Our Daily Bread 497: The White Russian, Goa Express, Pintandwefall…
February 21, 2022
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Roundup
The cult leader of the infamous lo fi gods, The Bordellos, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea has released countless recordings over the decades with his family band of hapless unfortunates, and is the owner of a most self-deprecating sound-off style blog. His last album Atlantic Crossing, a long overdue released collaboration with 20th Century Tokyo Princess’s Ted Clark, was released last year. A new album entitled Cardboard Box Beatle has just been released on Metal Postcard Records.
Each month we supply him with a mixed bag of new and upcoming releases to see what sticks.
Singles
Goa Express ‘Everybody In The UK’
(Ra-Ra Rok Records)
My self being a miserable bastard, I thought I would not like this as it is a jolly tune with upbeat message and fun video. But I actually like it: probably in the knowledge that in 20 years these young whippersnappers will be as worn down with reality as I am. But let’s not think ahead, let’s celebrate youth and all its shenanigans; let these talented young men enjoy their moment in the sun and applaud their way with a catchy BBC 6 music like tune as it is pretty spiffing [which is a much-underused word in reviewing circles].
Burnsey ‘Nail Your Colours’
7th February 2022
I really like this track from Burnsey, the sound of an exiled scouser living in Germany. And yes, you get all the lovely Liverpool psych that seems to run through the blood of so many musicians from that city; all sea shanty wonder and spaced-out bliss, a track the Coral would no doubt sell their ma’s last pot of scouse for. And as the old saying goes, “you can take the man out of Liverpool but cannot take the Liverpool from the man”. And thank the lord for that for this is a lovely track of pure scouse whimsy. I await the album. Record labels check this man out.
Pintandwefall ‘Last Minutes’
(Soliti)
I like Pintandwefall: if I remember correctly, I gave their 2020 album, Your Stories Baby, a glowing review. And ‘Last Minutes’, taken from their forthcoming album, Seventh Baby (due out this Friday, the 25th February) is also a bit of a musical treat; a melody filled piece of pop candy that has me grinning like a loon, like a caricature of Sid James overdosing on 70s boobs and dairy free ice cream. Yes, it is that good. I once again look forward to the album with my breath indeed baited.
Thomas Dollbaum ‘God’s Country’
(Big Legal Mess)
I like this. I love old time country music; my dad was a huge country fan so I grew up hearing it all the time. And this certainly has the same feel – the same way Bill Callahan does it. And I’m sure if my dad was still alive, he would also appreciate this; for a well written song is a well written song no matter what the genre, and this is a well written song. I predict we might be hearing more of Thomas Dollbaum: not that I want to curse Thomas as my predictions of greatness normally end in total anonymity for the poor performer. But you never know, Thomas might be the one to break the curse.
bigflower ‘Free’
12th February 2022
bigflower is back with another whoosh of a track; a song that moves with an urgency of a runaway train; a song with atmospheric guitar and keyboard and a drum machine that hammers the pain into your eyeballs: but in a good way [if that is possible].
‘Free’ is a song that has the mid 80s alternative shine about it; a song that has one remembering the days of the Psychedelic Furs, and like a lot of bigflower tracks, I can imagine it appearing in some moody black and white movie where the antihero does not end up getting the girl just a load of shit thrown at him. Yes indeed, another winner from bigflower.
Albums
The White Russian ‘You Are’
(DripDrop Records) 3rd March 2022
Myself being the self-proclaimed King of No-Fi, I really enjoyed the production on this. Coming in at the hi-fi end of lo-fi, this EP has a great deal of heart and soul and real life about it: in film terms, more 60s sink drama than Hollywood blockbuster.
This is a beautiful 5 track EP and my favourite of the five excellent tracks is ‘You Are’, which reminds me of Paul Simon at his most tender. This is one of those rare Eps you wish was an album as I certainly want to hear more from The White Russian. And any band you want to hear more from is indeed a very good thing indeed.
Red Pants ‘When We Were Dancing’
(Paisley Shirt Records) 18th February 2022
I like it when I see I’ve been sent something from Paisley Shirt Records to review, as I know there’s going to be more than a good chance that I’m going to like it. And I’m pleased to say they have not let me down with this fine release by Red Pants; an album of lo-fi(ish) indie rock, an album where murmured vocals are mixed way down in the mix which gives the album a “we are doing this for the love of our art” quality not to be indie rock superstars. It’s like discovering an old band cassette at the bottom of a box and remembering the fun you used to have dancing the Watutsi with the skinny long brown-haired girl who you would of one time offered your world to. It’s an album of fond remembrances; an album of drinking too much and not caring enough; an album of total lo-fi beauty; a cassette of the best kept secret in the world.
Super Hit ‘S-T’
(Metal Postcard Records) 28th January 2022
The magic and love of C86 is alive and well and living in Portland, Oregon. Simple drum machine beats and jangly chiming guitars back whispered vocals that takes one back to the golden days of Sarah Records.
There is something simply charming about the love and fragility of this album. Melodies float and glisten making this 18-track album of short songs a must have album: an ideal album to soundtrack the coming spring months when the nights get lighter and hope takes a peek at the departing darkness. An album that will grow and become a daily occurrence in your life.
Legless Trials ‘Legless Trials On Main Street’
(Metal Postcard Records) 15th February 2022
The Legless Trials are back with their second album Legless On Main Street’, an album that sucks in the spirit of the Fall and The Cramps, The Velvet Underground and smothers it with a radio friendly sheen that fairly sparkles and shimmies like an alternative hit in waiting. Any one of these nine gems should be blasting from your radio in the coming months.
The Legless Trials are rock ‘n’ roll personified; they are Little Richard, The Banana Splits and Captain Beefheart rolled into one. They are Bob Dylan’s snide grin and Elvis Presley’s erect penis. They are Jagger’s crossing the road walk. They understand the importance of Jack Goode screaming limp you bugger at a leather clad Gene Vincent. They understand the meaning of rock ‘n’ roll and are one of the five crucial acts in that movement today, and if you don’t believe me listen to this album of purity, anger, humour and song writing genius and then try and tell me I am wrong without looking like a puerile piece of Pat Boones shit.
The Monoscopes ‘Painkiller And Wine’
(Big Black Cat Records)
There is a beauty and sadness that sometimes can only be released through the magic of music. It’s like a windswept spell, a lone call through the echoing of a radio dial and the wizards casting the spell on this occasion are the Monoscopes with a debut album filled with soulful yearning; a car crash of psych-tinged velvet indie guitar goodness.
A really enjoyable journey through the feelings and emotions most human beings experience at some time, be it lust, heartache, betrayal, hopes raised and then dashed, watching a shooting Big Star crash into the broken effigy of Alex Chilton’s breaking heart. Painkillers and Wine is a celebration of life in all its dirt and glory, sound tracked by chiming guitars and melodies to wrap and lose yourself in. In other words, simply a fine album of melancholy guitar goodness.
Our Daily Bread 496: Future Kult ‘S-T’
February 18, 2022
Future Kult ‘S-T’
(Action Wolf Records/AWAL) 25th February 2022
Decamped in the outliers of Hidalgo, miles away from Mexico City, the sonic-visual partnership of Sion Trefor and Benjamin Zombori have tasked themselves with producing the music of the future.
Leaving behind both Cardiff and Berlin they’ve pitched up off the beaten track in the mountainous valley of one of Mexico’s smallest states; breathing in the geography, history, allure of this hacienda and river settled “nowhere”.
Bringing together both multifaceted artists and their respected disciplines – Trefor a professional concert pianist, violinist, percussionist, producer and composer for visual projects, his foil Zombori the founder of a music, arts and video agency and artist in his own right – Future Kult is an omnivorous grab of inspirations and borderless fusions.
A barrier, or at least warning against the ever-imposing forces of technology, their self-titled debut album corrals post-punk, indie-dance, no wave, electronica, pop and umpteen on-trend genres into a simmering and explosive dense dystopian sonic nightmare for all the senses. They marry the reverberations of the poor missing sisters lost over decades in the Mexican borderlands with the esoteric and the soulless algorithmic takeover of Silicon Valley across an often intense album of hushed and on occasion falsetto vocalised yearns and sinister-laced despair. That’s not to say it’s a resigned, or even wholly dark, songbook as magical filters of light and dance-like euphoric crescendos emerge from the industrial throbbing gristle and gothic bones.
But just as you think you’ve got a handle those esoteric chants and nuzzled drug-doped saxophone honks and hints of The Big Pink and Renegade Soundwave shatter the Mexican posed hinterland vibes.
Binding together opposing forces and cultures the badly-lit underpass R&B flowing ‘The Wolf’ sounds like Gary Numan taking an E, whilst the sober warning brooding ‘Red Sands’ wields Belbury Poly harpsichord horror dream-realism with Ed Scissor & Lamplighter. ‘Luciferian’ rides a minimalist Tresor techno wave of Catholic-electro guilt.
Front 242 touches gloves with Amorphous Androgynous, DAF, Moroder, Nukuluk, Marilyn Manson and Nitzer Ebb on an electrified mind-warp of crushing malevolent technological forces. Kept as virtual prisoners in the web, Future Kult send out pulsating augurs and border-crossing sonic explosive pleas that will melt or send those algorithms into a frenzy: a great statement from a burgeoning partnership.
Our Daily Bread 495: Dubbledge & Forest DLG ‘Ten Toes Down’
February 16, 2022
ALBUM REVIEW/MATT OLIVER
Our resident hip-hop lexicon and expert Matt Oliver is back with a new review. Matt’s been busy with his own music pr business of late, but been selecting choice cuts form the hip-hop scene for the Monolith Cocktail’s monthly playlists. We’re glad to have him back on writing duties with this review of the recent UK rap duo of Dubbledge and Forest DLG.
Dubbledge & Forest DLG ‘Ten Toes Down’
(Potent Funk) 10th February 2022
By definition Ten Toes Down means to totally commit to something, and Watford emcee Dubbledge has always shown devotion to the home cause, an energiser helping mangle the angles of hip-hop as part of LDZ and Problem Child and showing off all his resplendent showmanship as ‘The Richest Man In Babylon’. Quite how Ten Toes Down became a lost album is a mystery; one assumes the standard suspect of industry foul play was at work to deny Dubbledge another chance to blow your house down, though a couple of dust-offs within a compact package suggest a reconfiguration of his geezer-ish cunning done as a wink and a smile and living by the seat of his pants. His is the sort of flow that stores cheekfuls of rhymes akin to an iconic trumpet player, gargling them about the place and working every last facial muscle before leaving the front row festooned in comedic phlegm and flavour.
It’s this force of personality, providing the sort of unsubtle putdowns still worthy of an opponent’s applause, which loves nothing more than the spotlight being turned on full whack, but knowing the prove must always back the show. The closing track ‘Your Mum’ is ready to take the mick, but Dubbledge and his stretchy syllables get away with it by including some parental value not to be taken for granted: the man has layers. On what it takes to be a ‘Soopa Gangsta’, Dubbledge put his spin on Big Pun’s most famous lines about Italian culture, and pulls another fast one by being more knowledge of self than guns and furs stereotypes.
‘Taking Libs’ continues his studies into the male-female occupancy of Venus and Mars (“I buy you fish and chips, you should be happy”) – the persona can have the flippancy of a 70s sitcom and pique a PC interest, but that’s entertainment. The album’s centrepiece, the diary of extortion that forms ‘Itchy Itchy’ (previously ‘The Phil Mitchell Crackhead Song’), looks like being the album’s weightiest material; except it’s delivered so that heavy addiction comes off as cheeky chappy tomfoolery, including giving crackheads a shout out on the outro. While you’re not exactly rooting for him as he ducks and dives to fund his habit, it’s more comic strip than public service confessional – and we’re alright with that.
Dubbledge doing damage (“I ain’t trying to be something that I’m not” is verification, if needed, straight out the gate), bears many technicalities: it’s all in the timing of pauses, the theatrical fade aways mid-conversation, the accentuation of pay-off lines on every fourth/eighth/sixteenth bar (including the ‘aw yeaaaaah’s that pepper ‘Chess’, an Amen-break wrecking ball re-sourced from 2011’s Chase & Status/Tinie Tempah collaboration ‘Hitz’), and the pointing of the mic crowd-wards for feedback, before he runs down to your funny bone. Obviously, bravado by the bucketload helps as well: the posse cut with Kyza, Micall Parknsun and TBear, the Englishmen of the belly dancing ‘Mad Dogs’ bumrushing crews out through the fire exit, is a classic case of in-for-a-penny impudence. For all the posturing putting a finger to lips, who wouldn’t be moved by it’s to-the-window, to-the-wall hook of ‘we’re the bollocks!”
All this weight has the right backer: Forest DLG, the newest alias of producer’s producer Chemo/Telemachus, loads up ten moments of loudness spanning rip-n-run club bangers, neck grabs heading into the red, heavy synth power (‘Tear Dem Apart’ – again the title tells nothing like the whole story), and the title track re-enacting a Lock Stock car chase. On ‘Lend a N A Pencil’, Dubbledge peacocks “while I’m standing on a tightrope, one toe balancing/in between the forces of good and evil like Anakin”, while FDLG adjusts a bass frequency back and forth like a bored studio nerd. It’s only on ‘Awkward’, cartwheeling between folk, psychedelia and Big Brovaz’ ‘Nu Flow’, when the producer has a bash at putting on a night on the tiles for his muse to caper across. As much as it’s the album’s sore thumb, it perfectly frames D’s soul-bearing performance.
Never reduced to anything cartoonish despite circling some slapstick bum notes and hormones ruling head, Dubbledge puts on a proper show. Ten years or so on hold hasn’t deadened the impact of Ten Toes Down, and though there are perhaps few surprises given his work in the intervening years, those experiencing his spectacle for the first time have a cult hero to give a big hand to.
Our Daily Bread 494: Marsiglia Records Special
February 15, 2022
Album Reviews by Graham Domain
Davide Cedolin ‘Embracing The Unknown’
Palliatives For Dirty Consciences ‘Blankly’
Lua ‘Werner’
(Marsiglia) All Available Now
Deep in the swamps sat beneath the stars hypnotized by swamp gas hovering lights and the mesmeric sound of insects, a lone man sits playing psych blues on his guitar and remembering the past, singing forlorn songs of melancholic joy and fleeting victories hard won. How soon time had drifted by, easy days free from worry soon replaced by the loneliness of life as an outsider. A man cut adrift from his moorings, left to float aimlessly downstream aware only of the sun and the need for water, shelter, food and the basic necessities of life.
Embracing the Unknown is an album by Davide Cedolin, somewhat reminiscent of Mark Lanegan’s blues but without the gravitas of voice – the music a husky longing for something more, a panacea to block out the pain and the cold chill of night! The band a reflection of nature, the vast emptiness and loneliness of the desert, the hot dry heat of anxiety, the tropics – the humid air of a jungle of
indifference, the mountains of emotion too high to climb, the rugged terrain too plain, too human, too hostile to be embraced.
Embracing the Unknown is like a mantra to live, a mantra to think, a mantra to be, a mantra to forgo convention and set out your own stall, insulation and daring riding side by side.
Werner by Lua is an Ambient album of emotive music recorded in Italy during the first Covid lockdownof 2020. It is released in a Limited-Edition Cassette format by the diverse and colourful Italian Independent label: Marsiglia Records.
The eight pieces of music slowly unfurl their charms, beginning with a dreamy piano chord and electronics minimal piece of melancholy, that evokes the ground-hog-day monotony of daily life during lockdown.
The album builds in melody, instrumentation and complexity as it progresses. Naivete and disbelief giving way to a gradual dawning of the nature and reach of the threat. The unfolding flowers of science-fact eclipsing the unreality of the previously perceived science-fiction.
Reality, death and fear however, soon become too much and the music veers into the relief of escapism and adventure. New Worlds to explore, dimensional travel and space-time shifts.
‘Nuova Cura’ is the standout track – a chilled space-warp of a tune sounding like Chick Corea flying high and unshackled. Strange pink misted synthesizer shapes emerge from the primeval dust of dead stars. New life, energy re-fashioned, a galactic super nova beginning to stretch out and boogie.
The album gets better with repeat plays as it progresses from minimal piano chords and electronics, through orchestral and space music, to a kind of futuristic world music performed by machines, half -asleep and dreaming! Hope bringing colour back to the Cosmos!
Imagine a world where honesty, sensitivity and emotional intelligence are seen as essential qualities for politicians and all those employed in positions of power and influence. Imagine a world where people with a temperament of calm reasoning are seen as strong leaders, rounded individuals, lauded for their
ability to communicate openly, honestly and effectively with all others. Their thinking and reasoning clearly visible for all to see. Leaders, able to negotiate and reach sound reasoned agreements for the benefit of all. In this world, everyone has their own individual talents and abilities recognized. Their own
skill set and sense of self-worth encouraged and developed so that they can be themselves and earn a living doing what they enjoy and are good at, without being judged and measured against others. Imagine a world where everyone is valued by society for being themselves, whatever their capabilities.
Now consider the real world, the types of people elected into positions of power – the greedy, the self-seeking – out to line their own pockets, those indifferent to the suffering of others. Every country elects such leaders. We all elect the egotist, the bully, the purveyor of his ‘own success at any cost’ and to hell with the consequences. Those that gleefully tread on the poor, the ill and the weak!
Blankly is an album that holds up to the light – the absurd nature of modern society! The very name of the band meaning the provision of pain relief for the masses, without addressing the cause of the pain! The rotting corpse of liberty drugged and with perpetual brain freeze, unable to think, distracted and hypnotized by technology.
The disease that is the fucked-up modern world itself, manipulating you and me to fall in-line, believe the lies, endorse the lies, spread the lies! If we don’t play the game, we will end up poor, ill, homeless, we will become the waste product of society. Fear is the key!
Hailing from Italy with the current album released on Marsiglia Records, the band Palliatives for Dirty Consciences are a tight unit with great guitar work, taut bass lines and tunes to rival the bands they are undoubtedly influenced by – Wire circa third album 154, Pale Saints, The Sound (1981), Comsat Angels, Joy Division, The Chameleons, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees and even Sigur Ros. Their overall sound is akin to the great indie bands from around 1980 – the original New Wave bands (now termed Post Punk). Have a listen to the song ‘Back Home’ for an idea of their sound and originality.
Make no mistake, this is a great album. If the band were American or from the UK they would undoubtedly be attracting great reviews and playing all the festivals this summer.
Welcoming the newest contributor to the Monolith Cocktail fold, musician and artist Graham Domain joined our team earlier this year. The offspring of Scott Walker and David Slyvian, Graham has charmed us with his plaintive adroit music for years, and so we’re happy to have him on board.
Our Daily Bread 493: Brian Bordello ‘Cardboard Box Beatles’
February 10, 2022
ALBUM FEATURE/REVIEW
Dominic Valvona
Brian Bordello ‘Cardboard Box Beatles’
(Metal Postcard Records) 11th February 2022
Declaration of interests, yes, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea is a regular contributor to this esteemed blog. And so, in an act of what could be deemed as “pop eating itself” I’m going to somehow balance friendship with critical analyses.
Who am I kidding?! Brian is the best. And anything I’ve written or will write about both his idiosyncratic solo work and his music with the creatively dysfunctional family band, The Bordellos, will probably go unread by the masses, who should really be celebrating this St. Helens lo fi poet-of-the-people: if by people you mean despondent middle-aged white blokes learning to come to terms with their fates; ignored by all and sundry; not quite old enough to prove invaluable, yet too old to start over.
The Les Miserable of the North, Brian’s wit and aphorism one-liners make all his resigned lyricism more palatable. No one quite sums up life in an almost ungovernable modern Britain like our Brian. Yet there’s always a sullen but achingly heartbreaking fragility, delivered on Brian’s second most popular theme of romance: unrequited love; a love lost; a love undeserved. Regrets…he’s had a fair few. But listening to the lo fi (so lo fi as to barely register; making even the late Sparklehorse sound like a flash git) stripped of artifice recordings of this “nowhere man” (A Beatles reference which we shall come back to later) is never a slog.
Across the decades, shovelling away with a kid’s cheap plastic spade – left over from a northern beachside holiday many moons ago I envisage – at the music industry’s coalface, Brian has released his proclamations and wry wisdom in various guises and on a myriad of obscure labels. His latest album is for Metal Postcard Records (no strangers to this site; the “postcard” bit of that imprint the closest a fandom Brian will ever get to the original iconic Scottish label he adores) is about as basic as it gets: just an acoustic guitar, Brian’s wistful soft rasped voice and the hum and slipping rubber band of what sounds like a Tascam four-track.
Cardboard Box Beatle as a title does little to prepare the listener; the Cardboard title-track couldn’t be further from a Beatles homage, sounding like a St. Helens bedraggled Kurt Cobain unraveling his life, baring his soul to the disinterest of everyone else. Instead, the box in question can be seen as a metaphor for a cheap recycled life of low achievement; 50 plus years summed up in a box you might drop off at a jumble sale when someone dies, or leave for the local charity shop: leftovers, mementos, cherished low monitory valued memories deemed worthless. The charity shop will be something Brian is all too aware of, after like many of us, struggling to keep or losing their job in the Covid pandemic.
It’s also, no doubt, a descriptive name for the cheap knock-offs, those who still pray at the altar of a band that spilt up over 50 years ago. Whilst Brian himself wears his influences on his mothball, untangling sleeve, he berates the lack of ingenuity, freshness, zest, protest and, even, fun in most new music. As a reviewer for my site, he’s more than used to reading umpteen thousand press releases, and the eye-catching, dumbed-down use of “soundalike” references. Whilst the 90s to the most recent generation breaking through is the 60s to us 80s kids, there’s still such a hunger to sound, copy the music of their grandfathers and mothers. Brian’s own nostalgia doesn’t get in the way of championing the contemporary artists/bands that are trying something different. He’s sung of a pantheon of “motherfuckers”, from Scott Walker to Gene Vincent; Julian Cope to Dave Gedge; artists he feels gave the bird finger to compromise, or were just one-offs, never to be repeated.
Disparaging catcalls aside, the industry’s reliance on back catalogues is proving destructive to newcomers: Brian can be heard banging his head against Flyod’s brick wall. None more so than on the album’s almost flat, despondent opener ‘Yes, I Am The New Nick Drake’; a low-end wistful jeer no doubt at the production line of acoustic troubadours in awe of the fateful legend: but only in copying the adulation part, the young life cut short bit of that legend being a step too far to copy.
As far as The Beatles go there’s an air of melancholic Revolver on the disarming but pleaded ‘Please’; also hints of a Mogadon induced Wedding Present and The Las in the melody and strumming. It must be said that the low quality of these plaints, laments and maverick observations feels more like eavesdropping than a performance: as if Brian sits all day playing these often candid, cathartic but also piss-taking jibes to himself, and that we’ve just stumbled upon him and decided to secretly press record.
In the romantic, knockabout sentimental vogue, Brian exudes a Northern Syd Barrett (another hero of our Brian’s; forget Floyd after that though) trying to catch a free-spirited ‘Flowerchild’; grumbles about his bland perpetual Autumn wardrobe as a metaphor for lost love and mortality and lockdowns, on the “all my summers have gone” “dododoing” ‘Seasons Change’; languidly strums Catholic metaphors about a muse on the Dan Tracey-esque ‘The True Meaning Of Love’; and on what is a deeply offensive, but all the better for it guilty laugh, ‘Here Comes Eric With His Dead Child Song’ (contender surely for best title of 2022, if not ever), in drudgery, bemoans his own sad existence and behaviour to those held dear.
But as I have mentioned already, this is the unraveling of an artist on the “scrapheap”; a moment (say a year in Covid lockdown) captured of mental fatigue, alienation, defeat. Songs like ‘Catfood On The Floor’ epitomize a modern “nowhere man”; a generation X life boxed-up with nothing worth keeping other than the trinkets that marked personal euphoria against a disposable, unwanted collection of CDs ripped from the covers of NME and Mojo: a summary lament of the emptiness that so many of us felt, experienced during the last two years. Brian even measures himself up for an “Instagram” friendly funeral on the ode to a ‘Salamander Fruit Fly’; a poignant, though well obscured in tune, song about death, mental health and the banality of narcissism seen through the vaporous lifestyles and validations of social media.
Brian takes it all in with an acidic, often witty pun(ing) amusement; even the most depressing moments magically dark in humour and self-depreciation. Never has so little musically evoked such reams of thought; a simple, slipping and warping because of cheap apparatus, guitar and voice denouncement of modern life spent under the cosh of Covid, Cardboard Box Beatles is more than the sum of its cheaply recorded parts.
Coming back round to that Beatles title, the album (as so many of Brian’s releases are) is released on the anniversary of the Fab Fours Please, Please Me recordings; a link back to nostalgia and love for the band that still influences legions fifty-nine years later. Because at the heart of Brian’s diatribes about our reliance for nostalgia, he still can’t quite escape it himself. But then, can any of us truly cut ties with the past and a so-called “golden age”. Perhaps it’s that age’s mysticism, the secret alchemy that Brian so cherishes – a life without 24/7 newsfeeds and Twitter accounts -, a complete opposite to today’s all too knowing show and tells and the relentlessness demystifying commodification of the art form. Striped back to the essentials, Brian encapsulates an array of displeasures like no one else can. Let’s just hope his music reaches the wider audience it deserves.
The Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist #63: BDP, Lata Mangeshkar, Bad Brains, Debruit, Sinead O Brien…
February 9, 2022
PLAYLIST/IMAGINARY RADIOSHOW
Compiled By Dominic Valvona
The Monolith Cocktail Social is one of two long-running playlist series on the blog. Running in tandem with the Monthly Revue, which represents all the new music both I and the MC team have been listening to and writing about during the month, the Social is a cross-generational, eclectic imaginary radio show, where anything goes: featuring tracks from the last 50 or more years.
It’s also my chance to show off my own tastes, records from my collection, and to both celebrate those albums reaching anniversary milestones and pay tribute to recent artists and figures we’ve lost during that month. Speaking of which, in the weeks between playlists we’ve lost voice of the beehive Ronnie Spector, the Indian nightingale Lata Mangeshkar, and Rachel Nagy of the mighty motor city garage and Nuggets slaying Detroit Cobras: all three of which are paid homage to in this, volume 63 of the Social.
As always, I also mark certain album anniversaries, including the 30th anniversary of the last album in a bright run from KRS-One‘s most important and fertile creatively vehicle, the boogie down Bronx collective BDP, Sex And Violence. Incredibly, and still rinsed today – though certain so-called new jazz stars think they invented it – the demigod of the spiritual and freeform, Ornette Coleman‘s Science Fiction marker is 50 this month. And what about this, D.C. Afro-Dub-Punk trailblazers Bad Brains‘ self-titled debut is 40 this month. But leading the anniversary pack this month is Amon Düül II‘s 1972 classic acid-folk masterpiece Carnival In Babylon.
Expect the rest of the playlist to mirror my whims, loves and curiosity with tracks from the Bow Street Runners, Vytas Brenner, Adele Sebastian, Ace Spectrum, Crossbones, Bas Jan, Spencer Cullum and loads more.
That Track List In Full::
Amon Düül II ‘All The Years Round’
Bow Street Runners ‘Electric Star’
Lata Mangeshkar ‘Papiha Re Tum Piya Se’
Steaua De Mare ‘Prolog (Original mix)’
JVC Force ‘It’s A Force Thing’
Boogie Down Productions ‘Drug Dealer’
Vytas Brenner ‘Gavilan’
Shay Hazan ‘Pink Collar’
Ornette Coleman ‘Rock The Clock’
Mombasa ‘Soletho Pt. III’
Adele Sebastian ‘Belize’
Afro Soul System ‘Tink Tank’
Bad Brains ‘I’
Chrizzy Zebby Tembo ‘I’ve Been Losing’
Ace Spectrum ‘You Ain’t No Match For Me’
Ronnie Spector ‘Girl From The Ghetto’
Kellee Patterson ‘Look At The Child’
Dream Team ‘There He Is’
Billy Butler ‘Come Over To My Side’
Chayns ‘You’
Crossbones ‘Highway’
The Detroit Cobras ‘I’ll Keep Holding On’
The Halo Benders ‘Virginia Reel Around The Fountain’
The Brilliant Corners ‘Rambling Rose’
Cola ‘Blank Curtain’
Spencer Cullum ‘Imminent Shadow’
Bas Jan ‘Progressive Causes’
Deafheaven ‘Villain’
Debruit ‘Above The Bosphorus’
Trance Farmers & Odd Nosedam ‘Like Dreamers Do’
Sinead O Brien ‘Kid Stuff’
String Machine ‘Eight Legged Dog’
Madelaine ‘Au Clair De La Lune’
The Perusal #25: Ilmiliekki Quartet, Al Doum And The Faryds, Daisy Glaze, Wovenhand…
February 7, 2022
A LOOK AT WHAT’S OUT THERE
Dominic Valvona’s Reviews Roundup
Photo Credit: Daisy Glaze/Vincent Perini
Wovenhand ‘Silver Sash’
(Glitterhouse Records) 4th February 2022
An esoteric landscape of Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Blood Meridian and the Egyptian Book Of The Dead awaits on the first album in nearly six years from the mystic David Eugene Edwards Westerns scripture imbued Wovenhand vehicle.
The former 16 Horsepower front man collaborates with Chuck French of the American hardcore band Planes Mistaken For Stars on a wildly driven, occasionally pummeling Biblical and occult raid on Western and Native American symbolism and allegory. Apache, Comanche and ‘Sicangu’ (one of the album’s track title) war dance jangling, rattled and marching percussion gear up against gnarling, doom-laden textures of heavy rock, the industrial, dark wave and the Gothic both on and off the reservation.
Edwards and his foil channel a troubling, even traumatic dark vision of a bloody West; a geography full of metaphysical holy mountains, sacred sites and timbered temples. Silver Sash squalls and creeps between NIN’s collaborations with Bowie and the Swans and Crime And The City Solution and The Mission as rattlesnakes hiss, eagles soar and the distant tribal drums beat out danger. All the while Edwards part quasi-prophet, part descriptive author style lyrics emphasis the supernatural, the holy and some romantic displays of anguish.
An atmospheric grind and hauntingly fierce album that burns scorch marks across an already scarred land, Silver Sash carries weight and mystique on nine songs of esoteric Western hammered invocations.
Ilmiliekki Quartet ‘S-T’
(We Jazz) 11th February 2022
Anything but a lifeless frozen tundra when it comes to contemporary jazz, Finland’s We Jazz (clue is in the name) label platform has been prolific and instrumental in promoting a rich abundance of the Scandinavian region’s talent – three titles no less making our recent ‘choice albums of 2021’ lists.
One such Helsinki stalwart, honing their impressive skills for two decades, is the assured Ilmiliekki Quartet. Their new self-titled album is an understated, lightly touched suffusion of jazz-blues and soul with a whiff of the Savoy and 60s period Blue Note labels output. Although saying that the action can rise to a tumultuous crescendo, a climatic splash of the waters. But for the most part the intensity is simmered in a sizzle of cymbal and snare resonance, quietly stretched, elegant double bass bobs, gentle spotted piano and nuzzled drifting trumpet.
Each member of this special quartet gets to flex their compositional skills, with trumpeter Verneri Pohjola orchestrating the veiled, ghostly-touched ‘Follow The Damn Bread Crumbs’; pianist Tuomo Prättälä dreaming up the early Miles bluesy reflective ‘Sgr A*’ and huffed trumpeted ‘Kaleidoscopesque’; the bassist Antti Lötjönen conjures up the cushioning bounced and dusted rebirth of cool NYC boardwalk evoked ‘Three Queens’; and drummer Olavi Louhivuori serves up the nocturnal serenaded, factory streamed and wind rustled ‘Night Song’. The album’s only cover, ‘Aila’ by the Finnish pop group Karina, keeps within the considered perimeters, stirring between a haze and controlled climatic maelstrom.
The quartet’s overall sound is one of elegance and purposeful development, experiment; a rich channeling of sophisticated jazz from both sides of the pond.
Ziad Rahbani ‘Houdou Nisbi’
(Wewantsounds) 25th February 2022
As the agit-pop artwork cover that has been faithfully reproduced from this cult Middle Eastern treasure’s original cassette/CD release in 1991 shows, the almost surreal climate that existed in Beirut and the South Lebanon at the time it was recorded in the mid-80s, is in constraints with the lighter escapist fantastical fusions of the country’s iconic polymath Ziad Rahbani. Against a backdrop of hard-fought civil war, Ziad was leading everyone into the discothèque and their bedrooms.
A high-heeled local dressed to the nines steps out of a casually placed machine gun diorama; just another statement on the day-to-day horrors that threatened the entire region towards all-out war. The iconic Arabian crate-digger’s favourite, Houdou Nisbi, which is finally being released on vinyl by the Wewantsounds reissue specialists, translates as “relatively calm”: the oft-used TV anchor’s ironic expression in the face of a tumultuous raging conflict. Two thirds of the way into a two-decade spanning civil war, far too complex to detail here, the Lebanon was at the epicentre of war between opposing religious militant groups; sucking in Israel, Syria and a myriad of client states as peacekeepers. During one of the worst atrocities of that war – the infamous Sabra and Shatila massacres – the Lebanese star went to work in his By-Pass studio to make an album of smooth, MOR romantic balladry, funk, soul, jazz and, what sounds like, both Nino Ferrer and Gainsbourg Franco-Arabian troubadour like pop. Both softened and sexy, there’s even, at a stretch I’d admit, a touch of Leonard Cohen 80s slow dances and Odyssey-style disco.
A towering cultural figure in the Middle East at large, as a musician, composer, producer, playwright and activist, Ziad’s fate was mapped out from birth. His feted musician father Assi Rahbani was part of the famous Rahbani Brothers, whilst his mother, Fairuz, was a legendary singer – a number of her most prized albums were actually produced by Ziad in the 80s. With those genes it’s almost a given that he would go on to accomplish so much.
Heavily influenced, as you will hear, by Western music and with a first-rate band of performers (Tewfic Farroukh on sax, Paul Dawani on guitar and Emile Boustani on percussion) on side, Ziad created a sentimental as much as a salacious mood of lilted swoons, maladies and sleep sophisticated groovy dancefloor moves. It all starts with the smooched and tingled piano, floated flute and whistled heart-to-heart ‘Bala Wala Chi’, and moves onto the more mysterious, brassy resonating Arabian title-track. Another piano dalliance – of which Ziad was a maestro – beckons on the dreamy funk-jazz fantasy ‘Nafs Al Sheghlat’, followed by one of those sexier deeply-voiced with bending, melting coquettish female accompaniments, and with a early 80s Sakamoto like production-job, ‘Yalla Kichou Barra’.
A female presence of both lofted, airy allurement and exotic oozing can be heard throughout, alongside the main man, who hinges between almost baritone and more yearning croons: even the whispering.
There’s one cover picked out in the notes, a louche French-esque version of smooth-operators, The Crusaders’ (one name that I would have thought had very negative connotations in the Lebanon) modern soul classic ‘Soul Shadow’. Under the Arabesque ‘Routh Khabbir’ translation Ziad keeps relatively close to the original.
Touches of 70s NYC Broadway, Michael Legrand showtime, Brazilian Tropicana, club lounge Arabia and 80s sentimental Japanese balladry seem to subtly flow on a heart-string tucked fusion that seems to transcend the chaos and death all around. A calmer soundtrack to all the violence and confusion of that moment, Houdou Nisbi would have you thinking everything was hunky dory; as a “relatively clam” escape it works a treat.
Daisy Glaze ‘S-T’
(The Sound Of Sinners) 25th February 2022
What do you get when the one-time drone spaceman Sonic Boom sets out the production controls for a panoramic envisioned Western soundtrack? Well, you get a cinematic free ride across a well-travelled vibrato and tremolo twanged resonating landscape of Tex-Mex border dotted chapels, rebellious skulking outlaw county hideouts and lamentable lover’s rendezvous.
Yes, Boom facilitates the dreamy and sulking Western fantasies of the musical partnership that is Daisy Glaze (named I take it, after the Big Star song); a boy/girl union between Louis Epstein and Alix Brown, a duo that extends to a five-piece outside the studio.
Arriving from congruous but slightly different musical byroads, the duo meet at the same knowing dangerous lovelorn junction that Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra etched their entwined names; a match that the duo describes as more “blues than pink”, on a soundtrack in which the established echoes of Jack Nitzsche’s strings and Morricone’s spaghetti Western scores cross with The Mekons Sacri Cuori, Ritz Ortolani and noughties Domino Records. Within that indie-country and often supernatural spooked Western scope the duo corrals a wide panning shot of influences to produce a songbook based on the “sinister side of prismatic love”.
From the bell tolls of a shotgun wedding to melted desert mirage apparitions, the Daisy Glaze imprint mixes up decades (traversing the 50s, 60s, 80s, 90s and present) whilst moving from swells of indie to reverent electric organ suffused country-gospel. Although the big sound of ‘Statues Of Villains’ did remind me of both Stereo Total, the Dark Horses and Arabian sand dunes. Almost Gothic in parts, like the Bad Seeds or Crime And The City Solution at a séance during the Day of the Dead, there’s wobbled vibrations of Elvis Presly’s ghost and the dearly departed ready to shake a boney skeleton hip and leg.
Sonic Boom’s touch gives the whole thing an echoed and reverberating spell, and helps to send this ‘psych-outlaw’ partnership in an indie-rock direction. Daisy Glaze pick up all the right vibes and run with them, moseying and cooing sweet everything’s on a recognisable but bleak modern set.
Al Doum and The Faryds ‘Freaky People’
(Black Sweat Records) 18th February 2022
More acid-washed Harmonious Bosch than Hieronymus, the spiritual unifying force that is the ever-changing Al Doum and The Faryds collective turn the garden of earthly delights into a celebration of Mother Nature’s freaks.
At this particular time and space the rambunctious Milan group are a ten-piece ensemble, once more pushing their recent Freaky People free-for-all. A self-confessed paradox of the raucous and seriously considered, the “chaotic and respectful”, “calm and furious”, they’ve managed to invoke both Egypt 80 and Albert Ayler; The Flaming Lips and Vis A Vis; and an astral travelling Lonnie Liston Smith and Les Freres Smith on a bustling Kuti protestation come gospel paean party.
In practice this means spiritual jazz like choruses of soulful wellness mixed with bust downtown Lagos shuffles, suffused horns, fluty flights, celestial chimes, Afro-rock and hints of a psychedelic India. An organised simmered outpouring of energy in honour of Earth’s green goddess, Freaky People’s rainbow alliance sucks in a hand-clapping Janelle Monáe, the afflatus African homages of Idris Ackamoor and Philip Cohran with the modernising improve eclectic peregrinations of The Cosmic Range and soul revue backbeat of Kasalèfkut Hulu to drum up a dancing and tumbled healing balm of optimism.
Orange Crate Art ‘Contemporary Guitar Music’
The Quietist ‘Hidden’
(Both on Somewherecold Records) 18th February 2022
Transducing, transfusing the electric guitar so that this fuzzed-up and flange effected instrument nearly loses itself in the varied states that the Orange Crate Art’s driver Tobias Bernsand sends it, the Contemporary Guitar Music title doesn’t come close to describing the seven musical journeys found within.
Billed as a collection of spontaneous in the moment songs, this latest album from the Malmo explorer traverses a cosmic myriad of trip-hop, post-rock, kosmische, krautrock, psychedelia, dream-pop, indie and baggy dance music; created I’d imagine in some kind of drug-induced haze, with the signature apparatus mind-bended, wailed, contoured and vibrated into a dream factory of the hypnotic, dubby and melting.
Chronicling Bernsand’s creative head space (though this one-man studio enterprise extends to a four-piece when appearing live) in the summer of 2021, there’s a lovely ether oscillating opener entitled ‘Stud Phases’ that reminded me of a dream-wave Land Observations or Broken Shoulder soaked caught in a sort of quasi-electronic dance music cycle. The next track, ‘Wendy Underway’, moves the action towards a trance drifted communion of soft tickling jazz, George Harrison’s Moog mood music, the Van Allen Belt and The Soupdragons: a psychedelic mushroom of translucent cloud gazing if ever I heard one.
A Lydon free PiL has space dust sprinkled on Jah Wobble’s dub bass pulsations on the magical ‘Self-Similarity Fractals’, whilst it could be Weatherall turning on the effects on the velocity building ‘Energetic Superbubble Of Synthetic Telepathy’. Things only get better from here on in, with the epic krautrock peregrination and cosmic courier special ‘Young Spine’, which in equal measures evokes a quasi Klaus Dinger drum beat (not the motorik, but the other kind he specialised in) and echoes of The Untied Knot, Embryo and Higamos Hagamos on its stellar journey – perhaps’ the album’s highlight for me. Just as epic, if probing towards the subterranean is the camel caravan motioned psych bad turn ‘Two Ponies Make No Pint’. A Massive Attack ‘Protection’ style broody bassline is absorbed into a dark patchwork of the HiFi Klub, Andy Haas, Seefeel, Olivia Tremor Control and speaker bouncing arppegiator circling rotations. If you’re aware of the background, the mythology, then you will know that most of the OCA’s material has never been released – that last track being a case in point, a radical ‘remix’ of an unreleased song from four years ago. After a couple of previous attempts and false starts, Bernsand has finally assembled a collection for the highly prolific experimental label Somewherecold (releasing at least four albums a month on average). And it’s an astral belter, a cosmic dream and post-rocking beauty worthy of our attention.
In short, another worthy release on the North American label of note this month is the collated epic ambient album from The Quietist – curiously both albums share mushroom themed cover art. A congruous expanded collection of slow-burning peregrinations from across Phillip Ward’s catalogue, plus three new tracks especially written for this album, Hidden charts the developments of this composer, from his initial apprenticeship writing music in the late 90s on a Playstation 1 (of all things) to a Cubase SE upgrade.
There’s some really incredible moving ambient, low electronic dramas and soundtracks amongst these almost pure suites. Touches of Eno, Popol Vuh, Tangerine Dream, Jean Michal Jarre can be detected in both the long form beautified sweeps and blooms and more mysterious mood boards. A great way to lose oneself for an hour or two.
Seigo Aoyama ‘Prelude For The Spring’
(Audiobulb Records) 2nd February 2022
Evoking the tail end of Autumn as nature comes alive in the “prelude” to Spring, the Tokyo-based musician/composer/sound designer Seigo Aoyama magic’s up a minor ambient and neo-classical triumph on his new album of seasonal suites.
The dewy-grass and misty veils of a still dampened landscape are still present as wispy vapours, but the blossom buds are now starting to sprout on a sophisticated soundtrack of ambient like haikus.
To set the mood Aoyama includes a richly lyrical, poetic descriptive introduction of gentle Eastern breezes, a climbing luminous silver moon and various other evocative scenes. But the prelude begins with the resonated thrum of an orchestra tunning up and goes on to feature fourth world echoes of Jon Hassell’s nuzzled trumpet before settling into a Zen garden retreat of delicate wind chimes, softly rung bells and serene contemplative synthesized sine-waves.
The piano, albeit subtle with every note and short run deeply and methodically thought out, has a starring role on this cloud-gazing dreamy nature trail.: Touches of Kabuki theatre, delicate Sakamoto, the classical, Eno and Tim Story come to mind when the ivory and its inner workings are poured and elsewhere singularly struck.
The odd light piece of choral-like voices, the odd line of dialogue and field-recorded tramples through both nature and a Tokyo environment can be heard as life is breathed into this Spring passage of rites and communion. Aoyama proves a capable, adroit, patient composer on what is a moving, calm and deeply felt descriptive soundtrack. One of the best ambient releases I’ve heard this year without a doubt.
T.E. Yates ‘Strange Weather EP’
As recent packages delivered to the Monolith Cocktail HQ go, the eye-catching bundle of music and artwork sent by the Bristol-based creative polymath T.E. Yates is hard to beat. An almost complete physical biography/discography of the artist’s various projects, some of which are award-winning, Yates sent me a number of his Poe-esque and surreal pencil-graphite and charcoal hybrid prints (A Bat And A Raven and Bedlam Six Microphone Faces); some postcard-sized artwork promotions of his short Evil Cat animation, shown at the Edgar Allan Poe film festival; and of course, his pastoral art nouveau illustrated debut album (on vinyl) Silver Coins And White Feathers, and most recent EP, Strange Weather.
And so, just for revision sake that’s the illustrator, animator, artist, singer-songwriter and musician strings to an impressive bow logged. All of which could be directly because of or despite a myriad of neurodivergent issues; outlined to a touch of Americana David Byrne, Warren Zevon and Roy Orbison on the warmly radiating electric-piano shuffled EP opener of dappled-lit plaint ‘Condition’. Laid out in an almost relieved candid fashion, Yates turns the sadness of alienated school days into a gauzy triumph of realisation; coming to terms with what he sees as “both a blessing and a curse”. The very fiber of Yates work and personality, this “condition” (“not a sickness”) leitmotif extends to a ‘creative partnership’ with fellow neurodivergents in a specially made video for the track (through Biggerhouse Films).
It also may account for the EP’s eclectic tastes, which wonder, meander through light jazz, echoes of mariachi or Tex-Mex border Americana, ragtime, radiohall, folk, 70s and 80s MOR pop, whimsical 60s and of course country. Aided on all these dalliances by a very reputable ensemble that includes a chorus of voices and harmonies, and a wide-range of just as eclectic instruments – from Yates’ musical saw to Mikey Kenny’s elbowed fiddle work hoedowns and the presence of C.J. Hillman’s steel pedal guitar wanes -, Yates tells it like it is; both demystifying, and yet I think aching for understanding, the fairytale completeness of romance to the accompaniment of a country fiddled barn dance.
Overlooked, ignored in company on the soft galloping folksy ‘Fierce Horses’; despondent with a dreamy sadness about the greed and avarice in the ‘Palace Of Your Master’; and quaintly rolling along on the unrequited Nick Lowe with tinges of mid 70s Kinks ‘Mystery Window’, Yates unburdens the weight on his shoulders and shows a full gamut of emotions on a most peaceable, disarming EP. There’s nothing strange about this weather, just first-rate songwriting and musicianship from an artist who might just have a unique take on the climate and world around him.
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Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
Our Daily Bread 492: Mermaid Avenue, Armstrong, Pulco…
February 4, 2022
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Idiosyncratic Reviews Roundup
The cult leader of the infamous lo fi gods, The Bordellos, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea has released countless recordings over the decades with his family band of hapless unfortunates, and is the owner of a most self-deprecating sound-off style blog. His last album Atlantic Crossing, a long overdue released collaboration with 20th Century Tokyo Princess’s Ted Clark, was released last year. A new album entitled Cardboard Box Beatle will be released in February by Metal Postcard Records.
Each month we supply him with a mixed bag of new and upcoming releases to see what sticks.
SINGLES/TRACKS.
Super Hit ‘Believe’
(Metal Postcard Records) 18th January 2022
I have no idea why this reminds me of Christmas but it does. Not that it matters what it reminds me of but all that matters is that this is a wonderfully whooshed beautiful version of the Cher classic. I really like it. Could be what Mercury Rev might sound like if they were down and outs and had too much cheap sherry and slept in a launderette with only memories of old top 40 hits for company. This really is quite a beautiful little number; I’m now excited at the thought of an album.
Mermaid Avenue ‘Prisoner’
I like this single. It reminds me of the Rolling Stones when they wanted to be Gram Parsons; it has all the reaching for the sky trying to shake hands with God quality: The kind of song Primal Scream have attempted many times but not quite got there. It’s not as good as Cliff Richard’s version of Jesus but to be fair not much is. Yes indeed, a rather lovely scraping the stars from the sky track.
Tony Valentino ‘Barracuda’
(Big Stir Records) 4th February 2022
Tony Valentino from the 60s garage band legends The Standells has rerecorded the bands’ famous ‘Barracuda’ and issued it as a single on Big Stir Records. And a fine single it is as well. As you expect, it’s full of 60s garage rock goodness with psychedelic guitars, 60s garage rock organ, and is a total blast of fun and freedom that puts younger artists to shame: reminding us that music can indeed be fun and ‘cambunkishush’, a word I have just made up. But why the hell not? It is the perfect word to describe this fun filled action packed piece of rock ‘n’ roll.
Ghosts Of Torrez ‘The Wailing/ The Legend of Billy The Whale’
11th February 2022
This is rather beautiful; it is like floating on a cloud made up of memories from a time when you wanted nothing but a kiss from the girl/boy you once loved’s lips; a slow-moving nostalgic stroll down the riverbank of dreams. Yes, indeed this is a rather lovely candy floss track of a single and should be swooned over now.
ALBUMS/EPs…
Armstrong ‘Happy Graffiti’
(Country Mile)
The long-awaited album by Julian Pitt aka Armstrong is upon us, and as you expect from a man who has melody oozing, yes, oozing from his pores, it is a tuneful delight. As I have mentioned many times in past reviews, Julian is one of the finest songwriters in the United Kingdom at the moment and has been for many years: one of music’s best kept secrets in fact.
Happy Graffiti is his third album proper not counting comps and reissues, and anyone with the good taste to have his other two excellent albums will not be disappointed. Songs of love, hope and heartbreak are dispatched with some aplomb; Bacharach and David, Jim Webb, Roddy Frame, David Gates eat your breaking hearts out! These are songs that should be drifting from radio 2: ‘Eyes Wide Open’ a song of pure heart-breaking beauty, and ‘In A Memory’ a piano ballad that has me thinking of the sweetness of the Zombies mighty opus Odyssey And Oracle.
These are songs that are wrapped in a comfort blanket of familiarity, even if you’ve never heard them before; ‘This One’ being stuck in my head even after just one listen, and Happy Graffiti is full of these tuneful blighters: ‘Rock Star Rock Star’ and even the piano instrumental ‘Days turn Into Months’ is melody ridden.
So, Happy Graffiti is an album of melodious delight, an album to soundtrack the days and months as winter turns to Spring and hope and loss merge into beautiful memories.
Sky Diving Penguins ‘S-T’
The Sky Diving Penguins album is one joyous pop thrill; an album that takes its Beatles, Nirvana, Zombies influences and makes an album that could have been released anytime over the last 50 years. Timeless is the word I’m looking for. Melodies float and quiver, at times reminding me of the Rentals or Fountains Of Wayne.
Sure, this is not the most original and ground-breaking albums that will be released this year and there will be hundreds if not thousands released that tread the same ground that wander the same Weary path, but I doubt I will hear as many as good and enjoyable as this. So, recommended to all you power poppers and lovers of sixties influenced pop, and anyone who’s god is George Harrison, should indeed investigate.
The Conspiracy ‘Sword Of Damocles’
(Metal Postcard Records) 14th January 2022
Do you remember the days when guitar music was the be all and end all in your life? I do, but then I’m of that age when all parts of your body start to lose its appeal, but your memories stand firm and wrap themselves in a mist of melodies coveted by nostalgia, which one dips and makes themselves open to the grace of growing old. And this five track EP has the same magical effect: Guitar songs that are well written and played and wrap themselves in a time when guitar songs could change your world or even just make it a more enjoyable place to exist or even live sometimes. An EP to cherish and hold close to your aching old heart.
Pulco ‘Crustacean Theory’
14th February 2022
If experimental art pop is your thing, you could do a hell of a lot worse than treating yourself to the new Pulco album; an album where poetry, discordant synth, occasional Fall like guitar and bass riffs collide with The Shaggs brilliance to upturn an already upturned apple cart, to set fire to an already burning building. This is the sound of a man stretching his art to new and extreme levels of bewitchery; a man arguing with himself knowing both sides of the argument being right: knowing that this album is an off-the-cuff work of pop poetry that will not break through the stagnant stench of so called alternative music scene.
For Pulco is a one off and people really do not appreciate one offs: they scare people you see. This is an album of real life, of dreams of nightmares of walking through a picturesque country landscape to see trees full of hanging Swans dripping with a deathly decaying beauty, which again is a perfect metaphor for this wonderful eccentric work of aural art.
Our Daily Bread 491: Provincials ‘Heaven Protect Us’
February 2, 2022
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Provincials ‘Heaven Protect Us’
(Itchen Recordings) 4th February 2022
We’ve had the doomsday Dark Ages album now it’s time to seek succour from the heavens as the Provincials take us into yet another anxious-riddled year of pandemic eclipsed misery. The latest album plea is suffused with ethereal romanticism and bitter distain: they can hardly hide their anger at the current Tory shit show – though Christ knows exactly where a better, more sympathetic and competent alternative will spring from (hello Lib Dems who at least seem to be bloodying Boris’s nose in recent by-elections) – on the vitriolic scowl ‘You’ll Evaporate’.
Once more lifted out of what could have been an abrasive barrage of insults and wounded pride by Polly Perry’s soaring and aching diaphanous voice and the accentuated musical accompaniment of all-rounder Seb Hunter (who also join’s his partner in harmonic duet, and even gets to sing lead on the touching if pained emotional pulling folksy tinted ‘Kiss Of Life’) and drummer/piano-player Steve Gibson – brought in again to expand the range and horizons.
Always better when following a more ambiguous line then when bashing out the disgust, the Provincials traverse the themes of a crumbling society with songs of personal grief and lovelorn plaint. They do this exquisite balance of the sinewy and often beautiful by sending the late 60s Fillmore East (Cold Blood and Jefferson Airplane) and Zappa into a oscillating spin with the handclapped ferocious ‘Planetary Stand-Off’, or by channeling The Sundays, Throwing Muses and All About Eve (even a touch of Sleeper) on such lush, vapour-gauzy fare as the drifting ‘Cold Fusioneers’ and grungy soulful ‘Feels Like Falling’. And still within that scope there’s Iberian acoustic guitar flairs and Wire like tensions, glimpses of Up era R.E.M., shoegaze, country, the outback and of course folk: as remodelled for our fragmented, dislocated times.
Synthesised, acoustic and electric sparks of inspired torrid musicianship sound the alarms on another lush songbook. Every strung-out and intense widening of the band’s folk roots hangs on to a melody; never losing sight of a tuneful delivery even in the most grinding and bleakest of times.
Our Daily Bread 490: Silverbacks ‘Archive Material’
February 1, 2022
ALBUM REVIEW/GRAHAM DOMAIN
Silverbacks ‘Archive Material’
21st January 2022
Silverbacks are a band to watch – they incorporate abrasive wiry guitar noodling, jerky and percussive rhythms and solid basslines underpinning the vocals of Daniel O’Kelly sounding at times, like a cross between Mark E Smith and Bob Geldof! The overall sound sits somewhere between Gang of Four, Red Noise and Wire. All the right parts are present – energy, excitement, wry lyrics, pulsating rhythms, sudden bursts of noise, detours to odd sound worlds, but somehow the album feels dark, claustrophobic and unsettling! It’s not somewhere you would want to linger long, like a run-down housing estate where violence is only a glare away!
Occasionally, the claustrophobia and fear are suddenly left behind as the sun emerges from behind the clouds bringing warmth and colour to the world – these are the times where the vocals of Emma Hanlon shine bringing a much-needed diversity and contrast and perhaps an element of Laetitia Sadier wistfulness to proceedings. Overall, a good album but perhaps lacking melody. Definitely a band to keep an eye on as I am sure their best is yet to come.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 