There's been a recent upsurge in free jazz compilations documenting the creative upheaval that followed the revolutionary call for social justice in the sixties and seventies throughout Europe and America. There was the great Spiritual Jazz series, as well as the Flying Dutchman label Liberation music comp, and also another disc we haven't had a chance to review yet called Bridging The New Age which looks really great too. Hopefully we can review that one soon, but in the meantime, there is this new comp called Mobilisation Generale that documents the creative post-1968 revolution period in France. Back then, students were rioting and the whole country was practically on strike. While rock music may have been the protest soundtrack in America, in France, they were inspired by the American free-jazz of Ornette Coleman, Eric Dolphy, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler, and most notably the Art Ensemble of Chicago. The latter group's historic concert at the Theatre du Vieux Colombier in Paris opened many minds to a freer music made by a community of politically charged musicians unfettered by traditions and structures. The group went on to record music both with radical chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine and French black actor Alfred Panou (both included here), setting up a stage of free music that set to break boundaries musically throughout the seventies. Documenting the fertile period between 1970-1976 before punk and disco changed everything, Mobilisation Generale is a look into the radical underground made urgent through groundbreaking ideas and a vital communal need for change. Includes tracks by Brigitte Fontaine and Areski, Alfred Panou & The Art Ensemble of Chicago, Atarpop 73 & Le Collectif Le Temps Des Cerises. RK Nagati, Frederic Rufin & Raphael Lecomte, Francois Tusques, Mahjun, Full Moon Ensemble, Baroque Jazz Trio, Michel Roques, Chene Noir and Beatrice Arnac.
Crate-diggers have long looked to Library music (anonymously created music cues made available for use in film) for obscure hip-hop and funk breaks. Back in 2000, Strut Records released this survey on the KPM library originally intending to create a series dedicated to mining the archives of UK's foremost music libraries. It has now been reissued in a deluxe format that includes a bonus cd of a live reunion concert at London's Jazz Cafe with KPM's top performers, Alan Hawkshaw (The Mohawks), Keith Mansfield, and Alan Parker, dubbed The KPM All Stars. The album proper also includes tracks by John Cameron, Les Baxter and a host of others focusing on funk, soul, Latin, jazz, and disco with a gritty seventies urban vibe. Break beats are plentiful, but what is most stunning is the solid session player chops being presented especially on the live disc, not to mention the stunning vocals by Madeline Bell on "That's What Friends Are For" (not the Dionne Warwick song of the same name, thankfully!). Fans of Gilles Peterson, or rare soul and jazz groove. take note! There's also a gatefold double lp version that includes both cds with it as well.
From the liner notes: "This compilation of historical masterpieces by renowned Jewish cantors eloquently communicates the rare beauty and power of one of the world's strongest and most moving musical traditions. These selections represent the finest work by many of the greatest cantors of the 20th century. There is a 36 page book included, offering indepth background and biographical information as well as countless rare historical photos."
In just a few years, Soul Jazz has pretty much cornered the market on gorgeously packaged and imaginatively assembled compilations of forgotten funk, soul that had slipped through the cracks, essential dub and reggae, and even some eighties No Wave! So it was only a matter of time before they tackled sixties free jazz! Soul Jazz places their focus square on the evolving black experience, as it was filtered through musical exploration. Avant garde free jazz indeed, but incorporating all sorts of fuzzy funky soul and groovy bits of R&B into a strangely unique voice of a generation. Most of you probably know a lot of these groups, and most likely many of these tracks, but the impact both socially and artistically becomes much more evident, especially for those new to this stuff, when viewed in the context of the artists they developed alongside, and the voice of a community that resulted from this fertile period and a divine yet unlikely convergence of genius players and mind blowing composers. All it takes is a quick glance at the lineup: Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Sun Ra, Rashied Ali, Frank Lowe, Archie Shepp, Alice Coltrane, Eddie Gale and more. But it wouldn't be a Soul Jazz joint without the introduction of a handful of lesser knowns, who more than stack up to the big names. Paris Smith, Travis Biggs, Amina Claudine Myers, East New York Ensemble and on and on. From the wild block party free for all of Mulawi's "Street Rap" to the brooding shuffling classic jazz workout of Sun Ra's "Angels And Demons At Play" to the haunting vibes of Paris Smith's "Pentatonia" to Amina Claudine Myers' "Have Mercy On Us", a rambunctious percussion free for all that slowly builds into a rollicking Santana-ish jam with warm organs and soulful vocals. Every track on here is amazing. And folks who have been a little wary of "free jazz" might find some of this quite pleasing with some of the free-jazz jagged edges smoothed out with warm grooves and slinky soul, and folks who were never much into funk and soul (like me) might find some of these tracks mighty appealing when that funk and soul is stirred wildly into a broiling cauldron of freaked out avant jazz. Such is the genius of Soul Jazz, and of course all the artists on this compilation. Packaged in a beautiful slip cover with a MASSIVE booklet packed with Soul Jazz's always impressive and informative liner notes!
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.
Marking their 10 year anniversary as THE purveyor of quaint, vintage, obscure and unflinchingly British ear candy, Trunk Records has released a splendid compilation of the cream from *most* of their best releases from the past decade. Most is the key word here as three of their best releases, the awesome soundtracks to "The Wicker Man", "Psychomania", and the unreleased film music of "Dawn of The Dead" are not represented. But Trunk has always been a mixed bag label, and odd horror scores were only one facet of their obsession, the others being pastoral jazz, long forgotten children's songs, off-kilter ad jingles, library music, documentary film scores, and cosmically avant-garde electronic compositions. If you were curious about any of their past releases such as the Fuzzy Felt Folk compilation of obscure children's folk, or the Sven Libaek anthology of underwater documentary soundtracks, or the Michael Garrick Trio's lost cosmic jazz, or any of Basil Kirchan's sublimely eccentric compositions (all of the above are awesome BTW!) but wary to commit to a full album then this compilation might be a smoother introduction to Trunk's unusual tastes. What's even better is that 7 of the 22 tracks are previously unreleased with inclusions from Delia Derbyshire, Herbie Hancock, Douglas Wood and Paul Lewis. Please note that the sound samples are from the unreleased selections because many of the Trunk releases we had already thoroughly reviewed, so if you are curious about what Michael Garrick, Sven Libaek or the Fuzzy Felt Folk comp sounds like, check out the reviews and samples elsewhere on our site. They are all worth your time. Congrats Trunk!
With its self-explanatory subtitle, "Oasis" compiles some of the recent work from the Mills College faculty, including Chris Brown, Fred Frith, Pauline Oliveros, Maggi Payne, John Bischoff, and Alvin Curran. What, no Willie Winant? As a whole, the Mills
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Released to accompany the (fantastic) David Toop book of the same name: Aphex Twin, ("Sextant"-era) Herbie Hancock, long-missing-in-action My Bloody Valentine, John Cage, Satie, Les Baxter (R.I.P.), Beach Boys, Miles Davis, Zorn, Debussy, Sun Ra, plus bearded seals and howler monkeys and much more. Meticulously paced with an eye to flow and variety -- a stylistically broader compilation probably has never existed. [/cat/compilationsplit59.html]
Awesome two disc introduction to the amazing ESP Disc label, arguably one of the most important labels in the history of free jazz. Not sure what to say about this collection, other than if you have ANY interest in the history of jazz, modern free jazz, and modern new music in general, and have yet to dip into the ESP label, not only have you been missing out on some of the most amazing and important music of the twentieth century, you should go out and buy every ESP record you can get your hands on. Or barring that, pick this up, and after listening to this endlessly over and over as you almost inevitably will, THEN, go out and buy every ESP record you can find.
Just look at the lineup: Marzette Watts, Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Milford Graves, Sunny Murray, Charles Tyner, Giuseppi Logan, Fred Hampton, Ornette Coleman, Sonny Simmons, The Free Music Quintet and more more more!
It's a little frustrating as most of these tracks are edits, culled from looooong tracks, but they're definitely enough to whet your ears. A gorgeous assemblage of horns that moan and skronk, wheeze and wail, drums ALL OVER THE PLACE, from subtle shuffle to full on chaotic splatter, basses throbbing and slithering, every single track on here, be it slow and shimmery, or blown out and wild, is absolute perfection.
As if two discs of amazing music wasn't enough, they come with a perfect bound book, written by this collection's compiler. Who happens to be Wu Ming 1, a member of the Wu Ming collective of anonymous Italian authors (Allan's been reading their bleak historical-political novel, Q). It includes an excerpt in both English and Italian from his solo-written novel, New Thing, about free jazz and 'black' music, as well as a handful of amazing never before seen photos, as well as track by track notes for all the songs. Both the cds (housed in a folded oversized jacket) and the book are packaged in a super swank slip cover. The perfect introduction to ESP. You will never listen to modern music the same way again.
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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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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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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THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Over the last few years, thanks to the enthusiastic efforts of a bunch of excellent globally-focused "research & reissue" labels, the typical AQ customer, as a dedicated sonic adventurer in the pursuit of cool music, has likely amassed quite a collection of vintage international pop, often on the psychedelic side of things, lots of great stuff previously obscure to Western ears. We've been introduced to surf rock from Thailand, funk from India, fuzz rock from Africa, film music from Pakistan, etc., etc. One of our faves has to be B-Music's Pomegranates comp of Persian grooves from the pre-revolutionary era, the '60s and '70s. Now here's a double cd/triple lp collection on Vampisoul deeply mining the same territory. And chances are, you'll recognize some of the names on here, like Googoosh and Kourosh Yaghmaei, from various other reissues/anthologies that have come out recently.
There's 28 tracks/treats dusted off from a scene that "flourished during the 1960s and 1970s before vanishing into exile or oblivion." Sadly, it was the same story elsewhere in the world too - political repression clamping down (with varying degrees of terminal harshness) on the era's vibrant pop music scenes in such far flung locales as Cambodia, Ethiopia, Brazil, and, under consideration here, Iran.
The Shah might have sucked, but as the liner notes here put it, after the Ayatollah took over, "'having fun' was banned entirely"! And what fun this is, the songs selected here chock full of impassioned crooning, lush swirling orchestration, bombastic dance beats, slinky grooves, some doleful acoustic balladry, and of course much in the way of ornate ethnic Eastern motifs... It's like an infectious Iranian blend of 50's exotica, '60s easy listening, '70s disco... with some strong hints of freakier, more psychedelic youth sounds like funk and rock. And most of it would make a great soundtrack if the Love Boat ever took Persian Gulf cruise.
Artists include: Abbas Mehrpouya, Fereidoon Farrokhzad, Neli, Habib, Hamid Shabkhiz, Simin Ghanem, Dariush, Ahmad Zahir (who is from Afghanistan, but presumably had his records released in Iran), Aref, Leila Forouhar, Giti, Hassan Khayatbashi, Googoosh, Shohreh, Afshin Maghaddam, and Kourosh Yaghmaei. The thick cd booklet (or lp sleeve) contains plenty of interesting notes on each of 'em, each artist/track boasting an informative blurb, lyric translations, and full-color photo. There's a comedian with an operatic voice (and unfortunate Hitler mustache), an openly gay poet/TV host/political scientist (assassinated in exile, presumably by agents of the Revolutionary regime), and many attractive songbirds with celebrated hairstyles....
Wonderful, educational compilation featuring Pharoah Sanders, Archie Shepp, John Coltrane, and Alice Coltrane (who does an intense version of "A Love Supreme.") Money goes to the Red Hot organization which fights AIDS.
FYI: if you *don't* like naked ladies, you'll want to avoid perusal of this disc's booklet, which mostly consists of vintage full-color cheesecake shots of a bevy of well-endowed "soul sisters". But don't let that put you off... just forget for one second that this cd is billed as a collection of '70s African-American porno flick soundtracks. For one thing, it sure doesn't sound like the typical "boogie nights" retro-porn soundtrack. No cheesy throbbing synths or disco beats. No orgiastic moans even! Instead, what you get here is avant-groove jazz funk of an almost experimental, freeform nature. The vibe can be lively but not "sleazy"... bad-ass though. Very funky and full of nasty geetar and jamming Hammond organ.
To tell the truth, there's so very little documentation presented here that we can't say we're 100 percent convinced that this is what it says it is, instead of something perhaps made by some clever musicans today creating replica vintage avant-funk soundtrack for imaginary x-rated flicks... though we should stress have no evidence of that at all, and we'd be mighty impressed if that was the case. Supposedly these tapes were recently found in a studio in Oakland, where the recordings we're told took place circa 1972-75, and the musicans that get credited here were, it seems, operating under pseudonyms (for obvious reasons perhaps). The films are alluded to only in the track titles, but who knows if those cited are real (anyone seen "Chocolate Cherry"?). There's no dialogue or sound effects or anything, since this is the original, raw soundtrack music only, what later was to be utilized perhaps in edited form in the finished film. Puzzling. But no matter, this stuff IS great!
There's the aforementioned avant-funk that surely fits into the '70s blaxploitation aesthetic, but this funk is full of sizzling feedbacking guitar that is hard to square with scenes of, um, lovemaking. But actually a lot of this is in more of an introspective mood that the wah-funk stereotype. More laidback that about getting laid. A long portion of track five ("Music From 'Copper Cuties'") consists of variations on a pensively repeating, gentle piano figure, generating a mood far from you might expect to be "exposed" to in an ostensibly X-rated flick. And only the last track "Jam Back At The House" has vocals, they go with that cut's smokey groove but do serve to break the almost mysterious feel set by the preceeding tracks a little. Overall, this is way more amazing than we ever thought it would be. What we though might be kitschy and/or kookily amusing turned out to be downright fresh and intriguing.
Miles Davis had a track on his album Get Up With It entitled "Rated X" -- maybe he'd been checking out the cinema and was inspired by one of the films that used music like this? Definitely this comes close to what we'd imagine would be how that "big freak" would have scored a porno soundtrack!!
So, this is one for fans of those Deep Note porno soundtrack comps and maybe moreso for folks who simply dig weird and wonderful jazz/funk obscurities, which would seem to be a lot of people who hear it (and then buy it) when we've been playing it in the store!
This isn't quite what we expected, but it is amazing and beautiful and we can't stop listening to it in the store. So what were we expecting? Well, from the title, we thought this would be a compilation of some Impulse, Actuel, ESP, and Black Jazz label style majestic free jazz, a la John and Alice Coltrane, Albert Ayler, Pharaoh Sanders, Sun Ra, Don Cherry, Philip Cohran etc. And to some extent it is, but looking at the track listings, we hardly recognized any of the people or groups on here, except perhaps for Ronnie Boykins and Salah Ragab & The Cairo Jazz Band. Other folks like Mor Thiam, The Frank Derrick Total Experience, The Lightmen Plus One and Ndikho Xaba & The Natives among many others were completely new to us. And while at times the music here is majestic, it focuses less on the cerebral, higher minded forms of free jazz, and more on the burgeoning post-Coltrane musical underground that fostered from the communal spirit, personal reform and the celebration of African heritage prevalent in the African-American community following the civil-rights era. Culled from rare 45's, private press lps and obscure studio albums, seriously, this is some groovy shit! Sengalese percussionist and bandleader Mor Thiam's infectious "Ayo Ayo Nene (Blessing For The New Born Baby)" is definitely one of our picks for jam of the year! Other highlights include Bay area based, P.E Hewitt Jazz Ensemble (featured on the Record Store Day Comp, This LP Crashes Hard Drives!) and the funk groove of the Ohio Penitentiary 511 Jazz Ensemble, a group comprised of prison inmates. There are a great selection of tracks using unusual Asian and African instrumentation such as Diembe, Santur (a 72 stringed Iranian dulcimer like instrument), something called a Seaweed Horn, and of course mbiras, flutes, congas, vibes and horns aplenty. We've been getting a lot of awesome spiritual free jazz in the store lately from the recently reissued Don Cherry / Latif Khan collaboration (reviewed on this list as well, Record Of The Week in fact) and The Pyramids reissues (two of which are also reviewed elsewhere on this list) and this fits in quite nicely. So good!
Another amazing installment of the Spiritual Jazz series, and after volumes focusing on America, and Europe, and Americans in Europe, this time the series broadens its focus to the rest of the world. No small feat there, since the idioms of how jazz became defined in America and in Europe developed from a multiplicity of cultural musical traditions around the globe. But this volume is not about the ethnic origins of jazz, but how the popularity of jazz reflectively spread its influences back into the ethnic communities from which they originated. Largely culled from major label recordings as well as obscure private releases, this volume travels from remote Africa to Great Britain, Argentina to the Caribbean, and across Russia through Asia to deliver an incredible account of how music gets transformed through regional influences and nuances.
Includes tracks by: Charlie Munro Quartet, Paul Winter Sextet, Fitz Gore, Ahmadu Jarr, Eric Nomvete's Big Five, The Braz Gonsalves 7, Tete Mbambisa, Aquila, The London Experimental Jazz Quartet, Hideo Shiraki, Chivo Borraro, Jazz Semai, Jazz Work Shop, Virgilio Armas Y Su Cuarteto, Louiz Banks, Oladepo Ogomodede, and Jorge Lopez Ruiz.
Every volume has been spectacularly great, and this one is a fine place to start if you haven't heard the others.
Now this is the kind of church we'd attend. Not so much ecstatic gospel choirs and salvation sermons, but rather a deep open meditative environment tapped into an intuitive kinetic and vibrating communal groove carrying angelic voices of universal uplift. Space, form and light.
The sixth installment of Jazzman's great Spiritual Jazz series devotes itself entirely to the spiritual vocal, with excellent contributions from the sixties through the eighties from both obscure and famous jazz musicians around the world. Male and female voices in solo form or groups, these pieces are not necessarily religious, but whether slow and reverent, or kaleidoscopically propulsive, each song shares a gathering intention of cosmic unity, African awareness, and a long-suffering passion for justice and natural beauty. Featuring Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Sadaka, Norman Riley, E.W. Wainwright, Clifford Jordan, Pharoah Sanders, Dr. Haki R. Madhubuti, Eddie Gale, Gary Bartz, Byron Morris & Unity, Washington High School Band and Singers and The Vibration Society, this compilation also features great vocal contributions by Abbey Lincoln, Leon Thomas, Doug Hammond, Andy Bey, and Jane Sims. Fantastic!
We instantly fell in love with the first volume of this series which introduced us to many new-to-us obscure mystical jazz artists that have since become some of our all-time favorites: Lloyd Miller, P.E. Hewitt, and Mor Thiam to name a few. While that installment focussed on American based African Heritage communities that rose up after the civil rights era, this latest installment takes us to Europe and focuses on a more progressive form of deep jazz throughout Scandinavia, Spain, Germany, England, as well as Eastern European countries. This time around, we're a bit more familiar with some of the names, though there are plenty of folks new to us. Of course there is British jazzman Michael Garrick who recently passed away prior to this release. The reissue of Garrick's Moonscape on Trunk records from a few years back was one of our favorite jazz reissues, so it's nice there is an awesome previously unreleased track here. Finnish Jazz pianist Heikki Sarmonto who also had a reissue on Porter records offers up a deep tribute to Coltrane and Duke Ellington that is akin to going to church, albeit, a church in Finland. A lot of tracks including Raphael's "Archangelo" have a more reverent orchestral / choral vibe than the tracks on the first volume did, and most are not quite as overtly groovy either. Yet this fits in with the post-Coltrane developments in Jazz in Europe at the time, with artists mining new forms and directions and not merely trying to ape American jazz idioms. That's not to say there aren't any groovers here, Dutch group Hans Dulfer and Ritmo Natural bring the Latin-tinged hotness to the core with "Candy Clouds part 2". This is some seriously deep dope!
For the third installment of Jazzman's great Spiritual Jazz series, the hardworking diggers of underground jazz decided to stay on the European tip spearheaded on the second volume instead of venturing off to some other exotic location. And it's a good thing too, because how can you capture all the diverse iterations of communal jazz across so many various borders, ethnic heritages and regional communities in just one volume? What separates the two volumes thematically is that this third volume swings a lot more than the more reverent liturgical second volume, focusing on individual expression, private press visionaries and unique hybrids of Latin, Slavic and Asian influences. Obscurities abound, most tracks previously un-reissued in any form, really one of the only names we were familiar with is Jef Gilson, whom who Jazzman introduced us to on a great compilation aptly titled The Best of Jef Gilson! The suave cafe jazz sound of Gilson is a great introduction into what is an eclectic and diverse selection of hypnotic modal jazz that is uplifting, entertaining and refreshingly energetic! Along with Gilson and Mangesdorf there are great pieces by Hermann Gehlen, Palle Mikkelborg & Radiojazzgruppen, Michel Roques, Babs Robert, That's Why, Binder Quintet, The Crescendo Quintet, Dusko Goykovic, Albert Mangelsdorff Quintet, Yoki Freund Sextet, Jan Allan Quintet, Dennis Wiley, Full Moon Ensemble, Louis Xavier, and Antithesis. Yes!
This would have easily been a contender for record of the week, if we got in enough in, so it will have to do as a highly recommended highlight. But let it be known that this latest volume of Spiritual Jazz is fast becoming our favorite of the series! We loved all the others of course and the first one was hard to beat, but they really brought out the big names and heavy hitters on this volume (Sun Ra, Eric Dolphy, Don Cherry & Krzysztof Penderecki, Bobby Hutcherson, Hampton Hawes and Albert Ayler) and it's on two discs so lots of long form modal cosmic expansion is at the ready. The theme this time around is Americans in Europe and it documents a fertile period in the sixties and seventies where many American jazz musicians fed up with racism and decaying socio-economic conditions in the US found solace working in Europe on festival circuits and collaborating with great European jazz groups abroad in Denmark, France, Italy, UK and Germany, exploring new directions in sound. Many of these tracks are from rare recordings (some of them live), not released in America and are reissued here for the first time. Besides the big names, there are plenty of lesser known players like Billy Gault, Sahib Shihab, Frank Wright, Clarence Peters, Lee Konitz, Noah Howard and Grachan Moncur III. Beautifully packaged with lots of liner notes and record covers, this is some real deep and mind-expanding stuff! Like we said above, Highly Recommended!!!!
"Soul, funk, and jazz from a revolutionary era." '60s Black Power / freedom oriented tracks from the likes of The Watts Prophets, Nikki Giovanni, The Voices of East Harlem, James Brown and others.
This is the third installment in an ongoing series of compilations of experimental and avant garde artists, with its profits directed toward the National Coalition Against Censorship. Compiled by Elliot Sharp, the general concept here is to compose a
David Greenberger, NRBQ, accordionstress Miss Murgatroid (who gets better with each new recording we hear from her), Elliot Sharp (a.k.a. E#), the Residents, Splatter Trio, the Graham Connah Group, the Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet, the Coctails with Ken Vandermark, Thurston Moore with Ezra La Plante, Eugene Chadbourne, and that's less than half the con-"tribut"-ors to this collection.
Fab collection of rare, groovy tracks dug up and dusted off from back in the sixties/seventies heyday of such funky goodness. It's wide-ranging but carefully curated comp, chock full of soul, gospel, disco, soundtrack and library music of diverse geographic origin: Brazil, England, France, and the USA.... Included is Nina Simone's classic put-down "Funkier Than A Mosquito's Tweeter" but that's not the only highlight. Library disco diva Madeline Bell's title track is another. (By the way, in case you're wondering, "library music" is music recorded to be sold for commerical purposes, like in advertising, as opposed to music released to the public on its own.) We also were taken by French teen pinup France Gall's samba/jazz confection "Zozoi" also, and library music "mad scientist" Nino Nardini's "Poltergeist" too. Heck it's hard to pick favorites, all of these are definite DJ droolers. These cuts are all selections derived from the Jazzman label's series of 7" vinyl reissues, but handily enough for those of us who missed those collectables (or prefer the convenience of a cd) they've compiled some of the choicest tracks here. And we must give props to Jazzman for the well-researched linernotes complete with full-color photos, that's the way to do it!
For a lot of us, buying comps and reissues and stuff put out by Finders Keepers / B-Music is pretty much a no-brainer. These folks know their stuff. They can DJ for us anytime! So mentioning that The BYG Deal is the latest from 'em might be all we need to say, though dropping some names like Brigitte Fontaine, Jean-Claude Vannier, Daevid Allen & Gong, Giorgio Gomelsky, Robert Wyatt, Vangelis, Ame Son, and the Art Ensemble Of Chicago couldn't hurt. Or perhaps a name like Inter-Groupie Psychotherapeutic Elastic Band - never heard of 'em before, no, but they've gotta be good, right!!? (And they are, their track "Floating" anyway being a blissful bit of la-la-la space psych ceremony).
What we have here is a collection of tracks released by France's BYG, a post '68 radical rock/jazz label that flourished 'til about 1974. We'd heard of 'em before mainly in conjunction with the famed BYG/Actuel series of African-American jazz releases, stuff by the Art Ensemble, Don Cherry, Sunny Murray, etc. But this disc demonstrates that BYG (which according to one graphic here stands for Beautiful Young Generation, though elsewhere we're told it's the initials of the three label owners) was as much about psychedelic pop rock and groovy "hairy funk" as it was about avant-garde free jazz... an awesome blend in our opinion, and blend they do, some of these tracks really hard to classify. Maybe it's the "Total Space Music" of which they speak. In any case, whatever discotheque played this stuff must have been REALLY hip and happenin'.
The music here is almost all super groovy, but often quite quirky too (take Gong's circusy nursery rhyme freakout "Hip Hypnotise You" for instance!), these various tracks loaded with flute, orgasmic female vocals, heavy psych guitar, and equally heavy prog organ (running wild alongside frenetically shuffling drums on Vangelis' "Stuffed Tomato", for example, among many standout spots here). From chanteuse Valerie Lagrange's ye-ye grooves to the poppy psychedelic stomp of Coeur Magique to Banana Moon's Beefheartian crunt, this is pretty far out and awesome.
Here's the complete lineup of artists appearing here: Alice (2 tracks), Francois Wertheimer, Brigitte Fontaine and Areski, Gong (3 tracks), Alan Jack, Couer Magique (2 tracks), Valerie Lagrange, Jacques Barsamian, Alpha Beta, Ame Son (2 tracks), Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Freedom, Vangelis, Paul Semana, Inter-Groupie Psychotherapeutic Elastic Band, Banana Moon, Joachim and Rolf Kuhn. Yep, the disc is crammed, 22 tracks, almost 80 minutes, and the thick cd booklet is equally full up with full color graphics and extensive liner notes, it's amazing the compilers could dig up so much info on this stuff, considering how obscure a lot of this is, but that's their biz!
There's a few tracks you could have run across elsewhere on other reissues, but most of 'em you haven't, that's for damn sure. For instance, the awesomely named track "Astral Abuse" from the rare 7" by Alpha Beta, a one-off Vangelis project. And there's plenty more from other collector's-only, never before on cd sources.
If you liked other B-music compilations like Andy Votel's Prog Is Not A Four Letter Word, this ought to be right up your alley. Likewise if you enjoyed the two Pop Made In France comps we've listed, this is a bit like those (some of the same artists appear, in fact) but way weirder. And of course any fan of Jean-Pierre Massiera's strange productions is gonna find this of interest as well... in fact there's personnel connections to his Visitors project, and connections also to the likes of Magma and Aphrodite's Child for that matter.
Another keeper from Finders Keepers that's for sure, thankfully available domestically, complete with slipcover!
A totally mind blowing collection of artists, representing the state of 'noise' today. 55 bands, 3 cds, totally elaborate over the top packaging, a project so epic it took three labels to make it happen, but now that it's done, it was so worth the wait. So utterly gorgeous. And while we'd be the first to admit that we were a bit scared by the idea of a triple cd noise compilation, the actual state of 'noise' is actually that much of it is quite beautiful, almost all of it is surprisingly listenable, and a lot of it is downright lovely. It's not just hissing jets of white noise these days. Textural and moody, rhythmic and abstract, it might be more fair to describe this as an experimental comp rather than a noise one, but to be fair, many of these tracks are noisy in their own way. And like any comp, it's the bands you know and love that suck you in:�Burning Star Core, Guilty Connector, Dead Machines, Thurston Moore, Strotter Inst., Leslie Keffer, Earwicker, Destructo Swarmbots, Mike Shiflet, Hum Of The Druid, Sword Heaven, The Cherry Point, Herpes O Deluxe, Travis Ryan (from Cattle Decapitation), Panicsville, Gerritt & John Wiese, but what keeps you in, and earns repeat listens, is the chance to discover new weird music from bands you've never heard before: OP Rechts, Bet Hell, Josh Lay, Cotton Museum, Big China & Little Trouble, Forbes Graham, Small Life, Lovae, The Heirs Of Rockafeller, Perfect Teeth, Tonight Golden Curls, Black Meat, Door, Noveller, Jason Zeh, Teeth Collection, tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE, Skullcaster, Steve Bradley, Wether, Mermaids, Wet Hearts, Magicicada, Oblong Box, Aughra, Donna Parker, Robert Inhuman, Yellow Tears, 1thousand Holy Shards, Back From Iraq, Sick III Cell, Scutopus, Ben S. Jacobs, Blango, Decimation Blvd., Ultra//Vires, Darsombra, Subterrane. Phew. We've yet to make it through all three discs, but what we've heard so far is awesome. So much so that every time we listen to this, someone comes up to see what we're listening to, after almost every song. In fact just while this review was being written, Allan asked what was playing 3 or 4 times. The tracks are that varied, and that good. It might be a bit daunting to do a track by track description, just know that we've listened to almost the whole thing, and loved pretty much all of it, even the noisiest tracks. And it's incredibly well sequenced too, the tracks are matched and segue into each other as if it were and album proper, not a compilation. So good. Our faith in noise may have been restored!
And we haven't even discussed the packaging yet. A sturdy rectangular box with a removable lid, held together by a thick textured paper obi, gold metallic ink on red, inside, 4 thick cardstock inserts, each with unique red and gold art on one side, while on the other, one contains liner notes, the other three the track listings and band info, with the cds affixed to the center, and each cd is adorned with unique and different art. Wow. It truly is gorgeous looking, so much so that it's hard to believe it's only sixteen bucks. But we're not complaining. Not sure how limited this is, but something this nice and labor intensive, we're guessing they won't be around for long. Essential listening for lovers of modern music, noise and otherwise, and recommended especially for even the most noise-phobic among you...
Featuring Josh Jones with Don Cherry, Charlie Hunter and more.
The UK label Harmless collected a rowdy bunch of funkified covers here, from Dick Hyman doing "Give It Up or Turn it Loose" to a moaning diva version of "Light My Fire," the Staple Singers doing Stephen Stills, and of course one of the all time greatest covers ever -- Isaac Hayes' simmering twelve-minute rendition of Bacharach's "Walk On By" (which was recently sampled by Wu Tang Clan). Very extensive liner notes make reading and listening at the same time a great pleasure.
Kris Needs strikes again! If you've been keeping up for the past few months, you may have noticed the amazing Needs-curated Dirty Water compilations highlighting the (sometimes unlikely) inspirations for punk rock, including skronky free jazz, mid-'60s RnB mayhem, and glam, just to name a few. Needs steps up again with this impressive comp focusing on the evolution of the incredibly fertile, multicultural New York music world during the middle of the 20th century, which without question plays a major role in the city's undying allure. The years of focus here span from roughly 1945-59, and Needs, an Englishman who fell in love with NYC in the 1960s before finally landing there in 1983, is probably one of the most detail oriented compilers around. He knows how to tell a story with his compilations, rather than just putting together a bunch of songs. Like many, Needs associates NYC with its famous subway system and chose Duke Ellington's jaunty "Take The A Train" to get things started on disc 1. Other artists include legends like Frankie Lymon & The Teenagers, Louis Armstrong, Pete Seeger's Almanac Singers, Harry Belafonte, Cab Calloway, Dizzy Gillespie, Nina Simone, Billie Holiday, Miles Davis with Gil Evans, Charles Mingus, and John Cage, demonstrating the diverse array of styles and personalities that, not surprisingly, found themselves in the world's ultimate cultural hub.
Disc 2 (at least on the 2cd; the vinyl has a different track order, and fewer tracks, 25 vs. the 32 on the compact disc format) hints at things to come in the 1960s, with folk and blues giants like Josh White, Dave Van Ronk, and Sonny Terry sitting alongside Thelonious Monk, Big Maybelle, Raymond Scott, and Allen Ginsberg (reading Howl).
This compilation is clearly a labor of obsessive love and incredibly hard work. In the cd's uber-detailed, book-like liners (72 pages!), Needs notes how this represents one of the most difficult projects he has ever undertaken, and guess what? IT'S ONLY VOLUME 1!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Yet another electronic improvisation featuring Christian Fennesz, which are becoming as banal and commonplace as "electronica compilations featuring Kid 606". "Dawn" was recorded in Berlin in November, 2000 with Fennesz performing with Peter Van Bergen on
Magma's Christian Vander (with his wife, vocalist Stella Vander) and others.
More Coltrane-worship from Magma's Christian Vander and co.
More inspired jazz, Coltrane 1965 style, from Magma's Mr. Vander.
Impulse! style jazz from Magma's Vander. Includes a version of Coltrane's "Like Sonny".
Chicago reedsman Ken V. is about as far from Kenny G. as you can get.
The first thing you notice about this ESP reissue is the amazing cover photo, featuring the artist, with a sort of Hitler moustache, sunglasses and sideburns, in a hospital bed after hitting a tree in his car. The poor soul in the bed is Karel Velebny, one of the most prominent composers in Czech, who when invited to record for ESP was asked by label head Bernard Stollmann to "Take it as far out as you can". So far so good.
And while the record itself isn't really THAT far out, it is a pretty fantastic chunk of flute flecked free jazz, light on the skronk, heavy on bop and mood and texture. The opener, "The Uhu Sleeps Only During The Day" starts out all hushed and atmospheric, mostly vibes and fluttery flute, rubbery bass, lots of space, the instruments drifting in space, a wild flute freakout ushers in the band, and away we go, the drums shuffle and skitter, the flute ships wildly over the top, the bass and piano all tangled up, the vibes anchoring the whole track. The second track "Joachim Is Our Friend" is another cool groove, lots of vibes, Velebny handles both vibes and sax (as well as occasional clarinet), a whole lot more sax this time around, some cool stretches of just drums and vibes, with a sort of far out exotica feel, and a super tripped out bass solo.
"Beetles On The Head" begins with some cool saxophone harmonies, before slipping once again into some serious post Bird bop, the sound is wildly melodic, dense and complex, with a serious groove. In "Waldi On The Castle Steps", Velebny and his crew channel the spirit of Ornette Coleman, banging out a super dynamic, and ultra rhythmic workout, culminating in a bad ass drum solo. And finally, the record closer, "Andulko Safarova" finishes off with a somber elegiac drift, all long tones and notes, lots of moaning low end, strange harmonics, until the instruments drop out, leaving a cacophony of creaks and croaks, which gives way to what sounds like detuned guitar, until the flute begins a flight of fancy over deep low droning tones, creating woozy harmonies beneath a brief haunting spoken outro. Very strange for sure, and pretty far out after all.
Free jazz improv trio featuring Britishers Simon Fell on double bass, Simon Vincent on drums (and tone generator), and Graham Halliwell on alto sax & percussion. Some may know Fell from his role in the out-jazz-skronk combo Descension. But with VHF, Fell and cohorts are not nearly as ferocious, forgoing extreme volume and noise for a quieter, more sombre sound that contains much detail and tension. Slow rumbling bass, mournful sax, sparse drum-hits...moody.
We've long been fans of minimal techno maven Ricardo Villalobos, his records spare and skeletal, rhythmic and repetitive, the sort of electronic music we find utterly mesmerizing and totally irresistible. In addition to that, Villalobos does not shy away from strange sonic experiments, and is thus no stranger to odd samples, considering he made a whole record out of sounds borrowed from French prog legends Magma, so this new record really shouldn't have been that much of a surprise, nor should we have been surprised by just HOW great it turned out, but it was, and we were, which should speak to just how incredible this strange sonic experiment truly is. Villalobos teamed up with Max Loderbauer and created this sprawling double disc which is essentially a minimal techno mash up of modern classical and European jazz, with all the sounds culled from various releases on the legendary ECM label, which include, most excitingly for us, Arvo Part, but also loads of ECM stalwarts like Bennie Maupin, Paul Giger, John Abercrombie, Christian Wallumrod, Alexander Knaifel, Miroslav Vitous, Louis Sclavis, Wolfert Brederode, Enrico Rava, Stefano Bollani and Paul Motian. Never heard of any/most of those, it hardly matters, as the duo of Villalobos and Loderbauer stretch out the sounds of the originals into spare rhythmic minimalism, looping and layering, adding subtle bits of rumble and crunch, deep pulses and abstract shimmer, fields of glitch and muted crunch, but to our ears, it sounds like very little was added to the mix, and much of the magic came from deftly manipulating the originals. The techno element is really negligible here, the sound is much more abstract avant jazz, or hushed minimal drift, in fact, the sound is so unique it's quite difficult to really describe simply. The sound actually reminds us quite a bit of Aussie free jazz minimalists The Necks, the same sort of subtle shifting sonic palette and the gradual evolution of sound. Opener "Reblop" is a hushed super spare bit of solo piano, wreathed in clouds of occasional cymbal shimmer, and some melodic harp, the notes on the piano wreathed in reverb, the cymbal shimmer strangely distorted, the wide open spaces peppered with soft synthy streaks and bloopy squelches, which often mirror the melody, it's really strangely pretty, but also subtly alien. "Recat" is about as close as things here get to techno, which is not that close, but the original brushed snare rhythm is looped into a clipped minimal electronic flecked skitter, that rhythm delicately processed and gradually transformed while all around it pianos and strings unfurl melodies that become gnarled and softly distorted into new shapes, the result a sort of warped lo-fi kraut-jazz. "Resvete" is super spare and spaced out, cymbal shimmer and angelic female vocals, Villalobos and Loderbauer's contributions so subtle, that barring a few glitchy bits, it's difficult to tell how different this version is than the original, quite we're guessing, but it's so deftly transformed, that it's not hard to imagine this as just some strange slab of experimental European jazz. And the tracks that sample Arvo Part, manage to make magical music even moreso, taking Part's lush liturgical drift and making it even more washed out and ethereal, mysterious and dreamlike.
One of our favorite tracks is "Reannounce", which is very tribal, almost African sounding, hypnotic rhythms, and processed chant like vocals, underpinned by some throat singing like buzz, and some wild almost free sounding percussion, "Recurrence" too with its lazy drumming, and slo-mo late night smokey slowed down jazz feel, the whir of the trumpet buzz turned into a muted drone, the sound almost like the music is melting. "Rebird" finds the duo building what sounds like an imagined field recording, underscored by delicate, slightly warped piano, and a barely there rhythm, while "Retikhiy" sounds like some sort of alien world music, or some reimagined forest folk transformed into looped electronic minimalism. We could really go track by track, every song here is mysterious and magical, the rare sort of record that transcends it's genre, it's hard imagine anyone into adventurous music not loving this. It's jazz, it's classical, it's electronic, it's plunderphonics, but it's also none of those, the sound truly more than its constituent parts. The extensive liner notes go into great detail about the creation of this collection of songs, explaining that the duo did not have access to the original tracks, so had to use the records themselves, and thus chose tracks where rhythms and instruments were isolated in the composition, in addition, gaps and pauses and record noise, as well as the natural room sound were also sound sources, with much of this improvised live, with the intention of "combining the functionality of reduced electronic structures with the living textures of ECM productions", with the most important thing being "to harmonize these two worlds, without them aspiring to mutually deactivate each other, to keep both - the organic and the electronic - in balance." So great, definite contender for record of the year, jazz, electronic, classical or otherwise!
Atavistic's Unheard Music Series of obscure but amazing free jazz reissues (overseen by Chicago jazz musician and critic John Corbett) strikes again with this release from German pianist Alexander Von Schlippenbach and a squad of kick ass European improvisors including sax legend-to-be Peter Brotzmann, Dutch drummer extraordinare Han Bennink, trombonist Paul Rutherford, and others, including Manfred Schoof, on cornet, flugelhorn, bass, clarinet, etc. Engineer Conny Plank (later famed for his krautrock productions) put "The Living Music" to tape in April 1969, and it was originally issued on LP by both Schlippenbach's own Quasar label and then by FMP. Three-quarters of an hour of "living music" indeed: it's music full of breath, action, beauty, pulsing blood. Moody, melodic piano runs, percussive dances betwixt the drums and the horns, kinda noir-ish, sleepy interludes, and (of course!) hardcore, full-on, skree-filled blow-outs: this is the energetic free improv that you'd expect from the early days of the FMP scene. A good 'un, you jazz cats take note.
