=  August 2010  =

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Written by:

Phil McMullen

Ian Fraser

Simon Lewis (Editor)

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KOHOUTEK – LOSSLESS LOSS

(LP from Prophase Music)

This second studio album from Kohoutek, released in limited numbers on gloriously multi-coloured vinyl but also available in other formats for the less adventurous, has been around for a little while now – and was recorded even longer ago, way up high in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia during the Autumn of 2007. However, it’s never too late to review a good record: Lord knows we used to cover enough lost treasures from decades before in the pages of the Ptolemaic Terrascope long before they ever got reissued just for the sheer pleasure of sharing.

Recorded “live” without overdubs the idea is that this instrumental jam captures as closely as possible the live experience; or rather, one facet of the live experience, as Kohoutek tend to be one of those bands for who versatility is a watchword and you never quite know what you’re going to get. On here, long-time core members Scott Allison (electronics), Scott Verrastro (percussion and flute) and Craig Garrett (bass) are augmented by guitarist Vic Salazar and Damian Languell, who plays just about everything else.

The album starts gently enough, hauntingly evocative night-sounds punctured by the distant siren’s wail of approaching guitar drone led by a lone flautist. Random elements of percussion are gradually introduced as the marching army of psychonauts crest the brow of the hill, the sounds become ever more destructive, one punching at your midriff as another screws with your mind as it traces space-rock curlicues in the sky above you and then suddenly BAM! at the ten minute point or thereabouts a guitar announces the onslaught with an utterly captivating fuzz of feedbackery, there’s an explosion of sound all around you and battle commences. Side two continues along much the same improvisational freakout path throughout, charting the band’s own unique guitar-led journey through the outer edges of space-rock and hypnotic kosmisch.

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FELL - A FAREWELL TO ECHOES

(CD from www.vacantsongs.net )

Whisper it, but Denver, Colorado’s Fell may just have delivered one of the most important and downright excellent LPs the universal siblinghood of Psychedelia has seen fit to bestow on us in quite a while. “A Farewell To Echoes” is essentially a marriage of spacey and at times pastoral Pink Floyd and a superior brand of shoegaze/slowgaze that few have bettered. I was immediately taken with this and subsequent listens have served only to reinforce my high opinion. Although the initial impression is one of cloying lethargy (at precisely what point did these boys suspect that someone had cut their acid with mogadon, you wonder?) but soon reveals subtle more hidden depths. So whilst seeming to plough a narrow furrow, the album in fact twists and turns through a range of emotions that sound at once melancholic, brooding, ethereal, exhilarating, heartbreaking and achingly beautiful. The whole album is one long highlight but extra special mention needs to be made of the psychedelic psolar plexus punch of “Low at Dusk, Distance at Dawn”, the narcotic “I’ll See You in the Comedown”, the experimental “Psychedelic Tornado”, the twisted chill-out of “Pluto’s Lament”, the best post-Waters Pink Floyd tribute song you’re likely to hear (“Eros”) on which singer Josh Wambeke sounds unnervingly like Dave Gilmour, and their Floyd/Beta Band inspired dopey drip-dry, title track, featuring the most laconic rhythmic slow handclaps imaginable. OK so that’s half the album name checked. Dammit the rest is pretty much just as good. This is highly recommended and that’s all there is to it. (Ian Fraser)

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(CD from Miller Sounds )

Having quietly raved about the Rowan Amber Mill’s previous release, a mini-album called ‘Midsummers’, it’s a real pleasure to be able to turn our attention this time to ‘Heartwood’, the Devonshire-based acoustic folk-psych trio’s debut full-length – available I believe from early next month. The copy I have comes an exquisitely hand-crafted card and felt cover which I’d imagine would have to be very limited indeed; the album’s well worth seeking out though whether in a standard jewel case or in the limited form.

 ‘English Shire’ kicks things off (apt timing for a dedication, giving the Post Office’s recent announcement that English shire counties are henceforth to be abandoned), with Sharon Eastwood’s butterfly-strong vocals now hovering over and then punching through a gently plucked folk harmony, with sparkling guitars and elements of the “woodland orchestra” providing the backdrop. It’s a style which the band revisit several times across the album, perhaps to greatest effect on ‘The River’ which immediately reminded me once again of long-lost eighties outfit The Stormclouds. After that, ‘Face of Flowers’ is one of my favourites on the album, with a lovely acoustic guitar coda from main-man Stephen Stannard which brings to mind those two fabulous and unjustifiably overlooked albums on Woronzow Records from guitarist Mick Wills – ‘The Woodcutter’ and the fabulous ‘Patchwork Paint (Reprise)’ is another song in a similar mould. Other songs, the jaunty ride-along ‘Happy Home’ notable amongst them, are more trad. folk sounding, whilst the stand-out of the whole album for me at least is the five-minute long ‘This Road Gets Lonely’ which culminates in a kind of orchestrated freakout. Lovely stuff! Get it before it’s gone… (Phil McMullen)

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YAIR YONA – REMEMBER

CD from Strange Attractors Audio House )

Really easy to recommend this, even on a purely musical level. The romanticism of the story behind it is just the icing on the cake.

Steel guitar playing of the highest order, up there with the enormously influential Bert Jansch and the late Jack Rose even (and that’s some accolade, believe me), ‘Remember’ was originally self-released in 2009 on the Anova Music label of Tel Aviv, Israel – from where the young guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Yair Yona originally hails. The startling thing about this isn’t just its maturity or even the alternative tunings used throughout, but the way Yona so brilliantly references elements of both British and American guitar-folk along with post-rock flourishes and at times, lashings of eastern-European folk, drone and country music.

It’s difficult to pick out a stand-out number when they’re all played so well, but the opening title track ‘Remember’ sets Yona’s stall out so brilliantly that it was always going to be a hard act to follow, the curiously titled, eminently Fahey-esque  ‘Are You Smarter than a 35 Year Old TV Host?’ flows as effortlessly as a lazy brook prior to cascading to a fall at the close; and the closing ‘Skinny Fists’ is simply divine, building to a crescendo of orchestrated post-rock mannerisms which had yours truly grinning from ear to ear and begging for more.

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BOOK OF SHADOWS - THE MORPHAIL EFFECT

(CD from www.myspace.com/bookofshadowsaustin )

You may not be surprised to learn that with a name like Book of Shadows and an opus entitled “The Morphail Effect” that this Austin TX dark experimental outfit are not likely to be troubling the MTV playlists any time soon  This is mostly glacially paced drone music which is very strange and otherwordly and probably very popular with students into taking bets on how long they can spend in a pitch black box room listening to this kind of thing at high volume and low frequency (how I miss those days). Pieces with titles such as “Light Refraction Through A Broken Pain of Glass”, “Enigmatic Fern Seed”, “The Dancing Smoke Rises” and “The Demise of the Steamer Screw Ship” evoke incantations to something or other that ought not to exist and probably doesn’t and, depending on your point of view or state of mind, is either powerfully moving and magickal, tedious in the extreme or simply scary but fun. Luckily this kind of stuff doesn’t affect me in the slightest…

…c’mon guys, unlock the door, it’s been over an hour and a quarter now and I’m scared, c’mon you win the bet and I promise to clean this place up when I get out. Guys? C’mon fellers a joke’s a joke…guys, guys…? Nooooooooo o o o

(Ian Fraser)

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OLD CALIFORNIO - WESTERING AGAIN

(CD from www.oldcalifornio.com )

Another album that I’ve arrived at a little late on in proceedings, given that it first came out over 12 months ago now; but as we’ve often noted in these pages before it’s not as if good music comes with a “Best Before…” date. And the good news is that there’s a new album from this West Coast quintet due out later this year as well, so it’s a bit like getting drawn into a re-run of a cool TV series for the first time and knowing the storyline will continue immediately afterwards rather than being left hanging by your fingernails on the edge of a clifftop for 12 months afterwards.

The band consists of Woody Aplanalp (guitars), Rich Dembowski (guitars/vocal), Jason Chesney (bass), Levi Nunez (keyboards) and Justin Smith on drums and according to legend, they recorded the album in a old chicken coop fashioned into a recording studio.

Stylistically it’s all in the name, of course: and if the gorgeous silk-screened sepia-tone card slip-cover that immediately put me in mind of a long forgotten LP by the Outlaws wasn’t already enough of a give-away, then there’s clues aplenty to the band’s Californian origins in the songs and the titles as well – the groovy mariachi trumpet of ‘Riparian High’ plus titles such as ‘California Goodness’, ‘Warmth of The Sun’ and the opening gem that is ‘Mother Road’ are all suggestive of certain cinematic imagery regarding the geography of the band’s music which is some way removed from the streets of London, as a f’rinstance.

And yet….

And yet there’s something about this band which will, to my mind at least, forever be associated with the distinctly un-Californian Notting Hill Gate area of London. It’s no great stretch of the imagination to close your eyes, turn the clock back to 1972, and hear this being played in a London pub on the same bill as Brinsley Schwarz, Cochise, Help Yourself and Bronco, each of whom were likewise superbly proficient at playing countrified West Coast guitar-led songs with a capital S. Check out the opening number and the wonderful, guitar-led rocking number ‘Lazy Old San Gabriels’ as reference numbers and then immerse yourself in the warmth and melodic luxury that is Old Californio.

(Phil McMullen)

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WE NEVER LEARN: THE GUNK PUNK UNDERGUT 1988-2001 - ERIC DAVIDSON

(Book from www.backbeatbooks.com)

Even at its peak, the music discussed in this fine book was dismissed by most, an underground phenomenon that was never heard outside the clubs and records it created. Ask even your music loving friends what they think of The Dwarves, Dead Moon, The Monomen etc, and they may well give you a blank look, which will turn to horror if you actually play them some of the music. This, of course, is what made it so special, other people hated it, dirty rock and roll with a fuzzed-up, fucked-up heart and a penchant for a good time; those that got it (the Ptolemaic Terrascope included) really got it...

Having been there as the singer in the New Bomb Turks, Eric Davidson is well placed to tell the tale of the movement. From its early days, its main players, the labels, clubs and bands the spawned the scene, the fact that he does so with passion, knowledge and a large dose of humour is to his eternal credit.

Over 300 plus pages, the scene is covered in depth, tales of rock and roll excess, bad times, and classic seven inchers cropping up on every page, the in-depth interviews with the likes of Dead Moon, Devil Dogs, Teengenerates and Billy Childish allowing the reader a glimpse of what awaited bands treading the trash-ridden path, and proving that the movement managed to spread its bruised and battered finger across the globe.

Perhaps even more enlightening is an interview with Crypt label boss Tim Warren, as he is name checked with various degrees of love and hate by most of the bands featured in the book, the thread that binds them together. Resolutely avoiding commercialism, indie fame and fortune and often making the wrong decision just for the hell of it, each and every band have a tale to tell, stories of lost opportunities, over-indulgence and life on the road.  This is a fascinating and beautifully written read that will make you want to dig out all the vinyl, drink too much beer and turn the fucker up - which is perhaps the highest praise of all. Also included is a download code, so that the reader can access a 20 track compilation featuring some of the bands named in the book, including some excellent tracks from,  \didjits, Thee Headcoats, Dwarves, Mummies and Oblivians, as well as “Slut” a fine slice of live noise from The New Bomb Turks themselves. (Simon Lewis)

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RICHARD JAMES - WE WENT RIDING
(CD from www.gwymon.net )

One of the sadder moments in my life was the day I heard Gorky's Zygotic Mynci had split up. It's still a downer for me. But then Richard James, esteemed guitarist from that band, released a stunner of a solo album a couple of years ago entitled "The Seven Sleepers Den," which, being the good mostly-Welsh man that I am, I purchased from Siop Pethe in Aberystwyth.

And that establishment is where I bought his new album, "We Went Riding." Opening with the quietly gorgeous 'Aveline,' next up it's the uptempo full band workout of 'When You See Me (In The Pouring Rain)' which, inevitably, has a bit of a Gorky's feel to it. James' voice is softly Cambrian, though not so idiosyncratic and child-like as Euros Childs'. 'Faces' is stomping fuzzy psychedelia with a hint of 'sixties Hammond in the mix evoking very early Floyd; a great track, and a highlight for sure. 'You Stop The Rain' matches the classic soft acoustic guitar used so well by Gorky's on an idiosyncratic tune that soon becomes more of a band piece; nice backing vocals too, and that haunting, almost pedal-steel slide guitar that must be a James trademark by now.

There's plenty of variety on this album. 'Blues (Hey Hey Hey)' is the sound of early 'seventies Led Zep done Welsh style with chanted vocals and thunking drums, while 'When The Letter Arrives' returns the listener to bucolic territory and some particularly evocative harmonised vocals. Euros Childs is listed as a vocalist on this album, and I'm sure his voice is here. A lovely, lovely track. 'Yes, Her Smile's Like A Rose' begins banjo style before lurching into a live-sounding folk cut, while the title track could be of the era and ilk of those lazy, Gilmour-penned acoustic tracks on albums such as "Relics," and features a softly burbling Hammond organ played by James. This track starts slow but speeds up, then slows again; all beautifully judged.

'Waiting Road' begins the final third of the album, slow, almost stately, with more effective backing vocals (the vocals on this album are very good) as the song rises in tempo and atmosphere to become an Americana-tinged bopper - an album highlight. 'Said I'd Leave' treads similar territory with some effective drumming, before it's 'Take You Home' with delicate fingerpicking and conversational vocals. The closing track 'From Morning Sunshine' is James and Welsh star Cate Le Bon, whose vocal, simultaneously clear and mysterious, rides over a cut of acoustic guitar and soft Hammond. A peaceful end, then.

Fans of Gorky's Zygotic Mynci will without doubt be interested in this excellent new album. Varied, affecting, often haunting, the rough edges that worked so well on the superb "The Seven Sleepers Den" are here smoothed off, yet the album isn't over-tidy or soulless. A lot of work in particular has been put into the vocals, to great effect, while the songs all have something to recommend them. If you bought the first solo album, get this; and if you haven't discovered what Richard James did after Gorky's, you can find out now! (Steve Palmer)

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YAHOWA – 2013 

(2XCD + DVD from www.prophasemusic.com see also http://www.yahowha13.com )

     Although father Yod now watches from a different plane of existence, Yahowa have kept their mystical flame burning brightly, treading the same path with devotional fervour, continuing to alter perceptions through the power of music, something that has been crystallised on this excellent package featuring a live recording, some new studio tracks and a short DVD.

  I guess, like many of you, I had heard of the band long before I actually heard their music, the strange name cropping up on traders lists, whilst the bewildering discography making hard to decide how to make that leap into actually listening to the music. Indeed, the only album I ever heard was patchy, fantastic in places, frankly dull in others, so much so that I cannot even remember its name, meaning that although this package looked very intriguing, I was sceptical about its actual quality. I am happy to report that I was wrong, this is the real deal,a magnificent collection containing some full on Kosmiche musick, the album named 2013 as this is the date that a new world begins, according to the Mayan calender at least.

     Recorded live in Washington and Baltimore in 2009, disc 1 (subtitled “Fire”), kicks of with the potent “Water in DC”, a full-on assault on the senses, guitars burning brightly as the rhythm section thunders away in the backround. Invoking a North American tribal feel, “Pineal Wave” seeks to liberate you from your body, a trance inducing slice of mysticism that will get you circle dancing in a hypnotic haze.  More trancey percussion can be found on “King Gob/Earth”, a track which has the feel of a free festival at four in the morning, music for the confused, manically enlightened, insomniacs and the tripped out survivors. Lighter in touch and reaching for the sun, “Smooth Air” has droning guitars and slow-motion rhythms, the piece slowly becoming heavier, building the inner tension with style. Finally, the 15 minute “Can We Go Now” ends it all, a breathtaking psychedelic swirl, your only choice is to get lost in its cosmic world, bliss out and enjoy.

   If there is one complaint about the live disc, only a minor one, it is that the sound is sometimes not quite as desired, a minor complaint that is solved by moving swiftly onto the second disc (“Water”), recorded at Welfare Line Studios and featuring four wonderful pieces of space rock, that lovers of “In Search of Space”, Ash Ra Tempel, or Can, should thoroughly enjoy. From their looseness it is evident that these are improvised tracks, the musicians enjoying each others company as they stretch their wings, the guitar dominated “Psych, Wash and Rinse” being particularly fine, whilst the eastern groove of “Light Body Perm and Wave”, features a delightful sounding bass as its dances amongst the stars. That slowly turning groove is maintained on “Astral Body Vacuuming”, possibly the strongest piece on the disc, before “Etheric Body Scrub” is a glorious thunderstorm of noise, think early Tangerine Dream, that leaves you wanting more, the whole disc clocking in at only 18 minutes, which is far too short.

     Finally we move onto the DVD, a short film directed/produced by Robert Hoffman that features live snippets and interviews with band members, Djin, Sunflower and Octavius. A fascinating glimpse into the family, the disc is peppered with words such as Kundalini, karma, inner alchemy, synchronicity and awareness, as such, it definitely invokes the spirit of the sixties and it is good to see three people so at one with their lives, remaining totally within the real world at the same time.

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THE GREEN PAJAMAS - THE RED, RED ROSE
(CD EP from Green Money Records )

The extraordinarily moving title song of this near-perfect little collection of darkly psychedelic folk-pop tunes echoes 'What We Did On Our Holidays' era Fairport Convention with Neil Young on guitar, a particularly apposite analogy as it happens when one considers that just as Young's 'Ohio' shone the spotlight on a tragic contemporary news event, the death of four students at Kent State University in May 1970, Jeff Kelly wrote 'The Red, Red Rose' in order to express his sadness and frustration at the suicide of a schoolgirl, a young lady named Phoebe Prince, after being bullied at school earlier this year. It was a news story which as far as I know didn't make the headlines over here, which doesn't make it any the less tragic of course; the death of a child can never be anything but devastating. But what makes it even more chilling somehow is that such a story should become lost in the fog of the war of the news channels, as if an event such as this was somehow unremarkable. All credit then to Mr. Kelly for giving both Phoebe and her story wings to carry it into posterity and beyond, and to the Green Pajamas for their sympathetic, insightful and utterly brilliant interpretation - particularly Scott Vanderpool's ignore-this-if-you-dare drumming and Joe Ross' rolling, unmistakably Pajama-esque bassline which serves as the perfect foil to Kelly's heartbreaking guitar licks.

The remaining four songs on this little collection are no less remarkable - they're Green Pajamas songs, for Christ's sake - but the stand-out amongst them is undoubtedly 'Raise Ravens', a stone-cold classic Kelly composition which is for my money up there with 'Morning In Myra's Room' and 'Deady Nightshade' as one of THE greatest compositions ever by this justifiably legendary band. (Phil McMullen)

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VARIOUS ARTISTS - TALKING ABOUT THE GOOD TIMES VOL. 1

(CD from Past & Present)

Past & Present have cornered the compilation market on psychedelic obscurities, having released everything from complete box sets of the Rubbles, Perfumed Garden, and Mindrockers series, as well as all of Nick Saloman’s series of compilations (We Can Fly, That Driving Beat, etc.) This 17-track collection marks the first volume of what the subtitle refers to as “Unreleased Acetates & Obscure Psychedelic Pressings.” So think of it as a companion to that old Visions of The Past series that Disc De Luxe issued about 20 years ago.

The set opens with Skip Bifferty and the unreleased-at-the-time recording of ‘Round & Round,’ a heavily-phased singalong which previously appeared on expensive Japanese reissues of their lone album (or the equally pricey 2xCD Story of Skip Bifferty). J and B was the moniker Mick Jones & Tommy Brown used for their one-off 1966 pop floater, ‘There She Goes,’ originals of which (according to the liners) command more than £100! Following several more collectable singles (as The State of Mickey & Tommy, Blackburds, Nimrod, et.al.), the pair split, with Mick Jones later finding fame and fortune fronting Foreigner! (Say that three times fast!) Again, you’ll have to fork out for a French compilation CD if you want this.

1984 released several lightweight pop psych tunes in the late ’60s, but ‘There Is Music All Around me’ remained unreleased until the long out-of-print Incredible Sound Show Stories series unearthed a copy. Next, I have to dispel some rumours about the next track. Some shoddy credits (unforgivably duplicated in the liners) suggest P&P have unearthed a long-lost Creation rarity – a true archival find if it were true. Alas, what’s happened is the compiler has merely reversed the “Artist-Track” listing, thus rendering ‘Creation’ by The Image the wrong way ‘round. Scrupulous research by your humble music detective reveals no such track (‘The Image’) in Creation’s discography. One listen to the lyrics cinches the case – numerous references to “Creation” with nary a mention of “The Image.” Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to locate any info on who The Image really were – a Welsh band named Image featuring Dave Edmonds released several singles – though none of them were title ‘Creation.’ [In all fairness, the CD cover correctly lists The Image as one of the contributing acts!]

The beloved Smoke appear to have recorded numerous versions of Traffic’s ‘Utterly Simple.’ This one’s listed as ‘Thus Spake Alice’, but I’ll leave it to Smoke completists to unravel its history. I’ll just say it’s a corker that stands proudly alongside the original.  I love the gentle, flute-driven folky sounds of East of Eden’s ‘Ballad of Harvey Kaye’, which even their album’s detractors will appreciate. John Williams’ fame seems to be anchored to the Maureeny Wishfull album that Jimmy Page may or not have played on, but ‘That Kind of Woman’ deserves full marks for effectively blending Donovan and Al Stewart.

Fans of Terrastock veteran Tom Rapp will shout to the high heavens over Henri Schifter’s superfuzz freakout version of Pearl Before Swine’s ‘Another Time.’ The mindmelting guitar solo is worth the price of admission alone – this is what “cover” songs should sound like – a prime candidate for the next edition (Vol 4?) of For The Dead In Space, the Terrascope-friendly Pearls Before Swine tribute collection!

Several acetates of unknown artists will keep trainspotters busy for weeks arguing over possible candidates, but I like the dreamy nostalgia of ‘The Light’. Several international tracks are also worthy of repeat listens, including Denmark’s finest ’60s psych rockers, Young Flowers and their hard-driving guitar workout ‘City of Friends’, France’s Les 5 Gentlemen’s freaky, snarling brainfryer, ‘L.S.D. 25 ou Les Metamorphoses du Margaret Steinway’ from a rare French EP, and the punky B-side ‘Crudele’ [‘Cruel’] from Italian garage rockers Bruno Castiglia e I Bisonti. Fuzzy freak fans unite!