Bryn Terfel seems to release discs in pairs; 2004’s Silent Noon is the second of his interpretations of English artsongs. The first was 1995’s Vagagond And Other Songs Of Vaughan Williams which I hope to review one day.

It is interesting to note that the disc in question contains several of the same songs as the first but in different, and in this humble author’s opinion, slightly more accessible settings. Songs by Roger Quilter (Now Sleeps The Crimson Petal, O Mistress Mine, Come Away Death) predominate on the disc. There are also songs by Vaughan Williams (his Shropshire Lad cycle) and Britten (Oliver Cromwell). Settings of Yeats and Shakespeare round out the some thirty tracks.

Accompanist Malcolm Martineau (Terfel’s regular) provides a sensitive backing to the rich baritone. A sense of maturity permeates the disc- Terfel is more comfortable with these songs than the one’s on his other English artsongs disc.

These are timeless, high class classics they sing of every day life and are rich as can be expected.

“Jenny Patrick is a writer/jeweler from Wellington,” says the author notes at the front of all her books. What they seem to forget to say is Patrick is a great writer with almost all her novels hitting the New Zealand bestseller list.

Landings is different from Patrick’s previous novels which were set in the oppressive coalmining town of Denniston in the 1880s. Landings is about “New Zealand’s Rhine”, the Wanganui River, the people who live on it and the steamboats that traveled it at the turn of the 20th century. It centres around an insane girl of upper class origins and her relationship to the rest- the hoteliers at Pipiriki, the former convict (now a hermit) and so many more into whose lives for a little while Patrick gives us a glance.

The writing is simple-an easy read-aloud (Patrick wrote for radio before she became a novelist). Though tenses sometimes are confused and with the use of multiple voices there are quite a few slips of the pen that some editor didn’t pick up. Nonetheless, the yarn is worth it, very much so. Patrick makes one really FEEL for these people and understand them as if they were your old friends.

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This record has long been out of print but has come back into existence with the invention of iTunes and is worth the $17.95 you have to pay to get the download.

Joining Judy Collins on 1997’s Christmas At The Biltmore Estate are the Charlotte Children’s Choir under Sandy Holand and a small ensemble of session players-cello, trumpet, guitar, piano. Such an ensemble has the potential to get very like a high school musical but not so this whose arrangements are beautifully crafted mainly by Collins herself.

The star and the choir are in fine voice as they sing Christmas standards – Silver Bells, O Come All Ye Faithful, Hark The Herald Angels Sing and more.

In typical Collins style the album blends an eclectic mix of sounds though not refreshing the Christmas favourites so much that they become outrageous. Collins contributes three of her own songs to the record, Come Rejoice, All On A Winterry Night and the impressionist setting of Clement C. Moore’s The Night Before Christmas.

In interviews of the time Collins has said this and her earlier Christmas record Come Rejoice! are about the emotional meaning of Christmas for her. It is an enthusiastic performance full of the Christmas spirit and worth buying simply as a Christmas record. For Judy Collins fans it’s a very long time coming.

The tv special from whence the disc came has recently been reissued on DVD with extra content and is available from amazon.com.

Upon the death of the last of this great Irish singing group (Liam Clancy passed on December 4) it seems fitting to return to their routes and take a peruse of their first album recorded 60 years ago in 1959.

The Rising Of the Moon: Irish Songs of Rebellion according to Liam Clancy’s memoir The Mountain of the Women, had a long gestation. Produced under the auspicies of the label Clancy cofounded with song collector Diane Hamilton Gugenheim, it was recorded in Tom Clancy’s kitchen with his wife and baby in attendance. The album garnered rave reviews being hailed as “raw” and “the epitome of things Irish”. Despite this the quartet was unhappy with the album so they engaged a harpist an released the “revised version”. The original has been lost so it is the revision that comes down to us.

The Rising Of the Moon opens with the shrill notes of Makem’s tin whistle and starts as it means to go on with the stirring title song. It is very raw despite the refinements. The simplicity and zeal for the Irish song are what makes this record so great. The singers perhaps are not at their best but they were young and it was their night job, to make excuses for them who are now all dead.

For its time the album brought forth many songs which would become standard “The Rising Of the Moon”, “Minstrel Boy”, “Foggy Foggy Dew” but to name a few. The reissue comes with expansive liner notes including the words to all the songs. And as it says for years it was almost illegal to whisper these in Ireland, to hear them in peace time is a pleasure. They hold well.

I have wanted to write about this recording for a very long time. The first of Grammer’s sollo efforts has gained umpteen awards since it’s release in 2005-Song of The Year for Gypsy Rose(06,) Album of the Year and appearances on many folk DJ’s in the US top ten lists.

Nonetheless, Flower of Avalon is a hard record to describe in brief. From the elusive title which appears nowhere else on the record to the eclectic sound scape.

The record brings forth the last nine songs by the late singer-songwriter Dave Carter (Grammer’s former singing partner/guitarist.) They are emotionally charged, the subject matter is complex mixing the simplicity (and complexity) of everyday life (Hard To Make It, Winter When He Goes) with the complexities of religion (Mother I Climbed, Any Way I Do). The songs are faintly remiscent of Leonard Cohen though not so morbid.

Grammer possesses the vocal talent to make these songs simply live. It’s not a pure voice, not a suffistocated voice-more a jazz voice than a folk voice. She also plays guitar, violin and banjo on this amazing record.

Country but not coutry, erily folksy and poppy with some jazz influences, Flower of Avalon is a take home.

In 1989 Whelsh Bass/baritone Bryn Terfel won the Ferrier memorial award (an honour he is definitely worthy of.) His newest effort has been compared to the folk recordings of Ferrier in the late 40s. Noetheless, it is radically different.

<pIt must be noted that the record has two titles so I have put the subtitle "Songs of the British Isles" in the headline. In the UK it is called First Love and in the US and Australasia it is called Scarborough Fair.

Terfel is joined by the choir London Voices, soprano Kate Royal and Irish boy band popstar Ronan Keating.Backed by members of the London Philharmonic, they render favourites and obscurities from the British Isles.

There are some interesting arrangements. An almost Wagnerian reading of Loch Lomond an an eerily large She Moves Through The Fair.I had expected something much more simple with this set of songs. It is, nonetheless, strong.

He sings Scarborough Fair (duet with Royal,) Blow The Wind Southerly, Molly Malone and other songs in his native Whelsh. Although very large in sound,almost neoclassic the record is worth a listen.

In August of 2007 Tommy Makem, the Irish singer/songwriter who brought Gypsy Rover to the United States passed away after a long battle with cancer. In the November Emerald Records released a retrospective The Legendary Tommy Makem Collection.

The album is a strange one. It contains some of Makem’s best songs-Four Green Fields, Farewell to Carlingford, Red Is The Rose and others that have become standards. He recites poetry-Burns The Man From God Knows Where and Yeats Song of Wandering Aengus-in the way of an actor. There is even a duet with his mother, Sarah Makem.

That said the album has a very commercial sound like those Irish records that emerged in the 80s with heavy string arrangements and reverb. Makem is not in very good form on many tracks-sometimes pushing his voice to falsetto.

That said it’s not a waste of money buying the record as there are some wondrful moments particularly the live tracks.

Collins first album of the 1990s is not particularly stunning if we take a holistic view though there are some good things here. Her first album for a major label since she parted company with Elektra in 1984, 1990’s Fires of Eden reminds me very strongly of the pop music engrained on my consciousness when I was a small child. It is full of synthetic, 80s pop sounds thogh Collins is in extremely good voice.

The first side (yes I played this off an LP,) containing mostly Collins writing and co-writes with David Buskin and Robbin Batteau, is better than the rest. Collins novel-like ballad The Blizzard (Song for Colorado) is here as is Home Before Darkboth of which have become Collins classics. The second half features pop standards: THE BG’S Air That I Breathe, Julie Gold’s From A Distanceand my personal favourite Amanda McBroom’s Dreaming fill the bulk.

All this said the album lacks the cohessiveness of a work of art that features in other Collins works. The hallmarks of a Collins record are there-the eclecticism, the story-song and so on- but it is extremely uniform. It is a poor attempt to repeat her success of thirty years before; it doesn’t really work. She has since turned to what she knows best with beautiful results.

It’s been a very long time since I wrote a book review and I’m not sure I want to be writing one right now, over these past few days, about this particular novel but anyway…

I had to think very carefully about reviewing this book. For Beautiful Losers by Leonard Cohen is like the man himself-reclusive, mysterious and highly mystical.

The novel is so strange I had to look it up on Wikipedia before I understood it properly. Wikipedia uncovers the crucial points that a6e not that obvious for the whole first third of the book: according to it the story concerns a love triange between the nameless na6rator and his wife and a singular figure who is possibly nonexistent called F.

It is, as so much of Cohen is, very well written and thought out. One can hear echoes of Cohen’s later songs in the pages of Beautiful Losers. (“Sail on! Sail on you ship of state!”)

The story is macabre- so much so it’s absurd. The narrator spends a whole two chapters telling us how hard it is to go the toilent when he is constipated-how it is so hard it is like making love with the toilet bowl.

he ends up a down and out. I really don’t know what to say about th3s gruesome, darkly whitty novel of the 60s. Best thing I could say is read it yourselves but go very very slowly. It is essentially a novel of losers.

I haven’t heard such a beautiful record in a long time-the arrangements are lovely and the singers at their best. Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy are good in themselves (and with their colleagues 9 the early 60s) but to put two of the greatest Irish ballad singers together…it’s something to be savoured!

Though folksy in nature, the record has a certain drama in it that leaves the listener waiting for more. Featuring folk standards (Gentle Annie, Ballybay etc) and some of the best of Makem’s songs (Four Green Fields, Rambles of Spring, Red Is The Rose) The Makem and Clancy Collectioncaptures the best of the two troubadours sojourn as a duo.