Our Daily Bread 353: The Provincials ‘The Dark Ages’
November 7, 2019
LP REVIEW
Dominic Valvona
The Provincials ‘The Dark Ages’
(Itchen Recordings) LP/ 15th November 2019
In full Panavision, The Provincials duo of vocalist Polly Perry and guitarist and author Seb Hunter articulate a mesmerizing and spellbinding miasma of a domesday on their long awaited second LP, The Dark Ages. The original dark ages epoch was named so for a lack of documentary and archeological evidence from as, we now know, a rich if tumultuous period in the history of these Isles and beyond: A time that roughly marks the decline of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the next millennium. It’s used here of course to weave a lyrical, sometimes Shakespearean, vision of our contemporary times: Brexit especially (I presume). Even if they portray it with a diaphanous lulled and beautifully administered deft touch, The Provincials paint a bleakly poetic diorama of being swept under a despairing riptide. Depending on which side of that divide you feel comfortable pontificating or barracking from, Brexit and by association (though far more complex to all tie-in) so-called “populism” in politics, you either believe that this is all an exciting, tide-turning, opportunity or, the end times!
And so reminders of past imperial ventures overseas (an empirical vague gesture to the infamous ‘Inkerman’; a decisive score draw monumental battle in the Crimean War saga) and the slaughter and PTSD anguish legacy of WWI (the Shell-shocked Medieval waltz ‘We Lost Our Minds’) are woven into a musical hallucination of dour romanticism and melancholy. However, the pains and woes are handled deftly; especially from the aria like performances of Perry, who’s range longingly flows between the ethereal and dramatic. Counterbalancing nimbly-picked Pentangle folk with more rousing swamp boogie and flange-dreamy Britpop, Hunter’s acoustic and electrified guitar playing rings out, offering both stripped-back accentuate caresses and moods, and more punctuating punches. The only additional instrumentation (the barest of stirring ambience, with trickled and sonorous bass note piano parts and drums courtesy of producer Dan Parkinson) is used most sparingly, with the most full-on songs being the breakout rocking ‘Inkerman’, which sounds like a crescendo stomping combo of The White Stripes, Anna Calvi, The Classical and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. More winding and suffused with mysterious ambient tones tough, the sonnet-like trickling ‘The Western Shore’ bears the atmospherics of Popol Vuh’s Affenstunde.
Meandering along a path that stretches from the Norman church dotted shingly shoreline of the southeast coast of Romney to a revenge-soaked Iberia, The Provincials conjure up a lamentable present. Perhaps we are indeed doomed. Perhaps these are the end days or the darkness before the light. Whatever the truth, this diaphanous duo has articulated such augurs with a gauze-y, beautiful veneer worth savoring and improved no end since their last album.
REVIEWS
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea joined the Monolith Cocktail team at the beginning of the year. 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 recent project, Roi (with John McCarthy and Dan Shea, of Beauty Stab and Vukovar infamy) debuted a couple of months back through Metal Postcard Records.
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.
The NoMen ‘NoMania’
LP/ 30th October 2019
The New album by underground Scottish cult band The NoMen once again explores their love of genre hopping musical delights, from folk to psych to punk to pop to rockabilly to Krautrock and back again: sometimes in the same song. All the tracks are brimming with a joyful enthusiasm that can only be found when the music is being made by music lovers and not flag waving careerists.
This is an album of songs that are not afraid to take themselves too seriously, by a band that music lovers should take very seriously indeed.
It’s not everyday you come across a band who understands the joy and magic that can be achieved in making willfully experimental genre hopping pop music with a smile on its face.
Telgate ‘Cherrytight’
Single/ 22nd November 2019
Aw bless Telgate’s little Teflon trousers; they don’t half make me feel old with their lust for life and their contagious excitement of being in a band. I remember those days well, all those years ago rehearsal rooms, gigs in little toilet venues, dreaming of the day when they will see their names in lights when they are wrote about in the NME. Not that being written about in the NME is possible anymore, but the Monolith Cocktail will have to do it instead. I remember those days and good luck to them.
I like this single. I like that it’s four minutes twenty two seconds long and in that four minutes twenty two they achieve nothing that has not been done before and that is a point in its favour. It is simple glam punk rock’n’roll. They are young and they are enjoying themselves. Iggy Pop did not do anything new or original with The Stooges and he is considered one of the greats and rightly so. And this just carries on that rock’n’roll tradition of being sexy, being enthusiastic sounding, like you are enjoying life. I like that they will think who is this jaded old cunt reviewing our debut single and they are right to think that as I am on all counts old jaded, and a cunt. And I like it even more because it does not sound anything like Oasis: it sounds like they have not even heard of Oasis. Oh wouldn’t life be grand if I had never heard Oasis.
Dub Chieftain ‘Puppo Shadets’
(Metal Postcard Records) LP/ 22nd October 2019
Now this is something I like. It’s inventive. It’s fun. It’s Psych with the “delica” attached. It’s fun with the letter k attached at the end. It’s the sound of a playful mind revisiting the golden age of could-not-really-give-shit; an album made with personal enjoyment in mind.
Folk pop and psych weave in and out of bewitching instrumental wizardry; young children’s voices scrummage toy like wonkiness evoking the memories of the spirit of Brian Wilsons’ SMiLE and Joe Meeks I Hear A New World. This really is a gem of a release one of the many that Metal Postcard Records has released this year and one that deserves to reach out and grab the lovers of the slightly unusual by their eccentric gene, shaking heartedly until exploding into a spurt of joy.
No New Dawn ‘Double Dream’
(Other Voices Records) LP/ 2020
The darling sound of 80’s keyboard nostalgia wrapped up in a post punk soundscape of gothic delights; an LP to stride around the room whilst holding your cape aloft and declaring your love to the montage of dead dried flowers you forgot to send to the person of your fancy.
Double Dream would have gone down a bomb with the ripped beer mats thrown in the air brigade: all Wayne Hussey sunglasses thigh length boots and Casio flavoured velvet underpants. Music to watch a vampire chase a young lady in an alternative nightclub in the 80s to.
Very enjoyable and entertaining I can imagine a whole host of middle-aged Goths driving their kids mad with this. It made me smile anyway.
Automatic ‘Signal’
(Stones Throw) LP/ 27th September 2019
Automatic are the sound of youth, the joy of skinny hipped hollow cheek boned beauty personified, all wrapped up in the caress of Psycho killer bass lines and early Human League synth noises. The Automatic offers the soundtrack of a forever Friday night, a walk down the wild side kissing under the neon light with the boy or girl of your dreams, dancing wildly to your favourite new wave hit from your parents record collection.
The past and future collide on this impressive collection of post punk synth bass led tunesmithery. An LP I recommend wholeheartedly, it’s fun sexy and chic in all the right ways without any pretensions of being too grown up or planned. Rock ‘n’ roll is never grown up or planned.
Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist #XL: Gene Clark, Game Theory, Gift Horse, Le Rita Mitsouko….
November 1, 2019
Playlist
Dominic Valvona
Where else are you going to find as many idiots as enlightened saviours of glorious sounds in one place? Or, find as many mismatched genres somehow gelling and making such sense on one inspired musical journey. Nowhere that’s where.
Dominic Valvona‘s Social is the playlist from the Monolith Cocktail’s imaginary radio show. A collection of finds, favourites and oddities from across all time and from across the globe. Volume 40 is no different in scope; gathering together Fall-like wry asides on the idiosyncrasies of gentrified cosmopolitian living (Gift Horse), sun wilted and lilted African lazer soul (Gyedu-Blay Ambolley), space rock homages (The Warlocks), gospel consciousness jazz (Ray Harris), fucked-up futurist Hip-Hop (The Analog Brothers) and sulking garage blues (The Caravelles).
Tracks:
The Lightmen, Bubbha Thomas ‘Herbs (Of Life)’
Master Plan Inc. ‘Something To Be Done’
Gyedu-Blay Ambolley ‘Control’
Ray Harris, The Fusion Experience ‘Freedom’
Pat Thomas, Marijata ‘My Love Will Shine’
Grand Puba ‘Check The Resume’
Double XX Posse ‘The Headcracker’
Analog Brothers, Odd Oberheim ‘2005’
Steady B ‘Let The Hustlers Play’
Fire ‘Flight To Cuba’
Bonnie & Sheila ‘You Keep Me Hanging On’
Earl English, The Apaches ‘Trying To Make Ends Meet’
The Preachers ‘Moanin”
The Caravelles ‘Lovin’ Just My Style’
The Electric Prunes ‘Try Me On For Size’
The Blue Magoos ‘I Can Hear The Grass Grow’
Bobby Williams ‘Lost My Job’
Alice Dona ‘Je N’sais Pas’
Delta 5 ‘Triangle’
The Screamers ‘The Beat Goes On’
Gift Horse ‘Custard Tart (Live)’
The Exploding Budgies ‘Kenneth Anger’
Adult Books ‘Casual Wrecks’
Les Rita Mitsouko ‘Reinforcements’
The Watzloves ‘Girl Called Trouble’
Gene Clark ‘Silver Raven’
Don & Stevie ‘American Lullaby’
England’s Glory ‘The Wide Waterway’
Dr. Strangely Strange ‘Ballad Of The Wasps’
Wolfgang Dauner ‘Kabul’
Etran Finatawa ‘Kel Tamascheck’
Manu Dibango ‘Ceddo’
Derrick Morgan ‘Seven Letters’
Bobby Jackson ‘Kika’s Delight’
The Warlocks ‘Tribute To Hawkwind’
Game Theory ‘Drive-In Saturday (Radio Session)’
Our Daily Bread 351: Big Thief ‘Two Hands’
October 29, 2019
Review
Gianluigi Marsibilio
Big Thief ‘Two Hands’
LP/ 11th October 2019
U.F.O.F. introduced the Big Thief to a cosmic, celestial dimension, in which everything was quiet and melancholy static: it was like being in Lars Von Trier’s Melancholia. But with Two Hands, Big Thief instead return to a more earthly and frank dimension that, within a year, reaffirms the Brooklyn band and elevates the poetic universe of Adrianne Lenker.
Also, in this case, the voice of Big Thief is based on the delicate atmospheres that have the ability to transcend space and time. The delicacy of songs like ‘Wolf’ or ‘Forgotten Eyes’ is an important key to understanding an album that is the best proof of the band.
With Two Hands there is less DIY, a less crude construction, the search for sound starts first of all from a poetic dimension, from the need to narrate a story. The goal achieved is in the construction of a sound zone where Big Thief have become, not merely recognizable, but unique. The structure of the songs play on balances of sensitivity: the slight inputs of the xylophone, the melodic intersections, the rhythms that settle down and come to life between the words of the songs, are a very precise poetics of the band that now has a well-defined sound. The semantic field of the record is very clear and works with the themes of U.F.O.F., making them earthly, tangible. The idea that Two Hands is an earthly twin of the previous work is interesting and in focus. The sounds of Lenker’s guitar and voice build a rough anatomy of perceptions; everything can be touched and becomes extremely corporeal. The most abstract forms become clear when meeting Adrianne’s voice, a line like “The wolf is howling for me” actually becomes a symbol of this textual and poetic research.
Two Hands has the corporeity of a performance by Marina Abramovic, but also the noble crypticity of a live performance by Bon Iver. The lyrics are a bridge that crosses very wide poetic universes, Adrianne Lenker is like Walt Whitman in his Passage to India; there is a dimension of renewal, construction and humanity that unfolds throughout the work.
Two Hands is a gateway to a universe, which represents us and makes us feel good.
Video
Dominic Valvona
Elizabeth Everts ‘Black Is The Colour’
Recently featured in on this blog with her diaphanous malady EP of controlled tumult of romantic brooding and lament, Contraband, the Californian born but Munich-based confessional balladeer Elizabeth Evert further accentuates that signature melodies ebb and flow style with a visual accompaniment. When articulating her own original songs Everts sounds vaguely like a cross between Tori Amos, Fiona Apple and Raf Mantelli put to an accompaniment of lounge-jazz, trip-hop, Casio keyboard presets and the classical, but on the recent EP’s closing elegy, the attuned weepy cover of the traditional Scottish folk lament, ‘Black Is The Colour’ she almost plays it straight. Made famous to a degree by that controversial folk troubadour Christy Moore, Everts pays homage here with a new video.
Evert offers the following insights, and explains her choice of ancient malady:
“Black is the Color” is a folk song that is said to originate in Scotland. I have always loved this song and wanted to do my own version of it. One day it hit me that the version I would create of this lovely song would be nostalgic, a bit intense – to explore the dark side of vulnerability.
As I worked on the song, it made me start thinking about how love can create such a vulnerability that it can lead to destruction. This destruction can occur in multiple places, even all at once, or in its simplest form of one individual suffering in the beauty of love.
I tried to capture these ideas in the video – when light exists, darkness must also exist and that is sometimes difficult to manage emotionally. And in my experience, the lighter the light, the darker the dark.
The video was primarily filmed in Munich, Germany and I created the video myself. I hope you enjoy it.
Lyrics
Black is the color of my true love’s hair
His lips are something wondrous fair
The sweetest face and the gentlest hands
I love the ground on which he stands
I love my love and well he knows
I love the ground on which he goes
If him on earth no more I see
My life will simply fade away
Black is the color of my true love’s hair
Halloween Playlist: Ghouls, Ghosts & Goblins: Acanthus, Les Baxter, Gravediggaz, Vukovar…
October 25, 2019
PLAYLIST
Dominic Valvona
Cult B-movie European soundtracks, spine-tingling schlock and spooked, chain-rattling horror fuzztones aplenty. Yes, its that time of the year again, the bewitching hour is nigh, and so another one of Dominic Valvona’s special Halloween playlists.
To accompany any freaks ball, ghoulish themed soiree, candelabra lit dinner party, macabre shindig and black mass, the perfect soundtrack of devilish nonsense. Includes the bell tolled meaning doom of Acanthus, the kool aid hell-trippers St. John Green, the rebel county seedy James Gang, horrorcore rap doyens The Gravediggaz, the despairing Gothic romantics Vukovar, bewitched folk troupe Sproatly Smith and many more.
Previous ghastly selections:
Kalporz X Monolith Cocktail: Girl Band ‘The Talkies’
October 24, 2019
Review
Nicola Guerra
GIRL BAND ‘The Talkies’
(Rough Trade) LP/ 2019
I often travel to Ireland for work and the thing that most intrigues me is to observe the differences between the Anglo-Saxon and Italian working class. We are both in the shit, it is clear, but the approach to the exteriorization of feelings is quite different. You can perceive it in any daily gesture, in the common life but above all in art. Music, as such, is a litmus test of general dissatisfaction; while in Italy the baggage of “committed singer-songwriters” has been gradually replaced by a frivolous and unconscious approach, in Ireland noise (not necessarily made with traditional instruments) seems an excellent alternative to all this crap. In short, all angry and frustrated, but here in Italy, we rebel shaking with the summer hits of Giusy Ferreri while in the UK the Idles with foaming anger sing, “My blood brother is an immigrant, a beautiful immigrant, my blood brother’s Freddie Mercury, a Nigerian mother of three, he’s made of bones, he’s made of blood, he’s made of flesh, he’s made of love, he’s made of you, he’s made of me, Unity”, and the Irish Girl Band respond with a second album more claustrophobic than their debut four years ago, Holding Hands With Jamie.
The Talkies, published again by Rough Trade, is more than a record; it’s state of mind, a delirious but lucid attempt to escape from the fears, which often inhabit our psyche. Surely Dara Kiely, voice of the Dublin quartet, is mainly responsible for the suffocating climax that you breathe in this record; he screams, spasms, anxious breaths and the same fear that the animal has when it is cornered. The music that accompanies the deliriums of the frontman oscillates between industrial, noise and dance from the bowels of the earth, indulging anger, frustration, the few oases of peace “ambient” (the lullaby that queries the post-punk assault of ‘Laggard’) are just a physiological breath, the breath of air that serves not to suffocate, the attempt to look away towards the imminent end of the world.
Incredibly cohesive, sharp, direct, difficult to digest and yet as fascinating as all things that speak of real life, the second album from Girl Band is a manifesto of the intolerance of a generation that wants to escape and at the same time react, without having any idea of how to do.
We are really in a tight spot and the four sound killers slam it in our faces, not playing to show us something but giving us directions on how we should behave.
Nicola Guerra
You can find all the previous Kalporz posts here….
The Singles, Teasers & Oddities Perusal #1: Haich Ber Na, Sun Ra, Giant Swan, Junius Paul…
October 22, 2019
Music Revue
Dominic Valvona
Reviving a roundup special from the early days of the Monolith Cocktail’s blossoming, The Singles, Teasers & Oddities Perusal is a chance to catch-up and to share music that has been left wanton in our inbox or left hanging around. The sheer volume of requests we receive is crazy, and so here is Dominic Valvona just dipping into some of the more interesting and choice tracks from the last month.
Haich Ber Na ‘Everywhere’s Home’
(RAGS) EP/ 16th October 2019
https://soundcloud.com/haichsounds/sets/everywheres-home-1
Global citizen Haich Ber Na releases a second cerebral, tactile and sophisticated EP of tingly soulful experimental brilliance this month. Though an introspective journey, Haich expands those grime and hip-hop roots further, merging House with languid R&B, downtempo electronica, the avant-garde and Liars. Homesick, though for where, the troubled swooner tackles the topics of isolation, work life balance and a sense of belonging on this often swoozy if dislocated dreamy five-track mini opus. Accompanying the Everywhere’s Home EP is a documentary type film visual accompaniment; a sort of day-in-the-life of an artist going about his mundane daily routine, only he happens to live in a UFO shaped pod: think Basquiat meets Sylvie Fleury.
Giant Swan ‘Pandaemonium’
(KECK) Single/ Now
The seething underbelly of post-punk daemonic techno, Giant Swans newest single is a sinister sinewy caustic cry and top dance track to boot. Taken from the Bristol duo’s (Robin Stewart and Harry Wright) upcoming self-titled debut LP, and ahead of their European tour, ‘Pandemonium‘ is a barracking metallic clarion call to arms.
Originally conceived as a side project from their roles as guitarists in the band The Naturals, Giant Swan is a step towards more nuanced but expanded sonic horizons; galvanised dark materials that evoke Coil, Current 93, Throbbing Gristle, pushed onto the dancefloor via R&S.
Despite the harsh and abrasive sizzling and throbs, the duo point out that their music is created unconsciously and not in a riled tense state of agitation and anger. As a teaser it promises great things from this burgeoning duo.
Junius Paul ‘Asé’
(International Anthem) Single Teaser/ 22nd December 2019
Imbued with the spirit and magic of the The Art Ensemble of Chicago, rhythm wingman for fellow windy city contemporary conscious and spiritual jazz doyan Makaya McCraven, bassist extraordinaire Junius Paul is set to release his debut album, Ism, next month.
Providence wise, Paul has appeared on the recent The Art Ensemble of Chicago 50th Anniversary LP, We Are On The Edge, and on McCraven’s In The Moment, Highly Rare and Universal Beings albums, as well as being the go-to man for numerous sessions.
A long time coming, Ism was recorded across a handful of live & studio locations in Chicago, and features over a dozen instrumentalists, friends & collaborators including Vincent Davis, Justin Dillard, Corey Wilkes, Isaiah Spencer,Tomeka Reid, Marquis Hill, Irvin Pierce, Shanta Nurullah and McCraven (who also produced the record).
As a teaser, the bandy yet taut noodling double bass elastics ‘Asé’ ushers in a deeply thoughtful chapter in Chicago jazz. Just wait until that those shimmering cymbals and that rifling bounce of the snare and lovely swaddled horns luxuriously and tantalisingly comes in…delicious spiritual jazz at its most tentative and refrained.
Bear With Me ‘Cry’
EP/ 11th October 2019
Despair, a cork on the ocean, a speck of dust, a mere crumb, how the enormity of it all just gets on top of you sometimes, the underlying anxiety that propels the Danish band’s new despondent dream pop EP, Cry, can make us all feel rather insignificant. Yet despite this, Bear With Me have produced a slow crushing crescendo release of shoegaze lament and brilliance. I really love this title-track; epic sorrowful lo fi pop at its most crooned magnificent. Keep an ear out for these guys.
Land of Ooo ‘Waiting For The Whales’
Single/ 11th October 2019
https://soundcloud.com/numarec/waiting-for-the-whales?in=numarec/sets/land-of-ooo-wry-cry
The third single track to be left to roam free from its mini-LP, Wry Cry, the dreamy and noisey in equal measures ‘Waiting For The Whales’ siren call combines shoegaze, grunge, C86 and the Banshees on a most lulling flange-y affair. There’s an intensity and fuzzed streak of dissonance yet the course is set for something less caustic and harsh. Hailing from Graz in Austria, Land of Ooo was founded in summer 2018 by Nora Köhler, Leonie Bramberger and Julian Werl. A debut album is promised in early 2020.
Sun Ra Arkestra ‘Yeah Man! Live In Kalisz’
(Lanquidity) Teaser/26th October 2019
Despite leaving these earthly realms some time ago, the venerated Saturnarian Sun Ra continues to shine his constellated rays down upon us mere mortals and inspire. In goes in waves of course, but the doyen of spiritual and cosmic jazz seems to influence and have a profound effect on every generation. And so interest in the Egyptian deity adorned pioneer’s music is in the ascendence. And if you can find those rarest of legendary recordings, or in this case performances, than you’re on to a winner.
The faithful, though ever-changing and developing troupe that Sun Ra once conducted, the Arkestra, continues to play and tour in his honour. But from 1986, when the sun king was still head of the congregation, the Arkestra played their first ever gig in Poland, at Kalish.
Recently rediscovered, the complete tape of the little known concert was forgotten for almost three decades in a Kalisz basement collecting dust.The recordings have been remastered by Marcin Cichy (Ninja Tune), and don’t they sound just grand.
A teaser, Yeah Man is Sun Ra’s live version of the original big band swing arrangement by the legendary and highly respected bandleader arranger Fletcher Henderson; a throwback almost to those heady days of early Ellington.
Hip-Hop Revue
Matt Oliver
Singles
Front page news in hip-hop this month has been the unexpected return of Gang Starr – whether it needed a guest spot from J Cole or not, ‘Family and Loyalty’ is nicely nostalgic and respectful, pure Guru wisdom about what matters most, and DJ Premier bringing boom bap sparkle, making you sigh with both contentment and for what once was.
Rodney P roughing up the right path reveals ‘The Next Chapter’, at his influential best and calling the tune to Urban Monk extending carnival season. The surprise return of Tommy Evans wants you to feel his ‘Flow (H20)’, hosting a drowsy, frilly-collared sway with a killer hook and his clear-minded navigation of gentle waves.
Some modest Trevvy Trev production, boom bap jabbing at you rather than going for the all-out roundhouse, allows San Man & MC Small World to stroll freely and get the coolness of their deadliness to set up an old skool prowl of authority on the five track ‘EP’. The music may be of a smooth funk vintage, but Dark Lo pulls the pin to set the record straight on ‘American Made’ and exerts sheer street control on ‘Ripped Apart’ with Benny the Butcher. Catch him if you can – Nodoz is ‘All Ready Up’, “staying woke ‘til the white sheet cover my eyes”, the early bird fiercely catching Will C’s smooth funk with a magical mystery tale to tell.
Albums
‘Retropolitan’ rolls with a capital R as “a love letter and a wakeup call to the city” from Skyzoo and Pete Rock, a well suited duo speculators must secretly have been hoping would get together, and whose Big Apple toughness comes with polished corners, epitomising the concrete jungle encasing the big city of dreams. Bustling and ‘bout it but barely breaking sweat, it’s an exemplary expo of sights and sounds, achieving easy listening when the pair’s objective is anything but.
Now sporting a short back and sides and Colgate smile and aligning himself with Q-Tip as executive producer, the energy of Danny Brown stays undiminished on ‘uknowhatimsayin¿ ’, but this time around you can tell he’s given more thought as to which wet square pegs should go in which live round holes. Paul White, Flying Lotus, JPEGMAFIA and Run the Jewels are all part of a medium reset, updating the livewire’s instincts that still come through loud, clear and uncouth (“I ignore a whore, like an email from LinkedIn”).
“I may never rock the Garden, but I did plant the seed, and it’s far from Autumn” – Von Pea, with his Pusha T-ish rasp, declares ‘City for Sale’ but also mi casa su casa, endlessly funky with production baked in sunshine and snappy cypherisms penning local postcards about how hood the hood really is right now.
The ever likely lads Dr Syntax and Pete Cannon are back to break their unique brand of bread until they’ve defined ‘Wallop’, chatting solemnly over tea and biscuits before giving it some jump-up, bass-mainlining welly. Whatever the mood of your favourite plain English rapper and wildcard producer combo, they leave you feeling invigorated from all the angles they cover.
Bending your ear with his usual best of British, Kid Acne’s South Yorkshire styling receives a boost from Illinois’ Spectacular Diagnostics, pulling ‘Have a Word’ from fuggy pillars to raw and whip-smart posts. Another time capsule of references tripping off the tongue, that continued sense of Acne picking up the mic and diving straight into the close-to-home anarchy with no warm up, sustains his latest keeper of the faith as flavoursome and full of unfettered character, shared with members of New Kingdom, Juga-Naut and Juice Aleem.
Ocean Wisdom’s extensive lung squeezer ‘Big Talk’ has got the mouth to go with the trousers, unstoppably menacing when riding jittery danger zone trappers rarely feeling the need to pull the handbrake. Assists from Dizzee Rascal, P Money, Ghetts, Akala, Freddie Gibbs and Fatboy Slim underline the star quality finding six million more ways to end careers at the same rate of words per minute.
When the long stretch of ‘Eagle Court’ is in session, CMPND trio Wundrop, Kemastry and Vitamin G invest in deep bass shudders of trap/drill genealogy that you can somehow find solitude in, and disgust-registering rhymes consistently keeping heads down while speaking up for bad boys moving in silence. Probably ineffective in daylight hours, a different beast when the graveyard shift ticks by, banging like a gavel in the hand of the Grim Reaper.
Livewire rhymes with clean means of execution from VersesBang advocate ‘Cardigans & Calories’, taking over tough/rubbery bass steppers and sending the fortunes of foes into hiding. Most unexpected is the appearance of D12’s Bizarre on the concluding ‘W.E.I.R.D.O.’, showing that rap/grime is not a funny old game. Junior Disprol’s ‘Def Valley’ is like a hip-hop game of Tough Mudder, gruffly ravaging a tricky selection of beats (yacht rockers to blips-n-bleeps to pots-n-pans, drum machine brawlers) with the unfazed, warpaint-daubed mindset of no-one else is gonna manage it, so it may as well be the Dead Residents emcee.
The LA addicts fiending for static that are Clipping are back to confirm ‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’, an oxymoron where no-one can hear you scream in space until its engine room sucks you in and spits you out. The trio continue to give braincells a thrashing but still love a good hook, with emcee Daveed Diggs’ style in charge of the captain’s log recited by a sentient streetwise super-computer, taking Benny the Butcher, El Camino and La Chat along for the ride.
The heavy burdens of Big Turks gang Rome Streetz, Jamal Gasol and Lord Juco handle dangerous day-to-days to Ro Data’s expressive Turkish folk skills. Inducing a hush as they step in the place and where spotting weakness can be cataclysmic, this it tough Mafioso styling holding a certain cinematic exotica until the heavies on the mic – few grand gestures = time is money – begin their rearranging. Clinical, allowing for one traditional Turkish jig to conclude.
An invite to ‘The Gold Room’ from SadhuGold prepares ears for heavy instrumentalism straining towards the grey area of your DAB, too focussed on trip hop toil and a certain prog rock/gangsta determination so as to avoid playing the strung out chestnut. Slithering and curling itself around late night like a serpent ready for its chokehold moment, plucky emcees will flinch at the Philly producer’s muddy Midas touch.
‘Complicate Your Life With Violence’ suggest L’Orange and Jeremiah Jae, the folklore of old war stories and wild westerns mined by the former, schooled by a 5 o’clock shadow of a faintly numb flow keeping an ear to the street belonging to the latter. An expert in throwing you for a loop in its disregard for boom bap boundaries, seems to house a cast of hundreds when in reality it’s a good old fashioned (uniquely telepathic) MC-producer two-for. Proof that violence can solve matters.
Zilla Rocca and Curly Castro could tell you what Grift Company are all about, but then they’d probably have to kill you: ‘Too Many Secrets’ takes true school to the bank with a stick-up kid swagger. Giving it all they’ve got by using the 32 minute duration as a ticking time bomb to their savagery roaming the streets, it’s a slick and dangerous operation, pushing underground cinema full of proper hip-hop spirit.
Premiere: Sebastian Reynolds ‘Maṇīmekhalā EP’
October 16, 2019
Premiere
Dominic Valvona
Sebastian Reynolds ‘Maṇīmekhalā’
(Pindrop Records) EP/ 18th October 2019
Released in anticipation of the upcoming UK tour of the multimedia Mahajanaka Dance Drama, which starts in November, a second EP of serene devotional music from that production’s score is being shared with our readers two days in advance of its official release date (18th October).
Based on the stories of the venerated Jataka, one of the oldest collections of mythological texts in the world, the theme of this interpretive dance, music and visual production is taken from the Mahajanaka, a moralistic chronicle of Buddha’s previous lives, which describes the future guru’s birth as the prince of that title. Prince Mahajanaka, we’re relayed, is usurped by a ‘wicked uncle’. During exile he becomes a merchant so he can gain the fortune he needs to regain his kingdom. Of the many travails the prince experiences, there’s one that appeals especially to the artist and collaborators behind the leading peregrination of this EP: Mahajanaka’s rescue from a shipwreck by the guardian of the seas, the goddess Maṇīmekhalā – who as it transpires, very important to the story, only saves the lives of the virtuous. The man behind this project’s visceral soundtrack, Oxford-based polymath Sebastian Reynolds, composes a most diaphanous ascendant theme to that deity; the leading transcendent evocation from this new EP is a subtle, resonating vision of blissful devotion that softly (angelically even) transforms the rich sounds of Southeast Asian traditional music to produce a dreamy lofty cloud gazing homage.
The musical, dance and artful direction of this production and its score can be found in Thailand. Sparked, in part, by Reynolds’ arts-funded trip to Bangkok in 2016, the reedy sound of the native Pi-Nai instrument, which he recorded during his time there, can be heard permeating the goddess saviors theme. You may also hear the accentuated and understated tonal drones of German cellist extraordinaire Anne Müller woven into the effortless fusion of veneration tradition and the contemporary ambient. Müller of course recently released a debut LP, but has collaborated with Reynolds on a number of albums and performances, most notably the triumvirate of experimental chamber electronica, the Solo Collective, with both Reynolds and German virtuosi Alex Stolze.
The EP’s accompanying track, the lively bamboo skittering South Seas ‘Cherd’, features an attentive cascading mallet bouncing regal dash performance from the Thai piphat troupe, The Jongkraben Ensemble; a performance that was originally specially commissioned by Reynolds. Continuing with the many Thai connections, one of the two remixes on this EP is by the Thai producer, musician, composer and project collaborator Pradit Saengkral, who expands Reynolds original Maṇīmekhalā theme into a both expansively dreamy and more seriously intense journey of caressed piano, pondered bass guitar notes and mysterious atmospherics.
As I’ve already said, a collaborative affair, The Mahanjanka project from which this latest EP derives, was conceived and put together by Reynolds, the contemporary dance company Neon Dance and the award-winning Thai dancer and choreographer Pichet Klunchun. Taking their source material and inspirations extremely serious, not only by spending time abroad absorbing and working with an array of Thai talent, Buddhist scholar and author of the Penguin Classics translations of the Jataka, Dr. Sarah Shaw, was on-hand to lend support and monitor this special interpretation.
Closer to home, cult producer of the moment, Capitol K offers a brilliant transportive and sophisticated ‘psytrance’ pumped exotic treatment of The Jongkraben Ensemble’s wooden mallet dash to nirvana, ‘Cherd’. Of which he opines:
“From playing the Goat Herder album out live I found myself recently developing more ambient long form dance floor tracks, focusing on the low midrange and kick frequencies in particular. In conversation with a producer friend recently we were discussing the merits of the much maligned idea of psytrance in a festival context, I don’t think this remix quite makes it to psytrance but I felt that in remixing the ancient and complex scores of piphat, the only way I could be humble with my illiteracy to the form was with my own take on a trance remix.”
A most beautifully conceived vision that fuses tradition with the subtlest of electronica, ambient and trance, this multi-disciplined performance is worth experiencing in the flesh. You can catch the UK leg of the tour at the following venues and on these dates.
Mahajanaka Dance Drama – UK Tour November 2019
13th – Jacqueline du Pré, Oxford
14th – Pavilion Dance, Bournemouth
16th+17th – British Library, London
20th+21st – The Library Presents, Cambridgeshire
Plus a talk and excerpt performance event at the Multi-Faith Centre, University of Derby, on 19th November.
Until then, enjoy the second EP of congruous spiritual evocations from that captivating project.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 