Premiere: (Video) Violet Nox ‘Haumea’
July 12, 2021
Violet Nox ‘Haumea Video’
Taken From The Whispering Galaxy EP (Infinity Vine Records)
Pretty much encapsulated in the title of the Boston-based synth collective’s fourth and most recent EP, Whispering Galaxy proved to be just that: a dreamy, ethereal chorus of hushed, diaphanous whispery voices, emanating from and sending out a siren’s choral voice across an expansive galaxy.
Whilst previous releases have been slightly disorientating with ominous visions of futurism and unearthly cybernetics, the encouraging Whispering Galaxy featured glimpses of mid-90s Bowie, Brian Reitzell and countless dreamy, synth-pop inspirations, and the cooed promise of sweet ‘somethings’ to the awe, mystique and trepidation of a space beyond our reach. From that EP’s wispy, airy depths, the mythical and planetary inspired ‘Haumea’ is given a reactive display of liquid, wavy and vibrating synthetic abstract visuals by the artistChris Konopka.
On the almost spiritually voiced ‘Haumea’, Violet Nox’s spacecraft hurtles through a trippy, warped sonic vortex of echoed industrial gnarled guitar, various fusions, generator knocks, bauble tight delayed bounces and ticks towards a dwarf planet, located just beyond Neptune’s orbit. Named after the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth, and only discovered in 2004, Haumea inspires a suitable enough galaxy quest soundscape; one in which the Nox seem to turn off the engines and just drift towards in a suspended state of aria vocalized homage aboard the Tangerine Dream spaceship; a craft that’s also shared by Orbital and the Future Sound Of London.
Collective instigator, guitarist, sonic effects manipulator, synth player, lyricist and vocalist on a number of the EP’s tracks, Dez DeCarlo worked and reworked over and over ‘Haumea’ with fellow Violet Nox members Andrew Abrahamson (credited with playing a majority of the instruments alongside Dez, but under the mysterious, ambiguous description of ‘synthesis and clocked machines’ provider) and Fen Rotstein (vocals, turntables, Synth-Traktor, Native Instruments S4 Mk II on three of the EP’s tracks). Contributing remotely, were organ/synth player and siren Karen Zanes, and Noell Dorsey, of the band Major Stars fame, who provided the lead vocals.
Dez DeCarlo: ‘Haumea went through many formats to become the final song. It took months to write during the pandemic. I was definitely influenced by the magical energy of the goddess Haumea and it’s also a dwarf planet. I love astronomy!’
Premiered today by the Monolith Cocktail, you can experience it below:
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 456: A Journey Of Giraffes ‘Spool’
July 9, 2021
ALBUM REVIEWS/Dominic Valvona
A Journey Of Giraffes ‘Spool’
(Somewherecold Records) 9th July 2021
The criminally unknown John Lane – in obscurity parading under the delightfully envisioned A Journey Of Giraffes appellation – transduces abstract and complex concepts into ambient soundtracks of the mysterious, diaphanous and often strange.
Five albums in with the ridiculously prolific North American label, Somewherecold Records, Lane once more explores and expands his sound; changing and modifying his deep understanding of the ambient genre on every release. And as with each project, the unassuming artist is inspired by a chosen theme: perhaps a work of art, a location or a book (see both the Armenia and Kona albums for example).
The latest album, Spool, is no different in that respect, being subtly, almost amorphously imbued by the late WG Sebald’s acclaimed trilogy of cerebral travelogues: The Rings Of Saturn, The Emigrant and Vertigo. Lane taps into the author’s preoccupied themes of the ‘loss of memory’ and ‘decay of civilizations, traditions and physical objects’.
Spool is bookended in this respect by two fairly low key New Jersey boroughs only ever observed by Lane from a car window; fleetingly glanced at as turnings on signposts whilst driving up and down the ‘turnpike’. Yet both locations have led Lane’s imagination cogs to start turning, as he daydreams about the lives of those who’ve made those small towns their home. ‘Swedesboro’, as the name makes pretty clear, was founded by Swedish immigrants over three hundred years ago, and is known for its fine balance of ‘urban forestry’ (thank you Wikipedia). Here, that inconspicuous enclave is soundtracked by suffused fuzz, ascending elevators, lingering electric piano notes and indistinct workshop sounds: like a Twin Peaks sawmill. ‘Glassboro’ meanwhile, built on an early history of glass making, gets an almost ghostly, etched and translucent score – there’s also a constant communicative knock like sound that could be someone stuck in a tank.
The album’s other geographical reference points are the beautiful Japanese woodblock printed artwork scene ‘Slope At Senko’ and ‘Campfire On Gibraltar’. Kawase Hasus’ original enervated snow blizzard picture is rendered a suitable evocative flutter that sounds like someone changing channels on a static fuzzy snowy TV set on the first of those tracks, whilst the second is a near hymnal cooed embrace of the elements, set around that title’s crackling flame licked campfire side.
Elsewhere the album embodies the idea of the traveller, who can never settle, yet soaks up the psychogeography, depth and atmosphere of each place they visit. Lane does this with compositions that stir the merest traces of the Japanese school of ambient electronica and electric piano notes that wouldn’t sound out of place on both Roedelius and Thomas Dinger’s solo works.
Lane’s Spool is yet another layer, another explorative page on a log journey that I hope leads to greater recognition. Composing in relative isolation, releasing unheralded works of brilliance, he damn well deserves it.
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 Social #57: CV Vision, Guru Guru, Falle Nioke & Sir Was, Greentea Peng, Sparks…
July 7, 2021
Dominic Valvona’s Eclectic/Generational Spanning Playlist
An imaginary radio show, a taste of my DJ sets, the Monolith Cocktail Social is a playlist selection that spans genres and eras to create the most eclectic of soundtracks. Among the international and generational spanning selection of the old and new, is a smattering of tributes to anniversary celebrating albums (Guru Guru Hinten, Poor Righteous Teachers Pure Poverty, Sparks Whomp The Sucker, Super Fury Animals Rings Around The World).
Tracks:
Poor Righteous Teachers ‘Methods Of Droppin’ Mental’
Greentea Peng ‘This Sound’
Little Annie ‘I Think Of You’
Lives Of Angels ‘Imperial Motors’
Kit Sebastian ‘Lady Grinning Soul’
CV Vision ‘Should I Tame Me Endless Mind’
The Groupies ‘Hog (I’m A Hog For You Baby)’
Sam Gopal ‘Escalator’
Guru Guru ‘Bo Diddley’
Glass Beams ‘Taurus’
Nicole Paquin ‘Dis Lui Que Je L’Aime’
Sparks ‘Suzie Safety’
Magic Castles ‘Lost Dimension’
Darker My Love ‘What A Man’s Paris’
Jose Mauro ‘Rua Dois’
Khruangbin ‘Right’
George Harrison ‘Run Of The Mill (Session Outtakes And Jam)’
Super Fury Animals ‘Juxtaposed With U’
A Cooper/Emerald Web/S. Mcloughlin ‘Hexagons Above Dovestones’
Ìxtahuele Xenia Kriisin ‘The Lion’
King Just ‘Warrior’s Drum’
Krack Free Media ‘Difference Dealer (Spot The Difference Pt. II)’
The Awakening ‘Mode For D.D.’
True Loves ‘First Impression’
International Harvester ‘Kuk-Polska’
Trader Home ‘The mixed Up Kind’
Mário Rui Silva ‘Kazum-zum-zum’
Falle Nioke & Sir Was ‘Wonama Yo Ema’
Caroline ‘Skydiving Onto The Library Roof’
Hans Koller & Wolfgang Dauner ‘Adea’
Mazaher ‘Yawra & Rekousha’
DM Bob & The Deficits ‘Into My Own Thing’
Real Live ‘Pop The Trunk’ Riz Ortolani ‘Riti e Folklore’
Perusal #16: Chris Sharkey, Manzanita y Su Conjunto, Jason Nazary, Passepartout Duo, Raf And O, Karen Zanes…
July 5, 2021
A Look At What’s Out There
Dominic Valvona
Singles/Videos/One-Offs/EPs:
Raf And O ‘Tommy Newton’
The ever incredible idiosyncratic dream reality duo of Raf (Raf Montelli) and O (Richard Smith) furnish us with another sublime avant-garde yearned imagining from their on-going David Bowie and Kate Bush imbued online tour. Finding inspiration from Nicolas Roeg’s iconic visionary, tragic interpretation of Walter Tevis’ 1963 sci-fi novel The Man Who To Fell To Earth, the often otherworldly musical partnership have penned and performed a spellbinding lamentable love song from the dream melancholic perspective of Mary-Lou – the often hapless and much put upon partner to the book’s alien visitor, stranded on Earth, Thomas Jerome Newton (played of course by Bowie in that film).
A bittersweet plaint that could all just be in the unraveling mind of Mary-Lou, this reflective song casts moon bending yearns over a dramatic malady that is both captivating and kookily jarring enough to send shivers down the spine. You should really all try to catch the remaining dates of the duo’s The Tour Online, which continues until September 2021. Alongside renditions and interpretations of Kate Bush and David Bowie songs, they also perform original material from their back catalogue and new material like ‘Tommy Newton’. Remaining dates are as follows, tickets and details are available on Raf and O’s website.
10 July
24 July
7 August
28 August
11 September
Also Read:
Raf And O ‘The Space Between Nothing And Desire’
The Albums Trove:
Manzanita y Su Conjunto ‘Trujillo, Peru 1971-1974’
(Analog Africa) 2nd July 2021
Once more sending us sauntering and swaying into the summer months, Analog Africa can always be relied upon to release the sort of carefree, infectious rhythms we hunger for at this time of the year: pandemic or not. The label returns once again to the South American continent, showcasing the quickened glissando, melodious licks and riffs of Peru’s electric guitar legend Manzanita.
Thankfully brought to the attention of that label’s chief honcho Samy Ben Redjeb by the record collector and passionate, all things ‘cumbia’, blog founder Victor Zela – who graciously let Samy have ‘one of the best records ever recorded in Peru’, Manzanita’s Manzaneando com Manzanita LP, from his enviable collection -, the 60s and 70s six-string idol can now be heard by a much wider international audience with this new highlights compilation.
Imbued by the continent’s breakout musical fusion of cumbia (hailing originally from Colombia, this genre gets its foundation rhythms from Africa and everything else from various indigenous styles), the psychedelic (a brief flash of which could be heard on Peru’s airwaves before Juan Velasio’s coup in ’68 and the country’s cultural shift towards only promoting local culture) and the rapid tempo with comic or picaresque lyrics Cuban ‘guaracha’, Manzanita became a real trailblazer.
From his iconic 72-73 album sessions on the Virrey label, Samy has chosen fourteen tracks of sizzled exotica and tropical dancing to tantalise the listener. The main man’s guitar playing style itself is a sort of mix of Dick Dale, Link Wray, a more peaceable blues, rock ‘n’ roll and Ritchie Havens, with crisscrossing excursions across the Tex-Mex border. There’s some very quick finger work, a lot of slipping and sliding, and vocal line imitation, yet mostly nothing that shows off: no ridiculous lengthy soloing. His band tap away all the while on rustic, scrappy and brushed percussion, lightened horns and the odd chorus effort of wandering, sighed or serenaded vocals. It’s everything you need for a summer soundtrack.
Jason Nazary ‘Spring Collection’
(We Jazz) 25th June 2021
In an age in which, thanks to a global pandemic, the joys of spontaneity have almost vanished it’s great to hear such spontaneous immediacy in the untethered improvised solo and collaborative work of Jason Nazary. Confined like most of us over the last 17 months to home and neighbourhood meanders, the Brooklyn drummer and producer’s concentrated mind wondered elsewhere for something to concentrate on; turning in the end, as it did, to a caffeine-fueled experiment in reassembling and fiddling around with his modest modular set-up ad a sparse kit of bells, shakers, pots and pans. The results of which fill this avant-garde haven of barely recognizable jazz, electronica and library music; spurred on by an equally experimental guest list of both US and European mavericks, and Nazary’s foil in the Anteloper duo, Jamie Branch.
Nazary’s inaugural release on the most brilliant Helsinki label We Jazz (I personally think this is one of the best contemporary jazz labels of recent years) is a both sporadic and kooky freefall of science fiction atmospheres, sonic flotsam, and bubbled and burped chemistry. Off-kilter, stumbled and galloping bursts and more singular hits on an unconventional drum kit face off against static raspberries, dreamy floatation, primal soups and twinkled circuitry on what is a truly ‘out-there’ album.
As for those many guests, fellow Brooklynite-based musician, the Cuban-American reeds specialist and producer David Lean, puffs away on various hinging and whittled flutes and a piccolo on the Sergei Prokofiev like (as transmogrified by fellow label mate Otis Sandsjö) ‘Pulses Of Wind, Real Or Imagined’. And Jamie Branch’s trumpet gargles and makes wispy sounds that evoke Jon Hassell being sucked backwards through a vortex on the cosmic scramble ‘Dust Moth’. Tongues In Trees co-leader, guitarist, singer and producer Grey McMurray uses his surround voice to dreamy echoed and multi-layered effect on the Tomat-esque, and most flowing track, ‘Days & Nights, For Em’.
If the idea of Ornette Coleman and his drummer extraordinary foil Ed Blackwell being fucked-up and tripped-up by Flying Lotus and µ-Ziq sounds like a joy then Narzary’s Spring Collection is the album for you. Challenging most certainly, but moist and tricksy enough to offer a playful avant-garde burst of spontaneity to your life.
Passepartout Duo ‘Daylighting’
(AnyOne) 25th June 2021
Taking quite a gamble travelling once more across various borders in both China and the surrounding areas, and negotiating various diplomatic headaches in a pandemic, the avant-garde Passepartout Duo must have had their work cut out producing this latest album of ‘timbrical, rhythmic and melodic’ explorations.
Once again in partnership with the AnyOne Beijing Arts Company label and curatorial platform, and invited by the design hotel, Sunyata Meili, to continue their work, the freely traversing partnership of Nicoletta Favari and Christopher Salvito roam inspiring landscapes to feed their curious performative practice.
This time around it’s the awe-inspired realms of the Meili Snow Mountains, Lijiang and the fabled imaginations of Shangri-La that enthuse such ambient, textured suites. As with the last project, 2020’s Vis-á-Vis, they layer personalised, purposeful built instruments (the ‘fuzzy synth’) with a portable mix of percussion; in this instance the familiar chimes and resonated rings of spiritual and mystical Tibet.
As the duo themselves put it, the ‘overall structure’ of this experiment is ‘built through momentary collisions between layers of sound that exist in parallel dimensions, continuously and independently’. The results evoke stillness on the beamed Moebius and Roedelius melodic title track, and build up abstract environmental contemplations and Himalayan scenery on others. Crystallised flakes, subtle arpeggiator, bobbing spheres and bass drones converse or merge with clopping percussive rhythms, sharper ringed piques and herded cattle bells on a tactile mission of visceral geography.
Chris Sharkey ‘Presets’
(Not Applicable Recordings) 25th June 2021
More demanding than most ambient music, the improvised textural mood music on the acclaimed electronic musician and producer Chris Sharkey’s latest album is far from background noise and atmospheres.
Inspired by the long hours waiting in airports and longer journeys on the motorway, both travelling to and in-between gig dates across Europe and beyond, and by the slowly building experiments of Ghettoville and Hazyville era Actress, Sharkey’s Presets album exists outside the usual perimeters of time. For this is an improvised soundtrack left to develop, progress and roam wherever the initial sounds and moods take it; fizzing out or reaching a climatic point unburdened by the constraints of time.
Sharkey, who only used an electric guitar and some tech hardware, set the only limitations as such. Without any prepared music he just hit the record button to see where sonic sparks and drones would take him. These experiments sound sonorous and often full of gravity, slowly shifting from an opening position to something you can’t ignore: something that called be said to be penetrative even.
There’s as much beauty (believe it or not), hint of melodies, as there is machine music. Yet it all still sounds very organic, if alien.
It reminded me in some ways of His Name Is Alive, and the hummed generator cyclonic motors, hovering forces and organ like stirrings of the 17-minute epic, ‘The Sharecropper’s Daughter’ brought to mind Popol Vuh’s Affenstunde.
Reverberating guitar harmonics and notes linger whilst fizzled and fuzzy crisp effects buzz. Atmospheres gradually fluctuate or climb, offering some surprising, moving dramatics. One standout track, ‘Evangelist (Salvation History)’, is an incredible hallowed cosmic mysterious evocation if ever I heard one: an ambiguous grand spiritual ascendance towards space. The eventual metallic rippled oscillations, movements and airflow suffused finished pieces (whittled down from over four hours of recordings) are deep and anything but contemplative, anonymous and monotonous; layered and striking enough to touch and feel.
Karen Zanes ‘Cloaked’
(Aumega Project) Available Right Now
Uncoupling from the futuristic rays of the synthesized Violet Nox collective, Karen Zanes is away with the fairies once more as the singer-songwriter returns to composing bucolic like tapestries on her new acid folk light album, Cloaked. Treading like a barefoot contessa in a hazy landscape of psychedelic dreams, Zanes meanders and winds down the forest path, conjuring up Fairfield Parlour visions of romantic yearning and fate, tragic pre-Raphaelite maidens and the airy mystical mists of Avalon.
An album of poetry put to a subtle accompaniment of both suffused hallowed and more esoteric vintage organ drones, gently brushed guitar and spindly, plucked harp-like tones, Cloaked sounds like a less Gothic Jodie Lowther of Quimper infamy, performing Astral Weeks. From disarming daisy-chain swoons to more giddy rides on the carousel, Zanes exudes a certain languid air of the mysterious vocally, with unhurried breaths of dreamy intoxication and calming ethereal balms. This delivery might well hide some of the more haunting seriousness of the lyrical themes, which in this feudal psych troubadour environment sound timelessly enchanting and even unearthly and sad.
Talking of that sadness, this album is dedicated to the late music writer blogger Mark Barton, who sadly passed away last year. His Sunday Experience blog proved a comforting haven away from the hype and overly promoted mainstream; Barton championed many obscure talents and would no doubt have found room to herald this album. In tribute, Zanes penned the album’s title-track sonnet, which is a beauty. As is this entire songbook of wistful dreamy abandon.
The Corrupting Sea ‘Chamber Music For The Dead’
(Somewherecold Records) 18th June 2021
A soundtrack fit for these challenging times, Somewherecold label boss and electronic music explorer in his own right, Jason T. Lamoreaux once more sails The Corrupting Sea alias as he crafts a moiety of pandemic inspired industrial-ambient-trance chamber suites.
The Shelbyville, Kentucky-based artist navigates the miasma, anxieties and sense of helplessness on the fateful bell tolled Chamber Music For The Dead album. Yet though this timely ill-wind of feudal electronica and highly atmospheric uncertainty fits in perfectly with the dread and drag of the Covid pandemic, the album is both a distillation of six years worth of mixed emotions (both disconnected and deeply personal ones) and a concept plague story set against the backdrop of a ‘tin-pot dictator’ controlled society (plenty of challengers to that title). In practice this sounds like the last broadcasts, the last sense of hope, recorded under ominous vapours and wisps, and the chilled hand of death.
Relief from an icy lament and the funeral service choral synthesized voice waves arrives in the shape of ether-penetrated passages of cloud gazing and with cathedral expansive breathing spaces.
A balance is struck between the foreboding and the lighter periods of reflection, release and airy escapist hope on a soundtrack of plague-riven doom.
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: ‘Le Mariage Collectif’ (1971): The soundtrack found in a Parisian rubbish dump.
July 2, 2021
Album Review/Words: Monica Mazzoli
Continuing our 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 the 2021 and beyond.
This month Monica Mazzoli waxes lyrical on the chance rubbish tip find, the cult Le Mariage Collectif soundtrack.
The obscure fascination of certain music for the Cinema of the sixties and seventies seems to be endless: many film soundtracks have never been published (perhaps lost forever?) and continue to be shrouded in mystery. One thinks of the OST of Diabolik(1968) by Ennio Morricone, which seems to have been destroyed. The conditional is a must, of course.
Then, fortunately, there are also soundtracks that have been brought back to light and that often conceal stories to be believed: this is the case of the music of Les Chemins de Katmandou (1969) – one of the products of the collaboration between Serge Gainsbourg and Jean-Claude Vannier – recovered by the daughter of Vannier’s copyist (Daniel Marechal) and published in 2017 by Finders Keepers.
The medal for the world’s craziest vinyl-finding story, however, goes to the person who found in a landfill in Paris the acetate record copy of the soundtrack to Le Mariage Collectif, a 1971 film. The music for the erotic-hippie film directed by Sven Olsen and Sven Holm, composed by Jean-Pierre Mirouze and never released (except for the 45 rpm of ‘Together/Sexopolis’), is remarkable. Psychedelic instrumental moments alternate with funk and jazz passages. For Mirouze, it’s a bit of a return to his roots, he can experiment as he did in the early 1960s when, before working for television, he was part of the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM) of the ORTF (the French national public broadcasting service), a group dedicated to the study of sound and electroacoustic music.
To Liberation in 2012, the composer said:
“I was mainly interested in the relationship between music and image. But at a certain point I had to find something that would make me live. I looked for work in television, where I found myself doing sound dressing, theme songs and small fleeting sound events” and, again, “I regret, however, the dispersion of the sound heritage of the time, the wonderful things that have been stolen from the ORTF sound library. Le Mariage Collectif is part of this wound, but there are many other things that will never be found”.
How can you blame him, perhaps a lot of material we may never hear. A pity.
The soundtrack to Le Mariage Collectif was released in 2012 by Born Bad Records, both on CD and vinyl. (Monica Mazzoli)
Monthly Playlist Revue For June 2021
June 30, 2021
PLAYLIST SPECIAL/DOMINIC VALVONA/MATT OLIVER/BRIAN ‘BORDELLO’ SHEA
Join us for the most eclectic of musical journeys as the Monolith Cocktail team compiles another monthly playlist of new releases and recent reissues we’ve featured on the site, plus tracks we’ve not had time to write about but have been on our radar. That includes epic Buryat anthems from the Steppes, sulky struts, explorative ambient vistas, summer surf wafts, spindled Korean majesty, lolloping bravado, twisted jazz and many of the current choice hip-hop cuts.
STARRING THE FOLLOWING MONOLITH COCKTAIL ANOINTED ARTISTS AND TRACKS:::
Namgar ‘Green Grass’
Squid ‘G.S.K.’
Andrew Hung ‘Brother’
Pons ‘LELAND (CLUB MIX)’
Heiko Maile ‘Vega Drive (Tape 13)’
The Early Mornings ‘Departure From Habit’
Occult Character ‘(I Think I Wanna Have A) Meltdown’
Edna Frau ‘Angry Face Man’
Dwi ‘Freak N Out’
Hectorine ‘Saltwater’
Meggie Lennon ‘Night Shift’
Rhona Stevens ‘Solo’
Seagullmoine ‘Contrails’
Foreign Age ‘Apathy By Proxy’
Mike Gale ‘Awake Awake’
The Beach Boys ‘Big Sur’
Simon Waldram ‘Don’t Worry’
Shannon And The Clams ‘Year Of The Spider’
Paragon Cause ‘Disconnected’
RULES ‘Say It Ain’t So’
Violet Nox ‘Cosmic Bits (J. Bagist Remix)’
Evidence ‘Talking To The Audience’
DJ JS-1 (Ft. Rahzel, Mr. Cheeks and Craig G) ‘Open Up The Door’
Tyler The Creator ‘LUMBERJACK’
Tanya Morgan (Ft. Jack Davey) ‘A Whole Mood’
Juga-Naut & Jazz T ‘Marble & Granite’
Skyzoo ‘I Was Supposed To Be A Trap Rapper’
Sone Institute ‘Dead Ahead’
Brian Jackson, Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad ‘Mars Walk’
Jaubi (Ft. Tenderlonious and Latarnik) ‘Satanic Nafs’
Hassan Wargui ‘Azmz’
Clamb ‘Eggs In The Mainstream’
Hailu Mergia and The Walias ‘Mestriawi Debdabe’
Goodparley ‘Dissected Frequencies’
Sara Oswald & Feldemelder ‘Fishes In Histogram Waterfalls’
Marco Woolf ‘Modus Operandi’
Amaro Freitas ‘Batucada’
Space Afrika (Ft. Blackhaine) ‘B£E’
Apathy (Ft. Brevi) ‘Jonathan Livingston Seagull’
Masai Bay (Ft. EI-P) ‘Paper Mache’
Abir Patwary ‘Avalon’ Petter Eldh (Ft. Richard Spaven) ‘Goods Yard’
Kid Kin ‘Under A Cloud Fret’
The Liminanas ‘Stoker The Smoker’
Night Sky Pulse ‘Missing’
dal:um ‘TAL’
Alice Coltrane ‘Krishna Krishna’
Provincials ‘Feels Like Falling’
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 455: Cathal Coughlan, The Early Mornings, Paragon Cause, Salem Trials, Synthetic Villains…
June 28, 2021
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’s Roundup
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
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’ and ‘Be My Maybe/David Bowie’). He has also released, under the Idiot Blur Fanboy moniker, a stripped-down classic album of resignation and Gallagher brothers’ polemics.
Tracks/Singles…
Paragon Cause ‘Disconnected’
18th June 2021 (Taken from the duo’s upcoming album Autopilot, released 13th August 2021)
I like this track it has an aura of pop songs from the past like Jane Weilden’s ‘Rush Hour’, or one of those other fine breezy pop songs. It has the wind in its sails and floats like a bobcat with the ear of the bank manager’s fond final digressionary wish ringing in its typecast high school jinx way. Trust me it is a lovely joyful pop song and I for one cannot get enough of those. And my dear readers I have the feeling that you cannot either. And if you can get enough, you are reading the wrong blog…go and stroke your chin to the Quietus and lose yourself in a nose flute extravaganza box set.
Salem Trials ‘Head Full Of Stinging Bees’
Available right now
A slice of alternative guitar magic from Britain’s greatest current guitar band. Yes indeed, the Salem Trials are back with a scratchy almost Goth like vignette with Scary Monster era Bowie guitars and Russ ranting as only Russ can. Just over two minutes in length and it sounds like no one but the Salem Trials. ‘Head Full Of Stinging Bees’ can be downloaded for free from their Bandcamp page, which I urge you to do or you will be ever known as a twat who likes to preen yourself in front of a Shane Richie poster circa his days in the Grease Stage show.
Mega Bog ‘Weight Of The Earth, On Paper’
(Paradise Of Bachelors) Out there right now
I like this; it has an air of a post punk hippy commune getting together to make an enjoyable romp through the pages of a musical that should have been written but for some strange reason never was. It could have been Hair for the balding generation. I can imagine this band drinking green tea and driving badly due to their minds being somewhere else…yes, I enjoyed this.
Eamon The Destroyer ‘My Drive /Silver Cloud’
(Bearsuit Records) Available Right Now
I am a huge fan of Liverpool based guitar wonder extremist bigflower and ‘My Drive’ and ‘Silver Shadow’ have the same appeal. Both of the songs have the same melancholy, the same scorched by the sun lost in a desert atmosphere a place where the neglected go to dream bittersweet dreams of a past memory not knowing if it truly happened or not. These two tracks are lost in a world of their own and will certainly appeal to lovers of Mercury Rev and the Flaming Lips as they plough the same furrow. I’m looking forward to their forthcoming album, which should be a rewarding and interesting listen going off the excellence of this debut single.
Albums/EPs..
Synthetic Villains ‘Obstacle Navigation’
Available right now
Obstacle Navigation is actually a very good listen; ten tracks of mostly synth instrumentals that use old Analogue drum machines and synths with electric and acoustic guitars processed via violin bows, ebows and various effect pedals.
The tracks take in moody synth pop but have more than a tinge of psychedelia: ‘Sunbeam Flyer’ could easily slot onto Primal Scream’s Screamadelica without much fuss, even borrowing the ‘Loaded’ bass line, which of course the Scream themselves borrowed, and ‘Wander Off Wondering’ reminding me of the early Shaman before they struck it rich with ‘Ebenezer Good’.
This is an inventive and very relaxing album, and as with all good instrumental albums does not have one waiting for the vocals to arrive. It will take you on a soothing and rewarding journey to the centre of your own psyche.
Foreign Age ‘Understanding Animals’
Available Right Now
The three B’s, The Beatles, Blur and Barrett seem to be the order of the day with Foreign Age. Pure pop for nostalgic people, all descending Beatle guitar chords and vocal harmonies, the sort of album The Bees used to release with little commercial success in the early noughties and I expect this album to achieve the same fate. I’m not saying that this is a bad album, for it is not, it is a very enjoyable album, but the days of “ba ba ba” choruses are no longer the order of the day sadly. But Foreign Age does the artier side of Brit pop very well. And the album is well worth investigation.
The Early Mornings ‘Unnecessary Creation EP’
Available right now
Jerky rhythms and slandered guitars are always a joy to behold with one’s ears and The Early Mornings are indeed a joy. It’s like the Slits if they were a cartoon band guesting on The Banana Splits. The Banana Slits in fact: what a perfect description. Yes, The Early Mornings are one of those wonderful post punk bands who have a talent of having melodies float from their scratchy guitars and performing well written songs of teenage lust and teenage problems even if the band themselves are not teenagers. The kind of band who makes one wish they were young again: and believe me that is always the sign of a good band.
Cathal Coughlan ‘Song Of Co-Aklan’
(Dimple Discs) Available Right Now
I always loved Fatima Mansions, one of my fave bands from the 90s, so was pleased to see this in my inbox as Cathal is a fine songwriter, a gifted lyricist, and has a voice like spiked honey, and as angry as a box of shaken Bees. And I’m pleased to say his new album has all the aforementioned in great quantities, and I’m not disappointed at all.
He always had a way with the written word Cathal; a little like his hero Scott Walker whose music and song writing is an obvious influence in they both dwell on the darker side and darker characters of life, and like Scott, Cathal knows his way around a melody and how to paint such beautifully dark and sometimes comedic images with his lyrics. And after listening to the track ‘Owl In The Parlour’, I ask why has Cathal never been asked to record a James Bond theme for he certain could give Matt Monroe a run for his money.
Song Of Co-Aklan is an album of dark adventure; an unfurling of one of Music’s great mavericks; a reminder of just how great a songwriter this often-ignored artist truly is.
Our Daily Bread 454: Namgar ‘Nayan Navaa’
June 24, 2021
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Namgar ‘Nayan Navaa’
(ARC Music) 25th June 2021
In act of preservation, the Moscow-based troupe Namgar (named after the band’s focal siren Namgar Lhasaranova) electrifies the atavistic sounds and songs of the ethnic Russian Buryats communities on another astonishing eclectic album.
Transporting us to the vast open ranges of the Southern Siberian steppes, on a border junction between Russia, Mongolia and China, the group revitalize traditional hunting and dancing rituals, ring cycle songs, sagacious advice and folk music (some buried in the St. Petersburg archives) with a sweep of trip-hop, trance-y ambient atmospheres and gnarled rock music.
At the centre of this pretty unique fusion that simultaneously evokes all parts and neighboring regions, but also the Orient, Arabian, African and even the Australian Outback, is the extraordinary voiced Namgar, who’s vocals gently fill the expanses with dramatic and beautiful effect. A daughter of the Buryat nomads, brought up in the unforgiving landscape and travails of a hardy life, the ‘petite frame’ singer channels the ancestors respectively, yet offers a certain contemporary, open-minded layer that fluctuates between stirrings of Lisa Gerrad and Alexandra Zhuravleva of the Russian rural trip-hop duo The Grus: only even more beautiful, scenic and magical.
That ancestry, which forms the foundations and backdrop for Nayan Navaa (translated as ‘land of our ancestors’), is both epic and mystical. The mystical part is down to the Buryat peoples’ practice of Tibetan Shamanism, and that allured spell of something mysterious, esoteric, is conjured up throughout this often cinematic lens songbook.
The old recognized sounds of the bowed, quivered, trembled 13 stringed ‘yatog’ zither, the 3 stringed ‘chanza’ lute, 2 string ‘morin khaur’ and twanged spring of the ‘khomus’ styled Jew’s harp are merged with modern post-punk and art-rock guitar, splashed and tom patted drums, synthesized mists and vapours and churned beats. And the old prayers, poems are lifted and given a new gravity: a new life. Certain meanings, sentiments are subtly changed from the heavily patriarchal slanted traditions, but the language, metaphors remain faithful. A high altitude apple tree for example represents a fine beauty on the whispered voice that eventually soars ‘Urda Uula’ (or ‘South Mountain’): “On the top of the southern mountain, Slender, flexible apple trees, filled up to the top with fruits, Sway magnificently.”
The Burayt language is included in the list of endangered languages in the world, but with this group’s mission of keeping it alive, it sounds anything but lost. For this latest effort resoundingly succeeds in breathing a new sensibility, dynamism and air of mysticism into an ancient culture.
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 453: Dal:um ‘Similar & Different’
June 21, 2021
ALBUM REVIEW PIECE/Dominic Valvona
PHOTO CREDIT/Kim Shin Joong
Dal:um ‘Similar & Different’
(tak:til/Glitterbeat Records) 25th June 2021
Transforming, expanding and transporting the signature silken stringed sensibilities of Korea’s prominent traditional instruments, the ‘gayageum’ and ‘geomungo’, two of those zither-like instruments’ contemporary practitioners draw upon their studies and training to sonically paint new serial emotionally and contemplative suites.
Finding a congruous home on Glitterbeat Records’ Jon Hassell, ‘possible musics’, inspired imprint tak:til, Seoul-based musicians Ha Suyean and Hwang Hyeyoung weave, pluck and twang both intricate and broader calligraphy like brush strokes on their new album, Similar & Different. Those brush strokes I mention probably arise from the duo’s aesthetic influences, channeling as they do the ‘inherent dialogue (and harmony) between emptiness and fullness in traditional Asian painting’.
A balance ‘between traditional and experimental practices’, the Dal:um (the literal meaning of which is, ‘keep pursuing something’) partnership pushes a pair of 6th and 5th century instruments beyond the ancient Three Kingdoms of Korea landscape towards the often abstract and exploratory. For all the extraordinary freedoms of expression and amorphous pondering though, the often strange quivers, scrapes, flourishes and swishes of Suyean’s gayageum and Hyeyoung’s geomungo, and the adventurous stirrings and purposeful silences are all unmistakably Oriental: The 12-stringed (though regional variants expand that number from 18 to 25 strings) gayageum is said to have been created as a Korean version of the Chinese ‘guzheng’. And so you will probably recognise some strokes, tones and even melodies on an album of largely untethered possibilities.
Though melody and rhythm are kept to a minimum, this feels like a progressing performance that starts to flow and take shape, beginning as it does with the incipient preparation tuning of chimes and rings of ‘Dasreum’, before striking up an elasticated delicate momentum on the next track, the scenic ‘tal’.
Romantic, contemplative, sometimes courtly, the duo threads a balance between worlds and the senses in a sonic space in which the sighs, gaps and ambience in-between notes is just as important as any melody: more so in some cases.
Dal:um’s harmonically balanced album shares so much in common with the tak:til roster (especially fellow Korean artist, Park Jiha); blurring as it does the boundaries of tradition and something altogether futuristic; often unknown. They take those similar ancient instruments and perform something new and captivating: dreaming up timeless emotions and places with adroit calmness and piques of more quickened swishes, banjo-like springy tangles and Harpist ethereal flourishes.
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 452: Andrew Hung ‘Devastations’
June 16, 2021
ALBUM REVIEW/Dominic Valvona
Andrew Hung ‘Devastations’
(Lex Records) 18th June 2021
Celestial hymnal choirs and star-lit corridors to the cosmos Andrew Hung dreams big on his first solo album in four years. The once in a lifetime, if not century, events of this pandemic have sparked something almost epic, all encompassing from the former Fuck Button foil turn soundtrack composer and trick noisemaker producer.
Whilst many are riven with anxiety and even anger, Hung looks to the universal, making awe-inspired scientific and personal connections as he gazes in wonder at the deep expanses of a space. That’s not to say there isn’t an air of longing, yearning and an almost Lydon like petulant sneer at times in Hung’s vocals too: a voice that often summons up hints of solo Mark Hollis, Karl Hyde, Eno and even The Cry’s Kim Berly. But this is essentially an emphatic-voiced release from Hung’s psyche; a reconciliation of ‘the dark and light within’ we’re told, played out to the gravitas of an anthemic cosmology.
Learning a thing or two about building up to the climax as a musical partner to Benjamin John Power in the progressive-Techno come Kosmische soundtracks (like Sven Vath in communion with Ash Ra Tempel, transmogrified by a noisy Basic Channel) Fuck Buttons duo, Hung now creates something far more organic and personal on Devastations. Much of this is down to the warmth of real instruments, from a vague Mediterranean flair and twirl of acoustic guitar, to the transient tingles of piano and live sounding slipped, cymbal splashed resonating drum kit. This is coupled with the spectral synthesized rays, tubular mechanics, light refractions and bended warps of the technological machine age to perfection on an album that navigates the inner mind and outer reaches of exploration. It seems a lot like escapism; a search for something: On the soaring star-bound wonder ‘Space’ Hung sings that, “perfection exists in space”. And it would be hard to argue with that, especially as he conjures up such epic journeys towards it.
The final frontier of course is a near blank canvas, still beyond comprehension. Hung plays to that scale and uncertainty whilst firmly attached to the all-too worrying stresses of terra firma. Different thematic frustrations, the changing of the guard, are cried out as the inevitabilities of time marching on regardless are breached with sympathetic wistfulness.
Hung creates soundtracks that both traverse sea-voyaging bobbing cosmic-Americana (‘Colour’) and dreamy candid soliloquies (on the Flaming Lips pal up with The Cure finale, ‘Goodbye’). A grandiose vision that esacapes the current miasma, Devastations, despite its title, is full of light emitting love and philosophical yearning; the propulsion of which is woven together from the fabric of the motorik, the kosmische , the Madchester crowd marooned in Ibiza during the late 80s, Freur, The Amorphous Androgynous and the best in progressive electronica.
Digging deep, Hung plows the universal and comes up with a most stunning, expansive solo album; a unifying call to reach beyond ourselves for what connects us. A sentiment we all need more than ever.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years I’ve featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world that we think you’ll want to know about. No content on the site is paid for or sponsored and we only feature artists we have genuine respect for /love. If you enjoy our reviews (and we often write long, thoughtful ones), found a new artist you admire or if we have featured you or artists you represent and would like to buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail to say cheers for spreading the word, then that would be much appreciated.
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