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Mick Pini & Audio 54—Way Ahead—House of Happiness
Records

Mick Pini is a Brit living in Germany, Audio 54 is the pseudonym
of Craig Marshall, who describes himself as a ‘Contemporary
Producer’. Both hail from Leicester and their work went from
strength to strength after Craig phoned Mick and asked him to
put a guitar part down on the original version of ‘Papa Voodoo’
(re-recorded here).

This version, echoing many of the attributes of other tracks,
comes with a wonderfully defined bass riff and a width and depth that is remarkable to hear.
Craig’s ability in electronic ‘nob-twiddling’ mode is remarkable and at the top of the acoustics

tree.

Without exception, the recorded music is a delight, helped, of course, by excellent tunes, right
from the start. The opener ‘Head North’ is a repetitive, disco-like anthem—party music for the
21st Century. That is followed by ‘Last Night’ , bassy and with that stunning wide mix. My
favourite, sans-doubt is the closer, ‘Trouble’ which is moody and angry and actually, for me, a
bit creepy too.

Check it out—You won’t regret it.

Ian K.McKenzie

The Curse of KK Hammond—Death Roll Blues—Self

This music is Blues From the Darkside—Deep in the backwoods
there is a woman with a slide guitar. She delights in the name of
The Curse of KK Hammond. The backwoods, and the swamps she
sings of are not, however, in Louisiana. They are in rural England.

KK sings of death, serial killers, axe murderers, alligators and yes
even Spanish moss. Strangely, this stuff is fun! The songs like, ‘In
The Dirty South’, ‘Till Death’, ‘The Bone Collector’, ‘ Memento
Mori’ and more, follow the themes of her earlier tracks (issued
as singles and an EP) which are replete with ghoulies and
ghosties and lang-legidy beasties, with death and the stuff of nightmare.

KK is hooked on resonator guitars (and even has a swamp-green one) and these feature centrally
in the music. Resonators played with a slide can, and do, produce an eery sound. Occasionally
she is joined by other musicians with a similar fascination with the macabre, but mostly it is
KK, with her darkness and her necromantic tendencies and her chilling slide work.

Sometimes, just sometimes, the lyrics are a bit hard to discern, but you will find some seriously
good lyric-videos on YouTube (may be a lyric sheet with the next one KK?) And anyway, it’s the
overall zeitgeist that the music conveys that is key. Recommended with every (crushed and
broken) bone in my body. Wonderful stuff.

Ian K McKenzie