Latest CD releases reviewed
MADONNA
Confessions on a Dance Floor Warner Bros ***
She used to be a trendsetter, dictating pop's direction with just a bump and a grind. These days, Madge is finding it harder to keep up with changing fashions, so she's going back to what she knows: good, old-school 1980s grooves. Confessions, co-written and co-produced with Stuart Price (aka Les Rythmes Digitales) is a straight-ahead club record in the vein of her 1980s mix album, You Can Dance. Sampling Abba's Gimme, Gimme, Gimme for the opening track, Hung Up, may be a misjudgement, but it sets the tone for the retro beats to follow. Get Together, Future Lovers, Forbidden Love, Jump and How High all remind you of something you've heard before, probably when Madge was like a virgin. Rewind and reinvent - it could just work for her. Kevin Courtney
BABYSHAMBLES
Down in Albion Rough Trade ***
Before he became the "drug-addled crack-head boyfriend of Cocaine Kate", Pete Doherty was a songwriter of rare talent. As The Libertines, he and estranged friend Carl Barat wrote some of the classic songs in modern British rock. So, despite all the extraneous nonsense, Down in Albion was always going to be a record worth waiting for. Like a modern street-urchin William Blake, Doherty continues to dramatise a sought-after neverland, his albion - except his is the place where there's "gin in tea-cups/ And leaves on the lawn/Violence in bus stops/And the pale thin girl with eyes forlorn" (Albion). That pale thin girl, Moss, informs the entire album. She duets on La Belle et La Bête - a MacGowan-esque tale of rent-boys - and references to her pop up frequently. The album is packed full of yarns about prison and the fetishisation of seedy street squalor. Unfortunately, it's frequently difficult to hear them. The recording is at best like a demo, at worst a shoddy mess. There is no doubting that Doherty has an enviable ability to write great songs, but it's shameful that he can't be bothered to properly record them. www.babyshambles.net Paul McNamee
CRAIG ARMSTRONG
Film Works Universal ***
You may not know his name, but you know his music. Craig Armstrong has scored tons of films and worked in a producer's capacity for luminaries such as Massive Attack, Madonna and U2. This two-CD disc captures all his film work and there is some strong, atmospheric stuff here - Armstrong is big on emotive strings and gentle ambient soundscapes. He's a favourite of Baz Luhrmann, and Armstrong's work on both Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge is well represented here. But it's the less familiar work that captures the attention, as in Rise from The Negotiator and Escape from Plunkett & Macleane. The last track is a real oddity, in that you wonder why it was included: Armstrong's music for Luhrmann's Chanel No 5 perfume television advertisement. Brian Boyd
BOB GELDOF
The Anthology 1986-2001 Universal ***
His recent Lifetime Achievement Award from the Brits is probably the one Bob Geldof treasures most, because it was given for what he regards as his primary activity - that of a singer-songwriter. Following the award, the entire Boomtown Rats back catalogue was released on CD, and now there's this four-CD box-set of his post-Rats solo career. The first solo album, Deep in the Heart of Nowhere, with its showbiz supporting cast, was perhaps too close to the end of the Rats for comfort and was weighed down by the wrong sort of expectation, though This Is the World Calling still sparkles. On the underrated Vegetarians of Love, Geldorf weighs in with one of his best ever songs, Thinking Voyager 2 Type Things (which could pass for the new Arcade Fire single). The Happy Club, meanwhile, veers all over the place and the centre doesn't hold. The weeping wound that is Sex, Age and Death sounds even scarier now than on its 2001 release, particularly on the eerily impressive Pale White Girls. Brian Boyd
VARIOUS
Gilles Peterson Presents the BBC Sessions Ether ****
Besides connecting the dots from old soul to new jazz and back again, Gilles Peterson's BBC Radio One show also hits many spots with a range of live sessions. By inviting various musicians to make their way to the Beeb's Maida Vale studios to do their thing, the show provides an extra dimension to the music that is its bread and butter - call it jam or marmalade, but there's certainly plenty to go round. On this double-CD, you'll be startled both by names you probably do not know (the sultry soul blur of Philly teen Jazmine Sullivan and the trippy dark scat of Peven Everett come to mind) and such box-office draws as Björk, Beck and The Roots. What makes these sessions so memorable are the simple things: how you can't mistake Portishead's Beth Gibbons for anyone else, the funky disco you always get with Amp Fiddler, and the mesmeric meeting of minds between jazz drummer Steve Reid and Four Tet. The essential selection. www.ethermusic.net Jim Carroll
DAVID BOWIE
The Platinum Collection EMI ****
Bowie's back catalogue has been repackaged and re-marketed so many times, even this seasoned Bowiephile is starting to lose track. These three CDs have previously been on sale as stand-alone releases, but it's nice to get his EMI output in one neat, shiny set. CD1, The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974, covers his Ziggy/Space Oddity/Aladdin Sane period, and contains some of the classiest classic hits around, including Starman, The Jean Genie, Rebel Rebel and Life on Mars. CD2 takes us through his sci-fi soul and krautrock disco phase, via Fame, Golden Years, Boys Keep Swinging and the towering Heroes. CD3 chronicles the yuppie years of Let's Dance, China Girl and Loving the Alien, but at least there's Fashion and Ashes to Ashes, and not too much of his late-1980s dross. www.emimusic.info Kevin Courtney
PELLUMAIR
Summer Storm Tugboat ****
Pellumair are Tom and Jaymie. The soft-sung pair have combined forces to create one of the most beguiling debuts of the year. On first listen, it sounds like Simon & Garfunkel have given up getting lost in America and found themselves in the studio of My Bloody Valentine renegade Kevin Shields. On second listen, it's like My Bloody Valentine have embraced the sounds of silence, squeezed some life into them, and formulated beautifully crafted, intense shoe- and star-gazing anthems. On third listen - well, you get the picture; this is a fine collection of effortlessly tuneful, utterly harmonious songs, slow, sombre, yet incredibly uplifting. Actually, make that sublime. Tony Clayton-Lea
JACKSON BROWNE
Solo Acoustic Vol 1 Inside Recordings ***
This is Jackson Browne's first live recording since the (then) groundbreaking, documentary-like Running on Empty in 1977, and the tenor of the music has changed even as many of the songs remain old trusted favourites. For the tour that spawned this album, Browne worked through his back pages, but he informed them with the emotions of the day, principally George Bush's re-election. If you rate Browne (and I do, even allowing for his obvious limitations), then this collection will be a valuable addition; if not, then it is unlikely this will make you change your mind. Warm, friendly, thoughtful and soulful, Browne remains a figure of commendable integrity and talent, as this collection testifies. www.jacksonbrowne.com Joe Breen
