Paul Sexton travels from Melbourne to Northampton in the latest bucolic grab-bag.
Winter McQuinn has a varied CV: Aussie psych pop soft rocker, double Bachelor of Music graduate, frontman of Melbourne area pop candy quintet Sunfruits, freelance publicist at Third Eye Stimuli Records or co-founder of environmental music organisation Green Your Noise. A man of many parts, then, and all of them working, as is all the more obvious on Move To The Trees (Third Eye Stimuli). It delivers just under half an hour of mellow and melodic, 1970s-channelling tuneage with soft rock vocals, something of a Laurel Canyon bouquet and titles like Daffodil and Honey.
Back in Blighty, John Bramwell is well-known as the co-founder of erstwhile Manchester alt rockers and Mercury Prize nominees IAm Kloot. His latest solo work The Light Fantastic (Townsend Music) wafts into your senses with a harmonic flourish, the acoustic framework of Leave No Traces and the away-from-it-all sentiment of A World Full Of Flowers. Bramwell’s open-hearted lyrics are matched by accessible melodies and simple arrangements, decorated with cello gilding to make a pleasing portrait.
Electric folksters Albion are the conception of Joe Parrish, and their Lakesongs Of Elbid (albionofficial.bandcamp.com) begins placidly on The Lake Isle Of Innisfree before hitting the rugged terrain of the dramatic instrumental Arthurian Overture. Its episodic echoes of Oldfield, Wakeman and Tull are inspired by Trevor Jones’s 1998 music for the two-part TV series Merlin. The marriage of folk and prog metal continues on such tracks as Pagan Spirit, of whi
