1. Gene Clark – No Other LP (4AD)




So I know it feels all kinds of wrong to accord the 1 spot on this list to a hoary old canonical classic which by my reckoning has been widely and affordably available for years, but – this is Gene Clark’s ‘No Other’, fergodsake. They could re-issue the damned thing every other week so far as I’m concerned, and if a few more sorry souls tune in each time around, none of the plastic n’ cardboard will have gone to waste.

Readers who remain unfamiliar with this one will just have to believe me when I try to reassure them that, in this instance, the Mojo writers got it right. If you’ve ever found yourself enticed by Gram Parsons’ promise of Cosmic American Music but disappointed by the fact that his stuff (good tho it is) basically sounds like straight up country… I believe this may have been the record you were actually looking for.

There has been an unedifying trend in the early 21st century for every solo artist or indie band who made a few quid to immediately hue toward The Epic, recording precious and bombastic personal song-cycles in readiness for the end-of-year lists and the invitation to recreate them at the Albert Hall with a twenty-piece band and so on. Naturally, these records have almost always been godawful, forgettable guff, but their sickly memory can be instantly eradicated by dropping the needle on ‘No Other’ and hearing Gene Clark, one day in the mid-70s, rousing himself from a sundazed stupor of substance abuse and chronic self-sabotage, making a few phonecalls, booking some studio time, and proceeding to swim fucking laps around the rim of the cloud-capped musical grail which has so consistently eluded the well-scrubbed contenders of our own era.

Naturally I didn’t shell out the £100+ required for the big, box set version of this reissue with sleeve notes and documentaries and so forth (what do you think I am, someone’s dad or something?), so I remain ignorant of ‘No Other’s exact production circumstances, but basically it sounds as if Gene and credited producer Thomas Jefferson Kaye assembled a small army of the most gifted, consummate session players the world had to offer and drilled them until they were all playing exactly what they needed to play at any given moment across these eight colossally poignant, multi-faceted compositions.

Within these songs, gravelly nuggets of mordant, hard-won wisdom casually arise, delivered to us upon tendrils of tangled and baroque poetic sprawl, fragmentary images glimmering, withering and reviving once more upon each repeat play as the guitars and harpsichords fray and yearn, the backing singers swoon and the funk-savvy rhythm section kicks in like a double-shot of espresso. Gene’s voice itself meanwhile sounds like some distraught cowboy spirit guide, intercepted through those Webb/Campbell wires as he unfurls his scrolls of revelation and gives ol’ Percy Shelley a run for his money.

To my amateur ears, the new remaster of the album sounds a bit quieter than my old CD rip, with greater dynamic range seeming to give instrumental line more space once the volume is suitably adjusted, and dropping the compression which used to render the album’s relentless cosmic bombast rather tiring when played through in its entirety. A definite improvement, if I’m any judge.

Taken individually, each song on ‘No Other’ basically sounds like the kind of staggering masterpiece most artists could spend their entire career working up to. Together, they form like Voltron to make an uber-masterpiece of fearsome majesty, solid and palpable enough to eat up all this damn hyperbole and come back for more; one of those cultural artifacts which it is pretty much impossible to rate too highly.


2. David Behrman – On The Other Ocean LP  
(Lovely Music)





From February:

“Regardless of the processes that brought these recordings about, the results are serene, oceanic and absolutely delightful, veering away from academic, pure tone minimalism toward what I suppose may have been seen as the more cerebral end of the ‘new age’ spectrum. Drawing on my own listening experience, they certainly put me in mind of Emerald Web’s Silicon Valley laser show conjurations, Arthur Russell’s neo-classical ‘First Thought, Best Thought’ recordings, and some sort of perfect, shimmering dream of driving down through the hills to San Francisco harbour in a silent, pastel-coloured Cadillac powered by sunbeams. Rare and mirage-like 20th Century American Utopian vibes can be found here in abundance – an impossibly precious dream of compassionate, technologically-mediated progress, shining forever on black wax.”

(I’ve also subsequently been very much enjoying David Behrman’s Music With Memory album, recorded in collaboration with violinist Takehisa Kosugi and saxophonist Werner Durand, and reissued on the Alga Marghen label in 2017 – highly recommended.)


3. John Coltrane – Blue World LP  
(Impulse!/UMG)





So, yeah, I know the recent trend in “new, unheard album from legendary, god-like artist” releases has the potential to become teeth-grindingly tedious pretty quickly now that the major labels seem to have cottoned on to it as a good earner, and I’d demurred on these ‘new’ Coltrane albums in particular, on the basis that there are still a fair few old Coltrane albums I need to catch up with, but…. I happened to hear the take on ‘Blue World’ that gives this collection it’s name on the radio one day, and that was that - Universal Music Group got my dough (filtered through a friendly, independant local record shop, of course).

The sole ‘new’ composition uncovered on this session of alternate takes recorded by the classic Tyner/Garrison/Jones quartet in 1964 for use on the soundtrack to an otherwise obscure French-Canadian film (Gilles Groulx’s ‘Le Chat dans le Sac’), ‘Blue World’ itself is, indisputably, a keeper – a proto-cosmic nugget of blissed out grace, with Garrison’s lolloping, head-noddin’ bass line – initially doubled by Tyner on piano, before he begins twisting the groove in some characteristically interesting directions - pre-empting not only the rhythmic backbone of ‘A Love Supreme’ (recorded a few months later), but even Cecil McBee’s work on Alice’s psychedelic masterpiece ‘Journey in Satchidinanda’.

Elsewhere, quartet remain in a mellow, reflective kinda mood (presumably in keeping with the feel requested by director Groulx). The exquisitely tender ‘Naima’ has always been one of my favourite Coltrane numbers, so it’s great to be able to take in two alternate versions of it here (the second one particularly superb, with Trane throwing a few scale-shifting question marks into the central melody), and three takes of ‘Village Blues’ – originally from the 1961 ‘Coltrane Jazz’ album – are not to be sniffed at either, with the final one briefly evolving into a slightly more aggressive, though still light touch, modal work-out, Jones’ strident crash cymbal leading the way. Beginning with lengthy solos spots from both Garrison and Tyner before the boss eventually steps in to breath fire, the take on ‘Traneing In’ on side two stays pretty trad, dad, but is still totally sweet too.

As you’ll no doubt be aware, hearing these four guys playing together is basically the musical equivalent of watching the sun and moon rise simultaneously, so getting a bit more of it in ANY context is to be welcomed, irrespective of major label vinyl revival machinations, and these recordings do have a unique vibe to them that makes this album an invaluable addition to the Trane catalogue – a kind of low key, beautific kick-about, setting the scene and sing-posting new directions, before the boys began striding forward in earnest, cracking the next few big eggs of their leader’s hallowed discography.


4. Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit – April is the Cruellest Month LP (Blank Forms)





I’d long been aware of this one’s status as a storied landmark of Japanese guitar extremity, but Blank Forms’ 2019 reissue has definitely helped me achieve a new appreciation for the album, having previously only experienced it through some extremely low-res mp3s downloaded from god-knows-where.

The two cuts on side A keep it low key, axe-wise, with Takayanagi’s growly wah-wah scrapes looming in the background like some nocturnal hunting beast as the rest of the group (flautist/woodwind guy Kengi Mori, bassist/cellist Nobuyoshi Ino and percussionist Hiroshi Yamazaki) instead come to the fore, building a mordant, rain-soaked sprawl of kaidan-ish avant gloom and “bad night in the saw mill” free improv. But, it’s for the side long ‘My Friend, Blood Shaking My Heart’ on the flip that this disc will really be remembered.

Therein, we hear one of the world’s most uncompromising guitarists going absolutely fucking postal across twenty plus minutes of howling, unrelenting chaos, pushing the physical limitations of flesh on strings on wood about as far as they’ll go before reaching a state of complete collapse.

It’s breath-taking, overwhelming stuff – Too Much on every level, as Takayanagi’s frothing, unhinged attack often makes it sound as he’s consumed the then non-existent rulebook for grind/death metal soloing and vomited that weak-ass shit back into the black heart of his own personal fury, whilst his equally hyped up collaborators follow suit, with Mori in particular going absolutely bat-shit on alto sax. (Even sounds as if someone’s twisting knobs on a analogue synth across the last five minutes or so – what gives?)

Somehow though, spread out across the track’s extended duration, this full bore, constantly climaxing sonic violence actually becomes a strangely meditative, cleansing experience – like sitting impassively at the calm centre of a city-totalling hurricane. It also, you’ll note, sounds almost exactly like Guttersnipe – no small boast for what is ostensibly a straight-to-tape 1975 jazz session, given the extended chains of magic, flashing LED covered boxes that band use to realise their sound.

5. Berto Pisano - Death Smiles on a Murderer OST 2xLP 
(Arrow)





‘Death Smiles on a Murderer’ is a quintessentially narcotic and incoherent Italian horror film from 1973 (I reviewed it here at my Other Place if anyone’s interested), but composer Berto Pisano arguably went above and beyond the call of duty when it came to composing the movie’s main theme – an epic, baroque fantasia which and which sounds like the accompaniment to a ballerina suffering from tuberculosis expiring during her final dance and witnessing the dust of her bones reforming itself into the shape of a gliding, celestial swan.

This remarkable melody – channelled in some instances through the inimitable vocal cords of Edda Dell’Orso - tunnels its way into the viewer’s brain across the course of the film like a flower-bearing, funereally-garbed earworm, and indeed, Arrow’s double LP soundtrack release features what feels like about a thousand variations on it, all equally wonderful.

Pisano continues to deliver elsewhere across these four sides of morbid delirium however, providing sinister stabs of exquisite fuzz guitar, abstract, percussion-led creep-outs, limpid orchestral atmospherics and even some ‘On The Corner’-style FX-filtered trumpet jams. Just about everything you could wish for in one of these things in other words – highly recommend for those who are in the mood (or wish to be).

Of course, there are inevitably also several clod-hopping, buzz-killing jaunty harpsichord waltz numbers provided to accompany the film’s ballroom scenes – very much the gothic horror equivalent of those god-awful ‘saloon piano’ tracks that tend to stink up Spaghetti Western soundtracks, guaranteed to send me leaping toward the turntable as if intercepting a thrown hand grenade… but that’s all part of the fun really, isn’t it?

Labels: Berto Pisano, best of 2019, comps & reissues, David Behrman, Gene Clark, John Coltrane, Masayuki Takayanagi New Direction Unit

On days like this, it might help us to stand together for the real national anthem (which got to number 15 in 1985).

Labels: Billy Bragg

Labels: bad news, political shit, The Mekons

If you’re reading this and you’re a UK citizen, I’m sure you know what you have to do tomorrow, and I’m sure you’ve already been bombarded with this ‘advice’ from a hundred different sources, but what the hell, y’know?

Tactical voting is clearly the only way a decent and humane agenda is going to get anywhere near the finishing line on this one. So, if you’re registered in a seat where one of the main opposition parties is in a position to challenge the Tories, please vote for that party. If you’re unlucky enough to reside in a Tory stronghold, please vote for whoever’s coming second. And if you live in a safe Labour / SNP seat, please vote for them anyway, because some wise-ass will doubtless be on TV crunching the nationwide voting totals within 48 hours of this message, and the bigger that total is, the better. Clear? Good. Many thanks.

If you live in the UK but you’re not a UK citizen meanwhile, please be assured that I share your frustration – granting suffrage to the people who actually live in the place being governed would be top of my own personal agenda, but whatcha gonna do, eh?

And, if you don’t live in the UK, have never been to the UK and don’t give a hoot about the UK – I’m sorry to have wasted your time. Normal service will be resumed imminently.

Labels: announcements, blather, political shit, politics

Many months late and countless dollars short (trying to meet crazy, self-imposed horror movie reviewing deadlines will do that to you), here is a quick run-down of new-ish things (some drifting back a year or five, but as I say, my ears, like my posts here, are OFTEN LATE) which have won my attention and to some extent admiration during the latter half of 2019.


Shooting Guns.


A discovery via the ever-reliable Terminal Escape blog, this Saskatoon-based instrumental heavy psych combo seem to have been toiling away in relative obscurity for quite a while now. I’m not entirely sure how best to frame the smeary, slo-mo space-rock grooves found on their ‘Street Rock’ tape (2014), but despite the apparent simplicity of the band’s approach (guitar, bass n’ drums banging it out, with occasional dubbed out echo noise and samples thrown in for the pure heck of it), their sound feels thoroughly hypnotic and entirely unique within its field – enveloping, like flying slowly into a big, dark cloud.

I’ve not yet had a chance to wade into the group’s wider oeuvre, but this murky ol’ tape rip alone seems liable to find me head-nodding my way toward a blissful coma for many months to come; the opening ‘Feelings (Dub)’ in particular is an absolute monster, blown-out bass gradually becoming pure mist as the sky caves in and vision narrows… keep it coming.


 


Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember.



And if all that seems a bit too weird for you meanwhile, say hello to this cumbersomely named Cardiff six-piece, whose recent double LP on the Cardinal Fuzz label delivers eighty minutes or so of comfortably ungrounded space-rock, doled out the way the blind idiot god at the centre of the cosmos intended, helmets respectfully doffed to Hawkwind and The Heads; which is not to say that they fail to to establish their own niche within this closely-guarded sub-genre, but I suspect they’re well aware that their chosen idiom comes with a certain set of expectations, and basically they aim to please.

To be honest, the reedy, reverbed vocals and hippy-drippy, ‘random gnarly phrase generator’ type lyrics here do sometimes get a bit too close to the Primal Scream Zone for my taste (it’s sort of the psyche-rock equivalent of the “dog piss zone” when you’re out picking blackberries), but such suspicions are quickly annulled by a sturdy, ‘Space Ritual’-worthy rhythm section and some superb, noise-spiralin’ grue from the guitarist, who’s got a wah-wah pedal and is heroically unafraid to use it (seriously, this guy must have the most muscular left ankle in South Wales on the basis of his foot work here).

As the album ploughs on and the track times get ever longer, Infinity Forms.. settle comfortably into their predominantly long-form business, with the full-on rock band sections buffered by long stretches of analogue electronic bliss-out, which are very enjoyable if yr in the mood. Closer ‘Sun God Grave Goods’ (cor blimey) is the best of the bunch I think, opening with a can’t fail combo of electric tamboura and harmonica, before momentarily recalling one of Bong’s more recent, distortion-free jams, as a massive, gong-like crash cymbal heralds the entrance of the rhythm section for a further expanse of delightful ‘Star Gate’ type ceremonial, head-nodding ambience. (Not sure that the extended acoustic outro and field recordings of soggy footsteps add a great deal, but hey, they’ve got four sides to fill and they’re stretching out – I can dig it.)

As mentioned, these guys aren’t exactly re-invented the afterburner here, but if you’re planning on firing up the ol’ interstellar freighter to an excursion to some distant moon-pyramids any time in the near future, you could do worse than jam this one in the eight-track, especially now that Blown Out are permanently on ice.


Sarah Davachi.



I tried listening to some stuff from young U.S.-based composer and PhD student Sarah Davachi a while back and couldn’t really get into it, but her recently repressed 2018 disc Let Night Come On Bells End The Day really hit the spot (and as a result, hit my wallet).

Regular readers will recall that I’m always in the market for a good drone or two, and this humble LP boasts five of the buggers – three reasonably lengthy, two short – which represents admirable value, I’m sure you’d agree.

The sounds herein seem to have been sourced entirely from keys of all varieties (organ, synths and piano), although the woozy, uncertainly pitched tones conjured during the opening minutes of the first side’s exuberantly blissful ‘Mordents’ sound uncannily like strings in places (that’ll be the Mellotron, I’m assuming).

Natural instrument tones seem to dominate here, insofar as they can with synths involved, and there are no obvious treatments or effects in evidence, yet the resonance and range Davachi wrings from her gear, aided by a few consummate overdubs adding over/undertones, is profoundly effective.

The feel here is nuanced, timeless, eternally resonant – like mainlining the form and contents of a small yet beautiful Alpine chapel through your ears. Emotionally speaking, we run the gamut here from ‘Buhrstone’, which flirts with indulgent, melodic melancholia, not a million miles away perhaps from one of The Dirty Three’s piano-led tracks, to the twelve austere minutes of ‘Hours in the Evening’, as cold and affectless as the ancient, clammy stone wall of that aforementioned chapel.

At this point in my life, music like this performs an important function, keeping me calm and grounded, and creating an appropriate atmosphere in my quarters during that all-important lead up to bed time. It’s therapeutic in a sense, I suppose. As such, I’m always thrilled to discover a great new practitioner whose work I can keep close to the turntable, so thanks for this one Sarah – it’s out here in the world, doing great work.


Kamaal Williams.



Once again, I’m severely late to the party when it comes to digging into London / the globe’s rewarding new funk/electronica-informed jazz scene, and in this case in particular I have NO excuse, given that a friend dropped me a link to Kamaal Williams’ 2018 LP The Return in an email over a year ago - but hey, at least I picked up on the repress, so hopefully I’m getting at least a little bit closer to getting a handle on all this exciting shit which appears to have been going on literally just down the road from my f-ing house for a number of years now.

Formerly one half of duo Yussef Kamaal (with drummer Yussef Dayes), Williams fills all available space here on keys, and also produces under the auspices of his sharply-monikered alter-ego Henry Wu. Spare some applause too though for Pete Martin and Joshua McKenzie, who do flat out fantastic work on bass and drums, pulling back from the downtempo/hip-hop inspired grooves often favoured by this scene and instead laying down some sinuous, quick-silver playing which delivers all the muscle of yr ‘70s fusion favourites with none of the off-putting show-boating (well, ok, maybe just a little bit, here and there).

Williams likewise seems to be daring us to start pulling comparisons to Herbie and Stevie out of the hat at some points here, but unlike the old masters, he seems deeply concerned with texture more-so than technique, seemingly ripping his organ and synth through a chain of effects that would make a guitar shop employee blush, building up deep, tidal washes of wah, tremolo and delay which keep the music sensuous, multi-layered and engrossing, bringing a disorientating psychedelic swirl to proceedings, whilst his tightly wound, hand-brake-turn interplay with Brown and McKenzie adds a sense of swaggering danger, undercutting any accusations of mere dinner-jazz noodling; you can almost feel the cold eyes of Miles overseeing this shit when things get way out there on the second half of stunning opening cut ‘Salaam’.

This is, I’ll freely admit, probably the most totally-fucking-Gilles-Peterson thing currently lurking in my record collection, but the older I get and the wider I listen, the more I’d inclined to suspect that the old boy has actually been holding the keys to the castle all along, and to start regretting the rube-ish years I’ve spent projecting sneers and roll-eyes in his general direction.


Aggressive Perfector.



And on completely the other end of the spectrum meanwhile… FUCK YEAH! Infernal Hails! It’s been a long wait since Manchester’s Aggressive Perfector unleashed (because music in this vein can never simply be ‘released’) their accurately named ‘Satan’s Heavy Metal’ EP in 2016, but they’re finally back this month with their debut LP, ‘Havoc at the Midnight Hour’, and the consciously grotesque, Lucio Fulci-inspired cover painting certainly bodes well.

Well, I mean, I say that, but in fact I’ve started to suspect that contemporary metal bands’ devotion to awesome, eye-catching album covers and OTT retro aesthetics can often be inversely proportional to the actual quality of their music. Aggressive Perfector however provide a glorious exception to this embryonic rule, continuing to attack their admirably non-denominational Awesome Old School Metal (does that merit an acronym..?) with punkoid energy and an infectious love of and dedication to their chosen craft which should get them over the spiked railings erected by even the most discerning of self-appointed NWOBHM gatekeepers.

Higher recording fidelity and more ambitious song structures have for-better-or-for-worse diluted the Venom/Motorhead booze n’ fags vibe which defined Perfector’s first EP, but guess what – the tighter studio playing and clearer, more compressed production showcased here actually suits them pretty well, with the band’s core essence retaining enough piss n’ vinegar to immediately give ‘em a sharp, serrated edge over the legions of festival-clogging, mid-table outfits whose broadly unexceptional work fills out the reviews pages of Metal Hammer each month.

Re-reading the paras above, they sound a bit dry, so I’ll give it to you straight – I *love* this shit, and it’s been on my earphones for the double-speed trudge to work every morning since the weather turned cold and the band put the record up for download (perfect timing guys). If the mid-tempo, chug-riffing churn of opener ‘Onwards to the Cemetery’ – complete with soaring, Mercyful Fate leads and flaming torch-waving chorus – doesn’t serve as an effective refresher course on the reasons why metal is awesome, you’re probably in the wrong classroom, you non-metal loser, and the full-on thrash of ‘Chains of Black Wrath’, ‘Devil’s Bastard’ and ‘Vengeful One’ repeatedly hammer home the same core message with a relentless singularity of purpose.

Beginning with one of vocalist/guitarist Dan Holocausto (I kid you not)’s several attempts to top Tom Araya’s legendary falsetto-to-growl scream from ‘Angel of Death’, the latter track in particular is an absolute banger, correcting a discrepancy which blights much 80s metal production, in that the mix allows us to hear the raw buzz of the bass strings as they’re subjected to what I take to be the thrashing of a lifetime.

To recap, then: METAL. If you like it, you’ll like this.


The Vacant Lots.



I realise I’m pretty behind the times on this one, but since when did Anton Newcombe cease to be a fucking maniac and become a reliable architect of top drawer retrogressive guitar music? He is not in this band, but he produced their ‘Exit’ EP, and, in stark contrast to much of the older material available on their bandcamp page, opening track ‘Bells’ verifiably rules.

The vocalist here is going for that Peter Perret / Nikki Sudden frail, drugged up insouciance kind of thing, but basically ends up sounding almost exactly like the bloke from The Psychedelic Furs instead, which seems in some ways like an even better result. The backing track meanwhile takes a boilerplate JAMC/Shop Assistants rhythm track, adds one of those lovely, permanently ascending chord progressions and lets it all pound along for five and a half minutes without variation, whilst the production layers guitars on top of guitars on top of guitars on top of guitars on top of guitars (and indeed, some bells, way off in the background somewhere). It’s not clever and it’s certainly not new – just more of that old ‘boys with haircuts lined up on stage like shooting gallery ducks, glumly strumming away’ type shit really – but it is BIG, and as such it does the business.

Disappointingly, the rest of the material on the EP is basically pretty unremarkable – second song is ok, but it’s really just more tenth gen Mary Chain cast-offs and, god help us all, some cod-Suicide electro poetry jamming towards the end; real try-hard, eternal support band shit. But that one song, man. I sure hope you’ve got a few more like that in you, boys. Make your mothers proud!

Astonishingly, Wikipedia informs me that this EP reached number 9 in the UK singles chart in June, and whilst I’m not sure exactly what that signifies these days (plus, do they let EPs in now - WTF?), it at least suggests I’m not alone in my strange infatuation with this number. Mainstream-a-go-go!


Soga.



Feels like we definitely need a bit of a palette-cleanser after all that, and, though I’ve been feeling pretty disconnected from contemporary punk music recently, if it sounds like anything in 2019-20, I believe it should probably sound like this. Hyper-energised, unadorned practice room blasters from this all-female Mexican trio, who, weirdly but wonderfully, sound as if they could have leaped straight through a time-warp from the late ‘70s, when this stuff was still exciting and new and not buffered by four decades-worth of back patch scenester posery and contrived micro-genre suspicion.

Bass and drums are basic but righteous, but the guitarist by contrast has some real Robert Quine / East Bay Ray type shit going on. We’re talking SHREDDING here folks, with shrieking nah-nah-na-nah-nah type anti-melodies every which way, and it’s never been so welcome. Vocals meanwhile are strained, way in the red and don't give a fuck about your spit-guard, continuing to make me ponder why Spanish (or Portuguese) language punk sounds about a thousand times more crucial than the anglophone variety these days. Ten songs in marginally more minutes and all of them fucking brilliant, in short. (Well, personally I prefer the ones in ‘punk rock’ tempo to the flat-out hardcore efforts, but that’s just me.)

Quite why the entire post-MRR community didn’t fall to their knees and hail Soga as the new queens of the waking universe when this demo first appeared on tape in 2018 I can’t possibly imagine, but…. maybe they did and I didn’t even notice? It’s so hard to keep track these days. Regardless - hitting my own knees right NOW, because to all intents and purposes, this is THE BEST.

Labels: Aggressive Perfector, I like, Infinity Forms of Yellow Remember, Kamaal Williams, Sarah Davachi, Shooting Guns, Soga, The Vacant Lots