PLAYLIST/ARCHIVES: DOMINIC VALVONA
The Monolith Cocktail Digest is both home to Dominic Valvona’s long-running eclectic, cross-generational Social Playlist, and a platform for celebrating significant anniversary albums and, more sadly, commemorating those artists we’ve lost in the last month, with pieces from the Archives.
Starting with the 81st edition of that playlist, Dominic has curated a selection of past glories, music from his own collection, reissues, newish tracks and a smattering of choice tunes from albums that have reached either a 60th, 50th, 40th, 30th, 20th or 10th anniversary. In that camp, there’s nods to Yoko Ono’s Feeling The Space, John Lennon’s Mind Games, Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Holy Mountain Soundtrack (see the archive spot piece further down the post) and one of the crowning achievements in documentary, The World At War. All of which have reached the 50th landmark, released and aired as they were in 1973.
A decade later and the electronic/synthesized progenitor Dieter Moebius released both the solo Tonspuren offering and, in communal partnership with krautrock/kosmische pioneer producer Conny Plank and Guru Guru’s maverick drummer-leader Mani Neumeier, the Zero Set albums: both of which have been repackaged and reissued this month. From the same year of 1983, there are tracks from The Rolling Stones’ patchy Undercover and The Fall’s rambunctious magnificent Perverted By Language LPs.
Into the 1990s, and Dominic has chosen representative choices from the Staten Island branch of the shaolin school of kung-fu hip-hop, the Wu-Tang Clan’s classic debut Enter The Wu-Tang (36 Chambers); A Tribe Called Quest’s seminal Midnight Marauders; Bowie’s less than universally championed The Buddha Of Suburbia; and Ritchie Hawtin’s highly influential Plastikman alter-ego intelligent techno masterpiece, Sheet One – another recent reissue, repackaged release.
The rest of the Social features a couple of recent-ish tracks from Lisa Butel and foil Brent Cross, and Royal Flush. And from across the decades and genres, music by Tyvek, Ron House, Mircea Florain, Kong Ney, Crossbones, Lazy Smoke and more… In the Archive section this month, there’s a short piece on Jodorowsky’s alchemist tapestry of esotericism, the Holy Mountain Soundtrack, and from a decade ago, plucked from the back pages, a review of M.I.A.’s Matangi.
TrackList:::
The Rolling Stones ‘Undercover’
The Fall ‘Neighbourhood Of Infinity’
Voluntarios da Patria ‘Io Io’
Tyvek ‘Circular Ruins’
Ron House ‘New Maps Of Hell’
John Lennon ‘Tight A$’
A Bolha ‘E So Curtir’
Yoko Ono ‘Woman Power’
Mircea Florian ‘Harap Alb A Treia Oara Ratacit In Padure’
Jackson Conti ‘Nao Tem Nada Nao’
Moebius/Plank/Neumeier ‘All Repo’
Plastikman ‘Koma’
A Tribe Called Quest ‘We Can Get Down’
Wu-Tang Clan ‘Method Man’
Royal Flush ‘B.O.B.’
Crossbones ‘You Always Get Me Wrong’
Alejandro Jodorowsky ‘Trance Mutation’
Kong Ney ‘Bom Pet’
Luiz Eca ‘La Vamos Nos’
Dick Khoza ‘WD 46 Mendi Road’
Travel Agency ‘Cadillac George’
Danny & Dusty ‘Baby We All Gotta Go Down’
Baker Gurvitz Army ‘The Dreamer’
Under Milkwood ‘Empty Room’
Kaira Ben ‘Mousso Loule’
Moebius ‘Contramio’ Piotr Figiel ‘Skrawek Przestrzeni’
David Bowie ‘Ian Fish UK Heir’
Baaska & Scavelli ‘The Green Hills Of Earth’
Lazy Smoke ‘Sarah Saturday’
Lisa Butel & Brent Cross ‘Vox Canon’
The City Of Prague Philharmonic Orchestra ‘End Theme From The World At War’
ARCHIVE SPOTS
Alejandro Jodorowsky, Don Cherry and Ronald Frangipane ‘Holy Mountain Soundtrack’ 1973
Never formally released at the time of the film itself, the soundtrack to Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s esoteric kool-aid psychedelic movie, The Holy Mountain, has since languished in folklore, only to be bundled out at a later date as part of subsequent DVD reissues. I myself have relied upon the good-nature of others to obtain my copy.
Though the ins-an-outs of musical accreditation remain somewhat recondite and obscure – Jodorowsky taking the lions share –, the well-revered avant-jazz cornetist, Don Cherry, and composer Ronald Frangipane (credits include playing on The Midnight Cowboy and Barberella scores) both played an integral and major part in playing and producing this potted spiritual and alchemical mind trip. Meandering eastern dirges and fluted love swanned serenades meet cult funky B-movie cuts and the less memorable vignettes, used to create the enlightened scenes and atmospherics. ‘Trance Mutation’ for my money, entrancing and ritualistically Kabbalah and Eastern arts/Tibetan hums as it is, cries Cherry. But don’t expect anything close to revelatory; as this soundtrack is for the most part mediocre.
M.I.A. ‘Matangi’ 2013
(Taken from Our Daily Bread 022)
Not so much a klaxon sounding clarion call as a reaffirmation of the voracious M.I.A. manifesto, the latest ‘hyperbolic’ riot of polygenesis colour and sound, Matangi, is quite a measured, translucent, and sparkly in places, personal affair. Mellowed somewhat by the delay in its release by more than a year (at one point M.I.A. threatened to leak the record online, frustrated at the label’s negative response – apparently it wasn’t dark enough for them!).
But fear not as that same explosive ennui driven mix of earth-shaking bhangra, boombox subversion and Arabian chic – as evidenced on the last three records – still permeates and threatens to piss on the apathetic parade: Indecorous to a fault, yet dangerously alive and exciting.
Following in the family name tradition of the last three albums, Mathangi ‘Maya’ Arulpragasam explores the etymological source of her own namesake, the Hindu goddess Matangi. Found amongst the ‘untouchables’ – the poor and destitute – in the slums, Matangi chose to live away from the temples of the gods, to gain a deeper understanding and knowledge of the lower castes: the salt of the earth so to speak. The goddess of inner thought as well as music, her mythical presence and attitude are used as a reference and guide throughout, channeled in the more meditative escapist passages.
A perfect figurehead and encapsulated spirit of the times, a cross-pollinated artist-musician-polymath character seemingly congruous with the Internet, M.I.A. is both an advocate and fierce foil of the digital world. The burgeoning promise of a carefree, interconnected, community, richly educated and informative, has rather disappointingly been hijacked by a camarilla of ‘facilitators’, corporations and an over-zealous state. Intent it seems on eroding free speech and free movement, imposing instead a military style control and surveillance on our lives. In short…. we’ve been sold down the river.
None of this is new to M.I.A. of course, already a well publicised supporter of Wikileaks and its defacto – exiled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London – leader Julian Assange (who recently opened for a M.I.A. performance in New York, via a skype link, and is said to have contributed to the schizoid dubstep Matangi LP track, ‘atTENTion’). But with the ongoing revelations of Edward Snowdon and the increasing torrid of abusive vitriol from her detractors (mostly it must be said from America), there’s more than enough material to transduce into anger, even if M.I.A. and her augury warning, ‘THE MESSAGE’ (the opening gambit from the 2010 MAYA LP), pretty much summed it all up: “iPhone connected to the internet/ Connected to the Goggle/ Connected to the government.”
Using a similar template then, M.I.A. begins with a mantra of intent, delivered over a stuttering electric current: “Ain’t Dalai Lama, Ain’t Sai Baba/ My words are my armour, and you’re about to meet your kharma.” From then on in she amorphously twists and turns, from protestation to romantic stomp, cutting up and reworking R&B, pop and Hip Hop into ringside swagger (‘Only 1 U!’), bombastic gangsta strut (‘Warriors’) and bubblegum dancehall (‘Come Walk With Us’).
Hardly light on rhetoric – whether collecting all the data of hate and criticism, leveled against her (including the ‘one-finger’ Super Bowl debacle, N.Y. Times spread and accusations of provocation), or banging heads on the lack of originality in culture and railing against our failure to fight the systems that seek to turn everything into a humongous pile of shit: “If you only live once, why keep doing the same shit?”
‘Bad Girls’, ‘Bring The Noize’ and ‘Y.A.L.A.’ have all previously been made public in the long run-up to this fourth LP – the original Bad Girls in incubated form was first aired on the 2010 mixtape, Vicki Leeks, later to be accompanied by a car-crazy, Sheiks-do-Hip Hop wild video in 2012. This triumvirate of revved-up ‘nasty’ tracks more or less gives the album its most hardened, prowling highlights. But as the smoke from those riotous, sophisticated joints clear, M.I.A. choses a more indolent swaying direction (well less threatening anyway), her rhyming couplets smoothed and laid back on the neon lit, Siam charmed, ‘Come Walk With Me’, and lamentably swinging on the bookended pairing of ‘Exodus/Sexodus’.
In case you never got the admonitory memo or understood the ‘Lady of Rage’ the first, second and third time around, she once again rattles off another dictate and denunciation for you, whilst raising the game for those who seek to follow in the vapour trail. M.I.A. proves to be the most exhilarating, provocative artist to crossover into the general psyche, without losing their soul; able to roll with the punches and at least stand for something in a mixed-up world of contrary stifled debate and fucked-up moral objection to all the wrong things.
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.
Halloween Playlist: Ghouls, Ghosts & Goblins: Acanthus, Les Baxter, Gravediggaz, Vukovar…
October 25, 2019
PLAYLIST
Dominic Valvona
Cult B-movie European soundtracks, spine-tingling schlock and spooked, chain-rattling horror fuzztones aplenty. Yes, its that time of the year again, the bewitching hour is nigh, and so another one of Dominic Valvona’s special Halloween playlists.
To accompany any freaks ball, ghoulish themed soiree, candelabra lit dinner party, macabre shindig and black mass, the perfect soundtrack of devilish nonsense. Includes the bell tolled meaning doom of Acanthus, the kool aid hell-trippers St. John Green, the rebel county seedy James Gang, horrorcore rap doyens The Gravediggaz, the despairing Gothic romantics Vukovar, bewitched folk troupe Sproatly Smith and many more.
Previous ghastly selections:
Rapture & Verse: March 2017:
March 23, 2017
MATT OLIVER’S ESSENTIAL HIP-HOP REVIEW
Rapture & Verse’s March hares are made up of dirt-slinging duo Remy Ma and Nicki Minaj (naturally, Foxy Brown then has her two penneth worth as well), Snoop blurring the line between life and art when it comes to America’s next top president, Joey Badass having a John Lennon-style, ‘Bigger than Jesus’ moment, Tupac ‘memorabilia’ reaching unhealthy new levels, and a right flash-looking reissue of Kool Keith and Dan the Automator’s trailblazing weirdo ‘Dr Octagonecologyst’ (when an Easter egg just won’t do). All topped with Will I Am appearing in a new video with the realest of the Rovers Return, Liz McDonald.
Talib Kweli joins the UK B-Boy World Championships with an April performance (probably not as a contestant…well, you never know). Big Daddy Kane reiterates he’s still got juice with a London appearance in May bound to bring in scores of hip-hop nostalgics; and home-grown old skool originals London Posse go on a wee road trip to tell all the current gun finger spitters how slang should really sound. Also upcoming on these shores – DJ Q-Bert, Masta Ace and Jedi Mind Tricks, all making it rain like an April shower.
Singles/EPs
A teeny-tiny singles selection this month starts with a quintet of instrumentals seeing who’s big enough to plug a mic in. Urban Click’s ‘Half Past Two’ does boom bap that keeps time and plants seeds of doubt; just enough fear factor to have you looking over your shoulder mid head-nod, until ‘Payback’ brings the hatchet into full view. In need of an assertive, affirmative funk jam with a worldview to cause roadblocks? Rob Cave’s singsong exasperation telling you ‘Hold Your Head’ is that very jam. Follow that with a remix of Mista Sinista’s ‘Life Without Fear’, another partier making a point with Worldarama, Illa Ghee & Chordz Cordero wrapping up Eitan Noyze’s bulbous funker. Milano Constantine gets grimy on the belt-loosening ‘Rasclart’, with Conway and Big Twins helping extort DJ Skizz’ mob skanking.
Albums
Action packed storytelling kicks off Your Old Droog’s triumphant ‘Packs’, that languid NY flow quickly working a number of hustles and stakes-high dice games, all with a penchant for humour and words to the wise stashed in the trunk. From go-slows to arse kicks, adopting the same readiness for and awareness of when the streets come calling, and with Danny Brown, Edan and Heems on his team, YOD perfects the unfathomable: a varied album with no time to waste or room for error. 14 silk cuts, if you will.
With a flow somewhere between honey dipped and Seattle high, Porter Ray’s seesaw twang that’s always laidback in a perpetual state of motion grounds spacey, floaty forecasts replacing low riders with ambient parachute jumps. ‘Watercolor’ is vaporous but tangible gangsta living from under the stars with a creditable amount of earnestness, with Ray’s role as some kind of avenging angel leaving his mark on you, one way or another.
UK crews control this month starts with the Gatecrasherz getting parties jumping and scrawling their names all over the VIP list on ‘Uninvited’. A more patient unit than expected, inasmuch as each emcee queues obediently before showing ill discipline on the mic (in turn letting you pick your own distinctively-twanged rapper like you’re swapping stickers), a broadside of bumping beats (including ‘2-3 Break’ playing out like a choose-your-own-adventure book), gets doors off hinges.
Steady Rock and Oliver Sudden push flavour in your ear with ‘Preservatives’. The BBP reliability always plays the game the right way, spanning humble brags, straight shots, living as they live it, tales told while getting ‘em in and beats getting bobbleheaded on life’s dashboard. What you hear is what you get. Amos & Kaz’ ‘Year of the Ram’ justifies all natural assumptions of locking horns and being capable of a battering. Forceful personality dominates business, pleasure and pain; these two are up for a scrap, or at least a good pantsing, after their knowledge has driven its way down your ear canal. Granville Sessions power through without pretension on ‘Monument’, demanding a captive amphitheatre rather than threatening the front row. A forthright manifesto playing no games makes for a well regimented campaign.
After the ‘Barrydockalypse’, Joe Dirt is the last real rapper alive on an album that’s a pessimist’s paradise. Repping Squid Ninjaz by showing strong survival instincts, keeping composure is paramount on a great, stomach-unsettling set for those getting kicks out of losing themselves past the wrong side of the tracks. Safe to say Jam Baxter’s ‘Mansion 38’ is not surrounded by a postcard-perfect white picket fence; half cut, whip smart, and hoovering up Chemo’s top-to-bottom production so that the pair sink until they strike the gold of rock bottom. Ultimate, grungy outlaw hip-hop, putting the trap in trapdoor.
As a flipside, Dabbla barfs out bonus project ‘Chapsville’ (location: London twinned with Tennessee and Thunderdome), spraying obnoxiously hot bars at water cannon pressure while DJ Frosty twists the shapeshfiting landscapes around him. Leaf Dog’s ‘Dyslexic Disciple’ is a proper UK hip-hop knees-up, awash with weed and scuffles always likely to break out because it’s all family. Funk and blues buck like a bronco, plucky and bullish rhymes will step to a mic whatever the weather, Kool Keith drops by to diss you without you realising, and a grand finale of a giant posse cut lands the knockout blow.
Oddisee is his usual engaging self on ‘The Iceberg’. With music as crisp as freshly plucked Romaine, effortlessly upping the pace when the time’s right, the personal becomes appealing so that you can’t help but pore over eloquent diary entries where the ink never runs dry. Ultimately you agree with his clearly made points of view as Oddisee is becoming the master of his own destiny who could make takeaway menus or the phone book sound compelling. From the supple to the ambitious/exhaustive, Beans releases three albums simultaneously (!) – ‘Wolves of the World’, ‘Love Me Tonight’ and ‘HAAST’ – as well as an accompanying novel. Fantastical seat of your pants scenarios and breathless narratives seemingly doing real life and politics in fast forward even if caught in traffic, the Anti-Pop Consortium alumni loves the feel of a fine tooth comb throughout.
NYC’s El Michels Affair have reached the same level of dynasty as their Staten Island source of inspiration. Back covering another batch of Wu-Tang Clan trademarks in an irrepressible, funk and soul, live band experience, ‘Return to the 37th Chamber’ repeats their craft of cultish kung-fu cabaret rewriting the scrolls of Shaolin methodology. Though they dart in as quickly as they sneak out, they’re politely nuthin’ to fuck wit’ when you’re trying to name that tune.
A jawbreaker flow meets boom-bap control; ZoTheJerk and Frost Gamble’s ‘Black Beach’ makes strong statements, showing Detroit determination to put things right – or at least stay vigilant – in a world full of buck-passing. A good combination that cruises before T-boning ya. Fuelled by hard liquor and blackmarket diesel, TOPR’s ‘Afterlife of the Party’ is a 13 track brawl finding “epiphanies in heresy, poetry in vulgarity”, kicking down doors and spitting wisdom with the force of a slammed down shot glass. Even at its calmest, there’s only one (albeit methodical) trajectory, justifying arguments and rabble rousing as a hard-bitten B-boy. The usual safe-breaking, toothpick-chewing, phone-tapping vibes from Roc Marciano plots ‘Rosebudd’s Revenge’, a seedy shoulder-brusher putting its kingpin in a familiar position of power, to the sound of a soul jukebox watching trife life go by.
Hosting a sophisticated dinner party but still putting fresh kicks on the table, Dr Drumah runs a tight ship of instrumentals passing round cigar-n-scotch jazz and choice samples keeping ears attracted late on. ‘90’s Mindz’ is precisely put together, a showcase of simple pleasures that’s got plenty of mileage. Once that’s soiree’s over and done with, head over to Vital’s ‘Pieces of Time’ for pretty much more of the same; hard shells with soft centres and golden age hues, in an easy access network of neck work. Argentinean Gas-Lab boasts an international cast to take you ahead of the sunrise on the soul dejeuner ‘Fusion’, all piano keys and horns applying shine to respectful spit. ‘Rise N Shine’ shakes the bottle and wakes a little Samba in Spaniard Alex Rocks, an easygoing beatsmith who gets his US guests licking their lips from the stoop. With a squeeze of bossa funk in the mix as well, it sticks to the script enough for soft tops and sunloungers to start folding themselves back.
Welcoming your retinas this month: Open Mike Eagle turns superhero, Joey Badass pledges allegiance, Knowledge Nick gives a thumbs down, and Ash the Author keeps on track.
Monolith Cocktail Blog 