Anita Abram is a singer-songwriter, radio presenter and producer who also has a passion for the visual arts. A member of the DIY female musicians’ ‘Rise and Release’ community, she composes, records and produces music from her home in Suffolk, and is the founder of Every Bird Records, a community interest company supporting independent female musicians with unique voices.
Abram herself performs as part of folk trio, The Copper Foxes, as well as a solo artist. The First Escapade is her debut EP.
Opening track, the poignant and beautifully-atmospheric ‘Gravity Running’, is a personal commentary on the “futility, inevitability and insanity of human conflict driven by fear and greed”. The song’s final line “we will never back down” pays tribute to the strength and determination of the Ukrainian people.
Comprising five original songs, other themes explored on this charming and thought-provoking EP include love (‘Go Again’), ongoing threats to our natural environment (‘Shift Away’) and loss (‘Stars Above’), which is dedicated to NHS staff. Bearing striking hand-painted cover art, the CD artwork also incorporates an additional images created by Abram.
Luke Concannon, best known from the folk duo Nizlopi while influencing a young Ed Sheeran, says: “There is something classic in Anita’s song writing. Simple, mythic, deep…”
In addition to Anita Abram (lead vocals, rhythm guitar, field recordings), the release also features Pete Moody (vocals, piano, arrangements), Chris Lockington lead guitar) and Mark Sewell (percussion)
To coincide with the release of their latest album, Miracles Beyond, this week, Bulgarian-based supergroup Intelligent Music Project have released a new single and video. ‘Days Rollin’ features lead vocals from Toto’s Joseph Williams, alongside Simon Phillips (drums), Ernest Tibbs (bass), Biser Ivanov (guitars) and Ivo Stefanov (keyboards).
The band have also released a video with Simon Phillips ((Toto, The Who, Judas Priest), John Payne (ex-Asia) and Ernest Tibbs discussing the making of the Miracles Beyond album and their work with Intelligent Music Project.
John Payne: “The songs are great, it’s an interesting album. There is some pretty rocky stuff on this one and I see influences from bands like Queen, progressive music, pop music and really deep meaningful songs.”
Milen Vrabevski, MD, producer, songwriter and founder of the project, “The album’s dedicated to free spirits – the driving force of the progress of humanity. It’s a testament to the spirit of collaboration and the power of music to transcend boundaries. Musically, we offer a good example of what a super-group product should sound like. It’s great to have all these musicians on board again. This is Simon Phillips’s 6th album with us, John Payne’s 5th, and Joseph Williams’s 4th. Such a star turnout is a special privilege for me, which again shows that we have another world-class product!”
About Intelligent Music Project
Intelligent Music Project is a Bulgarian supergroup with an exceptionally international line-up, created in 2011 by Bulgarian businessman, philanthropist, and arts patron Dr. Milen Vrabevski, who is not only the project’s producer but also the composer of the band’s music and lyrics.
Intelligent Music Project is a creative mix of melodic, hard-rock songs with progressive hooks, driven by catchy guitar riffs and keyboards, often combined with interesting symphonic textures and complex musical arrangements. The lyrics of Intelligent Music Project’s songs carry a positive and motivating message, with an emphasis on themes from everyday life, through which the author offers key advice about success based on his personal experience and vision. Through the language of music, Dr. Vrabevski aims to bring to the forefront basic values that can serve as a solid foundation for young people on their path to becoming mature adults leading meaningful lives.
Prior to Miracles Beyond, the band released seven albums – The Power of Mind, My Kind O’Lovin’, Touching the Divine, Sorcery Inside, Life Motion, The Creation, and Unconditioned. Intelligent Music Project was the Bulgarian representative to the Eurovision Song Contest 2022 in Turin, Italy, with the song Intention.
Besides the aforementioned musicians, over the years, the band has seen a stellar lineup, including John Lawton (Uriah Heep, Lucifer’s Friend), Ronnie Romero (Rainbow, Michael Schenker’s Group), Nathan East (Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson, Toto, Stevie Wonder, and more), Tim Pierce (Joe Cocker, Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper, and more), Bobby Rondinelli (Rainbow, Black Sabbath), and Todd Sucherman (Styx).
I’ve been really impressed with Jack Badcock’s work in Dallahan, the Scottish/Irish/World folk band that he helped found a decade ago. This month, however, sees him release Cosmography, his first ever solo album.
As with Dallahan’s 2023 album, Speak Of The Devil, it’s a showcase for his gifted acoustic guitar-playing and distinctive tenor voice. But whereas that last album took us on an exhilarating, frenetic journey across a number of folk traditions, this one takes us into lush, atmospheric, singer-songwriter territory. And a very fine debut he’s turned out in this new guise, too.
Badcock’s vocals are soulful and emotive and he’s proving himself to be an ever more impressive songwriter, here tackling themes from the future of humanity (‘Life In Three Dimensions’); the sixteenth century explorer who was the first Englishman to reach Japan, (‘The English Samurai’); and the much more personal ‘Too Many Things’, described as “almost a therapy session that tackles the excessive indulgences of myself and peers in the music industry.”
What really makes this album, however, beyond the poignant songwriting and superbly mellow vocals, are the rich layers of instrumentation. Euan Burton, who also plays bass on the album, does a sterling job as producer and leaves us with a solo album that’s polished and fully-formed. With a stellar line-up of supporting musicians, including some especially beautiful piano from Tom Gibbs and simply gorgeous pedal steel from Connor Smith, there’s much to fall in love with here. Folk luminaries like Siobhan Miller, Josie Duncan and Joy Dunlop line up to provide lush backing vocals.
Don’t expect Cosmograpy to be much like Dallahan but do expect it to be exceptional. It really is outstanding.
Running this blog I often get bands (or their PRs) offering to send me free CDs. Almost without exception it’s usually when they’ve got a new album to promote and are looking for a review.
Recently, however, I received the following email from a guy called Todd Jasko who was once in a band called the Brick City Three:
“Quick random question for you: my band is trying to get rid of our CDs. We’re goofy party hard rock. Can I send you one for free? More detail: we had a band. We had a blast. Our drummer got sick and passed away. Now I’m left with 30ish CDs and I would rather give them away free than try to sell them. Happy to mail you one for free if you like! Or if you want to check us out first, we’re called Brick City three and we’re free digitally on Bandcamp. Let me know, and thanks for your time!”
Intrigued, I checked them out online, instantly liked what I heard and emailed Todd back to take him up on his very kind offer.
A few days later, said CD arrived in the post all the way from New Jersey. Quirky, punked-up, party rock with witty self-deprecating lyrics and irresistably catchy hooks, it’s been blasting out of my stereo all week. As per the email, it’s not a recent album. It came out in 2008 and the back cover still advertises the band’s Myspace account! So I’m going to resist doing a full blow-by-blow review but the good news is that the band still have some unreleased tracks and Todd is planning to put a final album together. That, I definitely will review.
A bit more background on the Brick City Three:
Brick City Three was formed in 2006 in Newark, NJ (aka “The Brick City”.) Mike (bass) and Cal (drums) grew up in Jersey listening to Rush and Yes, but none of their friends enjoyed rock music, so they didn’t know any local guitarists. In the early 00’s, Mike met Todd through Mike’s coworker (Pete Levine – former drummer of Flowerhead), and Todd’s habit of remembering people’s birthdays led to him reach out to Mike in August of 2006. Mike remembered Todd from some previous jams at Pete’s house, and he asked Todd if he would want to come out to play some music with Cal and him. Considering Todd was anything BUT an in-demand guitarist, singer, or songwriter, he jumped at the chance! Their first jam included covers of “Rockin’ in the Free World”, “Dig In”, and “Space Oddity”, and they enjoyed it so much that they decided to do it again!
One of their improvised jams during that initial meeting stuck in Todd’s head, and he asked Mike and Cal if he could try bringing an original tune to their next jam. Their second jam birthed this first song as a band, “Show Me”. Eventually, this song would be their album opener as well as every show’s closing number.
Rehearsals continued most Saturdays in Newark, and by the spring of 2007, the band had enough solid originals to start playing shows. What they lacked in talent they made up for in enthusiasm! After a few months, they settled on the moniker “Brick City Three” since Newark was such a big part of their formation.
Between 2007 and 2011, the band played several shows in NYC and NJ, released one studio album, and developed a repertoire of approximately 20 original songs and 15 cover songs. And they weren’t afraid to mix it up! For example: they knew that Mike and Cal’s friends at the Juke Joint (a backyard venue in Newark) weren’t huge rock fans, so they once surprised the crowd with a more dance-friendly set of covers ranging from 70’s disco to 80’s hip-hop to 90’s R&B including a variety of guest singers.
Sadly, Cal’s health slowed the band down, and he eventually passed away in 2015. But we are still left with memories, video, and hours of audio from shows and rehearsals. Todd is currently planning to put together a final, second, posthumous album in the near future to honour the band’s and Cal’s legacies.
Brick City Three and Cal – we salute you! And I very much look forward to hearing the second (and final) album.
Update:
Since I wrote this post Todd made this heart-warming video about his project to distribute the band’s remaining CDs around the world. Watch it here!
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