David Brewis
The Soft Struggles
(Daylight Saving)
★★★

SUNDERLAND’S David Brewis is an incredibly prolific musician, so it’s surprising to hear that having worked with brother Peter in Field Music and made records with his side projects School Of Language and The Week That Was, The Soft Struggles is the first album he has released under his own name.

All the same it’s very much a collaborative effort, including Peter on drums and percussion.

Van Morrison’s sublime Astral Weeks is name checked as a musical goal in the press release, which certainly made me sceptical, but the track Surface Noise really does do a great job at capturing the classic album’s jazzy instrumentation.

The rest of the set is more low-key and conventional, Brewis’s reedy vocals melding with piano, acoustic guitar and strings to create a lovely melancholic summer mood that brings to mind The Clientele and Nick Drake.

 
Belle & Sebastian
Late Developers
(Matador)
★★★★

COMING hot on the heels of last year’s A Bit Of Previous release, Late Developers — recorded in the same sessions — shows Glasgow indie outfit Belle & Sebastian have still got it.

Frontman Stuart Murdoch calls it “the fun LP”, and there are certainly lots of musical highs.

In The Moment sounds like a classic ’60s power-pop tune, while Give A Little Time is another winner, sung by violinist Sarah Martin.

The quality and variety of songs is striking, from the soul-drenched The Evening Star to the dancey Do You Follow.

The biggest surprise is I Don’t Know What You See In Me. Co-written with Pete Ferguson, it’s a full-on pop song, complete with earworm chorus and auto-tune, that reaches for the top 10.

How many other bands sound so alive and inspired 10 albums into their career?

 
Phil Ranelin & Wendell Harrison
Phil Ranelin & Wendell Harrison JID016
(Jazz Is Dead)
★★★

IN 1972 Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison co-founded Tribe Records, an independent and visionary Detroit collective that released and promoted the group’s jazz records, organised concerts and published a magazine that focussed on black political and cultural issues.

It feels completely appropriate their new album is being released by Jazz Is Dead, itself an exciting new LA-based label dedicated to putting out new work from jazz greats.

With Ranelin (trombone) and Harrison (saxophone) joined by Adrian Younge, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Greg Paul, it’s a tight-knit group.

Genesis is a knotty opener but after that the set opens up to reveal some marvellous groove-based ’70s-sounding instrumental jazz.

Open Eye veers close to Grover Washington Jnr-style fusion music, while Fire In Detroit includes some catchy motifs played on the flute.

Who knew two octogenarians could sound so cool?