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WOW. And do we mean WOW!! Fifteen classic free jazz records from the late sixties / early seventies, long out of print, finally getting the ULTRA deluxe reissue treatment. Incredibly limited, these will probably be out of print before you know it.
Comes in a gorgeous diecut fullcover three panel sleeve, with new artwork, as well as a huge booklet with the original album sleeve notes, new liner notes in french and english as well as a bunch of cool photos. So nice!
John Wall's "Constructions" are highly digitized collages of sonic fragments culled from the jazz-themed improvizations from John Edwards' double bass and Mark Sanders' spartan drum kit skitter within a sea of spliced samples originating from Xenakis, Ryoji Ikeda, Evan Parker, Penderecki, Beautyon, Luigi Nono, and Put Put (amongst others). Beautifully packaged in a cloth-bound book.
Three notorious Chicago musicians, led by Flying Luttenbachers drummer Weasel Walter (also of Hatewave, Lake of Dracula, To Live And Shave In LA, etc. infamy), decide to record their tribute to the late legendary Japanese free jazz guitarist Masayuki Takayangi. Dunno if Masayuji would entirely have enjoyed this, as while his music was definitely noisy (noisier than what's on here, sometimes!) there was also a beauty and restraint that's not explored on this disc. Nor would we imagine that such song titles as "Endless Corridor Of Roasted Babies", "Give Me head 'Til You're Dead", or "Slitted Tit" would appeal to him. And the Masayuki Takayanagi connection/concept here seems to have become secondary to a black metal derived aesthetic, anyway: the three musicians are pictured in corpsepaint, with evil-sounding stage names (Jim O'Rourke is dubbed "Lycanthrovampyr"), and the last track, "Triumph of Death", is a Weasel semi-ambient solo piece that sounds more influenced by Burzum than Mr. Takayanagi. Regardless, fans of over-the-top drums/cello/guitar skree (or "infernal improvised music", as these guys put it) should dig this immensely. After the first 30 minutes of "For Jojo/Freebasing Styrofoam" some will be exhausted, but that's a mere warm-up for the rest of the disc. The back-cover motto "play loud and die" sums it up.
Hrmm. What d'you think you're gonna get if you put these three Chicagoan (or ex-Chicagoan in the case of Flying Luttenbachers drummer Weasel Walter, who has relocated to San Francisco) noisenik/improv types together and call it Eruption? Yes that's right, hecka noisy claptrap! Weasel's drums spasticate all over the 40 short tracks on this hour-long album, while Drumm's electric guitar, synth, tapes, pedals, and other electronic appliances get equally excited. Sawing away alongside those two maniacs, the cello of Lonberg-Holm adds a contrasting touch of 'classical' class, when you can hear it amid the blasts of near-white noise distortion and frenzied drum pummel. Basically the avant-garde version of grindcore (with song titles in the typical grindcore wise-ass/gross-out vein). Eruption is one of those over-the-top improv exercises sure to annoy most folks, except for the select few who live for this stuff. Definitely NOT easy listening. But those with a high threshold of noise enjoyment will indeed enjoy this threshing...I did!
And now for something slightly different...this, the umpteenth (13th, to be precise) album from the always killer David S. Ware Quartet is a bit of a departure, in that it incorporates an electronic element into their free blowing jazz. Pianist
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His 4th album. The stellar players: Matthew Shipp, Whit Dickey, William Parker.
Great new one from saxophonist Ware and his stellar quartet: Matt Shipp, William Parker, Susie Ibarra. This quartet's last two records were on the now-defunct Homestead label, the ex-head of which just said to heck with indie rock and started up Aum Fidelity to concentrate on the free jazz (there's also a new double cd out with William Parker as leader) -- more power to him.
A new album from ESP-Disc vocalist legend Patty Waters (recently interviewed in Halana magazine)! Accompanied by pianist Jessica Williams, we get Waters' lovely voice interpreting songs by Gershwin, Billie Holiday, Eden Ahbez, Duke Ellington and others. Despite the atrocious digipak cover graphics, a wonderful album.
Re-issue of the legendary 1965 debut from innovative (read:kooky?) and highly-influential avant garde vocalist Patty Waters. Dark and jazzy and pretty creepy.
Out of all the proto-new age records that have become available again this one is quite unique and utterly weird. Often stated as the very first psychedelic album, it is more a document of of the intermediary space when beatnik bohemian sensibilities were beginning to transform into hippie communal expression.
British born philosopher Alan Watts, who popularized Eastern philosophy for Western audiences from his base in the San Francisco Bay Area of the late fifties and early sixties, emphasized the link between the practices of Zen Buddhism and psychotherapy, and proposed that if the sane man couldn't let himself lose control every once in awhile, he wasn't truly sane. So what we have here are freeform recordings from 1962 of wordless group chants, drum circles and primal scream therapy tempered instrumentally by circular repetitions of out of tune piano, percussion and flutes. Babbling call and response, vocal trills and whistles over caveman rhythms with occasional spoken philosophical passages by Watts himself, it has early influential links to later communal psych records like Parson Sound, Amon Duul and Taj Mahal Travellers. Though its outright and blatant freakiness may be an acquired taste for some, those who have a penchant for the sort of recordings featured on the famous Nurse With Wound list, especially Alan Sondheim's group Ritual ALL-770, this may be right up your alley!
Another in the recent spate of ESP reissues and easily my favorite of the bunch. Recorded in 1966 and featuring a large ensemble (8 players) on flute, clarinet, cornet, trombone, vibes as well as the mighty Sonny Sharrock on guitar. Much more laid back and a
Bill Withers ("Ain't No Sunshine") is the cover star on this latest installment of Wax Poetics, the magazine of hip-hop, jazz, funk, & soul for those of us who appreciate all that good old music (and how it factors in to all the cool new stuff we're hearing). The art and design of how that music was packaged back in the day is also celebrated by Wax Poetics, with tons of vintage photos and album graphics reproduced. Besides the cover story on Bill Withers, stuff in this issue ranges from a colorfully-illustrated article about Blaxploitation cinema lobby cards to an interview with Cut Chemist to a look back at Herbie Mann's career to a really cool feature on "mom's record collection" -- a bunch of well known producers like Peanut Butter Wolf, Hank Shocklee, and Prince Paul, talking about the records they heard their mothers playing when they were kids! Always a good read, and visually appealing as well.
Sly Stone makes the cover (did he really have to wait 'til issue 32?), and inside there's the usual profusely and colorfully photo-illustrated, deep-digging stuff about the likes of Jean Grae, Egyptian Lover and Arabian Prince, Jimmy Cliff, Large Professor, Houston rappers HSID, and even South Korean B-boys! Among other things. In case you didn't know already, or figure it out from that run-down, Wax Poetics is THE magazine of cool hiphop/soul/funk/reggae/jazz hipness old and new, for vinyl fetishists and general groove-hounds, and as usual this issue is a must-read if you're at all into that stuff, and why the heck wouldn't you be?!
Yo, it's the "Philly Issue". Soul masters Gamble & Huff on the cover. ?uestlove from the Roots. Radio DJ Sonny Hopson. Vibraphonist Vincent Montana Jr., and the whole Philly jazz scene back in the day. The Stylistics. And plenty more!! (But wait, where's Schooly D?)
As usual, this magazine of all things groovy (jazz, funk, hiphop, soul, disco...) and worth diggin' delves deep with extensive interviews and colorful pictures.
It's the special "Africa" issue of this rad journal devoted to jazz, funk, soul, and hiphop grooves past and present. Hence, Fela Kuti on the cover. Inside, you'll also find pieces on Orchestre Poly-Rythmo, Pax Nicholas, Rail Band, Orchestra Baobab, Tony Allen, and plenty more.
As always, the magazine is packed with colorful photos of vintage record sleeves, and plenty of enthused writing about the music from other knowledgeable musicians/DJs/collectors...
Special RnB issue. 2 different covers, Barry White or Gil Scott-Heron. Back covers too, D'Angelo or Erykah Badu. Inside, all those folks, plus plenty more, including "An Oral History Of The Wah-Wah Pedal".
The colorful magazine covering all the rad sides of soul, funk, jazz, hip-hop and beyond is back with another classy issue. This time out War and Syl Johnson each get one of the covers. Inside tons of awesome stuff including features on The Budos Band, DJ Muggs, Melvin Davis, Claus Ogerman, Johnny Colon, and Al Kooper. As well as awesome articles on the minimoog, photographer Lyle Owerko's obsession with boomboxes, and our always favorite "re: discovery" section where the best rare groove albums get the page & attention they so totally deserve. As always another smoking issue of Wax Poetics!
More good readin'. And lookin'. At pictures. It's another thick (112 page) issue of this soul, funk, jazz, hiphop, anything groovy goes magazine, packed with vintage color and b&w photos and album art to make collectors drool. This issue: pieces on Earth Wind & Fire, Ramsey Lewis, Bobby Womack, Lamont Dozier, Solomon Burke, Billy Ocean, Dennis Coffey, and more.
This now-quarterly mag of funk, soul, hiphop, jazz, and anything else groovy presents their 10th Anniversary issue, with his Purple Highness, Prince on the cover. Inside, a lot of Prince-related content, including "33 Reasons Why Prince Is Hiphop" by ?uestlove of The Roots. There's features on Morris Day, Jesse Johnson, Madhouse, The Family, 94 East...
Also: Blood Orange, DJ Quik (talking about some of his favorite records), Larry Graham, Toro y Moi, Frank Ocean, and more. All, as always, copiously illustrated with full color photography. 104 pages.
On the cover(s): Sade and Flying Lotus. Inside, also: Dam-Funk, Betty Wright, Cody Chesnutt, Georgia Anne Muldrow, Gary Bartz, and, uh, Lenny Kravitz. Among other peeps. All colorfully illustrated in the usual Wax Poetics fashion, with vintage photos and album covers and all that.
Oh, and there's a cool piece about the NYC roller disco boogie scene in the '70s!
Bill Wells and co. keep it short 'n' sweet on Pick Up Sticks (just shy of 21 minutes long) -- a subdued and unobtrusive improv of brass, synths, bass, keyboards and melodica. Although the overall atmosphere is airy and drifting, the focus of the eight numbers is on the smattering of Annie Whitehead's hazily hushed trombone. Slow, cautious and contemplative much like the title suggests. Nice!
The ever-changing roster of the impressive ensemble known as The Why Because is graced with numerous music luminaries from around the Bay Area. The line-up for Music shapes, their third release, is a six member crew including folks from Anticon/Lex avant-hoppers Subtle and Themselves. The disc's five lengthy improvised tracks (recorded live back in 2004) explore the far reaches of jazz, postrock, psych/space rock and ambient experimentation. And they incorporate an even broader array of instruments with trumpet, saxophone and percussion taking prominence amid the Fender Rhodes, other keyboards, bass clarinet, guitar, bass and melodica. Music shapes commences with "Fenced Bird Takes Flight" a barren landscape of faintly blown horns and Spartan drumming. This gradually blossoms into a more fleshed out and sprawling journey with many mesmerizing and meditative stretches as well as more kinetic cyclical passages. Check out "Serpentine Tides" and "We Will Fight For The Things That We Love".
Note: This cd is dedicated to member Dax Pierson who was seriously injured in a tour van accident last year. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Dax Recovery Fund.
Wirkus, Wirkus, Wirkus. We like that name. 'Specially since we now associate it with some great, rainy day glitchtronica music! Subdued, abstract yet melodic drones n' glitch here from Poland-born, Cologne-based electronica artist Paul Wirkus -- a former improv jazz drummer, who has also played in punk and post-rock bands. His calm, clip-clip-clippy electro-acoustical dronological methodology is very lo-fi "live" and melodic, Wirkus creating shimmering, pulsating soundscapes with microphones, minidiscs, samples, loops, effects, and crackly vinyl. Buried in these densely textured tracks you'll hear (what might be) jazz piano, classical strings, and raw electronic noises...it's all layered and distorted and so so lovely. Track five adds a mysterious French (?) male vocal that works quite well. And track eight sounds like Philip Jeck teamed up with Ryoji Ikeda! Highly recommended. We hadn't heard Wirkus' music until now, and we've totally fallen in love. Turns out that this album, while his first for Staubgold, is his fourth solo effort, and he's also done a lot of collaborating as well, so we'll have to look for more of those Wirkus works...
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Tribute to Albert Ayler by a band formed by some Chicago jazz scensters, led by reedsman Mars Williams, and including the ubiquitous Ken Vandermark (tenor sax). Also with cellist Fred Lonberg-holm, bassist Kent Kessler, and others. A very capable group indeed, and they do justice to the following Ayler tunes: "Truth Is Marching In", "Angels", and "Bells". Plus an Ayler-inspired sax/piano improvisation.
If you've been paying attention to the Aquarius New Arrivals list (c'mon folks, it's summer now but the school of AQ is still in session, and you're gonna get quizzed on this list later) you'll have come across our recent review of a cd by a heavy, rhythmic British avant-rock outfit with the odd name of Hey Colossus. A great album for those into sludgy, repetitive riffing, maybe like the Melvins meet Circle but more aggro than that.
Hey Colossus already employ no less than three guitars to make their noise but on this vinyl-only EP they've teamed up with another UK band called Woe (a skronky, heavy duty improv jazz beast) to get really really loud and ugly/pretty on two tracks, one of 'em a cover of Miles Davis' "In A Silent Way" believe it or not!! With nine musicians -- including two drummers, two trumpeters, two bassists, keyboards and all those guitars -- this has got some serious avant-heft. "In A Silent Way" has never sounded so ominous and heavy, and the flip is full of militaristic rumble as well. Great stuff! Limited to just 200 copies, on nice thick vinyl, and we have but a handful.
It was only a matter of time really. The bad boys of noise rock, and the grandaddy bad boy of modern avant jazz... Okay, maybe it wasn't only a matter of time, who would have ever really dreamed up a Wolf Eyes / Anthony Braxton jam session? Braxton maybe. He has a penchant for odd pairings. Remember his saxophone / stand up comedian disc? Well Black Vomit might not be -quite- as whatthefuck as that one, but it is pretty strange. And surprisingly, it's also pretty dang listenable. Especially for a disc called Black Vomit, with tracks called "The Mangler" and "Rationed Rot". "The Mangler" starts off all dreamy abstract soundscape, with the Wolf Eyes boys creating haunting landscapes of scrape and skitter, deconstructed streaks of electronic buzz and thick smears of low end grind, while Braxton sort of soars above it all, his horn emitting thick swirls of resonant rumble, dissonant bleating, and mournful minor key groans. It almost sounds like that guy on the corner playing sax and busking for change being sucked into hell, the ground just opening up as he plunges into a cacophonous wasteland. The last 5 or 6 minutes do finally take the plunge into all out noise, but even then, it's weirdly textural and while not -easy- on the ears, still strangely accessible, even with the swirls of malfunctioning electronic crunch and weird demonic vocals.
Track two is introduced by the Wolf Eyes guys asking Braxton which he'd rather hear, "Leper War" or "Black Vomit"? His response, a hearty "BLACK VOMIT!" gets the crowd cheering and Wolf Eyes immediately launch into a musical world of hurt. The sound blisses out after a few minutes into a weirdly percussive soundscape, of low end throb and high end skitter, but before too long Braxton has joined the melee and they ratchet up the noise quotient and it's a swirling, grinding, churning free noise, wild jazz lead pipe to the side of the head. Wow. How fucking cool is Anthony Braxton? Recorded live in 2005 (the between song banter is pretty funny, especially the "Good night..." bit at the end), rumor had it that Victo didn't even want to release this, but damn if it's not one of the coolest records they've ever put out!
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This is a seriously intense slab of creepy crawly, droning, haunting, throbbing, pulsing weirdness. Womb was touted to us as an experimental jazz record, but whatever jazz-isms might be found, if they're there at all, are buried in a viscous murky ambient tarpit of rumbling whir and spare percussive clatter. Sort of like a NNCK drone record or Thomas Koner Remixing Sunburned Hand Of The Man. Gorgeously minimal and deeply drone-y and only mildly jazzy. A definite must own for all you free folkers and dronologists out there.
We made the 2012 Drag City reissue of Woo's 1989 album It's Cozy Inside, Record of the Week, but upon hearing this recent reissue of the group's 1982 debut, Whichever Way You Are Going, You Are Going Wrong, we knew with even MORE certainty that we had to make it a Record of the Week as well. We have been playing this constantly in the store for weeks, and with each listen becoming more enamored with its blithe mosaic of introspective soundscapes and quiet pop-jazz sensibilities. Reissued by Emotional Rescue a few months ago, we wanted to list this sooner, but the vinyl version had already sold out (it's being repressed, we're told), but we have the cd version while supplies last, so we recommend you act fast.
By the time It's Cozy Inside was released, the eccentric brothers Mark and Clive Ives' highly individualized method of making music using acoustic guitar, bass and clavinet processed through synthesizers to create strange hybrids of jazz and pastoral electronica was largely dialed in. But on their debut, with its compelling title and cover depicting a young child surrounded by the authority figures of religion, politics and academia all pointing in opposing directions and acting as a personal manifesto for forging ahead on one's own unique path, the sound is at once more open ended, searching and strange than the later record. Intermixing buoyant melodic passages with serpentine experimental sonic arrangements and rhythms, Woo sounds like a band made up of way more than just the two brothers. The opener, "Swingtime" is the perfect start. An intricate and bright melody punctuated by drum machine, labyrinthine bass and acoustic guitar, sounding like the crystalline guitar lines of Durutti Column, before suddenly dropping into the hot gurgling percussive ambiance of "Pokhara" with its Middle Eastern guitar sounds, made from sped up dubbed out rhythms. Each track melds into the next like an alien and otherworldly soundtrack, or more aptly, like aliens hearing the early jazz melodies of Django Reinhardt for the first time and trying to emulate that sound using modern technology. The sound is gentle, but never quite relaxing. Nothing stays at rest, but at the same time, nothing is rushed either. Moody and pensive, the layered acoustic guitar work is incredible, as it anchors the tenuous atmospheric backing of electronics and muddled loping rhythms. "Razorblades" channels the Brian Enoish side of David Bowie's Low into a dense and worried jazz deconstruction. The one vocal track, "The Attic" is a dreamy pop masterpiece seemingly transported from Factory Record's Benolux imprint or Les Disques du Crepuscule, two Belgian based labels that focused on the dreamier side of European new wave avant-garde pop in the eighties. Anyone who's a fan of those labels, and bands like Antena, early Thomas Dolby, John Foxx, Bill Nelson and later Tuxedo Moon as well as solo releases by Steve Brown, Benjamn Lew and Peter Principle, will find a kindred spirit in Woo's epic gentleness. We were playing this one day when ex-Yellow Swan Pete Swanson paid us a visit and he asked us what was playing. He had been told by many friends that he should definitely look into Woo, but listening to the track playing, he couldn't really understand why. But Woo is not a band you can just check out a track and get it right off. It's disarmingly soft in a way that may come off as wimpy at first, but it eventually gets under your skin in ways that are subtle and mysterious and then you can't stop listening.
A beautifully elastic and hard to pin down musical force. Limited!
WOW. And do we mean WOW!! Fifteen classic free jazz records from the late sixties / early seventies, long out of print, finally getting the ULTRA deluxe reissue treatment. For some reason these are incredibly limited, so these have been a bit tough to get, so we're going to list a few at a time as we can get them. Frank Wright's Uhuru Na Umoja, originally released in 1970, is a two headed jazz beast, one head a moody and smokey slab of dark and slithery moonlit jazz, all sexy horns, dark complex piano, sizzling cymbals, mumbled voalisations, even some harmonica, the other a skronky, wild and wooly post bop workout of crashing drums and interwoven sax melodies. On Uhuru Na Umoja, tenor saxophonist Wright is joined by Noah Howard on alto sax, Bobby Few on piano and Arthur Taylor on drums and the results are divine! The first half of the record is a smoldering late night jazz record, lugubrious and haunting, minor key and romantically melancholy. The second half of the record is rambunctious and playful, a bit chaotic, but never two far out, each sax grounded by the melody of the other, the solid drumming holding both to the ground, while the piano offers wild scattered runs and dark rumblings beneath. So great!
Comes in a gorgeous diecut fullcover three panel sleeve, with new artwork, as well as a huge booklet of liner notes with the original album liner notes, new liner notes in French and English as well as a bunch of cool photos.
The current incarnation of sixties-spawned free jazz & acid folk label ESP has been doing more than just reissuing their old n' obscure classics. They've also been signing up some new bands from the NYC jazz underground (which we have yet to really check out), and, perhaps better yet, have also dug up some hitherto *unreleased* vintage recordings from artists in the ESP orbit. Such as the music on this disc, which barely contains the energetic maelstrom stirred up by tenor saxophonist "the Reverend" Frank Wright and his band, live at Germany's Moers Jazz Festival in 1974. There's two long (almost half-hour tracks) here, full of frenzied blowing from Wright, who after all was inspired by Albert Ayler to take up the sax in the first place, and was discovered by ESP boss Bernard Stollman while sitting in with John Coltrane's band in '64! The other cats on here are certainly up to the challenge of expressing themselves alongside Wright -- you've got Alan Silva on bass, Bobby Few on piano, and Rashied Ali's brother Muhammad on drums! Together they made some truly vital, exciting music that night, and you can hear the crowd at Moers really getting into it!
Whetting our appetites for the brand new Wyatt album Cuckooland (due out next week), comes this fab collection --curated by Robt. himself-- of material mainly drawn from BBC radio archives circa 1972 and 1974, at the beginning of his solo career, post-Soft Machine and Matching Mole. But the British eccentric's charisma and radical worldview is just as compelling today as back in the '70s, as the two cuts recorded in 2002-2003 with former Soft Machine bandmate Hugh Hopper prove. Also there's a wonderful 2003 demo version of a song that may be appearing on Cuckooland, called "The Verb". If it is any indication, Cuckooland will be a great album -- in fact, we'd like to hear demos of the whole thing, 'cause the home-demo production almost seems like a significant compositional element, the tape hiss drone something that would be intentional in a modern experimental/electronica context. The majority of this disc is the older stuff, though, and there's a diverse batch on offer, everything from the mostly instrumental soundtrack to the short experimental film from whence this disc's title is taken (which is also included as a Quicktime video!) to a live version of his unlikely hit Monkees cover "I'm A Believer" to a take on one of Matching Mole's best, "God Song". Then there's novelties like the Monty Python-esque "We've Got An Arts Council Grant" silliness, and Wyatt's affecting version of Danny Kaye's "Little Child". Don't play those for any dour Wyatt-doubters among your friends -- instead make sure they hear the gritty, lofi "Solar Flares..." which could be something from a New Zealand artist on the Celebrate Psi Phenomena or Psuedoarcana labels, when it's actually a 1974 recording by the ex-drummer of a pioneering jazz fusion band! Definitely an essential collection for fans, who will be delighted by the music as well as the copious notes and photos in the booklet. For those new to Wyatt, it's a good sampler, showcasing his trademark untrained vocals and his quirky songwriting craft. Nice!
A weird musical mix here from this brutal metalcore / post rock / uh, jazz fusion? band from Chicago. We were prepared for it, though, having previously liked and reviewed their debut album Way Of The Dead a couple years ago. In that review we said that only weirder metal band on the Century Media roster was Japanse black metal bizarros Sigh (both bands have moved on to new labels since then). Perhaps unsurprisingly, the saxophone player (yes, saxophone player) from Yakuza guested on the most recent Sigh album. And now Yakuza are back with a new full-length, just as heavy and arty as before. They remind us a bit of Iceburn (the vocals, the jazz influence) but heavier, more in the direction of Neurosis and Isis. Massive sonics throughout, with unexpected styles and instrumentation mixed in. The songs here blenderize tech grind mayhem, hardcore screaming, Alice In Chains style clean vocals, chamber music, and smooth jazz chops, and don't make as much a mess of it as you might expect... No, this works for us. If you're into the likes of Fantomas or Kayo Dot we'd imagine this might work for you too. Avant-cellist Fred Lonberg-holm shows up as a guest, as does one of the Mastodon dudes. That maybe tells you something right there.
No, Yakuza aren't Japanese (but the way they blur genre lines is typical of quite a few Japanese underground acts). They're a Chicago-based metalcore band on giant metal label Century Media, but one that's weird enough to get reviewed in The Wire! Imagine Coalesce or Dillinger Escape Plan colliding with the Vandermark Five. Avant-jazz, post-rock, death metal, hardcore, etc. get blenderized here, thankfully without any of the tongue-in-cheek affectations of a Mike Patton or John Zorn project. Weighty grooves worthy of Neurosis find common cause with jazz saxophone soloing, the emotional vocals bleed into droning soundscapes and furious mosh pit frenzies both... Bands like Isis, Engine Kid, Hint and Guapo that also operate(d) at the fringes of metal and avant-rock come to mind. Along with Japan's Sigh, Yakuza are definitely one of the most extreme, inventive, unusual bands on Century Media. If you have any doubts about that, check out the eighth and final track on this disc, "01000011110011"! It's an ambient, electric, instrumental, psychedelic Miles Davis-ish jam that goes on for 43 minutes!! Pretty cool indeed.
The fourth solo album from the undeniably talented and deniably normal Boredoms guitarist (also of Omoide Hatoba, Rovo, etc.). There's less "fuzzy groove" than his last album, more of the abstract textural noisescapes and improv guitarisms heard on his first two solo discs on Alchemy, though with a distinctly "cool" vibe, jazzier than those other records for sure. Definitely makes sense it's on Tzadik, it's as much downtown New York as downtown Osaka. It's a varied menu of avant-delicacies from glitchy gamelan-like tones (generated with guitar?) n' skittery percussion to jazz bass and high-pitched electronics, all sorts of stuff goin' on -- some of it quite pretty. Far from Boredoms insanity/energy however. A nice album, though it probably can (and will) be safely overlooked by those without already a shelf full of Boredoms/Zorn/Tzadik stuff, though you'll never know what you might be missing...
To certain ears, to fans of fucked-up avant-garde noisy ridiculousness (like us), the names John Zorn and Yamataka Eye separately but especially together are magical ones. To be perfectly honest, I (Allan) would have to credit the two of them, via Zorn's seminal genre-gargling "jazz" group Naked City for which Eye vocalised, for helping me on the way towards first experiencing some of the really fundamental, now-long-time-fave artists of my personal musical pantheon...(Eye's band) the Boredoms, then the Ruins, and from thence the whole Japanese noise (and psych, and prog) scene... So this disc is for folks like me/you/us. The extreme sax of Zorn, the extreme vocals of Eye, the additional extreme musical imaginings of both of 'em, combined on one crazy disc, the follow-up to their previous Naninani album on Tzadik from about nine years ago...wow, has it been that long? The obi strip on this cd points out that Eye and Zorn have been occasional musical collaborators for about twenty years now, having first met in Japan in 1986! So yeah, good thing we weren't holding our breath for this one. But it had to happen. And it holds up with the first Naninani (though, there's no beating "Bad Hawkwind") and their psuedo-historical disc of cantorial-inspired singing Zohar as well. The tracks here are quite diverse -- the first sounds like hysterical foreign children trapped in some physics experiment, while others are textural/drone experiments or are more overtly sax/jazz oriented freekouts. But even in a blindfold test, after hearing a few tracks fans of the duo should have no trouble guessing who is (ir)responsible for this.
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SORRY.
Sometimes you know a record is gonna blow your mind before you even throw it on. Such is most definitely the case with Isophonic Boogie Woogie by Roland P. Young. Heck, it's called Isophonic Boogie Woogie after all! And it's on the seemingly infallible (and impossible to pin down) EM records from Japan who have quickly become our new favorite label, having released Jim Fassett's Symphony Of The Birds, Moolah's Woe Ye Demons Possessed and Sam Moore's MOOOHIEEE! and those are just the ones we've reviewed so far. Plus it's got super tripped out black and white hand drawn cover art, three heads, presumably all Mr. Young, one with a well groomed afro, one with headphones, one with crazy hair that drifts skyward like tentacles, and a third eye right in the center of his forehead, while surrounding the heads are leaves and electronic equipment, and ankhs, and black suns, scorpions, saxophones, sailing ships and cars and pyramids, and a bunch of little Roland P. Young's walking up hillsides, jamming on guitars, getting into cars... you get the idea. This is some seriously far out stuff, and we haven't even heard a note of music, and that's a heck of a lot of trippiness to live up to.
Thankfully, Isophonic Boogie Woogie is as weird and as wacked as all the above business would lead you to believe. Originally released in 1980, Isophonic Boogie Woogie was the first realization of Young's unique version of free jazz music, which he referred to as "Afro spiritual minimal electronic space music" which on closer listening is WAY more spot on. Young employs an unlikely arsenal: Kalimba, saxophone, voice, clarinet, electronic bass clarinet, bells, chimes, electronic drones, electronic pulse and electronic accoutrements (!), to craft his spaced out free jazz minimalism. The first track is a warm melodic fugue, woven from the reverberating steel of the kalimba (sounding like a muted mellow version of Konono No.1 actually) with soaring falsetto vocals, before eventually a saxophone joins in, playing soft moody melodies over the rich bed of the kalimba. So nice. Wouldn't mind a whole record of this. But Young has different ideas. The second track is a brief but aggressive blast of solo clarinet, emitting gritty rumbles, a series of droney duck calls, very textural and oblique, and really mysterious sounding. As is the next track, an ominous low end groove, warm distorted and muted melodies, the electronic bass clarinet strangely alien sounding, a groovy jazzy thrum, pulsing and throbbing each note with a strange texture and a bizarre electronic after image that makes the whole thing sound that much more dark and droney. The record's centerpiece (and longest track) is "Loveliness", a 15 minute drift of dense ambient whirs, subtle drones, tinkling chimes, softly struck bells, sizzling cymbals and all sorts of percussive clatter, all beneath a wild free jazz workout, skronks and squeaks and trills, impossible melodies, a tangled free form melodic freakout. Afro spiritual minimal electronic space music indeed! The last track is another long one, with more of that alien sounding electronic bass clarinet, the notes and tones low and rough, with lots of reverbed echoes, the track starts as a thick corrosive drone of rumbling warbling horns, mumbled vocals and all sorts of spacey effects, swooping and swooning, before the clarinet begins to explore its freedom and offers up a litany of strange sounds, from free jazz skronk to percussive patter to playful melodic figures, before drifting back into a droning murky swirl.
Some of the coolest, weirdest, most far out free jazz we've heard for sure, and another check in the 'right fucking on!' column for EM!
This reissue includes two bonus tracks, one a shuffling funky rhythm, with primitive drum machine over a warm distant sonic glow. swooning sax, like mood music from some long forgotten eighties soundtrack, the other a soft stretch of dreamy mediation music, subtle electronic pulses beneath a swirling wash of moaning horns and shifting subtle tones. Both more melodic and less tripped out than the original tracks but cool nonetheless.
Like all the EM reissues, this includes extensive liner notes (all in Japanese, sorry), tons of photos, original album artwork and more.
