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Rolling Stone The good old rock'n roll vagabond and incorrigible
romantic has finally succeeded. Nikki Sudden has his new LP in the can.
The album he's been talking about so much that you thought it was a
tale from his daydreams. Treasure Island enjoyed Nikki's biggest
budget in years, and in true pirate tradition, it nails its colours
firmly to the mast: sure, there's a powerful Stones influence on House
of Cards, but it's Mick Taylor himself guesting on guitar; and if elsewhere
there's an enthusiastic nod in the direction of the Faces, well, yep,
that's Ian McLagan on keyboards. BJ Cole and ex-Waterboy Anthony Thistlethwaite
show up on pedal steel and sax, and there's even a female choir. Despite
the star guests, it's always Nikki's album - one part Bolan swagger
to two parts Keith Richards guitar riffs - and it's one of his best. Treasure Island, Nikki Sudden's latest musical offering, is a high class affair imbued with the mythology and legends of Blues and Rock & Roll, both metaphorically and literally. This time around Nikki has pulled out all the stops and has surrounded himself with a group of musicians who include such legendary figures as Mick Taylor, Ian McLagan and BJ Cole, to name but a few. Together with regular collaborator Dave Kusworth, and ex-Jacobites Glenn Tranter and Carl Eugene Picot, Nikki and his present band The Last Bandits have cooked up a pot-pourri of musical excellence guaranteed to refresh the most jaded of listeners. Even the humble CD booklet has, in this case, been turned into a work of art. With its stylish reproductions of old Blues labels, comic book illustrations and adventure story scenarios, it harks back to the halcyon days of the gatefold sleeve when the artwork and design were almost as enthralling as the music. Nikki has been dancing his way down the Rock & Roll highway for over twenty-five years now, starting with independent legends Swell Maps in the mid-seventies and continuing with The French Revolution and The Jacobites through the 80's and 90's. With the new album he seems to have reached a high point in his fabulous and varied musical career, and the songwriting and production values have never been better. My favourite track is Russian River, a magical, romantic tale of the love affair between a Russian Princess and a down-at-heel musician; but really, there isn't a duff song on the whole album. Nikki's ability to create a hermetic world of his own is evident throughout the CD, and he somehow manages to take the murkiest of Blues and Rock & Roll legends and transmute them into his own mythology. A master storyteller, no less, and a guitar player who has been quoted as an inspiration by such renowned musicians as Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and Peter Buck of REM. Other standout tracks include Kitchen Blues (with Mick Taylor's evil-sounding guitar recalling The Stones at their satanic best), and Sanctified, which harks back to Nikki's collaboration with Rowland S. Howard on Kiss You Kidnapped Charabanc. Fall Any Further brings a change of pace, with a Tamla Motown bass line and sexy backing vocals from The Girls, while the song Treasure Island kicks in with a killer guitar riff that is so dirty that you have to wash it out of your ears afterwards. Produced by the great John Rivers at WSRS in Leamington Spa, Treasure Island is a labour of love from a man who lives it as he speaks it. Whether he's playing prestigious venues in the USA or smoky kellar bars in east Berlin, Nikki Sudden just keeps on doing what he does best-snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, while creating his own magical world of great, kick-ass, independent Rock & Roll music. Bucketfull
Of Brains (Review
by Phil Shoenfelt) What is there to say about the latest album by a man who has already released about thirty of them (not to mention innumerable singles, compilations, collaborations and limited editions)? Nikki Sudden is nothing if not prolific, but Treasure Island marks a high point in his long and varied musical career, one that has led him from the sonic experiments of Swell Maps back in the 1970's, through the melodic grunge pop of The French Revolution and the Jacobites in the 80's and 90's, up to and including his present outfit, The Last Bandits. Not to ignore his collaborative efforts with artists as diverse as Rowland S. Howard, Peter Buck and Mike Scott, of course. On Treasure Island, Nikki has pulled out all the stops. The first thing you notice is the booklet, a lovingly wrought artefact that really deserves to be released in its own right. Paying homage to pulp literature, classic record label designs, and the kind of advertisements for 'hot' new records that you might have found in the Melody Maker and Record Mirror of a bygone era, the artwork is a must for anyone with a sense of humour and an interest in the history of popular music. The music itself is a beautifully produced selection of grungy rockers and heart-wrenching ballads, the kind of thing that Nikki is well known for but elevated here to a new level of accomplishment and execution. Surrounded by a host of great musicians-The Last Bandits, old stalwarts like Dave Kusworth and Glenn Tranter, plus international names such as Mick Taylor, Ian McLagan and BJ Cole-Nikki lives out one fantasy after another as he wends his way down that two lane blacktop to Rock & Roll nirvana. Right from the opening track-Looking For A Friend, a classic Sudden boogie in the tradition of Aeroplane Blues-the album never hits a false emotional note, and is a testament to the man's total immersion in the legends and mythology of popular music. Standout tracks for me are Stay Bruised-a rich, romantic ballad that could make a navvy break down in tears-Kitchen Blues, Russian River and High And Lonesome. With Mick Taylor on guitar, Kitchen Blues cooks and percolates with the spirit of 666, while Russian River finds Mr. Sudden in mystical, magical, romantic mode as he tells the story of a Russian princess and a penniless musician. This one is a true classic, with aching, yearning lyrics and evocative pedal steel guitar from BJ Cole that grows on you more each time you listen to it. High And Lonesome, by way of contrast, is a brooding low-key blues for those retrospective moments at 5am when the party has ended, all the drugs and alcohol are gone, and the dregs of your life taste like poison. A kind of musical Maldoror imbued with the spirit of Robert Johnson, this is a hymn for all those lost souls who have taken the road of decadence and refuse to turn back, no matter what. But to be honest, the whole album is comprised of standout tracks, a rare thing these days when most CDs contain three or four good songs at most. Produced by the mighty John Rivers at WSRS, Leamington Spa, and released on Nikki's own Rookwood label, Treasure Island is exactly that-a magical island of excellence in a sea of major label crap. The spirit of truly independent music lives on! Scratch Update - Treasure Island 220g 2LP (Munster/MR264) This is the vinyl
edition of his widely acclaimed new solo album, featuring among others
Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones), Ian McLagan (The Faces), Dave Kusworth
(Jacobites-partner, Tenderhooks and Bounty Hunters), Darrel Bath (Ian
Hunter, Crybabys, Dogs D'Amour) and The album starts with "Looking For A Friend", the oldest number on the album, whose chorus dates from 1975, "Break Up" ("Every album should have at least one country song", as Nikki says) and the great love song "Stay Bruised", who was going to be the title of the album in the first place, though Nikki finally decided to go for the Robert Louis Stevenson style. "Kitchen Blues" is lirically inspired by Sylvester Weaver's Devil Blues and an article by Stephen Calt called "The Idioms of Robert Johnson", so you know what you can get! It also features the superb guitar of Mick Taylor. "Russian River" hit a chord with Finnish director Mika Kaurismaki and the song was taken up for the soundtrack of the film Honey Baby. Then comes "House of Cards"... with an amazing solo by Mick Taylor which has to be one of the best things he's ever played - even himself was impressed! "High & Lonesome" has a Jimmy-Reed influence, while "Fall Any Further" is a soulful song in an Isley Brothers style, also influenced in conception by Martha & The Vandellas "Dancing In The Street" & "Wild One". "Sanctified" is a rewriting of Nikki?s old classic "Paying My Way", with a title coming from an unreleased T.Rex song. "When The Lord" is Nikki's first "gospel" number, with a 20-piece choir of 14-15 year olds, and all we can say is... he should have recorded this before!! "Never Let Me Go" is pure Marc Bolan. And there's still more... All in all, the best Nikki Sudden album ever!! Dream Magazine It seems fitting
that Ian McLagan of The Faces, and Mick Taylor once guitaristfor The
Rolling Stones are both guests, since Nikki Sudden's rock & roll
identity at this point is stitched together from scraps of both bands
and huge portions of Keith Richards in general. High Bias Magazine Montreal Mirror 8/10 Status Magazine (USA)Nikki Sudden sounds
like he is channeling Dylan on the opening track of his new album "Treasure
Island," which shouldn't come as a surprise. The brilliant and
underrated Sudden, like Bob, has consistently pushed his lyricism into
the realm of poetry, madness, genius and day-to-day mythologizing -
from the advent of his experimental punk band the Swell Maps (who, along
with their ideological siblings the Television Personalities, were probably
one of the top 5 punk groups in the UK in the late 70s) to his sprawling
and varied, but always exciting solo career that began in the 80's. Wavelength Toronto Portland Mercury
At the end of Robert
Louis Stevenson's legendary story about Treasure Island, hedescribes
the ship Hispaniola sailing away with "great heaps of coin Nikki Sudden has
earned his reputation as one of rock's true mavericks after having spent
nearly 30 years exploring, experimenting and generally Now in his late
40s (and residing in Berlin), Sudden has a confessed weaknessfor the
Rolling Stones and T-Rex that influences his relaxed style of "Treasure Island"
(Secretly Canadian), his ninth solo LP, is easily his strongest effort
to date. Sudden and his band, The Last Bandits (John Clifford In the true tradition
of rock 'n' roll, the 14 songs featured on "TreasureIsland"
have a little bit of something for everybody - country ("Break
Up"), "Treasure Island"
makes an immediate impact on the listener and bears its fruit upon repeated
listenings, its strong suit being the mixture of styles all Now, here in 2004, Sudden got to make the record everyone is waiting for Keith Richards to make. It's the best mix of the aforementioned artists' talents since Izzy Stradlin's first JuJu Hounds record. TREASURE ISLAND sonically sparkles, due to Nikki's biggest recording budget in years. Studio chatter, false-starts and the like are left in. You feel like you're live in-studio. Musically, it sways, it swaggers, it rocks, it grooves, it aches, and it leaves you wanting to strap on your Gibson Les Paul Junior. With TREASURE ISLAND I think he's finally realized his true genius. While there was a strong Stonesy influence on his 1996 cd HOUSE OF CARDS, this time around, it's Mick Taylor himself bending the blues guitar, along with Faces/Stones keysman Ian McLagan on the ivories. There's even a female choir, and B.J. Cole and ex-Waterboy Anthony Thistlethwaite playing pedal steel and sax, respectively. This is a brilliant
songwriter getting the best players available to make it the best Nikki
album, Nikki's ever done. Other artists in this category you might like
are: Marc Bolan, Ryan Adams, Neil Young, My Morning Jacket, Jay Bennett,
the Replacements, the Kinks, or Television. If this group, or any one
of them sounds appealing, by all means run to Plan 9 and buy this cd.
It is the J. Holdren 2004 record of the year, which only means my rock-n-roll-country-swagger
jones was met. Now, if only Peter Buck would get back to making REM
records, we'd be in business. |