ALBUM REVIEWS BY DOMINIC VALVONA: A WORLD OF SONIC DISCOVERIES
Photo Credit: Trevor Stuurman
Burial Cake ‘small steps’
(Somewherecold Records) 19th June 2026
Motivated, or forced if you like, to reevaluate life after the triple whammy of a near-death experience, subsequent hospitalisation and the implosion of a twelve-year relationship, Blake Edward Conley picks and shakes away at a new tonal pathway of soundtrack-like strung-out and mirage evoked Americana under the newly fashioned alias of Burial Cake.
His usual signature trade of abandonment, oaths, mourning and love hang like tangible descriptions in rippled, palpitating and softly juddered panoramas and mirages. But with a sudden change in misfortune, Blake heads inside, faces the interiors of an intimate setting and just lets the tape roll as his off-grid atmospheric and often moody reflections take shape; manifestations and haunted near improvised and spontaneous sounding efforts produced to comprehend the abstract and all too real brushes with mortality and a love lost.
Without prying, and as the PR blurb enquires from the beginning, this latest album of what looks like randomly smattered numbered recordings could be experienced perfectly well without its context and backstory. But once the circumstances are revealed its difficult not to hear or read into each tremolo vibration, stroke, zoomed slides, body and fretboard knocks and tactile hand gestures something both darker and often lonely. But then out of the rustle and wrangle, the more melodic attempts – like Robbie Robertson’s caught on the Twin Peaks set, or a foggy recollection of the Spanish-Texas sound -, there’s a couple of answer machine messages to prompt and make pretty clear the background to this sorry tale of woe, recovery and heartache. The spikey bluesy distorted ‘small steps #13’ and the melted country-drone ‘small steps #14’ both feature these final worries and concerns, both callers imploring Blake to get in contact as soon as possible. It can’t but prompt also concerns in us the listener of the state of the artist, in his dark place, breaking off or unable to reciprocate that same concern back: to just let them know he’s alive, let alone all right.
Inspired in part, title wise, by a reversal of Coltrane’s seminal famous Giant Steps LP of 1960 on Atlantic Records, Blake actually, especially on the opening track, seems to almost ape the saxophone with a magnetic-like buzz and fuzz of vibrated electrified strings. A gateway to modern improvised jazz, that LP signalled something new and the way forward. Blake however, in a much more intimate, private way, still recalls his long-standing droneroom project, but tries to refocus his artform and channel it differently with this latest project and move (as a consequence I believe of the split) from Tacoma to Seattle (although a city move, he remains in the same Northwestern state of Washington).
Magnetic with spells of the dreamy and near magical, the feel and musicianship is a balance of broodier and more attentive forces: Sunn O))) meets Gunn, or Fred Frith in a crush with Ry Coder. Rattle snacks, a long since abandoned rust belt, the cactus dotted landscapes and borderlands all merge into that performance space of gloomy rumination and bluesy experimental loss. It feels like some passages are there to haunt Blake, whilst others almost offer some light, a way to process and recover.
Hadley Caliman ‘Iapetus’
Reissue Special (Wewantsounds) 19th June 2026
Our friends at the specialist rare finds and vinyl reissue label WEWANTSOUNDS continue to mine the vaults of the crate-digger’s and breakbeat connoisseur’s favourite, the Mainstream label this month. The first such vinyl reissue of its kind, the imprint has resurrected one of the best ever recorded examples of its kind, with one of the most outstanding and illustrious of lineups, shining a light on the tenor saxophonist and flutist Hadley Caliman’s much revered and classic solo album of 1972, Iapetus.
Bob Shad’s original Mainstream “broad church” imprint grew out of an already 30-year spanning career when it took shape in the 1960s; a showcase for prestigious artists, session players and Blue Note luminaries chancing their arm in the bandleader or solo spotlights. A musical journeyman himself, Shad (whittled down from Abraham Shadrinsky) began his producer’s apprenticeship at the iconic Savoy label, then moved to National Records before taking up an A&R role at Mercury, where he launched his own, and very first, label EmArcy. It was during this time that Shad would produce records for the venerated, celebrated jazz singer deity Sarah Vaughan, the Clifford Brown & MaxRoach Quintet, Dinah Washington and The Big Brother Holding Company.
Mainstream was home to the developing tastes and an incubator for 70s jazz, whether that was fusion, the spiritual, the art rock variety or the conscious kind. One such glowing example was Shad’s signing, the highly impressive Oklahoma raised but L.A. and San Francisco hot-housed Caliman, who recorded a couple of impressive and defining solo LPs for the label at the turn of that new decade.
After securing his platform in 1971 with the self-titled debut, Caliman followed up with the Greek Titan and Jupiter moon etymological entitled Iapetus. The majority of the compositions on this far-reaching and renowned LP were composed by the no less notable and influential pianist, composer, electronic musician, essayist and conceptual artist Todd Cochran; just one of the many doyens and acclaimed artists and musicians lining up to enrich and push the boundaries of Caliman’s Modal and spiritual vibed visions.
With so many crossovers, links in the network and amongst the players on this rarefied treasure, it would be fair to outline each band member’s diverse backgrounds and connections. Cochran himself is the polymath most responsible for helping put this LP together, having arrived off the back of performing on and shaping the Bobby Hutcherson’s Quartet’s iconic Head On LP for Blue Note, and already releasing a couple of LPs for Prestige. As a side nom de plume for some his career, Cochran also went under the Bayeté name. As a master of composition and keys virtuoso, you can hear a heavy use of the Fender Rhodes on Caliman’s eclectic fusion of a showcase LP; bulbs shaped electrified notes hover, hang around like pollen and space dust, or reverberate, whilst Oscar Peterson-like displays of modal and explorative notes and runs cascade and trickle both melodically and in a more avant-garde style.
Stepping up next, we have the sensational Woody “Sonship” Theus, an L.A. birthed virtuoso who was already “well acquainted” with the flute, violin, trumpet and piano as a kid before homing in on the drums. By the way, that middle name is in honour of not only Jesus but Coltrane’s ‘Sun Ship’. As an incredible engine room, but tactile drummer too, Theus worked with such luminaries of the art as Larry Nash, John Klemmer, Charles Llyod, McCoy Tyner, Woody Shaw, Freddie Hubbard, Michael Urbaniak and the exalted Pharoah. Here, he delivers a drumming showcase, splashing around with cymbals, hurtling away in an Irmin Schmidt-like phaser and flange tunnelled cosmic psych effect, and rolling and beating out a spiritual, experimental and sometimes just funky breakbeat. He’s just as at ease on the more mirage and dreamy peregrinations and settings; sifting, sieving and tactile across primal horizons and nature. Rhythms and timings can suddenly leap into action from nowhere, and he’s been left at times to play off in duets with just the double-bass or the keys.
Moving on, but in the same music section of the ensemble, we also have the percussive pairing of Spanish Harlem’s conga and timbales player Victor Pantoja and the Dominican drummer and fellow timbales player Hungria Garcia. The former is probably best known for his time with both Santana and the also the Latin rock band Azteca – founded and linked by Santana percussionist Coke Escovedo – and was named by his peers and foils as “El Negrito”, whilst the latter was famously a member of Mongo Santamaria’s Cuban spectacle and outfit, going on to form the Riot rock group in the 70s, and playing with such noted visionaries as Gabor Szabo, Don Ellis and Stevie Wonder. They both add a certain exotic presence, a simmer, rattle and shake of dragon flies and butterflies, the brush and scrub of the earth, and the jingle of cattle bells from the African bush on the atmospheric dreamy nature and spiritual yin ‘Dee’s Glee’. It might also well be their inclusion that helps to steer the Latinised ‘Quadrivium’ towards the Afro-Latin sounds of Brazil and Cuba; an almost pan-fluted and whistle caress of Latin America via Hermeto Pascoal and Jeremy Steig.
Next on trumpet and flugelhorn, the Houston born but Afro-Cuban roots Luis Gasca, who also (and that’s where those connections and nodes cross once more) played with Mongo Santamaria he also but played with that other Latin-Jazz titan Tito Puente, but once he let his hair down, or grow, in keeping with the hippie countercultural norms of the late 60s, hung out as a renowned sideman on the San Francisco Bay scene, turning up as at Woodstock with Janis Joplin and The Big Brother Holding Co., lending his now psychedelic horns to the Grateful Dead, and also filling the ranks of Santana’s band during those heady days. His cult LP, For Those That Chant, is a classic. That trumpet is equally as blazing and burning as it is burnished and dry across the Iapetus skyline: recalling a host of gifted auteurs of the art form but swinging also to a 50s and early 60s period of influences too.
Finally, we have the moving Modal bass lines and flexes of the notable double-bassist James Leary. The CV is impressive to say the least, with periods conducting on Broadway and stints with Count Basie, Eddie Harris, Dizzy and Max Roach. There’s plenty of room for that hummed and descriptive double-bass to swing between stage and the golden era of Blue Note, whilst also sounding out the terrain on the dreamier hallucinated and lunar pieces.
I guess we should return back to the man of the hour, and Caliman’s own impressive background. Crossing networks porously, and just like a number of his foils on this LP, he also worked up musical relationships with Santana, but also whilst moving between the West Coast and Washington, with such luminaries and notables as Earl Hines, the Grateful Dead, Freddie Hubbard and Jon Hendrick, and Ray Draper. L.A and San Fran were the calling, and his sophomore LP, illuminated by the mythological references to a progenitor of mankind, the father of Prometheus, and the astrological references to the mostly iced, distinctively bright and dark hemispheres observed their largest moon of Saturn, sits well in that environment; from noirish blues to showtime swing, the near psychedelic, the spiritual, and when the keys and drums and horns merge on the opening ‘Watercress’, evocations of Bitches Brew Miles and soul-jazz.
Elsewhere you can pick up flashes of Byard Lancaster, Joe Zawinul and Miles’ own electric key experiments, plus Oscar Peterson, Max Roach, the funk and more soulful, and something almost otherworldly.
Far too impressive, and filled with a most enviable ensemble, to lay dormant or unloved, the Iapetus reissue is a stunning, visionary masterclass in both expanding and firing up jazz so that it swings as much as it floats or hovers between the Latin and the experimental, the orbital and the primal.
Fatoumata Diawara ‘MASSA’
(NØ FØRMAT!) 6th June 2026
Although the diaphanous voiced Fatoumata Diawara hardly shies away from delicately and beautifully articulating the subjects she holds dear, to spotlighting with a certain tenderness but also power the problems of polygamous family woes in Western African, of motherhood and the contemporary ills that plague not just her homeland but the world as a whole, her music is a celebration of roots and culture; an exchange of ideas and art between her homeland and the modern approaches and pop and club music of the French producer and project instigator -M-.
Whilst Mali is being ripped apart, a decade or more into a grippling war and ongoing, but never extinguished, Islamic insurgency, its music scene has never been more influential and in rude health. It must be said, mainly as a result of its musical diaspora, with many forced to flee to Europe, across the borders: from various celebrated Tuareg nomadic groups to a number of internationally acclaimed virtuosos. Many have stayed of course, but the daily threat of attacks must be plaguing their nerves.
A complicated picture that needs far more nuance and context than I can give it here, the back-and-forth battle between the government and the combined forces of the al-Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and ethnic Tuareg separatists under the umbrella of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA), rages on indefinitely; once halted by the intervention of the former colonial forces of France, who were themselves more or less kicked out of the country to be replaced, by of all the worst possible choices, a ragtag of Russian mercenary forces – who have themselves failed miserably and dangerously to defend the capital and huge swathes of the country, letting the insurgents gain the upper hand. As it stands, Mali is on the precipice of an Islamic terrorist takeover if something isn’t done soon by the current governing regime.
Concentrating many minds, Diawara, who runs a charity in Mali that provides financial support to make art and music accessible to children with albinism and disabilities, must look on with horror at the developing crisis back home. But this album, in this time, is as I’ve already said, a kind of celebration or at least outward unifying collaboration between Mali and the contemporary productions of Europe.
Already working with a host of such projects, including the Gorillaz, the singer, songwriter, guitarist (influential and acclaimed enough on this instrument to have made history this year as the first black woman to sign a signature guitar deal with Gibson Epiphone) now reconnects with -M-‘s Malian-French Lamomali collective; the lineup of which often features the acclaimed kora maestro Toumani Diabate and his grandson, the singer, kora scion and producer Sidiki Diabate. But as a solo fronted venture, Diawara keeps the roots of home very close whilst expanding her sights on futurizing that sound with synthesizer effects, and a quite subtle but effective use of modern production. And so, whilst imbued by the desert blues, the stripped rock n roll and the more traditional vocals of Mali, you can expect to hear her storytelling prowess and messages of resilience, the “orphan’s song”, faith and motherhood blended with spells of Afropop, Chic-like funk, modern R&B, pop and electronica.
Alongside the synthesizer pads, the metallic effected parts of piano, the flat drumbeats and Euro-club feels, you can hear Diawara’s electrified and acoustic guitar trills, solos, and nomadic desert bluesy landscape projections and a voice that is commanding and yearned as it is filled with reassurance and sympathy for the subjects she’s articulating or agitating.
As an experiment in spreading Malian music to an ever-greater international audience I’d suggest Fatoumata Diawara, with help from her production foil -M-, has achieved those aims with aplomb, depth and with an ease of the rhythmic and funky.
Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band ‘The New Atomic’
(Trash City Records) 26th June 2026
Transmogrified through a maximalist and hysterical, but also attentive and swooning use of untold influences and accumulated aspirations, Fergus Quill goes fully “atomic” on a revived Big Band sound.
Long since grown unfashionable and no longer economically viable for the most part, Quill throws everything but the kitchen sink at it; scattering an eclectic record collection, years of experiment and a healthy absorption of inspirations into a thoroughly excitable, dramatic and unifying set of performances and transformed cover version homages.
Already a renowned instigator, musician and bandleader on the British jazz scene (although you’re as likely to think you’ve been dropped in the Chicago, New York, old MGM backlot scene of L.A. in the golden age of cinema and New Orleans hothouses of the past as you are the in a more contemporary London), notable for his contributions alongside Theo Goss and Nico Widdowson in a critically applauded trio since 2020, and for co-founding the Independent Record label and his involvement with the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Quill draws in a number of friends and past collaborators for his Imaginary Big Band’s third outing. There’s a writing credit for Widdowson on the Lalo Schifrin horn blazing and whacker Mainstream funk label Cotton Club vine swinging street beat ‘Do The Right Thing’ and an arranging credit on the more intimidate, dreamy and magical WWII era radio music hall sentimental recall ‘Same Sky’. The former could be a manic reconstruct of Spike Lee’s home turf brought into the hands of Jimi Tenor, whilst the latter, features the swooning and contralto-like wartime heartache of co-writer and vocalist Amy Clark (Quill is co-signer so to speak on that same flashback to a bygone era; a mix of Radio Hall Sarah Vaughan and Vera Lynn!).
Just the opening nine-minute blast of interstellar atomic age throwbacks, ‘Jay Sufin On Saturn’, runs through an entire album’s worth (for anyone else) of ideas and references; from Saturn’s cultural ambassador to Earth Sun Ra to The Big Easy, the soundtracked beat of Eastwood’s Callahan in San Fran, Duke Ellington, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Gershwin, Gil Evans, James Chance, Skies Of Americas Ornette Coleman, Cab Calloway and Glenn Branca. Fast forward to the creature-feature drama of ‘iBesszilla’, and the action is a fun and silly madness of Max Steiner, horror picture shows of the 1950s and the more experimental dried reed and strangulated horns of Sam Rivers and Anthony Braxton, and a sudden acceleration of hardcore.
A bit of a surprise, but there’s a stalking Muscle Shoals via swamp soul version of Bob Dylan’s minor key bitter love pill ‘Love Sick’. Here, and with a renewed if plaintive vocal treatment, Time Out Of Mind Dylan is given a delta bluesy jazzy feel that seems entirely plausible. The curtain call protestation, ‘I Shall Not Be Removed’ is returned back to its American Spiritual roots, its gospel home ground so to speak, with a harmonious and beautified Orleans influence and snuggled Big Band finish.
Breathing new life into the Big Band sound whilst referencing its past glories and the very reasons its both bombastic and more romanticised sounds were so special and revered, Quill and his imaginary troupe playfully and in actionist dynamism, realign the olds with a refreshing blast of no wave, the avant-garde, Afro-futurism, and a mania of contemporary flashpoints. There’s much to unpick and enjoy in equal measure.
Andy Haas ‘Messianic Time’
(Resonant Music) Released 14th May 2026
On a creatively prolific role of late, with a trio of headed albums plus a recent dispatch from the Van Pool (check out my review from April) unit, Andy Haas isn’t just pushing envelopes but refolding them into shapes and sonic sounds unbeknown to the saxophone outside the arenas of freeform jazz, the avant-garde and musique concrete.
I’ve previously outlined Andy’s CV, his background, and untold cross-generational collaborations both in the New York scene and over the border in Canada. Too many to list, the orbit that has been pulled towards the explorative musician is exceptional; everyone who’s worth mentioning on the underground during the course of the last forty plus years anyway.
Flanked once more by a revolving lineup of such gifted players, Andy’s latest project includes the gangly post-punk, hardcore and no wave jazz growls, revved-up and snarled bass pulsations and prowls of Brenna Rey, and the tumultuous freefalling and rolling thunderous drums of James Paul Nadien – think Art Blakey meets Fuzai and Last Exit.
Our saxophonist of note is back at the centre of this both bestial, wild and Antony Braxton-style piped and squeezed experiment; once more setting the controls of his effects apparatus in real time and afterwards to suck out the tune or to give his horn a vibrating mania of high pitch tones, squeals, metallic resonance, something that can only be described as snorkelling, and an edge. That sax sounding at any one time like an old-fashioned kettle whistling and pleading to be taken off the stove, the oboe and the mizmar.
Theme wise, it seems the trio are either manifesting or invoking the arrival of a new messiah or taking part in a primal scream therapeutic session to overcome the end times. With violent near hardcore thrashed blasts at war itself and Blurt and The Flying Luttenbachers no wave blasts at sacred cow gods, the Abrahamic triangle of religious apocalyptic texts, there’s a funnelling of oppressions waiting to explode. You can hear what sounds almost like the steam being released, the pressure valves being opened on that old golden calf as Moses descends from the heights carrying God’s ten commandments, or the impending doom of the next missile as it lands and tears up another Guernica.
At this point I have to point out that Messianic Time has a slight novelty factor track list wise, with the Bandcamp version containing two tracks not on the CD version, whilst the physical version contains four tracks not available on Bandcamp. Just for transparency, I jumped the gun and listened to the Bandcamp version whilst waiting on the CD. But the general improvised growl and darkened jazz mood is the same I believe across both.
It’s not all action, but the forces of Rosco Mitchell, Laddio Bolocko, Pere Ubu, Dewey Redman (circa Tarik), Brom, Peter Kowald, and Scrala O’ Horror all collide to evoke a maelstrom of Biblical chaos and hope. Another incredible performance of effects manipulated free-dark-hardcore-jazz and oft-groove from the sax maverick and his foils.
Puce Moment ‘O.R.G.II’
(Odd Doo) 12th June 2026
A continuation of Nicolas Devos and Pénélope Michel’s Puce Moment’s collaborative spirit of exploration; an exercise in transformative pipe organ music, imbued by and then lifted from the venerated stage of St. Jospeh Church in Armentières (located on the Belgian border, Northwest of Lille) and set to the performance of Christian Rizzo’s à l’ombre d’un vaste détail, hors tempête at the Biennale de Lyon in 2025.
First Introduced to a 1942 mechanical instrument version of the organ in February of 2019, the conceptual duo has built upon those early experiments, working with the likes of the artistic director, curator, choreographer and visual artist polymath Rizzo, but also with such international company as the Gagaku Music Society and the São Paulo born choreographer and dancer Vania Vanneau. This has led to a merger of their Kosmische Zodiak Club-esque soundscapes with dance, visual movement and performance art over the years, and most recently, this droned and piped contextualized special performance.
With titles that reference a multitude of mythological and religious etymological derived forms of wind and air (from the widely-used Ottomon Turkish derived sea breeze of “Imbat” to the Hebrew “wind”, “breath” of the Holy Spirit “Ruach”, and the violent “Tehuano” wind that blows through the gap of the Chivela Pass in Mexico), the source and inspiration is referenced in every breath and bellow that’s played through that auspicious organ; augmented by the duo’s electronic apparatus, and featuring a specially constructed mechanical hand, used to play along on one octave and controlled by a sequencer.
More akin to the kosmische expansions of early Popol Vuh, Tangerine Dream and their ilk, and to the pastoral ambience of Jeff Bird than the holy and reverential, the pumped, filtered and droned atmospheres seem to reach out past the stained-glass and into the abstract and as yet undiscovered. Melodic rays and patterns seem to emerge from the enveloped and a foundational bed of undulated pipe music. At times almost glassy, and at others, throbbed and anointed by repeating touches of light, the sounds stretch out and expand into the air itself. Hymnal qualities are balanced by both the playful and by the elemental manifestations of the titles: such as the scorched, arid and sun blared aspects of the opening Church service come Kosmische-inspired ‘Simoon’; a reference to the strong, hot, dry and dust-laden desert “poison wind”.
Organ music is once more transformed and yet despite the various concepts and effects, doesn’t lose its sustained, rising and building qualities and evocations.
The Taps Of The Holy Trinity ‘Customs & Rituals’
(Fenny Compton) 20th June 2026
Invoking the ancestors through various “customs and rituals”, the Australian troupe with strong Hellenic and Mediterranean roots cast suitably evocative spells and conjure up various visions of both the atavistic and esoteric as the newly formed The Taps Of The Holy Trinity cult.
From Dionysus to the Byzantine, and via the Ottoman Empire’s colonisation and conquest of Greece and its neighbours, an atmosphere of acid-psych-folk and atavistic past lives that brush up against passages of Aussie Gothic, the dirt music of Hugo Race and Chris Eckman, and a strange mirage of Outback and North African desert blues melts perfectly with a hauntology of diaspora and displacement. Whilst Australia seems to have been a real pull for tens of thousands of Greek citizens, their journey starts back in less auspicious times, fighting for national identity against the Ottomans during the 19th and 20th centuries – a history that is way too complex and layered to go into here. The first Balkan War (in short, and again, without the entire history and context, this period references the war between 1911 – 1912, when Bulgaria alongside Greece, Serbia and Montenegro fought against the Ottoman Empire, just before its historic loss, its demise and rebirth as Turkey after World War I) led to such displacement and a refugee crisis. There’s a reference on the album to the walking on fire ritual of ‘Anastenaria’, which, depending on the sources you research, seems to have originated either from Ancient Greece or from those refugees (many of which were Bulgarian) forced out of what was then known as Eastern Thrace (a geographical and historical region in Southeast Europe that roughly corresponds with what we know as Thrace) following the first Balkan War of its name. Dancing in an ecstatic ceremony across burning coals, this show of faith proves fertile inspiration for the crackled and exhaled mysticism of the group and their trippy manifestation of a mystified land full of apparitions.
Lining up to field this project is the Aussie with Med ties pairing of Arthur Karanikas (of BBQ Haque note we’re told) and Michael Plater (working both solo and as The Right Hand Is Doomed To Blacken, and the H.P. Lovecraft or M. R. James-esque The Northern Lighthouse Board). They are joined on a suitably eclectic variety of traditional and indigenous instruments by Dee Hannan (a member of the congruously evoked George Xylouris Ensemble), Dave Bullock (of both the incredibly entitled Paul Kidney Experience, and Kiss My Poodle’s Donkey), and Danny Martinov (of The Exit Keys). That foundation is rounded off with the European showing of Italian violinist Massimiliano Gallo and the UK experimentalist Paul Rodgers. Widening the scope further, this culmination of talent lays down the popular Demotika folk style of Greece with the folk styles of Anatolia and its surrounding lands with an exotic Byzantine incense of magic, courtly rituals, the hungering and hallucination.
Golden metallic-encased gong-like shimmers and the rustle and jangle of trinkets build up an atmospheric picture, as ghostly wails and Boyd Rice and Current 93-like male vocals play on the esoteric – you can throw in Nature & Organisation and Sol Invictus if you desire. At times it’s like Brian Jones unshackled from the Stones, cross-legged in a Sublime Porte opium bizarre with the Velvets and Aphrodite’s Child. But then you get, like on the whistly piped and reverberated bluesy ‘Burial Crowns’, a whiff of Alejandro Jodorowksy and Popol Vuh.
A sonic version of the bubble rising inside a lava lamp, the The Taps Of The Holy Trinity’s debut album is an intriguing debut from a Hellenic vision of the Incredible String Band brought up on the dirt music of the 80s Aussie scene; a meeting with the ancestors and stories of a magically imbued and yet also lamentable land trapped on an astral plane of psychedelic mischief and panoramic cosmic gazing.
Here’s the message bit we hate, but crucially need more than other:
If you’ve enjoyed this selection, the writing, or been led down a rabbit hole into new musical terrains of aural pleasure, and if you able, then you can now show your appreciation by keeping the Monolith Cocktail afloat through the Ko-Fi donation site.
The Monthly Playlist selection of choice music, plus our Choice Albums list from the last month.
A couple of months back we decided to change things a little with a reminder (if you like) of not only our favourite tracks from the last month, but also a list of choice albums too. This list includes both those releases we managed to feature and review on the site and those we just didn’t get the time or room for. All entries are displayed alphabetically.
Our Monthly Playlist continues as normal, with tracks this month chosen by me, Dominic Valvona, Matt Oliver and Brian ‘Bordello’ Shea.
A Journey Of Giraffes ‘Emperor Deco’
(Somewherecold Records) Review
MC Paul Barman ‘Tectonic Texts’
Elea Calvet ‘Seasons’
Inturist ‘Tourism’
(Incompetence Records) Review
Eiko Ishibashi ‘Antigone’
(Drag City)
Timo Lassy Trio ‘Live In Helsinki’
(We Jazz)
Nickolas Mohanna ‘Speakers Rotations’
(AKP Recordings) Review
Che Noir & Superior ‘Seeds In Babylon’
Alberto Novelle & Rob Mazurek ‘Sun Eaters’
(Hive Mind Records) Review
Andrew Rumsey ‘Collodion’
(Gare du Nord) Review
Schizo Fun Addict ‘An Introduction To…’
(Fruits der Mer) Review
Snapped Ankles ‘Hard Times Furious Dancing’
Sonnyjim & Kong Artisan ‘Effortless, Almost Dead’
(Noel & Poland Records)
Russ Spence ‘Phase Myself’
(Metal Postcard Records) Review
Macie Stewart ‘When The Distance Is Blue’
(International Anthem) Review
Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, Sam Wilkes ‘Uhlmann Johnson Wilkes’
(International Anthem) Review
The Young Mothers ‘Better If You Let It’
(Sonic Transmissions) Review
Previous Monthly Choice Releases:
And now, the tunes of the month playlist selection:
Snapped Ankles ‘Pay The Rent’
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets ‘Weird World Awoke’
MC Paul Barman, Donwill ‘Killinagame’
Jansport J, Airplane James, Sham1016 ‘T-Top’
Alessandro Alessandroni ‘Militari in allarme’
Black Mynah ‘Colleen’
Che Noir, Superior ‘Sovereignty’
Droogie Otis, Boldy James ‘Everything Designer’
Timo Lassy Trio ‘Rumble Outro – Live’
Gregory Uhlmann, Josh Johnson, Sam Wilkes ‘Marvis’
Takuro Okada ‘Howlin’ Dog’
Inturist ‘Special Offer’
Elea Calvet ‘Bad Joke’
Sweeney ‘Love Is A Waste Of Time’
Eiko Ishibashi ‘Antigone’
Meggie Lennon ‘Connexion Astrale’
Apollo Brown ‘Honestly Don’t’
The Moose Funk Squad ‘Cheetah Piss’
Black Josh, Lee Scott ‘Aw, Here It Goes’
Queen Herawin, Pretty Bulli, Illa Ghee ‘Denial’
The Young Mothers ‘Better If You Let It’
Lord Finesse ‘Habits of Desperation’
Sonnyjim, Kong The Artisan, Lord Sko ‘Idiot Savant’
clipping. ‘Polariods’
Macie Stewart, Lia Kohl ‘I Forgot How To Remember My Dreams’
Nickolas Mohanna ‘Past Light Cone’
Previous Industries ‘Adriana Furs’
Sporaterra ‘Unglued’
PremRock, Sebb Bash ‘Did You Enjoy Your Time Here…?’
Flying Tulpa ‘Signless’
Andrew Rumsey ‘The Memorial Service Orders of Friends’
Nick Frater ‘One Minute’
Honor Saint William ‘THE IDIOT’
Puce Moment ‘Bugaku’
Alberto Novello & Rob Mazurek ‘Ricochet Edge Verse’
El Leon Pardo ‘Viaje Sideral’
Mick Harvey & Amanda Acevedo ‘Juliette’
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years both me and the MC team have featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world: ones 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 or interest in. 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 say thanks or show support, than you can now buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail
THE MONTHLY DIGEST INCLUDES A CLUTCH OF ACCUMULATED NEW MUSIC REVIEWS; THE SOCIAL INTER-GENERATIONAL/ECLECTIC AND ANNIVERSARY ALBUMS CELEBRATING PLAYLIST; AND CHOICE PIECES FROM THE ARCHIVES
(Cover Star Macie Stewart. Photo credit Shannon Marks)
_____/THE NEW____
Macie Stewart ‘When The Distance Is Blue’
(International Anthem) 21st March 2025
Perhaps one of the most prolific collaborators of recent years, across several mediums, the multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter and artist Macie Stewart has come to represent a flourishing, explorative contemporary music scene with multitudes of connections and threads. Apart from projects with choreographer Robyn Mineko, Sima Cunningham, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet, Stewart has become a stalwart of the International Anthem family, contributing and helping steering releases by Rob Mazurek – who literally appears below this review with his foil Alberto Novelle -, Bex Birch, Damon Locks, Makaya McCraven and Alabaster DePlume.
Another foil, featuring in the intimate ensemble that plays on this Stewart’s first solo album for the imprint – the actual debut solo LP, Mouth Full Of Glass came out a few years back on another label -, is Lia Khol, a cellist and sound artist who already collaborates with Stewart in a duo. There’s also the addition of both the equally versatile artist Whitney Johnson (credits include the Verma band and the avant-pop lo-fi Matchess alias) on viola, and Zach Moore on double-bass. This is where those inter-connections must end, as I could just carry on regaling all the various entries from the bio and dedicate this review piece to one of the most enviable of CVs in the music scene. But we must not get distracted, and instead now look at the album.
When The Distance Is Blue could be read as…well, perhaps blue in mood. But this is an album that slips poetically in and out of consciousness, inhabiting, ruminating over and in some cases writing the aural equivalent of a love letter to the spaces in-between the tangible and the environment, with background passages of field recorded interactions taken from public places. For instance, the famous Tsukjii district of Tokyo, near to the Sumida River (reclaimed originally from lowland marshes) is referenced as the title for an atmospheric piece of recorded street side, market interactions. It carries on over and bridges the reverberating, sifted, swept and delicately plucked and vibrated opening suite ‘I Forgot How To Remember My Dreams’ and the near atavistic recalled, apparitional haunted voiced ‘Murmuration/Memorization’. The former of which features Khol’s clean cello and Stewart’s meticulously struck piano notes in a near forlorn but beautifully evocative mood. It reminded me of both Cage and Reich, of the Japanese school of contemporary classical music, and even a little of Sebastian Reynolds work with cellist Anne Muller. The latter, which is named, in part, after the stunning synchronised patterns of large groups of starlings as they come together in flight, seems to dial into something old or timeless; an elliptical dance of Tony Conrad like bows, Hellenic-like spirit voices rising and falling like their avian subjects, and the neoclassical.
The album title, and the underlying theme, is inspired, imbued by the American writer and activist Rebecca Solnit’s A Field Guide to Getting Lost book. I’ve unfortunately not read it, but the L.A. Times summarised the nine essay pieces that make up this work as: “An intriguing amalgam of personal memoir, philosophical speculation, natural lore, cultural history, and art criticism.” Elsewhere it’s been described as a wondering and lurching zigzag through history, politics and art, with the author described as a “Intellectual nomad” by The Guardian’s Josh Lacey when he reviewed it. But all can agree about the book’s themes of change and transformation. Of which Stewart taps into, recording the almost unnoticed; an essence of a particular time and place; a captured seasonal moment of rumination and episodes that left their mark. Across this a near perfect length album, a complete journey is sounded out through both attentive and deeply felt strings, piano, percussion, wordless voices and double bass. It’s a liminal sound that evokes Sakamoto, Cale, Alison Cotton and a sense of the Oriental slow movement, as it moves beautifully and moodily between pizzicato plucks, the cascaded, watered, resonated and bowed. I’ll say it again, as perfect a vision as you can get, everything about When The Distance Is Blue is just so right; every feeling, note, sensibility carefully pitched in a dreamy and ached, subtle and often mysteriously intriguing way.
Alberto Novelle & Rob Mazurek ‘Sun Eaters’
(Hive Mind Records) 28th March 2025
A moment in time; an afternoon’s encounter. The symbiotic alignment and then transformation of the improvised and layered, sonic and sound art foils Alberto Novelle and Rob Mazurek transduce timbral elements and textures into an amorphous act of existence on their collaborative release for the discerning internationalist label Hive Mind Records.
Created in a day, extemporised to a point, the Sun Eaters album, despite its rhythms, is a serialism of encounters and reactions to recognisable lines, soundings, echoes, flutters, melodic addresses, nature trial organic serenades, shakes, tingles, jangles and bleats from Mazurek’s trumpet, flute and percussion of bells. His partner on this exploration transforms these instruments into hallucinatory and playful electronic, modular and oscillated new atmospheres and ambiguous soundscapes that simultaneously evoke Jon Hassell’s Fourth World inventions, the collaborative work of Ale Hop and Laura Robles, the Aphex Twin, Carmen Jaci and King Champion Sounds.
When you address both participants extensive and envious CVs, you can only assume that together they will make something very experimental and unique, but not so academic and avant-garde as to create something dry, theoretical and impenetrable. Before we can any further, just a brief summary of the experience brought to the Dobialab studio that day in Northeastern Italy. I was only the other month referencing Mazurek in relation to Damon Locks and his List Of Demands LP. The cornetist and interdisciplinary innovator featured Locks in his Exploding Star Orchestra lineup, just one of the numerous groups the countercultural Chicago figure and influencer had instigated over the decades; most notably Isotope 217, the varied Chicago Underground ensembles, and one of my favourites, the Sau Paulo Underground offshoot. I could list umpteen other incredible collaborations (his work with Jeff Parker to name just one), and run-off a long list of influential labels that have carried his work (my friends at International Anthem for one) over the years, but you can get this all off the various bios circulating on the internet. His foil, Novello, often “repurposes found or decontextualised analogue devices to investigate the connections between light and sound in the form of contemplative installations and performances” under the JesterN guise – I borrowed that from his Bandcamp page by the way, hence the italics. He’s assisted such notable talent as Alvin Lucier, David Behman, Nicholas Collins and Trevor Wishart, and improvised with such luminaries as Evan Parker, Butch Morris and Karl Berger.
Combining these experiences, echoes of Don Cherry, Peter Evans and Miles casting shadows across an arid Latin sounded landscape are sampled and looped, turned into a language of abstract data, mechanics, transmissions, signals and pitch registers. There’s a buoyancy swimming below the synthesized beds that indicates a certain rhythm and movement. And yet at times the pair seem to be floating in the cosmos or lost in an illusion as they pull the AEoC through the mirror backwards and shake and rustle the cow bells of a herd heading for Tibetan shrines. Those bells by the way also ring out like tubular long pipes or like a sleigh ride into spiritual transcended. But I can’t help feeling there’s a lot of fun at play too on these peregrinations, especially on the Mexican wrestler referenced snake-rattled and mirage-esque ‘Luchadores Sudden Embrace’.
Taking a completely different direction, the fungi studied inspired finale, ‘A New Mycological Framework of Narrative’, is the sound of Richard H. Kirk’s wordless mewling and mantras, a touch of Kriedler and even Kraftwerk, and Finnis Africae being fed into a strange soundboard and apparatus of conductors.
A different kind of creation, this six-track reconfiguration seems to just be. Neither non-musical nor musical; neither avant-garde nor defined; the results are beyond simplified categorisation. Mood pieces? Sensory exploration? Textual exercises in ambiguity? Abstracted visions conjured out of an apparatus and range of acoustic instruments? All viable descriptions perhaps for an amorphous collaboration. Followers of both artists will be happy with the outcome.
El León Pardo ‘Viaje Sideral’
(AYA Records) 21st March 2025
A “sideral”, or celestial bodies related, “voyage”, the new inviting album from the Colombian brass, wind and multi-instrumental encompassing artist El León Pardo is imbued by pre-colonial Colombian magic and contemporary musical hybrids that fuse cumbia with the Afro-Caribbean and cosmic.
Noted for spreading the word and virtuosity of his chosen instruments and culture to the world through his work with Ondatrópica, Curupira and Frente Cumbiero, Pardo is imbued by the sound and symbolism of the “Kuisi” end-blown flute, and Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in which its whistly trill echoed; the loose Colombian originated infectious rhythm of cumbia, which in more recent times has switched the European influence of accordion for electric guitar, but has been restyled and modernised throughout time to include the trends the day; and the ancient Pre-Colombian Zenu people of the Sinú River Valley and their atavistic flute.
Channelling all this to conjure up a dream realism peregrination, dance and wonderment, Pardo invites a number of Colombian foils to join him on a sometimes-surreal corridor to the stars. Taking up the offer is fellow eclectic polymath Edson Velandia, emcee N. Hardem of LNI and Soul Am Beats fame, and “nueva (“new”) cumbia” motivators Frente Cumbiero, who’s main instigator Mario Galeano is also a member of both the already mentioned Ondatrópicaand Los Pirañas groups. This trio’s contributions further expand the scope of influences and ideas, heading down into the lively Bogota barrios, or snake rattling and sauntering into a spellbinding oblivion of magic eye Colombia and the cosmos.
As the tile translates, there’s a relationship between the stars, the celestial spheres, playing out on Viaje Sideral. A both playful and deep immersion of universal mirages and dream states that simultaneously sound Andean and yet futuristic and cosmological, the album’s nine tracks use tradition and modern tech to build up an alternative reality. Analogue synths echo and modulate those space sounds: a representation of beamed astral planes and spectral rays, and travellers from other worlds landing in the mountain valleys of Colombia.
Whilst traditional instruments, the chuffed, short and longer, more drifting and circular convulsed flutes and pipes, both brassy and Latin trumpet, reference imaginative invocations of his homeland. Factor in some of that Afro-Caribbean influence and a touch of Mad Professor dub effects to this playful, inviting, danceable, percussive infectious, pop-y, soulful (there’s even some electric guitar parts that I would swear were Rhythm & Blues flavoured) and mystical, and you have a dreamt landscape brought to vivid, rhythmic life. El León Pardo isn’t however just about the magic, but by using the instruments he does, bonds with and sticks up for those pre-Colonial indigenous roots as a form of activism and conservation, education. This is nothing short of a great imaginative Colombian trip, equally at home under a menagerie canopy of exotic conjuring as it is in space.
Puce Moment ‘Sans Soleil’
(Parenthèses Records) 21st March 2025
Tuning in via the kosmische, new age, trance and ambient imbued modular electronic laboratory to the courtly and Imperial Gagaku tradition, the Puce Moment reconfigure purposeful Japanese ceremony, dance and music to conjure up an otherworldly, haunting and mystical soundscape under a “sunless” sky – if you directly translate that album title of “Sans Soleil”.
Travelling to the notable Japanese city of Tenri (the old capital of Japan, for a very brief period during the late 5th century rule of Emperor Ninken) in 2020 to record and work with the local Gagaku Music Society, the French duo of Nicolas Devos and Pénélope Michel recontextualised an old but continuous form originally performed for the elite. They expanded this exploration turn transformation further with the addition of the São Paulo born choreographer and dancer Vania Vanneau: furthering the soundscape project into dance, visual movement and performance art.
For those unaware of this Japanese form, Gagaku’s roots can be traced back to the 6th century, perhaps earlier, when Japanese delegates were sent to China to learn about its culture. They are said to have brought back a fusion of both Chinese and Korean music, instruments and dances to the Imperial court; to be performed at banquets for the elite. But some historical sources suggest that it was through the spread of Buddhism, making its way across from China to Japan. And one of the main dances, the “Bugaku”, involves the wearing of intricate Buddhist costumes and masks.
Familiar sounds of this form include the famous barrel-shaped wooden “taiko” drum, the “Koto” 13-string zither, the “Biwa” short-necked lute and the “Shō” wind instrument – used for one of the six titles of this peregrination and mood musical work. All of which, I believe, can be heard both in their recognisable form and morphed and woven into a modulated, generated, filtered atmosphere of electronic apparatus drones, fizzes, oscillations and amorphous mysticism.
Hinting at rips in the fabric, a misty geography and periods of historical meaning and reference, Sans Soleil summons ghosts, voices from the ether and the four winds and wisps of Jon Hassell, Hiroshi Yoshimura, Popol Vuh, Tony Conrad’s work with Jennifer Walshe and Ash Ra to magic up a sound world that sits on the border of the alien and cosmic, landscape and pure atmosphere: The word used is liminal. This convergence of trance-y, lucid synthesised sounds and voices on the air merges dreamily and spookily with Japanese tradition, ceremony and choreography to create something more akin to an experience, an immersion and dance.
Alessandro Alessandroni ‘Paesaggio Bellico’
(Four Flies Records) 18th March 2025
Like much of mainland Europe scared, brutally traumatised and worn out by WWII, Italy and its battle-ravaged population pretty much became risk adverse to war. Although eventually changing sides back to the Allies, the ill-fated bedfellows of the Nazi Axis alliance were, apart from the diehards/racists/antisemites/psychopaths, were always ill at ease goosestepping to the tune of Hitler. In fact, no matter how history has been warped, the Italians put down and made the butt of so many jokes, the country had some of the largest numbers of partisans fighting against the Fascist regime – percentage wise in all of Europe, Italian partisans were far more likely to be killed and murdered by the Nazis than anyone else.
Italy favoured internal civil war over the international: a war of ideologies, corruption, state and philosophy that rages to this day. Terrorism and organised crime concentrated the mind. But no one in Italy could turn away from the events that followed in the wake of WWII: the Iron Curtain and Cold War to Korean, Vietnam and so on. And that brings us to the work of the stellar talented and connected iconic and cult Italian composer Alessandro Alessandroni, who scored an impressive range of war themed documentaries and films during a career that spanned a good half of the 20th century.
Born on the release date of this latest battle, war and psychological collection (18th March), Alessandroni came of age during the rise of fascism and the events that would lead to the Allies invasion of first Sicily then mainland Southern and Central Italy, the horrific bloody battle of Monte Cassino and the brutal air raid bombardments that destroyed so much of the country – an agreement between both sides thankfully saved Rome and several other important cultural cities.
During a period between 1969 and 1978, the maverick and highly influential composer and multi-instrumentalist recorded a catalogue of scores and atmospheric pieces, suites that dealt with not only the military aspects but the trauma of war and its effects upon those who both fought and faced its wrath. After the smut and titillation of the Music From Red Light Films 1976-1980 collection, the Italian label Four Flies unearths an impressive and quality selection of these tracks, previously left dormant in the vaults.
A peer, foil, mentor and friend to such luminaries as Ennio Morricone, the Rome born maestro and artist first made a name for himself with his Spaghetti Western twang-y Duane Eddy signature guitar and whistling scores for the highly influential film director Sergio Leone. But Alessandroni also founded the wordless octet vocal group I Cantori Moderni (“The Modern Choristers”), which featured his wife Giulia De Mutiis, and went on to form the brief prog-rock-psych group The Braen’s Machine with fellow Italian cult composer Piero Umiliani.
During the late 1970s he was scoring more and more mondo trash, erotica and garish S&M horror – see Lady Frankenstein and Killer Nun. And yet, the quality of his work is never in doubt; often elevating such tawdry, amateurish affairs to cultish status by the music alone. Although far from serious, it seems Alessandroni’s craft is likened to playing with an amusement park of ideas, sounds and instruments: entertaining but also captivating in equal measures. With an ear attuned to the contemporary fashions, but the classical and traditional too, a lot of musical ground is covered in his compositions: from Italian folkloric standards to disco, library music and the salacious.
In turn, this package (the vinyl copy features 15 tracks, whilst the digital is expanded to include 29) channels much of that legacy, but with far more seriousness, artistic depth, emotion and compassion. Most of those familiar with his work will instantly recognise the signatures and the palette; from the spine-tingling chills and fears of his Giallo-like scores to the arpeggios, the twang and pick of his Wild West evocations – namely on the couplet of cloud hanging “Pattugliamento Aereo” (“Air Patrol”) pieces; although the second “Aereo” matches that with vague Alice Coltrane harp-like plucks and a subtle prog-esque organ.
Where sentimentality and a touching relief is needed, tracks like ‘Lettere dal Fronte’ (“Letters from the Front”) air towards Bacharach and Morricone, and feature that recurring Baroque chamber sound of harpsichord or clavichord that gives each occasion a sense of spindled timelessness. ‘I Sopravvissuti’ (“The Survivors”) is a lovely touching sentimental piece that evokes both the balletic scores of Aram Khachaturian (sounds uncannily like his suite from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) and wartime period classical music. Talking of 2001, with the use of the I Cantori Moderni ensemble of wordless voices both appearing like apparitions and spirits of lost and dead souls, or like some removed version of ecclesial requiem choristers, there’s also a semblance of the stirring visionary ominous fears and otherworldliness of György Ligeti.
Quite rightly, the ‘Dachua’ suite should evoke an enormity of horror, but this score is more in the mode of supernatural horrors from the crypt than genocide shock. It sounds like some lost silent film theme of haywire Baroque piano: a combination of devilment and madness, with one hand delicately lacing the keys, and the other, hitting near off-key jarred and out-of-key notes. And whilst sounding the most terrible aspects of war, from execution to the shelled-out ruins of a psychologically destroyed mind, the music strikes up the military snare, playing it like a spraying machine gun, or, building up an unsettling drama of pain and anguish: all managed beautifully, even when dipping into Library music, the hallucinating, dreamy and psychedelic.
Military timpani and drills aplenty amongst the plaintive recall of the acts and dogs of war, this survey features supernatural forces, cold chills, suspense, loss, remembrance and hope.
The suites, atmospheric pieces, scores and signature found on this Paesaggio Bellico are all far too good to be left undisturbed, languishing in the vaults of cult obscurity. Fans, heads and even those with a cursory interest should investigate.
___/THE SOCIAL PLAYLIST VOLUME 95
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 now, Volume 95 is the latest eclectic and generational spanning playlist come radio show from me – the perfect radio show in fact, devoid of chatter, interruptions and inane self-promotion.
Each month I mark the passing of those artists we’ve recently lost, and as this is the first opportunity to do so, I’ve included homages to the last “doll” David Johansen, the soul music’s Carol King, Roberta Flack, vibes innovator and jazz fusionist Roy Ayers and troubadour Bill Fay.
Anniversary albums wise there’s tracks from Herbie Hanock’s Maiden Voyage (celebrating its 60th anniversary this year), Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home (also unbelievably 60 years old), David Bowie’s Young Americans (50 this month; see my short analysis in the Archives section below), Parliament’s Chocolate City (also 50), Sonic Youth’s Bad Moon Rising (40 this month), Radiohead’s The Bends (30 years old this month), Gene’s Olympian (another 30th) and Edan’s Beauty And The Beat (where does the time go…seriously! How can this LP be 20 years old this month?!).
As usual, I like to throw in a smattering of cross-generational tracks and some more recent ones – those that missed out on the previous Monthly playlists of new music. In the latter camp, we have a resurfaced (so not strictly new) live version of Throbbing Gristle’s ‘Convincing People’ from Volksbühne, Berlin, recorded on New Year’s Eve in 2005; an imaginative reverberating study, peregrination from Dorothy Carlos; and some mirage grunge indie from Raisa K. In the former, a number of oldies from Krumbsnatcha, 21. Peron, Stanton Davis’ Ghetto/Mysticism, Gloria Jones, Flutronix, Berlin Brats, Pete Dello and more… Expect no substitutes. Expect no algorithmic replicants. Expect no AI bullshit. All playlists are compiled without any external influences, totally conceived by whatever I wish.
IN FULL:
New York Dolls ‘Private World’
Gloria Jones ‘Cry Baby’
Roy Ayers ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’
Roberta Flack ‘Compared to What’
Parliament ‘Ride On’
Edan ‘Promised Land’
Herbie Hancock ‘The Eye Of The Hurrican’
21. Peron ‘Bes’
Bill Fay ‘Dust Filled Room’
Radiohead ‘My Iron Lung’
David Johansen ‘Heart of Gold’
Berlin Brats ‘(I’m) Psychotic’
New York Dolls ‘Don’t Start Me Talking’
Sonic Youth w/ Lydia Lunch ‘Death Valley ‘69’
Throbbing Gristle ‘Convincing People Live’
Dorothy Carlos ‘Balm’
Raisa K ‘Affectionately’
Roberta Flack ‘Some Gospel According to Matthew’
David Bowie ‘Can You Hear Me’
Roy Ayers ‘Pretty Brown Skin’
Stanton Davis’ Ghetto/Mysticism ‘Space-A-Nova II’
Krumbsnatcha ‘Closer To God’
King Honey w/ Hezekiah, Gos and Chief Kamachi ‘Trinity’
Georges Bodossian ‘Punching Bull’
Flutronix ‘Crazy’
Meridionale des cayes ‘Zanmi femme’
Bob Dylan ‘Love Minus Zero’
Bram Tchaikovsky ‘Robber’
Gene ‘Olympian’
Pete Dello and Friends ‘Arise Sir Henry’
___/ARCHIVES
Each and every month, I use the digest as a good excuse to once more retrieve congruous and related posts from the archives. This month, to tie in with the 50th anniversary of David Bowie’s “plastic soul” period, a short piece on one of the soul crooning pale duke’s best album’s Young Americans – well, in my opinion top three.
And from this time, near enough, a decade ago, another chance to read my review of Glitterbeat Record’s Hanoi Masters: War Is A wound, Peace Is A Scar album, raw and therapeutic sessions recorded by Ian Brennan and released during March of 2015.
Disingenuous to a fault, the cracked actor’s ‘plastic soul’ conversion, raised more than a few pencilled-in eyebrows and frowns.
Totally free of his carrot-topped mullet crown, he now hotfooted across the Atlantic to Philly, intoxicated by the city of brotherly love’s sweet, lovelorn soul music.
A new face in town, the burgeoning ‘thin white duke’ employed a cast of ethereal backing singers (including an as yet famous Luther Vandross) and kindred musicians (notably Bowie’s new lead-guitarist foil, Carlos Alomar) on his cocaine-fuelled pursuit.
Calling in the favours, fellow alienated Brit in residence, John Lennon, helped write the cynical snide ‘Fame’ (he plays on the recording and adds harmonies too) and let Bowie cover his stirring cosmological trip, ‘Across The Universe’ – much maligned, but I really dig this version, and even play it regularly in my DJ sets.
Reflective, sophisticated, Bowie and his detractors may have labelled him with derogatory terms, yet there’s no denying it’s another successful musical adoption: truly up there with his best ever work; a complete showman chameleon transformation. Even one of his most infamous haranguers Lester Bangs couldn’t help but admire it: the only Bowie LP he ever gave him credit for.
Decreed as the leading highlight’s of the album by the majority –
Young Americans (single), Win, Fame (single)
Pay attention to these often overlooked beauties –
Somebody Up There Likes Me, Across The Universe
Various ‘Hanoi Masters: War Is A wound, Peace Is A Scar’ (Glitterbeat Records)
A side excursion, travelling due east to Asia and breathing in the evocative songs of Vietnam, Glitterbeat Records launch a new series of field recordings entitled Hidden Musics. Finding a congruous musical link with their usual fare of West African releases, the label sent Grammy-award winning producer Ian Brennan (credits include, Tinariwen, Malawi Mouse Boys, The Good Ones) to Vietnam in the summer of 2014 to record some of the most lamentable and haunting resonating war-scarred music.
Indelibly linked to what the indigenous population call ‘the American war’, the examples of both yearning and praise pay tribute to the fallen: delivered not in triumphant or propagandist bombast but in a gentle meditative manner, these survivors, forty years on from the end of the harrowing and catastrophic (the repercussion still reverberating in the psyche of the burned America and its allies) war still undergoing a healing process.
Tinged with an omnipresent lilting sadness these songs are imbued with battle scares (hence the albums sub-title War Is A wound, Peace Is A Scar), as the featured artisans and traditional music masters who had joined the cause, sometimes for the first time in years, allow` their voices to be heard once again. Brennan’s notes are littered with these various connections to the war: ‘…a thirteen year old whose job was to sing to the troops to boost morale and provide solace. Another was a former AK-47 issued village leader who had not sung in over forty years and proved to be the most dead-on vocally.’
‘Un-mediated’ and as raw as you’ll ever likely to hear these fragile, half-forgotten songs without being there yourself, played on the most obscure accompaniment of moon-shaped 2-stringed and zither instruments – including the strange K’ni, a plucked instrument clasped between the teeth, the local dialectic language spoken through the single string to produce a weird otherworldly vocoder like effect –, each documented performance is a lingering trace of an old world. Industrialisation and technology it seems has no respect for the past, increasingly infringing on even the most remote and relatively atavistic traditions in the mantra of “progress”, replacing those indigenous songs with the cultural imperialism of their south east Asian neighbours (Japan and South Korea) K-pop and karaoke genres. Here then, before they vanish forever, Vietnam’s victors speak; from the sweetly yearned Phạm Mộng Hải eulogy to departed souls For The Fallen to the dew dropping off the blossom love paean to her homeland, Nguyễn Thị Lân sung Road To Home, each purposeful – with the occasional clanging up tempo surprise – song is a revealing glimpse into loss, exile and resistance.
Considering the history and ill blood between cultures – though this has eroded as capitalism takes hold and the country opens up – it has in the past been difficult to investigate for the serene and attentive beauty of the Vietnam music scene, but this earnest and adroit study into a world seldom covered proves enlightening.
Hi, my name is Dominic Valvona and I’m the Founder of the music/culture blog monolithcocktail.com For the last ten years both me and the MC team have featured and supported music, musicians and labels we love across genres from around the world: ones 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 or interest in. 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 say thanks or show support, than you can now buy us a coffee at https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail
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