Author Archives: admin

Andrew Finn Magill, Branches. Album Review.

 

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Serenity is an elusive flower, it is all around us, breathing deeply, urging us to look deep within our souls and spread the feeling onwards, like a happy virus, it seeks us out to be admired and worshiped but then like any God, hides itself away in the darkness when the going gets a little too much, a little disturbing, the shutters come down and serenity is mistaken for the pursuit of money and fame. Happiness always comes at a price, peace never should.

Andrew Finn Magill, Branches. Album Review. full post

(406 words, 1 image, estimated 1:37 mins reading time)

Si Cranstoun, Old School. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Too often the world ignores en masse the great sounds of yesterday, the insanely good song writing of three or four generations back. This is either out of ignorance or malice, either way to disregard, almost dispense with the richness of the past, is akin to saying that only words and actions recorded in the last decade are viable, that mean anything and all other forms of communication, of sound, are irrelevant.

Si Cranstoun, Old School. Album Review. full post

(439 words, 5 images, estimated 1:45 mins reading time)

Searching For Marillion In The Dawn Of Toronto.

We flew

like wingless, senseless birds

oppressed by need,

taken by desire,

to see our band perform

in the crowds of Danforth

and from the view

of the C.N. Tower,

we saw daylight.

We flew because we could

and the pain

and joy it cost us

was worth it

one final time.

 

 

Ian D. Hall 2016

Permanent link to this post (60 words, estimated 14 secs reading time)

Various Artists, The Amatrice Project. Album Review.

142 seconds is all it can take to destroy hope. We may think we are masters of our destiny, the Captain who steers their own flotilla along the steam tossed rivers and seas but in reality we are the whim of other people’s decisions and the Earth’s volatile nature; we are trapped between those that care and those that have no compassion. For the people of Amatrice, compassion and help is something they desperately need and as with any humanitarian project, the world of art steps up to be counted.

Various Artists, The Amatrice Project. Album Review. full post

(465 words, estimated 1:52 mins reading time)

The Adventures Of Captain Of The Lost Waves, Hidden Gems. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Theatre is as much about experimental as it is the reliance on the original and the long standing, the deep rooted and the childhood memories of how fresh the mature and seasoned felt when you first experienced it. It is the playful and the daring to look behind the curtain, the realisation that Dorothy Gale was wrong, there was no conjurer and purveyor of cheap illusion hiding in Oz, it was magic all along and magic that drives the sensational and theatrical to unveil its Hidden Gems.

The Adventures Of Captain Of The Lost Waves, Hidden Gems. Album Review. full post

(407 words, estimated 1:38 mins reading time)

Bat-Shit Crazy.

How did I end up with a surreal addled mind,

almost drunk, sepia toned

and full of exotic weirdness;

one straight linear dream in all these years

and that I can trace back to watching Threads

the night before, scaring the crap,

the very life out of me,

a cautionary tale, I

sometimes get too involved with these dreams,

too upset and confused by the appearance

of the unexpected, the false trail

and the shivering cold of plunging

my awake brain into working

what the synaptic dozy messages mean…

Bat-Shit Crazy. full post

(155 words, estimated 37 secs reading time)

Beth Hart, Fire On The Floor. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The act of sensuality is not lost, it has not become driven out into the cold and left to starve in a parking lot somewhere off the Pacific Coast Highway, shrouded by the deep greens and ambers of trees spoiling for a fight against the depths of a winter to come, sensuality is always around, it just has been overshadowed by the unremarkable and insidious. It takes a rock star of breath-taking quality to break through the over sexualised hype, a musician of conviction whose voice is the calling card to have lyrics gush in embarrassment at the attention they receive.

Beth Hart, Fire On The Floor. Album Review. full post

(505 words, 1 image, estimated 2:01 mins reading time)

Bad Touch, Truth Be Told. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Therapy comes in all shapes and sizes, all manners and means, sometimes it is the smallest expression of gratitude that makes the difference to the situation, that the signal from a snare and the hum of a microphone can repair the damage done in life; it might seem a moment of Bad Touch but Truth Be Told, music is arguably the most therapeutic mechanism on the planet.

Bad Touch, Truth Be Told. Album Review. full post

(374 words, 1 image, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

Liverpool Sound And Vision: An Interview With Nick Bagnall.

Nick Bagnall sits down in one of the many chairs that regimentally line the ground floor café at the Everyman Theatre in Liverpool. A look of wide eyed humour that always seems to bring out the very best in who he is in conversation with fills the room and somehow, as if by some Shakespearian magic, manages to drown out the world surrounding him. The sound of the music that had the ears flapping in enjoyment before hand is now silent, the sense of nerves one feels when meeting someone who has done so much for the city’s artistic front in the last couple of years, is dissipated and sent packing into the ether as if carried by the Tempest or the heavy hand of Bottom.

Liverpool Sound And Vision: An Interview With Nick Bagnall. full post

(3532 words, estimated 14:08 mins reading time)

Life Style Choice.

The choice to go

into politics, industry,

work and fleece millions

out of their hard earned dough,

by casually calling it an investment,

when really it nothing more

than gambling on a higher

stage, place your bets,

roulette wheel time,

money as safe as houses

in a time of repossession,

should be seen

as a life style choice,

not to be lauded

or having the craft

of the artist sully their hands

with handouts to those who benefit;

keep the hard working coin

Life Style Choice. full post

(127 words, estimated 30 secs reading time)