Kyla Brox - Live At Köniz Castle

Album: Live At Köniz Castle
Size: 180,0 MB
Time: 77:48
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2023
Styles: Blues/Soul mix
Art: Front

1. When We're Alone (4:35)
2. Beautiful Day (4:01)
3. Devil's Bridge (3:15)
4. Bloodshot Sky (3:12)
5. In The Morning (4:09)
6. Pain & Glory (3:46)
7. Sensitive Soul (4:04)
8. Bluesman's Child (4:53)
9. Honestly Blues (7:06)
10. If You See Him (6:08)
11. 365 (5:42)
12. I Can't Make You Love Me (5:38)
13. Let You Go (3:19)
14. Don't Let Me Fall (4:36)
15. Choose Me (3:51)
16. Hallelujah (9:24)

Winner of the UK Blues Challenge 2018, winner of the European Blues Challenge 2019 and voted Best Female Vocalist in the 2019 European Blues Awards, Kyla Brox is back with a blistering new album, ‘Live at Köniz Castle,’ which features a choice selection of tracks from her last two critically acclaimed albums. It’s rare to achieve intimacy and connect with a roomful of strangers, but this is what Kyla Brox achieves with Live at Köniz Castle, recorded at the Kulturhof in the grounds of Köniz Castle, Switzerland, on March 25 2023.

Her music is predicated on the notion that blues and soul are indistinguishable forms, and lashes the force of Afro-American music with a distinct Lancashire sensibility. To hear the singer in full flight is to be convinced that Kyla Brox is the greatest soul singer Britain has yet produced. A ratio of two covers to 14 originals seems about right. The originals draw on Kyla’s consummate skills in role-play and imaginative empathy. Some of her songs are touched by lived experience, and are inspired by people she has known and loved. The immortal ‘Bluesman’s Child’, penned in reference to her legendary father, Victor Brox, fits this category. Of the covers, Kyla’s classic interpretation of ‘Hallelujah’ blows every other version out of the water. No really. Listen and you’ll find that it’s an objective fact.

A road-tested four-piece with the standard singer plus guitar, bass and drum line-up departs from blues rock conventions whenever Kyla tootles her flute, a sound which summons back to African atavism. Connoisseurs of blues guitar may wish to note Paul Farr’s capacity to channel the expressive force of the immortals Peter Green and Jimi Hendrix, and his ability to shadow Kyla’s voice. Drummer Mark Warburton and bassist Danny Blomeley calibrate the pitch of intensity in perfect unity, whether holding back or surging forth.

Live At Köniz Castle mc
Live At Köniz Castle gofile

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Kyla Brox - Pain & Glory

Size: 143,4 MB
Time: 60:28
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2019
Styles: Blues Soul
Art: Front

01. For The Many (3:37)
02. Pain & Glory (3:15)
03. Sensitive Soul (3:52)
04. Bluesman's Child (3:39)
05. Bloodshot Sky (3:16)
06. Choose Life (3:29)
07. Devil's Bridge (2:19)
08. In The Morning (4:00)
09. Compromise (4:01)
10. Let You Go (3:57)
11. Away From Yesterday (2:31)
12. Lover's Lake (3:44)
13. Don't Let Me Fall (4:51)
14. Manchester Milan (3:51)
15. Top Of The World (3:04)
16. Hallelujah (6:54)

Kyla Brox's scintillating, multi-faceted new album, Pain & Glory marks her ascendancy to the very first rank of British singers. Kyla has been a professional musician since the age of twelve first in her father, Victor Brox's band, then striking out on her own and Pain & Glory represents the culmination of a quarter of a century's experience on the road and in the studio. The variety and depth of her vocal performances have grown year on year and are given a superb setting in this album's sweeping landscape of soul, blues, urban R&B, blues-rock, and singer-songwriter pop of the highest class. Highlights abound: the retro-soul, slow-burn balladry and melodic momentum of the title track; the jubilant R&B of 'Choose Life'; 'In The Morning' is a swaggering, sensual blues shuffle; 'Manchester Milan', unfurls as a wistful, sophisticated meditation on a cosmopolitan affaire d'amour; 'Lover's Lake' has the gentle, inviting pulse of a Fleetwood Mac b-side; while the hot funk of 'Let You Go' flames with righteous Girl Power brio. Two tracks perhaps deserve extra-special mention. Firstly, the swingin', jivin', 'Bluesman's Child' which documents Kyla's teenage years of singing with her father's band. A bit of background: in the early '60s her dad, Victor Brox formed the Victor Brox Blues Train with singer Annette Reis, who would become Kyla's mother. They were, perhaps, the first interracial band on the scene, Annette having been born in Stockport of African-Canadian, English and Nigerian heritage. Victor went on to the influential Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation drawing the admiration of Jimi Hendrix, who dubbed Victor his favourite white voice . Robert Plant was also a teenage fan. Kyla sometimes performs with Victor and Annette to this day. Secondly, classic-in-waiting, 'Don't Let Me Fall' wields seriously radio-friendly soul-pop heft, as Kyla builds from a crooning start to an astonishing crescendo where she sings without the brakes on. It is a truly thrilling aural experience. Such a treasure shines all the brighter in being supported by a superb team Kyla's brother, Sam Brox of Dust Junkys fame produces empathetically with help from Kyla herself and her husband, co-writer and bassist Danny Blomeley it is indeed, a family affair. John Ellis (Honeyfeet, The Cinematic Orchestra, Lily Allen etc), plays keys with alchemical excellence; in-the-pocket drummer Mark Warburton is a master of economy; Paul Farr (Corinne Bailey Rae, Joss Stone, Tom Jones) is an enchantingly fluent guitarist; while the renowned Haggis Horns proclaimed 'the best horn section in the world' by Mark Ronson create a further dimension to these already finely crafted, appealing songs with their mellifluous and punchy arrangements.

Pain & Glory

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Kyla Brox - Throw Away Your Blues

Size: 117,2 MB
Time: 50:10
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2016
Styles: Blues Rock, Blues Soul
Art: Front

01. If You See Him (4:56)
02. Lifting The Blues (4:07)
03. Beautiful Day (3:30)
04. When We're Alone (3:47)
05. Choose Me (2:30)
06. Road Home (3:49)
07. Run Our Home (2:58)
08. Ain't Got Time (2:39)
09. Change Your Mind (3:57)
10. Song For The Lonely (3:23)
11. Lovin' Your Love (3:27)
12. Honestly Blues (4:04)
13. 365 (3:05)
14. I Will Love You More (3:51)

One thing is true Kyla Brox singing will lift the spirits any day of the year. This is an album where the blue is Midnight Blue with the nap and resilience of velvet. Kyla’s vocals on all fourteen tracks that combine to make Throw Away Your Blues an album to treasure is velvety smooth with textures and shading that keeps the ears firmly in-tune with her soulful singing.

This, Throw Away Your Blues is Kyla’s sixth studio album, has her band performing to the flick of her hair, and meaningful stare they are putty at the feet of Kyla’s purity and raw talent. The band has a timing that allows the voice to shine but never harshly dominate, the music blends and shades the lyrics. Her music and life partner Danny Blomeley along with Paul Farr and herself wrote the tracks that fit her style and allows the band to explore all the contours of blues and soul.

Opening with If I See Him, Kyla sings a capella the breathing and power drags you smiling into the album, the vocal bar is raised very high indeed. Then the band joins the musical party with a grinding melodic beat adding harshness and anger to the question being asked. The shaping and timing of her phrasing is superb as she sings ‘tell him that I am breaking’ the despair is immense. The flute from Kyla is a lightness in the shading a glimmer of hope and sorrow. After all that emotion the blues is pure in Lifting the Blues and the Paul Farr guitar work is spellbinding as the undercurrent of the words sung with breath-taking beauty.

The opening by John Ellis’ Hammond organ leads you into the third track Beautiful Day and a change again in delivery, texture and tone. This is music that strokes your senses, has all the warm of a sensual women tinged with the raw animosity of a caged cat. Throw Away Your Blues sings Kyla Brox her style is as smooth as midnight velvet. The husky tones of Kyla on Road Home would encourage everyone to drive straight to the front door with no deviations this is slow blues that gently massages and soothes your troubled soul. Then a change of tempo curling flute from Kyla and an up-beat dancing rhythm as she says I’m leaving you to run our home. This is blues with modern attitude this lady will walk out the door if her work in running a home is not appreciated. Listen up and say an appreciative word to those who Run Your Home. Blues is full of textured fun, chores are just mundane

We are back with stylish guitar driven blues with Honestly Blues as this album full of style draws to a close. Throughout the production, the spaces and timing has been immaculate. Never does the voice battle the guitar or vice versa, the whole package is effortless harmony. The beat picks up vocal tone is deeper and the rhythm has a feet tapping quality as 365 days are explored the blues, anger and despair of a woman who endures 365 days a year of where nothing changes. The guitar lead break is searing as if the words of Kyla have had no effect on his freedom. Closing with a love song we are left with the lingering pleasure of Kyla singing I Will Love You More. I know this is an album you will love more and more with every listen.

Kyla is the British blues queen, her vocal range and textured shaping of lyrics with emotions are earth-shattering in their power and emotive draw. Bluesdoodles gives this CD TEN doodle paws out of TEN. ~Bluesdoodles

Throw Away Your Blues

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Kyla Brox - Gone

Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 37:47
Size: 86.5 MB
Styles: Contemporary blues vocals
Year: 2007
Art: Front

[3:14] 1. Frustration
[5:02] 2. Gone
[3:16] 3. Always Looking At Me
[3:32] 4. Skin
[5:05] 5. One Step Too Far
[4:11] 6. This Is The Life
[3:06] 7. Loaded Gun
[3:27] 8. More Than Me
[1:58] 9. What's Left On The Table
[2:11] 10. Ride On
[2:38] 11. You Said You'd Be My Sunshine

First album entire of Brox/Blomeley originals, with the exception of a single Brox credit (more of that later). When guitarist Marshall Gill was recruited by New Model Army, the old band ceased to be. This is Kyla and Danny's record, with band accompaniment on assorted tracks. Kyla was never averse to putting her feelings on show - that is her stock-in-trade as a soul singer - but in euphoric songs like This Is The Life, we're now getting more of the inner life. The depth of experience of the title song, a moving testament to loss, is new, while More Than Me proves how attractively Brox and Blomeley can write in the orthodox soul idiom. The stand-out cut, however, is the a cappella closer, You Said You'd Be My Sunshine, which is Brox sans Blomeley, and written in bitterness about a lover responsible for "five long years, no ring and no change." The singer stirs up a maelstrom of passion that is beyond assuagement. It had the desired result. Shortly after the recording, Danny bought Kyla the ring.

Gone

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Various - The Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival: The Acoustic Stage Vol 1

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 44:52
Size: 102.7 MB
Styles: Acoustic blues
Year: 2012
Art: Front

[4:41] 1. Mike Bowden & John Williamson - Be Still
[2:49] 2. Kyla Brox & Danny Blomeley - Frustration
[3:56] 3. Mal Gibson - Gonna Get High
[2:30] 4. Dave Arcari - Got Me Electric
[3:38] 5. Lucy Zirins - Hours To Waste
[3:38] 6. Tom Doughty - Journey Blues
[3:42] 7. The Mirrortones - Just One Touch
[2:23] 8. Lil' Ian Goodsman - Lonesome Rider Blues
[3:35] 9. Babajack - Skin And Bone
[5:09] 10. Jack Blackman - Stranger
[4:33] 11. The Ginjammers - Time Will Tell
[4:13] 12. April Blue - Why

The Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival: The Acoustic Stage Vol 1 mc
The Great British Rhythm & Blues Festival: The Acoustic Stage Vol 1 zippy

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Kyla Brox - Live... At Last

Size: 120,3+97,9 MB
Time: 51:55+42:21
File: MP3 @ 320K/s
Released: 2014
Styles: Blues Soul, Blues Rock, Acoustic Blues
Art: Front

CD 1:
01. Always Looking At Me (3:46)
02. Don't Mess With My Man (4:20)
03. Working On Your Love (5:23)
04. Too Young To Care (2:56)
05. Love Too Much (5:04)
06. Feeling Good (5:54)
07. All Breaking Down (4:50)
08. Do I Move You (5:54)
09. Skin (4:08)
10. Guilty (4:32)
11. Gone (5:03)

CD 2:
01. Ball & Chain (5:46)
02. Cramp Your Style (3:25)
03. Shaken & Stirred (5:26)
04. Grey Sky Blue (6:18)
05. What's Left On The Table (7:19)
06. At Last (7:03)
07. Wang Dang Doodle (7:00)

The first album in this set, is a live acoustic take , with Kyla Brox on vocals and flute, Danny Bromeley on guitar and Tony Marshall on saxophone. Some tracks have appeared on previous albums, with most being self penned, but with a live and acoustic rendition they have a whole new feel.

Superb vocals from Kyla, as you would expect, with Danny playing acoustic guitar, with all I can say is brilliance! Great guitar solos throughout, but he particularly comes to life on the up tempo number ‘Too Young To Care’ , what a player! Kyla also shows her expertise as a flautist on ‘Don’t Mess With My Man’ and ‘Do I Move You’. There is some wonderful sax playing from Tony with jazz overtones on the final five tracks of this superb acoustic album.

So many different tempos fill this album, but one track immediately springs to mind. ‘Feeling Good’, a classic, which is performed with such feeling and sensitivity, absolutely magic. Another track, ‘All Breaking Down’ is haunting with flute and sax and superb vocals from Kyla, it also has a fair bit of audience participation which adds to the ambiance of this live performance.

The final track on the album ‘Gone’, is one of the most iconic tracks. So beautifully sung and played, it does give you goose bumps!

Moving on to the second CD in the set, recorded live at The Great British R&B Festival in Colne in 2012, with the full band. Kyla on vocals and flute, Danny on bass guitar, Tony on sax, Paul Farr on electric guitar, Rick Weedon on drums and John Ellis on keys, it bursts into a full on band sound with ‘Ball And Chain’, some great Hammond input. A classic sultry jazzy blues and Kyla can sure hold a note!!!

A couple of ‘funky’ numbers follow, with guest Franny Eubank on harmonica on ‘Shaken And Stirred’, which was certainly ‘in the groove’.

With a mix of slow and up beat rockin’ numbers, it was great to hear vocal input on the final track, ‘Wang Dang Doodle’ from the master of early blues/jazz, Mr Victor Brox. A great take on this classic number.

Superb vocals and flute playing from Kyla and some outstanding sax playing throughout the album from Tony. As a live album, it gives you a true picture of how good this band really is.

Both albums have an ‘edge’ that a good live recording can only give. Brilliant musicianship throughout. ~Rosy Greer

Live... At Last CD 1
Live... At Last CD 2

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The Kyla Brox Band - Coming Home

Bitrate: 320K/s
Time: 57:36
Size: 131.9 MB
Styles: Electric blues, Contemporary Blues vocals
Year: 2009
Art: Front

[3:49] 1. She Knows
[3:54] 2. Coming Home
[3:46] 3. Do I Move You
[2:55] 4. It's On
[5:40] 5. Working On Your Love
[3:16] 6. Too Young To Care
[2:31] 7. Guilty
[4:09] 8. Won't Fit There
[3:44] 9. Stargazing
[3:44] 10. Just For Then
[3:56] 11. Things I'd Change
[3:16] 12. Keep On Criticising
[6:15] 13. It's Understood
[6:34] 14. Don't Change Horses

This realises the promise of Window by adding an extra ingredient: the groove. it's a groove that comes from constant work with an active working band. Saxophonist Tony Marshall and Marshall Gill, a guitarist from the BB King school of searing sweetness, fulfil most of the solo honours. Bassist Danny Blomeley and drummer Phil Considine are veterans of Victor's 'child slavery band'. And what a tight unit they are, personally and musically (groove triumphs over song on Won't Fit There). Twelve out of the 14 selections are Kyla co-writes or originate from within the Brox circle (Victor is responsible for Working On Your Love; incidentally, brother Sam is producer). Coming Home displays an empathetic Kyla, working out the work/life balance (She Knows) or her issues of self-doubt (Things I'd Change, Guilty), but also a tougher Kyla. This means that all the raunch is concentrated in one song, Do I Move You (a smouldering Nina Simone number), which actually intensifies the impact. The other cover, Don't Change Horses, is a real find. Rescued from the back-catalogue of seventies West Coast funksters Tower of Power, the song is a certified show-stopper, mixing real emotion (a plea for a second chance) with outrageous showmanship ("Giddy up, hi ho Silver…"). And, with the Blomeley/Considine rhythm team piling on the coal, it builds up a fine head of steam. If Don't Change Horses represents the zenith of the Kyla Brox Band, then Working On Your Love demonstrates the latent strength of the Kyla Brox Duo, with Kyla and Danny giving an object lesson in how less is more.

Coming Home

Mo' Albums...
◊ Esther Phillips - Confessin' The Blues
◊ Danny Kyle - Rag 'N' Bone Blues

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