Lennon and McCartney go head-to-head yet again.
Ram was McCartney’s second solo album, released in 1971, and is a prime example of how popular music, on its release, is adjudged by so many factors other than music. Macca was in disfavour in 1971, regarded, wrongly, as the man who broke up The Beatles and also as the politico-spiritual lightweight of the quartet (Ringo has always been given a pass on these matters!). 50 years later, disconnected from all such blather,
Ram is a jolly thing, scrappy but fun, with an unpretentious thrown-together quality, songs such as lo-fi Beach Boys pastiche “Dear Boy” rubbing up against the entertainingly silly, music hall rockin’ ode to marjuana “Monkberry Moon Delight”. It does, indeed, sound like a man decompressing after the monumental, generational expectations placed on his previous band. In gatefold, it also comes half-speed mastered so sounds great. Lennon’s first solo effort, the
Double Rainbow
Richard Foster
, February 22nd, 2021 09:27
In Fukuoka native Kumio Kurachi, Glasgow s Howie Reeve may finally have found his soul mate, suggest Richard Foster
Double Rainbow, a split LP between Japanese singer and guitarist Kumio Kurachi and Glasgow-based “acoustic bass troubadour”, Howie Reeve, announces itself with a volley of atonal rasps from the saxophone. It’s a playful start that normally would be balanced with something more reflective. What we get instead is an ever-changing segue of acoustic reflections with short sharp shocks of noise, administered like some wild psychic booster jab, courtesy of NoMeansNo guitarist Andy Kerr and French saxophonist, Cathy Heyden.