Reviews
Artist: Ruby Blue
Album: Ruby Blue Remasters
Label: 26Music
Tracks: 10
Website:http://www.rubyblue/get-ctrl.com
It's been twenty one years since Ruby Blue released their big label debut "Down From Above". The album was sandwiched between their real debut "Glances Askances" and a b-sides and previously unreleased tracks album "Broken Water" both on indie, Red Flame.
There was another Red Flame album, "Almost Naked", two if you include the cassette only release "Paradise", but by the time those came out, the band had already fractured and neither of those albums are part of the canon that features the recordings of the core of the band, Roger Fife and Rebecca Pidgeon that were at the heart of the band.
"Ruby Blue Remasters" is a very bittersweet album for me as it reminds me what could have been had the forces that were acting on the band not pulled it apart. More important though it also reminds me what it was that made the band such an important part of my discovery of music that sat outside of the punk/new wave/rock core that made up my early music education.
"Ruby Blue Remasters" is a best of package, drawing on the three albums mentioned in the first paragraph, one that reaches out to new fans, as well as one that gives the people that remember the band a chance to hear some of their songs in slightly unfamiliar setting, ironically one that the band may have had more of an interest in at the time.
Since leaving Ruby Blue, Roger Fife has worked mainly behind the desk with artists as diverse as Cyndi Lauper and Wu Tang Clan, Antony And The Johnsons and Desmond Dekker, but he's returned to his own legacy to take up the opportunity to put together his interpretation of Ruby Blue's world.
The result is an album that highlights the innovative nature of the band, a band more than happy to push away from the mainstream. It helped that Rebecca had a voice that capture mood as easily as it could capture power and sensitivity, (It wasn't a surprise that Rebecca took a more jazz path with her solo career) but it was the strength of the songs that stood out.
If you didn't know the time that has elapsed since these tracks were recorded, you would be hard pressed to date the album. Tracks like "Bloomsbury Blue" and "Something's Gone Wrong" speak out to issues that are as relevant now as when they were record, unfortunately. There was and is a lot of social justice in the songs, together with the emotional impact of events.
"Betty's Last Letter", recorded with a under hinted sense of swing, has that timeless quality about it, simply because letters still have real impact when they come from a war zone and end up being the last keepsake you have of a person.
Released on 26Music, the album is currently download only, but is available through Amazon and iTunes and really is well worth seeking out, not just for nostalgia, but because it's an album that's hit a really rich vein of material.
Neil King