THE MONTHLY DIGEST OF ACCUMULATED NEW MUSIC; THE SOCIAL INTER-GENERATIONAL/ECLECTIC AND ANNIVERSARY ALBUMS CELEBRATING PLAYLIST; AND ANNIVERSARY PIECES FROM THE ARCHIVES.
THE NEW\___
boycalledcrow ‘Kullau
(Mortality Tables)
A musical atmospheric hallucination and psychedelic dream-realism of a roadmap, the latest transduced-style album from Carl M Knott (aka a boycalledcrow) takes his recollections, memory card filled photo albums, samples and experiences of travelling through Northern India between 2005 and 2006 and turns them into near avant-garde transported passages of outsider art music.
Escaping himself and the stresses and anxieties that had been plaguing him since adolescence, Knott chose to pick up the road less travail(ed) after graduating; making new friends along the way, including the artist (known as James) who provided the album’s image.
If you are aware of the Chester-based composer’s work under numerous labels, and his experiments with weird folk music and signature revolving, splayed, dulcimer and zither-like guitar transformations then Kullu will – albeit more psychedelic and mirage-like – fit in nicely with expectations.
Place names (that album title refers to the village, an ancient kingdom, of ‘Kullu’, which sits in the ‘snow-laden mountain’ province of Himachel Pradesh in the Western Himalayas), Buddhist self-transformation methods (the extremely tough self-observation process of “non-reaction” for the body and mind known as “Vipassana”), Hindu and Jainism yogis (the “Sadhu”, a religious ascetic, mendicant or any kind of holy person who has renounced the worldly life, choosing instead to dedicate themselves to achieving “moksha” – liberation – through meditation and the contemplation of God) and language (the localized distinctive Kullu dialect and syntax of “Kanashi”, currently under threat) are all used as vague reference points, markers in this hallucinatory grand tour.
These captured moments and memories are often masked. It’s the sound of Laaraji stepping across such dizzying spiritually beautiful high altitudes and descending into the valley below; the brief sound of tablas and an essence of reverberating Indian stringed instruments suddenly taking on abstracted forms or reversed and melted into a hazy dream cycle. Nothing is quite what it seems; the imagination reminiscing freely and taking source recordings off on curious tangent. And yet it all makes sense, and somehow quantifies, soundtracks a landscape and period we can identify and experience. You can even work out that much of that plucked, cylindrical, pitch and speed-shifted string sound is coming from the £27 guitar that Knott bought whilst on those same travels (picked up in Dehradun to be specific).
But as with all of Knott’s peregrinations, queries, unrestricted gazes, the sound is very much his own. If you would like some idea of what we are dealing with, maybe Walter Smetak, Land Observation in colour, Fabbrica Vuota, Gunn-Truscinski Nace, and with the playfully strange psychedelic ‘Tuktuk’ ride, a merger of Tortoise, Yanton Gat and Animal Collective. Mind you, the vague echoes of piped church music on ‘Bear River’ (which “bisects” the valley region in which Kullu sits) are closer to the spiritual new age and kosmische – perhaps a hint of David Gasper. If Knott’s soundboard is anything to go by he did indeed find that much needed replenishment of the senses and escape from the mental and health pressures of stress that handicapped his progress. He’s created dreamy encapsulation of a time without burden and restriction; an experience totally free of worry and the strains of the material world out near the roof of the Earth. The results of which can be heard to have clearly been beneficial artistically. Kullu is another magical, strange and explorative soundscape/soundtrack from an independent artist quietly getting on with harnessing a unique sound and way of capturing the impossible.
Amy Aileen Wood ‘The Heartening’
(Colorfield Records)
Not in the literal sense, but the award-winning drummer, multi-instrumentalist, composer and engineer Amy Aileen Wood takes centre stage on her new album for the Colorfield Records label.
The supporting foil on a range of albums and performances with such notable names as Fiona Apple (more from her later), St. Vincent, Tired Pony and Shirley Manson, Wood was initially approached by Colorfield instigator Pete Min (the imprint that’s run out of Min’s Lucy’s Meat Market studios in L.A.) to lead her own solo outing. And although Wood’s stand-out tactile feels and descriptive drumming skills maybe on show and at the forefront, the L.A. based polymath, whilst also playing a wide worldly range of instruments, invites a number of in-demand session players and artists to collaborate, including Apple. An unsurprising choice seeing as Wood’s was not only a member of the recording band on Apple’s Fetch The Bolt Cutters album but also its co-producer. From that same circle, the “veteran” bassist Sebastian Steinberg provides pliable and subtly effective upright bass parts to a majority of the tracks on The Heartening. Apple, for her part, offers cooing “dadodahs” and assonant light dreaminess on the album’s opener, the womb-breached submersed turn Can Unlimited Klezmer ‘Rolling Stops’, and both sighs and giggles of ‘self-love’ on the gamelan cascaded self-help indie-wonk ‘Time For Everything’. Another one of the various guests’ spots goes to Kelsey Wood (relation?), who coos and ahs on the kinetic Alfa Mist-esque ‘Slow Light’.
The Heartening is essentially, if removed and discombobulated or enhanced by a palette of different styles and influences, a jazz album; especially with the addition of the L.A. based saxophonist (amongst other talents) Nicole McCabe, who pushes those personalized thematic exploratory performances and freeform expressions towards flashes of Ivor Pearlman, Alex Roth, Donny McCaslin (I’m thinking especially of his cosmic dissipations), Dave Harrington (funny enough, referenced in the PR notes) and Savoy label era Yusef Lateef.
But the musicality is far reaching, hopping around and landing at one point in Java, the next, in Eastern Europe (those stirring closed-eyes arches, sighs and solace style strings of the renowned Daphne Chen reminding me of Fran & Flora and Alex Stolze’s Galicia classical sympathies). You could also throw in breakbeats, the downtempo, the no wave and various fun fusions into the mix; everything from J Dilla to NAH, TV On The Radio, Arto Lindsay, John Zorn and Lucrecia Dalt.
Wood’s own style of drumming (though as I mentioned, the multi-instrumentalist, true to that title, plays everything from nostalgic iconic midi synths and drum pads to the West African balafon and twines flicked kalimba) is halfway busy and halfway intuitive: a mix of Valentina Mageletti and Emre Ramazanoglo.
Wood is certainly a talented player and full of ideas, as the action moves constantly between the natural and improvised. With a mix of trepidation and “intrigue” Wood’s proves an able leader and catalyst. I’d say this solo venture was the successful start to a new pathway and adventures.
Virgin Vacations ‘Dapple Patterns’
From a multitude of sources, across a number of mediums, the concentrated sonic force that is Virgin Vacations ramp up the queasy quasars and the heavy-set slab wall of no wave-punk-jazz-maths-krautrock sounds on their debut long player. With room to expand horizons the Hong Kong (tough gig in recent years, what with China’s crackdowns on the free press and student activists; installing authoritarian control over the Island) ensemble lay out a both hustled, bustled and more cosmic psychedelic journey, from the prowling to the near filmic and quasi-operatic -from darkened forebode to Shinto temple bell-ringing comedowns that fade out into affinity.
Operating in a liminal realm between the ominous and more mysteriously idyllic; changing mood, sense of place and the sound on every other track; the ensemble channel everything from the Hifiklub, Angels Die Hard and The Pop Group in a wail of bugle horns post-punk jazz (ala Blurt and a vocal-less Biting Tongues) to ‘Gomorrha’ CAN, the Dead Kennedys, film-score Sakamoto, Hawkwind and the Holy Family. That’s of course when they’re not orbiting the celestial jazz of Sun Ra merged with Herbie Hancock on the heavenly spheres and alien evoked ‘Jupiter’: even this track grows into a manic nightmare of broken distorted radio sets.
The trip is a cosmic range of ideas, some driven others far more dreamy, psychedelic and even erring towards the orchestral – there’s plenty of bulb-like note-twinkled glockenspiel to go around too. It begins with a krautrock expulsion of dark materials and ends on a Tomat-like – in union with the Acid Mothers – dissipation of enveloped interplanetary temple vibrations. This only touches the surface however, and Virgin Vacations take flights of fantasy regularly whilst maintaining a heavy-pulsation of uncertainty. Energy is channeled in the right direction, with a force that manages to tap into the anxious and radical whilst finding air to breathe and dappled patterns spread of the title.
he didnt ‘nothingness manifested’
(Drone Alone Records) 24th May 2024
Granular gradients, frazzled fissures and currents appear in the thick set wall of drones emitted by the Oxfordshire-based electronic musician, guitarist and producer’s new numerically demarcated album.
Reading into the monolithic slab sided scale and ambitions of he didnt’s manifestations, these, mostly, long walls of whined, bended, looped, abrasive and sustained guitar and electronic waveforms elicit the feelings of landscape: one that can feel simultaneously overbearing, grand but in motion. Metallic filaments or the pitter-patter of acrid rain, ‘nothingness manifestations III-V’ builds a sonic picture over its duration of some almost alien atmospheric enveloped weather front – reminding me of Hans Zimmer’s bits on Blade Runner 2049, His Name Is Alive, Fiocz and a venerated Tangerine Dream. ‘nothingness manifestations II’ is similar with its alien evocations yet near bestial and slithery too – I’m hearing vague signs of Faust, Sunn O))) and even Spaceman 3 for some reason. Perhaps picking up inspiration from one previous support slot, he didnt channels The Telescopes, minus Stephen Lawrie’s drudgery vocals, and a touch of the J&MC on that heavy meta hewed opener.
But there’s holes too in what is more like a mesh block of wielding drones, with a glimmer, a movement of light audible in the grainy textured fabric around the self-described “void”. In short, something from nothing, materialisations from patterns in the sonic concrete that may just evoke something much bigger.
Ziad Rahbani ‘Amrak Seedna & Abtal Wa Harameyah’
(WEWANTSOUNDS)
Vinyl reprisal specialists WEWANTSOUNDS, in-between reviving and offering remastered runs of cult music from Japan, Egypt and elsewhere, have been picking their way through the back catalogue of the Lebanese polymath Ziad Rahbani (musician, composer, producer, playwright, satirist and activist).
Following on from the crate diggers’ choice 80s Middle Eastern disco-funk-balladry-soul-jazz-Franco-Arabian classic Houdou Nisbi (released by the label in 2022), the Amrak Seedna & Abtal Wa Harameyah combined moiety of congruous theatre play soundtracks offers a generous helping of performance choruses, instrumental theme tunes, ad spots and variations of the main signatures.
Whilst the ongoing sectarian driven civil war (between 1975 and 1990) raged, there was a surreal duel existence of stoicism, the Lebanese people carrying on with life in the face of religious rivalry, unprecedented violence, and infamous acts of massacre (a 150,000 fatalities, maybe more). Importantly Lebanese artists, musicians continued to create – some from abroad as part of a mass exodus (estimates are that a million citizens left the country to escape the horror during that period). Disarming as the musical motifs, dancing rhythms and messages was, cultural idols like Ziad (famously the scion of the feted musician and national star Assi Rahbani and the legendary celebrated siren Fairuz) were fervently political. And among his many talents, Ziad would collaborate with the most vocal of them, including the pioneer singer-songwriter of Arabian political song, Sami Hawat, who appears alongside a whole cast of other notable vocalists on this double helping of stage performances.
Written by fellow Lebanese playwright and actor Antoine Kerbaji, the main acts and catalysts for Ziad’s inspired fusion of the Occidental and Middle East, speak of the times in which they were created. Originally released on the Beirut-based cult label Relaxin in 1987, the emotions run high as the streets outside were paved in bloody retribution along the lines of not only religion (the Christian minority’s rule of decades, and elitist nepotism finally coming to a crashing head as the country’s demographic shifted to a Muslim majority, inflated by two migrations and expulsions from Israel of sizable Palestinians populations in the late 1940s and 60s) but also Cold War divisions. The passion is evident in the various cast or male/female led choruses of yearning expression and more swooning allurement – sometimes almost reminding me of Bollywood, and the dance or romance, courtship between a male and female lead.
Musically however, this is a mixed assortment of near classical piano motifs, Arabian stringed instrumental segments, the new wave, disco and funk fusion and movie soundtrack influences. Glaringly an obvious steal, there’s the recurring use of John Barry’s 007 signature score across a large slice of these tracks. Adopting that most famous iconic mnemonic and its variations, Ziad seems to pinch it back from its own Western takes on the music from his country and the wider region. Marvin Hamlisch dabbled in this area for The Spy Who Loved Me – although his take was on Egyptian disco -, as to did Bill Conti – a mix of Med sounds for For Your Eyes Only. So much of this reminds me of both those top rate composers, especially the near thriller style production and clavichord MOR funky fusion sounds of ‘Al Muqademah 1 (Introduction 1)’. Later on it sounds like Ziad riffs on Hamlisch’s score for The Sting on the relaxed jazzy vaudeville saloon barrel organ reminisce ‘Kabbaret Dancing’.
Away from the 007 themes there’s hints of John Addison and Michael Legrand on the Franco-Arabian boogie musical number ‘Al Piano’, and Richard Clayderman on the beautiful romantic-esque flourish of piano scales, runs and lucidity ‘Slow’. The music slips into the Tango at will, or transports the listener back to the noir 1930s. Although, ‘Mashhad Al Serk’ is a strange one, resembling funky calypso transmogrified with reggae and the new wave. I’m at a loss on occasion to describe what it is I’m hearing, as the palette is so wide and diverse. But in summary, both albums offer a cabaret and theater conjecture of fluidity that takes in the Middle East and fuses it with Western classicism, movie and TV themes, funk and 80s production signatures. Previously only ever released in the Lebanon, WWS have done the decent thing and revived these stage play soundtracks, offering us all a chance to own these expressive and enlightening recordings.
THE SOCIAL PLAYLIST VOLUME 86\____
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 86 is as eclectic and generational-spanning as ever. Look upon it as the perfect radio show, devoid of chatter, interruptions and inane self-promotion.
In this edition I’ve chosen to mark the 50th anniversaries of Sparks Kimono In My House, Bowie’s Diamond Dogs, Slapp Happy’s Self-Titled – but referred to as Casablanca Moon, after the opening track -, and Popol Vuh’s Einsjager & Siebenjager albums. A decade closer, and into the 80s, I’ve included tracks from my favourite French new wave spark and cool chanteuse Lizzy Mercier Descloux and her Zulu Rock LP of ’84, plus a slightly different performance of Echo & The Bunnymen’s ‘The Killing Moon’ (the original single also included on the Liverpool’s band’s Ocean Rain of course). Another leap closer, and its 30th anniversary nods to the Beastie Boys ambitious double-album spread Ill Communication, Jeru The Damaja’s The Sun Rises In The East, and The Fall’s Middle Class Revolt. The final anniversary spot this month goes to our very own Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea, or rather the whole Shea brood and their might lo fi cult vehicle The Bordellos. The group’s summary of the world and music industry, Will.I.Am, You’re Really Nothing, is ten years old this month.
We lost even more iconic mavericks and leaders of the form this last month or so. Grabbing, quite rightly, the most attention is the loss of Steve Albini. The legacy is ridiculous, and to be honest, far too many people have already dedicated the space for me to now chip in – I will be frank, where do you start? And so I have chosen to give him a mention but not to pay the homage due. We also lost the last remaining member of the motor city five, Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson, who pummeled and, quite literally, kicked out the fucking jams. I’ve already made note and selected tracks from their catalogue when poor old Wayne Kramer passed just a few months back, and also their manager – for a time between drug busts – John Sinclair. The Detroit misfits are no more. What a sad state of affairs.
I have however chosen to mark the passing of UK rap icon MC Duke and king of twang, and one of the most important, influential guitarists of all time, Duane Eddy.
There’s a couple of “newish” selections – tracks that I either missed or didn’t get room to include in the Monolith Cocktail team’s Monthly Playlists (next edition due in a week’s time) – from Masei Bey and Martina Berther which I hope will prove intriguing. The rest of the playlist is made up of a smattering of tracks from Tucky Buzzard, Prime Minister Pete Nice, The Bernhardts, Nino Rota, It It, Clive’s Original Band, The Four King Cousins and more.
TRACK LIST________
Sparks ‘Barbecutie’
Tucky Buzzard ‘Time Will Be Your Doctor’
Haystacks Balboa ‘Bruce’s Twist’
David Bowie ‘1984’
Masei Bey ‘Beat Root’
Beastie Boys Ft. Q-Tip ‘Get It Together’
Jeru The Damaja ‘You Can’t Stop The Prophet’
Prime Minister Pete Nice Ft. Daddy Rich ‘Rat Bastard’
MC Duke ‘I’m Riffin 1990 Remix’
Helene Smith ‘Willing And Able’
The Bernhardts ‘Send Your Heart To Me’
Tala Andre Marie ‘Wamse’
Lizzy Mercier Descloux ‘Dolby Sisters Saliva Brothers’
Orchestre regional de Segou ‘Sabu Man Dogo’
Slapp Happy ‘Casablanca Moon’
Nino Rota ‘L’Uccello Magico’
Duane Eddy ‘Stalkin”
Dreams So Real ‘History’
Echo & The Bunnymen ‘The Killing Moon – Life at Brian’s Version’
The Bordellos ‘The Gospel According To Julian Cope’
The Fall ‘Middle Class Revolt’
It It ‘Dream Joel Dream’
David Bowie ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll With Me’
The Bordellos ‘Straight Outta Southport’
Clive’s Original Band ‘Oh Bright Eyed One’
Jodie Lowther ‘Cold Spell’
Martina Berther ‘Arrow’
Fursaxa ‘Poppy Opera’
Popol Vuh ‘Wo Bist Du?’
The Four King Cousins ‘God Only Knows’
ARCHIVES\_____
When gracing the Monolith Cocktail with his very own column of reviews was still years away, Brian “Bordello” Shea was featured for his own music as part of the mighty lo-fi malcontents The Bordellos – Brian one of the co-founding Shea sibling forces behind that celebrated cult outfit. Still for my money one of their finest moments on record, the group’s Will.I.Am, You’re Really Nothing (released at a time when that annoying, talentless opportunist was all over the telly and in the charts in the UK) diatribe is ten years old this month. To celebrate, reprise that essential songbook, I’m once more sharing my original review from 2014. Every word of it still, unfortunately, still holds today.
The Bordellos ‘Will.I.Am, You’re Really Nothing’
(Small Bear Records) Released 31st May 2014
It was Blur, in one of their only true flashes of inspiration, who came closest to summing up the times with their dejected conclusion that, “modern life is rubbish”. That was the early 90s, but depending on how long in the tooth, worn-down and jaded you are, every age can be viewed with the same disappointing sigh of resignation.
Yet, surely the present times take some beating, at least to us, the self-appointed custodians of the past, who remember an age when the culture seemed…. well, at least exciting, linear and comprehendible, instead of appropriated without thought or context, screwed-over and manipulated for largely commercial results, and slotted in to a handy off-the-peg lifestyle choice. Pop has eaten itself, with the lifecycles of trends and music becoming ever shorter.
It is with all this in mind that The Bordellos set out their manifesto. Leveling their criticism at commercial radio and TV especially, they aim their guided missile attacks at the harbingers of the Ed Sheeran topped Urban/Black music power lists, and what seems more and more like the UK publicity wing of conservatism, the BBC. The St. Helens, via a disjointed Merseybeat imbued lineage, family affair replace the “happy-go-lucky” lightweight and deciding suspect womens rights champion, totem of Pharrell Williams, Will.I.Am and all his partners in floppy platitude pop, rock and folk with the arch druid of counter-cultural esotericism and miscreant obscure musical sub-genres (Kraut to Jap via Detroit rebellious and experimental rock) Julian Cope. Grinding out a dedicated epistle to Cope, the trio’s sermon ‘The Gospel According To Julian Cope’ prompts a road to Damascus conversion to the spirit of rock’n’roll, in all its most dangerous guises.
De facto idol, Mr.Cope, pops up again on ‘My Dream Festival’, which as the title suggests is a list of the ideal, once in a lifetime, free festival lineups of lineups; read out in a quasi-Daft Punk ‘teachers’ style bastardized litany to an accompanying Casio pre-set drum track and watery effects. The Casio rhythm pre-sets and occasional sound bites come in handy again on the jaunty, deadpan disco jolly, ‘Elastic Band Man’ – a transmogrified Human League meets John Foxx – and on the broken-up, Robert Wyatt emotional drudge, ‘Between Forget And Neglect’.
Despite going at it hammer and tongs on their anvil-beating Cope Gospel, The Bordellos latest long-player protestation is a forlorn and intimate downbeat record. They can still be relied upon to rattle off a list of grievances and opprobrious pun harangued song titles: from the LP’s play-on-words adopted The Smiths song, reworked to accommodate a big fuck-you to that irritable twat, Will.I.Am, to name-checking another hyperbole anomaly of our Youtube, Google, Facebook, Twitter masters’ bidding, the no less frustratingly lame ‘Gangnam style’ viral – joining the call from last year’s Bring Me The Head Of Justin Bieber EP, for another public execution.
But it’s with a certain lamentable introspection that they also tone the vitriol down to attend to matters of the heart: The kiss-me-quick, misty-eyed ballad to love on a northern coast seaside town, ‘Straight Outta Southport’, and the Hawaiian slide guitar country rock ode, ‘The Sweetest Hangover’, both, despite their tongue-in-cheek titles, bellow a fondness for lovelorn adventures and plaintive break-up regret; proving that despite the bellicose calls for the corporal punishment of the foppish elite and its commercial pop music stars, there is a tender side to the group.
Sounding like it was recorded on an unhealthy dose of Mogadon, Will.I.Am, You’re Really Nothing is a composed grumble from the fringes of a battered musical wilderness. A last cry if you will from the pit-face of rock’n’roll.
Also this month, Bowie’s repurposed Orwellian theatre production Diamond Dogs reaches its 50th anniversary.
David Bowie ‘Diamond Dogs’
(RCA) 1974
“As they pulled you out of the oxygen tent, you asked for the latest party…” And with that the future dystopian, biota canine, leapt from its slumber “onto the streets below”: howling for more.
Bowie never really wanted to be a musician as such: or at least not wholly a musical act. His destiny lied with the grease paint of theatre and allure of cinema. Diamond Dogs of course allowed him to create a spectacle, melding the two disciplines together.
Fate would force the original concept to morph into the achingly morbid and glam-pop genius we’ve now come to love: a planned avant-garde, ‘moonage’, treatment of Orwell’s revered novel 1984 was rebuked by the author’s estate.
Still those augural references to state control and totalitarianism are adhered to throughout – both lyrically and in the song titles –, but attached to visions of a new poetic hell!
The loose, all-encompassing, metaphysical language may promise melancholy and despair, yet it also knows when to anthemically sound the rock’n’roll clarion call too.
Decreed as the leading highlight’s of the album by the majority –
Diamond Dogs (single), Rebel Rebel (single), 1984
Pay attention to these often overlooked beauties –
Rock’n’Roll With Me (single), Sweet Thing
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.
A February Digest: Siavash Amini, Kalia Vandever, John Howard, Stella Chiweshe, Popol Vuh, Kahil El’Zabar Ethnic Heritage Ensemble…
February 3, 2023
New Music on our radar, news and archive spots
Dominic Valvona
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. In the February edition we draw your attention to the upcoming album from the Chicago jazz luminary Kahil El’Zabar and his Ethnic Heritage Ensemble with a live recorded performance of the Pharoah’s ‘Harvist Time’, Brooklyn-based trombonist, composer quartet leader and soloist performer Kalia Vandever manages to make her instrument sing a nuzzled bluesy song of longing and thoughtfulness on his newest tune ‘Temper The Wound’, and the avant-garde Iranian composer Siavash Amini creates a fully immersive, drawn-in electroacoustic suite for State51 Conspiracy’s instigated Singularity Series. In the Archive sections we have tributes to both Tom Verlaine and Stella Chiweshe, look at the re-release of John Howard’s Cut The Wire album on vinyl, and celebrate the 50th anniversary of Popol Vuh’s Seligpreisung LP.
THE NEW
Kahil El’Zabar Ethnic Heritage Ensemble ‘Harvest Time’
(Spiritmuse Records) Youtube Now
Partly as a tribute to and marking the late David Ornate Cherry’s last ever project, the Chicago jazz maestro, percussionist, and band leader Kahil El’Zabar and his ensemble reimagine the late Pharoah Sanders’ spiritually shimmered ‘Harvest Time’, as part of the upcoming Spirit Gatherer • Tribute to Don Cherry opus on Spiritmuse Records.
A celebration, a homage to two icons of the avant-garde and worldly jazz scenes, this album is dedicated to both riffs on such icons as the Pharoah and David’s late, great luminary father Don Cherry. Sadly both the Pharoah and David passed away late last year, David just as he was collaborating, partnering with Kahil on this new record. You can however catch David playing the piano on this video live version of that reinterpretation-in-their-own-image performance, together with Kahil on balafon, Dwight Trible giving divine voice and the pairing of Alex Harding and Corey Wilkes on horns.
Kahil has this to say about his great inspirations:
“Pharoah Sanders was the most popular village griot of the avant-garde jazz movement”, says El’Zabar of the late, great saxophonist. “So, when Pharaoh did songs like ‘Harvest Time’, they became something that the entire community embraced. In the same way, Don Cherry was the griot of the community”, and there’s no better way to pay tribute to these noble ‘warriors’, by connecting their spirit in music.”
I was lucky enough (paid too as well) to write the liner notes of Kahil’s last album, A Time For Healing.
But you can find previous reviews here:-
Spirit Groove Ft. David Murray
Kalia Vandever ‘Temper The Wound’
(AKP Recordings) Out Now
When you need that deep bass, a bow from the ship’s horn kind of low but almost huffed sound then the trombone is the choice instrument to use. The Brooklyn-based trombonist, composer quartet leader and soloist performer Kalia Vandever manages to make it sing a nuzzled bluesy song of longing and thoughtfulness on her newest tune ‘Temper The Wound’.
Released ahead of the upcoming debut solo album We Fell In Turn, this lingered, reedy resonated serenade of gentle breaths, touching reflection and gazing is accompanied by the interdisciplinary NYC artist Fame’s video animation. They had this to say about it:
“The animation expresses the feeling of intimacy, soothing, and healing, which simulates the same sense when listening to “Temper the Wound”. The visuals trigger haptic sense by using gently rubbing gestures from the audience’s point of view. It also reveals a scar on the hand that caresses in the form of memory metaphor to the wound itself has the healing power.”
As a hand brushes a pool of water, wafts in a wild garden, it turns inwards to reveal in its palm a window, portal to a sketched scene of footsteps. It makes for a subtle and gentle set of images to a jazzy-bluesy stirred remembrance.
Siavash Amini ‘Not Yet Plant-Life, No Longer Flesh’
(The State51 Conspiracy Singularity Series) Out Now
Adding his name to the notable roll call of experimental and avant-garde artists taking part in the independent portal State51 Conspiracy instigated Singularity Series, the avant-garde Iranian composer Siavash Amini creates a fully immersive, drawn-in electroacoustic suite of recondite natural sounding string manipulations and more machine-like creaks and whines. A both aural and visual experience, Amini’s slithers, scrapes, hinged and bracketed shifts and drones are heard and seen through the geometric light play vision of Louise Mason’s film, featuring Nathan Sherwood’s “Kaleidobscura” lens.
Across its 18-minute duration ‘Not Yet Plant-Life, No Longer Flesh’ seeks both the light and the alien with passages and suggestions of sonic intensity and calmer pattern shifts of near melodic mystery. Inside this kaleidoscope are evocations of spidery crawls across wires and strings, gleaning metallic surfaces, the slithered, looming and rumbling, and the sound of unwinding, and unraveling or sppeded up tape reels.
‘Not Yet Plant-Life, No Longer Flesh’ is released both as a lathe-cut 12” (limited to only 51 copies) and via digital channels. At a later date (April 14th 2023 to be exact) the lathe series, which also includes releases from Alison Cotton, Shit and Shine, Hey Colossus, Vanishing Twin, and Matmos, will be compiled both digitally and as a special lathe box set.
The facilitators that commissioned these pieces of sonic art, State51 Conspiracy, are a completely independent one-stop music company. Record label duties include dealing with physical and digital distribution, marketing, rights management and monetisation, creative, product design and media production. Intrigued? You can visit them here.
ARCHIVES
John Howard ‘Cut The Wire’
(Think Like A Key Music) Out Now
Recently reissued and given its debut vinyl release by Think Like A Key Music, John Howard’s 2019 album Cut The Wire (originally on You Are The Cosmos label) marks a sort of break and period of reflection for the singer-songwriter, author and pianist of renown. Busier and more productive than at anytime in his forty-plus years career, with new albums every other year since the 2010s, and a trilogy of autobiographies, John can now gaze back at these wonders and take a breath.
As with near enough everything he’s released, I wrote a review on this album on its release – back in the post-Covid heady days as it were. Here’s a reminder of what I had to say at the time:
Returning after the deep cerebral peregrinations of the previous Across The Door Sill album to the shorter romantic balladry and stage show-like songwriting that first garnered such acclaim for the adroit pianist troubadour, John Howard’s first full songbook in three years is a most sagacious beautifully articulated affair of the heart.
Enjoying a renaissance of interest in recent years; choosing projects wisely and wholly on artistic and desirable (enjoyable too) merit, Howard has recorded a well-received collaboration with Andy Lewis, Ian Button and Robert Rotifer, under the The Night Mail moniker, the already mentioned open-ended experimental ATDS, and delivered the first volume in a vivid and travail autobiography (part two to follow anytime soon) that not only deals with Howard’s haphazard rise and misfortunes in the music industry but chronicles the misadventures of a gay artist in a far from understanding world. The star-turn dealt a typical band hand by the industry as a burgeoning artist in the 1970s, the singer-songwriter pianist turned to A&R (quite successfully as it happens) but always seem destined to plow his own unique furrow; decades later and with wised self-belief, fully in control of his own career. Though he’s found congruous labels, including the wonderful You Are The Cosmos, to launch his recent catalogue of new music, Howard is a candid one-man industry, totally in command of his legacy and story.
So far the overall results of this output have been anything but indulgent, the quality maintained, with arguably some of his best work being produced in the previous five or six years. The 16th studio album, Cut The Wire, is the first to be recorded at Howard’s Una Casita hacienda studio oasis in Murcia; surroundings that lend themselves well to the meditative and questioning yearns of Howard’s most rich balladry.
Those familiar with the previous From The Morning EP of inspired cover versions will hear the imbued spirit of The Incredible String Band once more on this album’s percussive jangly and bellow-y Parisian peaceable opener ‘So Here I Go’ and the mobile-trinket twinkly and bowed strings title-track: The first of those homespun-words-of-wisdom sonnets evoking a Krishna Dylan, even Donovan. Intentioned or not, the softened doo-wopish lull of enduring adversity ‘Keep Going, Angel’, the forlorn venerated organ blessed ‘We Are’, and sweetly-laced Baroque-psych autobiographical ‘Remains’ all sound like lost ballads from The Beach Boys Friends and Surf’s Up albums. You can also pick up the scents of prime 1970s Elton John, The Beatles, Jeff Lynne and Nilsson in the sage’s purposeful beatific longing maladies and paean performances.
Decentering with blissful melodic ease, Howard, with signature vulnerability, swells and also glides through various chapters of his life; ‘Remains’ recalling to a chiming harpsichord and swooning harmonies regrets in not standing one’s ground, and the nostalgic dreamy-pop ‘Idiot Days’ reflects on the foolish indulgences of youth and the oblivious-at-the-time harmful consequences. But Howard, in more mournful mood, also ruminates on the divisive topics of Brexit; sailing on an accordion wafting elegiac barge on ‘Pre-Dawn’ with cathartic despondency to the changing political landscape and the lack of generosity.
A thoughtful songbook that returns to the melodious balladry of past triumphs and a nod to the rich tapestry of influences that first inspired him, Cut The Wire is timeless; another beautifully written and sung album from an artists radiant with quality.
You can purchase said album here.
ARCHIVE/ANNIVERSARY
Popol Vuh ‘Seligpreisung’
The big 5-0 this year, the Vuh’s fourth album proper was released back in 1973. From my old Krautrock odyssey series, another chance to read my appraisal of this afflatus divine music…
If there is such a reassuring prospect as an afterlife then Popol Vuh‘s divine-styler Florian Fricke would surely have cemented his rightful place in the eternal, empyreal, choir above.
Covering all bases, just in case, Fricke’s reconnoitre’s into the heart of Mayan mysticism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity guaranteed him a fair hearing upon reaching all those nirvanas.
Fricke thumbed through the New Testament for inspiration and solace; falling upon the canonical gospel of Matthew and lifting its blessed text for Popol Vuh’s fourth outing, Seligpreisung. Loosely translated as “beatitude” (‘happiness of the highest kind’) or “song of praise”, Seligpreisung is a continuous 30-minute long service built around Matthew’s profound utterances and writings: Matthew’s gospel – the first book of the New Testament – followed the life of Christ, from his ministry to crucifixion, and resurrection.
Coalesced into adumbrate passages, each of the 8-tracks represents Matthew’s pronouncements and declarations on the worthy; those he considers the righteous: from the meek to the poor. For example the ongoing leitmotif, “Selig sind die, die da hunger. Selig sind die, die da dursten nacho Gerechtigkeit. Ja, sie sollen stat warden” – a right old mouthful -translates as, “Blessed are those which are hungrey. Blessed are those that are after justice. Yes, they are to become fuller”.
Continuing with the same elegiac mellifluous exhalations as on previous releases, Popol Vuh’s diaphanous psalms finally break-out of their suffused ambient constraints into bouts of meditative acid-rock, as the drum-kit is introduced for the first time. Sharing similar spiritual harmonics and builds as Amon Duul II‘s, “stairway-to-OM”, opus Wolf City, Seligpreisung uses a familiar exotic, eastern, musical palette; with reverent pinning oboe and the raga inspired soul-stirring charms of, both, the harpsichord-like cembalo, and lute-toned tamboura all directing us towards the holy calling of Tibet.
Subtly transforming the dynamics with a more progressive, flowing, feel, Fricke also took a step backwards, reverting to a more traditional – if not classical – template; led by the majestic atavistic tones of a grand piano. This shift was partly influenced by the introduction of Amon Duul II’s Daniel Fichelscher, who contributed swathes of plaintive electric guitar and, those newly added élan drums, to the Popol Vuh transient sound.
Whether through mutual appreciation or due to the efflux of ideas criss-crossing between the two bands, Popol Vuh’s resident star-gazer lead-guitarist, Conny Veit, also reformed his dismantled prog-rock band Gila; bringing both Fricke and Fichelscher along to help produce that groups most acclaimed work – the Native Indian history of America inspired tome – Bury My heart At Wounded Knee. Unfortunately Gila broke up again the following year (1974), but for a brief period they functioned as two groups.
Absent from this synthesis hippie-trip are the lilting choral shading vocals of Djong Yin – temporally tied-up at the time, she returned for the next album, Einjager & Seibenjager. Not entirely convinced of his own timbre, Fricke found himself forced to fill-in; yearning and placably sighing numerous hallelujahs at the quasi-alter of worship – though he makes a good job of it. With its, now male, cooing and tentative vocals, Seligpreisung peacefully lifts the spirt over its short duration; altering the main opening theme of “Holy Mountain mystical escapism meets pastoral rock” enough so that each lose bracketed track bleeds into the next; though some of these movements are used as laconic breathers and interregnums before the main narratives.
Every piece is as beautiful as the last, so highlights are difficult to single-out; the atmosphere kept at a constant heavenly quality, and the playing spread evenly: Fichelscher and Veit play some of their most soaring magical guitar paeans, whilst Fricke’s cembalo and piano tenderly weep and dance amongst the climbing melodies and chords.
It might be considered an unfair criterion with which to gauge the music of Popol Vuh by, but this album was my very first purchase of the groups artful poised soundtracking vistas, so I’ve come to love it – I’ve obviously had to work backwards, from full band line-up jamming to minimal ambience. This LP hardly shakes off the ominous trance-like state and translucent stripped blueprint of their last three records – I mean even with a fuller sound, they’re still restrained and kept in check – so consider this as the “letting-their-hair-down” experiment, or Ash Ra Tempel without the Leary-spiked incentives.
ARCHIVE//THOSE WE’VE LOST
Stella Chiweshe
Sad news reached us near the end of last month via the esteemed world label Glitterbeat Records that the Zimbabwean songstress and ‘Queen of Mbira’ Stella Chiweshe had died on January 20th. Back in 2018, the Glitterbeat imprint picked up a compilation of the groundbreaking artist’s early singles: called Kasahwa. As a bio, state of providence here’s my review of that album and purview of Stella’s legacy…
Spearheading a second revival and paving the way to a comeback of a sort, the previously only available as a digital-release version (via that increasingly encroaching behemoth, Bandcamp) of the Zimbabwe music icon and maestro of the mbira instrument Stella Chiweshe’s Kasahwa: Early Singles collection, has been picked up by the award-winning global music label Glitterbeat Records. To be released on the full gamut of formats (both physical and digital) this remastered smattering of previously rare healing paeans and emotional tumults will for many, be an introduction to the diaphanous and earthy roots metal-y springy mbira accompanied soul of Chiweshe.
With her most formative years spent in colonial Rhodesia, before Zimbabwe’s eventual independence in 1980, in an environment that didn’t exactly encourage or foster equality between races let alone sexes, the strong-willed Chiweshe nevertheless pursued a career in music. More attuned to the Western sounds of Rock’n’Roll and Country than the atavistic culture of her native homeland, feasting instead on a diet of Elvis Presley, Ricky Nelson, Jim Reeves and The Everly Brothers (and why not), it would take some time and an epiphany before Chiweshe picked up the mbira: an instrument and style she would soon master; so much so that she would be hailed as the ‘Queen of Mbira’ in the following decades.
Confusingly for the student and novice, mbira refers not only to an instrument – made-up of 22 to 28 metal keys, mounted on a ‘wooden healing tree body’ – but also an all-encompassing Zimbabwean spiritual but also secular culture and way of life. Mbira, which is cultivated by the Shona people of the region, involves the ceremonial ritual practice of invoking contact with deceased ancestors and tribal guardians through musical accompaniment; just one of the influences that imbues the voice and playing style of Chiweshe’s captivating songs.
Showing the independent spirit she’d long be admired and celebrated for, a younger Chiweshe would, despite meeting stoic opposition, overcome the bigotry of her male compatriots and elders to embrace not only the Mbiri heritage but the instrument too. Stiff resistance from teachers and even instrument makers, outright refusing to build her a mbira, wouldn’t stop her from recording a debut single (the one that give’s its name to this compilation) in 1974: even though she would have to borrow an ad hoc thumb piano; unable to lay her hands on a mbira. Chiweshe would not only preserver but flourish.
Trumpeted in our modern virtue-labeling climate as a ‘feminist’, the outspoken star was certainly strong-willed, even a rebel. Making a name for herself overcoming the obstacles of tradition and a patriarchal-dominated society, her obstinacy soon garnered attention, not only in Zimbabwe but further afield. In a decade that saw a surge in Western interest in ‘world music’, thanks in part to (in the UK anyway) such global music explorers and passionate advocates as Andy Kershaw and John Peel (who would play host to two Chiweshe performances on his coveted Radio 1 sessions), the Mbira star would soon be touring internationally: first as a featured soloist with the New National Dance Company of Zimbabwe, and later under her own name. Chiweshe would even make a second home for herself in Berlin, criss-crossing between the German city and her native home for the next 35 years.
Still performing her spiritually soulful intense and trilling vocals and mbira craft, but perhaps not as prominent a figure on the world stage, this re-introduced eight song package of formative years recordings will revive an interest in not only Chiweshe but the music of Zimbabwe: a state that looked to be finally emerging from the grasp of Robert Mugabe, whose role (lets face it) has soured and hidden the true face and culture of the country; though in the aftermath of his resignation and after new elections, his successor in the ZANU-PF party, candidate President Mnangagwa and self-declared winner of those elections, has meted out extreme violence on oppositions supporters (killing a number of them in the process) taking to the streets in protest at the contested results. An uneasy tension exists, even with outside observers presiding over these elections, as Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change candidate Nelson Chamisa stoically refuses to back down, rejecting the results outright.
With helpful encapsulation style suffixes summing up each song’s theme, the early singles opens with the determined ‘Ratidzo’; a high whistling and trickling stream like mbira melodic accompanied invocation of the lush landscapes of Zimbabwe that pretty much encompasses Chiweshe’s struggle to become a musician with its matter-of-fact subtitle, ‘Managing to do what people considered impossible’. More traumatic themes follow, with the unceasing waterfall cascades of the mbira and earthy lamented ‘Musarakunze’ suddenly making an emotional impact when translated as ‘An orphan seeing what the late elders never saw’; so beautifully played as to almost hide the plight. The ‘Innermost emotional pain is like a fishbone stuck in the throat’ ‘Kasahwa’ has a similar air of beautiful delivery even when kicking up the dust and rotating to a more abrasive and rubbing scratchy percussion; the pained evocations confined to that title rather than performance.
Mbira as a living tradition and healing process is enacted on the grasslands lilted ‘Chipindura’ – ‘The herb that transforms anything’ – and the placeable tubular turning ‘Mayaya’ (in two parts no less; the longest articulation on this entire collection) – ‘The effect of healing herbs’. Both of which, whether it’s intentional or not, feature a percussion that reflects the rubbing, grinding preparation of these herbs. Elsewhere the routine travails of a people kept through colonial oppression and then the misrule, surviving in abject poverty, is evoked on the yodeled sung ‘Nhemamusasa’; a song that describes and articulates ‘Cutting branches for a temporal home’.
Channeling the very soul of Zimbabwe, performing the mbira with energy but also certain serenity, and in a soliloquy manner voicing the empirical, Stella Chiweshe’s early recordings may sound swimmingly diaphanous, yet they serve as a reminder to the struggles of change. Recorded during the Chimurenga – roughly translating from the Shona language as ‘revolutionary struggle’, this, the second such ‘war’ or uprising, pitted African Nationalist groups against the predominantly white minority government; also known by its eventual victors as the Zimbabwe Liberation War, it would lead to independence and the rise of one of the resistance’s key figures, Robert Mugabe – revolution these singles, no matter how lilting, could be celebrated as a testament and clarion call for not only a resistance to the patriarch but seen also as a break from the atavistic status quo, with Chiweshe’s twist laying down the path for those to follow; a more equal rebalance giving voice to the often repressed matriarchal singers and musicians of Africa.
Tom Verlaine
What a shock to the system to see poor old Tom Verlaine pass way last week, the gaunt frontman of pre-punk favourites Television – far too arty and well-read to be part of the dumb nihilistic punk vanguard, but all the same in that initial rush of bands that would crown an entire scene. Although what we call a counter-culture, a in-scene New York phenomena, Verlaine’s unique lyricism and guitar playing would go on to influence possibly as many people as the Velvet Underground and Nico’s infamous Banana LP. If you were in any doubt, just look at the scale of homages, tributes and the Marquee Moon album covers displayed across the worldwide net of social media validation. This is an album that both sailed close to the edge, but was melodic enough to encourage a future new wave scene. In fact it has become such an obvious record, a copy in every record collection. And yet it hasn’t lost any of its power, twists and art school pretensions because of that absorption into popular culture.
There will be extensive eulogies and bios to come or indeed already shared. And so I’m just going to share some favourite clips and tracks; hopefully some you may not have seen or come across. A celebration then:
That’s it from me for another month. You can find January’s edition here...
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.
The Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist #72: Terry Hall, Tiger, The The, Popol Vuh, Manuel Göttsching, Lion’s Drum, June McDoom….
January 4, 2023
2023’s Inaugural Social Playlist
Anniversary Albums And Deaths Marked Alongside An Eclectic Mix Of Cross-Generational Music, Newish Tunes And 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.
In the anniversary category there’s 50th celebrating LPs from Vangelis (1973’s Earth album), Popol Vuh (the divine styling Seligpreisung), Sparks (A Woofer In Tweeter’s Clothing), Judy Collins (True Stories And Other Dreams album with Mark Abramson), Bruce Springsteen (Greetings From Ashbury Park, N.J.), Ellen Mcllwaine (We The People) and The Beach Boys (Holland). A lot of debuts in amongst that lot, in what was an incredible month and year for music. As it happens The Beach Boys cover that period, that pilgrim’s album, on their latest yearly box set reprise, Sail On Sailor 1972, from which I’ve also sprinkled a couple of previously unreleased and live nuggets – ‘Body Talk – Grease Job’, ‘Gimmie Some Lovin’/I Need Your Love’ and the poetic demo try-out ‘The Road Not Taken’.
Standing alone in representing 1993 – unbelievably, from where I’m standing, thirty bloody years ago) – I’ve added a tune from The The’s Dusk LP to this mix.
And so in marking the legacy of those we’ve lost over the Christmas period and a little before, I’ve included tributes to the late great idiosyncratic and moody Terry Hall and Kosmische/Krautrock leviathan Manuel Göttsching – of Ash Ra and soloist cosmological and techno music progenitor fame. As a cheeky aside, there’s also one of the late mischievous wind-up merchants, critic and Private Eye contributor, Victor Lewis-Smith’s phone call time wasting operations to smirk or have a laugh at.
In what is one of the most welcome moves of late, the back catalogue of Tiger has been unleashed on Spotify. Possibly one of the UK’s most important and best bands of the 90s – I followed them around for a number of years from Festival to gig, bought all the painted 7” singles, and basically built a shrine to their unwavering (YBAs) art pop drone form of mullet haired audacity – Tiger more or less vanished from the scene after only two albums and smattering of singles. Such is my fandom I’ve been greedy and included three of their tracks: ‘Where’s The Love?’ from the B Sides gathering, ‘Ray Travez’ from the band’s debut long player We Are Puppets – of which my vinyl version ended up as a skinning-up mat when I lent it to one of my fellow art school pals – and ‘River’ from the second album, Rosaria. I hope it revives some interest and joy in rediscovering such an important idiosyncratic band.
A healthy inclusion of New(ish) tracks from the backend of 2022, and some much earlier ones, can be found on this year’s first Social playlist. Choice tracks from Sven Wunder, Orchestra Gold, Sun’s Signature, Årabot, June McDoom, Lion’s Drum, Your Old Droog, Sentidor, Noori & His Dorpa Band and a track from the multimedia Meditations On Crime’s recent collaborative album with a host of freaks, enlightened troopers and such, ‘We The People Of The Myths’ with King Khan and Marshall Allen’s led incarnation of the Sun Ra Arkestra.
TRACK LIST IN FULL::
Vangelis ‘Let It Happen’
Sven Wunder ‘Sun Kissed’
Idris Muhammad ‘Brother You Know You’re Doing Wrong’
The Beach Boys ‘Body Talk- Grease Job’
Noori & His Dorpa Band ‘Saagama’
Orchestra Gold ‘Keleya’
El Molino ‘Moliendo Parches’
Fun Boy Three ‘The Lunatics (Have Taken Over The Asylum)’
Masonic Wonders ‘I Call Him’
Tony Williams ‘There Comes A Time’
Büdi Und Gumls/Lion’s Drum ‘Tanz Der Korperlinge – the Lion’s Drum Edit’
Little Albert ‘Reclaim Myself’
Tiger ‘Where’s The Love?’
Årabot ‘Green Fire’
Ashra ‘Deep Distance’
The Sunshine Fix ‘Future History And The Irrelevance Of Time’
Popol Vuh ‘Selig sind die, die da hungern’
Sentidor ‘Sonho Das Flores’
Sparks ‘Do-Re-Mi’
Tiger ‘River’
Rema-Rema ‘Feedback Song’
Major Organ and the Adding Machine ‘Life Form (Transmission Received)’
Your Old Droog ‘Fela Kuti’
Tiger ‘Ray Travez’
The The ‘This Is The Night’
Judy Collins & Mark Abramson ‘So Begins The Task’
The Beach Boys ‘Gimme Some Lovin’/I Need Your Love – Medley’
Ellen Mcllwaine ‘Ain’t No Two Ways To It (It’s Love)’
The Specials ‘Maggie’s Farm’
The Beach Boys ‘Leaving This Town’ Bill Fey ‘I Hear You Calling’
Bruce Springsteen ‘It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City’
June McDoom ‘Babe, You Light Me Up’
Sun’s Signature ‘Underwater’
Michael Hoenig & Manuel Göttsching ‘Early Water – Part 1’
The Beach Boys ‘The Road Not Taken – Demo’
Victor Lewis Smith ‘Cubism Crisis’
Meditations On Crime w/ King Khan, Marshall Allen and the Sun Ra Arkestra ‘We The People Of The Myths’
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.
PLAYLIST/Dominic Valvona
Let me first wish everyone, new and old readers/followers alike, a happy new year. And thanks for all your continued support in what are the most tumultuous and anxious of times. For my part, with what little comfort I can give, I’ll still bring you all the best, experimental, and diverse sounds during 2022: through reviews, columns, playlists and the like.
The Monolith Cocktail Social is one of two long-running playlist series on the blog. Running in tandem with the Monthly Revue, which represents all the new music both I and the MC team have been listening to and writing about during the month, the Social is a cross-generational, eclectic imaginary radio show, where anything goes: featuring tracks from the last 50 or more years.
It’s also my chance to show off my own tastes, records from my collection, and to both celebrate those albums reaching anniversary milestones and pay tribute to recent artists and figures we’ve lost during that month.
The first playlist, volume #62, of the year features 50th anniversary treats from Archie Shepp (the title-track from his 1972 album Attica Blues), Cymande (the much sampled ‘The Message’ from their self-titled ‘72 special), Paul Simon (‘Armistice Day’ from the self-titled ‘72 album), Aretha Franklin (a beautified cover of ‘The Long And Winding Road’ from the soul deity’s Young, Gifted And Black album), Cluster (‘Für Die Katz’ from the Kosmische travellers ’72 album Cluster II), Neu! (‘Hero’ from the self-titled ’72 album), Popol Vuh (the venerable ‘Kyrie’ taken from the divine stylers ’72 album Hosianna Mantra), and Annette Peacock (a idiosyncratic version of ‘Love Me Tender’ from her ’72 I’m The One album).
There’s also recent(ish) tracks from Fake Fruit, Large Plants, Jeff Parker, Family Portrait dotted amongst goodies from Kaleidoscope, The Gods, Caetano Veloso, Eddie Hodges and Biff Rose: 35 tracks in all.
Listen how you like, but when compiling these playlists I do work out a particular order: a journey for the listener.
Those tracks are full are:
Archie Shepp ‘Attica Blues’
Kaleidoscope ‘Chocolate Whale’
Quella Vecchia Locanda ‘Dialogo’
Muito Kaballa Power Ensemble ‘Don’t Go Too Far’
100 Proof Aged In Soul ‘Backtrack’
Fake Fruit ‘No Mutuals’
Large Plants ‘La Isla Bonita’
Cymande ‘The Message’
Innovations ‘Put A Little Away’
Los Dangers ‘No Te Quiero Más’
Sophie Knapp & Dungen ‘Desert Moon’
The Gods ‘Eight O’clock In The Morning’
Jeff Parker & The New Breed Ft. Ruby Parker ‘Soul Love’
Paul Simon ‘Armistice Day’
Hamilton Leithauser & Kevin Morby ‘Virginia Beach’
Family Portrait Ft. Julian Lynch ‘What Does It Take’
Aretha Franklin ‘The Long And Winding Road’
Annette Peacock ‘Love Me Tender’
Caetano Veloso ‘Lost In The Paradise’
Parasites Of The Western World ‘You Must Be Joe King’
Between ‘Tape’
Steauna De Mare ‘Ork Style’
Cluster ‘Für Die Katz’
The Holydrug Couple ‘Arcatina’
Tibetan Miracle Seeds ‘Nectarine Dreams’
Gianfranco Plenizio ‘Afyon’
Slag Boom Van Loon ‘Poppy Seed’
Neu! ‘Hero’
Phantom Payn Days ‘Screen Idol From France’
Branko Mataja ‘Tamo Daleko’
Popol Vuh ‘Kyrie’ Eddie Hodges ‘Shadows And Reflections’
Biff Rose ‘Take Care of My Brother’
Marina Allen ‘Sleeper Train’
Female Species ‘Tale Of My Lost Love’
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.
The Monolith Cocktail Social: Playlist #XXXIII
May 3, 2018
DOMINIC VALVONA’S PLAYLIST
In danger of repeating myself forever, but for newcomers to the site here’s the premise of my playlist selections. Previously only ever shared via our Facebook profile and on Spotify our regular Monolith Cocktail Social playlists will also be posted here on the blog itself.
With no themes or demarcated reasoning Dominic Valvona picks songs from across a wide spectrum of genres, and from all eras; Selection #33 being no different, with it’s venerated and Tarot card reader divine styler Kosmische intro from Walter Wegmuller and Popol Vuh and musical journey through Ethiopian spiritual paeans (Berthe Raza), Swedish jazz fusion (Solar Plexus), sublime drifting electronic heartache (Left Of Manila), French new wave electronic agit punk (Kas Product), Arabic fuzzed-up R&B (Sharhabeel Ahmed) and 32 other just as wonderful excursions through time and place.
Tracks:
Monolith Cocktail Blog 