Our Daily Bread 289: Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. ‘Reverse Of Rebirth In Universe’
November 26, 2018
Album Review/Dominic Valvona
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. ‘Reverse Of Rebirth In Universe’ (Riot Season) 30th November 2018
As the title alludes, this is a rebirth; a new incarnation and phase in fact of the legendary acid-rock psychedelic transcendental freak out that is now in its 23rd year of cosmic operations. Founding instigators Kawabata Makoto and Higashi Hiroshi have in recent years welcomed a new intake of worthy disciples; adding vocalist and ‘midnight whistler’ Jyonson Tso, drummer from ‘another dimension’ Satoshimi Nani and the bassist, known only as, Wolf to its ranks. Their first task it seems is refreshing and transforming previous sonic stunners and rituals from the extensive Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. back catalogue; part of an on-going repackage of the iconic troupe’s music that has recently seen, for the first time, a cassette tape release of both the In C and La Novia opuses by Kamikaze Tapes. Coinciding with a recent European tour, the Osaka outfits sprawling Reverse Of Rebirth In Universe album essentially breaks-in a new generation of collaborators.
Krautrock replicates, bowing in reverence at the temple gates of their German inspirations, but also carrying on the lineage of their native country’s own experimental doyens (groups like Les Rallizes Dénudés and the Far East Family Band), the Acid Mothers have carried the torch for acid-rock, the avant-garde and progressive when forbearers and contemporaries have faded or disbanded. Relighting the flame and going even more ‘cosmic’ (if that was even possible) the new recruits breath life once more into a trio (quartet if you have the bonus track version, which I’m reviewing) of moonage daydreams, Tibetan new age fantasies and wild psychedelic improvisations.
Transducing the entire Yeti and Wolf City Nepal esotericism and hippie magic of Amon Düül II into one monumentous caravan procession, the album’s opening epic anthem, ‘Dark Star Blues’, showcases the Acid Mothers signature occult cosmology. All at once hypnotizing, doom-y, melodious, trudging and noodling this far-out blues trip free falls into a wrestling guitar manic jazz jam after ten minutes of Byzantium universe soul-searching to reach a certain nirvana state of enlightenment. By contrast, though still untethered to earthy realms, ‘Blue Velvet Blues’ (about as far away from the blues genre that you can get) mixes tremolo Western echoes with the pining aching and waning guitar work of Ash Ra Temple and what sounds like Grace Slick yearning over a drowsy drum beat. Talking of vocals, the motorik driving ‘Black Summer Song’, sounds like a holy union of Nico and Damo Suzuki; ethereal and hauntingly wooing over a Future Days period Can meets Klaus Dinger’s Japandorf project backing.
The bonus, ‘Flying Teapot’, if you haven’t had the aural pleasure yet, leans more towards Embryo and Agitation Free; a progressive, acid-jazzy warp factor ten freeform trip of stargazing and druggy indulgence: A perfect finish in my book.
In a sprawling swirl of grooves and flailing, wilding display of guitar experimentation and oscillations, the Acid Mothers, boosted by the ‘next generation’, reinforce their reputation as one of the most out-there, influential and dynamic forces in cosmic rock. With a back catalogue that constantly keeps evolving they manage to push further and beyond the band’s past triumphs and freak-outs to deliver something energetically and dynamically refreshing. Here’s to the next phase in the Acid Mothers legacy; one that seems to show a promising glowing future of possibility.
Hip-Hop Roundup/Matt Oliver
Singles
A miniature singles round-up this month – blame it on the boogie – but a good pair of twofers all the same to kick off the latest referendum-ready Rapture & Verse. Ken Masters articulating like the clappers over a glitzy gala of a bossa nova loop is a very good thing indeed: hear now the sweet sound of ‘Fresh Air’. As part of the Badroaches team with Torb the Roach, he also sets sail on a mystic river as an ambassador of ‘Cosmic Viking Wizard Funk’, capable of administering bad juju. Open Mike Eagle continues to go from strength to strength, ‘What Happens When I Try to Relax’ a half dozen cracking open of his brick bodied skull that blasts arena-sized synths and shrunken beats equally projecting unique visions made gospel truth. Entertaining wordplay that’s as much about satisfying his own high standards in syllable practice. He then teams with Pan Amsterdam on the calmingly engrossing ‘No Snare’, a sharing and airing of respective kooks over a jazzy groove to be welcomed like a summer flashback.
Albums
Beneath the floorboards of ‘Mansion 38’, Jam Baxter orchestrates ‘Touching Scenes’, lo-fi gloom and scarred wit capable of exploding off the page. Appearances from Rag n Bone Man and Kate Tempest show the strength of Baxter’s blurred mind racing into HD – still no slouch when everything says otherwise – as he and Chemo on production ooze into every nook and cranny, handing you a surgeon’s blade to dissect the depth of their dark circles. A tightrope walk slumping against a pressure cooker.
Back in no time at all, Lee Scott continues to skewer the world, this time bringing the lung butter to the soiled surveillance camera sounds of Reklews as Hock Tu Down. Both exhibit punch-drunkardness on ‘Hock Tu 3’, like looking at the world through a spoon, yet are unputdownable: mind control by and for misfits and malevolent spirits – after all, “reality is what you make it, even if there’s no-one to corroborate it”. No need to read between the lines when CNT come to town, the Code Name Theory of Manage and Blitz insisting you cup an ear on ‘Sounds About Right!’ Beats and rhymes are soaked in honest Brit bitterness, mind’s eye doing double shifts on the beguiling ‘Need Guidance’, and the care with which they take their craft means their messages always carry in the right way.
‘The Post Apocalyptic Story Teller’ is a role where Chester P earns his golden handcuffs, casting end day tales and folk-angled parables fit for today’s diminishing civilisation. Long a master of vividly narrating from the no man’s land beyond the street corner, the mediaeval and the evil that men do will have you huddling round, but in full blast of a frosty Task Force reception. No slip-ups on D Tail’s ‘Happy Accident’, slick and swift grime-trained rhymes taking to hip-hop funk with impudence and asking some searching questions along the way. Toss a mic in his direction and he’ll always be ready to respond en masse: a final posse cut involving Ras Kass and Leaf Dog shows he’s got the goods. A compact cross section of instrumental despair and beats seeking emcees to bruise knuckles with, Nick Roberts dips into ‘False Consciousness’, with Dizzy Dustin, Pudgee tha Phat Bastard, Ash the Author and Cyrus Malachi taking advantage of when the producer isn’t longingly working the MPC with a wistful glint. No false moves made by anyone here.
Rugged but always smooth, Apollo Brown painting pictures with Joell Ortiz on ‘Mona Lisa’ is a great, late end of year candidate that’s reflective with a forked tongue and makes the stoop sofa-soft. Able to turn nasty on a sixpence (‘Cocaine Fingertips’ is as sharp as a Kruger manicure), there’s a lot of comfort to be taken from the union of two opposing authority figures exercising supreme quality control, transfixing you like you’re intimately eyeballing the pair’s much ogled muse.
Many parallels can be drawn from Masta Ace and Marco Polo’s ‘A Breukelen Story’, which save for tired skits piping up, is a similar exertion of concentrated strength. An immovable flow that has never let the former down, inimitably representin’, knowing the ‘ledge or reeling off what might have been, takes over production capitalising on a previous hook-up and taking in plenty of fresh, buzzing for autumn air, content on letting the words take the spotlight (even if Pharoahe Monch threatens to upstage everyone on final track ‘The Fight Song’).
The moreish ‘Pieces of a Man’ is Mick Jenkins knowing how to work a crowd. Powered by the woozy, a retreat nudging over into the club with keys constantly paddling, just when you think he’s coasting with the heat off, the Chicagoan plucks it out of the fire with a turn of phrase, concept, or one-liner more damaging than the casual ear can locate. “I be on my show and prove, not my show and tell” – persevere with it and the layers will reveal themselves. A mix of reluctant popstar, drifter hip-hop and traditional Midwest spin, deM atlaS tells the crowd to get lighters up in anticipation of jumping into them. Produced by Ant of Atmosphere, ‘Bad Actress’ is all showman, taming himself after exuberant opening exchanges. The wearing of multiple hats won’t be for everyone: the vulnerability, rap/rockstar/R&B whims, heart-to-hearts, including a remake of Mobb Deep’s ‘Where Your Heart At’, and development of a spectacle, could unlock a lot of new ears.
This month’s Ronseal album: ‘Grimey Life’ by Big Twins, a 15 track upkeep of realness delivered in shredded ghetto baritone. All the street consumption you could possibly ask for, flooded with blood, sweat and tears. Meanwhile in mid-apocalypse Ontario, Lee Reed’s ‘Before & Aftermath’ announces itself as a timebomb, an anti-establishment front row provocateur refusing to accept easy answers. Drums and funk kick down doors like the crooked figures in Reed’s crosshairs, with a twang dragging Your Old Droog and Vast Aire into the fire. Cherried by the all inclusive ‘Fuck Em’, you can’t spell renegade without the name Reed: burn speakers burn.
‘The Beat Tape Co-Op’ 10th anniversary compilation from 77 Rise rounds up 30 instrumental cameos and bite-sized boom bap bops, laced with soul slipping down the hourglass. The likes of Kuartz, Dr Drumah, Ben Boogz, Klim Beats and Profound79 put in the neck work and make their presence felt on a selection where it’s okay to touch that dial. ‘Dressed for CCTV’ by Aver avoids being a Hard-Fi tribute and gets knee-deep in instrumental murk glistening with a sharp film, dredging for drums and coming up with intriguing droplets of gold to create an atmosphere where emcees fear to tread, save for Cappo manning up on ‘Something from Nothing’. A classy retread of trip hop’s noir-ish particulars.
The spectre of the late Alias looms large on ‘Less is Orchestra’, enabling the supervillain flow of Doseone’s effusive battery acid gargles – scarier when he reaches dog whistle levels – with a cavernous, chrome-finished bunker of wires, pulses and logical mechanoid scurries. A game of good cap bad cop launching the Anticon equivalent of the bat signal.
Taking the street into the club and vice versa, Swizz Beatz’ strong ‘Poison’ brings the fuel, Lil Wayne, Giggs, Kendrick Lamar, 2 Chainz and Young Thug add the fire. It was never gonna be an album of modest contemplation (though quieter storms reserved for Nas and Pusha T don’t disrupt the sequence), but it’s still a pretty good, well condensed elbow sharpener with everyone on their game.
Look out for the Monolith Cocktail end of year album roundup coming soon, chock full of Rapture & Verse’s favourites from over the last 12 months.
Our Daily Bread 288: Refree ‘La Otra Mitad’
November 19, 2018
Album Review/Dominic Valvona
Refree ‘La Otra Mitad’ (tak:til/Glitterbeat Records) 7th December 2018
Recording in the field, catching both on-set and off the dialogue, conversations and even the spontaneous warbling song of a child, the lion’s share of the material on the renowned Spanish producer and film music composer (also solo artist in his own right) Raül Refree’s La Otra Mitad album was created for film director Isaki Lacuesta’s movie exploration of Flamenco, Entre dos Aguas.
Capturing both the essence and environment of the movie’s San Fernando location, and spirit of the non-professional cast, Refree’s often-reflective compositions and sketches represent his unique approach to conveying the abstract and visceral.
Representing at times what I, with my admitted ignorance of the form, recognize as the toiled, yearning and sometimes diaphanous flourishes of the highly-skilled Flamenco tradition, Refree performs the odd deft solitary passage but mostly reconfigures this signature Spanish style, remodeling it into an amorphous soundscape, or reversing it through a vacuum of suspense – ‘Dar a luz (Mix 1)’, which when translated into English means ‘giving birth’, and so makes sense as the sensation sounds like someone being rushed backwards out of a womb-like tunnel of both radiance and trepidation. Tracks such as ‘Barbacoa’ are literal, the composer recording the mood and conversation of the film crew and actors in their downtime at a barbecue; the results of which when edited in Refree’s in-situ studio sound intimate, yet like an ambient mirage. But sometimes the voices are in song, the Flamenco singers Rocio Márquez, Niño de Elche and Pilar Villa find their sonorous wails, lulls and beautifully expressed vocals sampled and turned into the ghostly and transported. Though the brighter, in praise, and less transformed ‘Cuando Salga El Sol (When The Sun Rises)’ is left to work its delightful Flamenco magic.
Lacuesta had in mind the relationship enjoyed by Neil Young and Jim Jarmusch on the collaborative score for the movie Dead Man, when approaching Refree. And in some way there is a semblance of that process; Refree pushing traditional sources into contemporary directions, his eclectic CV, which includes both co-producing and collaborating with Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo (Electric Trim), and Spanish enigmas Silva Pérez Cruz and Rosalía, channeled through an experimental traverse of ideas; from the picturesque to tragic, fleeting to sobering.
Originally earmarked for a two-volume duo of instrumental-leaning 10” solo EPs, La Otra Mitad couples what was two separate envisaged projects together on one album. Volume Two, the soundtrack, I’ve already discussed; Volume One however is a different, but concomitant, proposition. Named after the guitars it was performed on, Jai Alai Vol 01 (as it was titled) featured a series of reflective pining, waning and timeless solo guitar compositions. The LGO played (is that even a guitar?) track features Flamenco gestures and resonating echoes of Ry Cooder country, but also, on the second of the ‘LGO’ performances, a hint of the Middle East permeates an intense to wound-down, heavy to light, ratcheted spring folksy rhythm. The moiety of ‘Ramírez’ experiments feature a plucked, harmonics twanging nuanced guided hand; both sounding classical and sad but transcending subtly their time and place.
An amorphous, removed album of guitar articulations, moods, location and voice that somehow seems simultaneously tethered to Spain yet peculiarly outside of it. An experiment in reification and the aleatory, capturing the essence but also transient, Refree creates an unusual aural experience that’s difficult to categorize; neither avant-garde nor world music as such, nor is it in the perimeters of rock, it is instead a most unique collection.
Our Daily Bread 287: R. Seiliog ‘Megadoze’
November 14, 2018
Album Review/Dominic Valvona
R. Seiliog ‘Megadoze’ (Turnstile Music) 30th November 2018
The Welsh producer’s most cerebral and tactile electronic evocations yet, Robin Edwards’ (under the mantle of his R. Seiliog moniker) new album subtly pushes out into the expanses of a naturalistic imbued void with a depth and patience seldom heard outside the fields of ambient and new age music.
Echoing the trance-y and controlled build-ups of techno’s burgeoning creative epoch in the early to mid 1990s – especially the likes of Seefeel, Sun Electric, Beaumont Hannant and, well, a fair share of the Warp and R&S labels output in that period – Edwards ‘ambisonic’ visions shift seamlessly between the mysterious and radiant; weaving together elements of Kosmische, minimalism, intelligent techno and even psychill into wondrous soundtrack of discovery.
Megadoze is in no way, as the title might suggest, one big somnolent snooze fest; even if there is a lot of suffused ambience to be found, and tracks take an unhurried amount of time to unfurl their brilliance and scope. The minimalist whispery, silvery and peaceable ‘DC Offset’ (a reference to ‘mean amplitude displacement’ too lengthy to discuss here) for example bears traces of The Orb and David Matthews, yet also features the sort of downplayed beats and rhythms associated with sophisticated dance music. In fact, no matter how gentle or languid, each track features constantly stimulating and evolving textures of metallic and crisp, whipped beats amongst the vapours, undulations, drones and waveforms.
A manufactured wilderness and cosmos, Megadoze sounds like Autechre rewiring The Future Sound Of London and Steve Reich: Imagine cascading waters, volcanic glass, the dewy lushness of fauna and awe of the constellations organically shining or ringing through omnipotent machinations and the itchy, pitter-patter of computerized, sequenced drums.
In many ways a 90s album thrust into the next century, produced on more sophisticated apparatus; Edwards’ brand of nuanced electronica is rich with the possibilities of both eras. His most ambitious work to date, Megadoze is alive with ideas and tactile sensibilities, a moody record that can, over time, open-up with wonder and radiant magic.
Our Daily Bread 286: Vukovar/Michael Cashmore ‘Monument’
November 12, 2018
Album Review: Dominic Valvona
Vukovar/Michael Cashmore ‘Monument’ 16th November 2018
Another month, another three-syllable entitled grandly Gothic statement from Vukovar; on this occasion traversing the void with Current 93 stalwart and producer/composer Michael Cashmore, who appears under the guises of his Nature And Organization nom de plume.
A congruous in what is a melancholy harrowing romance partnership with the morbidly curious Vukovar, Cashmore leads with a vaporous, industrial and often godly (whichever God/Gods they be) brutalist swathe of sagacious moodiness and narration; adding to the already despairing lament that is Vukovar’s signature.
Deadly committed to the point of alienating everyone they work with, Vukovar’s fraught collaborations may end in acrimony, but the results musically are always first rate and dramatic; this latest breaking-of-bread partnership proving to be among their best work so far. It’s impossible to tell where Cashmore ends and Vukovar begin, and vice versa, and who’s album this actually is. Arguably inheritors of Current 93 and, even more so, Coil’s gnostic-theological mysticism and brooding venerable communions, Cashmore seems the obvious foil. Current’s The Innermost Light and Coil’s (and John Balance’s swan song as it were) The Ape Of Naples both permeate this conceptual opus.
As ever, reflecting the band’s reading material, monument is fueled by Hermetic occultists, despondent followers of Thelma, Dante’s visions of purgatory and redemption, and, to a point, architectural analogy. Inhabiting the concrete musically and materially, twisting post-punk, Kosmische, industrial and early British synth-pop, Vukovar and their partner in this gloomy trudge through the wastelands produce an apocalyptic hymn of gauze-y supernatural resignation and dreamy visages.
Straddling two slabs of vinyl, Monument’s indulgences are given ample room to haunt the listener. Shorter narrations and passages fade into more fully realized songs. Shorter pieces like the ‘This Brutal World’ feature a reading of a most despondent, mopey even, extract from Alice In Wonderland (the sad Walrus’ ‘sweeping away’ metaphor sounding even more plaintive read out in this setting) and fairytale surrealist, erring towards the unsettling, twinkled xylophone, followed by more expanded visions of yearning dark arts. When the band and their host do emerge from the ether, the Gothic experimentation features a more melodious, dare I even suggest catchy, quality; even in its most stark sleepless eulogy form, with a chorus like, “In a dream she’s always dying/One day she may awake”, taken from the Bauhaus swirling cathedral indie ‘Little Gods’, there is a certain surge of broody dynamism and anthem.
Vocally for the most part, both the voices of Vukovar and Cashmore’s dulcet, lower tones are layered over each other; some sung, though mostly spoken, uttered, howled and cried-out. On the middle section of the ‘Visions In Silence’ cycle (following the edict entitled nod to Rosicrucian championing physic and occult icon, Robert Fludd, ‘Utrique Cosmi Et Sic In Infinitum’) the “exist as I exist” mantra and ruinous decaying lyrical morose could be by Alan Moore, and the off-kilter jerking march of the no-wave ‘The Duty Of Mothers’ sounds like an unholy alliance between John Betjeman and Aleister Crowley.
From haunting melodrama to harrowing decay, unrequited love to radiant escape, the loss of innocence and youth to sagacious death rattles, Vukovar prove ideal torchbearers of the cerebral Gothic sound and melancholic romanticism. A meeting of cross-generational minds with both partners on this esoteric immersive experience fulfilling their commitments, Monument shows a real progression for Vukovar, and proves a perfect vehicle for Cashmore’s uncompromising but afflatus ideas to flourish in new settings, whilst confirming his reputation and status. Whatever happens next, this ambitious work will prove a most fruitful and lasting highlight in the Vukovar cannon; one that’s growing rapidly, six albums in with a seventh already recorded; another ‘momentous’ statement that affirms the band’s reputation as one of the UK’s most important new bands.
Our Daily Bread 285: Moulay Ahmed El Hassani ‘Atlas Electric’
November 2, 2018
Album Review: Dominic Valvona
Moulay Ahmed El Hassani ‘Atlas Electric’ (Hive Mind Records) 30th November 2018
Returning to the stimulating landscapes of North Africa after a brief excursion to the visceral South American horizons of Rodrigo Tavares Congo, Marc Teare’s burgeoning tactile Hive Mind label rests in the shadows of the Titanic straddling Atlas Mountains with its third release, Atlas Electric.
Paying tribune to the atavistic folk music forms of the Amazigh people (the Izlan and Ahidous) of Morocco meets modern synthesized pop fusions of the celebrated Moroccan polymath Moulay Ahmed El Hassani, Teare’s latest labour-of-love repackages a double album’s worth of material that was originally released on Hamid’s own label, Sawt el Hassani, during a decade timespan between 2004-2014.
Relatively unknown outside his homeland, the prolific doyen of modern Moroccan pop music has knocked out over fifty albums (mainly confined to cassette tape and CD) during a thirty-year career. Though crate-diggers, samplers and admirers of cult Arabian music will know the name, this lavishly illustrated and compiled collection acts as an introduction for the rest of us: A showcase if you like.
A sprawling musical odyssey that immediately evokes the romanticized escapism and exotic fantasy of the Atlas Mountain landscape it was produced in, Ahmed’s swirling paeans and lyrical social commentaries trot and canter on air like a magical camel trail through the rugged canyon and desert terrains. Like the Bedouins, this electrified pop hybrid moves lightly and freely across an expanse, weaving the traditional with a taste of modernity: The dramatic, sauntering and gliding mirages of tradition, in this setting, are countered by Casio keyboard pre-set rhythms, fizzled drum pads and warbled auto-tune. This melding of forms, a bridge between generations, gives it a twist. Though undoubtedly the technology is lagging behind a little, elongated thumbed strings and psychedelic, Tuareg-like, blues guitar are undulated by 1980s style balladry synth and programmed drums throughout.
Joining Ahmed on this adventure is the richly voiced trio of dueting Arabic and Amazigh language sirens, Karima, Hind and Khadija, who lull, trill and accentuate the heavenly and romantic gestures of these delightful sonnets: Often sounding like the Arabian equivalent of a Bollywood musical.
Electrifying the landscape with a strange beguiling fusion of R&B and pop (the sort of sound clash M.I.A. soaks up), yet staying true to tradition, Ahmed’s Moroccan musical fantasies soar and flutter above the travails and toils of the modern world; representing, even if plaintive at times, the beauty and dreamy lovelorn desires of those who live in the shadows of the Atlas Mountain. It’s a marvelous release and an education.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 