Our Daily Bread 317: Wand, She Keeps Bees, Shit Creek, Outside The Glitch, Julinko, Charly Bliss
April 5, 2019
Reviews Roundup: Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Wand ‘Laughing Matter’
(Drag City) 19th April 2019
A wave of the Wand and the magic commences. An album of sublime modern life psychedelia, ‘Scarecrow’ kicks it all off with the sound of Radiohead melting in a honey tangle web of sunshine sadness. I cannot believe this band are not fans of the wonder that is Clinic; ‘XoXo’ could easily fit in amongst the Liverpool band’s finest. The repetitive synth and drum beat of that track descends into a mass wave of wonky a plonkyness.
This really is a fun listen, fun but with a dark undertow of sadness – a serial killer with a painted on smile on someone else’s face, or should that be someone else’s farce.
There is a balance to the madness that emits from this Laughing Matter, the more it goes on the more I lose myself in their crazy world of sullen sunshine; it’s a real pick you up in these days of uncertainty and sadness whether it be the Stone Roses meet Jed Clampett like instrumental ‘Hare’ or the fuzz bass monster of a wonder track, which is actually called ‘Wonder’, and is one of the finest pop moments on the whole album: which is actually full of them. ‘Airplane’ for instance is a nine-minute flight of beauty a true marvel of a track, air-pure vocals float over a reflective shadow of instrumental solitude only to explode in a mass of singular eclectic guitar frenzy. Track thirteen, ‘Lucky’s Sight’ is a modern space rock masterpiece; ‘Wonder (II)’ lives up to its name, and the final song, ‘Jennifer’s Gone’, is worthy of the mighty Lou Reed in his early 70s pomp.
Laughing Matter really is a fantastic album, and it reminds us that such makes delightfully heartbreakingly beautiful and adventurous music such as this is still being made and released.
Charly Bliss ‘Young Enough’
10th May 2019
To be honest I nearly dismissed this LP, but I’m glad I didn’t. As I don’t really think I’m the target audience Charly Bliss are going for – I probably have older guitars than this bunch of pesky kids.
I can though imagine my 20-year-old daughter loving this record; it is power pop, punk pop, or is it pop punk? Anyway, whatever it is they do it very well but pop music is pop music whatever your age, whether you are making it or listening to it and if you cannot enjoy well written catchy songs, if you cannot remember what is like to be young and falling in love for the first time or remember the yearning for the girl/guy you will never get or the girl/guy you did get but could not keep, if you cannot remember I recommend you give Young Enough a listen and all those wonderful happy sad memories will come flooding back.
It has the wonderful melancholy magic all great pop is blessed with, and Charly Bliss are blessed with a fine pop singer in Eva Hendricks who writes fine catchy pop punk songs with darker than normal lyrics: “Eyes like a funeral mouth like a bruise” she declares in the beautiful ballad ‘Hurt Me’.
So the next time one of my middle-aged friends says to me “they just do not know how to make music these days” I will think of this album and tell them to FUCK OFF!
Shit Creek ‘Prozac Rainbow’
(Wormhole World) 15th March 2019
I have been told many times that I’m going insane, and if so, this could be the LP to soundtrack my descent into that madness. This is not music as such, well actually it is, it has melodies it has an obscure soul to it that I find quite heartwarming.
It is not something you will hear if you tune into BBC 6 music during the daytime or night time, come to think of it, maybe the Freakzone if you are lucky.
Prozac Rainbow is a magic concoction of found sounds manipulated into a series of experimental sound bites; a wavitude of spellbinding oddities that verge not just on the psychedelic: The ‘Ice Cream Van Glimmering In the Nascent Sun’ track is a modern piece of psychedelic wonder though – Imagine the Clangers winding up a giant clock whilst kicking Roger Waters up the arse. Marvelous stuff indeed.
Once again that marvelous new record label Wormhole has unearthed another experimental gem, still available at the time of writing on very ltd cd. Get in there quick my beauties.
She Keeps Bees ‘Kinship’
(BB* Island) 10th May 2019
I am tense. I am uninspired. I am in need of an escape, something to take my mind off the general shallowness of modern life: mobile smart phones, ipads on buses, people losing themselves in the latest stream of facebook, twitter posts of mediocre mass produced mainstream music cluttering up my once invaluable, once best friend, the radio. I am in need of this LP by She Keeps Bees.
I need this call for the beauty hymn to nature. I need this maybe a modern equivalent to Gene Clark No Other album, all brushed drums haunting organ/keyboards strummed and plucked acoustic guitars that at times remind me of Nirvana’s finest moment [their Unplugged LP].
This LP is indeed a lifesaver; an LP to lose yourself in as the world turns from mad to insane. But there is power, there is magic in this life and that magic is music. And She Keeps Bee’s cast such wonderful spells.
I could give you many reasons why you should buy this LP, but I won’t. I will just say you need this album more than you will ever know.
Outside The Glitch ‘ST’
(Wormhole World) 22nd March 2019
What is the word I’m looking for? Ambiance. That is the word to describe this mini LP/EP; a work that Eno would no doubt put on his slippers to whilst lighting his pipe after a night out with Bryan Ferry, everybody’s favourite lounge lizard.
These five tracks you can imagine turning up in a late night thriller; one can smell the tension in the air; one could throw down ones towel and whisper quietly to your old time neighbour called Cecil and wish him a fond goodnight. Like good old canary sex it is both unexpected and highly unlikely. What on earth am I reading?! That’s probably what you are thinking to yourself as you read this review. Well that is my point, ambient music means different things to different people everybody has a different way of viewing things, one man’s goose is another man’s gander. Music like this sets people’s imagination floating in different directions.
This a fine release with a quintet of very mellow tracks that set one’s imagination into flight. From the sublime to the sublime, Wormhole Records should be congratulated on yet another unusual and different release: You really should check out their catalogue.
Julinko ‘Néktar’
(Toten Schwan/ Stoned To Death Records) 15th April 2019
Looking at the song titles I realised that this wasn’t going to be an album of happy disco stompers, and I was right. The intro, called ‘The Flowing Stream Plunge Me Deep’, is a beautiful short instrumental piece that sets the mood for the whole LP; an LP that has the decadent shimmer of an Autumn day spent with your dead memories, a slowed down purge of emotion of grief for a former lover who is not dead but still alive and living in the same town, the same house, you have to pass every day on the way to work, so you can afford to carry on with your mundane existence.
Néktar brings to the surface the same emotions you feel when listening the magic weaved by the Cocteau Twins. At times it reminds me of listening to PJ Harvey in slow motion; not the LP to play whilst doing the housework unless you live in 16th century castle surrounded by cobwebs with a hunchback dwarf sat on a wooden stool in the corner begging you to put away your broom and to pay him some attention.
This is indeed a dark beauty that is not only to be cherished but also indulged. A fine album indeed.
Our Daily Bread 316: Black Flower ‘Future Flora’
April 4, 2019
Album Review: Dominic Valvona
Black Flower ‘Future Flora’
(Sdban Ultra) 12th April 2019
The soundtrack to a cross-pollination of the mystical and cosmological, Black Flower’s darkened flora scent of Afro-Futurist and Ethiopian jazz drifts and wafts across an atmospheric, amorphous landscape. Continuing to dream up eclectic instrumental vistas, from the loose vine-creeping and astral probed excavations of the famous Cambodian Khmer Empire-built ‘Ankor Wat’ temple complex to the trilling saxophone, desert trudge meets cornet Savoy Jazz dancehall fantasy encapsulation of the atavistic Northern Ethiopian city of Aksum, the Belgium quintet map out a musical terrain both tribally funky and expletory.
Hitching a ride on the Chariot of the Gods as they traverse legendary and hidden cities, the pyramids and desert trading posts, they absorb sounds and rhythms from all over the globe; including the bowed and percussive droning blues of the Réunion Island and archipelago derived Maloya – banned for years by the French authorities that ruled this dependency – and various Balkan traditions. And so as the emerging light of a nuzzled suffused saxophone and snake charmer flute accompanied dawn evokes an Egyptian setting at first, on the title-track odyssey, by the end of this trip the quintet have limbered and swanned through Mulatu Astatke dappled organ led Ethio-jazz, Afro-psych and ritualistic funk. The tooting horns and bouncing, spotting ‘Clap Hands’ sways between Lagos and New York, whilst the retro-fitted cosmic ‘Early Days Of Space Travel Part 2’ takes-off on a flight of psychedelic dub fantasy from an imagined West African outpost of NASA.
Though framed as a metaphor for the importance of “feeding and watering powerful and revolutionary ideas and initiatives that can save the world”, Black Flower express themselves with a controlled vigor and magical rhapsody: exotic, experimental but deeply thoughtful.
Future Flora invokes escapism yet chimes with the need to articulate the uncertainties and anguish of our present times by creating a rich tapestry of universal unity; channeling the sounds, heritage and history of cultures seldom celebrated in the West. Magical, mystical, diverse, Black Flower take jazz into some interesting directions; the roots of which, incubated in the Ethiopian hothouse, look set to break through the brutal concrete miasma to blossom in the light.
Our Daily Bread 315: Per W/Pawlowski ‘Outside/Insider’
April 3, 2019
Album Review: Dominic Valvona
Per W/Pawlowski ‘Outsider/Insider’
(Jezus Factory/Starman Records) 29th March 2019
Thirteen years after their first collaboration together, two stalwarts of the alternative Belgian music scene once more reunite to produce, what they call, their very own unique White Album curiosity. The intergenerational musical partnership of one-time dEUS guitar-slinger for hire Mauro Pawlowski and maverick legend Kloot Per W proves an experimental – if odd – success in mining both artist’s influences and providence; the results of which, transformed into a playful, often knowing and pastiche, misadventure, are performed with conviction. Behind the often-masked mayhem and classic rock poses lurk serious, sometimes cathartic wise observations.
No stranger to regular readers of this blog, the Hitsville Drunk and solo collaborator in a host of projects that include a Zappa bastardized covers album with The Flat Earth Society and a Dutch language folk record under the Maurits Pauwels appellation, Pawlowski last appeared as a member of the Pawlowski, Trouve & Ward triumvirate, who’s soloist shared collection, Volume 2, showcased various expletory suites from each respective artist involved. For his part, Pawlowski contributed a 80s schlock driller-killer, straight-to-video, soundtrack (complete with made-up advert slots); the highlight of which, and a blast of inspiration for this latest album, was the pyrotechnic explosion, fist-bumping, AM radio rock anthem, ‘Starught’.
His compatriot on this ride, Per W, has a form that stretches right back to the late 60s, most notably as the bassist for The Misters and then as a guitarist for The Employees. A solo career in the early 80s saw the idiosyncratic musician knock out a slew of albums, the majority of which were purposely limited to cassette only releases; his first proper vinyl album, Pearls Before Swine, arriving in the later part of that decade. Various stints in the JJ Burnel produced Polyphonic Size and the Sandie Trash, Strictly Rockers, Chop Chicks and De Lama followed. In more recent years he’s recorded an album of Velvet Underground covers (called Inhale Slowly And Feel) and the DRILL collection of abstract music, composed for an art installation based on rebuilding the composer and inventor Raymond Scott’s Manhattan Research Inc. studio. A mixed resume I’m sure you’ll agree; one that fuels a diverse twenty-one track spanning opus of songs, traverses and instrumental vignettes.
With the deep sagacious and world-weary voice of Per W leading, Outsider/Insider merges the mixed fortunes of both artists; whether it’s the jangly Traveling Wilburys like power rock pastiche ‘KPW On 45’ and its commentary on the cultural overbearance of American culture (“American rock star live in my European food!”) or, the iron fire-escape tapping, industrial funk gyrating, seductive if awkward ‘Room!’, Per W adds just enough off-center lyricism and ambivalence to make even the most obvious-sounding straight-A tune take a turn into weirdville.
There are twilight rodeo love swoons, complete with female muse (‘We Won’t Lose Touch’), pendulous Marillion-meets-Dave Arnold-soundtrack like jabbering allusions to Beatles songs (a cover for all I know of ‘Eleanor Rigby’, or just nicking the title), early Soluwax cowbell synth-rock (‘Waitin’ For The Con Man’), and various probes into the cosmos with the arpeggiator stained-glass synth-y new romantics ‘Human Groin’, space-rock doctors waiting room diorama ‘Say What You Do’, and glistened Tangerine Dream, ‘The Dream Pop Spa’. Visages of new wave pop bastions The Cars connect with Gothic vapours; breakouts of dEUS rock wrangle with Outside era Bowie sinister art-school pretensions; and Eagle-Eye Cherry drowns in post-punk malady on an album of both wizened angst and “que sera sera” relief.
At ease in their own skins, these two mischievous bedfellows have a devil-may-care attitude to making music; free of commercial pressures (to a point) Pawlowski and Per W seem to record whatever the fuck they want, yet do it with total conviction and adroit skill.
Off-white to The Beatles stark magnolia gloss, Outsider/Insider is hardly a classic – dysfunctional or otherwise –, but is an amusing, sometimes absurd, and well-crafted alternative art-rock record of some ambition and style.
Our Daily Bread 314: Labelle ‘Orchestre Univers’
April 2, 2019
Review: Andrew C. Kidd
Labelle ‘Orchestre Univers’
(Infiné) 5th April 2019
“Nout Maloya lé mondial” (“Our Maloya is global!”) was what the Réunionese media exclaimed after Maloya – a vocal and percussive music genre forged on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion in the 18th and 19th centuries – was placed on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of UNESCO1. Ten years have passed since that day on Réunion.
Enter Jérémy Labelle. Born in France to a Réunionese father and a French mother, he moved to the island in 2011 to further develop a sound he dubs “Maloya electronics”. He has successfully bridged the Detroit techno, modern classical and Maloya music genres on his two previous albums: Ensemble (Eumolpe Records, 2013), an amalgamation of synthetic and acoustic sounds (check out the aptly named track Rhythm), and the well-received Univers-île (Infiné, 2017), a more focused work that builds upon multiple tempi. His latest album, Orchestre Univers, was performed by the Orchestre Regional of Réunion Island, conducted by Laurent Goossaert. The ten pieces from the album (three previously published and seven original works) were recorded live over four concerts that took place on the island.
The opening piece is a revisited version of Playing at the End of the Universe (it originally featured on his Univers-île album). Admittedly, I do prefer the previously released and somewhat rawer version, particularly the dreamy build-up at the end that bustles with electronically-altered marimbas, glockenspiels and other tunefully percussive instruments à la Four Tet from his album Rounds (Domino, 2003). Take nothing away from the live version though, it is also very good. The dreamy reverberation of émotion du vide follows and is filled with reedy high notes that reach towards the sky. The woodwind trio also lift the stringed staccato and counterpoint percussion on Soul Introspection (Orchestre univers Version). This piece also features a time-signature bending rolling bass line which is characteristic of Labelle’s “Maloya electronics”. Prakash Sontakke slides around guitar notes in impressive fashion. He reappears later in the album playing a step-like lullaby on the final track, La Vie.
Le moment present initially tricks the listener into thinking that it is an outro to the piece that precedes it; the rhythm that builds upon the martelé (hammered) staccato and pizzicato of the strings quickly dispels this. The bassy drums provide depth as we are led into Oublie-voie-espace-dimension and O, the two best pieces on the album. The former opens with a fervent electronic sequence that dances around hard drum beats; the looped organ cycle that features adds an almost ecclesiastical dimension. The drums and percussion eventually reach fever pitch as O drops. O is a full-throttle, tribal house rhythmic adventure. Contrapuntal rhythms and maniacal synth-heavy electronics gradually quicken and push the sound into delirious overdrive. Strings and wind instruments converge at the end offering little in the way of respite.
Mécanique inverse sets out at a similar tempo. Labelle introduces a soundtrack-esque melody, masterfully played by the guitar, string, woodwind and percussion sections of the orchestra. The glassy, razor-like synth and radio-static outro herald an applause from the audience reminding the listener that this is a live album (the production and standard of musicianship are so good that one often cannot tell that these are live performances!). Stase, différence et répétition is a dark ambient piece akin to the likes of Nurse with Wound and Rasplyn. Percussive jangles and portamento strings float in a sea of muffled synths and indistinct field recordings. String harmonics and wood-tapping of the violins open re-créer (Orchestre univers Version). I have previously listened to this track on Labelle’s Post-Maloya EP (Infiné, 2018). A double-kick drum beat pulsates beneath steely and metallic sounding granular synths that change key and crescendo in a manner not too dissimilar to Clark’s Body Riddle (Warp, 2006).
Jérémy Labelle is clearly a very talented musician, composer and producer. He casts his net of influence wide to draw upon many musical styles. His synthesis of modal harmonies and tribal rhythms is very reminiscent of the ‘Fourth World’ created by the venerable Jon Hassell. I have read numerous interviews with Labelle who cites identity and anthropology as themes which have inspired him to write music. Orchestre Univers feels more like a celebration, a coming together of musicians and audiences to rejoice at the unique music that has emerged from the island of Réunion. The electronics and compositional complexities offered by Labelle are merely 21st century adaptations to what is an age-old sound. They should not be dismissed. His concept of “Maloya electronics” is truly global and will ensure that the next generation of Réunionese continue to declare, “Nous Maloya lé mondial!”
1UNESCO. Intangible Heritage Lists: Maloya. Available from: https://ich.unesco.org/en/RL/maloya-00249 (cited 29/03/2019)
Interview: Mini Dresses
April 1, 2019
Interview: Gianluigi Marsibilio
In association with our friends at the Italian publication Kalporz, the Monolith Cocktail will be sharing and exchanging reviews, interviews and articles. The second post in this series features Gianluigi Marsibilio‘s interview with the Boston outfit, the Mini Dresses.
Boston is a city that changes and lives through its colleges, underground scenes and germinal countercultures. The Mini Dresses are “imperfect” children of this city and, after a long road of EPs and a first album full of identity and incisiveness, are ready to return with a second work that tells a different reality, suspended between fantasies and dystopias.
Lira, Caufield and Luke present themselves sincerely, telling us about their living relationship with the recording studio and many other things. In the interview they also give us some tips on some pearls to rediscover.
Their latest album Heaven Sent was released on March 22nd.
GM: Yours is a career that has been dotted with many EPs, before the realization of an effective album. How did your work on so many different EPS help you to write an album?
It didn’t! It was tough to adjust to a long format work cycle. We started making music around 2010-2011, when blog singles were the main way DIY bands projected themselves. For years it hadn’t occurred to us to make an album since there were no resources to do that and it seemed few people would care to listen to us in a sustained format anyway. We even produced our EPs in a brief way, often writing our songs and then recording them in a single sitting. When we felt pressure to produce our first album in 2016, we felt simultaneously well-established as a band and late to the party of our medium. It felt unnatural to us to do something slowly whereas we had previously done it quickly.
What themes did you try to approach on Heaven Sent?
Communication breakdown, empathy that is lost on the moment, narratives of indecisive people weighing their options.
On the album you feel a particular attitude to use and exploit sound passages in a way similar to a film soundtrack. How did the movie soundtracks inspire you? Which ones in particular?
We are film fans and think of our music cinematically, like we’re setting a scene. It follows that we love film soundtracks. Lira, in fact, enjoys Italian film scores, like those of Piero Umiliani; Caufield is currently listening to the pastoral folk/Giallo synth genre-mash score of Cannibal Holocaust, which is a classic horror soundtrack.
There are a lot of interesting songs on the record that seem to hide very special stories. How did ‘Lady Running’ come about?
‘Lady Running’ is one of Lira’s more emotional songs on the album, about a hypothetical argument, perhaps, that has no direct correspondence in reality!
Yours is an elegant rock. What were your spiritual fathers from a sound point of view? How was your relationship born, so intimately built with this sound?
Thanks for saying “elegant”! We are open-ended music fans, and enjoy rock and pop music at the polar extremes of luxurious/ornate and rigorous/minimal. While making Heaven Sent, we listened to a mélange of early 80s goth and classic country (genres that secretly have a lot in common), 60s-70s soundtracks and library music, some American and Japanese new age, as well as outsider pop like that of Anna Domino, Kate Bush, and Virna Lindt.
How did your city influence you?
We know Boston as a sleek and technologized city that is hyper-expensive and oriented towards university life. A large ratio of bands come from the colleges, circulating in and out of the city every 4 years, which lends itself to an exciting yet impermanent music scene. Established bands struggle with impossible rents and a general lack of venues to play. It is dispiriting, but many great bands come up and foster connections here, which speaks to the strength of creative people who live in Boston against the visions of the city “developers”. It should be said that Boston has many admirable counter-culture histories, as well, which inspire us to make music even when it can feel like there are dwindling local incentives to do so in the present.
What are the feelings about these slightly scary times that you want to convey with your music?
Our music doesn’t have overt political messaging, nor does our band agitate explicitly against the Fascistic tides rising around us, i.e. with confrontational anti-authoritarian lyrics and etc. It’s not our project here, though we are invested in how our music processes and propagates moods from the left. Obviously our music traffics in mood states that render certain political atmospheres, like when our compositions unify around conveyance of depression, indecision, disappointment, etc. The point is to work through those emotions in the grain of the music, as opposed to just capitalizing on them in a cheap way. We thought about this more seriously when our song ‘Sad Eyes’ from 2016 became an underground hit associated with “sad” web aesthetics – what is this stylizing, as a social situation, aestheticized discontent? Also, we’ve been associated with “warm” or “chill” music movements before, which is bothersome. We do tend to work with musical tonalities that sneak up on you, in the background, but they do not necessarily come from a place of idealized coziness or passive dreaming. We want a “dream pop” that can arise from disturbing scenes in reality, not neutralizing it.
During your recordings it almost seems that you love to communicate even through breaths, the simplest sounds. For this album which tricks did you use?
We self-record, frequently, in a diaristic way. The process can be intimate and imperfect, like making sketches. We try to retain that level of contingency and detail in the moment of making the first mark. And we’re tuned in to the textural elements of production (tape hiss, pops and clicks in the voice, self-noise in the microphone). It is a mixing strategy for us to amplify the ambient sounds of the machine, not for the sake of fashionable obscurity or fetish of small sounds, but just because we think it’s worthwhile to preserve the sound of things working in the moment.
In the near future will we see you in Europe or in Italy?
We occasionally travel in Europe, albeit individually, not coordinated as a band. We would consider an European summer tour if we could set a path where we would not go broke or lose our jobs in the states. We don’t even tour in the US for this reason. We would say this: we are probably more likely to set up a European tour than an American one!
Do you have any particular connection with Italy?
Not specifically. We love Italian film and music. Please have us come play a show some time!
Our Daily Bread 313: Vukovar ‘Cremator’
March 29, 2019
Review: Dominic Valvona
Vukovar ‘Cremator’
(Other Voices Records) 25th May 2019
In a constant state of erratic flux, you never know which particular inception of Vukovar will show up when the time comes to laying down their brand of hermetic imbued visions for posterity, the only constant being de facto avatar, whether anyone agreed or not to this appointment, Rick Antonsson.
Yet in only four years since laying down the foundations of their stark morbid curiosity and industrial Gothic pop debut Emperor, Vukovar have managed to record seven albums via umpteen labels and always via a series of travails and fall-outs. Flanked at the time of recording by Dan Shea and Buddy Preston, and with the dutiful Phil Reynolds of Small Bear Records fame sticking it all together once more as producer, the seventh three-syllable signature grand theatre of despondent romanticism is a collaborative affairs of a kind, featuring as it does both the vaporous linger and narration of Holly Hero (Smell & Quim) and omnipresence of Simon Morris (The Ceramic Hobs).
Cremator arrives just as the Vukovar look certain to split: Buddy and Dan breaking away recently to form the Beauty Stab duo, their debut single already released on Metal Postcard Records. Carrying the torch for now, going forward, Rick will continue with the Vukovar mantle. Far from orchestrated, Cremator is nonetheless a swansong, a curtain call at least for the original lineup. It just happens to also be one of the band’s best and most accomplished works.
Suffused with disillusion, as they row across a veiled River Styx (or in this case, as alluded to in the yearning slow junk ride over the lapping black waves of tortured cries of ‘The River Of Three Crossings’, the Japanese Buddhist version of that mythological destination), Vukovar and converts add more fuel to a bonfire of vanities to an overall sound that reimagines Bernard Summer as the frontman of a Arthur Baker produced Jesus And Mary Chain.
Though always wearing their influences on their sleeves, there’s also this time around a trio of cover versions, both obvious and more obscure. These include a despondent if scuzzed growling bass with radiant synth live version of the Go-Betweens ‘Dive For Your Memory’, a cooed ethereal voiced dreamy, with phaser-effects set to stun, diaphanous vision of Psychic TV’s ‘The Orchids’, and, most poignant, a gauze-y heaven-bound ghostly homage (complete with Hebrew vocals) to the late Tel Aviv cowboy Charlie Megira, on the hymnal ‘Tomorrow’s Gone’.
Elsewhere a Gothic esoteric atmosphere of post-punk and apparition crooned rock’n’roll invokes a communion between Alan Vega and the Silver Apples on the magisterial downer ‘Internment By Mirrors’, Coil and Joy Division on the album’s imperial vortex of sorrow, half-narrated, opener ‘Roma Invicta’, and Blixa Bargeld era Bad Seeds leap into the augur’s furnace with The Sisters Of Mercy, on the heavy toiled ‘Voices/Seers/Voices’.
It sounds darkly glorious in all its melodrama and pomposity, with as cerebral high artistic references as the infamous Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s feature length documentary ‘Love Meetings’, and the ‘Decameron’ 100-story spanning novellas of the 14th century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio: In fact, what with the album’s opening use of the triumphal Latin mantra of an all-conquering Roman Empire (before it’s famous fall), there’s a lot of Italian, both atavistic and modern, on show; that and a prevailing theme of love, whether it’s spurned, lost, mourned or unspoken.
Once more unto the breach, Vukovar cast augurs or reflect, mooningly on the past; channeling various vessels from beyond the ether as they prowl the shadow world in pursuit or articulating a vision of dark arts experimental drama. As with the previous Monument LP they recorded with the gloom luminary Michael Cashmore, Vukovar find congruous soul mates in their choice of collaborators, Hero and Morris; attuning those individuals equally mysterious and supernatural leanings and illusions to the ambitious Vukovar mysticism.
Cremator is a death knell; the end of one era and setting in motion of a new chapter: whatever that ends up looking or sounding like. It just happens that they’ve bowed out in style with, perhaps, the original lineup (of a sort) most brooding masterpiece yet. Long may they continue, in one form or another.
Words: Dominic Valvona
Playlist: Dominic Valvona/Matt Oliver
I’ll be brief – less chat, more music please – as you want the goods, but the Quarterly Revue is our chance to pick out choice tracks to represent a three month period in the Monolith Cocktail’s output. New releases and the best of reissues plucked from the team – me, Dominic Valvona, Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Andrew C. Kidd and Gianluigi Marsibilio – rub shoulders in the most eclectic of playlists. The full track list is awesome, global and diverse and can be found below.
Tracklist in full:
Abdesselem Damoussi & Nour Eddine ‘Sabaato Rijal’
Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba (Ft. Abdoulaye Diabate) ‘Fanga’
Foals ‘Cafe D’Athens’
Kel Assouf ‘Tenere’
Deep Cut ‘Sharp Tongues’
Royal Trux ‘Suburban Junky Lady’
Ifriqiyya Electrique ‘Mashee Kooka’
39 Clocks ‘Psycho Beat’
The Proper Ornaments ‘Crepuscular Child’
Swazi Gold ‘Free Nelly’
Eerie Wanda ‘Magnetic Woman’
Julia Meijer ‘Fall Into Place’
Mozes And The Firstborn (Ft. PANGEA) ‘Dadcore’
Lite Storm ‘People (Let It Go Now)’
Downstroke & Gee Bag ‘Ooh My My My’
Errol Dunkley ‘Satisfaction’
Old Paradice/Confucius MC/Morriarchi ‘Sunkissed’
Black Flower ‘Future Flora’
Santiago Cordoba ‘Red’
Dexter Story (Ft. Kibrom Birhane) ‘Bila’
Houssam Gania ‘Moulay Lhacham’
Garrett N. ‘Avant’
Sir Robert Orange Peel ‘I’ve Started So I’ll Finish’
Gunter Schickert ‘Wohin’
Defari & Evidence ‘Ackknowledgement’
Eddie Russ ‘The Lope Song’
Oh No & Madlib ‘Big Whips’
CZARFACE & Ghostface ‘Mongolian Beef’
Greencryptoknight ‘Superman’
Choosey & Exile (Ft. Aloe Blacc) ‘Low Low’
Little Albert ‘Gucci Geng’
The KingDem ‘The Conversation (We Ain’t Done Yet)’
Wiki ‘Cheat Code’
Dear Euphoria ‘Push-Pull’
Tim Linghaus ‘Crossing Bornholmer (Reprise, Pt. II)’
Station 17 (Ft. Harald Grosskopf & Eberhard Kranemann) ‘…And Beyond’
Heyme ‘Noisz’
Clovvder ‘Solipsismo’
Ustad Saami ‘God Is’
Louis Jucker ‘Seagazer’
The Telescopes ‘Don’t Place Your Happiness In The Hands Of Another’
Blue House ‘Margate Jukebox’
Tempertwig ‘Apricot’
3 South & Banana ‘Magdalen Eye’
With Hidden Noise ‘The Other Korea’
Beauty Stab ‘O Eden’
Coldharbourstores ‘Something You Do Not Know’
Katie doherty & The Navigators ‘I’ll Go Out’
Mekons ‘How Many Stars?’
Graham Domain ‘Farewell Song’
Our Daily Bread 312: John Howard ‘Cut The Wire’
March 26, 2019
Album Review: Dominic Valvona
John Howard ‘Cut The Wire’
(You Are The Cosmos) March 15th 2019
Returning after the deep cerebral peregrinations of the previous Across The Door Sill album to the shorter romantic balladry and stage show-like songwriting that first garnered such acclaim for the adroit pianist troubadour, John Howard’s first full songbook in three years is a most sagacious beautifully articulated affair of the heart.
Enjoying a renaissance of interest in recent years; choosing projects wisely and wholly on artistic and desirable (enjoyable too) merit, Howard has recorded a well-received collaboration with Andy Lewis, Ian Button and Robert Rotifer, under the The Night Mail moniker, the already mentioned open-ended experimental ATDS, and delivered the first volume in a vivid and travail autobiography (part two to follow anytime soon) that not only deals with Howard’s haphazard rise and misfortunes in the music industry but chronicles the misadventures of a gay artist in a far from understanding world. The star-turn dealt a typical band hand by the industry as a burgeoning artist in the 1970s, the singer-songwriter pianist turned to A&R (quite successfully as it happens) but always seem destined to plow his own unique furrow; decades later and with wised self-belief, fully in control of his own career. Though he’s found congruous labels, including the wonderful You Are The Cosmos, to launch his recent catalogue of new music, Howard is a candid one-man industry, totally in command of his legacy and story.
So far the overall results of this output have been anything but indulgent, the quality maintained, with arguably some of his best work being produced in the previous five or six years. The 16th studio album, Cut The Wire, is the first to be recorded at Howard’s Una Casita hacienda studio oasis in Murcia; surroundings that lend themselves well to the meditative and questioning yearns of Howard’s most rich balladry.
Those familiar with the previous From The Morning EP of inspired cover versions will hear the imbued spirit of The Incredible String Band once more on this album’s percussive jangly and bellow-y Parisian peaceable opener ‘So Here I Go’ and the mobile-trinket twinkly and bowed strings title-track: The first of those homespun-words-of-wisdom sonnets evoking a Krishna Dylan, even Donovan. Intentioned or not, the softened doo-wopish lull of enduring adversity ‘Keep Going, Angel’, the forlorn venerated organ blessed ‘We Are’, and sweetly-laced Baroque-psych autobiographical ‘Remains’ all sound like lost ballads from The Beach Boys Friends and Surf’s Up albums. You can also pick up the scents of prime 1970s Elton John, The Beatles, Jeff Lynne and Nilsson in the sage’s purposeful beatific longing maladies and paean performances.
Decentering with blissful melodic ease, Howard, with signature vulnerability, swells and also glides through various chapters of his life; ‘Remains’ recalling to a chiming harpsichord and swooning harmonies regrets in not standing one’s ground, and the nostalgic dreamy-pop ‘Idiot Days’ reflects on the foolish indulgences of youth and the oblivious-at-the-time harmful consequences. But Howard, in more mournful mood, also ruminates on the divisive topics of Brexit; sailing on an accordion wafting elegiac barge on ‘Pre-Dawn’ with cathartic despondency to the changing political landscape and the lack of generosity.
A thoughtful songbook that returns to the melodious balladry of past triumphs and a nod to the rich tapestry of influences that first inspired him, Cut The Wire is timeless; another beautifully written and sung album from an artists radiant with quality.
Words: Dominic Valvona
Our Daily Bread 311: Swazi Gold, Louis Jucker, Graham Domain, Venus Fly Trap, Quiet Marauder
March 25, 2019
Reviews: Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Swazi Gold ‘Jehovah’s Witness’
8th March 2019
Swazi Gold is a new three-piece band from Melbourne, Australia. As I’m a huge Go Betweens/Triffids fan I was hoping for sweeping guitar melodies to melt my heart and to bring tears to my eyes. And to be honest I wasn’t disappointed.
Songs float and purr not just recalling the halcyon days of Postcard records but also bringing to mind Can in a poppier frame of mind, indie tin pot disco sleaze programmed Casio beats, surf guitar and with the nod and wink of Bourgie Bourgie the band that should have been stars but were not even a afterthought.
There are so many layers to the simplicity of this LP that it really is quite a beautiful thing. This six track mini album is way too short and I look forward to hearing a full album worth of songs that manage to make me think of the Doors, Beat Happening and the Moles in the space of a eight and a half minute final triumph, which the band do on ‘Reflections’: a track which pulls off the rare feat of feeling like its only three minutes long.
A band to watch out for in 2019 and beyond.
Louis Jucker ‘Kråkeslottet (The Crow’s Castle)’
(Hummus Records) 1st March 2019
This LP is wonderful. I could stop there and write no more, but I’m not going to.
This is the sound of the Velvet Underground, the Cure, an acoustic Can, Mercury Rev, Grandaddy and Arab Strap having a get together to show each other how they write and record, moving pieces of aural magic.
It has a darkness a moodiness, a passion in its lo-finess, and we all know how much I adore lo-finess. ‘A Modest Feast’ makes me feel uncomfortable, ‘Storage Tricks’ is moving enough to have been recorded by the Microscopes, and ‘Tale Of A Teacher’s Son’ could have been recorded by Ed Sheeran if he had a personality and made art instead of product.
This is a strange LP; it jumps from pop to abstract piano tone music to moving spoken pieces over beautifully simple acoustic backing. An album anyone who likes the unusual should check out; like I said in the opening line, this LP is wonderful.
The Venus Fly Trap ‘Morphine EP’
7th February 2019
This describes itself as Post -Goth, which is a very good description but I would have just stuck with Goth myself. The Venus Fly Trap are a three piece from Northampton and by the sounds of it have soaked up all the influences from Bauhaus and Rose Of Avalanche and such ilk and mixed it with a bit of Gothabilly ala Demented are go and early Alien Sex Fiend, before they discovered Dance music, and to my mind became a bit disappointing.
This however, is not at all disappointing. It would in fact go down very well with Goths of all ages it has the mechanical drum beat, the throbbing Goth bass and the metal like guitars all good Goth music should have. It has the strained early Bowie as Ziggy reflections in the vocals, not unlike the other Bowie acolyte Pete Murphy (or is he still calling himself Peter Murphy). Anyway this may not be the most original sounding EP you will hear this year but that does not mean it is not worth hearing, as it is anyone who likes their rock with a touch of the dark side should give it a listen.
Tempertwig ‘FAKE NOSTALGIA: An Anthology of Broken Stuff’
(Audio Antihero/Randy Sadage) 29th March 2019
I was pleased to see in my email box the new release from the excellent Audio Antihero label, a label I have been known to splash out and occasionally buy their releases. Also a label that once had my band The Bordellos Ronco Revival Sound LP in their favourite albums of the year list in 2013 [i think], so a label with great taste.
One of the CDs I bought from Audio Antihero was the Superman Revenge Squad album. Why do I mention this? Well it’s because members of that band were also in Tempertwig, this being a anthology of Tempertwigs recordings.
What do Tempertwig sound like I hear you ask? Well, beautiful bus queue Heartache; the overheard one sided phone conversation of a bleeding heart soundtracked by the sort of angular guitar riffs that John Robb is so fond of mentioning; a London boy lost in the underground clubs of New York hoping to catch the sideways glances of the pretty and cool. Skinny fit Sonic Youth t-shirts and early Pavement vinyl jostle with the Wedding Present at their darkest best.
I would recommend this LP for anyone out there currently suffering from a broken heart, as this really is the way it feels, and there is nothing quite like a wallow in somebody else’s misery. It is also a very little known fact that Guitar noise is a much-underrated cure for heartache, as is drinking vast amounts of whiskey, but this album won’t have you throwing up in the sink.
Graham Domain ‘Cold Moon Harmonics’
(Metal Postcard) 21st February 2019
This is a twisted sun of a LP, an album that highlights the dark underbelly of pop, a magical carpet ride of record store dust. Melodrama and melody fuse together songs that bring to mind a vision of Scott Walker and David Sylvian sat quietly watching the sun fade through the memories of a glittering past; soundtracked by the slow thud of your neighbours feet as they trumble past your flat, and the constant drip of a tap.
This is an LP that should be cherished and held close to your heart as you try to ignore your mundane existence and think of what should have been; how you once held her tight and now can only cling to the photograph; you held her face between her hands and softly kissed in the snow and now all you have left is this the beautiful sound of could ‘have beens’ or ‘should have beens’: The beautiful sound of Cold Moon Harmonics.
Quiet Marauder & Mathias Kom ‘The Crack And What it Meant’
(Bubblewrap Collective) 26th April 2019
A 30-song concept LP is normally a foolhardy thing, after all this is not the 1970s when Yes and Genesis were kings and people would put up with such extravagance. It is normally either a misguided act or a sign in overconfidence in one’s songwriting ability; even the Great Ray Davies came a cropper when he stopped writing sublime three minute songs of great beauty and started to release cack-handed concept albums, in that very same decade.
I’m pleased to say that The Crack And What It Meant is neither of those things. It’s certainly not misguided – how can an album about the current madness going on the world be misguided? After all, music should also not be scared to document what is happening in the world at the time of release. If it’s done well it shouldn’t date: The Specials ‘Ghost Town’ a fine example of a song that is as relevant today as when it was released.
The subject of overconfidence in songwriting also does not come into play in this case as the songs are indeed finely written, sweeping and swaying with the ease and beauty of a kite on a windy day, genre hopping like a musicologist discovering Spotify for the first time. Sometimes Mother Of Invention, sometimes the Bonzo Dog Do Dah Band, other times the great Julian Cope and even Richard Stillgo fronting The Coral. Synthpop, folk, cabaret show tunes are all attempted, and on the whole very successfully.
The narration by Mathias Kom works very well and holds the whole thing together a little like Richard Burton’s narration on Jeff Wayne’s War Of The Worlds album did for that rock oddity. Also like the War Of the Worlds some of the songs are strong enough to stand alone without the concept: The tracks ‘The New Believers’ and ‘We Came In Droves’ are worthy of the Silver Jews after overdosing on a boxset of the Goodies finest moments.
On the whole this album is a huge success and is not foolhardy or misguided at all; an album full of dark humour, fine melodies, invention and pop nouse, and also with the song ‘I Came To Cure My Baldness’, one of the finest lyrics you will hear this year. It gets my thumbs up.
Words: Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Our Daily Bread 310: Interview: Beauty Stab
March 22, 2019
Interview: Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea
Beauty Stab are Dan Shea and Buddy Preston, two former members of the, highly tipped at one time, Goth rock industrial folk band Vukovar, who left to share their love of post punk, disco and 60s/70s/80s pop to the world. Their current three track EP has been one of this year’s musical highlights a stunning release bringing back the much missed and much needed glamour, heartbreak and bedsit seediness to the pop world.
Why did you leave Vukovar?
Buddy: For the love of music and art, we needed a change of scenery. For a while, I fell out of love with producing music and was finding myself feeling so emotionally detached from it. Upon leaving Vukovar, I initially didn’t want to do music anymore and concentrated instead on other artistic ventures for a while. But music is where the heart is.
Dan: I’ve no desire to dwell on that or air dirty laundry. All that needs to be said is that I did.
What made you form Beauty Stab?
B: The need to carry on pursuing making art and music with a close friend. I know that anything Dan writes is genius and I hope he thinks that my contributions do them some justice. Whilst in Vukovar, I wanted to record Dan’s rejected songs because I always saw something in them in a way I knew I could make them work.
D: The current landscape musically is devoid of sex and danger. Our society is moving backwards at a frightening rate. Even though we are at present operating on a very small scale, I really want to one day be to some confused queer kid living in the middle of nowhere what Marc Almond or David Bowie was in years past (or John Balance from Coil was to me). I am queer in both senses – I am gay but more crucially I am fucking Weird. Our homos should not be homogenised. We are not milk, although Harvey was. Queer is not just about sexuality – I’ve been lucky enough to know straight people with very queer sensibilities and cursed enough to know gay people who are cripplingly pedestrian. There are others doing this at the moment – SOPHIE would be one that’d spring to mind, she made my favourite singles of 2018 (It’s ‘Okay to Cry’ which is a beautiful song and ‘Ponyboy’ which is just sheer filth).
But no one is doing it in the field we operate in. It’s full of hopelessly glamour-less people with beards who make the right noises and have the right political opinions but they’re making sexless facsimiles of records made by people who, shock horror, listened to stuff by people who didn’t look and sound exactly like them. Or maybe they are but I’m not meeting them. If you’re out there please get in touch with me through the obligatory Beauty Stab social media because lord knows I need a friend. If you’re not already doing it, put some makeup on however badly, wear some nice patterns and poke at a synth ineptly and I would love to share a bill with you. I’m into the idea that left-wing politics doesn’t have to be austere and devoid of joy. Bronski Beat strike a chord with me far more than some dullard with an acoustic guitar telling me what I already know in a way I don’t want to hear.
I know it’s also an ABC reference but Beauty Stab is a powerful combination of words. A shard of luxury you don’t actually have to be able to afford because we’re there, you’re here, it’s now and this is the only time we have. In my current crop headed state, Buddy’s the Beauty and I’m the Stab. Bad news from a pretty mouth.
What are your influences?
B: Life experiences, tales of old, people we appreciate. Musically, whatever we’re listening to at that moment. We’re creating mixtape style playlists for various streaming media to let people know what we love right now, and maybe we can enlighten some people.
Dan: Quote Clothes – “girl group hymns and jackboot disco”.
Different movements really. Musically, all the people listed in England’s Hidden Reverse with Coil being the best. We like lots of Italo disco and Chicago house and Soft Cell, Depeche Mode, Prince, etc. Those people were emulating. We’re also massive, massive fans of Rowland S Howard and pretty much anything he touched. Then there’s all the obvious Bowie, Iggy, Roxy, Lou Reed. Then there’s girl group records and by default anyone who has the sense to plagiarise them.
Then we’re also influenced by how shit everything is, and also the ethos that riot grrrl bands and people like Crass had even if the artwork and the ideas are invariably more interesting than the music which is a bit sonically conservative and paint by numbers.
You worked with many established artists with Vukovar, have you any plans to collaborate with any with Beauty Stab? Or are going to rely on your own talent?
B: We’ve played with some people that have really inspired us as artists; so to call those friends now is incredible. I wouldn’t want to rely on those with an already established fan base, we wouldn’t say no to the right people, of course.
D: That’s a bit of a pointed question isn’t it? We’ll see what happens. There are people I’d love to work with but whether it was as Beauty Stab or part of their project or something else entirely is another consideration. We’ve both got a very definite vision and aesthetic for what we’re doing and that may morph over time but anyone who we did work with would have to fulfil two criteria.
- If we can do it, we do it. If we can’t then we’ll bring them in.
- This ship has no passengers. I only want to work with people who have ideas of their own and can contribute to the creative process: not a glorified plug in we’re scripting or trading on the value of the name of. An example of someone I’d love to work with would be Karl Blake. I keep asking him. He’s not released a record in decades. Mick Harvey plays on about half of my record collection but that’s never going to happen. We’re obviously going to collaborate with the Mekano Set because they’re our friends.
Are you going to stay as a two-piece or have you any plans to expand the line up?
B: We plan on having quite an interchangeable line up depending on what type of gigs we’re attending. For now, we’re using all sorts of machines, synths and tapes to help us get the live sound we want. But in the future, we would love to play our songs with a full band.
D: I’m open to ideas.
Any gigs planned? Plans for the near future?
D: Our live setup is mostly composed of broken equipment, also utilising drums and sequenced bass tracks played off a tape recorder a la OMD. As such there are no dates to announce – we are in talks with several different venues and I’m looking forward to making everyone of any gender in the audience pregnant solely through the means of my voice and dancing. If that doesn’t work Buddy is categorically the best looking man in the world so there’s always that. I can only imagine that even blind and deaf people could develop a crush on him.
The recently released Beauty Stab EP, O Eden, can be downloaded from all usual outlets or from Metal Postcard Records bandcamp.
Words: Brian Shea
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