The Monthly Digest includes a clutch of accumulated new music reviews, this year’s Halloween Playlist selection, a piece from the Archives and jukebox selection of anniversary celebrating LPS.
Photo Credit: Seismes photographed by Flavie Herbreteau
___/NEW MUSIC REVIEWS____
(All Entries in Alphabetical Order)
Brian Bordello ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain’
(Metal Postcard Records) 6th October 2026
So, I was wondering with such a propounded rather than questioning title (the ? being missing from the title) if Brian Bordello was going to join in with the ghoulish online obsessive conspiracy set who cry foul play, nee murder about their iconic martyr, or, was going down the same vivid but multilayered route as the artist Sandow Birk and his gruesome, near cartoonish, depiction of Kurt Cobain’s death. Brian has gone for something even less clear, disarmed by the manner in which he’s recorded his first single in a long while, and more than a bit muggy and muddy.
Birk’s The Death of Kurt Cobain, Seattle oil on canvas artwork, painted not long after Cobain’s suicide in April of 1994, leaves little to the imagination – a riff on, and inspired by Harry Wallis’s 1856 painting of The Death of Chatterton, an even younger poet who famously committed suicide. Sensationalist even, Birk, brought up on the punk surf culture and street life of Southern California in the 70s and 80s, was influenced by the docudramas and the intrusive TV of the times. Brian doesn’t so much as follow this line but is candid and does play on the obsessions of fans who just can’t accept the most simple or plausible answer to their musical idol’s death: contrary to all the evidence.
Cobain’s fatalistic choices seemed inevitable after untold overdoses, and several earlier suicide attempts (according to Courtney Love). It’s a convoluted history, filled with contradictory accounts: inevitably coming to Netflix soon. And leaves room to doubt Kurt’s intentions. Though the facts as they stand support Kurt asking his old pal Dylan Carlson to obtain the shotgun that finally did him in, but for “self-protection” purposes. Whatever the motivation, a shotgun is some statement to make; the police photos, some only released to the public gaze decades later, are horrific and vivid; the effects of shooting your face off only too sickening to gawp at. Such a violent dispatch for a sensitive soul; perhaps knowing that there would be no way to turn back, and a small chance of survival, after already taking various concoctions of pills only to be saved by medics, and on one occasion, with an injection of naloxone by Love. And yet, it seems such a nasty way to go: the shock and cleanup for those he must have known would eventually find him denotes either an incredibly twisted fucked-up mind or someone making a disturbing and callous statement. It must be noted the police had been called on another occasion, confiscating both pills and a gun from Kurt: though Kurt vehemently denied he was trying to commit suicide.
It’s said via so many sources that Kurt was on the verge of splitting the band, pulling out of that year’s Lollapalooza, and yet Michael Stipe was adamant that Kurt was formulating a new Nirvana LP and direction, only to cancel the making of a demo – Stipe, from what I’ve read, seems to stick with the suicide narrative; almost finding it inevitable with the person he not only saw as a peer but friend.
On that tragic day in 1994, Kurt was found by an electrician who’d come to the house to install a security system. A note, addressed to his imaginary childhood friend Boddah, was found amongst the mess, part of it shared on Wiki and elsewhere stated that Kurt had not “felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music, along with really writing…. for too many years.” Plausible…a statement that the creative will, and the love had run dry. It didn’t help that Kurt was only 27 when he died, feeding into the whole infamous “27” death cult of stars conspiracy.
Choosing a sad chapter from grunge rock’s front pages with which to make a solo return – Brian’s day job family band of a sort, The Bordellos recently released the ‘Oh Nora’ single, reviewed on these pages earlier this month – ‘Who Killed Kurt Cobain’ is yet another lower than lo-fi home recording on rudimental apparatus. The production, part of its charm and rawness, threatens to distort or break down at any second, as Brian’s Daniel Johnston meets John Shuttleworth vocals, Half Man Half Biscuit wit and wordplay, and the C86 jangled guitar prove both lamentable and shitty. It starts off well if you like, almost in sympathy (“Was he killed by too much love?” as one line goes, could be read with a double meaning: a clue, the Love part, the generic word or name of a certain suspect put forward by the naysayers), before eventually and near dreamily declaring the whole affair wasn’t a suicide at all, dialling into the whole conspiratorial discourse. And yet as I’ve already said, there’s a touch of sweetness and a lull to the coarser and dissonant aspects of this recording.
A difficult figure to sympathise with I grant you, but poor old Love comes in for the harshest criticism, her name as one of the most favoured candidates in a bizarre hotbed of murderous plots; although herself a heroin addict and right handful, staving off attempts to take their child into care because of their actions and drug dependency, Love come out alive and flourishes even despite setbacks and her poor behaviour, whilst arguably the real talent (and so the narrative goes) and golden ticket Kurt ends up with a blown-off face, dead at just 27 years of age. Perhaps he really was just drained, lacking the will to go on, stuck in a cycle of melancholic tragedy.
Sceptics will never be satisfied their idol left them high and dry and will never be happy with the manner of Kurt’s death or the investigation that surrounded it. And with no end of armchair experts, analysts – the boon of the internet age – on hand to refute and counterclaim against the evidence, Kurt’s suicide will remain forever suspicious. (I happen to not care but can’t see why Kurt wouldn’t just pull the trigger on his life and hurt from everything I’ve read; from the music I’ve experienced and the hectic fuss and self-destructive nature of his life).
Brian promises or threatens (depending on your view) to release a full songbook at some point in the near future; this time through the Cruel Nature Records label as opposed to dropping from out of nowhere with no fanfare nor any publicity at all, on Metal Postcard Records. Expect a full review when the time comes.
The Clean Crime Scene ‘Raw Cuts’
(Blank Verse/Brothers Club) 30th October 2026
Finally arriving after years of cultivation, the debut album from John Simek’s scuzzed and fuzzed and purposely muddied produced The Clean Crime Scene project is here. From its earliest foundations during the summertime family vacations of childhood reminisces on the Jersey Shore in 2021, where John recruited fellow Richmond, Virginia musicians Jay Wilder (the lead guitarist of this outfit, who also offers up some bass chops and plays keys) of Contraption and The Venus Explosion note, Ralph Nicastro (playing drums and some bass) of Sam Tropez, wreaths and Sparks Fly From A Kiss, and Colin Carhart (sharing drumming duties) also of wreaths, to the follow up recordings involving his wife Diana Simek, who layed down vocals back home in their own studio, and further contributions on violin and keys from Will Pattie (of The Fossil Collection note), Raw Cuts took some time to formulate and mold into its final shape.
Even then, with ‘fatigue’ setting in, during 2024-2025 John enlisted the help of John Trainum, whose eclectic credits include Kayne West, Kate Bolinger and Destructo Disk. Credited however, with providing keys on this album’s second track, ‘Elevator To Nowhere’, it was Trainum’s more professional Spacebomb studio in Richmond that provided the space needed to boost this vision. But this was still not quite done, and earlier this year John ‘relinquished’ the job of mastering to the Grammy Award winning engineer Alan Douches; quite the coup, as Douches’ own CV of credits includes some staggeringly incredible names from the noughties renaissance of indie and dance music – the LCD Soundsystem to Animal Collective and Sufjan Stevens – alongside established bands of previous decades – like Misfits and Motorhead. As I mentioned already that production has a muddy film that envelopes the sound in almost mono-like lo-fi quality, one that fuzzes and buzzes and murkily adds something creepy, dungeon-like, drudge-like to the ambitious indie-grunge-garage-rock-punk-shoegaze chemistry of the band’s songs.
With all that in mind, the album’s reference points, contacts mention everyone from Ty Segall to the Brian Jonestown Massacre and Mazzy Star: all good calls…no arguments from me. But I’m not sure if it is intentional or not, but nothing is made of the band’s almost fuzzed-up country-rock sound, with songs like the already mentioned ‘Elevator To Nowhere’ reminding me of a more spiky Long Ryders – albeit sharing the stage with the leather clad biker chic The Raveonettes and a less languid and needle sharing Royal Trux (especially vocal wise, when both John and Diana are either in a sort of grunge-y duet or calling and responding to each other’s lines). The flick-knife back-alley opener, ‘Backstabbers & Moneygrabbers’ reminded me in part of Neil Young’s Crazy Horse revival of the 90s and modern day, mixed with a subtle bit of R.E.M., the Throwing Muses and the two Kim’s (that’s Kim Deal and Kim Gordon).
A full-on grunge-y mood fest of relationships, street level grime and more sinister creepy material, Raw Cuts goes on to evoke PJ Harvey and The Pixies (‘Black Ice Blackout’), Some Girls era Stones and candy indie-country rock (‘In The Ground’), an Iggy fronting The Dandy Warhols (‘Don’t Mind At All’) and at many other times, the Spacemen 3.
The group mange to reconcile the dirge-y and gnarl with the more softened female tones of Mazzy Star and their ilk to slumber and indolently find some balance between the chalk outlined forensic scars of our ungovernable times and hushed voiced requited love reciprocations. Dirty as much as it is dreamily gazing at the criminal enterprise that is modern life, Raw Cuts is a simultaneously mucky and melodic surprise.
August Cooke ‘On The Line’
(Poets Studio) 20th October 2026
It might have taken a while (three years to the date…well, almost) to follow up the “sublime” (as I called it at the time) debut EP, Like Rivers, from the obviously talented London-based cellist, singer and composer August Cooke, but the wait has been more than worthwhile.
Studied and yet brilliantly dreamy in its echoes of theatre, of matinee movie scores, of the post-classical, of the psychedelic and diaphanous, the On The Line EP further plunges into a magical soundscape and musical songbook of the yearned and vulnerable. But before we go any deeper, a little background info is warranted, and a brief note on the EP’s participants and foils:
The nom de plume of one George Cooke, the August moniker was debuted back in 2023. Before that, Cooke trained as a cellist and completed his undergraduate degree in music at St. Peter’s College, Oxford University in 2013. Further studies in 2015 led to Cooke completing a post-graduate degree in Musical Performance from the Royal College of Music. Alongside this formal training he formed and toured with his inaugural band, Marvellous Medicine. The press release goes on to inform us that he was mentored by such luminaries as the cellist Alexander Chaushian in London and sarangi maestro Sarwar Hussain in Kolkata.
Cooke is joined on his second release by the versatile musician, producer and composer Felix Higginbottom (who works across both the jazz fields and the TV/Film scores landscape), clarinet player Benjy Sandler and the bassist and composer Daniele Gulino. Mostly appearing on the odd track but providing additional scope and attentive rises and falls to Cooke’s overall mastery of filmic quality set pieces and maladies. Benjay offers a classical swell on the Animal Collective communes with Dhani Harrison ‘Nila’. In the dreamy mode, this small epic sets off with filtered echoes of gamelan of something more Indian in source, but languidly chuffs to piped-like rhythms. I may be off, but I thought the title reminded me of something more mythological, so I looked it up. Nila is Sanskrit in etymology, the name of a Vanara (usually represented as monkeys, apes or forest dwellers) chieftain in the army of the Hindu deity Rama, who appears in the Hindu epic poem Ramayana, leading in battle against the malevolent supernatural rakshaska and King Ravana of Lanka. Whatever this has to do, allegorical, metaphorical or story wise is anyone’s guess, but I’m sure that its Indian influence is there.
Gulino meanwhile, offers a heavy but lovely dubby-style bass to the Panda Bear soft bulletin drama ‘Mountain Down’. There’s elbowed intense cello that reminds me of Fran & Flora, maybe Alison Cotton too, and an overall sound that recalls C Duncan.
The rest of the EP is magnificent in its diaphanous and near foggy mystery, with the title-track quavering through a magic picturesque forest of psych-folk and Parachute era Pretty Things, and Fearless era Pink Floyd. But then you suddenly catch a strange resemblance of the Lynchian in the form of a voiceless Twin Peaks-like score. The finale, ‘Gasoline’ could be an Italo-Arabian dream match between Jack Nietzsche and David Arnold but reproduced by The Music Tapes. It has, well like most of the EP, a cinematic quality, but then again it all sounds intimate despite the scale that’s softly revealed.
Possibly one of my favourite listening experiences of 2026, A most pleasant if stirring, even near elegiac in places, immersion into the lucid feelings and poetically clothed metaphors of memories, recalls and reminisces that threaten to tear apart or break. If the current timescale is repeated, expect the next EP, or an album indeed, in October of 2029: I joke of course, we’d like something far earlier please. Still the burgeoning star of his own project, Cooke breaths life into familiar sounds and genres, yet seems to hold up well as he offers something uniquely individual and introspective.
Josh Johnson ‘Animative’
(International Anthem/Nonesuch) 23rd October 2026
A second release from a member of the International Anthem family this month (albeit in conjunction with fellow congruous label partners Nonesuch), the saxophonist, composer, producer, synthesist, sideman and collaborator Josh Johnson, in “animative” style, draws in a reputable and enviable cast of guests on his latest untethered experiment in both the synthesised and electroacoustic.
Whilst dropping in from time-to-time on the Monolith Cocktail for analysis and review – his 2023 collaborative trio with Gregory Uhlmann and Sam Wilkes made my choice albums of that year -, I’ve hardly touched upon Johnson’s resume: which includes being also part of Jeff Parker’s ETA IVtet, the Small Medium Large ensemble; on the production side he’s credited with producing the singer-songwriter, poet and outstanding bassist Meshell Ndegeocello’s Grammy Award-winning The Omnichord Real Book album, as well as Chilli Pepper Flea’s Honore project. As it happens, the eclectic traversing Ndegeocello makes an appearance on this new album; lending a fat quivery bass line that crosses between soul, funk and R&B to the Herbie Hancock vibed ‘High Step’ (from my own backyard and days of making music in the backwaters of the Isle of Wight, it also reminded me of Paul Butler’s early Pnu Riff experiments, Herbie being a major influence on that project). That near conventional, when laid alongside the rest of the album (though I don’t mean that in a bad or disrespectful way), funky jazz track also brings in the talents of both the multi-instrumentalist, audio engineer, mixer, highly prolific producer and International Anthem stalwart Ben Lumsdine and the drummer, programmer and producer Brandon Combs on the, near flat-like, filtered drums. Lumsdine gets another chance before that on the near fuzzy tubular Chicago skyscape musing of ‘Reece’. Beneath Johnson’s saxophone – which has a kind of spray effect and spiralling frequency to it -, Lumsdine splashes on the cymbals and plays another kind of flattened nice roll of a beat.
Whilst we are talking about those guests, yet another talented drummer and percussionist, Aaron Steele, is credited with additional production chops and samples on the reverberated piano focused, flat tubular paddled, and vaporising bass purred ‘Mill’; a near 80s-like TV score of lament and mystique that, later on, features a turn towards the Latin percussive and rhythm wise. The second appearance this month (see Jeremiah Chiu’s album review nearer the beginning of this column), Chicago jazz trumpeter, composer and bandleader Marquis Hill can be heard alighting fourth world like trumpet to the golden jangly cosmic ‘Upstairs 2021’ – staircase to the spiritual? The universal? The inspired? Extending the roll call, IA label artist Macie Stewart (the multi-instrumentalist has worked with everyone from Rob Mazurek to Bex birch and Damon Locks, and partners up with Lia Khol in a duo project) floats violin on the Ariel Kalma and Phillip Glass-like circulating and filtered sax blown ‘It Can Be Everywhere’.
Yet another one of the multi-tasking polymaths involved on the album is the Grammy Award-winning arranger, bassist, composer and producer Paul Bryan, who applies subtle bass to the old spiritual swanned bluesy and Egyptologist jazz stirred ‘Close’ – think Leon Thomas via the Pharoah and Kahil El’Zabar. Joining Bryan and Johnson is the drummer, engineer, producer and bassist of some repute, Marlon Patton, who sloshes and jangles around on shuffled bop-style drums.
Covering most of the album already with those guest spots, Johnson is credited as the solo performer on four tracks, his multi-instrumental palette extending from sax to synth, sampler, piano, Rhodes keys, percussion and bass clarinet. The opener, ‘Idiofone’ – I’m not sure if this is a reference to the triangular vibrated idiophone -, sets the Reich/Glass/Gasper tone of hollowed tubular rhythmics and gated lopped saxophone, a distillation of Chicago electro-jazz and house music – more of that later on -, and the aquatic. ‘Jazz Chord Possession’ sounds like a transmogrified Kraftwerk via Mantronix and the Information Society, and ‘Aughts Hymnal’, just like its title, is a Penguin Café hymn of futurism and the spiritual.
Animative is a great word for this album’s rhythms of life and musings, its cross-germination of art music, jazz, trance, minimal techno, house and electronica; the fuel for which namechecks the late great Eddie Harris and Mal Waldron amongst the sagacious conjured and “transportive” teachings of the genius Wayne Shorter, and the West African philosophical writings and non-Western ideas of time and being of Dagara diviner, teacher and author Malidoma Patrice Somé, and, most surprisingly, the “dreamlike fiction” of Italo Calvino. This indicates a real depth at play, and yet this music is so accessible and inviting indeed, animated. A successful culmination of influences and personal growth, wisdom and the measuring of time by an artist simultaneously as experimental as they are immersed in musicality and encapsulating an abstract feel.
Ocean Moon & Silver Ley ‘Prismatic Fields’
(Open Universe) 16th October 2026
A benevolent union and blossoming of organic meta and foliage from Jon Tye and Bethany Ley; both appearing under their respective guises of Ocean Moon and Silver Ley for a diaphanous and dreamy abstract articulation of both untethered and more functional traverses of nature and the ‘metaphysical’.
Under the descriptive encapsulation of Prismatic Fields, the two foils travel freely, floating ideas and congruously head towards sparkles of light on a most beautifully constructed album.
The seeds were planted for this collaboration between the Cornwall-based artist and multi-tasker Tye and the Bristol-based producer, composer, harpist and vocalist Ley when the former was invited to ‘envision a series of releases for the German production music library Sonotan.’ That same platform then launched the experimental outlet and subsidiary label, Ocean Universe: of which this is its ‘inaugural release’, I believe.
They’ve interestingly dedicated the album to the botanist, author, and former director of the Centre for Native Peoples and the Environment at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry Robin Wall Kimmerer; taking a leaf (excuse the pun) from her writings and teachings on her propounded Traditional Ecological Knowledge approach – which, according to Wiki, ‘she describes as a “way of knowing”.’ TEK is described as ‘an empirical approach based on long-term observation and relationship.’ Which also includes those cultural and spiritual considerations often marginalised by the Western scientific community.
In almost heavenly realms, crossing between the bamboo and lotus music of Asia, and drawing (especially) upon Ley’s talents of merging classical studies and learning with the electronic, floated Fourth World musical evocations prove gauzy manna for watery cascades, glistened harp, circulated, wafted, cooed, lulled and dabbed luminous vocals, and softened rhythms of life and fauna organic beats.
On a spectrum that takes in everything from the Future Sound of London and Amorphous Androgynous to Cuushe, Laaraji, Catrin Finch, Susumu Yokota, Sakamoto and Zoe Polanski, magical mulled moments and amorphous horizons converge to build an inviting oasis of the lunar and goldenly cascaded, a world of both rainbows and enervated mystery and exploration.
Qualm ‘Let’s Find Those Parrots In The Clouds’
(Zinnober Records) 23rd October 2026
Despite the unease and doubt that’s suggestive of this undefined troupe’s name, there’s next to no qualms about the direction of travel: free form jazz that probes at, and in a toppling fashion, freefalls towards poetic descriptive cerebral and more sky bound inquires.
Recruited from a number of criss-crossing and shared bands, including members of the Horse Lords, DRNTTCKS and ZEMENT, Qualm is an ever-developing project of players pulled from both America and Europe. Founded and steered (if that’s the word in a thoroughly democratic lineup of amorphous unfixed improvisors) by saxophonist, guitarist, synth operator and vocalist Philipp Hager, the group has seen various changes since its formation in 2020. This however is Qualm’s debut ‘full-length’ album; a showcase of their signature improvised form, given the time and the breadth to unfurl a menagerie of imbued metaphorical open-ended entitled “qualms”.
Across a quartet (quintet if you purchase the digi versions) of medium and longer form pieces/performances all recorded in a one day session, composer, saxophonist and sound artist Andrew Bernstein, drummer and percussionist Christian Büdel and electronic musician and bassist Sebastian Dyrschka draw upon their respective resources and influences to evoke everyone from the Pharoah to Peter Brotzmann, Sam Rivers, Nucleus, the Flow Trio, Polish free-jazz of a Biblical nature (see the near esoteric , wisped and vibrato-like breaths saxophone haunted ‘It Takes Not Much To Light The Fuse On The Powder Keg, Which We’ve Built Ourselves, Just To Avoid Dealing With Our Own Demons’) and Robert Dick’s Third Stone From The Sun LP.
As I described earlier, and on the opener, the group literally topple forward, splishing and splashing through a free-spirited vision of Iris Ackamoor style Afro-jazz as they sun worship The John Batsch Society and Prince Lasha whilst contemplating analogies to uncompromising zebras. That introduction track runs to twelve minutes in length and picks up various ideas as it moves constantly forward in a hurried flustering fashion: shooed percussive parts, changes to the drums from rattled sticks across rims to scrapes and brushes across deadened metals, a touch of Embryo krautrock and the Pharoah piping. But there’s a distinct recall of swing on the second performance, ‘A Sudden Qualm Of Sickness Overcame Us, While We Were On A Tub Riding Down To The River To find A Place To Dream’ (I’ve read shorter poems than that title), which also features, later on, more hysterical piques of Brotzmann and Mats Gustafasson.
‘Holy Smoke, It Flies High In The Sky’ reminded me in part of a Hugh Masekela vibe, but the swanned, bird-like flights of Wayne Shorter and an overgrown with wildlife and foliage boardwalk dance of 60s New York City jazz. Bonus track, ‘Sometimes You Have To Cut Things Here And There’ has a more willowy, greenery touch of the whistled and fluted, the fluttery and vibrating as the saxophone’s brass materials are coaxed and blown in a more Andy Haas fashion. Eventually, after both moments of theatre and dissonance, the synthesized vapours and rituals probe towards something like the new age, pagan and cosmic.
We may just have found those parrots of the title, floating up there in a dream-like suspended animation, as the Qualm quartet and friends let their skills do the metaphorical and allegorical talking. A great debut full of ideas and a well-balanced show of improvised musicianship from the free-form school of experiment and dynamics.
Séismes ‘SeùlSeùl’
(Carton) 30th October 2026
Without upsetting anyone’s preferred pronouns, I’m assuming that its ok to state this is an all-female sextet working within – but very loosely – the free jazz and fourth world fields of experimentation and both magical and mysterious abstractions. And it shouldn’t be the case in 2026, but this is extremely rare.
Felt via healing balms of the near new age and exotic, and by passages of intensity, the Séismes (translates as “earthquakes”) lineup of Mélanie Loisel (on double bass), Tatiana Paris (guitar), Léa Ciechelski (saxophone, flute), Aline Bissey (also on flute), Yurie Hu (keyboard, viola) and Marine Flèche (drums) also all contribute vocals and electronic effects to an improvised recorded debut album that combines both European and Korean influences and cultural sources.
Encouraging the geographic, scenery and projections of dramatic introspection and bathos, the “alone” aspects of the SeùlSeùl album title describe both standing amongst the exotic foliage and moving in unison with the rhythms of nature: at peace and yet also animated and fidgety. The troupe’s scope of influences and improvised exploration draws (to these ears anyway) upon Jon Hassell, Roberto Musci, Nicole Mitchell, Laraaji, Alice Coltrane and Walter Smetek, but delves even further and broadly to conjure up some surprises along the way. In practice this means nature’s rustles, the air and breeze act as a backdrop to the group’s atonal wind and brass instrument huffs, chuffs, hinges, dreamy drifts and articulations; to the scratchy, textural, scrapes and chinks of the tin and metal percussion; and the flexed but also sensitive combination of scuttled stick rolling and more rhythmic drums. And then you have the electronic aspects – that’s various oscillations, generator like Fortean crackles and plastique resonance – and the voices, which can be either in a singing fashion or delivered through the duet of flutes and the saxophone – sometimes sounding very vocally cooed and at others like some odd cuckoos.
There’s much to pick out from this imaginative and stirring assemblage performance; the familiar recall of Max Andrejewski’s Hutte & Guests take on Robert Wyatt on the Nordic-sounded and deliciously blurry fresh look at the world ‘Glasses’, and the near Krautrock momentum built up on the plastic pipped and Metheny guitar harmonics tweeting, percussive shaking and intense climatic ‘Du Jaune’ (“yellow”). There’s a John Zorn dimension to the title-track, and a mix of Franco-Hawaii, the magically rural, and the Balkans on the vocoder-effected vocalised ‘Pasteque’ – the parting vocals sound very folksy, almost Celtic. And you could almost suggest a touch of Staraya Derevnya on the poetically abstract ‘Cheveux au Vent’ (“hair blowing in the wind”).
All in all, an impressive debut of the ecological vibed, the organic fused with the electronic pulses and generators of modernity and dreamy lofty aspirations of untethered free sonic, atonal and rhythmical experimentation. Deerhoof meets Tortoise and Sam Rivers in a hinterland balanced somewhere on the astral panes between France and South Korea. In other words: this is for those who wish to immerse themselves in new soundscapes and visions.
_____/HALLOWEEN PLAYLIST FOR 2026____
Something different this month on the Digest, as I suspend the Social Playlist until November for this year’s Halloween Playlist: Manly P. Hall’s Secret Jukebox. Hoots and larks aplenty alongside psychic sonic defences and the disturbed.
This year’s gruesome track listing in full:
White Reaper ‘Friday The 13th’
Wovenhand ‘Dead Dead Beat’
Shriekback ‘Nemesis’
SHITNOISE ‘Whine In A Coffin’
Electric Sandwich ‘Devil’s Dream’
The Breedling ‘Torn Asunder’
Peter Evans ‘Witchcraft’
Sum of R ‘Waltz Of Death’
Dry Ice ‘Mary Is Alone, Pt. 1’
Dr. Doom ‘Body Bag’
Super Grupa Bez Falszywej Skromnosci ‘Satan’s Concept’
Bernard Szajner ‘Execute’
Wjerstean ‘Creature’
The Tryp ‘The Lizard Sheds It’s Skin’
The Flatliners ‘Gravelinerz’
Okay Temiz & Johnny Dyani ‘The Night – Gece’
From Nursery To Misery ‘The Fatal Bite’
Nolan Potter’s Nightmare Band ‘Bad Vibes’
Dyr Faser ‘Taste Of Blood’
Sonic Youth ‘Death to Our Friends’
Double Happys ‘Moss Monster’
Schizo Fun Addict ‘Tease Murderess’
Society of the Silver Cross w/ Blood And Sun ‘Unraveled’
Xqui w/ Lynn Gerrard ‘From The Crypt’
Cowboy Junkies ‘Me and the Devil’ Trifle ‘Devil Comin’’
And if you’re still not satisfied; totally wound up still, here’s a smattering of past sacrileges:
___/ARCHIVES____
Again, something different this month, and due to a suspension of the long running Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist series, a chance to still share choice tracks from those artists and bands celebrating particular LP anniversaries this October.
Sixty this month:
A live free form vision of Cecil Taylor’s ‘Steps’, originally released on record in 1966 as part of the jazz pianist luminary’s Unit Structures LP.
A supposedly live version of ‘Fire Engine’ by the acid freak 13th Floor Elevators. The original of course appears on their 1966 LP the Psychedelic World Of…, which is also sixty this month.
Let’s have some fun now, as we celebrate The Monkees self-titled debut LP, released this month back in ’66. A version of ‘Last Train To Clarksville’ by the Damnation of Adam Blessing.
And…a TV show mimed ‘Sweet Young Thing’….
Fifty:
Lester Bangs might not have had a kind word for it, but Patti Smith’s 1976 follow up to Horses, Radio Ethiopia undeniably has its moments. Right? Anyway, I’ve gone for the opener, ‘Ask The Angels’ which may or may not reinforce your prejudices.
Nearing the end (or over the finishing line) of CAN’s creatively pioneering epoch, 1976’s Flow Motion LP of cod-reggae lilted undulations is rarely held dear in even the heads hearts. Never mind that it was perhaps most people’s introduction to the band, through that album’s preening flux-disco hit single of ‘I Want More’. Personally Saw Delight, released just the next year, recovered their global traversing credentials and reputation – though many will argue with me on this, I think it’s one of their best late albums after Future Days.
In celebratory mode, and originally featured on the 1997 released triple remix album Sacrilege – various hip and Mute related and imbued artists taking turns to turn in and out, transmogrify and pay humble respect to CAN’s back catalogue – Air Liquid did a visitation transference remix of the Flow Motion title-track.
The modestly prolific Sparks nearly always have some anniversary or other, having straddled and released LPs during every decade from the 70s onwards – the Gilbert & Sullivan of pop are still at it over fifty years later, still recording and still out on the road. From 1976’s Big Beat LP, a live rendition of ‘Nothing To Do’, taken from the Lil Beethoven album tour, of which the Mael brothers also released a DVD – essential purchase!!!
Forty:
Something very Oar(ish) Skip Spence and the Jefferson Airplane about this. Yes, believe it or not, and despite its 60s sound, the Cowboy Junkies ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’ and the White Off Earth Now!! LP it appears on is forty years old!! This debut announces the Canadians-do-midwestern-esque drowsy drugged-up new country indie group to the world.
Thirty:
From the Wu-Tang Clan’s dojo of adjacent extended solo member headed albums, careering on to a scene that needed refreshing in ’96, Ghostface Killah’s Ironman shadow superhero persona. The obligatory team-up ‘Daytona 500’ features both Raekwon and Cappadonna keeping the Wu signature going.
Also this month, plucked from the Archives, my October 2016 review of Orkesta Mendoza’s Mexican deep dive ¡Vamos A Guarachar! album.
Orkesta Mendoza ‘¡Vamos A Guarachar!’
LP released by Glitterbeat Records on the 7th October 2016
A scion of the Calexico-Giant Sand-Xixa axis of Arizona/South and Central American cultural exchange, Okestra Mendoza keep the faith in these tumultuous times. Whilst President Trump certainly seems a possibility, thankfully the blowhards proposed border control wall is presently only a threat. Not that that will stop the Galexico band member and co-producer Sergio Mendoza from inhaling the intoxicant thrills, exotica and voodoo of Mexico and beyond. The multi-instrumentalist bandleader grew up in the “hinterlands” of Arizona after all, listening to the sounds emanating from the Mexican AM/FM radio stations. This heady mix of cumbia, mambo, mariachi, big band orchestras and the salacious swaggered ranchos was eventually channelled into a cornucopia of collaborative projects and bands. Merging these traditional forms with tremolo twanged rock’n’roll, psychedelia and electronic vibes Mendoza has created a timeless junction between neighbours on both the previous Orkesta LP (Mambo Mexicano) and the latest ¡Vamos A Guarachar!
Inhabiting a supernatural imagination of the cactus-strewn borderlands, where the otherworldly amorphously interchanges with ritual and reality, ¡Vamos A Guarachar! is both mysterious and fantastical yet equally kitsch. Imbued with the cumbia rhythm, which has enjoyed an electrified renaissance over recent years, Mendoza weaves both the dance styles sauntering hip swivel and more galloping raciness into the rich melting pot. ‘Cumbia Volcardora’ is a perfect example of this; wafting in the southern breezes with its cantina serenaded horns, ? And The Mysterians style ghost house organ, theatrical voodoo narration and Spanish vocals. A similar pattern of cross-pollination continues throughout the album: on the two-speed ‘Redoble’ the band fluctuate between a more up-tempo chase to Brazilian rocksteady and evoke both the feverish Mambo of the title but also a Balkan polka on ‘Mambo A La Rosano’.
Between ages with a penchant for a strange nostalgia, as seen through an esoteric lens, ‘Misterio’ is a curious tango crooned matinee that sounds like a lost theme tune from the 1950s. There is a Mexican film of the same name from 1980, which starred Juan Ferrara as a TV star who blurs reality with the plot of a soap opera he’s filming. It’s quite conceivable that this could be the band’s inspiration, the lamentable enchantment a good fit for the movie’s fantastical waltzing premise.
Though the esoteric and alien quivering magnetism atmosphere casts a spell over the album, there’s a host of quirky turns and a lot of fun to be had. For a starter there’s a kooky homage, or augur, to the spirit of the racoon on ‘Mapache’, and the zappy, rock guitar gnarling candy treat ‘Caramelos’. The times may be changing for the worse in Mendoza’s backyard, but the Orkesta put a raucous, colourful and upbeat shine on the political miasma, defending and celebrating the “honest cultural exchange” between both sides of the divide with relish and a certain oddness.
If you’ve enjoyed this selection, the writing, or been led down a rabbit hole into new musical terrains of aural pleasure, and if you able, then you can now show your appreciation by keeping the Monolith Cocktail afloat through the Ko-Fi donation site.
The End of the Month Playlist For July 2026
July 30, 2026
Our Monthly Playlist selection of choice music from the last month. Curated by Dominic Valvona & Matt Oliver.
Choice music and sonics from the last month (or so) picked from our reviews, but also featuring the tunes we missed out on or didn’t get the room to feature at the time. Curated by Dominic Valvona with choice hip-hop cuts selected by Matt Oliver.
The Track List:
THAO & The Get Down Stay Down w/ Tune-Yards ‘Sick of the Times’
A Certain Ratio ‘Knife Slits Water (EM) 12” Version’
foamboy ‘FAR AWAY’
Homeboy Sandman & Jack Splash & CeeLo Green ‘World On Fire’
ECID ‘Break Up Insurance’
Space Afrika & Tony Njoku ‘MLN’
Skyzoo ‘Short Money’
Peter Evans ‘Genesis/Schismogenesis – Stage 4’
A-F-R-O & MotionPlus ‘Labor of Fruit’
Brian Ennals & Blockhead & Defcee & Mikie Mayo ‘Yellow School Buses’
King Kashmere & Genesis Elijah & Killa P & Dabbla ‘Big[Bad]’
Chuck Strangers ‘L2LL2C’
Post Elvis ‘Luna (Evil’s Ballad)’
Simon Klein ‘Don’t Leave Me Alone’
Robyn Hitchcock ‘My Dead Astronaut’
Babe Rainbow ‘Acid and Honey’
John Howard ‘Abbey Road, April 1974’
Skyjack ‘Shozi’
Richard Spaven & Wildchild ‘Finders’
The God Fahim ‘GFY’
Distant Fires Burning & Autistici ‘Scalar (Reverend Basstorius Remix)’
hackedepicciotto ‘Zeitwende’
Aisha Vaughan ‘Frozen’
August Cooke ‘On The Line’
Biita Houdei ‘The Ground Here’
Tristan Da Cunha ‘Preludio’
Feverdreamt ‘Shadow Catching Up’
Sir Richard Bishop ‘They Shall Take Up Serpents’
Park Jiha ‘Summer Illusion’
Los Orientales de Paramonga ‘Viajando Con Un Loco’
EYE WITH AN EYE (Bloom de Wilde & Nick Trepka) ‘flow.’
Tōth ‘Easy – Live With the Brooklyn Choir Project’
Monthly Playlist: May 2023: Delilah Holliday, Tony Allen, Alecs DeLarge & King Kashmere, Lucia Cadotsch…
May 31, 2023
CHOICE MUSIC FROM THE LAST MONTH: TEAM EFFORT
The Monthly Revue playlist of 2023; a choice selection of tracks from the last month on the blog. Curated by Dominic Valvona with Matt Oliver on the Rap Control once more, and music from reviews by Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Graham Domain and Andrew C. Kidd. Expect to hear the unexpected.
TRACKLIST//
Alecs DeLarge & King Kashmere ‘Damien Darhk’
Samuele Strufaldi ‘Davorio’
Les Dynamites ‘Pop Oud #2’
Andrew Hung ‘Ocean Mouth’
Matt Saxton ‘Freedom’
John Parish & Aldous Harding ‘Three Hours’
Lunar Bird ‘The Birthday Party’
YOVA ‘Feel Your Fear’
Atmosphere ‘Dotted Lines’
Illogic ‘Hot Lead’
Odd Holiday, Mattic & Daylight Robbery! ‘It Is Whut It Iz’
Delilah Holliday ‘Silent Streets’
Big Yawn ‘Crying’
Tony Allen ‘No Beginning’
Harold Land ‘Chocolate Mess’
Baby Cool ‘Magic (Live)’
Dyr Faser ‘This Menace’
Mekong ‘Out Of Control’
The Telescopes ‘(The Other Side)’
The Bordellos ‘Attack Of The Killer B-Sides’
Adjunct Ensemble ‘Nothing Grows/How Dare You Be Free’
Kassa Overkill, Danny Brown & Wiki ‘Clock Ticking’
Depf & Linefizzy ‘My Love’
Paw One ‘Sepekku’
Cas One ‘Silver Spoons’
Axel Holy & Badhabitz ‘Runnin’
Efeks, The Strange Neighbour & Downstroke ‘Its Only Right’
Chocolate Hills ‘Mermaids’
Orange Crate Art ‘We’re Just Innocent Men’
Tinariwen Ft. Fats Kaplin ‘Ezlan’
Cherry Bandora ‘Esy’
Danuk ‘Sewqo’
Lucia Cadotsch ‘I Won’t’
Jman & The Argonautz ‘Green Light’
Chuck Strangers & Obii Say ‘Say’
Billy Woods, Kenny Segal & Danny Brown ‘Year Zero’
Caterina Barbieri ‘Swirls Of You’
August Cooke ‘Flying Swimming Dredging’
Liz Davinci ‘I’m Through With Love’
Kayhan Kalhor & Toumani Diabate ‘Anywhere That Is Not Here’
Oceans ‘Mike Tysong’
Creep Show Ft. John Grant ‘Moneyback’
Jean Mignon ‘Canadian Exit’
A May Digest: August Cooke, Andrew Hung, Amon Düül II, Julian Cope, Social Playlist #76…
May 25, 2023
New Music on our radar, archive spots and now home to the Monolith Cocktail “cross-generational/cross-genre” Social Playlist – Words/Put Together By Dominic Valvona
PHOTO CREDIT:: ZOE DAVIS
A new thread, feed for 2023, the Digest pulls together tracks, videos and snippets of new music plus significant archival material and anniversary celebrating albums or artists -sometimes the odd obituary to those we lost on the way. From now on in the Digest will also be home to the regular Social Playlist. This is our imaginary radio show; an eclectic playlist of anniversary celebrating albums, a smattering of recent(ish) tunes and the music I’ve loved or owned from across the decades.
May’s edition features new music from Andrew Hung, Laraaji & Kramer, Chocolate Hills, August Cooke and Läuten der Seele. And in the Archives there’s the 50th anniversary of Amon Düül II‘s Vive La Trance and 10th anniversary of Julian Cope’s Revolutionary Suicide to celebrate and look back on.
NEW MUSIC IN BRIEF
Andrew Hung ‘Ocean Mouth’
(Taken from the upcoming Deliverance album, released the 11th August on Lex Records)
Still envisioning hope in the expanses of what is a purer future constellation, former Fuck Button foil turn soundtrack composer and trick noisemaker producer (a pretty deft portrait painter too as it happens: see the Frank Auerbach-like artwork that accompany his solo releases) Andrew Hung is back with another candid, if universally reaching, album of diy methodology big sounds. Yes big, as in anthemic, with tracks that build towards cathartic outpourings. None more so than the first track to be aired from the upcoming Deliverance album (released by Lex again, later on in August) ‘Ocean Mouth’. A rave-y Bloc Party and White Lies in a hopeful union with a Robert Smith fronted Freur, Hung is both humbled and in heartfelt consolatory spirit as he progresses from fear to love whilst facing a litany of truths, anxieties and realisations: A therapy session of the highest musical quality. As with all Hung’s material, it only gets better and better, and this album looks set to be every bit as connective and reaching as 2021’s Devastations (a Monolith Cocktail choice album of that year no less).
Laraaji & Kramer ‘Submersion’
(Taken from the BAPTISMAL – Ambient Symphony #1album, released 2nd June by Shimmy Disc)
Divine styler of radiant ambiance zither spiritualism Laraaji can be found in communion with no less a pioneer than Shimmy Disc founder and downtown no wave doyen Mark Kramer, on this latest release from the New York label. Two pioneers of their form together over four movements of immersive, deeply affected mood music, draw on their extensive knowledge and intuition to create suites rich in the mysterious, the afflatus and more supernatural. Cycle One in this collaboration is a Baptismal symphony, the first part of which, ‘Submersion’, I’m sharing with you all today.
See also my review of Laraaji’s iconic ‘Ambient 3: Day Of Radiance’
Chocolate Hills ‘Mermaids’
(Taken from the Yarns from the Chocolate Triangle album, released by Orbscure on the 16th June)
Floating a fantastic voyage into the Bermuda Triangle, the long-running collaborative duo of Paul Conboy (Bomb The Bass, Metamono) and The Orb‘s Alex Paterson conjure up signature lost sounds and immersive languid soundscape on their new album together, Yarns from the Chocolate Triangle. Under the lunar and ether inhaled Chocolate Hills alias, the foils mine their vast experience and CVs of electronic, ambient, analogue cult sounds, library music, kosmische and new age to navigate that forbidden zone phenomenon of lost ships, aeroplanes and people. It makes for an interesting cartography, as this short teaser, ‘Mermaids‘, shows. Expect to hear more at a future date: maybe even a review.
See also my piece on Metamono’s Creative Listening
August Cooke ‘FLYING SWIMMING DREDGING’
(Single release via Poets Studio)
As debut’s go, this beautifully subtle chamber-pop draw from the London-based cellist, singer and composer George Cooke is a stunner. A tastefully orchestrated evocation of such luminaries as He Poos Clouds, Arthur Russell and Surfjan Stevens, Cooke (going under the August Cooke alias) slowly builds up an emotive momentum of understated lush hymnal magnificence. He’s aided by the full choir chorus and harmony of pupils from the West London Free School and the accentuated clarinet and saxophones of the Mumbai-based multi-instrumentalist Shirish Malhotra (Zakir Hussain, Symphony Orchestra of India). Theme wise, Cooke directly challenges the listener: if our planet was radically different, would our principles remain? A promising start indeed.
Läuten der Seele ‘Schlupfzeit’
(Taken from the Ertrunken Im Seichtesten Gewässer album, released 7th July on World of Echo)
A magical. mysteriously unveiled, often in childlike awe, world emerges on the latest recording from Christian Schoppik (aka Läuten der Seele); a fantastical peregrination of environmental changes on a particular spot.
“Somewhere in the Lower-Franconian vineyards lies a hidden and mostly unknown canyon, a place that often returns to the thoughts and dreams of Läuten der Seele’s Christian Schoppik. Though a much rarer occurrence now as a consequence of environmental change, chance encounters upon the area in the past would sometimes reveal small ponds amongst the reeds, teeming with life and populated by colonies of newts and the now endangered yellow bellied toad. The transience of the water and the wildlife it hosts, dependent on season or climate, lends the area an almost fantastical, dream-like quality. Was it ever even there at all? A secret place that may or may not be present holds vast appeal to some enquiring minds… Ertrunken Im Seichtesten Gewässer, the third Läuten der Seele album in two years, is inspired directly by these experiences. Translating as ‘drowned in the shallowest stretch of water’, a title as pregnant with dread as it is wonder, the themes present speak both to personal memories and a wider understanding of place and time, and how we might interpret our own position within an ever-changing, sometimes disappearing world.
The record is presented as two long-form pieces divided into four separate movements, each titled so as to reflect this natural environment and its intersection with imagination, relying on processes of collage that draw from myriad indeterminable samples, field recordings and various recorded instruments. Those familiar with Schoppik’s work, both as Läuten der Seele and with Brannten Schnüre, will find present many of his signature tropes – the way deeply layered collages render abstracted visions of the past alive in the present – though what is always significant about his approach is not so much aesthetic as the wider concepts it attempts to express and emote. Indeed, emotional response is key to the Läuten der Seele sound, how overlapping notions of nostalgia, memory and identity calibrate experience and understanding of who we are and the world around us, whether it’s a world that’s gone or another imagined into being. If you observe the artwork closely enough, you may find a clue as to the canyon’s location, though such specifics are beside the point. The music itself infers a wider sense of the impermanence that characterises hidden worlds, wherever they might be or whoever they might belong to.”
ARCHIVES/ANNIVERSARY
Amon Düül II’s Vive La Trance Reaches Its 50th Anniversary
Admittedly not one of Amon Düül II’s best, Vive La Trance embraced a weird concoction of Roxy/Bowie glam and earnest sincerity bordering on the whimsy at times. And yet, it had its moments too as my original essay on this much discounted album in the Bavarian band’s cannon will testify: especially almost debauched Weimar Republic punk hysterical ‘Ladies Mimikry’ and Renate Krötenschwanz-Knaup prophetic Kate Bush performance on ‘Jalousie’.
Grounding:
1972 to 1973 proved bumper years for the Duul, with five albums in total being released across that timespan.
Vive La Trance was the last album of what might be argued their most productive period: though it came with some derision. To be truthful, in part, this record is the sound of a band worn-out and fatigued, with its wide genre-spanning catalogue of songs and its rather awkward Euro rock clichés. The band now more than ever flittering with commercialism.
Recorded in the spring of ’73 Vive La Trance contains many highlights despite its more structured songwriting approach. Saying that though, they did manage to maintain an ear for the esoteric, and also still conveyed their political leanings.
Songs such as ‘Mozambique’ acted as a rallying testament to the man and his raping of both a nation and a continent in the name of colonisation. Furthermore it carries a dedication to Monika Ertl, who was killed by Bolivian security forces in Hamburg that same year – Ertl was a member of the Marxist revolutionary group alleged to have taken part in the assassination of the general responsible for capturing and killing Che Guevara. At the time she was bringing a former Nazi war criminal to justice and was leapt on by South American agents whilst back in her homeland.
This move away from their more pagan and Gothic sounding heyday didn’t lead them away from the harsh realities of the upheavals in society – oh no! Whilst in the UK we were dressing up in glitter and having a jolly good time with glam rock, Germany was still gripped with the Baader Meinhof fall-out and the political right still crushing those who didn’t toe the line. Amon Duul II remained resolute in their ideals.
This album has some more touching and less establishment baiting moments on it with songs like ‘Jalousie’, a Kate Bush sounding lament built on a wordplay of surveillance – using the double meaning translation of the title it describes a touching but fateful meeting of minds in a fleeting moment, an affair of sorts watched on by a third party.
The tune ‘Manana’ has another warm and glowing feeling to it as a mariachi backed band ambles its way pleasantly enough through a quick three minute little ditty.
Also featured on here is what can only be described as proto punk with the track ‘Ladies Mimikry’: an attempt at both Bowie and Roxy Music, which ends up sounding like none of them. Instead they create an entirely new genre.
The players on this album are made up of the usual hardcore that played on Wolf City and the UK tour; though they lost Danny Fichelscher on permanent loan to Popol Vuh.
Lothar Meid hung on in the background, though he now joined the lesser-known side act Achtzehn Karat Gold from whom Keith Forsey also joined.
New member Robby Heibl made a huge contribution to the new line up, playing seven different instruments throughout the record.
Falk U Rogner upped his contribution as now most of the band received writing credits and swapped around instruments. The vocals were shared mostly between Chris Karrer and Renate; backing came from a number of affiliates.
The albums artwork was provided by both Falk and Jurgen Rogner this time round with what looks like a drying out photo hung up by a clothes peg surrounded by a strange electrical storm background. Amon Duul II’s moniker is made up of machine looking letters, which are made to appear as if they are in motion, the albums title sits between the two undisturbed and rather plain.
Turning over to the back cover and you are met with a number of photos depicting the band in various states of dressing up. Their costumes look Elizabethan except for one member who’s dressed up in a lion’s costume. Renate gets away with being dressed in a floppy hat though one guy looks like the guitarist from Slade has dressed him.
They are all photographed in the middle of a road, no it’s not an analogy to the music found within.
Review
A Morning Excuse’ opens the album with a bird-call effect delivered from Falk’s VCS3, as a repetitive guitar riff slowly jars away in the background. Chris Karrer sings in a semi mock disdain at first before dropping to an emotional lament in the chorus; his attempts at holding on to some lost love are conveyed in this warming little pop song. This tune slightly boxes in any attempts for the free flowing musicianship of Amon Duul II to really let go, the plodding rhythm treads water until we hear the quirky twist half way through which emphasis that there is still ingenuity at work.
‘Fly United’ falls back on the previous folk echoes of Carnival In Babylon as Weinzierl plays some prime cuts of bass and adds some great lead guitar work. Renate and new boy Robby take on the vocals with a forlorn poetic series of spiritual slogans lifted from the headier days of the commune. The middle section breaks out in a nod to Wolf City before drawing to its conclusion: clocking in at a healthy three minutes.
Renate is given centre stage to perform a proto Kate Bush style vocal on ‘Jalousie’. This track is a slice of the fantastical, delivered as a soft focus ballad – it’s among the most endearing Duul tracks of all time. The title translates as both French for jealousy and is a type of Venetian blind window. This is a play on words then, which conjures up some romantic meeting of minds behind closed doors, whilst secrets are brought to the boil in a fleeting moment of connection: break out the fucking Mills & Boon.
A song of two parts, the middle section builds to a rolling rally cry with some subtle but moving melodies that cleverly encapsulates the affair as its being unveiled.
The long German titled ‘Im Krater Bluhn Wieder Die Baume’ roughly translates as “in the grater again Bluhn Baume”: nope still none the wiser!
A pastoral old folk like medieval canter that does its best to sound interesting but merely acts as an instrumental segue way. Falk’s organ is surrounded by light drum breaks and rock guitar licks as it merrily dawdles along on its short journey. It makes way for the classic three-part side one climax ‘Mozambique (Dedicated To Monika Ertl)’; a return to the past glories of Yeti.
The intro starts off with a pleasant enough African humming choir accompanied by a chorus of hand drums before being cut off and making way for some power folk. Renate on lead vocals sings quite literally of the white man’s rape of the continent; Mozambique has a history of civil war and rebellion, dealt a particularly harsh horrid blow from their old colonial masters. The chopping off of hands and other such ghoulish details follow as freedom is advocated through the good fight against the Westerners’ tyranny. The pace is picked up as it really starts motoring along and turns into some kind of space rock jam; the vocals become more harassed as Renate with shocking disdain makes us all feel bad. An eerie whispered message of “good night and fight” emerges from the fade out at the end of the epic seven-minute opus.
The Monika Ertl dedication in the title was for the daughter of Hans Ertl, a well-known German cameraman who was involved in the early Nazi Propaganda films before immigrating to Bolivia. There was a program of emigration to South America during the thirties, call it a colonisation of sorts, as thousands of Nazi sympathisers bought land and set up farms there. Monika turned against her father’s ideology to embrace Marxism, joining the Bolivian underground movement before being involved in the murder of the man thought responsible for the death of Che Guevara. In the same year that Amon Duul II recorded this album Monika was ambushed by Bolivian security force agents in Hamburg, at the time she was bringing a former wanted Nazi to trail. I think the band gave her a good send off. A fascinating women who if you ever get a chance you should look up.
Flipping over to side 2, the dry witted entitled ‘Apocalyptic Bore’ seeps through the speakers with its swirling UFO effects emulating from Falk’s faithful VCS3 and Harmonium. A voice over from Saturn via Sun Ra announces some cosmic slop before a sweet melodic acoustic 12- string perks up with a laid-back groove.
The story unfolds as higher beings decide to visit and make all our dreams come true, a paradise is created where anyone can do anything. This is backed up with at times a cringe worthy Euro rock shtick lead guitar solo. Of course time traveling becomes the norm as a time continuum is invented or something. People can live at any period in history at the same moment; let’s leave the crazy type Hawkings calculations aside.
No love, no war, no angst what a tiresome place.
Well what do you know! The kids hate it and get rather bored so the aliens decide to bugger off (“leaving for the great bear”): there’s gratitude for you!
‘DR’ is a tale of pills and bellyaches as prescription drugs are handed out willy nilly for all our ills. The music is awkward Bowie, and features some violin stabs to break up the track, though it eventually runs out of steam.
‘Trap’ lets Reante sing a tale of a credit card paying lover who obviously misread the signals somewhere down the line. Again a heavier structured track that almost has the first signs of the pub rock movement that was later to turn into punk emerging. The ending starts to get interesting but finishes in a predictable cut short manner.
‘Pig Man’ starts with a quasi-Lynyrd Skynyrd sounding intro before it breaks out into a lively little ditty. The jauntiness evokes some kind of unusual influences and doesn’t fit into any conventions I can think of. The lyrics stick it to those who left their conscience back in 69.
‘Manana’ means tomorrow, or it could be a reference to the Peruvian town. That aside it’s a slightly odd sounding song, which has a mariachi style band turns up to throw its lot in. Karrer does a good job on the vocals as some exotic type percussion accompanies him. It does grow on you over time.
The finale is the spiky titled ‘Ladies Mimikry’, a brooding bass line and melody sound, like the band is hauling themselves up a steep slope. Karrer’s vocals are at their most startled as he slowly loses his mind over the course of the track. A grinding punk like strutting backing sounds like a Gang Of Four in limbo. John Weinzierl on bass gets more and more angry as Karrer reaches the refrain of ladies mimicry; a loony inspired spitting delivery that sounds like he’s having electric shock therapy. A saxophone left over from Roxy Music’s debut album provokes a reaction akin to The Mothers Of Invention. Some serious hardcore theatrics at play; I can fully understand where punk came to take a breather before rearing its ugly head again in 1977.
Called the glam album by both fans and critics alike, it doesn’t really fall into any specific category and sounds distinctly German throughout.
Bowie and Roxy Music can be heard in here but not in the often derided way, I mean I’m sure Amon Duul II didn’t really want to sound like early art school glam rock.
Structured little tracks of the three minute length make this 11 track LP almost a commercial concern, the number of songs on display amount to more then the number found on the first two albums put together. This LP actually combines some very strange influences and falls into the Euro rock movement rather too well at times.
There are plenty of great moments on this album and it is still one of the best to come out of the period, unfortunately the next record Hijack even went further to confuse us all and upset many fans.
Julian Cope’s Revolutionary Suicide Is Ten This Month
Despite its promise of caustic spit and harmonious melodic nature, Julian Cope‘s ‘call-to-arms’ doesn’t hold back on the condemnation. As the title of both the leading track and album alludes, Cope’s revolutionary pride leaves the listener in no doubt. Not so much hectoring, or even bombastic, the arch druid of modern counter culture picks apart his prey with élan; attacking both failed revolutions from the here and now; lambasting the church; and bravely taking issue with the perceived – though the evidence does suggest that there is indeed a silent conspiracy – erasing from the history books, media and political stage of the horrific Armenian genocide of 1915, by the than Ottoman government: an episode, it must be said, that is hotly contested and hushed up to this day; the organised extermination of the country’s christian minorities – which also included numbers of Assyrians and Greeks too.
A middle age crisis told from Cope’s kitchen sink, or from his loft, Cope’s message may be confrontational and often blunt, yet its delivered via the influence of rebellious Detroit rock, quasi-Love and even the Sunset Strip – circa 1967. But also there’s more than enough of that 80s sound that Cope helped invent in the first place too. Actually, this is a really great little record. Almost idiosyncratic with an Englishness of a certain kind, and deprecation: despite the talk of storming the barricades, Cope is limping to man them and writing music with a real melodious and softened quality.
The Social Playlist #76
Anniversary Albums And Deaths Marked Alongside An Eclectic Mix Of Cross-Generational Music, Newish Tunes And A Few Surprises.
Just give me two hours of your precious time to expose you to some of the most magical, incredible, eclectic, and freakish music that’s somehow been missed, or not even picked up on the radar. For the Social is my uninterrupted radio show flow of carefully curated music; marking anniversary albums and, sadly, deaths, but also sharing my own favourite discoveries over the decades and a number of new(ish) tracks missed or left out of the blog’s Monthly playlists.
Volume 76 of this long-running playlist series pays tribute to those dear souls we’ve lost in the last month, including Ahmed Jamel, Andy Rourke and this month’s cover star Mark Stewart of the irrepressible Pop Group. There’s also a myriad of anniversary marked albums to make you feel very old; Deerhunter’s Monomania celebrates its tenth with the already mentioned Revolutionary Suicide album by Julian Cope, whilst Funkdoobiest‘s debut, Which Doobie U B?, the Guru‘s Jazzmatazz Volume 1 hip-hop-jazz imbued game changer and Blur‘s (perhaps one of the best named albums of all time) Modern Life Is Rubbish are all 30 years old this month. New Order‘s Power, Corruption And Lies is 40, and George Harrison‘s Living In The Material World, Paul Simon‘s There Goes Rhymin‘ Simon and the already referenced (see above) Amon Düül II album Vive La Trance have all reached the half century milestone.
Added to that list is music, recent and old from Barel Coppet, Tresa Leigh, Pavlov’s Dog, Bonnie Dobson, The Reds and more…(FULL TRACK LIST BELOW)
TRACKLIST
The Smiths ‘What Difference Does It Make? (John Peel Session 18/05/83)’
George Brigman And Split ‘Part Time Lover’
New Order ‘Ultraviolence’
The Pop Group ‘Thief Of Fire (Live At The Electric Ballroom 1979)’
Julian Cope ‘Paradise Mislaid’
Deerhunter ‘Dream Captain’
Barel Coppet ‘Missie L’abbe’
Ahmed Jamel ‘Speak Low’
Guru & N’Dea Davenport ‘Trust Me’
Thandii ‘Give Me A Smile’
Tresa Leigh ‘I Remember’
George Harrison ‘Try Some Buy Some’
Amon Duul II ‘Jalouise’
Julian Cope ‘Hymn To The Odin’
Bill Hardman & the Jackie McLean Quintet ‘Sweet Doll’
Ahmed Jamal ‘Footprints’
Funkdoobiest ‘Un C’mon Yeah!’
Ahmed Jamal ‘Feast’
Armando Trovajoli ‘Le notti dei Teddy Boys’
Pavlov’s Dog ‘Valkerie’
Bonnie Dobson ‘I Got Stung’
Ella Washington ‘Sweeter And Sweeter’
Paul Simon ‘One Man’s Ceiling Is another Man’s Floor’
The Smiths ‘William, It Was Really Nothing’
Blur ‘Chemical World’
Sunless ’97 ‘Illuminations’
Bomis Prendin ‘French Passport’
The Pop Group ‘The Boys From Brazil’
Andy Rourke ‘The Loan’
The Reds ‘Beat Away’
The Pop Group ‘St. Outrageous’
Des Airs ‘Ling’
Amon Duul II ‘Ladies Mimikry’
Sirokko Zenekar ‘Tukorember’
The Jimmy Castor Bunch ‘Psyche’
Sam Rivers ‘Hope’
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.
