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Ghalia Volt—Shout Sister Shout!—Ruf
(www.ghaliavolt.com)

Ghalia has come a long way since she was busking in Brussels. These
days she is based in New Orleans and Shout Sister Shout shows how
far she has progressed musically from her punky approach. This still
has plenty of energy and certainly is not blues by numbers — each
number has its own definite and individual arrangement, and touch-
es like the organ breaks by Ben Alleman and guitar work by David
Catching add a vaguely psychedelic but accessible touch.

Ghalia’s vocals are generally cool and controlled and musically she
is also a long way from her “one woman band” sound. The result is a modern sound, though maybe
rooted in the 60s or later bands inspired by that era’s experimental blues sounds, though her
fondness for classic rockabilly also comes through rather well on ‘Can’t Afford To Die’.

‘Insomnia’ has a lot of the Mississippi blues about it, particularly elements of the droning Hill
Country approach - at least until the electric guitar break, when the psychedelia takes over. Next, the
title track finds Ms. Volt getting angry, whilst ‘No Happy Home’ is on the cusp of both blues and rock
and roll, and ‘She’s Holdin’ You Back’ is a fine, relatively straightforward slide driven blues shuffle.

The organ break on the throbbing ‘Can’t Have It All’ is full-on psychedelic, and the album continues
in a bluesy vein until its conclusion with ‘Po’ Boy John’, a lovely, pumping slab of vintage down-home
rock and roll and a fitting end to a rather nicely different blues release. Well worth investigating.

Norman Darwen
Kyla Brox—Live at Köniz Castle —Pigskin
(www.kylabrox.com)

The winner of The 2019 European Blues Challenge and the daughter
of UK bluesman Victor Brox, singer Kyla is one of the UK’s most
under-rated acts nonetheless. She proves once again just what a
talent she is with this live set, recorded in Switzerland earlier in
2023 (just over a month after her father died), effortlessly blending
soul and blues, and to a lesser extent, blues-rock – the guitar break
on the slow ‘If You See Him’ is very much in Hendrix mode.

Kyla establishes her credentials early with the sultry ‘When We’re
Alone’ and the lazy shuffle of ‘Beautiful Day’, and guitarist Paul Farr takes a perfectly weighted solo
over the easy groove of bass player Danny Blomeley and drummer Mark Warburton, before ‘Devil’s
Bridge’ introduces a funk element and ‘Bloodshot Sky’ gets a little grittier. Her songs – all but two of
the sixteen tracks are originals, drawing from her last two albums, “Pain & Glory” and “Throw Away
Your Blues” – tend to fall into these categories, which is certainly not dismissive in any way. The
album does tend to get better and better as it progresses – and as I said, it starts extremely well.
Kyla can be brittle on a track like ‘Pain & Glory’, playful on ‘In The Morning’, leaves the listener

stunned with a moving, lengthy version of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’ and she plays her flute
on the autobiographical ‘Bluesman’s Child’ and ‘365’. It adds an extremely individual feel, but
then again, Kyla establishes that throughout. Recommended of course.

Norman Darwen