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    The Phantom Tollbooth September 2000/Martyn Joseph
    Martyn Joseph — The Shirley Sessions cover

    Martyn Joseph

    The Shirley Sessions

    (2000)

    Reviewed by James Stewart

    DiscogsBandcamp
    Label Pipe RecordsThe Phantom TollboothSeptember 2000
    acousticfolksinger-songwriter

    Last year's Far From Silent, Martyn Joseph's first step into own-label recording, was a lesson in consistency. But consistency often comes at the price of a number of fine songs which don't quite fit the mould that the others are made from. So while we await his forthcoming "best of" release, Joseph has produced a slightly more varied mini-album to give voice to some of those tracks and to let us in on his recent written musings.

    "Kiss The World Beautiful," a paean of love to the world and its people, has jokingly been referred to as too happy a song to go on this release's downbeat predecessor. That just might be true, cause it certainly isn't the quality of songwriting which kept it off there. The standard isn't all that high, though that song isn't alone in it, with the understated "Undiscovered Love" perhaps pushing past to claim the title of "standout."

    Martyn Joseph is one of those songwriters who always have more strong material than the standard album release cycle can represent and in the last couple of years he seems to really have found his writing stride. So it's our privilege that through the net and his own Pipe Records he's also found the medium to get that writing out at regular intervals.

    Other coverage for this album

    The Phantom Tollbooth September 2000Reviewed by Steve StockmanNow you see I know what you are thinking. You're thinking that Martyn has just released a full album and that as this is no more than a maxi ep he's probably filled it with the b-sides he used to need in his Sony days but now hasn't the singles to give them birth. You're thinking that you're not sure about buying eight sub standard songs. These were only written to fill in time after being thrown…

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