Jo Hamilton - Reviews

September 11th 2010

Caroline Sullivan - The Guardian

Jo Hamilton: live performance at the Slaughtered Lamb, London, 11th April 2010 ★★★★

Jo Hamilton needs a new name – the one she’s got is too sensible for an artist who says she sounds like “Björk and Sarah McLachlan singing Robbie Burns, backed by Sigur Rós”. It’s probably too late to change it now she’s begun to amass four-star reviews for her emotive debut album, Gown, but she’s made of much more ethereal stuff than “Jo Hamilton” would suggest.

The Björk/Sigur Rós comparisons are not far off the mark at this gig in a pub basement. A similar unearthly, unclassifiable oddness is present in her, but she could have also mentioned Tori Amos and the Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler: Birmingham-based Hamilton has the same capacity to transfix with her breathy voice, and to speak volumes in a couple of lines. It was fitting that, along with a guitar, she played an otherworldly, keyboard-like instrument that produced ripples of sound when she swished her hand above it. “How does that work?” a punter asked. “It’s magic,” she said crisply.

Long hair pinned up and a pint of Guinness at her elbow, Hamilton navigated through Gown with a light touch. A drummer, keyboardist and bassist sketched out an ambient backdrop that left acres of space for her hazy vocals – which have a residue of Celtic pronunciation from a childhood spent in the north of Scotland.

It didn’t matter what she was singing about: the sweetness of her tone in Winter Is Over said enough, as did her agitation in Release Us. Think of Me, a duet between voice and electronic drum-pad, had an end-of-the-affair wistfulness, which lingered until the encore All in Adoration turned things around with a circus-like melody. Singular and unforgettable, Hamilton is quite a find.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/apr/11/jo-hamilton-review

September 10th 2010

Simmy Richman - The Independent on Sunday

Jo Hamilton: Gown ★★★★

“‘Gown’ is the sort of album that will spread from music lover to music lover purely by word of mouth - it’s adult, but never pretentious; slick, but never sickly. In a world of La Roux, Little Boots and Lady Gaga, this is an unashamedly grown-up record that dares to step out of the boxes we have reserved for our female singer-songwriters.”

September 9th 2010

Andy Gill - The Independent

Album: Jo Hamilton, Gown (Poseidon) ★★★★

Scottish chamber-folk artist Jo Hamilton spent a peripatetic childhood shuttling around the Middle East, Cambodia and Sri Lanka, during which time she clearly soaked up a range of musical influences.

It’s a habit she’s never shaken off, with parts of Gown either written or recorded in Jamaica, Cambodia and elsewhere, the results stirred along with her classically trained strings, synths and guitars into miasmic, oceanic mixes that variously recall the likes of Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush and Björk. “Exist” is an arresting opening to the album, with a chopped-up guitar collage and Hamilton’s layered veils of Tim Buckley-esque wordless vocals; it’s followed by “Pick Me Up”, where dulcimer and violin colouration tints an itchy electric guitar riff. Elsewhere, “Paradise” crystallises from overheard mumblings into a seductive samba. The most routine arrangement is “All In Adoration”, funk-soul so light it almost floats away; but all the songs are infused with the breathy sultriness of Hamilton’s vocals, her seductive strains promoting the attitude of songs like “Pick Me Up” and “There It Is”: “Climbing into the future/ Leaving a wake of life/Fresh ideas for the picking/Throw them seeds behind”. An absorbing experience.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/album-jo-hamilton-gown-poseidon-1774998.html

September 9th 2010

Nigel Williamsons – Uncut

Album: Jo Hamilton, Gown (Poseidon) ★★★★

Surprising second album from classically trained Scottish ex-folkie.

A spell with Ashley Hutching’s Albion band suggested Jo Hamilton might be another winsome Britfolk girl but Gown reveals her as more Goldfrapp than a Sandy Denny wannabe. The inherent strength of her writing make it easy to hear how songs such as ‘Exist” and ‘Pick me Up’ could work in simple vocal / guitar format. Instead Hamilton and producer Jon Cotton have layered them with electronics and intriguing samples. She’s got an amazing voice to, that can glide like KD Lang (‘Think Of Me’) or essay Bjork weirdness (‘Paradise’).

September 9th 2010

Sacha Whitmarsh - Rock n Reel:

Gown ★★★★

(POSEIDON)

Jo Hamilton had a nomadic childhood, living in six countries across Europe and Asia, ranging from near isolation in the Scottish Highlands to as far afield as Cambodia, to where she later returned, making recordings that eventually worked their way into songs now on Gown. This album is a similar journey; crammed with the multitude of global influences she has gathered along the way. Beautifully packaged, Dave Neale’s artwork alone warrants an in-hand purchase over a download, completed by the inner sleeve’s stunning photography of bracken, that much overlooked blanket of English woodland.

During the journey, Hamilton returns to her Scottish origins with two of the album’s best tracks, the powerful ‘Liathach’ and ‘Think Of Me’, which begins as a tender greeting and builds to an uninhibited, celebratory, homecoming cry.

Jo Hamilton will inevitably draw comparisons with artists like Kate Bush in that her work is just so fearlessly unique. Gown is a remarkable album; heady and addictive. There are programmed sequences, sampled voices and atmospheres; beautiful classical-guitar that opens ‘There It Is’; vast, soaring vocals; building strings. The sleeve notes credit David Picking for drums, wineglasses and Brazil nuts. What’s not to like?

September 9th 2010

Phil Sutcliffe - MOJO

Jo Hamilton: Gown ★★★★

Exotic Scot mixes gamelan, psychedlia, string quartets and sensuality………

Hamilton grew up in the Highlands, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and hoovered up the skills and instincts which enable her to assemble classical viola, ancient Asian tuned percussion, computer-keyboard walls of sound and more with imaginative allure and disciplined coherence. From the opening track, Exist (Beyond My Wildest Dreams), the twangy guitars, distortions and swirly ambients often recall the warm grandeur of a yogic George Harrison around 1970- there’s a lurchy-rhythmed Ringo on drums too (producer Jon Cotton). But she also updates the hippytude to touch on the extreme vocal tones and bare-tomassive leaps beloved of Kate Bush and Bjork. Hamilton’s lyrics are much fuzzier affairs than theirs, though. Airy thoughts like “How Beautiful is his love for you” and “I will meet paradise” drift on the blurry line between sex and spirituality, but the sound makes sense of it.

September 9th 2010

Robin Valk - Radio To Go

“This is storming stuff, intelligent, uncompromising material, gentle, muscular, and deeply appealing.Hamiton is a passionate, elegant singer and writer. Her work deserves your attention, and I’m pretty sure it’s going to get just that; if not today, then tomorrow. “

September 9th 2010

Mike Davies - Netrhythms

“[Jo’s] album has been a long time coming, but Gown is more than worth the wait. She’s been likened to Bush, Harvey and Lennox as well as Regina Spektor and Imogen Heap, and while you’ll hear the comparisons, she’s still very much her own voice. The album is an exotic musical journey, brushing the multicultural world wings of dreamy celestial pop tinged with Gaelic mist (Exist), cobwebby jazz soul folk (The Bush infused Pick Me Up), airy Brill building balladry (There It Is), the panoramic rhythms of African plains (How Beautiful), and the melting icicle soulful ebb and flow fragility of Deeper (Glorious). Then there’s the Weill cabaret shades to All In Adoration with its puttering percussion beats and woodwind trills, the classical hymnal majesty of Liathach’s choral beauty and, drawing on her time in Cambodia, the intoxicatingly hushed seductiveness that is Mekong Song.

She’s releasing Winter Is Over a a trailer single, a playfully catchy pizzicato plucked strings waltzer that suggests a sort of Oriental Bjork by way of an arthouse 40s Broadway musical. But it’s the closing Think Of Me that’s the real deceptive killer, a windchime, musical box Gaelic lullaby that floats you away on a pillow of clouds and twinkling night stars.
Sophisticated, sensuous, complex, layered and utterly beguiling, there’s a song here called Paradise. A better description of the album would be hard to conjure.”

http://www.netrhythms.com/reviewsh.html#johamilton

September 9th 2010

www.themusiccritic.co.uk

Jo Hamilton: Gown ★★★★

A classically trained musician and member of The Rainbow Chasers, this is the debut album from the Birmingham based lass. With Gown, Hamilton manages to blur the boundaries between folk and electronica with consummate ease. The result is an album full of atmosphere that is rich, warm and often stunning.

The album opener, Exist (Beyond My Wildest Dreams) is the weakest track here, despite the addition of guitar from blues genius Andy Gunn, but this is soon forgotten as Pick Me Up kicks in. An anthemic exercise in ambient chilled out dance that is perfect for watching the Ibizian sunset.

Hamilton has been compared with Kate Bush and Annie Lennox, but there is nothing on this album as remotely self indulgent or overbearing as those two. What we get is something more akin to Little Boots or Imogen Heap. Experimentation without being pretentious.

This is an album of huge promise. Tracks like All in Adoration and Deeper (Glorious) and Think Of Me shows she has a understanding of using melody and space in perfect harmony.

To these ears Mekong Song stands out amongst a hugely impressive set of self penned songs. The sparse arrangement allowing Hamilton’s voice to shine.

Not quite the finished article, but damn near perfect.

http://www.themusiccritic.co.uk/2009/07/jo-hamilton-gown.html

September 9th 2010

Lisa Torem - www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk

World-traveller Jo Hamilton, singer and multi-instrumentalist , has lived in Kuwait, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and her native Scotland. Her artistry has been likened to Regina Spektor, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox.

Hamilton’s debut, ‘Gown’, seems to waver between the embracingly outstretched arms of the Hindu God Ganesh, Eastern mysticism and Bollywood enthuse. This eleven track CD of Hamilton’s original music, mixed and produced by Jon Cotton, does exemplify what I think it has set out to achieve. It is an elegant whirlwind of colour, imagery and imaginative musical choreography drawing from the influence of world music. Unorthodox and unusual instruments appear on various tracks – wine glasses, that Indonesian staple: the Gamelan, appalachian dulcimer and - holy cow – even brazil nuts!

The opener, ‘Exist’, has Hamilton unveiling a breathy delivery. A recapitulated lyric from it, “I’m drowning”, appears in ‘Pick Me Up’ which is the only track I would say recalls R & B. Here, the aforementioned dulcimer is paired with violin for an extra pungent repast. ‘There It Is’ is a warm, rosy ballad and it’s here that David Picking adds that bouquet-ish splash of flavour with the wine glasses and brazil nuts. The optimistic “looking ahead to what’s around the corner” syncs up well, too.

‘How Beautiful’ features the Enigma Quartet but is misleading as it’s a sombre melody with uber-positive lyrics. ‘Deeper (Glorious)’ also belongs in that ambiguous “camp” – however, McGuire/Carter channel highly-energizing stealth and Livermore and Happernik convey a discordant elegance through production nuance. Hamilton’s angelic voice crescendos blissfully as it closes. Nordic rumblings listed under instrumentation? Why, not? ‘Paradise’ recalls the warmth of Norah Jones and Hamilton’s voice embues great emotion. The result is a pretty, hand-holding samba.

The quiet doesn’t last, however, as the teasing cacaphony of saxes and clarinets with pop-scat phrase play out during ‘All in Adoration’. For something completely different, ‘Liathach’ is a love song cloaked in an undulating confessional piano-driven ballad with cunning lyrics like, “wishful thinking – there’s more than that..” Hamilton’s extensive field recordings - which she cultivated in Cambodia - yielded the sensorial lyrics depicting the landscape she discovered in ‘Mekong’ - from “lush green brushes” and “there are houses floating” to “everything lives on the river I speed down.”

“Snow is melting away from here, climbs the mountains and disappears” and “lime-green, black-orange and ruby-red” then culminates in ‘Winter is Over’. It is set to a Brechtian, carnival-like arrangement. This is another, almost uncategorical mood piece. The closer, ‘Think of Me’ underscores the line, “think of me when the light is fading.” The long-awaited, celestial wine glasses along with piano and music box add sheer, unpredictable whimsy.

‘Gown’ is a lovely ensemble effort. It’s a little difficult to exactly know in which frame this picture should be hammered to the wall. But, it’s a joyous picture, nevertheless.

http://www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk/MagSitePages/Review.aspx?id=6649

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