THE MONTHLY DIGEST OF ACCUMULATED NEW MUSIC; THE SOCIAL INTER-GENERATIONAL/ECLECTIC AND ANNIVERSARY ALBUMS CELEBRATING PLAYLIST; PLUS CHOICE PIECES FROM THE ARCHIVES.
CREDIT: Bhutan Balladeers Dorji with drumnyen by Marilena Umuhoza Dell
___/THE NEW____
Bhutan Balladeers ‘Your Face Is Like The Moon, Your Eyes Are Stars’
(Glitterbeat Records) 28th July 2024
Cosmologically poetical in title, the latest production in the highly prolific catalogue of in-situ authentic recordings by Ian Brennan (joined on each expedition by his partner and foil the Italian-Rwandan photographer, author and filmmaker Marilena Umuhoza Delli), finds the acclaimed producer, musician, writer and violence prevention advocate scaling the peaks of the world’s highest nation of Bhutan: a still largely unknown and relatively mysterious culture built around thousands of years of Buddhist conversion and a prohibitive geography, with some of its Himalayan heights remaining unclimbed.
Wishing to draw attention to this small nation’s culture and music (its stats too: more or less ‘zero homicides’, and the ‘first carbon neutral country’ on the planet) Brennan brought together the Bhutan Balladeers of intergenerational voices and musicians to pour out their pining and always melodiously incredible allegories, folklore, storytelling and passed-down songs of localized heartache, woes, proverbs and losses – both national and personal.
Recorded up a mountain with no name, in a stunning hilltop forest location overseen by largest sitting Buddha in the world, outside the capital of Thimphu, various combinations of male and female singers, in both choruses and solo channel the complex extended, counter-flowing vocal tones of the classical 17th century form of Zhungdra. Thanks to the PR notes on this one, the form is derived from “Sanskrit, and the Choekey language (“dharma language”) used in Zhungdra songs is said to be indecipherable to most Bhutanese apart from Buddhist monks.” And is one of the two predominant folk music forms in the realm; or as Wikipedia puts it: “…an entirely endemic Bhutanese style associated with the folk music of the central valleys of Paro, Thimphu, and Punakha, the heart of the Ngalop cultural area.”
Accompanied in various combinations by the Drumnyen (a lute with 3 double-strings, also sometimes known as Drangyen), the Chiwang (a 2-string, bowed fiddle), and the wooden flute, or in the case of the only female participant to accompany herself, Lemo, on the spindly brassy chimed beauty ‘Turning Inauspicious Days Good’, the Yangchen (which is a hammered dulcimer).
From the rarest of elder songs to those dedicated to “our friend” the horse, optimistic augurs and more plaintive tones, the various, mostly a capella performances have an almost otherworldly presence – especially the opening yearned ‘The Day You Were Born’, which seems to have some flange-like vortex effect on the choir of women’s voices that almost sounds spacey, astral and a little Arabian. Like many of Brennan’s global expanding recordings, there’s always something connective; something that sparks evocations of sounds from cultures that aren’t, on the surface, obviously connected. The accompaniment to me sounds at times almost like Moroccan Gnawa, or like a banjo, the voices meanwhile, lean towards Vietnam, China and even India. Always beautifully melodious, harmonic and tunefully struck with a note of quiet romantic heartache.
Powerful whilst unstitched from a silk canvas, or gently contouring the hidden valleys of this green and mountainous world below from a lofty position, the Bhutan Balladeers ensemble makes a four hundred year old form sound very much alive, refreshing and utterly captivating. File under yet another fine example of ears-open-to-new-sounds-you-never-knew-existed-before, as Brennan exposes us to a hidden land of authentic discovery.
Floating World Pictures ‘S-T’
(Lo Recordings)
A vague Swami gauze of bellowing and synthesized waves permeated with field recordings taken from immediate and more exotic-sounding surroundings, the second expanded work from Chestnutt (producer and member of Snapped Ankles) and Raimund Wong’s (graphic and sound artist) Floating World Pictures’ communal expands vaporous horizons once more.
As an amorphous re-juxtaposition and transformed vision of their self-described ‘loud ambient’ peregrinations on the previous debut album, The Twenty-Three Views (released in May of 2022), a connection is maintained with the extended ‘continuous’ four-track suite ‘Look Now For The World Is Shining Bright’, which is suffused with elements from it and its numerous collaborators.
With third wheel foil Ocean Moon also on hand to offer up his Cornwall located studio and additional musical/compositional skills, that culmination of signatures, leitmotifs, wild menagerie and mystique is further transported and remolded to create something like a movement of spiritual risings, searing Laraaji golden divine styled rays, Jason Pierce-like woozy mantras, holy drones and Ariel Kalma-esque saxophone drifts.
Channeling Moon’s (the nom de plume of Jon Tye) coastal studio and the environment outside, another of the ‘continuous’ extended tracks, ‘Have You Met Your Maker’, was recorded by the trio one day last August. With the outdoors bleeding over into the various traversing and reverberating phases, the mood progresses from the ominous to searching then hallucinated.
Variations on the light and shade vibe prompt imaginative landscapes of water replenishing gratitude and lyrically obscured songs of praise, evaporations, oscillations, alien craft and the astral.
At any one time I was picking up Ajay Sagar, Bitchin Bajas, Iasos John Lane, Ambient Works 2 Aphex Twin, Syrinx, Mythos, FSOL and Ivan The Tolerable’s Linthorpe Crepuscule Volume 2 album.
As the name implies, the trio envision spiritual and exotic floating world pictures from out of the sky; pushing ambient music and field recordings in the process until they threaten to get amplified into loud swells of forbade and drama. Seek out intrepid curious listeners, for there are sophisticated and improvised ideas that stretch the imagination and karma to be found.
Miles Otto ‘Desynclined’
(Subexotic)
Miles Otto feeds an absorption of early electronic influences, the kosmische, avant-garde explorations from another age, minimalist techno and cult soundtrack synth music into an analogue apparatus and filters until whole new tangible, tactile and rhythmic patterns emerge.
From sequencer-triggered “chaos” and more ominous sci-fi warped and enveloping threats of particle beam overload, a sense of cosmic floating, of thoughts and contemplation in a both retro-futuristic and machine age, Otto finds space to embrace some removed version of beauty and the melodic. A balance of a kind is struck, with the percolated frazzled raspy and apparitional alien music of Bernard Szjenner and Günter Wüsthoff converging through opening up and turning dials with Delia Derbyshire and Asmus Tietchens. In addition to those references there’s the tight-delay tribal percussive plastique techno of Richie Hawtin going up against the Kubrickian and the more springy soft play of Carmen Jaci.
Noisy dissonance, zip and zaps, rotor-bladed choppy rhythms and ripples in the fabric, the sound of whirly cosmic birds and more obscured creatures; a space walk of ruminated gravitas; vampiric galactic soundtracks, tubular paddled beats; space angels; squiggles, squirms and fizzes. This is the fluctuating, dissipating liminal sound world that is forged from years of study.
Otto’s inaugural fully realized album is said to mark a change in direction from previous EPs – described in the PR notes as ‘inhabiting the margins of dance music and metronomic rhythm’. And if that is indeed so, then this ambitious full canvas of analogue electronica is going to surprise many with its myriad of sources and influences, sound-alikes: everyone from Tangerine Dream to Cluster, Analogue Bubblebath Richard James, Richard H. Kirk, Basic Channel, Michael Kamen and Belbury Poly. Searching for balance and harmony amongst the universal hubris, Otto takes flight into ever more expanding horizons.
Jeff Bird ‘Cottage Bell Peace Now’
(Six Degrees Records)
Imagine a 130-year-old pump organ in the hands of Roedelius, Iasos, John Cale or Florian Fricke and you’d be at least halfway to describing or getting a hold on the amplified bellowed drones, curvatures and sustained hazy beams of light that build up a thoughtful quintet of movements on Jeff Bird’s most recent project.
Cottage Bell Peace Now is an almost sedate, near hopeful title, its architect perhaps finding some kind of relative peace in the polarized, tumultuous times through the curiosity and repair of this latest acquisition.
A long-time foil within the Cowboy Junkies circle and multi-instrumentalist performer with an enviable list of notable artists over the decades, the founder member of the Canadian folk band Tamarack sure has a rich CV to draw upon and channel.
Already mastering an eclectic range of instruments he now gets to grips with the grand imposing pipe organ; a gift that he refurbished over time. Less stained-glass pastoral and reverent in Bird’s hands, the pumped waves and layers emote spatial lenses, dusted beams of light, the concertinaed, ripples and spells of near uninterrupted cycles of abstract soul searching and peaceful inquiry.
However, ‘Peace, You Know You Want It’ introduces stone-chipped percussion to the various pitched and bassy drones and what sounds like croaking crows. The suite also sounds a little Southeast Asian, especially with the traffic and moped-like horns that smatter this busy background interchange as if it were a window in on Saigon or Calcutta.
Working with so many different musicians and artists over time, Bird’s contact book and network is filled with talented foils to call upon. And so he invited the Korean activist, traditional percussionist scion, composer and vocalist Dong Won Kim to lend voice to the spiritually connective, stripped-back yearned ‘Peace Heart’. Soulfully authentic in poetic hunger and assonant tones, Kim’s turn proves transportive and stirring in merging the Eastern with the low and soft organ. Second guest spot goes to the drummer Sam Cino, who offers a sort of post-rock Tortoise and Daniel Lanois drum beat and splash of cymbals to the mysterious seascape melted and Flyodian ‘Peace Today, Peace Tomorrow’.
From just the suffused and shorter reverberations and rises Bird presents soaring, sonorous and recollected expressions that defy easy categorisation; the venerated, attuned and tonal tuned to a very different moving ambient frequency and gravitas.
Modern Silent Cinema ‘Anemic Music’
(Bad Channels Records)
The fourth album in an eventual six album cycle of new and archival recordings from Cullen Gallagher’s long-running Modern Silent Cinema project, Anemic Music reverberates, resonates and shakes to a range of psychedelic, post-rock, krautrock, scuzz and fuzz influences across a myriad of soundtrack-like instrumentals.
Marking the twentieth year of this celluloid, art and avant-garde inspired nom de plume, the collection of guitar-led tunes and shorter experimental studies and passages merges melody with abrasions, the coarse and near distorted; often fusing a eclectic catalogue of international influences, from Michio Kurihara to Bill Orcutt and the Sun City Girls with Thruston Moore, Yonatan Gat, Günter Schickret, Bill Frisell. What starts out with a hint of 90s indie rock or grunge soon transforms into the hallucinogenic, with wobbled, theremin-like sci-fi sounds from old Soviet silent era space movies.
Two of the tracks from this album of previously misplaced but now retrieved recordings (falling within the perimeters of 2008 to 2014) were written to soundtrack two very different if similarly aged, short and silent films. Inspiring the album title, the doyen of conceptual art Marcel Duchamp’s Anemic Cinema, a collaboration with Man Ray and Marc Allégret, features both spinning, whirling circles of optical hypnotizing art and text, which when read aloud suggests scatological and obscene erotic scenarios, puns and alliterations.
A more naïve charming alternative, Winsor McCay’s famous Gertie On Tour animation features a lolloping brontosaurus encountering the, then, modern world – sat next to a beaver and playfully knocking a train off its tracks as if it were a mere kid’s train set. The former is given a suitably quivery and swirling soundtrack of apparitional and hypnotist strangeness, whilst the latter is wobbly and metallic, queer and mirage-like – reminding me of Broken Shoulder, the Gunn-Truscinski Duo and Frank Black for some reason.
Elsewhere there’s flat-of-the-guitar-body like beaten rhythms, a repeating endearing piano, a transmogrified echo of 60s go-go garage band music, a krautrock vision of distorted amp Louisiana blues, and heart of darkness mystery. Modern interpretations and experiment make for some intriguing and interesting, nearly always melodic, soundtracks, vignettes and open-ended probing. Those archives, stored and often forgotten about tunes and ideas prove a valuable insight worth hearing.
__/THE SOCIAL PLAYLIST VOLUME 88__
The Social Playlist is an accumulation of music I love and want to share, tracks from my various DJ sets and residencies over the years, and both selected cuts from those artists, luminaries we’ve lost and those albums celebrating anniversaries each month.
Running for over a decade or more, Volume 88 is as eclectic and generational spanning as ever. Look upon it as the perfect radio show, devoid of chatter, interruptions and inane self-promotion.
As always, each month I select choice cuts from albums that have reached certain milestone anniversaries. This July (or thereabouts) that selection includes an alternative version of the lead anthem from The Beatles A Hard Day’s Night LP (60 this month!) plus choice tracks from Robert Wyatt‘s Rock Bottom (50 years old this month), Hieroglyphics crew member Casual‘s Fear Itself (30), Above The Law‘s Uncle Sam’s Curse (also 30), King Creosote‘s Commonwealth Games soundtrack From Scotland With Love (10), The Cambodian Space Project‘s Whiskey Cambodia (also 10 this month), and Land Observations The Grand Tour (another 10 year celebration) – see also my original review of that album in the archives section below.
The inevitable nod to those dearly departed, I’ve chosen a sketch from the king of deadpan delivery, the comedian and actor Bob Newhart, who passed away just last week. I can still hear his sketches played repeatedly at my parents’ house when I was a kid in the 80s. The routine I’ve picked was actually riffed on and off by Joel Maisel in the ridiculously popular and incredible Marvelous Mrs. Maisel – trying to pass it off as his own, he stank, and so ended a short-lived side hassle, his marriage and the rise and rise and rise of his belated wife.
I’ve added a sprinkling of newish tunes too; picking tracks I didn’t get the time or room to feature in the Monthly Playlist Revue. That list includes Chris Corsano, The God Fahim, Hifiklub with Marion Brunetto, and Kid Acne and foil Cappo remixed by Tom Carnuana.
That just leaves choice music from my collection (some records I’d love to own too) by Matthew David, Peter Blegvad with John Greaves and Lisa Herman, Cressida, Radio Stars, Malcolm Catto, Ottla, Linkopii, Abdel Aziz El Mubarak and so very much more.
Track list:::
Dionne Warwick ‘A Hard Day’s Night’
The Cambodian Space Project ‘Longing For The Light Rain’
Abdel Aziz El Mubarak ‘Tahrimni Minnak’
Hifiklub w/ Marion Brunetto ‘Rompe Cul’
Chris Corsano ‘The Full-Measure Wash Down’
Malcom Catto ‘Rock’
Radio Stars ‘No Russians In Russia’
Diagram Brothers ‘Those Men In White Coats’
Linkopii ‘Linkopii’
Walter Branco ‘Luar do Sertao’
The God Frahim w/ NicoJP ‘Diamonds’
Casual ‘You Flunked’
Above The Law ‘Concreat Jungle’
Sam Dees ‘Black Tattler’
My Solid Ground ‘The Executioner’
Robert Wyatt ‘A Last Straw’
John Greaves, Peter Blegvad and Lisa Herman ‘Catalouge Of Fifteen Objects And Their Titles’
Ginhouse ‘And I Love Her’
Cressida ‘Survivor’
Matthewdavid ‘No Need To Worry/Mean Too Much (Suite)’
Kid Acne w/ Cappo ‘Healthy Normalz (Tom Carunana Remix)’
Ottla ‘Duck’
Modulo 1000 ‘Lem. Ed. Ecalg’
Land Observations ‘Return To Ravenna’
Hama ‘Ataraghine’
Guitar Red ‘Disco From A Space Show’
Kahil El Zabar’s Ritual Trio ‘Sweet Meat’
Bob Newhart ‘Gettysburg PR’
Zane Campbell ‘Fucked Up On Jesus (Live From The Fort At Sidewalk Cafe)’
Jack Grunsky ‘Is It Worth All The Pain’
__/ARCHIVES____
From the vast archives of the Monolith Cocktail, two choice picks from July of 2014: Land Observations Grand Tour album for the Mute label, and Wah Wah 45s’ special One More Step album showcase of Haitian boogie pianist Henri-Pierre Noel.
Land Observations ‘The Grand Tour’
(Mute) July 2014
Revisiting the Romans industrious road network, artist and guitar sculptor of meta-textural travelogues, James Brooks once again soundtracks a peregrination that begins with the familiar surroundings of his London address and proceeds across Europe to the one time important capital of the Western Roman empire, the Italian city of Ravenna.
On his previous excursion, Roman Roads IV – XI, Brooks meticulously planned journeys, however minimal and delicate, exuded the beauty of motion: Gently progressing or chugging along in harmonic contemplation, each section of his placable road trip moves on ever forward to a final destination.
Continuing to absorb those landscapes and some new ones, with a cycle of both looped trebly and pronounced bass notes, plus a bed of subtly picked congruous melodics and resonating chimes, Brooks takes the pastoral equivalent of the motorik route. Whereas the Autobahn travelled celebrations of kraftwerk or the repetitive hypnotism of Michael Rothar’s backward bending psychedelics and choppy guitar licks pointed towards the future, The Grand Tour treads a well-worn man-made and historically rich highway: It could be said that Brooks has a foot in both eras: the past and present simultaneously if you like.
The musical accompaniment is only part of the Land Observations methodology, Brooks by extension incorporating a show of postcard inspired artwork – which can be seen further extended in the featured Phil Coy video – and geometric network visuals, all inspired by the layouts and routes of the journeys he maps out aurally.
There are some detours on this return trip of sorts, as Brooks cycles through the ‘Flatlands And The Flemish Roads’ of the lowlands – the flattened layout of Belgium reflected in the strident, though, serene pace of the methodical rhythmic time keeper -, ascends one of the highest mountain routes in the Swiss Alps, on the gently applied rocking motion of the magnificent climb, ‘From The Heights Of The Simplon Pass’, and waltzes through the Austrian capital, on the sacrosanct Baroque ‘Ode To Viennese Streets.
For those accustomed to Brooks multilayered loops and adroit deft touches, there are also the odd piqued moments, usually introductions, of gnarled, almost post-punk, strutting. But these are fleeting and though they never break with convention enough to burst out into song.
For everyone else, newcomers alike, the Grand Tour is pleasing and timeless, if not picturesque, journey through the South East of England and Western Europe.
Henri-Pierre Noel ‘One More Step’
(Wah Wah 45s) July 2014
The fault lines may run deep, and the humanitarian crisis resulting from tropical storms may have wreaked utter destruction, but the Haitian people continue to endure. Synonymous since its bitter fought independence from the French in 1804 with the vivid ominous local voodoo culture, and later on with the brutal rule of the infamous Duvalier dynasty, Haiti has fortunately been cast in a far more favorable light over the last few years, drawing the global music tourist into its feverish, infectious web.
In the last year alone Haiti has imbued, beguiled and charged albums by The Arcade Fire (who have an ancestral connection to the island through Régine Chassagne) and tUnE-yArDs, and paired-up local poet/writer legend Frankétienne with experimental Scottish guitarist Mark Mulholland for the Chaophonies collaboration. Already granted very favourable reviews elsewhere, including an entry on the Quietus’s reissues of 2014 selection, Strut Records Haiti Direct compilation treats the island’s 60s and 70s music scene with reverential celebration; echoing the revitalisation and celebratory musical archeology of Analog Africa, Soundway and Jazzman et al, who similarly revere music, previously presumed lost, from the African and South American continents.
With this in mind the Wah Wah 45s label has recently re-issued the polygenesis pianist Henri-Pierre Noël’s classic, One More Step; originally released as a limited pressing in the 80s. Moving from his home to Canada, the former émigré would go on to create a Haitian hybrid of the Kompa Funk and sauntered Latin grooves with North American jazz and disco to produce light breezy and diaphanous gilded dance floor gold.
A moiety, congruous to the previously rediscovered and also re-issued by Wah Wah 45s, Piano suite (released in 2012), One More Step attunes the classicism and amps up the funk and soul with a chorus of rasping horns and spiritually meditative Hammond organ. With an omnivorous craving, Noël loosely crosses over into a range of appetizing styles; sweetly caressing gospel and narrating in a Barry White-esque deep, husky burr, on the love lost lullaby ‘Will Come A Day’, and moseying into Stax, lamps-turned-down-low, balladry on ‘Bluesy Mood’.
Silky smooth with the odd rough and dirty edge, Noel’s swanky sonorous chops splash and spray across the ivory, sliding up and down the scales until they find a neat spot to rattle of the most melodically twinkly solo.
Mother Africa can’t help but shine through; Haiti’s own indelible roots stamped on every track, played and teased with by the composer. None more so than the opening tributary ‘Afro-Funk Groove’, with its feverish pattered congas and polyrhythm shuffles, or the sweltering Funkenstien, doo-wop female backed chorus line, ‘Funky Spider Dance’. Elsewhere the musical net is cast wide and far, merging samba with jazz (‘Latin Feeling’ and ‘Back Home…Sweet Home’) and weaving a new kind of tropical island classical symphony (‘Roller Skate Rhapsody’).
Of all the various Haitian themed, flavoured and re-examined releases in 2014, One More Step is the grooviest and slickest by far; a sweet and cool (very cool) Caribbean breezy accompaniment to our own present heat wave.
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
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The October Digest: Social Playlist Volume 80, Tamikrest, Billy Cobham and David Bowie…
October 18, 2023
ANNIVERSARY ARCHIVE SPOTS AND THE 80TH EDITION OF THE MONOLITH COCKTAIL SOCIAL PLAYLIST: DOMINIC VALVONA
Welcome all to the October edition of the Monolith Cocktail Digest, an archival driven column that celebrates anniversary albums each month and marks those special icons we’ve lost. In recent months this column has also become the home of the long-running cross-generational/international eclectic Social Playlist, which reaches its 80th edition this month.
Plucked from those back corridors of the blog’s archive, there are original pieces on the Tuareg desert blues-rockers Tamikrest and their 2013 album, ‘Chatma’, jazz drummer extraordinaire Billy Cobham’s Spectrum (50 years old this month), and David Bowie’s Reality (unbelievably already 20 years old).
The Social meanwhile features tracks from all three of those featured records, plus 50th anniversary mentions for The Who (Quadrophenia) and Elton John (Goodbye Yellow Brick Road), a 40th mention for Bob Dylan (Infidels), and 30th mentions for the Leaders Of The New School (T.I.M.E.), Black Moon (Buck Em Down) and Teenage Fanclub (Thirteen). Amongst that smattering, there’s choice tunes from Henry Franklin, Cee-Rock, David Liebe Hart, Dog Faced Hermans, Elias Hulk, Prix, Sofia Rosa and many more special selective tracks.
FULL TRACK LIST IS AS FOLLOWS::::….
Tamikrest ‘Djanegh Etoumast’
Pinky-Ann-Rihal ‘The Indian Dance’
Dog Faced Hermans ‘How We Connect’
Bob Dylan ‘Man Of Peace’
The Meditation Singers ‘Look At Yourself’
Billy Cobham ‘Spectrum’
Henry Franklin ‘Venus Fly Trap’
Leaders Of The New School ‘Connections’
Black Moon ‘Buck Em Down’
Kid Acne & Spectacular Diagnostics ‘Batman On Horseback’
Cee-Rock, Stealthguhn & Don Jazz ‘Linden Boulez’
officerfishdumplings ‘Divine Procrastinator’
David Liebe Hart & Th’ Mole ‘Michael Likes To Smoke His Weed’
Thiago Franca, Marcelo Cabral & Tony Gordin ‘Parte 1, Pt. 2’
Missus Beastly ‘Gurus For Sale’
Elisa Hulk ‘Ain’t Got You’
David Bowie ‘Never Get Old’
M ‘Baby Close The Window (12” Version)’
The Research ‘Feels Like The First Time’
Teenage Fanclub ‘The Cabbage’
Rabbit Rumba ‘Don Toribio’
Sofia Rosa ‘Kumulundu’
Tabaco ‘San juan Guaricongo’
Dick Stusso ‘Haunted Hotel’
Pin Group ‘Hurricane Fighter Plane’
The Spells ‘Number One Fan’
Prix ‘Girl’
Stiv Bators ‘Little Girl’
Agnes Strange ‘Give Yourself A Chance’
The Who ‘The Real Me’
Shyane Carter & Peter Jefferies ‘Randolph’s Going Home’
Roger Tillison ‘Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever’
Elton John ‘The Ballad Of Danny Bailey (1909-1934)’
ARCHIVAL SPOTS/ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATING LPS
50th Anniversary Of Billy Cobham’s Spectrum
Moving on into the seventies with the voracious fusion of jazz, funk and the far out, former US army conscript Billy Cobham allowed his drum kit to roam wildly: and take a fair old pummelling in the process.
Leaping from the starched fatigues of conformity into apprentice slots with Miles Davis (famously on the Bitches Brew opus, and sitting-in at the Isle Of Wight Pop Festival of 1970) and Horace Silver, Cobham went on to form the influential Mahavishnu Orchestra: stretching the limitations of jazz all the way.
Whilst still a member of the MO (he’d leave for the first time in 1973, before returning for the MK II incarnation in the 80s), Cobham recorded his solo debut Spectrum; an unequivocal energetic mix of unwieldy cosmic slop guitar, thundering and rapid ricocheting double kick peddling drums, and 12-bar jazz gone native!
Featuring the arching, noodling rock guitar solos and lead that would become a familiar presence to the Cobham sound, Tommy Bolin (later to join Deep Purple), is tasked with really giving it some gospel. Sampled by future generations – Massive Attack fans will recognise Status – Cobham’s first album also drifted across the pond to Europe – Krautrock connoisseurs may pick up on the relationship to the music of Mani Neumeier’s Guru Guru (especially after their UFO LP). No matter how sophisticated, or ‘twiddly muso’, Cobham always inserted some humour into his work, from the video-game effects and title of Snoopy’s Search to the general free spirited nuttiness of some of the playing itself.
A great marker, laid down for the generations to come.
DAVID BOWIE’S REALITY IS TWENTY
Making the most of his creative flow, David Bowie’s next critically assiduous, soul-searching suite would draw from the ‘oil well’ of despair.
The hyper ‘reality’ that permeated throughout this sophisticated album reflected a woeful climate, specifically the unfolding drama in the Middle East. Allusions to neocon diplomacy, nepotism of the most colonially threatening kind and the crescent of Islam are interspersed with more pining romanticized themes of loss.
Assembling a ‘dream team’, Bowie’s backing group once again swelled with the talents of Mike Garson (piano), Tony Visconti (production duties), Earl Slick (guitar) and Carlos Alomar (guitar) – the latter two, both veterans of Young Americans. Slick and Visconti would of course go onto to form part of The Next Day recording hub.
That quality and old camaraderie proved every bit as tightly dynamic, Reality unequivocally the thin white duke’s best work since Earthlings.
Again, Bowie insists on appropriating or at least resorting to past endeavours, recalling Outside on his sardonic hustled cover of Jonathan Richman’s ‘Pablo Picasso’; Tonight on the samba weepie ‘Days’; and Black Tie White Noise on the thinly veiled indicative Dick Cheney putdown, ‘Fall Dog Bombs The Moon’: Bowie at his bleakest, “The blackest of years that have no sound, no shape, no depth, no underground/What a dog!’ But full marks for trying to get a grip of George Harrison‘s ‘Try Some, Buy Some’; made most famous (and infamously) by a reluctant Ronnie Spector.
An augury of what was to follow in 2013, the thumping kickdrum, rollicking anthem ‘Never Get Old’ has a resounding statement of intent from the artist: “Never ever gonna get old!” In character he may be, but Bowie’s cry against mortality is a personal one, echoed in the present. Unfortunately bowing to the so-called market forces – regardless of artistic values and sanctimonious vitriol, he always had an eye for making dough – Bowie lent the tune to mineral water brand Vittel, appearing in an advert which has an uncanny resonance with the ‘The Stars (Are Out Tonight)’ video.
For various reasons outside his control, namely the poor sods heart attack, Bowie had to wait eight years to produce another volume of reactionary post-millennium blues. The Next Day, despite the decade-long absence from recording, picks up where Reality left off.
TAMIKREST’S CHATMA IS TEN YEARS OLD ALREADY
Mali’s rich musical culture isn’t confined to just the central and southern regions of the country, the northern Tuareg desert lands also evoke some passionate, soulfully rhythmic surprises too. Despite the unfavourable attention meted out to the Tuareg community in recent years (there cause for autonomy hijacked by far less scrupulous zealots for there own religious and political ends), many voices from that community have offered their services to peace. One example is the nomadic, sub-Saharan rock’n’rollers Tamikrest, whose Hendrix meets desert blues template proves there are two sides to every story; the new album, Chatma – which translates as ‘sisters’ – a tribute to the courage of the Tuareg women and spirit of a people.
Forced into exile in Algeria, Tamikrest plaintively, but with an ear for a good melody, reflect on the imposition of Sharia law – by those outsiders who at first lent help to the course but soon dominated with their own destructive agenda – and the loss of there heritage. Producing beautifully cooed laments with an infectious kick, but also deftly crafting meandrous, ethereal, desert songs, the group can transverse the grooviest of Bedouin rhythmic funk anthems with ponderous soundscapes – ‘Assikal’ is pure Ash Ra Temple meets atavistic sand dune eulogy.
Separated into many a ‘world music’ best of list this year, the Monolith Cocktail sees no such reason for such boundaries or demarcated categorising; Chatma is simply a wondrous piece of ‘head music’.
Hip-Hop Revue
Matt Oliver
Singles
Front page news in hip-hop this month has been the unexpected return of Gang Starr – whether it needed a guest spot from J Cole or not, ‘Family and Loyalty’ is nicely nostalgic and respectful, pure Guru wisdom about what matters most, and DJ Premier bringing boom bap sparkle, making you sigh with both contentment and for what once was.
Rodney P roughing up the right path reveals ‘The Next Chapter’, at his influential best and calling the tune to Urban Monk extending carnival season. The surprise return of Tommy Evans wants you to feel his ‘Flow (H20)’, hosting a drowsy, frilly-collared sway with a killer hook and his clear-minded navigation of gentle waves.
Some modest Trevvy Trev production, boom bap jabbing at you rather than going for the all-out roundhouse, allows San Man & MC Small World to stroll freely and get the coolness of their deadliness to set up an old skool prowl of authority on the five track ‘EP’. The music may be of a smooth funk vintage, but Dark Lo pulls the pin to set the record straight on ‘American Made’ and exerts sheer street control on ‘Ripped Apart’ with Benny the Butcher. Catch him if you can – Nodoz is ‘All Ready Up’, “staying woke ‘til the white sheet cover my eyes”, the early bird fiercely catching Will C’s smooth funk with a magical mystery tale to tell.
Albums
‘Retropolitan’ rolls with a capital R as “a love letter and a wakeup call to the city” from Skyzoo and Pete Rock, a well suited duo speculators must secretly have been hoping would get together, and whose Big Apple toughness comes with polished corners, epitomising the concrete jungle encasing the big city of dreams. Bustling and ‘bout it but barely breaking sweat, it’s an exemplary expo of sights and sounds, achieving easy listening when the pair’s objective is anything but.
Now sporting a short back and sides and Colgate smile and aligning himself with Q-Tip as executive producer, the energy of Danny Brown stays undiminished on ‘uknowhatimsayin¿ ’, but this time around you can tell he’s given more thought as to which wet square pegs should go in which live round holes. Paul White, Flying Lotus, JPEGMAFIA and Run the Jewels are all part of a medium reset, updating the livewire’s instincts that still come through loud, clear and uncouth (“I ignore a whore, like an email from LinkedIn”).
“I may never rock the Garden, but I did plant the seed, and it’s far from Autumn” – Von Pea, with his Pusha T-ish rasp, declares ‘City for Sale’ but also mi casa su casa, endlessly funky with production baked in sunshine and snappy cypherisms penning local postcards about how hood the hood really is right now.
The ever likely lads Dr Syntax and Pete Cannon are back to break their unique brand of bread until they’ve defined ‘Wallop’, chatting solemnly over tea and biscuits before giving it some jump-up, bass-mainlining welly. Whatever the mood of your favourite plain English rapper and wildcard producer combo, they leave you feeling invigorated from all the angles they cover.
Bending your ear with his usual best of British, Kid Acne’s South Yorkshire styling receives a boost from Illinois’ Spectacular Diagnostics, pulling ‘Have a Word’ from fuggy pillars to raw and whip-smart posts. Another time capsule of references tripping off the tongue, that continued sense of Acne picking up the mic and diving straight into the close-to-home anarchy with no warm up, sustains his latest keeper of the faith as flavoursome and full of unfettered character, shared with members of New Kingdom, Juga-Naut and Juice Aleem.
Ocean Wisdom’s extensive lung squeezer ‘Big Talk’ has got the mouth to go with the trousers, unstoppably menacing when riding jittery danger zone trappers rarely feeling the need to pull the handbrake. Assists from Dizzee Rascal, P Money, Ghetts, Akala, Freddie Gibbs and Fatboy Slim underline the star quality finding six million more ways to end careers at the same rate of words per minute.
When the long stretch of ‘Eagle Court’ is in session, CMPND trio Wundrop, Kemastry and Vitamin G invest in deep bass shudders of trap/drill genealogy that you can somehow find solitude in, and disgust-registering rhymes consistently keeping heads down while speaking up for bad boys moving in silence. Probably ineffective in daylight hours, a different beast when the graveyard shift ticks by, banging like a gavel in the hand of the Grim Reaper.
Livewire rhymes with clean means of execution from VersesBang advocate ‘Cardigans & Calories’, taking over tough/rubbery bass steppers and sending the fortunes of foes into hiding. Most unexpected is the appearance of D12’s Bizarre on the concluding ‘W.E.I.R.D.O.’, showing that rap/grime is not a funny old game. Junior Disprol’s ‘Def Valley’ is like a hip-hop game of Tough Mudder, gruffly ravaging a tricky selection of beats (yacht rockers to blips-n-bleeps to pots-n-pans, drum machine brawlers) with the unfazed, warpaint-daubed mindset of no-one else is gonna manage it, so it may as well be the Dead Residents emcee.
The LA addicts fiending for static that are Clipping are back to confirm ‘There Existed an Addiction to Blood’, an oxymoron where no-one can hear you scream in space until its engine room sucks you in and spits you out. The trio continue to give braincells a thrashing but still love a good hook, with emcee Daveed Diggs’ style in charge of the captain’s log recited by a sentient streetwise super-computer, taking Benny the Butcher, El Camino and La Chat along for the ride.
The heavy burdens of Big Turks gang Rome Streetz, Jamal Gasol and Lord Juco handle dangerous day-to-days to Ro Data’s expressive Turkish folk skills. Inducing a hush as they step in the place and where spotting weakness can be cataclysmic, this it tough Mafioso styling holding a certain cinematic exotica until the heavies on the mic – few grand gestures = time is money – begin their rearranging. Clinical, allowing for one traditional Turkish jig to conclude.
An invite to ‘The Gold Room’ from SadhuGold prepares ears for heavy instrumentalism straining towards the grey area of your DAB, too focussed on trip hop toil and a certain prog rock/gangsta determination so as to avoid playing the strung out chestnut. Slithering and curling itself around late night like a serpent ready for its chokehold moment, plucky emcees will flinch at the Philly producer’s muddy Midas touch.
‘Complicate Your Life With Violence’ suggest L’Orange and Jeremiah Jae, the folklore of old war stories and wild westerns mined by the former, schooled by a 5 o’clock shadow of a faintly numb flow keeping an ear to the street belonging to the latter. An expert in throwing you for a loop in its disregard for boom bap boundaries, seems to house a cast of hundreds when in reality it’s a good old fashioned (uniquely telepathic) MC-producer two-for. Proof that violence can solve matters.
Zilla Rocca and Curly Castro could tell you what Grift Company are all about, but then they’d probably have to kill you: ‘Too Many Secrets’ takes true school to the bank with a stick-up kid swagger. Giving it all they’ve got by using the 32 minute duration as a ticking time bomb to their savagery roaming the streets, it’s a slick and dangerous operation, pushing underground cinema full of proper hip-hop spirit.
Quarterly Playlist 2019: Part Three: Snapped Ankles, Danny Brown, Trupa Trupa, Matana Roberts, Repo-Man…
September 26, 2019
Playlist
Compiled by Dominic Valvona with contributions from Matt Oliver, Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, Andrew C. Kidd and Gianluigi Marsibilio.
Graphics by Gianluigi Marsibilio.
Reflecting the Monolith Cocktail’s tastes and favourite choice tracks from the last few months, the Quarterly Revue is a diverse musical journey; an eclectic international playlist of discoveries. This is a space in which you are as likely to find the skewered Gary Wilson meets Brian Wilson stained-glass psychedelic songwriting of the Origami Repetika creative hub as you are the conscious transportive jazz of Horace Tapscott. Brand new tracks appear alongside reissues and recently uncovered nuggets as we move through funk, jazz, hip-hop, post-punk, shoegaze, desert blues, techno, psychedelic, acid rock, space rock, and the most experimental of musical genres.
Behold…part three…
Tracklist::
Snapped Ankles ‘Three Steps To A Development’
DJ Shadow ‘Rosie’
Kid Acne/Nosaj/Spectacular Diagnostics ‘Crest Of A Wave’
Gang Starr/J. Cole ‘Family and Loyalty’
Danny Brown ‘Best Life’
Bronx Slang ‘More Grief’
SAULT ‘Let Me Go’
clipping. ‘Nothing Is Safe’
Bloke Music ‘Everything On’
Seaside Witch Coven ‘Splutter’
Trupa Trupa ‘Remainder’
Stereo Total ‘Einfach’
Los Piranas ‘Palermo’s Grunch’
Baba Zula ‘Salincak In’
Abdallah Oumbadougou ‘Thingalene’
Grup Dogus ‘Namus Belasi’
Taichmania ‘See Ya at Six or Seven’
Kota Motomura ‘Cry Baby’
Baby Taylah ‘Reclaim’
House Of Tapes ‘Melted Ice’
Camino Willow ‘Hollywood’
Callum Easter ‘Only Sun’
Junkboy ‘Waiting Room’
Elizabeth Everts ‘Contraband’
Bloom de Wilde ‘Soul Siren’
Badge Epoque Ensemble ‘Milk Split on Eternity’
Chrissie Hynde/The Valve Bone Woe Ensemble ‘Meditation on a Pair of Wire Cutters’
Swan/Koistinen ‘Diagnosis’
Sirom ‘Low Probability of a Hug’
Koma Saxo ‘Fanfarum for Komarun’
Matana Roberts ‘Raise Yourself Up/Backbone Once More/How Bright They Shine’
Die Achse/Ghostface Killah/Agent Sasco ‘Baby Osamas’
U-Bahn ‘Beta Boyz’
Occult Character ‘Half-Wits and Cultists’
Asbestos Lead Asbestos ‘Shrimp Asmr’
Repo-Man ‘Evan The Runt’
Issac Birituro & The Rail Abandon ‘Kalba’
Nicolas Gaunin ‘Vava’u’
Mazouni ‘Daag Dagui’
Mdou Moctar ‘Wiwasharnine’
Aziza Brahim ‘Leil’
Resavoir ‘Resavoir’
Purple Mountains ‘All My Happiness is Gone’
Babybird ‘Cave In’
Adam Green ‘Freeze My Love’
Catgod ‘Blood’
Frog ‘RIP to the Empire State Flea Market’
Pozi ‘Engaged’
Roi ‘Dormouse Records’
Origami Repetika ‘Winged Creatures’
Horace Tapscott ‘Future Sally’s Time’
A Journey Of Giraffes ‘September 11 1977’
Jodie Lowther ‘The Cat Collects’
Equinox/Vukovar ‘Lament’
Kandodo 3 ‘King Vulture’
Rapture & Verse: September: Kid Acne, Pitch 92, Fliptrix…
September 18, 2018
Matt Oliver’s essential Hip-Hop revue
Handbags at dawn for Rapture & Verse this month, with Cardi B and Nicki Minaj almost inevitably auditioning for a future Pay-Per-View bout, and Eminem dropping the sneak attack ‘Kamikaze’, a hitlist trying to avoid becoming an old-man-shouts-at-cloud meme. Thus far, only Machine Gun Kelly, with a fair-to-middling amount of invective, has taken the bait and dragged it back to the playground. The album itself is full of uninspired/overegged production and one glaring ‘Sing for the Moment’ moment of redemption, swept aside by Mathers going supersonic in burying post-‘Revival’ hatchets and sacking frontline figures.
Singles/EPs
Hello darkness, my old friend. There’s getting low, and then there’s ‘Low and Behold’, a scathing cellar dweller with no escape from Final Boss and Harry the Bastard. Pair it with Dirty Dike’s ‘Permanent Midnight’, a wrathful rhyme execution dumping you somewhere near the valley of the shadow of death, and Dead End’s ‘Let the Music Talk’, bodying a symphony, getting ice cold on the warpath and issuing a warrant for all ears. The digitally druggy ‘Helsinki Knights’ ain’t playing either, ThisIsDa getting isometric as he plays fact against fiction.
Back to beat up your boombox, Mongrels crack skulls and shells on ‘Over Eggin’ It’, Kid Acne and Benjamin yoking jokers with Sleaford Mods’ Jason Williamson. ‘Shoot the Breeze’ on the flip has Cappo and Juganaut dropping knowledge like a cinder block from the top floor. Th£ Gaffa and Mikispeakz put Mitcham on the map by getting into a ‘Soul Off’, handling the smooth with a great, bristling will to win. The warmth of Pitch 92’s ‘Lost in Space’ serves funk and soul silk, with frayed edges kept in, for Verb T, Jehst and Sparkz, and has the producer giving himself some alone time on top: less astro, all artisan.
If deM atlaS offers you an invite to his ‘Tomorrow Party’, notify your loved ones, a rage blowing out the Midwest waiting for the apocalypse to gatecrash any minute. Party bags = hell in a handcart. Present at that moment your brain descrambles after waking, Akinyemi and Birocratic pull back the duvet before issuing a rat-a-tat to-do list: ‘Dream On’ ensures you won’t stay static. Staying out for the summer, Von Pea and The Other Guys mean no ill when they assert ‘I’m Good Luv, Enjoy’, five tracks of coolly hailing a Californian lab-cab, as they always seem to do, and thoughtfully including the instrumentals to cruise to.
Rugged in uppercase, Marvi Marx and DJ Squigz announce ‘My Resignation’, a Michigan-via-England-via-Thailand turning of the screw, sounding off with vigilantism on their mind. For one brilliant moment, we imagined Ghostface’s ‘Buckingham Palace’ being a belated response to Fergie’s ‘London Bridge’. Instead it’s a traditional, testosterone ticker tape parade of horns, taking aim with 38 Spesh, KXNG Crooked and Benny the Butcher.
Albums
Rhyming from his highest plain yet, Fliptrix remodelling the Lotus position on ‘Inexhale’ masters the art of knocking you down with a feather. Ocean Wisdom, Capo Lee and Skinnyman join the inner circle of auditory enlightenment that would freak out the unaware. Even when reverting to a slacker, more stoned flow, using the mic as both jostick and Excalibur’s edge, the pugilistic psychoanalysis is untouchable, recalibrating the percentages between inspiration, perspiration and respiration.
Street struck with a shrug, King Grubb’s potently dour ‘Droopy’, shaken with a yardstick dose of Blah Records apathy, is done with summer and just wants to hunker down. For what is essentially hip-hop shoegazing, Grubb paradoxically develops a warming cocoon out of isolated, unsympathetic beats and rhymes (“forget more lines than I memorise/which is wack, so I don’t empathise”).
“Do I look as if I’m bothered by some little squabble?”- a flying kick to the ear and a gob that can go all day are Dabbla’s signature ‘Death Moves’. Long disciplined in schooling any beat that knocks, whether it keeps heads down or jumps up, the bounce of his court jester sustains the ability to clown you at any given opportunity, and yet still make you grin when he’s giving you an unrelenting earful.
Gruff roughhouse Gi3mo declares ‘Big Gizzy is Boss’, reminding everyone of his biggest power moves to date that include hook-ups with Stig of the Dump, Inja and Dirty Dike. The Rum Committee crown ruler sends beats running for cover, bulldozing his way through with a big bad set of show and prove that’ll blow your house down. Another necessary recap comes from Farmabeats, counting down on ‘365’ with a year’s worth of heaviness as he twists folklore, funk and mystery for the benefit of Recognize Ali, Mach Hommy, Jalal Salaam, Ty Farris and more, like shady urban myths having the record set straight by a seething underground network. Earth2Tom’s ‘One’ LP, pushed forward by appearances from Confucius MC, FRSHRZ, Holly Flo Lightly and MINX, is a neck knotter numero uno. Freshness delivered in many shades of jazz and soul and for all occasions, the inclusive, hip-hop workshop vibe and have-beats-will-travel attitude, banish the blues. A talented bunch keeping it moving with a London heartbeat.
Leading a search party by miner’s lamp through a quagmire the wrong way, Armand Hammer’s Elucid and Billy Woods come out the other side reeking of ‘Paraffin’. Unburdened and unrepentantly marching through hip-hop’s twilight zones to enhance their own cult, be warned, cos these two “are good at these ghetto games”. An album so underground that it bears beats and rhymes fossils. Now for the settling of street scores to a soundtrack of duels decided on the count of three: Knowledge the Pirate is a dry, sleep-is-the-cousin-of-death rhymer, and ‘Flintlock ’is an album of pure tooth for a tooth, eye for an eye stakes-raising. Will have you lost in the drama hook, line and sinker. The drama that Giallo Point brings is never a small thing, re-teaming with Smoovth for ‘Don Fabio: Medellin II’. Expect the usual mix of seedy underworlds and chandelier sparkle, blunt-edged collaborators such as Estee Nack, Hus Kingpin and Crimeapple, and concentration leaving all concerned gasping in fear of a shopping trip for Colombian neckties.
“A giant-size vernacular spectacular” – the Wordburglar brand of true skool entertainment is serious about showstealing stanzas without taking the game too seriously, like a Canadian branch of Ugly Duckling (especially when he turns The Wiseguys’ ‘Ooh La La’ into his own thief’s theme). ‘Rhyme Your Business’ stuffs a swag bag full of puns and engaging nostalgia exploring the core elements (digging in the crates, beef and battling). A good laugh that doesn’t forget to bring the goods. Appointing himself as guardian of vibes, ‘Keep Summer Safe’ has Calvin Valentine stepping to the mic to add an extra smooth layer to his always recline-ready, R&B-reaching roll outs. Life sounds so much simpler when Valentine starts easing the pressure under clear blue skies, though it shouldn’t stop you reaching for it when fireside positioning becomes priority.
Stay tuned for a game of cat and mouse with Ocean Wisdom, LoneMoon putting his back into it, and one time for the late Mac Miller.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 