Rosa Walton
Tell Me It’s A Dream
(Transgressive)
★★★★☆

HAVING made her name as one half of the off-kilter British pop duo Let’s Eat Grandma, Rosa Walton now releases her solo debut.
Her bandmate Jenny Hollingworth dropped their first solo longplayer in January, so maybe there’s a little friendly competition going on? If so, it’s working wonders for Norwich-born Walton, with Tell Me It’s A Dream utterly enchanting.
Produced by David Wrench (Frank Ocean, FKA twigs), this is high class synth pop, full of oven-ready bangers to soundtrack the romantic lives of young people across the land. Musos will hear faint echoes of chart hits, including a Don’t Dream It’s Over-like intro on Wave Machine, but the set feels very much Walton’s musical and lyrical vision, her vocals shifting seamlessly between ethereal Elizabeth Fraser-type stylings to a more urban, informal tone.
A dream of an album.

Paul McCartney
The Boys of Dungeon Lane
(Capitol)
★★★☆☆

IT’S a truth universally acknowledged that older people tend to look back at the past more frequently.
The now 83-year-old Paul McCartney has never been immune to this – think Penny Lane – and his new album is almost wholly based on his recollections of Liverpool in the 1940s and 1950s.
Opener As You Lie There, about longing for a girl in his childhood neighbourhood, is part spoken word part heavy rock guitar workout. The rest of the set is more conventional, with wistful tunes and acoustic guitar dominating on songs like the nostalgic single Days We Left Behind and Down South, about hitchhiking with George Harrison. Home To Us finds Ringo Starr on drums, while on Salesman Saint Macca remembers his parents and the only entertainment being “a piano and the radio.”
A sweet trip down memory lane.

Aidan Thorne and Jason Ball
Poems Of A Space
(Cambrian Records)
★★★★☆

THE last album I reviewed of Aidan Thorne’s was his lovely pastoral set alongside Toby Hay on acoustic guitar, 2024’s After A Pause.
Now working as a duo with guitarist Jason Bell, the Welsh-based bassist has created a very different record with Poems Of A Space – more intense and even slightly unnerving in places. 
The press release mentions 70s ECM jazz records by Terje Rypdal and Bill Frisell as ascendants, though for me the electric guitar and synths bring to mind bass maestro Eberhard Weber and the widescreen soundscapes of Pat Metheny (check out the American West-tinged Tour Ford).
With their home country inspiring several tracks – Banc Y Celyn is named after the hill overlooking Thorne’s house, Clouds was written after a hike up Sugar Loaf mountain in the Brecon Beacons – this is wonderfully atmospheric instrumental music.