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.
Monolith Cocktail Social #71: Tame One, Aphex Twin, Orange Juice, CAN, Ryo Fukui, Bnny…
November 9, 2022
THE CROSS-GENRE/CROSS-GENERATIONAL PLAYLIST
DOMINIC VALVONA SELECTS

The final Social of 2022 is another bonanza of both the well-worn and more obscure tunes from across the expanses of eclectic music with a few recent choice tracks thrown in. My imaginary radio show, a taste of my collection and my past audio misadventures in DJing, the Social is meant to be a diverse soundtrack free of barriers and cliquey snobbery.
As always it’s both a celebration and commiseration as I mark the passing of both the hip-hop legend Tame One and the mad, bad and dangerous to have known rock ‘n’ roll progenitor Jerry Lee Lewis, whilst also highlighting the 50th anniversaries of Lou Reed’s Transformer, Hawkwind’s Doremi Fasol Latido, CAN’s Ege Bamyasi and Nektar’s A Tab In The Ocean albums; the 40th anniversary of Orange Juice’s Rip It Up and the 30th anniversaries of The Pharcyde’s ‘Bizarre Ride II The Pharcyde’ and the Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works 85-92 LPs – both of which I remember buying on their release.
Added to that list are some incredible jazz suites from Rudolph Johnson, The John Betsch Society and Ryo Fuki; a pained score from the Ukrainian frontline by Angel Rada; another glimpse into the Beach Boys upcoming Sail On Sailor 1973 box set with the previously unreleased (officially speaking) Holland outtake ‘Carry Me Home’, penned and sung by Dennis Wilson, and amongst the fandom, hailed is one of the group’s most sublime and best songs to get the elbow; and Sahal sounds from Etran de L’Air, with a track from their new album, Agadez. Vince Tempera, Plone, Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra, First Frontal Assault, Fall of Saigon, New Burns and more can be added to that list too.
TRACK LIST FOR THE MONOLITH COCKTAIL SOCIAL VOLUME #71
Orange Juice ‘Flesh Of My Flesh’
Etran de L’Air ‘Imouwizla’
Rudolph Johnson ‘Devon Jane’
Vince Tempera ‘Pelle di Albicocca’
The John Betsch Society ‘Ra’ Jerry Lee Lewis ‘Money – Live At The Star Club, Hamburg 1964’
Mickey Gloss ‘Crocodile Smile’
Plone ‘Minature Magic’
Aphex Twin ‘Pulsewidth’
Elzhi ‘Amnesia’
First Frontal Assault ‘Bloodfire Assault’
Tame One ‘Da Ol’ Jersey Bastard’
The Pharcyde ‘Pack The Pipe’
Shawn Lee’s Ping Pong Orchestra ‘Rocket Ship’
CAN ‘One More Night’
Fall Of Saigon ‘Visions’
Lou Reed ‘Andy’s Chest’
Stockholm Monsters ‘Winter’
Christine Perfect ‘And That’s Saying A Lot’
Ryo Fukui ‘Speak Low’
New Burns ‘Marlene Left California’
The Beach Boys ‘Carry Me Home’
The Idets ‘Look My Way’
Bnny ‘I’m Just Fine’
Som Imaginario ‘Armina – Vineta 1’
Plastic penny ‘Your Ways To Tell Me Go’
Nekter ‘King of Twilight’
Little Free Rock ‘Wait A While’
Angel Rada ‘Ghost In Odessa’
Hawkwind ‘Urban Guerilla’
Diane Cluck ‘4 Score Lightnings’
Museao Rosenbach ‘Zarathustra – Il Tempio Delle Cles’
Hamilton Leithauser & Paul Maroon ‘How & Why’

The Social #66: The Eclectic Cross-Generational Playlist: Funkadelic, Clap! Clap!, Klaus Schulze, Farhot…
May 16, 2022
PLAYLIST/Dominic Valvona

The Monolith Cocktail Social playlist flips back and forth across time and over borders to bring together music and sounds untethered by themes, trends or clique mindsets. Well, to a point. We do however celebrate the albums reaching particular milestones each month. The Social #66, which could be considered the blog’s radio show, includes 50th anniversary nods to The Beach Boys, moonlighting under the Carl And The Passions, much-undervalued ’72 classic So Tough, plus choice tracks, songs from jazz deity Ornette Coleman’s symphonic opus Skies Of America and the switched-on, riled and political-funk orgasmic Funkadelic’s America Eats Its Young. Fast forward a decade or two and Gang Starr’s era-defining Hip-Hop totem Daily Operations is thirty years old this month. Unbelievably so is Stereolab’s Peng, which also features in this month’s playlist.
We had to mark the loss of the kosmische progenitor, cosmic courier Klaus Schulze, this month, and so have a smattering of peregrinations, drifts and score’s from across the German innovator’s back catalogue to enjoy.
Bang up to date, there’s a multitude of tracks that we either missed or didn’t get room to feature on the monthly playlists, including Sinead O Brien, Clap! Clap!, PENDANT, Modern Studies, Nathan Francis, Farhot and Rancho Relaxo.
Expect to hear anything and everything curated in one aural journey of possibilities, open-mindedness and discovery.
THOSE TRACKS IN FULL ARE:::
Clap! Clap!, Domenico Candellori, TOROZEBU ‘Ox’
Dakh Daughters ‘I Want’
Jackson Heights ‘Mr. Screw’
Smokey Haangala ‘Amafuna Kanyama’
Front Page Review ‘PRISM FAWN’
Close Lobsters ‘Just Too Bloody Stupid’
Sliver Car Crash ‘Curse In The Pines’
Sinead O Brien ‘GIRLKIND’
PENDENT ‘Thom’
Camu Toe ‘Death’
Funkadelic ‘If You Don’t Like The Effects, Don’t Produce The Cause’
Ill Considered ‘First Light’
Klaus Schulze ‘Weird Caravan’
Stereolab ‘Mellotron’
Tess Parks ‘Happy Birthday Forever’
Sven Wunder ‘Mosaic’
Klaus Schulze ‘2. Satz: Gewitter (Energy Rise – Energy Collaps)’
Grindolog ‘Ship’
Nathan Francis ‘Premonition’
Larry Ridley ‘Go Down Moses’
Ornette Coleman & The London Symphonic Orchestra ‘The Artist In America’
Robbie Basho ‘Eagle Sails The Blue Diamond Waters’
Black Light White Light ‘Epilepsy’
The Beach Boys ‘Hold On, Dear Brother’
Guilherme Coutinho ‘Me Ver Em Vocé’
Alice Clark ‘Don’t Wonder Why’
Eugene Viscone ‘Love’s Hidden Island’
Baeshi Bang & Ip Koa Son ‘Kang Kang Sullae’
Gang Starr ‘Soliloquy Of Chaos’
Nine ‘Whutcha Want’
Farhot ‘Rap e Dari’
Laundromat ‘Combo’ Klaus Schulze ‘Rhythm Fugue’
Idrissa Soumaoro ‘M’ba Deri Ou’
caroline ‘Dark Blue’
Modern Studies ‘Wild Ocean’
Klaus Schulze ‘The Treasury Of Thy Lusty Days’
Sāo Paulo Underground ‘Perenquén’
Rancho Relaxo ‘Colour The Stars’
Crystal Syphon ‘Try Something Different’
Playlist: The Monolith Cocktail Social #27
February 10, 2017
PLAYLIST
Compiled by Dominic Valvona
Continuing in 2017 with the first of, we hope, many Monolith Cocktail Socials, Dominic Valvona presents another eclectic playlist. In case you don’t know the drill, 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 we pick songs from across a wide spectrum of genres, and from all eras. #27 includes thoughtful post-country evocations from Bruce Langhorne; southern-drawled, Steppenwolf-esque, roadtrip musings from Circuit Rider; a rebooted live version (with friends) of I Have Known Love by Silver Apples; diaphanous soulful rays of Africa from post-punk outfit Family Fodder; a Malian jazz odyssey from Le Mystere Jazz de Tombouctou; desert rock yearnings from Mdou Moctar; exquisite balladry from Drakkar Nowhere; the sweetest of soul takes from the felonious The Edge Of Daybreak; and 23 other equally evocative, stirring, foot-shuffling and sublime tracks from across the decades.
Bruce Langhorne ‘Opening’
Circuit Rider ‘Forever Angels Proud’
Trance Farmers ‘She’s Made Of Rainbows’
Mistress Mary ‘Dance Little Girl’
Elyse Weinberg ‘Your Place Or Mine’
Sensations Fix ‘Grow On You’
Silver Apples ‘I Have Known Love’
Family Fodder/Vic Corringham ‘Walls Of Ice’
Diane Coffee ‘Never Lonely’
Black Peaches ‘Chops On Tchoupitoulas’
Le Mystère Jazz de Tombouctou ‘Leli’
Khiyo ‘Amar Protibaader Bhasha’
T.P. Orchestre Poly-Rythmo ‘Finlin Ho’
Mdou Moctar ‘Iblis Amghar’
Black Hippies ‘Love’
The Beach Boys ‘Here She Comes’
Dr. Lonnie Smith/George Benson/Ron Carter/Joe Lovano ‘Apex’
Mongo Santamaria ‘In The Mood’
Volta Jazz ‘Air Volta’
The Frightnrs ‘Trouble In Here’
The Olympians ‘Sirens Of Jupiter’
King Tubby ‘King Tubby’s Special’
SOMA ‘Deepa’
Moloch ‘Dance Chaney Dance’
Takeshi Terauchi (Blue Jeans) ‘Tsugaru Jongarabushi’
Los York’s ‘Facil Baby’
The Critters ‘Blow My Mind’
Pierre Cavalli ‘Cacador’
The Edge Of Daybreak ‘Your Destiny’
Roy Wood ‘Songs Of Praise’
Drakkar Nowhere ‘Any Way’