Shining Brother, Shining Siste

On 'Shining Brother Shining Sister', the known and loved values of Jackie Leven's very best previous work have deepened further, but undertones of rockabilly, jazz, hip hop and waltz help make these recordings perhaps his strongest work for Cooking Vinyl to date. A new kind of energy and strength of arrangement suffuse all eleven tracks, from the short horror story narrated by American singer David Thomas, via other poetic spoken-word contributions from Ron Sexsmith and American poet Robert Bly, an album of immense artistic confidence shows a unique writer at the height of his creative power. The album is full of unusual elements, like a Jackie-commissioned trumpet elegy which precedes the track “Savannah Waltz”. This track, called “Dust Elegy”, was written and played on trumpets by Geoffrey Burgon, who won a BAFTA award in 2001 for his score of the film Longitude. (Geoffrey also wrote the music for the last Forsythe Saga, Brideshead Revisited, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy ).