turning green: what have we done www.turning-green.com
Fans will have been waiting for this masterpiece for some time. If you have been lucky enough to have seen this lot in one of their London or Brighton area residencies or on tour, you will know what a great group they are.
But Live Performance and Studio Recording are 2 quite different artforms. This CD will prove that tURniNggREen are expert in both.
In live performance, they are beyond comparison – each appearance is a religious experience for the growing hoard of cognoscenti. The atmosphere is almost orgasmic.
On disc, they whole thing is toned down to the extent that you could play it in the presence of your grandmother without causing too much offence. The live performance is put into perspective in that the disc is so well produced that you can hear every brilliant word of the songs. You can hear the perfectly balanced virtuosity of the individual players and how they each contribute to the group. And although they are each masters of their instruments there is a Gestalt at work here that makes the combination so much more impressive. They are a well matched outfit – everyone contributes to a brilliant whole.
The most noticeable aspect of the CD is just what accomplished jazzers tURniNggREeN are. Not just jazz-funk, but acid, lounge lizard and Jimmy Smithery too. Chuck in some psychedelic or bluesy prog-rock riffs, a bit of flamenco guitar, Robert Wyatt and other assorted punky voices and you have a recipe for a great new departure in recorded music.
There is a horrible habit developing in CD album production at the moment. It believes that if you’ve got one or two good songs, it’s OK to pad out an LP with fillers. Thank Goodness tURniNggREen have not fallen into this trap. Not that they’d be likely to – their song-writing and tune-smithery are so well developed that every number is strong, entertaining and different. Having said that you will have some favourite tracks as I do. It’s nice being able to put words to some of the live performance standards – Flavour, Flick Knives and If You Believed It – are my personal selections for single release!
Anyway, get yourself along to the website and order up a copy. And if you haven’t got their earlier offering ‘Heavy Petal’ you can get that there too.
agreed on the padding of CD's trend. I miss the days of old when you bought an album and all the tracks were good.
Posted by: LOTGK | November 27, 2006 at 01:26 PM