(4 / 5)
People like to pigeonhole music in genres, songs and and specifically to liken tracks, songs and styles to other bands and artists. In the case of My Glass World and their eighth album, “Extraordinary Renditions”, good luck with that!
This is a musical project from Jamie Telford, and for five of the eight albums, with Sean Read. This magazine has covered some of their releases before and said very positive things about them. My first time to review their work and based on this offering, those positive words previously were no doubt wholly justified.
So who is Mr Telford? Initially a pianist, Jamie has played on Top 10 hits with The Jam, The Style Council, scored classical music, experimented with electronics, scored theatre music on a world tour of ‘Hamlet’ and made music for adverts and film. He is also a sought-after musician and vocalist who has written and recorded with the likes of Paul Weller and Richard Strange.
As for Mr Read, he is an experienced musician and producer, with credits for artists such as Edwyn Collins, Dexys Midnight Runners, Manic Street Preachers, The Pretenders, Dave Gahan and the Soulsavers, plus many more.
The baker’s dozen tracks on “Extraordinary Renditions” were recorded in four sessions over the last year, in Scotland and then finished in London. The album is informed by health concerns, and some of the lyrics reference that, as well as some wider, more philosophical issues and other more unusual terms of endearment. Songs like “We’re All The Same” and “The Other Side” contain elements of some of these ideas.
Jamie Telford is the man on vocals, keyboards and treble recorder, while Sean Read contributes backing vocals, saxophones and woodwind. Jimi Scandal provides electric and acoustic guitars, while Ali Friend plays acoustic stand-up bass, and Martyn Kaine is on drums.
Impossible to nail down just one genre for this record, or any of the previous eight LPs, but in the melting pot go pinches of pop, jazz, rock and a sprinkle of nods to classical; and it is one of those projects that deserves a listen from start to finish as a whole and not cherry picking the odd track. It also perhaps needs a few listens to really “get it”. It grew on me the more I heard it and my ears picked out the various layers and flavours. This is crafted and classy stuff.
Jamie and Sean have steadily developed a musical language that refuses to sit comfortably in one genre, but “Extraordinary Renditions” is less concerned with demonstrating their many influences than with using them as colours within a much more personal and reflective body of work.
The result is an album that feels thoughtful without becoming self-conscious, and emotionally searching without demanding easy answers. Jamie says: “It’s a worldly, wordy album that hopefully explores the writers’ views as well as having a more grounded look around”.
The opening track, “Love Has Left This Town,” immediately establishes the album’s reflective character. Its title sets the scene for a collection preoccupied with relationships, memory, change and the passage of time. That thread continues through “We’re All The Same” and “Wounded By Time,” before the deceptively affirmative “Love Conquers All” introduces a counterweight to the melancholy. There is a recurring tension here between what life takes away and what people continue to hold on to.
That balance between light and shade is most appealing on such cuts as “Entwined”; which suggests the complicated connections between people, while “High Hopes” and “This Perfect Summer” bring a more open, nostalgic quality to the sequence. These aren’t simply songs about looking backwards, though. There is an awareness that memory can be both comforting and painful, particularly when viewed from the present.
The album’s eclectic musical identity gives these themes plenty of room to breathe. Telford and Read’s ability to draw on rock and pop while allowing jazz and classical sensibilities into the arrangement gives “Extraordinary Renditions” a sense of movement. It doesn’t feel like a record made to satisfy the expectations of a particular genre. Instead, the music serves the song writing, allowing each song to occupy its own emotional space.
“No Right Time” is an evocative title in that context. So much of the album seems to exist in that uncertain territory where decisions are made too early, too late, or perhaps at exactly the moment they have to be made. “Stephen and James” brings a more personal specificity, while the strikingly titled “Der Anfang ist Das Ende” — “the beginning is the end” — neatly encapsulates the album’s fascination with cycles and reversals.
There is a quiet sense of narrative developing as the record progresses. “The Other Side” suggests transition, while “Now We’re A Home” offers one of the album’s most affecting ideas: home not as a place, but as something created between people. After songs concerned with departure, uncertainty and wounds accumulated over time, the shift towards belonging feels significant.
And then comes “Standing In For Someone Else,” an intriguingly unresolved way to finish. Rather than tying everything up neatly, My Glass World leaves us with another question about identity, relationships and the roles people find themselves occupying. Give this your time and a few quid and you may well be digging into the other seven soon, just like me…
By Christopher Weston
(1 / 5) ‘Dull Zone’
(2 / 5) ‘OK Zone’
(3 / 5) ‘Decent Zone’
(4 / 5) ‘Super Zone’
(5 / 5) ‘Awesome Zone’
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