John Shand | Music & Other Spheres Posts

October 12, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

THE MUSICIAN (Concerd/Planet) 9.5/10 A couple of years ago I introduced – with some wariness – scores out of 10 with these reviews. The implication of the 9.5 score accompanying this one is not so much that the music consistently approaches perfection as that I can’t imagine that, as a…

October 11, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

ABSOLUTE BIRD (ReR MEGACORP) 9/10 Hollis Taylor is a full-blown obsessive of the best type: a musician, composer, musicologist and ornithologist who is able to revel in the aesthetics of birdsong and analyse its patterns, methodologies and motivations. Absolute Bird arrives concurrently with her enthralling book, Is Birdsong Music? (Indiana…

October 9, 2017 / Album Reviews - Archive

WITHIN & WITHOUT (Earshift) 7/10 Jeremy Rose isn’t going to die wondering what might have happened had he more thoroughly documented his work. After last year’s epic Iron in the Blood came a supple, slinky collaboration between the Vampires (a band he co-leads) and guitarist Lionel Loueke, and now we…