Jointly by Andrew C. Kidd and Ross Perry
Black Dog Productions ‘Bytes’ [1993]
The Black Dog ‘Spanners’ [1995]
(Warp Reissues)
Intelligent dance music. IDM. A difficult-to-define genre (if it even was one). Experimentation in dance music? The awkward shoehorning of ambience and danceable music? Flawed nomenclature aside, pinpointing the start of the movement is an even trickier task.
To dance is to move rhythmically. Ussachevsky and Stockhausen were creating electronic music in the 1950s, albeit it is difficult to argue that their creations were ‘danceable’. There are danceable moments on Spiral (Vangelis, 1977) and Équinoxe (Jean-Michel Jarre, 1978). Then there was the electro-pop Kraftwerk and the danceable synth-pop sounds of the likes of OMD, Moroder, Numan and Cabaret Voltaire. Yet, the sound that we most associate with modern-day IDM probably arrived in the very early 1990s. Utd. State 90 by 808 State (ZZT Records, June 1990) is an early example of the abstraction which underpins IDM, albeit that album was palpably more familiar as a resident in acid house. Tricky Disco by Tricky Disco (Warp, July 1990), Frequencies by LFO (Warp, July 1991) and Analogue Bubblebath by Aphex Twin (Mighty Force, September 1991) were IDM pathfinders. The public were probably exposed to IDM through Accelerator by Future Sound of London in April 1992 (released on Jumpin’ & Pumpin’). Warp can take credit for the naming of IDM on the compilation album, Artificial Intelligence, in July 1992.
Bytes (originally released in March 1993) is one of the most influential works in the intelligent dance music scene (it is regarded by some as the seminal work of IDM). The first iteration of the track Clan (Mongol Hordes), the work of I.A.O, an early moniker of Ken Downie (one of three aliases used on Bytes), featured on Warp’s AI compilation. Although Bytes is a compilation album, it has always been more synergistic than that – a musical Megazord of sorts (if such an obviously ‘90s reference can be afforded!). It was the third album in the Artificial Intelligence series and is thirty this year. When it was first released, it was a promise of futurity. Akin to the golden age of science fiction, there was experimentation, and comparatively difficult-to-differentiate narratives – the listener is drawn in and out of various sequences, some real, others fanciful.
There is no doubting the influence of the Detroit techno scene of the mid-1980s and its dramatis personae: the joyful R-Tyme; the villainy of Suburban Knight; the realism of Model 500; and of course, Derrick May. Listen to the analog crunch and pulsing rhythm on the opening Object Orient (Plaid) – two hallmarks of that sub-genre. It railroads through the sonic journey with playfully synthetic melodies, slowing only occasionally for brief vinyl cuts. It is a deconstruction of what preceded it, like time folded up in slow motion. Similarly, the repetitive four-four chops on Merck are akin to a Mayday track; the keys, syncopated at times, improvised later, dance their macabre dance. The Phil 5 interlude that precedes Fight The Hits harkens back to The Art of Stalking by Suburban Knight; the same could also be said for Atypic’s masterpiece Otaku which sadly did not appear on Bytes – this featured on the Black Dog Productions E.P. released in May 1992.
Bytes is fantastically congruous. After Merck (Balil) fires off high-frequency plasma rifle shots in rapid succession, its latter half is mesmeric and glistens into the orchestral opening of Jauqq (Close Up Over)*. As the syncopated rhythm fades, a metallic beat enters, and the sound is progressed. Another fine example of this is Olivine (Close Up Over) – IDM in the definitive sense – and its light synths that dot around the checked squares of some strange sonic chessboard. Here, the rhythm progresses up and down like opposing rooks; the L-shapes of the syncopated synth are warring knights. The lithe ending is regal, and heralds Clan (Mongol Hordes) (I.A.O.)– queenly, like the multidimensional chess piece, it serves to take the rest of the board out. It is IDM ex-animo. Its movements pitch-alter. This is music from the soul. It sounds as genre-buckling now as it will have done in the early 1990s. The alarm-like initial melody initially hides the subtle breakbeat that builds into the piece. The 4-4 rhythm doubles up, almost rolling over itself. The four-key synth melody stirrups. The melody changes. A deeper bass commandeers.
Futurism: lasering zaps and string stabs on Caz (Close Up Over) and the steely undertones of Jauqq (Close Up Over). Sporadic canons also unload on Focus Mel (Atypic) in a manner that is not too dissimilar to early Subotnick and Nu-Sound II Crew (nearly a half-century later), or an A. Bertram Chandler hero travelling ahead to save us, the listeners in the present day. Its outro is an echoing aftershock from another place – the future is being told by Xeper as he knocks hard on the other side of the great glass door of time. The track preceding it – Carceres Ex Novum (Xeper) – underpins the experimentation which defines Bytes.
Fight the Hits (Discordian Popes) is an awesome percussive assault (similar to Polygon Window’s Quoth) which serves as a bit of a palate cleanser and a much-needed bridge between the chaotic Yamemm and Handley’s magisterial three-track denouement. Yamemm (Plaid) itself is fragmented and perhaps anomalous in this album†.
Bytes concludes with 3/4 Heart (Balil). The stock-heavy modulations are polyrhythmic. A Vangelis-esque synth is organ-like at points. The melody is snappy – danceable even! A half-clap effect – perhaps an imagined crowd – heralds the vocal line, “we must surf the universe”. The sound at this juncture is more refined, the narrative complex – the listener revolves around in a full-circle. Oneness is achieved.
At this point, it is worth mentioning how instrumental Ed Handley is to the legacy of Bytes as a groundbreaking album in IDM’s naissance. Atypic(Turner)’s Focus Mel is excellent, but it his only solo track on the entire record, and Downie’s three contributions are dynamic detours in their own right. Handley absolutely dominates this album with five solo tracks and two as part of Plaid. Whether it is Balil or Close Up Over, his mastery of clever arpeggios, countermelodies and otherworldly harmonic pads married with second-wave Detroit rhythms give the album a melodic heart, which beats all the way through from Object Orient to 3/4 Heart.
Bytes (and by extension, The Black Dog Productions moniker) also acts as an important milestone in Plaid’s evolution as a duo. Before it, we can hear on disc one of Trainer (Warp, July 2000) – an excellent compilation of Plaid’s early career output – that the group were more experimental, sample-happy, willing to genre-hop. Take the Latin-infused breakbeat stylings of Scoobs In Columbia, the jazz-tinged Slice of Cheese, or even the proto-jungle of Perplex (all these tracks were originally released from the oft-forgotten debut album Mbuki Mvuki, released on The Black Dog Productions label in 1991). Bytes on the other hand showcases a more focused pair, albeit a little lop-sided, that fills the record with top-tier ambient techno (which yes, will always get the IDM treatment!).
Spanners (originally released in January 1995), their first release on Warp, was the hit LP of The Black Dog – and for good reason. It is great to think that ‘way back then’ albums that clocked in at 75-minutes were charting (imagine that nowadays when albums are often sub-30-minutes). Admittedly, we live in a different time where attention spans are shorter. Most tracks on Spanners feel like a tug-of-war between Plaid as a duo and Downie as a solo artist. Plaid in 1994/95 had their more functional IDM/ambient-techno sound figured out, whilst Ken Downie remained somewhat of a wild-card: his trappings being more cinematic, sample-based and experimental, drawing from a much broader spectrum of influences. One of the elements we most enjoy about the output from the original Black Dog has been trying to surmise not only who did what in each track, but also which members were involved in certain outings. This is no more rewarding than on Spanners where some tracks seem like the work of a sole member (usually Downie), whereas other tracks feel like the work of a tag-team, either consisting of a Plaid member and Downie, or in the case of Tahr and Frisbee Skip, Plaid on their own. Frisbee Skip could very well double as a bonus track on the duo’s first (mainstream/Warp) full length, Not for Threes, released in October 1997.
The opening to Spanners is Raxmus, a classic in the downtempo repertoire; its sawing introductory synth leads into a horizontally relaxed beat. Raxmus feels like one of the more seamless tracks on the album, and we speculate that it is possibly a Downie/Handley duet: Downie providing the trip-hop template; Handley layering in his Balil-style harmonics.
The heavily-syncopated rhythm on Barbola Work (which disintegrates towards the end of the track) is interspersed with boings and hits and twizzles. It follows the formula that many of the early tracks on this album have: Downie providing the track’s introduction, throwing a wide range of vocal samples and/or exotic instruments at you, before Plaid build the track up with their infectious basslines, whirring clicks, zapping sound effects and magical synths. The Sugarhill Gang-laced explosion of an intro on Barbola Work is Downie through and through. Plaid then takes over to put down the melodic scaffolding and beat-work. The transition admittedly does not work quite as well on this occasion as it does on the proceeding track, Psil-Cosyin, perhaps coming off as a little dissonant.
Arguably the most cohesive three-track sequence (or four if one includes Bolt 3) follows. A major Locrian scale surfaces on Psil-Cosyin and scintillates in scaling brightness as the piece progresses. This is one of two clear highlights of the album where all three members of The Black Dog play to their individual and collective strengths and produce a definitive masterpiece. As an early Spanners track, the song structure is as described in the last paragraph. One can consider Psil-Cosyin as being composed of three suites: in the first, Downie arrests your attention with a mysterious intro of odd vocal samples and pipes; the second is signature Plaid with a slow and progressive build-up; the third is a roaring crescendo which serves as a climax. Here, all three members of the group function as a rare and perfect whole: Turner’s acid synths; Downie’s eclectic sampling; Handley’s Balil-esque angelic arpeggio. The concluding higher-rpm of the track serves perfectly to lead-in the membranophonic beat that anchors the light synth swathes on Chase The Manhattan, which may be a Downie solo venture or a collaboration between Downie and Turner. It is tribal-house-infused. The spacey pads are those that we often associate with Downie’s Xeper alias; Turner possibly contributes with acid licks and humming bass lines.
Tahr is an amalgam of the latter two tracks: a polymer-pungi weaves around a 4-4 beat. In this piece we hear a lot of Turner’s percussive sensibilities, addictive basslines and frantic trance-like synths (these can also be heard on Atypic’s Jolly on Trainer). Handley comes in later with another Locrian melodic flourish. Although Tahr is a short track, it is a great example of Plaid’s symbiosis.
One criticism we have of Spanners is its length. The 19 tracks are not an issue (the Bolt skits are sometimes only seconds long); rather, it is the occasional meanderings of the trio. Perhaps this is because thirty years have passed and listeners of the present day are used to more perfunctory albums clocking in at sub-30-minutes. Take Further Harm as an example. It is an expansive piece, one that stretches in and out, starting in the realms of downtempo, ending in synth-plopping abstraction. That said, it is one of the greatest examples of the stylistic fork-in-the-road (or tug-of-war) between Plaid and Downie. All three members are involved here, and the stop-start industrial breakbeat combined with the odd mantra of a vocal sample gives it a ‘train that is meandering down the track and picking up steam’ feel. More samples are layered in as well as all the sonics that Downie brings to the table, and then, two minutes in, the signature Plaid-synths, pads and basslines play out to give the track a melodic grounding that it did not have before. The hip-hop breakbeat is replaced entirely by a more industrial one in its later stages. As a piece that starts off travelling in one direction, Further Harm changes tracks, and an unpredictable journey ensues – it is a microcosm of Spanners.
Utopian Dream is similarly frequentative. It is one of the most leftfield pieces on the album. We have never heard anything like this from the Plaid members (was this a Downie solo?); imagine a harsher version of Boards of Canada’s Zoetrope on In A Beautiful Place Out In The Country (Warp, November 2000). The elegiac Nommo and its modulated synth stanzas and bassline climb their respective octaves – sequentially. It could have featured in a fictional Xeper album along Carceres Ex Novum on Bytes. Could the track idea have been consolidated, or even progressed like Olivine or Clan On Bytes? Regardless, Nommo remains cinematic.
The right balance between track length and monoinstrumention is achieved on Chesh, the other album highlight (it feels like more of a Handley solo piece, or mostly Handley with (possibly) Turner adding in a background layer). Pseudo-mythical modulations ascend and descend masterfully – imagine Ransom first exploring Malacandra (an Out Of This Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis reference), or the space sequence in the 1950 film, Destination Moon. There are echoes of Andreas Vollenweider too. The Balil style countermelodies and light airy synths interplay with the heavier reverb-laden keys – it is a magnificently poignant closer.
Spanners is a work of subtly in both melody and rhythm. Take the lithe key flourishes on Pot Noddle, ceilinged by the quiet clarion of higher synths; the guitar is indistinct, and the rhythm section almost organic. Fast forward to the sounds of Four Tet. The start-stop breakbeats we heard on Further Harm, albeit slower. The frantic ‘western saloon piano’ sample serves as a mid-point alarm clock. End of Time thunderously drums around penetrating synthetics. It is punchy, echoing the head nodding thrums of Fight the Hits (Discordian Popes) on Bytes. It is also trancey, and chaotically space-like (imagine the Starship Enterprise on an intentional suicide mission!). The time-warping synths are magnificent and reminiscent of early Black Dog tracks like Ambience With Teeth and Virtual, both released on the Virtual EP (Black Dog Productions, April 1989).
The skits Bolt 1 – 7 appear at varying intervals on Spanners. Some are simply white noise and filtered static, others almost wheezy. Their purpose is unknown – are they the voices of pulsars, or the sounds one would experience in the belly of an exploratory spaceship? Bolt 3 harks back at the Phrygian Psil-Cosyin and the chaotic goblet drum effect that thrums on Chase The Manhattan. Bolt 7 slides into obliquity, and onwards to Frisbee Skip. Listening to the Bolt skits again, their darker and more intense aesthetic share a similarity to Allegory 1 [Red], which Downie et al dropped in 2020. The third track on that release – Bar 331 – is metallic and off-key, an eerie transmission that has resurfaced 25-years later. Unlike the Phil interludes on Bytes, which serve as key intros and outros and transitions between certain tracks, the Bolt skits feel more like aural non-sequiturs. After listening to them again, they remind us of the more experimental segments of tracks we would hear on later Plaid albums such as Rest Proof Clockwork (Warp, June 1999) and Double Figure (Warp, May 2001).
Perhaps due to it being released on General Production Recordings rather than Warp, we consider it interesting that The Black Dog’s second album – Temple Of Transparent Balls – has not been reissued. It split their audience down the middle. We still enjoy listening to the ‘progenitor’, almost stock sounds that feature on that release. It had a machine-like quality, an insight into the deeper engineering works of IDM: a sonic forge with the anvil strikes on display.
On Spanners and Temple Of Transparent Balls, Downie’s approach and sound is definitely more unpredictable and harder to pin down than the Plaidsters’ experimentations and manipulation. We feel that the Plaid duo provide the two Black Dog albums‡ with less experimentation and a lot of the more conventional beat-work, basslines and melodic structure that would soon form the foundations of their Warp-era work, whilst Downie, the aforementioned wild-card of the trio, added in an off-the-cuff sample here, some industrial Meat Beat Manifesto-esque breakbeats there, or some bizarre and dissonant sound effects out of nowhere. He also seems to be the more cinematic of the three; his sounds are often themed on science fiction, and past and future landscapes.
So, in 2023, where do Bytes and Spanners sit in the pantheon of intelligent dance music? Well, Handley, Turner and Downie are rightly the archetypes of the IDM sound in the same way that Richard D. James (as The Dice Man), B12 (as Musicology), Autechre and Alex Paterson (as Dr Alex Paterson) are by their participation on the first Artificial Intelligence release. Having been forged out of the molten ambient techno and fiery rave scenes, the joy in returning to Bytes has been its rhythmic experimentation. Although not perfect, Spanners achieved what it set out to do. It is expansive, and labyrinthine – it washed away the harsh melodia of Detroit techno to toy with its listeners.
After the synergy, the separation. We are left with The Black Dog Mk.2 (Downie and the Dust brothers) and Plaid. The subsequent releases of The Black Dog marked a departure in sound in some regards, yet their output remains as heterogenous and experimental as it did all those years ago. The ambience of Music For Photographers (2021) is one for the musical aesthetes of this world; as an album inspired by the slab-grey brutality of the concrete architecture of Sheffield, it is wonderfully light.
The work of Turner and Handley continued as the dynamic Plaid. The duo would go on to become a permanent fixture with electronic giants Warp, starting with the ambitious and guest-heavy Not For Threes in 1997, consistently putting out records with the label to this day, a very impressive feat indeed. But how does Spanners fit in with Plaid’s break-away from The Black Dog? From what we can hear on Spanners, Plaid had become an almost-finished article with both members Handley and Turner comfortable in their respective roles. Handley clearly had already found his niche as the melodic heart of the group under his Balil alias on Parasight EP (Rising High Records, November 1993) and Bytes. We hear this consistently again and again on the most melodic segments on Spanners. By this point, Turner had also spread his wings under the Tura alias, switching to this from Atypic around 1994 (his work as Tura can be heard on the earlier-mentioned Trainer). This cemented his role as the more technical of the two: a master of infectious basslines, staccatic synths and dissonant zaps. Interestingly, Handley and Turner’s decision to move on as a duo also led to them re-embracing the genre-bending experimentalism that marked their earliest Plaid material, particularly Mbuki Mvuki. Nevertheless, no matter what sub-genre they would delve into on subsequent albums, Bytes and Spanners provided the blueprint for what would become Plaid’s core sound.
Those who listen to Bytes and Spanners in the present day will enter a sonic-time capsule: a time when a new world was burgeoned upon the drawing of the hip hop, electro and early Detroit techno influences of the late 1980s. This was a time of innovation, and deeply intelligent composition.
Footnotes:
* On the original Bytes release, this opening was actually an interlude titled Phil(7), the final of the Phil interludes. These interludes (mysteriously credited to Echo Mike, a handle to whom the identity has never been revealed) are not listed as separate tracks on the re-issue, yet they are vital elements ensuring that Bytes as an album works as a cohesive whole.
† This feels like something from Plaid’s 1989–1992 phase when they were experimenting with different sounds and styles, particularly hip-hop, early ‘90s industrial-breakbeat and house. These styles are also evident on the early EPs of The Black Dog.
‡ We are careful not to classify Bytes as a Black Dog album as it was released under Black Dog Productions, the name of their label, and a sort of holding company of all three members of the group’s respective aliases. We have also been careful in differentiating between this and The Black Dog which was the name used for their group efforts as a trio.
THE KING OF NO-FI BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA REVIEWS ANOTHER HAUL OF NEW AND UPCOMING RELEASES FOR THE MONOLITH COCKTAIl. (Unless stated otherwise, all releases are available at time of publication)
/SINGLES\
Tearless Life ‘Conversations With Angels’
(Other Voices Records)
The debut single from The Tearless Life and a strange thing it is indeed; part post-punk gothitude, part Harry Styles: maybe they should have called themselves Boy Division. It is a quite interesting and enjoyable pop single and is blanketed in a summer warmth that captures the long lost summer radio evenings of Radio one, when Kid Jenson and Janice Long used to entertain us whilst waiting for the stranger sounds from John Peel. And the B-side does not half remind me of Julian Cope in one of his stranger pop explosions of leather flying pants glory. A quite wonderful pairing.
Candid Faces ‘Coming Home’
(Warren Faces)
Every week I seem to have an email box full up of great guitar music by young bands. Sadly I cannot write about them all, so Candid Faces are one of the chosen ones in this month’s round up. And as I have just written, they are young, full of life and humour, vim and vigour, and are blessed with a pop nonchalance that I very much approve of. I’m very sure they will be riding the waves of success when the damn breaks and guitar music will once again become a musical mainstream necessity.
Hydroplane ‘Stars (Twilight Mix)’
(World Of Echo)
A sweet twee last dance of a song, all heavenly bobby socks melodies chiming Buddy Holly guitars and the taste of the end or the beginning of first love; the sound of the ending of innocent wishes and kisses and a rather beautiful thing it all is too.
Slow Pulp ‘Doubt’
(ANTI-)
Slow Pulp’s ‘Doubt’ is an enjoyable little indie rock/emo pop song that my daughter seemed to enjoy. As I was listening to the track she asked what and who it was, and is now considering going to watch them at Jimmys in Liverpool in November. So they must be doing something right, and is nice to know that music still reaches out and touches the souls and inspires youngsters to go out and have a good night with friends. The power and emotional pull of music will never subside.
\ALBUMS-EPS/
Liam Gallagher ‘Live At Knebworth 22’
11th August 2023
Ok, people who know anything about me know that I’m really not an Oasis fan. I find them extremely over-rated and I think they put guitar music back 30 years with their unimaginative paint by numbers guitar sludge. They made it fashionable to be average and beige, and to make mock ‘n’ roll music. For real rock ‘n’ roll has a spirit; a sexiness; a taste of adventure that Oasis songs really do not have: they have as much danger as watching an episode of Hollyoaks.
So I admit I wasn’t expecting to really like this album much. And for once I was right: I really do not like this album at all. It has all the lack of qualities that Oasis had. It is of course Liam Gallagher‘s triumphant return to Knebworth in all its paint by numbers glory. Liam standing bow legged like he has a full nappy singing in his voice like he has just been told off by his mum, backed by a band who knows all the right chords and are played in all the right order with no deviation from the recorded and released versions. Half the songs are Oasis classics (if classics is the right word for songs of such stodgy lack of glamour), but at least they have a melody unlike the other half of the album made up of highlights from his solo albums – again, highlight might not be the right word as the highlight of a Liam album is the last bar of the last song on it. I know people will say Liam must be good because he sold out Knebworth so many times and all these people went to watch him. Yes indeed, but remember people also pay to watch Golf.
Is there anything good I can say about this album? Well actually I can find two things. The first is it does not have a version of ‘Little James’ on it, which is the worst song ever written by a grown up, and the second thing, is at least it is not a Noel Gallagher solo album, which would take tedium to new highs: or would that be lows. So an album to be avoided by all: even if you are an Oasis fan. You might as well listen to your already cherished copies of the studio albums as there is nothing different here, just the same old sameness.
Mick Harvey and Amanda Acevedo ‘Phantasmagoria In Blue’
(Mute) 1st September 2023
Phantasmagoria In Blue is an album of sweeping lush duets between a man and a woman; mostly covers with a couple of originals thrown in. An old and wonderful concept that has done many times before, but a concept that I for one never tire of, as I never grow tired of renditions of ‘Songs For The Siren’. For yes there is another version on Phantasmagoria In Blue, and a fine version it is, swathed in beauty and strings and conjuring up images of windswept lovers meeting on winter beaches with the ocean whispering sweet truths and wishful wants.
The whole album in fact is one long journey; one long story that sets a mood and for the length of the album never loses that mood; an album of romantic redemption; an album to lose yourself in with the partner of your choice or one to soundtrack the unforgiving beauty of loneliness.
Craig Fortnam ‘Ruins In Time EP’
(Believer’s Roast)
Late 60s early 70s psych folk vibes abound with this rather spiffing three-piece slice of Bandcamp magic. From the excellent opener, the Syd Barrett like ‘Shepard’s On The Lawn’, through to the second and my fave of the three, the rather beautiful folky ‘Ruins In Time’ – which had me wondering where I have left my ‘A Game For All To Play Boxset’ – these tracks really do take you back to a much gentler and magical time. The only bad point about this EP is that it not an album.
Funeral Cake ‘One Funny Place EP’
(Dandy Boy Records)
Does anyone out there want a slice of Funeral Cake? A 4 track EP of fuzzy guitar pop and tuneful melodies, that sounds a lot like those pesky Primitives; yes, that band from the 80s that held our pop hearts in their hands and juggled and performed various holiday fairylike tricks with it sprinkling sparkle dust over the pesky blighter. Yes indeed, the Funeral Cake carry the same magic, the same pop suss, the same melodious let-me-tickle-your-funny-bones-and-make-your-day-a-sunny-treat. Yes, Funeral Cake are popadelica: a real treat for you.
DOMINIC VALVONA’S MONTHLY RECCOMEDNATIONS AND DISCOVERIES
(Photo credit: Ben Semisch, courtesy of Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts)
Jaimie Branch ‘Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((word war))’
(International Anthem) 25th August 2023
As an unwittingly last will and testament, the late experimental trumpeter Jaimie Branch’s final led album with her Fly Or Die ensemble is a beautiful collision of ideas and worldly fusions that pushes and pulls but never comes unstuck. In fact, despite the “world war” suffix backdrop this album of both hollered and more disarming protestation colourfully embraces the melodic, the groove and even the playful.
Whilst the “avant-garde” label sticks, this rambunctious, more ambitious, more demanding minor opus flows and swings to a polygenesis mix of spiritual, conscious, Afro, Latin and Ethio-jazz, the great American songbook, no wave, noise and the psychedelic. And yet, on the other hand, is almost punk in attitude; a sort of anything goes in the pursuit of the message: an embodiment of challenging the boundaries.
In light of her untimely death at the age of just thirty-nine last year (the release of this album tying in with the first anniversary of her passing), this incredible statement can be read as a sonic monument; a legacy project left behind as a blueprint for a whole movement. The lyrics to the actionist rumpus ‘Burning Grey’, delivered more like Ariel Up or Polystyrene, to a swinging protest march of Phil Cohran, the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra and Cab Calloway, seem almost prophetic: “Wish I had the time” and the lasting sign-off, “Don’t forget to fight”.
The final album is one Branch would recognize; more or less musically complete, recorded as it was back in April of 2022 during an artist residency at the Bemis Center For Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska. However, Branch’s sister Kate and a cast of collaborators rallied round to finish the artwork and production; the final article a proud achievement encouraged on by well-wishers and friends alike.
Alongside “Breezy” Branch, who not only masters the trumpet but pushes her voice like never before and picks up on the percussion and some keys, is her stalwart troupe of Lester St. Louis (cello, flute, keys, marimba and voice), Jason Ajemian (double bass, electric bass, marimba and voice), and Chad Taylor (bells, drums, mbira, timpani and, you guessed it, marimba). That quartet is expanded further by an array of guests, including a trio of notable Chicago-hailed innovators (the city, one of Branch’s biggest influences and home for a period), the arranger/composer/engineer/trombonist Nick Broste, musician/vocalist Akenya Seymour and fellow International Anthem label mate, the drummer Daniel Villarreal (he released his debut, Panama ’77 on the imprint last year). Rounding that worthy impressive list off is the American multi-instrumentalist, Cave/Exo Planet/Circuit des Yeux (the list goes on) instigator Rob Frye.
Not so much a surprise, the album opens with a sort of stained glass bathed organ overture: part the afflatus, part pastoral hallowed ELP, part new age kosmische. A roll of bounded controlled thunder and gravitas is added to a crystal bellow and squeeze of radiant notes and the thinly pressured valves of Branch’s trumpet, which makes a brief appearance after the Ariel Kalma-like transcendence. ‘Aurora Rising’ lays down a short ceremonial communion with nature’s light before changing gear and spheres of influence. ‘Borealis Dancing’ now adds Mulatu Astake Ethio-jazz, a touch of Fela Kuti, Don Cherry and Yazz Ahmed to the ephemeral Northern Lights show as Branch toots long and softly at first before changing to higher pitch shrills. The rhythm, timing changes at the halfway mark towards a slinking groove of funk and Afro-jazz, the trumpet now cupped and echoing.
By the fourth track, ‘The Mountain’, there’s a complete sea change in mood, direction as Branch and her foils transform The Meat Puppets quickened country yin ‘Comin’ Down’. A dueting Branch and Ajemian bring it back home (so to speak) to the Ozarks and Appalachians via Paul Simon, Dylan, 60s West Coast troubadour traditions and a reimagined Sun Records. A brassy-sounded trumpet repeats the tone and springy country vocals as a gurgle of drawn-out cello plays a more somber rumination of hardy travail. To be honest, I was unaware of The Meat Puppets original, but this is a welcome meander in a different direction.
A full lineup joins in on the marimba heavy carnival turn mysterious swamp ether ‘Baba Louie’. Francis Bebey swerves to Satchmo New Orleans, whilst taking a dance around Masekela’s Soweto on a bustled bounce of joy and triumph, before succumbing to the voodoo psychedelic vapours; enticed by a cooing R&B flavoured misty Seymour. This bleeds into the bluegrass fiddled stirrings of ‘Bolinko Bass’, another Orleans evoked, almost regimental drummed bayou Mardi Gras of David Byrne, Funk Ark and Phil Ranelin. Almost mournful, ‘And Kuma Walks’ is more bluesy sounding, yet estranged at the same time; skulking amongst the spirits as someone saws through a fiddle as the trumpet aches in elegiac plaint.
Single, ‘Take Over The World’ is a hyped-up rattle and untethered excitement of no wave, punk jazz. Branch repeats a wild mantra and plays a burning bright thrill of trumpeted blasts whilst a controlled chaos spins all around her. Protest and partying converge for an electrifying, and later on, psychedelic bending stretched act of defiance.
The album ends by simmering down to a period of Afro-spiritual lament and reflection, on the sloganist berating ‘World War (Repirse)’. There’s serious bowed strings, trilled and forewarned trumpet, a sustained organ and windy, desolate enacted atmosphere on this weary actionist swan song: Branch urging caution at “false flags” and encouraging the fight.
For me Branch’s main instrument burns bright, and yet never seems to dominate, lead or overstay its welcome at any point on the album. Not for nothing is her own quote of “…meaning every note”, with not one rasp, trill, toot and cycle out of place; nothing is pushed but just felt and right at that moment. It feels to me, despite such a rich and diverse back catalogue, that Branch had so much more to give, her best still to come. And her gift was not just in crossing and mixing styles, influences, but also in pushing others to reach their own full potential as musicians. Fly Or Die Fly Or Die Fly Or Die ((word war)) is an accomplished album that channels the legacies of Chicago, New Orleans and New York to create an eclectic modern adventure in protest jazz.
Knoel Scott Ft. Marshall Allen ‘Celestial’
(Night Dreamers)
A leading light in the Sun Ra cosmology since auditioning for the Saturn jazz ambassador’s famous Arkestra ensemble in 1979, the baritone saxophonist, composer, vocalist and, when the occasion arises, dancer Knoel Scott amasses a lifetime of experience and musicianship on his debut solo-headed album. I say debut and solo, and without the extension of his previous KS Quintet named release, but the reeds specialist shares his Celestial project title with the Arkestra’s freeform progenitor, Marshall Allen.
Allen’s relationship with Sun Ra, on an album positively radiant and lunar with his guardianship and influence, goes back much further than Knoels; a stalwart since the ensemble’s formation in the 1950s, leading the troupe, the baton passed down as it were, after the cosmic Afrofuturist titan’s death in 1993. Unbelievably still in fine fettle, despite almost celebrating his centenary (that’s next May by the way), the avant-garde, inter-dimensional alto saxophonist, flutist, oboe, piccolo and EWI (that’s Electronic Wood Instrument) synthesist can be heard lending the latter’s strange sci-fi arcs, bends and space dust to the album’s title-track. It’s unsurprising to find that ‘Celestial’ has all the hallmarks of Ra too, written as it was originally with strings for the Arkestra, but never recorded.
The Arkestra family is extensive with celestial poetry taken from the late Arnold “Arto” Jenkins, recited on this universal lullaby. Art stuck with the Arkestra for thirty-six years, right up until his death in 2012. You can hear him and his “space megaphone” delivered offerings to the galaxy on Secrets Of The Sun, way back in 1962. As a homage to that universal-spiritualist’s wanton guidance, Knoel trips the radiant light fantastic, giving praise to the wisdom of the ancients and star people on a seeker’s performance of UFO oscillations, serenaded sentiments and dreamy translucence. It sounds like Cab Calloway and 50s wings being beamed up into Sun Ra’s off-world paradise.
The influence continues with the presence of the Paris scene stalwart and multifaceted (from Dancehall to Makossa, and of course jazz) drummer Chris Henderson, who’s experiences lend a both studied and more untethered freeform feel that moves between swing, big band, Latin, bop and the experimental.
This however is an inter-generational album, with fresher faces of the London scene, the very much in-demand UK keyboardist and versatile pianist Charlie Stacey and Verona-bred electric bassist and oft Arkestra and Knoel Quartet foil, Mikele Montolli. Hailed, quite rightly, as an advanced player, able to adapt to a wealth of styles, Stacey’s touch can evoke the best of those sublime 50s Blue Note recordings, touches of Oscar Peterson and Allen collaborator Terry Adams. The piano both flows with a tinkled busy lightness or strikes the heightened and jarring near-dissonance of freeform jazz; a descending off-tune part here, Cuban show time and bluesy or smoky lounge parts elsewhere: Unstated, yet moving along the action, or taking a soft stroll down the scales.
It’s another musician, part of the luminary brethren, that inspires the Afro-Cuban via Saturn’s rings ‘Makanda’. Paying tribute to a late mentor, Dr. Ken “Makanda” McIntyre, Knoel cooks up a Latin flavoured cool breeze of Havana, Harold Land vibes and R&B grooves: all undulated by sci-fi warbles and flits. A pivotal figure and influence for Knoel, “Makanda” (a name bestowed upon the reeds maestro and composer when playing in Africa, it translates from the Ndekele language as “many skins”, and in the Shona as “many heads”) founded the first ever African American music program in the States in 1971, and had worked with such notable talent as Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor and Nat Adderlay. Knoel and friends up the funk and balmy rhythms on this soulful homage to the late great man.
On his part, Knoel’s saxophone squawks, strains, honks and squeaks, and yet also serenades: even soothes. Wilder higher registered beak pecks turn into a near chaos, a cacophony, on the improvisation piece ‘Conversation With The Cosmos’. Coltrane, Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton wail in zero gravity, whilst those wild rasps feel almost smoldering and lounge-like on the final mid paced twelve-bar slinky ‘Blu Blues’.
What a stellar set from the Arkestra acolyte, the Marshall and inner circle; and well done to the Night Dreamers for coaxing out this cosmic marvel. The process if you’re new to this label project, is to record the performances direct to tape before cutting on a Sally lathe the final vinyl artifact. In mono, recorded in an analogue studio, the sound is alive, inviting and, well, “celestial”. The experience speaks, communicates, and pushes the perimeters on every note, as a culmination of African American jazz styles are attuned to the stars.
Andrew Hung ‘Deliverance’
(Lex Records) 11th August 2023
With pain, suffering and anguish former Fuck Buttons trick noise maker Andrew Hung finds a cathartic release on his third solo outing, Deliverance. But as that title suggest, the anxieties and sense of isolation and belonging now seem to have slowly dissipated as Hung feels he’s been delivered from the morose and dark fog of depression; although there’s plenty of broody, moody despair and darkened thoughts to wade through before catching the light of hope.
Hope, being set free, the constantly developing artist and producer does seem to have found his creative peace; likening this album to “the end of the chrysalis stage, like breaking free from a previous life.” Not so much reincarnation as a new incarnation, pushed on during lockdowns to mine the deep well of his soul, to face regrets and failings, but also find what’s missing.
An act of self-realization perhaps, Hung conducts a therapeutic session both unflinching and revealing. If the lyrics of ‘Don’t Believe It Now’ are anything to go by, thoughts and mental anguish at one point were truly dark. However, that filtered vapour counters the resigned with a reviving build up. And on the opening tunneled, Sister Bliss and Underworld like, moody turn freedom spin, ‘Ocean Mouth’, Hung faces a list of disappointing traits head on: Almost like taking a breath as the Robert Smith-like palpitations and rave-y Bloc Party velocity of the production avoids suffocation and gravitates towards the techno cathedral of light. Submerged at every turn with recurring references to water, Hung swims and navigates the torrents and tides to find a number of revelations about himself: conquering fear.
The previous solo album, Devastations (a choice album no less in my end of year lists for 2021) looked to the cosmos with a propulsion of electronic, kosmische, motorik, Madchester and synth pop influences, and featured Hung the self-taught singer evoking a mix of Robert Smith (some very cure-esque touches musically too), Karl Hyde, Mark Hollis and The Cry’s Kim Berly. More distressed, gasping and wrenching Hung takes some of those same influences forward on Deliverance, whilst also seeming to whip up a touch of Minny Pops, New Order, Soft Cell and John Foxx on the struggles of isolation and need to belong themed neo-romantic ‘Find Out’.
In another honest cycle of shedding shame and casting away the pain in favour of finding that alluded love “saturation”, ‘Never Be The Same’ builds from synthesized drum pad elements of the 80s German new wave, Factory Records and industrial synth-pop into another unshackled escape towards the light of revelation. I’d throw in Martin Dupont, Tears For Fears and Yazoo to that both pumped and vapourous mix.
Floundering no more, Hung looks to have found his place, his voice too. Deliverance finds him channeling his lamentable, pained, and unsure emotions into something positive and bright with another candid confessional solo album of rave-y synth-pop indie brilliance.
Various ‘Intended Consequences’
(Apranik Records)
With a hellish multitude of flashpoints and distractions across the globe keeping the continuing fight for women’s liberation in Iran off the news rolls, it has become apparent that the Iranians themselves have been left to carry on the struggle with little support. In an ongoing war between the forces of the authoritarian religious state and a younger generation demanding an end to the erosions of there civil liberties and freedoms, the crisis in the country entered a dark bloody chapter last year with the murder in custody of Masha Zhina Amini by the “morality police”.
After a rightful campaign of protest and action at such a heinous crime, a brutal crackdown by the state led to mass arrests and even executions (mostly of male supporters, activists, and usually on trumped up charges). Further restrictions were invoked. And just as horrifying, in the last year, and right up to the last few months, there has been a nationwide spate of deliberate poisonings of schoolgirls (one of the groups who mobilized against the authorities in the wake of Amini’s cruel death) on mass. Defiant still, even in the face of such oppression, the brave women of Iran have strengthened their resolve only further.
In the face of such attacks, clampdowns, the music scene has responded with a strong message of resistance and solidarity. Despite everything, cities like the capital of Tehran have a strong music scene of contemporary artists, composers, DJs and performers working across all mediums, including art (which is probably why so much of the music is also so visceral, descriptive and evocative of imagery). One such collaborative force of advocates, AIDA and Nesa Azadikhah, co-founded the Apranik Records label, a platform for female empowerment. Following this year’s earlier Women Life Freedom compilation, a second spotlight volume delves further into not only the Tehran scene but picks out choice tracks from those female Iranians working outside the country, in such epicenters as London (AZADI.mp3) and Berlin (Ava Irandoost).
Sonic wise it covers everything from d’n’b, trance, deep house and techno to sound art experimentation. The range of moods is just as diverse in that respect, from restlessness to the reflective and chaotic.
Contributions from both Azadikhah (the hand drum rattled d’n’b breaks and spacy, airy trance ‘Perpetual’) and AIDA (the submerged melodious and dreamy techno ‘Ode To Expectations’, which features the final love-predicament film sample, “You know that I love you, I really do. But I have to look after myself too.”) can be found alongside a burgeoning talent pool. The already mentioned London-based producer and singer AZADI.mp3 opens this collection with a filtered female chorus of collective mantra protest, set to a sort of R&B, 2-step and bass throbbed production, on ‘Empty Platform’– just one of many tracks that uses the sounds of a more traditional Iran, especially the daf drum, alongside modern and futuristic warped effects. The sound artist and composer Rojin Sharafi likewise features the rattled rhythms of hand drums and some hidden spindled instrument – like running a stick across railings – on her entrancing kinetic techno ritual of “trauma”, ‘dbkk’.
Abji_hypersun allows the sounds of the environment to seep into her slow-building track of field recordings, collage and breaks (two-stroke scooters buzz by as distant female conversations reverberate on the street). Part jungle breaks pirate radio, part Matthew David, Jon The Dentist and LTJ Bukem, ‘Resist The God Trick’ evokes a tunneled vision of haunted reminisces and resistance in the shadows.
Emsho’s ‘Down Time’ is a rotor-bladed electro mix of Basic Channel and The Chemical Brothers, and Aida Shirazi’s mysterious wind of dark meta ‘R.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N’ spells out the rage with a shadowy, near daemonic scripture of wrath and revenge – a gothic synth sinister avenging angel promises that the women of Iran will neither “forget” nor “forgive” their oppressors, torturers and murderers. Farzané seems to evoke the alien, the sci-fi on her experimental, sometimes disturbing dial twisting and crackled ‘Quori’ transmission, and the Berlin-based DJ, video artist and music producer Ava Irandoost draws on Laraaji-like dulcimer tones for her dream mirrored kosmische evocation ‘CINEREOUS’. The Tehran composer, pianist and bassist Ava Rasti draws a close to the compilation with a classical-tinged, harmonic ringed, saddened piano-lingering performance, entitled ‘Eight Night’ – an atmospheric troubled trauma is encapsulated with the deftest of touches.
It might be my own nostalgic penchant for 90s electronic music (my formative years of course), but this series (if we can call it that) could be an Iranian version of the Trance Europe Express compilations brought out during that decade; a treasure trove of discoveries and whole scenes that opened up a world of previously unknown music to many of us not living in the epicenters of North America, the UK and Europe and beyond. Hopefully this latest platform of innovative artists from across the arts will draw the attention it deserves; the message hardly virtuous, in your face, but sophisticated: the very act of female Iranians making a name for themselves despite censorship and bans a sign of empowerment and resistance in itself. Few groups deserve our support (which in the West has been sadly absent) more, but don’t just purchase for the cause but for the musical strives being awakened and produced under tyrannical oppression, and because this is a solid collection of great electronic music.
Nagat ‘Eyoun El Alb’
(WEWANTSOUNDS) 25th August 2023
Renowned as one of the greatest, most exceptional voices to have emerged from the golden 40s/50s/60s epoch of Egyptian and the greater Arabian songstresses and divas, Nagat El Seghirah was a rightly revered performer, who’s career spanned more than half a century.
Even in an age rich with accomplished, influential and groundbreaking singers Nagat held her own against such icons as Oum Kalthoum, Fairuz, Warda and perhaps the most celebrated of the lot, the anointed “voice of Egypt” Umm Kulthum. The latter, hailed the “star of the east”, was an influence on the early starter during the burgeoning years of imitation, when Nagat was a child, barely in her teens. Her affectionate appellation, “El Seghirah” or “El Sagheera”, can be translated as “the small”, “the young”, and marks the singer, performer and film star’s young apprenticeship; from entertaining the notable guests that gathered at her father’s (the famed calligrapher Mohamad Hosny) home at the age of five onwards, to her first role in cinema at the age of eight, starring in the 1947 film Hadiya. Hosny was known to push his extensive brood of children from two marriages, sometimes excessively, into various creative careers: Nagat’s half-sister was the famous actress Soad Hosny, her older brother, Ezz Eddin Hosni, a notable composer who helped her own development and natural talent.
During those initial years of development Nagat would interpret songs by such legendary figures as Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Baligh Hamdy and Kamal Al Taweel, but would find both her true and distinctive voice when interpreting the work of the Syrian diplomat-poet Nizar Qabbani. She gained adulation and fans after performing the esteemed poet’s tragic ‘Irja Ilyya’ (“Return To Me”), which is based on his sister who committed suicide rather than enter into an arranged marriage. Plaintive, stark, it rightly struck a chord with the public at the time, with its feminist lyrics and spotlight on forced marriages. It would be become a torchlight for freedom and injustice, with Nagat adding her own improvised original lines during the 1970s.
Born in 1938 but already gaining plaudits by the end of the next decade, into the next, Nagat released her first actual song ‘Why Don’t You Allow Me To Love You’ in 1955; the year she would also be married, for the first time, to a friend of one of her brothers: still only sixteen. It’s no surprise, although in no way a forced marriage, that she could, with a commanding voice, perform Qabbani’s tragedy. That marriage would only last however until the turn of the 1960s; when Nagat went on to marry the Egyptian film director Houssam El-din Mustafa in 1967 (a marriage that lasted an even shorter time). Nagat would remain, in fact seeing as she is still alive, in her eighties, remains unmarried. In recent years, since her singing retirement over twenty years ago, living a semi-reclusive life in Cairo but in poor health, there’s been some contact, even projects floated. Only last year she was featured on the official soundtrack for the streaming service series Moon Knight.
From concert to soundstage with starring roles in the films Black Candles, Beach Of Fun, My Dear Daughter and Dried Tears, Nagat gradually moved from shorter songs to ever more lengthy performances, some of which would last an hour. As time went on the songstress actress would find it harder to find those inspired works to perform. Retiring from film in 1976, Nagat would still persevere with music. And by the time she reached her early forties, in the 1980s, would release this four-track showcase of matured talented performances entitled Eyoun El Alb.
Originally brought out exclusively on cassette (like so much of the Egyptian music market), forty odd years later the reissue vinyl specialists of impeccable tastes (releasing a myriad of jazz titles and nuggets from across the Arabian world and Japan), WEWANTSOUNDS in conjunction with the Arabia and North African crate-digger Disco Abrabesquo (the moniker of the Egyptian, Amsterdam-residing DJ, Moataz Rageb), have pressed it onto vinyl for the first time. If you are a regular reader, or in fact a regular WWS’s follower and buyer, then you will be aware of that label’s previous collaboration with DA, last year’s (although they’ve also released a smattering of Egyptian focused records too over the years) Sharayet El Disco compilation. One notable inclusion on that eye-opening compilation (reviewed by me in May’s Perusal column) was from the legendary Al Massrieen. A much sought after recording outfit, the group’s Hany Shenouda produced the scenic, romantic ‘Ana Bashaa El Bahr’ (or “I Adore The Sea”) finale on this Nagat album. Adoration and yearned dreaminess for a place and time are evoked to Shenouda’s trebly near-psych tremolo guitar and light hand drum patters. Alongside the more lilting and fluted ‘Bahlam Meeak’ (“I Dream With You”), this is one of those examples of Nagat’s shortened form of storytelling romance and heartache. ‘Bahlam Meeak’ is also an example of Nagat’s more lightened, honeyed approach to what is a tinkled serenaded, wafted vision of blossom scented sand dune balladry. It evokes the music of Bacharach and the cool soundtracks of early 60s French and Italian new wave cinema.
Taking up the entirety of Side One, there’s the long form titular performance of heightened drama and searing swirled strings oboe and scuffled trinkets. Over eighteen-minutes of longed romantic gestures, the action pauses repeatedly between undefined sections; allowing the auditorium audience to show its appreciation, encouragement, which they do constantly, even when the music starts back up again. On a Matinee scale, this mini-story, unveiling of lovelorn exultations, but vulnerability and occasional lament, moves like a desert caravan across an Egyptian set, or, sumptuously glides into a Persian court. A fantastic display of sagacious craft, Nagat’s voice never has to rise or push to convey a class piece of theatre and effective yearn of love.
Only half that duration, but still a long track, ‘Fakru’ (“Do You Remember”) is a rumination; the vibrating pools of memoary reflected in the dreamy wobbled effects that permeate this fluctuating lead vocal delivery and prompting chorus of female voices. Classical Cairo, there’s a chink and tinkle of percussion and shimmy-shaking, belly dancing rhythm that luxuriantly accompanies a yearning poetic and sometimes coquettish Nagat on her reminisces. As I said already, this album represents various sides of the enchanting, soulful and also distinctive icon’s vocal presence and range. The long and short: the unmistakable sound of Egypt, but also those influences from abroad too, are melded together on a classy piece of cinematic and poetic mastery. Make room again on those creaking shelving units for another vinyl addition to the collection.
CHELA ‘Diagonal Drift’
(Echodelick – USA, We Here & Now – CA, Ramble Records – Aus, Worst Bassist Records – EU)
In communion with his long-time friend and collaborative foil in the University Challenged trio (alongside Oli Heffernan) Kohhei Matsuda, Ajay Saggar extends his blessed travels along the astral highways and byways with a new venture, CHELA.
Absorbed, imbued and inspired by Indian spiritualism, history and travails, its psychogeography and trauma, both partners in the new direction come together under the Sanskrit word for “disciple”; taken from the verb and root “to serve”, the “Chela” is similar in concept to a student, but implies a more loyal closeness with their teacher. In Hinduism this bond is considered sacred: An apt moniker for such inter-dimensional, afflatus dreamers and acolytes of raga, the new age, psychedlia and kosmische music.
Divine styler Saggar (who is also a member of King Champion Sounds, solos under the Bhajan Bhoy alias, and collaborates with Merinde Verbeck in the Deutsche Ashram duo) and Japanese noisenik Matsuda (most notably a member of the Bo Ningen quartet) spent much of 2022 putting this inaugural baptism together. And so with dedication to their art, the duo have sonically and melodically taken time, given depth to their new mysterious broadcast; that is, broadcasts from the ether, supernatural, uncertain, Fortean and cosmic. Different yet not entirely detached from previous incarnations, fans of both artists will pick up on past signatures, sounds and conceptions. However, they’ve managed to realign those same signatures, tuning into the mystical but often with trepidation and a sense that the noisier elements could consume all in their path.
Think Julius Eastman meets Fennesz we’re told; a good succinct summary. But I’d add a hell of a lot more, including Taylor Deupree and a cosmology of cosmic couriers. The opening ripple in the fabric of time, ‘Flyspray’, is an expanded peregrination of Beautifully tinkled Florian Fricke-like piano hauntings, Ariel Kalma and Syrinx new ageism and various Sky Records pioneers (Asmus Tietchens and Riechman spring to mind), all caught up in analogue wispy wind cacophony of divine rays, the esoteric and Eastern drones. Trippy warped reversals and folds, generator and processors nearly overwhelm the vague evocations of Tony Conrad, Schultz and a springy, but also spoke splayed banjo (which in itself seems to vaguely evoke the Balkans, Greece and strangely, India) on the reverberating ‘Appalachjo’.
In what could be a suggestion of “peace” and “harmony”, or reference to the Japanese town, ‘Heiwa’ is a hummed raga-like hymnal. A stand-up barrel-type piano plonks away from the ether, whilst ambient waves and traces of Dyzan invite heavenly reflection. ‘Ticker’ is a very different proposition. An intense chemistry of signals, beeps, quickened arrpegiator, moody signs of Faust and the sound of the Heart Of Darness are melted with Günter Schickert guitar, heavy acid Gong and various calculations.
‘Tanker’ feels like the most obvious attempt to score the sound of the title’s overbearing object; sounding like a alien freighter, both foreboding and mysterious. A scrawl and flapped ripple of radar and sonar bites into a resonating field of drones and sound waves, fog and guitar.
The final, spiritual and otherworldly track, ‘Worship’, features ghostly Indian voices and visitations from an event, service or chapter in time and history. A melodious piano chimes away in wisps of fanned cosmic mystique and cyclonic radio effects, whilst shades of FSOL, King Creosote (From Scotland With Love period) and Boards Of Canada linger. The video is more illuminating, a sepia film of bedside “worship”, healing for a leader, martyr, and a travelling funeral cortege that takes in rows of witnesses moved to touch, or just be in the essence of a distinguished teacher.
Once again with the cosmic and afflatus, Saggar and Matsuda expand their sound further. Diagonal Drift’s transcendental projection is just that, despite the building intensity and uncertainty, the broadcast noise of krautrock and kosmische styled aerial bends and radio tunings. CHELA is another welcome addition to the two artists oeuvre: one more step on the astral journey of mind-expanding experimentation.
Archive spots and now home to the Monolith Cocktail “cross-generational/cross-genre” Social Playlist – Words/Put Together By Dominic Valvona
A new thread, feed for 2023, the Digest pulls together tracks, videos and snippets of new music plus significant archival material and anniversary celebrating albums or artists -sometimes the odd obituary to those we lost on the way. From now on in the Digest will also be home to the regular Social Playlist. This is our imaginary radio show; an eclectic playlist of anniversary celebrating albums, a smattering of recent(ish) tunes and the music I’ve loved or owned from across the decades.
The August edition includes anniversary celebrating spots for both the Rolling Stones 1973 classic Goat’s Head Soup and Faust’s IV albums. There’s also volume 79 of the Social Playlist, with smatterings of class cuts from the late Jane Birkin (this month’s cover start) and Sinéad O’Connor, more anniversary albums and a mix of newish and older choice tunes from every genre possible and corner of the globe.
The Social Playlist #79
Anniversary Albums And Deaths Marked Alongside An Eclectic Mix Of Cross-Generational Music, Newish Tunes And A Few Surprises
Repeating myself, but if this is your first time here, first of all, welcome, and secondly here’s the lowdown on what the Social is:
Just give me two hours of your precious time to expose you to some of the most magical, incredible, eclectic, and freakish music that’s somehow been missed, or not even picked up on the radar. For the Social is my uninterrupted radio show flow of carefully curated music; marking anniversary albums and, sadly, deaths, but also sharing my own favourite discoveries over the decades and a number of new(ish) tracks missed or left out of the blog’s Monthly playlists.
We start of course with the twin tragedies of loss, and the passing of two of the most enigmatic, idiosyncratic and individual artists, Sinéad O’Connor and Jane Birkin. The former, never lost for words and causes, could channel Yeats whilst haranguing the Pope; pontificate on the Irish famine and sing ethereal tenderness like no one else. Sinéad didn’t always get it right (and has said some right old rubbish in her time), but whatever ire was raised her cause and protestations, actions had an impact; her music incredibly moving and evocative. So astonishing a talent, she managed to rile Prince to a state of jealous incandescent (and allegedly) and physical rage after the Irish singer-songwriter covered and pretty much owned the Purple One’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. I never understood her conversion to Islam – what with all its own problematic ideals, scriptures and general feelings towards women – but that was Sinéad, always plowing her own pathway in the world, carrying a lifetime of travails and baggage, pain and anger. The latter of the two, Jane Birkin, was something else entirely. Pretty much destined it seemed and more comfortable with the culture and lifestyle of her adopted France, the coquettish muse enraptured the country’s supreme talent, Serge Gainsbourg – and John Barry before that – , and pretty much became a French deity. A polymath of a sort, from film to of course performing both with Serge and a solo career, she was a fashion icon to generations but above all, eccentrically unique: a true individual in every sense of the word. Both artists leave a great legacy of material behind, of which I’ve merely chosen a smattering of personal favourites.
Anniversary wise, and featured below in more detail, there’s tracks from The Rolling Stones Goats Head Soup and Faust IV. Alongside Stevie Wonder‘s glorious Innervisons, they all celebrate the big 5-0 this year. Alongside them are 40th anniversary nods to Cabaret Voltaire‘s The Crackdown and The Chameleons View From A Hill, plus a 30th acknowledgment to Amorphous Androgynous‘ Tales Of Ephidrina.
Newish tunes this month in the Khalab, Saigon Blue Rain, Laura Agnusdei and Zeus B. Held sit alongside older eclectic tracks from The Nuns, Family Band, Motion Man, Erica Pomerance, Fapardokly, Trends Of Culture, Kuumbia-Toudie Heath, A.B. Crentsil, Bonnie Koloc, Felius Andromeda and more…
ARCHIVE/ANNIVERSARY
Goats Head Soup: recipe for distraction
Taken out of storage, from my original potted history of The Rolling Stones series, another chance to read my concise summary of Goats Head Soup, which is of course 50 years old this year.
As the first Rolling Stones tenure drew to a close and a new epoch approached, the now appellate “Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll band in the world” could look back proudly on a fruitful career – despite the smack, in-fighting and tragedies of course (namely the loss of Brian Jones). From 1962 to ‘72 they’d released ten, mostly, omnivorous and stunning albums and a staggering forty-five singles; many of which didn’t appear on the albums.
Their next stormy chapter would mark the end of their most productive period.
Sounding like a playful allusion to Satanism (again!) or a sub-Saharan delicacy, Goats Head Soup is a strange heady brew that has more in common with Beggars Banquet and Let It Bleed than with their last magnum opus, Exile On Main St.
In an exile funk, arguably of his own making, Richards’ options of residency were limited. Booted-out of France, non-grata for tax purposes in the UK, and out-staying his welcome in the States, it was either the “yodel-leh-hee!” skiing ranges and mountains of Switzerland or…the pleasurable oasis of Jamaica. Yep, Richards and his debacle settled in that winter of 72 upon the island, setting up base at Kingston’s Dynamic Sound Studio.
Remarkably, the evident aroma of the local intoxicates didn’t seem to upset the bands flow; if anything, they wrote and recorded far too many tracks. The old magic returned as Jagger settled down and began strumming the opening chords of the Gram Parsons-esque Winter; a number first conceived during sessions for Sticky Fingers.
Hustling that now synonymous Louisiana drawl and salacious swagger, the album opens with a voodoo raunchy skulk across a St. Louis cemetery on Dancing With Mr. D. Heard crackling and seeping through in a state of efflux, the chiming funk-fried presence of Billy Preston can be heard playing the clavinet on both this nod to mortality and the rest of the LP. Recalled for a second time, alongside Richards’s right-hand sax man and friend BobbyKeys, he joined an exotic mix of percussionists to add a certain reverent tone and mood that sways between the reflective beguilement of 100 Years Ago, and the “urban R&B”Doo Doo Doo Doo Doo (Heartbreaker); a song in which Jagger interweaves the tall tales of a boy mistakenly shot dead by US cops, and a 10 year-old girl who dies of a drug overdose in a sleazy back alley.
Faust ‘Faust IV’: 50 years old and still the sound of the future.
Taken from my original Krautrock series meander through the back catalogues of Popol Vuh, Can, Guru Guru, and of course Faust. Written around 16 years ago.
Nestled snugly in the quaint Oxfordshire countryside, the 16th century converted recording studio known simply and synonymously as The Manor, is up for sale.
This reputable legendary grade 2 listed building has been home to a right motley bunch of bands over its almost forty-year history, and seen some right old carry ons, including a naked Keith Richards running away from an aggrieved shotgun wielding husband, and countless Hieronymus Bosch like depictions of debauchery.
In 1971 Richard Branson brought this country pile and set about renovating it to accommodate a full-on state of the art studio with overnight rooms for bands to decamp, as part of his vision to change the way albums were made.
Up until this time most musicians had to travel to the major cities and record in workman like three-hour sessions, in much the same way that classical musicians did. Branson thought this was all a bit un-rock’n’roll like and arcane, he’d rather send off his bands to more tranquil and inspiring pastures far from the confines of the inner city, somewhere they could work 24 hours on their music without any worries or distractions, with a bed to lay the weary heads upon only a crawls length away.
One of the first artists to record at The Manor, was the rather green 19-year old Mike Oldfield, whose Tubular Bells new age classic single handily bankrolled the entire Virgin Label. Alongside him were groups such as The Bonzo Dog Do-Dah Band, Tangerine Dream and of course the mighty Faust. Later on Queen, XTC, Black Sabbath and Radiohead would all pass through its doors to record singles or LPs.
In 1973 Faust had a sort of partial success from the release of their Faust Tapes album, which carried the publicity stunt ’49p’ mark-up, and sold in abundance, though a whole swathe of the public who purchased it remained bewildered by it. A collection of cutting room floor outtakes and burgeoning ideas, roughly collaged together for release as a sort of interregnum between albums, the Tapes was a buffer for the groups next release proper, Faust IV – the true successor to So Far.
Faust began sessions in the spring, with the band haphazardly jamming new material, racing through ideas at a great speed, yet finding it difficult to settle on any specifics.
In fact a deep dragging feeling of ennui had taken hold, with cracks starting to appear in the dynamics and leadership. Recent touring had jaded them, especially Péron, as they were encouraged to keep to a similar set list of tracks and to tone down the more outrageous behaviour.
Faust weren’t normally used to repeating a performance, having had the luxury of being able to experiment at will, and also being lavished with their very own studio back in Wümme, where they could produce anything they wanted and change when the mood took them.
No. Faust were not used to conventions, which led to the albums sessions being fraught with tension and lethargy, and with Sosna repeatedly calling for his antagonistic fellow band members to slow down and relax a little.
If anyone needed any evidence of their short attention span then you’d only have had to have seen them live, with all their props including a load of TV sets, that may have indicated by their presence as being apparatus for some actionist performance art, but were in fact for the sake of the band in case they got bored – sometimes Zappi would mic them up if anything interesting did come on, jamming along to it in a kind of impromptu sampling session.
Frustrated at a lack of progress after months of work, and feeling constrained, they promptly reverted back to their old ways in antagonistic behaviour and began to waste Virgins money as quickly as they did Polydor’s. Yet it must be said that they did manage to create some really evocative and startling tracks in the village green picturesque landscape of The Manor, with the hypnotic ‘Jennifer’ and raucous ‘Giggy Smile’ amongst them, which both encapsulated the multifaceted angles of the bands sound to that point.
In fact IV is arguably the most balanced and complete LP in their catalogue, with its almost greatest hits sampler conclusive feel and well-rounded overall sound, it brings together the cut-up vignettes from The Faust Tapes and the best song based moments from So Far.
Their time at The Manor wasn’t entirely wasted.
Eventually they managed to produce at least the remunerates of an album, though they still needed a few tracks to finish off. With time running out, they included two good old recordings from the Wümme days, the trance heroics of the affectionately mocking entitled ‘Krautrock’, which had already been played on the John Peel radio show, and the German released single ‘It’s A Bit Of A Pain’. They also reworked the minor segue way ‘Picnic On A Frozen Lake’ from So Far, this time in the guise of an extended assemblage piece and sporting the added suffix of ‘…Deuxieme Tableux’, to finally put a lid on it.
Before it was released to the general public, compatriots and fellow sympathetic musicians had often dropped in to see what was afoot, eagerly looking forward to hearing this new material. Members from the Anglo/French trippers Gong – who shared the billing with Faust for a few concerts – and also Henry Cow – who were inspired by the group – both shared a perplexed and disappointed criticism of the album, feeling it lacked lustre.
Many critics only liked the second side, preferring its more welcoming and polished tones, writing off, as they saw it, the befuddled ‘Krautrock’ and dirge acid haze of ‘Jennifer’.
On the other hand, some fans were very vocal in criticising the record for not being radical enough, and for the more conventional leanings found on some of the tracks.
Faust IV failed to carry on the momentum of their last Virgin release, which sold an impressive 100,000 plus copies, though most people who owned a copy soon wished they hadn’t. Though not a failure, it hardly set the world alight, with its sometimes Pink Floyd psychedelic folk tones and vague lyrical drug fuelled floating excesses, as well as the blank music sheet artwork and workman like title, it did little to inspire.
But hey, lets not be too ingenuous, as it is a remarkable record full of some epic moving moments, and genius ideas – apart from maybe ‘The Sad Skinhead’, which seems to be an exercise in Germanic humour at our expense.
Uwe and the boys soon frustratingly packed their bags and left old Blighty for the Fatherland, where they booked into a Munich studio to record their next album, again the brain storming sessions for album titles can’t have been up to much as they called it Faust V.
Both Irmler and Sosna were supposed to produce this album of improvised recording sessions, but those cracks between the members started to really pull proceedings apart, with tensions running high both in the group and with the label.
Péron and his cohorts booked themselves into a luxury hotel, using the good old ‘We’re with Virgin’ excuse to pass the check-in desk.
After running up an extortionate bill, they decided to do a runner, with the repeat offender Péron acting as getaway driver. Unfortunately the hotels foyer entrance had a concrete post with an attached metal barrier, which they promptly drove straight into. They were then apprehended by the local plod and slung in jail. A rather embarrassing phone call to their parents eventually got them released, but not before a bill for 30,000 DM was flung in their face – they often joked that they’d never ever managed to pay it off.
The eventual album that emerged from the this chaos, was ceremonially turned down flat by Virgin, and only existed as a promotional tape for years, though you can find various versions on CD nowadays.
Faust and Uwe became disillusioned and decided to call it a day, splitting into two factions, who both went on to spasmodically release albums over the next thirty years, and occasionally tour.
The ‘drum and bass’ combo version of Faust, which featured Zappi and Péron, released a seminal return to form album in 2009, to favourable reviews – making it into my very own top albums of 2009 list.
They still manage to show those pesky kids a thing or two, with their uncompromising theatrics and forty plus years of anarchic grizzled moodiness, though there’s always a twinkle in their eye.
REVIEW
Faust waste no time with introductions, instead leaping straight into the twelve-minute throbbing minor opening opus of ‘Krautrock’, which languishes in its profound moniker and delivers on its bombastic arrogance with a snide oft-hand touch of heavy caustic jamming.
Flange and delay bounce around with about being reigned in; creating a dreamy psychosis that draws the listener in with faint promises of reaching some undiscovered and unattainable higher level of knowledge – they wish!
Huge swathes of backward effects and layers of phasered guitars, tambourines and biting bass fall all over the swirling off-kilter timing, which obscures where one bar begins and another ends.
This electric soup of an instrumental is penetrated on all sides by static, blips and radio interference for over seven minutes, before an organ is totally thrashed and Zappi barges his way through the mire with the first sign of drums crashing in on a signature roll.
‘Krautrock’ continues at a pace, with barrages of humming white noise, whilst the backing fades in and out, fooling with our tiny minds.
Faust waste no time with introductions, instead leaping straight into the twelve-minute throbbing minor opening opus of ‘Krautrock’, which languishes in its profound moniker and delivers on its bombastic arrogance with a snide oft-hand touch of heavy caustic jamming.
Flange and delay bounce around with about being reigned in; creating a dreamy psychosis that draws the listener in with faint promises of reaching some undiscovered and unattainable higher level of knowledge – they wish!
Huge swathes of backward effects and layers of phasered guitars, tambourines and biting bass fall all over the swirling off-kilter timing, which obscures where one bar begins and another ends.
This electric soup of an instrumental is penetrated on all sides by static, blips and radio interference for over seven minutes, before an organ is totally thrashed and Zappi barges his way through the mire with the first sign of drums crashing in on a signature roll.
‘Krautrock’ continues at a pace, with barrages of humming white noise, whilst the backing fades in and out, fooling with our tiny minds.
Our voracious crew turn their hand to reggae next, on the track ‘The Sad Skinhead’, albeit a version of the genre that’s uniquely German.
Coming across like Television ironically discovering the attributes of Kingston’s second finest export via a squat in the downtown New York district of Soho, Faust bumble their way through in an embarrassing whiter than white mocking style.
They of course inject some of their very own brand of squelch like cosmic sounds and slightly off-beat rhythms to the song, even going as far as to throw in an indulged burst of insane solo guitar chatter and delightful twinkling away xylophone.
The song’s lyrics further pour scorn on the subject material, taking a barely disdainfully hidden pop at those shaven headed miscreants, whose gestures, choice of street wear and haircut hardly seem to resonate with the music of Jamaica –
‘Apart from all the bad times you gave me,
I always felt good with you.
Going places, smashing faces,
What else could we do?’
Side one closes with, perhaps, one of Faust’s finest recordings, the ethereal chimerical and hypnotising ‘Jennifer’.
A diaphanous pulsating chorus of dreamy biting effects and a series of tom rolls beckon in assiduous waves of floating drifting synths, as a delicate soft toned Syd Barrett, or even Donovon, swoons a quite moving Beatlesque ode amongst the truly startling layers.
The almost acid fueled lyrics consist of only a few lines, yet somehow manage to convey more then enough and make sort of sense –
‘Jennifer your red hairs burning,
Yellow jokes come out of your mind’.
As the track moves into the chorus, of sorts, a descending run gives the flange absorbed backing and timing a slight kick, then returns to that familiar oscillating repetitive echoing theme.
After proceeding along at a numbing intoxicating pace, which sends you off into a relaxed state, the song changes into a more crunching distorted instrumental, that picks up a whole myriad of manic sounds on its journey to shaking us from our stupor.
It all ends with the arrival of an old fashioned barrel organ, that plays some traditional Bavarian tavern tune from a passed epoch in time, before slap dashingly stepping out of synch and exploding in a blaze of fuzz.
Side two opens its account up with the broody, looming and swaggering bass/drums combo introduction of ‘Just A Second’, strutting out from the stereo uninvited and ready to inflict some pain.
Wüsthoff picks out some unremitting piercing notes and displays a care free attitude, by unloading some killer deft guitar riffs of the heavy loaded variety and dropping chords wherever he sees fit – very cool.
Again as with most of these tracks, the mood shifts as swarms of galactic swamp insects converge on the studio, their dangerous white noise buzzing sucking the very life out of the band.
Esoteric atmospherics soon boil over, with a piano being launched down a flight of stairs and into the nightmarish caustic sea of ungodly spirits, whilst the rest of the band are drowned by some lurking macabre atavistic life forms, who emerge from the pool of asperity intent on dragging their prey with them.
Due to some mislabelling confusion, the next track should really be ‘Giggy Smile’ instead of ‘Picinic On A Frozen River, Deuxieme Tableux’ – this mix up appears on the CD versions and may also affect download versions too. Also it must be pointed out that Faust themselves use a different track list on their own site, for reasons of clarity I’m using the version I purchased in 2000.
‘Giggy Smile’ strides along, bouncing on a pumped up constant strafing bass line, which evokes those late 60’s west coast jazz-rock heads.
The vocals are pretty much quaint and jovial, seeming to play around with references to naked Germans and Burroughs own starkly bare lunch, as the guys wax about a certain tease, whose ‘giggy smile’ sends them overboard.
They shift the tempo and go all out on a redolent burst of Cream – if they’d been born in Munich – whilst punctuating the mood with just the merest hint of David Axlerod’s old worldly charm heroics.
A solo spot is reserved for the saxophone, that squeals and blows itself out by taking a chaotic detour, whilst Péron leads the band into another gear change, with merrily contorted rundowns and impressive feats of twiddling freeform bravado.
Percussive backing turns us onto an almost hurried dash through some whimsical medieval carry-on, as Wüsthoff strangles his guitar into submission.
The band find themselves unceremoniously cut-off in their prime at the end, as if the meter had run out on them.
‘Picnic On A Frozen River, Deuxieme Tableux’ begins with some studio banter before a romanticised acoustic guitar strums a wistful sonnet.
Tambourine, handclaps and laidback drums tap out a pleasing pulchritude love tryst, to the mid-tempo calm contemplative melody, that invokes images of J.A Waterhouse’s Victorian period Arthurian maidens.
Soon a lyrical prose is poetically crooned in the language of love – French of course – and a violin/flute combination waltz together, flirting with each other in the background and accompanied by a mouth organ, that sends the mood towards a Morricone film score.
An undulating low moody synth, or, organ slowly builds up an ambient atmospheric Eno type soundscape on the introductory tones of ‘Laüft…Heisst Das Es Laüft Oder Es Kommt Bald…Laüft’ – which doesn’t actually translate well, but loosely comes out as ‘run is called that it run or it comes soon run’.
Indolent and inspiring, waves of extra subtle sound are added, which leads to the distant echoes becoming louder, before melting away.
Some brief distorted harsher hums are added for just a moment before elegantly being subdued again.
Gently strummed acoustic guitars return to play out the final track, sounding evocative of Ziggy’ era Bowie, on ‘It’s A Bit Of A Pain’.
Nick Drake tones influence the vocal direction, as our protagonist repeats the same few lines of resigned indifferences to his plight-
‘It’s a bit of a pain,
To be where I am.
It’s a bit of a pain,
To be where I am,
But it’s all right now.’
A chanteuse of mystery takes over the vocal duties, reading out, rather then singing those same lyrics, though in a semi sultry German style.
Garbled flange assisted guitar sticks a fist into proceedings, signalling some sort of alert, every time it gets too comfortable and soulful.
Barely three minutes long, this relaxed ditty finishes the album on a highly accessible success.
It’s been said, that Faust IV manages to encompass and coalesce all the work that came before. Merging all those cut and paste heroics, experimental vignettes, epic freewheeling behemoths, startling laid bare nuances, anarchic scrapes and unworldly segue ways into one album, Faust quite possibly recorded their most serene volume of work.
Monthly Playlist Revue: July 2023
July 28, 2023
CHOICE MUSIC SELECTION FROM THE LAST MONTH ON THE MONOLITH COCKTAIL
TEAM EFFORT: DOMINIC VALVONA/MATT OLIVER/BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA/GRAHAM DOMAIN/ANDREW C. KIDD
The Monolith Cocktail Monthly playlist is a revue of the last month on the blog, plus those tunes we didn’t get time to review or feature: including Matt Oliver‘s special hip-hop selection. Curated as a musical journey by Dominic Valvona, there’s a huge diverse array of choice tunes from across the genres and the globe, collated from an amalgamation of posts by Dominic Valvona, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Graham Domain and Andrew C. Kidd.
THOSE TRACKS IN FULL ARE…
Habitat 617 Ft. Jack Slayta ‘Bricklayer’
Young Van Gundy Ft. Al Divino & Tha God Fahim ‘Fuyu No Senso’
J. Scienide & Napoleon Da Legend ‘Wind Parade’
Annie Taylor ‘Fucking Upset’
White Ring ‘Before He Took The Gun’
African Head Charge ‘Asalatua’
Mokoomba ‘Ndipe’
OKI ‘Tukinahan Kamuy’
Dip In The Dub ‘La Cumbia Del Sufi Que No Sabia Bailer’
Luiza Lian ‘Eu Estou Aqui’
Deja Blu ‘Crash’
It’s Karma It’s Cool ‘Vacations In A Taxi Cab’
Life Strike ‘Whip Around’
K-Nite 13 & Lee Scott Ft. Homeboy Sandman ‘Staple Junk’
The Moose Funk Squad ‘Abe Simpson’
Verb T & Vic Grimes ‘Your Heart Deserves’
SadhuGold ‘Fear Of A Black Yeti’
The Difference Machine ‘His Country’
Rusty Santos ‘Focus’
August Cooke ‘Shed With Me’
Maija Sofia ‘Telling The Bees’
Circe ‘My Boy Aphrodite’
Natalie Rose LeBrecht ‘Holy’
Hackedepicciotto ‘La Femme Sauvage’
Fat Frances ‘The Worm In The Wood’
Mike Gale ‘Summer Be Gone’
Stella Burns & Mick Harvey ‘My Heart Is A Jungle’
Emil Amos ‘Jealous Gods’
Oopsie Dasies ‘Illusioned-Broken Toys’
Zohastre ‘DUNE’ <THIS MONTH’S COVER ART STARS>
The Holy Family ‘Hell Born Babel’
The Dark Jazz Project ‘Jazz’
Healing Force Project ‘Inharmonious Layer’
Sebastian Reynolds ‘Cascade’
Caterina Barbieri ‘Sufyosowirl’
Ziur Ft. Abdullah Miniawy ‘Malikan’
Pierce Artists ‘Black Hooded Generals’
Stu Bangas & Chino XL ‘Who Told You’
Teflon/M.O.P. & DJ Premier ‘The Thoro Side’
Remulak & Moka Only ‘Starlings Green’
Jonny Wickham ‘Uncanny Valley’
Marty Isenberg ‘Life On Mars’
Gibralter Drakus ‘Exode Rural’
Las Mijas ‘Ronca (Carta Para Una Mija)’
Our Daily Bread 586: Hackedepicciotto ‘Keepsakes’
July 25, 2023
ALBUM REVIEW/DOMINIC VALVONA
Hackedepicciotto ‘Keepsakes’
(Mute) 28th July 2023
Responsible, in part at least, to helping shape a certain darkened yearned and dramatic sound over the last four decades in Berlin, the husband and wife partnership of Alexander Hacke and Danielle de Picciotto have at any one time, both separately and together, been in Einstürzende Neubauten, Crime And The City Solution and the Anne Sexton Transformations imbued theatrical Ministry Of Wolves. During that time Danielle also co-founded the famous Love Parade carnival. And so it’s unsurprising to find the influence of many of those bands rubbing off on them with this latest album for the highly influential Mute label. It’s a signature sound that could be described as a cabaret and soundtrack gravitas of post-punk, post-industrial, electronica, the esoteric, weird folk and twisted fairytale.
Ministry Of Wolves co-conspirator Mick Harvey (both as a foil to Cave and as a solo artist) and CATCS can be heard suffused throughout with a more distilled taste of Neubauten. However, it’s the history, spectacle of a Neapolitan environment that’s really got to them; the city’s legendary Auditorium Novecento and its stock of various instruments played host to the “symbiotic” entwined duo. The spirit of such early-recorded crooners and composers as Enrico Caruso, in one of Europe’s first recording studios, hangs in the air. And amongst the tubular bells, the brass and grand piano Ennio Morricone’s twinkled and xylophone-like chimed sounding celeste is put to good use across an album of dedications to close friends. For Keepsakes is (despite the cliché) the couple’s most personal, intimate album yet.
Following in the wake of the lockdown epoch produced The Silver Threshold (one of my favourite albums of 2021), which offered heightened snatches of beauty, romance and drama from a backdrop of the Biblical, cinematic and ominous (the last two attributes spilling over into this album), Keepsakes is partially autobiographical in style and content. Like a sonic, musical photo album, except far too cerebral to name or make explicit the people behind each track, they use a lyrical description, language and narration to build those pictures, feelings and terms of endearment. There’s no mention in the accompanying album press, but it didn’t take me long to find that the harder edged, gnarled and classical counterpoint ‘Aichach’ could only be a dedication to that small Bavarian town’s native electronic dance music pioneer, Chrislo Haas – it was either the late provocateur of the German New Wave or the infamous Ilse Koch, the “concentration camp murderess”, “witch of Buchenwald”, who topped herself after being imprisoned for life by the Americans in the late 1940s at that town’s women’s prison to chose from. Haas was an integral agitator as part of Liasions Dangereuses, Minus Delta F, D.A.F. and Der Plan (the last three of which he co-founded), and his own proto punk and Tresor techno signature can be heard racing against sorrowful bowed strings on an instrumental that’s both sadly poignant and yet has a scuzzy, heavy attitude. It must be noted that Haas died in 2004, at the age of only 47. A premature end from where I’m standing.
On the other hand, I’m guessing and stretching the subject of the Weimer jazz age noir and Brecht magic show ‘Schwarze Milch’. Featured last month in the June Digest, I said that the title translated as “black milk” and could be a reference to the German-Mongolian film drama of the same name by the director Uisenma Burchu, who also stars in it. And yet that Steppes liberated tale of culture-clashed sisters couldn’t be further removed from the odd cabaret sift and brushed, hurdy-gurdy winded and smoky sax circus of the playful, disturbed and animal-mask wearing cultish: I really adore it.
Apart from that the bestial, throat song from the bowels of the chthonian ‘Mastodon’, could be evoking the unholy, leviathan-invoking American heavy metal band of that title. The track is certainly darker, ghostly and has shades of John Carpenter and late Scott Walker. Yet there’s also weeping strings, Ennio’s struck bell tolls and a removed vision of the Italian maestro’s Westerns scores.
I’ve deduced that ‘La Femme Sauvage’, or “wild woman”, is a book and a film – also a recurring French storytelling trope of women brought up in the wilds by wolves and such. Sound wise it has more of that Ennio influence, mixed with a poetically spooked version of chanson, and a descriptive autobiographical, numerical, narrated part by Hacke: “three languages”, “four books” and “36 years in Berlin”. The celeste is very nicely chimed, as bulb-like notes ring out in the midst of a theremin dreamy yarn.
The album’s finale, ‘The Blackest Crow’, riffs – as only these two enchanters can – on the old American folk song. An American Gothic transformation, with the sound of waves evoking a bookend farewell, shipped off on tail sails – very much in keeping with the similar atmospheric, lapping tidal ‘Troubadour’ opener – this Appalachian and Ozarks provenance song of departed lovers in a cold, dark world is a perfect curtain call of unified plaint: an esoteric Carter Family. Thought to have emerged after the 1860s Civil War, the main lyrical theme of metaphorical crows, glass breasts, remains after infinite changes, additions and subtractions. Even the title can be different: ‘The Lover’s Lament’ in Carl Sandburg’s 1927 published The American Songbook, but also known as ‘My Dearest Dear’ and ‘The Time Draws Near’ – the former sounding more appropriate in this case. ‘The Troubadour’ itself has an air of something older about it; an essence of Tchaikovsky enchanted celeste with the courtly echoes of the Elizabethan.
In the more menacing stakes, ‘Songs Of Gratitude’ is a dramatic soundtrack of Walker with Sunn O))), Dead Can Dance and Brian Reitzell subterranean and scuzz strains: Hackedpicciotto entering the underworld with a song of yearned thanks.
The sound of Berlin with stopovers across Europe and New York City, Keepsakes conjures up evocative visions, dramas and characters out if the arty, the gothic, the cerebral and surreal; creating an alternative photo album and collection of memories, events. As earthy as it is dreamily floating in a constructed world of fairytale, myth and magic, the creatively sagacious couple draws upon a lifetime of experiences, friendships to produce another captivating album for the Mute label.
Our Daily Bread 585: An Experiment with Myuthafoo
July 21, 2023
LITERATURE/ANDREW C. KIDD
Caterina Barbieri explores the mutability of time on Myuthafoo, a 6-track piece released on the Light-Years label on 16th June 2023. It was composed in the same period as Ecstatic Computation (Editions Mego, 2019).
I have written a short story which references the broad-themed narrative of time. The two characters in the story are connected through a transient common consciousness, independent of time, each sharing their own respective experiences millennia apart. They are unconscious of this at first, but gradually develop insights into the event.
The first character is a cosmometeorologist (denoted as *) who exists in the distant future, returning from an interstellar mission, repeating his observations of TOI-2180 b, the Jupiter-like planet located 379 light-years away in the Draco constellation. The second character is a taikonaut (denoted as ∆) who is the first person to enter the orbit of Mùxīng. Mùxīng is the Mandarin word for Jupiter, translating as ‘Star of Wood’. They both listen to Myuthafoo on their respective journeys.
*
After a rapid deceleration, the long body of the survey vessel made an uncomfortably abrupt stop. A single occupant was jolted forward in his harness. The monitor projecting inside his helmet blinked the characters TOI-2180 b. The red writing of the display flooded through his visor as the synthesisers of Memory Leak sawed and played out triumphantly in his headset.
Finally!, he gleamed inside, the Draco constellation. The journey had been a long one, and
not without challenge.
Steely synths arped and orbited on Math of You in a manner not too dissimilar to his own trajectory around the exoplanet. He smiled witlessly at this reference.
He vacated the lead-lined safety of his survival pod and immediately felt the stifling heat within the grand archways and long corridors of the ship – this was the unintended transference of heat through the protective shields of its fusion reactors. His heart rate still bounded away at a fast-tempo; it held steady as he glimpsed out of the bow window.
The familiar rubor of this exoplanet reddened the white suit of the cosmometeorologist in pinkish projection. He observed its clouds that banded and danced in linear synergy as they rapidly rotated upon its axis. Their formations and morphology were recorded perfunctorily. Superstorms he named after other nebulae because that was easier than remembering the names of men and gods that he had never known or cared to know. The cloud vortices expanded and contracted in eternal rage. He marvelled at their fury.
This visit to Draco was a routine one: a simple stop-off to allow the hot heat exchanger to cool on his return from the recesses of intermediate space. Soon, his palm would hover over the propellant injector control, releasing the fusion pellet to send the ship forward, and him homeward.
After collating the new data, he made arrangements to have these safely stored for future analyses. During this process, he had started to feel uneasy: an unnerving sensation was propagating through him. He turned off the music blaring loudly in his headset, beckoning silence and space to breathe. The dizzying modulations of the synths had reached a pinnacle of inorganic arrhythmicity – perhaps this had been the cause for his unsettling?
He stared out silently at the hulking exoplanet for a while longer, pondering whether the way he felt had something to do with its magnetic energy. He peered into the dense orb in an act of mindfulness, imagining what metals and minerals its core contained. This had little effect. The discomforting feeling had become more pervasive.
What is this!? His mind called out in internal inquisition.
It was as if an invisible force was streaming slowly through him, illuminating not only his body, but his very being.
∆
A white-suited taikonaut was sitting at a seemingly incommodious 45-degree angle. Yet he sat quite comfortably, completely weightless in space, shuffling through the alphabetically-stored sounds that he had brought with him on this momentous journey.
Don Buchla – not today…
A reading of Golden Apples of the Sun…
No, no… it’s under ‘m’… ah, m…
The North Shanxi Suite by Ma Ke…
Moon, Silver Apples of…
Yes… here it is…
Myuthafoo
He pressed the play button on his receiver, smiling broadly because the celebratory opening track embodied the spirit of adventure. Minutes later, the shorn cross-section of the wooden planet came into view through the bow window.
Mùxīng, he declared to himself.
*
Mùxīng? I… I… what is this? I have never been here before – the star system, it… it is completely unrecognisable. It seems… illusory – a déjà vu, but…
Moving his hand away from the propellant injector control, he turned around to look through the observation aperture on the starboard side.
Barked appearance; ringed by age; gaseous whorls; circular and impermeable –
He paused to observe the ever-changeability of the line-like clouds that wrapped around the planet. They moved in opposing directions like some great puzzle that would eventually split open to reveal its hidden contents.
He left the observation station and made the short walk to the bridge; there, he would recalibrate the cartograph.
Red words continued to blink TOI-2180 b in his visor. He knew that the co-ordinates of the ship would have already been checked and double checked by the on-board neural network; still, he manually validated these in accordance with protocol. His location had been confirmed: he remained within the confines of Draco.
The cosmometeorologist had already passed through this constellation on his forward voyage. He compared the measurements of the specific gravity that he had obtained those short years ago with his updated readings.
It is much lighter… three-times lighter on this occasion!
His stomach had started to churn and a mild nausea built up inside him – invocations of the unexpected sight of this strange planet. For the first time in his life, he experienced the nervous excitement of uncertainty, the heavy weight of expectation. It was quite a remarkable achievement: he was the first to…
He stopped himself.
I have not been the first to observe this.
He sat down guardedly. Thoughts oscillated in his head. Eventually he calmed his mind by visualising absolutely nothing. He inhaled and exhaled four times a minute, repeating internally:
I am a cosmometeorologist. I am recording the density of TOI-2180 b. The presence of this exoplanet is undeniable. I knew it was here. I observed it only a few short years ago. This is a routine mission. My forward and return data should be the same.
I am not here to discover. There are vessels for that purpose situated in deep space.
I cannot discover something that has already been discovered!
I… I have discovered nothing here!
∆
‘Are you getting this, Control?’
The taikonaut remained suspended in pseudo-weightlessness, the padded shoulder straps securing him to the modular seat. He had already pressed the blue ‘load’ button on the grey panel in front of him. The dimly-lit red display blinked in confirmation that his message had been sent.
‘Affirmative. We have your location. Aphelion: 816 Gm. Perihelion 740 Gm. Location confirmed as Mùxīng.’ The static in his receiver crackled in return. It continued.
‘Commander, Mùxīng marks a colossal milestone in our celestial journey!’
This congratulatory statement had washed over the taikonaut. The reference had made no sense: he had trodden on nothing. His focus remained firmly on the readings on his monitor. He leant forward and pressed the blue button again.
‘Control, it is…’.
‘Repeat…’, Control broke in. ‘We could not make out your last transmission.’
‘The exoplanet…’, the taikonaut paused momentarily. ‘It is… much denser than I imagined. Also, it has far fewer moons than we had previously considered’.
‘Exoplanet?’, the static of Control enquired.
*
Am I truly conscious of this? Has the arduous journey unlocked some deeper awareness within me?
My vital signs are normal.
What is this feeling that… no, it is not fleeting because I can still feel it – it is… fading.
I must be imagining it. Yes, it is in my imagination.
But how can I be imagining something that I already knew was there.
The cosmometeorologist had closed his eyes to enter the deeper reaches of his mind.
I cannot be experiencing this… it… it is as if someone else has already lived in this moment… transf–… transference of thought… that would be improbable… impossible, even!
The cloud-ringed planet continually resurfaced in his consciousness. He opened his eyes to stare at its globular shape, the Great Spot, its barge, its moons –
The moons! Hah! the radius of its moons and their respective orbits – yes, the moons… I will use them to calculate its density.
The cosmometerologist peered through his viewing apparatus, eventually recoiling in shock.
How can that be?! 95 moons!
As he leant back in his chair, his headset clipped the edge of its protective padding, switching the music suddenly back on. The step-like cyclisms of Alphabet of Light played unhurriedly. He listened to the organic sound. It was oxymoronic. The pioneering excitement still fluttered within him. He turned around as the Gas Giant momentarily left his visual field: the window pillar of the ship had blocked out its unfamiliar appearance in quiet orbit.
∆
A soulful symphonia continued to play with the starlight: the two-toned lightness of Sufyosowirl echoed back the title track. It was organ-like as it entered another modular sequence. The taikonaut remained poised in controlled weightlessness.
‘I can confirm my last transmission as being correct. Exoplanets. I repeat: exoplanets, and exomoons. I am visualising something truly marvellous here. A Mùxīng-like planet, Jovian in stature; yet, something on a wholly grander scale.’
‘According to our readings, your present location is Mùxīng’, Control hissed into his receiver. ‘Please relay your bearings.’
The taikonaut remained silent: he had sunk into a deep introspection.
Am I imbalanced because I am listening to a contrapuntal melodia, one that holds its notes before stepping down the next rung of the polyphonic ladder? Disorientation through some form of sonic imbibement…
‘Please repeat’, Control rasped.
A new sound for a new vision – synthetic and tom-tom like, steadily moving me further away from the reality of this moment.
The taikonaut observed the exoplanet long after his vessel had escaped its magnetic pull. He moved slowly away on his mission to reach the dust-ringed world of Saturn.
*
The image of the gaseous clouds slowly dissipated into the ether of the cosmometeorologist’s mind. Swirls of You crackled indistinctly in his headset, bringing him back to the present. He knew that this would fade into a calming niente.
His monitor repeatedly blinked out the characters TOI-2180 b. His hand moved down to prime the nuclear fusion engines. He returned to the sanctity of the lead-lined survival pod during this pre-propulsive state. Glancing one last time at the disappearing planet, his ship lurched forward to leave a long and vapour-like trail of plasma that stretched far enough to traverse infinity.
CULT NO-FI ICON BRIAN BORDELLO REVIEWS ANOTHER BATCH OF RECENT AND NEW RELEASES (UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE, ALL RELEASES ARE OUT NOW)
____{SINGLES}____
Annie Taylor ‘School Girl’
(Taxi Gauche Records)
‘School Girl’ is a ram jam minute and a half of rambunctious melody and indie guitar rock, a workout of pure pop indiedom. Plus, why don’t more people release songs under two minutes anymore? If it was good enough for Buddy Holly is certainly good enough for everyone else. Well-done Annie Taylor.
Nails ‘Nail Me’
What a splendid racket. This is the debut release by a brand-new band made up of a gang of teenagers all aged between 16-18. The sound of youth, the sound of a band that is still in the development stage when everything is fresh and exciting, with the sound of hormones surging from their guitars.
There are a number of exciting young guitar bands around at the moment and Nails are another one to add to the watch out for list. They have youth, excitement and by the sound of it, the inklings of songwriting talent and a variety of influences: surely Nails are too young to remember the Cardiacs, but at certain points during ‘Nail Me’ the Cardiacs do spring to mind alongside Queens Of The Stone Age. Yes, indeed Nails are the sound of the dreams of the local rehearsal room where anything is possible and where the magic happens.
____{ALBUMS}____
A.R. Kane ‘A.R.Kive (1988 to 1989)’
(Rocket Girl)
Songs that soar and scrape the sky; plowing through the subconscious separating despairing grey clouds of pollution and lost hope, clawing kisses substituting the tick tock of the slow hand taunting you through the everyday workday blues, knowing when that slow hand eventually reaching the magical five, the five that will explode in a star-shine feedback beauty, whispering, swaying, you will once again be free. Be free to soundtrack the small town existence or your lost in the city hustle. A muse, a music that will make you feel special, make you feel like a select and secret club: this is how one of the disciples must have felt. It must have been how one of those teenage girls felt stood inches away from the leather cladded four head monster from Liverpool in that dank cellar full of noise before they erupted and changed the world. Surely you are experiencing the second coming. Surely the moistness, the orgasmic nature of teenage sexual high has never been quite this sexual: never quite taken you this high. This is how the flowers of ‘67 must have felt as Hendrix strutted and pouted biblically, leading the chosen ones to a land that promised much but folded in a squalid syringed end of a decade of could ofs and should of Beens. This is how it must have been like to be in The Velvet Underground selling little but influencing a future generation of youngsters with art in their eyes. This is how it must have felt to be A.R. Kane.
Present Electric ‘S-T’
(Paisley Shirt Records)
Now as the “king of No-fi” (as anointed by Goldmine Magazine) I can fully appreciate the beauty of this album; all lo-fi and scratchy with primitive drum machines and beautifully played guitars that are plucked and strummed with a gentle abandon. That are swirled and mixed with melodica, handheld percussion and keyboards that add to the beauty of this lo-fi gem. The beauty of lo-fi is the adventures you can take the music only using ltd resources and your own skill and talent and madness. And I’m happy to report that Present Electric has all three with abundance. A really enjoyable listen.
It’s Karma It’s Cool ‘Thrift Store Troubadours’
If you are looking for Throbbing Gristle noise experimentation this may not be the album for you, but if you are looking for an album filled with mid to late 60’s Hollies like pop with a touch of the Smithereens and stand era R.E.M. then Thrift Store Troubadours could be your thing.
Songs where the guitars chime and rock without entering into Slash perm lotion territory; songs that gently erupt in a wash of tight and tuneful harmonies that may entertain Graham Nash enough in the shower to put down his bar of soap and add a fifth high harmony, and him fondly reminisce about the time he lived with Joni Mitchell, and Charles Manson was his next door neighbour. Or the kind of album that will have Chris Pender scratching his head and wondering why the two Searchers Sire albums did not sell in greater quantities. So if you are indeed a fan of any of the bands mentioned or just someone who has a penchant for well-written 60s/70s tinged power pop ditties, give it a listen.
Oopsie Daisies ‘S-T EP’
(Metal Postcard Records)
If Bob Dylan had grown up in the C86 generation, taking in the jangle and indie pop like magic, he may have sounded like the Oopsie Daisies; an EP that is covered in layers of jangly guitars and Field Mice and the Wake like keyboards, and the clipity-clop drum machine that so enamoured me to the whole sound and feel of the DIY bedroom music culture.
This 4-track little beauty is full of charm, lo-fi elegance and a little teetering on the edge magic: especially the last track, the wonderful ‘Illusioned Broken Toys’; a song that captures the melancholy feel of the late 80’s early 90’s Beloved and one of my fave tracks this year.
Flashcubes ‘Pop Masters’
(Big Stir Records)
The pre ghost of Pete Best haunts his old haunts, taking in the memories when he was the backbeat to what would be the greatest and most influential band to ever strum a guitar on the planet; the band that would influence everything from how pop music was not just a thing that teenagers spent their money on and soundtracked their sexual adventures and nights on the town, but to being considered an art form to be studied and dissected by forward thinkers and beard strokers.
Pete shifts through where The Cavern used to stand and moves onto the tourist trap that is the facsimile that stands today. He stops to look at the statues and has a slight tear in his eye when he sees the four lads that shook the world knowing that he was the fifth, the silent partner, and the cast off Beatle. He stops off and smiles when he sees the Cilla statue and remembers the nights when she used to sing with the fabs before they were the fabs: when they were the pre-fabs. But he is not bitter. He has made his million from all the reissues of the handful of recordings he made with the pre-fabs, and he has all those memories knowing they may never have made it to Hamburg without him, where they learned their art and became the greatest rock ‘n’ roll band ever. He stops thinking and remembering and pops a cd into the player… ah good time rock ‘n’ roll pure power pop for everyday people. Pop master‘s by the Flashcubes plays as Pete lights another cig spins his drumstick and smiles.
Life Strike ‘Peak Dystopia’
(Stable Label on Tape/ Bobo Integral on Digital Formats)
What do we have here, I hear no one ask. Well my disappointed little life smugglers, this is an album of pure jingle jangle from the deepest and sunshine filled explosion of finery that is Australia. Yes, Life Strike capture the magic of early Go Betweens with all stuttering post-punk guitar riffs and Primitive melodies, or indeed Primitives melodies as the pop fun track that is ‘Tears On Tuesday’ had myself and my lady wife humming ‘Through The Flowers’ by the end. Peak Dystopia is an album that will appeal to all those indie pop lovers from yesteryear when the June Brides were second in the hearts to the Smiths, or preferred Primal Scream before they discovered the Rolling Stones and showed themselves to be heartless money grabbing bastards.
Our Daily Bread 583: Alabaster DePlume, Comet Gain, Maija Sofia, Natalie Rose LeBrecht…
July 17, 2023
GRAHAM DOMAIN’S REVIEWS ROUNDUP: A SUMMARY OF THE LAST MONTH: NEW FINDS, DISAPPOINTMENTS AND TRIUMPHS
___{SINGLES}___
Alabaster DePlume ‘Did You Know’
(International Anthem)
I liked last year’s album Gold and the wonderful eccentric single ‘Don’t Forget You’re Precious’ on
which he talk-sang. This is the first single from new album Come with Fierce Grace, out in September. It’s a sad jazz ballad sang by Momoko Gill and is reminiscent of Corrine Bailey Rae. It’s not particularly memorable and is a bit of a disappointment after last year’s excellent output!
Deja Blu ‘Crash’
(Fragile Hands)
The new single from dream-pop duo Deja Blu is a mesmeric tune that begins like a dreamy cross between Massive Attack and the Sundays before DJ Shadow type drums kick-in and propel the song into a world of echoing dream ambience! Fabulous!
Maija Sofia ‘Four Winters’
(Tulle Collective)
The new single from Galway’s Maija Sofia is a song that sits somewhere close to Aldous Harding but with its own strangeness akin to early Kate Bush. A song that mixes woodwind, harps and harmonic discord with poetic lyrics of womanhood and the joy of pain via emotional growth! A bright flare in a sea of shiny blandness!
Peter Brewis (from Field Music) ‘Lemoncadabra’
(Daylight Saving Records)
This instrumental reminds me of the mid seventies when any song with a synth on it seemed magical. It does not have much in the way of a tune but sounds like he’s been listening to Chick Corea (circa The Mad Hatter), Yellow Magic Orchestra and perhaps Tomita! It sounds more like a BSide or Demonstration Disc than a tune with any commercial intent! Caramel Latte Froth (with sweeteners)!
___[ALBUMS]___
Playdate ‘Wonderland’
(Idee Fixe Records/Bandcamp/Ansible Editions)
This is an interesting album of modern technology versus traditional instruments, or put another way, programmed and improvised synths trade melodies and inspired ‘sojourns into space’ with vibraphones, woodwind instruments and even pedal steel! The group are a trio from Toronto made up of Carl Schilde, Matthew Bailey and Scott Harper, and guest improvisers include Christine Bourgie, Michael Davidson, Daniel Pencer and Andy Shauf’s woodwind section. The result is an album of chilled dreamscape music. Not essential listening, but ambient music that does have its own charm! ‘Insert Quarter(s)’ has echoes of Japan’s ‘My New Career’.
Comet Gain ‘The Misfit Jukebox’
(Tapete Records)
The Pandemic of 2020 gave David Christian Bower the time to re-visit the archive of unreleased tracks, demos and live recording for his band Comet Gain. The highlights of which were gradually released via Bandcamp throughout 2022. These are now released as a 17-track album of rarities.
The breadth of vision of the band is evident from the genre crossing musical make-up of the songs.Thus, we get energy and melody combined in a variety of musical settings – punk-pop, punk-funk, melodic pop-folk to name a few! Even the noisiest of Comet Gain songs has melody at its core. ‘The Weekend Dream’ has all the pop-punk energy of the Buzzcocks or the Only Ones. ‘Pinstriped Rebel’ meanwhile encompasses the jangle-funk of late-period Jam, the Style Council or the modernist cold white-funk of the new romantics. ‘When’ sounds like a song from the early 80’s Mod Revival or a pale 1970’s cover of a Wigan Casino northern soul song. ‘You’re Just Lonely’ sounds like New Order without the programmed synths! ‘Only Happy When I’m Sad’ is perhaps the pop nugget of the collection sounding like a mixture of Stereolab, Broadcast, St. Etienne and Everything but the Girl. A wonderful, warm, melodic, strange song.
The album is a fine addition to the Comet Gain musical catalogue, a compilation of rarities but also an album that succeeds on its own merits.
Natalie Rose LeBrecht ‘Holy Prana Open Game’
(American Dreams)
This is a beautiful album of cosmic folk strangeness singular in its vision and unique today, in its combination of sounds. Opener ‘Home’ combines strings, synths, woodwind and guitar with haunting vocals to produce a strange folk-infused cosmic jazz masterpiece. ‘Prana’ follows with its synths and vocal harmonies underpinned by piano and jazz drums sounding not unlike something from the Roman Polanski film Dance of the Vampires, evolving in the middle into a beautiful atmospheric sound-world! ‘Holy’ meanwhile is a chilled piano-led song complete with tremolo guitar and woodwind.
Sitting somewhere between Nico, Linda Perhacs and Alice Coltrane, the six haunting songs have superb intricate arrangements and a wonderful spiritual element! It could easily be mistaken for a long-lost album from the 1970’s, such is its charm.
The band include Jim White (drums) and Mick Turner (guitar) from the Dirty Three. If the album had been made by someone with a higher commercial profile, say Lana Del Ray, then it would be lauded as a masterpiece and top the end of year poles! That not being the case, the album is still a masterpiece of haunting music that has a meditative quality and reveals more of its colour with each play! Every home should own a copy of this album and play it each day as the sun rises bringing hope to the world.
M. Ward ‘Supernatural Thing’
(ANTI Records)
This is a nice album of easy listening Americana-pop! Songs such as ‘Too Young to Die’ and ‘Engine 5’ featuring First Aid Kit, have a Nancy (Sinatra) and Lee (Hazlewood) feel to them! However, much like his albums recorded with Zooey Deschanel as She and Him, the album never rises above ‘pleasant’!
To some it may seem that Matthew Ward’s music has slowly declined since the release of his influential Post War album in 2006. Being stuck in one place can still be inspiring if you have the presence of mind to see beauty in the everyday and there is plenty of evidence of that here. No matter where we are, we all share the same sky – some see nothing, others see the beauty in the changing light of day and are inspired seeing the shifting patterns in nature. But is M Ward on the cusp of regaining his greatness? Only time will tell if M Ward is indeed a writer of songs of subtle depth and longevity. He remains ‘one to watch’!
Bravery In Battle ‘The House We Live In’
(Believe)
French band Bravery in Battle have released a Video-Album that puts music behind words from International ecological activists calling for a rethink of how we live. Climate change is of course at the forefront of this urgent call to arms. ‘The Market’ is a key track on the album and melodifies a lecture by Australian ecological activist Clive Hamilton enhancing the message and sharpening the focus. A worthy release and worth a watch on YouTube.
Archive spots and now home to the Monolith Cocktail “cross-generational/cross-genre” Social Playlist – Words/Put Together By Dominic Valvona
A new thread, feed for 2023, the Digest pulls together tracks, videos and snippets of new music plus significant archival material and anniversary celebrating albums or artists -sometimes the odd obituary to those we lost on the way. From now on in the Digest will also be home to the regular Social Playlist. This is our imaginary radio show; an eclectic playlist of anniversary celebrating albums, a smattering of recent(ish) tunes and the music I’ve loved or owned from across the decades.
July’s edition features Volume 78 of the Social plus, in honour of the late Yanna Momina, another chance to read my piece on her last recording, Afar Ways, and a 50th anniversary celebration of Can’s Future Days opus: their most complete, sublime album in my opinion.
The Social Playlist #77
Anniversary Albums And Deaths Marked Alongside An Eclectic Mix Of Cross-Generational Music, Newish Tunes And A Few Surprises
Repeating myself, but if this is your first time here, first of all, welcome, and secondly here’s the lowdown on what the Social is:
Just give me two hours of your precious time to expose you to some of the most magical, incredible, eclectic, and freakish music that’s somehow been missed, or not even picked up on the radar. For the Social is my uninterrupted radio show flow of carefully curated music; marking anniversary albums and, sadly, deaths, but also sharing my own favourite discoveries over the decades and a number of new(ish) tracks missed or left out of the blog’s Monthly playlists.
With tributes to those fallen comrades, we mark the passing of The Pop Group (second tragedy to hit that era-defining group, with Mark Stewart‘s death only a couple of months back) and Maximum Joy‘s John Waddington, the late Djibouti songstress Yanna Momina and highly influential avant-garde jazz saxophonist and clarinetist Peter Brötzmann.
There’s album anniversary celebrations as usual too, with the 50th anniversaries of Funkadelic‘s Cosmic Slop, Lou Reed‘s Berlin saga, Bob Dylan‘s Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid Soundtrack and Can‘s Future Days, the 40th anniversary of Whodini‘s 1983 debut, 30ths of Cypress Hill‘s Black Sunday and the Super Furry Animals Phantom Power.
Newish of a kind entires include Penza Penza, Alogte Oho & His Sounds Of Joy, J. Scienide, Brian Eno and Homeboy Sandman. Whilst from across the ages and genres there’s tracks from Camera237, Heaven & Earth, Andwella, Oberman Knocks, Kalacakra and more. 30 choice tracks in all.
___[TRACKLIST]___
Penza Penza ‘My Friend Ash’
Funkadelic ‘You Can’t Miss What You Can’t Measure’
Har-You Percussion Group ‘Feed Me Good’
Alogte Oho & His Sounds Of Joy ‘O Yinne!’
Lou Reed ‘Oh Jim’
Maximum Joy ‘Dancing On My Boomerang’
Kalacakra ‘Deja Vu’
Whodini ‘Magic’s Wand’
Cypress Hill ‘Break ‘Em Off Some’
The Pop Group ‘3:38’
Peter Brötzmann ‘Never Run But Go II’
Super Djata Band ‘Fassiya’
Benkadi International ‘Kolankoma’
Bobby Cole ‘Status Quo’
J. Scienide & Napoleon Da Legend ‘Bats In Wuhan’
Konstruckt/Peter Brötzmann ‘Tepe’
Brian Eno ’77 Million Paintings 3′
Yanna Momina ‘For My Husband’
Homeboy Sandman ‘Off The Rip’
The Prisonaires ‘Just Walkin’ In The Rain’
Bob Dylan ‘Billy 1’
Nicole Croisille ‘J’aime Pas Quand Tu Pars’
Andwella ‘Hold On To Your Mind’
Heaven & Earth ‘Song For Craig’
Super Furry Animals ‘Bleed Forever’
SPIME.IM ‘Heliotrope’
Oberman Knocks ‘Degonnt Type Runners’
Rabih Abou-Khalil ‘The Lewinsky March’
Camera237 ‘John Arne’
Can ‘Future Days’
ARCHIVES/ANNIVERSARY
Future Days The Big 5-0
BACKDROP
The dynamic German underground graphic artists Ingo Trauer and Richard S Ludlow’s artwork for the front cover of Can’s fifth studio album, Future Days, features a couple of mystical arcane symbols full of meaning, and steeped in ethnography.
Both the trident and Hexagram icons found on the cover add to the prevalent spiritual mood that now surrounded the group: producing extra layers of connotation and interweaving mysteries.
The Hexagram, an almost missed set of broken lines type logo that sits beneath the album’s title, is taken from the Chinese I Ching book of ancient symbols. Each of these symbols is made up out of a series of sticks sorted into six broken lines (Ying) and unbroken lines (Yang), which are given cryptic parables relating to their individual shape. Our featured configuration is known as Ting – The Cauldron, or, as Holding, so called because of its cooking pot like appearance.
The Cauldron represents the sharing of a well-prepared meal that acts as a ritual for cultivating bonds between communities. Ting itself symbolises the provision of both the body and the spiritual extras: an emphasis that shouldn’t be overlooked.
The trident carries its own abundance of meanings and features heavily throughout history and ancient mythology, especially of course in Greek mythology with Poseidon, and in Hinduism with Shiva.
Hindu myth refers to the three pronged weapon and spectre of power as representing past, present and future or the place where all three main energy channels in the body meet at the brow.
It also appears as a symbol of unification for the old Slavic tribes that once roamed the Ukraine, and crops up in Russia as a rallying cry for the downtrodden to band around in their hour of need.
Encryption is not entirely necessary but it may help build up a picture of where Can’s mindset was attuned during the making of Future Days, an album of majestic splendour and ethereal elevated beauty.
Indeed, you could say they were anointed with a heavy spiritual crusade, to produce a work of art good enough to be received in the highest echelons of heaven itself – the empyrean.
The serene shift away from the dance grooves and darkly esoteric improvised mind fucks of Ege Bamyasi and Tago Mago now made way for an exuberance of those much loved Afrobeat rhythms and ambient transcendental flowing soundscapes.
A much needed summer break of 1973 helped to refresh the band and put them at ease enough to create possibly their greatest coherent work yet.
But let’s go back for a moment to the previous year, which saw the ongoing dispute with their former manager Abi Ofarim and the worrying near death experience of Michael Karoli, whose perforated ulcer damn near cut his life short.
Karoli luckily recovered of course, though not until the spring of ’73 after being out of action, unable to even practice, for nigh on six months.
Carrying on as well as they could, Jaki Liebezeit and Holger Czukay turned their free time to producing a record for the solo artist Alex on the Ariola record label. Czukay was also putting the finishing touches to his own solo work Cannexias 5, an album of montage sound pieces.
Irmin Schmidt meanwhile locked himself away to study obsessively, while Damo Suzuki just…well, just hung about.
Financial problems once again became a worrying issue as with no touring and little in the way of soundtrack work, the band where finding it tough to survive.
Schmidt’s wife Hildegard was on hand to save the guys from disaster, rolling up her sleeves she acquired a bank loan, which went towards re-kitting the studio and setting up a 60 date tour for when Karoli eventually returned to the fold. This tour would be more like a workout than set of concerts, taking in the UK, France and the homeland all within the short period of spring 73: ending just in time to give them a brief summer holiday before recording started again.
During this period Damo would start to get cold feet and wander off, returning to his much missed Japan just before the start of the sessions for Future Days. In his absence the band began to start recording at the now re-christened Inner Space studios in Weilerswist, just outside Cologne.
This former cinema, transformed into a purpose built studio, was where the band had recorded the previous album Ege Bamyasi. New equipment and upgrades began to arrive much to Czukay and Schmidt’s delight, though there wasn’t much time to experiment as the new record’s deadline was earmarked for the autumn of 1973.
Czukay declined the engineering tasks this time around, wishing to concentrate fully on his bass playing duties. Instead a newly paid bunch of roadies were now responsible for all the lifting and setting up, allowing the guys to concentrate entirely on the task at hand. Czukay did however manage to still be in charge of editing and cutting – credit also goes to both Chris Sladdin and Volker Liedtke who recorded the sessions and mixed the record.
Damo’s eventual arrival – from a sabbatical in Japan – couldn’t arrive quick enough; already large swathes of the backing had been worked on and recorded, allowing only a small amount of room for his vocals and not as much interaction as he’d been used to on previous records.
His vocals suffered from a real murky low level mix, lending a certain ghostly and almost absent charm to the record that obscures Damo’s lyrics somewhat. Later on with the remastered CD versions these enervated vocal performances were amended and turned up, made cleaner: though this does alter the sound somewhat.
I can’t help but feel that his eventual departure was imminent when listening to Future Days: Can would feel a little lost without a lead vocalist, eventually having to share those duties between Karoli and Schmidt, though they already seemed to be heading towards a pure instrumental sound, and could have at a push, gone without Damo’s contributions.
When he does get his chance, Damo offers a guiding light through the epic opuscule; especially on the breath-taking odyssey of Bel Air, his repeating chorus perfectly encompassing the effortless allure found in the melody.
Future Days features only four tracks, three being over eight minutes long, with an entire side being bequeathed to that seminal peregrination.
The title track speaks for itself and sets the general atmosphere and themes that are echoed throughout, the album’s ending more or less finishing where it began. The Sun Ra invoking soundscape Spray adds some strange jazz and blues reworking to the album; an eight-minute display in the avant-garde direction, full of soul.
A short interlude can be found on side one with the Ege Bamyasi familiar three-minute evocative dance-like structure track, Moonshake. Neither is it a companion piece to Tago Mago or an extension of the tracks Vitamin C or I’m So Green, instead Moonshake manages to sound fresh and breaks new ground. Its short stomp intermission finely balances out the symphonic set pieces.
Side two concentrates all its efforts on the glorious sprawling Bel Air; uplifting heavenly elegance pours out of every nuance on this progressively sophisticated hymn to the days yet to come. The title is slightly wry, as this particular region is most fondly known as the affluent hillside suburb in L.A, mainly infamous for its celebratory residents hiding behind high walls and tight security. Founded and named by the oil tycoon turned congressman Alphonzo E Bell Sr in 1923, this area was originally earmarked as his own rich kingdom to pontificate and rule his bronze wrinkled fellow spoilt peers from. Did you know that it’s also ironically, and quite timely, the name of a rather unsafe and infamous slum area of Haiti? Though surely after the recent catastrophes, most parts of the island are now levelled out and share the same common denominator – fucked.
Coincidentally or not, Chevrolet made a pretty fine gas-guzzling model named the Bel-Air, which features in the James Bond film Live And Let Die, the same year as this album.
On the record itself this song is actually titled as Spare A Light, whether this is a further enlightened reference or not, I’m not sure. It has subsequently come to “light”, thanks to one Al de Baran, that it is the name of a cigarette. This would explain the “spare a light” alternative title, though other than a prop, favourite brand of cigs, doesn’t really have any meaning.
Czukay sums up the record as:-
“Electric symphony group performing a peaceful, though sometimes dramatic landscape painting”.
Recording took a speedy two months to complete and the album was, after all the touring and commitments, released on time.
Again the usual plaudits and champions extolled Future Days, praising the slight change in step that the band had taken.
Sales didn’t match their previous two albums but they had managed to win over some new fans with the airy new sound and meditatively heavenly direction.
This record managed two landmarks, one the first to not feature any soundtracks work and the last to feature Damo, who soon married his German girlfriend and converted to being a Jehovah’s Witness; turning his back on music for a considerable time and leaving Can for good.
A lot of critics and even fans such as Cope, describe this as the last truly classic album from the group, namely due to the departure of Damo, who added a certain focus and outsider dynamic.
Like many groups since and before ‘breaking up is so very hard to do’ and it prompted Can to perhaps look inward, becoming more introverted, lacking in direction.
Can would never manage to quite connect in the same way after Future Days, the chemistry would never reach the same consistency again.
REVIEW
Steam-powered machines and reverberating murky atmospheres in the mists, emerging to wrap themselves around the introduction to side one’s title track, ‘Future Days’. The creepy, almost unnerving opening starts to evaporate, making way for an array of soft shimmering percussion and cushioned gongs. Slowly fading in, the main rhythm section materializes at an articulate pace, shuffling along in a downplayed manner.
Jaki Liebezeit soon lets loose with his respective nod to Ghana and Nigeria, those Afrobeat and Highlife rhythms working up a sweat and continuing throughout the entire album. Peddling over the top of these infectious grooves is the team of Michael Karoli and Holger Czukay, who ratify the African treaty of influence with some precise shimmy hooks and riffage. They take this worldly influence and run with it through an intergalactic corridor, stopping off at the most inopportune moment to return free fall style back to Cologne.
Joining the cortege of unabandoned soulful melodies that now swirl around the track is an all in sundry display of shakers and chimes; adding some degree of sparkle.
A deft understated announcement from Damo floats upon the hotbed of rhythms, soft crooning strains of cryptic meaning unravel themselves over the course of the song before disappearing back into some kind of low mix ether.
Cryptic broken English pronunciations like:-
“I just think that rooms to end,
How commend them from their dreams?
Send the money for a rainy day,
For the sake of future days”
Backward meaning and confusing command of the language make for a mysterious unfathomable song subject, dropping in and out almost sporadically.
Now the unmistakable tones of accordion and violin seep into the magical mix as Damo moves over the congas, slapping them with abandon.
As the halfway mark is reached, Schmidt allows himself a chance to impress with a melodic display of surging swirling choruses and whirling shit storm echo a rallying call to arms. The tempo now quickens and Liebezeit raises the roof with his tight rolls and bursting cymbal clashes.
Damo, whose vocals had sounded like they’d been recorded in a different dimension, now gets to bleat out as though talking through an inverted megaphone. His verbal like threats escape the cacophony of layers that have so far held him back; with menace the lyrics project forth –
“You’re spreading that lie, you know that,
You’re getting down, breaking your neck.
When doing that was breaking home,
What have you done, free the night”
A deep protruding bass line delivered from Czukay rumbles on, low drawn out notes and disciplined melodies allow Karoli the space to pinpoint some celestial accents before the song draws to a close.
The final moments are played out with peculiar sandpaper rubbed sounds, which become louder and louder, all the while the bass drum of the real man-machine Liebezeit goes off like a rocket. He presses on the foot pedals like a jackhammer, pulverizing them into the ground.
Flittering tapes and Schmidt’s arpeggiator frenzied operatics compete with the now pumped up drums until someone on the studio console felt compelled to fade it all out. Only to have second thoughts and reverse his momentary decision and crank the fader straight back up.
Spray is more or less a song in two sections, the first namely a building progressive themed landscape suite, the second is a Damo led love ode.
Starting with the fraught shaking organs and attention seeking flourishes that emanate from the altar of Schmidt’s hammer house of horror invoking backline of synths and keyboards, we are party to a harrowing episode of simmering effects and bubbling chemist set theatrics, which emphasis the moody tone as the gothic meets Sun-Ra in an epic face off.
After Schmidt has so enthusiastically conveyed his sermon, Damo sets to work on the bongos, all the while the trebly tight delayed clash of cymbals resonate in his ears.
Czukay manages to play a highly amusing old rhythm and blues standard twelve-bar, before sliding off into an up-tempo octave free for all, executing the bass playing equivalent of doodling.
Entering this frayed stage is Karoli, who chops up some solid riffs and takes a gander through swamp rock, blues and even rockabilly, all the time bending his rhythm guitar around the loitering bass.
Dribs and drabs of metallic droplet sounds bring in a peculiar middle section, the music dieing down for a brief moment as the drums fade in and out of obscurity. Dreamy guitar and relaxed calm bass ride over the top, accompanying this interlude.
Damo’s smothered voice can just be made out, he meanders through the multi-story layering of impending sounds and effects the best he can.
Ineligible lyrics find it difficult to stand out, though the attempt brings a much welcome light and majestic cooing interjection, moving the piece into a highly spiritual direction.
Schmidt has the final word with his ambrosial sweeps and rapturous oscillating scales of abandon, that spoilt fidgety elbow of his crashes down to sign of the song.
‘Moonshake’ truly carries out its title wishes, by shaking up the so far celestial suite of symphonic concerto rich songs. This short wake up call acts as a momentary respite before we head back into the higher strata’s on side two.
An uncompromising jaunty dance track bursts in, foot-tapping afro-beat funk instantly grabs us by the lapels, even if were not wearing them.
Liebezeit conjures up a stalking infectious beat of repetitive sinewy snare and tight then tight hi-hat; the occasional crash cymbal interrupts his metronome trance like state.
Underpinning this boogie is Czukay’s melodic deep jazz bass and Karoli, who lends some Paul Simon type African bends and twangs.
A mirage of world music percussion is thrown in, cabasa’s, guiros and the djembe hand drums all make an appearance and are backed by some odd ratchet and cranking sounds.
Damo gets to lead the track with those vocals coming through loud and clear for a change, though what he’s singing is still uncertain.
The sounds close-knit barrage of ethnicity and sophisticated Afro-beat would rear its head on future recordings, such as the Saw Delight album.
Can transgress their peers by moulding dance fusion enriched jazz and funk to a long history of European avant-garde, producing an inert new German sound that no one else has been able to reproduce in quite the same manner.
Flipping over the original record we find the twenty-minute opuscule Bel Air, or Spare A Light as it’s entitled here.
We begin this series of four acts cinematic saga with the slow lapping waves washing over our feet, as the opening landscape is built up around us.
Karoli and Czukay both carouse with their lightly crafted bass and sonic exploration, gentle lush sustained plucks and harmonies waft from this partnership.
Pulsating soaring synths and seething unkempt melodies now take the lead, as Liebeziet gently tip toes in and taps out a sophisticated restrained beat on the cymbals, sometimes venturing onto some rolls.
Damo swoons and croons some fragmented story type ode :-
“And when nobody can say that you hate,
But then your story made the store right now.
And when you started to say that you hate,
You’re coming down to the start up gown”
Beautifully lamented in waves, the vocals act as a guiding lantern to this grandiose epic.
Soon a build up of toms and excited choppy guitars bring in a sea change, Czukay going into that free rolling octave hyperbole he does so well.
A hypnotic climax is reached as Karoli’ lightly phased guitar works up a funk rock lead in, straining on the last held notes for posterity.
The next act moves towards a more up-tempo dance mode, Soft Machine and Sly Stone mixed into a heavy rhythmic soul odyssey.
Czukay slides into a higher fret pilgrimage before running out of notes, returning instead to the rumbling undercurrent low notes that could bring down a plane.
Our oriental troubadour begins to free form lyrics all over the place, using his voice like a solo instrument, while a choral wooing chorus adds momentum.
Liebezeit beats his kit into submission, lifting off the drum stool as he kicks his feet through the bass drum and up the backside of Schmidt, who has not had much of a look in.
Crying guitar leads and hung over notes linger in the atmosphere, tensions now building towards a more serious direction.
As act three begins in the afterglow of chaotic clattering and high powered rhythms, a tranquil come down beckons as we wander through in a sumptuous meadow and woods on a summer’s day.
Birds and insects interacting with each other going about their business, this chilled blissful meander brings us to a comforting pause.
In the undergrowth lurks a muffled inaudible voice, almost an incantation that hides underfoot like some disturbed green man.
The main theme starts to fade back in, with Damo now reinvigorated and freshened up after the mid section stroll.
Karoli is given ample room to display his itinerary of textbook licks, caressing and attempting a sort of foreplay, seducing the angelic melody of the first act.
Lifting synths and alluring sweeping layers now pour from the magical laboratory of Schmidt; he conducts the graceful composition like a high priest, all hundred-yard stare, interlocked in a battle between the greater good.
Liebezeit totally psyched up lets go with a fever of drums, barracking and rattling along a now ballistic fashion, whilst Czukay wanders off on his own thread, all wide eyed and dreamy.
Damo ready to unleash the final punch now repeats the chimerical dreamy chorus of:-
“Spinning down alone, spinning down alone.
Spinning down alone, you spin alive”
This chaos theory breakdown certainly runs through all the emotions, bringing us back down to earth with a ceremonial crashing bang before reaching a climatic burst of nodding nonsense.
Can collapse into a stupefied like finale with Schmidt’s long ringing out organ note: like a future re-ordered piano ending from ‘A Day In The Life’.
Liebezeit won’t give up the ghost so easily, those crashing drums still milling around in the final throes of these dying embers.
Just when we believe it’s all over for good, our intrepid band come back for a curtain call, the main heavenly theme making an captivating return before finally concluding on the last bass notes of Czukay. And like that they are gone.
The ethereal divine Future Days album will stay with you for weeks on end, ringing around your mind in-between plays.
If one LP encapsulates the greatest moments in Can’s history, then this is it, with Bel Air being there finest performance.
No excuse is warranted – buy this record immediately and sit back ready to be baptised in the glow of this symphonic triumph.
In Honour Of The Late Yanna Momina
In tribute to the star of Ian Brennan’s in-situ style Afar Ways album, recorded back in 2022, another chance to read my glowing review of Momina’s distinctive, enigmatic and sagacious voice.
Crisscrossing a number of the world’s most dangerous and often remote locations for the Glitterbeat Records label since 2014, the renowned Grammy Award winning polymath-producer Ian Brennan has repeatedly remained hidden as his subjects open up and unload a lifetime of trauma, or, candidly lay bare some of the most stripped, free of artifice performances you’ll ever likely to hear.
And so it’s always a treat, an eye and ears opener to hear about the latest travelogue-rich production. On the occasion of the tenth release in this cannon, Brennan lands down in Djibouti, on the horn of Africa, to capture the evocative voice and music of the enigmatic Yanna Momina and ‘rotating cast of friends’, who passed around a couple of guitars and the slapped, struck percussive Calabash as the only means of accompaniment. Our producer’s usual hands-off approach allows this 76-year-old star to let rip; unleashing an incredible, unique vibrato trill and excitable expressive vocal that resonates loudly and deeply. There’s also a playful improvised outburst of primal-rap to enjoy on the animal-cooee hollered ‘The Donkey Doesn’t Listen’; the only backing on this occasion a wobbled human beatbox and bass thump. Yet a real groove is struck when it gets going, a sort of stripped ESG meets Funkadelic in the surroundings of ‘Aunt’ Momina’s stilted hut.
A member of the Afar people, an atavistic ancestry that spreads across the south coast of Eritrea, Northern Ethiopia and of course Djibouti (early followers of the prophet, practicing the Sunni strand of the faith), Momina is a rarity, a woman from a clan-based people who writes her own songs. This honoured artist – though not in the myopic, over-celebrated way in which we in the West would recognise the word – also plays the two-stringed ‘shingle’, an instrument played with nails. This is complimented – if you can call it that – by an improvised version of the maracas: basically a matchbox. But you would never guess it.
Recorded in a thatched hut, with the surrounding waters threatening to wash up into the ad-hoc studio, the outdoor sounds can’t help but bleed into the recordings: a distant crowing of birds, the fluctuation of creaks and a lapping tide. Intentionally this is an all-encompassing production that discards nothing and invites in the elements, the un-rehearsed, all to spark spontaneity and the magical moments that you’d never get if they were forced. It’s what Brennan is known for, a relaxed encouraging setup that proves free of the artificial and laboured.
The results are more akin to eavesdropping than a recording session, a once in a lifetime performance. And so nothing on this album feels pushed, composed or directed. Songs like the dancing ‘Honey Bee’ seem to just burst out of nowhere – a more full-on rhythmic joy of the Spanish Sahara bordering on the Balearic; an Arabian Gypsy Kings turn of loose and bendy-stringed brilliance.
This method also lends itself to coaxing out some of the most special if venerable performance, the heartbroken a cappella ‘My Family Won’t Let Me Marry The Man I Love (I Am Forced To Wed My Uncle)’ is Momina at her most intimate and lamentably fragile.
With a murmured hum turn loudly expressed vocal, Momina’s opening evocation ‘Every One Knows I Have Taken A Young Lover’ seems to stir up something both mystical and magical in its performer: a glow even. With a repeated thrummed strummed note and a barely rhythmic movement of percussion we’re transported to some very removed vision of deep-fried Southern blues. There’s more of that feel on the slap-y clap-y ‘Ahiyole’, this time though, of the Tuareg variety. And the beaten hand drummed ‘For My Husband’ has an air of voodoo Orleans about it.
Momina’s voice is however absent on the Andre Fanazara lead, ‘Heya’ (or “welcome”); another Spanish guitar flavoured soulful turn that features a collective male chorus of soothed, inviting harmonies.
Despite her years, Momina sounds full of beans; excited, fun and even on the plaintive performances, so alive. This isn’t a dead music, a version of the ethnographical, but a life affirming call of spontaneity in a world suffocated by over-produced pap and commercialism. Just when you think you’ve heard everything, or become somehow jaded by it all, Brennan facilitates something extraordinary and astounding. Cynicism died as soon as the first notes and that voice struck; this isn’t an exercise nor competition to see who can find the most obscure sounds, but a celebration and signal that there is a whole lot of great performers, musical performances that exist if you’d only look.
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