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June 2019 = |
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The
band whose Name is a Symbol / Shooting Guns |
Anton
Barbeau |
C
Joynes |
The Watchers |
Spiral
Wave Nomads |
Hibushibire |
Jeff Kelly |
Soviet
Funk Themes |
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Home
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THE
BAND WHOSE NAME IS A
SYMBOL/SHOOTING GUNS – IN SEARCH OF HIGHS
VOLUME 2
(LP
on Riot
Season Records)
The
Band Whose Name Is A Symbol (TBWNIAS) and
Shooting Guns may be well over a day’s drive
apart through the vast spaces of Canada in real
life but thankfully due to the joys of vinyl we
get two of Canada’s very best heavy psych bands
sharing this new split release on Riot Season,
showcasing a fine and diverse array of sonic
adventures.
So
let’s get into the music on offer and first up
we have TBWNIAS, who for some time now have
charted an interesting route between heavy
psych, drone and improvised jams over a series
of impressive recent releases. We get two
lengthy pieces starting with ‘Misanthropic
Pathways’ which has a very raw, generally murky
and very definitely live sound. Driven by heavy
pounding drums, the band with fine dining
precision boils up a swirling soup of cymbals,
riffs, and drones that teases the listener with
short diversions, changes of tempo and snatches
of melody but then takes everything back into
the swirl and orchestrated psych mayhem. It’s a
fine trip that whilst dipping a toe in dark,
often swampy lands, never loses its way and
ultimately serves up an intoxicating improvised
treat.
‘Poverty
Of The Dervish’ is similarly around the ten
minute mark and instantly establishes a hazy
feel of the east over a steady and strong beat.
Hypnotic eastern tinged melodies happily
intertwine with psychedelic guitar flourishes
and heavy but still in a sense subtle riffs
which establishes a wonderful mood piece that
explores texture, intensity and colour rather
than seek to reach a squally peak of ecstatic
noise. Two sides of TBWNIAS improvisation that
complement each other very well indeed.
Moving
onto the flipside and we have Shooting Guns who
follow their incredibly atmospheric ‘Nosferatu’
soundtrack with a collection of shorter songs
displaying a breadth of styles and imagination .
‘New Levitation’ establishes a dramatic and
sparse Hawkwind style riff which breaks out into
a freer, heavier space rocking groove as the
track progresses that will please all cosmic
dancers out there. ‘Snow Drift’ is slower,
moodier and indeed stonier with a touch of
Sabbath in the insistent menace of the riff that
does indeed invoke bleak landscapes before a
complete change of direction in ‘Sports Drink’
which is a rap, sports commentary mash up over
electronic sounds and beats that eventually gets
swallowed up by a squall of electronic noise,
guitars and drums. It shouldn’t work but somehow
it does. ‘Chill Out Tent’ finishes the side with
an atmospheric guitar melody, laid back beat and
organ and guitar textures which inhabit the
territory between Pink Floyd and early
Tindersticks. It sounds like a closing piece in
the very best of ways and is testament to how
well planned out this very diverse side of music
is.
To
almost paraphrase a football commentator, this
is very definitely a record of two halves with
the lengthier improvisations of TBWNIAS and
shorter tracks from Shooting Guns working very
well as contrasting approaches to make a very
cohesive and highly recommended record.
(Francis Comyn)
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ANTON
BARBEAU – BERLINER GROTESK
Pink
Hedgehog Records/BeeHive Records
www.pinkhedgehog.com
CD/DL
The
prolific Californian born but Berlin resident
Anton follows up his superb Natural Causes album
of last year with a new album of self penned
songs (excluding Love Me Do). It has a quite
bonkers cover of Anton sitting on his piano
stool, wearing a blue blanket, a welder’s helmet
and holding a broom.
Travel
has certainly informed his recent albums and his
love of words means that his songs often contain
some odd choices, this latest album being no
exception. The opening song ‘Berliner Grotesk’
sees Anton playing a waltz in a Brecht/Weill
style. The song is also quite catchy, celebrates
insects and nature, but is really a love song
with soaring chorus. Anton does his best Dick
Van Dyke impression with ‘I Been To Bromley’.
Here he hangs out with the Frond and spies the
Queen in her brown Bentley in Bromley. The album
features Anton utilizing his keyboards a lot
more; in fact he plays most of the instruments
himself. ‘Love Me Do’ the old Beatles tune
follows and is rendered in a cod reggae style
complete with Waspish keyboard fills.
‘Down
Weird Dog’ is next with Anton’s play on words of
the favourite Yoga position “downward dog”, it
is a short sparse tune with some fine wordplay.
This down weird dog is not backwards about
coming forward and utilizing his leg for relief.
‘The Gruff Exterminator’ is about the secrets of
a cross dressing man, mentions Hot Rats and
features Julia VBH on backing vocals. ‘Baby Can
You’ is a short piano led worry wart of a song.
It concerns some sort of home grown plant and
blackbirds baked in a pie. ‘Horns’ is frankly
weird, a song about gluing horns to the head of
a girl, simple piano, a sly three note nod to
Hey Jude, more birds now arrive in the form of
sparrows at the door, a pile of feathers and a
beak.
‘Not
The World’s Most Wave-Formed Man’ the title
being probably a misheard “well informed man”
another song in waltz time with a pretty
keyboard solo. ‘Disaster On Sandwich Island’ is
a short piano based song about ecology.
‘don’tforgettogetyourfingerwet’ rocks a bit
harder, and is both melodic and inventive; it’s
enlivened by a wonky keyboard solo. The album
ends with ‘Boxcat Blues’ a simple piano led
song, it’s very English, with its mentions of
cups of tea, it’s all held together with Elmer’s
glue. So, another fine album by Anton who has
certainly hit a purple patch and is on a roll
right now.
(Andrew
Young)
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C
JOYNES
& THE FURLONG BRAY – THE BORAMETZ TREE
Thread
Recordings LP www.threadrecordings.com
C
Joynes is a Cambridge-based finger style
guitarist, who for this release is joined by
TheDead Rat Orchestra, Cam Deas and Nick Jonah
Davis. The title is named after a semi
mythological plant. This is his ninth album and
is very much an instrumental world music album.
‘Triennale’ provides a sprightly opening song,
all sorts of unusual acoustic instruments create
a rich tapestry, it’s melodic and introduces us
to the very distinctive percussive sounds which
permeate every song on this album, we get
drones, fiddles, electric arpeggio
guitar,anchored by bass and crunchy percussion.
‘Tango Wire’ is short piece which sounds like
all the members are playing a different song but
actually coalesces into one. ‘Sang Kancil’ is
very African in nature, thumb piano and
percussive notes. A slippy fiddle provides the
melody along with resophonic guitar. For some
reason I’m also reminded of Mongolian music,
even more so on the following ‘The Vegetable
Lamb of Tartary’. The name is taken from a
legendary zoophyte of Central Asia, once
believed to grow sheep as its fruit!
It weaves and melds into a rich tapestry.
‘Hamasien
Wedding Song’ sounds like an out of control
charabanc full of cuckoo clocks! It moves and
develops along to a wheezy tune with distinct
African guitar lines. ‘Librarie Du Maghreb’ is
also informed by Moorish Africa, deep
percussion,fiddle lines and guitar weave their
magic; taking me on a journey to another time
and place. ‘Gottem Ni Gottem’ is a very short,
pretty violin and banjo led song, slow and
melodic and placed well in the album, slowing
things down before the penultimate song ‘Jacket
Shines’ arrives. This is the longest song on the
album and is not unlike the middle passage of
some old Kaleidoscope (USA) song, ethnic and
middle eastern sounding, it develops into a
distinctive song with long banjo passages, at
one point I thought we were going to segue into
Orange Blossom Special. This travelogue of an
album ends with ‘Mali Sajyo’ incorporating much
of what has gone before and this time featuring
a 12 string guitar, in an American primitive
style.
(Andrew
Young)
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THE
WATCHERS – A YEAR IN THE
COUNTRY
A
Year In The Country Records
www.ayearinthecountry.co.uk
A
year in the country continue to release their
sumptuous CD’s, they nearly always feature two
editions Dusk and Dawn, both using archival giclée
pigment inks and are often accompanied by badges
and stickers etc.
For
this latest release, Britain’s ancient trees are
the subject for the various artists to getto
grips with, hence the title. ‘In A Clearing’ by
Grey
Frequency is the first song, crows caw,
song birds sing, a drowsy soporific tune
develops on synths, as you lean back on the
trunk of an old oak tree, close your eyes and
drift off. ‘A Thousand Autumns’ by Field
Lines Cartographer celebrates an ancient
oak, its cyclical shedding of thousands of
leaves providing nutrients for next year’s
leaves. The twinkling synth sounds like the
falling leaves in the shafts of Autumnal
sunlight. ‘The Brave Old Oak’ sees Widow’s Weeds joined by Kitchen Cynic Alan Davidson narrate a tale
of an oak tree, located deep in the Dalkeith
Oakwood. Woodwind and synths join in to create a
lovely folk song.
Depatterning
arrive with Oak/Dair celebrating the close bonds
of both the English oak and the Irish oak which
although similar are in fact separate species
but with indistinguishable DNA. This one is a
little bit more unsettling and ghostly with
drones and feedback. There is always room fora
song on each album by curators A
Year In The Country who here deliver a
song entitled ‘Radicle Ether’. It is a view of
us humans as seen by these slow growing Ents.
Informed as it is by billowing synth and
a distant tolling church bell. Phonofiction
are up next with ‘Xylem Flow’ informed by field
recordings made in Highgate, Epping and out into
the fens, it celebrates the root system which
sucks up nutrients and also communicate with
other trees.
Pulselovers
are next with ‘Circles Within Circles’ a gentle
motorik beat is manipulated and passed through
various delays and reverberations. It also
features some guitar from John Alexander of
Floodlights. Herefordshire minstrels Sproatly
Smith arrive with ‘Watching You’ another
song from the point of view of these ancient
trees, bird song, female voice, synth and
acoustic guitar.Tracing the journey from acorn
to mighty hollowed oak, a bucolic folk tune,
both drowsy and soporific.
Vic
Mars
is next with ‘The Test Of Time’ this song takes
as its inspiration from the great Eardisley oak
tree, one of the oldest in Britain. A purely
electronic piece of music which is both
cathartic and gentle in nature, it’s stately and
develops into a bucolic pastoral piece. ‘The
Trees That Watch The Stones’ by The
Heartwood Institute is informed by Long
Meg and her Daughters, one of the largest stone
circles in Britain, this song is a little
unsettling and slightly queasy in nature,
another purely electronic piece of music. The
album ends with ‘The Winter Dream Of Novel’s
Oak’ by
Howlround. Made from field recordings at
the site of an ancient oak, it is short and
fairly menacing in tone, apparently it is about
an ancient oak tree in Tilford, which is just up
the road from me, a tree I am unfamiliar with,
yet it is in my home county! I know where I’m
headed this weekend. This could be the label’s
finest release yet.
(Andrew
Young)
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SPIRAL
WAVE NOMADS – S/T
Twin
Lakes records/Feeding Tubes 275 vinyl copies. www.twinlakesrecords.com
Following
on from last year’s excellent More Klementines
self titled album comes another project from
Michael Kiefer. This time he has teamed up with
guitarist Eric Hardiman (Burnt Hills, Century
Plants, etc) for a set of improvised guitar and
drum songs. The opening track ‘Blue Dream’ sets
out their stall with a fine instrumental (as are
the rest of the tunes), often recalling Rangda.
The lengthy ‘Wabi Sabi’ introduces droning sitar
into the mix, it’s slow to coalesce, all
tumbling drums and skyward bound guitar, but
when it does it creates a nice eastern sounding
piece, allowing both members to probe and feed
off each other, this is just on the right side
of Jam band fare. ‘Vanishing Edges’ the last
track onside one works well after that onslaught
and slows down proceedings, heavily treated
double tracked guitar runs and exploratory
drums, are anchored by deep bass.
‘Elysium’
kicks off side two in fine style, the two
players working together to create a loose piece
with more tumbling drums and guitar notes
curling off like firefly trails in the night,
sympathetically feeding off each other.
‘Floating On A Distant Haze’ seems to have a
little more in the way of a structure, a
psychedelic rock song with big drums and
spiralling guitar notes peeling off into the
ether, a song to get lost in, tight yet
exploratory. The
album ends with ‘Patterns of Forgotten Flight’
sees both players working telepathically
together, on a song imbued with graceful guitar,
elegant rolling drum patterns and bass. This
unhurried approach, allows much light and space
in between the notes, making for impressive
stuff indeed.
(Andrew
Young)
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HIBUSHIBIRE
– TURN ON, TUNE IN, FREAK OUT!
(LP/Cassette
on Riot
Season Records)
Hibushibire
are one of the most interesting heavy psych rock
groups coming out of Japan right now. Yes they
are (very) loud and electrifying in concert but
they are not simply about ramping up the guitar
theatrics and noise as they also display great
musicianship and fizz with energy and invention
especially on record. This, the band’s second
recorded outing after 2017’s debut ‘Freak Out
Orgasm!’ continues their impressive start and
whilst there are inevitable comparisons with
Acid Mothers Temple (Makoto Kawabata has
produced both albums) , Blue Cheer and perhaps
others less immediately obvious such as The
Groundhogs, they have once again stamped their
own personality in a crowded market.
‘Ecstasy
Highwaystar’
kicks things off literally with a scorching
energetic spacey belter that has a raw garage
punk edge, but a clear Hendrix undertone to the
guitar riff and soloing albeit at breakneck
speed and a vocal that sounds like it is coming
from the bottom of a working cement mixer.
‘Blow! Blow!Blow!’ is as urgent as the
exclamation marks suggest. Over its almost 10
minutes length we start and finish with a heavy
psych blues riff over which we get the distant
cement mixer vocals and an energetic workout on
drums but in the middle section the pace drops
to allow some wonderfully atmospheric guitar
soloing (again with a Hendrix feel at times
albeit often taken to considerable extremes but
also the heavier, extended blues rock workouts
of The Groundhogs come to mind which is no bad
thing at all to these ears) and allowing
everyone to catch their breath briefly. Next up
and completing Side One is ‘Overdose, Pussycat!
More! More!’ which despite being another feast
of exclamation marks and a great title provides
another incendiary guitar, bass, drums workout
that touches on being unhinged space rock but
barely manages to keep control by its
fingertips. It’s a stunning end to a thrilling
first side which fades into a short soundscape
that can only be described as soft porn exotica
(I bet you don’t see that description very
often).
Side
Two is where the magic lies in the 17 minute
epic ‘Rollercoaster Of The Universe’, showing a
very different side to the band. Rather than an
assault of speed and power the true quality of
the musicians and their writing abilities comes
to the fore with great use of texture, sound
colours and dynamics and much more control over
the sonic landscape created. We get gear shifts
of course and intense, almost ecstatic guitar
playing but the diversity in styles from an
almost Hillage like cosmic prog to jazz rock
intricacies, minimalist repetition and an almost
‘Yes’ like melodic sense to something in the
heavy psych terrain of Acid Mothers Temple is
pretty special. It combines raw and refined
wonderfully well and through intelligent use of
structure and dynamics makes 17 minutes fly by
without a single glance at the watch. The
concluding minutes are a masterpiece of how to
end a record where an intense and ecstatic space
rock finale that may just be about to demolish
your house suddenly fades into the lovely
minimal shimmering melody that started the song
– just stunning and for me one of the most
memorable pieces of music I’ve heard so far this
year.
A
wonderful record then which captures the
exhilaration of their live performance but also
shows a band evolving and exploring new musical
territory to great effect. Catch Hibushibire
live if you can but don’t forget your earplugs
if you do. In the meantime, pick this record up
for your many moods and a big smile.
(Francis
Comyn)
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JEFF
KELLY - BENEATH THE STARS,
ABOVE THE RIVER
(CD on Green Monkey)
The Green Pajamas’ front man returns with
another solo album, which takes the form of a
love letter to his beloved fado and flamenco
music, experienced during his and wife Susanne’s
recent travels to Spain and Portugal. While not
overtly traditional, these songs form the
soundtrack to strolls through hidden corners of
the Iberian peninsula, experiencing the rains on
the Douro River (‘River Rain 1’ and ‘2’, ‘Douro
River Wind’), poor beggars in the streets (‘Señor, Señor’), and slice-of-life reminisces of the señora in a scanner
station, drinking beer under cathedral bells, or
watching Romani gypsy street scenes. It’s a
musical travelogue of a holiday that almost
feels like you’re accompanying the Kellys every
step along their journey.
From
the opening accordion and flamenco-styled
acoustic guitars, we are transported into the
title track lyric from ‘The Initial Kiss’, that
magnetic attraction for your new home for the
next few weeks. ‘Señor, Señor’ and ‘Moon
Over Granada’ pull out the full electric
instrument arsenal and are closest to the full
Green Pajama experience (complete with Kelly’s
irresistible penchant of earworm melodies)., and
‘Todo por la Gitano’ revisits the swaying
waltz-like cadence of tracks like ‘Laura Petry’s
Eyes’ (from 1990’s Portugal),
with
lilting “la la la’s” of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Joan of
Arc’ (both are Kelly fascinations) and
bullfight-like, mariachi brass flourishes tossed
in for extra atmospheric impact.
Vampires
have
always fascinated Kelly (cf., ‘Vampire Kiss’),
and ‘The Lisbon Vampire’ is another eerie
addition to the canon, while ‘Lily’ and ‘Kiss
The Moon Hello’ also float along the warm summer
winds of flamenco guitar accompaniment, the
latter also evincing a cinematic aura, like
Cohen collaborating with Ennio Morricone scoring
a “tapas Western”! ‘Alleys of Music’ ends our
musical holiday on a nostalgic note, as we
wander aimlessly through the titular alleys
accompanied by (presumably) Susanne’s harmonies,
muted brass embellishments, and experience the
surprise and wander of what lies undiscovered
around the next corner. No maps or tourist
guides to assist us as we “get lost in the
alleys of Madrid”.
Fans
of both the Pajamas and Kelly’s distinctive solo
work will certainly hear much to enjoy in this
collection of musical snapshots of his vacation
in the Iberian peninsula, absorbing and
regurgitating the musical atmosphere encountered
along the way. The lyric booklet aids in the
album’s enjoyment, filling in the blanks of
misheard lyrics and effectively capturing . Like
previous visual songs such as ‘Photographs’,
Kelly brilliantly transforms photographic images
into musical ‘snapshots’. Imagine going on
holiday and creating songs instead of taking
photographs to capture your experiences.
Somewhat reminiscent of his 1997 Rosary
and The House of Jade concept album
(included in Camera Obscura’s Melancholy
Sun box set in 1999), Kelly’s latest love
letter is another jewel in an ever-expanding and
consistently brilliant discography.
(Jeff Penczak)
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SOVIET
FUNK
THEMES FOR TELEVISION AND FILM – DJ SOULVIET
(LP
on Soviet
Grail)
Soviet
Grail is a relatively new
label, dedicated to releasing Soviet-era rock
and jazz music from the ‘70s and
‘80s, much of it quite good.
Among their
more fascinating items is this album, a Record
Store Day release.
Available as an LP, the web site link
steers
you straight to a YouTube site, which is where
the reel action (pun intended)
is. You
see, the album is chock full of
funky 70s Soviet music, which serves as
background to a thirty-minute video
compilation of 70s and 80s movie trailers.
This video must be seen to be believed.
The
music is compiled by the very
interesting “DJ Soulviet,” who’s also known as
TenDJiz, further also known as
Denis Chernyshov, who was born in Saint
Petersburg, Russia, and is now a
Miami-based producer and sound engineer.
The music is full of groovy organs, funky
horns, throbbing bass, scratchy
guitar and wah-wah.
Little is revealed
about the artists or musicians, but DJ Soulviet
assures us it’s derived from
original source material.
It’s not
unlike library music you’d hear in exploitation
films such as 70s soft-core
films or something out of the Something Weird
video catalogue.
In other words, indispensable.
The
video, however, takes things
to whole other level.
The thirty-minute
video contains one to two-minute movie trailers
from 22 astonishing Soviet era
movies, mostly from the 70s.
So what do
the movies contain?
Well, there are
loads of car chases, but with Ladas instead of
Mustangs or Jaguars, including
one Lada that obliterates a loaded baby
stroller(!), motorcycle chases, boat
chases in rivers, fist-fights galore, gun
fights, crime capers, beautiful
Soviet ladies, including a handful of swimsuit
models, croquet drama, rock
bands with furry hats, jewel heists, bank
robberies, and tons of uncool people
dancing. This
is stuff Quentin Tarantino
would love, or would be well-suited to Mystery
Science Theater 3000.
Unfortunately, there’s no dialogue or
subtitles, and the titles of these action
pictures are all in Russian, in
Cyrillic writing.
I was able to find a
few of them.
“Woodpecker
Doesn’t Have
Headaches (1974),” looks to be about a kid who
wants to be a drummer in a rock
band. Along
the way, he tries to impress
a girl, gets into schoolyard fights, and we have
some footage of a rock band,
while the funky soundtrack plays some nifty
flute.
“Gelsomino’s
Magic Voice (1977)”
includes some not quite-Saturday Night Fever
disco dancing with pretty girls in
bland clothes, uniformed Soviet officers dancing
arm-in-arm, and one very weird,
cheap, stop-motion animated cat who pops up
everywhere.
Some
of the unnamed (unless you
read Russian) trailers deserve special mention.
In one, a sports movie, it opens in
modern Hiroshima, with the atomic
bombing ruins in the background.
This is
followed by a scene of female Japanese athletes
being dragged on the ground in
a factory and having water thrown on them.
We see the Soviet women’s volleyball team
training. Then
a bullet train.
Then all of a sudden we’re back at the
Mexico
City 1968 Olympics (thanks to the stock
footage0. Then
we (the Soviet women’s volleyball team,
that is) are playing Cuba with a “Cuba ’78” sign
in the background.
Then the Japanese girls win.
Hooray?
In
another, we have a Shaun
Cassidy lookalike, complete with bell bottoms,
platform shoes, and his shirt
open to the navel, getting it on on the dance
floor. This
is followed by shots of pretty girls, a
car chase, and a fight at a pickle factory.
In
still another, there’s a hot
Soviet girl on a motorcycle, car chases (with US
cars this time), a briefcase
full of US cash, a gun fight at a quarry, some
fascinating 70s-style animation,
psychedelic scenes of hands moving around and of
the beautiful girl, and a
grandmother firing a machine gun.
I
want to see every one of these
movies.
Who
knew the Soviets produced
cheesy movies on par with our own?
And
with music to match.
And that’s not
intended as a put-down.
This stuff is
genuinely fun, and heaven knows we produced
plenty of it, too.
I’m just surprised the State allowed it.
What struck me most was that maybe we’re
not
all that different after all.
Kudos
to Soviet Grail and DJ
Soulviet. Now
let’s see those movies.
(Mark
Feingold)
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