Crazy Arm
Dark Hands, Thunderbolts
(Xtra Mile Recordings)
★★★★★

EXTINCTION-RESISTANT octet Crazy Arm rise like a phoenix with this fabulous collection, which owes as much to masterly musicianship as their lived collective, creative spirit.

Crazy Arm is all about musical and philosophical agitation, rich in stupendous syncopation, in-your-face assertiveness and echoes of Appalachian harmonies combining symbiotically song after song.

Samantha Spake on violin and Simon Dobson on trumpet embroider terrific background riffs in intelligent and democratic arrangements.

Tim Langsford, and Matt Colwell on drums and Dan James on bass breathtakingly anchor the proceedings, never mind the stupendous guitars and voices.

Fear Up — US military slang for terrorising civilians — Blessed and Cursed, Howl of the Heart, Epicurean Firestorm and Golden Hind are simply magnificent.

And instrumental interludes from Spake on Dearborn and Dobson on Paradiso provide moments of respite which are of a singular beauty.

Featuring Sir Victor Uwaifo, Akaba Man and Osayomore Joseph
Edo Funk Explosion Vol 1
(Analog Africa)
★★★★★

IN THE 1970s, west Africa’s ruling elites’ predilection for Highlife encouraged a vast scene for musicians to excel creatively while at the same time offering steady income.

But in Benin City a restless band of dissenters ditched the metropolitan Lagos dominance of overproduction and integrated local native Edo music into a new raw sound, with arrangements reduced to the bare minimum. Edo Funk was born.

Osayomore Joseph’s wide-ranging political lyrics tackled corruption and confronted Nigeria’s colonial past and, imaginatively, introduced the flute into the horn-dominated Highlife, while the “philosopher” of Edo Funk Akaba Man— less political than Joseph and less psychedelic than Sir Victor Uwaifo — employed pulsating rhythms, sketching out gentle soundscapes on synthesiser.

Half a century might have passed but Edo Funk has lost none of its lustrous allure.

Bradford
Bright Hours
(Foundation II)
★★★★★

RESURRECTED “melancholic janglers” Bradford — who actually hail from Blackburn — are now a trio. They have aged well, as Bright Hours triumphantly evidences.

Original members Ian Hodgson and Ewan Butler teamed up with their former producer Stephen Street who endearingly said of their re-encounter after 30 years: “They’re like diamond dogs — they hear things I cannot hear.” Indeed they do.

“The people in the songs are real people,” says Hodgson, “I saw them on separate occasions in a local town centre, like some badly realised modern Lowry painting.”

Butler, who’s always enjoyed creating musical landscapes, arranges the instrumentation around Hodgson’s already defined structure and that collective spirit is evidenced on The Weightiness of Pointlessness, I Make a Fist, Present Day Array or My Wet Face.

And there’s an elaborately intelligent detail of phrasing and wondrous harmonies of voices and instruments on what’s a work approaching pure genius.