Evangelist, by singer-songwriter Gavin Clark and Brighton-based duo Toydrum (Unkle musicians and production team James Griffith & Pablo Clements), was one of my favourite albums of last year, but it very nearly never saw the light of day…
Gavin, who was a member of the bands Sunhouse and Clayhill, and whose music featured in several Shane Meadows films, including This Is England, died in early 2015, before the record was completed. Owing it to their friend, James and Pablo finished the album and it was released late last year.
At times dark and unsettling, but also uplifting and spiritual in places, it’s a concept album that’s loosely based on Gavin’s life – he battled demons including anxiety, depression and alcoholism – and tells the tale of a preacher who loses his way.
His journey is soundtracked by brooding electronica, swirling synths, folk music, Krautrock rhythms, Beatles-like psychedelic grooves and heavy dub basslines. [Say It With Garage Flowers]
Minesweeping – the new record by O’Connell & Love – is one of the most eclectic and richly rewarding albums of 2015.
A collaboration between Larry Love, the lead singer of South London country-blues-gospel-electronica outlaws Alabama 3 and songwriting partner Brendan O’Connell, it’s a hung-over road trip through the badlands, stopping to pick up some hitchhikers on the way – namely guest vocalists Rumer, Buffy Sainte-Marie, June Miles-Kingston, Tenor Fly and Pete Doherty.
It opens with the moody, Cash-like, acoustic death row ballad, Like A Wave Breaks On A Rock, visits Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood territory for the drunken, playful duet Hangover Me (feat. Rumer), travels across Europe for the sublime, blissed-out, Stonesy country-soul of It Was The Sweetest Thing, hangs out by the riverside for the gorgeous pastoral folk of Shake Off Your Shoes (feat.Rumer) and heads out to the ocean for the Celtic sea shanty-inspired Where Silence Meets The Sea.
An album that wears its influences on the sleeve of its beer-stained shirt, there are nods to late ‘70s Dylan (The Man Inside The Mask), Motown (Love Is Like A Rolling Stone – feat.Tenor Fly ), Leonard Cohen (Come On, Boy – feat. Junes Miles-Kingston) and The Band (If It’s Not Broken).
“Thank God We Left the Garden received a score of 88 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic based on four critics’ reviews, indicating “universal acclaim”. Mojo called it “reminiscent of early Nathaniel Rateliff and John Moreland, and prime John Prine” and wrote that “there’s no reason here to doubt Martin might one day eclipse them all”. Paste’s Eric R. Danton called it “a stunner of a record, with songs that are stark in their simplicity, yet emotionally rich in a way that can catch your breath in your throat or leave your eyes suddenly damp”. Allan Jones of Uncut stated that it “so often sounds like something you might have heard for the first time in an early-'70s bedsit” and is “starker yet, 11 songs […] occasionally embellished by co-producer Jon Neufeld’s crepuscular electric guitar, but more usually unadorned”, calling it “Martin’s most mesmerizing, brilliant album”. Jim Hynes of Glide Magazine felt that Martin “instills his songs with heartfelt emotion that is more apparent the more one listens” and "the less-is-more approach, despite the aforementioned lack of melodic hooks, works well due to Martin’s intimate connection with these songs” [Wikipedia]
