Never Enough - John Meed
Review by Les Ray
Although I’ve been a fan of Cambridge-based John Meed’s music for several years now, in my view his seventh album ‘Never Enough’ is possibly his finest work, finding him totally in control of his palette of words and ideas. John is a consummate wordsmith whose stories from today’s cityscapes are in turn punchily political and deeply personal and existential. Oh, and he writes great choruses too.
As regards the political, a luscious yet moody introduction sets the tone for the opening track ‘Side by side’, a plea for tolerance and understanding amid the Brexit-fuelled madness of these times. “When she returns dripping sunshine and wine, will whatever makes them different make them shine, side by side?” A beautiful, sadly necessary song.
Perhaps reflecting our sense of rootlessness today - Brexit again - John’s are songs of journeys, written in stations, constantly travelling. As in the mysterious ‘La Fayette’, which was written at the Gare du Nord amid businessmen coming and going.
‘Miner’s Eyes’ is the second CD by this duo from Cambridge and Bury St Edmunds, and differs from their first - ‘Papers in my Shoe’, released in 2015 - in that it is built around their own compositions, whereas the previous one predominantly contained their versions of traditional songs and tunes in a cajun and bluegrass style. What the two albums have in common is very pared-down, simple (in the nicest sense of the word) arrangements, with just two voices, Gary Woolley’s guitar and Matt Kelly on fiddle, viola or mandolin: very much what you hear here is what you get when you see them live.
A project local to Dunfermline in which some local musicians were asked for songs to accompany weaving exhibits in the Carnegie Library and Galleries Museum. This album is built around the song and poem that were found, supplemented by original material. Some of the new songs are set to existing folk airs so that despite three contributors whose individual writing and performance styles can be differentiated, the material benefits from a cohesive approach. Enough preamble…
This is Marmite music. You hate it or love it. I love it, but recognise it is a niche market. It is ostensibly music to dance to, but with the complex arrangements and extremely long introductory passages and associated arrhythmical playing I cannot see it being used by any dance clubs for dancing to. The voices over-dubbed on some of the tracks are not very conducive to encouraging the dancers to concentrate on dancing. Chris Green has over-dubbed to infinity on all the tracks - he has only one guest musician Paul James who plays saxophone, the rest is all his own work, mastered by Steve Kitch.