Long associated as the 'other Corn Sister' (Neko Case is the other half of that vivacious duo) and collaborator with many other Canadian indie music luminaries, Carolyn Mark shines in her own spotlight on this, her fifth full length. She's a Canadian city slicker with comforting hillbilly charm, a goddess with gusto dishing out country pop delectibles with her trademark infectious spice of life. She's your closest bosom buddy. A perpetual hostess with the mostest, it's a well known fact that she can tell a baudily hilarious tale and then turn on a dime for a genuine forlorn heartbreaker and she can also down the hooch with the big boys. Who doesn't heart Ms Carolyn? She throws in a curve ball this time around, closing the album with something a little different, the Massive Attack-esque drowsily downtempo "Destination: You". It's a nice change, revealing yet another facet of this dynamo. A wonderful voice that comes as much from the gut as from the heart!
Neko Case's partner in Corn Sisters crime (and former Vinaigrette), Carolyn Mark dishes up her own debut solo effort. A concept album of sorts. While touring across Canada she decided to record one song in each of the cities that she stopped to perform in. As would be expected, recording quality is varied, but it doesn't take away from Carolyn's songs which are bursting with mirth and gusto. One very very funny woman.
Following up her lively and lovely Terrible Hostess sophomore album, Ms Mark offers up her third and most polished album to date. For those of you who've heard her alongside good pals Neko Case and Kelly Hogan, you very well know that she has no difficulty working with others. Indeed on their recent tour together, the trio of witty chanteuses charmed the pants off one and all in attendance. In both song and laughter, their voices go so well together. Actually if you were at one of their shows you just might've heard a song or two from this album. Pros And Cons reveals her broadest stylistic range yet -- honky tonk, ragtime, twangy balladry -- and as opposed to past recordings which had somewhat haphazard mood changes, she shifts much more smoothly from one to the another, and with no loss in the sparkling personality department. She clearly knows the benefits of collaborating with like-minded, talented folks. Ms Hogan lends her angelic backup vocals to the song "Jody And Sue" which along with the following double-whammy of nocturnal themed tunes "Bigger Bed" and "Slept All Afternoon" make for the high point of the album. The album closes with a beautiful stark voice and piano number "Hangover" that devolves into an intoxicated singalong and on into old style radio drama announcer credits. Splendid!
Yeah, we know it must get kinda tired, and it must be a blessing and a curse for Carolyn Mark to always have another artist mentioned in her albums' reviews even if that artist is a friend and collaborator. But if it helps get people to check out her great music, we hope she'll understand! The vivacious namesake of her pal Neko Case's early rollicking tune "Karoline", Carolyn Mark strikes a balance between the bold and the gentle, the ribald and the romantic. The lyrics of that song really nail it, "The path you walk is on fire, so wild and unashamed with a passion you inspire" and "The web you weave is so tender I'm tangled by your gaze". Spend a few moments in her presence and you'll be captivated and charmed too. She's such a great storyteller, both in spoken word and music, both in off-the-cuff impromptu and more composed settings. She can have your guts aching with laughter, and then your heart aching with sorrow.
Mark delivers the goods with her latest album, a collaboration with the awesomely named N.Q. Arbuckle who are not a person, but a band from Toronto. As you may know, Ms Mark has amassed quite an impressive body of homespun Canadiana all by her lonesome as well as in collaboration with her many incredibly talented musical friends. Over the years she's proven to be a splendid hostess, welcoming all into her musical kitchen with a giddy batting of her big false lashes, a generous glass of cheer, her home cookin' (psst, she makes cookbooks filled with her pals' and her own recipes too!) and plenty of song of course. You might recall the Tribute To Nashville cd re-enactment of the soundtrack to Robert Altman's 1975 film which she orchestrated a few years back. Such a curiously wonderful labor of love. So needless to say, any news of fresh collaborations with this lady is good news! Here, she and N.Q. Arbuckle make a great pairing, definitely kindred spirits. Despite the title, there's actually a sense of travel (she anecdotally namechecks Canadian cities along the way. Yes, you get a little geography lesson on each of her albums!), of movement, of restlessness, but also a yearning for the warm embrace of home. Call us crazy, but some of the songs (such as "Officer Down") conjured imaginings of a countrified Fleetwood Mac (Hmmm, we just noticed on the shrinkwrap sticker it sez "Carolyn lovingly calls it her Rumours". So we're not crazy!), while others (such as "Downtime") recall the electrified earthy hey day of Uncle Tupelo (but then again maybe that's because Neville Quinlan's voice is a deadringer for Jay Farrar's!). Both are very good points of reference in our books! Recommended.
I can assure you that the title is by no means auto-biographical. Ms Carolyn is the lovely hostess with the most-est. Talk about a party girl! She along with her room-mates Tolan and Garth surely whip everyone else up into the mirthful merriment. Each on his or her own possesses a down to earth ease at entertaining that's something to behold, and together? Well, let's just say "get ready for the good times." Some of the best storytelling stage banter around. Her second album makes leaps and bounds from where her rough'n'tumble debut Party Girl left off. For one thing it's all studio recorded as opposed to her more lo-fi, song-in-every-city-across-Canada-in-a-Honda adventure. Since that album, she's performed a whole bunch in an ever-expanding range of venues and continued to play in the Corn Sisters with her good pal Neko Case (who, by the way, wrote a song about her - "Karoline" - on The Virginian). A much more polished, sophisticated lady who can still whoop it up and whomp yer butt! Much like fellow Canadian k.d. lang (yeah I know, aren't all Canadian female country artists compared to her?), she's able to slip gracefully from down home hillbilly stomp to elegant torch balladry and back again with nary a false step. This is most apparent on a particular three song stretch on this album ("Dirty Little Secret" through "Catscan"). With its warm horns, piano recorded in an old church across the street from the studio, a male chorus, there's an ever-present old tyme feel, bringing to mind the stage of the Grand Old Opry with its dapper gents and bouffanted ladies. The duet vocal interplay on "Catscan" rings with a fond familiarity much like that of George Jones and Tammy Wynette or Loretta Lynn and Conway Twitty. Very nice!
What's goin' on, Thrill Jockey throwing their hat into the bluegrass ring? Can't complain about sixteen great tracks from one of the founding fathers of bluegrass and one of the all time great tenor singers in country. Collected from recordings made between 1954 and 2001, Don't Cry To Me spans a huge chunk of Martin's still strong career. Along with tracks featuring his Sunny Mountain Boys (most of which feature the amazing banjo playing of J.D. Crowe) there's one track of Jimmy performing with Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys. Like all great bluegrass recordings, much of these tracks were recorded live at festivals or taken from radio transcriptions. And like other live bluegrass recordings these wouldn't be complete without including the corny between song humor that's pretty much a tradition in the business. A lot of classics are included here such as "John Henry", "Hit Parade of Love", "Poor Ellen Smith", "Free Born Man" and more.
Great collection of recordings made by Jimmy Martin, one of the greatest bluegrass bandleaders. The tracks here span back to his earliest recordings fronting his own band in 1956 and stretch as recently as 1970. Jimmy started out as a guitarist and vocalist (tenor) for Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys in 1949, replacing Lester Flatt who left with Earl Scruggs to form their own group. Like
We have no idea who Robert Martin is, or if he's played in other bands, or even where he's from. What we do know, is that Long Goodbye is a haunting mysterious collection of fractured outsider folk, that manages to be simultaneously lovely and fragile, twisted and fractured.
From the outset, it's easy to tell this is no ordinary neofolk or new weird America. It is weird however. And at least in some basic way folk music. Over a bed of muted soft strum, hovers a tortured dramatic croon, a sort of plaintive mewling, in some primitive slow motion battle with gnarled little chunks of electric guitar, a stumbling atonal tangle, that we've heard compared to Derek Bailey, although this is much less scrabbly and percussive, and way more melodic, but still similarly 'naive' sounding. Balancing the innocent tortured vocals perfectly. The voices are multitracked, and seem to slip in and our of tune with each other, which only gives the sound that much more of a demented edge.
Some of the tracks are way more lo-fi and washed out, and it's then that we hear Alastair Galbraith, but some tracks, are almost straight, the vocals pitched down and slightly less dramatic, the lyrics still twisted, and the guitar still erupting in little slow motion squalls. It's quite lovely, but very very strange. Imagine maybe a folkier Frog Eyes via the Sun City Girls. Or maybe a murkier muddier Antony And The Johnsons, but with stumbling guitar instead of dramatic piano.
Lovely and eerie, mysterious and unique, fans of fractured folk and loner bedroom pop will definitely find Martin's beautifully damaged sounds difficult to resist.
Double cd studio and live collection from '70s British folk guitarist/singer John Martyn. Well, he's still around but it seems that this collects tracks from his '70s heyday. His stuff is really less folky than moody, mumbly lite rock, actually. Tim Buckleyish. The liner notes say a lot about Martyn and his career but fail to tell us much about the when/where of these tracks.
Brand new album by legendary folk guitarist, who was beautifully critiqued in a recent cover article in The Wire. He was the first white artist ever signed to Island Records, has made records with Lee Scratch Perry, Phil Collins, and Burning Spear, and covers both Billie Holiday and Portishead on the new record. Steeping his guitar in acid, Martyn allows the foreign bodies of free jazz and the infinity of dub to invade folk's fragile aesthetics. We also have some recent early 1970s reissues for 12.98 each: Bless the Weather, Inside Out, and Solid Air.
Ed Mattson's debut cd features eleven laidback, down-homey country folk numbers. Joining him in the playing and producing duties is fellow Bay Area based indie rootsy singer/songwriter Clay Hawkins. Many of the songs bring to mind a more barebones brethren of warm, weathered Americana bands such as Red House Painters or American Music Club. Released on the new SF label and music collective Visionguild.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT** **MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
What else needs to be said about Mississippi Fred McDowell really, a legendary blues icon for sure, whose music is not rare really or difficult to come by, but we imagine part of the purpose of these Mississippi reissues is to introduce a whole new generation to these artists and sounds, and to make them available on vinyl. These recordings are the very first McDowell ever made, recorded at his home, a farm north of Como, Mississippi, in 1959 by the legendary field recordist Alan Lomax, and demonstrate McDowell's unique guitar playing (with a homemade bottleneck slide) and distinctive voice. Minimalist and powerful, raw and deeply moving, McDowell would become well known for being covered by The Rolling Stones and playing at the Newport Jazz festival in 1964, but it's these early tracks that display the true magic of his music. Essential blues!
Housed in nice thick sleeves, and includes an insert with liner notes.
MISSISSIPPI ALERT!!!!!!!!
This reissue of Fred McDowell's 1966 second lp for the Arhoolie label is arguably one of the Mississippi delta bluesman's best outings. Discovered in the late fifties by Alan Lomax, McDowell has become since then and until his death in 1972, one of the more famous practitioners of the delta blues tradition. His most well known song, "You Got To Move", included here, was famously covered by the Rolling Stones, and his world-weary voice that ranges from drawling mumble to intense emphatic howls comes from a deep but humble spiritual core. Though he honed his craft at fish fries and dances, many of his songs were laments and spirituals about trying evils, redemption, and longing for love. Here on some tracks he is accompanied by close friends, Eli Green on second guitar, and his wife Anne on second voice. The track "I Wish I Was In Heaven Sittin' Down" was recorded with the Hunter's Chapel Spiritual Singers, whom Fred performed with often on Sunday Mornings. A fine and essential addition to the Mississippi Records catalog and your Mississippi Records collection!
Sutro Park continues to reissue some of the most vital blues sounds ever recorded with this amazing split featuring legends Fred McDowell and Furry Lewis. Anyone paying attention to the aQ site these last few years will have already seen and hopefully heard something from these two masters. The material here was recorded in the late 1960s after some of the original bluesmen began receiving belated and enthusiastic praise from new generations during the folk revival. Each set features intimate performances captured in the comfort of McDowell's and Lewis' homes in Como, Mississippi and Memphis, Tennessee respectively. Despite being in their 60s, both men crank out the classic, hardhitting blues they built their reputations on. Presented in a classy replica sleeve from the Biograph original, this one comes highly recommended as always.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
Reissued by Henry Rollins' (major) label. Tried and true bluesman who named one of his albums I do not play no rock & roll. White underground rockers love getting verbal whupped like that. Makes 'em feel less guilty. Discuss.
Lovely record by these folk-singing sisters (and NPR darlings).
We got another amazing batch of vintage blues reissues from the wonderful Monk label. Look elsewhere on the list for reviews of two more volumes of Charley Patton recordings and an lp by Blind Willie Johnson (not to be confused with this Blind Willie)!
Born blind at the turn of the century, Blind Willie McTell was not only an astute guitar player, but even a more avid businessman, often using a myriad of pseudonyms (Hot Shot Willie, Georgia Bill) to juggle multiple record deals. Having developed a unique subgenre of the blues called Piedmont Blues, combining a hard roots Delta style with the more sophisticated East-Coast style, his guitar playing often sounded like there were multiple instruments playing. McTell was less gospel-influenced than Blind Willie Johnson, favoring songs about hard-living and hard-loving. He had a long recording career with a few labels, but with not as much success as he hoped for due to the Great Depression. This compilation spans 26 recordings between 1927 and 1931 recorded in his home town of Atlanta for the Victor Records label.
Monk Records returns with collection #2 from legendary Piedmont blues singer and 12 string guitar master Blind Willie McTell. These songs, released on the Victor, Okeh, and Vocalion labels, were recorded in between 1931-1933, picking up where the material from Monk's previous McTell collection, Scary Day Blues ended, with a few sessions taking place in McTell's homebase of Atlanta while the majority were captured in New York City. Most of the songs feature accompaniment from fellow Georgia guitarist Curley Weaver, while others find McTell backing up singers Ruth Willis and Ruby Glaze in an ensemble setting. For those unfamiliar with McTell, his style is generally a bit more refined and his voice is sweeter than many of his counterparts from the Delta or Texas. Much of the lyrics on this collection are of a spiritual nature, but then you got tracks like "Love Makin' Ma and "Death Cell Blues", which should indicate the wide range of topics on display here. Throughout, McTell's masterful guitar playing astounds and inspires. Truly amazing stuff here.
That Memphis Minnie defeated Big Bill Broonzy in a Chicago competition in 1933 that Bill himself called "the first contest between Blues singers that was ever given in the USA" should alone carry a hefty weight as a testament to Minnie's greatness. From 1905, at the age of 8, when she got her first guitar, to her death in 1973, Memphis Minnie was a popular figure in blues amongst blues musicians and fans alike, hosting Monday night blues parties throughout the 30's in Chicago and winning top awards as a vocalist and performer. This reasonably priced collection brings together 36 of her best tracks on two disks. Most tracks feature Minnie alone on guitar, but there are a few barrelhouse blues numbers with piano accompaniment and duets with the likes of Kansas Joe McCoy, Bumble Bee Slim and Little Son Joe.
Despite the exclamatory title of their debut album, Mercury Dimes balance their fiddle-driven repertoire between peppery squaredance-ready tunes sure to get ya up kickin' a heel in the air, and more subdued numbers that are perhaps more appropriate for porchswing star-gazin' with your sweetie. This Bay Area combo's warm, homey, very traditional country sounds make for a nice companion to their fellow Bay Area folksters Amy & Karen's recent (also self-released and similarly cool screen-printed cardboard fold-out sleeve packaged) cd, or SF rootsy vets such as Crooked Jades (who have their own brand new album out now!) and Virginia Dare.
Looking for some pretty, hushed, gentle, folksy acoustic pop? Well, the debut cd-r ep by SF's Messes just might hit the spot. Their six songs are very intimate and sensitive singer/songwriterly along the lines of Elliott Smith. The 19-minute cd-r is lovingly packaged in a sewn paper sleeve festooned with bird imagery.
Could be that it's a bit of an embarrassed, ironic tongue-in-cheek joke to name your solo banjo album Deliverance, but this disc by Minnesota string picker Paul Metzger seems serious enough. And is definitely far, far away from anything resembling "Dueling Banjos"! Inbred backwoods hicks won't relate to the stately and intricate raga-like sounds regally flowing from the nexus of Metzger's deft fingers and 21 banjo strings. This sounds much more East Indian than Appalachian. Stark, gentle, precise, compelling. At times you'll swear there's two players, or multitracking, but it's all Metzger, live and unaccompanied. These three long pieces (one of 'em, the title track, over a half hour) are relaxed, delicate, and entrancing... Avant garde acoustics for late night listenin', which nestles nicely next to discs in the "Wooden Guitar" series also released by the Locust label.
Folk-psych fans, 'tis time to gambol in the old oak tree grove at dusk, wander the windy moors, or perhaps sit by a fire, recounting sad tales of ancient times. Because those are the vibes of the perfectly named Midwinter - bleak and beautiful - an obscure underground '70s British acid-folk outfit whose 1973 demo recordings are collected on this disc (they never released an actual album, though they did later morph into the band Stone Angel, whose privately-pressed lp from '75 is another English folk-psych gem). So this should sound good to anyone into Stone Angel or others of that ilk: Mellow Candle, Trees, Caedemon, Shide & Acorn, Parameter, etc., not to mention better known hippie Brit-folkies like Fairport Convention and Pentangle.
Midwinter's music is nicely melancholic, tweeness balanced by darkness, with folk instrumentation such as acoustic guitar, recorder, autoharp, mandolin, dulcimer, banjo, jews harp, and hand percussion joined by occasional lashings of distorted electric guitar. There's a female vocalist with a lovely lilting voice, singing lyrics seemingly passed down over many dusty centuries. Meanwhile, the male vocals remind us a bit of the wonderful Roy Harper. They do an especially haunting rendition of "Scarborough Fair", alongside other traditional numbers as well as those written by Midwinter, all quite nice and evocative.
'Twas previously released on cd in the early '90s on the Kissing Spell label, by the way, with a different cover. This disc also includes two bonus tracks taken from Midwinter/Stone Angel frontman Ken Saul's solo single, circa 1970. And there's plentiful liner notes.
Just when we thought all the weird dusty corners of strange and magical sounds had been uncovered from the vast archives of the ESP label, something new to us, shiny and unbelievably wonderful gets unearthed. MIJ is the strangely cryptic moniker of Jim Holberg, (or on second thought not so strange as we just realized, it's his name spelled backwards!) who was discovered in Washington Square Park on a hot summer day in 1969 yodeling and playing guitar by ESP label head Bernard Stoller. But this wasn't any country western or Swiss Alps yodeling, this was some freaked out high-keening spacey Martian kind of yodeling. The kind that cuts through time and space and penetrates your subconscious. Blown away by his street performance, Stoller invited Holberg into the studio the next day to record a full length album and in just three hours with an array of echo effects and a patient and agreeable engineer, the Yodeling Astrologer was born. Apparently Holberg had explained to Stoller that after being injured in an auto-accident that had fractured his skull and impaired his hearing, his perceptions became altered and he began to do things musically that he couldn't comprehend but they somehow worked, and indeed they do. With both voice and guitar reverbed to the nth degree, this is some Donovan meet Dreamies meets Curt Boetchner of The Millenium psych-folk magic. So awesome and beautiful, weird and dreamy, with well-written songs and just enough freaky yodeling that won't scare off the folks who might be put off by the concept of, well, freaky yodeling. We've been playing this nearly everyday, it's so good. So Highly Recommended!
Wow! This beautiful album not only introduces the world to an amazing but uber-obscure folksinger who recorded these songs in 1962, but it also manages to resolve the hazy origins of one of the most recorded tracks of the sixties. But more on that in a second. Niela Miller is one of those folks that should have been way more popular than she was, but always seemed to work behind the scenes or at best, hovered at the periphery. She saw Dylan's first professional performance, took up guitar after meeting Eric Weissberg (of "Dueling Banjos" fame), loaned Pete Seeger her guitar for a show, and refused a request by Judy Collins to record one of her songs. Her voice is ghostly and unusual; high in register, but delivered with an earthy blues-soaked urgency, as she sings these songs about the meaner sides of love and the men who did her wrong. Which is ironic in a sense because the guitar progression and theme of her song, "Baby Don't Go To Town" ( a track about a women who flirts with other men to get her lover to pay attention to her) were basically stolen from an ex-boyfriend and reinvented as "Hey Joe". Yes, that "Hey Joe"! The timeless track of love gone wrong and its murderous consequences covered by Hendrix, Love, The Leaves, Tim Rose, The Byrds and countless others. That A-major progression was essentially the first thing most novice guitar players wanted to learn in the sixties before "Stairway To Heaven" and "Smoke On The Water" came around. But Miller never got any credit for this song, because no original recordings were ever distributed, and she subsequently faded into other pursuits of teaching and counseling. While it's definitely an interesting back story, it's by far not the only reason to give this a listen. The ever-reliable Numero Group christen their new vinyl-only subsidiary Numerophon with this restored reissue, made from a transfer of a one-of-a-kind acetate Miller recorded at Variety Recording Service in 1962. The acetate was badly damaged with skips, crackles and a noticeable warp. Though it's not a perfect recording, the resulting sound lends itself to the kind of music Miller made, antiquated and other-worldly, cushioned with a bit of reverb and steeped in the beautiful strains of regret, loss and hope. Highest Recommendation!
Boy, this is a strange one. Not your standard old tyme fare, Polk Miller was a rare figure in the world of early American musical theater. Born in Virginia, and a Civil War veteran who fought for the South, he dropped a lucrative pharmaceutical and veterinarian medicine career (he created the first pet-care products for what would become Sargent) to follow his musical dream, leading a traveling all-black singing group, playing banjo and spinning song-stories about his plantation upbringing and singing songs that adopted the vernacular and celebrated the rural and musical traditions of pre-war black life. But a mixed-race group removed from the element of farce and without the use of black-face was a bold concept in the 1890's, garnering praise and derision from both Northern and Southern audiences. His highest praise came from Mark Twain, who suffered similarly divided criticisms for Huckleberry Finn. But the show and the group were very popular nonetheless lasting off and on for over 30 years, even after Miller died in 1913.
Culled from seven cylinder recordings made in 1909 and seven rare 78 rpm recordings made almost 20 years later in 1928, this disc this has some of the earliest recordings of whites and blacks playing together and some of the best examples of pre-war American gospel music. But the most interesting songs are the strange musical theater numbers such as "Laughing Song", that sounds like characters from a maniacal Disneyland ride and "Pussycat Rag" consisting of the quartette singing like, well, cats. Songs like, ah, "Watermelon Party" may cause some cringing, but let's face it, music rarely gets as unashamedly real as this!
Solo record from the lead vocalist of alt. country rockers the Old 97's. And yet another chapter in the seemingly never ending saga of a band we love getting worse and worse. While the last Old 97's record still hinted at the band they once were, this is total middle of the road, singer songwriter, adult contemporary bland pop rock. Blechh.
For those who remember the Suck.com parody of the descriptions found on Aquarius Records' tags, Suck.com had rewritten our description of a Helen Mirra 10" to read "Lush, enigmatic, forgiving, like a less neurotic Cat Power." Actually that description aptly pegged that Helen Mirra record (which we didn't really like all that much) way better than we did originally. However, it doesn't really apply to Mirra's first CD "Field Geometry" - which is a minimalist Americana meditation sounding a lot like a super slowed down John Fahey backed by the constant rustle of a seamstress weaving. Spartanly beautiful and mysteriously evolving. Completely recommended.
One of the more short-lived but highly prolific country string groups, the Mississippi Sheiks formed in 1930 and disbanded six years later after recording over 60 songs including their huge crossover hit, "Sitting On Top Of The World" (covered by Sinatra, Dylan, and Cream amongst many others!). Naming themselves after Rudolph Valentino's movie, The Sheik, the trio were known for the risque double entendre in their songs ("Driving That Thing" "Cracking Them Things", "Grinding Old Fool"), making them a highly successful touring and party band. The wonderful vinyl-only Monk label does it again, compiling the best of the Sheiks' early Okeh recordings from 1930, including their other well-known song,"Stop and Listen Blues"!
Guitarist Walter Vinson and Fiddler Lonnie Chatmon were the Mississippi Sheiks, probably one of the most popular and influential country blues acts out of Mississippi in the 1930's. They drew their influences from a variety of rural styles, forming their own unique sound. Vinson's "Sitting On Top Of The World" is one of the most widely copied country blues standards. Excellent.
The description of sparse is the only connection between Molasses and Godspeed You Black Emperor, in spite of both bands sharing members. Slow-motion alt.country meanderings sort of like Songs:Ohia and Mazzy Star playing Tom Waits songs.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
No... it really can't be! But Yep, it gosh darn is. The Monkeywrench are back after a mule's age. Please don't ask me what a mule's age is. Just figure it's a pretty long time. you may better know The Monkeywrench as: Mudhoney's Mark Arm and Steve Turner, Gas Huffer guitarist Tom Price, Martin Bland, and the infamous Tim Kerr. Many moons ago, these fine fellows released an awesome bourbon and reverb-drenched fiery full-length on SubPop. Join them today in the ol' saloon as they perform "Sugarman" by Jesus Rodriguez and Hoyt Axton's "The Pusher" as only they know how. The latter features that familiar raspy howl courtesy of Mr. Arm. Sigh, very cool.
Bay Area folks might remember Derek Monypeny from the ferociously explosive, improvisational trio Oaxacan. Their fiery brand of Eastern flecked, face-melting psych mastery was truly amazing to behold live. Sadly their time as a band was short-lived, but guitarist Derek Monypeny continues his journey into the desert cosmos with his debut lp of solo oud. Though he has also played guitar in Sir Richard Bishop's touring band, Mr. Monypeny decided to put the blaring fuzz and virtuosic six-string tendencies aside and opted for a more traditional approach here. These beautifully minimal pieces of eloquent, contemplative oud unfold like ancient narratives, evoking dramatic images of ghostly mirages, shimmering horizons and the desert sun sinking under pale dunes.
Side A unfolds with gorgeously sparse, delicate movements of slowly picked oud, each note rising up then dropping down like diamonds in the sand. We love the patient, reflective pace of the songs, each note carefully plucked and sent off like a gentle offering into the night. While side A reveals Monypeny employing the art of restraint and patience, side B finds Monypeny on the periphery of tradition, drenching the oud in hazy reverb and other effects that tastefully reiterate the instrument's Saharan roots. Reminiscent of Sandy Bull's oud outings, these final two pieces warble and melt in the hot sun, tremolo washes and smeared melody hover in the arid sky as the rhythmic haze and gentle noise lull you deeper into the cosmic badlands. So gorgeous and so perfect. Highly recommended for fans of anything related to Sublime Frequencies for sure. Limited to an edition of 250, don't be left in the Saharan dust!
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Subtitled: Musical Saw And Hawaiian Guitar Soli Recorded In Early 1920s. That's what it is, and it's SO GOOD! We're in love with this sepia-toned collection of old time tunes, some of them lively rags, others sad slowed-down ballads made even sadder by the unique sound of the saw.
If Japan's EM Records (the same label responsible for reissuing both the "Symphony of the Birds" and the Moolah records we raved about last list) has anything to do with it, pretty soon we'll have a whole little "musical saw" section here at Aquarius! It's one of their several weird, wonderful obsessions (along with thrift-store exotica LPs, obscure '70s New Age psych, pioneering electronic experiments, etc.) and so there's a slew of releases on EM featuring the gorgeous, if sometimes gimmicky (but not here!) sound of the musical saw.
We're gonna start you out with this, music by Sam Moore, an early 20th century master of the musical saw ... who also plays a mean guitar too, and who is accompanied on most of these tracks by another talent of the era, Horace Davis. (Roy Smeck and Frank Banta also make appearances.) You'll get to hear Moore's "Octo-chord" (an 8-string steel guitar) alongside the "harp-guitar" (a guitar outfitted with extra, resonating strings) of Davis on their hit, the "Laughing Rag". But it's the tracks with the musical saw that grab us the most. Listening to those, you'll understand why this instrument, steel bent and bowed, is also often called the "singing saw". It's got a definite vocal timbre, maybe also a bit like the electronic Theremin in that regard. Wavering, wordlessly moaning, haunting and eerie. MOOOHIEEE! (Man, we'd love to hear John Jacob Niles accompanied by a singing saw, if such a recording were to exist. That would be perfect.)
Some background: Sam Moore (1887-1959), was a child musical prodigy who, having quickly mastered the violin, guitar and banjo, soon developed an interest in playing more eccentric, unconventional "instruments" as well. He'd been doing so from a young age -- Moore's father once claimed that Sam, as a child, had been able to "get music out of a pitchfork" (!) although sadly, no recordings exist to prove it... But we do know that at one point Sam Moore was part of a vaudeville act called "Spooning And Ballooning" in which he played an inflated rubber balloon, dueting with another fellow who played the spoons (of course). Another of his unusual instrumental specialties was (as documented on much of this fantastic cd) the carpenter's steel hand saw, which is something of a Southern folk music-making tradition. 'Round about 1918 Moore had taken to playing the saw, and was able to capitalize on the fad for the instrument in the early '20s, bringing his sawing skills to New York City's famed Ziegfeld's Follies for a successful stint on stage circa 1920-21. Although that fad soon faded, Sam Moore never abandoned the saw, keeping it in his instrumental repertoire as his career stretched into the '40s and '50s.
All the recordings found here date from Sam's sawing heyday in the Twenties... 13 tracks all taken from rare old 78 rpm records treasured by collectors. That these vintage recordings, warm and crackly, are so burnished with the patina of the past only makes sound all the better to our ears. EM has fitted this out in handsome digipack, the only disappointment being that the extensive liner notes are pretty much all in Japanese...
For all the praise that's heaped on Thurston Moore whenever his name or his band Sonic Youth come up, it's sometimes easy to forget what an amazing and unique guitar player he really is. Sure he's in one of the coolest bands EVER, and he's proven to be an adventurous music maker in the avant-garde, and yeah he looks so rad when rocking out on stage, but beyond all that, is a truly spiritual connection to the guitar which he's been able to channel into creating some of the best music of the last quarter century.
We were excited to discover that this album was just Moore playing acoustic guitar, as we really love to hear him play sans pedals and crazy effects, 'cause he manages to still conjure up incredible sounds, creating such sensual and pleasing results from just 12 steel strings. Recorded in loving memory of Jack Rose, these 12-string meditations are some of the most soulful and chilling tracks that Moore has ever recorded. It's so cool that even while playing acoustic, you can hear so many of the trademark guitar sounds and styles that have found their way into Sonic Youth songs over the years. We know that he puts out lots of one off solo recordings or collaborations and it can be hard to keep up sometimes, but do not sleep on this one, it's one of the finest recordings of his mind blowing career.
Ferdinand "Jelly Roll" Morton (1885-1941) is one of the most important musical figures of the twentieth century, a jazz pioneer and a gifted composer during the days of Vaudeville and one of the first musicians to take part in the new revolution in recorded music. A jack of all trades, Morton began his career in show business as a teenager in New Orleans, playing brothels and touring the American South, with later stints in major cities like New York, Chicago, Vancouver, and Washington DC. Along the way, he also racked up experience as a comedian and supposedly even as a pimp. He was also apparently pretty handy with a gun. But moreso with a piano!
These recordings were captured in Chicago in 1926 and 1927, showcasing Morton's staggering talents as a pianist, composer, and bandleader. The songs show off a style of "Hot" jazz that will be instantly familiar to many of you, with lots of blaring reed instruments and Morton's rhythmic piano serving as the anchor. The songs are fun, easy going romps with lots of humor thrown in and the occasional raspy Morton vocal. Things flow with a nice drunken sort of feel while still maintaining a high level of energy, with the instruments loping about constantly within the busy arrangements. Fortunately, Morton was given access to recording facilities that had the fidelity to match the complexity of his songs, and things sound great here. A few songs even make use of sound effects like old klaxon horns, which is certainly interesting considering that these may represent some of the earliest uses of non-musical sounds incorporated into commercial recordings. This winner comes to us courtesy of the good folks at Monk and serves as a great introduction to Morton's vast catalog.
