Another V/VM alter-ego uses analog and digital sources to create vivid impressions of a specific landscape of Northern England. The mood is akin to a wet cold late-winter trek across the harshly beautiful terrain and the rare prettier music captures precious moments when the sun breaks through.
Give us an hour, we'll give you music to remember. This week we bring you an episode with brand new music from Softcult, Jim Rafferty, karen vogt, Ex-Easter Island Head, Jon Collin, James Devane, Garth Erasmus, Gary Wilson, and K. Freund, plus some music from the archives from Goldblum, Rachel Goswell, Roy Montgomery. Rubber ducks and a live duck photo from Matthew in the UK. Get involved: subscribe, review, rate, share with your friends, send images!
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Scan the obsessive posts on the handful of dedicated roots reggae forums online and the name Bunny "Striker" Lee will inevitable crop up—and rightly so. Focusing solely on his productions between 1973 and 1979, this compilation may not be even remotely exhaustive, but it provides a worthwhile if slightly forgettable gateway into the influential producer's sizeable body of work.
Afrobeat has always been too far eclectic for simple classification, destined to confound those who prefer their music neatly categorized into genre buckets. That special quality makes this compilation of previously vinyl-only remixes and reinterpretations of recent material from the renowned percussionist all the more fitting.
It is difficult to judge a soundtrack when listening to it in isolation from the movie it is meant to accompany. This album, roughly half and half the work of Jason Pierce (under his J. Spaceman pseudonym) and the Sun City Girls, is enjoyable by its own merits but unfortunately has moments where the music sounds incomplete, the necessary images absent.
The result of what could only be described as serendipity, an ad-hoc trio of current/former Boston luminaries Vic Rawlings and Michael Bullock joined up with Lebanese trumpet player Mazen Kerbaj on a short tour after a single gig together, two sets of which are presented on this disc. Although recorded only five days apart, the two shows are actually quite different in character and feel, but both show improvisation at its best.
Run DMC once said that a DJ could be a band, or at least that's how Chuck D paraphrased them. Dissecting that statement, it is perfectly logical to assume that a slab of vinyl could be an instrument, and this new disc from Philip Jeck proves that. Working live with record players, junk shop records, old Casio SK keyboards and recorders, Jeck has made a warm, nostalgic album that both personal and inviting.
While Z'EV has been performing since the 1970s, this emerged back in 1981 on Backlash Records as his first studio album. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of its release, German-based label Die Stadt has reissued it as a limited CD, housed in the original LP-sized packaging along with a hand-made insert.
Reissued with bonus tracks and detailed sleeve notes, this album highlights the period where Bryars moves from his previous style involving the synthesis of non-musical sources, loops and an almost standard (but beautiful) orchestral arrangement. Here he composes for small ensembles and includes piano and vibraphone almost anywhere he can. This is a very different Bryars to the one I am familiar with, very different but still utterly captivating.
Back in 1988 the intention was to sequence these mainly instrumental tracks for release amidst the mostly vocal pieces from the same session. Had that happened, then Sun City Girls' best known release Torch of the Mystics would have been the rarest of beasts: a consistently excellent double album.
With each new release, Anthony Mangicapra’s Hoor-Paar-Kraat becomes more distinctive and adventurous. I have enjoyed previous releases, some feeling more finished than others, but In Eros Veritas is probably the stand-out of the lot. Here many of the elements and approaches that work particularly well in other pieces come together like lesser metals mixed to form an alloy, creating a far stronger album.
