the need to write and release an album just for the sake of it". 'Fragile' is a culmination of influences garnered from a lifetime in the music business and shows elements of Ure's musical journey displaying his accomplished guitar work (Rich Kids, Thin Lizzy) and the electronics and technology he has utilised since the late 1970's (Visage, Ultravox).