Rachel Eliza Griffiths

“10,000 Feet Below,” is spelunking the new depths of the Blues with Eliza Neals as your fearless guide. Cavern’s of sound well up through Eliza’s supernatural voice and piano driven songs, as Howard Glazer‘s guitar pierces the echo with honest tone. Breaking and entering an abandoned temple of blues-rock left long ago, descending each rung carefully to uplift your musical soul. Producer Eliza Neals rigged the journey, surveyed then mapped the suffocating walls, while finding soulful keys through narrow fissures of sound. Cascading guest guitarists Paul Nelson (Johnny Winter, Grammy 2015) and Billy Davis (Jimi Hendrix, Rock n Roll HOF) cast light on adventurous dark paths.

Specially selected 15 track compilation / Introduction note from Eliza Carthy / Features Jon Boden, John Spiers, Ben Ivitsky, Lucy Farrell and Sam Sweeney / Track by track information. Describing herself simply as a ‘modern English musician’ Eliza Carthy, has been touring on and off since the age of fourteen and first appeared on record in 1990 as a member of The Mrs Ackroyd Band alongside such notables as Les Barker, June Tabor and her father Martin Carthy. After two collaborative recordings with Nancy Kerr, she released her first solo album Heat, Light & Sound, for Topic Records in 1996, a selection of traditional songs, two of which open this new selection of her work which is drawn entirely from her solo recordings for the label and closing with a track from 2017’s Big Machine album.

This album will jump into the ears of the innocent and strike the heart of its soul. A solid mixture of rock n soul with a unique vocal delivery and sound that fuses rock, soul and Motown filling the void in female rock today. “No Frogs For Snakes,” will jump into the Ears of the Innocent and Strike the Heart of it’s Soul! Coming off a fantastic year of singing, touring, and writing Eliza Neals is prepared to release “No Frogs” in the chaos of 2008. Her strong, raspy voice balanced with piano and unique song arrangements fills the void in Female Rock today! Eliza Neals is a dynamic front woman, multi-talented musician, confident producer and outstanding live performer plus the voice of the ‘new blues’ for this generation.

Washed up on golden grotto beaches in times of rage, is “Black Crow Moan.” Eliza Neals lands squarely on blues-rock with the help of Joe Louis Walker (BB King, Blues HOF) and Derek St. Holmes (Ted Nugent.) Soaring high above 10000 feet below, Eliza Neals sultry feathers soothes the quarantined music lovers soul. A terrific landing crew of musicians including Mike Puwal (Kenny Wayne Shepard, ICP), Howard Glazer, Lenny Bradford (Bo Diddly), Jason Kott (Robert Randolph), John Abraham, Chuck Bartels (Sturgill Simpson) handle the guitars to fly by wire. Rolling the undercarriage straight is Skeeto Valdez (King Konga), Jeffrey ‘Shakey’ Fowlkes (Too Slim), Demarcus Sumter, John Mederios Jr, and Brian Clune on drums. Adding extra lift on Hammond B3 is Bruce Bears (Duke Robillard) and Jim Alfredson (Janvia Magness.) Hitting the flight ceiling is Valerie Taylor (Eliza’s sister) plus Kymberli Wright (Straight Ahead) on supersonic backing vocals. Taking flight on new wings, shaped by nonstop touring, festivals and recording, Eliza Neals is “the voice of the new blues.”

Eliza Carthy officially inherits the British folk crown from her parents with the willfully traditional Rough Music. Described in the liner notes as "a form of community punishment practiced all over England" (basically a public beating for a heinous social crime), Rough Music sounds like a lost pre-percussion Steeleye Span record filtered through A.L. Lloyd's whaling collection Leviathan! Carthy's strong fiddling and powerful vocals – she really is beginning to surpass Norma – are ably enhanced by the chiseled performance of her backing band, the Ratcatchers. Together they celebrate longstanding English traditions like public execution ("Turpin Hero"), syphilis ("The Unfortunate Lass"), and alcohol ("Tom Brown") with equal parts reverence, earnestness, and mischief. Primarily arranged for violin, viola, double bass, and melodeon, Rough Music also features lovely a cappella cuts like "Maid on the Shore" and enough fiery instrumentals to keep your feet on the cobblestones during the long walk home from the pub. In fact, there's not a moment on Rough Music that isn't essential listening. Highly recommended.

This disc strikes me as an ideal introduction to the music of Turkey’s greatest composer. Ahmed Adnan Saygun’s style might be described as “Szymanowski with a primal rhythmic feel.” If you love the composer’s First Violin Concerto then you will find here a very similar exoticism, nocturnal atmosphere, and love of voluptuous textures. The harmonic style is intensely chromatic, but also highly melodic. Like Bartók in his last period, Saygun’s handling of tonality mellowed toward the end of his life, which makes the Cello Concerto more consonant than the Viola Concerto, but both works are absolutely gorgeous and masterpieces of their kind. It’s positively criminal that no one plays these pieces regularly in concert. The performances here are excellent. Tim Hugh is a well-known cellist, and he pours on the tone with all of the rhapsodic abandon that Saygun requires. Mirjam Tschopp also is a superb violist, with a big, beefy tone that never gets swamped by the intricate orchestration. It’s also very rewarding to hear a Turkish orchestra in this music–and to find that it plays beautifully under Howard Griffiths.