Angry Brass

Beat music, British beat, or Merseybeat (after bands from Liverpool and nearby areas beside the River Mersey) is a pop and rock music genre that developed in the United Kingdom in the early 1960s. Beat music is a fusion of rock and roll (mainly Chuck Berry guitar style and the midtempo beat of artists like Buddy Holly), doo-wop, skiffle and R&B. The genre provided many of the bands responsible for the British Invasion of the American pop charts starting in 1964, and provided the model for many important developments in pop and rock music, including the format of the rock group around lead, rhythm and bass guitars with drums. The Beat Of The Pops - excellent selection of beat tracks.

A new album that throws a spotlight on 12 hidden gems from the Elvis Costello repertoire and vividly reimagines them in the duet’s definitive country-soul styling.
Released on 6th November 2020, the record see the familiar husband/wife pairing of Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish joined by a very special guest in the form of The Imposters / The Attractions original: Steve Nieve, whose inimitable keys and wisdom radiate throughout the release. Teasing the release with a new single, “The Crooked Line”, the folksy ‘Secret, Profane & Sugarcane’-era Costello number receives a ramped-up and electrifying rework that sets a tantalising precedent of what lies ahead on the LP. As avid admirers of Costello’s rich back catalogue since his “angry young man” earliest days, ‘Country Darkness’ arrives as both a salutation to the man himself and something of a labour of love for My Darling Clementine.

Milhaud was so prolific and also so uneven that few of us stray far beyond the handful of works which have stayed in the repertoire. The last work of his that I heard, Le train bleu, a ballet for Diaghilev which I had long wanted to hear, was typical: it was pleasant, competent and forgettable. So when it comes to his twelve numbered symphonies I wonder whether to take the plunge. Here we have an opportunity to sample his work in the most demanding of genres. This disc of the first two symphonies was a product of Plasson’s short-lived contract with DG.