PREMIERE/Dominic Valvona
Alex Stolze ft. Ben Osborn and Anne Müller ‘Babylon’
(Nonostar) Single/10th April 2020
A Nonostar imprint communion, chamber-electronic star Alex Stolze once again teams up with his label’s roster of congruous artists to poetically lament about an ever-fracturing Europe on the new biblical augur entitled single ‘Babylon’. Receiving its UK premiere on the Monolith Cocktail ahead of its official release on the 10th April, this sparse, stark but gorgeously arranged neoclassical elegy brings together the talents of violinist, composer, label boss Stolze, lyricist, pianist, award-winning sound designer and deft soundtrack composer of acclaimed “libretti” Ben Osborn, and renowned experimental-cellist and solo artist Anne Müller.
Repeated foils, both Osborn and Müller have collaborated with the Berlin-based Stolze on number of occasions in the last few years: Müller joining Stolze and the UK polymath Sebastian Reynolds on two volumes of the Anglo-German Solo Collective project, and Osborn, finding common ground through his shared Jewish ancestry with the former Bodi Bill, Unmap, and the experimental avant-garde Dictaphone star, releasing his debut LP Letters From The Border on Stolze’s burgeoning label in 2019.
Channeling that Jewish musical heritage once more on this fragile suite, Osborn’s perceptive and haunting Tarot liturgy-rich lyrics, sung by Stolze, echo over a classical bowed Eastern European toiled arrangement of despair and protest at the state of a continent on its downers. A plaintive chamber-pop requiem simultaneously timeless and chiming with the political lurch towards populism, nationalism and a rejection of neo-liberalism and institutions in general, ‘Babylon’ is a foreboding travail through an imagined vivid European wasteland.
As Alex explains: “Babylon is a tribute to community and the dreadful consequences that can occur when societies lose a sense of communal cooperation, with this in mind it made sense to develop Babylon in this highly collaborative way”.
Alex adds: ‘“Ben’s lyrics talk about what’s happening in Europe at the moment, and all over the world. My favourite phrase is ‘I was walking home through the streets unknown when a fist struck out of the silence, and a voice called ‘yours is to walk alone’. It’s an image our time, when nationalist and far right fear coincide with stock market crashes and it feels like we’ve gone back to 1929.”
But then came Coronavirus, and now all hell has been unleashed at a time of great fragility, not only Europe, but around the entire world. It remains to be seen how we all pull together, especially when the message is one of self-isolation and distancing.
You may very well detect it, but among the lofty inspirations for ‘Babylon’ are the later protest themed works of Leonard Cohen – specifically the albums You Want it Darker, The Future and I’m Your Man – and the legendary 1736 arrangement of the liturgical song ‘Stabat Mater’, by Italian composer Pergolesi. You can add just a hint of Anthony And The Johnsons too to that rich cerebral mix.
Stolze’s latest beatific if pining single follows on from a brilliant electronic chamber pop EP, Mankind Animal, and the 2018 fully realized album suite Outermost Edge. Highly political, yet preferring to romantically allude to the instability and rise of authoritarianism and the ongoing migrant crisis with both poetic sonnets and metaphors, Stolze provides neo-classical pop maladies and aching heart music that comments without division and rage. That last LP weaved sophisticated undulations of effects and synthesized waves with amped-up trip-hop like live drums brilliantly. ‘Babylon’ however returns to a more stripped, less synthesized augmented production. A song of unity in turbulent times, at a moment in history where minds have never been more concentrated, let’s hope the message of this song leaves an indelible impression, and sets in motion a change.
Premiere: Album: 3 South & Banana’s Debut LP
April 7, 2020
UK PREMIERE/Dominic Valvona
3 South & Banana ‘S/T’
(Some Other Planet) 10th April 2020
Bouncing and lolloping onto the psychedelic pop and indie scene like a Francophone Shintaro Sakamoto, Aurélien Bernard follows up a lightly-touched but infectious kaleidoscope jangle of singles with his self-titled debut album, which the Monolith Cocktail is thrilled to be premiering in the UK today.
Swapping the drum stool and tenure with the sunny-disposition Vadoinmessico – leaving as the band transitioned into Cairobi – for a polymath solo career, the French born, Berlin-based, Bernard has an idiosyncratic musical style; weaving a cantaloupe gait and a lyrical mix of French and English vocals together in a colourful, often fun, way. The odd moniker, 3 South & Banana, is itself the result of a comedic misunderstanding: a mistranslation if you will. Though Bernard has a most excellent annunciation, if accented.
Lilted but wasting no time, the new album opens with a kind of show time introduction to the Frenchman’s world of breezy backbeat new wave, and a sound that can only be described as psychedelic grunge pop. In a similar vein, there’s the jangly, quick tightened drum rolls surfy-wavy Clor-esque ‘BlaBlaBla’; a former single that carries a Theremin aria leitmotif that can be found suffused throughout the entire album, and the bubbly, crosstown interchange merger of The Rapture and 80s Jonathan Richman ‘Rush Hour’.
But there’s also a lot of even gentler dreamy tunes to enjoy; like the Les Baxter thumbs a lift aboard The Beach Boys inflatable lilo as it drifts towards Polynesian waters ‘Bâtons Mêlés’, and the yacht rock with shades of Air vaporous kissing game ‘KittyKat Happy BadSad’.
Radiant, oceanic, translucent and even cosmic with a Gallic shrug of wistful fatalism, the 3 South & Banana cosmos of rooftop fauna wonderment is a swell place to be in these dark, uncertain times. And so behold this psychedelic pop light.
I absolutely love this album, and so should you.
The Monolith Cocktail can be supported via the micro-donation site, Ko-Fi:
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 Playlist: #XLIV: Clothilde, Keef Hartley Band, Finis Africae, Eno & Cale, Haruomi Hosono…
April 6, 2020
PLAYLIST/Dominic Valvona
Cool shit that the Monolith Cocktail founder and instigator Dominic Valvona has pulled together, the Social playlist is a themeless selection of eclectic tracks from across the globe and ages. Representing not only his tastes but the blogs, these regular playlists can be viewed as an imaginary radio show, a taste of Dominic’s DJ sets over 25 plus years. Placed in a way as to ape a listening journey, though feel free to listen to it as you wish, each playlist bridges a myriad of musical treasures to enjoy and also explore – and of course, to dance away the hours to.
For those of you without access to Spotify, we’ve chosen a random smattering of tracks from Youtube.
Tracks
The Lovin’ Spoonful ‘Revelation: Revolution ’69’
Dyke & The Blazers ‘Swamp Walk’
Keef Hartley Band ‘You Can Choose’
Steamhammer ‘Supposed To Be’
Klaus Doldinger’s Passport ‘Schirokko’
Som Tres ‘Eu Já Tenho Você’
Freda Payne ‘Let It Be Me’
Emitt Rhodes ‘Let’s All Sing’
Keyboard ‘I Wish You know’
Clothilde ‘Saperlipopette’
N’Goma Jazz ‘Kupassiala Kuawaba’
Tabou Combo ‘Haiti’
Dick Khoza ‘Zumbwe (Baby Tiger)’
Def Jef ‘Get Up 4 The Get Down’
Souls Of Mischief ‘A Name I Call Myself’
Honey Cone ‘Deaf, Blind, Paralysed’
The Last Electro-Acoustic Space Jazz & Percussion Ensemble ‘One For The monica Lingas Band’
Sum Pear ‘Bring Me Home America’
J Scienide & Kev Brown ‘100 Grand’
Paper Garden ‘Lady’s Man’
Brian Eno & John Cale ‘Lay My Love’
Mick Ronson ‘Growing Up And i’m Fine’
David Johansen ‘Here Comes The Night’
Ben Von Wildenhaus ‘The Limping Axeman’
Marconi Notaro ‘Ah Vida Avida’
Alessandro Alessandroni ‘Babylon City’
Between ‘Scatter’
Finis Africae ‘Zoo Zulu’
Gescom ‘C2’
Luke Vibert ‘Funky Acid Stuff’
Cos ‘Video Boma’
Haruomi Hosono ‘Sports Men’
Blurt ‘Let Them Be (Live)’
Essential Logic ‘The Order Form’
Parasites Of The Western World ‘Mo’
Rob Jo star Band ‘Stone Away’
Semi-Colon ‘Ebenebe’
Sam Rivers ‘Crux’
N’Ghare Hi Power Band ‘Campus Rock’
Dr. Alimantado ‘NO Gwaan SOH’
VIDEOS
ODB 374: Roedelius ‘Selbstporträt Wahre Liebe’
April 2, 2020
ALBUM REVIEW
Words: Dominic Valvona
Roedelius ‘Selbstporträt Wahre Liebe’
(Bureau B) LP/10th April 2020
Losing none of that zest for creating and wonderment, the eight-five year old progenitor of ambient, new age and neo-classical music Hans-Joachim Roedelius is still exploring and still producing experimental compositions at a prolific rate. There is, four decades on from his richest period of self-discovery and defining the perimeters of what electronic music could be, no let up in the Roedelius schedule. As famous for his collaborative partnership with the late Dieter Moebius in the Kluster/Cluster/Qluster arc, the Berlin born masseur and physiotherapist turned self-taught composer, has also laid down a breadcrumb trail of impressive and highly influential solo releases, numbering somewhere in the 100s.
Just one part of that extensive catalogue of solo work, the introspective Selbstporträt series is being revisited by the aging doyen for the Bureau B label. Originally made during various sessions for Cluster, between 1973 to 1979, these intimate contemplative and ruminating self-portraits were released in the late 70s and early 80s – later volumes appear sporadically in the 90s and 2000s too. Though always going forward, Roedelius has been nudged into a challenge as Bureau B founder Gunther Buskies proposes the octogenarian return to the processes and methodology of that period to create another ‘Selbstporträt’. Cheekily as the PR spill has it, seeing if he, ‘was capable of “beaming back” to his youthful years, reaching into the sonic past of the Self-Portrait series to deliver similarly persuasive results.’ The short answer to that is: Yes. But before we divine the results of Selbstporträt Wahre Liebe, a little background colour first.
A founding pillar of the Kosmische sound in the late 1960s and early 70s, originally taking shape from experimental performances at the legendary Berlin club they helped found, the Zodiak Free Arts Lab, the first incarnation of this amorphous partnership that made Roedelius’ name, Cluster, featured Joseph Beuys disciple and electronic music progenitor Conrad Schnitzler; the music, almost dark, Lutheran and hymn like, an early modulation of piano, organ and guitar, fed through an array of homemade effects, that made its debut on a label sonorous for its stoic church organ music. This was the first incarnation, Kluster.
Many ‘head music’ fans will be enamored or at least familiar with the second phase, as Kluster interchanged its capital letter to a ‘C’ and Schnitzler left (for the first time). Releasing some of the most sublime peregrinations and odd candy coated pop electronica under the Cluster banner, their most formative period during the early to mid 70s remains their most famous and influential. This brought plenty of admirers and fellow sonic travelers to the Forst located woodland glade studio retreat. Most famously Brian Eno and Michael Rothar of Neu! Both of whom would join Roedelius and Moebius to form the (a)side project supergroup Harmonia.
Apart from a dormant period during the 80s, as Roedelius and Moebius pursued both solo and collaborative careers (many of which would overlap), Cluster survived well into the next century. Finally calling it a day in 2010: For this version of the partnership anyway. Dropping the C for a ‘Q’ this time around, Roedelius found a new collaborative partner in the sound installation artist and like-minded sonic explorer keyboardist Onnen Bock. After a number of albums together the duo expanded to a trio when bass player virtuoso and (another) keyboardist Armin Metz joined the ranks. In the last few years the Qluster trio have been drawn to Roedelius’ neo-classical piano compositional improvisations and sketches; the previous suite Tasten was built around a trio of them, and the more electronic offering Echtzeit, though far less so, also seemed informed by it.
In many ways following on from the last album together, making a return to the warmth and traversing heavenly space sounds we have come to associate with all things Kosmische, the golden epoch of that genre filled our ears once more on Qluster’s seventh (and so far last) album, Elemente; a feat that is repeated on this solo portrait.
Leaving Qluster aside for the moment, Onnen Bock, together with Wolf Bock, shadows Roedelius on this vintage warm-up. Intimately (re)acquainted with himself, the fascinations and interests that originally sparked the previous series of visceral sketches may have changed but the soundboard tools remain the same, with Roedelius once more making use of the Farfisa organ, Fender Rhodes, drum machine and tape-delay to fashion a new empirical suite of Kosmische neo-classical moods and dreamgazing.
Though it’s been over four decades since those iconic peaceable recordings, the old apparatus from that period is just as warm and receptive to the ambient progenitor’s touch and imagination. If you’re familiar with those composition then you’ll bound to recognize the recurring Baroque fairground piped merry-go-rounds and serene glide motifs that appear on this wonderful erudite album. Especially the playful but calmed trans-alpine gliding ‘Geruhsam’, which – in my imagination anyway – conjured up an image of either a bossa signature steamboat sailing across a Swiss lake, or, a enervated chuffing steam engine travelling across a tranquil mindscape.
Elsewhere the bright diaphanous notes of the Rhodes lightly hang in the air as they did before; lingering with an echo of glassy Kosmische reverent soul on compositions such as the romantic resonate ‘Wahre Liebe’ – that’s ‘true love’ – and dreamily fanned on the comforting cloud breathing ‘Nahwärme’ – which translates as, depending on your fancy, either ‘local heating’ or ‘convenient heat’; an aloof soundtrack for a German boiler installation company perhaps? Sometimes that organ glistens and at other times almost drifts into the ecclesiastical. The complimentary Farfisa is equally as gorgeous; deftly played and perfectly attuned. A real warmth is created (there’s that word again), but also an overlapping cascade of bulb-like notation and subtle refractions of light play.
Reverent, beautiful, encapsulating, with even a touch of giddy uncertainty – I’m referring to the ‘roundabout’ motion of ‘Im Kreisel’ – Roedelius has lost none of his sparkle, or for that matter his romanticism and hope. A fine balance between past triumphs and the new, Selbstporträt Wahre Liebe is unhurried and playfully understated; a timeless album simultaneously made with a sagacious touch and young curiosity. At the stately age of 85, Roedelius proves to still be on form as he looks back once more before easing forward.
Related posts from the Archives:
Hans-Joachim Roedelius Interview
Qluster ‘Elemente’ Review
Hans-Joachim Roedelius ‘Kollektion 2: Roedelius – Electronic Music Compiled By Lloyd Cole’ & ‘Tape Archive 1973-1978’ Review
Cluster ‘1971 – 1981’ Boxset Review
And Now, A Word From Our Founder
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.
The Monolith Cocktail Revue Playlist: March 2020: Pozi, Run The Jewels, Cult Of The Damned, Tamikrest…
March 31, 2020
PLAYLIST
Dominic Valvona/Matt Oliver/Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea’
By now we’ll probably all aware and getting jaded by the constant newsroll of Covid-19 horror stories, and the ominous stench of pandemic armageddon. To return to some sort of normality, the Monolith Cocktail promises to keep finding all the best new music for you to enjoy and mull over. No cheap epidemic cash-ins and no tenuous links to self-promotional lockdowns here. Just great music, which we hope you will all keep supporting during these anxious uncertain times.
For those of you that have only just joined us as new followers and readers, our former behemoth Quarterly Playlist Revue is now no more! With a massive increase in submissions month-on-month, we’ve decided to go monthly instead, in 2020. The March playlist carries on from where the popular quarterly left off; picking out the choice tracks that represent the Monolith Cocktail’s eclectic output – from all the most essential new Hip-Hop cuts to the most dynamic music from across the globe. New releases and the best of reissues have been chosen by me, Dominic Valvona, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea and Matt Oliver.
THE TRACKS IN FULL ARE:
Lunar Bird ‘A Walk’
TrueMendous ‘Hmmm’
Awale Jant Band ‘Just Be Free’
Mdou Moctar ‘Ibitlan’
Collocutor ‘The Angry One’
Superposition ‘Antiplace’
The Stroppies ‘Holes In Everything’
Pozi ‘Whitewashing’
Loose Fit ‘PULL THE LEVER’
The National Honor Society ‘First Among The Last’
Jacqueline Tucci ‘Fear’
Jaga Jazzist ‘Spiral Era (EDit)’
Jennifer Touch ‘Attic’
Bedd ‘Auto Harp’
The Saxophones ‘Flower Spirit’
Schizo Fun Addict ‘Whiskey’
Ploom ‘Swish’
Tamikrest ‘Amidnin Tad Adouniya’
Hifiklub & Roddy Bottum ‘David Says’
Rowland S Howard ‘Pop Crimes’
The Hannah Barbeas ‘No Majesty’
The Proper Ornaments ‘Broken Insect’
Irreversible Entanglements ‘No Mas’
Nduduzo Makhathini ‘Indawu’
Masta Ace ‘GMO’
Riz Ahmed ‘Fast Lava’
Voodoo Black ‘Fizzy’
dug & Hassan el HoBo ‘Electric Sheep’
Harold Nano ‘Menton Train Jump’
Slitty Wrists ‘Su-Mi-Ma-Sen’
Shortwave Research Group ‘Perpetual Midnight’
Cult Of The Damned (Lee Scott, Mikavelli, BeTheGun, Bill Shakes, Sly Moon & Saler) ‘OFFIE’
Run The Jewels Ft. Greg Nice & DJ Premier ‘Ooh LA LA’
Super Inuit ‘Mothering Tongue’
Sebastian Reynolds ‘The Universe Remembers’
Chouk Bwa & The Angstromers ‘Move Ten’
Tom Caruana ‘Dennis The Space Hopper’
Clear Soul Forces ‘Chinese Funk’
Ghostwood Development Project Ft. Kool Keith ‘Gulley’
Bishop Nehru ‘Too Last’
Nomad, Chester P ‘Athens In Mordor (Secondson Remix)’
Cut Beetlez. Nice Guys ‘Cut Ya Ass Up’
Jehst ‘Wild Herb’
Mr Key ‘Kids Story 2’
Pwaz One, DJ Dister, Akrobatik ‘No Contest’
Estee Nack, Superior ft. Daniel Son ‘POPROCKCLASSICS’
And Now, A Word From Our Founder
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.
Perusal 008: The Singles, Previews & Oddities Roundup: Bedd, Super Inuit, Nduduzo Makhathini…
March 30, 2020
PREVIEW/REVIEW
Words: Dominic Valvona
The Perusal is a chance to catch up, taking a quick shifty at the mounting pile of singles, EPs, mini-LPs, tracks, videos and oddities that threaten to overload the Monolith Cocktail’s inboxes each month. Chosen by Dominic Valvona, this week’s roundup includes Bedd, Nduduzo Makhathini, Super Inuit, Senji Niban and Jacqueline Tucci.
Nduduzo Makhathini ‘Indawu’
(Blue Note Records) Single/Now
Ahead of the impressive South African pianist and composer Nduduzo Makhathini’s traversing roots debut album, Modes of Communication: Letters From The Underworlds, for the iconic Blue Note label next month the spiritually ancestral homage ‘Indawu’. Communing with the water spirits of the Nguni people of (predominantly) South Africa, Makhathini creates a splashed and rippled, choral celestial jazz offering to these mystical influences, who are known for their fondness towards music and dance; occupying as they do the riverbank, which has become a central ritual space visited to appease the ancestors. And this is the enchantment with which to use.
The third such suite to precede that debut long-player, Indawu follows on from ‘Beneath the Earth’, which featured the lead vocals of Msaki, and ‘Yehlisan uMoya’ (Spirit Come Down) which featured the vocals of Omagugu. The roll call of guests on this watery swell features the American alto saxophonist Logan Richardson along with a South African band that includes Linda Sikhakhane on tenor saxophone, Ndabo Zulu on trumpet, Zwelakhe-Duma Bell Le Pere on bass, Ayanda Sikade on drums, and Makhathini’s wife Omagugu and daughter Nailah on background vocals.
Nduduzo Makhathini grew up in the lush and rugged hillscapes of umGungundlovu in South Africa, a peri-urban landscape in which music and ritual practices were symbiotically linked. The area is significant historically as the site of the Zulu king Dingane’s kingdom between 1828 and 1840. It’s important to note that the Zulu is deeply reliant on music for motivation and healing. This embedded symbiosis is key to understanding Makhathini’s vision.
The church also played a role in Makhathini’s musical understanding, as he hopped from church to church in his younger days in search of only the music. The legends of South African jazz have always heavily influenced Makhathini, including Bheki Mseleku, Moses Molelekwa and Abdullah Ibrahim. “The earlier musicians put a lot of emotions in the music they played,” he says. “I think it may also be linked to the political climate of those days. I also feel there is a uniqueness about South African jazz that created an interest all around the world and we are slowly losing that too in our music today. I personally feel that our generation has to be very conscious about retaining these nuances in the music we play today.”
Through his mentor Bheki Mseleku, Makhathini was also introduced to the music of John Coltrane’s classic quartet with McCoy Tyner. “I came to understand my voice as a pianist through John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme,” he says. “As someone who started playing jazz very late, I had always been looking for a kind of playing that could mirror or evoke the way my people danced, sung, and spoke. Tyner provided that and still does in meaningful ways.” Makhathini also cites American jazz pianists including Andrew Hill, Randy Weston, and Don Pullen as significant influences.
Makhathini has released eight albums of his own since 2014 when he founded the label Gundu Entertainment in partnership with his wife and vocalist Omagugu Makhathini. His 2017 album Ikhambi was the first to be released on Universal Music South Africa and won Best Jazz Album at the South African Music Awards (SAMA) in 2018.
On the strength of this single alone, Modes of Communication: Letters From The Underworlds sounds certain to make headway internationally, and maybe win that award again.
Jacqueline Tucci ‘Fear’
Single/Available Now
Jacqueline Tucci was probably looking for more than just a glib, off-the-cuff review from me, but with some records, less is more. And with that in mind, and unintentionally arriving at probably the most anxious and uncertain of times, the gorgeous new single ‘Fear’ is a melodious controlled tumult of indie pop, grunge, C86, punk and a grinding jangle of the Throwing Muses.
In Tucci’s own words: ‘“Fear” is about a time in my life when I felt like I was really searching for something but I didn’t know what it was. The song was born out of those feelings of restlessness and frustration.
Sometimes we search for ourselves in various places, people, and things and end up ignoring what’s right in front of us.
I hope you enjoy this song and if you’ve ever shared these feelings, maybe you’ll find some comfort in it.’
The Toronto artist worked with producer Nops Whileway, who, ‘allowed the song to take shape organically, resulting in what I feel is its most honest realization.’
Pure brilliance; guitar anxiety for our times.
Bedd ‘Auto Harp’
Single/20th March 2020
Like an understated breath of fresh air from cosmic suburbia, the diaphanous slow anthem from the newly conceived Oxford band Bedd reimagines a small English town Mercury Rev in aria ascendance. Like a lost celestial Britpop anthem, ‘Auto Harp’ tenderly rises from its subtly spindly music box mechanisms and hushed deadpan vocal delivery to reach the saw-quivered heights of the celestial heavens.
You could suggest this touching sentiment of majestic indie had a certain cinematic, expansive quality, and you’d be right, as Auto Harp was originally composed by the band’s de facto leader, songwriter, singer and producer Jamie Hyatt for a film project that never came to fruition. Jamie: “I wanted to compose a track that leaves the listener feeling simultaneously melancholy and up-lifted. Auto Harp is both intimate and expansive at the same time and is perhaps a perfect encapsulation of our band’s intent, to both draw the listener into a quiet conversation and then take them out into the splendor of the universe”.
The band moniker of Bedd is an interesting one, as Jamie explains: “the word bedd is Welsh for grave and I liked the idea of drawing a connection between the bed and the grave as the grave is the ultimate resting place”.
Jamie is an Oxford music scene stalwart, known for his previous bands The Family Machine, The Daisies and Medal as well as his score for the film Elstree 1976. The single Auto Harp is accompanied by a beautifully atmospheric video by filmmaker Liam Martin, shot on location at Port Talbot beach in South Wales.
Jamie as main songwriter and vocalist he is ably supported by a range of fellow local Oxford musical talents. These talented individuals include bandmates from his previous project The Family Machine, in the shape of bass player Darren Fellerdale and guitarist Neil Durbridge. Also, in the mix are guitarist Tom Sharp, electronic musician and producer Tim Midlen, also known as The Manacles of Acid, and drummer Sam Spacsman. Auto Harp was recorded and produced by Jamie with the band at Glasshouse studios in rural Oxfordshire and mixed and mastered by Robert Stevenson. Auto Harp follows the debut Bedd single ‘I Whoo Yeah’, which was released on a compilation via local Oxford tape label Beanie Tapes.
This latest slow-burning dreamy anthem look sets to propel the band from their Oxford base to a more universal audience.
Senji Niban ‘Where The Birds Fly Now?’
(Pure Spark Records) Single/3rd April 2020
The last time the Monolith Cocktail featured the Tokyo electronica composer and remixer Koichiro Shigeno, he was sharing a Bearsuit Records split EP showcase with The Moths Poets, back in 2016. Recording under his Senji Niban appellation, the experimental wiz produces the kind of busy accompaniment you might find sound tracking a speeded-up film collage of Russian constructivism; melding the Yellow Magic Orchestra with Sky Records’ Dadaist fringe. Other explorations take in the strange aural fragrance of liquid bossa nova and a neo-classical Roedelius, and the minimal kinetic techno kookiness of early Kreidler.
It’s no wonder that Shigeno’s sound and style is so open and eclectic; growing up, as he did, introduced to Classical and Modern Jazz by his music lover parents, but shocked by listening to Haruomi Hosono/Tadanori Yokoo‘s ‘Cochin Moon’ – borrowed from a junior high school friend. It changed his life.
Those influences were gradually expanded over the years to include Krautrock, Mondo Music, Ambient and Acid. Shigeno has released music on a number of imprints, including his very own private label, Yorozu: a long-established Japanese Techno-Pop label.
Shigeno joined fellow Tokyo traveler Ippu Mitsui’s burgeoning Pure Spark Records label rooster in 2019, joining the label boss on the limbering tropical electronic co-production ‘Melting Pot’. His inaugural solo release for the label, is the trance-y chorus of bird calls, barracking drum rolls, metallic whiplashes and cybernetic nature, Where The Birds Fly Now? This eight-minute odyssey is a minor opus of avant-garde electro, deep bass and evolving tropical atmospherics. Enjoy the preview ahead of its release on Friday 3rd April.
Super Inuit ‘Mothering Tongue’
Single/13th March 2020
Electronic fused wanton suffering has seldom floated on such a suffused pulse of shoegaze and the leftfield. Yet the Edinburgh duo of Fern Morris and Brian Pokora have managed to simultaneously evoke both The Cocteau Twins and Four Tet on their melodious air-y new single ‘Mothering Tongue’ (great title by the way).
More effortlessly cooed than plaintively sorrowful, Morris makes it all sound so peaceable and entrancing as she subtly wafts over a bed of enervated glitch-y and raspy deep and downbeat cast electronica – even when singing the lamentable anguished line, “You’re not the only one suffering”.
It’s nothing short of a gorgeously understated electronic pop mini opus for our times.
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.
Premiere
Dominic Valona
Photo Credit: Miles Hart
Sebastian Reynolds ‘The Universe Remembers’
(Faith & Industry) Single/27th March 2020
Oxford-based polymath Sebastian Reynolds has finally found the time in his prolific schedule of collaborations, remixes, session work and productions to create his very own solo soundtrack of various inspired peregrinations. The Universe Remembers quintet drifts and wafts across an ambiguous, often vaporous soundscape of neo-classical composition, retro futurist production, swanned Tibetan mystical jazz, both languid and accelerated running breakbeats, and ghostly visitations – haunted narrated extracts from T.S. Eliot’s all-encompassing philosophical, religious and metaphysical Holy Grail purview The Wasteland, can be heard in fuzzy echo on the featured title-track single.
A cosmological junction of dystopian literature and Buddhist Eschatology, The Universe Remembers is, as you might expect from a composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer who’s created music as varied as the transcendent Southeast Asian Manīmekhalā score that accompanied the multimedia Mahajanaka Dance Drama and the visceral chamber pieces of his collaboration with the pan-European Solo Collective trio, the evocations are simultaneously as dreamy as they are ominous and mysterious.
A guest producer on the premiere track we’re hosting today, Capitol K has lent his skills before to Seb’s work as a remixer. His Faith & Industry label, the platform for Capitol K’s output as well as luminaries such as previous Monolith Cocktail albums of the year entrant John Johanna and Champagne Dub, is facilitating the release of this EP. Ahead of the 22nd May 2020 release date, Seb has kindly agreed to share that twinkled trembled cascaded piano and slow beat vaporous turn tumultuous reversal title-track. Featuring the ambiguous mystical fluttering, spiraling and drifting clarinet of Rachel Coombes, and a penchant for the glitch-y piano resonance of Susumu Yokota, this traverse wafts between the snake charmer bazaars of Egypt and Calcutta, the Hitchcockian, and avant-garde.
Expect to be enticed into a wonderfully amorphous soundscape of trance, esoteric mysticism, trip-hop, new age, satellite jazz and the poetic.
Background:
Following his formative years leading premier UK cult musical ensembles the Keyboard Choir and Braindead Collective, Sebastian has more latterly made a name for himself with the modern classical trio Solo Collective in which he performs with German chamber musicians Alex Stolze and Anne Müller (Erased Tapes) and the Thai/Anglo dance and music show Mahajanaka Dance Drama that he scored and produced. The Universe Remembers is a distillation of these various musical inclinations, from the distorted crescendos of tracks such as the elegiac, otherworldly ‘Everest’, evoking the digital climaxes of the Keyboard Choir, to the deft use of clarinet on the title track and the swooning saxophone melodies of ‘You Are Forgotten’ evoking the retro futurism of the Blade Runner score and nodding to the post-jazz interests of the Braindead Collective. The vocal samples on the title track are from T.S. Elliot’s epic poem The Waste Land and they represent Sebastian’s ongoing interest in dystopian contemporary literature, as previously heard on the Catch 22 based piece ‘Ripeness Is All’ (featured on Solo Collective Part 2). EP opener ‘Amoniker’ calls to mind Boards of Canada’s use of tape-warped samples and stuttering rhythms. The Universe Remembers is Sebastian’s first solo release aside from the dance score commissions and it certainly serves as a further glimpse into the inner workings of a prolific, wide ranging and unpredictable music creator.
Previous releases include the two Solo Collective albums, Part 1 (November 2017) and Part 2 (June 2019), both released through Alex Stolze’s imprint Nonostar, and two EPs from the Mahajanaka Dance Drama Thai project, Mahajanaka (April 2017) via Nonostar again, and Maṇīmekhalā (October 2019) via his own PinDrop label and PR company. Sebastian’s projects have had glowing critical acclaim from across the media, and received airtime across the BBC and far beyond.
The Monolith Cocktail is now on the micro-donation payment hub Ko-Fi:
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 or love for. 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: especially in these most uncertain and anxious times.
REVIEW
Dominic Valvona
Mick Harvey ‘Waves Of Anzac/The Journey’
(Mute) 17th April 2020
Excuse the obligatory uninspired platitudes but Mick Harvey’s first soundtrack release in a decade is a most worthy and stirring orchestration for two poignant themes; the often forgotten story of the ANZACs and their sacrifices and loyal service during both World Wars and, later, Vietnam, and the ongoing crisis of child refugees and people seeking asylum in offshore detention centers scattered throughout the South Pacific atolls.
Though it’s been a long time since Harvey released a soundtrack the former Birthday Party bruiser, Bad Seeds and Crime And The City Solution instigator has been busy. Despite being ignored by the majority of press and blogs, his charmingly understated Four (Acts Of Love) album of afflatus paeans and lamentable covers and original numbers, was wholly embraced by the Monolith Cocktail, the only blog, to our knowledge, to both critically endorse it and grant it a coveted place in a ‘choice LPs of the year’ list. In 2014, Harvey alongside Crime and the City Solutions’ Alexander Hacke and Danielle De Picciotto and musical director Paul Wallfisch, formed the nursery grime musical outfit, The Ministry Of Wolves, for a set of theater performances. By way of the Pulitzer Prize winning author Anne Sexton’s, even more, macabre revisionist take on the original Brothers Grimm fairy tales, the acclaimed stage production also spawned an LP, Music From Republik De Wölfe. Inspired and finding it far more fun than he originally envisaged, Mick Harvey’s 90s English translations of the louche coffee society genius of wit, salacious and often dark humoured song, Serge Gainsbourg, were given a new lease of life that same year. To coincide with the anniversary of the bawdry polymath’s birth, Harvey’s moiety of homages, Intoxicated Man and Pink Elephants were re-issued, followed up with a small number of select live shows in Australia and Europe (including shows at Primavera and London’s Union Chapel). Invigorated by this return to the back catalogue, Harvey and his congruous band mates, which include the assiduous multi-instrumentalist J.P. Shilo and the no-less talented Glen Lewis and Hugo Cran, set up camp in Harvey’s Melbourne base of operations to record another two volumes of Gainsbourg prose, Delirium Tremens and Intoxicated Women. Fast-forward to this year and once more alongside J.P. Shilo, Harvey has been paying another homage. This time to the late knockabout foil Rowland S. Howard. Originally involved with and playing on the maverick’s Teenage Snuff Film and, later, Pop Crimes albums, Harvey has taken part in a tribute concert, whilst his label Mute have recently re-issued those two high influential totems.
The Waves Of Anzac/The Journey LP collects together two recent soundtracks of evocative timeless classical gravitas; composed and performed with an attentive touch, only occasionally revving up the unsettling electrified caustic waning specter of the late Scott Walker when scoring the most ominous, tumultuous of moods.
As a concatenate relative to Waves Of Anzac, at the end of last year Harvey collaborated (on yet another project) with Christopher Richard Barkes on the tragic WWI pliant The Fall And Rise Of Edgar Bourchier And The Horrors Of War. Before this and only now seeing the light, the soundtrack to Kriv Stenders 2015 directed Why ANZAC? documentary with Sam Neill was released to coincide with the centenary of the Gallipoli campaign. A campaign that featured the recently formed Australian And New Zealand Army Corps of the acronym title, commanded by General William Birdwood, the concentration of which took part in the ill-fated fight to open up a second front in the bogged-down war against Germany and her Ottoman allies. Even by the standards of the carnage on the Western Front and the badly laid plans of removed generals, this invasion of The Dardanelles was a tragic horror show. Audaciously planned by Churchill with certain fatal assumptions made about the Turkish forces who held the high ground, had knowledge of the terrain and were, unfortunately for the Allies, commanded by the military genius and future young Turk leader of a post-Ottoman Turkey, Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk), many of the antipodeans most hardy, loyal and brave died on the beaches in a eight month slog against tenacious defenders. The final tally of 56,000 Allied deaths included 8,070 Australians and 2,721 New Zealanders; disproportionate figures considering the populations of these British overseas territories: a generation lost as they say.
Part of an ABC documentary series on ‘forgotten war stories’, the Aussie actor Neill presented a personal journey and family attachment to that sorry chapter; setting the Gallipoli and Western Front against a contemporary background of political division. Harvey for his part composed a mostly subtle, moving movement of short spiraling strings and atonal searing atmospheric leitmotifs. From melodious ripples to elbowed cello maladies, Waves Of Anzac is both a yearned and moody, with the final timpani and pealing bell tolled ‘The Aftermath’ being the album’s most dark. Though the focus of this album is Gallipoli, half of the tracks reference the ANZACs various actions on The Somme and in Mesopotamia during WWI, and their part in the defense of Greece and Crete during WWII. There’s even a piece of edgy reverberated trauma in motion music for a chapter on Vietnam. Though, in hindsight rather wisely, Britain declined to join the Americans, Australia and New Zealand unfortunately did.
A balance of stain glass lit annotations, the stately and aching; Harvey produces an articulate tribute to the horrors of war.
The four-part Journey performance is no less evocative, reflecting as it does the travails and terror of refuges making their way across the Pacific maelstrom towards sanctuary and the hope of asylum. Most of these unfortunate souls however, find themselves metaphorically washed up in detention camps indefinitely, marooned on islets such as Nauru, Manus Island and Christmas Island. Released in support of #KidsOffNauru, Harvey conducts a tumult mix of chamber and Baroque-pop, an oceanic waltz of dramatic swells and mournful torrents. Harvey and his The Letter String Quartet ensemble track that journey, from the ‘Pyramids’ like Radiohead signature beckoning and lamentable march of ‘Conflict’, through the confusion intense torrid of ‘All At Sea’ to the lulled ethereal choral ‘Hope’.
Classical music with an augmentation of the modern, Waves Of Anzacs/The Journey is an often-understated work of sadness, fear, trauma and also anger that stands well in any period. Harvey offers a moving testament of assured maturity to his subjects, connecting as he does, two different tragedies, from wartime and a so-called peacetime, on one sublime album.
Related posts from the Archives:-
Mick Harvey ‘Delirium Tremens’
Mick Harvey Live At The Oran Mor
Mick Harvey ‘Four Acts Of Love’
Rowland S. Howard ‘Teenage Snuff Film’ & ‘Pop Crimes’
The Monolith Cocktail is now on the micro-donation hub Ko-Fi:
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 372: Loose Fit, Occult Character, Ploom…
March 23, 2020
REVIEWS
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea joined the Monolith Cocktail team in January 2019. The cult leader of the infamous lo fi gods, The Bordellos, 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 releases include The Bordellos beautifully despondent pains-of-the-heart and mockery of clique “hipsters” ode to Liverpool, and, under the guises of the Idiot Blur Fanboy moniker, a stripped down classic of resignation and Gallagher brothers’ polemics.
Each week we send a mountain of new releases to the self-depreciating maverick to see what sticks. In his own idiosyncratic style and turn-of-phrase, pontificating aloud and reviewing with scrutiny an eclectic deluge of releases, here Brian’s latest batch of recommendations.
With all live gigs and events more or less quashed for the foreseeable future, buying music (whether it’s physical or through digital platforms such as Bandcamp) has never been more important for the survival of the bands/artists/collectives that create it. We urge you all to keeping supporting; to keep listening.
Loose Fit ‘Loose Fit EP’
(FatCat Records) EP/3rd April 2020
I do like a bit of bass heavy post punk and Loose Fit do it better than most. This reminds more than a than a bit of Bow Wow Wow and then all of a sudden on ‘Reflux’ the memories of the wonderful X Ray Spex come surging back, which is no bad thing: a lot worse could come surging back than memories of one of punk’s finest. There’s honking sax, which you do not hear often in bass heavy post punk unless you call the Coasters bass heavy post punk, whom of course you can’t unless you have never heard the Coasters – and then you can think anything. Isn’t imagination a wonderful thing.
Ploom ‘Ploom EP’
EP/6th March 2020
What we have here my dears is the debut EP from Denver Psych band Ploom, or that is how they describe themselves in the press release. And that will do for me, as they do have a slight psych feel about them. Going off at various tangents throughout their songs at times, they recall a sunny Mothers of Invention or psychedelic Strokes: in fact you could call them Sun Strokes! (Please no groaning at the back). No really this is a rather excellent listen; a band to listen to whilst riding in a open top car to on a summers day and can imagine them doing really well on the festival circuit: a band to wave giant inflatable too.
Occult Character ‘Steve Albini’s Kundalini ‘
(Metal Postcard) LP/9th March 2020
A brand new LP from the wonderful Occult Character, and as ever, dark funny lyrical portraits of life in the USA today is the order of the day, but this time taking on a more musically commercial slant. Synth led beats smoother production, and if not for the many curse words, you could imagine gracing daytime radio. This could almost be a pop album it certainly deserves to reach a larger audience. Who else but Occult Character would write a song about a homophobic microwave and other such oddities? It is indeed a crazy world and maybe this is the album to soundtrack it.
Various ‘Mark Barton’s Sunday Experience Album’
(Bearsuit Records) LP/27th March 2020
This LP breaks my heart a little as it is a tribute to someone I considered a friend; somebody who I talked via the internet to for over 15 years, and had a great drunken night out with together watching my sons band Vukovar: the first of many nights, or so we thought. But sadly he discovered he had cancer not long after and through various reasons we never got to meet up again.
Mark was a lovely great man who also happened to be a great writer and a great supporter of underground music, and the underground community thought a great deal of Mark, as this CD proves. This could have easily been a 100-track box set, for all the artists giving up tracks to this fine tribute to a fine man. This CD shows what a wide and varied taste Mark had, and he had a beautiful poetic way of praising the music he loved with his writing: one I won’t even try to match.
The music on this album is as I have already said varied, but what it has in common is that it is all excellent, all unique in their own ways; from the dark sweeping guitar sounds of bigflower to the psych tinged rock n roll of the Moon Duo and Schizo Fun Addict, to the wayward lo-fi shambolic of my own Bordellos – a song we wrote a few years ago in tribute the great man and his fine blog.
There are washes with the experimental: the excellent Harold Nono and the Polypores, BBC 6Music faves The Lovely Eggs, and JD Meatyard, even the legendary noise gods Godflesh make an appearance. So many great reasons to purchase this CD.
Mark would be more than a little embarrassed but also deeply touched by this compilation; I just wish he was still around for to enjoy this fine tribute.
All money raised goes to the Macmillan Cancer Support charity.
Rita Braga ‘Tremble Like A Ghost’
Single/21st March 2020
What the world needs now more than anything else is an electro Betty Boop. It really does. And that is what we have here. Three and a half minutes of pop fun. The kind of song that could make you breakout into sporadic leg and hand movements that resembles a meeting of the Charleston you know and love committee. Yes a quirky little pop gem, one for us oldsters and you youngsters and those in-between.
Schizo Fun Addict ‘The Last Wave’
(Flicknife Records) LP/Now
Schizo Fun Addict a band that should be cherished and held close to one’s heart. They are one of the many bands that deserve to be better known and raved about, so with this the new album I’m going to do just that and rave about the beauty and joy one can have by losing themselves in Schizos own and original sounding laid back beauty. Sixties psych merges with smooth American FM late night 70’s sounds and British 80’s pop, one of the only bands of today I can hear the influence of Prefab Sprout creep through as well as their obvious love of the Stone Roses and My Bloody Valentine.
The Schizos have so much going for them. Not just fine original musicians and great songwriters but they have one of the most beautiful female voices in modern pop with the candy covered angel whisper of Jayne Gabriel: a voice I could listen to all day and completely lose myself in.
So for anyone out there who hasn’t heard of the Schizo Fun Addict go and do yourselves a favour start with this album and then work your way back through the treasure of a back catalogue. And a treasure it surely is: a band to be treasured in fact.
The Hannah Barberas ‘Into The Wild’
LP/3rd April 2020
Ah C86 those were the days; when boys with floppy fringes wore their hearts on their sleeves, and their guitar songs of love gone wrong and love in waiting. And this enjoyable album by the Hannah Barberas takes us all back there. Over jangly guitars, occasional northern soul beats, and songs of love gone right and long, this LP almost had me wanting to put leather patches on the elbows of my Oxfam jackets and dig out a Davy Crockett hat and kneel and pray to an effigy of Saint Edwyn. This album is highly recommended for those who want to return to those fine days of the June Brides and Brilliant Corners.
EXCHANGE
Words: Matteo Mannocci
Continuing in 2020 with our collaboration with the leading Italian music publication Kalporz, the Monolith Cocktail will be cosying up and sharing 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.
This month Matteo Mannocci on the ‘Shardcore’ collective’s Eric Drass’ Covid-19 inspired genetic coded electronic suite.
If you think you have nothing to do and a lot of free time to spend, know that you are not alone. The appearance of Covid-19 was definitely a big hit for the whole world, especially for its (semi-)unknown virus nature that hasn’t taken long to get to know us all.
There are many ways to get to know your enemy, and one of these is to find out what it sounds like: that’s when several artists scattered around the world, once the DNA sequence of this new virus was released, immediately decided to ‘arrange’ the MIDI score derived from its genetic code.
This track, produced by Eric Drass of the ‘shardcore’ collective, is a long electronic sequence, a couple of hours long, that reflects its genetic code in musical notes. Can that complete listening experience work as a vaccine?
Related posts from the Archives:
Photo Roll: Yussef Dayes Live
Scoutcloud: Brainstory
Interview: Orville Peck
Review: Girl Band ‘The Talkies’
Monolith Cocktail Blog 