Collaboration number two from Robert Lowe (of Lichens) and visual artist Rose Lazar. The first was a small bound book of artwork, that came with a 3" cd featuring Lowe's gorgeous hazy soundscapes created with just voice and effects, while the book was filled with Lazar's mysterious multi colored geometric artwork.
This latest release once again features music by Lowe, but this time, he's using a series of monophonic and polyphonic synthesizers to create burbling, shimming, blissed out synthkrautdronemusik, that seems to perfectly reflect the prismatic textural artwork on the sleeve (more on that in a second).
Opening track "Crayon Gym" is total Klaus Schulze / Tangerine Dream / Neu! krautworship, pulsing and throbbing, rhythmic and hypnotic, while the next track "Fantomoj De La Vitro Domo", is way more Carpenter / Goblin style creep, haunting minor key melodies, moody swirling ambience, with some swooping sweeping effects, but still mesmerizing and a bit psychedelic. The whole record is an ever evolving, sun dappled and starlit sprawl of slow shifting synth textures, dipping into krautrock, new age, free drone, and blurring them into a dreamlike expanse of lush and psychedelic krautsynth shimmer.
The record comes housed in a massive 6 panel, two sided, 36" x 12" fold out sleeve, adorned with artwork from both Lowe and Lazar, strange tangled bits of pen and ink, weeping clouds, mysterious caves, smeared rainbows, and piles of diamonds.
It's nearly impossible not to be ensorcelled by Samara Lubelski's mystical voice. She possesses that rare human instrument that is both otherworldly, and warm and familiar, easily seducing the listener after only a few seconds. Had she been born decades earlier, she most likely would have been musical comrades with sixties chanteuses like Francoise Hardy, Joyce, Brigitte Fontaine, Jane Birkin, etc.
Future Slip finds her in top form with lush instrumentation creating the most perfect daydream backdrop for her beautiful vocal delivery. With Thurston Moore in the producer's chair (returning the favor for all the great playing Samara did on his solo outing Trees Outside The Academy). And it's really important to note that Samara isn't just a lady with a gorgeous voice, she's also such an accomplished musician with a wonderful knack for smart and sizzling song construction. A lot of Future Slip brings us to those more mellow Stereolab moments or when Latetitia Sadier records as Monade. Lubelski also finds kindred spirits in folks like Juana Molina and we have a feeling that Charlotte Gainsbourg's new album in the works with Beck writing and arranging could become the perfect companion piece for this record. Future Slip sways and swirls with such ease and lingers with such a nice soft psychedelic shimmer.
There was this awesome time around four or five years ago when we were being blown away by one obscure psych folk reissue after another. Records by the likes Mark Fry, Roger Rodier, Mark Fosson, Eduardo Mateo, and Bridget St. John all came into our lives back then and would become total treasures near and dear to our hearts and ears. Since then there have been lots of awesome reissues of full on psych, international burners and early '80s gems but it seemed the well dried up a bit on great lost folk from the early '70s, as just not that much of it had been coming our way, and the one's we were hearing weren't all that spectacular and probably remained obscure and unheard for good reason: they just weren't that good. But this 1975 album by Ted Lucas is totally hitting that special soft spot we have for hazy and drifty psych-folk and immediately transports us and lulls us into a gloriously stoned and zoned state of mind.
So yes, these are totally stoned and lovely folk songs that bring to mind a more rustic Nick Drake, that amazing first solo record from David Crosby or a totally unpolished and stripped down Eric Clapton. We also think fans of Linda Perhacs, Charles Manson (the singer/songwriter, not the cult leader!), Vashti Bunyan, The Search Party, Gary Higgins, and Bert Jansch will totally dig what was going on in the music of Ted Lucas.
You are more likely to find Lucky Dragons performing in a small gallery or someone's living room or on an enchanted island then you are a conventional rock club or bar. Convention doesn't seem to be something Luke Fischbeck or Sarah Rara care much for and their music and vivid imagination is all the better for it. While this is a record that brings together so many ideas and influences it's strength is in how seamless and succinctly they do so. Opening with a dreamy snippet that recalls a daydream Boards Of Canada moment, the record then finds it's way into captivating and repetitive percussion that sounds like a Konono No.1 record interpreted by the Penguin Cafe Orchestra. They have a very special ability to travel through both intense and wandering states with equal power and grace. It's amazing that they've made a record that can sound like the most relentless snake charmer recording one moment, a hip-hop inspired pulsating beat next, an ambient interlude that could be part of a Grouper record somewhere else but also a germinal techno jam you never want to end. While bringing in a wide range of styles and influences is not something so new, making a totally cohesive, pleasurable and transcendent album with all those influences is much more rare and with Dream Island Laughing Language, Lucky Dragons have done just that! Highly recommended.
For the life of us, we can not understand why this record didn't become a huge hit when it came out originally in 1968. It always seems so arbitrary as far as to which artists or records get hugely popular and which fall through the cracks into obscurity. Luckily, Water knew what was what, and is giving this true soul classic another shot!
Barbara Lynn possessed not only one of those totally melty soulful voices, but she was also quite an accomplished (left-handed) guitar player. Bittersweet and heart wrenching, Lynn's voice just nails every emotion and conveys so much passion and pathos, we're reminded a lot of Irma Thomas, and many of the more uptempo exquisitely crafted tracks here make us think of The Supremes as well. And heck, somewhere between Irma Thomas and The Supremes is a pretty damn great place to be, and Here is Barbara Lynn is a damn great record. Any fan of the golden age of soul absolutely needs this as it's given our ears such a great and lasting ride. Highly recommended!
Hot damn, does Meg White have reason to be jealous?! This is Loretta Lynn's first album in four years (we're not quite sure exactly what number it is in her discography... we lost count around fifty!), and it's got huge Lynn fan Jack White of The White Stripes in the producer and arranger's seat. Their vocal duet "Portland Oregon" (which will surely draw truckloads of White Stripes worshipping Loretta Lynn neophytes to this album) is hardly this excellent album's highlight. On the other hand, White's gritty guitars are a perfect foil for Lynn's feisty singing on songs such as "Have Mercy". Some may think that some of this, if you listen close, actually sounds like White Stripes songwriting, but it's more likely a case of Lynn's formidable influence on White coming full circle. Regardless, Van Lear Rose is all about the singular wonder that is Loretta Lynn and White has done a fine job of ensuring just that. Her voice is in top notch form. Her range is absolutely smokin' whether she's breakin' honky tonk hearts or baring her own or simply givin' everyone what-for. Mid-album she fires thing up for the rousing gospel stomp of "High On A Mountain Top" and then takes it down a few notches for the spoken story-song "Little Red Shoes". Wonderful! A vibrant, rich, and organic album. All hail Loretta Lynn!
Holy shit this record is amazing!!! What a charged and dynamic follow up to one of the hottest debuts of the decade. It doesn't surprise us though, as we knew from the first time we heard M.I.A. that she had some special power inside of her. She is that rare world voice in music that we desperately need so much right now. It's incredible how she crosses lines and borders like very few other artists seem able to.
Kala is one of the few records that we sell to every kind of person and taste. Metalheads, indie rockers, pop kids, dance-heads, hip-hop aficionados, experimental music lovers.... they're all going crazy for the new M.I.A. and for great reason. It's one of the most kick ass, colorful and fully realized albums to come out in a long time.
She was denied entry to the States repeated times when making this record, so her initial plans to record the record with Timbaland were thrown out the window. But this countries' insane border policies ended up being a blessing in disguise, as it forced M.I.A. to look elsewhere for producers, so she traveled throughout Africa and India where she did lots of raw field recordings which all come to life in such exciting ways on Kala. In fact Kala is kind of like what we imagine might happen if Konono No.1 were transported to Bollywood. While we've recently been swept up by the mystical power and strength of some fierce women of the past like Selda and Betty Davis, we can't think of anyone in the modern day who better conjures up that kind of unique energy and spirit than M.I.A.
This is a record meant to be blasted LOUD. So next time you have folks over, no matter what sort of music they dig, don't worry it won't be awkward just throw on M.I.A. and every single one of them will dig it like crazy. Guaranteed.
Without a doubt a contender for record of the year!
For all that's made of M.I.A.'s politics and persona, it's important not to forget that what makes her music so fucking special is how it taps into such a purely physical sensation. Her last album Kala was an absolute game changer. The kind of record that reshaped everything around it. You could almost use her name as a genre, as so many folks were inspired by it and after her debut, we began hearing so many people try their hand at the M.I.A. sound. From Santogold, Gang Gang Dance, Rainbow Arabia, Rye Rye, Bonde Do Role, Thunderheist, Buraka Som Sistema, and on and on. Her influence crossed so many cultural lines and on so many fronts, not just her sound but also her fashion, imagery and overall aesthetic. And it's easy to see why, there is something so dynamic, urgent, spirited and alive about what M.I.A. is doing.
It's so hard to follow up a record that was as close to perfect as we think an album can be, but god damn she has found a way to maybe do it. Maya blasts right out of the gate and makes it clear its going to be an uncompromising, visceral and frenetic ride. With great collaborating producers like Diplo, Switch and Blaqstarr back on board as well as bringing in dubstep sensation Rusko as well as Sleigh Bells guitar shredder Derek E. Miller. But much like Bjork, M.I.A. is a master of curating and surrounding herself with super talented producers and players, yet taking all the pieces of those elements and crafting them into something much bigger and more fully realized. The record is paced so perfectly, after an onslaught of charged, dirty and sweaty tracks she offers fresh breaths through some catchier pop minded jams and then its right back into the line of fire. Maya, is both the most angry and tender of the albums she is made so far. Because while its filled with so many unrelenting politically fueled anthems it also finds M.I.A. singing about the courage of falling in love and getting weighed down by gravity, which shows us the range she is capable of and will continue to explore.
It seems certain folks love to build people up only to knock them down. In recent months M.I.A was torn to pieces in a tacky/petty feature in the New York Times and many of the same blogs and online music critic establishments who championed her in the first place, and who are now taking cheap shots at her, personally and musically. But all that is meaningless. Truth is, M.I.A. continues to be an absolute force of nature. Creating music that really can and does unite so many different kinds of people and makes you sweat in ways that feels empowering and full of purpose. She has taken the spirit of punk, hip-hop and dance music to make a sound that is so singular and spectacular. Maya is another striking achievement from one of the most important, outspoken and brave artists of our generation.
Over the course of several records, M83 have virtually invented their own genre, we're not even sure what to call it, but it's some sort of gossamer, fuzzed out blissy dream pop, so much so that, the name M83 itself became an oft referenced descriptor when referring to bands of all stripes that borrowed bits of fuzz or buzz or bliss from M83's sonic palette.
The last record, Before The Dawn Heals Us, found the band shedding some of their more arty influences, much of the krautrock, some of the electronica, lots of the buzzy shoegaze, opting instead for some straight up eighties pop, replete with cheesy electronic drums, big choruses, super effected guitars, a gloriously retro chunk of sweetly dated pop, BUT, they balanced that with some seriously over the top fuzzed out bombast.
However, that record definitely hinted at what was to come, and now years later, the bombast is long gone, and if anything, the band has delved even further into our teenage years, and reinvented themselves as a band plucked right from MTV circa 1985, and we love it! This is total emo. Before there was emo. The soundtrack to hanging out in parking lots, crushes, love notes, first kisses, John Hughes movies, falling in love, break ups, mix tapes and all that stuff.
The sound of Saturday = Youth is that, the sound of Saturdays, no school, hanging out with friends, the sound of being young, your whole life ahead of you, but with every second feeling like it could be your last. So much angst, so much passion, so much hope, and so much fear. All perfectly represented by this collection of gloriously glistening sunshine-y pop and fuzzy synthy electro pop.
The record begins with melancholy piano and swoonsome synths, fluttery female vocals somewhere between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Fraser, an intro that quickly gives way to some straight up eighties style MTV pop, a la Tears For Fears, all wooshing and emotional and dramatic, but so awesome. Not sure if this would be quite as appealing to someone who hadn't grown up on this kind of stuff, but for those of us who did, it's pretty irresistible. The next song is all electronic drums, and super processed soaring female vocals, squiggly synths, electric piano, and more super dramatic soaring choruses.
Our favorite so far is probably "Graveyard Girl", with its Cranberries-esque intro, all big jangling guitars, and crooned vocals, the melody super sweet and melancholy, drifting over swooning synths and a relentless rhythm, this is perfect pop, harmonies and hooks, all filtered through that particular time. It helps that there's a video that pretty much perfectly captures the spirit of the song. With a cute gothy girl who visits the pet cemetery and leaves dog toys and kibble on gravestones, pining after the cute boy. Filmed all fuzzy and old, so it looks just like out memories feel. There's even a spoken word part in the middle, delivered by a young girl, talking about loneliness and love, it's pretty perfectly heart wrenching. And then the artwork, all fuzzed out photos of various teens, the jock, the goth girl, the cute guy, the hot girl, the nerd, the punk, all hanging out in some sun dappled park on a Saturday, killing time, being young.
The whole record is like that, so totally moving and jubilant and emotional and slightly cheesy but in a really good way. Whether they're channeling the electronic skitter of New Order, or the fluttery dramatic pop of Kate Bush, or the jangle rock bombast of the Hooters, it's the very best kind of retro. It all makes us feel either really really old, or secretly sort of young again. Or like we're in some awesome eighties teen movie. Regardless, we love it, and can't seem to stop listening to it...
We're often a little wary when hip-hop producers and DJs make mixes that seem all about showing off what an awesome record collection they have.
But on the other hand, we've always been fans of Madlib's many productions and we are of course rabid fans of Brasilian music in all forms, so there's plenty to love about this latest mix. Collected during the same trip to Recife documented on the dvd Brasilintime: Batucada Com Discos we reviewed a while back, this is the first in a series of six mixes of the most obscure corners of Musica Popular Brasileira: Folkloric Chants, Samba, Bossa, and Tropicalia. There are only a couple of songs we recognize, but we've been playing this non-stop since we got it as it's a mind-melting hour long trip that unveils one solid gem after another.
Disco heads take notice! When we first got this white-sleeve 12" in the store and gave it a whirl on the turntable everyone here was sure they were hearing the sounds of some lost obscure disco platter circa '77. In actuality this 12" is a brand new release put out on the Solardisco label, which just so happens to be run by the artist Maelstrom, whose deft touch in cutting, pasting and recording vintage disco sounds is displayed on this edits EP. No doubt he hit his target right on. The sweeping horns, the cosmic vibrations, the Paradise Garage, Patrick Cowley and Giorgio Moroder influences are wielded with pride. With folks like Prins Thomas, Lindstrom and James Murphy already geeking out over him and playing his edits out when they DJ, it's just a matter of time before the Glasgow based Maelstrom becomes a household name, in houses where disco is in high rotation at any rate!
We recognize that probably only people who've been looking for these five cds ever since they were first released in limited and expensive form in Japan almost ten years ago are likely to want to pay nearly $120 for this box set reissue, and they already know
In 1993, Japanese label Mom & Dad promised to release fifteen discs chronicling the unreleased studio recordings of Tokyo psych legend Magical Power Mako, but were only able to produce the first five. Israel-based MIO has decided to take on the project and will release three box sets containing five discs each. The material that makes up Hapmoniym 1972-1975 was recorded while Mako was working on his second masterpiece for Polydor, "Super Record". Often compared to krautrock pioneers Faust, this collecton is an incredible assemblage of sound experiments, collage pieces, tape manipulations and astral folk-psychedelia so epic and so out, one might be so bold to state that Hapmoniym as a whole even surpasses the density and innovation of the mighty Faust Tapes. And he was only a wee sixteen years old on the earliest of these recordings! Andee is especially fond of disc two, the part where it sounds like Jimi Hendrix jamming with a meowing cat. Keiji Haino fans take note as he appears on disc one, on possibly his most spaced out psychedelic trip ever. We await the remaining two 5-disc volumes with curiousity and excitement (and, patience). We do, however, have to scold MIO for a slight problem with the packaging: the 5 discs are in slim cd5 cases inside a little red cardboard box, with a booklet as well. It looks handsome, but each disc has its own unnecessary obi that doesn't really fit anywhere in the package once opened, but that of course you can't throw away, either, if you're like us. Oh well. We also could have done with more English language text in the booklet, it's mostly the original Japanese liner notes.
Mako is truly one of the most masterful musical minds behind some of the best psychedelic sounds that came out of Japan in the '70s, a relatively unsung hero of that scene. While his project Magical Power Mako certainly produced other records that are noisier, weirder, more abstract and fucked up, there is no doubt that the 1975 album Super Record is his absolute tour de force! An album that left many of us stunned upon our first encounter with it. It's one of those records that exemplifies what you really want in a psychedelic record, filled with a wide range of textures and mystical sounds from across the globe that take you on a journey and make you forget where you are.
Super Record melts into an unforgettable washed out pastoral setting as it glides and floats through different terrain of dripping colors and hallucinatory smoke. Like the best psychedelic albums of this era, Super Record is an absolute start to finish experience, with different interludes laced with lute, harmonica, melodica, charged fuzzed out guitar all in a ceremonial tone which creates a mood and vibe that would be at home in a film by Jodorowsky or Antonioni.
Think of some mind melting combination of Ash Ra Temple, Bo Hansson, early '70s Pink Floyd, Jean-Claude Vannier, and a dash of The Incredible String Band and you start to get a picture of the kind of musical magic that is happening on Super Record. We also get the feeling that some of our favorite modern day psych music makers like The Alps, Blues Control, and Dungen have all been influenced by the brilliance of this album as well. Super and magical!
It's only January but we're pretty sure we have a contender for record of the year on our hands! We're always so impressed with the rare examples of bands who have reached such heights of popularity yet still keep challenging themselves and their fans. Sadly there aren't many in that club, but folks like Yo La Tengo, PJ Harvey and Sonic Youth have helped demonstrate that even many many records deep into a career you can still make thrilling and rewarding music. With their latest, Stephen Merrit's Magnetic Fields have proven to be a full fledged member of that elite club as well.
While Magnetic Fields last album, I, found Merrit pouring it on pretty thick, this long awaited follow up (with plenty of extracurricular activity by Merrit in the meantime) finds Merrit stripping it down and finding the fun in layers, noise and yes...distortion. Many tracks feature the charming and beautiful voice of Shirley Simms, and the songs that Merrit sings find his vocals way more buried in the mix than usual. Distortion reminds us a lot of the early bedroom charm of Magnetic Fields records like Charm Of The Highway Strip and one of Merrit's many alter egos The Future Bible Heroes. We love how it sounds like they are tapping into the spirit of the New Zealand lo-fi pop underground of the '80s and even hints of the fuzzy and dreamy qualities of the heyday of Creation records. Not many people could get away with having a major label release such a non-slick and unpolished record. In fact there are moments on Distortion that sound like they could have been on some awesome cassette release from Shrimper back in the day.
Distortion is a timeless gem. While it does tip its hat to some of the most yummy and fuzzy pop of the last couple decades and boasts a wall of sound that's kind of like Phil Spector producing a twee-like Jesus & Mary Chain record, what makes the album so special is that you know it's going to sound as meaningful and alive twenty years from now as it does today. Merrit is still writing music for wry and broken hearts but he's injected new life into old pain and in doing so he's created another classic!
First reviewed almost 10 years ago and a constant aQ favorite and big seller ever since, Magnetic Fields' Get Lost finally gets a super sweet vinyl release. Our way too brief review from way back in the very early days of the list, long before we wrote epic tomes as reviews, went a little like this:
"Everyone has a favorite record that acts as a faithful crutch throughout their life and this is ours. Every song has a different heartbreaking theme. Each devastating in their own way. You will never tire of this, Stephin Merritt's masterpiece."
And indeed, this is a gorgeous, sad, beautiful, wryly humorous, and utterly heartbreaking and heart rending slab of morose sweetly sour pop. That is of course utterly and emphatically recommended.
Nobody makes misery and endless longing sound better then Stephin Merritt. As it's been raining nonstop in San Francisco we've been eagerly awaiting this new Magnetic Fields album since pretty much nothing sounds better when it's gray and grim outside, than the beautifully morose pop that Merritt and his comrades create.
Realism is very much the counterpoint to the last Magnetic Fields album, Distortion, which was all plugged in, in the red, filled with fuzz, a sonic nod to the Jesus & Mary Chain. Realism goes in the opposite direction. Made completely with acoustic instruments, this is their 'baroque folk' album. In many ways it has much of the same kind of sound and style found on 69 Love Songs, the masterpiece which catapulted Magnetic Fields from indie sweethearts to full on cultural icons. Merritt is no doubt one of the best songwriters of this generation, both in the memorable lyrics he writes and the nuanced arrangements he creates. Like all great songwriters Merritt is able to create in a wide variety of styles. In the past he's made electronic pop, fuzzy lo-fi rock, ukulele stompers, and shoegaze like dreaminess. And when you see The Magnetic Fields play live its so awesome because they often change the arrangements and styles of their songs, like when they toured for Distortion they actually played all those loud rocking songs all hushed and acoustic!
Realism is another reminder that no matter what style, aesthetic or theme Merritt choses to work within he's always able to emerge with memorable and moving songs that will have remain emotionally and sonically relevant for so many years to come.
Is it right to call The Mallard's final album a swan song? Wouldn't a duck call be a better metaphor? Even for the charmingly weirdo, garage-pop label empire Castle Face, The Mallard were an odd bird in a flock that includes Thee Oh Sees, Warm Soda, and Blasted Canyons. Finding Meaning In Deference is only the band's second album and its release is a posthumous one, after the band's somewhat public demise in the spring of 2013. The minor-chord jangliness that The Mallard churns out is a weird amalgamation of a whole lot of Flying Nun bands, all of whom are wholly misremembered in a drunken / drugged-out / art-damaged haze. One can pick out bits of The 3Ds, The Pin Group, and Straightjacket Fits, but it's always deranged into a woozy, yet totally groovy swarm of psychedelically tainted gloom pop, or gloom filled psyche-pop if you wanna approach from the other direction. Frontwoman Greer McGettrick finds herself half-asleep and half-awake in monotone melodies she croons between the swaths of spring reverb and analogue delay, while the band behind her jangles and lurches through the slithery, narcotic reinventions of garage-pop tropes. On "Out The Door," McGettrick wakes up enough to climb up and down a sublimely simple lo-fi vibrato that grates against the creepily skeletal guitar chords and zombie-stutter rhythms. The playfully elliptical basslines of "The Communist" with its fucked-up, lo-fi low-pass filter sweeping makes for a particularly woozy number. It's almost fitting that they end the album with the extended drone-rock epic "Iceberg" where The Mallard cruises in a holding pattern of Parson Sound hypno-rhythms, only to plummet back from the sky in an extended tumble of gasping vocal mantras, thrumming basslines, and Velvety minimalist jangle. A perfectly aQuarius record of imperfect pop perfection.
The Sahel Sounds label (responsible for Music From Saharan Cel Phones, Harafin So, and many more great lps of music from the Sahel region of Africa) strikes again with this amazing reissue of an uber-rare vintage cassette, the lone album circa 1978 by Nigerian "electronic music pioneer" Mammane Sani Abdullaye. We're told that if you live in West Africa, you'd likely be familiar with Mammane's instrumental music to some extent, as his tunes have apparently been used frequently in the background on radio and TV broadcasts over the past three decades. For us though, his sounds are an exciting discovery! Mammane plays the electric organ, in a fairly minimalistic and repetitive style, his music full of charming, simple melodies; it sounds very live and intimate, recorded with hardly any overdubs (it was done on a 2 track machine) and pleasingly lo-fi, with a little bit of tape hiss (just like we like it).
Some of the songs are woozy, sweetly dreamy sound paintings, others are more uptempo and percussive, with tick-tocking rhythm backing tracks, and Mammane joyously tickling the keys over top. Chiptune/skweee fans might enjoy the more video-game-y blip blip bleep of the calm yet jaunty "Bodo", while the laidback grooviness of the likes of "Tunan" should appeal to fans of the Ethiopiques series, even though this is from a completely different region of Africa.
Many of the melodies are based on traditional Nigerian folk music - as the label's notes say, "Mammane electrifies the nomadic drum of the tende, the polyphonic ballads of the Woddaabe, and the pastoral hymns of the Sahelian herders". Others are entirely original. And all are quite lovely indeed. Such a find.
Highly recommended in particular to fans of Francis Bebey and his African Electronic Music 1975-1982 collection that we also made a Record Of The Week a while back. An absolutely delightful record!
It's a limited vinyl-only edition of 500 (for now, but we can hope that they'll do a cd too).
A while ago we reviewed an incredible, and incredibly far out collection of strange electronic music from South Africa, the comp was called Shangaan Electro: New Wave Dance Music from South Africa, and boy did the music live up to the promise of that title. We described the sound as being part Congotronics, part Nintendo, part Omar Souleyman, part karaoke, sounds pretty weird and amazing, and it was, a huge favorite around here. Some of the coolest, weirdest most damaged and deliriously fucked up 'dance' music we had maybe ever heard.
So now comes another missive from that same scene, this one a gospel record, Shangaan electro-gospel to be precise, which already sounds amazing. Plaintive, moody emotional heartfelt vocals draped over simple skeletal Casio keyboard rhythms, looped whirring accordion like textures, goofy lo-fi 8 bit video game music and a weird wheezy whistle (which is a hallmark of Shangaan, and tweets throughout all the tracks here), and a much more traditional sounding chorus of female vocalists, providing gorgeous harmonies to accompany the main vocal, and the strange tweeting, wheezing, skittering music underneath.
It sounds really strange, and definitely a little goofy, but the music is hauntingly beautiful and quite mesmerizing, and the more you listen, the more you become utterly mesmerized, the sounds lulling and soothing and transporting, transcending the limitations of the instrumentation (if those are truly limitations, we're not so sure!), and creating something moving, emotional and truly spiritual.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Totally moving, ominous and breathtaking sounds from this San Francisco artist who uses his voice, guitars, delay, and feedback to create wonderfully mysterious, haunting and beautiful music. Imagine a stripped down version of Earth joining forces with a Grouper, all dazed and dreamy and stately, and you start to get an idea of the soundworld Manning is exploring here. And it's not just a simple take on any one genre, not straight drone, or noise, or pop, or post-rock or goth, or doom, yet it combines elements of all of those to create something unlike most of the sounds being created by the new wave of underground bedroom lo-fi music makers.
Here's A Breaking Sound also has this awesome vibe and atmosphere that sounds a little like some of our favorite Swans records playing at a WAY slower speed or perhaps bands like Low and Codeine swathed in gobs of fuzz and distortion. We also can't help but hear bits of Hala Strana, Christina Carter's Bastard Wing project, and Tom Carter music stripped down bare bones, fused with elements or a much more primitive Loren Mazzacane Conners. There is this sprawling loner country vibe that runs through the record in such an amazing way. Like Flying Saucer Attack wandering all alone through the desert and setting up one amp in the middle of nowhere to play these mesmerizing songs to the earth and sky and spirits.
There is also a warmth and sense of song that is so much missing in many similar minded projects. What makes Here's A Breaking Sound really stand out is that you really do feel an emotional response to the songs. They don't hit you over the head or try to impress you with their extremity, but instead they understand the power of starkness and subtlety, a potent musical mood that brings evokes such darkly rustic daydreams. Highly recommended!
Oh, and each cover is hand drawn and we're not sure how many of these he made so better to act fast on this one.
Gerard Manset is an underground French treasure, recording records since the late '60s but always avoiding the public spotlight, refusing to do interviews, appear on TV or play any of the other silly games often required to attain mainstream success. With a totally seductive voice, and lush arrangements that are as powerful as they are beautiful, this album recorded during the student riots in Paris in 1968 has become one of those discs we can't stop listening to! There is an urgency and passion in these songs rarely heard in modern music. Manset has the same kind of presence and elegance as folks like Serge Gainsbourg, Caetano Veloso, Michel Polnareff and Scott Walker. This is not ye-ye fluffy French pop. Don't get us wrong we love that stuff, but what makes Manset so damn great is how his songs are so melodic and catchy while also being so sensual and impassioned. Totally smart arrangements that will appeal to both psych and pop lovers. We recently learned that Manset has an extensive back-catalog and we can't wait to start getting our hands on as much of it as possible, but until then let's all get swept up in 1968!
Last year one of our favorite reissues came in the form of the strong and passionate voice of Gerard Manset. A French mastermind musician who has been crafting iconoclastic and lush sounds since the late '60s. The release we first heard last year titled 1968 quickly became an AQ favorite and made us think of Manset as a French incarnation of Caetano Veloso. We went from barely knowing anything about Manset to wanting to try to find out as much as we could about him, as that release reeled us in so strongly with its elegant and charged melodies.
La Mort D'Orion was recorded a couple years after that release in 1970 and finds Manset in a much more avant setting, but with equally stunning results. Created as one multi-part suite, the record is filled with strings, the music moving from small scale moments to sweeping epics, beautiful melodies everywhere, all colored with rich instrumentation and of course there's Manset's elegant voice.
This is the perfect antidote to fluffy ye-ye pop. With La Mort D'Orion, Manset created a piece of challenging and brooding symphonic pop akin to the best work created by the likes of Robert Wyatt, Scott Walker and Franco Battiato. Accented with shots of prog, psychedelia and modern classical, Manset displays his amazing ability to pull together a wide range of elements in creating such a monumental and rewarding piece of music. Highly recommended!
It's nice to know that no matter how many records are reissued, or rare gems discovered, or mysterious private press releases rescued from oblivion, there will always be more. And even though sometimes we feel like the bottom of the reissue barrel has been reached, based on some dubious reissues, all it takes is a record like this, to remind us that there are truly some mind benignly fantastic records that have yet to be unearthed. And yeah, this is some truly next level, mind bending stuff. EVERYBODY here digs it, so we knew we had to make it a Record Of The Week, even though a week ago, we'd never heard of Mar-Vista. Sounds like of like a motel or something.
Originally a private press record, released in a run of just 200 copies in 1976, and packaged in blank white sleeves, and sold locally in France, this deliriously trippy and over the top chunk of French psychedelic synth prog is so good, and so weird, it really is one of those rare records, that's makes it hard to believe it could've remained lost for so long. Cuz really, anyone hearing this, would immediately freak out. We most definitely did. Apparently this duo was heavily influenced by minimalists like La Monte Young and Terry Riley, and krautrock combos like Ashra Tempel and Popol Vuh and while that's not actually bad band math when trying to describe Mar-Vista, the truth of the sound is so much stranger.
A single 41 minute song suite, separated into 6 movements, Visions Of Sodal Ye begins with primitive lo-fi drum machine (or drumming that sounds programmed), beneath whirring organs, fingerpicked acoustic guitars, droning synths and shimmering melodies, with laid back vox way down in the mix, not to mention some killer distorted psych guitar shred, the whole thing wrapped in warped sonic warble. There are plenty of weird production glitches, drop outs, and tape decay/damage from the original masters we would assume, but it only adds to the sound, a sound that soon blossoms into soaring kosmische synth swirls, anchored by more of those primitive drum machine like rhythms, and wreathed in what sounds like whipping winds, and jaw harp like spring melodies, more plink plonk, sing songy synths, and a fierce squall of psychedelic noise guitar. The movements merge into one sprawling epic, continuing with the coolest, creepiest track of the bunch, a dour, murky dirge, a tripped out sort of doom-kraut creep, with low buzzing synths, skittery rhythms, and multiple vocal lines, all wound up into a haunting, intense, organ and synth drenched lumber, that could be the weirdest heaviest French psych-prog jam EVER. That quickly (d)evolves into a cool, groovy sixties style psychedelic blow out, all cascading synth melodies, pulsing hip shaking rhythms, and super distorted theremin like squiggles over the top, before settling into some pulsating, cosmic shimmer, tinged with just a little bit new age, some serious synth prog that blossoms into awesome John Carpenter like soundtrackiness! The record/songsuite culminates in the final 21+ minute movement, a sprawling cinematic synth epic, a twisted dronescape of layered synths and extended tones, ominous and sinister, minor key and darkly malevolent, again, like it could be from the some lost Carpenter movie, all creepy slo-mo melodies, and crumbling textures, plenty of tension, haunting and shadowy and mysterious.
And generally bonus tracks are bonus tracks for a reason, cast offs, throw aways, songs that weren't good enough to make the cut, but not here, the two bonus tracks (found only on the cd!!) are crazy, and crazy cool, the first, "Synthetik Way", is a glistening, glimmering planetarium style cosmic synth workout, all lush, hushed and tranquil one second, then distorted and wildly psychedelic the next, while the second "Crash '73", is an impossibly trippy, surprisingly heavy psych rock jam, with in-the-red distorted guitar and skittery drumming, beneath a wild tangle of snake charmer synth shred, and a totally WTF twisted stuttery finale, which had us imagining a whole other record tucked away with more of this outsider synth-prog-psych weirdness�
So incredible, quite possibly the reissue of the year! Minimal liner notes, a reproduction of the original sleeve, but sadly somewhat flimsy packaging on the digipack cd...
The cd version is limited to 500 copies, the lp just 300.
A Balearic holy grail of the highest order, we only have a handful of these, the last copies our supplier could scrape up, and they're pretty much gone after that unless this gets a repress, which is so far unlikely. You have been warned!
This singular 1983 recording of global wave exotica featuring Japanese musicians and an Armenian female singer, pressed in small quantities on its first issue has always had an air of mystery and rumor among beat heads and crate diggers. Its cross-pollination of styles from synthesized dance to post-punk to minimalist composition and global classical music (often in the same track), makes it difficult to easily pigeonhole. It definitely sounds more like the crazy Bollywood film vibe that Haruomi Hosono was going for when he recorded Cochin Moon, than Cochin Moon actually sounded like. But Uta Kata No Hibi's six tracks reach beyond dance to a moody exoticism that is spellbinding and captivating, predicting Asa-Chang & Junray's furtive global excursions, as well as a host of Indian and Middle Eastern rhythmic qualities that have inflected the modern day productions of M.I.A. and Grimes. Don't Sleep!
We have a certain soft spot for that brief period of early '80s British underground female-fronted new wave pop that has been getting revived a lot lately. Namely on Cherry Red Records, the label that championed such sounds to begin with. We made the Young Marble Giants reissue a Record Of The Week a while back, and in its influential wake the whole face of British music had seemingly changed. Bands like Antenna, The Ravaging Beauties, Virginia Astley, Carmel, Everything But The Girl, The Gist, Weekend, and The Marine Girls had kept up post-punk's DIY enthusiasm, but tempered its urgency into breezy and soft, almost loungey acoustic pop. The Marine Girls were a three girl band started by Tracy Thorn, later of Everything But The Girl. All the members sang with simple bossanova-style guitar and bass arrangements with no drums, each song clocking in at under three minutes. Beach Party from 1981 is the Marine Girls first and best and features Thorn before she left to do a solo record and then join Ben Watt in EBTG. Fans of Nouvelle Vague, Liliput, Cub, The Raincoats, or the recently reissued Weekend demos (also reviewed this list!) as well as contemporary bands like Beach House and Grass Widow will find lots to love here.
It's not everyday you hear samples of Hitler speeches and Nazi Marches over a pulsating glammy space groove next to an even wackier freaked out French version of Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming To Take Me Away". Throw in some warped 60's beat pop, zany space prog and the weirdest but most sublimely cosmic disco tracks you have never heard, and you are somewhat closer to wrapping your head around the skewed production genius of Jean-Pierre Massiera. Starting his career in the south of France and relocating to Montreal in the seventies, Massiera, best known for Les Maledictus Sound, a holy-grail record for collectors of sixties psyche-exotica freakiness has continued to explore for the past 40 years all manner of spacey and unhinged pop and dance grooves through a myriad of single-based projects, the best of collected on these two volumes. Like a surrealist Serge Gainsbourg mixed with Gong, Cerrone and Zolar X, Massiera never concerned himself with record industry pressures or making fame or fortune off his production efforts but instead used the studio to explore his love of surrealism, off-beat humor and some coke-addled (we presume) cosmic fantasy. Each record comes with a code to download mp3's and a bonus track.
The Discoid volume begins with Sex Conventions' "Toi Qui Reve de Baisers", a funky groover that owes much of its success to Dennis Coffey's "Scorpio" as they share similar riffs and breaks. Native American, and Brazilian rhythms come through on tracks by Herman's Rocket (who were also on the first volume) and Brasa Brasil & Helena. While Human Egg gives us "Onomatopaiea", a hypnotic vocal-only rhythm chant and the cosmic disco epic "Love Like This" that any DJ with a penchant for Italo or electro-funk should get this volume for that track alone! Of course The Starlights "Mao Mao" along with tracks by Mickey and Joyce and Venus Gang also make this essential for crate diggers and beatheads and freaky music collectors of all types. Psychoses Indeed!
Sometimes seeing a band play live in the flesh surpasses the experience on record, but other times, there's the danger of diminishing whatever mystique they've created for themselves, which remains safe when one listens at home with just the music (and record sleeve artwork) for one's imagination feed upon. Seeing a bunch of dudes in jeans and baseball hats up on stage making musician faces and fiddling with gear has bummed us out a bit about bands we've liked before, when we wanted gods and monsters and supermen.
And the ominously, exotically evocative music of the Master Musicians Of Bukkake, along with their colorful album cover imagery, provides a LOT of mystique to live up to (despite their irreverent/gross/jokey monicker). So when Allan here got the chance to see 'em recently at the Roadburn Festival in Holland, he was full of anticipation, but also a bit trepidatious about it. Turns out he had nothing to worry about. Do go see the Master Musicians Of Bukkake if you get the chance, their mystique will remain intact, never fear! Led by a dramatic robed figure wearing a wooden demon mask, the rest of the large ensemble wore white sombrero-like hats, their faces shrouded in black netting, and rocked out like dervishes, looking like they stepped out of scene in a Jodorowsky movie. One of most memorable performances at Roadburn for sure (and despite being, ah, so different from a lot of the other bands, they got a great response).
Witnessing that definitely got Allan excited about this impending new album, Totem Two. Plus we loved Totem One. The sequel raises the Master Musicians' mystic monolith still higher to the heavens. Once again to describe their sound, we could use the usual shorthand of the Sun City Girls meet latter-day Earth (which has some basis in this band's hybrid heavy drone exotica as well as their actual membership / friendship connections to those two legendary Seattle outfits). Other references: Ghost, Grails, Acid Mothers Temple, Secret Chiefs, Tangerine Dream! Thus, Totem Two has certainly been getting played a lot in the store, the MMoB's particular/pecuilar synthesis of sounds appealing to all of us here. Psychedelic, pretty, sinister, cinematic, steeped in ancient, Third World folk music and mythology... they're a mysterious moody mix of a lot of stuff we love, electronic drone filtered through faux-ethno ceremony, part SUNNO))), part Sublime Frequencies! Also, we're almost surprised this isn't on Ipecac, they ought to be Mike Patton's favorite band, in some ways bringing to life Mike Patton's Ennio Morricone compilation Crime & Dissonance (which was actually compiled by Alan Bishop, who of course is one of the Sun City Girls, and a mentor of / inspiration for / occasional collaborator with these guys).
The album begins with what sounds like a ghost train a-comin'... field recordings and tinkling percussion, hushed drone and the far-off foggy bellowings of Tibetan horns... you know you're in for a far ranging journey, off the beaten track. Gorgeous lonely flute dominates the second song, floating o'er a ritual processional, like Djivan Gasparyan sitting in on a sombre Amon Duul or International Harvester jam... the middle of the album brings in more buzzing synths, majestic and melancholic, getting spacey like Klaus Schulze, playing sentimental cinematic themes, dark and melodic.... The distortion ramps up briefly as a segue into the album's final eleven minute piece, a calm and psychedelic epic like Six Organs with extra synth squiggle... Beautiful! Almost makes us think of Japan's Far East Family Band from the '70s, that one. That's just a short surface summary, you could fall into this album's depths though, and come back changed, as if from a dream/drug quest...
Both cd and lp formats, like Totem One, feature feverish psychedelic jungle Seldon Hunt artwork, the vinyl version also comes wrapped in an obi.
Eduardo Mateo is one of the most enigmatic figures in Latin American music. Often regarded as the John Lennon of Uruguay, the mystique and confusion that surrounds him is as compelling and stunning as the beautiful music he left behind. With a tender voice that cuts right to the core, his music was like a beautiful cross between Joao Gilberto and Caetano Veloso. A romantic, as well as being heavily into mysticism, Mateo was often written off as being crazy. And sadly he did spend much of the 1970's either on the streets, in jail or in mental institutions. His poetic style, mixing of influences and creation of a world of his own were often misunderstood. His music though was filled with such beautiful longing. Folks like Milton Nascimento and Jorge Drexler have gushed about how important Mateo was to them, knowing the genius of his songs, arrangements and voice. And you can here his influence on a new generation of unique singer songwriters like Juana Molina and Lhasa. While we're not sure if they've heard him or not we're pretty sure folks like Vetiver, Eddie Marcon, Savath & Savalas and Jose Gonzalez would fall in love with his songs as well. Along with the informative liner notes comes an even more extensive and fascinating 44 page booklet which tells the complex and confusing story of one of the best kept secrets of South American music of the last quarter century. So good!
Matmos have that very rare and special talent of being able to turn endless creativity and playful spirit into something transcendental. While much of the press they get ends up being about their unique methods and approaches to gathering sounds (plastic surgery, semen, polish trains, rats, etc.) or the famous folks they have worked with (Bjork, Kronos Quartet, Terry Riley, etc.) the truth is that ultimately it's the strength of their varied albums and engaging live performances that have made them one of the best and most compelling music makers of the last decade.
Supreme Balloon finds Matmos stripped down in a sense as they put their contact mic's away and decided to make a record made solely with synthesizers and samplers, and the results are pretty damn stunning! Showing that they could give the DFA camp a tutorial if asked ("Polychords"), keeping their playful spirit on high with their Switched on Matmos take on "Les Folies Francaises" as well as reaching outer orbits of pure psychedelic bliss on the 24 minute title track. They use their wide range of synthesizers to create a kraut-like sensation with bursts of fluorescence and a sense of adventure and eye on the multicolor sky that is so damn hard to resist. Matmos manage to find the hidden smile in Klaus Schulze's stern visage, the relics of a Tangerine Dream with a half dose of ecstasy we always wished was out there somewhere. Once again they've proven that you can be smart without being stiff, playful without being dumb. Supreme Balloon will be a definite contender for record of the year!
(P.S., vinyl fans should note that the double-LP version of this record comes with three extra tracks including a great collaboration with Terry Riley titled "The Hashish Master"!)
If Drew Daniel got to indulge his big-booty-beach-party perversions on the Soft Pink Truth album, then Martin Schmidt, who is the other half of Matmos duo, should have the opportunity to elaborate his own musical virtues and vices. That said, it would be too easy to qualify "The Civil War" as the Martin record; but there are many more than a few similarities between this album and the previous outing "The West," Matmos' historically coded album which Matmos has publicly announced as being masterminded by Martin. Again, Matmos and their comrades in arms (J Lesser, Blevin Blechtum, Keith Fullerton Whitman, David Grubbs, Mark Lightcap, and others) wield some atypical instruments -- an emergency alarm system, blood, a rabbit pelt, conductive jelly, and an ultrasonic doppler flow detector (huh?); but what is most surprising about "The Civil War" is its dramatic break from the directions of contemporary electronica. Structurally, this album is a pastiche of jaunty Renaissance jigs, fife and drum marches, medieval madrigals for hurdy gurdy, and rustic folk. Yet, smeared across the surfaces of these archaic musics are digital pixels, microtonal glissandos, misplaced electronic beats, and intrusive glitches. This is an overtly clever take on appropriation, never allowing an exact mimesis of the older forms, rather Matmos position the old and the new in a context of dislocation. At their best, perhaps on "The Struggle Against Unreality Begins," Matmos reconstitutes the alchemy of Coil during their "Horse Rotovator" period, where the anarchronistic references collapse into a monstrous dirge with sly glances toward the carnivalesque.
Those Bjork fans who love her swansongs and wish to indulge in the genius of her technicians must be warned that "The Civil War" is a willfully difficult listen. But those adventurous listeners will certainly be delighted by the collision of state of the art electronics and the music of yesteryear.
At long last, possibly our favorite Matmos record ever is back in print! The West is by far the most sprawling and highway ready record in their illustrious back catalog. With all the well deserved attention they've received over the years for their innovative methods and countless collaborations one thing that's often overlooked is how well their records tend to predict and predate what's about to come floating up from the musical underground. Recorded and released a few years before the big new weird America/freak folk movement took off and before everyone was using laptops to create folktronica, Matmos made this amazing album that perfectly melds their leftfield electronic roots with spacious and trance inducing guitar to create the kind of record you would imagine might have been made if Henry Flynt and Jim O'Rourke were to collaborate or if Christian Fennesz got to twist knobs while John Fahey was playing in one of his most exploratory moments. With a long list of guests including J. Lesser and David Pajo (Slint, Papa M) on board for the record, Drew & Martin once again demonstrate how great they are at letting others into their world and being open to where the sounds will take them while still maintaining a distinct vision.
The West is for sure one of our favorite roadtrip records of all time. "Sun on 5 at 152" really does sound exactly how it feels when the sun is blasting through your dirty windshield and you can't really see what's ahead but you keep your foot on the pedal and just follow the road to wherever it may lead you. While no two Matmos records are alike The West probably finds its most kindred spirit in The Civil War, another Matmos record that proves there is much more to these great music makers then simply synths and samples. No matter what they create, soul seeps richly through their fractured sounds and in our opinion The West may be their most soulful, satisfying and resonating release EVER. Highly recommended!
The year is only just beginning but there have already been some amazing new records released that we're pretty sure will end up on our favorites of '08 list. This new outing by the enigmatic John Maus is one of them and it might just be the most engrossing and addicting albums we've been hooked on in a long time!
Best and barley known in the past as being loosely associated with the Paw Tracks family (Animal Collective, Panda Bear, Ariel Pink) Maus has made a record that will make his name definitely stand on its own. As he's created one of the most fantastical, bizarre and engaging pop records in recent memory. Warped bedroom pop with a flair for fantasy, wrapped in old fucked up synths, deep slowed down vocals, cosmic beats and a singular unique vision. Like OMD on codeine or early home demo recordings of The Cure captured on an answering machine tape that's been dubbed over way too many times. Or imagine a soundtrack to a lost early '80s movie made by both John Hughes and John Carpenter, as romantic teenage life intersects with magical apocalyptic doom! Love Is Real is as creepy and mystifying as it is heartfelt and endearing. As catchy as it is unpredictable. Out of nowhere the synths will rise to crazy loud levels or Maus will let out a haunting scream, and even after listening to this album hundreds of time as we have obsessively already, those parts still jump out, scare, startle and thrill us every time we listen.
Start to finish the album is impeccable. Songs lead into each other perfectly, the pacing is dead on, and every single track on the record belongs where it is and has a weight of its own. Whether it's sounding like the muddiest version of a Psychedelic Furs track or tapping into a bizarre drugged out cosmic disco excursion or having a freaked out panic attack, the record pulls from so many directions while always sounding like a completely other universe. This is what fantasy sounds like when the world around you is falling apart. Totally amazing!
Love Is Real, the last record from warped lo-fi popsmith John Maus, is an all time aQ favorite, a dizzying trip into some alternate reality FM radio, where the Cure recorded on answering machines, OMD crafted pop hits on broken tape decks and malfunctioning 4 tracks, a cosmic beat laden dream pop drug trip that managed to be as catchy and irresistible as it was baffling and totally and insanely demented.
Needless to say, we were super excited to discover there was a new John Maus record, the strangely titled We Must Become The Pitiless Censors Of Ourselves, a record that got even stranger when we discovered there was a song called "Cop Killer" on it. Naturally we assumed it was a cover of Body Count's infamous banned jam, so we played that track first, and besides being surprised that it was in fact an original, we also ended up being totally blown away by what might be the sweetest, most dreamily twisted John Maus track EVER.
A broody, almost torch songy ballad, all woozy synths, and big eighties drums, Maus delivering the bizarrely provocative lyrics in his best warm velvety croon: "Cop killer, cop killer, Let's kill the cops tonight, kiiiiiiill them, cop killer, kill every cop in sight", and then the delirious refrain "Against the law" repeated over and over in a tangled storm of intense pulsing synths. The sound lush and explosive, thick and softly blown out, a serious shot across Ariel Pink's bow, a definite challenge for the warped lysergic lo-fi pop crown, a challenge that's gonna be tough to answer. Especially considering that the rest of the record, is just as good, if not as immediately catchy. But catchy it is. "Matter Of Fact" sounds like Maus channeling Devo through his cracked eighties FM pop filter, with some equally baffling lyrics ("Pussy is not the matter of fact"), and some gorgeous hazy synth ambience. "Streetlight" is total eighties new wave pop with the delay and echo effects cranked, the vocals careening wildly through dubbed out clouds of delay, while underneath synths pulse and rhythms groove. "Quantum Leap" is haunting and gorgeously gloomy, Maus the consummate crooner, his deep dramatic vocals bobbing atop thick bouncy basslines, handclap percussion, and lots of swirling sonic murk. "...And The Rain" is another darkly dramatic dream pop doom synth dirge, all rainy late night ambience, and again cloaked in thick swirls of soft focus distortion and blurred echoey shimmer, every track seeming to constantly grow more and more washed out and effects drenched, constantly on the verge of total collapse, but somehow, the more tripped out and damaged they sound, the more pretty and poppy and dreamy they become, a fantastically fractured collection of twisted outsider gloom pop that really has no equal. About as close to a perfect pop record as Maus is liable to get, assuming you like your pop buried in buzz and all blurry and druggy and woozy and warped. Which we most definitely DO.
During a brief three years in the early '80s, Y Records enjoyed a roster of amazingly funky, post-punk groups that included The Pop Group, The Slits, Shriekback, Pigbag, and bafflingly enough Diamanda Galas (not taking on the typical guise of the label, mind you). Maximum Joy was another outstanding entry from Y Records, having been formed by Tony Wrafter after the dissolution of the agit-pop punk ensemble Glaxo Babies. Wrafter recruited vocalist Janine Rainforth, another Glaxo Baby in Charlie Llewellin, and the Pop Group's John Waddington. After a couple of singles, the band released Station MXJY under the production thumb of Adrian Sherwood. His dub inflected engineering worked perfectly to render Maximum Joy's jaunty punk-funk tunes as a sunny doppleganger of The Pop Group. Amidst Sherwood's tape echo and delay workouts, the band adventurously march through a taut rhythm section that tightropes between a militant funk and a doleful rocksteady swagger, while chicken scratch guitars map out the simple song structures and saxophone solos splatter across the stereo. It's a very good thing that this record has been reissued (complete with four excellent bonus tracks), as Maximum Joy were clearly a talented bunch who might have been forgotten otherwise. It's just unfortunate that Station MXJY is only available as an expensive Japanese import. Ouch!
If you don't own this, for some crazy reason, hopefully this review will convince you to pick it up RIGHT NOW! This is one of the most amazing, soulful, emotionally rich, politically charged, well crafted and musically dynamic albums of all time! His first solo record after leaving The Impressions, simply titled Curtis, was released in 1970 and it still blows us away and gives us chills all these years later.
Mayfield is a true musical genius, not only blessed with one of the greatest voices of all time but also such an incredible songwriter and arranger. The songs on Curtis are filled with lush instrumentation, swirling strings, soulful horns, and deep hitting percussion. And the songs are bold and brave, inspired by the Civil Rights movement and not afraid to speak out against the injustices (still) plaguing this country. But what makes this album so fucking special is that it managed to be both strong and breezy, charged and mellow, poignant and chilling.
We've been playing this in the store so much lately and everytime, customers always know that it's Curtis Mayfield but they usually assume it's a greatest hits collection and are stunned to find out it's an actual album. It's one of those rare albums packed with songs that could have been the best single ever ("Move On Up", "Give It Up", "We The People Who Are Darker Than Blue" are all on this album!) and what's amazing is that the other songs on the record are just as good and maybe even better! It's not surprising that this record has been sampled by loads of folks including EPMD, NWA, Tupac, and Pete Rock, just to name a few. This Rhino reissue adds nine bonus tracks which are all worth having. This is one of those truly special albums that we could, and have listened to hundreds of times, and yet never get sick of, always feeling something and taking something away from the album with each repeated listen. Music for the spirit and soul. A true masterpiece!
With close to 20 years of hindsight, so much of what came out of the 1990s sounds dated and rather predictable, an obvious and angsty cheese, even less palatable than much of the 1980s synthetic curd. Plain Records has chosen wisely to reissue the three Mazzy Star LPs, that, despite containing countless guitar solos, have absolutely no cheesy moments. These three brilliant records draw from the bluesy drones of Spacemen 3 and The Jesus and Mary Chain (amongst others), dropping most of the irony and jagged edges to create music that might be described as the soft(er) psychedelia to Spacemen 3's harder stuff. As readers of this list know, Hope Sandoval, the singer, sometime rhythm guitarist, and (many would argue) the force behind Mazzy Star, has gone on to create amazing records with her new band the Warm Inventions. She has a voice that penetrates with a whisper, that carries like a wind floating above the music, that is instantly recognizable, and that influenced scores of singers. David Roback wrote most of the basic melodies on all three Mazzy Star records and plays all of the guitar solos. He has an innate sense of space and sound, a slightly twangy simplicity that might fade into just a few notes, or that can explode into reverb drenched ecstasy. You won't find better guitar tones anywhere, especially on So Tonight That I Might See. A lot of the arrangements are sparse, almost minimalistic, but the quality of the recordings and the melodies make even a track with only vocals, a guitar and an organ seem full. Especially through headphones, the warmth of Sandoval's voice is a magical compliment to Robeck's guitar. Everyone from Beach House to Grouper to Cat Power to PJ Harvey owes Mazzy Star a huge debt, or at least a big shout-out. All three of these records are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
She Hangs Brightly came out in 1990 and is the most "rocking" record of the three. The drums are definitely the busiest and the songs less dreamy, less laid back. This record establishes their reverby, slightly twangy sound but hasn't quite found the right mood. This is the Mazzy Star record to listen to with friends because it won't depress the hell out of you.
It's not until 1993's So Tonight That I Might See that Mazzy Star perfects their sonic elegance. The band's most commercially successful record, it's probably got the songs you remember: "Fade Into You", "She's My Baby", the title track. The beats have slowed way down, the vocals have decided to ride parallel to the music instead of right up on it, and the arrangements have become simple and piercing. A shoegaze classic.
Among My Swan is, in our opinion, maybe the best of the three Mazzy Star releases. The overt psychedelia has been taken away and replaced with a confident playfulness, a distinct melancholia. The reverb is turned way down, allowing for the simple compliment of acoustic guitar and Hope Sandoval's vocals to contrast with the sparser layers of fuzzed leads and harmonica. "Rhymes of an Hour" goes all Velvet Underground, losing almost all percussion, floating forward on a drone of strings. A moodier offering for those who find catharsis in despair and loneliness.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Much like on his recent solo acoustic radio session lp, on Things Fall Apart, Emeralds member Mark McGuire once again ditches the effects (mostly), going it alone, sans his synthesizer compatriots, with just some hazy guitar strum, looped hypnotic melody, and away we go...
...Into some sort of ethereal washed out dreamscape of elliptical guitar figures, interwoven and overlapping, mesmerizing and hypnotic, slowly shifting, a gorgeous new age krautdrone drift, crystalline and delicate, it's a slow build, but eventually, the tracks grow more fierce, darker, and more dense, with some fuzzy psychedelic guitars adding extra buzz and filigree, ratcheting up the space rock vibe, but never letting loose completely.
Contemplative, sun-dappled tranquility is the order of the day here. Or rather the order of the cool breezy sun-setting Summery eve. Some aQ folks were hearing some Jerry Garcia, in his Zabriske Point solo guitar mode, others some krauty shimmery smoothness a la Michael Rother, both are equally applicable, Things Fall Apart is a soft focus prismatic drift of fluttery krautfolk and subtle spaced out avant Appalachia, broadcast through a gauzey veil of ephemeral shimmer. Lovely. And of course, EXTREMELY LIMITED.
Previously listed on vinyl, now finally available on cd, another fantastic release from Mark McGuire, a member of psych synth drone aQ faves Emeralds, this a cd reissue of two loooong out of print cassettes, consisting of four long tracks, of processed and looped guitarmusic, a gloriously kosmiche hypnotic and repetitive space rock kraut drone, beginning with an odd, somewhat out of place sample, but as soon as the guitars kick in we're immediately transported to some strange other world of crystals and prisms, the sonic sunlight unfurling glorious sheets of color, stuttery looped tangles of spidery guitar gives way to thick swells of crumbling corrosive fuzz, warm and lush and billowy, a wall of metalgaze blur that soon shifts back into a dizzying swirl of looped and layered melodies, that shifts and undulates and morphs from muted blissful smears to straight up folky strum.
The second track is another gorgeous loopscape, chiming guitar harmonics, and short sharp bursts of static, simple subtle melodies underneath, almost poppy sounding, until it collapses into a soft swirling tangle of layered synths and dizzying serpentine melodies, only to again to return to something much more traditionally strummy, a simple moody guitar figure layered over electronic chitter that sounds a bit like crickets in the fading afternoon light.
Track three beings with flurry of chiming high end guitars, like fireflies, they swirl and flit, the almost-melodies constantly in motion, the sound growing ever more lush and complex and dense, so hypnotic, loop after loop laid atop the loops that came before, a lovely slow build, that eventually joins the twinkling looped melodies with subtle guitar strum, and washed out string-like swells, the whole thing growing more and more hazy and distorted and metallic, dissipating in a lovely tangle of decaying loops.
Finally, the record ends with some heavily delayed and looped minimal guitars, muffled and muted, chiming and percussive, very Reich / Riley sounding, again blossoming into lush latticeworks of overlapping melodies and overtones, it's not until near the end that the guitars begin to become effected, the guitars seemingly transforming into synths, a buzzy, fuzzy, but still fantastically mesmerizing finale.
REPRESSED on vinyl again!!
Okay, so he was "the English Phil Spector". Whew, got that out of the way. In fact he's arguably one of THE most innovative, albeit the most obscure, producers *ever* (other candidates being Spector, Brian Wilson, Lee Perry, other votes welcome!). Though famous first and foremost for his hit with the Tornados' "Telstar" (the first English pop song to hit #1 on the charts in the US), this tone deaf wunderkind had a penchant for the very strange and esoteric as well. It's been said that the man turned down the opportunity to have a first stab at recording The Beatles and David Bowie while counseling an aspiring band to axe front man Rod Stewart if they wanted to work with him. Bad judgements or refined tastes? Given much of the work Meek chose to produce in their stead one might quickly point the finger in the direction of bad judgement, but Meek's visionary "I Hear A New World" suggests that the man had an altogether sublime inspiration that was far ahead of its time.
Fascination with what life could possibly exist on the moon was the seed which drove Joe Meek to compose what could be considered the first "rock" concept album. He wanted to "create a picture in music of what could be up there in outer space." Quite a task. A task that required Meek to use every producing trick in his bag (a very, very big bag.) Take the foundation of an instrumental band, in this case Meek's The Blue Men - a sort of Venturesy, Shadowsy, Les Paulsy kind of thing - then squash the hell out of the drums with compression, throw delay and reverb around like a death battle with King Tubby, and add a potpourri of unusual instruments including the Clavioline (a super primitive pre-synthesizer) a purposefully out of tune tack piano, the occasional double speed vocals and you can almost hear Joe's New World. Top this off with the fact that Joe was attempting to create a stereo recording working only with primitive two track machines (not a huge multi-track facility) in his two room apartment recording studio and you know the man had to be a mad genius. (Certifiably mad, if the murder of his landlady and his suicide are any indication.)
Okay, so he was "the English Phil Spector". Whew, got that out of the way. In fact he's arguably one of THE most innovative, albeit the most obscure, producers *ever* (other candidates being Spector, Brian Wilson, Lee Perry, other votes welcome!). Though famous first and foremost for his hit with the Tornados' "Telstar" (the first English pop song to hit #1 on the charts in the U.S.), this tone deaf wunderkind had a penchant for the very strange and esoteric as well. It's been said that the man turned down the opportunity to have a first stab at recording The Beatles and David Bowie while counseling an aspiring band to axe front man Rod Stewart if they wanted to work with him. Bad judgements or refined tastes? Given much of the work Meek chose to produce in their stead one might quickly point the finger in the direction of bad judgement, but Meek's visionary "I Hear A New World" suggests that the man had an altogether sublime inspiration that was far ahead of its time.
Fascination with what life could possibly exist on the moon was the seed which drove Joe Meek to compose what could be considered the first "rock" concept album. He wanted to "create a picture in music of what could be up there in outer space." Quite a task. A task that required Meek to use every producing trick in his bag (a very, very big bag.) Take the foundation of an instrumental band, in this case Meek's The Blue Men -- a sort of Venturesy, Shadowsy, Les Paulsy kind of thing -- then squash the hell out of the drums with compression, throw delay and reverb around like a death battle with King Tubby, and add a potpourri of unusual instruments including the Clavioline (a super primitive pre-synthesizer) a purposefully out of tune tack piano, the occasional double speed vocals and you can almost hear Joe's New World. Top this off with the fact that Joe was attempting to create a stereo recording working only with primitive two track machines (not a huge multi-track facility) in his two room apartment recording studio and you know the man had to be a mad genius. (Certifiably mad, if the murder of his landlady and his suicide are any indication.)
This fine new edition of this *absolute*must*hear* album includes, along with all the original tracks, a 35 minute monologue by Joe Meek recorded in 1962 in which Meek gives a brief autobiography leading up to his residing at 538 Holloway Road, describes his studio and its contents: microphones, recording decks, etc and talks about his work. Quite a unique document. Also included on the disc is a film clip of Joe Meek in his studio talking about the music industry (and though the makers of this CD claim that you can only play the film on a PC, it seems to work fine on both Mac and PC.) Plus you get a nice fold out poster with Meek's original notes for each song on I.H.A.N.W. and a thorough telling of the story behind the album.
Lubomyr Melnyk is one of our favorite modern composers. The inventor and master of the Continuous Music technique, which has made him the Guinness-recognized fastest piano player in the world. But was we mentioned in other reviews, this speed and mastery is deftly employed, to create lush clouds of billowing chordal shimmer, the sort of dreamlike divine sound that should have Melnyk spoken about in the same sort or reverential tones reserved for legends like Reich and Riley and Palestine. Melnyk's method involves keeping the pedals on the piano depressed, allowing notes to ring out, bleed into each other, creating lush expanses of constantly shifting overtones, sounds layered and bleeding into one another, creating huge swaths of organic sound, a sound that seems to be alive, full of energy and emotion, not just Melnyk's technique, but his compositions as well, a true master who has created some of the most amazing modern piano music we've ever heard. The sad thing is that his records are quite difficult to find, and the fact that he has composed so many pieces, and his interest is in allowing people to hear as much of his music as possible, most of those records exist only as cd-r's. But gradually, it seems, interest in Melnyk has been growing, we've certainly been doing everything we can, constantly proselytizing, telling everyone we know about Melnyk and his music, reviewing them on our list, and getting as much of his music as we can into the ears of folks we think need to hear it, which we think is many of you.
So we're super excited whenever one of his records gets a proper worldwide release, and thus, we were thrilled when we first heard about Corollaries. Which besides being one of the few non-cd-r Melnyk releases, is also of note as it's the first collaboration we've heard from him. Even on past records where multiple pianos were used, Melnyk played all the parts. But here, Melnyk is joined by Peter Broderick and Martin Heyne, who give Melnyk's music an interesting, sort of washed out gauzy production, which really suits the sound, but beyond that, also contribute synthesizer, violin and vocals! We weren't at all sure what to expect, but were actually quite pleasantly surprised.
The opener here "Pockets Of Light" finds us in familiar territory, with Melnyk laying down a lush landscape of swirling notes, and lush chordal shimmer, and as we (and many of you) know by now, that's all we really need, Melnyk and his Continuous Music method are more than enough to fill the speakers, and your headphones and your ears with a wild field of sound, one that is so easy to get lost in, but here, the addition of violin, adds a fantastic element, a bit of a drone, and a melodic counterpoint, also complimented by the dreamlike production, we were pretty skeptical about the vocals, but when they come in, the sound is transformed into a gorgeous, shimmery sort of slowcore, Broderick's vocals high and clear, warm and emotional, drifting atop, Melnyk's lush landscape of chordal swirl, the more we listen, the more we realize we actually might have liked more of the songs to have vocals. Imagine Low with clouds of piano shimmer and you might be close. Divine and dreamlike and utterly mesmerizingly lovely.
"The Six Day Moment" is Melnyk solo, and is a delight of course, a dense, intricate classical music, that almost sounds like multiple players, but it's never too busy, or too chaotic, it's instead lush and lovely, melodic and moving, lyrical and haunting, we could listen to Melnyk play forever, and listening to this, we begin to wonder why someone hasn't asked him to score their film, the sound so evocative and cinematic, epic and intense. "A Warmer Place" finds Broderick returning again, this time playing violin, Melnyk's playing spare and minimal, demonstrating, that it's not just about speed or notes, lots of space, ambient and ethereal, Broderick's minimal melodies perfectly underpinning Melnyk's delicate crystalline arrangements, wintery and wonderfully melancholy.
"Nightrail From The Sun" might be the biggest surprise here, with its casual conversation laced false start, to the hypnotic piano/guitar interplay, some serious Reich/Riley style melodic mesmer going on here, Broderick adding some heft and background color via synth, but for the most part, it's the interplay between Melnyk's piano and Martyn Heyne's guitar that makes this so stunning, and like the other tracks, we find ourselves wishing for a whole record of this. And when Broderick amps up the synth, the sound becomes super dramatic, almost Godspeed-like in its brooding intensity. In many ways, it's like an even more intricate avant version of the recent collaboration between Melnyk and James Blackshaw. And finally, the record finishes off with another Melnyk / Broderick duet, this one with a distinctly mournful almost country feel, the violin unfurling an aching minor key melody, while Melnyk underpins Broderick's violin, with sweetly understated piano, the sound building to something extremely emotional and moving, again, evoking all sorts of images and emotions, and again making us wonder why Melnyk and Broderick aren't scoring films, the closer so cinematic, and expressively cinematic, lush and so so lovely.
Like everything we've heard from Melnyk, and absolute treasure, and a fantastic collaboration, that we hope will inspire many more, and will finally get the rest of the world to discover what we already know, that Melnyk is a genius. This record is simply more proof of that.
Writing as many reviews as we do each week, trying to sell records to the people who will like 'em, we really appreciate it when a band makes it easy, as in this case, like, by being from Japan. And from the early '70s. Playing acid folk. And then they've got a cool name like Melting Glass Box. All that really remains is for us to tell you if is as amazing as it seems it might be - and it is.
Of course, though they're pretty obscure, you may have heard of them already, as this 1970 album has quite a deserved rep among connoisseurs of Japanese psych stuff - though it's mysteriously given short shrift in Julian Cope's Japrocksampler book, though he does praise albums by another band, Five Red Balloons (Itsutsu No Arai Fusen) from whom comes the main Melting Glass Box guy, singer-songwriter Takasi Nishioka, who is the pretty sharp looking denim clad hipster gent in the Melting Glass Box cover photo. MGB was a one-off studio project (though Takasi made many albums with Itsutu No Arai Fusen, and a bunch of later solo records as well) that also featured folks from such crucial underground Japanese psych acts of the era as The Jacks, Apryl Fool, and AQ faves Blues Creation. There's three members of proto-metal heavies Blues Creation on board here, actually, including Iommi-esque guitarist Takeda Kazuo. Not that this is at all heavy, it's actually a mellow, melodic record, quite gentle and pretty and placid, the lazy la la la's of their folky flowerpowered pop punctuated with such surreal details as the sound of shattering glass that startles the listener halfway through the lead off track "Anmari Fukasugite". Likewise, electronic FX, tape speed manipulations, ethnic instruments, and some stinging acid guitar licks are sparingly stirred into the mix throughout, this album one of many interesting, dreamy details and odd arrangements, but that still succeeds especially due to Takasi's balladic songs, that are so very melancholic and emotional - even though we can't understand the lyrics. We bet Masaki Batoh and Ghost grew up listening to this record!
Definitely a thrilling reissue that all of us here at AQ are digging, it's been getting a LOT of in-store play. Nicely done, too, by the Erebus label, with liner notes, original sleeve shots, and discographical information in the cd booklet.
Oh the glory days. Remember when all our favorite bands were still sort of our own little secret that the larger mainstream world both didn't know about and could care less about. That's how it was almost two decades ago when The Magnetic Fields first hit the scene. Before getting the attention of NPR and culture vultures far and wide with the release of 69 Love Songs, Stephin Merritt was one of the most unsung songwriters of our generation. Whether it was with The Magnetic Fields or when he recorded under the monikers of The 6ths, Future Bible Heroes, or the Gothic Archies, he carved out a space as one of the most unique and versatile songwriters we had heard in ages.
Obscurities draws from this magical era. Taking rare and unreleased tracks dating back to his days on Merge in the mid-late '90s. And we have to admit, this record is really reminding us why we fell so hard in love with his songs in the first place. The poignant and wicked smart lyrics, the deadpan delivery, the range of song forms from lo-fi C86 inspired blasts to more delicate and introspective twee. And we must mention that this contains one of our favorite songs of all time. "I Don't Believe You" by The Magnetic Fields, and it's not the version that came out on their Nonesuch debut, I, but instead the version from the long out of print Merge 7", that a few of us here have probably played over and over more then any other song in the world. well worth the price of admission for that practically perfect chunk of lo-fi pop bliss!
While we still dig what Merritt has been doing in recent years, in fact we made the 2008 Magnetic Fields album Distortion a Record Of The Week, we have to admit this is the era that will always be most near and dear to our hearts and ears. Absolutely essential!
Long before psych folk became the flavor of the month in the indie scene there was the Tower Recordings. A group responsible for some of our favorite drugged out psych-pop EVER, with such nice swirling textures, delivered with such a gorgeous touch. The members of Tower Recordings have forged pretty of remarkable solo careers of their own. Folks like P.G. Six, Samara Lubelski, Matt Valentine, etc.
Metal Mountains is a brand new project that reunites Tower Recordings members Samara Lubelski, Pat Gubler (P.G. Six) and Helen Rush. There is a real magic between them as this is one of the most beautiful and mournful sounding albums we have heard in ages. Delicate composition stripped away of any fat, yet stretched out so nice with haunting instrumentation and a minimalist approach to creating a songs that make you sway so softly as you float away from all that surrounds you. It's restrained and understated without being uptight. A soft tension blankets the warm, moody recordings and we are left with a stunning and sublime set of songs.
For as much hype, attention and press these guys get we have to admit not many of us at the store even heard their debut. We caught a song here and there and we could tell it was fun catchy stuff but we weren't quite sure what all the fuss was about. With their new album we decided to dig in a bit and damn are we glad we did. Because at the end of the day, and all the fashion spreads, magazine covers, teenage adornment, blog hype, it all doesn't matter if the music doesn't hold up. And with Congratulations, MGMT have shown they are a band that can back up their good looks and youthful energy with totally awesome music!
While much had been made about how 'weird' this album was supposed to be compared to their debut, it might be 'weird' for people who are only used to top 40 music, but to us it sounds like delicious breezy psych pop. So awesome how they tap into a really cool Elephant Six vibe, reminding us of some of our favorite records from Olivia Tremor Control, Elf Power, and Apples In Stereo. The album truly is just that, an album. From start to finish they have created a work that flows with such ease and isn't about standout singles, but instead really is about the entire experience of listening to the record from start to finish. With Sonic Boom (Spacemen 3) enlisted to produce the record they knew where to go for just the right touch, a distinctly psychedelic feel that references more of The Beatles psych tendencies than lots of the modern psych peddlers. We also think a lot about one of favorite underrated bands of the past, Beachwood Sparks, as the sounds on Congratulations remind us a lot of some of our favorite BS jams. There is something so genuine sounding and less forced then we somehow were expecting in this record. If we would have received this as some random band's cd-r, we would all be freaking out about what an amazing pop discovery we just made. So just because they are on a huge label and get tons of hype and press, don't write this record off, it deserves your ears because it's really fucking good!
The first batch of the cds comes with a scratch off cover, a weird coin and a 32 page booklet. The first pressing of the lps also comes with a scratch off cover, and is pressed on 180 gram vinyl.
One of the most amazing Reggae debut albums of all time. Originally released in 1976, The Mighty Diamonds hit the scene with this rich roots album which decades later still stands as one of the fullest and warmest sounding reggae albums ever captured on tape. While the bulk of their lyrical content was all about hardcore political resistance, they were able to make their message go down so smooth as their vocal harmonies are some of the sweetest since the heyday of Studio One. Slow and steady with an ease that just flows through the album and makes it one of those records we just have to blast when the sun is shining so bright. Behind the amazing vocals are some serious chops courtesy of the kick ass ensemble gathered for this album which included (of course) Sly & Robbie. You can hear how they were influenced not only by the early years of reggae but also such a strong sense of Motown melody and a doo-wop sensibility. A total classic that we're happy to finally list.
While our Japanese section at AQ is known for its loud & noisy disposition, we know that there's another side to the wonderful sounds coming out of Japan and this record by Miko is some of the best shoegaze dream pop we've heard from -anywhere- in ages!
Like an amazing combination of everything we loved about The Softies and the first couple records by Mum, Miko uses electronics with such a tender and warm touch while crafting songs that Tujiko Noriko might make if she was on Too Pure or Creation. Swirling melodies that can be both hypnotic and playful, daydream vocals that transport us into wide open blue skies with the most lovely and fluffy soft clouds to roll around in.
What makes Parade such a special record is that unlike so much other dreampop that tends to become a bit monotonous over a whole album, there is enough variety, and really well paced, well crafted songwriting here that the record manages to always be enthralling and intriguing yet never too busy, never distracting from the ultimate beauty of these songs. The album makes us wish we could astrally transport ourselves to the Japanese countryside, floating over rolling hills of lush green grass where Miko plays her breathtaking songs, as we lay on our backs staring into the sky, as the wind takes us wherever it wants. So beautiful!
We first heard Lloyd Miller on that amazing Spiritual Jazz compilation we reviewed recently, and while pretty much every track was a killer, Miller's "Gol-E Gandom" definitely stood out, beginning with a santur solo, that sounded like a sea of buzzing sitars, until the jazz kicked in, bopping bass, fluid piano, shuffling rhythms, somehow following the melody laid out by the opening santur solo. So magical. We were smitten and were dying to hear more. Luckily, Jazzman endeavored to put together this amazing collection of Miller's various recordings, which was no small feat, considering that even after a lifetime playing jazz, most of these songs were only available on super limited self released records, which made it into fewer hands, and ears, that would seem right considering the power and originality of Miller's music.
He grew up in America, but his father was transferred to Iran, so his family moved there when Miller was 19, and they lived there for 5 years. Then Miller finally moved to Europe, to pursue jazz, after all, Europe was where it was happening, he landed in Germany, later heading to Switzerland, all the while creating these amazing, and mostly unheard pieces, incorporating an incredible array of ethnic instruments with some seriously intense and inspired jazz.
While some of the tracks here sound like straight up jazz, flecked with bits of ethnic instrumentation, others are totally far out. "Le Grand Bidou" finds his group riffing on a single chord, while Miller inserts an Indian style tonic drone played on the micro organ, and the result is bizarre, the whole track twists and squirms and heaves, it's an odd fit, but fit it does, we can only imagine how freaked out purists must have been. and frustrated, considering the caliber of playing, but it's these twisted takes on standard jazz that makes this stuff so magical, and the fact that this was the late fifties / early sixties, it's a wonder Miller didn't become a sensation. This stuff is radical, revolutionary, considering how important the incorporation of African music and instruments into jazz became (Don Cherry, Art Ensemble), how is it that this wasn't equally if not more radical? A white kid from Utah, with impeccable jazz chops, playing all sorts of Turkish and Persian instruments, wrapping standard jazz tropes around Indian arrangements, kind of mindblowing even now.
The liner notes are super detailed, and Miller's life is fascinating, but it's really about the music, and as much as we dig jazz, and fancy ourselves, if not experts, at least super fans, we had NEVER heard Miller before that comp, and this stuff is so cool, and so unlike ANYTHING we've ever heard, from the instrumentation, to the arrangements, to modal systems, some of the tracks are Indian ragas transformed, others seem to eschew the jazz completely and sound like some mysterious magical world music, but it's where the two elements mesh where things get truly magical, tablas underpinning pianos, strange horns droning over upright bass and shuffling percussion, all woven deftly into a strain of jazz that is wholly unique and original. So fantastic, and so utterly and wholeheartedly recommended. Easily THE jazz reissue of the year, if not the decade!
One of the catchiest slabs of vinyl we've heard yet from the crazily prolific and pretty much always awesome Captured Tracks camp. With nice undertones of a warbly and disjointed demeanor along the lines of Blank Dogs, but taken in a more sleek and shoegazey direction. It's got this awesome hint of past C86 glory while infusing darker elements into those swirling and seductive hooks. Kind of like The Cure's mid/late '80s sound trimmed of its fat and recorded on a four track, or Ride at their most focused and infectious. What's so exciting about the Minks is that these two songs prove they know how to write totally infectious and melodic songs that evoke that perfect kind of hazy and blurred emotion. It's not just nailing a style and aesthetic, as these two songs are just so damn good, so good that we've been flipping it over and over playing it more times in a row then is probably healthy. But when a band starts making us obsessive we know that's a pretty great sign. We're super excited to hear more, and this is a fucking awesome introduction!
