We fell so hard for the latest Flying Lotus release, Los Angeles, that we knew we had to go back and give the proper attention to his debut. We'd heard bits and pieces of it before but never really got to spend any quality time with. Until now.
Proving that his latest great record was not just some fluke, 1983 offers up for display lots of the roots and promise that would blossom into the powerful cosmic instrumental hip-hop/electronica that made the latest Flying Lotus release one of our favorites of the year. This disc, from a few years back, barely pales in comparison. While not quite as explosive and engaging as FL's newest record, it's still a skillfully crafted and delightful to listen to chunk of crunchy yet smooth flowing beats and melodies with equal nods to downtempo, hiphop, and electronica. Definitely the kind of record that should appeal to anyone into Madlib, Boards Of Canada, Prefuse 73 or even prime era Morr Music outings. Glad we took a moment to look back, as this is proving to be a record that deserves a home here at AQ and we hope on your shelves as well!
Flying Lotus is back and with every new release seems to bring something new to the table. This time around he doesn't spread himself as far out sonically as he did on Cosmogramma but instead reigns himself in to refine the details of his complex musical palette. This is definitely a late night record, full of lucid dreamy qualities, referencing obscure quiet storm RnB, celestial jazz, and narcoleptic funk, but with a soaring jewel-like exactitude. Cinematic in scope, we don't just listen, but become engrossed in his floating oceanic soundworld. Guest stints by Erykah Badu, Thom Yorke, Thundercat and others add to the ponderous gauzy midnight feel. Recommended! Vinyl comes with download.
This record is so wackadoo, and we mean that in the best possible way! Flying Lotus records have always been more about the whole than their individual parts, often built around a large abstract metaphysical concept, where multiple ideas and spaces can congeal and separate. This time around, that concept is revealed in the title, and this album is a journey of short vignettes where like the process of death, there is a hectic loss of control, regrets and fears bubble to the surface, and then there is the quieting and majestic expanse, and sometimes this happens all in one track. When we first put this on, some of us were like, 'What in Jaco Pastorius hell is this?' The sound of prog jazz fusion may not be everyone's cup of tea - regular Flying Lotus collaborator, Thundercat, who makes his own George Duke inspired soul jams, provides the fret-hopping bass and Herbie Hancock (!!) is on the Fender Rhodes! But, those fusion sounds are tempered by some of the most sublimely beautiful ambient passages. What keeps this from being overtly indulgent are the short track times (mostly every track is under 3 minutes) and the genre-jumps from instrumental hip-hop to jazz prog, from cosmic ambiance to mind-rattling raps provided by Kendrick Lamar, Snoop Dog, and Flying Lotus alter-ego, Captain Murphy - who has a vocal affectation of stuffed-up worry that could easily be a voice from one of the Fat Albert kids. You're Dead may be the aural equivalent of the film Enter The Void, but with a sharper focus and an incredible all-encompassing flow that really feels like we have been through a life-altering event. Nothing else out there sounds like this, a black prog beauty!
One of the most limited and sought after documents in the FSA catalog has finally got a cassette reissue from local tape archival label Sanity Muffin. Here is what we said about the original cd-r release back in 2004:
P.A. Blues is a selection of unreleased live material from 1994-1997 hand picked and edited by FSA's Dave Pearce and featuring Rachel Brook from Movietone and Matt Elliott from Third Eye Foundation. Blissed out and dense, thick washes of guitar ambience and slowly shifting, dark and droning swoosh and shimmer. The focus of this disc is the lengthy side-long title track, a massive collage of live recordings chopped and edited into a single huge swelling throbbing movement. The B-side features other live recordings including a sprawling mumbling lo-fi cover of Fairport Convention's "She Moves Through The Fair". As with most things Flying Saucer attack, this is epic and gorgeous spaced out, dreamy and mesmerizing drone rock of the highest order!
Limited to 100 copies, this one will go fast!
Newly reissued by Superior Viaduct, Brigitte Fontaine's debut album from 1968 is a beautiful anomaly in the career of one of France's most groundbreaking artists. Produced by Jean-Claude Vannier, this is the closest Fontaine gets to a mainstream French pop record, even if it's hardly mainstream. Coy and alluring with a sultry mystery that gives the arrangements an artful sheen, Fontaine sounds like the best parts of Serge Gainsbourg, Francois Hardy and Nico combined. There are a couple of tracks that go into a goofy cabaret mode, but that was so indicative of the time, Fontaine could be forgiven for it. Especially considering the avant territory she would later explore with the Art Ensemble of Chicago and her longtime percussionist partner Areski on Comme a La Radio (also reissued on Superior Viaduct and reviewed elsewhere on this week's list). But for a fantastic French pop record with incredible production, this album comes highly recommended!!
Newly reissued by Superior Viaduct, this is an amazing collaboration between two totally incredible musical explorers, French chanteuse Brigitte Fontaine (with percussionist partner Areski) and avant-jazz greats Art Ensemble of Chicago, recorded during the Art Ensemble's stay in Paris in 1969. Though coming from very different backgrounds, each artist's idiosyncratic approach, commitment to experimentation, disregard for genre boundaries, and keen sense for improvisation and working collaboratively yields an album that pushes each performer to new heights. The blend of Fontaine's vocals, Areski's understated percussion, and the Art Ensemble's horns is really seamless, evoking the mysterious, intriguing sounds of lounge jazz in a dada cafe, or, well, an intellectual French chanteuse melding avant-folk with free jazz, which is exactly what it is. Brigitte Fontaine is becoming more and more cemented as one of our absolute favorite artists ever. So great, so recommended!
What a title! Don't know what the heck it means, but we love the sounds contained inside. Released on Jozef Van Wissem's Incunabulum imprint, this is a beautiful solo 12-string record by Chris Forsyth, Brooklynite multi-instrumentalist and founding member of Peeesseye (PSI). But this has a different approach to the solo guitar genre than we've heard before. Focusing on a restless back-porch style minimalism, Forsyth layers overlapping and slow repetitive cascades of mandala-like rhythms and patterns with subtly shifting melodic changes. Often undercut with organ drones, cymbal washes, and minimal percussion, the sounds unfold like intricate patterns of Oriental tapestry or Tibetan sand-paintings, captivating and mesmerizing us into circling and swirling trance-like states. Quite lovely and very limited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another of our favorites from 2015, Four Tet's Kieran Hebden surprised us with this beautifully paired down release based on the meditative structure of Indian raga. Two side long tracks derived from the Morning and Evening themes of Hindustani classical music, Hebden doesn't mimic the raga form or employ the traditional instrumentation as much as using the structure to experiment with sonically stretching time and mood. Utilizing vocal samples from a female Indian singer on both tracks, the Morning side has a forward moving momentum that feels like a new day beginning, the lilting vocal taking us higher, before the structure disintegrates and reforms. The Evening side is more subdued, filtering the vocal into spacey washes and quieter focus. Each side takes the form into unpredictable spaces beautifully collapsing and rebuilding in unexpected ways, but yet never taking us fully out of the meditation we've been hypnotized by. This transportive sonic journey comes highly recommended!
Wow, we haven't been this impressed with a Four Tet full length in a long time, though truth be told it has been awhile since Kieran Hebden has released one. He has spent the greater parts of the last four or five years concentrating on remixes and with three solo collaborations with jazz drummer Steve Reid, leaving only one sole ep (Ringer) in between this release and his last, Everything Ecstatic. While that last record displayed an erratic and harder edged tendency to shake off the "folktronica" tag that has dogged him early on, it also seemed like he was trying too hard. On There is Love In You, Hebden is back to his strengths, keeping the compositions economic, but also beautiful, well-crafted and at moments truly sublime. Our excitement mounted when we heard the first single, "Love Cry", late last year. That nine minute minimal house opus as well as the awesome Joy Orbison remix was for some of us the single of the year! Though the bulk of the record is not as dancefloor oriented as the single, his masterful use of warmth, texture and editing make this an exciting listen all the way through, sounding at times like Cluster and Dif Juz filtered through Carl Craig and Flying Lotus. Recommended!
What more could be said about these two Fripp & Eno records than we've already written in countless Expo '70, Growing and Aidan Baker reviews? That's because these records are pretty much ground zero for all of the dark dreamy drifty processed guitar / tape / synth drone that we can't ever seem to get enough of. Perhaps there are other earlier influential touchstones such as Tony Conrad and La Monte Young, perhaps Stockhausen and Terry Riley as well, but none seemed to have come so totally out of nowhere from two relatively mainstream players as these two records. Manuel Gottsching, Taj Mahal Travellers, and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music all came a little later.
After every other Eno solo album and collaboration (from Cluster to David Byrne) has been reissued, we are lucky enough to finally see both of these classic releases newly 24-bit remastered by Fripp himself reissued on his DGM imprint. These have never sounded better! No Pussyfooting even contains an extra disc featuring both tracks in reverse and a 40 minute bonus track of "The Heavenly Music Corporation" recorded at half speed that we know all our customers into glacial doomy drone will want, nay, need to own! Even if you own this record already, you may just need to buy it again for the stellar extra material!
It's easy to take for granted nowadays the influence of Brian Eno as the "godfather of ambient music", but in 1973 before he had even released his first solo record, Here Come The Warm Jets, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno were mainly known for their previous roles in King Crimson and Roxy Music respectively. Then this mysterious record parenthetically titled (No Pussyfooting) appears with its cryptic cover, a sort of ultra-modernized take on a hermetic alchemical engraving depicting the two artists (Eno at his most androgynous) looking in opposite directions, sitting in a small mirrored room with no doors reading tarot cards on a mirrored table with what sort of looks like a line of coke (?), next to a mirrored guitar in a mirrored case in the corner, a translucent mannequin and an antique silver radiator behind them under glass shelves filled with old books. The back cover showing the same scene with both artists and tarot cards missing. With its two side-long awesomely titled tracks "The Heavenly Music Corporation" and "Swastika Girls", what kind of music would this be? Rock? Prog? Glam? No one probably would realize until they purchased it and brought it home, that it would be this organically cerebral deep listening experience of the highest order. It's kind of a downer that we have such easy access to information nowadays, because when this came out, it was a true mystery object, which added to its esoteric appeal. But it still is to an extent, as numerous listens over the years still never fail to captivate, or confound how exactly the sounds are being made. Apparently,utilizing a system later dubbed, Frippertronics, two reel to reel tape decks were used to allow audio elements to be added onto a continuing tape loop building up dense layers of sound that would slowly decay as it turned around the decks' playback head. On "The Heavenly Music Corporation" layers of deep synth drones are layered in phased washes with Fripp's unique bowed guitar sound ringing ascending solo lines on top that sometimes loop and sometimes don't. Eno wrings out what sounds like synth lines in counterpoint to Fripp's part in similar tones so that at times it gets harder to tell who is making what sound as the piece intensifies. "Swastika Girls" starts with high pitched cascades of processed piano like tones with scraping synth squelches looping in counterpoint, before low rising bass notes and Riley-ish piano repetitions appear. Then Fripp's searing guitar crash-lands into the mix almost disrupting the whole process, but somehow it all works. Much more distorted and dissonant than "The Heavenly Music Corporation", it doesn't take the process for granted that everything will sound harmonious but remains still somehow cohesive, though far from easy listening.
While the backward tracks are equally amazing, they highlight a different kind of listening experience altogether. The seams show a bit more, the entrance and exit of new sounds more abrupt, but still strangely alien. Their inclusion here came from out of the listening experience of their first (and probably only) complete UK radio broadcast in 1973 courtesy of the late John Peel. Because the tapes were stored "tail out" but played as though they were stored "front out", the broadcast played the music in reverse. When Eno called in to say the music was being played backwards, he was met with a "that's what they all say" response.
But the real bonus of this deluxe package is the 40 minute "half-speed version" of "The Heavenly Music Corporation". When there were 16 2/3 rpm options on early record players, a lot of young guitarists would use the speed to slow down 33 1/3 rpm records to learn and practice their favorite guitar lines. Here it makes the drones so deep and heavy, Fripp's guitar lines more crushing, the layers creep and slither sounding like it could be one of the weird drone cd-r's we sell tons of. If it was in a black sleeve with skulls on it, and was called Skulled Space Outrosphere or Radiant Black Blood, and sealed with wax or wrapped in twine,�and was limited to 100 copies,�we'd sell a million of em (well, okay... 100!!). Sooooooooooooo Recommended and Essential!
What more could be said about these two Fripp & Eno records than we've already written in countless Expo '70, Growing and Aidan Baker reviews? That's because these records are pretty much ground zero for all of the dark dreamy drifty processed guitar / tape / synth drone that we can't ever seem to get enough of. Perhaps there are other earlier influential touchstones such as Tony Conrad, and La Monte Young, perhaps Stockhausen and Terry Riley as well, but none seemed to have come so totally out of nowhere from two relatively mainstream players as these two records. Manuel Gottsching, Taj Mahal Travellers, and Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music all came a little later.
After every other Eno solo album and collaboration (from Cluster to David Byrne) has been reissued, we are lucky enough to finally see both of these classic releases newly 24-bit remastered by Fripp himself and reissued on his DGM imprint. These have never sounded better! While this reissue doesn't feature any bonus material, we still think it's a must have for any fan of kosmiche experimental drone music. If you haven't owned this before, now is the time!!!!!
Judging from the cover and title of 1975's Evening Star, it would be easy to dismiss this as a generic new-age record by Shadowfax or Mark Isham. It does look a bit Windham Hill-ish. But while its more melodic and dreamy than No Pussyfooting, this is certainly not pure relaxation music. It's way more cerebral and at times quite unnerving. Teaming up with Fripp once again after releasing three brilliant solo pop albums (Here Come The Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, and Another Green World), Eno started concentrating on his ambient period culminating later that same year in what would be his first solo ambient record Discreet Music. Using the same dual tape machine system as on No Pussyfooting, the tracks here feel more composed and purposeful. Starting with "Wind on Water", layered washes of phased high toned analog synths and flittering guitar drones pulse like a breathing entity before the Cluster-like piano figures of the stunning title track, "Evening Star" emerge augmented by a ringing guitar arpeggio and one of the most gorgeous Fripp solos ever put to tape. This track is like an early predecessor to Eno's soundtrack work for the NASA film Apollo, almost a decade later. So beautiful! The next couple of tracks delve further into gentler territory, with "Wind on Wind" being an excerpted version of a piece later included on Discreet Music. But the nearly thirty minute final piece, "An Index of Metals" returns us to the dark intense drone of No Pussyfooting. Sounding more metallic and cosmic than anything on that record, "An Index of Metals" with its deep resonant pulsations and expansively spatial guitar work at times sounds like the melting magma of a dying star, or Edward Artemiev's coldly terrifying soundtrack work for Andrei Tartovsky's Solaris. Awe-inspiring yet very chilling! So Essential!
Another amazing batch of dreamy psych-folk unearthed from the dregs of obscurity by the Sunbeam label, this lone album by Mark Fry from 1972, recorded while still a teenager, has it all. Songs about witches, a girl named Alice, lutes and flutes and mandolins, sitars, a song that unravels each verse between other songs, and even a song played entirely backwards. With a soft voice similar to Roger Rodier, whose lone album was also reissued on Sunbeam (which we also raved about!), we had only heard of Mark Fry previously through his contribution (a sadly truncated three minute version of the eight minute long "Mandolin Man") to the British edition of the Love Peace and Poetry psych compilation. Recorded in Rome and only limitedly released in Italy, it soon faded into the ether, and Fry turned to his other love, painting, in which he has had a more successful career. This reissue features two additional bonus tracks from 1975, and boasts liner notes from Fry himself telling the fascinating story of the making of this album, and beyond. Thanks Sunbeam for making this amazing album available to us again! Absolutely Recommended!!
Another amazing archival find from the Sanity Muffin label of unreleased interviews from one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century.
R. Buckminister "Bucky" Fuller (1895-1983) was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, inventor, and futurist. Fuller published more than 30 books, coining or popularizing terms such as "spaceship earth" and "synergetic". He also developed numerous inventions, mainly architectural designs, including the widely known geodesic dome and Dymaxion car.
What's fascinating about hearing him speak is how direct and plainspoken he is, speaking about high-minded concepts in ways that make them easily accessible and question our very understanding of how the world is perceived. For example, he opens the first interview with an anecdote about speaking at a conference of scientists. He asks them how many of them had ever seen the sun come up and was flabbergasted at how many hands were raised. Here we have outstanding members of the scientific community and most still only understand the world largely in constructs that we have placed upon it, not operating in the real world where concepts like "up" and "down" do not actually exist. From there on we were hanging on every word!
This limited cassette version has 4 panels of embossed artwork and insert. Highly Recommended!
1971 debut from Detroit's psychedelic freak-funk-rock army, led by chief funkateer George Clinton. Amazing, essential shit. Swampy, soulful, good ol' FUNK. If you need to find out more, well, track one is for you: "Mommy, What's A Funkadelic?"
We're so psyched that all these amazing Serge Gainsbourg records have been getting the reissue treatment lately, since for the last several years any time you tried to find Gainsbourg on vinyl, that section in the record store would always be empty, or somehow worse, filled with outlandishly expensive imports.
Originally released in 1968, Bonnie And Clyde was labeled as a collaboration between Gainsbourg and his sultry fling of that moment, the illustrious Brigitte Bardot. While she isn't on all of the record, the tracks she does appear on do soar with such sultry and seductive pop perfection. And the tracks where Gainsbourg goes at it alone manage to be equally as suave and swirly, tapping into his masterful ability to bring so much texture and depth in demonstrating the ultimate possibilities of pop music. You can hear so many more contemporary bands in these songs, the influence is irrefutable. Everyone from Air, Stereolab, Beck, Sebastian Tellier, Stereo Total, Magnetic Fields, Jens Lekman, Rufus Wainwright, April March and about a million more have followed in one way or another the blueprints that Gainsbourg created. Bonnie and Clyde perfectly displays Gainsbourg's flair for cabaret inspired lush and colorful pop. Yet another document of the man's musical genius!
Well it's about time!!!!!! After years of wallowing in the hazy convoluted mists of legend, hearsay, and hipster influence, only to be obtained through ultra expensive imports, rare bootlegs, or ripped vinyl blogs, this long unavailable but hugely influential work by Serge Gainsbourg finally sees its first domestic reissue almost forty years after its scandalous release.
You won't need a translator to understand the sublime perversity at the heart of this concept record, arguably Gainsbourg's most accomplished full studio album. Released in 1971, Histoire De Melody Nelson is a seven song suite about an underage English nymphet (the titular Melody Nelson) and the wealthy lecherous older Frenchman who, after nearly running over her in his Rolls Royce, takes her in, falls in love and eventually deflowers her. And of course, like most love stories, there is a tragic climax. While the story is largely lifted from Kubrick's cinematic version of Lolita, the concept was undertaken in actuality as a symphonic love letter to Jane Birken, the British actress and singer (she sings the part of Melody). Though, not underage when they began their affair, she was twenty years younger than Serge, and their relationship became controversial with the release of their 1969 duet "Je t'aime....mon non plus" (originally recorded with Brigitte Bardot) with its sounds of a simulated female orgasm.
But Melody Nelson is not only Gainsbourg's finest moment, its musical reputation would be nothing without the orchestral arrangements and progressive grooves of Jean-Claude Vannier (see our review of L'Enfant Assassin Des Mouches, to get some highly praised background). The underlying score is less obviously song-oriented and more atmospheric than previous Gainsbourg outings, yet deceptively simple. The opening and closing tracks each at nearly eight minutes mirror each other with a sinewy descending bass groove and classic drum breaks (sampled heavily by De La Soul, David Holmes and Dan The Automator), which set the stage for acid-y guitar fills, swooning strings and Serge's own seductive speak-singing. The closing track ("Cargo Culte") ups the transcendent quality of the climax by adding a mass choir and full orchestra to the swirling tower of sound. In between these two tracks are shorter but artfully arranged pieces of folk-groove, French chanson, acid rock, and cinematic sonic bliss that move the story forward. It's one of those records that slowly grabs you, lures you into its spell, and eventually hooks you, so you'll want to keep listening to it over and over.
Though it was a flop on its initial release - Gainsbourg was largely a singles artist before this point, and the leap from that to concept album, especially one of this perverse nature, was perhaps too wide for French audiences - Histoire De Melody Nelson has gained a significant cult following over the years, perhaps reaching its greatest influence in the nineties with bands like Portishead (Dummy), Pulp (This is Hardcore), Massive Attack (Protection), Radiohead (The Bends), Air (Moon Safari), Blonde Redhead (Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons) and Beck (Sea Change), nearly lifting the basic sonic template of this album wholesale.
This awesome, nicely packaged reissue comes with a beautiful booklet of drawings, essays and interviews, outlining not only the full extent of the making of this amazing work, but charting its larger cultural impact as well.
Reissue of the year!
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available on vinyl once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
On Fire was the band's 1989 follow-up to Today, and is widely considered their best album (though we love them all, and really find it hard to favor one in particular over the others). It's definitely their most varied yet most assured album. The songs have more blissed-out dynamics, without losing their understated verve. The instrumentation is augmented on a few songs by more acoustic guitar underlayers and moments of organ and even guest cameo Ralph Carney's tenor sax on "Decomposing Trees". But a noticeable standout is Naomi Yang singing on "Another Day", a soft gauzy highlight on an already stellar album. If there were any longstanding regrets about this band among fans, the big one would be we wished she got to sing more. The cover song this time goes to George Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity", a sentiment that extends way past Harrison's original intent and hovers over this band like a ghost.
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available on vinyl once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
This Is Our Music from 1990 wasn't planned as a final album, as the band seemed to be striving for larger recognition with their most accomplished and widely-received record. The opener "Fourth of July" (which was also the single) leaps out with a charge more than any of their other opening songs. Yet most of the rest of the songs are sublimely slow beautiful bummers, with more noticeable shoegazey shimmer. Of course, the centerpiece, yet again is another gorgeous cover. This time it's Yoko Ono's "Listen, The Snow Is Falling". Sung by Yang, the band expands upon a simple original with a stretched out epic instrumental climax. The final track, "King of Spain, Part Two", a kind of follow-up to the b-side of their first single, brings the band around full circle, as the song seems to drift off into the sunset. You couldn't plan a more perfect note for a band like Galaxie 500 to end on.
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available on vinyl once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
Today was Galaxie 500's 1988 debut, and it's a slow burning paean to the more unstable sides of love and patient resolve. The elliptical rhythm section smolders and intensifies without ever fully "rocking out" while the warm guitar work strums over the top occasionally veering into understated solos. But Wareham's forlorn low-key vocals with clever but enigmatically simple songwriting is what ties the songs together. The centerpiece of the album however is their cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste". The original version being a short, a capella, almost spoken poem, in Galaxie 500's hands, it becomes a simmering epic as they bookend the singing with forceful driving instrumental passages, sounding like something the early Velvets would have come up with. The final song, "Tugboat" was also their first single, and nicely sets up of what this band is all about: lonely and introspective but decisive, leading and in full control.
Once more with feeling! All three of Galaxie 500's classic studio albums have been affordably reissued each with a bonus disc of one of their previously released post-breakup rarity collections: Uncollected, The Peel Sessions and the live Copenhagen cd. Here's what we recently said about them:
We can't believe it's been 20 years since this trio (and their trio of albums) so gracefully touched our lives during the band's way too brief lifespan. Boy, does it make us feel old! But we can't complain too much as it's so awesome to see these three crucial records available once again! For those who may not know, Galaxie 500 was made up of core members Damon Krukowski (drums), Naomi Yang (bass, vocals) and Dean Wareham (guitar, vocals), who are probably more well known now for the bands that formed in Galaxie 500's wake: Damon and Naomi, Luna, and Dean and Britta.
Hailing from the mid-eighties Boston college rock scene (all three attended Harvard), Galaxie 500 were very different from The Pixies and Throwing Muses, who were the more prominent Boston bands at the time, favoring slower-paced reverbed drenched songs, big in sound but played with a minimalist economy. Influenced by later period Velvet Underground, The Modern Lovers, Young Marble Giants and early New Order (all of whom they covered), Galaxie 500's signature dream pop sound (courtesy of producer Kramer, Bongwater frontman and head of the great Shimmy-Disc label) paved the way for both the shoegaze and slowcore scenes of the early nineties. In fact Kramer went on to produce Low's debut in 1994. After three great records for Rough Trade, Galaxie 500 parted ways less than amicably, with guitarist/vocalist Wareham unexpectedly quitting to form his own band Luna, leaving the rhythm section of Damon and Naomi to fend for themselves. While both parties went on to more successful ventures, none of them have quite replaced Galaxie 500's unparalleled pop majesty in our hearts.
Today was Galaxie 500's 1988 debut, and it's a slow burning paean to the more unstable sides of love and patient resolve. The elliptical rhythm section smolders and intensifies without ever fully "rocking out" while the warm guitar work strums over the top occasionally veering into understated solos. But Wareham's forlorn low-key vocals with clever but enigmatically simple songwriting is what ties the songs together. The centerpiece of the album is their cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste". The original version being a short, a capella, almost spoken poem, in Galaxie 500's hands, it becomes a simmering epic as they bookend the singing with forceful driving instrumental passages, sounding like something the early Velvets would have come up with. The final song, "King of Spain" was also their first single, and nicely sets up of what this band is all about: lonely and introspective but decisive, leading and in full control.
Today is paired up with with what almost could be considered a lost record, Uncollected: Rarities and Outtakes 1987-1990. Originally compiled for the G500 box set and then released individually, it's a 14-song rarities collection that includes their loving covers of songs by Jonathan Richman (an alternate version of "Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste"), Young Marble Giants ("Final Day"), The Rutles ("Cheese and Onions") and The Beatles ("Rain"), as well as nine originals not on any other album. Uncollected serves as a great overview for newcomers to the enduring, wonderful, shimmering dream pop songs of these short-lived, long-disbanded, indie rock deities.
Over the course of several years Gang Gang Dance have made the evolution from totally whacked out and hard to describe collage of sound weirdness to slowly injecting more structure and carving out actual songs while still keeping an aura of mystique and playful experimentation in their sound.
Saint Dymphna pushes their evolution with even more structure and a kind of hypercolor sheen providing a psychedelic soundtrack that sounds a bit like Kate Bush performing at an all night psychedelic rave. Its evident that for the first time in fully realized form the band is really embracing the last word of its moniker, making music for the kind of late night dance parties we'd love to frequent. Maybe it's some of the band members' strong involvement in late night culture as DJ's and partiers over the last few years that has helped shape this exciting shift in their sound. You can tell they've been listening to lots of the most interesting dance music around as there are healthy hints of Bangra that pop in and out of the songs on Saint Dymphna as well as a more nuanced take on what lots of the Italians Do It Better camp (Chromatics, Glass Candy) have been up to lately. But what made us originally fall in love with Gang Gang Dance is still present, their true sense of adventure and a fearless ability to merge influences that usually seem so disparate, into a seamless whole. Not many other bands could have a record with a song that sounds so much like the mostly swirly moments of My Bloody Valentine ("Vacuum") followed by a song with Tinchy Stryder on the mic for a track that would be at home on M.I.A's latest. That is the true beauty of Gang Gang Dance, they really understand how to blend and merge color and sound to create something that can takes on its own life. We've just begun to immerse ourselves in this record and so far we are loving the ride, and we have a feeling that this one will be on nonstop play in the weeks and months to come!
British pianist and bandleader Michael Garrick is probably not too well known in these parts, but his 1964 debut, Moonscape is still something of a legend in England. Released as a 10" record in a run of 100 copies, it's probably one of the most collectable British Jazz records ever made and for good reason. Sprightly and pastoral, yet tightly wound and at times completely unhinged, the piano melodies, reminiscent of the best Vince Guaraldi albums, wrap swimmingly around your head while the drums and bass propel your body with mad-dog intensity. Perplexing titles like, "Music for Shattering Supermarkets" and "Man, Have You Ever Heard" coupled with the enigmatic titular cover art lend an intriguing figure to the sounds inside. Not quite cosmic, yet anything but pedestrian. Since this was originally a 10" record, this is rather a short set, clocking in about 22 minutes. We suggest you put your player on repeat, because it's worth hearing all day.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
We were so psyched to see Mississippi Records release this collection of recordings made by these two little known Louisiana musicians whose beautifully melancholic contribution to early American Cajun folk music is as indelible as it is mysterious. If you were a fan of HBO's True Detective this past year, you may recognize the title song that opens this record, "Sur Le Borde De L'Eau", a spellbinding Cajun ballad sung by Gaspard featured on the soundtrack of that series.
Gaspard, blind at an early age, sang and played guitar, and is known to have formed a string band with both his brothers who grew up in the rural parishes of Louisiana, but we're not sure if they ever recorded. He also played backing guitar for cajun fiddler Delma Lachney who recorded for the Vocalion label in the 1920's. During those sessions, Gaspard recorded four solo tracks, and the pair's combined recordings make up the entirety of this here release and is about all we know of the two.
The duo's instrumental, "La Danseuse", featured on Volume 2 of Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, is absolutely one of our favorite old-timey songs ever, a song we could easily see being used in a period film like Heaven's Gate or Days Of Heaven. And similarly the other Lachney instrumentals follow suit quite sweetly in Cajun bluegrass form. But also heavenly are the songs where Gaspard sings. In a high French patois, Gaspard reminds us a bit of John Jacob Niles or Roscoe Holcomb, as well as early Devendra Banhart, but the sentiment behind the songs, full of romantic old country longing and nostalgia is wonderfully heartbreaking. Like the great Mississippi comp, I Don't Feel At Home In This World, there is a weary pain to these sweet songs. We were hoping to learn more about these two with this release, but sadly no extra info is provided, only some of the most haunting and lovely early Americana we've heard. Highest Recommendation!
This is not only one of our favorite blaxploitation soundtracks, it may also be one our favorite Marvin Gaye Record too (though I Want You may be a close second). While the movie itself might be rather unremarkable, the soundtrack stands apart from its more well known contemporaries, like SuperFly and Shaft by focusing less on a hard hitting urban funk grit and more on a cool detached noir vibe that somehow feels more menacing. Mostly everything is performed and arranged by Gaye, with Moog synths, piano and saxophone being the main instruments. There is of course some wah wah-ed guitar in the theme, but its low-key laid back swing seems to illustrate a more plausible reality for the title character, one of reserved violence as opposed to say, Isaac Hayes' uptempo go-get-'em macho swagger for Shaft. Still, there is plenty of urban grit. The tense set-ups of "'T' Stands for Trouble" and "The Break In", the pensive ambiance of "Deep-In-It", the love themes tinged with sadness, and the troubled vocal harmonies of "Cleo's Apartment" and "Life Is A Gamble". But the topper of them all is "'T' Plays It Cool", a stone cold groove that is deadly as it is funky. All killer, No filler! So happy it's now been reissued on vinyl - and we got the bargain-priced cd version in stock as well.
**MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT****MISSISSIPPI RECORDS ALERT**
As regular readers of the aQuarius list already know, we're HUGE fans of the golden era of Ethiopian Jazz as archived in the amazing Ethiopiques series. And besides the more well known players such as Mulatu Astatke (Ethiopiques #4) and Mahmoud Ahmed (Ethiopiques #6), #21 in that series also has a special place in our hearts as it's the incredible solo piano compositions of an Ethiopian nun named Emahoy Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou. Her playing is devastatingly lovely and haunting. A curious hybrid of old time jazz and classical, but still truly Ethiopian. Dark and contemplative, moody but subtly playful as well, like exotic impressionistic lamentations that have an expressive lyrical sadness.
Now the fine folks at Mississippi / Change Records have gifted us with this beautiful reissue of Guebrou's debut album from 1963. Comprising the first five tracks of the Ethiopiques compilation, these songs were the first signs that we were hearing a uniquely distinct musical voice for the first time, and boy were we hooked!
Culled mainly from compositions written in the late '40s and early '50s, a period during which Guebrou had recently left the convent due to illness, and then continued to compose and perform as a way of raising money for charity. And THAT's on the heels of having moved to Egypt and then returned to Ethiopia a figure of high society, her dream of playing piano dashed by the Emperor, which led her to sickness and then near death, she even received the last rites, survived and then joined the Imperial Guard, went back to school to study business finally fleeing to join a convent and become a nun. All the while continuing to play music - in fact, last we heard, she continues to perform to this day, in Ethiopia where she still lives.
And like her fantastic and adventurous life, her music is equally as remarkable, the sound and feel is so dense with memory and imagery, musical but somehow quite visual, warm and woozy, a fuzzy, sepia toned old timey feel, due in no small part to the recording, which is quite reminiscent of old 78's, the soundtrack to movie Crumb, that sort of thing, dark rumbling low notes underpin sweet swirls and delicate flurries of minor key melody, sweet and lowdown for sure, warm evenings, back porches, big beautifully appointed parlors, huge empty fields, grass waving in the breeze, long late night wanders, moonlight strolls, so completely dreamy and lovely. Highest Recommendation!
We're always amazed that so much awesome and little known music from the sixties and seventies continues to be resurrected, and remain very worthy of its cult status. Case in point, this anachronistic synth-heavy psych gem from 1977 by the George-Edwards Group. While punk, disco, glam, bland FM radio, and heavy metal ruled the musical zeitgeist of the era, two multi-instrumentalist friends with a love of synthesizers, home-taping and melancholic spacey folk-pop made a mini-masterpiece in their Detroit, Michigan basement. Briefly mentioned in the Acid Archives book, it doesn't feel so much a late hippie-psych artifact, as it does a sublime and moody soft-rock epic that would have been huge on '70s AM radio in a parallel universe of our fantasies. Where instead of Bread, Chicago, and Seals & Croft, being played ad nauseum, music by Dreamies, Shuggie Otis, Fresh Maggots, Roger Rodier, Emmanuelle Parrenin, Collie Ryan, Biff Rose, Big Star, Scott Walker, Warlus, and of course, the George-Edwards Group would have scored our parallel universe childhood. Yet even that said though, 38:38 is much stranger than we can describe. Often the tracks with their multilayered Arp, Moog, and Mellotron drones and harmonies often sung in falsetto, sound like the less musically-damaged touchstones of what Ariel Pink recorded on his Doldrums album. And though the synthesizers are most prevalent, especially in sci-fi themed instrumental tracks like "Solar Flare" and "Magnetic Variation", other instrumentation like xylophones, autoharps, bells, piano and acoustic guitar play a big part in the compositions. One of our favorite tracks is "Floating Away", a druggy ballad with just acoustic guitar and what is purported to be recordings of ocean sounds, but sound like huge sheets of metal crashing in the background. Even the longest track, the instrumental "Hypertrain" is a kraut-y fuzzed electric guitar raga over drums that reminds a bit of Circle and Cave, while the second to the last track called "Some Fun" features maniacal laughter over a repetitive groove that adds an element of bad trip creepiness to the proceedings. One of the headiest records from the seventies we've heard in a while; those into druggy cyber-space folk-pop weirdness will be very satisfied with this. Solid!
Vinyl only, not sure if there's plans for a cd reissue too.
One of the legendary figures of traditional folk and bluegrass music , Alice Gerrard's new album is devastatingly beautiful, deep and dark. Most known for her collaborations with Hazel Dickens on the Folkways and Rounder labels, the ache in her voice has only made her singing more penetratingly profound over the years. Here it's a tour-de-force, its tone of resilient strength through trying times is brought up directly front and center over compelling but restrained arrangements courtesy of Hiss Golden Messenger's M. C. Taylor, who also produced. The album is a mix of traditional and original songs, from stark folk ballads to vintage country tunes, some with full band and some more spare, with her lovely banjo playing and guitar. And then there's the eight minute a cappella track, "The Vulture", which left us quietly shaking in awe. Just Incredible!
Jon Gibson is a multi-wind instrumentalist and an alumnus of the first school of minimalist composition alongside Terry Riley, Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Though his name may not be as well known, his musical presence can be heard on three of the school's most outstanding releases: Terry Riley's In C, Philip Glass's Einstein On The Beach, and Steve Reich's Drumming. His seventies work, Visitations and Two Solo Pieces, were both originally released on Philip Glass's Chatham Square label and while Two Solo Pieces is sonically more akin to the repetition and pattern movement of his contemporaries, his 1973 debut, Visitations, now reissued for the first time on vinyl by Superior Viaduct, is an altogether expansion of what minimalism could be.
Consisting of two long form pieces in separate parts, Visitations uses classical wind and percussion instruments and field recordings of jungle, water, insects, birdsong and wind to conjure a hybrid sound world that is both familiar and alien. Seemingly influenced by free jazz forms in its use of sonic textures and atmospheres to drive the composition, Visitations looks to the environment in an unromantic way, taking us on an uncertain journey into a darkened landscape alive with mysterious activity. Recommended!
Rev-Ola brings us the sweet summer breeze early this year by reissuing this pop-jazz gem from Astrud Gilberto. Famous for her refreshingly lackadaisical vocal debut on Stan Getz's "The Girl from Ipanema", September 17, 1969 marks her last recording date with the Verve label (released in America as "Let Go", with a different song order), as the Bossa Nova craze that had invaded America since the mid-sixties was waning. Filled with more contemporary covers than Brazilian standards, including songs by the Bee Gees, The Beatles, The Doors and Harry Nilsson, the album's standout track is the eight minute opener, a cover of Chicago's "Beginnings", a beat-heavy groover that fans of Wax Poetics will drool over. But the Brazilian cuts are still strong with "Let Go (Canto de Ossanha)" popularized by Elis Regina, being a return to the soft samba vibe that made Gilberto famous. It'll be easy to cringe at some of the more obvious pop interpretations like "Light My Fire", but most of the time her choices work. It's better to think of it like this: without Astrud Gilberto, there would be no Nouvelle Vague!
Wow, this is ballsy! Mining ultra-familiar pop from the late '70s to last weeks number one hit, Girl Talk has fashioned an infectious dance record completely out of supposedly unauthorized samples. The inside booklet gives a shout out to the plundered artists who include Elton John, XTC, The Yin Yang Twins, Madonna, Amerie, Smashing Pumpkins, The Verve, among hundreds of others. While this is neither a conceptual Plunderphonic cluster fuck nor merely just an illegal mix of mash-ups, Girl Talk fashions cleverly dance-y compositions using the flotsam and jetsam of pop music's collective unconscious. By the time you get to recognition, new sample juxtapositions occur just in time to throw your head into a tailspin. This is definitely a good party-starter, Girl Talk being very aware that it is the girls who get the dance party started, but usually only if something familiar and fun is playing. And there is enough of that incredible stuff on this album to guarantee a nasty but well worth it hang over. Crafty!
Summer Jam lightning rarely strikes twice, and in the case of Gnarls Barkley fluke hit, "Crazy", they were lucky lightning struck at all. So instead of setting out for the impossible, they have made a more memorable full length without the erratic stylistic leaps and goofs of their debut. The tone is darker, but more soulful and while the upbeat jams are fewer, they have enough hooks to keep you listening and coming back. While St. Elsewhere was neurotic and bi-polar, The Odd Couple is addressing demons in a far more beguiling and groovy manner, one that gets better with each listen. Could this be therapy?
One of our favorite tracks from Flying Lotus's excellent Los Angeles record was the penultimate track "Testament" that featured a singer we imagined was discovered in some remote smoky opium den in Morocco. The voice felt ancient, a weezing whispering mixture of Jimmy Scott and Billie Holiday that we thought could have been a sample from an old dusty recording. Well, it turns out that voice is one Sumach Ecks (aka Gonjasufi), a San Diego based yoga instructor and one-time rapper and DJ who in a chance meeting with The Gaslamp Killer and Flying Lotus in Las Vegas, struck up a bond with the two producers and they started working together. A Sufi And A Killer is an amazing debut, a perfect fit between the dark off-kilter beats of Flying Lotus, Burial and King Midas Sound. But it also surprisingly displays a lot of vocal and musical range, moving into some rockier moments, tripping out on short interludes or sometimes delving down strange, mysterious but always interesting sonic tangents. Supposedly it took much longer to mix than it did to record, showing a dedication to detail that is truly rewarding to listen to. Highly recommended!
Remix albums are tricky affairs. Often times there are only one or two truly notable tracks, or there are too many disparate remixers that cramp the flow of the listening experience from beginning to end. While this reworking of Gonjasufi's amazing debut, A Sufi and A Killer, doesn't trump the original (really, what remix album has ever done that?), this is surprisingly one of the best remix albums we have heard in a long while. Why that is, is rather curious because it's not that there is just one or two really drop-dead standout tracks, or they're trying to make it more friendly for the dance floor. Rather it's because all the remixes work together in an interesting way that make the overall flow a really nice listen. It offers a ghostly alternate universe to the sound-world Flying Lotus, Mainframe and Gaslamp Killer brought to Gonjasufi's debut.
Beginning with Mark Pritchard's (Harmonia 313, Afrika Hi-tech) spookier take on "Ancestors", Bibio's low-key groove on "Candylane" and Dam Mantle's dub-hop reworking of "Ageing", the unusual choice of Broadcast & The Focus Group to remix "DedND" with a chopped up collage of middle eastern strings harps, flutes and sampled vocal snippets adds to the otherworldly proceedings by removing it from the original almost entirely. Jeremiah Jae and Shlomo add a smeary dreamy dubstep twist to "Kobwebz" and "Change" , while Bear in Heaven, have the most minimal electro rework with "Love Of Reign". Another unusual choice of Oneohtrix Point Never to remix the Tom Waits-ish "She's Gone" results in a chopped and screwed rework pitching Gonjasufi's vocals up and down over a syrupy layer of noise. The last remix by Dem Hunger Bowel Blood of "SuzieQ" is the darkest and strangest taking the punkish quality of the original and smearing it slowly across a bleak queasy landscape. The restraint from upping the tempos too much from the originals was a smart choice, as the sound of Gonjasufi works best on the more stoned, slowed and ambient level. There's just enough variety not to get too stuck in a similar sound, while at the same time complimenting each other really well. We wish more remix records were this consistent!
For the past couple of years, we've really been digging the recent unearthing of little known private press new age music whether it be Collie Ryan, William Eaton or Iasos. Lately we've been especially excited about this reissue from Universal Sound, of Edward Larry Gordon's 1978 debut. Gordon, or Laraaji, as he is otherwise known, creates long-form trance-inducing compositions using electronically enhanced zithers, auto-harps, kalimbas and other acoustic instruments that shimmer and radiate in beautifully meditative pulses. This record comprised of two thirty minute tracks, "All Pervading" and "Bethelehem" gained little notice upon its initial release, but thankfully it caught the attention of Brian Eno who subsequently produced his follow-up Days of Radiance for the EG Editions Ambient series in 1980 to wider acclaim. You can tell that Gordon was much inspired by earlier progenitors of cosmic music from Sun Ra to John and Alice Coltrane. You can especially hear the harp-like shimmer of Alice Coltrane in his treatments of the open tuned zither that he plays while in a complete meditative state. Really gorgeous stuff!
If you were ever curious to hear how Moondog might have sounded had he been recorded by Joe Meek, then here is your chance! Trunk records rescues this exquisite rarity from complete obscurity that displays the early influence of The Viking of 6th St. on a group of Britain's finest jazz players. Recorded in 1956, and engineered by a young Joe Meek, the underrated alto saxophonist Kenny Graham assembled a band of amazing session players, including Stan Tracey, Phil Seamen, Danny Moss, and Ivor Slaney (who recorded the horror soundtracks Terror and Prey we reviewed awhile back, though he is here in less horrific mode), as well as the evocative vocals of singer Yolanda to record this two part tribute. The first part, The Moondog Suite, covers ten of Moondog's early compositions, five short percussive pieces and five longer songs including "Utsu, "Chant", "Fog On The Hudson" and Lullaby". The six pieces in the "Suncat Suite" (Suncat, get it?) are all originals inspired by Moondog's pieces. These range from short eastern influenced numbers to more complex compositions of mesmerizing exotica, sometimes swinging, and at other times more moody. The production for both is sharp. The percussion zings, the vibes crisply resonate and the horns and woodwinds sound impeccable. Trunk scores again with this amazing reissue.
After a whole bunch of super limited cd-r's and tapes, dronelord Grasslung, aka Jonas Asher, finally releases his first proper cd full length, on Root Strata, which is seemingly right where it belongs, as sonically, it definitely falls right in line along side Barn Owl, Pulse Emitter, William Fowler Collins, Grouper, Keith Whitman, Duane Pitre, Le Revelateur, and the like, and much like many of the Root Strata crew, Grasslung's approach to the drone is similarly abstract, something much more ethereal and ephemeral, almost new agey, hushed and minimal and slightly ominous, haunting even, long tones, layers and textures, fragmented melodies left to drift in soft expanses of hushed hum and burnished shimmer, the sound both lush and spare, some tracks dense and dark, others seemingly lit from within, glowing softly, from gorgeous contemplative piano driven minimalism, the notes allowed to ring out and gradually fade, the overtones subtle and the low end rumbling way below, to something more glimmery and reflective, soft billowy synthscapes, the melodies stretched way out, allowed to sweetly swell, and to drift dreamily through fields of blurred organ chords and washed out streaks of windswept muted thrum, to a Caretaker like victrola-ed haze, all looped warble and sepiatoned thrum, to smoldering distorted dronedreamdrift, thick swaths of softly churning out of focus buzz, blissed out dronedoom loops, layered and left to gradually melt into one another, creating gauzy swirls of softly colored sound. So totally lovely.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES.
The third beautiful lp of sublime guitar instrumentals from local luminary Danny Paul Grody. Grody has a rich history of intricate musicianship with bands The Drift, and Tarentel and his side-projects Believer and Moholy-Nagy, but it's with his deeply introspective solo records that Grody shines the most. He tends to be lumped in with the American Primitive scene, and he can play with the best of them, but his music draws from deeper wells, such as Eastern mysticism, ritualistic drone music and the timbre explorations of influential composer Lou Harrison. Grody uses chiming guitar figures and sonorous synth drones that build slowly into vast mountains of sound then cascade into fluid filigrees and rapturous waves. We've loved all of Grody's solo records, but this one may just be our favorite.
Download code included!
We reviewed Harald Grosskopf's effervescent 1980 solo debut, Synthesist, a few lists back, an album inspired by LSD and heartbreak in equal measure. Along with that new reissue, Bureau B has also reissued Grosskopf's follow-up from six years later, Oceanheart, with a remastered sound and new cover art, and it's equally effervescent if slightly more tranquil than its predecessor.
Is there a more new-ageish title than Oceanheart? The change in cover art too had us scrambling to Google to see what the original cover looked like, and there it was in all of it's new age glory, a softly painted ocean vista as viewed from behind a strange rock wall, not bad really. But then that FONT! Not even a good terrible eighties font, but that more pretentious bookstore font that was so overused in the later eighties. Ugh! Glad they changed the cover.
The thing is Oceanheart is not really that new agey. Apart from the title song that is the only true ambient track, most of Oceanheart is very percussive and propulsive, apt for someone who began his career as one of Krautrock's foremost percussionists. Most of the tracks carry minimal driving uptempo rhythms that suggest a flowing stasis with built-up melodic nuances. Even when the tracks slow down to mid or even no tempo, there is still a strong Teutonic vibe that reminds us of a more ambient Kraftwerk, or more rhythmic Manuel Gottsching. In fact it's VERY reminiscent of Gottsching's New Age of Earth, and as that is one of our favorite ambient kraut records ever, that is not a bad thing whatsoever!
Yet another awesome vinyl-only document from the mighty Sublime Frequencies, this one a continuation of sorts, again exploring the world of Tuareg guitar music from Agadez in Niger, first explored on the amazing Group Inerane release a while back. And strangely enough, both band share members, so folks who loved the Group Inerane will likely love this too.
The music scene in Agadez is unique in many ways, but perhaps the strangest element is the fact that none of the bands can afford to own their own instruments, there is one PA and one set of amps that get passed from show to show, and guitars are borrowed and lent out, as are band members, with musicians joining different groups as they are available. Remarkably, while the sounds are indeed similar, they are also quite unique.
Group Bombino is headed up by 28 year old Oumara Almoctar, aka Bombino, who was inspired by more well known Tuareg musicians like Tinariwen and Ali Farka Toure to create his own music and to continue to spread the sounds and spirit of Tuareg and Agadez.
So here we have the first proper worldwide release by Bombino and his group, and it's gorgeous. Two distinct sides, the A side features Bombino's "dry" guitar sound, sort of acoustic, the guitars, spidery and slinky, the percussion simple and spare, hand claps, hand drums, the vocals lilting and emotional, all very repetitive and hypnotic, the vocals chantlike over the propulsive rhythms and the almost looped sounding guitar parts.
The flip side features Group Bombino plugging in and letting loose, the root sound is quite similar, but the guitars buzz and wail, chugging out those hypnotic riffs, but also spiralling out into wild leads, tangled melodies, the drums a bit hard, the vocals sitting further back in the mix, ebullient and joyous, but not without tension and emotion and some subtle sorrow and anger, this is after all the sounds or rebellion and revolution, an outlet for the frustration at the unrest and upheaval in Niger and Agadez. So fantastic.
As with pretty much everything Sublime Frequencies, ABSOLUTELY RECOMMENDED, and for sure, anyone who dug the Group Inerane (a past Record Of The Week), will go crazy for Group Bombino as well!
Finally both extremely limited and way out of print lps, that came and went in a flash last year, have been reissued together on a not-as-limited double cd set via Kranky!
We've gushed and gushed about Grouper so much in the past, and we're going to do it once again because these albums are utterly gorgeous! While 2008's Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill found Liz Harris, aka Grouper, starting to really embrace the idea of songs, we love how these cds, Alien Observer and Dream Loss (framed together by the personally symbolic pictographic title, "A I A") blur that focus once again. While one leans towards songs and structure, and the other towards more abstraction, they are pretty much equal companion pieces that mirror each other, and share similar tendencies that defy a defined experience (especially since it seems we discovered by the track listing that the cd labels are switched, making it even harder to pin down which one is which, but it's really no matter!). They're much more about mood, soft focus, hazy dreams, and ethereal exploration. Harris' voice a murmur built up through tape and Dictaphone loops like soft whispering leaves swirling in and out, and every sound and tone, whether it be acoustic guitar strums, far-off distorted delayed electronics, piano, bell tones or static, she uses and manipulates them with such a mastered ease. There's a hushed reverence to this suite that demands rapturous attention to Harris' cathedral like sound world, as if we were in some universal congregation listening to an angelic choir singing from the deepest remote space. We've been listening to these records late at night and early in the morning and whenever we need to come down from the craziness of the world around us. And smehow whenever we listen to them, everything else just fades away and for a little while all that matters is the soft narcotic rush we feel as the music plays.
We were totally gaga for Grouper's Way Their Crept cd from last year. So much so we made it Record of the Week. A more aQ record we couldn't have imagined, a gloriously thick and fuzzy swirl, equal parts Arvo Part, Morton Feldman, Skullfower and all manner of drift and drone. Dense smears of processed vocals and mubled guitars, all so heavily affected they became indistinct blurs, drifting fuzzy drones. We've been anxiously awaiting more, and were thrilled to discover this new 3" cd-r on the Yellow Swans' Jyrk label. The good news is that it takes everything we loved about Way Their Crept and made it more, daker, denser, thicker, prettier. The bad news is it was limited to 130 copies of which we only managed to get 20. And the rest are sold out, so after these are gone we won't be getting any more.
He Knows is very short, three songs, ten minutes. But what it lacks in lenght, it makes up for in depth. The first track could of come straight off of Way Their Crept. Disembodied vocals hover and drift, guitars (are they guitars?) rumble and murmur and shimmer and hover, not so much an instrument as some sort of musical spirit. The vocals, the guitars, the sounds Grouper produce are like wraiths, floating like whisps of smoke, drifting in and around and through each other, a thick cloudy soundscape, warm and enveloping, pusling and reverberating, an indistnict blur, lovely but ineffable.
The second track is like chamber music recorded at the bottom of the sea, listening to it after it has bubblrd up to the surface, warm and warbly and murky and so lovely. Melodies are nothing but streaks of barely there sound, like sunbeams filtered through the prism of swirling seawater. The final track sounds like a hymn, but muffled and indistinct. Imagine laying in a field outside a smalll stone chapel, blankets wrapped tight around your head to stave off the cold, the warm sounds of the church drift across the icy ground, the sounds barely making it through your wool shroud and into your ears, but what does make it, sounds warm and safe and beautiful. So good.
Limited to 130 copies and already OUT OF PRINT! We have the last 20, once these are gone they are GONE!
Grouper's Liz Harris seems to be settling in comfortably on the Kranky label, with the release so far of the two AIA lps on cd for the first time, the debut from Mirrorring (Harris's duo project with Jesy Fortino from Tiny Vipers), and this "new" release, The Man Who Died In His Boat, which has come out in conjunction with a lp and cd reissue of her 2008 record Dragging A Dead Deer Up A Hill, an AQ favorite. The release/re-release of both records together is no coincidence as the tracks on The Man Who Died In His Boat were recorded during the same sessions as Dragging A Dead Deer, and the new record has a long lost twin feel that we haven't heard on subsequent Grouper records since then. While she still employs the waves of foggy reverb and layered far away voices, there is a reappearance of fully formed songs and a sheen of less-filtered clarity. Both records are informed by key childhood memories, this one by a discovery with her father of beached sailboat, and their speculation about the man who disappeared sailing it. The ocean roar, swelling waves of reverbed sound, and the far away sadness of acoustic sea shanties pour throughout the release creating a moving hypnotic spell which invariably holds us helpless in its grasp. Beautiful!
Currently, we only have the cd version, but the vinyl versions of both this and the reissue of Dragging A Dead Deer are supposedly alredy being repressed.
Newly reissued on deluxe vinyl (at a steep import price unfortunately), only one album can be called the first psychedelic OUT-country record, and if it's not Peter Grudzien's The Unicorn, we can think of no other album in the universe that would accurately fit that description (well, ok The Legendary Stardust Cowboy would come close, but that's a different animal entirely). For the emphasis on "out" here refers to all connotations of that term: far out, outsider and homosexual. Handling all the recording, arranging and playing of the instruments over a period of 14 years from 1960-1974 , The Unicorn is a strange and beautiful metaphysical concept record of love and salvation. Featuring a vast array of characters including hillbilly tricks, blue-eyed queens, monkey people and of course unicorns, Grudzien's off-kilter twang is augmented by slide guitar, banjo and otherworldly tape loops of ghostly choirs, backwards effects and warm reverb. An odd and lovely record!
The Omni Recording Corporation has been killing it lately in a string of essential vinyl reissue collaborations with the Australian Roundtable label, focusing on rare library, lounge and private press exotica. We recently listed the Orchestra Peter Thomas Orion 2000 lp of tripped out sci-fi grooves, and this week we have two extremely fine examples of Italian library music from composer Egisto Macchi and his more well known group that included Ennio Morricone, Gruppo D'Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza.
While we have always respected and revered this Italian improv collective, much of their recorded output has been on the difficult listening side of things. Skronky free jazz , metallic bangs and tings, tape noise and pounding prepared piano. Sometimes abstract, dissonant and sparse, though equally majestic, heavy and remarkable, it hasn't always been easy to get behind...until now! Finally, a lost recording from 1971 for the Gemelli Library that was never released, Niente is a mind-scorching set of avant-psych groove. While there are still qualities of their defining sound present, this set is marked most notably by a strong rhythm section that is not afraid to jam out. Reminding us of favorite records from Faust and Can, this is the GDNC at their most kraut. Both funky and proggy, we think that moden day-psych fans of bands like Wooden Shjips, 3 Leafs, Carlton Melton and The Heads should look into the weird sound world of this release and get their minds blown!
Limited to 500 copies and nearly out of print, we were lucky to get the copies we have, so don't snooze on this one!
Okay, we can all breathe a sigh of relief. The always amazing Ethiopiques series continues on past volume 20 with no end in sight. We were wrongly led to believe that volume 20 was to be the last in this, one of our all time favorite series, and we were heartbroken. On top of that, the final installment was quite surprisingly a live recording of modern day American musicians jamming with an Ethiopian band. It was still cool, but it was a bit tough to figure out why the curaters of this series would choose to go out on that kind of admittedly anticlimactic note, when there were certainly hundreds of buried treasures from the golden age of Ethiopian music that most definitely deserved to be unearthed. This newst volume quickly sets everything right, being entirely the solo piano of a woman named Tsegue-Maryam Guebrou. Her playing is devastatingly lovely and haunting. A curious hybrid of old time jazz and classical, but still truly Ethiopian. Dark and contemplative, moody but subtly playful as well. Culled mainly from recordings from the late 40's early 50's, a period during which Guebrou had recently left the convent due to illness, and then continued to compose and perform as a way of raising money for charity. And THAT's on the heels of having moved to Egypt and then returned to Ethiopia a figure of high society, her dream of playing piano dashed by the Emperor, which led her to sickness and then near death, she even received the last rites, survived and then joined the Imperial Guard, went back to school to study business finally fleeing to join a convent and become a nun. All the while continuing to play music, in fact she continues to perform to this day, in Ethiopia where she still lives, four of her most recent recordings (from 1996) are included here as well.
Her story is amazing, the liner notes go into great detail about her fantastic and adventurous life, but her music is equally as remarkable, the sound and feel is so dense with memory and imagery, musical but somehow quite visual, warm and woozy, a fuzzy, sepia toned old timey feel, due in no small part to the recording, which is quite reminiscent of old 78's, the soundtrack to movie Crumb, that sort of thing, dark rumbling low notes underpin sweet swirls and delicate flurries of minor key melody, sweet and lowdown for sure, warm evenings, back porches, big beautifully appointed parlors, huge empty fields, grass waving in the breeze, long late night wanders, moonlight strolls, so completely dreamy and lovely. Definitely one of out favorites so far in the series. We hope it never ends!
Superior Viaduct does it again, bringing us much needed reissues of not only one but two classic LA underground records from 1981: The Flesh Eaters' amazing A Minute To Pray, A Second To Die, and The Gun Club's incredible debut, Fire of Love. We're gonna (gotta!) make 'em both Records Of The Week!
Death, drugs, sex, voodoo, evil blues, macabre horror and a sublimely detached southern gothic sensibility pervade the music of these two bands who sat somewhere between the margins of the "death rock" and "cowpunk" or "gothabilly" genres of the LA punk scene of the late seventies and early eighties without fitting neatly into either.
The commanding vocal prowess of Jeffrey Lee Pierce leads the scorched delta blues of The Gun Club, a darkened mixture of Johnny Cash, Charley Patton and Elvis recycled through a furious yowling intensity. The band rotated line-ups often and has featured throughout their existence key players of the LA punk scene such as Kid Congo Powers (The Cramps, The Bad Seeds), Patricia Morrison (Sisters of Mercy, The Damned, The Bags) and Terry Graham and Rob Ritter (The Bags). While the band had a run of great albums, Fire of Love is largely regarded as their most influential, containing an impressive string of punk hits: "Sex Beat", She's Like Heroin To Me", "Fire Spirit" "For The Love of Ivy", "Ghost on The Highway", and "Jack On Fire", many of them produced by Chris D. of The Flesh Eaters.
Such a great album and without it bands like The White Stripes and The Black Keys simply wouldn't exist.
Note: Unlike The Flesh Eaters, Superior Viaduct didn't do a vinyl version of this reissue - but it turns out there was a vinyl reish on Spain's Munster records a few years back that has been recently repressed, so we'll probably get copies in sometime soon...
We made the Superior Viaduct cd reissue of The Gun Club's Fire Of Love one our Records Of The Week last time, and now have the 2014 repress of the Munster lp reissue too! Here is what we said about the cd:
Death, drugs, sex, voodoo, evil blues, macabre horror and a sublimely detached southern gothic sensibility pervade the music of The Gun Club who sat somewhere between the margins of the "death rock" and "cowpunk" or "gothabilly" genres of the LA punk scene of the late seventies and early eighties without fitting neatly into either.
The commanding vocal prowess of Jeffrey Lee Pierce leads the band's scorched delta blues, a darkened mixture of Johnny Cash, Charley Patton and Elvis recycled through a furious yowling intensity. The band rotated line-ups often and has featured throughout their existence key players of the LA punk scene such as Kid Congo Powers (The Cramps, The Bad Seeds), Patricia Morrison (Sisters of Mercy, The Damned, The Bags) and Terry Graham and Rob Ritter (The Bags). While the band had a run of great albums, Fire of Love is largely regarded as their most influential, containing an impressive string of punk hits: "Sex Beat", She's Like Heroin To Me", "Fire Spirit" "For The Love of Ivy", "Ghost on The Highway", and "Jack On Fire", many of them produced by Chris D. of The Flesh Eaters.
Such a great album and without it bands like The White Stripes and The Black Keys simply wouldn't exist.
We were intrigued the moment we saw a copy of this reissued early '70s Eastern-influenced tranquil psych gem. The back cover displays dark and mysteries photos of the five men in The Habibiya. All clad in turbans and sporting long beards. We could almost hear the mystique before we pushed play. When we did finally listen we were steadily reeled into their raga like hypnotic sounds, influenced heavily by the music of Sufi Muslims from Morocco, where they visited on what was apparently an extremely moving trip for them in 1971. In fact we had no idea at first that The Habibiyya weren't from somewhere in the East, as the music we were hearing sounded so effortless and true. We later learned that they were in fact from London and featured ex-members of Mighty Baby (kind of the UK equivalent of The Grateful Dead). But where the Mighty Baby stuff we heard was cool and jammy it never really transported us like this recording does. It's music to close your eyes to, as the rich sounds sweep you away, aiming for the sky as its deep hitting core glows with an undeniable spiritual force. While most bands of the era had their backstage area filled with booze and groupies, The Habibiyya mostly just had books with them backstage like the I Ching and texts from mystic minds like G.I. Gurdjieff and Aleister Crowley.
Using zither, piano, banjo, oboe, koto, shakuhachis and an adaptation of classical Moroccan Andalusi singing they were able to create a sound that felt both ancient and timeless. We can all agree that what usually happens when Western musicians try to tap into an eastern sound and feeling, is that the sound can fall miserably short, sounding tepid and watered down, but there are those special rare occasions, when regardless of origin or location, musicians can tap into a special spirit and make sounds that transcend place and time. The Habibiyya did just that!
Tim Hardin is a classic example of a great artist who should have been much bigger than he was, but who also contributed plenty to his own undoing. Releasing a string of great records on the Verve label in the mid-sixties, he largely became known for songs that were hits for other people, such as Rod Stewart ("Reason To Believe"), Nico ("Eulogy To Lenny Bruce"), The Sandpipers ("Misty Roses") and Scott Walker ("Black Sheep Boy", "Lady Came From Baltimore"). Karen Dalton also covered his "Green Rocky Road" and "While You're On Your Way". Possessed of an easy but soulful teddy bear croon, Hardin tackled jazz-inflected blues and folk motifs with a sublime melancholic pop sensibility that barely veiled a profound cynicism towards life and love. In fact, Hardin's best songs were bittersweet reality checks to the era's promise of brotherhood and love. Two of those songs, "Don't Make Promises", and "How Can We Hang On To A Dream", bookend this stellar debut record. However, the former song's inclusion of string accompaniments without Hardin's permission began an ongoing and troubling distrust with record companies, that only added to the pile of his own personal demons (including the drug abuse that finally killed him in 1980). Inversely it's these strings and vibes that add a distinctiveness to the production that he would later use on his more successful follow-up record, 2 (and must have been what made Scott Walker take notice!). But it's the rough polish of the debut where we are introduced to Hardin's range. The hints of the Greenwich Village folkie maturing into a soulful and profound songwriter, broadening his palette into open jazz and blues forms that at the time, Tim Buckley and Fred Neil were only beginning to expand on more deeply. Essential!!!!!!!
