| Tunes You are in: surefish > culture > music reviews Date: 23 September , 2008
George Luke reviews albums from The Allstars Collective, Andy Hunter, Brooke Fraser, the legendary Dionne Warwick and a compilation of new worship music Use the picture or text links to buy the albums from amazon.co.uk and Christian Aid will receive part of the sale price I’m going through a bit of a Kiwi folkie-pop binge at the moment. In addition to finally getting round to watching Flight of the Conchords, I’ve been listening a lot to Albertine – the latest album from Brooke Fraser. The daughter of former All Black Bernie Fraser, Brooke was a member of Hillsong United before striking out as a solo artist. She still leads worship at the Australian megachurch, and Tim Hughes fans might remember her from her guest appearance on his Holding Nothing Back album. As a solo artist, she’s won a handful of Tuis, New Zealand’s equivalent of the Brits/Grammies. Rwandan Albertine is named after a young Rwandan girl Brooke met on a trip there three years ago; a survivor of the 1994 genocide, whose story Brooke has pledged to tell the world. My one-word description of Albertine would be “reflective”. Many of the album’s tracks explore man’s relationship with God in a manner that isn’t in-your-face, but certainly full of well-observed truth and wisdom. And Brooke has a voice like an angel, which certainly helps. By the time you read this, Brooke will have just done her first UK gig. Never mind; I’m sure she’ll be back soon…
The line-up of the Allstars Collective reads like a Who’s Who of modern pop and soul music – but only if you’re the sort of person who devours the small print on your CD covers. A total of 21 musicians and singers feature on the Collective’s new album, All About the Music. They include people such as Chris Newland (the man with the dubious credit of having taught both Madonna and Courtney Love to play guitar), Randy Hope Taylor (voted 5th best bass player on the planet by Bass Player magazine), Hamish Stuart (formerly of the Average White Band) and soul diva Jocelyn Brown. Whenever a bunch of seasoned session musicians gets together for a project like this, there’s always a danger of it being polished to the point of blandness. Thankfully, that’s not the case this time round. All About the Music is the perfect soundtrack to the summer we never had. It’s 10 tracks of high-quality soul, funk and jazz, with a touch of Latin and even a bit of reggae. Pure niceness (is that a word?).
It’s always encouraging to see a major label investing in local talent. So in theory I should be ecstatic about Integrity Music’s The New Sound of Worship, featuring some of the most gifted singers from Britain’s black majority churches. The New Sound of Worship is up to the usual high standard you expect from worship music giants such as Integrity or Hillsong. And therein lies the problem for me; there’s nothing here that really sounds ‘new’ or that sets it apart from all the other ‘megachurch worship’-type albums on the market. Still, the market for this sort of worship music is huge, so I expect it to do well.
Colour is the new album by techno DJ Andy Hunter˚ (I’ve always found that degree sign a tad pretentious. But if that’s how he wants to spell his name, fair enough). It’s probably his most chart-friendly offering to date, with more poppy songs alongside the other-worldly trance tunes he’s better known for. Generally, electronic music is supposed to convey some sense of the future. Maybe I’m just getting old, but for the most part Colour did the opposite. In places, it sounded really retro; very 80s. It wasn’t too big a surprise, therefore, when Midge Ure turned up singing on the track “Smile”. In fact, I half expected Phil Oakey to join him! Andy’s other collaborators on the album include Cathy Burton, who co-wrote and sang on the beautiful “Fade”, and Mark Underdown, whose vocal on “Stars” is reminiscent of 90s dance act The Beloved. Andy deserves a hit single with either of those two songs, and the album as a whole an enjoyable listen.
Like just about every other soul legend you can think of, Dionne Warwick started out singing in church. The first – and until now, the last – gospel album she recorded was The Magic of Believing in 1968. In some ways, Dionne’s Why We Sing feels like a 40th anniversary remake of its predecessor. A couple of tracks from the old album have been re-recorded for it: the opener “Battle Hymn of the Republic”, and “The Old Landmark” (better known to cult movie fans as James Brown’s song in The Blues Brothers). Dionne pays tribute to contemporary gospel music here as much as she does to the traditional variety. The title track is a cover of one of Kirk Franklin’s most popular songs, and the album is co-produced by Bebe Winans, together with Dionne’s son Damon Elliott. Amazon links Use the picture or text links to buy the albums from amazon.co.uk and Christian Aid will receive part of the sale price • The Allstars Collective – All About the Music • Various – The New Sound of Worship • Dionne Warwick – Why We Sing
Use the picture or text links to buy the albums from amazon.co.uk and Christian Aid will receive part of the sale price
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Allstars Collective 
New Sound of Worship 
Andy Hunter° 
Dionne Warwick 
