The monthly Digest includes a clutch of accumulated short new music reviews, the social inter-generational/eclectic and anniversary albums celebrating playlist and pieces from the Archives.
___/NEW MUSIC REVIEWS___
Gustavo Cortiñas ‘The Drum Also Sings’
Released 5th June 2026
Hot-housed within the great Chicago hothouse of influences but stretching way beyond to encompass and be imbued by the talking, communicating, expressive, storytelling drums that made their way across the Atlantic (to both North and South America) from Africa through the heinous slave trade, the latest album by the impressive and noted drummer polymath Gustavo Cortiñas does indeed sing but also gesticulates and splashing around in describing both the abstract and the visceral.
Exchanging rhythms and phrases with his peers, the Chicago-based (via a craft studied and at both New Orleans and Northwestern Universities) drummer extraordinaire, composer, producer and educator shares the studio with not only the living but the luminaries of jazz past: namechecking the rightly exalted and praised Max Roach, championing his famous melodic drumming style, but also at times during the more tumultuous but controlled parts the late great icon’s Absolution period. And via Roach, there’s also a reference to the late Blue Note anointed Chicago great, Big Sid Catlett on one of the album’s triumvirate of “dialogues”. Part II of that same communication with the past, bounded forward into the now, is a collective improvisation of a Papa Jo Jones phrase, the band leader and drummer famously who “anchored” the Count Basie Orchestra during the 1930s and 1940s.
With that much pioneering talent onboard Cortiñas expands the ranks to include the duo percussive and drumming dynamism of Dave King and Isaiah Spencer; the former of course a founding member of both the Bad Plus and Happy Apple, and the latter, the Chicago-born and active instigator of a much enviable exciting and groundbreaking scene both as a collaborator and as the band leader of his own sextet. Whether feeding off of their host, or pummelling away, or finding a secondary rhythm and counterpoint, or rustling and feeding their hand expressions through various snake-like and dry beaded percussive instruments, they match, entwine and often expand each performance across a healthy relay of styles and influences: from Afro-Latin to New Orléans, the carnival and the vine swings of Art Blakey, the big band swing too of the 1920s, and play of Baby Dodds.
But whilst the drums talk a parade of contemporary feminine voices reach back and forth across time, cultures and geography and meaning to sing or speak. The young Tzotzil poet Angelina Suyul, can be heard uttering in the Mayan phonetic across the textually scuffed, sieved, scrapped and constantly rolling, forward momentum expression of Roy Haynes and Anthony Williams-like ‘The Spontaneity Of Heartbeats’, whilst the Chilean singer-songwriter, visual artist and sculptor of electronic folklore, La Paula Horrera,lends a diaphanous lullaby turn fierce and phonetic-dancing plead to the barricade of emotions and swinging drumming and percussive attuned ‘Your Resilience Is Resistance’. Also hailing from the South American continent is the Argentinian vocalist Martya de Humahuaca; a voice that both moves on the air and convulses in an atavistic-like aria over stick-beaten tribal dance rhythms and lolloping rolls. From the much-loved, on this blog anyway, and praised Chicago label hub of International Anthem, polymath (by my reckoning the CV includes composer, improvisor, clarinettist, pianist, vocalist and educator) Angel Bat Dawid interprets Psalm 23 on the closing well of powerful litany and increasingly wildly and disruptive scripture. Reiterating certain lines (that’s the whole “My Lord is my Shepard”, and “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” speech) with ever more energetic and possessed hysterics, Dawid takes the Biblical via the American Spiritual for a tumultuous outpouring of the gabbled and pointed.
Tracing and improvising with the strong and enduring beat that drove jazz, swing, the big bands, the Latin and more, Cortiñas and his foils roll across a porous borders geographically, technically and rhythmically; experimenting with the litany but also with a rewilding of influences, inspirations whilst making expressive overtures and references to Roach and his peers (even those that in turn inspired that giant of the drumming world).
DJ Grzyb & The Make-Believe Ensemble ‘The Return Of DJ Grzyb’
(HUVESHTA RITUALS) Released 10th June 2026
Through a sonic and multilayered ricochet and echoed leitmotif of psy-dub, psy-trance and IDM, fantastical myths are tied together with amorphous cross-references to both Eastern European and Far Eastern folklore, the occult, the hermitic and supernature.
The return of Warsaw-based producer, DJ and live performer Tamten, under the mystically aligned club-sounds anchorite alias of DJ Grzyb, marks a collaborative sonic, rhythmic and absorbed geography of both mushroom induced invocations and new age mantras. Reeling in both a Polish and international cast of artists and musicians, playing a multitude of worldly instruments or using their voices to evoke the right mood, Tamten and friends embark on a sort of quasi-holy mountain rave-up, but one that’s been recorded at Lee Scratch Perry’s Black Ark and then transported to a supernatural and fabled terrain of dream-magic and half-realities. Step forward the roll call of Marysia Osu on lattice-worked and glistened harp; Silky Oolong (aka, we’re told, the later ego of Kaja Domańska) lending an almost mystically entrancing cyber voice whilst giving instruction to a majority of the tracks; Milo Kurtis multitasking with vocals, clarinet, ocarina, percussion and the oddly curious tine twanged zanaz; Sทา้ว หมาหยยุ on an assortment of Thai instruments, including the chuffed and blown Khaen, the thick finger cymbal chimed and rung ching and the traditional bamboo pi phu thai instrument; Andrzej Dudek-Dürer on the brassy resonating sitar and the long-necked tanpura; Otto Topola adding whispery poetics to the lunar shuttering beat trancey ‘The Big Red Moon’, Marysia Osu as a second harpist on a quartet of tracks; Naphta (the alias of Pawel Klimczak) putting down thick wobbled stringy guitar reverberations and plastic tubbed-like percussion on muffled and then galloping ‘The Three Deaths’.
Almost continuous, each track sems to lead into the next, or at least sit in its languid altered state of drugged-up ritual together like a sort of concept album for the raved-up spiral tribe. Left of field reports, mountain worship and tales of the psychogeography fuse with the sound of David Wojnarowicz being transformed via Amorphous Androgynous, the Dead Skeletons, Cosma and Cousin Silas And the Glove Of Bones. Oddities are thrown up by this club-like dream-trance of ideas and traditional transmogrified sounds: The pan-piped Shepard’s ‘The Matys Song’ sounds like The Golden Child score meets Banca de Gaia, whilst the Indian-entranced evocation of ‘Hall Of All Weather Gods’ sounds like something from David Ornette Cherry’s Organic Nation Listening Club.
Reality and myth converse on the pine forest (though it oftens feels musically like the rainforests of new age musical South America) dancefloor on an album that celebrates as much as mystifies and plays with Polish folklore, its history and geographical porous borders of extended fables and alternative worships. Probably sounds even better and makes more sense on mushrooms.
Kirigirisu Recordings Double-Bill
Autodetuned ‘Clutter’
Meadow Argus ‘Dreams Are Another Doorway’
Both released 29th May 2026
A double helping of abstracted tones and sonic atmospheres from former Audio Antihero label stalwart Neil Debnam (of Flying Kites note, and after an accident which put him out of action for a time, the more stripped back Broken Shoulder outlet) and his Tokyo-based platform. After neglecting the label for a fair time, I’ve added to just two recentish releases from the sporadic schedule.
First up and it’s the latest project from the Madrid-based sound artist Juan Cepas, Autodetuned. Eager followers of the genre and its adjoined nodes of influence might recognise Cepas for his improvised partnership with José Mª Pérez-Flor in the 500 Goats duo: first initiated during the Covid pandemic. “Tones over tunes” is the watch word for this solo exploration of concreate and alien industrial experiments.
With an apparatus of contact microphones, effects chains, reverberating trebly guitar strings, various unidentified and unknown metallic tools and objects, pitches and field recordings the results are akin to taking a fantastic voyage of the paranormal inside the very substances of concrete, stone and metal themselves: like a endoscope inside the textures and binding agents of amorphous materials used as foundation building blocks of the various chambers, chasms and more tubular corridors being investigated. Then again, it’s often more akin to the sci-fi, to off-worlds and the haunted presence of mysterious actors funnelling, whistling, stretching out and broadcasting from the Fortean TV set. Signals and communications from the fabric of this strange tonal world are charged with crispy electricity, the overspill of dust speckled rain and the gargle of curious amphibians moulded from cement.
Next, we have a hauntology of dream scenarios, wanderings, fragments that appear during the hours of sleep, problems or enquires that need to be worked out during those somnolent and relaxed hours, by Tynam Krakoff’s Meadow Argus sonic outlet.
The accompanying Bandcamp descriptive spill/part review in itself by Joe Posset kind of does my job for me (it’s a damn fine articulated description of the album for sure) and mentions Boards of Canda (when they were good) as a reference. Spot on with that observance.
But I guess I’d better add something of my own.
Dreams Are Another Doorway opens into a strange, near ghostly and unconscious state of disembodied snatches of dialogues and enquires on the brain. The miracle of thought processes, the retained snippets and incidents, the conversations and ideas that we mull over in that unconscious state are played out over scratchy films of old gramophone and radio broadcasts, ambient ebbs and a ghostly mirage of a sea shanty-like harmonium. Reminisces, the sound of shared laughter is blended with mysterious sound effects and enervated waves of the near ominous and untethered.
From seas of tranquillity to altered states of reality via vague echoes of Mo Wax, Leaf label, The Northern Lighthouse Board, the Orb and even a passing of jazz, Krakoff’s latest soundscape is an immersive experience that will do anything but send you off to sleep. There’s far too much, even in its most ambient and longform passages, to pick out and experience for that. This strange tape embodies an indolent and almost woozy experiment in entering a dreamlike state of inquisitiveness and also a clockwork satsuma of half-remembered interactions, broadcasts and information.
New York City Chapters vs Weird Shit U.S.A. 2 ‘Slow Diet Ketamine Era’
(Artetetra) 30th June 2026
Hallucinating tape spools and the corner ketamine dealer skits converge for a most warped generator of sound and vocal snippets and snatches on this discombobulating and transmogrified mix tape from the weirdo union of Aaron Anderson’s latest illusion-guise and the “sampledelia” and “digital feed hijacking” duo of New York City Chapters.
From dialling into the passing TV broadcasts from across the street vendor’s store to fucking with a stream of Meta and a drug-induced digestion of breaks, misplaces of jazz, the sounds and voices of New York City, the looping eccentricities of just fucking around with effects and speed shifts, and the slicing and spicing of a mental record collection, there’s much to unpick from the tape’s two sides of leftfield mind-bending clatter, clutter and looping lunacy. And yet, it makes sonic sense: in some ways. For using the city as a backdrop, a sound lab and lobotomy, they’ve made a sort of Matthew David vision of New York that filters but embraces its most crazy biomorphic extremities: from the reshaping of the architecture to a sudden appearance of Alica Keys most iconic if insufferable anthem and passages of hip-hop, jive talk and jazz. But then you also get a stream of consciousness that sounds like a Mogadon-induced cut-up of Odd Nosedam, Edan and Cities Aviv. There’s a loop of “I want to break free” Feddy Mercury against pop-like funk, 4 Tet, the Dream Warriors, Bowie and mizmar-horns.
Part 2 has a slightly different take, with passages more…well, only just slightly more melodic and not so manic. There’s a lot of growly cyber bass, but plenty of warped spells of tuneful reverberations, dub, no wave and more current electronic experimentation.
Together it makes for the craziest of sonic fever dreams; a kind of more energized and charged-up cLOUDDEAD if you like.
___/THE MONOLITH COCKTAIL SOCIAL PLAYLIST VOL. 107____
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 107 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.
As with most months, I inevitably mark the passing of those artists we’ve recently lost, and as this is the first opportunity to do so, there’s a smattering of entries from the late genius of the jazz form and saxophonist extraordinaire Sonny Rollins. Going right back, almost to the beginning and the mid 1950s, I’ve gone for ‘Valse Hot’ from the Plus 4 LP with Clifford Brown, Max Roach, Richie Powell and George Marrow – an enviable lineup – then some action from Live At the Village Vanguard with ‘Old Devil Moon’, and finally something from the Freedom Suite.
From the world of art, creating a landscape that anyone with sense would happily walk into and never leave again, I’ve paid a little homage to the late painter David Hockney. Nico Muhly is inspired by a palette full of signature themes from the Hockney collection, but I’ve opted for one of the most obvious and celebrated, ‘Pools’. And I couldn’t leave the TV Personalities and their ‘David Hockney’s Dairy’ knockabout out.
My haul of Anniversary albums this month includes Bob Dylan’s Blonde On Blonde, which is sixty years old this month. But I’ve gone for covers versions rather than the originals to mix it up, choosing Julie Felix’s impression of ‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’, and Marianne Faithfull’s interpretation of ‘Visions Of Johanna’. Also celebrating its sixth this year is Aretha Franklin’s R&B and gospel showcase, Soul Sister, The Mothers Of Invention’s whackoo trip ‘Freak Out!, and Wayne Shorter’s Speak No Evil opus. Jumping forward another decade and there’s choice tracks from both La Dusseldorf’s eponymous LP of ’76, and the garage rock ‘n’ roll, Byrd’s psych, bubblegum revivalist new wavers the Flamin’ Groovies’ Shake Some Action.
From 1986, there’s nods to The Smiths’ The Queen Is Dead, Madonna’s True Blue, and The Fall’s Bend Sinister (trueful, I’m a bit early with this one as I’m sure it was released a little later in the year). Forward yet another decade and its tunes from Placebo’s self-titled debut LP and Beck’s Odelay. And finally, from the archive spots below, tracks from both Bowie’s Labyrinth soundtrack LP (released in 1986) and Spain’s Carolina LP (a mere decade old in June).
From my collection, and the ever-growing list of releases I wished I’d owned, a complete random selection with tracks from A Clean Kitchen Is A Happy Kitchen, A Dancing Beggar, La Shark, aCivilian, Adhelm, Screaming Urge, From Nursery To Misery, Selezione Naturale…
Complete Track List is as follows:
Sonny Rollins ‘Someday I’ll Find You’
Aretha Franklin ‘Can’t You Just See Me’
The Mothers Of Invention ‘Trouble Every Day’
The Fall ‘Gross Chapel – British Grenadiers’
A Clean Kitchen Is A Happy Kitchen ‘Yellow’
Screaming Urge ‘War’
Placebo ‘Bionic’
aCivilian ‘Cheat’
Le Shark ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’
Television Personalities ‘David Hockney’s Diary’
Nico Muhly ‘Pools’
Marianne Faithfull ‘Visions Of Johanna’
The Smiths ‘Cemetery Gates’
Flamin’ Groovies ‘I Can’t Hide’
La Dusseldorf ‘La Dusseldorf’
Sonny Rollins ‘Old Devil Moon – Live At The Village Vanguard’
Adhelm ‘Swin’
Selezione Naturale ‘Ritmo Avanti’
A Dancing Beggar ‘Here Come the Wolves’
Julie Felix ‘Sad Eyed Lady Of The Lowlands’
Madonna ‘Live To Tell’
David Bowie ‘Magic Dance’
From Nursery To Misery ‘The Oak Tree’
Wayne Shorter ‘Wild Flowers’
Chance ‘Too High To Land’
Beck ‘Diskobox’
Spain ‘The Depression’
Platonica Erotica ‘Pawnshop’
Tim Hollier ‘Evolution’
Sonny Rollins ‘Valse Hot’
____/ARCHIVES_____
It was forty years ago since David Bowie donned his pantomime garb and took on the role of camp arch villain in Labyrinth; or rather, the soundtrack album was released to the general public. For better or worse, here’s my appraisal, plucked from part three of my Bowie homage, published over a decade ago. And from a mere decade ago, plucked from the archives for June 2016, my original review of Josh Haden‘s slowcore Americana Spain alias LP, Carolina.
Labyrinth (EMI) 1986
Dressed to kill as the pantomime dame in a pupated fantasy world, Bowie moons forlornly in the children’s movie of Labyrinth. Cast as the archetypal misguided villain Jareth, our cracked actor fulfils his need to sing and dance, from behind another façade.
For those expecting a whimsical affair, the Trevor Jones and Bowie soundtrack is itself full of both mellifluous romantic waltzes and ominous discordance. Of course, the South African composer of over fifty films, was used to scoring this sort of picture, having already done Time Bandits and The Dark Crystal. Bowie however offers up some pining laments, capturing the spirit of his conceited but lovelorn goblin king. In fact, though obviously directed at a younger audience, the vocal tracks have an instant commercial allure to a mature market too, tapping into the new fan base, which he picked-up on Let’s Dance.
In truth the fun-frolicking joyous ‘Magic Dance’ and gospel backed ‘Underground’ are better than anything off his previous release Tonight (with the exception of ‘Blue Jean’ and ‘Loving The Alien’). The slippery chameleon was however ‘losing his edge’, identified as a crooning balladeer in a sharp lapelled suit, devoid of new ideas. The next few years wouldn’t change that opinion.
Spain ‘Carolina’
(Glitterhouse Records) 3rd June 2016
With a poignant prompt, Carolina is the first album by Josh Haden’s musical project Spain since the death of his father Charlie in 2014. Amongst the most renowned and celebrated jazz bassists of the last century, working with such major heavyweights as Keith Jarrett and Ornette Coleman, the late Charlie was for obvious reasons a handy mentor to his son, contributing throughout with advice and even playing on the records. Tribute would be too strong a word, instead imbued by and referenced in a number of themes, Charlie’s spirit is omnipresent throughout.
It has however given Josh pause for thought: solace and reflection being the album’s key subjects. Though the very nature of the ‘slowcore’ music Josh, alongside other innovators of the genre such as Low and Willard Grant Conspiracy, has become renowned for is based on if not constantly paying homage to the great Americana songbook of the past two hundred years. Coming almost full circle, the literally titans of the 1929 great depression, both in fiction and reportage, chime with the events of 2008. Even when the protagonist of a beautifully descriptive lament eulogies an American victory in the 1777 campaign for independence on ‘Battle Of Saratoga’, Josh has his mind on the present: augurs for the future, compelled by events in the past.
Entrenched in not just the history of the expansive, pioneer spirit America but in its music too, the opening alt-country swoon ‘Tennessee’ absorbs the ghosts of Nashville and Memphis. A grand vista indeed that captures the American state in a tale of loss and escape – the protagonist losing land, trapped by history itself – ‘Tennessee’ has a plaintive quality of resignation. No less steeped in myth, ‘Apologies’ moves the action to Beverly Hills, Josh joined by a female counterpoint vocal on the repeating, “There was a witness” refrain, sings almost softly as though floating through or above the unfolding events.
Josh goes onto evoke both an air of The Band’s Rick Danko on both the stirring ballads ‘Lorelei’ and ‘Starry Night’, and a heavier alternative rock and blues, often reminiscent of a cowboy twanging Pearl Jam, tone on ‘For You’.
Life on the homestead, the American War of Independence, Steinbeck’s visions of the great depression, mining disasters and William Faulkner’s short sentence encapsulation of a time and events are woven into both Josh’s formative years growing up in Malibu, and a more contemporary setting to create a deeply moving album.
Here’s the message bit we hate, but crucially need:
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 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.
___THE NEW___
Autistici ‘Familiarity Enfolded’
(Audiobulb) 2nd August 2025
The middle sequence in a series of transformations by the Sheffield-based electronic composer, Familiarity Enfolded follows on from the first link in a chain of collaborative immersions, Familiarity Folded – released in just the last week. In what could also be a collaborative showcase for the Audiobulb label too, a smattering of artists who’ve previously released material on the platform now bond and work with Autistici in redeveloping or evolving and remixing his compositions and ideas for a three-part project.
Finding common ambient space and minimalist approaches to visioning new soundscapes and movements, part two includes contributions from Tomo-Nakaguchi (an artist we’ve raved about on the site in the last few years, and made our choice albums of the year lists), A Dancing Beggar (who hasn’t appeared for a very long time on this site, but has made our choice albums lists in the past), Russ Young and OdNu (another artist who has appeared in our reviews sections in the last couple of years). The prospects look good already, with this quartet’s sphere of influences within the ambient and electronic realms both adroit and always worthy of attention.
First up both Autistici and Tomo-Nakaguchi match-up for an incipient majestic awe of both the natural and synthetic on the opening ‘Twilight Glow Of The Sky’. What could be the sound of filaments falling like pattering rain on a drum skin or piece of Tupperware can be heard amongst the moving glimmering light captured at such an inspiring moment in time and place.
The cove atmospheric ‘Caiplie’s Hermitage’ references the atavistic caves of the title, found between the Scottish towns of Anstruther and Crail on the coastal pathways of Fife. A Dancing Beggar is the foil this time around, playing on the hallowed ghosts and history of that mysterious cavern, which is believed to have been used as a place or sanctuary of worship for Christians in the 9th century AD. There’s constant wash or downpour of rain and presence of water elements that continue throughout this piece, and it could be that the artists are perhaps sheltering from it as they build up an abstract picture that’s one part natural and the other near sci-fi. The brassy resonating strings of a guitar are plucked, pulled and sprung as heavenly machines move around in the background. A Dancing Beggar joins both Autistici and OdNu on the finale; a twenty minute plus long form illusion inspired by the track title’s Arthurian referenced enchantress, sibling, shapeshifter and seducer Morgan Le Fay mirage, the ‘Fata Morgana’. A “superior mirage” in other words, this optical phenomenon and complex mirage creates distorted and sometimes fantastical images of distantly observed objects. You must have seen this when looking at to sea in particular conditions and seeing tankers or ships appearing to float above the waves. Sonic wise, this reminded me of Jeff Bird with its essence of piped or pumped pastoral sounds. But there’s also something hallucinogenic about it too. There’s a Mark Hollis solo style piano bit, something that sounds almost like a concertinaed ghostly echo of some shipwreck shanty plus the shimmers and shivers of magic.
That leaves the final track of the quartet, the ‘Dissolved in Light’ collaboration with Russ Young, who I must admit I’m unfamiliar with. It begins with the itchy rubbing chorus of crickets and sundown atmospherics. A veil of mist dissipates to reveal a most minimalist timelessness before Laraaji-like bowls are struck softly and the sound of tines and melodious ambient waves entwine. Andrew Heath evocative piano notes and falls meet an amorphous staccato engine as the track moves along its placeable journey to the sacred.
‘Relinquishing’ control, the concept behind this series has worked rather well; resulting in some magical, stirring and illusionary pieces of sophisticated and highly immersive ambient and lowkey electronica. A Dancing Beggar seems to be adding something of the bucolic and pastoral to the mix to give it a connection to the human and greenery, the nature and history. But all four collaborators prove congruous partners on this project. Part three, Familiarity Unfolded, will follow in due course, and it will be interesting to hear the results of another set of sonic and musical partners.
The Lancashire Hustlers ‘Here But Not Here’
(Steep Hill) 4th July 2025
Rolling with the punches meted out by life; tumbling forward into a new songbook; The Lancashire Hustlers seventh album rings true with disillusion, detachment, bewilderment and isolation. It’s a feeling that’s hard to articulate or relate, but that unease at the tides of time and the disenchanted shrugs of malady sound pretty warm, gentle and sellable.
With a MOR breeze of soul in their sails once more, the long-standing duo of guitarist and vocalist Brent Thorley and drummer and backing vocalist Ian Pakes take beat group, Baroque, psych and troubadour influences for a both funky and yearned trip across the Northern countryside and towns of their home. Transporting a hint of Muscle Shoals to Lancashire for an idiosyncratic English take on the music of the Isley Brothers, Stevie Wonder, Curtis Mayfield, the duo (with an extended apparatus of instruments, which they both share) have a slight saunter and roll to their signature to their songwriting and playing. It’s the sound of The Beatles, of individual Lennon and McCartney on their solo work, of the Stones, of Ollie Halsall and John Compton with an undulation of gospel-light and country-soul electric piano and organ. Talking of the country reference, the most lovely ‘Just Because’ has what could be either a melodica or clarinet sounding like a forlorn but romantically sighed harmonica – there’s also the use of a lap steel guitar.
There are some heartfelt, sad plaints, and rural country swamp pop ditties that wouldn’t sound out of place on McCartney’s eponymous solo album and RAM; some songs that err towards the haunted, albeit with instrumental aping scurrying mouse effects – see the confessional, asking for forgiveness, pest and rodents quirky phobia, and Byzantine Stones flavoured ‘I Killed A Mouse’ -; and some that beat themselves up over guilt, frustration and heartache. Most out there, must be the dejected lament of feeling ignored, ‘Like A Ghost’, which sounds like a detour to some mysterious Hispaniola Les Baxter hideaway island of the occult. And yet, they never feel so down or in the blues funk that each song isn’t rich in playfulness lyrics wise, or ever dour.
Another enchanting as it is sorrowful and disenchanted songbook from a duo that continues to make its own luck, releasing a consistent catalogue of instantly likeable, melodious and breezily catchy albums. It’s always a pleasure to review and hear them.
Maria Elena Silva ‘Wise Men Never Try’
4th July 2025
Recently stripping back Bob Dylan’s courtly enigmatic dames to their most essential essences with interpretations of ‘Queen Jane’ and a summoned bell rung ‘Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands’, Maria Elena Silva now turns to the pages of the Great American Songbook with a first volume of revisited and transposed standards made anew: that is, made emotively ethereal, near evanescence yet connected and with a real sense of depth and something approaching the tactile.
Under the ‘umbrella title’ of Wise Men Never Try, the inaugural volume features a small intimate accompaniment of players to accentuate and punctuate Silva’s carefully placed and near blown words, or, to wind along to a minimalist performance of the artful, the solo play, the quietened and sullen lament, the show tune stripped of artifice, and the enigmatic, near impregnable shell of a smoky cabaret tortured soulstress. Step forward Erez Dessel, who’s piano both articulates the feel and plays with a freer hand of spine-tinkles, ached suspense, distorts and slightly jars the nerves; especially on the opening version of Carolyn Leigh and Cy Coleman’s late 1950’s standard, ‘I Walk A Little Faster’ (the singular “I” has been dropped I assume to reframe the angle for a new interpretation), which was a hit for Blossom Desire in 1958. The original’s slight lilt of 50s swing and jazz is replaced with a jilt of dissonance on the piano; made more so because of the near silence that opens the song. In a bluesy-jazzy fashion that also recalls the theatre, Silva amorphously places the words with lulled and delicate breathless ease. As a theme of heartache and denial, this distillation is as beautiful as it is almost troubling and disconsolate. The album’s finale, ‘Some Enchanted Evening’, is the closet interpretation on the whole album, featuring a lovely melodious piano that wouldn’t sound out of place on the original; all very tender and dreamy. The Rodgers and Hammerstein number, composed for the South Pacific musical, is normally sung by male protagonist Emile as he captures the essence of love at first sight. Out of the female gaze, with a female perspective that theme is not so much lost but redefined.
We also have Tyler Wagner popping up on the double-bass, taking a tactile, textural jazzy approach, offering flexed stretches of the body, sensitive little crawls and climbs, and more physical thwacks of the bass strings. The filmic pining ‘I Should Care’, written by Alex Stordahl, Paul Weston and Sammy Cahn for the 1944 MGM matinee Thrill of a Romance – covered by all the notable greats over the decades, from Sinatra to Peggy Lee, Dizzy Gillespie and Amy Winehouse -, features a bass that quietly thumbs away a jazz rhythm in the style of early Blue Note, as Silva sympathetically oozes soulful pursed heartache.
Completing the accompanying trio – who it must be stated, don’t always play together or on every song – is Ben McDonald on electric guitar. Subtle for the most part, ‘I’m In Love Again’ has McDonald pinging harmonics, brushing up and down the fretboard and playing a nice Reinhardt-esque delicate languid sensitive form of haunted sympathy.
It must be pointed out that Silva also plays acoustic guitar on these numbers. ‘You Don’t Know How Glad I Am’, written by Jimmy Williams and Larry Harrison, and made her own by Nancy Wilson on the 1964 single, is an intimate entwined match of Silva’s climbing vocals and a guitar with a pinch of Spanish flair: albeit kept quite subtle. Silva’s version of that recognisable tune sounds somewhere between Judee Sill and Roberta Flack. It’s there again on the next song, ‘Close To You’, a sort of jazzy-gypsy guitar melancholy.
Silva’s voice is labyrinthine and enigmatic yet can’t quite hide the various emotional toils of disconsolate and sacrificial, torturous and resigned heartbreak. Despite the intimacy of the setting, every song has a stage-like atmosphere about it that croons and soothingly oozes sophisticated, elegant jazzy-blues performance from the stillness and blank space. But that voice is hard to define, to pin down; amorphously pitched between the great jazz singers, the voices of perhaps Julie London and Peggy Lee, and something approaching the folk doyens of the 60s. A beautiful, somewhat pining and plaint start to a series of such interpreted songbooks, volume one is a very personal take and perspective on a songbook we have come to take for granted and heard a thousand or more times. In this moment, this setting, those just recognisable songs have taken on a different quality and encouraged a new reading.
If that grabbed you, Silva will be back next month with a second volume, this time concentrated on songs of a certain vintage, and a prescient history, the American Civil War. Expect to read a review of that album at a later date.
Leo Wolf ‘I Saw Your Shadow On The Wall’
1st August 2025
The flicker of Richter’s candle appearing at the end of the labyrinth; the half-dreamt, half-seen M.R. James’ apparitions; the presence of the supernatural and mysterious prompted by sleep hallucinations; these are all in the essence and conjuring of imagery that is crafted from the North Carolina artist Leo Wolf’s ambient, atmospheric and filmic granular synthesis of processed sampled material from classical records and field recordings. With weight and texture these asynchronously breathed, and space filled recordings exist in a semi dream state, simultaneously paranormal and yet tethered to the search for light and gravitas in a world of synthesized melodic wave forms, tones, passes, undulations and bass-y padded throbs.
Building up a moving, simulating and often dramatic sensory experience from hidden sources, machinery and the recognisable captured moments of the artist’s surroundings – from the rain hitting a metal apparatus in the garden, to the clatter of cutlery and plates, the conversations caught between people in a restaurant or café setting -, this album’s building blocks act together and independently of each other to set in motion a feeling both hypnagogic and hypnotic – the former even features in the title of one track. Are we indeed awake or not? Who can tell, as Leo constructs a surprisingly beautiful work of ambient reflection, soundtracks and filtered brilliance.
A brilliance of light (metaphorical and real) can be found on each and every track more or less, as the mists, haze, the unsure fogs of the musty and gauzy are parted to reveal itself.
It sounds to me like 1980s paranormal VHS merged with His Name Is Alive, synthesized monastic and gothic voices, hollowed beams, overhead craft of an alien nature and generators. Nightmare and the sublime through the grainy lens, I Saw Your Shadow On The Wall envelops the listener in Leo’s personal searches and emotional pulls to create a most moving soundtrack.
___/The Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist Vol. 99___
For the 99th time, the Social Playlist is an accumulation of music I love and want to share; with tracks from my various DJ sets and residencies over the years and both selected cuts from those artists and luminaries we’ve lost on the way and from those albums celebrating anniversaries each month.
Running for nearly 12 years now, Volume 99 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.
Let us pay homage firstly to the late Argentine pianist and composer Lalo Schifrin, who passed away earlier this month. Arguably it took a South American to encapsulate and bottle through blazed horns, funky grooves, a chorus of dramatic near reverent voices, and thriller punches the sound of the streets of San Francisco and New York in the 60s and 70s; when Dirty Harry served Judge Dredd style justice and Steve McQueen handbrake turned and screeched recklessly as a getaway driver. Kung-Fu to Spies, Bossa, Samba, the orchestral, swing, jazz, the cultish and horror, Schifrin’s signature is legendary; his influence so wide and extensive as to have entered the musical lexicon. Arguably amongst the most sampled composers of all time too. So where do you start? How the hell do you represent such a legacy? Well, I’ve chosen a few personal favourites and a couple of more obscure tracks from a cannon that spans over seven decades: the theme from ‘Magnum Force’, ‘Kyrie’, ‘Once A Thief’, ‘Vaccinated Mushrooms’, ‘The Shadow’ and ‘Introit’. And literally as I’m writing this, news arrives of Ozzy Osbourne‘s sad departure from these realms. The Anti-christ, lord of heavy metal (or “heavy mental” as my old man always called it), arguably at least one of the founding fathers of that sound through Black Sabbath of course (or at least one of the earliest adopters), finally succumbed to his plague of illnesses and conditions. Near on breaking his neck on the unseemly naff chariot of a quad bike ages ago, but battling Parkinson’s, a ridiculous amount of addictions, it seemed Ozzy was always on the cusp of death; defying the odds not just to put one foot in front of the other, but to continue his career as dark magi, ring master to metal and its offspring. What seems like an age ago, the TV show that did much to revive his career, one of Brum’s most famous and celebrated sons managed to become relevant again to a whole new generation despite seeing a ramshackle, ailing former rock star on his downers, and unintentionally making a name for himself through various comedic episodes: even entering that lexicon on catch phrases, the metal equivalent of Fred Flintstone’s hollering “Wilma!”, more in desperation, of “Sharon!”. It always seemed a joke, or not to be taken too seriously, all that dark brooding, Satanic rites, devil’s spawn and howling metamorphous werewolf mooning: and it worked very well. And despite the hilarity, the idol status of motel, hotel, holiday inn wrecking, pissing on the Alamo, the Motley Crue pool side incident of snorting a row of ants, wife/partner/enabler/manager Sharon can tell a dark tale or two hundred about Ozzy’s drug-crazed manic violent outbursts. Still, he was a character; a motherfucker as Brian Bordello would say; a true individual; the like of which we won’t ever see again. Many wished Ozzy on, even those who weren’t fans. His final curtain call was only a matter of a few weeks ago, back on home soil. Like the trooper he was, Ozzy gave back to the city that panel-beat and moulded him. I’ve chosen a couple of tunes to see him off (please no jokes about double-checking the coffin on the day), one from the Sabbath days, the other, from Ozzy’s debut 80’s album Dairy Of A Madman.
Moving on now to the anniversary celebrating albums, there’s select tracks from Wayne Shorter’s most (arguably) influential and most covered LP, JuJu (60 this month), The Rolling Stones’ Out Of Our Heads (60 this month), The Fugs’ debut LP (60 this month), Milton Nascimento’s Minas (50 this year), Larry Jon Wilson’s New Beginnings (50 this year), The Verve’s A Northern Soul (unbelievably 30 years old in 2025) and Banco De Gaia’s Last Trian To Lhasa (30 this month).
Each month a smattering of newish tracks that didn’t make the Monthly Playlist of new music manage to creep into the set list. For July, there’s tracks from Nowaah The Flood, Rarelyalways with Nia J,Lunch Money Life, and DJ Haram with Moor Mother and 700 Bliss.
That leaves space for an intergenerational, cross-polygenesis mix of tunes from the triumvirate gathering of Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Barry Altschul (aka A.R.C.), Grass Widow, Julie Coker, Federico Balducci, Johhny Yen Bang, Chakk, MC 900 FT Jesus…
Tracks in full are::::
Lalo Schifrin ‘Theme From Magnum Force’
Banco De Gaia ‘Kincajou’
The Fugs ‘Slum Goddess’
Grass Widow ‘Tattoo’
Mighty Mighty ‘Yours Truly’
Batsumi ‘Mamshanyana’
Federico Balducci ‘Abode’
Black Sabbath ‘Who Are You?’
Lalo Schifrin ‘Kyrie’
Lalo Schifrin ‘Once A Thief’
Wayne Shorter ‘Deluge’
Nowaah the Flood ‘Protocol’
DJ Haram w/ Moor Mother and 700 Bliss ‘Lifelike’
MC 900 Ft. Jesus ‘Dancing Barefoot’
Lunch Money Life ‘The Garden’
Rarelyalways w/ Mia J ‘Paid’
Milton Nascimento w/ Beto Guedes ‘Caso Voce Queira Saber’
El Polen ‘A las Orillas del Vilcanota’
Joe King Kologbo ‘All Fingers Are Not Equal’
Julie Coker ‘Elelemi’
Lalo Schifrin ‘‘Vaccinated Mushrooms’
Chick Corea, Dave Holland & Barry Altschul ‘Games’
Lalo Schifrin ‘The Shadow’
Johnny Yen Bang ‘Kill The Disco’
Harte 10 ‘Some Ronnie – Live’
Ozzy Osbourne ‘Flying High Again’
Chakk ‘Caught in Your Face’
Co-Pilot ‘Cornerhouse’
The Rolling Stones ‘That’s How Strong My Love Is’
Lalo Schifrin ‘Introit’
The Verve ‘On Your Own’
Larry Jon Wilson ‘Broomstraw Philosophers And Scuppernong Wine’
___/Archives___
Already represented in volume 99 of the Social Playlist above, another chance to repost my piece on new age techno pioneer Banco De Gaia’s influential 1995 world peregrination Last Trian To Lhasa. Originally appearing as a twentieth anniversary special, with a repackaged version of the album plus extras.
Banco De Gaia ‘Last Train To Lhasa (20th Anniversary 4xCD Set)’
Despite, what on the surface, seems a plausible misconception, one of the UK’s chief progenitors of global trance peregrinations, Banco De Gaia, has become synonymous with all things Tibetan. Re-released on the occasion of its twentieth anniversary, the Banco’s Last Train To Lhasa album may have borrowed the title and evoked a transcendent spirit of the country’s mystical Himalayan landscapes, yet the group’s founder and guiding force Toby Marks never meant to confine his world sounds to one particular place: In truth, more a pan-global sound palette with echoes and traces of the Middle East, Asia and the Orient.
Going as far as to refute suggestions in every subsequent interview since its original release, the LP only actually features a solitary sample from the region and only gained its title from Marks wife on completion. However, Marks lent space on the album’s sleeve to publicising Tibet’s struggle against its overlord Chinese masters and would become a vocal advocate of the Free Tibet campaign – that now seems such a long time ago, and all but forgotten, with China since more or less swallowing Hong Kong and threatening an invasion of Taiwan, which if it does come, might just be the big one: the WWIII event we always dreaded.
Base camp on the enlightened journey to the ethereal, Tibet’s meditative disposition was no match for the authoritarian steamroller of the Communist party machine. And so, an ill-at-ease occupation and stalemate persists a generation later. Its international vessel of protest, the Dalai Lama in his own affable and gentle way backed by the Free Tibet campaign continues to be a big draw yet has decidedly been upstaged by events elsewhere. Clarifying his commitment to the cause, Marks was recently interviewed by the Free Tibet organisation in the run up to his trio of performances at this year’s Glastonbury and the anniversary Last Train To Lhasa release – perhaps a timely reminder.
Musically speaking, as I’ve already mentioned, the twentieth anniversary appraisal of Banco De Gaia’s blueprint reaches far beyond any Tibetan influence, imbued by cultures both imaginary and real from both terra firma and the stratosphere.
Highly praised for merging trance and nuanced electronic four-to-the-floor beats with atavistic echoes from mystically envisioned landscapes, Banco De Gaia’s Last Train To Lhasa was released in the dying ambers of the second rave and house music waves in 1995. On the cusp of Britpop, hung-over from grunge, guitars were about to once again dominate whilst house and techno music in all its many guises had reached superclub status; the underground movements fractured and broken up into a myriad of smaller tribes. Ambient and trance, usually the preserve of afterhours clubbing or allocated space in the “chill out” zones had already blossomed into its own industry. That unfairly and often fatuous “chill out” idiom used to sell everything from nirvana relaxation and transience to any ‘new age” missive. Never new in itself, until progress and technology made it easier and offered more options, the core ambient ingredient had already been in existence for decades. And despite what you may have read, Eno may have given it a name, but he certainly didn’t invent it. In this evolving stage of dance music, Banco De Gaia went to town, sitting on a fluffy cloud, hovering between trance and techno.
LTTL’s suffused panoramic station-to-station soundtrack was different. Sharing some of the peaceable beautiful nephology of The Orb and Air Liquid but with the satellite guided twinkle and kinetic rhythms of Orbital, the album sounded every bit as organic as it did electronic. The original album is boosted by a further three CDs worth of alternative takes, mixes, remixes and the missing until now, Apollo moon landing inspired space-voyage, ‘Eagle’ – recorded at the time but left off the final version of the LP. A box set only available as a limited-edition physical release – though now also available to hear on Bandcamp -, fans and admirers alike can really indulge, with 24 tracks of transcendent aural bliss.
Even if you are far from familiar with the source material, the general method applied is one of respectful tinkering and expansion, with Marks own alternatives plus a line-up of contemporary artists/producer remixes congruously immersive. A ‘Duck Asteroid Extended’ mix of the original ‘Kincajou’ for example, takes the steam driven new age suite on an epic, stripped and even more ambient, 44-minute journey: it takes the mix thirty-minutes to bring in the beats and reach a higher plain. Elsewhere, various tinkering’s of the holy misty mountain proverb ‘China (Clouds Not Mountains)’ takes the languid drifter into ever more esoteric territories, or in the case of Roedelius and Felix Jay collaborator Andrew Heath, adding a diaphanous piano to the meditative calligraphy-brushed valley narrative.
The reverberations of dub, bhangra, and the Orient are sometimes stretched into indolent escapism or given more power and lift on the varied versions of ‘Amber’. Sometimes as with the Carl Craig imbued Bluetech remix of ‘Kuos’, they are taken apart and rebuilt. Though nothing quite matches the rolling timpani introduction and celestial beauty of the original ‘White Paint’, ‘Where’s The Runway Dub’ and alucidnations ‘Dream Remix’ offer interesting interpretations; one a hymn in dub the other a suffused with kosmiche rays romance in the sky.
A carefully considered expansion of the Banco De Gaia panoramic worlds of the mid-90s, the 20th anniversary edition certainly offers the listener an immersive experience. And you can’t complain about getting your money’s worth, with over four hours of music over the four discs to peruse.
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 can, then you can now show your appreciation by keeping the Monolith Cocktail afloat by donating via Ko-Fi.
For the last 15 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 or donate via https://ko-fi.com/monolithcocktail
The Monolith Cocktail Social Playlist #74: Yoko Ono, Wayne Shorter, Trupa Trupa, Blue Lake…
March 14, 2023
Anniversary Albums And Deaths Marked Alongside An Eclectic Mix Of Cross-Generational Music, Newish Tunes And A Few Surprises. Dominic Valvona.
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.
The grand dame of high and conceptual arts, Fluxus major, and formidable musician Yoko Ono recently celebrated her 90th birthday. Incredible. And still in fine fettle after nine decades of groundbreaking work. A smattering of choice songs from the back catalogue waits.
As is customary each month, I also mark a number of choice anniversary celebrating albums. 50 in March, there’s tracks from the Faces Ooh La La, T-Rex’s Tanx, Roxy Music’s For Your Pleasure, the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Birds Of Fire and Cymande’s Second Time Round. There are also a couple of hip-hop specials, with 30th selections from Ice-T’s Home Invasion and Lords Of The Underground’s Here Come The Lords. A mere fledgling in comparison, I also selected a tune from Crime And The City’s 2013 rebirth, American Twilight – in my opinion one of their best.
As ever I also pay a small tribute to those we’ve lost on the way, with nods to both De La Soul’s Trugoy the Dove/Plug 2 (nee David Jolicoeur), and the jazz doyen Wayne Shorter.
Spread out amongst that lot is newish music from Trupa Trupa, Lee Paradise, Florence Adooni, The Church, Elaine Howley, Misha Panfilov, Hinako Omori and Blue Lake. I’m currently in the middle of an escapist binge, soaking up episodes of Miami Vice, and so couldn’t resist adding a more obscure soundtrack from the series: Executive Slack’s ‘Our Lady’.
38 tracks in all; the alternative soundtrack to your week, or weekend. The alternative radio show, devoid of the chatter, the sycophantic and the bores.
___Track List___
Yoko Ono ‘Hirake’
Trupa Trupa ‘OPÓR’
Executive Slacks ‘Our Lady’
Lee Paradise ‘Timeless’
Wayne Shorter ‘Angola’
R.A.P. Ferreira ‘Fighting Back’
De La Soul ‘Plug Tunin’’
Florence Adooni ‘Yinne’
Wayne Shorter ‘Joy Ryder’
Faces ‘My Fault’
Yoko Ono ‘Approximately Infinite Universe’
Crime And The City Solution ‘My Love Takes Me There’
The Church ‘No Other You’
Lords Of The Underground ‘Flow On (New Symphony)’
De La Soul ‘Oodles Of O’s’
T-Rex ‘Mister Mister’
Roxy Music ‘Beauty Queen’
Yoko Ono & Automatique ‘Coffin Car’
Yoko Ono ‘Growing Pain’
Elaine Howley ‘Silent Talk’
Floating World Pictures ‘Til Dusk, At Devran’
Wayne Shorter ‘The Soothsayer’
De La Soul ‘Pass The Plugs’
Wayne Shorter ‘Montezuma’
Nacho Mendez ‘Levais Mi Amor’
Paul Fishman ‘Paradise’
Misha Panfilov ‘At The Helm’
Hinako Omori ‘Snow’
Wayne Shorter ‘Harry’s Last Stand’
Mahavishnu Orchestra ‘Celestial Terrestrial Commuters’
De La Soul ‘Tread Water’
Missus Beastly ‘Decision’
Horse Lords ‘Rundling’
Yoko Ono ‘Greenfield Morning I Pushed An Empty Baby Carriage All Over The City’
Cymande ‘Anthracite’
Blue Lake ‘Shoots’
Yoko Ono ‘It’s Time For Action!’
Ice-T ‘G Style’
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