Monolith Cocktail Blog

THE MONTHLY DIGEST OF ACCUMULATED NEW MUSIC, THE SOCIAL INTER-GENERATIONAL/ECLECTIC AND ANNIVERSRAY ALBUMS CELEBRATING PLAYLIST, AND ARCHIVE MATERIAL CHOSEN BY DOMINIC VALVONA

Continuing a series that started in 2023, the Digest is my one-stop column of the new and the old; a secondary home to all those releases I missed out on or didn’t get room to feature in either my Perusal reviews features or singular Our Daily Bread posts, plus a chance to celebrate timely anniversary albums and dip into my own record collection with the a special anything goes playlist, and to, finally, dip into the Monolith Cocktail Archives.

The New: this will be a briefing of a sort, with a short outline, thoughts and reactions to a number of recent albums from my inbox – currently a 1000+ releases a month on average!

The Social Playlist: choice music collected from across the ages, borders and genres, with a smattering of tracks from choice anniversary celebrating albums of worth and cult status. Consider it my unofficial radio show.

The Archives: self-explanatory, but each month I chose past pieces from the extensive Monolith Cocktail back pages that have a timely ring to them.  

_((THE NEW))_

LINA_ ‘Fado Camões’
(Galileo Music)

Fado dramatist with the spellbinding voice, LINA_ follows up her impressive collaboration with Raul Refree with another unique reading of the famous Portuguese form of sullenness, sorrow and plaint. On that previous project, the diaphanous and emotionally sonorous pulling songstress and composer transformed the music of the Fado legend and actress Amália Rodrigues; filtering that icon’s songbook through a modern production of minimalistic gauze and sonic atmospheric effects.

Back this time with the British producer and musician Justin Adams (credits include projects with Robert Plant, Tinariwen, Eno and Sinead O’Conner to name but a few) and a small ensemble, LINA_ takes on the classical 16^th century poetics of Portugal’s most famous literary son, Luís Vaz de Camões. So titan a figure in that country’s rich history, his medieval period language of lyrical romantic aches, mortality and nature is said to be the basis of Portuguese itself: often called the “language of Camões”. Integral to the very soul of Portugal then, it’s fitting that such a talent as LINA_ is behind this interpretation of his work; transcribing it’s prescient and near timeless reach to the music of Fado. Examples of which include, when translated into English from the original lyrical language, “They hear the tale of my misfortunes, and cure their ordeals with my hell”. Tortured but also overwhelmingly beautiful and romantic throughout, it suits the musical form very well across twelve near magical songs of air-y mysticism, the venerable, yearning and dreamy. Musically tender, accentuated and like a fog, mist at times, even vapour of the mere essence of a score, there’s echoes of old Spain, the Balearics, North Africa, the Middle East but also Turkey and the Hellenic. You can also add the supernatural to that list too: a passing over into the ether. At times other times there is an almost semi-classical feel, merged with Iberian and Galician new wave, with some songs standing out as radio-friendly floated diaphanous pop visions of the Fado spirit.

Incredible throughout, LINA_ once more proves herself the most striking if not talented artist in this field of exploration and music; bring together beautifully and evocatively time honoured traditions and the legacy of literary Portugal with the country’s most prized and famous export to magic up another essential album. LINA_ is a leading light, pushing the boundaries without losing the soul, truth and appeal of the music she adopts and transforms. Fado Camões is another artistic triumph.    

 

Andy Haas/David Grollman ‘Act Of Love’

The experimental NYC percussionist-assemblage artist and knight of the Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood (alongside saxophonist Andy Haas and the late multi-tasking Michael Evans) David Grollman knows more than most about the cruelties of the Alzheimer’s Disease; losing his wife, the poet Rita Stein-Grollman to Early Onset Alzheimer’s in early 2023.

Funneled and channeled into this most recent album with Haas, Grollman and his sonic partner of avant-garde arts and evocations reflect the very essence of loss through an apparatus of Dadaist and Fluxus apparatus: namely in Grollman’s case the balloon, with the textured tactile touches and stretches of its latex surface wrinkling as it expels its air; in a manner, like the life force slowly leaving the deflated body and personality of what someone once was as they lose themselves to this incurable disease. Meanwhile on sax, Haas deals in exaggerated long, slowly drawn-out breathes and blows; sometimes appearing to lift the weight that sits on his lungs, and at other times making noises that resemble steam and the pressure of valves being released and squeezed. Together it sounds like La Monte Young, John Zorn, Anthony Braxton and Marshall Allen in remembrance.

But then there’s another dimension, the brilliant, often acerbic poetry of Rita (written before she succumbed to the disease), which is read out in both almost laconic and grumpy confrontational style by David. Another piece of text, ‘Message From ME’, which the title makes obvious, is a voicemail left by the already mentioned and late Michael Evans (who passed away back in 2021), another knock-about figure on the scene and much missed member of the Ghosts Of The Holy Ghost Spermic Brotherhood.  Act Of Love is a challenging and strained but obviously emotional well of remembrance, with the harsh and more attentive abstractions of the performances somehow managing to convey that which can’t always be said or represented.

Variát & Merzbow ‘Unintended Intentions’
(I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free) – Released the end of last year

Unsurprisingly concentrating the mind, the brutal barbaric dystopian-scarred landscapes of war-torn Ukraine have been transmogrified into the abrasive, concrete debris soundscapes of nightmares by the trick noisemaker of dissonance and pulverizing noise, and co-instigator of the Prostir label, Dmyto Fedorenko (aka Variát). As his homeland continues to be bombarded and churned up by the invading forces of the despot Putin, Fedorenko teams up with fellow noise sculptor of some standing, Masami Akita – the harsh and confrontational Japanese artist behind the 500 plus back catalogue Merzbow project – to reshape the needled, scowled, squalled, overbearing, sinister, menacing and static coarse ruins: the only hope of which, is in the “resilience” of the Ukrainian people holding back the tide of destruction and evil.

Crushing morbid forces merge with the air raids of drone attacks, decay, coded signals, charged force fields, transistors, the Fortean radio set and the alien. Occasionally a keyboard chord materializes, along with the recognizable sounds of toms and breaks – the drums sounding like at times like they’re being beaten with boxing gloved pummeling hands. At one point it could be the set of a roofless cathedral, another, from the charred remains of a devastating fire: I could of course be projecting all this.

Throbbing Gristle, Gunther Wüsthoff, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Sunn O))) (if they cashed in their guitars for synths and a laptop), Oberman Knocks, Boris and Scott Walker are all brought to mind. And yet this is a unique collaborative pneumatic and caustic vision from the two artists, one that can’t help but evoke the devastating, mindless and distressing scenes unfolding. And if you needed any prompting or a reminder, profits for this release all go to supporting ‘Ukraine resistance against Russia’ with donations made to self-defense and humanitarian foundations. PS: Thanks by the way to the label, I Shall Sing Until My Land Is Free, for the CD and stickers; always appreciated to receive something physical in an increasingly soulless, downloaded or streaming, non-committal world.   

Various ‘Hyperboloid 2024’
(Hyperboloid Music)

I had to try and shoehorn this end-of-year compilation from the Latvian label in to the Digest this month. Twenty-five visionary trance-y and techno tracks from the roster’s myriad of artists – a sort of Balkans and beyond Warp label Artificial Intelligence series for the new age and new century -, there’s variations of the electronic genre spread out across a generous showcase that marks yet another creatively successful year for the imprint. Old skool rave breaks sit next to entrancing vista soundscapes; d’n’b with hardcore; and near Grimes-like pop electronica with thoughtful rumination. Get stuck in.    

Roma Zuckerman ‘Phenomenon of Provincial Mentality’
(Gost Zvuk)

Filaments, electric currents, crispy buzzes and granular fizzles combine to form the most redacted and evocative of minimal techno, deep house and EBM-esque dance music on the Siberian producer’s archival showcase for the Gost Zvuk label. Charged, pulsing and rhythmic at all times, Roma Zuckerman’s spheres of influences run through glimpses and throbs of Basic Channel, Kreidler, Rob Hood and Dave Clarke, twinned and merged with an alternative cosmonaut Soviet era vision of Sky Records. And most surprising of all, on the collection’s finale, ‘Compañeros’, there’s a move toward windy-fluted Latin American with the use of a Spanish pastoral rhythm guitar. Voices, the echoes and morphed ravings, communications and alien warped effects of which, play their part too; at times sounding like Richard H. Kirk, and at others, like some two-way radio cosmic interface between ground control and Soyuz shuttle. A highly recommended slice of deep bass, futuristic and simultaneously retro-futuristic minimalist techno that will almost definitely make the end of year lists.

(((THE SOCIAL/VOLUME 82)))

Continuing with the decade-long Social – originally a DJ club night I’d pick up at different times over the past 20 plus years, and also a café residency from 2012 to 2014 – playlist, each month I literally chose the records that celebrate anniversary albums; those that I’d love to hear on the radio waves or DJs play once and while; and those records that pay a homage and pay respects to those artists who we’ve lost on the way.

January starts with one such sad but celebratory nod to the late Marlena Shaw, who passed away last weekend (I’m incidentally writing this at the start of the third week of the month). The California Soul(stress) had some real sass and attitude, as proven by the provocative, taking-no-shit, title of her 1974 LP, Who Is This Bitch, Anyway?; from which I’ve included the short gospel-light ‘The Lord Giveth And The Lord Taketh Away’. Also 50 this year, there’s tracks from Pekka Pohjola’s Harakka Bialoipokku, Harmonia’s ‘Musik Von Harmonia’ and (sticking with a kosmische/krautrock theme) something from the quartet of albums made under the auspices of The Cosmic Jokers nom de plume – a supergroup that never really was, the main participants of which included such lauded icons as Manuel Göttsching, Klaus Schulze, Jürgen Dollase and Harald Grosskopf fucking around in Dieter Dierks’ studio; the results of which, unknowingly recorded by Rolf-Ulrich Kaiser and Gille Lettman at the time were put out during 1974 – Schulze was incandescent enough to sue over the whole affair.

40^th anniversary nods go to Finnis Africae’s incredible fourth world self-titled peregrination, Bob Dylan’s Planet Waves and Harold Budd & Eno’s prized and influential The Pearl LP. A decade later and there’s also tracks from The Wake’s Tidal Wave Of Hope and Air Liquide’s Nephology (see my archive essay style piece further down the column).

I usually leave the most current and newest of tracks to the Monolith Cocktail’s Monthly Playlist (next edition due next week), but have included recent(ish) tracks from Igor Osypov, Bagaski, Nicole Mitchell and, not really new but reissued late last year, a track from the originally 1984 released Ein Bundel Faulnis in der Grube album by Holger Hiller (of Palais Schaumburg German new wave fame) – reissued that is by krautrock/kosmische specialists Bureau B.

The rest is for you to discover; a smattering of eclectic delights, wonders and nuggets from across time and from across the globe. Actually, if you are reading this, and if you have time, I’d really like some feedback on the length of these playlists. I’ve gradually tightened the running order down to around the 30 mark and the length under 3 hours – down from 33 last year, and before that anything from 40 to 100!!! Let me know if this is a ridiculous number, or just right. 

___TRACK LISTING AS FOLLOWS: 

Marlena Shaw ‘The Lord Giveth And The Lord Taketh Away’
Bob Dylan ‘Tough Mama’
Ethel-Ann-Powell ‘The Jaybird Song’
Acayouman ‘Si Ou Ladje Moin’
The Wake ‘Britain’
A Passing Fancy ‘Your Trip’
The New Tweedy Brothers ‘I Can See It’
Americo Brito ‘Sabe Na Panama’
J.O. Araba ‘Kelegbe Megbe’
Finnis Africae ‘Zoo Zula’
The Cosmic Jokers ‘Power Drive’
Ike Yard ‘Beyondersay’
Air Liquide ‘Semwave’
Holger Hiller ‘Chemische und physikalische Entdeckungen’
Harmonia ‘Sonnenschein’
Fireballet ‘Carrollon’
Pekka Pohjola ‘Hereillakin uni jatkuu’
Dhidalah ‘Adamski’
Son Of Bazerk ‘The Band Got Swivey On The Wheels’
Bagaski ‘Hawkish Torso’
Joe Mubare ‘Number 8’
Nicole Mitchell ‘You Know What’s In There’
Igor Osypov ‘Vango’
Lard Free ‘Warinbaril’
Teengenerate ‘Something You Got’
Tasavallan Presidentti ‘Weather Brightly’
Second Hand ‘I Am Nearly There’
Duffy Power ‘Glimpses Of God’
Grothbros ‘Tollah Tra Flex’

((((ARCHIVES))))

Air Liqude ‘Nephology – The New Religion’ Is 30 Years Old This Month

Selective electronic musicians often come out with the line that they’ve been influenced on a particular album by the Krautrock greats, citing such luminaries as Roedelius, Michael Rothar, Klaus Schulze, Irmin Schmidt etc. – as though they were in some way picking up the baton and running with it.

Of course most of this is a whole crock of shit, as hardly anyone essentially understood that those innovators from the 70s were always moving forward and re-inventing their sound, never usually dwelling on the past; just copying it or reprising it totally misses the point.

OK, so I’m sort of meandering off on a tangent, but basically you can take a look at the likes of Neu!, Cluster, Kraftwerk and CAN and see they were making something fresh and new; to really take on their train of thought means to push those delineated boundaries even further.

Heir apparent to the synthesizer and analogue re-wiring school of exploration, were, and still are, the Cologne duo of Air Liquide. They took up their forefathers brave new world mantle, and built an ambitious and inspiring variation based around the technological leaps in music production; concentrating on the styles of Techno and Acid House.

Their seminal opus of 1994, Nephology, adopts vestiges of cinematic, industrial, ambient and dub; producing an impressive soundtrack that stands up well even by today’s standards, and adheres to the German desires of progress.

The duo comprised of the exceptionally talented Cem Oral and Ingmar Koch, better known as Jamin Unit and Dr. Walker, both entrenched in technical know-how – Koch was the lucky recipient of a Roland JX3P synthesizer on his 14th birthday, a gift that led to him being hired by Korg to program sounds for a number of their iconic models.

Koch began recording in the late 80s, composing, as he puts it, assembly line House and Hip Hop tracks for the German labels Hype! and Technoline. The latter label went bankrupt, prompting him to join a course on electronic composition at a University in Cologne. He would soon meet fellow student and synth enthusiast Oral, and find that he also shared a common interest for groups like Tangerine Dream, CAN, Heaven 17, early New York Hip Hop and Chicago acid: working together seemed almost inevitable.

By the end of 1991 Air Liquide was born, with their first EP release following in a matter of months, and a self-titled debut at the end of 1992. Their second album, the 1994 released Nephology opus, really upped the ante with its mostly innovative themes and layered tracks modeled around the more sophisticated tones of intelligent Techno and dance music – future projects saw the duo experimenting with Gabba hardcore and ethereal fashioned traversing styles of trance.

Singing from the same hymn sheet as The Orb, and many similar ambient acts, they immersed themselves in a haze of new-age touchy-feely rhetoric, using both celestial horizons and the skies above as the central theme to hang their music to: That Nephology title is itself taken from the, originally Greek, word for clouds; adopted as the terminology for the study of their formations – interestingly over the last century it has remained a rather marginalised and forgotten art…well, that was until the recent interest in global warming.

The 14-track album is split into various sections, with the main tracks interspersed amongst the otherworldly type segue ways and vignettes.

A central atmospheric resonance runs throughout, evoking a cosmological and space-age mood, one that has an often ominous or threatening feel to it; charged with rippling static effects.

Mainly we are treated to some indolently and cleverly multi-layering techniques, produced from an impressive display of iconic analogue/electronic equipment, including the Roland Tr 808, Jupiter 8, ARP 2600 and a pair of Moogs.

Side one of this double album entirely consists of acid drenched grooves and bouncing taut techno. The grand opening of ‘The Cloud’ emerges refined and full of empyrean quality from the ether, its tightened rolling drums and throbbing bass cascade over an electrified wild jungle rich sound collage; sounding like a Germanic 808 State. As though in tribune to Klaus Schulze and his cohorts, the duo interweave startling ambient sequences, dousing the beats in swathes of metallic walled corridor sounds and whispering missed conversations.

This swirling tome is followed by the more Chicago house style of ‘Semiwave’; a sauntering announced rhythmic workout, full of ever-tightened repetitive percussion, moody dramatic bass and lethargic plonking notes. Ethereal strains of some distant cooing float in and out of the track, setting the look-to-the-skies above scene perfectly, sending us hurtling ever further into the stratosphere.

Caustic meatier bass lines and squelchy 909 bleeps flourish on the bonus track ‘Auroral Wave’ – seems this and one other tune, are not included on all versions.

Hardened ticking away drums and pre-set handclaps encounter Mo Wax space-esque sustains, whilst moving along at a Mannuel Göttsching pronounced building pace.

Air Liquide manage to absorb many different styles of music including dub; the strong use of dark moody bass can be found on tracks like ‘THX is on’, where Sly and Robbie meet Carl Graig’s Plastic People period flow. There’s also room for Hip Hop, with the duo re-working Cypress Hill’s ‘Insane In The Brain’ for their own beguiling electro track ‘Stratus Static’. They manage to meld both the stoner-induced sample of the Hill’s track with what sounds like a dub-esque clattering Art of Noise, to produce something quite original and sublimely dizzying.

Scattered throughout are more light-hearted moments, including ‘If There Was No Gravity’, where they take on the ambient workshops of both The Orb and Orbital. Wispy willowy female vocals poetically describe a sort of dipsy journey through the clouds, the lyrics leaning towards cliché almost:

“How you’d love to live up there,

Kiss the sun and walk on air.

If there was no gravity,

You’d be in nephology”.

Dubtastic bass lines bumble along to fill the sweeping calm and dreamy melodics, in a display of evanescent pulchritude. The looming presence of Kubrick, or rather the meticulous chosen soundtracks that go hand-in-hand with his films, add dramatic passages of tension and suspense. ‘Die Reisse Im Teekeesel’ (loosely translated as ‘Those travels in the tea boiler’) uses 2001 A Space Odyssey harrowing soundscapes, with the chanting evocative mantras from ‘So Spoke Zarathustra’ to add intrepid doom. Both ‘Kymnea’ and ‘Im Grlenmeyerkolben I and II’ echo and groan with menacing moments plucked straight from A Clockwork Orange: Walter (Wendy) Carlos’s switched on treatment of Henry Purcell’s ‘Music For The Funeral Of Queen Mary’, and the tormented ‘Timesteps’ are brought to mind.

Eerily the duo can’t help but intersperse a sober and haunting array of imbued cinematics, dropping in hints of Dune, Star Trek and The Thing to create an often emotive or imaginative atmospherics, which lends the album a certain gravitas.

On the closing track, ‘The Clouds Have Eyes’, they end on a chaotic hypnotic flourish. Helicopter chopping Jeff Mills style beats rapidly rotate, as an operatic style haunted choral sweep swirls around in the tumultuous cyclonic blades. That almost disturbing voice-like loop, calls out from the melee as though an apparition from some distant planet or dimension: a perfect finish.

Nephology does undoubtedly sound of its time to some extent; tied in some respects to a particular epoch, yet though it’s over thirty-years old it somehow rises above sounding dated. In fact recent revivals of the late 80s and early 90s electronic scenes – where labels such as R & S, Harthouse, Structure and Rising High fed the deep thinking dance music appetite – have encouraged a mini-renaissance and re-valuation. In 2024 you could easily slip a bit of the old Nephology into the club, and no one would blink.

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.