Been listening to Cipher a fair bit recently – Cipher is Theo Travis’ other duo with a bassist, this time the bassist in question is Dave Sturt. Most of the gigs they do are providing soundtracks to silent movies, but their last CD, ‘One Who Whispers’ was conceived as such, as far as I know.
Anyway, however it came together, it’s fantastic – you really ought to get it. If you enjoyed ‘For The Love Of Open Spaces’ (which you really ought to have by now…), then you’re love the Cipher CD – lots of very fine bass playing, lovely ambient textural stuff, and Theo’s marvellous sax playing over the top. All available from the Cipher website.
I’ve also been listening to Ben Castle‘s new album, Blah Street, which is fantastic. Ben’s quartet features some of the finest musicians around – Tim Harries on bass, Mark Edwards on keys and Winston Clifford on drums, and the new record is stellar. Also worth of note is the ‘Bop Idol’ game that you can play on Ben’s website. very bizarre… Anyway, his CD is out now, and you can get it from usual places, like Amazon.
Another album I’ve listened to a bit recently is ‘Adventures in Hammered Dulcimer’ by Scott Brannon – one of the many many CDs I was given at NAMM this year (I’m about a third of the way through listening to them). To be honest, this almost didn’t get listened to, cos the artwork really doesn’t say ‘Play Me’ to me – it’s in the same ballpark artistically as the Ragatal sleeve was (which, you’ll know if you’ve seen it, is pretty dreadful). Anyway, I gave it a listen and really enjoyed it! Folky Jazzy instrumental stuff, with some proggy elements, and the rather refreshing sound of hammered dulcimer thoughout. Recommended, if you can stomach the artwork…
So there you go, a few things for you to buy this month!
And how about another webcam photo? here’s me about 40 seconds ago…
