Music reviews

Oh Susanna,"Johnstown" (Continental Song City)- This darkly memorable offering was the brainchild of Canadian singer- songwriter Suzie Ungerleider, first released in 1998 and newly remastered and expanded with the addition of stripped down acoustic versions of five of the album's stand-out tracks, including "Old Kate," "Alabaster" and "Johnstown" itself. Suzie's haunting folk-noir creations are preoccupied with the enduring struggles between darkness and light, destruction and creation and hate and love, all of them delivered with a melancholy grace which you rarely encounter in these troubled times.

"Silly Wizard" (Talking Elephant)-This highly regarded Scottish folk outfit were formed in 1970 by university students and musical soulmates Gordon Jones and Bob Thomas, but for a variety of reasons six years were to pass before their debut album,"Silly Wizard," first saw the light of day. The band had expanded to a sextet by this stage with the addition of fine musicians such as Johnny Cunningham and the late lamented Andy M.Stewart, and the participants were all in particularly fine fettle as they served up a virtuosic assortment of jigs ,reels and songs, including "My Love's in Germany" and Robert Burns' "The Heron Election Ballad No.4."

Tony McManus & Julia Toaspern,"Live in Concert" (Greentrax)-This beguiling live package showcases the talents of Celtic guitarist Tony Mc Manus and multi-talented Berliner Julia Toaspern, drawing on recordings made at three venues on the duo's recent German tour. McManus has recorded half a dozen albums for Greentrax over the years but the classically trained and unashamedly eclectic Toaspern makes her debut on the label here,weaving her instrumental magic on both fiddle and guitar as well as handling the vocal duties on fine tracks such as "Amarilli" and the self-penned "Penny" and "Ton of Bricks."

Little Feat,"Ain't Had Enough Fun" (Retro World)-Little Feat's best days already seemed to be well behind them when charismatic frontman Lowell George made the decision to disband this hugely influential outfit in 1979, and he himself died from a heart attack just a few months later at the age of just 34. The surviving band members pursued a variety of solo projects before reforming Little Feat in 1987 and they're still active on an occasional basis today. "Ain't Had Enough Fun" dates from 1995 and marked the debut of female vocalist Shaun Murphy, an excellent addition to a line-up whose masterly fusion of a whole host of genres from swamp rock and cajun music to funk, rock and country always repays closer investigation.