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 Monthly Revue: January 2022: Trupa Trupa, Jam Baxter, Binker & Moses, Silverbacks…
January 28, 2022
PLAYLIST REVUE/Picked By Dominic Valvona, Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’ and Graham Domain
The inaugural “revue” playlist of 2022 from the Monolith Cocktail team picks up on a few stragglers from the end of last year plus a load of eclectic treasures from the last month. The Monthly is a sort of summary; an encapsulation of the music we’ve loved, reviewed and picked up on during January.
That track list in full::
Rokia Koné & Jacknife Lee ‘Kurunba’
Avalanche Kaito ‘Dabalomuni’
Melt Yourself Down ‘Balance’
Detective Larsson ‘Magic Show’
Trupa Trupa ‘Uniforms’
Thyla ‘Amber Waits’
Claptrap ‘Out Of’
Spaceface ‘Long Time’
Kristine Leschper ‘Picture Window’
RULES ‘Ghost’
Labelle ‘élude’
Nyokabi Kariuki ‘Equator Song’
Pleasure Craft ‘Dead Weight’
Lion’s Drum ‘Kami Shintai’
Selci ‘Ghost’
The Jazz Butcher ‘Running On Fumes’
Tom Shotton ‘Here, Always’
Wesley Gonzalez ‘Greater Expectations’
FNKPMPN ‘The Typical Boob’
Sylph ‘Ancient Hole’
Rob Burger ‘Hotel For Saints’
Letters From Mouse ‘Elizabeth’
Sarah Vaughan ‘Inner City Blues’
Kojey Radical Ft. Knucks ‘Payback’
Jam Baxter ‘Go On’
Cephas Teom ‘Primordial Forms’
Buck & Gase And Rahrah Gabor ‘Pass Impasse’
Andrew Heath, Phonsonic & Simon McCorry ‘The Passage Of Time (Live)’
King Kashmere, Cupp Cave, Herrmutt Lobby & Booda French ‘Donuts’
The Doppelgangaz ‘Concord Grapes’
Nelson Dialect & Mr Slipz ‘Only Just Begun’
Binker And Moses ‘Accelerometer Overdose (Edit)’
Ashinoa ‘Disguised In Orbit’
Bollards ‘Plate Up’
Salem Trials ‘Funkytown’
Chris Church ‘We’re Going Downtown’
Michael Rother & vittoria Maccabruni ‘Exp 1’
Laurie Anderson – The Arca Remix ‘Big Science’
Kate Havnevik ‘Dream Her To Life’
Bagaski ‘Campan’
Roedelius & Tim Story ‘Crisscrossing’
EXEK ‘Unseasonable Warmth’
Deserta ‘Where Did You Go’
Silverbacks ‘Archive Material’
Our Daily Bread 489: Trupa Trupa ‘B Flat A’
January 27, 2022
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Photo credit: Rafal Wojczal
Trupa Trupa ‘B Flat A’
(Glitterbeat Records) 11th February 2022
With lofty literary metaphors connected to Nabokov’s dystopian ‘puddles’, a tumult of historical oppression and the miasma of Covid bearing down upon them the Gdansk band Trupa Trupa work trauma and unease into a counterpoint of both the abrasive and trippier psychedelic on their new and second album for the magnificent trailblazers Glitterbeat Records.
Working through society’s divisive destruction, anxieties and paranoia, the Polish group excels at composing claustrophobic and propulsive maelstroms of knotted despondency and protestation. That musical scale album title, B Flat A, may well be an indication of the notes, moodiness that’s used to navigate these seemingly dreadful times. Far from a cataclysmic misery however, the mood and music escalate from a gnarly tumult into the languidly psychedelic: If Syd Barrett had declined that last bad acid tab and gone on to front Pink Floyd in the 70s and gone on to embrace the post-punk scene in the 80s then it may very well have sounded something like the flange fanned dreamy ‘Lit’. Actually, the ghost of Syd is strung throughout, wafting in and out of the brilliant halcyon backbeat kooky ‘Uniforms’, and on the George Harrison melodious ‘All And All’.
Shades of the Olivia Tremor Control, Jeff Simmons, early king Crimson rub up against Crispy Ambulance, Fugazi, Killing Joke, Mew, Wire and Can on the junction of light and shade; the sinewy taut and drifting. From the more relaxed resignation to growling industrial heaviness Trupa Trupa turn malady, melancholy into an artform. The final lo fi emitted title-track finishes with a suffocating atmosphere of C86 and no wave; the group present but indolently obscured under the smog; distant as if already submerged beneath the oppressive waves.
Trupa Trupa may very well have produced their best and most complete album yet; already a contender for the albums of the year list in my view. What a opening statement to make in the third year of the pandemic!
In these troubled times, with so much stacked against independent, unsponsored voices, you can help us to continue probing and delivering great new music:
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.
Kalporz X Monolith Cocktail: Interview with Rival Consoles
January 26, 2022
Interview/ Paolo Bardelli
Photo/ Courtesy of Ozge Cone (autorizzate dall’ Ufficio Stampa JA.LA MEDIA ACTIVITIES IG: @ozgecone)
In a synergy between our two great houses, each month the Monolith Cocktail shares a post (and vice versa) from our Italian pen pals at Kalporz. This month, we relay Paolo Bardelli’s interview with Erased Tapes artist and electronic music composer Ryan Lee West, aka Rival Consoles.
The electronica of Rival Consoles, the stage name of London-based Ryan Lee West (on the Erased Tapes label), is striking because it floats in a world that remains suspended between the mental and the physical: yours truly considers him one of the most lucid composers in the world of electronica, and adores his third album “Howl” (2015). His is an evolved electronic artist, moving from IDM to “other” landscapes, such as the cinematic ones in “Persona” (2018). Consistent with this evolution, Rival Consoles has now turned to composing for contemporary dance, as we reported back in October, which was reason enough to interview him (by email).
Paolo Bardelli: I’ve always considered your music, perhaps mistakenly, to be more mental than physical, perhaps because of your predilection for broken tempos rather than linear ones: was the arrival at composing a contemporary dance soundtrack a challenge in this sense, or was it natural because you’ve always considered “dance” a modality that can always be associated with your music?
In the club world I would say my music isn’t “dance music” but in the bigger picture: including contemporary dance, ballet etc. It is a mistake to assume dance has to be repetitive and rhythmic in the way that house/techno is, for example ‘rite of spring’ by Stravinsky is music to dance and that is one of the most wild unhinged pieces of music ever. There are many points on the sonic spectrum to explore, and really anything is possible to experiment with and become relevant to dance.
In the press notes it says that you spent a lot of time with the dance troupe and the production, creating, perfecting and tailoring the music: since this certainly influenced “Overflow”, do you think that having experienced, live, a manifestation of bodily expressiveness associated with music will also influence your composition in the future?
I have worked several times with contemporary dance and it definitely does influence how you shape and change music over time, in a similar way to composing for film – once you set music against image or moving image everything changes and things which didn’t seem interesting now maybe became very interesting and things which seemed powerful perhaps now sound false/overpowering – it is a great refreshing world – where the senses are renewed.
The project was based on the contemporary philosophical work ‘Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power’ by Byung-Chul Han which is, from what I read in the abstracts, a critique of neoliberalism and the regime of technological domination: do you agree with the book’s theses and is there anything that struck you most about his thought?
I agree with huge amounts of the book, the way the social media is exhausting our psychology by creating a never ending, never tiring need to contribute to it. We are constantly being influenced to be active and present online; even exercise, yoga and healthy diets are often just a means to be more productive, to be seen a certain way and to share that constantly online. The internet with its incredible fast-moving speed makes doing nothing seem guilty and illogical but constant self-optimisation is very dangerous for us as we are animals and not machines.
Will that very corporeality we mentioned at the beginning be a greater necessity in a necessarily technological and pandemic future?
I’m not certain what will be necessary in the future, I think right now there is already so much to confront and try to change for the better bit by bit.
Your electronics still seem to me to have a very strong human side: how much do you like the use of analogue instrumentation, I mean synths and the like, as opposed to PC programming?
I find I can get various things from all types of equipment and it’s not that analogue instantly makes more human sounding things; it can very easily sound too perfect and ordered. It’s more about the relationship between the ideas and the sounds, and the taste of the composer. I am interested in having tension always in music, and then I can explore resolve from that tension – and this is of course one of the oldest most used techniques, as used in almost all classical music and indeed techno. With analogue instruments you mainly get a beautiful restriction of what you will actually do and then makes you commit more to something in the moment.
‘Overflow’ premiered in May 2021 in London and is scheduled for a European tour in 2022. You’ve been busy with a series of headlining gigs in the UK this autumn and in North America in the new year: will gigs change forever after this pandemic or do you think it will go back to pre-2020 as far as live shows are concerned?
I am not totally sure, I do think if the pandemic were to reduce and be a minor thing in society, live shows would return as normal, because I think music and witnessing music is far too deep a human desire than something like a pandemic to change. But we do seem to be in a world where we are unsure from month-to-month, not even year to year. I try not to think about it too much because it isn’t something I can control.
Our Daily Bread 488: Acid Mother Reynols ‘Volume 2’
January 24, 2022
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Acid Mothers Reynols ‘Vol. 2’
(Hive mind Records) 27th January 2022
Interstellar overdrive time once more as the long-standing Krautrock replicants, torchbearers Acid Mothers Temple join forces with the Argentine avant-garde rock leftfielders the Reynols for a second volume of mushroom incantation space, acid-rock psych and outer limits tripping.
The constantly regenerative Acid Mothers collective, who’s only mainstays, guides are the founding members Kawabata Makoto and Higashi Hiroshi (though it should be noted that one-time Boredoms founding guitarist, the Japanese legend and serial Acid Mothers offender Tabata Mitsuru appears on this invocation of the group), embarked on an extensive tour of the South American continent back in 2017. It was during this sojourn, a year before the Mothers 2018 Reverse Of Rebirth personnel change, that the collective also took time out to record and play shows with the Reynols, whose own haywire provenance dates back decades, with the group formulating their outsider credentials from the outset in 1993; dropping the original ‘Ensemble’ from their name three years later.
The fruits of this kool-aid venture fill up another record of enlivened experimenting, both groups coalescing into what sounds like a barely contained freak-out on untethered lunar surfaces of blancmange: an improvised communion in the light of a melted moonbeam primal soup.
Acid Mothers Temple fans won’t be surprised to hear that their contributions sound like the creeping stirrings of Phallus Dei era Amon Düül II, a bit of Guru Guru (who they have of course collaborated with in the past), the Cosmic Couriers, Xhol Caravan and Ash Ra Tempel. Meanwhile the Reynols loudest, most obvious contribution comes from Miguel Tomasín’s erratic and excitable, hard-hitting piano improvs. Sharing room on the piano stool with Anton Webren, György Liget, Cage. Mike Garson and Oscar Peterson, the free-range pianist goes to work in conjuring up the avant-garde, Fluxus and crashing chords show time Brecht on Broadway. This is all in contrast to the gravity-less atmospherics, more comfortable rhythm section and mumbo-jumbo mantra vocals on the second jam, ‘Antimatter-Sound Milkshake’ – I’ll order just the one of those please. Chaos is somehow kept together: although the drums occasionally seem to slip timings and lose the feel, preempting where this 18-legged beast is going.
Speedball rushes and highs are the order of the day as whistling shooting stars cross the astral charts and warped guitars provide a shifting mood of cosmic cowboy blues, space bird rock, post-punk, heavy meta(l) and of course Krautrock magnificence.
The Acid Mothers, more than willing to open up the sound and mind to let in this Argentine chapter of the universal acid avant-garde lodge to feast on the cosmic soup, trade blows with the Reynols who offer up piano mayhem, transmogrified flute and obscure sounds to an already fuzzed and gnarled hallucination.
The good folk at Hive Mind (yet to release anything that’s not essential in my opinion) have guided this one to vinyl. So, do yourselves a favour and add it to the psychedelic mind melt section of your collection.
From The Archives:
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Ft. Geoff Leigh ‘Chosen Star Child’s Confession’ (2020)
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. ‘Reverse Of Rebirth In Universe’ (2018)
Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. ‘In C’ & ‘La Novia’. (2018)
In these troubled times, with so much stacked against independent, unsponsored voices, you can help us to continue probing and delivering great new music:
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.
REVIEWS ROUNDUP/Dominic Valvona
Longplayers/Extended
Spaceface ‘Anemoia’
(Mothland) 28th January 2022
Ushered in with a cosmic and exotic air flight announcement the latest disarming psychedelic pop trip from Spaceface brings the slick funk and disco party vibe to the stiff shirted cosmological experiments carried out at the CERN institute. With a vibrant sparkle and rainbow candy élan, the ever-shifting moon unit of past and present members from Flaming Lips and Pierced merge science-fact with groovy sunshine grooves on a smoothly universal album of goodwill.
Written before the pandemic at the Blackwatch Studios with producer Jarod Evans in the hot seat, Anemoia is a cocktail of good times rolled out to a soundtrack that at various points evokes MGMT, Swim Mountain, Tame Impala, the Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Sam Flex and International Pony. The halcyon funk wooed and Labrys guest spot ‘Long Time’ even comes with it’s own cocktail recipe and instructions (1oz each of Bourbon, Vermouth and Lynas, served with orange peel and on the rocks).
Guests appear in various guises throughout, from the brilliant Meggie Lennon (who recently appeared in our choice albums of the year lists) to Mikaela Davis and the sampled effects of the CERN’s scientist choir! Spaceface seem to be reaching beyond the usual themes of pop to metaphysical explorations and a sense of understanding the mind boggling theories of particle physics. It’s also seemingly all connected to the very on trend subject of identity and place in an increasingly dysfunctional uncertain world. Fear not as these concerns all melt away in a soulfully and bubbly millennial soundtrack of the cute, hippie and galactic; a plane of psychedelic pop and yacht rock funk pitched somewhere between a yoga retreat and cult space tour.
Roedelius & Story ‘4 Hands’
(Erased Tapes) 28th January 2021
Incredibly now well into his eighties the kosmische and neoclassical pioneer Hans-Joachim Roedelius is still exploring, still intrigued and still, if peaceably, pushing the perimeters of his signature forms on the piano. When not collaborating under the Qluster umbrella (just the most recent three decades adoption of the original Kluster/Cluster arc) or flying solo across the keyboard, Roedelius carefully picks projects that offer stimulus or purpose.
In this instance the self-taught composer once again crosses reflective and experimental paths with the Grammy-nominated American composer and friend Tim Story; the fifth such exercise of its kind with Story since their 2003 album Lunz.
4 Hands proves better than two, with Roedelius laying down patient, fluttered and singular noted “etudes” for Story to harmoniously refine and swell, or, to add sophisticated congruous layers until both performers phrases and playing styles become so entwined as to prove impossible to separate. Hopefully as Story comments in the notes: ‘Because it was all recorded on the same piano, the result has a very appealing consistency of sound, and hopefully blurs our individual contributions into a single integrated voice.’ I’d say they succeeded with this interplay and balance of disciplines, which at times conjures up Chopin’s no.6 etude being transformed by Cage.
This transatlantic exchange between North American and European contemporary classical movements features compositions that seem to measure time and make allusions to various instructive linguistic phrases (the relatively immediate ebb and flow opener ‘Nurzu’ derives from the German encouragement to “go ahead and do it”) and a sense of place, mood. Tellingly the resonating serial 1920s suggestive ‘Haru’ is dedicated to the late great avant-garde composer and poet Harold Budd, who just before his death in December 2020 was played this timeless peregrination.
A forty-year friendship imbues every touch and even the spaces in-between each wave, trickle, glide and tingled gesture. The very workings of this shared instrument, the pins and softened hammers are transformed into spiralled tines and fanned percussive like rhythms – sometimes evoking the Far East. A mix of improvised contours, considered tensions and nodes crisscross and flow together in a complementary fashion throughout this album of entwined synchronicity, as both artist’s read each other’s thoughts with understated adroit perfection.
From The Archive:
Hans-Joachim Roedelius Interview
‘Selbstporträt Wahre Liebe’ Review
Qluster ‘Elemente’ Review
Cluster ‘1971 – 1981’ Review
Cephas Teom ‘Automata’
(METR Music) 28th January 2021
Less Kraftwerk’s “pocket calculator” and more vintage 1980s Japanese Casio digital watch, the debut album from Cephas Teom (the atavistic etymological alias of the West Country musician and producer Pete Thomas) swims and Tokyo drifts in a solution of nostalgic Far Eastern tech. From Japanese sound gardens to retro video arcades and driving across once promising neon lit city highways of the future, Thomas evokes touches of the Yellow Magic Orchestra, Sakamoto, Yukihiro Takahashi and House Of Tapes as he ponders the quandaries of an ever encroaching technology and the wonders of A.I.
Featuring the Monolith Cocktail premiered vaporwave single ‘Tomorrow’s World’ (aired back in November of last year), Automata weaves broadcasts of figures such as Jung and the coiner of ‘cymatics’ Hans Jenny with the fatalistic voices of those drawn to extraterrestrial savior cults (such as the mass suicidal Heaven’s Gate) to present a scientific-philosophical soundtrack of both unease and nostalgia: that’s nostalgia for a society not yet disenchanted with the promises of a brighter hi-tech, computerized utopia.
Skilfully constructed Thomas emulates both the handcrafted mechanisms of Jaquet-Droz automation curiosities from another age and the dreamy airs of a dawning integrated A.I. future. It begins however with the projector-clicked lecture come chimed baubles, zappy squiggled, deep bass throbbing Japanese Zen water feature ‘Primordial Forms’, before winding up with the clicks and movements of a Sakamoto twinkled mechanized but enchanting melodic ‘Automation I’. By comparison ‘Automation II’ sees nature’s son in more pastoral surroundings, still in that contemplative garden, serenaded by classical-like drops of piano and wind chime percussion. Oh the force of the electronic Orient is strong with this one, incorporating everything from subtle hints of bamboo music, a very removed bobble of gamelan and J-pop with intricate layering of Autechre wiring, lo fi 8-bit gaming and bit-crushed effects. Surprisingly Thomas takes a kind of liquid jazz-fusion turn on the psychedelic therapy mindbender ‘Above Human’.
Solar winds blow across a circuit board tundra as Tron-like glowed vehicles cruise to the sounds of acid, techno, Manga, Namco and Sega soundtracks, veiled augurs, virtual paradises and various 80s warbles, variants and equations. A wonderful world in which to contemplate all those delusions of an automated miracle – a world in which Eagle comic’s, the BBC’s long running Tomorrow’s World programme and Silicon Valley optimistically painted as a blissful, harmonious, work-free utopia, Automata explores the networks, nodes and grids of electronic music to navigate a tricky complicated philosophical debate.
From The Archive:
Cephas Teom ‘Feet Of Clay’ Premiere
Cephas Teom ‘Tomorrow’s World’ Premiere
Mondoriviera ‘Nòtt Lönga’
(Artetetra) Available Now
You know you’re getting old when today’s young musicians consider your formative years, back in the 80s, as “nostalgic”. And so it is with Mondoriviera’s recent envisioned ‘fragmented bedtime story’ meets ‘interactive’ supernatural styled soundtrack; one of the last releases of 2021 from the insane, discombobulating ‘mondo bizzaro manufacturer’ Artetetra platform.
For this is a 80s VHS graded score of Italian folk-horror and dream-reality wrapped up in an 8-bit fantasy of crushed Super Mario Bros. platform hopping, early Warp label Aphex Twin, Darrel Fritton and Speedy J, and the combined soundtrack and gaming elements of Takafumi Fujisawas, Akira Yamaoka and Andrew Barnabas.
Unless you read all the accompanying notes you’ll miss the psychogeography apsects of this score: the mysterious cloaked figure behind this glassy spherical mirage and Elm Street dream warrior spooked world invokes the arcane, one time seat of the Western Roman Empire and Byzantine jewel, Ravenna. Quite the historical stargate with its continuous pre-Middle Ages upheavals, reputation as an early centre of Christianity, glorious architecture and mosaics it’s the city’s darker corners, the abattoir and sinister that seeps into Nòtt Lönga’s soundscape.
Strange, eerie in places, this alternative plane of retro arppegiator and algorithms and virtual reality is a nocturnal spell caught drifting and gliding between ominous fairytales and the paranormal: even alien. A disturbed 80s-style electronic hall of mirrors that draws you in with the promise of languid floating, the synthesised melodies softly come in waves before glitching like the glass screen façade of some simulation engineered by a higher intelligence from another dimension. Mondoriviera dares the listener to dream in a soundtrack theatre of his cult imagination.
Sven Helbig ‘Skills’
(Modern Recordings) 4th February 2022
The versatile (from working with such diverse acts as Rammstein to the Pet Shop Boys) East German composer-producer Sven Helbig conducts an incredible suffusion of colliery meets a minimalistic Sibelius brass on his first statement of 2022. The craftsman’s/artisan’s struggles, ‘despair’ and creative processes go through ten stages of varying reflective and plaintive stirring driven drama on an album that draws together the classical and contemporary to create an almost timeless spell.
As timeless that is as the symbolic ‘vanitas’ still life tableaus of the Dutch master Harmen Steenwijck in the 17th century; Helbig’s own modernist take on that tradition of painting places a skateboard and mobile phone next to a mortality loaded allegorical skull: the inevitable death of everything, but in this case, a symbol for the dying art of a craft and ‘skills’. As one tradition perishes another is born so to speak. But this leitmotif runs deep, right back to a pre-unified Germany, when ‘diy culture’ and craftsmanship were a necessity to those unable to afford, or even have any of the luxuries enjoyed in the West. And so Skills is a sostenuto concentrated homage to that tradition, yet also a mood board reification of the passing of time itself: the time between toil and inspiration. In a kind of Lutheran atmosphere of earnest labour, with compositions that can evoke a candlelit garret or bleak workshop in Worms, Helbig’s brass ensemble and string quartet conjure up a most beautiful gravitas that can harmoniously set hardship with the near ethereal.
Straddling the neoclassical, operatic and cinematic there’s even room for the coarser, scrunched synthesized concrete textures and pulsations of the Chicago-based musician Surachai on the album’s sober but stunning unfolding ‘Repetition’ suite.
Tunnels of daylight fall upon mechanisms and cogs as they come to life in atmospheric settings. Baubles and floating dust particles tinkle and slowly cascade gently whilst both longer and shortened strings build the tension and a French horn sounds a low, almost misty-eyed, romantic note. Luminous and dreamy on the starry ‘Vision’, and evoking the avant-garde and a touch of Kriedler on the workbench clockwork diorama ‘Flow’, the Skills album is a measured, aching and brooding work of art; a moving testament to the élan and craft of an impressive composer who’s classical roots transcend the genre.
War Women Of Kosovo ‘A Lifetime Isn’t Enough’
4th February 2022
Never ones to shy away from the harrowing atrocities committed on communities across the world, the partnership of Grammy-winning producer & author Ian Brennan and Italian-Rwandan photographer & filmmaker Marilena Umuhoza Delli have continued to stripe away all artifice and sentimentality from those victim’s stories; recording for posterity some of the most vulnerable accounts of genocide, prejudice and sexual violence in countries such as Rwanda, South Sudan, Comoros, Vietnam, Ghana and Romania. Brennan’s no fuss, in-situ style of recording has brought us unflinching accounts: the onus being on under-represented women, the elderly, and persecuted groups within under-represented populations, languages, and regions.
No less candid in this regard, the partnership’s latest collection features those nameless victims of the horrific Balkan wars of the 1990s; namely the Kosovan community of women and children raped by the aggressors as both an act of subjection, revenge, and as part of a sanctioned campaign of terror and erasure of the region’s Muslim population. Far too complicated and beyond my grasp of history to recount here, the Balkans blew up into an inter-fractional, racial, religious conflict between neighbours once kept together under the iron fist of Tito in the Slavic block of Yugoslavia, and before that, the Ottoman Empire. Once that towering force died, and with the deterioration of Soviet Russia, the region was broken up and plunged into chaos, war. On the doorstep of a practically useless EU, and with little appetite to get involved the escalation of atrocities eventually spurred the UN and NATO into action, with one of the consequences being the formulation of a separate majority Muslim state, the Republic of Kosovo – formerly part of Serbia that was until the late 80s a semi-autonomous state within that country. Admittedly this is a very glib account of events during that decade – I would recommend for further reading trying out Misha Glenny’s Balkans tome.
In what is a subject very close to both Marilena and Ian’s hearts – her only two living Rwandan relatives were born of genocidal rape, whilst Ian’s life was irreversibly impacted by the sexual assault and near murder of a loved one – the voices of Kosovo’s rape victims are given a platform in what amounts to a healing process. The trauma weighs heavy for sure, undulated as it is with the minimalistic, earthy scene-setting sounds of bells, a thrum of lamented, grieving voices, rustic scraps and some obscure stringed instruments – though there’s also some kind of odd keyboard too and a chorus of traumatic sounds that threaten to engulf the listener at one point. The record even comes with a ‘trigger warning’ (just look at the titles); the language and sentiment of those courageous survivors impossible to not take in.
Not the easiest of experiences, but then how could it (and why should it) be. We need such projects to jilt us out of our obsessive virtual realities and comfort zones; to be reminded that in many of the people who will read this review’s lifetime such post-WWII atrocities were carried out in a closeted Europe. As much a piece of activism as a sonic and vocal reminder, A Lifetime Isn’t Enough is an essential plaintive cry from a recent past that needs addressing; the consequences of which are felt every day by the women taking part, to them though this isn’t history or a footnote but an ongoing collective trauma.
From The Archives:
Witch Camp (Ghana): ‘I’ve Forgotten Who I Used To Be’.
Sheltered Workshop Singers ‘Who You Calling Slow?’
Tanzania Albinism Collective ‘White African Power’
The Ian Brennan Interview.
Letters From Mouse ‘Tarbolton Bachelors Club’
(Subexotic Records) 28th January 2022
You can forgive most Scots for the dewy-eyed worship of the unofficial national bard, Robert Burns. After all, every tartan decorated rousing of nationalism, and every lowland toiled symbolic feature of Scotland is run through with the verses of the 18th century poet/lyricist. There’s even a secondary-like New Year type holiday in his name, celebrated up here in Scotland – Burns Night on January 25th.
All roads, threads and references certainly lead back to Burns on Steven Anderson’s latest typographic contoured and fantasised album, the Tarbolton Bachelors Club. The follow-up to his previous window view An Gàrradh album, released under the Burns inspired Letters From Mouse alias, could be described as a psychogeography that takes in prominent locations, the spaces and essence of the venerated subject without all the bagpipes and kilt adorned folklore. Instead, Anderson weaves a captivating, thoughtful ambient, trance and ambiguous electronic soundtrack, both dreamy and with a touch of gravitas: Not so Scottish, glinting and fanned radiant spokes are spindled with an air of the Far East – like a pastoral mirage Masami Tsuchiya – on the opening track ‘Elizabeth’.
Traces of Burns history, brought into our world through a portal, are suffused with a touch of mystery but also beauty: none more so, again, than on that opening softly majestic sentiment to Burns daughter ‘Bess’, the first illegitimate child he had after an affair with his family’s servant girl Elizabeth Paton. Bess appears most notably immortalized in her father’s famous poem, Love-Begotten Daughter as “Lily Bonie”, a line used later on as a track title.
The album title is itself a reference to Burns quasi-masonic gentlemen’s club; a haven for debate and discussion on all the hot topics of the day. There was even a token produced to commemorate this infamous lodge, as alluded to by Anderson on the golden breathed ‘Tarbolton Penny’. Tarbolton for those unfamiliar with the great bard’s locality is a village in South Ayrshire, a county in which the romanticist was born and spent much of his life roaming.
Of course, you can’t construct such an escapist soundtrack without featuring some of Burns actual words; ghostly emerging as they do from the esoteric folk wafts of ‘South Church Beastie’, a past reminder of Burns adoration and forewarning idealised social covenant with nature and classless egalitarianism. Almost in its full version, ‘A Man’s A Man For A’ That’ – a scornful in places stab at those unwilling to rock the boat, carrying on with bowing their heads and doffing caps to their pay masters, although he was one of them himself, the poetic farmer, landowner – is read out to the Eno-esque synthesised curtain call of the same name.
Echoes of Artificial Intelligence Warp, Charles Vaughen, Tangerine Dream, Bradbury Poly and Library music permeate a chimed soundtrack of map coordinates, scenes viewed from propeller powered aircraft, vacuums and walks as Anderson offers a semi-Baroque meets late 20th century abstract vision of a thoughtful, magical sonic historiography. Anderson proves that the ghosts of that period still have much to share; a resonating voice brought back from the enlightenment with an evocative soundtrack to match.
Compilations…
Various ‘Mainstream Funk’
(WEWANTSOUNDS) 28th January 2022
The specialist rare finds and vinyl reissue label WEWANTSOUNDS first release of 2022 is another dip into the vaults of the, crate-digger’s and breakbeat connoisseur’s favourite, Mainstream label.
Bob Shad’s original “broad church” imprint grew out of an already 30 year spanning career when it took shape in the 1960s; a showcase for prestigious artists, session players and Blue Note luminaries chancing their arm it the bandleader or solo spotlight. A musical journeyman himself, Shad (whittled down from Abraham Shadrinsky) began his producer’s apprenticeship at the iconic Savoy label, then moved to National Records before taking up an A&R role at Mercury, where he launched his own, first, label EmArcy. It was during this time that Shad would produce records for the venerated, celebrated jazz singer deity Sarah Vaughan, the Clifford Brown & Max Roach Quintet, Dinah Washington and The Big Brother Holding Company.
As a testament to his craft, Vaughan would go on to record eight albums on Shad’s Mainstream label, the next chapter, leap in a career that traversed five decades of jazz, soul, blues, R&B, rock, psych and of course funk. Mainstream’s duality mixed reissues (from such iconic gods of the jazz form as Dizzy Gillespie) with new recordings; with its golden era arguably the five-year epoch chronicled in this latest compilation. From the first half of the 1970s, WEWANTSOUNDS has picked out twelve nuggets of varying quality, starting with Vaughan who leads the pack with a classy, showy jazz-soul cover of one of Marvin Gaye’s career-defining classics, the downtown social commentary ‘Inner City Blues’. Oozing sophistication amongst a soft tangle of horns and funky licks, the rightly venerated jazz soulstress barely breaks a sweat. Following that icon is the “underrated” alto/tenor saxophonist Buddy Terry with the ten-minute plus jazz-funk exotic peregrination turn workout ‘Quiet Afternoon’, which proves anything but a gentle meander in the park. Probably of note for the appearance of Stanley Clarke, this burnished sun-lit turn changes signatures from the relaxed to a “pure” dynamic free fall of free bird flighty flutes, screaming horns and infused exotic jazz-fusions. An epic of the form this should prompt further investigation of Terry’s small back catalogue – that’s two albums for Mainstream, and not much else.
Many will recognize such names as Blue Mitchell, the former trumpet-player who honed his craft as a member of Horace Silver’s famed Quartet. Already a Blue Note alumni, Mitchell joined the Mainstream label in 1971, going on to record six albums for Shad’s eclectic imprint. On this compilation, taken from his 1973 Tango=Blues LP, is the sassy, San Fran TV detective soundtrack and funk version of Gato Barbieri’s sensual score for the controversial ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ Last Tango In Paris movie. With a dash of Mayfield, some gentle whacker-whacker guitar funk chops and lilt of South America, Mitchell turns a blue movie into the blues. Another former Blue Note acolyte, hard-bop and post-bop pianist LaMont Johnson, who worked with both Jackie McLean and science-fiction jazz progenitor Ornate Coleman, showcases a bit of “state-of-the-art-tech” on his kooky bendy futuristic ‘M-Bassa’ – taken from the 1972 album Sun, Moon And Stars. The rudimental phaser effects of the Yamaha EX42 analog synth augment quickening gabbles up the fretboard and echoes of spiritual jazz.
Moving on there’s a smooth, heartening and snuggled version of the rainbow nation Sly And The Family Stone’s ‘Family Affair’ by the saxophonist and flute prodigy (already able and serving his apprenticeship at the age of 13 in the Baltimore Municipal Band) Dave Hubbard; the original Muscle Shoals lit funky ‘Super Duper Love’ 45” – picked up by Joss Stone a generation later – by the sexed-up Willie ‘Sugar Baby’ Garner; the ridiculous salacious Zodiac chat-up soul-funk ‘Betcha Can’t Guess My Sign’ number (complete with Alvin the chipmonk helium backing vocals) by Prophecy; and a slick rattled percussive jazzy R&B pleaser from the saxophonist Pete Yellin entitled ‘It’s The Right Thing’.
A smattering of sampler’s delights, relatively obscure examples of jazz-funk fusions and more famous classics, Mainstream Funk is a classy and decent compilation to kick off the New Year with.
Various ‘Excuse The Mess Volumes 1 + 2’
(Hidden Notes) 4th February 2022
Across two albums of extemporized in-situ performances the great and adroit of UK-based contemporary classical and electronica experimentalism conjure up an imaginative mood board of compositions within the set perimeters of the Excuse The Mess podcast challenge. Invited for a chat in the personable surroundings of the titular space, each interview subject was asked to abide by the rules in creating a special something with the host, Ben Corrigan.
Created in that location, in that time there could be no pre-planning, no added electronic manipulations; each artist was allowed to only use a single instrument. Many of those taking part choose to use their signature instrument, others more obscured props; the most bizarre being the transmogrified ‘ice rink’ field-recorded ice-skating samples (figure-of-eight slushes and sliced ice-skate scrapes transduced into an abstract subterrain) used by the South African born multidisciplinary Warp label artist Mira Calix, and the tub patted oscillating and soft emerging techno rhythmic ‘pesto jar’ that MBE (no less) gonged electronic-acoustic composer Anna Meredith puts to good sonic use on Volume 2 closer ‘Oopsloops’.
More fathomable instruments can be detected however; for example, the renowned hand/steel pan and saucer shaped ‘hang’ player Manu Delago kicks things off by spreading his tapping fingers across his resonating percussive specialty to traverse an ambiguous cosmic atmosphere on the near-sublime ‘Collider’. Following in that peregrination’s wake is Dinosaur jazz quartet stalwart and acclaimed multifaceted composer-improviser Laura Jurd’s trumpeted ‘Copper Cult’ – a changeable vapour and march of soundtrack Miles Davis, Don Cherry and Yazz Ahmed.
In turn, the esteemed composer (pieces performed by the London Symphonic Orchestra and London Sinfonietta) Emily Hall tunes an electronic magnetic harp to ethereal heights; singer-songwriter and Erased Tape regular Douglas Dare, with just the use of his layered uttered, whispered a cappella vocals, magic’s up a dark romantic plead; and the Emmy-nominated composer and BBC 3 broadcaster Hannah Peel builds towards a shuttered clapboard rhythm and chorister-like wafted divine pirouette with just the use of a music box. Other notable inclusions (though every piece is stirring and intriguing in its own right) that piqued my attention were the fizzed and caustic frayed and slow-drawn violin evocations of the Kazakh-Brit improviser-collaborator-leader of the London Contemporary Orchestra Galya Bisengalieva – who seems to evoke Sunn O))), only with just a violin -, and the Canadian-born composer (scoring The Imposter) Anne Nikitan imagines an 8-bit Castlevania as transformed by µ-Ziq, funnelled into an early mute label version of ‘Da Da Da’.
A wealth of talent from the arts, theatre, classical and film score arenas appear on both volumes of this musical challenge: proving if anything, just how lucky the UK is to have so much talent working on its doorstep. The restrictions don’t seem to have narrowed either the quality or the originality. In fact, if anything, each artist has been creatively pushed to use their ingenuity in composing something anew, on the spot. A brilliant double-bill selection, ‘excuse the mess’ can only describe the accumulative space in which these tracks were created, and not the sounds or music, which are anything but. A novel criteria has resulted in some mysterious, spellbinding and often traversing experiments. The Hidden Notes platform ushers in a new year with a quality release package.
Brazen Hussies ‘Year Zero: An Anthology’
(Jezus Factory Records) Vinyl Version January 2022
Despite the distain, rambunctious methodology and carefree attitude to making it in the lower levels of the music scene in the 90s and early noughties, the scuzzed and abrasive Brazen Hussies were far too knowing and artful than their shambolic, contrary myth would have us believe. Quite frankly that status is shambollocks!
For this ‘lost’ London group played loosely and quite skilfully with their influences, which ranged (by the sounds of it) to everyone from Richard Hell to The Monochrome Set, from The Pixies to the Nuggets box set. Anything but a complete mess they showed a certain élan for the pivot, for the light and shade as they transitioned from the needled and coarse gnarling for halftime downtime and even a bit of melody. Because out of the ramshackle punk, post-punk and cutting dissonance there was always some remnant, a semblance of a half-decent tune.
Simultaneously as courted as they were slagged off by a hostile music press during their apex in the late 90s, it’s hard to get a handle; difficult to tell if they deserve this anthology reappraisal, or whether it’s all just a scam: elevating fleeting losers from rock’s back pages. Actually they were quite bloody good, and at least (for the majority of the time) only ever recorded three-minute songs so as not to overstay their hobnail Dr. Martens boot on the throat welcome. Their farewell ‘Bridesville’ blowout is one of the few exceptions; running to a ridiculous insufferable 26-minutes of whined post Britpop and salon bar piano malcontent.
Fronted by the duel vocals of Dave Queen (a Canadian by god) and Lou McDonnell, backed by the ‘rhythm section’ of Lunch on trebly Bauhaus-Gang-Of-Four-Killing-Joke bass duties (proving anything but out to “Lunch”) and Russell Curtis on barracking and tom rolled drums, they sounded like a contortion of the Bush Tetras and Stone Temple Pilots on the scowling ‘Touch It’; like a flange-affected X-Ray Spex on the brilliant character assignation turn halftime concerned pathos riled ‘Thin Lips’; and like the Cowboy Junkies on the country-folk-punked counterpoint of squealed industrial shredded guitar and sweeter down-heeled sung ‘Kimberley’.
In between sporadic bursts of an early Manics (Dave sails close to a young, petulant James Dean Bradford), the Stooges, Slater-Kinney, The Fall and Essential Logic they turn in two highly contrasting covers. A more obvious Seeds homage is made with a cover of the acid-garage legend’s Nuggets stalwart ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’ – a real shambles of a badly recorded demo – and an odd enchanted nod to the Beach Boys’ doughy-eyed California daydream ‘All Summer Long’. It’s as if an entirely different band turned up for the second of those: well I’ve since found out that the honeyed, almost Christmas-y, Beach boys take was recorded by a flying solo Dave.
With a bedraggled smattering of releases to their name and odd appearances on a myriad of compilations, what little success they had was never capitalised on. Instead, just as those in the press that saluted their brazen despondency, protests, even heralding them as “visionaries”, they drew just as much scorn and bile. Neither a piece of crap nor the second coming, the Brazen Hussies were a great controlled mess of punk and all its off-shoots, Britpop, garage, alt-rock and skag country: in fact, a very 90s band. Is it worth the plastics melted down to produce the vinyl (digital and CD versions released back in 2021) edition? I’d say so, and I think you’ll agree when you slap it on the turntable; finding a missing link from a decade that’s increasingly becoming the new “80s”.
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.
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Reviews Column
The cult leader of the infamous lo fi gods, The Bordellos, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea has released countless recordings over the decades with his family band of hapless unfortunates, and is the owner of a most self-deprecating sound-off style blog. His most recent releases include the King Of No-Fi album, a collaborative derangement with the Texas miscreant Occult Character, Heart To Heart, and a series of double-A side singles (released so far, ‘Shattered Pop Kiss/Sky Writing’, ‘Daisy Master Race/Cultural Euthanasia’, ‘Be My Maybe/David Bowie’ and All Psychiatrists Are Bastards / Will I Ever Be A Man). He has also released, under the Idiot Blur Fanboy moniker, a stripped-down classic album of resignation and Gallagher brothers’ polemics. His latest album Atlantic Crossing, a long overdue released collaboration with 20th Century Tokyo Princess’s Ted Clark, was released last month. Plus a new album entitled Cardboard Box Beatle will be released next month by Metal Postcard Records.
Each month we supply him with a mixed bag of new and upcoming releases to see what sticks.
The Singles.
The NoMen & The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies ‘The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth’
(Self-Release) 1st January 2022
The ideal start to the year is a tribute to the great Joe Meek with this two-sided wonder of Meek like madness from The NoMen and The Blue Giant Zeta Puppies; tracks that are filed with wonky guitars echo filled joints of smoked black fountains. Two tracks to make you feel that 2022 is not going to be that bad after all. Roll on the coming 12 months, and one can only hope it will be as magically wonky as this fine single.
bigflower ‘Bang Bang’
(Self-Release) 26th December 2021
bigflower is back with another cover. Yes, a dark and dense version of the 60s Cher classic ‘Bang Bang’. Once again Ivor Perry drenches the melodious with a swamp of becoming darkness that calls out to be used in some enigmatic black and white foreign subtitled film that one loses themselves in occasionally in the early hours of a Sunday Morning; a track that breaks hearts whilst stoking the embers of half remembered love affairs. Ivor’s bigflower is a band with a mission, a mission to cover this world with the magic of his spoken softly whispered beautiful guitar washes: a mission we should all encourage him in and publicize.
The Jazz Butcher ‘Running On Fumes’
(Tapete Records) 4th February 2022
This track my lovely cherubs is the first single taken from the new and posthumous album by the sadly no longer with us Pat Fish aka the Jazz Butcher, a band I loved and listened to a great deal in my indie pop loving late teen years. Yes, I soundtracked many a romantic interlude to the dulcet tones of the Jazz Butcher, their Live in Hamburg album was a particular favourite of mine, and I’m both pleased and saddened to say even after all these years Mr Fish never lost his way of writing a catchy melodious piece of guitar pop loveitude. He will be sadly missed by myself and many others: a great and talented songwriter.
treesreach ‘How it Seems’
4th February 2022
‘How It Seems’ is a lazy hazy piece of American indie rock with a lovely mixture of Sweet Jane guitar strums and an indie Boston like explosion of AOR melodeon tomfoolery: a rather lovely way to spend a few minutes. So I suggest you give it a listen.
The Albums And The EPs..
Colonial Skyway ‘Evening On Earth’
(Submarine Broadcasting Co.) 14th January 2022
The silent hum of a city landscape keeping its dark secret from the prying eyes of the solitude, the indifference of the praying masses awaiting redemption from the cold bloodied imaginations of the dearly departed only a hop skip and a jump away from the black bird soaring high through the now clear skies as the empty factory puffs the ghost of the smoke from god’s great ash tray into the remembrance of the sky. This album is an aural sweep stake of memories yet to happen a delve into the subconscious a brief awakening of the dot in the centre of an old tv screen saying goodnight one last time.
Salem Trials ‘Something PRETTY DRASTIC’
(Metal Postcard Records) 10th January 2022
Oh, the post-punk joy this 4-track EP emits is tangible, it is eatable, you can catch the magic in a net and rub your face in it; it is pure spell binding: the opening track ‘Table Turning’ sends goosebumps down my arm. It’s like it’s a missing track from Orange Juices mini–LP Texas Fever: it’s pop in its purest form.
This four tracker is the sound of The Salem Trials at their most commercial: I can imagine every track at one point coming from the radio stuck on BBC 6 music after 7pm. As readers of the Monolith Cocktail know I am a huge Salem Trials fan and I will tell you why. It’s because I have good taste. And if there is any justice in this world it should take something pretty drastic to stop Something Pretty Drastic haunting your radio.
K. Board & The Skreens ‘Langue EP’
(Metal Postcard Records) 28th December 2021
Metal Postcard Records, the record label of 2021, kick of 2022 with another fine release; a five track EP that has one scrabbling around in early new year frenzy thinking where on earth have I put my Syd Barrett CDs. Yes, a five track EP that covers the Syd like ditties in electronic 8-bit bedroom magic, all funky whirls and drumbeats. 2022 style modern-day dance meets the magical past to explore the inner workings of musical deep thinking. Sci-fi minds, maybe a work of an evil Bond villainy…who knows or cares when the music is this much fun and original sounding.
Chris Church ‘Darling Please’
(Big Stir Records) 21st January 2022
An album that kicks off with the sound of Quasimodo having a wank is not a bad way to start off an album of radio friendly guitar pop; it gives the album an air of darkness which I greatly appreciate. It is much better than being sugar-coated in platitudes of esteemed Mojo lite political correctness by jean wearing bingo hop bunned men who really should know better than to try and listen to his record collection of likeminded backward thinkers whilst his wife is not out scanning the racks of Sainsburys for the butter her mother’s best friend swears by.
Yes indeed, Chris Church has released an album of well written guitar pop rock that lovers of Mathew Sweet and the ilk will love and dream of being spoon-fed by Anthia from the Generation Game all those years ago: how did Brucie catch such a dish of the day we ask, and if we are not asking, we certainly should be…and as Brucie once said give us a twirl and I advise you guitar lovers give this album a twirl as it is not half bad.
Claptrap ‘Adulting’
(Un je-ne-sais-quop) 28th January 2022
Claptrap by name but not by nature. No indeed, what we have here is an enjoyable a free-thinking adventurous album of original pop songs, an album that I expect the great Paddy McAloon might enjoy with its Prefab Sprout like sense of playfulness – especially on the opening track ‘The Rewrite’. And the playfulness continues throughout the album, recalling the days when music could and should be fun; an album that takes electronica, psych and eyebrow twisting like McCartney Ram era pop and invention to quite wonderful heights.
Adulting is an album that proves that here we are in 2022 and pop music can still be as a rewarding an experience as it was 50 years ago when everything was fresh and exciting, all that is needed is a fresh and exciting outlook on your art. Nice one Claptrap.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 