The Exeter Hall has reopened under new management following its recent closure. Live music will continue at the venue, so promoters looking to put on nights or bands looking for gigs should email exeterhall at hotmail dot co dot uk for more information.

A condemned mansion on Cumnor Hill in the November darkness was Ellen McAteer’s choice of recording venue for this demo. Her ethereal tones, as well as Billy Rigg’s cello add to the other-worldly atmosphere of the record.

Her words have the lyrical sadness you might expect from a singer/songwriter who’s also a spoken-word poet. Opener ‘Blue Valentine’ is the strongest track with its haunting but hummable melody and lyrics hinting at emotional devastation close by. ‘Fake Tattoo’ also has a tune that will stay in your head for hours after hearing it.
 
The only let-down is ‘Howl’, which borrows a little too heavily from Mazzy Star as well as having a disconcerting melodic resemblance to Phil Collins’s I Wish It Would Rain Down; once you spot it, you can’t stop noticing it.

This demo suggests that Ellen McAteer is an artist with a lot of promise. Here’s hoping she returns soon with a full-length album: one that brings in some of the fire I’ve seen in her spoken-word performances, without skimping on the lovely tunes that make this demo a delight.

Ellen McAteer Myspace

By Kate Griffin

 Refreshing artlessness or just plain rubbish? I’m only thinking at this stage about the cover illustrations which accompany The Follys’ ‘Sunrise’ EP. Specifically, we have a rudimentary palm tree on the front and an even more basic sun with a smiley face on the back, rendered with a level of competence that would make the efforts of a sporty six-year-old look like Gauguin. But to be honest, the dilemma is applicable to the musical content as well, with laughably bad lyrics (check out the load of bull in the title track, and I mean that literally) jostling with the occasional quite pretty melody. The musicianship is mostly sub-par, although the singing, especially on the superior ‘In the Dark’ occasionally impresses.

The band is dominated by the prolific but uneven singer-songwriter Trev Williams on guitar, aided by bassist Paul Hancock and drummer Luke Gerry. There is no signature style to the EP, which lurches from spangly indie-pop (the pretty, if obvious ‘Give a Little Love’) through half-hearted punk (’Pretty City Boy’) to hackneyed classic rock (’Butterfly’). Hancock and Gerry are not the steadiest rhythm section in the world, and to be honest the band may have been advised to have rehearsed for another year before going near a recording studio, as they still sound like they are feeling their way. That said, they cope with the intricate, hypnotic introductory riff and time changes of ‘In the Dark’ manfully. In this song, Williams’ vocals nearly reach the heights of his rather good solo album, but the track is spoiled by a too-obvious steal from The Temptations’ ‘My Girl’ and a pointless coda in which Trev protests about how deep he is.

I’ll gloss over the tedious tale of Williams’ taurean encounter- if you’re interested, it’s all there on ‘Sunrise’. In the hands of the BareNaked Ladies (there’s the odd musical nod to this band too) the material could have been mildly amusing, but wittiness  isn’t really in Williams’ locker.

Overall, not very good I’m afraid. Williams’ lyric-writing seems to be getting more childish with age, and the band is a long way from gelling. Still, there is the odd hummable tune dotted around, and not all of them were written by Smokey Robinson.

The Follys Myspace

By Colin MacKinnon

Oxford Improvisers are holding a special concert as part of the Abingdon Festival on Saturday March 8, entitled ‘Sonic Dynamics’. Exploring the fertile relationship between composition and improvisation, the event makes the most of the wonderful acoustic of St Helen’s Church in the town centre. Musicians include Chris Brown (guitar), Alexander Hawkins (piano), Darren Hasson-Davies (percussion), Julie Hamilton (clarinet), Nick Sorensen (sax), Trish Elpinstone (sax), Paul Medley (sax), Chris Hills (percussion), Malcolm Atkins (violin) and many more. Music starts at 7.30p.m., £6 cover charge. For more details please go to www.oxfordimprovisers.com

Local rockers King Furnace launch their single, ‘So Low’,   at The Cellar on Thursday 6 March, with support from A Genuine Freakshow, Ankles and Fee Fi Fo Fum. Doors open at 8.30, with promo giveaways for the first punters through the door.

It’s an odd effect, but Scottish songstress Iona Bain always sounds as if she’s about to burst out laughing. There are a couple of artists out there who had this quality but they’ve been off the stage for rather a while-Theresa Brewer and Doris Day come to mind. Although Iona’s style is old-fashioned, her music doesn’t quite hark back to those antediluvian acts (still being played on rockin’ Radio 2 of of course). Instead, her jaunty, sophisticated pop songs are often adorned with eighties-era synthesizers and drum beats that sound like they have been appropriated from ‘Thriller’-era Michael Jackson. Not promising then, you might think, but Bain has a real gift for melody, is an excellent pianist and her optimistic, gentle singing is uncomplicatedly loveable.

After all that praise then, probably her weakest tune on this collection is the first, the would-be funky ‘Emma’, awash with synthesizer sounds that should never have seen out the decade to blame for creating them. More important, why should a song about Jane Austen be funky at all? Shouldn’t it be all string orchestras and harpsichords? Be that as it may, we lose about two thirds of Iona’s words, due to the intrusiveness of the backing track.

Balance is restored in the plangent ballad, ‘Yet’, with Iona’s jaunty vocal backed only by a jazzy solo piano, the big opening riff having affinity with the one that begins Mark Cohn’s ‘Walking in Memphis’. Quality is maintained in the ridiculously catchy, ‘Romeo’, which adds both Shakespeare and Alfred Lord Tennyson to the literary canon namechecked on the record (could Iona be an English major, I wonder?). The production is still a little synthetic, but less heavy-handed than on ‘Emma’ and is all the better for it. The piano is compressed so that it sounds more like a clavinette, whose comedic style adds to the predominant mood of romantic semi-seriousness. I think this tune captures the essentials of Iona’s unusual charm: at their best, Bain’s songs momentarily restore our childish faith in love as being primarily about enraptured students having picnics on the Cherwell and reading Shelley to each other. Beats entire CDs about meeting chavs while collecting your giro any day.

Iona Bain Myspace

By Colin MacKinnon