There's been changes galore in the world of Tin Hat. Most notably Rob Burger, one of the group's founding members has left the fold. They've wisely recruited the wonderfully talented multi-instrumentalist Ara Anderson (Iron And The Albatross, Boostamonte, Tom Waits) and acclaimed clarinet player Ben Goldberg, and dropped the "Trio" from their name. And they've released The Sad Machinery Of Spring, their fifth luminous album. Tin Hat are frequently categorized as a chamber music group but the music they make reaches out far beyond that genre's borders. They effortlessly and seamlessly incorporate elements of classical, jazz, and a broad spectrum of Americana and international sounds. Excellent.
Fantastic! Tin Hat Trio's fourth album Book Of Silk is composed of fifteen shadowy, haunting instrumentals. Filled with a good deal of intrigue and folly, this is darkly enchanting and deeply moving music seemingly from another time that slowly waltzes its way out of your dreams -- sort of like the sonic equivalent of a film by the Quay Brothers (if you don't know what we mean by this, please track down their films!). A creaking, creeping assemblage of accordion, horns and a multitude of stringed instruments (including harp played by guest Zeena Parkins) that take on a life of their own. Tin Hat Trio's own devoted fans already know the wonders of this group, but admirers of bands such as Dirty Three, Kronos Quartet or early Black Heart Procession will surely also want to take note of Book Of Silk. Oh yeah, and for those like us who have a penchant for whistling, check out the twelveth song! Recommended.
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One of our favorite analog electronic prog-hippie jazz-psych records from the magic year of 1971 has finally been given the reissue treatment, and it's a doozy! TONTO stands for "The Original New Timbral Orchestra", the first, and still the largest, multitimbral polyphonic analog synthesizer in the world. Created by Malcom Cecil and Robert Margouleff, the duo's first outing with their new creation was originally released on jazz flautist, Herbie Mann's Atlantic Records sub-label, Embryo.
The album was so influential that Stevie Wonder collaborated with the duo on several of his most essential recordings of the seventies including Talking Book, Innervisions and Fulfillingness' First Finale. It was also the instrument featured on screen and used by Paul Williams character in Brian DePalma's Phantom of the Paradise! The machine later became a key player in lots of eighties RnB, seemingly miles away from the soundscapery on this first record.
While Zero-Time acted largely as a showcase for what the TONTO could do, it's still a pretty killer record of synthetic cinematic prog groove, subterranean alien library funk and spacey folk electronic ambience. Over six tracks, there are several varying moods from sexy (there's a song called "Jetsex" after all), to blissfully solemn. The opener "Cybernaut" sounds like a movie theme for a sci-fi crime thriller, all foreboding and mysterious, while our favorite track is the floating space raga, "Riversong" which has strange treated vocal modulations that are completely sublime. Recommended!
Another new release brought to us by Finland's Ektro, the label run by our pal Jussi of Circle. Ektro's releases are always graphically quite nice and musically quite adventurous and unpredictable, although Jussi's interest in prog and psych usually is evident. In this case, we have a percussion extravaganza from one Janne Tuomi (currently, a member of Circle and various underground Finnish improv ensembles). It's mostly percussion, anyway -- the list of instruments in the cd booklet reads thusly: "drumset, cymbals, percussion, tam-tams, opera gongs, changgo, pandiero, raagini-pro, pocket trumpet, voice". With these implements, and "no overdubs, no editing", Tuomi has created five instrumental pieces (not conventional songs, we mean), bridging free jazz and Finnish free-folk. Carefully constructed, rising and falling, with hazy drone and dramatic clatter, soothing bells and rattling sticks...not a noisy racket at all, but a personal sound-world quite listenable for something that falls into the 'solo percussion' category.
When a friend made the mistake of loaning me the original lp version of this record, I fell immediately in love with it and refused to give it back. Luckily for him, and all of us, its turn has come in the line of ESP reissues.
This was the first recording as group leader from Tyler, who spent time playing baritone with Cecil Taylor and appears on Albert Ayler's "Bells" and the monumental "Spirits Rejoice." Bassist Henry Grimes and cellist Joel Friedman also played with Ayler, while drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson and Charles Moffet, who contributes orchestra vibes, both spent time drumming with Ornette Coleman.
Beginning with almost delicate interspersings of dual bass/ cello arco, prominent vibes, and Tyler's vibrato-heavy alto skittering, by the second track the quintet is in full frenzy mode (at times very reminiscent, understandably, of Ayler's detourned marches). All the players are awesome, from the hyper speed-bop to gentle and textural playing of Jackson, to the welcome brightness of Moffet's vibes -- but the real key to my love of this album is Joel Friedman's fantastic cello playing. Working frantically, Friedman stretches the full range of his instrument's notes and multiple textures in full throated, layered harmonic, truly intense fashion, and provides an extremely interesting focal point while never overwhelming Tyler's soloing. While not attaining the pummeling highs of the canon of free jazz classics, this is still a great session of some very talented and under-appreciated musicians. Compelling listening.
Reissue of the second Charles Tyler recording for the seminal ESP Disk label in 1967 in which the former Ayler collaborator introduced a formative backing band consisting of solely a cellist and two bassists. "Eastern Man Alone", presents itself as a low end version of a string quartet backing a confidently mellow Tyler on alto. Really Nice.
Noisy jazz skronk from Noxagt members, on Load.
New on Rune Grammofon, the latest relaxed blast of atmospheric instrumental improv from Ultralyd, the Norwegian extreme "jazz" outfit that features folks from Load label noiserockers Noxagt (old AQ pal, bassist Kjetil Brandsdal) and Rune G electronic spazzcore duo Moha! (guitarist Anders Hana and drummer Morten J. Olsen). The quartet is rounded out by another Kjetil, last name Moster, on saxophones. Together they stir up some trouble in the vein of countrymen Supersilent, Shining, and Jagga Jazzist, filtered through several spins of John Zorn's Morricone tribute The Big Gundown, perhaps. Ultralyd swing haunting cinematic soundscapes packed with percolating grooves and eerie drones, tense guitar skree and jaunty horn tootin'. We like.
While previous albums from this extreme Norwegian instrumental ensemble could be kinda be considered (skronky) jazz, and their previous cd release, 2007's Conditions For A Piece Of Music had its moody, Morricone-ish elements, this one is not so jazzy and not so melodic, coming closer to bass player Kjetil Brandsdal's noiserock act Noxagt in brutal effect. Make no mistake, jazz instrumentation (sax, vibraphone) is still present, but takes a back seat to the heavy duty, and ultimately hypnotic, repetitive rhythmic assault laid down by the bass and drums, over which the synth, electric guitar, sax, and vibes provide additionally apocalyptic coloration, but never truly sidetrack or slow down the chaotic yet cyclic rumble and tumble of these six lurching, long tracks. If it's jazz, it's droog-stomped jazz, muscled up with crunching low-slung bass, and martial, punishing drum beats... imagine maybe if 16-17 and Supersilent teamed up to do something that sounded like Circle... but scary. There's skree and squall, for sure, but it's all focused on the rhythmic imperative, and damn if this isn't as utterly enthralling as it is urgent and ugly. Except that it's not really ugly, just distorted and oppressive. As Rune G's "jazz" bands go, Ultralyd is the one for those who hate jazz, and love hate. Or something like that. Recommended to all you sickos, go on, get it out of your system!
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Japanese jazz saxophonist "Doctor" Umezu with some downtown NYC stalwarts (Marc Ribot, Wayne Horvitz, Tom Cora, and Samm Bennett). Great stuff, full of fun. Recommended.
We've reviewed a few releases by freaking intense, seemingly unhinged, utterly nihilistic Japanese saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe in the past, stuff released on labels like PSF and Tiliqua, including a collaboration with veteran Tokyo Flashback act Kousokuya, saying in one of our reviews that Urabe is "is pretty far out there in the field of free improvisation", which if anything is an understatement. So out there that he's been quoted as saying "Improvisation can eat shit", apparently considering his music something else entirely. Well, if you're up for some of whatever Urabe's output is, here's a new one from the man via the reliable Utech label, who know their out there eat shit improv all right. Painful beauty, delicate brutality, noisy silence� These are the extremes with which Urabe both enraptures and unsettles the once-innocent listener. And it's not all his anguished alto sax, in fact, the very first nine-minute-plus track is more of an incredibly lo-fi, uber-distorted electric guitar feedback freakout full of raw, choppy riffage. Urabe on this album also makes use of harmonica, bird calls, and even metal chains, the ominous rattle of which we also remarked upon when heard on one of his previous PSF albums. Furthermore, Aural Fit's drummer Teruhisa Nanbu shows up on two of the (longest) tracks here, as well. The skitter and skree can be quite lonely and lovely, for sure...but beware, as Urabe has his bloodthirsty side, too, as alluded to above (and below)! Making music 'difficult listening' is his mission.
The usual nice, slim and oversized Utech packaging includes some, uh, motivational liner notes by Urabe ("If there's someone you want to kill, stop working out how you're going to do it and just do it"), in English translation by Alan Cummings.
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Tokyo's great psych/jazz/folk underground label PSF previous released this album by contemporary alto saxophonist Urabe on limited vinyl LP only. Now, thankfully, they've made it available on cd. Minimal but intense, unusual solo sax improv which explores, according to PSF English-language guru Alan Cummings, "the relationship between sound and silence, and all those mysterious spaces in between ('ma')." And he's right, this is all about momentary shimmering shards of saxophone whisper-skree, with plenty of that 'ma' goin' on.
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Japanese saxophonist Urabe Masayoshi is pretty far out there in the field of free improvisation. A former visual artist, he switched from painting to music because he wanted the process of creation itself, that activity, to be the whole of his art, for all to witness. In his improvisations, he is said to have developed "an extreme language, built on unbearable body positions and blocks of silence" (to quote Franck Stofer's Japanese Independent Music book). He has collaborated with Japanese avant-rock acts Kosokuya and Che-Shizu for albums on Tokyo psych label PSF, and as well has recorded solo for the same label.
Recorded in 2001, Urabe's music as documented on "Urklang" is slow and abstract, encompassing much emptiness, vast emptiness (with track one on this disc being an epic for solo alto, over fifty minutes in length) populated by lonely notes, hollow hoots from Urabe's sometimes barely-there horn. Urabe's breath and guttural exclamations are heard along with his sax. Fiercely physical shrieks erupt from his instrument without much warning, although much of his playing is gentle and not un-pretty. The second track, a seventeen minute soprano solo, equally invests both silence and shrieking with Urabe's intense, and delicate, feelings. "Urklang" is an emotional experimental saxophone improv set for those with both Arthur Doyle and Keiji Haino discs in their collections. The debut release from Belgian label Tiiqua, this cd comes packaged in a sturdy mini-LP style cardboard sleeve (like many a '60s/'70s psych or jazz reissue from Japan), with drawings by Urabe on the cover, perfectly conveying his music's timeless vibe.
Normally we don't like to quote too much from an album's press release or its liner notes, but we have to share this statement from Japanese improv saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe himself, which accompanies this release: "My joints ache so much that I walk weird. Improvisation?? Improvisation??!? I've never seen it, heard it, or played it. You say that you're uncomfortable. I felt so good that I stopped laughing. I love silence because I am so brutal, but because I breathe there can be no silence. I call it Rock 'n' Roll. Because I breathe -- because I have a mouth. Duo 1988, Ju/A Brute, Urklang, Soingyokusaiseyo -- Improvisation can eat shit, that's what I've always said. Musicians are the scum of the earth, and hell's a lie, that's what I've always said. Do you know a word that means both look at me and leave me alone? I'm so fuckin' glad that I've got no reasons, no dreams, nothing to believe in. I'm so fuckin' glad that I have no interest in the occult, in salvation, in playing my part, in meanings. I'm so fuckin' glad I met you and left you. I'm so fuckin' glad that I'm not you. What I really mean is that I'm so fuckin' glad that you're not beautiful. What I really mean is that I'm so fuckin' glad that you mean nothing to me."
Whoah, dude. And there he is on the album cover, a knife clenched in his teeth and a maniacal glint in his eyes. We've been fans of his lost-n-lonely sax scrape in the past, and with this album he brings that style of sparse improv into more sinister focus, also gettin' intense with metal joints (?), chains, harmonica, and electric guitar along with the alto sax. Recorded live in Japan and Belgium, Urabe's sax a death-breath, the man clanking those chains like a ghost, this disc is an ominous work, the silence found within seeming like the loudest thing in the world until our man lets loose with some rough-and-tumble, high-end shrieking guitar grind. You'll believe every word he said, above, and like it.
Apparently Urabe was accompanied by a dancer on these recordings, but you'll just have to use your imagination to see what sort of tortured moves he or she was making along to this music.
Inspired by past compilations of avant-garde guitar explorations assembled by John Fahey and Fred Frith, the Bay Area's own well-known guitar experimentalist Henry Kaiser has put together this collection of acoustic solos by many of today's most amazing guitar innovators, 19 of 'em in fact: Duck Baker, Stefan Basho-Junghans, Raoul Bjorkenheim, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Nels "AQ Loves Me" Cline, Janet Feder, Fred Frith, Michael Gulezian, Richard Leo Johnson, Mike Keneally, Peter Lang, Scott McGill, Shawn Persinger is Prester John, Rod Poole, Gyan Riley, Miroslav Tadic, Richard Thompson, U Tin, and Kaiser himself (hey, why no Eugene Chadbourne?). These guys (yeah, they're all guys except for Ms. Feder, but what can you do?) hail from around the world and have unique, personal approaches to playing.
Moods here range from the pastoral idyll of Brit folkie Thompson to the minimalist soundscaping of Frith, from the faux-raga like slide work of Bjorkenheim to the authentically Robbie Basho-like exotica of U Tin, from the country pickin' of Lang to the percussive melodicism of Bourelly, from the scraping drone-folk of Feder (we want to hear more!) to the repetitive trance-induction of Rod Poole, from the sprightly, jazzish jingle of Persinger to the melancholic classical playing of Gyan Riley. The disc ends with Steffen Basho-Junghan's epic, experimental, fucked up but lovely sounding "Part 1 from the Virgin Orchestra No.1", a piece that Kaiser cites as the cornerstone of this comp. And it's the pretty great finale to this gorgeous, fascinating album.
Kaiser intends "156 Strings" to highlight those carrying on the work of iconoclastic instrumental steel-string guitar pioneers like Fahey, Basho and Kottke, a tradition driven underground by the more commerical, less challenging New Age guitar genre those same folks helped create.
Also, funnily enough, a portion of the proceeds from the sales of this comp go to benefit H.E.A.R. (Hearing Education and Awareness for Rockers). Don't worry, there's no need for earplugs with this one!
A collection that only begins to scratch the surface of the rarely heard of underground jazz scene in South Africa. Compiled by Jake Behnan, "Afrika Underground" covers "jazz funk & fusion" stuff from the mid-seventies to the early eighties, from the
Holy crap! This is just about the most amazing box set we've ever seen! The second we heard about it, we knew it was going to be good, but we weren't prepared for just HOW GOOD. Not sure how many of you are familiar with Bear Family Records, but they're a German label who specialize in super elaborate, incredibly detailed and well researched releases, especially box sets, running the gamut from the women of Sun Records to the Everly Brothers to Ernest Tubb to Perez Prado to Flatt And Scruggs and on and on. Always very expensive and often hard to get, but once you lay your eyes and ears on one of their releases you realize it was worth all the trouble and worth every penny. And never was it truer than with Atomic Platters. This years in the works set is a five cd, DVD, hardcover book, box set collecting "Cold War Music From The Golden Age Of Homeland Security", 5 plus hours of fifties and sixties, rock and roll, R&B and soul, either warning us of the dangers of Communism and the impending atomic war, or more playfully using the A bomb and Uranium and Communism as metaphors for love and romance and partying ("You Hit Me Baby Like An Atom Bomb", "Atomic Baby", "Fujiyama Mama", "Uranium Rock", etc.). Scattered throughout are loads of civl defense spots, most appallingly naive and utterly ridiculous, there's Groucho Marx explaining that we have a good chance of surviving an atomic war, Art Linkletter warning us to not use the phone in case of an atomic attack, and lots of other misguided warnings and advice from Bob Hope, Tony Bennett, Fred MacMurray, Tom Lehrer, Pat Boone, Connie Francis, Don Pardo, Johnny Cash, Boris Karloff and lots more, as well as tons of bizarre civil defense dramatizations and creepy little Leave It To Beaver style vignettes. Then there's the music, lots of favorites you've heard on other comps, but an amazing amount or material you've never heard (and probably never thought you'd hear) anywhere as well as totally obscure tracks from some not so obscure artists. Some of the more recognizable folks: Roy Acuff, The Sons Of The Pioneers, Peter Sellers and Spike Milligan, Bo Diddley, Dexter Gordon, The Louvin Brothers, Carl Perkins, Bing Crosby, Bill Haley, Doris Day, Hank Williams and more, but the lure is definitely the hundred or so other tracks, all catchy or bizarre or both, from a wild cast of one hit wonders.
As if that weren't enough, there is also a disc containing two full length spoken word records released in 1961, If The Bomb Falls and The Complacent Americans, both ridiculous and paranoid, laughable and goofy, but also sort of sad and creepy. Wow. Then there's the DVD which contains 9 short films, over two hours of educational films, teaching us about Communism, the impending Atomic War, and the infamous "Duck And Cover" method of surviving an atomic bomb attack (and we're fairly sure that the narrator of one of the films is none other than Thurl Ravenscroft, the voice of Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, and the singer of the "You're A Mean One Mr. Grinch"). Finally, there is the book, a massive 11" x 12" hard cover tome, chock full of illustrations, liner notes, photos, and a full page description with pictures and all sorts of extra info for every track in the box. Unbelievable. This is absolutely essential for all lovers of strange sounds and weird music as well as being perfect for history buffs too. And as it's that gift giving season, we can't possibly imagine a more perfect and amazing gift! WOW!
These are a bit too expensive to keeep a bunch in stock, but if you want one let us know and we'll be getting as many as we need next week!
Latest musician curated compilation on Arthur Magazine's Bastet imprint. Curated this time around by Ethan Miller of Comets on Fire, it of course features songs from both CoF and Comets off-shoots Colossal Yes, Six Organs of Admittance, and August Born. But there is also lots of other new and old noisy and folky weirdness from Albert Ayler, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Michael Yonkers, Ghost, and Brother JT among others. One of the most interesting tracks is by the mysterious Shit Spangled Banner, a band we couldn't find much information on because the page in the booklet is oddly missing (although a few AQ'ers have some old SSB tapes!). Beard, Bread & Bear's Prayers is of course equal parts noisy and folky, soft and harsh, given the penchants of Miller's musical dichotomy with Comet's noisy psych and seventies west coast rock. Sweet!
Sometimes you just have to know when to say "No Corky!" and lift the needle from the record or press 'eject'. This compilation is one of those times. Hate to say it, but it seems ol' Crippled Dick have let us down this time with Between Or Beyond The Northern Lights. A shame considering how we've applauded and eagerly anticipated their ecclectic array of artists and compilations (including the super groovy, kitschful Pop-Shopping and Shake Sauvage collections as well as releases from Oxbow and Peter Thomas). Subtitled "Rare Fusion From Scandinavia 1967 -1978, this sort of sounds like the bland jazz you'd hear seeping out of the cocktail lounge of a '70s hotel. A bevy of poodling saxophones and muted trumpets, an occasional burp of analog synth, omnipresent tik-teeek-tik hihats, and tootily flute... you get the idea! Eck.
The UK's Outcaste label strikes again with this fab compilation of "Indo-Jazz", 14 tracks of Indian-music infused jazz, uh, fusion from the '70s. We're told most tracks are taken from super rare and collectable records and we don't doubt it. Funky, fun stuff with tabla, sitar, and so forth mixing it up with various Western electric instruments. Way more than those lame DJ-mixed "Bombay
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Down From The Mountain is a recording of a live concert held at the Ryman Auditorium (a.k.a. The Grand Ole Opry) that featured many of the artists that appeared on the soundtrack to the Cohen Bros. popular film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The concert was documented on film by D.A. Pennebaker (who directed the renowned film on Bob Dylan "Don't Look Back" among many other
Several ESP-Disc classics have been re-pressed onto 180-gram vinyl by some nice Italians, whoo-ooo! A great early 70's Sun Ra cosmic keyboard/spacefunk concert, *the* essential Patty Waters avant-jazz-vocal platter (with "Black Is the Color Of My True Loves Hair"), a freaky underground scene sound collage document (with the likes of the VU and Allen Ginsberg), and an all-star free jazz soundtrack from '65 with Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, John Tchicai, Gary Peacock, and Sunny Murray! And, as the now-deleted cd reissues of these are becoming harder and harder to come by, just in time.
Another incredible collection from Soul Jazz, this one focusing on jazz from the sixties, seventies and early eighties and how that music, and the lives of the performers intersected with the civil rights movement.
As jazz developed and radicalized in the sixties, African American artists began to rebel against the stereotypical image and role of the jazz musician, reimagining their music, the sounds, looking to Africa for inspiration, turning their back in the mainstream, and approaching their music more as art than entertainment, resulting in some of the most revolutionary music made in America, and producing all manner of musical hybrids as well as all sorts of musical and cultural organizations. The booklet is super informative, and will most likely have you wanting to read and learn more. And the music here perfectly captures all the energy, confusion, turmoil, pain, suffering, anger, despair, sadness, hopefulness and joy of the era. Lots of familiar faces: Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Joe McPhee, Gato Barbieri, Philip Cohran, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Joe Henderson, but also tons of amazing groups we'd never heard before. And the sounds are all over the map, straight up post bop jazz, wild skronky free jazz, groovy Shaft style jazz funk jams, wah wah guitars, soulful vox, intense tribal drum workouts, smokey late night grooves, some spoken word, some jazz almost verging on dub, lots of African influences for sure, in the instrumentation, the chant like vocals, the arrangements, some amazing flute action, some seriously intense and unique sounds and songs, and we're now on the hunt for records by most of the artists we heard here for the first time, which is always the sign of a great compilation, and this is most certainly a great compilation.
Gorgeous packaging, with a massive booklet packed with tons of photos and extensive liner notes... a great companion to the rad coffee table book of album cover art Soul Jazz also released under this title, reviewed last list.
NOW ON VINYL! This is part one...
Another incredible collection from Soul Jazz, this one focusing on jazz from the sixties, seventies and early eighties and how that music, and the lives of the performers intersected with the civil rights movement.
As jazz developed and radicalized in the sixties, African American artists began to rebel against the stereotypical image and role of the jazz musician, reimagining their music, the sounds, looking to Africa for inspiration, turning their back in the mainstream, and approaching their music more as art than entertainment, resulting in some of the most revolutionary music made in America, and producing all manner of musical hybrids as well as all sorts of musical and cultural organizations. The booklet is super informative, and will most likely have you wanting to read and learn more. And the music here perfectly captures all the energy, confusion, turmoil, pain, suffering, anger, despair, sadness, hopefulness and joy of the era. Lots of familiar faces: Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Joe McPhee, Gato Barbieri, Philip Cohran, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Joe Henderson, but also tons of amazing groups we'd never heard before. And the sounds are all over the map, straight up post bop jazz, wild skronky free jazz, groovy Shaft style jazz funk jams, wah wah guitars, soulful vox, intense tribal drum workouts, smokey late night grooves, some spoken word, some jazz almost verging on dub, lots of African influences for sure, in the instrumentation, the chant like vocals, the arrangements, some amazing flute action, some seriously intense and unique sounds and songs, and we're now on the hunt for records by most of the artists we heard here for the first time, which is always the sign of a great compilation, and this is most certainly a great compilation.
NOW ON VINYL! This is part two...
Another incredible collection from Soul Jazz, this one focusing on jazz from the sixties, seventies and early eighties and how that music, and the lives of the performers intersected with the civil rights movement.
As jazz developed and radicalized in the sixties, African American artists began to rebel against the stereotypical image and role of the jazz musician, reimagining their music, the sounds, looking to Africa for inspiration, turning their back in the mainstream, and approaching their music more as art than entertainment, resulting in some of the most revolutionary music made in America, and producing all manner of musical hybrids as well as all sorts of musical and cultural organizations. The booklet is super informative, and will most likely have you wanting to read and learn more. And the music here perfectly captures all the energy, confusion, turmoil, pain, suffering, anger, despair, sadness, hopefulness and joy of the era. Lots of familiar faces: Archie Shepp, Sun Ra, Joe McPhee, Gato Barbieri, Philip Cohran, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Joe Henderson, but also tons of amazing groups we'd never heard before. And the sounds are all over the map, straight up post bop jazz, wild skronky free jazz, groovy Shaft style jazz funk jams, wah wah guitars, soulful vox, intense tribal drum workouts, smokey late night grooves, some spoken word, some jazz almost verging on dub, lots of African influences for sure, in the instrumentation, the chant like vocals, the arrangements, some amazing flute action, some seriously intense and unique sounds and songs, and we're now on the hunt for records by most of the artists we heard here for the first time, which is always the sign of a great compilation, and this is most certainly a great compilation.
One can always count on Johnny Trunk of the amazing Trunk records for making a mix that is as hilarious and head-scratching as it is beautifully listenable. When asked by strangers what kind of music his label releases, Trunks's response is usually, "you know, funny old shit", which if you think about it is the perfect response to describe the kinds of audible curiosities he reissues, from long forgotten children's TV show soundtracks to obscure novelty records and forgotten jazz greats. A few of the tracks included here are from earlier out of print reissues in the Trunk catalog such as Leona Anderson's wonderfully awful Music To Suffer By, but many of the tracks are from Trunk's private record collection, likely highlighting the best tracks on perhaps otherwise less interesting albums. You get a full gamut of styles and genres from novelty calypso songs from Robert Mitchum and Bernard Cribbins, space-lounge jazz from Alain Romans and Sergio Mihanovich, musique concrete from Pierre Henry and Pierre Schaffer, the punk dub of The Jellies, classical piano from Glenn Gould, ethnic music curios and warped kid songs. So great and for a real nice price, you'd be foolish not to pick this up! (And sorry, the more expensive vinyl version is now gone it seems.)
From the label that brought us Dust Sucker and Mersey Trout (the Magic Band live in Liverpool) comes a collection of recordings -- from the 1920's to the 1960's -- which serve to illuminate the vast musical influences of the enigmatic and inimitable Don Van Vliet a.k.a Captain Beefheart. As one might imagine, such a musical map would surely cut a broad swath. While many of the tracks have a direct connection to the Captain's works like "New Minglewood Blues" by the Noah Lewis Jug Band, whose opening lines are exactly the same as "Sure 'Nuff 'n' Yes I Do". Other tracks, like those by Blind Willie Johnson and Rahsaan Roland Kirk point out obvious influences on Vliet's vocal style and proclivity for playing two wind instruments at once. While the majority of tracks here are early blues & string band recordings -- Blind Blake, Victoria Spivey & Lonnie Johnson, Uncle Bud Landress, Al Simmons, Blind Joe Taggert, among others -- there's also plenty of jazz cuts -- Charlie Parker, Cab Calloway -- and oddballs like Lord Buckley, The Fang and Hawaiian slack key players Kanui & Lula. On top of all this are interspersed rare tracks of the Magic Band, interview snippets and random remarks from Captain Beefheart. Whether you're a fan of Captain Beefheart or not, you just might like this collection anyhow as just an interesting mix cd.
24 classic tracks of deadly glamour from a venerable who's who of twentieth century torch song: Billie Holiday, Eartha Kitt, Rita Hayworth, Ginger Rogers, Doris Day, Mae West, Kay Starr, Shirley Bassey, Marlene Dietrich, Mitzi Gaynor, Carmen Miranda, Jean Harlow, Julie Christie, Peggy Lee, Josephine Baker, and Marilyn Monroe. Sizzling!
A tribute to Antonioni's 1966 classic film "Blow-Up". Features a wide range of contributors including Matmos, Sun City Girls, Starfuckers, Dean Roberts, Richard Youngs, Arthur Doyle (!), Loren Mazzacane Connors, William Parker, Amy Denio, Dorgon, Mushroom and Birdsong's Air Force. Vinyl only.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
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Jazz legend Dave Brubeck gets the tribute treatment courtesy of John Zorn's Avant label, who have gathered together a bunch of the usual suspects to cover Brubeck's compositions. For me, the highlight is the Ruins' version of "Blue Rondo A La Turk", a piece tailor-made for their hyper, heavy, and humorous delivery, but we also hear from the likes of Bill Frisell, Uri Caine, Dave Douglas, Joey Baron, Eyvind Kang, Erik Friedlander, Anthony Coleman, and Medeski, Martin, & Wood among others. Quite enjoyable.
BACK IN STOCK! We thought these Charly BYG/Actuel reissue cds were gone forever, but lo! here they are again. Dunno what's up, but get 'em while you can. This is one of the essentials in the series, a triple disc box set sampler which includes tracks from the other four BYG/Actuel reissues listed here (Sun Ra, Shepp, Don Cherry, and the Art Ensemble) as well as rare material by Sonny
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Yes, it's "The Fiddler On The Roof" as interpreted by an interesting selection Knitting Factory friends. The Magnetic Fields do "If I Were A Rich Man," Negativland does "Tevye's Dream", The Residents do "Matchmaker"...you get the idea. Definitely a fun concept.
(Although whether this has a deeper meaning in the context of the downtown NYC new Jewish music movement I don't know). KF's Michael Dorf says "the inspiration for this project came from a combination of humor and commercialism." Other participants include David S. Ware, Uri Caine, Eugene Chadbourne, Elliott Sharp, Come, Hasidic New Wave, The New Orleans Klezmer Allstars, Naftule's Dream, Jill Sobule, and the Paradox Trio.
This just might be the coolest compilation ever. A musical compendium focused on the sound, singers and groups, who were in some way linked to the infamous Jewish mafia, aka the "Kosher Nostra", an organization including such underworld legends as Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, Dutch Schultz, Louis "Lepke" Buchalter and Meyer Lansky, a group who worked alongside the more well known American mafia, and who had a huge influence on popular music, creating a musical movement that was equal parts big band, jazz, swing and Yiddish music, a musical scene which existed parallel to the mainstream, with its own radio shows, record labels, and superstars. Organized by the artist Oz Almog, who is also a curator at the Jewish Museum in Vienna, and who created a high profile exhibition of his original paintings of Jewish gangsters, along with articles, biographies and crime scene sketches, along with someone named Shantel who wrote his thesis on the Kosher Nostra and did extensive research on organized crime and its influence on American musical culture, all of which is detailed in the massive booklet that accompanies this compilation. But even knowing nothing about the roots of these tracks, the music here is amazing, from Connie Francis doing a classic Yiddish tune, to Tom Jones singing the super dramatic "My Yiddishe Mamme", from The Andrews Sisters first big hit "Bei Mir Bistu Sheyn" to Chubby Checker singing in Yiddish on "Misirlou", Solomon Schwartz's fuzzy groovy version of the Jewish classic "Hava Nagila", tracks from Al Jolson (with the Andrews Sisters), Sophie Tucker and loads more. Some of the tracks live, others presented as part of old time radio shows, complete with announcers and advertisements, a gorgeous, and fascinating glimpse into this remarkable social and musical subculture, or as the label describes it "an unparalleled journey back in time to the music clubs, vaudeville theaters and gambling casinos of the 1920s to the '60s bearing compelling witness to this enormously diverse and truly remarkable fusion of styles". Easily our reissue/compilation of the year so far. So totally great!
Fantastic packaging, a massive booklet, loaded with extensive liner notes on the music, and the history of the Kosher Nostra, lots of pictures do, the cd in a similarly designed digipack, all housed in a swank slipcover.
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Another new and truly amazing compilation (the first in a series of ten!) from our current favorite German label, Trikont. On this you'll hear musicians from vastly varied genres and times covering the same song: "La Paloma". From Charlie Parker, to Carla Bley, to Jelly Roll Morton, to Amon Duul, to slack key wizard Ray Kane, to Tex-Mex guru Flaco Jimenez, to... Ahh, there's a bunch here that you and I have never heard of, but that will kick your butt. Must be heard to be believed... No, just plain must be heard.
What better way to celebrate the birth of our country (we're writing this on July 4th) than with this fantastic compilation of spiritual jazz, civil rights anthems and protest speeches from Bob Thiele's independent jazz label, Flying Dutchman. Spanning the years 1969-1974, Thiele began the Flying Dutchman label after years running ABC's modern jazz imprint Impulse records, where he produced John Coltrane and introduced free jazz to a wider audience. After a petty dispute with that label involving Thiele's choice to produce and release Louis Armstrong's last big hit, "What A Wonderful World" (which Thiele co-wrote under a pseudonym), Thiele made the move to be independent of big record labels in order to be able to release records he thought needed to be heard. His biggest star on Flying Dutchman was Gil Scott-Heron, whose "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" sets the tone for this release. Marked by black power anthems, cosmic spirituality and spoken word pieces by Angela Davis, H. Rap Brown, and Carl B. Stokes, the first elected black mayor of a large American city (Cleveland), Liberation Music speaks truth to power in incredible focus of one of the more exciting jazz labels of the sixties and seventies. For anyone who dug the Spiritual Jazz comps, this is essential!
Maybe this will make up for all the Satanic Norwegian church-burning music we sell! A compilation of, as the subtitle puts it, "A Selection Of Norwegian Christian Jazz, Psych, Funk & Folk 1970-1980". And it's quite fantastic. Quasi-kitschy Xtian funky and folky fun, with an acid-rock edge, really good stuff indeed, and 'cause the lyrics are all in Norwegian, those of us with an aversion to God-talk can comfortably listen to this without feeling like we're being preached to! Well you can tell when they sing "Hallelujah" and "Jesus" but the accent makes it cool. Apparently, there was quite a burgeoning youth-oriented Christian music scene and attendant recording industry in Norway in the '70s, kickstarted in the late '60s by something called the Ten-Sing or Teenage Singing movement, a kind of Norwegian version of Up With People!, further powered by the whole Jesus Freak thing that came along when hippies everywhere started to find God. So, this music, while Christian, isn't exactly square. It's full of fuzz guitars and fuzzy analog synth, gorgeous female vocals and bombastic brass, and is moving not just in spiritual way, but also movin' in more of a GROOVY kind of way. And is very delightfully very seventies sounding, from jazzy disco fusion to rock opera to delicate singer-songwriter stuff. There's 20 tracks in all on this import cd (13 on the vinyl version), sunshiney testifyin' from the following artists: Joyful Singers, Good News, That's Why, Arnold Borud, Keryx, The Crossing, Angelos, Sky Sing, The Heralds, Jan Simonsens, Kari Hansa & Gregers Hes, Grete Salomensen, Soli Deo, Reflex, and Presens. The digipak cd comes with a 36 page booklet, and the lp too has a printed insert, featuring extensive liner notes and vintage photos.
Hip '70s Norwegian groovy gospel music, who knew? Hallelujah! Highly recommended.
Similar in spirit to the AACM (the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) collective out of Chicago, The Tribe was a collective of free-spirited musicians in Detroit, some of them former Motown session players, who produced and distributed independent recordings by local musicians to foster their own community and have their own creative control of marketing and artistic freedom. Founded by Phil Ranelin and Wendell Harrison, the collective also included Marcus Belgrave, Harold McKinney and Doug Hammond. Musically, The Tribe leaned more to the soul and funk side of jazz, often sounding similar in vibe to Roy Ayers and Donald Byrd rather than the freer sounds of the AACM which included the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Philip Cohran. The Tribe were similarly community minded, but displayed a more activist bent politically, trying to arouse a sense of communal pride and self-reliance in a city beseiged by economic woes, first in the relocation of Motown from Detroit to Los Angeles, and then in the long decline of the auto industry. They did this not only by making and releasing music, but also through the monthly publishing of the Tribe magazine, "Detroit's first black awareness magazine" which featured articles on history, politics, business and culture. While the collective only lasted five years, their output has continued to inspire. In fact, Carl Craig recently brought Tribe members back together to record for the first time in thirty years. Universal Sound has done an amazing job of anthologizing their collective output and this release features a 60 page booklet of history, photos and articles form the Tribe magazine, complete with vintage advertisements from local businesses. Fans of the Sounds of Liberation release or that Spiritual Jazz compilation on Now Again should definitely check this out. So freaking cool!
