The Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist #74: Yoko Ono, Wayne Shorter, Trupa Trupa, Blue Lake…
March 14, 2023
Anniversary Albums And Deaths Marked Alongside An Eclectic Mix Of Cross-Generational Music, Newish Tunes And A Few Surprises. Dominic Valvona.
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.
The grand dame of high and conceptual arts, Fluxus major, and formidable musician Yoko Ono recently celebrated her 90th birthday. Incredible. And still in fine fettle after nine decades of groundbreaking work. A smattering of choice songs from the back catalogue waits.
As is customary each month, I also mark a number of choice anniversary celebrating albums. 50 in March, there’s tracks from the Faces Ooh La La, T-Rex’s Tanx, Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure, the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Birds Of Fire and Cymande’s Second Time Round. There are also a couple of hip-hop specials, with 30th selections from Ice-T’s Home Invasion and Lords Of The Underground’s Here Come The Lords. A mere fledgling in comparison, I also selected a tune from Crime And The City’s 2013 rebirth, American Twilight – in my opinion one of their best.
As ever I also pay a small tribute to those we’ve lost on the way, with nods to both De La Soul’s Trugoy the Dove/Plug 2 (nee David Jolicoeur), and the jazz doyen Wayne Shorter.
Spread out amongst that lot is newish music from Trupa Trupa, Lee Paradise, Florence Adooni, The Church, Elaine Howley, Misha Panfilov, Hinako Omori and Blue Lake. I’m currently in the middle of an escapist binge, soaking up episodes of Miami Vice, and so couldn’t resist adding a more obscure soundtrack from the series: Executive Slack’s ‘Our Lady’.
38 tracks in all; the alternative soundtrack to your week, or weekend. The alternative radio show, devoid of the chatter, the sycophantic and the bores.
___Track List___
Yoko Ono ‘Hirake’
Trupa Trupa ‘OPÓR’
Executive Slacks ‘Our Lady’
Lee Paradise ‘Timeless’
Wayne Shorter ‘Angola’
R.A.P. Ferreira ‘Fighting Back’
De La Soul ‘Plug Tunin’’
Florence Adooni ‘Yinne’
Wayne Shorter ‘Joy Ryder’
Faces ‘My Fault’
Yoko Ono ‘Approximately Infinite Universe’
Crime And The City Solution ‘My Love Takes Me There’
The Church ‘No Other You’
Lords Of The Underground ‘Flow On (New Symphony)’
De La Soul ‘Oodles Of O’s’
T-Rex ‘Mister Mister’
Roxy Music ‘Beauty Queen’
Yoko Ono & Automatique ‘Coffin Car’
Yoko Ono ‘Growing Pain’
Elaine Howley ‘Silent Talk’
Floating World Pictures ‘Til Dusk, At Devran’
Wayne Shorter ‘The Soothsayer’
De La Soul ‘Pass The Plugs’
Wayne Shorter ‘Montezuma’
Nacho Mendez ‘Levais Mi Amor’
Paul Fishman ‘Paradise’
Misha Panfilov ‘At The Helm’
Hinako Omori ‘Snow’
Wayne Shorter ‘Harry’s Last Stand’
Mahavishnu Orchestra ‘Celestial Terrestrial Commuters’
De La Soul ‘Tread Water’
Missus Beastly ‘Decision’
Horse Lords ‘Rundling’
Yoko Ono ‘Greenfield Morning I Pushed An Empty Baby Carriage All Over The City’
Cymande ‘Anthracite’
Blue Lake ‘Shoots’
Yoko Ono ‘It’s Time For Action!’
Ice-T ‘G Style’
Rapture & Verse: August 2019: Ash The Author, Black Milk, Giallo Point, Juga-Naut, Kool Keith…
August 12, 2019
HIP-HOP REVUE
Words: Matt Oliver
The latest edition of Rapture & Verse has put itself forward for an ‘Old Town Road’ remix (#1 in the year 2056), but will not be writing any top 50 lists for fear of admonishment when omitting Morris Minor and the Majors. Some singles first: a whodunit tiptoe from Pitch 92 allows justice-serving Verb T and TrueMendous to catch a ‘Cold Case’, nimble, mean-streaked rhymes leaving no stone unturned. Four instrumentals from the mighty Chairman Maf are nice, summery and don’t ‘Muff’ their lines, cheeky samples warping the beats in the sun. DJ Shadow and De La Soul’s old skool autopilot guzzles ‘Rocket Fuel’, a simple, effective weapon held down by horn overtures moving overground: a nation of breakers, poppers and lockers can be found greasing their joints in anticipation. ‘It’s Not That Simple’ claim Pawz One and John Henry, when actually the opposite is true, giving the front row what they want across eight tracks like it’s a regular day at the office. Beats and rhymes for the win, getting straight into a gold-reflected groove. Celph Titled’s ‘Paragraphs of Murder’ is not a fuzzy wuzzy Hallmark card; fact. The more obvious answer is, head banging music in an invincibility cloak.
Albums
Anchored by the indomitable ‘Reeboks’, Baileys Brown stirs the pot so everything’s ‘Still Fresh’, in the name of accommodating a bunch of microphone herberts. Datkid, Axel Holy, Lee Scott, Dabbla and Hozay rise up to run their mouth and take advantage of BB’s background diligence, skimming the scummy but with buckets of fizz and a little soul stardust answering the title’s call, keeping the hottest point of the club within striking distance of a couch and headphones combo.
Live at the barbecue, Giallo Point and Juga-Naut make the grind look easy when heading ‘Back to the Grill Again’. For the most part GP is weighing up which yacht to rock rather than measuring you for concrete shoes, and Jugz’ designs on alt-opulence are ones listeners want to achieve themselves rather than being put off by claims bordering on the outlandish. Running through crews like a hot knife through butter, from now only order these cordon bleu beats and rhymes, a gangster gourmet with an all important UK garnish.
Apex’ twins Ash the Author, forcing the issue and leaving pauses for thought to leave you defenceless (“raps like Moe Syzslak, straight ugly”), and Ded Tebiase, a double bluffer on the beats seeking dusty sunrises through the blinds and spreading bad voodoo to make you jerk your head back. The pair haven’t got time to be messing about and have got you covered, in tune with the changeable British summertime. One for a shoulder-high ghettoblaster.
Taking the form of the staunch Chester P, The Nameless Project surveys the wreckage of the world, wrapped in yellow and black barricade tape. It reaches a conclusion of dislocated beats under extra terrestrial duress, and disdainful observations, hauled straight from the corner, that you better start believing quick. Uneasy listening where you daren’t touch that dial.
‘The Return’ of Sampa the Great is a mind, body and soul experience requiring complete immersion (clock watchers – this isn’t for you), the indigenous explorations and fearless art of performance making it more odyssey than album. Lead by that trickily playful, Bahamadian flow sounding like it’s chewing a ton of bubblegum ready to spew napalm, funk wrecking ball ‘Final Form’ becomes a bit of a one-off in a meandering, richly textured, provocative astro/political soul installation, able to slot in a rework of The Stylistics. A debut to have critics clamouring.
A new Kool Keith album, entirely produced by Psycho Les: ‘Keith’ is the album dreams are made of to some hopeless hip-hop romantics (Jeru the Damaja and B-Real pop in to propagate the fantasy). In the real world of 2019, it’s another day of the Spankmaster’s unmatched imagination running feral, throwing his “jockstrap to the critics” and in the direction of stocky Beatnuts fare that sides with the eerily vacant, and the sometimes peppy over the sleazy. ‘Holy Water’ doing Barry White is the headline treat, yet the album improbably goes about its business with minimum bother.
Superhero worship and hip-hop purism: birds of a feather, supremely executed across eight tracks by P.SO and 2 Hungry Bros on ‘American Anime’, detailing the vagaries of the respective scenes so both the nerds and the B-Boys can have their revenge. The mild-mannered everyman by day brings out the superpowers of beats, rhymes and managing the concept like its second nature, just like your favourite lycra clad centrefold.
Grieves’ ‘The Collections of Mr Nice Guy’ uncomplicatedly detangles affairs of the heart, including self assessment, before undermining the album’s title in a kindness-for-weakness dismissal. His switch in focus with no discernible change up, means eight softly bedded lullabies bite back and keep everyone interested and entertained, as well as being a perfect introduction to latecomers.
“A varied album documenting stressful trials, psychedelic endeavours, and copious inhalations of marijuana” – that’s the lowdown on YUNGMORPHEUS and Fumitake Tamura’s ‘Mazal’. Suffice to say, side effects may cause drowsiness, though in fairness the lyrics are as much as blunt as they are blunted, red mist over red eyes looking over an out-of speakers-experience that still manages a surprise sneak attack of Shadez of Brooklyn’s ‘Change’.
Ambitiously advertised as an EP, Black Milk continues to show he knows exactly how to work the sweet spot of soulful hip-hop with something to say on the album length ‘Dive’, never stooping low to conquer. A soundtrack for heat waves and cool for the eye of the storm, it’s that movement around and manipulation of sounds that sets him apart, not to mention his rhymes sitting between confident/authentic open mic night performer bringing with him a disarming bedside manner.
‘One Word No Space’ = no space for wasted words – standard procedure from Donwill, another expertly, effortlessly concentrated spectacle (35 minutes long brings the repeat button quickly into play). Soulful but with a kick (production from Tanya Morgan teammate Von Pea), laidback but with lessons to take from, it’s another backing track for a barbeque going long into the evening.
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