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Fronting the Go-Betweens with Robert Forster, Australian-born citizen of the world Grant McLennan was the facile one in a band that evolved into a song-lovers' religion--and also into a real band, which is why the tunefulness of his first three solo albums couldn't conceal their lack of tension. But on Horsebreaker Star (Beggars Banquet), the tunes simply take over. The 19 tracks (the U.K. version is a double CD with 24) vindicate the long discredited L.A. singer-songwriter leader-with-backup aesthetic. The songs roll out so effortlessly that you end up more taken with McLennan's accrued eloquence than with its felt, pithy, inexorably melodic components.
On Above and Below (Epicure), New York percussionist Leon Parker applies deceptively simple polyrhythms to a fetching batch of original tunes, cut for context with well-chosen Monk and Ellington chestnuts. Call it jazz from a worldbeat perspective. Hard to resist.
Playboy, Feb. 1995
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Jan. 1995 | Mar. 1995 |  |