Sarah Morris Jane - I Shall Be Released (Red Vinyl)

This special Record Store Day edition 7" Red Vinyl single features 2 track from her highly acclaimed latest album, Bloody Rain. Bluesy singer Sarah-Jane Morris has kept excellent company during her illustrious career, but with Bloody Rain, she excels herself. This African-inspired crowd-funded album combines great music and shocking themes to powerful effect. (And it also raises money for SING, a charity raising funds for women and children affected by HIV and AIdS.) The titular song of Bloody Rain takes aim at political tyrannies; other themes include reproductive health (this with a calypso), child soldiers (written with the deeds of the Janjaweed militia and the Lord's Resistance Army in mind) and homophobic violence. The last is given face by a song called simply 'david Kato' in furious memory of the murdered Ugandan activist. Morris has enlisted some wonderful talents here: Courtney Pine on sax, the exuberant Zimbabwean singer Eska, the Soweto Gospel Choir, James Brown's right-hand man Pee Wee Ellis, and so much more.Musically, Morris and her band zip through a variety of African-inspired modalities. They are best in their most expansive moments, not least on the cast's cover of Bob dylan's 'I Shall Be Released'. But, as with 'david Kato', Morris's big strength is in the close focus. 'No Beyonce´', her arresting song on 'honour' killings, is all the more shocking for it's quiet litany of the ordinary things that a dead girl in an otherwise ordinary family will never get: 'No Beyonce´, no Shakira for you, no fashion, no boyfriends too.' by Sarah-Jane Morris (Fallen Angel 011P CD)