‘Planet
for $ale’
Paul Russell review
Mazlyn Jones and ‘Planet for $ale’
“My first encounter
with the music of Nigel Mazlyn Jones harks back
to the glory days of vinyl when the likes of
Roy Harper, John Martyn, and that other great
but often overlooked British guitarist Gordon
Giltrap vied for a spot on the turntable.
NMJ (as he was known) cut
a rugged cavalier figure pointing at the raging
ocean in a defiant yet vulnerable manner, guitar
slung over one shoulder on the cover of his
first album, the acoustic driven masterpiece
that is Ship to Shore. A true genius with the
12 string guitar he wove a magical sometimes
frantic spell on the epic title track and for
over 12 mins NMJ pleads for guidance so we can
survive the raging seas and keep the ship from
destruction. Relief follows as the song drifts
off onto dry land with a trippy coda conjured
from the mighty Echoplex effects unit.
Two more albums followed
Ship, the brooding Sentinel and the more upbeat
and rock driven Breaking Cover featuring the
percussive talents of Van der Graaf Generator
drummer, Guy Evans. These albums were hard to
find, but once acquired the same message was
always there that we are continually destroying
the very world beneath our feet.
NMJ was not a worrier of
the pop charts and lived mostly on the road
playing the festivals and the clubs throughout
Europe often touring with the likes of Judy
Tzuke, Camel, Renaissance and English AOR rockers
Barclay James Harvest. Strange bed fellows but
great exposure none the less, and my first exposure
to the live NMJ. He played a solo acoustic set
hunched over his guitar with a rack of effects
at his side and among the pieces he played Ship
to Shore stood out and held many of the ageing
rockers mesmerized.
Over thirty years later and
NMJ has released many fine albums and is still
trying to make us aware of our planets gradual
but increasingly obvious decline, he is based
in the beautiful Cornish countryside not far
from the battered coastline where the waves
once tried to sweep him away. His latest release
is the most direct attempt yet at getting everyone
to sit up and take notice, gone for now are
the 12 string guitars and folk tinged melodies
and instead a series of pulsing mixes and remixes
by musicians old and new based on a simple but
potent verse.
The new album Planet for
$ale opens with a simple vocal over a clay pot
rhythm. Mazlyn Jones asks “who’ll
give us two pence for a dead old globe?”
a good question and while you think of the answer
the first of the sequencer heavy mixes kicks
off and leads the album on a winding pulsating
journey with NMJ’s vocal dropping in and
out to keep the message in the front of your
mind.
On the System 7 remix legendary
guitar guru Steve Hillage drops you right in
the middle of the dance tent at Glastonbury
and NMJ repeatedly urges us to “Keep the
Garden Beautiful”. Banco De Gaia get all
percussive and dark with “Breathe a Little
Life” and then the Guy Evans/ Mazlyn Jones
mix is as expected drum heavy as Evans whips
up a storm at the kit while NMJ threatens with
some dark growling guitar lines. Its one of
the albums most effective pieces.
Another highlight is the
NMJ /Keith Halden mix “Doctor’s
Orders”. On this almost 10 min epic some
seriously heavy electric guitar is unleashed
amid a stop start rhythm which benefits from
being played at full volume and is quite startling
in its power. The NMJ/John Acock mix “Only
Passing Through” slows things right down
with the help of some mellow piano courtesy
of Margaret Phillips, before a rare but forceful
appearance from the infamous 12 string.
In stark contrast the album
ends as it began with the plaintive message
of the title track and only a clay pot for accompaniment,
NMJ sends out the warning one final time, well
at least until you play it again.
Planet For Sale is not a
happy album, its not meant to be. What it does
is deliver a vital message in a number of musical
styles which should appeal to wider audiences
than the average protest songs would. It needs
to be heard and spread across the generations.
It should be played at the Eden Project on a
Summer’s night in NMJ’s home county
of Cornwall, amongst the mini ecosystems it
is warning us we will one day lose.
As I write this from the
snow-covered wastes of Ontario with a heavy
minus reading on the gauge, all seems normal.
But there was no snow at Christmas this year,
the waters of Georgian Bay which is part of
the mighty Lake Huron are not frozen as they
should be, the snow has now come with a vengeance
but will be gone in a couple of months and the
effects of global warming are all too obvious
from my window. ”It’s a dead old
globe”.
Paul Russell,
Feb 2007.
|
Paul Russell
is a music writer and rock genre archivist.
He published the superb complete guide
to the Gabriel years Genesis live shows
‘GENESIS - A LIVE GUIDE 1969-1974
Play Me My Song’ and researched
and compiled retrospective albums for
Genesis, Yes, Van Der Graaf Generator
and other seminal bands. http://www.safpublishing.com/store/pages/html/news.htm
|
|
