ALBUM REVIEWS SPECIAL/Dominic Valvona
Motorists ‘Surrounded’
(We Are Time/Bobo Integral/Debt Offensive) 3rd September 2021
Ah, for the mythology of rock music’s open road, highway 66 kicks and Kerouac misadventures. It seemed the easiest of escapes to new horizons; to hit the road U.S.A style and take in all the pit stop catalysts of rock ‘n’ roll lore. Not so easy to disappear now of course, the use of sat navs more or less keeping to a regimented map, with little in the way, or room, to shoot off on detours, and to come across surprises. Also, we’re all tracked, moving dots on a data system unable to truly run free.
Fueling this jangly Canadian trio’s automobile, those same tropes come up head-on with the actual realities of driving in the 21st century: gridlocks, congestion and nothing but bad juju on the radio. Motorists however do head down that fabled motorway as best they can; making for the open road with a carload of friends, the dial tuned into a new wave and power pop soundtrack of the Athens, Georgia sound, The Church, Teenage Fanclub and the Paisley Underground scene.
However, they don’t so much cruise as motorik down a road less well travelled, as the Toronto group navigate the pandemic and the resulting anxieties of isolation, distress and mental fatigue that’s cursed most of us in a new pandemic reality. The album’s precursor lead track (recently featured on the blog) ‘Through To You’ was about a yearning to connect once more: what better way then a road trip. But isolation means different things to different people. The group’s guitarist and Alex Chilten-shares-the-mouthwash-with-Tom Verlaine styled vocalist Craig Fahner is concerned with the kind of “isolation” you find in “a technologically saturated society, laden with romanticism around radical togetherness.”
The trio’s debut album is a spaghetti junction of suffocation and melodious despondency that opens with the titular album song, ‘Surrounded’, a lovely jangle backbeat of Green On Red and R.E.M.ish influences that features a downbeat dissatisfaction with everywhere they lay their hat: the city, “too many creeps, too many bars”; suburbs, “too many houses, and noisy neighbours and perfect yards”; and the commune, “too much love, and power trips”.
Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t in anyway a downbeat songbook; the music’s just far too…well, jangly and driven for that. No flashiness, overindulgences, every song’s a tight winner, whether that’s the edgy power pop 80s throwback ‘Hidden Hands’ or the Soft Boys, if they’d been signed to Stiff Records, new wave crossover ‘Turn It Around’.
This whole album has a real nice feel, with pull-ins at Weezer, Television and grunge music’s lay-bys. Nothing new, just great indie, new wave (a little sneer of punk) music at its best, Surrounded has really grown on me. A great cathartic soundtrack to adventures on the freeway.
Timo Lassy ‘Trio’
(We Jazz Records) 27th August 2021
A new combo and a new sound, the celebrated Finnish tenor saxophonist and bandleader Timo Lassy’s latest album of We Jazz crossovers is perhaps the Helsinki label’s most surprising release yet.
Cinematic, luxurious, Timo’s new “trio” are augmented, made more sweeping and grand, by the introduction of both synthesized effects and lush filmic strings – performed by the Budapest Art Orchestra and arranged by fellow Finn, Marzi Nyman. It’s almost as if David Arnold thumbed through the Savoy Jazz label’s back catalogue and various Italian and French movie soundtracks from the 60s and 70s: some exotica too! For the sound is both familiar, and as I already said, cinematic, yet somehow transformed enough to throw up the odd surprise and reverberation of the avant-garde and artsy jazz performativity.
Flanked either side by We Jazz and Finnish scene stalwarts, Ville Herrala on double-bass and Jaska Lukkarinen on drums, the expanded trio both playfully and more longingly move through the scenes of an imaginative romance it seems. Straight away they evoke that Savoy swing and a bit of sophisticated European vogue celluloid as they symphonically, in a rhapsody of swooning serenade, transport us to Monte Carlo (perhaps even Rio) on the sweeping ‘Foreign Routes’. Timo follows the tender contours and toots away on the equally romantic, tiptoed beauty ‘Better Together’.
Hearts skip and are harassed on the more jumping and dashing couplet of ‘Pumping C’ and ‘Orlo’. Timo goes through the register with dub-like effected echoes on his dabbing and busy saxophone riffs as Lukkarinen provides rattles of cymbal and little drilled snare rolls on the first of these two ‘groovers’. The latter goes for a trip-hop like feel of shuffled breaks, funky and soulful tenor squeals.
Rain-on-the-windowpane moments of solemn gazing occur on the moody double-bass quivering, snuggled forlorn sax reflection ‘Sonitu’, and on the swirled wind blowing through the spiritual jazz cannon’s chimed and trinket percussion, elegant serenade ‘Sunday 20’.
For excursions further afield, the trio take us on an exotic journey to more fiery climes on the gong struck announced ‘Subtropical’ – imagine Jef Gilson and Les Baxter sound-tracking some mating ritual in the sort of hip but down-at-heel tropical nightspot, draped with fishing nets; where the clientele are of course wearing the Breton stripes, dancing away to Candido’s banging away on the congas.
A surprising route to take, Timo and his compatriots’ return to the classics on an album of both accentuated and dynamic jazz swing; boosted by the most beautiful of strings accompaniments.
Various ‘Cameroon Garage Funk’
(Analog Africa) 3rd September 2021
Blistering hot, howled ravers from an undiscovered treasure trove of 60s and 70s Cameroon Afro-garage, Afro-funk and Afro-psych records, Analog Africa have dug deep once more to bring us yet another essential compilation of lost or forgotten nuggets.
This bustling tropical survey tells the story of the country’s capital nightspots and the groups that frequented them, on what sounds like an unbelievably impressive live scene. But away from the sweltering heat of those busy dance floors, Cameroon lacked most of the facilities needed to record and promote it. Instead, it was left to covertly recording under the radar of an Adventist church, on the down low in between services and the ire of the priests. For a price, bands could use the church’s rudimental but sound recording equipment and incognito engineer, Monsieur Awono. Whoever had the readies could also then buy the master reel. But then what?
Without a proper distribution network and few label opportunities, groups had to rely on the French label Sonafric. As it happened this imprint was very forgiving, open to anything it seems, and in a rare example of altruism releasing records on merit alone. The results of this generous spirit can be heard on, what is, a quite eclectic spread of genres and themes: ‘garage funk’ being a good springboard for a selection that reaches beyond its title grabber.
Low tech in many ways, yet the music on offer, leaps out of the speakers: the louder the better. For example, Jean-Pierre Djeukam’s squealing organ introduction opener, ‘Africa Iyo’, is a twitching Africa Screams like stonker that fully encompasses the “garage funk” tag. But whilst this is a James Brown in league with The Gators style stormer, the next track, ‘Sie Tcheu’, takes some imbued guidance from Curtis Mayfield. Joseph Kamga, guitar virtuoso of the L’Orchestre Super Rock’ a Fiesta pedigree, lets loose on that 1974 “jerk tune”; sung, it should be noted, in the country’s largest ethnic language of Bamiléké.
It should also be noted at this point that Cameroon was under both French and British rule until 1961. They gained independence firstly from the French, in one half of the country, the year before, and then from Britain the following year. This brought in a renewed thrust and vigor for Cameroon traditions and its pre-colonial history, which filtered through to the music. Groups like the impressive Los Camaroes (the house band at the edgy Mango bar) incorporated a local version of the Rhumba, Méringue (the style that would blaze through the Latin world but stared in Africa), and the local Bikutsi style (the literal translation of which is “beat the earth”). They appear twice on the compilation, but it’s their tropical hammock swayed ‘Ma Wde Wa’ that favours this sauntered, often local, array of rhythms best. In comparison ‘Esele Malema Moam’ moves to an elliptical rhythm, more in keeping with New Orleans funk.
Transported across the Atlantic, seasoned and well-travelled talent Charles Lembe evokes Afro-Cuban gaucho vibes on ‘Qwero Wapatcha’. An interesting fella, moving at the age of sixteen to Europe, Lembe signed his first record deal with Vogue records in 1959, going on to write French film scores, open the rather poorly chosen named La Plantation club in Paris, and release his own The Voice Of Africa LP – Myriam Makebla and Henry Belafonte no less, asked permission to reinterpret his ‘Mota Benoma’ tune too.
The rest of the compilation seems to owe, at least some, debt to Fela Kuti. The architect of Afrobeat can certainly be felt on Tsanga Dieudonne’s ‘Les Souffrances’; written incidentally by Johnny Black, who’s owb Ewondo dialect advisory themed, Otis grabs James Brown styled, groover ‘Mayi Bo Ya?’ is a highlight. Willie Songue and his ‘Les Showmen’ sound like they may have even influenced late 70s Can with the whacker wah-wah flange peddled, live sounding, relaxed funk track ‘Moni Ngan’.
Cameroon garage funk is a riot; an encapsulation of a musically rich eco-system that managed to break on through despite all the setbacks and the lack of facilities. This compilation is the story of a conjuncture of Western and Cameroon styles; with the emphasis on corrupting those cross-Atlantic radio influences into something distinctly African. It’s another great introduction.
Various ‘The Land Of Echo: Experimentations And Visions Of The Ancestral In Peru (1975-1989)’ (Buh Records) 27th August 2021
The second compilation this month to receive my seal of approval, Buh Records points me in the direction of the experimental fusions of mid 70s and 80s Peru. Surveying a conjuncture of brave new sounds and the country’s traditions, this pretty self-explanatory entitled compilation unveils both unreleased and released obscure explorations from a clutch of mavericks and forgotten pioneers who pushed the South American sonic envelope.
Mainly due to the political turbulence and a lack of studios, distribution and the like, most of the artists on this collection either self released recordings from their rudimental home studio set-ups, or, found opportunity to test the perimeters in the very few official facilities that existed: with labels such as Corva, and in studios such as Alliance Fançaise.
Due to the ruling regime of this period’s emphasis on promoting Peru’s culture and traditions, and because of intense economic migration to the cities (in particular the capital, Lima), there was a greater exposure to the sounds of the country’s mountains and rainforest topography; many of which ended up being transformed by the lineup on this inaugural compilation.
Artists, composers working in the fields of rock, jazz, the contemporary classical and avant-garde began to merge and manipulate those localised customs and sounds into a new South American hybrid. The results of which can be heard on Omar Aramayo’s wind pipe Andean mountain peregrination ‘Nocturno 1’. From the lofty heights of a mountain’s crust, Omar it seems tracks the airy flight of an eagle, whilst evoking an atmospheric mirage of a train’s reverberated chuffed steam and the dreamy contouring of its magical journey. In contrast to that ambient minor symphony, Corina Barta swoons, exults, sings strange arias over both messenger and detuned drums on the mesmerising new age ‘Jungle’.
In the mid 70s Ave Acústica produced the sort of tape manipulations you might hear both Can and Faust playing around with it. A previously unreleased sound collage, produced on magnetic tape, announces each hissy segment of inner piano workings, radio dial fuckery and atmospheric downpours with a repeated Peruvian guitar motif on the avant-garde suite ‘Liegue a Lima al Atardecar’. Another unreleased track, ‘Indio de la Ciudad’ by Miguel Flores, leans towards Cage with an almost avant-garde experiment of classical heralded layered trumpets.
The most obvious sounds of the futurism however, can be heard on Luis David Aguilar’s mid 80s Casio CZ10000 synthesizer heavy ‘La Tarkeada’. Touches of Sakamoto and Eno permeate this space-y bubbled wah-wah rayed and arpeggiator dotted neo-classical transformation of an Andean ancestral melody.
Echoes of Tangerine Dream, Oscar Peterson, Anthony Braxton, Cluster and the Fluxus arm of music can be heard in tandem with Peru’s most synonymous panpipes sound, but also disturbances of the local bird life (lots of flight and wing flapping going on) and spiritual inspired ritual. What all these experimental composers capture is an essence of a revitalised Peruvian culture, whilst dreaming about a more inclusive future.
Variát ‘I Can See Everything From Here’
(Prostir) 10th September 2021
Ukrainian multimedia artist and co-label launcher Dmyto Fedorenko makes an abrasive, thickset and caustic noisy statement of mystery and forebode on his latest dissonant album.
Under the Variát alias the static, fizzled and pulverized pulsating sonic sculptor uses a busted and transmogrified apparatus of blown amps, hammer thumped toms, cymbals that have been drilled to make unpredictable resonating distortions, and countless found objects to conjure up the most heavy and deep of savage and alien discomfort.
One artist’s reaction to the times we now live in, launched from Fedorenko’s own Prostir imprint that he set-up with fellow electronic music experimentalist Kateryna Zavoloka, the album’s eight fizzing contortions burble, squeal, scream and drone lethargically with unknown ritualistic invocation.
The accompanying PR notes tell me that this project (in part) was conceived last year as a ‘provocative outlet’ for transgression, reinvention and liberation. This all becomes a bestial, doomed industrial freedom when channeled through a fried crunched distortion. Unknown propelled craft hover as the stark brushes and scrapes of an electric guitar are magnified to sound like an unholy alliance of Sunn O))) and The Telescopes. Reversed sharpened blades, searing drones, metal machine music concrete, vaporised static, the sound of a robbed manic knocking on the gates of Hades and various bone and gristle menace converge as leviathans, secret ceremony and regurgitations emerge from the discordant mass.
Itchy-O, Faust and Emptyset bring in augurs and break the limits in a suffused display of heavy metal primitivism, as Variát craves out meaning, description and evocations from a corrosive block of fucked-up serpent like dark materials. It’s probably, exactly, the right sound we need at the moment.
Andrew Wasylyk ‘Balgay Hill: Morning In Magnolia’
(Clay Pipe Music) 20th August 2021
Seeking a sanctuary away from the collective anxieties and uncertainties of the Covid-19 age, the Dundee composer Andrew Wasylyk found that it’s a beautiful world once you disconnect from the hyperbole and relentless crisis negativity fed to us minute-by-minute through the gogglebox and Goggle hub.
His safe haven, the city’s Victorian period Balgay Park, proved both a solace and sonic inspiration for this latest album of evocative captured-in-the-moment peregrinations and hymns to natures eternal optimistic dawn rise.
A sort of ambient waft along the park trail, with fragrant and almost cosmic reflective stops at the astronomical observatory (the first and only public built one in the UK) sitting beside the flowery and fauna at the adjourning cemetery and from atop of the panoramic view that reaches out across the Firth of Tay’s inner estuary.
Eased in with both the glazed light of a Dundee Spring and the suffused swaddled and warm dreamy trumpet and flugelhorn of fellow Taysider Rachael Simpson, Wasylyk once more pays an ambient – with hazy pastoral touches of the psychedelic and even esoteric – homage to his home city’s psychogeography. For there is a marking, musically, of not just the passing of time but an acknowledgment also to those who’ve lived and followed a similar lifetime in the one-time jute manufacturing capital. There’s even a track title, ‘Smiling School For Calvinists’, that references Bill Duncan’s short stories collection of imagined and all too real characters eking out a living or existence in a slightly surreal vision of Dundee – alternating between the insular fishing community of Broughty Ferry and the imposing tower blocks of the nearby city.
The soundtrack to this world layers dappled gauzes of the Boards Of Canada and epic45 with the ambience of Eno and Forest Robots; the accentuated and caressed bendy guitar playing of Junkboy and Federico Balducci with just a hint of 70s children’s TV ghost stories.
The abstract essence of a place and mood are made no less concrete or real by this lovely, often mirage-like soundtrack. Sounds, instrumentation plays like the light source material that inspired it, whether it’s the undulating synthesized bobbled notes or the winding, meandering melodies of piano. Grayscale-like fades come alive with the occasional breakout of padded and pattered drums and, on the sweet colliery trumpeted and gilded piano rich, already mentioned, book title, a pre-set bossa groove.
Casting a timeless spell, worries seem to evaporate as Wasylyk gently immerses the listener into another world: the bustle, movement of a city is still there, but a most scenic film of escape keeps it all at bay behind cushioning fauna. Balgay Hill is another wonderful, peaceable yet evocative album from the Dundee maestro.
Steve Hadfield ‘See The World Anew Vol.1’
(See Blue Audio) 27th August 2021
It’s been a miserable, anxious and unsecure eighteen months for all of us; the political and generational divisions, already torrid enough before the advent of Covid-19, now like chasms. Yet for many it’s also been a time of catharsis, an opportunity to concentrate on what matters the most. Leeds electronic music artist Steve Hadfield is one such soul, sharing the collective experiences of lockdown, but also impacted by a number of personal life changes unrelated to the miasma of the pandemic. Inspired by his young daughter to look at the world, universe with fresh wide-eyed wonder and new perspective, Hadfield is spurred on to create a new series of ambient suites dedicated to stargazing and atmospheric discovery.
Following a prolific release schedule in 2021, Hadfield’s ‘most ambient’ statement has been saved for the blossoming ambient and beyond label See Blue Audio. And so volume one of this universal wonderment feels like the multiple stages of an ascendance into space; there’s even a mirage melting, serene spherical gliding suite named ‘Ascension’ for heaven’s sake!
Reacquainting with the night sky Hadfield offers up moonbeam corridors of light, reversed cosmic white noise, detuned Tibetan like ceremonial percussion, and a veiled untethered waltz in the great expanse. The composer takes off aboard some sort of propelled craft through an arching buzzed ‘Mesosphere’ towards an orbital avant-garde.
Volume One is a sensitive, often mysterious, but always interestingly serene start to a period of renewed reflection and discovery.
Simon McCorry ‘Flow’
(See Blue Audio) 10th September 2021
The highly prolific “cellist sound-sculptor of ambiguous environments” and composer Simon McCorry has appeared numerous times this year on the blog. Just last month I featured his Critical; Mass collaboration with the Washington D.C. duo of Requiem (of which a second volume is set to be released next month), and before that, his Nature In Nature EP for the burgeoning ambient and beyond label See Blue Audio. For that very same label (and the second See Blue release to be featured in this month’s roundup) imprint McCorry plucks inspiration from out of the air and the psychogeography of the Lake District, the Outer Hebrides’ Isle Of Harris, and the Orkney Islands on the almost uninterrupted Flow suites showcase.
Treading in ancient times, the unknown mysticisms and mysterious essences we’ve attached to our atavistic ancestors in those locations is picked up by McCorry’s sonic antenna and channeled into five flowing sequences of ambient and kosmische style immersions. The source of which stems from one long improvisation; created using Eurorack modules passed through to cassette tape and further processed to acquire a degraded feel, like something that’s been left lain dormant and undiscovered under the dirt: a kind of mood board time capsule if you will.
Imbued by those surroundings, and the various stone circles that stand in some of them, McCorry ushers in the autumnal light and low sun rises as seasonal rituals indicate the last moments of the summer. Horizon gazing sun worship, supernatural elements, vibrating force fields, slowly bowed ascending and descending tubular elevations, and searing drones seem the order of the day as the adroit composer manages to produce a natural, organic vision of synthesized machine made mood music. The roots of which start in the landscape and travel up towards the sci-fi.
Deep yet translucent, McCorry’s stream of conscious ambience has both weight and a mirage-like quality. Its yet another angle, a side to his craft; a most appealing, entranced and mystical work of airy suspense and investigation.
Sone Institute ‘After The Glitter Before The Decay’
(Mystery Bridge Records) 6th September 2021
Not quite left behind, nor entirely bound to the next stage of decay, Roman Bezdyk emerges from the ruins of one glittery age to contour, reverberate and evoke both mysterious and ominous atmospheres on his new Sone Institute album.
Crouched in post-industrial wastelands, gazing at the stars, the UK-based electronic musician, guitarist and producer conveys both dreams and nightmarish environments of unknown specters, shapes and broadcasts on what amounts to a kosmische, ambient and experimental guitar styled soundtrack to a resigned future shock.
You could say it follows on from Bezdyk’s previous New Vermin Replace Old EP from April. There’s even a second ‘Studded By Stars’ chapter; although it’s a more industrial, post-rock like journey into the alien as opposed to the first version’s stratospheric ambient glide.
Against obstructed and ghostly transmissions, cosmic sonic hymnal synthesized voices, beams of light, digital code calculations and veiled gray environments Bezdyk adds serial and resonated guitar gestures, brushes. With much delay, sometimes flange, and always plenty of lunar echo, his guitar wrangling, air hanging notes and gentle sweeps recall elements of Günter Schickert, Manuel Göttsching and an even more strung out version of Ry Coder. On the apparitional entitled ‘Insect House’ that same guitar sound apes the craning and scuttled movements of those said creepy-crawlies, whilst also evoking a sweltered heat and a strange bowing rustic saw.
Whilst new Rome crumbles and burns, Bezdyk imagines broody spy thrillers piano music played by Cage (‘Echo Zulu India’) and Bernard Szajner like envisioned sci-fi. Wherever he’s taking us it sounds as alien as it does foreboding; a crumbling visage of the world headed for the shitter.
Blue Mysteries ‘Dislocated’
(Hive Mind Records) 10th September 2021
I can sympathize greatly with Marc Teare, the humanoid behind the Dislocated Blue Mysteries alias and head honcho at the global sounds (and beyond) label Hive Mind. Suffering greatly from bastard cluster headaches myself in the past, I know exactly what he’s going through. As a distraction from this heavy leaden fog and intense painful experience, Teare assimilates with a number of A.I. sonic software applications on his new project.
Not so much removing himself from the process, as that title may suggest, but more in keeping with how the curse of those headaches can not only course chronic pain but ‘dislocate’ a person from everything around them. Teare actually ties and propounds this same damaging feeling in with the dislocation so many of us have felt during the COVID pandemic.
Intuitive as he might be, he’s left much of the work to the transmogrified re-programming of Khyam Allami & Counterpoint’s Apotome and, the electronic artist, Holly Herndon’s ‘digital twin’ Holly+. The first is a free browser-based generative music system that enables users to explore transcultural tunings, the second, a custom vocal and instrumental interface in which users can upload polyphonic audio to a website and receive it back, sung in Herndon’s voice. Of course it all depends on whatever source material you feed it as to how effective the results. In this case, Teare has initiated very odd, hallucinogenic and acid lunar dream of library music sci-fi and inner mind-bending.
Like a transformed twist of Asmus Tietchens, Stereolab and Klaus Weiss, dislocated from their own times, this chiming, twinkled and chemistry set bubbled and burbling soundtrack floats freely inside a psychedelic lava lamp. Droplets, sometimes arpeggiator flows of bobbing chimes make vague connections to the Far East, Thailand, even Polynesia. On the gulp filtered slow beat primordial soup ‘Humming, Pre-Dawn’ there’s a touch of electronic bamboo music; removed to sound like detuned chopsticks. Something approaching aria-like voices (of a sort) appear like whelping alien creatures and higher squawking space mice on ‘Shadows’. In a manner Blue Mysteries floats around a strange retro-library futurism of droning crafts, crystallised notes (some of which pierce, others, linger with sonorous effects), blades of bass-y synth and liquid movements. Concentrating the mind like nothing else can, Teare escapes the numbing pain to an imaginary sonic flotsam; handing over at least some of his escape route to A.I., and so in the process creating something lucidly weird and mirage-like. These cluster headaches fortunately pass, returning either sporadically or years later. Though this is an interesting sonic album, let’s hope for Teare’s sake those headaches never return.
Monolith Cocktail Social #59: Eclectic & Generational Spanning Playlist
September 2, 2021
PLAYLIST/Dominic Valvona
For those newcomers to the site, the Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist is the blog’s sort of imaginary radio show (ideally with no breaks, no inane chit-chat); a cross generational eclectic experience curated by this blog’s founder, Dominic Valvona. Newish tracks sit alongside album anniversaries and tributes to those musical souls we’ve lost. In the album anniversaries this month we have cosmic wistful love from T. Rex (Electric Warrior celebrates its fiftieth this month) and, before their ‘Hip Hop Hooray’ fame, Naughty by Nature (their eponymous debut is unbelievably thirty years old this month).
We raise a glass to Don Everly, Lee Scratch Perry and Charlie Watts too, whilst adding a cocktail of no wave, post-punk, jazz, sauntering African vibes, electronica and hip-hop. And so Writhing Squares sit alongside L’ Rain; Elichi Ohtaki shares space Gyedu-Blay Ambolly; and Darrow Fletcher breaks bread with Divide And Dissolve.
Those Tracks Are:…
Wall Of Voodoo ‘Do It Again’
Writhing Squares ‘NFU’
Wu-Lu & Lex Amor ‘South’
Bang ‘Mother’
Maximum Joy ‘Temple Bomb Twist’
Suburban Studs ‘Suburban Studs’
Eddy Current Suppression Ring ‘I’ve Got A Feeling’
ShitKid ‘runt på stranden’
L’ Rain ‘Two Face’
The Spongetones ‘Got Nothing Left To Hide’
Don Everly ‘Jack Daniels – Old No. 7’
Gyedu-Blay Ambolly ‘Brokos’
Bohemian Vendetta ‘I Wanna Touch Your Heart’
Curt Boettcher ‘It’s A Sad World’
Geoff Westen ‘I Know What Your Love Can Do’
T. Rex ‘Cosmic Dancer’
La Femme ‘Tu t’en Lasses’
Ernest Ranglin ‘In The Rain’
Lee Scratch Perry & The Upsetters ‘Return Of The Super Ape’
Cosmic Jokers ‘Downtown’
Anchorsong ‘New World’
Paul Leary ‘What Are You Gonna Do’
Lorraine James ft. Eden Samara ‘Running Like That’
Silver Bullet ‘Raw Deal’
Naughty By Nature ‘Pin The Tail On The Donkey’
Young Black Teenagers ‘First Stage Of A Rampage Called The Rap Rage’
Preston Love ‘Chili Mac’
Darrow Fletcher ‘My Judgment Day’
The Danish Radio Big Band with Charlie Watts ‘Elvin Suite – Pt. 2/Live At Danish Radio Concert Hall, Copenhagen/2010’
Sweet Talks ‘Ehurisi’
Natural Food ‘Siren Song’
Menahan Street Band ‘Midnight Morning’
Deliluh ‘Amulet B’
Divide And Dissolve ‘Prove It’
Steve Wynn ‘The Air That I Breathe’
REVIEWS ROUNDUP/Brian Bordello
The cult leader of the infamous lo fi gods, The Bordellos, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea has released countless recordings over the decades with his family band of hapless unfortunates, and is the owner of a most self-deprecating sound-off style blog. His most recent releases include the King Of No-Fi album, a collaborative derangement with the Texas miscreant Occult Character, Heart To Heart, and a series of double-A side singles (released so far, ‘Shattered Pop Kiss/Sky Writing’, ‘Daisy Master Race/Cultural Euthanasia’, ‘Be My Maybe/David Bowie’ and All Psychiatrists Are Bastards / Will I Ever Be A Man). He has also released, under the Idiot Blur Fanboy moniker, a stripped-down classic album of resignation and Gallagher brothers’ polemics.
Each month we supply him with a mixed bag of new and upcoming releases to see what sticks.
Singles/EPs.
Iron Maiden ‘Stratego’
There is something quite comforting in that Iron Maiden are still releasing music, and that there is still a market for old fashioned Metal as you very rarely see metal fans wandering around the towns in their leather jackets and ripped denim with the name of their favourite band lovingly scrawled somewhere on the jacket, or the latest single by Wasp or Twisted Sister hogging the video jukebox in your local boozer. Yes, this single brings those days of myself and my indie loving friends cursing that The Smiths did not make videos, so would sit pint of cider in hand, our teenage years being soundtracked by ‘Bring Your daughter To The Slaughter’. This single brings all those wonderful days spinning back, so I would class this song a huge success; a song that will appeal to the old and maybe young metalheads out there.
Santa Sprees ‘Run Wild When I’m Gone’
I love the Santa Sprees. I think they are one of the handful of bands I consider to be equal to my own band The Bordellos (as being one of the best bands currently making music today). A little like how Brian Wilson was influenced by the music of the Beatles pushing him on to greater heights, I feel the same way about the music of the Santa Sprees and the genius songwriter that is Anthony Dolphin. This, the opening single from the forthcoming new album, is a track of pure beauty and is quite simply one of the finest tracks I have heard this year. There is a lump in the throat tear in the eye sadness about ‘Run Wild When I’m Gone’ that is really quite bewitching. It is a rare thing, a song that carries a somber grace that both Nick Cave and Tom Waits would sell their soul to have written.
Ex Norwegian ‘Thot Patrol’
13th August 2021
I love this single. The new release by the wonderful Ex Norwegian has an unusual air of darkness and fine elegance and eloquence and cleverness that most bands can only dream about. It has a quality that gets under your skin after a few listens and makes it its home; a song for the late summer months and one that promises great things for the album.
Birthday Cake ‘Methods Of Madness’
6th August 2021
On the whole I’m getting a little bored with straight ahead guitar music. It might be my age, in my mid 50s, and heard it all before, but I like this. It has melody and fine lyrics and is well written, and there is nothing not to like, with echoes of The Smiths and even Orange Juice, and the second track has a wonderful woozy feel to it, which is nice. In fact the whole EP has a lovely warm comfort to it which one can wrap around themselves and soak in the pure indie guitar magic Birthday Cake perform so well.
Albums…
Flowertown ‘Time Trials’
(Paisley Shirt Records) 20th August 2021
If I’m not mistaken I’ve reviewed Flowertown before, saying how much I enjoyed the lo-finess and the boy/girl vocal interaction. And once again, I will repeat, I enjoy Flowertown’s lo-finess and the male/female vocal interaction. I also mentioned that Flowertown are almost bloody perfect and this album is not going to change my opinion as Flowertown have this softly strummed Velvets/JAMC/Mazzy Star lark down to a fine tee, and Time Trials is a fine album filled with songs that lovers of the three aforementioned bands will indeed cherish and hold close to their beautiful lo-fi filled hearts.
The Legless Crabs ‘Reno’
(Metal Postcard Records) 23rd August 2021
The slabbed-out farce of human existence is hauled over the coals of a tortured soul. Indie guitar mutterings caught on the hop by the sound of a band with vision and cunning, vile style and cut out feedback drones, haunts the summer breeze that flows through the empty unblocked narrow escape of an ex-lover’s phony, pleased to make your acquaintance, smile. The Legless Crabs are back with their own brand of guitar menace. Reno is an album of sublime alternative guitar originality: the Mary Chain and Sonic Youth dipped in the Shaggs vagina juice. This album dips and swerves with sex, humour, and originality. Reno is an album of lo-fi like musical love; it is an album that pinpoints genius. It’s a sleeveless shirt in a shop full of winter coats. It is the coolest thing. It has the most Fall like instrumental ever recorded not by the Fall, and that is called ‘Trinidad weed Boom’, and the track is even better than the title. So how cool is that.
This is an album hipsters wished existed and now does. So if there is any justice in the world Reno will be toping the indie world top ten. This album is worth listening to whilst looking lovingly at your Beach Boys box set or wanking over the thought of the forthcoming Let It Be 5 disc set, for Reno is far more important, as it is new music and contains all the rock ‘n’ roll spirit of Adventure that both aforementioned bands had in spades.
Speed Of Sound ‘Museum Of Tomorrow’
(Big Stir Records) 17th September 2021
A new album released by Big Stir Records is always a welcome thing, as this always guarantee melodies fine guitars riffs and well-written songs. And this album from Manchester’s The Speed Of Sound is no different; apart from the usual power pop goodness has been replaced by a more chaotic post punk psych-tinged folk cauldron calamity of la la choruses and pure pop. Pure pop that has been bottled shaken and opened with great gusto at an all-night party covering the party poppers in a thick sweetly tasting potion of seduction, melancholy and want. Museum Of Tomorrow to my mind alongside the excellent Armoires album is my favourite release on Big Stir Records, and saying every month I am praising a release or two from Big Stir records shows how enjoyable this album is. Lovers of Kirsty MacColl and John Peel favourites Melys, and the touched by the hand of genius, The World Of Twist, will adore this album as much as I do. Is this I wonder the sound of Big Stir moving to the next level? An excellent release; an excellent album.
Salem Trials ‘Something Beginning With’
(Metal Postcard Records) 30th August 2021
The twisted sound of the Salem Trials has never quite sounded so twisted and beautiful, and bloody sexy and life affirming. If there is any justice in the world this will be the one to break the Salem Trials, the one to move them to the radio playlists of BBC 6 Music. ‘U’ is a radio hit if I ever heard one, the sound of a young scantily clad Poison Ivy twisting at an all-night bar.
This is the sound of a fine band at the top of their game; an album full of strangely commercial and commercially strange songs that bring the golden days of alternative music to the present day. The Salem Trials once again mining their vast array of musical influences but sounding like no one but the Salem Trials.
There is a wonderful New York No Wave feel to a number of the tracks; the outstanding ‘1979 Part 2’ and ‘Climb A Tree’ benefiting from a stray discordant sax: the sound John Coltrane having belligerent sweet nothings hissed into his ear by the one-off vocal styling’s of vocalist Russ.
Something Beginning With is an album that once again proves that the Salem Trials are indeed the finest guitar band currently operating in the UK (as I have said many times). And I apologise to any members of other alternative guitar bands in the UK, but I’m afraid you are just going to have to up your game to reach these heights.
Our Daily Bread 465: The August List ‘Wax Cat’
August 31, 2021
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
The August List ‘Wax Cat’
(All Will Be Well Records) 3rd September 2021
Another of those English county dreamers reaching for the expansive and more desolate plains of a distant, often imagined, Americana, the Oxford-based August List bend alt-country tastes to their will on the latest album, Wax Cat.
Led by the married couple of Martin and Kerraleigh Child, with a supporting cast of locals on drums, violin, guitar, banjo and synth effects, the band wanders an epic panorama of empowered intensity and more ethereal lush contemplation. Dreaming big with a variety of light and shade, swells and tenderer moments, there’s bowed, waned and searching duet plaints set to northwestern waterway junctions, named in honour of the late 18th century British explorer (‘Puget Sound’), and Tennessee, via Gram’s Joshua Tree and the Laurel Canyon, visions of a heart-rendering, bittersweet and mythologized country songbook landscape. Whether together or riding solo the two voices share quite a good range. Especially Kerraleigh, who can sound empowered and resolute on songs like the opening big-hitter, gnarled ‘Seams’, and like a combination of the Howling Bells, Maria McKee, Leila Moss and Emmylou Harris on the desert’s edge ‘Distorted Mountain’. There’s even an air of the paisley underground on the majestic violin straining ‘I Might Get Low’. It most also be noted that Kerraleigh also plays a most gauzy harmonica on a few tracks too.
That country vibe can be heard roaming into shoegaze, and the crushing quite to crescendo ache of Mazzy Star. Meanwhile the August List’s cover of The Diamond Family Archive’s ‘Big Black Dog’ sounds like Ian MuCulloch fronting Spiritualized, and the enervated, synth warped with flange stroked guitar, ‘God In A Wire’, reminded me a bit of R.E.M.
From the storming Bosco-Delray-wrestles-with-Charlie-Megira-at-a-hoedown ‘Wheelhouse’, to the dreamy ‘Crooked Starlite’, there’s as much quality as there is variety to the crescendo-riven August List sound. Who better to set introspective feelings and longings from the Home Counties to an alternative country soundtrack then Oxford’s very classy August List. In short: a great album from start to finish.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we 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 for /love. 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.
Monolith Cocktail Monthly Playlist: August 2021
August 27, 2021
PLAYLIST SPECIAL/Dominic Valvona/Matt Oliver/Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Unapologetic fans of California’s favourite sons, The Beach Boys, this month’s imaginary Monolith Cocktail radio show playlist features a hell of a lot of tracks from the Feel Flows box set, which came out today. Some of which, are choice tracks that have lain dormant for decades.
Joining them is a fine selection of new music from the MC team (that’s me Dominic Valvona, our remote contributor and hip-hop selector Matt Oliver, and the maverick troubadour lo fi rock god turn critic Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea) that includes bloomed pop loveliness from Bloom De Wilde, respectful nods to prog rock icons from Uncommon Nasa, Homeboy Sandman slurping on the dairy, the brand new Fiery Furnaces mellotron bellowed plaint, and some mad dashing mayhem from Girl No. III. Plus plenty of greatness from Pons, SonnyJim, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Brandee Younger, Ephat Mujuru and Liz Cooper. 46 tracks to soundtrack your weekend.
Tracks Listing:.
The Beach Boys ‘It’s A New Day’
Gabrielle Ornate ‘Waiting To Be Found’
Bloom De Wilde ‘Garden Of The Sun (Jstar Remix)’
Ester Poly ‘Pressés’
Flowertown ‘The Door The Thief The Light’
SLONK ‘Erstwhile’
Julia Meijer ‘Borta Från Allt’
Seaside Witch Coven ‘A.E.O.’
Liz Cooper ‘Slice Of Life’
The Beach Boys ‘It’s About Time – Live 1971’
Brian Jackson, Adrian Younge & Ali Shaheed Muhammad ‘Duality’
Uncommon Nasa ‘Vincent Crane’
Tanya Morgan ft. Rob Cave ‘Tanya In The Sky With Diamonds’
Homeboy Sandman ‘Cow’s Milk’
Creatures Of Habit ‘The Devil’s Hands’
Bronx Slang ‘Clock’s Ticking’
Lore City ‘Once-Returner’
Your Gaze ‘Black Afternoon’
Sølyst ‘Flex’
Ephat Mujuru & The Spirit Of The People ‘Mudande’
Ballaké Sissoko ‘Simbo Salaba’
The Beach Boys ‘4th Of July (2019 Mix)’
Sorrows ‘Rita’
Lisa Mychols & Super 8 ‘Pet Sounds (Story)’
Makoto Kubota & The Sunset Gang ‘Bye Bye Baby’
Brandee Younger ‘Somewhere Different’
Ryuichi Sakamoto ‘Mountains’
The Beach Boys ‘Forever (2019 A Cappella Mix)’
The Fiery Furnaces ‘The Fortune Teller’s Revenge’
Graham Domain ‘Limbs Of Loneliness’
Corduroy Institute ‘An Interpretation Of Our Own Story’
YOUNGMAN ‘GALACTIC LUV’
Celling Demons Ft. Zarahruth ‘Silver Birch’
Kid Acne Ft. Jaz Kahina and Vandel Savage ‘Transistors’
The Mouse Outfit & ayiTe ‘Don’t Stop’
Girl No. III ‘Wales’Whales’Wails At Weyl’
Pons ‘JOHNNY PERSUASION (HABITAT 67)’
Sebastian Reynolds ‘Crows (L’Étranger Remix)’
CMPND ‘WEAINTPLAYIN’
Lee Scott/Hyroglifics Ft. Black Josh ‘Sacrificial Goat’
Sonnyjim ‘Mr Singh’
Sweaty Palms ‘The Dance’
Weak Signal ‘Barely A Trace’
Xqui X SEODAH ‘Timete’
Giacomelli ‘Phaze II, Pt. 2 (Bonus Track)’
Shreddies ‘(no body)’
Kalporz X Monolith Cocktail: When Helmet was the symbol for the conquest of the majors.
August 26, 2021
Feature/Literature/Paolo Bardelli
Continuing our successful collaboration with the leading Italian music publication Kalporz , the Monolith Cocktail shares reviews, interviews and other bits from our respective sites each month. Keep an eye out for future ‘synergy’ between our two great houses as we exchange posts during 2021 and beyond.
This month Kalporz head honcho Paolo Bardelli tells us how a recent radio spot promotion of his new book, 1991: The awakening of rock – Brit pop, trip hop, crossover, grunge and other exciting music, sparked off a discussion on the alternative-metal band Helmet, and the travails of being swallowed whole by the majors: hungry to sign up anything rock music; any band of guitar welding hopefuls in the light of Nirvana’s success.
Recently, in promoting my latest book, I found myself mentioning Helmet on the radio, and listeners called to thank me for mentioning a band that is often, and unfairly, forgotten.
And they’re right.
Helmet were one of the symbols of that period, and of that year to which I dedicated the book, 1991, when the majors signed anyone, even my aunt, as long as they did grunge or heavy rock. It didn’t matter what genre – metal, crossover, noise, shoegaze, etc. etc. – the important thing was that there was a lot of grunge. As long as there was a lot of guitar, played loud and powerful.
And there is a song, perhaps the most famous of the New York noise band’s catalogue, which shows – in its history – the plastic representation of that transition: ‘Unsung’. The first album of Page and associates (Strap It On, 1990) was released on an independent label, Amphetamine Reptile Records, which specialised in noise, but AmRep couldn’t keep their thoroughbreds in the stable for long. They were flailing. Just before Helmet made the jump to Interscope, in May 1991, on the 26th, they recorded the Peel Sessions and played the new ‘Unsung’. Such a song did not go unnoticed: Amphetamine Reptile hastened to release it, and so it was still 1991, in the live version played by Peel, as a 45 rpm, and to provide it with a video that I thought was wonderful and still respected independent standards: you see Helmet on a disused stage in an amphitheater abandoned to weeds and cockroaches.
“Unsung” was a business card that was too greedy: among all the majors that wanted to get them and that wanted to turn them into the “new Nirvana”, Interscope Records got the better of them (for a million dollars!), immediately re-releasing Strap It On (and it was still 1991, but how fast did things happen?) and brought Helmet into the studio to give a follow-up to that album, which would then be represented by the “famous” Meantime (1992). And “Unsung” was also re-recorded and given a video more in line, in theory, with the band’s new image.
Notwithstanding that ‘Unsung’ kicks ass in its first and second versions, I much prefer the video with the cockroaches. Well, at the time when the majors were grabbing these bands, maybe they were also sucking some soul out of them, and this comparison of two videos can be a clear illustration of that. But the majors also made these bands better known to most people, and that was a good thing, something Kurt Cobain also always pointed out, happy that unlike before, a teenager could find Nevermind in a Walmart store. Today the 1991 video has 15,000 views on YouTube, the official 1992 video over 11 million. Just to give you the idea.
Even selling your soul “to the devil” has its advantages.
(Paolo Bardelli)
More info on Paolo’s book can be found here: “1991. Il risveglio del rock. Brit pop, trip hop, crossover, grunge e altra musica eccitante” (Arcana)
Our Daily Bread 464: Forest Robots ‘Horst & Graben’
August 24, 2021
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Forest Robots ‘Horst & Graben’
(Elm Records) 1st September 2021
Subscribing to the ambient version of the National Geographic (though I might christen this particular style as ‘Notional Geographic’), arduous cross-country and mountain trekker Fran Dominguez once more sonically contours the landscape and the pondered philosophical quandaries that it evokes.
Under the Forest Robots alias, nature’s son has found a peaceable, if at times dramatic, escape from the divisive stresses of the last four years by taking to the great American outdoors; finding not only solace but various Taoist posed metaphors of a simpler, ideal life spent in unison with nature.
The music might be slow, purposeful, but Dominguez isn’t one to rest on his laurels having released a number of top quality ambient map readings during the pandemic. The geological entitled Horst & Graben (in case you need to know, or if sitting your geography tests, ‘Horst’ is a raised block of the Earth’s crust that has lifted or has remained stationary whilst land either side has subsided, and ‘Graben’ is a depressed block of a planet or moon’s crust bordered by parallel faults) is his second minor opus this year; following on from the March released Amongst A Landscape Of Spiritual Reckoning.
Still imbued by a litany of ambient and neo-classical forbearers, the new traverse is perhaps Dominguez’s most out and out kosmische sounding album yet. Navigating fauna, chasms, peaks and allegorical waters the soundtrack pays homage to Cluster, Harmonia and solo Roedelius, and Eno and Bowie’s ‘Moss Garden’ in the ‘Neuköln’ neighborhood. To these ears there’s also a touch of Andrew Heath’s (who coincidently collaborated with Roedelius) lower case form of sparse and serial piano playing.
But this particular touching, often moving album is also imbued by the award-winning examinations of the acclaimed biologist and author David George Haskell; most notably his 2017 book, The Songs Of Trees, which looks at our innate connection with tree. Dominguez uses the author’s stories as a diving board for his own existentialist contemplations, reflections and spiritual peace of mind, but also prompts a lot of hard thinking on the hot topics of the last few years too: can we, for example, reconcile our differences, ideologies and work together on solving climate change?
Every philosophically poetic entitled track finds a balance between glades of natural light, organic paced reveals and more cosmic, elevating spells: the most stunning kosmische blaze of them all is left until the end, on the Harmonia redolent mouthful, ‘In The Aftermath Of Rain No Grain Of Sand Remains Unstirred’. It’s a subtle affair with enervated moments of a polygon windows Richard James, but mostly the Forst secluded stirrings of the whole Cluster and Harmonia experiment (especially that triumvirate of Rothar, Roedelius and Moebius); all transformed through Dominguez liquid droplets, vapours, clean and beautifully descriptive filters. Here’s hoping those calm quandaries will rub off on the angry, riled masses, because we could sure do with a healing balm of musical inspiration right now.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we 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 for /love. 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.
REISSUE ALBUM FEATURE/Dominic Valvona
Makoto Kubota & The Sunset Gang ft. Haruomi Hosono ‘Hawaii Champroo’
(We Want Sounds) 27th August 2021
I’ve never read Julian Cope’s obsessive Japrocksampler but feel there’s a special place in the archdruid of head music’s heart for the all rounder Makoto Kubota. There’s almost certainly room for the infamous Les Rallizes Dénudés in that tome; the rambunctious hardliners that Kuboto managed to uncouple himself from in the early 70s. Devoid of official releases – their entire output more or less unofficially released as bootlegs – the Rallizes (a French corruption that translates as ‘naked suitcases’ in case you were wondering) reigned supreme as the most cultish of cult Japanese experiments. Frontman Takashi Mizutani and bassist Moriaki Wakabayashi were tangled up in the messy Japanese Red Army fringe of haphazard terror cells. The latter found himself marooned in North Korea for his troubles, after naively taking part in the hijacking of Japan Airlines flight 351: the idea being to defect and land behind the iron curtain with a cargo of hostages and leverage. Unfortunately this idealist oasis proved nothing but a regretful nightmare for the one-time bassist, who wished to return home: willing to even serve prison time if it got him home.
But I digress. For this review type feature is dedicated to that cult’s former band member, the free-roaming Kubota, who left his native homeland to soak up the musical heritage of Uncle Sam. The music backpacker was especially enamoured with good ol’ barreled salon piano ragtime and the quivery tropical, bendy swoon and charms of Hawaii. Perhaps as an escape from all the heavy shit back home, the flirtations many of his comrades had with red army like fractions, Kubota turned away from the confrontational, reverting back to the roots of a more subdued form of American and Japanese folk music.
Released originally in 1975 with his Sunset Gang ensemble, Hawaii Champroo makes clear the producer-musician’s fusion tastes: A blend of two Pacific oceanic islands, Hawaii and Okinawa. (The “champroo” of that title actually derives from the traditional Okinawan stir-fry dish, the “chanpurũ”.) A delectable, even fun serving of those two island’s folk roots, the middle album in a trio of iconic Kubota 70s albums, Hawaii Champroo also soaks up the great American revival by a boomer generation of previously psychedelic, acid and garage playing bands. That translates as plenty of waned country; deep southern boogie and bluesy rock ‘n’ roll for your buck.
Why are we talking about this relatively obscure record now? Well the fine people over at WEWANTSOUNDS have picked up not only this album but also Kubota & The Sunset Gang’s eponymous debut from ’73 and the Dixie Fever album from ‘77. All three get the remastering varnish, with Hawaii Champroo the first to roll off the vinyl presses this month; released we’re told for the very first time outside Japan.
It doesn’t get much more salivating and cultish than this, with one of Japan’s most influential innovators, leader of the legendary electronic pop group, the Yellow Magic Orchestra (pen pals of Kraftwerk), Haruomi Hosono, producing and sitting in on drums. The actual Sunset troupe included Takashi Onzo on bass, Yosuke Fujita on guitars and mandolin, Keni Inoue on lead and Hiroki Komazawa on lush pedal steel, with an extended guest spot from Teriyuki Kokubu on lively salon bar jangling piano. All names I’m sure any aficionado and head music obsessive will know very well indeed.
Imbued in the Hawaiian spirit, and the hula-limbering breeze, Kubota recorded this album at Herbert Ono’s famed Sounds Of Hawaii studio in Honolulu, with Hosono producing – and you can tell; a companion piece to the legend’s own Tropical Dandy and Bon Voyage Co. albums, which Kubota, in returning the favour, even played on.
At the forefront of a tropical movement, the lilting island sound permeates an album made up by both interrupted covers and original dreamy mirage like country-blues and ragtime. Those covers prove surprising choices, with a Mike Nesmith stands around with Al Jardine at the piano in a Mississippi salon version of The Texas Playboy’s ‘Steel Guitar Rag’; a Fats Domino meets Elvis yodeled take on Gus Cannon’s – via The Rooftop Singers – ragtime classic, ‘Walk Right In’; a Rolling Stones leaning reggae like chopsticks vision of Jesse Fuller’s ‘San Francisco Blues’; and a sweetly incipient drifted version of, fellow compatriot, Shoukichi Kina’s instant ’72 classic, ‘Hai Sai Ozisan’.
Kubota and his troupe’s original songbook selections sail and sway to a backing of peaceable coconut rock ‘n’ roll with touches of Dr. John at his most laidback, George Harrison guitar bends, a bit of enervated Savoy Brown and trace of Country Joe. Moonlight beachside serenades sit comfortably with grass-skirted limbering and lush faux-reggae in Kubota’s paradise.
Whilst Glam had all but reached its nadir, and the era of the singer-songwriter was in full flight, and with punk not quite on the threshold, Kubota turned to the timeless to lead a tropical new wave in the 70s. Hawaii Champroo is a lush, harmonious testament of that move: a far cry from those formative years in the infamous Les Rallizes Dénudés. Go ahead; soak it up, as this is a most lovely, soothing and dreamy album. And don’t worry, there’s two more albums form this creative period to come.
FYI: Hawaii Champroo is first out the blocks in this reissue series, with the eponymous debut Sunset Gang LP (originally released in ’73) set to be released next month, and Dixie Fever to follow (originally released in ’77) in October.
Premiere: Julia Meijer ‘Borta Från Allt’
August 18, 2021
WORDS: DOMINIC VALVONA
PHOTO CREDIT: BETHAN ELFORD
Julia Meijer ‘Borta Från Allt’
(PinDrop Records) 20th August 2021
Pretty much following the career of the Swedish indie-pop artist Julia Meijer since her move to Oxford some years back, the Monolith Cocktail is delighted to premiere the singer-songwriter-guitarist’s next single, ‘Borta Från Allt’.
Once more it’s another transformation for the deft songstress, who constantly seems to surprise us; moving between glacial-like hymnal songs, set to the poetry of Iceland’s national treasure, Steinn Steinar, to more angular new wave. Side-stepping convenient pigeon-holing, Meijer gives the spotlight to her band’s guitarist Andrew Warne, who offers up a turbulent wave of grunge-y coarseness and The Audience style moodiness. Adding progressive sounding, hallowed suffusion of organ and a backbeat are Sebastian Reynolds and former Guillemot Grieg Stewart.
The title, translated from the Swedish, means ‘Away From Everything’. Meijer has this to say about the single’s intentions, evocations and style:
“I wanted a raw sound that reflected the desperation in the lyrics, which are about wanting to escape everything for just a moment, to find the touch of a familiar hand and to heal in silence.”
Prepare yourselves for some beautifully conveyed turmoil, and lap up this week’s special premiere.
A Look At What’s Out There In The World Of Music And Sonics/Dominic Valvona
Singles/Tracks/EPs:
Pons ‘The Pons Estate EP’
13th August 2021
A rambunctious gatecrash trample across aristocratic lawns, the ever-disjointed, disturbed and thrashing Pons trio gallop back onto the scene with this new EP. A somehow melodic and exciting shambles – a right tear up -, this high class troupe have expanded upon last year’s volatile, chaos in motion, stonker Intellect (which made this blog’s choice albums of 2020 features); reaching out to embrace a bastardised version of techno and nu rave. Tracks like the drum machine bobbing, electronic scattered ‘Johnny Persuasion’ knocks the shit out of the Klaxons and Late Of The Pier, whilst the erratic Lynchian inspired ‘Leland’ is a real sleazy, creeping mind-bender of The Liars, LCD Soundsystem and Swans hovering up killer lines on the set of Twin Peaks: an imaginary dungeon discotheque to be exact.
If you’ve picked up our Pons recommendations then you’ll know that the band’s signature is to make constant gear changes in their songs; from the strung-out to the dashing; noisy to surprisingly tactile; the discordant lo fi to indie-pop. This holds up well on The Pons Estate; the caustic opener, ‘Imbound!’, sprinting between wild horseplay, hints of White Denim and The Strokes (having a stroke) and the in the red looning Black Lips, yet able to throw in a more melodious no wave style saxophone or two. ‘Bardo’ by comparison, is a much more sulking languid affair of lo fi grandeur that reverberates with quivered viola (a new instrument in the Pons repertoire).
Other than that we’re looking at a brilliant manic power-up of The Parquet Floors, Tokyo Police Squad, Glamor For Better and an air, I dare say, of petulant Smiths. It’s another unruly blast of young energy and moodiness that pisses over the stately gardens of the mundane, and captures the discord of our times with rowdy flair.
Sebastian Reynolds ‘Crows EP’
(Faith & Industry) 6th August 2021
The crows are circling, which can only usually mean one thing. Yet, instead of harbingers of doom, augurs for the fall of civilizations, this carrion is reflected both with lofting clarinet majesty and an acidy techno pulse.
No stranger to cerebral contemplations, posed quandaries and spiritual philosophy, polymath composer/artist Sebastian Reynolds follow’s up The Universe Remembers and, the more recent, Nihilism Is Pointless EPs with a split release of original scores plus two treated remixes.
Featured umpteen times over the years for a multitude of collaborations and projects (from the Solo Collective triumvirate to the Maṇīmekhalā dance drama), Reynolds has only, relatively, recently taken to releasing music under his own name. The collaborations continue however, with both the adroit clarinet player Rachel Coombes (who also added evocative swanning feel to Reynolds’s The Universe Remembers) and former drummer and founding member of the Oxford band The Guillemots, Grieg Stewart appearing on the EP’s titular suite.
Coombes adds a low tone register of long wafted clarinet to the skying opener, whilst Stewart joins in slowly with a short shot of kick drum and snare as Reynolds conjures up suitably atmospheric synth throbs and ambient strokes. The mood and urgency change completely on the avian title-track; Reynolds twists the dials towards the acid techno of Mike Dred; turning up the synthesized pulsations, fizzles and mechanics on a EDM vision of the Utah Saints rewiring Amorphous Androgynus and the Public Service Broadcasting: Stewart’s drums get more of a work out that’s for sure.
Remix wise, Thai producer Pradit Saengkrai filters the original ‘Crows’ through a frazzled static rasp force field; a generated spell where the drums are rebounded and warped, and the synths made to sound more alien. L’ Étranger (the Camus inspired French house music alias incarnation of the UK’s beat maker Ben Thomas) for his treatment gives that same track an electro Basic Chanel production of 808 preset toms, drum machine tight-delay percussion and handclaps and whipped fizzes. A repeated tubular bell tolls at the end.
Reynolds vision is ambiguous on this occasion, musically and sonically experimenting with the neo-classical, electro and ambient genres yet expanding the horizons to filter techno and a sort of indie-rave Klaxons. Intentions wise, those naturally dark cloaked birds remain pretty aloof.
Albums::
Paxton Spangler Septet ‘Anthem For The New Nation’
(Eastlawn Records) 4th July 2021
Treading the fertile pathway of South African jazz, imbued by that region’s pioneers and greats for over three decades, the co-led Paxton Spangler Septet once more hone in on the magic of the pianist/composer Abdullah Ibrahim.
Paying a special homage to the fecund of talent and signature sweltered toil, spiritual and activist driven vibes that has poured out of the much troubled South Africa, trombonist Tbone Paxton and his percussionist foil RJ Spangler have collect various awards for various album projects; from recordings with the Sun Sounds Orchestra to their work with the PD9 Township Jazz troupe. Musicians from the latter of those make an appearance as part of the Septet on this latest Ibrahim dedication; the heralded Anthem For The New Nation, a title with so many connotations, released as it was on America’s Independence Day, yet from the perspective of the icon they are covering, an anthem prayer for the birth of a new, anti-apartheid South Africa.
This faithful to the course rainbow nation imbued group is ‘built’ (we’re told) around the splashed and rolling drums of Sean Perlmutter, noodling flexed bass of Damon Warmack and spirited Ibrahim recondite piano of Phil Hale. That set ups extended by Dan Bennett on tenor sax, the flute player and alto saxophonist Rafael Leafar, and second alto saxophonist Kasan Belgrave, with special guest spot on flugelhorn (of all things) from James O’Donnell. Together they make a great job of breathing life into Ibrahim’s 70s and 80s dawning back catalogue; a relaxed at times, warmly enthused saunter and pride of Safari animals like run through some of the legend’s most important, emotive pieces.
Once anointed by Nelson Mandela as ‘South Africa’s Mozart’, the rightfully lauded jazz star added a certain languid homeland groove and the classical to the jazz he’d absorbed playing in the States with such luminaries as Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, Max Roach and Ornette Coleman. Signing as Dollar Bill for a while, until converting to Islam in the late 60s, Ibrahim went from the intimacy of a duo to a twelve-piece band, composing both lush hymns to his country and unofficial national anthems for the anti-apartheid movement. Anthems like ‘Manneberg’, originally released in 1974. Here the septet place it together with the title-track from the ’77 LP, Cape Town Fringe; alternating between a blend of slow bass note piano, drifting horns and a familiar township groove, and a sudden waters-breaking cascade of combined instrument duets and come alive saxophones. ‘Soweto’, the title-track from the titular ’78 LP, is another township anthem handled by the group. More celebratory, with a great Afro-jazz verging on mardi gras side ordering of funk, that 70s joyful freedom dance proves a perfect choice for this Detroit troupe, who roll the original into a new century.
This homage-performed album is dotted with Ibrahim favourites; from the lovely peaceable bustle of the balmy Highlife meets early 60s classic jazz imbued ‘African Marketplace’ (another titular composition, from the ’79 LP on Elektra) to the classical mode, trinket shaking ‘Moniebah’ (taken from the ’73 LP Good News From Africa). Optimistic undulated paeans to not only South Africa but the African continent as a whole are given a faithful soundtrack of elephant trunk trumpeted and spiralled horns, flighty flute, soulful dotted and dappled organ and shuffled drums by the ensemble in a show of respect, but also to share a love and passion for the music of an often in-turmoil land. Fans of Ibrahim won’t be disappointed, put it that way.
Giacomelli ‘Interplanetary Thoughts’
(Somewherecold Records) 30th July 2021
Machine sculptured but inspired by both Earthly nature and the cosmos, Steve Giacomelli peruses sonic ‘interplanetary thoughts’ on his fifth album for the constantly illuminating Somewherecold label.
Regular readers may have seen my premiere last September of the Silicon Valley composer’s ‘The Best Of Both Worlds, Part II’; taken from the epic sprawled Cosmic Order album of ARP synthesised lunar kosmische riches. Using that same iconic 70s apparatus for this new celestial and sun bathed, if often dramatically mysterious, set of suites the composer invokes shades of Froese, Schulze, Cluster, a bit of Eno and some Olympiad Vangelis on a glorious fanned spread of ambient waves, oscillations and equinox majestic worship.
From an enviable commanding studio lab view, perched above the Santa Cruz Mountains, light beams and life-giving forces are made concrete; captured in serene and arcing magic. Broad awakenings and phased ripples meet more Tangerine Dream imbued three-parter scaled hovers in the starry expanses of space. For this is a filmic like soundtrack that has visions of a light-playing mirage shimmered terra firma, and the fluted, whistled, solar wind blowing realms of a mystical galaxy: one that’s constantly expanding, throbbing in concentric rhythms. Both of these phenomenons take centre stage; unfurling an organic beauty and weight of awe-inspiring gravitas.
It seems odd to speak of the composition’s organic, almost naturalistic qualities, considering everything you hear is engineered electronically. Yet that’s how it feels and sounds: natural light transduced through an analogue filter.
Interplanetary Thoughts is another unheralded album of ambient brilliance from the West Coast electronic composer.
Sølyst ‘Spring’
(Bureau B) 13th August 2021
Springing, fizzing, sizzling and bouncing along to a moody and kinetic beat, Kriedler drummer (a mark of true quality if any was needed) Thomas Klein arrives with his fourth Sølyst alter-ego album.
Slotting, genealogy wise, with the Dusseldorf composer’s previous trio of albums (2011’s Sølyst, 2013’s Lead and 2016’s The Steam Age), the Spring movement of metallic and tubular percussion and beats proves a congruous fit.
Made up of material explorations from the last three years, with some elements either discarded or reworked, this latest succinct series of entitled tracks seem to be named after each composition’s rhythm and evocation. So ‘Flex’, for example, does just that; flexing between a processed drum kit of kling klang nu-wave sparks, chipping away metal blocks, and a vague flavor of lilting jug poured Africa sounds. The following track, ‘Thief’, lurks in the industrial shadows, creeping about as softened reverberated distant drums bang away – evoking a steel mesh echoed conjuncture of Die Wilde Jagd and solo Moebius.
Elsewhere it’s a case of a modern autobahning Kraftwerk motoring down neon highways; buzzing quarks and a removed affected version of cosmic steel drums; a taste of Cosey Fanni Tutti; and paddled hallowed tube beats on a highly sophisticated album of rhythmic manipulation and overlapping networks.
Xqui X SEODAH ‘Sufficiently Disconcerting’
(Wormhole World) 6th August 2021
The full name of at least one of the sonic partners in this unsettling affair should tell you all you need to know about this both Latin liturgy and supernatural inspired collaboration: Sound Effects Of Death And Horror describes this unholy union well; a six track pairing of sonic antagonist Xqui and the abbreviated, morbidly curious SEODAH.
This is the inaugural team-up; a balance of the disturbing and monastic; between unease and cathedral like choral gravitas. Half the material is a synthesized transmogrification of established Latin choral music; originally meant for solo soprano or baritones and choruses; for chamber or string quartets. ‘Timete’, ‘Exultate’ and ‘Oculi Mei’ are the suites cast in that mould; the first a merger of Tangerine Dream and Jerry Goldsmith’s Omen score, the second, a calmer glassy bauble floated and ether probing version of Popol Vuh, and the third, a kosmische traverse of metal tapped rhythms.
In between those transformations, apparitions are the panic attack deranged symphony mirage of Library Music and sampled Yank veiled, ‘An American Man Stole My Balloons’; the phasered circular drone with serial piano notes airy phantasm, ‘Probosis (Wins By A Nose)’; and the, full length horror soundtrack in its own right, Giallo scene-munching and drudge metal marching three-act ‘Hallucigenetic’.
Faith will be tested on an unnerving, ‘sufficiently disconcerting’ disturbance in sonic dread and mystery.
Viktor Timofeev ‘Palace Of Peace & Reconciliation’
(Lo Bit Landscapes) 13th August 2021
Five years on from the unexpected shutdown of label facilitators Lo Bit Landscapes’ Brooklyn home, Viktor Timofeev’s much-delayed caustic sprawl, Palace Of Peace & Reconciliation, finally emerges from all the misery and setbacks.
Originally set to follow in the wake of the noted visual artist and composer’s debut album GIVE_HEALTH999, this voyage into both the disturbing and code calculating depths of an ever alienating digital world fits in congruously with the current climate of stressed unease, uncertainty and fear.
Timofeev’s epic soundtrack like album draws you into a speed-shifted, reversed and reverberated spool-squealing, shuddering matrix. Its divided along the lines of more coarse sci-fi abstract immersions and gabbled-like sped-up manic chakras and obscured churned lo fi garage. The second half is in fact like a weird Faust like transmogrification of vague Indian music, ceremony and echoed ramblings beyond the calico wall. The first half by comparison sounds like Bernard Szajner reversing church bells as a busy signaling of date hovers overhead, on the opening unsettled nine-minute ‘Tevek Fritoiov’ suite. The atmosphere then changes on the following loop pedal guitar, pattered beat ‘Memoriatrium’: think Land Observation meets Federico Balducci.
The mysterious Alienboy featured ‘Pyramid Of Accord’ cast His Name Is Alive out into a metallic rainstorm in space. I’m not sure if it’s the so-called guest or not, but gaseous, burbled exhales and monastic moans permeate wave after wave of static frying noise and mooning.
Distortions in the fabric, unholy organ kosmische and more serene inner space meditations wait on an epic lengthened album of dissonance and warped strains; peregrinations and digital explorations. Put it this way, it’s well with the long wait.
D:Rom/Shreddies ‘Sucker’
(New Haven Tapes) 11th August 2021
What a time to be an electronic artist or DJ, yet despite the slow slog towards reopening the clubs and live venues (to a point; COVID passport of a kind holders only) one Welsh sonic dance music maverick has decided to take the plunge and set up a new label venture. Although originally envisioned solely as a vehicle for the founder, Shreddies, music, the New Haven Tapes imprint has expanded to include other like-minded noise-makers from the region’s underground scene; such as the fellow techno and footwork artist D:Rom.
The inaugural longplayer is a congruous split release, with three tracks from each artist. D:Rom kicks things off on sucker with a trio of fuzzy-squalling, warped and pumped lo fi acid from another age. Run through a reverberated, bit-crush filter ‘I Kuw Gna Paly Me’ gallops to a space invaders 8-bit and ping-pong bounce of oomphing tropical disco NRG house and Djax-Up-Beat techno, whilst ‘Bleachful’ mellows the pace a touch, as the synthesized 303 or 808 hi-hats press away to shades of slag Boom Van Loon’s ‘Poppy Seed’ and softened recollections of early Jeff Mills.
Up next, Cardiff’s won Shreddies races through resonating hi-hats and a Basic Channel like techno dance beat on the airy, melodic sinewave ‘Fuego’; mutates a fusion of trance-y 808 State and R&S Records on the housing ‘Texacco’; and goes for something altogether more shimmered and mirror-y on ‘(no body)’: imagine Laraaji refitted for a Chicago house dancefloor.
Sucker marks a positive start for this underground platform; it’s dance music, but not as you know it.
Ester Poly ‘Wet’
(Hummus Records) 20th August 2021
Four years on from their blazing feminist, contorting debut Pique Dame, and the Swiss canton post-punk rocking Ester Poly duo are back. In all that time there’s been a whole opprobrium of protestation material and issues to cause the already riled piqued dames to leap into action.
Still with the commodification and unsolicited, unwanted interest of sexual desire on their minds, the cross generational, cross cities duo of Martina Berthes and Béatrice Graf titillate with suggestive visuals and lyrics on the innuendo entitled Wet.
With that signature mix of strong female led influences (from The Slits to Delta 5 and Girls At Our Best) and a slice of humour, the busy partnership of electric bass and drums (shared vocal duties) both smashes and offers more erotic whispered sloganism on the topics of diversity and racism: A call in a manner for self-love and acceptance that implores us all to stop following “the mainstream”. (I’d add Twitter, FB et al to that list of vile, fame hungry platforms).
Despite the limitations of their instruments, Ester Poly use both abrasive and more space-y effects to widen the scope and influence of sounds. They also sing, shout, pant and breathlessly communicate tin English, German and French to varying degrees of excitement and salacious protest. It’s a sort of mantric chant however that’s used on the album’s opener and recent single, ‘Reject My Speck’: a rattled sticks on drum rims recall of The Stray Cats meets The Raincoats stumbling and scowling down a dark alley; the repeated refrain of “respect/accept” rings throughout.
They prowl and creep into the Dead Kennedys territory on the Teutonic ‘Braun’, and offer an avant-garde panting vision of Royal Blood on the French language ‘Presses’. Elsewhere they offer up tangles of post-rock, math rock, and on the album’s last couplet of remixes, an indie dance and a retreated version of Italo house meets French electro (on the Berthes and Franca Locher remix of the titular tune from the riotous grrrls debut album).
Sexual slang by-words and scented metaphors are floated or thrown around in a vortex of strong-willed feminine wiles and irony throughout this fruity exchange. It seems there’s still enough “pique” to go round, as the Swiss duo demands ownership and respect in a fit of post-punk and beyond energy.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we 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 for /love. 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.
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