Note, 8/2/19: If you are reading this post, please also read this one re: Skullflower review below. Thanks.


1. Heron Oblivion – Live at The Chapel LP (self-released)

With 18+ months of hindsight, Heron Oblivion’s debut LP from early last year is one of the few albums from recent years that has really stuck with me, that feels better and better each time a track pops up on my earphones, and that I could still happily listen to every day. “It’s a real keeper” is I think the pat phrase I’m looking for.

Handed to me by a surly postman mere days before I decamped to a location several hundreds miles away from my record player for xmas, this live album, comprising much of the same material plus a few extra bits, is liable to prove an equally perennial pleasure on the basis of my first few spins, placing a somewhat different emphasis on the band’s work together. On the one hand, the extreme quiet/loud dynamic that stood out on the (beautifully mixed) studio recordings proves impossible to recreate in a live setting (‘Oriar’s explosive impact is slightly muted as a result). But, on the other hand, Van Harmonson and Saufley’s fuzz/wah-blasted guitar duelling is if anything even more intricately interwoven and hair-raisingly unhinged that in the studio set, and, perhaps more importantly, Meg Baird’s folk-derived songs and vocals – which I initially found a tad too prissy and precious on the album – really come into their own here, her delivery slightly more gutsy and forceful, as presumably necessitated by the need to compete with the band’s racket and the crowd’s whooping and hollering whilst out on the road (a test I perhaps wish more contemporary folk could be put to before its creators hit the studio).

Follow the link below and play through ‘Sudden Lament’ and ‘Untitled’ to hear a few relatively concise examples of this incredible band at their fire-breathing peak. Then, after buying (as you inevitably will), file under “really quite unbelievably good”, and keep both vinyl and mp3s close at hand for 2018 – I reckon they’ll be needed.

(Stream & download via bandcamp here. Best check with yr local dealers for the LP.)

2. Lower Slaughter – What Big Eyes LP (Box)

Stunningly good debut album of legitimately exciting, non-retro 21st century rock music right here. For tightness, groove, heaviosity and invention, Lower Slaughter’s trio of instrumentalists can offer a Top Trumps challenge to any other UK unit I’m currently aware of, whilst the vision and delivery of Sinead Young’s vocals is fierce indeed, shifting from witch trials and beyond-the-grave curses to earth-quaking broadsides against Tory austerity and relationship-based dissatisfaction, without dialling back the intensity one jot. “Fucking brilliant,” I’d offer up for the sticker on the front of the hopefully necessary repress.

(Stream/buy from Box Records here.)


 



3. Feral Ohms – s/t LP (Silver Current)

Sometimes, you just need a good, stupid, shred-filled rock n’ roll blast – and they don’t come much better than this one.

One of the very few things I actually bothered to review this year, my further thoughts (plus listen/purchase links) can be found here.










4. Skullflower - The Black Iron That Fell From The Sky, To Dwell Within (Bear It or Be It) LP (Nashazphone)

Other times however, total obliteration is what’s needed, and it’s rarely been dispensed in such sublimely beautific form as Matthew Bower & Samantha Davies conjure here. Headphones, a hardwood floor and whisky are what’s needed for full immersion here. Sadly, I believe the boat has left the harbour with regard to getting a copy of this LP, which is not currently available anywhere in electronic form, but much of the rest of Skullflower’s recent, voluminous, output can be sampled via their bandcamp.









5. Vibracathedral Orchestra – Live at Total Inertia 10”  
(Vanity Case)

Similarly, I feel it was merely good timing that led me to notice Norman Records were exclusively(?) selling copies of this 10” and asked them to sling one with another order I had awaiting dispatch, but I’m glad I made the effort, because this live set, recorded at some sort of do in Leeds, is the best thing VCO have put out since resuming activities a couple of years back. Performed by a six piece line up that sees stalwarts Neil Campbell and Mick Flower augmented by a bunch of blokes whose individual work I am less familiar with (Bridget Hayden seemingly AWOL on this occasion), Side A here is a chaotic, saxophone-skronking mess of Ayler-guesting-w/-Sun-Ra type stuff (nice if yr in the mood), building by the time Side B kicks in into a superb example of the kind of insectoid sonic mind-meld that made me such a VCO fan in the first place, individual instruments and noise-making strategies rendered near invisible as the sound is decanted into a heady, ecstatic totality.

(At the time of writing, this disc is actually still in stock via Norman  – or, you can listen to somebody playing it on a ropey old Dansette and pointing their phone at the resulting racket here (stay vigilant for the bits where a cat walks across screen and/or meiows, and the exciting moment when the man turns the record over)).


6. Grey Hairs – Serious Business LP (Gringo)

Hopefully qualifying by this stage as mighty stalwarts of DIY UK rock radness, Nottingham’s finest have here made their Best Album to Date (in capitals). As I said in pretty much the exact same words back in May, I particularly enjoy the way they’ve here perfected their ability to meld heavy duty Melvins/Flag riff-grind with a keen pop sensibility and uniquely tormented sense of humour. Great recording too. In essence, everything I said about Lower Slaughter above can equally apply here (joint tour? Just a thought..), but for the fact that instead of witch trials and curses, frontman James continues to build his own inexplicably appealing aesthetic from the contemplation of eating meat, drunkenness, exhaustion and male inadequacy. It’s a lot more fun than it sounds.

(Stream/buy from Gringo here.)





7. Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs – Feed The Rats LP (Rocket)

Having seen them twice this year, I can confirm that Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs are an exceptionally good live band – five high-ballin’ individuals pulling together into an ecstatic and inclusive juggernaut of rock action that not even the most skeptical punter could fail to find themselves caught up in to some extent.

Viewed in the warm tinnitus glow of their triumphant turn supporting (and very near upstaging) Acid Mothers Temple last October, the fact that they seem to have drummed up more interest from the increasingly myopic world of UK radio and magazines than every other group on this list combined is neither unexpected, nor undeserved. It’s fair to say that they’ve taken ‘Feed The Rats’ about as far into the realm of the “media” as it is possible to go with an album primarily comprising of two hefty, Sabbath-referencing psyche/doom epics addressing issues of mental illness, and I for one am happy to cheer their progress.

It’s also fair to say that initially I wasn’t entirely sold on this record, which, lacking the exultantly positive spirit of their live sets, plays out as an altogether darker, more tormented proposition. I do LOVE the perfect Motorhead/Hawkwind amalgam of the palette cleansing, rock n’ rolling middle track ‘Sweet Relief’ however, and my enjoyment both of it and of the aforementioned live sets now spills out across the longer cuts on either side of it, illuminating them with greater clarity, and allowing me to get with the programme. (In fact, how I failed to fully compute the true majesty of ‘Icon’ at an earlier date is a mystery. It’s middle stretch is Hawkwind-meets-Sabbath-fucking-tastic.)

Looking forward to whatever they do next, and I’ll leave you to insert your own cheer-leading “year of the pig” type comment here.

(Stream and buy via bandcamp.)


8. Endless Boogie – Vibe Killer LP (No Quarter)

I’ll be the first to admit that Endless Boogie’s peculiar MO – essentially mixing the ideals embodied by Canned Heat’s ‘Refried Hockey Boogie’ with the overbearing, obscurantist humour and alienated record collector weirdness of vocalist/lead guitarist Paul ‘Top Dollar’ Major – can be a bit of an acquired taste.

If relatively few make the effort however, those who do will find themselves regularly rewarded by strange, troubled masterworks such as this one, during which Major attempts to clear the room with pure Lynchian creep on the title cut before reminiscing in pain-staking detail about the time he went to see Kiss perform at a “kite flying contest” in 1974 (‘Back in 74’), instigating an unsettling suburban rewrite of ‘Sister Ray’ (‘High Drag, Hard Doin’), and… well god only knows what he’s going on about on the inchoate ‘Bishops at Large’ or the oddly hypnotic expanse of ‘Jefferson County’ (perhaps I’m not American enough to understand). Still, he certainly doesn’t make any less sense than Mark E. Smith has on any given LP side from the past 30 years, and, as the band keep on cooking as if Status Quo had rediscovered the joys of smoking weed and letting it all hang out before eventually taking on board some absurdly misplaced Chicago post-rock mannerisms, us initiates should consider ourselves more than satisfied.

(Stream/buy via bandcamp here.)


9. Midnight Mines – We Are The Primitives of a New Era tape/download 
(self-released)

Four more slabs of creeped out, Rallizified garden shed dub damage here from East London’s reclusive ‘Baron Saturday’ and ‘Private Sorrow’. This time around, they seem to be journeying out even further from their garage-punk background, inadvertently conjuring up a few spectres from my beloved early ‘00s ‘kneelcore’ scene, wherein 3” CDs briefly smoked out those bloody cassette tapes as both god and nature intended. I approve!

Hard to believe they haven’t yet sold a mere 50 tapes-worth of this, so for gods sake, follow this link and help ‘em out.







10. Blown Out – Superior Venus LP (Riot Season)

Ah, Blown Out. Always the same… always the same. Which is to say, exceptionally enjoyable. By this point, Mike Vest’s stoner/space-rock trio are ‘sticking to their story’ with a commitment to stylistic continuity that puts Motorhead or Dead Moon to shame.

Whilst I can’t in all honestly tell most of their records apart however, it nonetheless makes me extremely happy to continuing buying them and putting them on the shelf in order of release, keeping the latest close at hand for whenever the urge takes me. For, as those aforementioned bands understood, when your music can feed a particular appetite this satisfactorily, what’s to be gained by fucking with the formula? The hunger is always there, and I for one am always willing to be fed.

(Stream/buy via bandcamp)



POP QUIZ: Tell me the name of the individual who links THREE of the releases on the above list and win… I dunno, something? (HINT: for once it’s not Mike Vest.)

Esteemed runners-up:

11. The Bats – The Deep Set LP (Flying Nun) [link]
12. Mountain Movers – s/t LP (self-released?) [link]
13. Chain & The Gang – Experimental Music LP (Radical Elite) [link]
14. Leyland Kirby – We, So Tired of all the Darkness in Our Lives d/l (self-released) [link]
15. Aggressive Perfector – Satan’s Heavy Metal tape/d/l (self-released) [link]

Labels: best of 2017, Blown Out, Endless Boogie, Feral Ohms, Grey Hairs, Heron Oblivion, Lower Slaughter, Midnight Mines, Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Skullflower, Vibracathedral Orchestra

World Spirituality Classics # 1: The Ecstatic Music of Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda 2xLP 
(Luaka Bop)

You might have been forgiven for thinking that, after Alice Coltrane dropped out of the secular music world to devote the remainder of her life to leading the monastic spiritual community she helped found in Southern California, her subsequent recordings of devotional/meditational music might have taken on somewhat of an, uh, ambient, New Age-y sort of character..?

So I had always assumed at least, but, well, time to get wise folks, because there’s not even the slightest whiff of cheese about the extraordinary, unclassifiable pieces assembled here by Luaka Bop. Compromising dense, over-powering monoliths of ultra-compressed electronic textures, massed voices, bone-rattling hand percussion, occasional tambora drones and gospel/deep soul influenced reiterations of ancient Hindu mantras, this is music that determinedly refuses to ever fade into the background, informed by the same uncompromising approach to composition and arrangement that characterised such challenging discs as ‘Spiritual Unity’ in earlier years.

That each track here begins sounding entirely different from the last, yet swiftly engages us in exactly the same kind of sensuous, head-nodding fugue as its predecessor, is testament to both the power and the range of endless possibilities that Alice managed to channel from her spiritual beliefs back into her music.

Existing outside of any of the expected sonic clichés, these are evocations of a terrifying, beatific godhead that has no connection whatsoever to either the Cathedral-reverbed reverence of Western devotion or the mellow, cloud-dwelling man-god of post-hippie Californian spirituality. As with all of Alice Coltrane’s best work, this music feels like peeking through the gold-flecked bead curtain into the cyclopean throne room of a divinity who radiates such love it can crush you like an ant. An endless, throbbing kaleidoscope of sound crushed down to cassette-sized doses of pupil-dilating oblivion, it’s… quite the thing.

I dread to think what ‘World Sprituality Classics # 2’ is liable to consist of, but this is certainly one hell of a good start.


Tokyo Flashback PSF ~ Psychedelic Speed Freaks! ~ 2xCD (PSF)

The death of Hideo Ikeezumi, founder of the PSF record shop and label, at the start of 2017 came as sad news indeed for anyone familiar with the exquisite mixture of maximalist psychedelic rock and borderless free sound that his label became a by-word for through its glory-days in the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Hitting shelves in seemingly record time after Ikeezumi’s passing, this double CD tribute/fundraiser compilation of unreleased material from acts associated with the label serves as a testament to the strength of the legacy PSF leaves behind, effortlessly transcending the limited expectations that such a rushed, odds-and-sods sort of effort would normally command.

Of course, hearing newly disinterred cuts from core PSF groups like High Rise, White Heaven, Fushitsusha and Overhang Party is worth the entry price alone (the latter in particular provide an awesome re-working of their classic track from the second ‘Tokyo Flashback’ comp, now pleasingly retitled for English-speakers as ‘Now Appearing! Naked Existence’), but, as was often the case with this label, it’s the more unusual, less rock-orientated stuff creeping in around the edges that often proves most beguiling; terrifying, Lynchian noir improv from .es, angst-drenched Korean psych-folk from Kim Doo Soo, minimalist industrial desolation from Reizen, beautifully gentle, heart-felt free-playing from Niseaporia, and the set even ends, poignantly I’m sure, with a Bach violin sonata rearranged for solo guitar by Hideaki Kondo.

All of these cuts are by turns furious, challenging, lyrical and enchanting, opening our eyes to rarely glimpsed corners of a relentlessly creative musical underground that continues to thrive in Japan and Far-East, much akin I’d imagine to the experience Western listeners brave enough to pick up those first imported ‘Tokyo Flashback’ comps must have enjoyed when they first appeared back in the ‘90s.

I’m not sure how widely available this new comp is outside of Japan, but it is accompanied by a lovely bilingual booklet, so distribution to English–speaking territories was presumably an intention, assuming any overseas distributors could be persuaded that anyone would still be willing to buy CDs. Anyway, should you see it on sale anywhere, please don’t hesitate to prove these hypothetical distributors wrong by snapping it up, it’s extremely worthwhile.

(It’s worth giving a shout-out at this point to the U.S.-based imprint The Black Editions, who have recently embarked on a programme of reissuing the PSF label’s key releases on vinyl for the first time. I don’t actually have their re-release of the first ‘Tokyo Flashback’ comp in my hands yet, but their noble efforts certainly threaten to do a great deal of damage to both my ears and bank balance in 2018.)


Coil – Time Machines 2xLP (Dais)

Whilst I of course respect the unique aesthetic they created around themselves, and their pivotal role in the wider UK 80s/90s underground, I must confess the music of Coil has never really been my cup of psilocybin-laced tea… however, there are few things I enjoy more in life than a fucking good drone, so I can definitely make an exception for this project, which was created by the core Coil duo in collaboration with Drew McDowell, and originally issued in 1998 solely under the name ‘Time Machines’.

And, make no mistake, this is some hardcore drone going on right here. When initially dropping the needle, first time listeners may be irked by the idea that they’ve just paid top dollar for some blank oscillator tones, but their tune will soon change as things progress and the full weight of these pieces makes itself felt.

Though this is utilitarian music, created primarily to aid meditation and ritual, like the Alice Coltrane record discussed above, it is about as far away from ‘background’ music as it is possible to get, instead setting out to capture your ‘foreground’ with the relentless determination of a swarming nanobot army.

This is music designed to completely transform the atmosphere of the environment in which it is played. Each of the record’s four sides is named after a psychotropic chemical compound, and the Coil boys seem to have done their damnedest to actually try to create a corresponding physiological change in their listeners through the sound of each piece.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say they succeed, but they certainly got pretty close. Play this record at appropriate volume, and work or writing becomes impossible. Your concentration will disintegrate, your attention will drift from the screen/desk to some blank area on the wall. Your mind will eventually start to empty, as if someone pulled the plug, and Coil’s stated intention of creating “tones to facilitate travel through time” will start to sound a lot less fanciful. Then, about ten or twelve minutes in, when you’re sufficiently monged, they’ll suddenly twist a knob and drop the kind of bass frequency that will make you cack yourself wondering if a passenger jet is about to fall out of the sky above your house. The bastards.

Needless to say, in contrast to the vast majority of ‘drone’ records I own, this is not something to be thrown on casually, for a bit of relaxation before bed time. If you want to get down with ‘Time Machines’, you’d better cross your legs on the floor, fire up the incense, dim the lights - go whole hog with it and let’s see if we can’t make that clock start to go backwards.


Midori Takada – Through The Looking Glass LP 
(We Release Whatever the Fuck We Want)

Taking a somewhat more personable approach to the art of the drone, this until recently highly sought after disc sees minimal/ambient composer Midori Takada doing her utmost to bypass human thought patterns and instead replicate the ebb and flow of natural sound, utilising an intriguing palette of African and Asian percussion, pump organ, coca-cola bottles, bells and a recorder, along with what appear to be some interesting and unconventional recording/over-dubbing techniques. The results are extremely compelling – so much so that it feels almost crass to waste time trying to convey an impression of them in words. Let’s just say that ‘Through The Looking Glass’ feels like one of those masterworks of quietly unassailable beauty that is likely to just get better and better the more we play it through the remainder of our lives.

Suffice to say, both ‘Mr Henri Rousseau’s Dream’ on the A-side and relatively brief ‘Trompe l’oeil’ on the B are amongst my most-played tracks of the year - absolutely delightful vistas of nocturnal faux-forest ambience, guaranteed to promote relaxed breathing and a general sense of well-being just as surely as the aforementioned Coil record is to fuck with your head. Absolutely delightful stuff, even as the somewhat more baleful ‘Catastrophe’ proceeds to drag us into unsettling realms of pulsating, rhythmic unease.

This record’s extraordinary cover art – by Yohko Ochida – is also worth a mention. Click on the picture above to enlarge and spend some time looking at it. You will be a happier person as a result.


Maki Asakawa – s/t 2xLP (Honest Jons)

One of those “if she didn’t exist, they’d have had to invent her” type figures, Maki Asakawa’s appearance in the assortment of gorgeously reproduced monochrome photographs accompanying this compilation of her early recordings speaks for itself. Swathed from head to toe in black, with neat bangs, heaviest-possible-eyelashes and an ever-present, unfiltered cigarette, she is perhaps most-easily characterised as the Japanese New Wave’s characteristically studied take on an ‘avant-chanteuse’ archetype, perhaps pitched somewhere between Juliet Greco, Anna Karina and Nico, I suppose.

Originally a native of Iskikawa prefecture in Northern Japan, Asakawa’s devotion to the sound of American jazz/blues singers (Billie Holiday in particular) led her to begin performing in Tokyo and Yokahama cabaret clubs, where she soon fell under the wing of avant-garde film and theatre director Shuji Terayama (I mean, of course she did), subsequently picking up a record contract, a formidable reputation a s a live performer and a devoted following amongst Japan’s internationally-minded, left wing student movement in short order.

Truth be told, those anticipating hair-raising avant hi-jinks from Asakwawa’s music will be initially disappointed by the fact that the majority of the recordings presented here remain fairly conventional. For the most part, these are nice songs (a mixture of Terayama compositions, American folk/blues standards reworked for the Japanese language and some Asakawa originals) with strong melodies and pleasant, minimal arrangements, anchored by Asakawa’s defiant and heart-felt delivery, which, though never as gravelly or tormented as her blues idols, nonetheless sits within an unusually low register for a Japanese female vocalist of her era.

Though it would be easy for a casual listener to mistake these tunes for prime examples of enka (the oft-wonderful genre of melancholic, folk-derived pop ballads that dominated the Japanese charts through the ‘60s and ‘70s), in fact Asakawa’s fans and musical collaborators saw her at the time as standing very much in opposition to enka orthodoxy, rejecting the overwrought arrangements, melodramatic sentiments and implicit nationalism of the genre in favour of a more stripped back, “authentic”, Western blues/folk-based approach.

Certainly, the shimmering acoustic strumming, gentle fluting, brushed drumming, smouldering cocktail jazz and tasteful rock/soul jamming showcased here make a pleasant change from the squeaky trumpets and stabbing strings of more commercial enka, even as the uniquely sinuous, serpentine melodies of the genre are still very much in evidence, resulting in a rather beguiling hybrid form that undoubtedly proved very influential on later folk-pop performers such as Carmen Maki and Morita Doji.

Whilst these songs are unlikely to blow many minds in the English-speaking world in 21st century, they are nonetheless extremely fine performances – the perfect accompaniment to a glass of single malt enjoyed on a Sunday evening, and nectar of the gods for anyone with a particular yen for the hyper-specific, monochromatic aesthetic of Japan’s late ‘60s cultural new wave – and the rare occasions on Asakawa and her collaborators throw caution to the wind and get way-out-there (such as on the George Harrison-affiliated raga-rock behemoth ‘Govinda’, or the creeped out downer lament of ‘Onna’) are worth the entry price alone.


Emma de Angelis - Forgiveness b/w Trip/Plankton 7” 
(Finders Keepers)

Hey, did you know that, before she went on to pursue a career as a graphic artist, the young sister of Italio-soundtrack legends Guido and Maurizio de Angelis briefly had a bash at following in her brothers’ footsteps? That knowledge was enough to get me to bite on this short but sweet pair of tracks unearthed by Finders Keepers, and, as it transpires, they’re both absolute bangers, show-casing a heavily rock/psychedelia-skewed sound that allowed Ms de Angelis to trespass upon the oft-male-dominated realm of Italian movie/library music with verve, confidence, and, more importantly, wailing fuzz leads and an absolutely bad-ass walking bass-line on ‘Forgiveness’, wheezing synth sirens on ‘Trip’ and a lovely, plaintive folk-ropck-ish melody on ‘Plankton’ . A very enjoyable six minute palette cleanser and no mistake.

Labels: Alice Coltrane, best of 2017, Coil, comps & reissues, Emma de Angelis, Maki Asakawa, Midori Takada, PSF