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Keith Newman & Friends: Cleaning Out the Garage

Recovering from a series of redundancies, a broken marriage and numerous unfinished projects, Keith Newman was forced to stop and take stock of his life. The result, strangely enough, is this multimedia CD of poetry with musical backing. Friends (Gav Collinge - guitars and programming, Neil Hannan - bass and programming, Jacqui FitzGerald - backing vocals) provide the music which covers a variety of music styles from the predictable new age sound to country tracks, and is generally pretty good. The poetry also covers a range of subjects but is mainly focused around life issues and spirituality. At times I felt that the poetry and music detracted from each other. I either wanted to hear the music without the poetry or the poetry without music. The CD has further poetry and information accessible via computer. Recorded at Scoop de Loop Studios it was produced by Hannan and Newman. So is it poetry, music or art? I have absolutely no idea but I do know that it will not appeal to everyone into either.