Monolith Cocktail Blog

Dominic Valvona’s Eclectic Reviews Spot (Unless stated otherwise, all releases are available to buy now)

Photo Credit: Mark Weber

Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra ‘60’
(The Village) 14^th June 2023

Serving the South Central L.A. Black community from within for six decades (and counting), the late Horace Tapscott and his preservation Arkestra ensemble captured and reflected the social and racial injustices of that oppressed community with a righteous politically conscious and radical jazz style blueprint; a documentation, but also self-reliant stand against the state’s brutality and economic suppression.

Two decades on from his passing and Tapscott’s vision has been handed down to a new generation; led in the new century by Mekala Session, scion of Arkestra stalwart alto Michael Session. More or less each incarnation, from a sixty year timeframe (hence that album title) is represented on this new celebratory collection; released by the ensemble’s own label imprint, The Village.

For a platform that continuously swelled its ranks with untold talent from the American West Coast and beyond (oft member, the trombonist and Tribe hub co-founder, Phil Ranelin is synonymous as a mainstay of the Detroit scene for example), and fermented connections culturally throughout the country, inspiring many, the Pan African Arkestra’s recordings on wax are few and far between. Most of the performances on this compilation journey through the years were collated from home-recordings; many of which have previously never been aired before. And the majority of those come from taped concerts in the L.A. arena, the exception being a summer of ’95 performance at the Moers Festival in Germany, during a period of “regrouping”. Some, believed missing, have been literally unearthed from the Ark’s archive; with even the lineup roll call having to be cross-referenced at times: and still not a 100% sure even then.

The Pan African Arkestra exists as a live entity; whether that was playing each weekend in the formative years at the South Park bandstand or, in the line of hostile LAPD fire as they played on a flatbed truck parked right in the middle of the street during the ’65 Watts riots (or “revolt” as its framed from the frustrated, put-upon Black community suffering inequality, little or no representation). In chronological order, the 60 album encapsulates each transformation of the troupe, beginning with the fifteen-minute long tribute to the ‘heart of the Tapscott family’ Pearline Fisher, or Gram Pearl “to those who loved her”. A grand matriarch, at the very centre of the family home, watching all the goings ons, including the band members arriving up the drive for rehearsals in the garage, Gram Pearl’s name was immortalised on the 1961 home recorded ‘The Golden Pearl’. Reverence shines through this early performance that seems to bridge the late 50s jazz of Gillespie, Ellington, Coltrane and the Savoy label with the coming age of the 60s Black consciousness and spiritual enlightenment. A “likely configuration” of Tapscott on a loose Oscar Peterson flow of barrel and saloon piano, Arthur Blythe and either Jimmy Woods or Guido Sinclair doubling up on saxophone, Lester Robertson on fluttered trombone, David Bryant on spoke-like and brushed double-bass and Bill Madison on swing-time and brushed drums mark one of the first lineups of the burgeoning Arkestra. As it turned out, pianist and conductor Tapscott was right to jump off Lionel Hampton’s Big Band tour bus that year; walking all the way back home, pissed but motivated to grow something new.

In the “pressure cooker” tumult of South Central L.A. a close-knit handful of artists gravitated to the beacon; at first going under the UGMA (Underground Musicians Association) abbreviation, this initial lineup included (amongst many others) the vocalist Linda Hill, drummer Donald Dean and the already noted bassist Bryant (who’ll crop up quite a lot during the course of this ensemble’s history) and saxophonist Woods. Many would appear on that compilation opener.

Although not until much later, the obvious influence/inspiration of Saturn’s cultural ambassador in Earth, Sun Ra, most be noted. Tapscott himself, easily an acolyte of that cosmic spirit, pointed out the differences between the two Arkestras; the original envisioned as an ark travelling through space, the other, a “cultural safe house for music” down here on terra firma. Whilst Sun Ra looked to the stars for an escape to some colour-blind society on a distant world, Tapscott’s troupe wanted to be amongst the people: screw the space race.

That blossoming unit found itself under FBI surveillance as a new decade beckoned; much of that paranoia down to the ensemble’s support for the Black Panthers. From the cusp of that decade, the 70s, there’s a recording of the Ark at Widney High School. With a far wider, expanded lineup and the Sarah Vaughan like commanding, but also dreamy, freely moving vocals of Hill and, so it seems, only a recurring Tapscott and Robertson, a lot of new faces appear on the fluctuating ‘Little A’s Chant’. A loose intoxication, a tamed wilderness permeates a mixture of The Lightman Plus One’s Cold Bair, Tyrone Washington’s Roots and the influence of Philip Cohran.

Photo Credit: Mark Weber

With the war paint on, entering the over-commodified decade of the 80s, the Ark, once more changing the roll call, fashion a piano heavy kaftan wearing fire out of Somaya “Peaches” Hasson’s ‘Nation Rising’. Turning in a Last Poets and Leon Thomas vocal performance, Juan Grey (aka Jujigwa) is a man in a hurry: he’s got “work to do”, “rising a nation”. Whistling and swinging down a boardwalk paved Nile on a Yusef Lateef and Pharaoh Sanders vibe, we got a double-front of both willowy flutes (Adele Sebastian and Dadisi Komolafa to thank for that) and altoists (Sabir Mateen delivering a honked and dynamic solo, with Gary Biar as foil), and the rattled congas of Moises Obligacion alongside the mini crescendo spiraling drums of Billy Hinton. Phew!

Forward again, and to the backdrop of an L.A. in flames, sparked by the Rodney King miscarriage of justice, the Ark are to be found on one of their rare trips to Europe; playing a concert at the Moers Festival in the summer of ’95. Regrouping with the help of a returning Jesses Sharps on soprano sax, Tapscott shares piano duties with Nate Morgan and a whole lot of brass on ‘The Ballad Of Deadwood Dick’. I will however name check Arthur Blythe on alto sax and recent converts Michael Session (on tenor), Charles Owens (also on tenor), Fundi Legohn (French horn), William Roper (tuba), Steve Smith (trumpet) and Thorman Green (trombone). An integral founding brother of the Ark, the already mentioned David Bryant is back on double bass, but sharing his duties with fellow bassist Roberto Miranda, whilst doubling up on the drums is the shared union of Fritz Wise and Sonship Theus. All together they conjure up another Egyptian tapestry whilst huffing and in bird-like illusion build up a brass heavy swing and sway. A galloping percussive rhythm (coconuts denoting a hoof-like fast trot) creates a travelling caravan vibe, as the melody, swells and punctuations evoke Skies Of America Ornate and touch of Bernstein. 

The new century, a decade on from the death of their mentor and founder Tapscott, and the troupe is under a new steward and embracing another in-take of rightful minded jazz players. From a 2009 recording at the Jazz Bakery (pastries and bread with jazz, what’s not to like), with only a familiar Wise on drums (joined by Bill Madison), Sharp on soprano, Legohn on French horn and Smith on trumpet, we hear a Philip Cohran type spiritual and political fanfare for “justice”. L.A. notable Dwight Trible (recently giving divine voice to Kahil El’Zabar’s Ethnic Heritage Ensemble) is on expressive conscious-unloaded and right-on vocal duties, and the already mentioned Detroit icon Phil Ranelin can be heard on characteristic trombone. A riled and ached, seething indignation with shades of Sun Ra and the Pharaoh, ‘Justice’ is as free as it is fueled by rightful grievances.

The most recent performance, a decade later, is the Zebulon (in L.A. again) convert vision of ‘Dem Folks’. It’s conducted this time by another convert, the Egyptian-American-Muslim trombonist Zehkeraya El-Magharbel, who turns out to be a sound fit. The cast is further expanded with a quartet of spiritual rousing and more Gyrgory Ligeti otherworldly choral vocalists (Aankah Neel, Tamina Johnson-Lawson, Qur’an Shaheed and Maia, who’s also on flute), oboes, bass clarinets, a good showing of horns, and this time out, the keyboard skills of Brian Hargrove. A real fusion of dynamic parts, it begins with a virtuoso drilled, pummeled, slow to fast, percussive and drum introduction of rolls and cymbal hissing shimmers (ala Billy Cobham), before, at first, hitting a dissonance of wild drum mimicked voices. A soul-jazz groove finally lands after going through various changes, from fluted Lateef to echoes of Prince Lasha’s Search For Tomorrow communion with Herbie Hancock and a tumult of incantation and oscillated vocals. An untethered swell of orchestral jazz in the anointed light of Sun Ra and the wisdom of the ancients, ‘Dem Folks’ is the earthly community taken to anthemic highs. What a fitting, electrifying performance to mark the Pan Afrikan Arkestra’s newest incarnation; twenty years on from its pioneer’s death, the baton passed on and, as it obviously proves, is still in safe hands. The future is indeed bright for this long-running ensemble.

The 60 album proves an important preservation of a self-reliant social activist institution, integral to the community in which it serves, teaches and rises up. A great encapsulation of that story, musical journey and the changes it has gone through, this will both excite the Ark’s fans and newcomers to the cause.  

Spindle Ensemble & Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan ‘Live In Toronto’
(Hidden Notes)

A congruous union of modern classical music and gamelan, Bristol’s Spindle Ensemble quartet and the Toronto Evergreen Club Contemporary Gamelan octet transport the listener to a blossomed, lush and evocative West Java landscape on their EP of both live and recorded studio performances.

In what proves to be an intuitive collaboration – the results of a chance meeting between the Spindle’s Harriet Riley and Evergreen’s Christopher Hull whilst both studying gamelan in Bali -, both partners respect and accentuate the qualities of their chosen forms and inspirations as they meld and weave together instruments from the West and Indonesian East. A balance is struck between contemporary explorations, probes and the timeless across three tracks. The gamelan ‘degung’ family of metallophones and bamboo instruments dance and bob along to and twinkle alongside the Spindle’s harp brushes, bulb-like note dripping marimba and vibraphone, sympathetic-bowed cello and violins, and deft subtle spells and waves of piano. 

Written by the Spindle’s composer-pianist and harpist Daniel Inzani, the opening patter cascade of mallet notes and tinkles ‘Lucid Living’, was recorded at the Evergreen’s rehearsal space in downtown Toronto. A light enchanted dance of plucked and picked strings across lily pads, with an air of the willowed fluted pastoral, there’s an almost romantic but simultaneous closed-eyes, deep in thought moodiness to this first performance of adroit musicianship. 

Also penned by a Spindle member, Harriet Riley’s mythological-loaded ‘Orpheus’ is part of the two group’s live performance at the city’s 918 Bathurst Street Centre For Culture, Arts, Media And Education – it must be noted at this point that the Bristol quartet travelled to the Evergreen’s backyard to foster this project, spending weeks rehearsing the repertoire before that inaugural live date. Barefoot in jungle temples, the Hellenic bard-poet (an Argonaut and famed survivor of Hade’s underworld) is planted down in the Indonesian exotic; wandering across an uninterrupted proscenium score of various Southeast Asian flavours. All the while accompanied by a soundtrack of pressing repeated chords, metallic chimes and drones, the arched and bowed. At times it’s a rasped mizzle, at others, a slow-paced rhythmic joy or flight that feels almost improvised if not free to fellow its natural path.

The final performance, ‘Open Fifths Gardens’, was composed by the Evergreen’s Andrew Timar and is another exotic allurement of the East. It suggested the dusk hour to me, and evoked the strings of Simon McCorry and Anne Müller: that push of classical instruments made to sound more contemporary and alive if abstract; not just read off the classical cannon score sheet but swelling up with a less guided, personal feel for the time, space and direction of travel in that moment.

In short: the gamelan sound is opened up further and spread wider into the arena of contemporary chamber and symphonic classical music, to conjure up an atmospheric kind of melodious and stirring theatre.

Matt Donovan ‘Sleep Until The Storm Ends’

Marking three in a row of annual Spring-time delivered albums, the drummer-percussionist turn multi-instrumentalist solo artist Matt Donovan opens up his personal universe to the world. In the face of political, social discourse and ruin, lawlessness, loss and anxiety Donovan captures the evocative moments and scenes we all often take for granted; turning nighttime walks, the memories of loved ones into something musically and sonically lasting. A time is saved for posterity even if its just for Donovan and no one else; a kind of musical photo album that represents the sentiments, therapeutic stages of a period in his life.

And yet, with such universal tragedy and dislocation, there’s always hope; the music, even when the subject matter chimes with the God awful state of affairs currently destroying the country, remain loving and kind. Those of you who seeked out the (hopefully through my recommendations) previous Habit Formation (’22) and Underwater Swimming (’21) albums will find that Sleep Until The Storm Ends shares a familiar palette of kosmische/krautrock, alt 80s and 90s and post-punk influences. And yet it feels somehow different; mature and comfortable in its skin but exploring all the while.

With propulsive-motored stints in Eat Lights Become Lights, and as a foil to Nigel Bryant in the psych-krautrock-progressive-industrial Untied Knot duo, it’s hardly surprising to hear those Germanic influences permeating this newest album: A spot of the Dingers (Klaus and Thomas) here and a bit of Michael Rother and Manuel Göttsching guitar there. On some of the more reflective tracks like ‘A Sky Full Of Hope’ and ‘Night Walking’ its Tangerine Dream and company, albeit the latter has more than a touch of soundtrack Vangelis about it too, merged with pop, jazz and 80s indie influences. Although not German, just mere cousins on the astral plane, a few of these tracks reminded me of both Syrinx and Ariel Kalma’s new age, spiritual panoramic awakenings.

This is only half the story, as Donovan also effortlessly seems to weave The Field Mice’s ‘…letting go’ with Karl Hyde, Mick Harvey (especially on the few occasions he sings), the Durruti Column, Spaceman 3 and Eno (Another Green World era on the light-effected environmental plaint ‘The Crying Earth’). In practice this results in a sort of bell-tinkled and recalled leitmotif signature unfolding of Donovan’s moods and ruminations: goodbyes too. Sometimes its dreamy and other times near cosmic with climbing scales and Fripp-like sustain and flange-fanned guitar work, synth waves and heartfelt vibrations.

Barefoot Contessa daydreams sit well with clavichord buzz splintered boogies on yet another enriching and rewarding album that slowly unfurls its understated balm of warmth and also protestation gradually over repeated plays. On the fringes certainly, a true independent diy artist, Matt Donovan is far too good to stay under the radar. Do yourselves a favour, grab a copy on bandcamp now.

Baldruin ‘Relikte aus der Zukunfti’
(Buh Records) 19^th June 2023

Lying somewhere between the Reformation, hermetic, supernatural and mysterious Far East, the German electronic musician-producer Johannes Schebler simultaneously occupies a liminal past and as yet unsure future on his latest journey, Relikte aus der Zukunfti.

Just as Roedelius, Moebuis and Schnitzler’s first recorded experiments, under the Kluster title, found a home on the synonymous German church organ music label Schwann, so congruous were those early kosmische innovators “hymnal qualities” and, if removed, links to the country’s rich venerated history of religious music, Schebler’s own small Bavarian village rectory upbringing can be heard permeating this fourteen-track traverse and score.

The chime and ring of Lutheran, but also Oldfield’s tubular, bells can be heard across a both holy and unholy atmosphere of cult Italian horror, prog-rock, krautrock, new age and vague Ethnographic absorptions. The paranormal and monastic; the chthonian and Oriental are constantly drawn upon to manifest a fog of uncertainty and intrigue; occasionally delivering heightened dramatics and the chills as the music evokes hints of Goblin, Fabio Frizzi and the presence of some ungodly force.

It begins however, with the blown, sax fluted and veiled ‘Under The Counter’ soundscape, which sounds more like a gauzy apparition of Sam Rivers or Colin Stetson in a Frederic D. Oberland expanse. ‘Ride On The Silver Lizard’ meanwhile, sounds like a brassy sitar transcendental mythology of Steve Hackett, Eroc and Srgius Golowin, and the airy ebbed ‘Predestined’ captures Finis Africae and Vangelis in a cloud vapour loop. The timpani-rumbled ‘Confused’ on the other hand could be a lost Sakamoto score; the late Japanese icon entering the underworld.

Stretching the imagination whilst hinting at various mystical lands, you can detect the more experimental, serial and less musical adventurous work of Širom and Walter Smetek existing in the same space as Popol Vuh, Alejandro Jodorowsky and the melodically afflatus. You’re never quite sure where you are exactly though: nor in what time period. The ground beneath your feet is translucent, or, like an ever-changing shimmer and shiver of evaporated atmospheres. This is a knowing album that taps into its influences and church music groundings to offer a balance between the spiritual and disturbing.     

 Ramuntcho Matta ‘S/T’
(WEWANTSOUNDS) 16^th June 2023

A sound production of contrasts; a collage of time spent in both New York City and Paris, where the graffiti’d downtown meets fourth world music explorations, Ramuntcho Matta’s absorption of those two cultural hives is a no wave and exotic theatre of diverse influences. 

The younger sibling to and scion of the Matta arts brood – his father, the Chilean-born Roberto, a key if not always congruous member of the Surrealist movement with his ‘psychological morphologies’ or alien ‘inscapes’ coined subconscious manifestations, and brother, Gordon Matta-Clark, the ‘anarchitecture’ pioneer of such concepts as the ‘split’ house and various art performances -, Ramuntcho was a well-connected creative nomad who chose to plow his own furrow in the field of experimental music. He started out in this regard, in the company of such polymath avant-garde luminaries as Brion Gysin, Don Cherry and Laurie Anderson. The latter opened doors to everything New York had to offer in the late 70s and early 80s. Ramuntcho also shared a flat with scenesters Nana Vasconcelos and Arto Lindsay: living in the same building as the Talking Heads’ Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth no less. Although tragedy would strike with the death of his brother and conceptual art icon Gordon in the late 70s, the burgeoning producer would stay on, falling in with the Mudd Club, CBGB and Danceteria in-crowd; taking note of the evolving polygenesis movements of early hip-hop, post-punk, electronica, no wave funk and more worldly sounds (from Soweto to the outback, Caribbean and Hispaniola).

But it all came together, or rather this particular project did – dusted off, remastered and given a deserving vinyl reissue by WEWANTSOUNDS – in Paris. With the CV –notably recording Don Cherry’s 1983 ‘Kick’ single for the boutique French label Mosquito, the original imprint for this self-titled album – and network expanding ever further, there would be performances with the Senegalese group Xalam and the Arabic rock group Carte de Séjour, with Rachid Taha. A residency in Lyon led to a meeting with the Algerian-born French avant-garde choreographer Régine Chopinot, who had taught dance at the city’s Croix-Rousse before forming her own experimental multimedia company. Chopinot invited Ramuntcho to compose the soundtrack to her upcoming Via show – the costume designer of which was a young aspiring Jean-Paul Gaultier.

Without seeing the actual production it’s difficult to gauge if the music was successful, complimentary or not. However, removed from that dance theatre setting the album works as a window in on a particular rich cultural exchange of ideas, sonics, sketches and soundscapes.

This ’85 released production was produced between Ramuntcho’s home and the Studio d’Auteuil in Paris; the former, a more solitary space for the album’s soundscapes and more ambient-minded pieces, the latter, a more rambunctious shared environment where all the album’s bandy and shunted no wave funk and Island life Grace Jones-esque tracks were recorded with the Stinky Toys and Elli & Jacno duo’s Elli Medeiros (on vocals), the Uruguayan percussionist Negrito Trasante, Suicide Romeo’s Frederic Cousseau (better known as Fred Goddard) on drums and Polo Lambardo on konks. That list may be extended depending on what information you read, although the WWS label and linear notes writer Jacques Denis have managed to pull together the fullest picture yet of a record hampered by misspelled band members and even a missing track listing. According to those same notes, Ramuntcho didn’t feel that the label had pushed the project or even promote it very well; hence why it disappeared: a find for crate diggers decades later.

A dance fusion of influences and ideas, this counterpoint of diverse elements opens on a gentler, almost mulling day dreamy guitar amble with the light-jazz touched ‘Gesti’. Like Marc Ribot on Iberian shores, there are a couple of these soloist moodscape pieces (see the more classical-tinged and loosened ‘Irimi Nage’). A second strand to this record’s sphere of influence is the didgeridoo sounding passages of Jon Hassell inspired sound cartography; as found on the outback resonated, barked fretboard experimental, water carrier poured ‘Avatar’, and mbira tine, funnel blowing, freight train honked primitive dance music spot ‘Zoique 3’.

The action sprawls across both the NYC and Paris underground on tracks like the shunting cut-up and counterbalance of discombobulated Art Of Noise and a repeated sweeter voiced spell of African or French-Polynesian Island song, on the ‘Sassam Kitaki’ switch. Most surprising is the fluid, bandy amalgamated hip 80s shining ‘Hukai’, which merges Casino Music with Orange Juice, Grace Jones, Lounge Lizards, Talking Heads and the sunny township polyrhythms of South Africa. ‘All Those Years’ in contrast, sounds like Saw Delight era Can rubbing shoulders with a reflectively blue XTC.

Also, in addition to shades of Dunkelziffer, Populaire Mechanik, Don Cherry (of course), Annie Anxiety and the Pop Group, there’s an exotic fauna and animalistic soundscape of French-Arabia, Africa and the Americas, to be found suffused amongst the electrified disjointed and vibrated no wave funky free-play.

I must confess, this album totally passed me by. I wasn’t even aware of it. Although only briefly, I even studied both Roberto and Gordon Matta when I was an art student, but had no idea there was another equally talented member of the clan. Hearing it now makes sense, so much of its makeup integral and over-used in the last two decades as the 80s becomes this generations’ 60s. There are some great eclectic hybrids and even no wave dance tunes to be found. Everything gels perfectly on this evolving, changing production; from the bendy to frazzled; atmospheric to off-kiltered. Ramuntcho’s theatre dance soundtrack is a complimentary bedfellow to Sakamoto’s computer disc experiments of the same(ish) period, released a while back on the WWS label. A great revived lost fusion from the avant-garde funk and no wave cannon.

Marty Isenberg ‘The Way I Feel Inside’
7^th July 2023

It’s a name synonymous with whimsy poignancy, a signature frame and colour palette, but what the American filmmaker Wes Anderson and his perfectly constructed diorama movies are equally famous for is their carefully curated soundtracks. The scores of which have led to, in some cases, a revival of fortune for the said artists and bands that pepper such iconic films as Rushmore, The Royal Tenenbaums, The Life Aquatic, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Moonrise Kingdom and so on.

The unassuming Anderson has become such a cult figure himself that, in kind, a number of artists have penned homages or name checked his films or idiosyncratic view of the world. Arguably there is a certain hip, generation X selective and knowing calculation to those mixtape-like soundtracks that get used as prompts for poignancy, emotional states and the almost impossible to quantify with just actions or dialogue.

Not quite the homage in itself, the debut album from the NYC bassist and composer Marty Isenberg (stepping out under his own name for the first time) entwines the feelings of his own formative years with Anderson’s filmography: or rather, the music from those beautifully crafted stories of outsider isolation and pain. You could call it a covers album of a sort; an eight-song selection of reinterpretations would be better though. And yet, despite keeping some of the signature melodies, all of the original lyrics, Isenberg extends, menders and sets familiar emoted pulls in a different environment with a rich jazz transformation.

You’ll have to excuse my ignorance and a lack of info on who is joining Isenberg on this album: there’s electric guitar, drums, some sax and cornet, and a beautifully voiced singer with shades of Norah Jones and Esperanza Spalding. I’m going to suggest that members of Isenberg’s Like Minds Trio with Alicyn Yaffee and Eric Reeves could be involved. It would make perfect sense; the music does at least sound congruous.

Proving the most popular choices, The Royal Tenenbaums and The Life Aquatic dominant. From the former there’s a faithful harpsichord spindled version of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Stephanie Says’ that subtly transforms that Stones-like psychedelic old England vibe into a smooth 70s jazz light theme tune, with sections of swing and simmered feels. Velvet third wheel and oft collaborative partner, Nico has her pleasant of Lutheran melancholic song of regret and remembrance. ‘These Days’, lightened and taken back to Jackson Browne’s more lifted, sweetened origins. A Muscle Shoals electric piano (or Hammond) hovers as the vocals acquire more of a lilting and near scat-jazzy vocal arrangement that sounds almost Bacharach(ian).

Another Tenenbaums favourite, Eliot Smith’s ‘Needle In The Hay’ is given a jazzy touch. Isenberg opens with incipient bass bends, scales and nimble introspective picks as a less adolescent moody, despondent vocal points towards both Spalding and Tori Amos. The feels all there: the indie singer-songwriter dourness. Yet it’s given an off-script treatment of drama counterbalanced by the meandered.

Nick Drake’s achingly beautiful ‘Cello Song’, with all its connotations and personal tragedy, is a journey in itself of the wept and sympathetic. Sailing close to Beggars Banquet Stones, and the jazz of Mingus and Bobby Jackson at other times, a “cruel world” of sensitivity is softly expanded upon. That vocal is almost airy, if still carrying a beguiled plaintive tone.

My personal favourite (alongside Rushmore), The Life Aquatic offers up a double helping of Bowie covers and a Lennon/McCartney-like Zombies hymn. In what is a kind of meta exercise, the film’s Belafonte crew member and famous Brazilian musician Seu Jorge originally played around with a songbook of acoustic Bowie numbers; all of which are smattered throughout the Cousteau parody come homage. One of them, ‘Rebel Rebel’, is covered here; attuned more to Jorge’s Latin-sauntered origins than the glam-stomp actionist anthem of Diamond Dogs. In this version the song is played in the background of Peter Sellers’ The Party, or winding out of an early 60s jazz lounge. It’s both very twinkly and Tropicana light. ‘Life On Mars’ however, is faithful in part (tune wise anyway), yet takes the original crooner-vibe towards a mix of colliery band style horns and Stevie Wonder soul-jazz. The drama, edges are rounded but the overriding lament and emotional draw remain in tact. The pleasing ‘The Way I Feel Inside’ from a ‘65 Zombies is handled with a sweetness and enchantment that wouldn’t sound out of place on an Anderson film itself.

I’m totally unfamiliar with the band Steady Holiday, whose ‘So Long’ is playfully sent back to a dancehall era that weaves together echoes of WWII, the 50s and Dixie Jazz for a wistful, cornet nestled smooch.

Isenberg with subtlety and charm offers some surprising renditions. But what’s most surprising is that the bassist doesn’t grandstand, hog the spotlight with his double-bass instrument of choice; nor is this especially a bass-heavy showcase, but an adroit, attentive but ready to leap at a moment’s notice into action playing style that bends and lends itself to a variety of styles. There’s heartfelt connections balanced with a certain magic and even playfulness, a sharing of the artist’s tastes, record collection and personal aspirations; the main one being the loss of his father at a young age: old enough however to have been inspired by his dad’s own musical tastes, loves and collection of instruments. Finding a special affinity perhaps with Anderson’s many protagonists (there is a leitmotif of characters with only one parent in his films), that early loss led to Isenberg’s journey in musical study: from initially learning by feel and intuition, to majoring at the New School for Jazz And Contemporary Music in jazz performance. A beautiful and off-kilter, sometimes whimsical, songbook is transformed with a jazzy touch of personality.

Joe Woodham ‘Worldwide Weather’
(None More Records) 16^th June 2023

Noting the changing tides and climate on warm suffused currents of looping guitar, field recordings and kosmische, post-rock and dream progressive styled languorous inspirations, Jouis band member Joe Woodham sonically and melodically charts various lunar-cycle driven weather fronts and metrological phenomena on his first solo album for the None More Records label.

Unburdened by climate change Cassandras’ and apocalyptic predictions, Woodham almost finds a certain comfort – even when yearning – in tracing and capturing the ebb and flow, the awe and beauty of the oceans as they are pulled by the moon’s cyclonic forces.

As an aside, and for trivia fans, album track ‘Neap Gloom’ (anything but as, well, gloomy as that title suggests; rather it’s a more airy and wafted proposition, with rain patters that sound rather nice) is a reference to the tide just after the first or third quarters of the moon: when there is the least difference between high and low waters.  

The process of making this album itself comes from enjoyment, not dark clouds of angst or anxiety. The initial experiments were produced in fact on Woodham’s daughter’s Casio keyboard, which in turn was linked to a loop pedal. There’s more to it than that of course, but the intention was one of play and improvisation; later manipulated and layered with the clipped hiss, gates and crackled atmospherics of Matthew David, the suffused bird songs and whistles of Ernest Hood, and crashing surf and spray of the waves crashing against the shoreline.

The enormity is certainly present, but most of the peregrinations and moods slip and wash between the swimmingly and warmly drifting. It could be what sounds like a melodica on tracks like the gamelan malleted bells and concertinaed Parisian wafted ‘Gameplan B’ (no idea about that title, other than this could be a riff on the climate emergency brigades, “there is no planet B”, mantra), and squeezed mellowed, nicely wavy and dreamy (anything but) ‘Overcast’ that makes me think of Alex Paterson’s brand of mirage-dub. And, as referenced by Woodham himself in his accompanying quotes as the listening material when making this record, there’s an enervated whiff of Frances Bebey about the latter track, alongside hints of Jah Wobble and Odd Nosedam.

Amongst the variations of Manuel Göttsching, Michael Rother, Land Observation and Orange Crate Art guitar accents, lines, curves and cycles and sweeping weather fronts, the magical ‘Spring Tides’ builds from a Laraaji-like heavenly introduction into a slow forward momentum of beautiful slowcore and shoegaze (reminding me actually a little of The Besnard Lakes). Woodham actually sings on the psychedelic English folk-pastoral ‘Longshore Drift’ observation; sounding a little like James Yorkston in hymnal echoed benevolence.

Woodham effectively layers the counterflows and melodies of nature and the directions of tidal travel. There are some lovely moments on this album, some spots of reflection, as Woodham makes a case for just letting the music take you in its lunar drawn grasp. A really effective debut for the label.

Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years this blog has featured and supported music, musicians and labels both I and my team of collaborators love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored, and we only feature artists we have genuine respect and love for. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or, if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.