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July 2022 = |
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Loner Deluxe
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John Moreland
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Dodson & Fogg
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Alex Rex
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the Utopia Strong
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Dhidalah
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Ambassador
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Kamikaze Palm
Tree
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LONER DELUXE
- HINTERLAND
(CD/DL
from Rusted
Rail )
Engaging
and rather fabulous, the latest album from Keith
Wallace a.k.a Loner Deluxe is a collection of 14
tunes that shimmer, rattle, creak and then
softly infect your brain in a charming and
enlightening manner. Laced with intriguing
samples and filtered through a cloud of ancient
space dust, the music is part folk, part
electronic and generally otherworldly, the
sounds and words wrapping around you like a well
worn and much loved coat protecting you from
life's worries and telling tales to keep you
amused.
After
the folky Banjo infused opener, “How the West
Wind Blows” things get slightly stranger as “Dun
Briste” gets wrapped in electronics, using
repeated vocal lines as a way to hypnotise the
listener, a trick employed throughout the album
to great effect. Amongst my favourite moments on
the collection is the pairing of “I Saw Nick
Drake's Sister In Space” with “Search and
Rescue”, the former a shimmering Psych-Pop gem,
whilst the latter is a reverb drenched hymn with
an ancient heart, the music droning and almost
lost in the distorted noise, the lyrics
seemingly telling you something very important
that you once knew.
Moving
through the album, “We Used To Dance In The Sky”
is driven upwards by a repetitive beat and
swirling electronics, a heady blend that is easy
to immerse yourself in, whilst “Stolen by the
Faeries” takes folk music into wyrd territory ,
the spoken samples telling a traditional tale
over a modern musical setting to great effect.
It
is often hard to get a focus whilst listening to
this album, sounds rise and fall, beats moving
your feet whilst distortion and echo confuse the
head, the lyrics adding yet another element to
the tunes, yet this is a good thing, the
experience like eating a large bowl of soup, the
ingredients foraged from the countryside around
you, flavours both familiar and new, the whole
both comforting and tinged with the feeling that
something strange could happen at any moment,
the meal washed down with a large glass of ale
or in this case, the seven minute kosmiche romp
of “Hollow Mountain”, the perfect end to the
collection, leaving you very contented.
With
not a moment wasted this is a perfect collection
of songs to treasure for a very long time. (Simon
Lewis)
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JOHN MORELAND
– LIVE AT THE BASEMENT EAST – NASHVILLE, TN –
2/17/22
(Bandcamp)
“I
guess I’ve got a taste for poison. I’ve
given up on ever being well” singer-songwriter
John Moreland begins on his pre-encore closer
“Cherokee” from this intimate live set. That
statement is sadly apparent, listening to this
stark collection from stem to stern.
The
husky-voiced troubadour takes us on a personal
tour of his fragile psyche, his beautiful way
with words frequently laced with anguish and
pain. His
upcoming album Birds
in the Ceiling will
feature full studio instrumentation, but the
accompaniment on this live performance is simply
himself and John Calvin Abney on electric
guitars, with Abney’s often sounding like pedal
steel as well. The
simple instrumentation clearly works to
Moreland’s advantage, with the audience, both in
the club and the headphones, sitting in rapt
attention to his messages.
While
other artists may have licked their wounds
through their songs before, few do it as
compellingly as John Moreland. With
song titles like “I Always Let You Burn Me to
the Ground,” “When My Fever Breaks,” “Old
Wounds,” and “Break My Heart Sweetly,” you know
you’re in for some rampant sadness, and those
are just the titles.
Moreland’s
world is the world of the broken, where
relationships almost always end in crushing
heartbreak, an almost inevitable outcome he can
fatalistically predict. He
often sings to a lover of this repeated
condition, either breaking down after the fact,
or begging her not to do it to him again, or at
least do it gently. Take
these words from “Break My Heart Sweetly”: “There’s
a scar on my soul, so let me down easy. Break
my heart sweetly, like you always do. I
guess I can’t let go till you wreck me
completely. Break
my heart sweetly, drape me in blue.”
Those
two electric guitars of Moreland and John Calvin
Abney are a perfect backdrop. Clean
in tone, with occasional light tremolo, they
blend beautifully, and often while Moreland
isn’t singing, they take on a spooky, drifting
ethereal quality all their own.
Occasionally,
some of the songs are more uplifting, about
wanting to take life by the horns or
declarations of love (albeit, caveated as love
in a dark and painful world). And
with folk singers, where so much emphasis is on
their lyrics, I also want to give props to John
Moreland the tunesmith. The
melodies are brilliant in both their simplicity
and being perfect for their subjects.
In
this emotional set, John Moreland shows he’s at
heart a hopeless romantic, with both words
weighted equally. The
lachrymose songs, steeped in melancholia, never
fail to find their home in the beating hearts of
his listeners. His
deep voice, strained to the breaking point with
pathos, draws you in, and you want to give him
unconditional love.
(Mark
Feingold)
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DODSON AND
FOGG - KEEP UP
(Available
on Wisdom Twins)
While
not quite troubling Acid Mothers Temple as the
most prolific artist we’ve championed here at
Terrascope Towers, Chris Wade (aka Dodson and
Fogg) has released nearly three dozen albums,
EPs, and soundtracks since our review of
his eponymous debut and interviewa
decade ago! The title song of his latest EP (the
instrumental ‘Trying To Keep Up’) opens with a
rather snappy little tom tom riff under an
acoustic melody that seems straight out of the
DeWolfe library and destined for a TV theme
song! The dreamy, wandering minstrel vibe
continues on ‘Give In To The Night’, perfect for
a wee lie down under the glistening stars on a
warm summer’s night.
The
heat and tempo is cranked up for the bluesy
stomp of ‘In The Afternoon’, which features some
of Wade’s tastiest licks and dexterous finger
work. Political commentary is at the heart of
‘What Will Become Of Freedom?’, suggesting a
“use it or lose it” consequence of standing idly
by while rights and privileges slowly wither
away.
‘Through
The Clouds’ offers another thousand yard stare
into the expansive universe while cumulous
clouds float effortlessly across the sky. Gently
acoustic, romantically evocative, it offers both
comfort and solace in a hard world which seems
endlessly confusing with each passing day. Wade
even adds a swirling organ backing to help the
material sink in to the grey matter before
launching into a searing electric solo that
melts into a forlorn piano coda.
Another
exceptional offering from one of our finest and
most prolific artists, whose quality control
quotient never fades. Once again, quantity
hasn’t affected quality!
(Jeff
Penczak)
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ALEX REX
- MOUTHFUL OF EARTH
(LP/DL from Neolithic Recordings Artists
| Neolithic Recordings (bandcamp.com))
Come
on now, admit it. This was not what you were
expecting was it? Well me neither, as Alex
Neilson trades in his rascally off-kilter folk
balladry and belters in in order to channel his
inner Byron, and he sure ain’t
Larkin about.
Mouthful
of Earth’s origins
are pre-pandemic, back when Neilson decided to
weave some of his poetry into the experimentally
slanted soundtrack of his, Alastair Galbraith
and Richard Youngs’ Belsayer
Times album
from 2006. It’s an artistic deviation whereby
Alex swaps vocal melodies for some seriously
sinister stanzas. As you might expect from his
more often than not baleful if sometimes
darkly playful song lyrics, these pieces cover
a range of emotions, few of which might
charitably be described as pleasant. Against
the backdrop of drones and occasional free
jazz the menace and passion are palpable,
breathing new life and giving fresh meaning to
the aforementioned Belsayer
Times. Gratifyingly, he is joined by
ex-Trembling Bells colleague Lavinia Blackwall
(an always winning combination) on one track
and whose golden voice provides partial relief
from the lyrically gruelling ‘Charity Shop
Prophet’. But we’re getting ahead of
ourselves.
“It’s
4 am”, Alex intones as his opening utterance (on
‘Sorrow Makes Hope Soar Higher’) and indeed the
overall feel here and henceforth is of some
unhealthy pre-dawn fixation when the chimp brain
is in full-throttle, dwelling on wretchedness
and violence and yet somehow infused with a
strange beauty. ‘It Must Be Love’ has less to do
with Labi Siffre, more ‘a foul-mouthed Jiminy
Cricket to a stupefied Pinocchio/Silently
consenting to the shopping list of horror’. A
bit too tame, perhaps? Then try ‘Andromeda
Chained To A Rock’ which truly is genuinely
scary stuff, as ‘the sea monster sings to
oblivion’ and oblivion sings back to a hellish
cacophony. It’s all deeply personal and
soul-baring confessional, anxious, angry,
resentful and regretful. Meanwhile, ‘Alcoholic’s
Parabola’ is darkly trippy - imagine that the
Kool-Aid’s been swapped for Buckfast Tonic. All
the devils are here, tattooed with profanities
(so yes, Larkin). This is poetry and music to
dismantle yesterday’s daisy chains to, and
trampling them to bits.
Mouthful
of Earth continues
in Neilson’s rich vein of collaboration and
demonstrates an enviable if tortured versatility
as he dares to deviate from the folk(ish) output
with which he is most often associated. Oh, and
the album (released by Neolithic Recordings, who
were responsible for the cassette release of
Rex’s Woolf II set from 2019 earlier this year)
is accompanied by a book of illustrations by
musician/artist Benjamin Prosser. Verily,
the gift of sound and vision: part poetry, part
music and all good. Alex Neilson - you’re Bard.
Ian
Fraser
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THE UTOPIA
STRONG - INTERNATIONAL TREASURE
(LP/CD/DL from Rocket Recordings Music
| Rocket Recordings (bandcamp.com))
When
The Utopia Strong released their self-titled
debut album in 2019 it attracted attention
partly because of the involvement of snooker
legend Steve Davis on modular electronics. Known
outside of Crucible circles to be a Magma and
Gong buff, Davis’ musical pedigree (leaving
aside his contribution to novelty hit ‘Snooker
Loopy’ in 1986) was based on his growing
reputation as a DJ. Now he was a muso, truly a
poster boy for us (late) middle aged types,
still harbouring dreams of an eleventh-hour
career change.
And
so from national to International
Treasure. Aside from Davis, The Utopia
Strong comprises Michael York (Coil) on myriad
pipes and wind instruments (and percussion) that
lend ethereal and organic textures to Davis’
circuit wizardry. Resembling a clear-eyed
version of Syd Barrett around his Madcap’
period, the trio is completed by string-driven
psychedelic polymath Kavus Torabi, whose
extensive resume includes Knifeworld, Cardiacs
and Guapo, and who leads the current incarnation
of Gong. This, their second long-form outing,
develops quite exquisitely the themes moulded by
their debut and which, incidentally, was (and
remains) an unmitigated triumph, one that is
regularly summoned for turntable duties here in
the servant’s garret at Terrascope Towers. The
sound is, if anything, more floating and fully
formed this time, and a little less reliant on
the kosmishe tropes of Cluster and Harmonia
hitherto employed so effectively. In fact at
times, International
Treasurehints more at a psychedelically
orchestrated icy undertow of Scandinavian
chill-out jazz, elevating York’s reeds and
Torabi’s tasteful glissandos and underpinned by
Davis’ oscillations.
Outstanding
in its left-field is the shimmering beauty of
‘Shepherdess’ on which Torabi plays guzheng and
features a tantalisingly wraithlike wordless
vocal. So, too, a brief but bucolic ‘Disaster 2’
(which like ‘Brain Surgeon 3’ on the first
album, makes you yearn to hear earlier and
subsequent takes) and the grittier
‘Revelations’. Best in breed, however, is the
title track which, for a blissfully transcendent
eight minutes, takes you to a place where you
might wish to spend an eternity, before we snap
back into the here and now with the rhythmic
reach-for-the-sun single ‘Castalia’. In point of
fact one could pick out pretty much everything
here and eulogise about it until the proverbial
steers reappear.
Taking
pride of place alongside its predecessor and
perhaps surpassing even its flood-level
watermark, International
Treasureproves that The Utopia Strong have
quickly outgrown curiosity value. This is a
serious endeavour and a seriously good one at
that. So good that it’s hard to see how anyone,
anywhere is going to better it any time soon. Go
treat your ears and your synapses; they’ll thank
you for it.
Ian
Fraser
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DHIDALAH
- SENSORIA
(LP/Digital
on Gurugurubrain
Records)
With
the mighty Kikagaku Moyo sadly making their
final rounds after releasing their swan song Kumoyo
Island on
Gurugurubrain, the masterful label they
founded, leaving psych lovers the world over
in grief, somebody has to step up and take
hold of the ‘brain. Here
is Tokyo’s Dhidalah with their second album,
making their persuasive case.
After
their promising debut album Threshold in
2019, I eagerly awaited Dhidalah’s
follow-up. They
put out a steady stream of teasing video
clips full of excellent live psych jams on
social media for years, but when no album
followed, I wondered what was up. Turns
out the band holds a weekly jam session in
Tokyo from which those clips came, and sure
enough, they carefully developed some of
those ideas into songs that would find their
way onto Sensoria.
Threshold was
often very heavy, a bludgeoning force. On Sensoria,
I wouldn’t say the band has lightened their
sound – hardly - but they have learned to
temper it with other influences like
krautrock plus some light and shade, and
they are better for the growth. They
also take some breaks on the long tracks
between Ikuma Kawabe’s spacy guitar
onslaughts, with chant-like vocals and
“Noise FX” by band leader and bassist
Kazuhira Gotoh. Forget
trying to understand what he’s singing, or
even what language it is, just go with it.
That
Noise FX can either add to the atmosphere or
be a distraction depending on the listener’s
preferences, but Dhidalah certainly fills in
any and all spaces with sound.
Side
One has three tracks. Opener
“Soma” begins somewhere in the Andromeda
Galaxy methinks, before settling into a
krautrock groove by way of Tokyo by way of
the Oort Cloud. The
middle one, “Invader Summer” has a driving,
pummeling beat, and some outrageous guitar
work by Ikuma Kawabe that just doesn’t quit
for the duration of its six minutes. Third
track “Dead” isn’t, and in its all-too-brief
run time swaps the freaky electric guitars
and drums for acoustic guitars, hand
percussion, and strong effects, continuing
the narcotic haze.
Side
Two is all the twenty-minute “Black Shrine.” Here’s
what you came for, folks. The
long, slow burner leaves the launch pad and
climbs, climbs, climbs, accumulating more
and more sound while showcasing Ikuma
Kawabe’s brilliant guitar playing. It
throttles back at around the eight-minute
point for a quieter bluesy interlude to a
metronomic rhythm, the guys coolly biding
their time. But
you knew that wouldn’t be it, didn’t you? Almost
imperceptibly Kawabe ratchets up the guitar
badassery until about the 14-minute point,
when Gotoh comes in with just a MONSTER bass
line that could swallow up everything in its
path like a black hole. Then
at around the sixteen-minute point, the boys
switch to a faster tempo, then do it once
more even faster for good measure, and the
game is really on. All three
(Kawabe, Gotoh, and superb drummer Masahito
Goda) reach for something extra and blow the
roof sky high for the final four minutes of
drubbing your brain.
On Sensoria,
Dhidalah builds and delivers a better
mousetrap than their promising debut, and it
was well worth the wait. Japanese
psych fans rejoice!
(Mark
Feingold)
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AMBASSADOR
- INSATISFACCIÓN
(Interstellar
Smoke Records)
Argentinian
power trio Ambassador plays bluesy, boogified
hard rock with lots of style and pizzaz.
The band’s been together since 2014 and
this is their third LP proper, to go with a
couple of EPs and a live album.
They do everything in the genre supremely
well, with a hermetically sealed airtight rhythm
section of Emiliano Arrettino on bass and Lucas
Calabrese on drums and percussion.
Maximiliano
Alvarez on guitars and synths is bursting with
talent, but it’s his low, grizzled, growling
Spanish language vocals that, combined with his
instrumental chops, make him somewhat of an
Argentinian Lemmy.
The dude is absolutely magnetic.
Imagine a long-haired, tattooed ZZ Top
circa ’72 fronted by tough guy Danny Trejo from
the brilliantly campy Machete movies,
and you’re part-way there.
The
highlight reel includes “Malas Decisiones,”
because face it, we’ve all made plenty of malas
decisiones. The
Hendrixian heavy riffage is hard to resist, but
hell, those vocals put it over the top (or maybe
it’s under the bottom in this case).
Ambassador
tackles swampy delta blues on “El Arrastrado,”
with slide guitar dripping with muggy
steaminess. Another
highlight is title track “Insatisfacción,”
because face it, we’ve all got plenty of
Insatisfacción
these days. With
some outstanding guitar solos by Alvarez and a
little help on slide guitar by Fabiano Sanges,
the track sizzles.
They
even include an environmental protest song,
“Microplastico,” albeit in their own jagged,
craggy style. You
don’t need to understand Spanish to pick up what
Alvarez is laying down as he growls the lyrics
with disdain.
On
closer “El Ser Vercero,” guest Leopoldo Limeres
adds some Hammond organ to Alvarez’s down and
dirty guitar solos, adding more spice to the
proceedings.
Ambassador
dials up the musical diplomacy on Insatisfacción.
This is a very likeable band, and once
you hit Play, it’s hard to stop till the
record’s over. You
want to root for these guys.
There were rumors of a vinyl edition
coming via Interstellar Smoke, but it hasn’t
surfaced yet. Fingers
crossed.
(Mark
Feingold)
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KAMIKAZE
PALM TREE - MINT CHIP
(LP/Cass/DL from www.dragcity.com)
Channelling
the
rhythmic dyspraxia of Beefheart and the
mischievous decompositions of early
Residents, California’s duo Kamikaze Palm
Tree’s blend of skew-whiff art rock is, to
put it mildly, an eccentric proposition.
However it’s Cate Le Bon or, perhaps more
accurately, her Drinks collaboration with
Tim Presley, that best typifies this often
bizarre yet fascinating concoction of
kookiness. Such is the uncanny resemblance
to the Cate ‘n Tim pairing at times that I
found myself scanning cheekbones and
facemasks in the press snaps and on internet
images for evidence of alter-ego. But, no,
the Kamikaze’s core duo of Dylan Hadley and
Cole Berliner are very much themselves,
supplemented on this outing by members of
Wand and Presley’s White Fence, while the
man himself performs production duties,
leaving plenty of himself in the mix.
Sound-wise
what
we have is an adventurous and indeed
rewarding collection of short and razor
sharp anti-tunes, some little more than
vignettes. ‘My
Flamingo’ sets the template of endearing
clunkiness, quirky key changes, infectious
little runs. The endearing ‘aah-a-aah’
fillers, a la Le Bon, serve a similar
purpose, one supposes, to Julian Cope’s
‘ba-ba-ba’. A continuation in style and
structure, there’s a disturbing faux
innocence to ‘In The Sand’, whereas plunking
piano and woozy woodwind of ‘Club Banger’
hints of Henry Cow/Slapp Happy on downers.
Well that does it, reader. Whisper it, but
it might be my favourite thing here. But
there again...‘Predicament’ redacts
Stereolab quite wonderfully and ‘Y so K’
evokes coolest mid-70s Eno before the
ambience got him. The title track is,
appropriately enough, a defining slither of
weirdness, but just when you think it can’t
get more bizarre you are forced to revise
your opinion as ‘Come In Alone’ and then
‘Chariot On Top’ rev the od(d)ometer even
further. The B52s inflected garage psych of
‘The Hit’ is pretty damned groove-some too.
As for those brief musical asides, ‘Bongo’s
Lament’ could well be a titular homage to
Van Vliet and Moondog, and succeeds in
providing a pocket summation of both in 50
seconds (see what I mean about Residents?).
Additionally, the marginally longer
avant-jazz of ‘West Side Syncopation’ and
playful staccato brassiness of ‘Cole Milk’
are so artfully (not to mention strangely)
executed as to be practically as rewarding
as those more fulsome in length (be aware
though that, with 14 tracks spanning just 31
minutes, there’s no ‘Dark Star’ on the
horizon).
With
so
many reference points it might be a
temptation to consider Kamikaze Palm Tree to
be a tad derivative. Banish that thought.
What at first could be mistaken for borrowed
slapstick shtick belies a keen humour,
intelligence and considerable innovation. As
a result, Mint
Chip has to be one of the most
surreally intriguing offerings of 2022 so
far.
Ian
Fraser
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