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Four whole albums available on Last FM!! just type in Jon Airdrie

Album reviews etc

'...and what was that all about?' (2009/10)

        

Samples below

Buy the album/individual tracks - click HERE (and help realise the next collection)

24 Hour Man flu - download lyrics

7 Verses - download lyrics

Checks and Balances

Curing the Lame

What was that all about? - download lyrics

Never Again - download lyrics

Over To You - download lyrics

She Flies

Time Spent Away - download lyrics

Those that took their light - download lyrics

Glass For You - download lyrics

Winter 1981-82 - download lyrics

 Features all the usual suspects - Gerry, Jem, Jon M, Nicola - together with some talented guests: Pamela Wyn Shannon (vocals and guitar), Andrew Powles (cello). Co-engineered, produced and mastered by the superb Mike Hopkins at his Towpath Studio. A sort of concept thing. We're vey excited about it.

Help make the next album possible and BUY IT - £7. This includes postage and packing. If bought via info@jonairdrie.com, ALL monies go straight to the band and their next project.

 

'40' (2008)

A few songs for you to sample. To buy a copy or to download the whole thing, contact

info@jonairdrie.com

 

Bitch Goddess

So Sweet, So Young

All is Well (To Julian)

Problems

Back With You

Come Down

Summer’s Day

Cold Heart/River of Gold

Old Man Pulled to the Open Mic

Girl on the Swing

Living in a Dream

‘Ar Lan y Môr’

When You Went Away

Southern Wind

Jon Airdrie wrote the songs. He sings all the male-ish vocals and plays guitars, bouzouki, keyboards, some percussion and a little viola-lin

Gerry plays all the blown things: clarinet, saxes, recorders and whistles

Nicola Canale sings all the female-ish vocals

Jon Matthews plays the double bass, together with electric lead on ‘Summer’s Day’

Jem Ponsford plays the drums

David Jandrell plays guitar on ‘Living in a Dream’

John Hedgecock plays fiddle on ‘Back With You’

'Unsuitable...' (2007)

We have about 7 left (May 2008). Make us an offer and you can have one!

Click on the track listed to hear taster segments

  1. Piece of work
  2. Fun
  3. Man at Ease
  4. Grand Old Fool
  5. Woolacombe Bay
  6. Pulled Back
  7. Nothing Comes Cheap
  8. Run Back Home
  9. There is a Place
  10. Life in its Greenness
  11. Christmas
  12. Time Moves On
  13. Singing in My Chains
  14. All of this

All songs and instruments: Jon Airdrie, except: Jon Matthews – double bass on tracks: 1, 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14; vocals on track 13; Jon Greening – piano or keys on tracks: 2, 3, 6, 9, 13, 14; Jem Ponsford – drums on tracks: 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13; Jaime Greening – vocals on tracks: 2, 3, 6, 13, 14; Gerry – wind/brass on tracks: 2, 4, 12, 13; Nicki Devon – violin on tracks: 5, 10.

 

 

 

Album - 2005 - 2005 retrospective.

Available on CD. £5. Email info@jonairdrie.com

The track listing is as follows. Hyperlinked titles can be played:

1. Child of Wonder/Grit

2. Don't Care!

3. Days in the North West

4. Words from Thomas Treherne

5. Time Just Stopped

6. Fusion  of Two Souls

7. In Between

8. Songbird

9. Oh Yes Indeed

10. 'Scotland'

11. The Road That Ran

12. Wedding

13. Get the Vision!

 

Album released November 19th, 2005:

Meek Rage

 

 

 

Album Reviews

 

Jon Airdrie and the Shelleys –

…And What Was That All About

by Janet Goodman

 

 

Some artists strive for commerciality, to be accepted by a large market; they often risk lowering their standards of quality for quick success.  Then there are artists who defy acceptance by many, in pursuit of artistic freedom of expression.  These are the mavericks of the music world who dare to do something different.  The UK has a colorful history of risk takers: The Beatles, Elton John, The Who, to name a few.  South Wales folk group Jon Airdrie and The Shelleys can be added to those brave enough to color outside of the lines.

Their new CD, “…And What Was That All About” on the Rock Villa Productions label, offers twelve tracks written by Airdrie, whose lyrics are hard-to-pin-down poetic tunings.  His distinctive raw and unflourished vocal delivery is bordering spoken word, reminiscent of Leonard Cohen; juxtaposed against pleasing organic arrangements, these songs have a unique haunting presence. 

Title track “What Was That All About” has a renaissance feel, a traditional Celtic touch with the flair of 60’s band Fairport Convention.  Luminous musicianship resonates on the album, on tracks like “Never Again”, where savory cello, double bass and mandolin slowly build, along with lovely female harmonies; even breaths taken for each recorder passage add life to the piece.  Everywhere on the album is Airdrie’s masterful guitar and piano work. 

In “Those That Took Their Light Underground”, Airdrie’s production is bare, with guitar and an occasional clarinet and piano lick, creating a melancholy musical landscape for his lyrics about some of us leaving home to conquer the world when we are young, while some of us retreat with our dreams untried: “You were green, while I was even greener/I see you there in the place where now I stand/Oh come on, bring your rhyming passion/Bring your sweet rage to all things around/But you left brought blankness to the action/And blithely took your light underground”. 

Jon Airdrie and The Shelleys’ “And What Was That All About” has bohemian grace and fine players.  Airdrie’s vocals are frail, yet they are his calling card expression of unadorned lyrics. 

Check out the website: www.jonairdrie.com

 

http://www.musicnewsnashville.com/archives/reviews/2009/ja.htm

 

And what was that all about?

Joy Collective - 09.04.10 - by Vivers

Who are they? South Walian Jon Airdrie has been mining folk seams for many years as a cog in Beyond The Bars, a producer to fellow travellers like Pamela Wyn Shannon and sporadically as a solo dude. The Shelleys are his many-headed backers, sometimes only given first names but all lending deft and unshowy touches from the background. ‘…And What…’ is their fifth album.

What’s it like? The first thing to hit novice ears is Airdrie’s voice: slow and viscous, it shares a little of Leonard Cohen’s weight, but has its own arched quality, ranging over these songs, rich like a fruity uncle. An acquired taste for some maybe, but there’s a lot of enjoyment to be had in the mix of playfulness and determined control. Musically it’s a fine stew with guitar or piano as the base. Opening track ‘24 Hour Man Flu’ is a pretty good signpost: quiet meditations that stretch out in the chorus, female backing vocals creeping in further and lovelier each time around. A certain amount of gently ragged rock intrudes on a few songs – both ‘Checks And Balances’ and ‘Glass For You’ fuse meandering verses to nicely compact choruses – but on the whole extra instrumentation is added sparingly; some tinkling mandolin or desolate recorder on bleakly ace closer ‘Winter 1981-82′. Overall, it’s an album that creates a dense and enigmatic atmosphere, a little overripe and heavy on the purple ink at times, but always shot through with genuine emotion and love of the knotty drama of life. A sweetly inclusive triumph, and plenty to get into your bones

http://www.thejoycollective.co.uk/blog/review/we-got-sent-this-jon-airdrie-and-the-shelleys-and-what-was-that-all-about-rock-villa-productions/ Vivers

 

Jon Airdrie - 40 (Own Label)

Released a few months back, this is the first of this year’s timely followups to last year’s Unsuitable For Heavy Goods Vehicles album. It finds Jon keeping textures generally sparse, but expanding the musical envelope a little more by allowing further contributions from members of his band The Shelleys. The basic hallmarks of Jon’s music remain, however: an impassioned delivery of his literate lyrics, allied to precise yet relaxed textures which are ideal for putting across his thoughtful musings. Again, the understated accomplishment of the production itself imparts a friendly homespun feel to the record, which it’s hard to resist, but there has to be more than that to engage and maintain our interest, and luckily Jon’s songs contain plenty of intimate observations that repay your close attention. In terms of sentiment, the tracks of a simpler nature, like Girl On The Swing, make their impact by virtue of a comparably plain, unwhimsical turn of phrase. And there’s a gentle euphoria about Jon’s emotional responses that’s both immediate and refreshingly unaffected, especially when he’s reflecting on places whose special character he’s experienced (eg Ar Lan Y Môr). As far as musical reference points are concerned, this time round I couldn’t help being reminded more of Peter Hammill at times - tho’ the presence of Shelleys member Gerry The Flute (on clarinet and saxes as well) on tracks like So Sweet, So Young probably has something to do with evoking that comparison.

There’s actually some rather fine instrumental work throughout, which Jon uses to best advantage to enhance his lyrics, as well as some attractive supporting vocal work from Nicola Canale. Vocally, Jon communicates his vision persuasively, although there are moments where I find some over-accenting of vocal nuances slightly mannered and in the end just a little distracting (eg Back To You). But in the final analysis, it’s the “poetic and prophetic” solitude of Jon’s writing that involves you and wins you over. It’s good to find lyrics to one song (Southern Wind) reprinted on the single sheet of paper enclosed within the minimal cardboard sleeve, but this is only a start - Jon’s writing deserves more, and thus a vehicle for closer scrutiny

http://www.netrhythms.co.uk/reviews.html#airdrie 

 

Jon Airdrie - Unsuitable For Heavy Goods Vehicles (Rock Villa)

Jon is a songwriter with a healthy musical track record which, in addition to a lengthy stint with South Wales band Beyond The Bars, has included organising the Abbey Mill Folk Festival and some production work for singer/songwriter Pamela Wyn Shannon and London-based band Tinpots. A parallel career with his own band, The Shelleys, has, it seems, kept Jon so busy that Unsuitable For Heavy Goods Vehicles, released last year, forms what I believe to be his first properly solo record. It's a mature and literate work, with spare textures etched in crisply-driven acoustic colours which cloak Jon's distinctively impassioned singing voice. Jon grew up in west South Wales, a region whose culture and history greatly influenced his formative years, as did the aromatic "Welsh gothic" writings of Arthur Machen. You'll find Jon's own songwriting similarly literate and thoughtful, and it has been described as embodying a particular quality of reflective nostalgia (a tag which I find hard to disagree with) and a sense of localised mysterium (check out songs like Piece Of Work, Woolacombe Bay and Life In Its Greenness for an illustration of Jon's personal take on this). Jon also conveys a piquant feeling of actually being there in the locations and states of mind that he's depicting, and the intimacy of his word-pictures is reinforced by a comparable quality in his delicate yet strongly defined musical settings. Jon's own deftly-moulded guitar traceries are ably supported by gentle contributions from a number of musician friends on piano, double bass and drums, with occasional extra augmentation from violin or wind or brass colours and some charmingly understated backing vocals. The musical idiom is both relaxed and precise, generally at the quirkier and unpredictable end of folky, with excursions into Dr. Strangely Strange Heavy Petting territory (Nothing Comes Cheap, Singing In My Chains), ISB-style wyrd-chamber-folk (Pulled Back), proto-Cure riffing (There Is A Place) and even some mild electric jazzy-boogie (Time Moves On). There's a lot going on beneath the surface of Jon's music, and further charms reveal themselves on repeated plays, but I still would've liked to see lyrics posted on Jon's website, for the stark simplicity of the music and melodies rather belies the crafted nature of the sung texts. Finally, a confession: actually, I've come to really regret that this disc had gotten buried deep within a stack of other review discs, and for far too long (due, I'm sure, to its intensely minimal packaging, a thin card open sleeve with neither jewel case nor booklet) - for it's become a favourite spin of late, and a disc which I understand now has a successor (demanding to be heard very soon).