Perusal #83: megiapa, Stylianos Ou, Devon Church, Dragonflies…
September 16, 2026
In review: a world of sonic discoveries. Dominic Valvona
Photo by Robert Macaisa for Off the 405, Courtesy of Getty Museum
An Ambiances Magnétiques Label Double-Bill
Super Scintillant ‘Tarot’
Érick d’Orion’s ‘Mes fantômes’
(Ambiances Magnétiques) Both Released 25th September
Two similar(ish) spheres of influence and conceptual works from artists aligned with the Canadian label’s “adventurous music-making” aesthetic this month. Only appearing recently on my radar, the Ambiances Magnétiques platform is based on and around the province of Québec; it’s stock in trade to showcase interesting, explorative and avant-garde releases from both some heavy hitters in the form and burgeoning fresh talent.
Firstly, the debut collaboration between the performer, electronic musician and artist Nicolas Bernier and his foil, the notable bass clarinettist, lecturer and professor Mélanie Bourassa, Tarot. With everything that title might allude to, from its Kosmische and early analog conceptual traditions to its hermetic and esoteric connotations, its symbolism and prophetic omens and warnings, that umbrella is used amorphously to explore and shape electroacoustic and modular apparatus conjured atmospheres and descriptions manipulated, or so it sounds, in real time.
Both partners on this sonic mystery and sci-fi adventure, draw upon their extensive backgrounds; Bernier with both his merging of musical and artistic projects, and his extensive prolific catalogue of collaborations, including with leftfield underground hip-hop Antipop Consortium con-founder Beans, and Bourassa with her study and teaching, and depth of experiences working with the Québec Symphony, the Metropolitan Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony and Violons du Roy.
Crossing the classical, the avant-garde, even hints of jazz with that “super scintillant” of electronic sparks and effects, the signal from Bourassa’s bass clarinet is routed directly into Bernier’s “rig”, allowing him to control the parameters of his system using her output. That’s the underlying method that sets in motion a both alien and reimagined pastoral investigation of the instrument; transduced and transformed from its familiar bass-y tones and higher flutiness and cyclonic flutters to sound both of its tradition and yet astral and part of the Fourth World legacy of Hassell and Roberto Musci too.
Fibres, metallics, space craft mechanisms, counterflows, the tubular plastique and unsettling whispers move around or directly reverberate off the bass clarinet’s audible finger work, its space bird-like cries, duck billed croaks, its squeezes and piped melodic spirals and song.
There’s one point where the clarinet travels almost to Egypt – not without diverting via NYC Gershwin and a stalk in the bush -, another where the instrument reminded me of Park Jiha’s work, Sakamoto and Arve Henrikisen.
It’s a both kinetic and improvised entwinning of the two disciplines and their scopes to perform a contemporary ballet of machine engineering and the acoustically amplified and breathing. A stellar futuristic whisk and more majestically adroit collaboration of mystique and atmospheric stirrings that can sometimes being near hymnal and other times unsettling or at least filled with a sense of in trepidation.
Delving much further into a metaphorical Venn diagram of supernatural and paranormal alluded untethered jams, Érick d’Orion‘s septet assemble of eclectically concentrated musicians’ tune into the psychic to communicate with old and new apparitions. I say apparitions, but this is a live (by the sounds of the audience appreciation) draw of influences, inspirations and record collections plucked from the ether or pulled from past experiences to march and rollick all over any semblance of preparation.
The multi-disciplinary audio artist, composer and improviser of note has shared his skills and exploratory travelling mind with such notable company as Evan Parker, Martin Tétreault, Otomo Yoshihide, Robin Fox, Ilpo Vaisanen, Alexandre St-Onge, Sam Shalabi, Günter Müller, and eRikm. An enviable and diverse list that now comes in handy on this expedition beyond the paranormal.
Gathering together Marie-Pierre Brasset on synths, Émile Boucher Cloutier on percussion, Michel Potiron on electric guitar, Réal Gagnon on drums, Stéphane Beaulieu on electric bass and Nicolas Gobeil on trumpet for an invocation and dance with the phantoms of past musical excursions and memories (both the conscious and unconscious kinds), Érick plugs into a Fortean amplifier to create an Acid Mothers Temple-Last Exit scuff and splash of Poltergeist activity at a Sly & The Family Drone punch up with Fugazi and The Pop Group.
Over two sides (though my edition came with an unnamed bonus track) the troupe of sonic psychic investigators communicate with feedback and foldback invoked ghosts, unholy disorder and knocked transmissions from beyond even Mina Crandon’s imaginative cons, before the tempo, the direction of travel changes towards a sudden lilted sympathetic echo of Don Cherry’s cornet trumpet that soon apes the bugle call of some lost fort in a matinee film. But then, just as you get a pause in the action, a handle, we roll up into the freeform drumming prowess and wild kit turnouts of Milford Graves and Tatsuya Yoshida. But again, we then leap into the gargled revved-up attitude of hardcore and jazzgrind, of a leaderless and instrumental live Black Flag and the Dead Kennedys pulling out a knife on the Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
And that’s only track one, ‘Spectres’: which to be fair is over twenty minutes plus in duration. ‘Ectoplasm’ is shorter but no different in its mix of ideas and improvised scope, starting with occultist atmospherics, Faust-like ceremonial ominous punctuations, and metal shredded guitar. However, it takes hold of a groove of a kind, or a momentum; a space rock flight of fantasy over Tangiers, with elements of Hawkwind and Amon Düül II and the Arabian desert trumpet evocations of Lee Morgan and Chet Baker. Metallic whips lash at the spectacle, whilst electronic apparatus concoct zips, the bass a growl, and the drums scuff and gallop towards the demonic icon.
I will just mention that third track, which begins with a hand drums and group effort embrace of Afro-funk before switching to the esoteric procession and ending up once more in the hardcore and jazzcore realms of free enterprising dread: it actually reminded me weirdly of Wicked Lady, and also has an air of prog and metal about it too.
If Ill Considered and Scarla O’Horror spent more time skateboarding in the late 1980s or hooked up for a musical collaboration with Laddio Bolockos and Massacre than this might well be the result. And if that doesn’t pique your interest then nothing will.
The Bordellos ‘Oh Nora’
(Metal Postcard Records) 11th September 2026
No, not a tribute (as I initially thought when seeing the title) to Nora Batty the pinny wearing, wrinkled stockings and hair nut costumed stoic and hard-faced muse of Compo in that quintessential English comedy of life in a Northern town, Last Of The Summer Wine, the protagonists of this latest song from the maverick family band, The Bordellos, are two star crossed lovers/singers sharing the same name; neither of whom are aware of each other’s romantic infatuation with the other. Both Nora’s – one an aspiring younger singer trying to crack the music industry, the other, in her mid-sixties, finding a newfound cult status after her 1970s flopped LP is picked up by a new generation, and once again appearing on stage – love one another from a far without knowing it. And it’s that relationship, or the simultaneously tantalising and both hand-wrung agonising over the prospects of what could be that are so movingly and whimsically sung about on this latest single.
Taken from what could be (if the band’s co-founder and the vocalist and acoustic guitar player of this song, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, ever gets the time) a larger planned musical entitled ‘Oh Nora – A Small Town Story’, this single sets the lo fi sympathetic plaintive tone; a sort of grim up North version of folkish-country Dylan with a lilted lean towards Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Mrs. Robinson’, and yet unmistakably low rent English kitchen sink romance. Brian’s son, Dan Shea (of Vukovar and Beauty Stab fame, also known to have penned the odd piece for this site over the years) can be heard weeping a haunted malady of steel pedal wanes and quavers, whilst Uncle and brother Ant Shea completes this disenchanted but romantic trio on harmonica and vocal harmonies.
Perhaps one of the band’s most charming, less acerbic and jokey polemics on the state of the nation, yet set to small town suspicions, bigotries and the unwillingness of some to accept change, Oh Nora’s central characters are used to demonstrate a continued sneering and outright homophobic prejudice to same sex relationships and of openly gay people in close-nit communities: especially in towns long since left to rack and ruin by not only Tory policies but Labour’s too.
There’s a real tenderness here, even nostalgia (though not for the 60s of homosexual criminality, nor the early 70s when artists were obliged if not forced to hide their sexuality even in a supposed “gender-bender” age), yet it’s saved from being truly saccharine by The Bordello’s signature lyrical takes on the everyday detritus of pop culture, of fumbled love affairs and the innocuous habits that immediately conjure up life in a Northern town of old: This is a liaison that is quintessentially both English and Northern.
It remains to be heard what can be expanded upon, but The Bordellos certainly have the groundings for a sweetened if self-depreciating propounded musical.
Devon Church ‘The Shame Of Winnipeg”
(Ruination Records) 18th September 2026
Taking its cue, I’m sure, from Leonard Cohen’s (written with his collaborative foil Sharon Robinson) languorous rile at the rotten state of the world, ‘Everybody Knows’, NY producer and songwriter Devon Church encapsulates the underlying sour and the disenchantment of that 1988 anthem to despondent protestation and cynical beguilement.
Originally released on Cohen’s I’m Your Man LP, and if anything, a resounding triumph of the poet’s disgruntled take on the stench of the times and the decades previous (a contemporary chime with the AIDs epidemic of course, but also with long held musings on both relationships and religion, thrown in with corruption), it’s since become a totem; a go-to for wised-up film producers and directors on the hunt for that one song that so sums up the times.
But Devon doesn’t just write a long love letter to that iconic tune, nor just snatch its sound, but delves deeper into the catalogue to reprise that sort of Med Greek Island holidaying and retreated Cohen vibe too; a subtle breezy adoption of sun-kissed adult louche new wave, rock and troubadour vibes that called be described in some instances as yacht rock. Then again, inspired by his early adoption analog, mic and keyboard purchases during the Covid pandemic, Devon also adopts a shimmy chimmy sound of swimming and faux-Latin presets, a flange-y and phaser-ed embrace of Isaak and Lynchian noir and a subtle borrow of the Aussie sound that became synonymous with Crime And The City Solution, and some of the Bad Seeds work during the later 80s.
Despite hanging out with the Millennials, feeling their pains and carrying their withering gripes – as laid down by the Frankfurt School, Reductionist and Deconstruction theorists –, Devon’s tone seems more boomer, or even Generation X; his influences obviously for the music and activist poetics and polemics of the ageing Boomer class of Cohen, Scott Walker and even Dylan (really hearing some chimed evocations of his 80s works). But it’s actually executed with a smoothness and maturity that might be beyond Devon’s years. He certainly seems to thread if not make obvious connections across the generations and years like Dylan; his reference points and slogans in a lucid if sometimes vague coalesce that attempts to wrap up the last century and the slow collapse of humanity and society in the face of capitalism’s battle with feudal technocratic authoritarianism, globalism, the drag of neo-liberalism and both a crash that still hasn’t ever been resolved and a pandemic that pretty much destroyed everything we know and hold dear (form our jobs to relationships, most obviously our health mentally, and our suspicions about those who hold high office).
How this pans out can be summed up on the open ‘Back From The Grind’ salvo at the rich, the multinational companies, the online titans, and the unedifying prospects of having to earn one’s own living in very discouraging and bleak roles: well, earning your paltry, just living salary to feather the beds of those at the very top pf the chain – that old adage that money trickles down, which might have been true decades ago, doesn’t cut it in the 2020s. I say a salvo, but Devon has turned his (I quote) “The body is the engine of the economy” mantra into a cooly and sexy indolent and disarming Marxist despondent grudge at those who would force him to leave his lover’s embrace (and more) and his own bed to clock in. To a signature cool wave and the pad drums and pre-sets of his Korg Mini Pop analog drum machine (if we’re being specific for tech heads, a SR-120 wooded panelled edition of the Japanese’s companies early drum machine, brought out in 1976) and that Isaak noirish ‘Wicked Game’ borrow, one of Devon’s many guests pull up to offer sighed breathless harmonies and confessions.
In a similar mode, albeit recalling for me, vocally, Babybird and both voice wise and musically Aldo Struyf’s Belgian psycho-killer super project Creature With An Atom Brain, ‘Neon Genesis Fidel Castro’ and its Western-Gothic mood weaves the Communist’s muses and champions in with a loose connective spook of apportions and UFOs. Paying metaphorical gratitude’s and reparations to the Civil Rights heroine of the desegregation crisis of November 1960, ‘Ruby Bridges’ is tied together with further lyrical broadsides at capitalism’s failures, and the narcissist crisis of our online era; An American almanac that reaches from the start of one decade – starting off with Bridges place in history, bang in the middle of policy and racial changes as the first African American student to attend the previous “Whites-only” William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana – to finish on the dying embers of a civil rights and generational uprising at the other – referencing the pied piper of alt-counter-culture malevolence and chemical fuelled Manchurian candidate bloody sacrifice, Charlie Manson. Musically it all sounds a bit like a lo fi Spector Girl Group in bed with Dylan at a Black Panthers benefit.
I could easily write about every single track on this album, such is the abundance of musical layering and topics to unpick, but will briefly just mention the cooed caressed feminine accompaniments on the Heyme recalled and shimmied diaphanous new age curtain call title-track – a reference maybe to Kent Monkman’s exhibition of the same name in that city, or just because it’s yet another rile against those pesky colonists that took the land from its indigenous folk -, and the definitely Yacht Rock vibes of the Mediterranean lovesick Cohen-esque ‘Jamie Joins The Priesthood’. The latter is a story of protagonists, and the disappointments and despondent fatalistic chasms of expectation – a kind of Millennial Catcher in the Rye perhaps? There’s one bit where the female voices seem to mimic a reimagining of the Stones’ ‘Paint It Black’, though with all the medicinal meds I’m taking these days to stay alive, I could be hallucinating this.
There’s a mention of the Durutti Column’s Vini Reilly in the press notes and briefing; his signature flange-y and dreamy guitar pining’s and playing style being compared to Devon’s. A good call, but I’d throw in Kevin Ayers perhaps too, a little of Crime And The City Solution and of course the new wave school.
Biblical propositions, fables and bad omens are grafted to a louche and languorous spectre and cerebral backing that Cohen would possibly smile at. It’s a deep listen on some levels, but tuneful and pleasant at every turn; less a whine really and more a sophisticated, mature (that voice both often gravelly and filled with life experiences of and wry knowing; not so much miserable as making sense of how society came to its current crisis) observation to these trying times and the cultural malaise.
Dragonflies ‘S-T’
(Dark Horse Records/BMG) 18th September 2026
Drawn together under the fluttered magical and dreamy wings of Dragonflies, foils Dhani Harrison and Nigel Godrich make hay as the dream collaboration.
Touching base at different points in their respective careers, Harrison originally reached out to Godrich for “guidance” on what would become his second solo album, Innerstanding. This was during the concentrated, time-on-their-hands, period of the Covid pandemic. Fast forward a few years and invited by Godrich to shape a collaboration together in his Brixton studio, Harrison channelled his inner light whilst his creative partner shaped the results in real time. All of which was augmented or accompanied by the sensitive swells and lower case scored strings of the famed Canadian composer and arranger David Campbell, and the added shaken and shimmered percussion of Godrich’s Ultraísta and Atoms for Peace bandmate Joey Waronker.
Just a cursory glance at the enviable CVs on paper is more than enough to whet the appetite and rally anticipation. Godrich with his producing and engineering prowess, working and guiding everything from Radiohead’s highly influential and experimental catalogue to records by Beck, R.E.M., Pavement, U2, Arcade Fire, and Paul McCartney. As a musician in his own right Godrich has helped instigate both the cross-Atlantic experimental rock trio of Ultraísta with Waronker and Laura Bettison, and the international supergroup Atoms For Peace with oft foil Thom Yorke, Flea, Waronker (again) and Mauro Refosco – God knows how the dairies and commitments align for that one.
Dhani….well, apart from the near obligatory mention of his late iconic father and former Beatle, George – perhaps also proving a pressure to bear on those slim shoulders; to live up to that legend would fuck with anyone’s confidence – , the musician, composer and singer-songwriter has carved out a solo career for himself, whilst also fronting his own thenewno2 band, and joining another supergroup lineup, the Fistful of Mercy, with Ben Harper, Joseph Arthur, Jim Keltner and Jessy Greene.
Lauded quite rightly by the industry, at this point in both their careers they could choose or dismiss whatever projects they want. So, it’s encouraging to see – wished on by fans alike – that they’ve pulled together their talents, their aspirations, as well as more bluesy plaintive woes and concerns for a fragilely and honestly projected psychedelic trip-hop experience: a balance of organic intuition and the synthesized that works rather well.
Their titular debut opens with the dreamily Floydian via Radiohead ‘Slower’, which also recalls a softer and more trippy‘Sätt att se’ by Dungen and both the suspended slow “tiss” sounded drums of Portishead and the vocal delivery style of their frontwoman Beth Gibbons (credited as one of the trip-hop inspirations for this album). At this point Harrison’s voice is in a psychedelic mode, but they can also sail close to the delivery, cadence, mood (and production wise, the electronic accompaniment too) of early 90s David Sylvain, especially on the more minimalist step-padded and ghostly Radiohead-esque piano drifted ‘Straight Line’: you could throw in an essence of Mark Hollis to that equation too. It’s an amalgamation of spiritual yin, plaint vulnerabilities, disarming polemics against the material world, and the feminine; interwoven with the instinctive, near organic if synthesized and electronic backing of Godrich.
I found the whole thing surprisingly soulful, with touches of modern R&B to be found permeating amongst the very on-trend 90s influences (UNKLE for sure, but as I already referenced Radiohead, and also Lamb and some of the early Mo Wax releases). Harrison’s sensitive soul gives it a unique direction and when needed a certain elevation above the wallowed dystopian lament of signature trip-hop: I’m aware it’s not always like that, but anything Portishead wise, or that features Thom Yorke, could be said to encourage such moody inspection and a certain sorrowful tone.
Anyway, as a collaborative project Dragonflies seems both confidently experimental but also bankable and appealing enough to crossover the generations and fractured scenery of the present leftfield genre. I’d call that a success and expect to hear more from both Godrich and Harrison in the future.
Leenalchi ‘Sugungga’
(Luka Bop) 2nd October 2026
K-pop’s saccharine and vacuous domination eclipses all, delivered through its TikTok friendly vessel. And it would seem, as we are led to believe in the West, that this is all South Korea has to offer creatively and culturally at present. But there are thankfully many alternatives, including the ensembled septet of Leenalchi (very important so as not to multilingually astute and respectful in the company of South Koreans or your international friends that you drop the “L” and pronounce the moniker as “EEE-nal-chi”) who transform the age-old traditional form of pansori with a taste of the eclectic and hot-wired wildness and funk of the contemporary. You could say it was a colourful alternative to the performative pop music of K-pop, which leaves many of its acts’ soulless throwaways, exhaustively worn out and replaced by the next shiny and ever younger next big thing.
Instigated or led by composer extraordinaire (incredibly successful career at the vanguard of South Korean cinema with scores for Train to Busan, Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and The Wailing) and indie scenester of repute (one such band, SsingSsing apparently “clocking up” nearly ten million views for their Tiny Desk Concert) Jang Young Gyu, the Seoul-based septet merge playfulness with the theatrical on their fantastical reinvention of storytelling, poetic yearning and surrealist posed tapestries of allegory and metaphor.
Jang (just to complicate matters further, its occasionally written as Youngkyu Jang) corrals the talents of singer, songwriter, and artist EJae on bass, Oh Hyung Suk on drums, and the quartet of Park Soo Bum, Ahn Yi Ho, Ra Seo Jin and Choi Su In on vocals. And together, this big sound can both bombastically or in more sophisticated strains inhabit both visceral worlds of influence; from stage acted folk, the unveiling plays of yesteryear, to the slicker finger-snapping funk and electronica R&B of a more contemporary climate.
Firstly, a little background on the band’s main focus and sound. Pansori’s etymology can be broken down thus: the “pan” part can be translated as an open space or a place where many can gather, whilst “sori” could be interpreted as singing, a sound, or song. The form itself dates back to the 17th century, with its settings, characters and situations rooted in Korea’s Joseon period (the longest and very last imperial dynasty in that region’s history, a period that ran from 1392 until 1910), set, at that time, in the capital of Hanyang (present day Seoul). It’s believed to have evolved from the expressions and narrative songs of the shaman; remaining for much of its existence as a purely oral tradition until the 19th century pansori acquired ever more sophisticated literary layers: A popular form by then with the urban elite. But through increasing rapid industrialisation and modernization in the next century and the explosion of Western influences on the musical culture this ancient storytelling tradition began to fade. However, there would be a revival in the 1960s with pansori securing its survival and posterity as a National Intangible Cultural Property.
Over the course of that history, pansori has retained, if evolved, its original performance set-up: stories are both sung or spoken by a single female or male performer called either a “gwangdae” or a “sorigun”, accompanied by a seated drummer (called a “gosu”). The spoken parts are called “aniri” and the sung parts, “chang”, and both are usually mixed into each performance, which can last anywhere up to eight hours in duration! The double-headed barrel shaped drum (a “buk”) can be said to emit a rattling sound, played as it is with a drumstick in one hand whilst the opposite hand maintains the rhythm.
With stylised speech, narrations and gesticulations both cyclical tales of love across class divides mix with more satirical and witty observances of the fantastical and surreal. Updated and thrust into a new millennium no less, Leenalchi home in on the anthropomorphism aspects; namely with the album’s leading single, ‘Crying Softshell Turtle’, the tale of the titular character’s quest to cure the dragon king. Through a thumped backbeat, synthy zaps, 90s indie vibes and tribal voices, a magical, if gory in places, fairytale unfolds: our protagonist turtle brings a sacrificial rabbit filled with medicinal greatness to the court with a beseeched implored promise and contract: “I beg you to open his belly, and I pray to God there is a liver there. But if there isn’t a liver, you can execute my whole family and tear me to pieces, and I won’t have any regrets.”
From the symbolism of courtly fairytales to the ridiculous, Sugungga opens with the silly mantra of ‘Mao Mao Mao’: more “mewl” “mewl” “miaow” than communist chairman propagandist. Sliding M People-esque soul-pop sidles up to guttural theatre and the paddled plastique. In a similar mode, yet far more disco and funkier, ‘Tiger Is Coming’ sounds simultaneously like kabuki and something from the Mongolian steppes. ‘A Fish Map’, with its funky duck bass lines, could be a toss-up between Bootsy Collins, Basement Jaxx and International Pony.
Touches of psych, a very removed vision of R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, electronica and pop match with a diverse register of vocals either agitated, dramatically acted, hysterical, throaty, bluesy, mulled and heavily accented. It’s different for sure. A harmonious funkified union that congruously revives an old tradition, still breathing and most importantly, still relevant in a technological divisive, anti-humanist world of AI and screen time indoctrination. It’s possibly even best experienced with friends and a dancefloor; its playful spirit whimsical yet showing depth without losing its energy and infectious call to shake that booty.
megiapa ‘Intentions’
(International Anthem) 25th September 2026
A match made in the heavens of soulful humanistic futurism and beat-making, the linguist, producer, visual artist and vocalist megiapa seemed destined to join Chicago’s renowned International Anthem label family. Making an album debut on that community hub’s platform, the Ohio-born soulstress gathers together material imbued, inspired and brought together on the Chicago underground beat scene; sounds forged and created through regular spots at the Push Beats, Open Beats and Fresh Roasted showcases, and from sharing the stage with such notable company as Sev Seveer, Radius ETC, Elijah Jamal Asani and DJ Moppy.
Leaving Chicago for L.A. in 2023, megiapa was soon embedded in that city’s “low end theory” imbued underground and leftfield hip-hop and jazz scenes; namely in the enviable company of such luminaries of the form as Madlib, Flying Lotus, Daedelus and Georgia Ann Muldrow – I can hear the latter’s signature to a degree laced throughout Intentions. And so, this becomes an album born of both cities, the finishing touches galvanised on the West Coast but starring a cast of contributions from across state lines, brought into the studio as both an additional band and chorus of voices and vocalists.
That relationship with International Anthem was originally inaugurated by the community leader, curator, radio broadcaster and DJ, King Hippo (the alias of Alejandro Ayala) who wove megiapa’s beat making soulful sounds into the label’s live presentations. There would be subsequent openings for the roster’s recording artists Makaya McCraven, Bottle Tree and Ben LaMar Gay.
From initially creating music in headphones at home and through the use of the popular audio editing and recording app Audacity, that sound has blossomed and expanded to now incorporate a full band of musicians (more or less) and host of networked foils. Step forward bassist (though a multi-instrumentalist too) and artist The Growth Eternal; Sudan Archives collaborator and pianist Ahmed Muhammad (aka Kafari); the cross-generational L.A. community institution, Pan Afrikan People’s Arkestra musical director and drummer Mekala Session; producer, composer and artist Telemakus; trumpeter, producer and composer Will Miller (who goes under the Resavoir project); and percussionist Allakoi “Mic Holden” Peete. Completing that gathered ensemble is the vocal pool of Aankha Neal (of the notable eclectic spiritual Voice of Creation choir), Blvck Spvde, 10.4 ROG and others.
Fluidly congruous with vocals both diaphanously porous and soulfully experimental, megiapa’s sound is floated and chicly layered up with melodious R&B, jazz, hip-hop, funk and celestial. From not so straight-shooting smooth soul of either a 90s or a further back 70s vibe to crystalised fantasies aboard sci-fi funkified UFOs and beat manipulations of the already mentioned Madlib but also Madegg and J Dilla kind, there’s an abundance of lyrical and musical ideas expressed and played with throughout the album’s fifteen-track running order (track number fifteen, a beautifully marooned pop-soul electronic love paean entitled ‘Together Forever’, in this case, and on the version I was sent, is marked down as a bonus).
That voice, which is at the centre of this whole enterprise, can change from soul diva to just the echoed reverberations of the non-worded, an essence in fact at times, or the multi-layered; sometimes reminding me of Khruangbin and Janelle Monáe, and at other times of NicoTheGodess and Martina Topley-Bird. In fact one voice or voices that came to mind was the Rotary Connection, who happen to be covered effortlessly well and dreamily on this album with a steel drums-like and willowed fluted oasis lush take on their most famous psychedelic-spiritual-soul tune ‘Black Gold of the Sun’ (for the pedantic, this gold-standard neo-soul classic originally featured on the 1971 LP Hey, Love; the inaugural airing of the group’s The New Rotary Connection change in moniker).
Cascades and the sprung are cross-patched with Prince and slick noodled funk, as perfectly floated bulb-shaped crystal notes from a jazzy electric piano, a distant hand drum rhythm reminiscent of Curtis Mayfield and Marvin Gaye, the sound of futurism, the laughter and sampled memories, recalls, healing balm and reassurance of friends, and both ends of the romantically alluded spectrum (from declarations of love to plaintive soul yearns of coping with and enduring bad relationships and the self-absorbed personalities of old lovers). Every single element, ingredient of which is all just so; placed to near perfection in its flow: and that’s despite the more staccato and not so much broken up but eloped and changing beats and rhythms that add a subtle friction or point towards more exotic and off-world planes.
In short: astral soul for the beats’ generation. A most satisfactory organic ear, attuned to the stars, the cerebral and the soul, and perfectly settled within the International Anthem family.
Stylianos Ou ‘Moodtoxicosis’
(Jollies Records) 10th September 2026
Nothing concentrates the mind or leads to anxious panics like a cancer diagnosis. But the Athens published author, article contributor, visual artist and trick sonic experimentalist Stelios Papagrigoriou has transduced his treatment (the ordeal of a thyroidectomy) for thyroid cancer into dadaist and fantasy arcade game symphonic spurt and cut-up of manipulation and discombobulation.
In no way wishing to make this about my own pains and travails, I can sympathise having been diagnosed at the start of the year (and spent much time in hospital) with an autoimmune disease that had attacked and damaged my kidneys, and then on release suffering a stroke. Just like Stelios completing and wishing to capture the exact moments of the worst and most hallucinogenic abstract pains of his illness on his laptop in hospital, hooked up to monitors, I was writing and trying to keep this site afloat and running whilst recovering from a biopsy, prodding, tests and various medicated experiments: unlike our Greek patient, my writings stayed within the lines of the barely coherent despite my cognitive issues and the constant exhaustion.
In an avant-garde mode, Moodtoxicosis processes and then releases the procedure and its effects like crazy sonic and vocalised microbes and cells bursting to escape and wreck mischief, havoc and tricksiness. With title references to adjacent or causal conditions (the ‘Hashimoto’ of ‘Hashimoto’s Cave’ namechecking a deliberating autoimmune disorder that attacks the thyroid gland) and medicines used to alleviate it (the ‘Levothyroxine’ of the ‘Levothyroxine Lament’ used to treat an underactive thyroid) fitted alongside various described metaphorical fortresses of the mind state and beastly phantoms, the tripping illusions and hallucinations of a time spent fighting off and repairing the inner and physical vessel that’s gone through hell are turned into a both near cartoon and Fluxus musical mania.
The Art of Noise meets Taito on a drug bender; the Aphex Twin’s own form of sound drukqs makes play time with Zappa; the haphazard sporadically bursts into song against a soundscape of scanners and distorted signals. Yes, this is both a crazy and fitting experiment in bubble gum game boy platforming, conceptual sound forms, floppy disc voices, the dreamy and tine plucked – coming unstuck or in a spindly condition of chirped and pinged chimes. And within that description there’s an abundance of unusual and transmogrified noises and tonsil gymnastics and hysterics.
Get well Stelios (that should be Stylianos Ou if we are to be true to the alias), and never lose that zest for experimental reinvention that’s served you so well.
Here’s the message bit we hate but crucially need to keep going:
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Our Daily Bread 661: Fran Ashcroft, The Male Pattern, Cut Chord, Minot…
September 10, 2026
BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA’S REVIEWS ROUNDUP – INSTANT REACTIONS. ALL ENTRIES IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
Fran Ashcroft ‘Things To Make Do With’
(Album) 24th September 2026
Fran Ashcroft is back with a free to download, if you want it, album – or if you want a CD instead, you can message him on his Bandcamp page. Let’s be honest, who doesn’t want it, because as ever with Fran you are blessed with a warm loving wash of arched eyebrow and tongue-in-cheek lyrical observations about the world in which we live. Gently poking fun at the high and mighty and the plainly stupid – particularly the powers that be that currently run the USA. Things To Make Do With really is a fine album, and a gentle reminder that music can entertain educate and enlighten.
These gems of songs have fine lyrics and tunes that have melody, dipping its toes in Lo-Fi Pop, Country (“Key To Your Heart” is a song worthy of Hank Williams), Jazz, Blues and Psych; flowing from the cocktail-like jazz of “Truth Love and Justice” to the early 60’s pop of “Blue Over You”. Yes indeed, Fran has quietly without any fuss released one of the albums of the year.
bigflower ‘Opinions’
Single – Released 19th August 2026
A song of darkness, anger, dismay and bloody brilliant guitar riffs. Yes, another in the long line of monthly tracks by bigflower. There is always a wonderful dense and all-consuming quality about bigflower and ‘Opinions’ is no different: and this opinion is one everyone should hear.
Cut Chord ‘Demolition Music’
EP – Released 29th July 2026
There is a rather lovely peacefulness to the five songs on this EP; soft, beguiling at times, with an undercurrent of sadness and melancholy that reminds me of Suzanne Vega but backed by The Red House Painters: especially on the rather splendid “Unfurling”. Cut Chord could well be a duo to keep an eye out for, and with the right label behind them could find themselves attracting the attention their obvious talent deserves.
The Free Four/Salem Trials ‘A Weasel In The Meatsafe’
Single – Released 25th August 2026
The Salem Trials are both back and not back at all, as they have confusingly changed their name to The Free Four but released it on the Salem Trials Bandcamp under their own name. Anyway, no matter what the name says or may be the two songs on this single sounds like The Salem Trials – a post-punk cacophony of guitars and madness that may sound like playing both a Fall LP and a Buzzcocks LP at the same time loudly in a small room.
Herb DiamantE ‘A Delicate Stiletto’
Album (Nyahh Records) 2nd September 2026
A Delicate Stiletto is a wonderful album. I love Scott Walker. I love Marc Almond. I love Peggy Lee. I love the seedy nightclub glamour of life, the image of the ageing night club crooner singing songs of once was and no longer is, of failed hopes and dreams, of how he could have and should have been a star but is now just a rain-soaked memory; a soundtrack to the bar tender pouring a drink to a stranger with a tale to tell. Herb DiamantE is that crooner and he spins wonderful images of lost love drunken nights and faded glamour set to a wonderful backing of pure sixties camp glitter ball hotel jazz sleaze. A Delicate Stiletto is a sequinned glory of an album.
The Male Pattern ‘I Was Shot In The Heart’
Album (Audio Antihero) 25th September 2026
The Male Pattern’s I Was Shot In The Heart is an album of the timeless variety and a bit of a throwback to the days when singer-songwriter’s told stories in the songs: something you do not come across as much as you once did. I was brought up soundtracked by country music…not that I lived in Texas or Nashville but in a North West industrial town in England in the 70s where Coronation Street was more like a fly on the wall documentary than a soap. My dad loved country music and played it constantly, so I grew up with tales of gunfighters as told by Marty Robbins or Kitty Wells singing of Back Street Love affairs, and although this album is not a country album as such it has the same grit and the same blue-collar tales of everyday and not so everyday happenings and life.
I Was Shot In The Heart is a fine album of well written tales and stories like a modern Streetheart by Dion or The Ghosts Of Tom Joad.
Minot ‘Down & Out At The Thunderbird’
Album (Drag Bunt Records) 2nd October 2026
Down & Out At The Thunderbird is a lovely rambunctious affair of early Fall like post-punk and 60s garage rock splendour, the kind of hip-shaking benevolence the mighty Billy Childish and his many outfits make quite perfectly; the kind of album you might have heard pre-Cramps gig blasting from the speakers as you wait for the madness to commence. Well my friends, the madness commences as soon as the needle hits the record on this quite marvellous album. One to play loudly and often.
Neon Kittens ‘It’s A Raid Monkey Tail’
Single – Released 23rd August 2026
Another amusing foray into sonic blast guitar territory from The Neon Kittens. Lasting just under one and a half minutes, this brief but perfect slice of post-punk has one grinning like the cheshire cat after drinking a bottle of my wife’s home-made tea wine: not that she makes wine anymore, nor do I drink alcohol anymore, but who needs alcohol to put a smile on your face when you have the Neon Kittens.
Spygenius ‘Rhizomania’
Album (Canute Records) 3rd October 2026
Spygenius are back with their second album, another foray into whimsical British folk psych pop. Yes indeed, you could not get a more British sounding album if you wanted to – so British it should come with a pop-up Morris dancer or at least a cardboard one which you could cut out and stick on your mantlepiece. Which may be the reason it is their first release on their own record label Canute Records and not the American based Big Stir Records that released their excellent debut, as this is far more real ale and cricket than cold beer and Baseball.
Spygenius carry on the great British tradition of whimsical pop, one I would recommend fans of the likes of Squeeze, XTC, Fairport Convention and anyone who has a penchant for the Piccadilly sunshine series of compilations of obscure English sixties psych released a number of years ago. Yes, an album of Summer Fetes and Autumnal walks.
If you’ve enjoyed this selection, the writing, or been led down a rabbit hole into new musical terrains of aural pleasure, and if you able, then you can now show your appreciation by keeping the Monolith Cocktail afloat through the Ko-Fi donation site.
The Digest for September 2026: New Music/The Social Playlist/Archives
September 2, 2026
The monthly Digest includes a clutch of accumulated short new music reviews, the social inter-generational/eclectic and anniversary albums celebrating playlist and an Archives Special.
___/NEW MUSIC REVIEWS___
(All entries in alphabetical order)
boycalledcrow ‘The Sprawl’
(Mortality Tables) 11th September 2026
Previous musical hallucinations have taken Carl M Knott (aka a boycalledcrow) through a Northern India roadmap, William Gibson’s dystopian sci-fi visions, and a strange manifestation of dream-realism that seems to be attached to, but very much removed from weird England. All of which has been woven into a sort of near avant-garde transported invocation of outsider art music.
Back with no less a “psychedelic” traverse of his obsessions – the ideas and questions that keep him up at night -, Knott turns long walks in search of UFOs (or as the recent senate hearings on the subject have now referred to them, UAP – that’s Unidentified Aerial Phenomena or Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena) and the search for aliens. Obsessed indeed with the whole conspiracist fantasy of government alien cover-ups, and the UAP phenomena – “show me the aliens!!” as Neil deGrasse Tyson would say -, the allure of declassifying files and perhaps finally exposing what so many hoped has been little more than a sensationalist anticlimax. It could in fact have been a government plot all along to encourage its citizens to watch the skies for them as documenters and early warning systems – as they can’t be everywhere – against enemy States infiltrating US airspace. Rod Dreher and JD Vance would have us perhaps believe that these alien entities were not from other galaxies but the Christian demons of our own nightmares.
Unexplained phenomena aren’t the only obsessions; whilst only alluding to it in the accompanying PR notes, Knott mind is also concentrated on the sorrowful pains of losing a “cherished loved one”. And often, there feels like a balance between the two worlds: the immaterial and the cosmic.
Taking a lead from such philosophical quandaries, Knott walks a mysterious and almost Freudian line between nightmares and dreams, lost as he is in the woods of his own imaginings, communing with the wildlife and familiars of a surrealist trippy kind to produce his most psychedelic walk-about yet.
It’s a musical landscape in which the pastoral English folk magik of the Green Man kind and the floral costumed mysterious figures of lore and traditional planes meet something far odder; a manifestation of strange visitations from both beyond the material and outer space.
Whilst previous releases have been built upon Knott’s reverberating loops of interlayered nylon-stringed acoustic guitar samples, this time around that instrument is not so prominent. It is of course there, hidden or far more medically dreamy; a few notes or a brief fairytale passage here and there arriving from the ether. The difference on The Sprawl is Knott’s use of live played drums to create slipped trip-hop and more like hip-hop instrumental beats, and his embrace of ambient and new age trance music to create a sort of familiar but unique radiated and mellotron-like rotor mysticism.
Boards of Canada at their best mutate into Pan-American, Black Dog, Casino Versus Japan and Susumu Yokoto across a spectrum of both near slow-released euphoric and moodier, near ominously alien and mournful hallucinations. ‘Mantis Man’ for some reason (and remember, I have had a stroke recently) reminded me at one point of a fairground Beatles during their Magical Mystery Tour period being warped and reversed through a portal and transformed into the Beta Band.
A cylindrical and gradually beamed presence of other worlds, of psychedelic sci-fi and entrancing electronica from a golden era in 90s Britain, and vapours all coalesce to build up a dream state that unveils more on each listen through. This really is an album that gets better with every play. I’d even suggest it’s one of the boycalledcrow project’s best yet.
Dollar Brand, Don Cherry & Carlos Ward ‘Third World – Underground’
(WEWANTSOUNDS) 11th September 2026
Quite rightly one of the most iconic collaborations in free/spiritual jazz circles; a cult and most treasured, revered LP on its release and ever since, the Third World Underground performance and LP unified the talents of the iconic jazz triumvirate of the South African pioneer Dollar Brand (the moniker used by Abdullah Ibrahim until the later 70s), American nomad Don Cherry and Panama-born, American bred Carlos Ward. Released in its original form over fifty years ago, recorded however live in 1972, that promising communion of luminaries and their roots expansive show is finally getting a proper international vinyl release (for the first time ever I believe) from the good folk at WEWANTSOUNDS.
A salivating proposition for jazz aficionados and anyone who rightly claims to love exploration and the pursuit of furthering the form, this iconic cult favourite (if you were both lucky enough to own a copy in its limited form or hear it by other means) was first released by the notable Japanese label Trio Records via their even rarer and revered Nadja imprint. Holding the license in that territory for the rightly iconic ECM, the roster included both pioneering and acclaimed experiments and influential LPs from not only the American scene but a smattering too of homegrown talent: Ryo Fukui and Kunihiko Sugano for example sharing space with the likes of Art Pepper and David Murray…though the list goes on.
It is then a very special release, especially in light of the recent passing of one of its chief architects, the foundation and cornerstone, and man responsible for the lion’s share of arrangements (its most constant rhythm of life, flow and timekeeper) Abdullah Ibrahim or Dollar Brand as he was known at the time before that religious conversion.
Rightly occupying the same lauded heights of veneration as his South African compatriot and good friend Hugh Masekela the sagacious adroit Ibrahim received nothing but respect and praise for his activism and musicianship; with even Nelson Mandela no less, anointing him as “South Africa’s Mozart”. Embodying the many travails of his homeland, giving voice to the townships with what many consider the unofficial national anthem of the anti-apartheid movement, ‘Manneberg’, he spent decades fighting the system through his music: mostly in the jazz form but the classical too. In a former epoch, when merely performing jazz in South Africa was seen as an act of resistance, the pianist-composer was mixing it up with his legendary counterparts across the Atlantic, playing with a staggeringly impressive cast of doyens including Duke Ellington, Max Roach, John Coltrane and Ornette Coleman. The Duke, alongside both Monk and Fats, is honoured on one of his earlier 70s LPs; the opening ‘Saleem Peace’ being one arrangement I can’t help but feel and hear being riffed on the opening performance of this LP: that and perhaps Ibrahim’s own ‘Ancient Africa’ tune.
Intersecting across timelines and through various set-ups, Ibrahim’s foil, the renowned Don Cherry, fell into his orbit on numerous occasion; both serving at various opportunities under or with Coleman: Cherry appearing in the pioneer’s groundbreaking Shape Of Jazz To Come quartet of ’59.
On his way to becoming the restless musical nomad of jazz lore, Cherry’s eventual self-exile to Sweden was set in motion by his mid-60s tours of Scandinavia, especially Denmark. The burgeoning trumpeter and cornet star played in the country’s capital of Copenhagen in ’63 with Archie Shepp, and in ’64 with Albert Ayler before returning in the pivotal year of ’65 to record a quartet of original and standard performances for Denmark’s national radio station. Though often dismissed by cats like Miles Davis for a lack of technical proficiency, Cherry’s constantly evolving visceral style had gained him an envious apprenticeship, partnering up as a foil to a litany of be-bop, hard-bop and free jazz doyens: from Sonny Rollins to Coltrane.
Famously and influentially, Cherry’s organic societal caravan trek and meander across porous borders expanded the cultural language of jazz; his collaborative spirit with a cross-generational and worldly network of artists and players covers everything from French no wave to the music of Turkey and of the Far East.
No less impressive a CV, alto-saxophonist and flutist Carlos Ward is perhaps best known as a jazz and funk sideman, though he would also go on to lead his own quartet in the 80s and release a quartet of LPs. Born in Ancón in Panama, but incubated in the USA, Ward’s formal training in music was via the Navy School of Music. Part of that military tour included a stint in Germany, where he met the bop, freeform, modal and jazz-rock infused trombonist of note Albert Mangelsdorff. But his first big break was with Coltrane’s octet of 65-66. At the same time Ward crossed paths with Cherry who was also playing with Ibrahim, who’d left his apartheid homeland five years beforehand. That association carried over, with a notable soloist spot on Cherry’s Relativity Suite being just one example, and an ever-developing collaboration with Ibrahim that lasted into the 90s.
Already well attuned to each other’s musical languages, the global influences and a growing connection to the roots’ basis of the jazz form and its African heritage, by the early 70s and date of this live recording all three foils were at their creative heights. There’s much made of the societal tumult of the era and the decolonization of Africa’s former European colonies during the 60s and 70s; said to be reflected in this live coalesce of talent and their free expressive lines of enquiry and amorphous third world regeneration. That title being an indicator of course of ownership, the trio have taken back a derisory if for a very long time, an academic term for countries seemingly underdeveloped and even backwards in comparison to the great Western powers of the 20th century; Africa’s many nations but as a whole falling under this sweeping statement, though South Africa was only third world in relation to its apartheid segregated mistreatment and heinous degradation of its indigenous Black population; one reason why Ibrahim left to pursue his art and activism abroad.
Recorded at the prestigious Jazzhaus Montmartre in Copenhagen – a venue on par, its boasted, with the Village Vanguard and Ronnie Scotts, and a familiar stage for Cherry from back in the mid 60s -, this union riffed on, around and in the fourth dimension added to Ibrahim’s arrangements and on the opening span of cascaded waters over the rapids via the imaginary bugle-like-calls and heralds of fort on the borders of Texas during another age, a Cherry credited number.
From the outset, Ibrahim keeps up a momentum of simultaneously troubled and ravine trickled waters on the piano as Cherry and Ward sound the call to meet on the parade ground and to shine, blaze with brightened horns of sentiment and mystery.
The second track is named I believe in honour of Cherry, and a version featured on Ibrahim’s Ancient Africa LP – let me know if I’m wrong on this score, especially linear notes writer of engaging and descriptive musically flourishing prose, Jaques Denis. Carry on that Victora Falls flow, there’s a shift towards Ibrahim’s joyful township gospel vibe. You can hear the enjoyment in the playing on this percussively scraped and spoons-like rattled warm melodious celebration; a nod perhaps to Cherry, but also the Pharaoh and Yusef Lateef.
In old money, side Two is a near seamless performance both of jazz’s African roots and further nomadic trail through the form’s cannon, its inceptions, mixed with a removed form of the classical.
It begins with a fusion of saloon and New Orleans bluesy jazz – think Oscar Peterson sharing the pianist bench with Toussaint and Cecil Taylor -, a riff on ‘The Moon’ and a trumpeted caravan trail over the sand dunes, before accenting the drama and peaks of the piano’s near off-kilter and simultaneous trembles and rhythmic waterfalls. ‘Jabulani-Easter Joy’ follows, keeping the signature piano sound and feel, but swaddled as it plays through an African marketplace to the tune of Hugh Masekela, a distant Mariachi band and the show bands of the 1920s.
There’s a communal township chorus of voices on the next part, a take on the traditional ‘Waya-Wa-Egoli’: already an album track of Ibrahim’s, paired up, as it is here with the accompanying ‘Swazi’. I believe all three foils are taking part, pleasingly humming and mouthing a hypnotic chant and mantra; a sing-along of the atavistic and spiritual; a connection to the continent. It ends on ‘Wayeah-Wayeah-O’, a final South African imbued calm of swimmingly hummed piano and fizzled-out saxophone.
At every turn the horn partnership proves as attentive as they do dynamic and free; mimicking each other at times, and at others in spirals of cyclonic honks and circus wails. Ibrahim enforces just how bloody good he was; the keys and notes pouring forth, flourishing and sweeping whilst at the same time repeating high noted repetitive tremors and spiky near out of key free hand accents and descriptive dances of the soul.
The word iconic is used too freely, but this revived and, finally, properly released LP, pressed onto vinyl, will do much to spread the word and accumulate new fans, new listeners to a magical trio at the height of their creative powers. Jazz royalty out on the fringes one minute, back into a melodious union of African soul and joy the next, Third World – Underground is a wonderous, dynamic and serenaded performance of the nomadic spirit; a return you could say to the roots, but also venture forth into the unknown or less charted.
Regina Collage ‘Horizont’
(Do You Have Peace?) Released 21st August 2026
Though the circumstances could have been better, the Ukrainian artist Regina Collage’s love of her newish Bristol home and its internationally influential and renowned music scene has opened new doors of introduction to a sound steeped in a kind of vapour and filter of dreamwave, coldwave, no wave, post punk synth pop and Goth electronica.
Forced to move away from her Kharkiv home on the Northeastern boundaries of Ukraine due to the relentless bombing campaigns by the Russian invaders since the outbreak of war over four years ago, Collage has found a strange kind of sanctuary in England; as the this latest album title alludes, the translated “Horizon” seems out of touch, never quite in sight or within reach; a metaphor for home and the detachment from events thousands of miles away in Eastern Europe’s most savagely and contested fought war.
Whilst events across the globe – from Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas and Iran’s proxies in the Middle East to the USA’s still very much active war with Iran itself – have pushed Ukraine’s defence against Russia off the newsfeeds, and as both attention spans have wearied or moved on and the divisive sides in the political ideological war of the West put each conflict in two regimented camps – usually the Ukraine falls into both the Right and Left’s conspiracist orbits, with, depending on which side, support and sympathy sometimes skewered for Russia and Putin -, this brutalist war continues unabated. Kharkiv’s importance strategically and geographically as the country’s second major city has made it one of the most important targets in Putin’s campaign; attacks from drones and missiles are almost a daily occurrence, with injuries and deaths registered every week, infrastructure and homes destroyed regularly: Already out of date at the time of writing, last month’s statistics roughly amounted to the total or partial destruction of 13,000 buildings and 9,000 apartments since the start of the war in 2022.
Changing hands over time, Kharkiv was once the capital of the Ukrainian S.S.R. until Kyiv took over in 1934. An epicentre of theatre, literature and the arts, home to the country’s Romantic writers’ revival, the city boosted an enviable cultural scene that revived and fed into a sense of independence. Although various periods of instability and the overbearing control from Tsarist Russia, then the Soviets and after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a post-Cold War Russia, have suppressed and worse, attempted to rewrite history, Ukraine maintains that same spirit of maintaining its own independence and destiny.
Collage’s parents remain in the city, which must be constant source of anguish and fear for Regina. These feelings, I would imagine, sung in a dreamy melange of echo, filters, vapes, industrial resonated moodiness and lament, are conveyed across the album’s thirteen differing tracks of influence and inspiration. It’s emphasised in the accompanying notes that the Liz Fraser meets lo fi minimal French chanteuse, Raincoats and Conny Frischauf-like vocals are all sung in a Ukrainian dialect. And it feels like the unearthing at times of some formerly hidden underground 80s synth-pop and Gothic release, revitalised with contemporary apparatus and the mood music of the times. You can add in a sort of Jah Wobble wavey and wobbly bass, some flange and phaser effects guitar playing (almost Banshees territory and the early Mute and 4AD Record labels roster) and atmospheric spells of Nocturnal Emissions, the Au Pairs and Coil.
Created between makeshift “bedroom recordings” and “borrowed studios” in and around Bristol, occupying thoughts and abstract expressions of the war and settling in a new home but not really knowing if it is temporary or for the long haul are transduced into a work of both weariness and endurance.
It all opens with the Eno/Harmonia and Thomas Dinger feel of ‘Tremelo’, which goes on to recall Stereolab, and strangely, Beach House, and works its way back and forth to the Cocteau Twins via factory reverberations, dissipated drum pad smacks and splays, and darker post-punk borrowings. New horizons are amorphously and moodily set beyond arrival on an album that conjures up diaspora disconnects and burnt-out maladies. Still, Bristol has opened up a music box of possibilities and foils with which to work out these desperate plights and exhaustive weathered thoughts of never quite reaching the acquired or ideal horizon.
Luce Mawdsley ‘Dream, Baby Butch’
(Pure O Records) 4th September 2026
What could be a daunting task, encapsulating and reflecting only the entire cannon of Western portraiture art and its idea of the feminine and queer gaze as realigned and recontextualised, reappropriated by the leading photography artist Catherine Opie, is handled with such sensibility by the former Mugstar guitarist and soloist composer of an as yet undiscovered but explored queer and non-binary vision of Americana, Luce Mawdsley.
After initially breaking free to pursue their own unique musical story with a number of abyss drawn sonnets informed by predatory slurred spoken-word mise-en-scenes and lurid, sleazy torturous self-harm, the Liverpool-based artist/musician began to pretty much mosey through an alternative version of this Western re-imaging: a sound I described at the time as a culminated merger of Morricone, Blood Meridian, Crime And The City Solution, El Topo and Hellenica.
Moving on still further with that developing soundscape and soundtrack-rich practice, Luce’s 2024 album, Northwest & Nebulous, created a continuous thread between that Western transformation and the traditional tones and echoes of both English pastoral and chamber music. Successfully integrated, the results now continue on this latest three-track soundtrack accompaniment to Becky Manson’s film, which presents Opie’s recent commission for the National Galleries of Scotland. Representing the devotional aspects of that same tradition, but through a mirage of new ideas on belonging and the art and curation of replacing old symbols and old representations with the stories and images of a LGBTQ+ community previously left out or removed from the gallery and museum space, Luce’s soundtrack reflects the three main themes, chapters in the journey from Opie’s formative crisis with identity and conformity in Cleveland to her experiments with gender at art school and the travails of motherhood as a lesbian. Marked by the retrospective span of Opie’s career, each project from that fifty-year career as a photographer, and I’d say installation, artist, is marked musically with moving adroit appeal; from the initial near angelic hymnal mirages and wavey subtle hints of Americana, but also (to my ears) the lilt of Hawaiian music of Luce’s main chosen pedal steel instrument on the opening title-track to the point in which that signature sound suddenly merges seamlessly with the near pipped gravitas and reverent devotional sound of the Cathedral – reminding me a lot of Jeff Bird of Cowboy Junkies note, but a soloist artist of similar influence.
Each musical passage proves just audible enough to not so much punctuate but to articulate the moment of each candid Opie declaration and explanation, as it sympathetically matches the juxtaposition of the artist’s own landmarks with those of other 500 years-worth of portraiture from the Western cannon. From both a decorative depiction of Mary and Child from the Renaissance epoch and a more modern rendering of motherhood by Picasso twinned with Opie’s own revelations and shared experiences of child-rearing, to what looks to be a family “collage” (as she describes it) from the English Civil War epoch countered by Opie’s own portraits series of domesticity in the lesbian community around America, each section is beautifully captivating musically. Luce doesn’t pull away from the focus but sets the tempo and suits the mulling over of what’s being described: serious but also dreamily ruminating and deeply felt. (Just to add, I personally love Opie’s portrait of a queer figure placed a few feet away from that of a painted Highland’s clan tartan clothed ruddy-faced Scotsman from the 17th century, when both should be at odds with each other they seem to strangely and brilliantly connect and make perfect sense at this time and in this place.)
The artwork is important of course (you or I could spend paragraphs and ages discussing all the various ideas, themes and relevancies of not only portraiture but art history; my thoughts just scratching the mere surface) but Luce’s score once isolated reveals ever more subtleties: just the merest hint of what sounds like metallic shimmers, a enervated softened and turned down low drum shuffle and textural brushes across the snare skin and off the rims, and a bassier undertone of real depth. If I was trying to find a reference, perhaps the work of Andrew Wasylyk and Daniel Vickers would be good, plus the already mentioned Jeff Bird. But what Luce seems to be doing is finding a new voice for the traditional steel pedal sound, which they describe as “surely the most nonbinary queer coded Western instrument”. Though I’m not so sure myself of that description, the instrument certainly seems to have more of a lilt, and I would say femineity to it when used as a balance against the more masculine stoicism and machismo of most traditional Americana and Country & Western music – just to take one example, the cosmic cowboy himself and former Monkee, Mike Nesmith always seemed to use it as a weeping melody or high aria-like plaint on his hangdog and hapless songs about regret and unrequited love. I expect you could probably get a grant these days to research and write a PhD paper on it, but it is something that Luce is pursuing; providing an alternative just like Opie’s own photographic works provide that alternative visual documentation of our progressively changing times, and a new sense of confronting the issues of belonging and erasure.
Euphoria is mentioned, even the Seraphim order of the highest of highest seated celestial angels, but a certain transcendence is reached on the pilgrimage to realisation and for finding a place in a world that has so far seemed hostile and cold to the LGBTQ+ identity within portraiture and this particular strand of musicality. As echoed in a most revealing film and project, Opie and Luce seem to prove a perfect collaboration.
You can visit Opie’s made visible themed To Be Seen retrospective come commission re-alignment of Scotland’s National portraiture collection in the Royal Scottish Academy building in Edinburgh until Sunday the 1st of November 2026. Taken from that show, Opie’s earliest self-portrait as a child posing like Charles Atlas in Cleveland adorns Luce’s EP, which is released via Luce’s own label, Pure O Records, with all proceeds going towards Liverpool’s oldest LGBTQ+ charity Sahir.
Shapeshifter ‘S-T’
(Lit Soc Records) 4th September 2026
The distinguished and loftier jazz critics through their industry outlets will home in on this trio’s technical abilities – which are top quality by the way -, but I’m drawn to performance, the feel and musicality; whether it’s experimental or an immersive experience that draws you in and makes you want, nee need, to hear more. And I’m pleased to announce that the rightly renowned but still burgeoning saxophonist and composer and now bandleader, Brittany Pitt has achieved it all on her inaugural Shapeshifter album.
Imbued and feeding off of the legacy – and very much still evolving – Toronto jazz scene, Brittany and her foils of fellow University of Toronto Faculty of Music alumni and guitarist/composer Dan Pitt, and drummer/composer/curator/educator Aidan McConnell manage to incorporate their previous projects and eclectic experiences on a live recorded performance that recalls moments and evocations of jazz-fusion, jazz-rock, the European school of contemporary jazz, and the freeform.
All three credited improvisers of that form bring something special and personal; drawing upon the jazz traditions of exploration and a forward momentum that simultaneously offers syncopation and the extemporised to breach and probe at the boundaries, yet still maintain something melodic, feelings and expressions of thought and rumination.
Cross-networks with CVs that contain an abundance of collaborations and studies with Canda’s new and established schools of jazz, it’s that scope of learning and sharing that now enfolds over nine tracks of both mirages and more active, busier pieces. The title-track jumps into life after an inviting tenor lead-in and Allen Holdsworth-like clever but attuned to the direction of travel guitar and spidery bouncing drums. As the track progresses from the floor of the “beloved” Toronto Sellers & Newel Second Hand Books store – doubling as a venue for such experimental and improvised showcases -, echoes of Europe’s ACT and We Jazz labels resonate with the American stirrings of Donny McCaslin and the intricate guitar work of Wes Montgomery before finally resting.
Harmonic pings and the bell of what sounds like a bicycle sound out across hi-hats chaffs and squeezed breaths over the tenor’s mouthpiece on the next track, ‘Union Street’. Every town or city has one it seems, but this busy bluesy sidewalk shuffle and snozzled accompanied piece builds in its momentum towards a strange alliance between Zappa and Beefheart strung-out and wiry guitar experiments and echoes of Black Conscious jazz from the 70s.
The shorter, near vignette ‘Prospect’ intro strangely evoked Jeff Buckley at a contemplating jazz retreat under the tutelage of Pat Metheny. This bleeds into a full-on and fully realised improvisation of bandy lunar guitar, dusted and shuffled busy drums and an air of spiritual jazz. ‘The Meaningful Conversation’ meanwhile reminded me of a downplayed borrow of Idris Ackamoor and Peter King, transported to the dry rasped planes of the desert. In other places the album draws comparisons (to my ears anyway) with Anteloper, the Jim Black Trio (minus the piano, which sounds odd I know), Bill Frisell and on the ‘Mentally Heavy’ Balearic-like and tuneful improv Lalo Schifrin via Coltrane – that same track has some wild fretboard strokes and noodling going on, plus soloist rock-jazz cries and whines.
Fulfilling its role, the inaugural Shapeshifter live showcase (recorded back in January of this year) does much to cement the reputation and draw of the Toronto jazz scene. One of the best examples of its kind in 2026, fusing the European with North America to balance out an idiosyncratic performance hard to repeat.
___/THE MONOLITH COCKTAIL SOCIAL PLAYLIST VOL. 110____
A little early this month, brought forward by the deaths of both country dame Dolly Parton and the never miscast or typecast actor and musical artist Tim Curry. I’ve added a smattering of tracks from the two on volume 110 of the long-running inter-generational/international/eclectic Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist – a kind of quasi radio show, or even a DJ set (yes, believe it or not I did used to gig as a DJ).
There’s more from both Curry and Parton in the Archive section below this; a sort of playlist of video moments and adjacent curated acts that seem close to or that orbit those two worlds.
If you’ve been following the site for some time, or just like the playlists I’ve been compiling, you will know that each month there’s a selection of tracks from anniversary celebrating LPs.
This month I’ve chosen tracks from The Remains’ self-titled debut of 1966, Funkadelic’s Tales of Kidd Funkadelic and Hardcore Jollies albums (both released in 1976). Another leap forward in the decades, and David Slyvian’s Gone To Earth is forty. I’ve also added a quartet of tunes from R.E.M.’s Adventures In Hi-Fi’, Suede’s Coming Up, Octopus’s From A To B (criminally overlooked), and The Cardigans’ First Band On the Moon, all of which celebrate their thirtieth birthdays this month.
The rest of the playlist is made up of the old and newish, with choice music from Mia Joy, The God Fahim and friends, Keiron Phelan & Peace Signs, 4 Mars, B Flatt, Sylvain Kassap, Don Peretz, Solso, Pipes You See Pipes You Don’t, Idioma Ideal, TESTPATTERN and Second Layer.
Volume 110’s Track List::::….
Dolly Parton ‘Help!’
4 Mars ‘Natesha (Conpassion)’
Octopus ‘Everyday Kiss’
Suede ‘Starcrazy’
Second Layer ‘Zero’
Funkadelic ‘Let’s Take It To The People’
The God Fahim Ft. NicoJP & Lil Supa ‘Lotus’
B Flatt ‘Crushed by Your Dreams’
The Remains ‘Lonely Weekend’
Pipes You See, Pipes You Don’t ‘Ten Thousand Years Old’
TESTPATTERN ‘Beach Girl’
Tim Curry ‘Hide This Face’
Vita Bergen ‘Disconnection’
Don Peretz ‘Epater Le Bourgeois’
David Sylvian ‘Gone To Earth’
R.E.M. ‘E-Bow The Letter’
Bix Medard ‘Are You Ready?’
Adelie ‘Sylvain Kassap’
Dolly Parton ‘You Gotta Be My Baby (Live)’
Keiron Phelan & Peace Signs ‘Robinson Crusoe’
Funkadelic ‘Soul Mate’
Kristoffer Bolander ‘I Forgive Nothing’
Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton ‘The Pain of Loving You’
Mia Joy ‘See Us (Demo)’
Idioma Ideal ‘Puerta Secreta’
Solso ‘Lontana de me’
Opus Avantra ‘Il Pavone’
Dolly Parton ‘Purple Rain’
Bear Driver ‘Never Never’
The Cardigans ‘Choke’.
____/ARCHIVES_____
Something different this month, a hotchpotch smattering of favourite moments from Dolly and playlist of those who shared a similar trek or could feel indebted to that Tennessee gal’s travails and fortunes. Under the Sweethearts of the Rodeo & Log Cabin porch Divas heading, I’ve collected together a playlist to capture the musical joys, plaints and transcendence of Dolly and her peers, her scions and fans.
A Dolly Mixture of moments:
One: Dolly in a life-affirming duet with Kermit the Frog, riffing on Sly & The Family Stone’s ‘Everyday People’.
Two: And for balance, Dolly upstaged by Miss Piggy.
Three: Warming up for that eventual Trio album release many years later, Dolly nearly upstages the ridiculously sublime voices and presence of Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt; covering one of a number of songs together, this time a song made famous by the legendary Carter Family, ‘Bury Me Under The Weeping Willow’.
Four: The odd couple. Dolly pays a visit to the lunacy and kooky childish playhouse of Pee Wee Herman. Excuse the quality of the video. Hang around until ‘Hey Good Lookin’, which is a hell of a lot more fun and brilliant than it ought to be.
Five: Let’s hear from dear ol’ Sis to see if it runs in the family.
Six: The technically adroit and informative Wings of Pegasus analyses the genius of Dolly Parton. No one should be in any doubt (and I’m pretty much sure that WoP is the only such analyst worth his salt on Youtube) of Dolly’s guitar prowess and performance after watching this – and remember kids…practice on that instrument.
Seven: A real teary-eyed tug on the heartstrings. The sorrowful lament would make angles cry. Dolly performs ‘Down From Dover’. The lyrics are incredible, the story tragic and bold for not only her times but anyone’s. Written originally when Dolly was just 18! I can’t believe anyone now at that age could be sagacious, already worn and hurt enough, nor lived enough life to come up with such a heart torn asunder malady. PS: I actually originally thought this was a cover; something from the Fairport and their ilk songbook…a traditional mourn brought up to date.
Eight: A no brainer, considering that rural upbringing and her own travails of poverty and Southern twang that Dolly would cover this. Elvis famously wished to record Dolly’s own ‘I Will Always Love You’, but as the Colonel’s 50% publishing ownership travesty of a deal threatened to run right over an aspiring songwriting Dolly, our Tennessee dame rightly decided a big fat no! Anyway, she does a service (just as gospely and spiritual) to the conscious, right-on Elvis and his Memphis social spun commentary.
Nine: Dolly with Oprah Winfrey sharing a joke that would probably never be dared aired or even considered now – more’s the pity. Dolly auditions for Porgy and Bess.
Ten: Taking it back down the country to the Southern Baptist, Dolly sings ‘Higher and Higher’ and the choking-back-tears, ‘Me and Little Andy’ on Carson Tonight – her inaugural appearance, which she even admits was probably the biggest moment in her career in terms of reaching that universal crossover audience.
“Give My Regards To (Off) Broadway”: Tim Curry Jukebox:
Tim Curry ‘We Went As Far As We Felt Like Going’
Tim Curry ‘Hide This Face’
Tim Curry And Eddie Murphy ‘Saturday Night Live Monologue’
Tim Curry ‘Paradise Garage’
Jobriath ‘Take Me I’m Yours’
Lou Reed ‘Andy’s Chest’
David Johansen ‘Here Comes The Night’
David Bowie ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me’
Here’s the message bit we hate, but crucially need:
If you’ve enjoyed this selection, the writing, or been led down a rabbit hole into new musical terrains of aural pleasure, and if you able, then you can now show your appreciation by keeping the Monolith Cocktail afloat through the Ko-Fi donation site.
