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Elly Roberts reviews
PIAS Recordings
- May 2007
- Rating: 6/10
Going from film score writer to solo artist is always fraught with imponderables. And its happened here.
This is a musos album for certain, as theres little commercial appeal.
Michael Andrews is best known for cover of Tears For Fears Mad World(from flick Donnie Darko) with friend Gary Jules, which was a massive number onehit at Christmas 2003.
This Los Angeles based musician and film score composer finally breaks out on hissolo debut. This superbly produced release still retains a score feel, perfectlyexampled on the sequences of instrumental opener Something Already Happened.
Despite his efforts to escape his film methodology, each song still sounds likea snapshot of various scenes; similar to Badly Drawn Boys About A Boy.Oddly enough, some tracks like Orange Meet Lemon could be Damien Goughswork, though the repertoire, in places, has a more experimental touch like Sweeping, Cleaning and Organizing.
Sometimes the songs are clean and simple such as the floaty excursion on thetitle track, led by acoustic guitar and hushed vocals, which is where Andrewskeeps the singing template throughout.
Hello Lemon and Just A Thought could well be Jack Johnson, MORsoft-folk, or surf-folk which fits the demographic bill, considering his location.Theres a strong element of 60s hippieness floating about in the former.
He also drifts into spacey wanderings dropped into Tracings, and theyoccur again on the snail paced wandering of See Me Plain. A reprise ofSomething, with vocal drop-ins seems almost pointless.
Commercial winner? Never. Excellent listening album though.
Weblinks:piaswos.com /pias.com /elginpark.com
The full list of tracks included are :
1. Something Already happened Again
2. Tracings
3. Just A Thought
4. Orange Meet Lemon
5. See Me Plain
6. Sweeping, Cleaning and Organizing
7. Love Is Tired
8. Hand On String
9. Hello Lemon
10. Through The Fog
11. Before The Echo
12. Something Already Happened
Elly Roberts passed away in 2011, but he was a man who was so passionate about all types of music and loved meeting his musical heroes, such as Mick Hucknall at a book signing at the Trafford Centre, Manchester in 2007.
A former teacher and also a music journalist, DJ and radio presenter on local community station Calon FM, plus appearances on BBC Radio Wales, BBC Radio Cymru and BBC Radio 2, Elly started doing reviews for DVDfever.co.uk in 2004 and he did the majority of the CD and concerts reviews on the website.
I know also that he loved getting away for the summer to Spain and I hope that wherever he is now he is enjoying the hot sunshine and, as one of his friends has said on his Facebook page, that he is interviewing his musical heroes.