Treasure Island

Nikki Sudden | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 5, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Secretly Canadian
• ASIN: B0002Z7RKO
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,101 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Nikki Sudden has been working on the songs found on Treasure Island since finishing his last proper album, 1998’s Red Brocade. With a short list of around 40 numbers to choose from (many of which had been demoed in Bavaria and Berlin), Sudden and his band The Last Bandits (John Clifford Barry on bass and Stephane Doucerain on drums) assembled themselves for initial sessions in mid-2002. This motley group of expatriates who’d exiled themselves to Germany set up shop at John Rivers’ WSRS studio in Leamington Spa, England, a home away from home where Sudden has recorded the vast majority of his work during his extensive 30-year career – which spans his pioneering early work as a founder of the Swell Maps (who released two critically acclaimed & highly influential full-lengths and a slew of singles), his albums with the revered Jacobites, over a dozen solo albums and the dark masterpiece Kiss You Kidnapped Charabanc, his 1987 collaboration with Rowland S. Howard. Treasure Island is a stunning achievement, boasting Sudden’s best songwriting in twenty years.

The album features incredible guest performances from rock’n’roll hall-of-famers Ian McLagan (The Small Faces, The Faces, Billy Bragg) and Mick Taylor (Rolling Stones, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers), as well as Terry Miles (Bernard Butler), Dave Kusworth (Jacobites), and Anthony Thistlethwaite (The Waterboys).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What do great musicians play for themselves? This Record!, October 16, 2004

By 

Phil "TeleMan" (Chantilly, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Treasure Island (Audio CD)

This is a great record. Nikki Sudden gathered a group of first-rate musicians (including Mick Taylor) in addition to his Last Bandits to put together a collection of songs that you can tell they loved playing. This is not the result of lots of fancy post production. It's well recorded, real music with a good vivid sound and plenty of fabulous grooves. Listen to it once, and you'll really like it. Listen to a few times, and you'll love it. Nikki's vocals sometimes lean toward Dylan but in a good way--careful lyrics sung with feeling. The artwork features Trevor Austin, who is in the dictionary next to the entry for "hip." He lives in Germany, so you'll rarely find his stuff here--too bad.