Premiere: (Track) Antonio Raia & Renato Fiorito ‘Too Many Reasons’
October 19, 2021
PREMIERE SPECIAL/Dominic Valvona
In partnership with our Italian pen pals at Kalporz, both our sites have been chosen to simultaneously premiere the opening peregrination from the new collaboration between Antonio Raia & Renato Fiorito: the Thin Reactions album.
Eighteen minutes long, and taking up the entire A-side of that upcoming album ‘Too Many Reasons’ sees the amorphous saxophonist improviser and sound artist join together to capture the abstract atmospheres of cerebral reconnection; a sonic field in which to escape the stresses and weight of the pandemic.
Produced in lockdown, in the partnership’s native Napoli, this imagined space, in which a faded, fuzzy pining and wandering saxophone wafts around a rotated motorised humming and propeller purred windy and airy isolated soundtrack, brings together two experimental composers looking to create an ‘intimate and visceral experience’.
Although crossing paths years ago on site-specific performances and movie soundtracks, this traverse in tonal soundscapes marks the duo’s first fully released album together. They’ve chosen to deliver it on the new Italian label Non Sempre nuoce; the focus of which is on the burgeoning Neapolitan underground scene, covering, as the PR notes state, the city’s ‘post-clubbing music’, ‘Mediterranean retro sonorities’ and everything in-between.
Almost haunting in places, with field recordings that sound like a mysterious cyclonic desert, hinged fuzzes, vapours, fluted ambiguous regional sax and subtle little bursts of fizzled sonics are the only interruptions in this secluded landscape.
This is how the duo themselves describe this album venture: ‘Thin Reactions is an album consisting of sounds coming from invisible cities and intimate landscapes. It is a sonic trip you can take through a sensory experience. It is music that allows you to take a deep breath.’
You can now experience that immersive soundtrack below.
The Thin Reactions album will be released on the 29th October via the Non Sempre nuove imprint.
Our Daily Bread 474: Aliens, This Heel, Japan Review, They Might Be Giants, The Swansea Sound…
October 18, 2021
REVIEWS ROUNDUP/Dominic Valvona
Singles.
Japan Review ‘Kvetch Sound’
I like this single. It is tuneful with an undercurrent of melancholy and soft noise, which is always a winner; the sort of song you would play to soundtrack yourself watching your lover knowing that as beautiful as they are it is all going to come to an end soon and you will be awash with guilt heartbreak and only half your record collection. A lovely song.
Aliens ‘Liberation Road’
(Metal Postcard Records) 1st October 2021
The debut single from Aliens and they have the good taste to release it on Metal Postcard Records, a label that has currently three of the five best bands on the planet on its roster: The Bordellos, Salem Trials and The Legless Crabs. It only needs The Santa Sprees and Schizo Fun Addict and it would have a clean sweep. The Aliens single is a fine well-crafted guitar pop song; the kind of thing a major record label would release in the 80s when it was pretending to be an indie label. This song could do very well radio wise as it is very radio friendly, and even has a “na na na” refrain: so how could it fail. I look forward to the album.
They Might Be Giants ‘Part Of You Want To Believe Me’
They Might Be Giants are back with a fine catchy song that is both annoying and equally sublime in a way They Might Be Giants singles normally are; part a day trip out to the local Pre-School trampoline championship, part lets go to the asylum but let’s call for some ice cream and chocolate fingers first. There is only one They Might be Giants and for that we should be eternally grateful for both good and bad reasons.
bigflower ‘It Won’t Be Alright’
16th October 2021
Ivor Perry is back under the guise of his bigflower with another three minutes of mighty guitar shenanigans, once again proving why the man is a guitar legend with a Tom Verlane slice of pop wizardry. I have said many times life would be much more bearable if I tuned into BBC 6 music and heard this emitting from the speakers instead of some Generic Johnny and his indie guitar [normally a Fender Jaguar or Jazzmaster], fine guitars but not when placed into the hands of placid wallpaper people, singling songs about how they are broken-hearted over some girl/boy. Why not just have a wank and get over them? Probably too clean cut. Anyway, off track again…all I can say bigflower is a national treasure and deserve’s a statue in the centre of Manchester or a least a gold plaque on a park bench where people can go and sit and think about the days when guitar music meant something.
Albums/EPs..
Good Morning ‘Barn Yard’
(Polyvinyl) 22nd October 2021
Sometimes music can sooth you, can make you turn off and let life’s worries slowly drift away from you and leave you in a state of pure blissful melancholy. That is the effect Good Morning have on me. Barnyard is an album of sweetly written songs that pull and pluck at your heartstrings; melodies dip and swoon skywriting sweet nothings to everyone and nobody in particular. It’s an album of country indie and pure slacker jawed brilliance. Any fans of Wilco and Pavement should go and snap up a copy of this album as Wilco have not made an album as good as this in years.
The Swansea Sound ‘Live At The Rum Puncheon’
19th November 2021
I love the Swansea Sound. I love that they sing about music. They’re obviously in love with the power of rock ‘n’ roll and all the complexities that this love has on one’s life and life in the present when music doesn’t have the same effect on people that it once did, but long to revisit the past and the sadness of never quite getting the acclaim they deserved.
The band by the way is made up of members of The Pooh Sticks (one of my fave indie bands), Heavenly and Death In Vegas, so obviously know a bit about this subject. All three bands deserved much better.
There are songs that both remember the effect of falling in love with music, and this album in itself is an album that could toss a salad and set fire to a flaming tomato without a blink of an eye. Yes this is the kind of album John Peel and Dandelion Radio play would play incessantly as it’s indie guitar pop that is all three of those things; it’s indie in heart and in spirit; guitar in the lovingly jangled fuzzed and away-with-the-Fairies way; and pop in its purest nature, full of sublime hooks and melodies. A lovingly made album reminding us old folks just how joyous music can be; an album that could open a tin of sardines through pure melody alone.
This Heel ‘Invisible Space’ EP
The Kings of lo-fi sci-fi space surf rock are back with a splendid six track of guitar adventures. Yes, six tracks of mischievous indie rockdom that will have people from a certain age nodding their heads nostalgically to the days when guitar bands mattered; those days when Nirvana and the Pixies through to the Dandy Warhols were all visiting the charts on a regular basis and people still cared what the NME had to say.
This Heel brings those days flooding back better and with more style and verve than most; even evoking the magic of Elliot Smith on my favourite track of the EP, the beautiful ‘Gutted Angel’. Yes a six tracker that is certainly recommended; and its nice to hear a guitar EP not spoilt by generic indie production. This one has soul and space to breath and dance.
Various ‘V4Velindre’ Compilation
1st October 2021
What we have here is a 50 song download compilation with all the proceeds going to help the much-unfunded NHS. A worthy cause I’m sure all would agree, and also a very fine compilation album, there being 50 tracks and all. I have not the writing space to mention all 50 but it includes tracks by the likes of the Wedding Present, who offer a stripped-down version of their indie classic ‘Brassneck’, and a new track by one of Britain’s finest pop songwriters Armstrong, with a song that is worthy of the Lovin’ Spoonful and well worth the £7 pound download price in itself: ‘Yesterdays Over’, you just do not hear pop excellence like this everyday. Also there’s Simon Love and his simply charming sweet ‘Broken Love’, and a track by the legendary Nightingales. So what more could you ask for. Dig deep and help out the NHS and get hour’s worth of fine music in return.
Bunny & The Invalid Singers ‘Flight Of The Certainty Kids’
(Bearsuit Records) 15th October 2021
More musical tomfoolery from the genius that is the Bearsuit Record label; the place that electronica and 60s spy movie soundtracks collide; a place where rock ‘n’ roll seeks sci-fi wizardry, where glitter band drumbeats generate memories of the greatest hits and misses of Dr Who – which the track entitled ‘A Snipers Heart’ achieves.
Once again Bearsuit Records with this Bunny &The Invalid Singers album skips through the mystical years of rock ‘n’ roll pop culture’s past to supply us with what the musical future could hold, snatching pieces of Nirvana like grunge to the burning turning wheels of the tragic death glow of Marc Bolan, not in sound but in otherworldly saintly hood. Yes this is the bar that Barberella would slowly pole dance for a shaken but not stirred James Bond. When people yearn for the lost art of cool seduction they should just check into the sexual art of Bearsuit Records, sit back, close their eyes and imagine life is as exciting and interesting as this Bunny & The Invalid Singers album.
Legless Crabs/Salem Trials ‘Legless Trials EP’
(Metal Postcard Records) 16th October 2021
Members of the Legless Crabs and The Salem Trials have joined forces to record this fine five track EP, and it actually sounds like what you would imagine an EP would sound like if the two aforementioned bands got together to record. Chiming, squalling post-punk guitars that jive and dive in New York late 80s no-wave funk, slightly distorted vocals, part Lou Reed/part Rocky Erickson, and lyrics that swarm over, that both amuse and abuse the sensibilities of the art nouveau that lies hidden in all of us.
This fiver tracker is a must have and shows just how special and important the two bands are to the current musical underground: splendid stuff indeed.
Our Daily Bread 473: Xenia Rubinos ‘Una Rosa’
October 14, 2021
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Xenia Rubinos ‘Una Rosa’
(ANTI-) 15th October 2021
Plagued perhaps by self-doubt, it has taken the extraordinary voiced Xenia Rubinos five years to follow up the both salacious and flamboyant sensibilities, wit and societal commentaries of Black Terry Cat (one of our ‘choice’ albums of 2016). That album’s sassy provocative ‘Mexican Chef’ highlight was exhaustive enough on its own, without the rest of the songbook’s highly sophisticated, emotive with some very clever if unique forms of composition that played, dipped and accentuated Rubinos’ idiosyncratic deliverance – somewhere between jazz, Carmen, R&B, soul and hip-hop. Let’s say it merited a good sit down and rest.
But Rubinos went as far as to consult the advice of a ‘curandero’ (a traditional healer/shaman found in Latin America and beyond), who diagnosed the artist as suffering from a “loss of spirit”. Whatever the true reasons the singer-songwriter-composer-musician was given a further shove back into the studio by longtime creative foil Marco Buccelli. The exceptional drummer, producer and, it seems, encouraging force for good in Rubinos’ life, helped drag her back to the creative studio process.
In that period of transference from Obama to Trump, and now Biden, a whole lot of anger simmered to the boil: Enough material, crisis and anxiety to extrapolate for an album anyway. Though so much of the vitriol, slogan(ism) launched at Trump from the Left, and the rhetoric of various disenfranchised groups, now seems to have moved on.
With another change in direction, Una Rosa more than ever channels Rubinos’ Latin American heritage and upbringing across a split album of RED rage and BLUE introspection. Going back to before even Black Terry Cat, the voice is once more tonal and some of the time obscured, hidden under cybernetic vocoder, pitch shifter and that annoying effect of gargling that sounds like the vocalist is under water, manipulation. That’s not to say Rubinos hasn’t much to say, as she expresses it in both Spanish and English, whether it’s more wooed, in the style of Bolero, or poignantly heart breaking. Despite the cyber staccato effects she still delivers raw heartfelt plaint on the Kavinsky Drive into futurism ‘Did My Best’ – a song about coming to terms with the sudden loss of someone close.
A transformation of those already mentioned Latin American roots, the album’s title alludes to Rubinos “abuelita’s” (grandmother) wind-up music lamp; its fiber optic lights drawing the young artist in with its ‘swirling colours’. An entrancing object of fascination and nostalgic emotions of belonging, Una Rosa stands in for an array of feelings (from the dreamy to melancholy and futuristic; perhaps even comforting, a sense of security). Triggering a fervour for seeking deeper connections to that ancestry, Rubinos pays homage whilst propelling her grandmother’s favourite ‘cortate las venas’ singers into the present with a twist of futuristic pop on the yearned ‘Ay Hombre’.
Rewired Fado with touches of the rumba, and clav- style rhythms permeate this conceptual (of a sort) album. Each single, at least, is meant to reflect the portrait of a different character in the diorama. The venerable organ with revved up bursts of R&B pop and breaks ‘Who Shot Ya?’ represents (we’re told) a ‘grill-wearing woman and caged little child’: caged like so many young kids caught up in the immigration crisis, held in limbo (a practice that has actually been in place since and before Trump). In fact the visual aspect, character descriptions, were completed before the music, which as the notes suggest has a cinematic quality: no arguments there. Talking of the celluloid, the trebly stubbed bass and deep ‘Darkest Hour’ even features touches of Bernard Herrmann’s heightened stabbing strings: ala the Psycho soundtrack.
On the traditional B-side vinyl flip (the BLUE period as it’s called) Rubinos riles in almost balladry form on the self-explanatory ‘Don’t Put Me In Red’ song against the lighting engineers who insist on spotlighting her in red on stage: what Rubinos calls “Latino lighting”. It’s something I’d never even considered or come across before, but makes sense, the stereotyped fiery Latino spirit and cliché moody tempest effect: a kink of the exotic and sultry too. And that’s the point. Taking for granted the slights and ways we all condemn ethnicity into convenient boxes. The song is actually quite lovely; a mix of Moroder futurism and wallowing pleaded drama.
Rubinos and her foil Buccelli have really immersed themselves in this concept. They take familiar melodies, rhythms and tunes and transform them through a contemporary lexicon of protestation, jazz, electronica, soul and pop.
Una Rosa is a magical album that softly delivers hard-hitting on-messages and the experiences of the Latin American diaspora (“we were here before the West was won”) in a rigged version of the capitalist ideal. A different record to Black Terry Cat, Rubinos plays up her rich ancestry for a change and produces a more spontaneous tapestry of future pop music: an ancestry, musical style that has so often been adopted and worn by artist’s with only the most fleeting or tenuous (if any) of connections to Latin America. Expect to find Rubinos once more, featured in our choice albums of the year.
Premiere: (EP) Abir Patwary ‘Atmosphere’
October 13, 2021
Premiere/Dominic Valvona
Abir Patwary ‘Atmosphere’
15th October 2021
Regular readers and followers alike will know that the Monolith Cocktail takes pride in showcasing burgeoning new artists. And so with today’s premiere/track-by-track preview we’re delighted to exclusively present the new EP by the Oxford-based Spanish/Bangladeshi singer Abir Patwary, who combines his South Asian and European roots with modern electronic R&B, soul and emotive swelled pop.
With production shared (almost) between the L.A. producer/songwriter Nick Nittoli and the ever reliable Oxford producer/musician Mike Bannard, Patwary’s five-track Atmosphere EP crisscrosses the Atlantic with a sound that’s further expanded by the talents of viola player Joshua Piero, vocalist Mel Austin and rapper André Jahnoi.
Driven by themes of isolation, belonging and connection, Patwary lyrically fluctuates between storytelling and an expressive pull of emotions: “music has been a way for me to express the truest version of myself. I have a deep connection with storytelling, and stories have always made me feel like I belonged and that I wasn’t alone.”
Here’s a track-by-track breakdown of that EP:
‘Never Do’ – Opening with this summer’s single, the slow-paced and purposeful, tune features the soft harmonies of Mel Austin, who shadows Patwary’s “laconic”, slightly warble effected lead. Inspired by the war themed, and revisionist fantasies, of The Man In The High Castle and Broken Sky trilogy, Patwary yearns whilst the music dips and sways.
And exclusive ‘extended’ version, with added Ghost Poet via toasting raga lines from the British/Jamaican artist André Jahnoi, is also included on the EP.
‘Avalon’ – No not a cover of Brian Ferry’s slow dance but a slice of “crisp” brooding R&B with South Asian melodies style single, produced by L.A. producer of note, Nick Nittoli. Lyrically longing for that magical destiny, ‘Avalon’ feature’s the artist’s recurring theme of belonging: finding one’s tribe. It’s also another song that includes Patwary’s storytelling mix of the mythical and earthy.
‘Heir’ showcases Patwary’s love for cinematic and orchestral music, featuring, as it does, the light but emotive chamber pop viola tones of Joshua Piero. Once more imbued with the lyrics of mythology and also referencing the “tribe”, he soulfully aches with a certain defiance over subtle, but deeply felt, electronic beats and a romantic(ish) filmic soundtrack.
‘Mun’: An “arresting song of redemption” that features a zombified metaphor, aimed at all our most cruel, mindless failings, ‘Mun’ incorporates both that cool L.A. vibe of giddy sped up effects, bump and thud bass, and the march of more militaristic drummed snare.
You can now hear the full Atmosphere EP for a limited time before its official release on Friday 15th October below:
The Perusal #21: Lexagon, SAD MAN, David Lance Callahan, King Champion Sounds, Vapors Of Morphine…
October 11, 2021
A LOOK AT WHAT’S OUT THERE THIS MONTH/ALBUM & EP Reviews by Dominic Valvona
Lexagon ‘Feminine Care’
(Ratskin Records) Available Now
A most hypnotic, haunting release of built-up pressures, the release valve for the protestations and stresses of life under the Trump administration, the multidisciplinary artist Lexagon exhales a whole mini-epoch of frustrations on the incredibly atmospheric new album Feminine Care.
Through many ‘incarnations’ Lexagon roams, meanders and drifts across an amorphous soundscape, imbued by the spiritual longing of the black diaspora, the bayou and Deep South. Traces of trip-hop, new soul, the blues, gospel, early U.S. Girls lo fi, Francine Thirteen, Moor Mother, Tricky and, on the heavy breathing confrontation turn internalised soliloquy ‘Sugawata’, the Aphex Twin can be picked out amongst the environmental field recordings of wading through grasslands, bird song and more mysterious spheres.
With a title that both plays with and confronts the sanitized, compartmentalized named American drugstore aisle put aside for tampons and sanitary products, there’s nothing less at stake then the full gamut of feminine identity and language in an age in which held beliefs and constructs seem to be challenged to the point of destruction. Yet Lexagon’s themes grow even wider, taking in a panoply of events, from climate change to displacement.
Of the air and earth this most sensual, softly heaved gauzy and esoteric communal of veiled self-discovery draws you further and further into Lexagon’s vocalized, narrated and lulled sonic world. Serious when it needs to be, yet before you know it, the apparitional whispers and coos suddenly pay an almost sultry kink-poetic “lovesick ode” to female ejaculation on the finger clicking, sonorous bowl circling ‘Hurricane’: though this ghostly visitation exudes a slightly creepy vibe.
Lexagon’s voice guides us with scraps of journal entries, quiet diaphanous arias, woes, confessionals and transcendental “om” like spiritualism; winding, or embodying, the floated and wafted musical accompaniment of drifted Omni chord, train track rhythms, pattered and scrunched beats, warped curves and pumped hallucinations. The manifestation concerns of how it feels to be both literally and psychologically poor and without a stake in society; the tidal shifts of emotional insecurity and yearns for comfort; and the mental fatigue, exhaustion of a hostile environment are all channeled in the bewitching magic of this artist’s sensory rites of passage. Soul music from the ether, spiritual jazz vibrations from beyond this realm, Feminine Care is a woozy affair of true evocative brilliance: blues for the 21st century.
SAD MAN ‘5 Years Of Being SAD’
16th October 2021
The mind boggles at what motivates the humanoid behind the plaintive, despondent SAD MAN moniker. Whatever uppers, downers and madcap tomfoolery fuels Andrew Spackman’s electronic lunacy will remain an enigma.
Initially under the Duchampian chess move appellation of Nimzo Indian, Spackman has maintained various secret identities over the years, though the longest running alter ego, and most prolific, so far remains that SAD MAN guise. After 5 years, 18 albums and nearly 200 original pieces of music, the potting shed boffin-artist, composer and producer rounds up this “epic productive period” with a compilation of highlights and unconscious, untethered, streams of sonic confusion and madness (though Spackman has also celebrated his third anniversary with a similar compilation too).
To make it even more complicated in keeping track of his numerous outputs, Spackman has remixed his own original tracks across a trio of Indigenous Mix albums – some of his best work to date, and the reason that he’s selected four tracks from the most recent volume for this compilation. He’s also started moving into the soundtrack arena, recently collaborating with the Irish storyteller Francis Lowe on the narrative stream ‘Stories From An Island’ album for Cue Dot Records. Talking of soundtracks, a trio of oscillating, reverberating and more obscured breathing looped suites created to soundtrack Dimitri Kirsanoff’s lamented 1920s Menilmontant are featured on this anniversary showcase; proving if anything that it’s hard to pin this electronic and art school maverick down.
There are also selections from this year’s Music Of Dreams And Panic (the polygon space flight of ‘Tonefluffer’, spasmodic Sakamoto vs Autcehre turn Felix da Housecat dancer ‘The Piano Player Rises’, and a “revisited” version of the radiant exotic space birds and alien wildlife quirk, ‘Fra Fra’), The Man From SAD (the techno rotor bladed and magical Aphex Twin-esque ‘The Vulcan’ and moist, fanned phaser effect post-punk electronic dreamy and squiggled chimed ‘Finny Foot’), SOS (the bending mirage and gabbled techy ‘The Green Opal’, off-world Samba rhythmic tetchy break beat fantasy ‘Shark’, and the knocking beat glide inside the head of House Of Tapes ‘Neptune’), and Demo(n)s (the gargled acid burbled ‘The Split’, mechanical circular softened pneumatic prodded ‘Banished’, and floating apparitional percussive old movie ‘Swimming’) albums.
Featured on the Monolith Cocktail last year, both the trick noise making Daddy Biscuits and, warped vision of d’n’b, techno and more avant-garde, King Of Beasts albums are also well represented on this wild collection. From the former there’s the anything but somnolent ‘Sleeper’, which runs instead through a bastardize version of Herbie Hancock’s ‘Rockit’, 16-bit computer game coin-up prizes and hints of M-Plant Rob Hood and a crystalline dream magic. The rest is a mix of jolted Djax Techno, warped and bashed with shocks hints of Mike Dred, galloping 808s and mischievous Ed Banger electro funk. The latter, sees Spackman going for kicks, eyeing up the grooves on a album of both panel-beater workshop beats and modulated weirdness; an album for lovers of Warp, Leaf, early Jeff Mills.
Overall it’s a both madcap and revelatory tour-de-force of unhinged, madcap and purpose built apparatus electronica, unburdened and creatively free of any particular description (though I’ve tried!). Hopefully the moniker isn’t as sorrowful and depressed as it makes out, as we’d like to know there would be another five years of this extraordinary maverick’s experiments to come. With that in mind, here’s a raised glass to the fifth anniversary celebrations.
Further Reading…
SAD MAN and Francis Lowe ‘Stories From An Island’ (2021)
SAD MAN ‘Daddy Biscuits’ (2020)
SAD MAN ‘King Of Beasts’ (2020)
SAD MAN ‘S/T’, ‘CTRL’ (2017)
Nimzo-Indian ‘Nimzo-Indian’ (2014)
Dan Haywood ‘Country Dustbin’
(TakuRoku Records) Was Released on the 1st October 2021
Dan Haywood’s continuous one track rambled album Country Dustbin holds a torch up to illuminate the idiosyncrasies and misery of life at both the fag end of the 20th century and at the dawn of another miserable one. Generation X to Z are invited to throw all that crap and clutter baggage into the contemporary troubadour’s “bottomless pit”, “confessions booth”, and alchemist vessels.
Over a constantly loose jam of roving storyteller rock ‘n’ roll and enervated Leon Russell New Orleans style blues Haywood distils a lifetime and beyond of British poetry (from Ted Hughes to Robert Burton) and despondent prose for over fifty minutes of outsider pub-rollicking lovesick resignation, scoffed observational lyrics, iteration and warmer words of desire. The couplets and one-liners (far too many good ’ns to mention) continually flow over a forward (if slightly laidback) momentum. Those disheveled sulked encapsulation of life’s foibles, broken promises and dreams style lyrics, when they hit on something worth repeating, sometimes reoccur like some kind of reminder chorus: a rousing point of return.
Imagine Bob Dylan grew up in millennial Dalston, backed by the Alabama dappled organ sounds of Muscle Shoals supping up “California Chardonnay”, or, an Estuary twang Warren Zevon fronted 70s pub rock band, or, Anthony Moore gave Ian Dury a night-off from the Blockheads, and you still won’t come close to getting a handle on this unloaded conscious reckoning. A brave move that won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but this dustbin is a brilliant long jam of social and lovelorn splurging.
King Champion Sounds ‘Between Two Worlds’
(Hive Mind Records) 22nd October 2021
In danger of becoming difficult to keep tabs on, both the astral traveller Ajay Saggar and repeat collaborative offender Oli Heffernan have between them separately instigated the Deutsche Ashram, Bhajan Bhoy, Ivan The Tolerable and Heffernan projects. This year both longtime foils formed a cosmic courier bond with Kohhei Matsuda called University Challenged (reviewed by myself back in January this year). But it is in the guise of that partnership’s longest running venture, the Anglo-Dutch King Champion Sounds, which has now sprung up again: eight years after the loose confederation’s debut in 2013.
Once more with wafted and psychedelic oboe and no wave saxophonist Ditmer Weertman in tow, the KCS branch out with a myriad of guest appearances and an extended cast of voices, musicians to bemoan societal ills, and a lack of gnostic faith whilst unloading a lifetime of baggage.
Between Two Worlds indeed, flights of amorphous astral fantasies drift about with vague reverberations of post-punk, shoegaze, kosmische, krautrock, indie, baggy and the new age.
Throughout this grand expansive work the lingering mysticism of Deutsch Nepal meets with more earthy down ‘n’ dirty denunciations of city life and inequality.
Esoteric, mysterious with leanings of spiritual hanker come up against Tarot like augurs. On the motorik Klaus Dinger pummeled, with a transmogrified take of The Beatles ‘I Feel Fine’ riff, ‘Thou Hurricane’ sees the Mekons’ Sally Timms and Jon Longford with Eleventh Dream Day-trippers Janet Beveridge Bean delivering the “killers invade the citadel” omens in this case. Talking of guest spots, Mia Dai Todd cast a supernatural, almost chilled hint of the Dead Can Dance’s Lisa Gerrard, on the crept vapour and windswept ether ‘Remembering Easby Abby’, whilst the Super Fury Animals talk to bone shaker shaman as Augustus Pablo plays hallucinating melodcia album title-track features the former Teenage Fanclub(er) Gerry Love adding dreamy vocals.
Highlighting just how despondently real is the gap between those whose wealth is measured in the assets they hold and the enviable if soulless lifestyles they lead and the rest of us forsaken, put-upon proles, Glasgow poet Marieke McKenna narrates an episode of “stark contrasts” on the Ash Ra Tempel with acid burbles and bubbles ‘Seasick’. From the outside looking in McKenna experiences life aboard a super yacht as she fathoms how such extreme wealth flourishes in an age of apparent austerity; meeting a similar aged figure with “25 times my mandatory wealth to her name”. The rest of the album takes excursions to a psychedelic Tex-Mex dreamed border, as reimagined by The Coral (‘I Am A Horse’), an Amon Düül II and Floydian Indian bellowed and wind chime Tibet (‘Libra, Libra, Libra’), and features a young Shaun Ryder fronted no wave, no way, Fall like ramble about a “dirty, shitty, bitty city” (‘City In Wait’).
The resonance of screamed, trilled rituals (Haiti, Africa, who knows?) and amorphous cultures coalesce on an expansive grand astral mini-opus. Climb aboard a most eclectic flight across the gaps between worlds and let this sonic, wrangled protest melt your brain.
Connecting Posts:
University Challenged ‘Oh Temple!’ (2021)
Bhajan Bhoy ‘Bless Bless’ (2020)
Deutsche Ashram ‘Whisper Om’ (2020)
David Lance Callahan ‘English Primitive I’
(Ting Global Productions) 15th October 2021
From the heady malcontent days of the C86 Wolfhounds to the idiosyncratic 90s Moonshake, David Lance Callahan has always trodden a fairly unique proactive musical pathway. His latest album is no different.
The first of his two English Primitive declared works is a clever suffusion of buzzing and scuzzed West African (especially Mali) electronic guitar, Eastern, Arabesque and Indian delights and esoteric folk music. A “gumbo” in fact of worldly influences are poured into a somehow distinctly British pastoral hell that’s both weirdly timeless and yet very much of the times: If you did get lost the foibles, descriptions of self-obsession and politics soon drag you back into the present.
We start with a sort of plaintive gritted anthem to the Welfare State. A proud but nonetheless worried male and female dual vocal runs through the positives of growing up with free access to a number of institutions – now on the precipice and in the sights of privatization – to a sort of fluty union between The Beautiful South and David Cronenberg’s Wife. Moving on, the more mysterious commune, multicultural scene ‘Goatman’ sounds vocally like Simon Bonney accompanied by Samba Touré on guitar. It also reminded me of a very removed CSN&Y: even a strange corrupted 70s Fleetwood Mac.
A door is opened up to musical fantasies on the gnarled lyrical ‘Foxboy’, with its sloping tablas and resonated drones from India and scuzz guitar from psychedelic Anatolia. On this cross-border funnel there’s hints of Dirt Music and Warren Ellis’ harassed and heightened tsunami of elbowed violin.
Less honeyed odes are made to Callahan’s muse on the shaking and twine ‘She’s The King Of My Life’, but we’re back to “not seeing the signs” romantic inadequacy on the Mdou Moctar joins Bad seeds ‘She Passes Through The Night’.
Callahan really gets to the despondent crux of a relationship chasm on the epic kitchen sink lament ‘One Rainy September’. To an 18th century like classical and folky malady, two perspectives, one the returning soldier with a challenging return to civvy street, and the other, his put-upon unloved and isolated partner, play out on a dislocated tale of modernity: mobile phones and all.
Primitive in name only, beneath the dirt music and stripped pastoral backing this is a very clever, sophisticated album of weird and beguiling Britain; a snapshot trudge of a kingdom sliding into the abyss.
Angelo Bignamini ‘8 Doublings’
Miguel A. García ‘Aritie’
(both on the Kirigirisu Recordings label) Available Now
I have a double-bill of abstracted sonic experiments from the Japan-based label Kirigirisu this month. Out on the peripheral of sound art and conceptual methodology/process, Angelo Bignamini and Miguel A. García both obscure concrete objects and apparatus to produce something outside the usual description of ambient soundtrack, filed recordings or atmospheric exploration.
Italian musician, sound artist and label founder (of the “personal” Nausea imprint) Bignamini records various objects, whistles and percussion onto tape on a digital random sequencer. Interested in the relationship between music and failure, especially between sound and deterioration, his 8 Doublings of untitled (just numbered) tracks lead the listener into a minimalistic woodland of scratched and scored tape squiggles, amorphous pattered and tapped wooden quasi-beats and gamelan style garbled runs along skeleton bones. Bleeding in to this alien but just about identifiable world is an environment of hooted birds, insect chatter and foliage. #2 sounds like a looped staccato recording of someone clearing their way through the undergrowth, whilst banging sticks into the ground. Flinches of static, scrunched noises, distant drilled pulsations and mulch appear on a very peculiar, almost primal album of the strange.
Bilbao resident and artist García, who also performs under the Xedh guise (part of numerous group efforts too), brings us one long continuous track that changes over a span of 35 minutes through different built up sections. Based on certain complex textures of an analog origin (namely mixer feedback), which are then digitally manipulated, Aritie is based on insistence and repetition. Or as the accompanying PR notes put it: ‘superimposing sounds that are variations of those already proposed’. The accumulation of which leads to a climatic cyclonic swirl of noise and dissonance: it actually finishes with a long almost horror like high-pitched square wave like whine. Transformed scrapes of concrete and jangled sounds in the first section are replaced to a degree by rattled metal chimes and pans (which sort of beat out some kind of obscure rhythm) and tubular space signals. Chinks of long bell like percussion layer up with charged particles and a squelchy swamp of burbled and bubbling grayness. Another most strange recording that defies any sort of easy categorisation; out on its own in the abstract. Something out of nothing, nothing out of something: you decide.
Vapors Of Morphine ‘Fear & Fantasy’
(Schnitzel Records) 15th October 2021
It’s hard to keep up with the extensions and offshoots that materialized in the wake of Morphine’s retirement, coming as it did after the band’s front man Mark Sandman’s untimely death in 1999 (suffering a fatal heart attack live on stage). Carrying the torch, though for a longtime leaving past Morphine tunes and unfinished ideas alone, the surviving members in the noughties formed Vapors Of Morphine.
Now though, more than a decade on from conception, the VOM has seen a number of changes with only original Morphine founder and saxophonist Dana Colley remaining. Both Jerome Depruee and Billy Conway’s spirit permeates the new album, with one-side of it named after the former, who decided to drop out of the project. In their places comes the singer and multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Lyons and drummer Tom Arrey.
Knowingly reconnecting with Morphine’s final album, The Night, the Vapour’s Fear & Fantasy builds upon the cosmic swamp and psychedelic country vibes of that album whilst branching out with cover versions of Malian blues and dreamy despondency. The southern music influences remain, with echoes of Big Joe Turner, New Orleans blues, boogie and skiffle. ‘Ostrich’ blends all the above with wallowed moonshine and touches of Muscle Shoals Stones and Delaney & Bonnie.
Yet despite the bayou, front porch and Appalachian geography, Colley’s often wafted, drifted and honked baritone sax and the more progressive, psychedelic drums suggest hallucinatory and languorous visions of lunar terrain: like on the meandrous, reverberated knocking dub-country opener ‘Blue Dream’ and curved air bending sci-fi instrumental ‘Phantasos & Probetor’. The band also spread their wings into West Africa with cover versions of songs by Malian legends Ali Farke Touré and Baubacar Traoré. The first takes Touré’s spindled ‘Lasidon’ original along the Mediterranean coastline (could be ancient Anatolia, Greece or modern Turkey) with wheel spokes like guitar and what sounds like a mandolin; the second gives Traoré’s ‘Baba Drame’ a similar excursion swerve but also turns it into a strange country hoedown.
Those who were fond of the late Sandman’s burr will find the vocals in keeping with that low voiced trajectory. On the very 90s sounding and Eno serenaded ‘Irene’ the vocals sound like a mix of Crime & The City Solution’s Simon Bonney and Mark Lanegan, but like an experimental Michael Hutchence’s on the jazzy-country-blues trip ‘Special Rider’ and like some odd throwback to Steinbeck’s depression era on the Orleans’, via the Cotton Club, ‘Drop Out Mambo’.
Going full circle, the band pays homage to Sandman’s pre-Morphine incarnation, Treat Her Right, on the slinking and slide guitar double-entendre cheeky camping trip ‘Doreen’. It’s a comical moment of levity, much in keeping with the overall tone and mood of this album. The lyrics can be a tad resigned, moody, and fateful (delivered from a middle-aged perspective), but the music plays around with its key roots whilst floating off into the universe on an acid moonbeam. Fans of that Morphine legacy will be happy with the results; the connection still there yet moving into new creative streams.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog the Monolith Cocktail. 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 Social #61: The UMC’s, The Human League, Richard H. Kirk, Lael Neal, Sakamoto, Os Kiezos, Aphex Twin…
October 8, 2021
The leading eclectic and cross-generational playlist/Compiled by Dominic Valvona
An imaginary radio show (only without the waffling and interruptions), the Monolith Cocktail Social is a playlist selection that spans genres and eras to create the most eclectic of soundtracks. Dominic includes a bunch of tributes to those albums celebrating anniversaries this month (UMC’s, Human League, Black Sheep, Freestyle Fellowship and Aphex Twin) and raises a glass of dram to those who have sadly passed on (Richard H. Kirk, and more personally, punk, post-punk and rock journeyman and friend Shaun Newnham of Thin Red Line, who at one time included the famous Razzle in its ranks).
Alongside those tributes you’ll find a taste of Sakamoto (very much back in vogue these days, with new material pouring out of him), some Useless Youth, Pointed Sticks, Os Kiezos, Roscoe Mitchell, Lael Neale, True West and more.
TRACKS:
The UMC’s ‘Live Talk’
Andromeda ‘Andromeda’
Ryuichi Sakamoto & Robin Scott ‘THE LEFT BANK’
The Human League ‘Open Your Heart’
Pointed Sticks ‘Marching Song’
Thin Red Line ‘Holy War’ The Marked Men ‘We Won’t Talk About It’
Useless Youth ‘Tears’
William Doyle ‘And Everything Changed (But I Feel Alright)’
Os Kiezos ‘N’gola’
Roscoe Mitchell And The Sound And Space Ensembles ‘You Wastin’ My Time’
Black Sheep ‘To Whom It May Concern’
Freestyle Fellowship ‘Here I Am’
Clifford Jordan Quartet ‘Powerful Paul Robeson’
Marcel Khalifa ‘Tarffic Police’
Leo Nocentelli ‘Thinking Of The Day’
Heather ‘Morning Bells’
Sneaky Feelings ‘The Strange And Conflicting Feelings Of Separation And Betrayal’
Ohtis Ft. Stef Chura ‘Schatze’
Arte No Escuro ‘Beije-Me Cowboy’
Richard H. Kirk ‘Reality Net’
Aphex Twin ‘Vordhosbn’
Joseph Shabason ‘Q-13’
Lael Neale ‘Every Star Shivers In The Dark’
Cabaret Voltaire ‘Yashar’
Bondage Fruit ‘Minus One’
True West ‘I’m Not Here’
Last Exit ‘Zulu Butter’
Hocine Chaoui ‘Oued Ariouss’
Maxine Brown ‘Funny’
Reggie Workman, Andrew Hill and Sam Rivers ‘Estelle’s Theme’
Kalporz X Monolith Cocktail: [Coverworld] ‘This Strange Effect’ From Nine Perfect Strangers
October 5, 2021
SONG THREAD/NETFLIX: Paolo Bardelli
Continuing our successful collaboration with the leading Italian music publication Kalporz , the Monolith Cocktail shares reviews, interviews and other bits from our respective sites each month. Keep an eye out for future ‘synergy’ between our two great houses as we exchange posts during 2021 and beyond.
This month Kalporz head honcho Paolo Bardelli shares a recent instalment of the site’s [Coverworld series], which runs through the history of a cover song made famous or brought into the public sphere by a contemporary artist (in this case, the recent Netflix hit show Nine Perfect Strangers).
Amazon Prime’s new TV serial Nine Perfect Strangers has a really good theme song by Unloved, a Los Angeles-based soundtrack trio made up of Jade Vincent, Keefus Ciancia and David Holmes. It’s called ‘Strange Effect’ and it’s not an original song (otherwise we wouldn’t be in this column…). More precisely, it is a cover of a 1965 song that has been remade several times.
‘This Strange Effect’ (yes, the original has that extra ‘This’) is a song written by Ray Davies of the Kinks but was first released by singer-songwriter Dave Berry in July 1965. Unloved’s reworking of the song (featuring the voice of Raven Violet, Keefus Ciancia’s daughter) is in line with the dreamy, drug-soaked feel of the series, where Dave Berry’s original is drier and the riff is played by a simple acoustic guitar.
But the Kinks also played it, though they did not officially release any studio version: there is, however, a readily available live recording of it at the BBC in August 1965, which was published in 2001 as the BBC Sessions 1964-1977. The Kinks’ interpretation is essentially identical in arrangement, only the sounds change.
Since then, ‘This Strange Effect’ has received several reinterpretations, the most “famous” being Hooverphonic‘s 1998 rendition, which is consistent with the Belgian band’s typical orchestral arrangements. In its elegance, the violins obsessively repeat those two notes to create a particularly hypnotic suspension effect. Hooverphonic released it as a single (for their album, Blue Wonder Power Milk) and were the first to demonstrate the ‘soundtrack’ capability of the track itself: it ended up in the film Shades (1999), in the TV series Nikita and for the American TV commercial for a Motorola mobile phone in 2005.
The following year, in 1999, the Thievery Corporation thought it best to make a mix of the Hooverphonic version that was almost unrecognisable, with the typical Thievery drumming and Arnaert‘s vocals standing alone at first and then, towards the end, rejoining the musical base of the other two Hooverphonic’s while still with the addictive rhythm of the TCs underneath.
The “ugliest” cover is the one by Bill Wyman, who included it for his 1992 album Stuff: there’s an annoying piano and little sounds that don’t even sound like the country church organ.
While the 2006 version by the Finnish band The Others is practically useless, the dreamy version, between sitar and harmonica, by the British band Squeeze is very histrionic and was included in the deluxe edition of their 2015 album, Cradle to the Grave.
Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols also approached the song in 1980, with his project The Spectres: the result is interesting, between sax and a ‘Peter Gunn Theme’ style bass line:
A finally electric variant is Steve Wynn‘s on his 1997 album, Sweetness And Light: here how the song starts and shows its multifaceted, and not only “melodious”, soul. One of the most beautiful covers.
‘This Strange Effect’, on the other hand, comes back persuasive in the 2017 version by the Shacks, which has the only merit of ending up as the soundtrack of the iPhone TV commercial, because it has an annoying vocal pitch change in the verse and an incomprehensible speed-up on the ending. The Shacks are an American duo made up of Max Shrager and Shannon Wise, whose Follow Me I recommend listening to, which is very nice.
All in all, the Unloved’s version, although not new (it also appeared in the third series of Killing Eve) is one of the best, and has the merit of having given us the possibility of going through all the epic of this beautiful song from the sixties that still speaks to us.
(Paolo Bardelli)
Our Daily Bread 472: David Ornette Cherry’s Organic Nation Listening Club (The Continual)
October 4, 2021
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
David Ornette Cherry’s Organic Nation Listening Club (The Continual)
(Spiritmuse) 15th October 2021
What providence. What two outstanding luminaries to live up to. David Ornette Cherry’s name marks the extraordinary point in time when his trumpet-pioneering father Don Cherry joined forces with jazz deity Ornette Coleman on the 1958 free jazz defining Something Else!!! LP. It was also the year the musical polymath David was born.
Thankfully taken under his father’s wing, nurtured with the same freewheeling ‘cosmic nomad’ spirit, this sagacious scion of an enviable lineage continues to tread a polygenesis pathway on his latest album of on-message peregrination and rhythmic dances. Attuned to the universal vibrations, channeling the ancients and both his father’s African-American and Choctaw roots, the Organic Nation Listening Club bandleader, prompter and navigator lays out an atavistic form of electronic body movement, echoes of Hassell’s amorphous ‘fourth world’ explorations, the astral and, of course, spiritual jazz on the parenthesis entitled The Continual journey.
David leads a fourteen strong ensemble of global instrument-playing musicians and voices, which includes his niece Tyson McVey (daughter of the no less famous musical sibling, Neneh Cherry) performing vocal soundscape harmonization and wandering siren duties on the diaphanous courtly Indian accompanied, part conscious, part mindfulness yoga session, ‘So & So & So And So’ (imagine Prince joining forces with Linda Sharrock and Brother Ah).
Almost meandering across continents, you’ll hear the resonated echoes, impressions, twine and spindled sounds of North and West Africa, the Asian sub-continent (a lovely brassy reverberation of sitar and the rhythm of tablas can be heard throughout), the Fertile Crescent and an 80s NYC melting pot on this spiritually enlivened trip. The keen-elbowed viola and tapping beat groove ‘Parallel Experience’, with its West African dun dun drum beat suggests that continent’s mood, yet also spreads its scope towards echoes of Farhot’s reimagined breakbeat visions of Afghanistan. The majestic mountain crust positioned ‘Eagle Play’ takes in musical views of not only the recurring spiritual Indian leitmotif but also Anatolia and Harilu Mergia’s Ethiopia (if put together by J Dilla that is).
Elsewhere David and his human, as well as nature’s chorus of ‘hummingbird’ singing cast embody the untethered soul of Don Cherry’s Om Shanti Om and Eternal Now works (and even a touch of the musical microbe calculus of building blocks and life that you’ll find on Don’s collaboration with Terry Riley, Köln). There’s also the fluted presence of Jeremy Steig, and with the more free jazz, almost improvised interactions between David and his drummer John L. Price, electric piano player Naima Karlsson and trumpeter Paul Simms, a touch of Sam Rivers and the Chicago Underground. Meanwhile, in what is an especially expansive field of instrumentation and influence, Gemi Taylor’s guitar straddles krautrock, jazz and drifted cries of a more ambiguous nature.
From the cosmos to the age of the Pharaohs, the garden of earthly delights to dancing through the tumult of our modern times, the rhythms of life merge with more avant-garde performances of serialism, free jazz and even the psychedelic.
All the while the mood is electric, both of the moment and the past; a both sporadic and flowing set of reincarnations existing in a timeless scene under the guidance of an outstanding musical traveller. Anchored in the history of jazz, but so much more beyond that, David lives up to the family name on another eclectic album of borderless healing and wisdom. Be sure to check in at the global retreat and take heed of the advice.
The Monthly Playlist: September 2021: The August List, The Felice Brothers, Blu, Jazzmeia Horn…
September 30, 2021
PLAYLIST: Dominic Valvona/Matt Oliver/Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
The monthly recap and chance to catch up with all the most eclectic music that the Monolith Cocktail team has been listening to over the last four weeks (with a few additional tracks we missed back in August). Chosen by me (Dominic Valvona), Matt ‘Rap Controller’ Oliver and Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, the September 2021 edition features a truly global lineup of the best and most interesting Hip-Hop, Electronica, Jazz, Nu-Soul, Krautrock, Post-Punk, Experimental, Pop and beyond, with musical waves from Africa, the Med, Americas, Europe, Far East and of course the UK.
TRACK LIST:::
The August List ‘Seams’
Monsieur Doumani ‘Astrahan’
Ex Norwegian ‘Thot Patrol’
The Speed Of Sound ‘The Day The Earth Caught Fire’
Motorists ‘Go Back’
The Crystal Casino Band ‘Waste My Time’
The Felice Brothers ‘Jazz On The Autobahn’
Timo Lassy ‘Orlo’
Blu ‘Everyday Blu(e)s’
DJ JS-1 ‘Spaghetti Park’
Lukah ‘THE WAY TO DAMASCUS’
Jazzmeia Horn And Her Noble Force ‘Where Is Freedom?’
Kondi Band ‘Everything That Sierra Leone Has’
Los Camaroes ‘Esele Mulema Moam’
Mopes ‘Facts Machine’
Solem Brigham ‘Couple Towns’
Gift Of Gab Ft. Vursatyl, Lateef The Truthspeaker ‘You Gon’ Make It In The End’
Gotts Street Park ‘Diego’
Hiero ‘Soil’
Showtime Ramon Ft. Illecism ‘Julius Erving’
Viktor Timofeev ‘Portal Of Zin II’
Variet ‘The Ancient Of Seconds’
Faust ‘Vorsatz’
Vilmmer ‘Fensteraus’
Late ‘Verbal Introduction’
King Kashmere & Alecs DeLarge ‘Soul Caliber’ Robert & SonnyJim Ft. Rag’n’Bone Man ‘Porridge’
Niklas Wandt ‘Lo Spettro’
Badge Epoch ‘Galactic Whip’
Dr. Joy ‘No Deal’
Ulrich Schnauss & Mark Peters ‘Speak In Capitals’
Psycho & Plastic ‘Wunsch, Indianer Zu Werden’
Sone Institute ‘Forget Everything’
Steve Hadfield ‘Ascension’
Headboggle ‘Skip Pop’
Forest Robots ‘Every Particle Of Water Understands Change Is Essential’
Wish Master & Illinformed Ft. Datkid and Gaza Glock ‘Chefs Recipe’
Dceased, Telly McLean and Unlike People ‘Rainey Day Relapse’
Nukuluk ‘Ooh Ah’
Boohoo ‘Forever’
The Legless Crabs ‘A Saucer Is Born’
Bordello & Clark ‘Dreams Of Rock And Roll Stars’ Santa Sprees ‘Save Yourself’
Birthday Cake! ‘Retrospect’
Salem Trials ‘No York’
Helm ‘Repellent’
Will Feral ‘The Minx’
Sun Atoms ‘The Cat’s Eye’
Simon McCorry ‘Flow 04’
Group Listening ‘Sunset Village’
John Howard ‘Dreamland’
Andrew Heath ‘The Healing Pt. 1’
Tara Clerkin Trio ‘Night Steps’
Color Dolor ‘Underwater’
Gina Birch ‘Feminist Song’
Esbe ‘Amazing Grace’
Our Daily Bread 471: (Track-By-Track) Bordello & Clark ‘Atlantic Crossing’
September 29, 2021
WORDS: Dominic Valvona/Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Self-promotional time now as the Monolith Cocktail celebrates the release of our very own Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s long awaited album partnership with 20th Century Tokyo Princess’s guitarist/singer Ted Clark: conveniently entitled Bordello & Clark.
Joining the blog a few years back with his own reviews column the erstwhile malcontent Brian Shea is the defacto leader of the lo fi, still believing in the power of rock ‘n’ roll, family band, The Bordellos, but also releases various humdrum aphorism’s under his own name. After various travails and hold-ups, the Think Like A Key label has somehow ended up releasing the much-delayed communion between the two nostalgically melancholy artists. I say nostalgic, but not in the watery-eyed sense of missed opportunity, rather disgruntled at how the 21st century has sucked out all the joy, muthafuckerness and humour of rock ‘n’ roll; leaving nothing but a pale imitation or join the dots karaoke pastiches. For this is a wistful contrary delivered songbook of obscured romanticisms, lost love, and the idiosyncratic measuring of time passing by; whether that’s through the lens of Brian’s overgrown garden of metaphors or the bygone kettle whistled tours of rock’s back pages and famous sites (‘Memories Of Denmark Street’) and the straggles of becoming a famous rock star.
Making Sparklehorse sound like a flash git, accompanied by ELO, the lo fi in this partnership’s observational love letters is about as sparse and minimal as it can get. Except that is for the Mekons spaghetti western like homage to The Wedding Present’s stalwart David Gedge, which seems a big score in comparison: a wistful one at that.
The ‘Mersey Beat’ sound is wallowed in the waters of Joe Meek’s cellar for the jingle-jangle sound of a past age; a mindset that rambles through the broken promises of memorabilia, the 2i’s café’s jukebox and a pile of C86 era tapes. This is a conjuncture in which you hear how the J&MC may have sounded with Spaceman 3 era Jason Pierce fronting it, where Del Shannon met Greg Boring decided to hang out together. This is a reimagined TOTP’s slot that drove The Bordellos and 20th Century Pop Princess to the topper most top of the pop charts. An album of such brilliant lyrical sadness and irony that yearns for the mythology of rock ‘n’ roll and glory of what could have been if the likes of Spotify and their ilk hadn’t been invented, and music really meant something: nothing less than a complete absorption.
Borrowing some familiar riffs from the 60s garage, post-punk, ramshackle outsider music, Atlantic Crossing brings two distinct yet wholly congruous lo fi seers together on a mostly magic album of loss and longing that channels the spirit of a bygone age.
We asked Brian to guide us track-by-track through the new album, which was released on the 24th September 2021.
Jingle Jangle is a song of remembering your childhood and all the innocence that goes with it, mixed with memories of old friends and lovers that you no longer see, and an ideal way to kick off an album with songs filled with regrets, hopes, and love lost and found.
Memories of Denmark St is what it says on the tin. A song about memories of holidaying in London with an old girlfriend, looking at the guitars you want but cannot afford, dreaming, thinking it is only a matter of time that some record company will snap you and make you a star. “I wanted a Gretsch, I wanted a vox, I wanted to be on Top Of The Pops” could well be the most heartbreakingly honest line I’ve ever written. This album is full of heartbreak and lost love and unfulfilled dreams and probably the album with most self-biographic songs I have released.
The Girl with Cadbury Purple Hair. I saw a girl when I was sat on the bus out of the window and she looked like she owned the world; she looked like the most self-confident person I have ever seen. She was in her late teens, had charity store clothes and had Cadbury Purple Hair, and radiated sunshine from her being. I only saw her for about thirty seconds and not seen her since. Maybe she was just a brief daydream and I imagined her? So I wrote a song of sex, lust, hope, and the magic of being young based around the sighting of this super being. Ted (Clark) did a fucking amazing job on this song making it sound like Marc Bolan preening himself in the mirror
Sunshine Rain Girl. A song about being in love with someone with problems and those problems bringing bigger problems, but in between the problems are moments of pure magic and underneath the darkness lies the hottest and brightest of suns. This was recorded as a ballad but Ted sped it up and gave it a strange George Formby like vibe. A strange pop track and if ever recorded as a ballad could be a big hit.
Handsome Jaques. Ah…memories of sexual shenanigans from ones past mixed with fuzzy framed nostalgia and advice to the youngsters out there. A song I originally wrote for Cilla Black to sing: and it would have been a right rum do if she had.
Dreams Of Rock N Roll Stars. I feel this is the finest song I have written, the centrepiece for the whole album, a song of looking back at the things you never achieved but recorded in such a magical way by Ted that it makes like regret has never tasted so good. Like Joe Meek doing a soundtrack of a Walt Disney film starring Woody Allen and Tony Hancock, and the perfect pop song. I always imagine the video to this being set in a beatnik bar with a party happening or a happening party, with cartoon French men shaking maracas.
Holy Love. Quite simply a short love song to an old dear friend who I have not seen in many years hoping that he has found the love and companionship he so craved and deserved.
Sixteen. A song celebrating first love and memories of it: all love, romance and soft tinted lust and regret. A chocolate box of a song.
Gedge. Entitled after the singer of The Wedding Present, this is a song filled with both lust self-hate and a yearning to reach the stalking like levels of writing that David Gedge has mastered. This is by far the most lo-fi recording on a very lo-fi album. The vocals I sent to Ted were distorted to hell and I am amazed he was able to salvage it and make it into probably the most difficult song to listen to on the album. But actually one of my favourites on it.
Lonely Henry. One of the catchiest and lively songs on the album inspired by a lonely old man who used to wander around my hometown of St Helens, who did used to carry a baby doll in his bag for company. The rhythm guitar on this track is quite spectacular, which I do not remember it being this good when I sent it to Ted, so I have the feeling Ted redid it.
Wrong Country Song. Quite simply, a simple pop song in an indie American pop sort of way. I could imagine the Mouldy Peaches or some other American indie pop act doing it. The sort of song that could have been on the Juno soundtrack. Very simple then, it’s made by Ted’s rather beautiful xylophone solo.
Watching The Garden Grow is maybe the darkest song on the album; a song about being saved unknowingly by your wife and children, dragging you back from the abyss of depression. A sad yet hopeful song.
You can find and purchase the album here…
Monolith Cocktail Blog 