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June 2022 = |
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Kohoutek |
Kimberley
Rew & Lee Cave Berry |
Dope Purple |
Earthless |
Wes
Buckley |
Rose City
Band |
Will Beeley |
Weathers
& Pedigo |
Sendelica |
Taras
Bulba |
Hot
Tuna |
Alex
Rex |
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KOHOUTEK
- JURAD
(LP
from Bandcamp
and Feeding
Tube Records)
When
exploratory Philly-busters Kohoutek played
Terrascope’s Woolf II gathering a couple of
years ago, the strictures of festival time slots
meant that they were allotted a meagre 40-ish
minutes. Something of an imposition on our part,
possibly, as they are known for their Dead-like
marathons where you go in fresh faced and come
out with full beard (I shudder to think what the
effect on men might be). Jurad,
amazingly only their fourth vinyl LP release,
clocks in at around that time - ok so it’s not
the Woolf set, but in its absence this studio
concoction of mostly improvised material will do
very nicely indeed, thank you.
Here
be three very different, occasionally
challenging and thoroughly rewarding cuts.
‘Tidal Disruption’ is the side-long glance that
coughs and splutters to a midpoint where it
eases into a blissful state somewhere in the
same galaxy as ‘Saucerful of Secrets’ or other
post-Barrett/pre-preposterous Floydian state of
grace, a rasping synth playing below and around
the delightful central motif, preventing it from
sounding too lacquered.
Flip side duties are shared by ‘Cosmic
Grease’ and ‘Double Star, the former belches out
sparks of Morse code guitar, before spitting
into abundant life, gradually underpinned by a
steady, rhythmic combustion which reduces the
greasy trucking to a concentrated cosmic jam.
But really, has there ever been a more oblique
ending? Either these guys were unerringly on cue
or cruelly cut off in their prime, as god knows
where this might have led. The longer ‘Double
Star’ is way less astringent, pitched somewhere
between Eternal Tapestry at their most fluid,
and an ethereal, mid ‘70s Popol Vuh, making it a
cerebral and celestial treat for these ears and,
I’m willing to bet, yours. So treat yourselves.
(Ian
Fraser)
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KIMBERLEY
REW & LEE CAVE BERRY - PURPLE KITTENS
KL
Recordings KL016 CD)
As
my good mate Mr Saward just observed, ‘life
always seems so much better with a new Rew CD on
the player’.
He’s
bang on the button there! I’m sure there isn’t a
Terrascope reader who isn’t familiar with
at least some of Kimberley’s back catalogue and
if you haven’t heard the wonderful early 00s
triptych of albums, Tunnel into Summer,
Grand Central Revisited and Essex
Hideaway, what are you waiting for? Go
online and buy ‘em immediately - three of the
most gloriously English as tuppence recordings
of the new century!
Hot
on the heels of last year’s best of compilation,
Sunshine Walkers comes Purple
Kittens. In cahoots with his long-time
musical partner and wife, bassist/singer Lee
Cave Berry, this is Kim’s 16th album
release over the past two decades. Blimey!
The
new waxing kicks off with a vintage Rew ditty,
‘Penny the Ragman’ – an eloquent ode that draws
on that rich Village Green Preservation
Society tradition, Ray Davies & co
left behind them years ago. As the great man
comments: ‘My late cousin Penny, was a ragman –
the person who looks after the uniforms for a
side of Morris dancers. After Penny’s funeral,
everyone went back to the pub in her village. We
asked permission to sit at the only remaining
spaces at a big table; the chat soon revealed we
had landed among the Women’s Institute – Penny
was a mainstay, and she’d also written and
staged a play in the village. This was the
engine room of English social life. The lyrics
wrote themselves’.
Long-time
followers will immediately light upon track 4.
I’ll hold my hand up here and say along with
‘Rock and Roll Toilet, ‘Kingdom of Love’ has
always ranked as one of my least favourite Soft
Boys tunes. A live set perennial, usually
included when it coincides with a Soft Boys’
anniversary, Kim and Lee don’t exactly improve
on the original but their take does fit
seamlessly in with the other songs on offer
here. And its refrain remains as irritatingly
catchy as it did back in 1980 – it’ll have you
whistling and singing along in no time!
One
tune that has immediately wormed its way into my
heart is the Rew’s upbeat, tongue-in-cheek
‘Growing Up Song’, a captivating great
grandchild of the Lovin’ Spoonful’s ‘Younger
Generation’ but with melody that might put you
in mind of one of Cat Stevens’s 1970 Island
releases and with a social message t’boot.
Lovely stuff.
Not
to be outdone by her prolific husband, Lee chips
in with a couple of her own equally fine
compositions, the highly humorous
‘Unsatisfactory Cats’ about unpredictable feline
pets, and better still the sultry, sassy ‘I Can
Be Any Woman’, apparently inspired by a pilot
episode (‘The Cage’) of the first series of Star
Trek, in which the leading lady, Vina is
presented in various guises by an alien race to
entice Captain Pike.
The
lyrics throughout the album are as sharp and
intelligent as you might expect from this master
songwriter, the 12 tracks chock full of
unexpected changes and twists and Kimberley’s
guitar playing is as potent and exciting as on
previous outings. As his old boss observed when
talking about the Soft Boys’ sophomore set,
‘Kimberley sounds like Jimi Hendrix in sulphuric
acid. He could get sustain out of a cricket
bat’.
To
use an old cliché, the pair exude good
vibrations and this latest outing is just the
tonic, a perfect pick-me-up for the times we
live in. To paraphrase the title of one of the
tunes they sing here, you can always rely on Kim
and Lee!
(Nigel
Cross)
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DOPE
PURPLE – GRATEFUL END (LP
on Riot
Season Records)
Anyone
who knows me will tell you I like a good play on
words and for that reason alone a band called
Dope Purple will always grab my attention.
Thankfully the band are more than just a name
and ‘Grateful End’ is both a fine listening
experience and a long way from simply being
shades of Deep Purple. The album itself is
essentially a remastered version of a very
limited CD and cassette release from 2019 and
the music generated by this quintet fits happily
into the space inhabited by the likes of Acid
Mothers Temple, Hibushibire and Mainliner but
also nods respectfully at times to the more
extreme noise generated by more freeform bands
such as Hijokaidan.
The
themes contained in this record are very much of
a dark night of the soul nature, questioning
what comes next and when things will end, very
much on the mind of many living through the
pandemic but contained in a record that was put
together beforehand. Philosophical thoughts
aside ‘My Evilness’ is a mix of the savage and
serene, beginning as a sparse melancholic
instrumental where deep cosmic vibes,
deconstructed spaghetti western melodies and
lonesome unearthly wails create a dark,
introspective but not foreboding canvas from
which elegant flights of melodic bliss and
screaming distortion emerge wrapped around ever
more intense and agonised voices akin to Munch’s
‘The Scream’ coming to life in music. ‘Cosmic
Rock Is Not Dead’ is of course very good news
and follows more of a traditional spacey
psychedelic rock trajectory with pounding,
insistent drums, intense and deep Eastern tinged
riffs and a violent blizzard of heavily
distorted guitar wailing, teetering on the edge
of chaos, which gathers into a high octane rush
as it gathers its stormy energy into a final ear
splitting surge. ‘The Last Day of Humanity/Good
Night & Good Death’ is a cheery little title
and here things come down from the brutality of
the previous track into a kind of blissful
cosmic exotica which is part Albatross and part
Kosmiche wanderings. The echo laden vocals that
start to puncture the mood add a disturbing edge
to the atmosphere and act as a break point after
which the guitars become more frazzled with a
little paint stripper added to the screaming
flurry of space bound notes and the general
intensity once more ratchets up several notches
where guitars scream, riffs become hard and
dense and the drummer puts the pedal to the
floor, burning rubber. It almost comes off the
road into a free jamming mess at times but
thrillingly keeps things pointing at the stars.
After this epic trip, ‘New Man’ concludes with
an escape of the band’s inner Stooges and early
heavy psych Japanese underground influences
where aggressive garage punk energy and wild
vocals deliver a satisfyingly metallic and
generally unhinged KO indeed.
This
is a great record full of breathtaking energy
and noisy thrills but also some inventive and
mellow pleasures. As Deep Purple might say, come
taste the band.
(Francis
Comyn)
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EARTHLESS
– LIVE IN THE MOJAVE DESERT, VOLUME 1
(LP/CD/Blu-Ray
on Giant
Rock
Records (US) and Heavy
Psych
Sounds (Europe))
Among
the interesting attributes of pandemic
recordings, music scholars will one day no doubt
write about 2020-2021’s mass of simple, lo-fi
bedroom recordings; zen-like ambience in the
cause of wellness; and cobbled together band
pieces from disparate locations.
However, another interesting sub-genre
that is picking up steam is the live desert
album. Inspired
by Pink Floyd’s Live at Pompeii, the concept is
(deceptively) simple:
a loud, hairy band congregates in a
desert scene in the middle of nowhere, plugs
into generators, cranks it to 11, and lets fly.
Following the 2020 success of Yawning
Man’s ‘Live at Giant Rock,’ the California
Desert Wizards Association took note and offered
up an ambitious project, the Live in the Mojave
Desert series. The
collection features sets by five bands – Nebula,
Spirit Mother, Mountain Tamer, Stöner
(a new group featuring Brant Bjork and Nick
Oliveri of Kyuss), and Earthless.
All performances are/were live-streamed,
and planned for release on LP, CD and Blu-Ray.
(As a footnote, Levitation has been
putting out their own brand with the Levitation
Sessions series; while not performed in the
desert, their live performances by the likes of
Osees and Ty Segall are an excellent cousin of
the genre.)
First
out of the gate is this thrilling set from the
mighty San Diego psychedelic juggernaut
Earthless. You
can instantly tell that for Isaiah Mitchell
(guitar), Mike Eginton (bass), and Mario
Rubalcaba (drums), this ain’t their first rodeo
(been around for 20 years, actually). Their
professionalism
is impeccable. Three
extended
cuts originating from their first three studio
albums will melt the paint off your car.
“Violence of the Red Sea” starts off with
a deceiving mellow warm-up, before Earthless
launches you into another galaxy for the next æon.
Mike
Eginton and Mario Rubalcaba on rhythm are about
as solid bedrock as the Flintstones for
Earthless’s flights of fancy.
And Isaiah Mitchell is in a category all
his own as a guitarist.
More on him in a minute.
The Blu-Ray disk hasn’t been released yet
as of this writing, but the teaser available on
youtube from second track “Sonic Prayer” looks
like the Blu-Ray is essential.
Filmed at night, the phenomenal backdrop
by the Mad Alchemy Liquid Light Show projects
imagery, morphing and changing continuously,
something like a tropical reef on the rocks
behind the band.
Isaiah Mitchell, blasting away impossible
riffs in the nighttime desert breeze with a gold
Les Paul, is the very image of epic badassery.
I’m
reminded of a quote a few years ago by a town’s
Top 40 pop tunes reviewer somehow dispatched to
cover a festival performance by, I believe,
Earthless, who, suffering from a state of shock
and clearly out of his zone, said, and I
paraphrase, “they take out all the verses,
choruses and bridges from the song and leave
nothing but the guitar solos – you can’t do
that!” Well,
do that they do, and it’s just fine, thank you.
Actually, some of Earthless’s more recent
records have vocals by Mitchell, but for this
performance they dispensed with the microphones
and just let ‘er rip.
Epic
39-minute closer (yes, 39-minutes) “Lost in the
Cold Sun” continues the onslaught from Mitchell
and Co. I’m
not going to sit here and tell you a cliché like
you don’t notice the time going by.
But Earthless packs some variation by a
front and back-end that’s a bit more meditative,
together with some eastern tonalities.
The concluding section slows things down
(maybe Mitchell’s fingers said “enough!”) for
the return to terra firma.
Interestingly,
Mitchell told Distorted Sound there were
logistical challenges, such as the fact that
there’s no cell phone coverage out there, and
the band had to get there via GPS coordinates.
Also, they had to wrap up by 10 pm due to
a sound curfew!
Finally, it got so chilly at night in the
desert, Mitchell said he was fighting to get his
hands do what he wanted.
Interesting, because you don’t hear any
difficulties in his playing, not even close.
It'll
be interesting to hear (and see) the other
volumes in the series.
But what a kick-off by Earthless!
Brilliant.
(Mark
Feingold)
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WES
BUCKLEY – THE TOWERING
GROUND.
(Belltower/Half
A Million Records Limited
vinyl/DL)
This
is the debut album by Wes Buckley, a
singer-songwriter from western Massachusetts.
Wes backs himself on these songs playing
acoustic and electric guitar, mandolin,
occasional fiddle and in one instance saxophone,
but mostly they are presented in an unadorned
and fairly stark manner, which makes his lyrics
standout. Wes has also previously released a
split single with fellow quirky singer-
songwriter Michael Hurley, with whom he would
appear to share a similar world view.
The
album opens up with ‘Sleeping Like A Deer’,
which immediately highlights his primitive
American style of acoustic guitar playing and
sounds not unlike the type of stuff put out in
the 70’s by labels such as Flying Fish. He
follows this with ‘The Sacred Way’ a sort of
nature inspired spiritual, which again
highlights his prowess on the acoustic guitar;
it has a touch of slide and a few licks of
fiddle. After a few listens through I would
probably pick ‘Going Up In Smoke’ as my
favourite, embellished with some fine baritone,
electric guitar, curling around his lyrics like
smoke trails. ‘This/That’, even has a bit of
electric lead guitar and a few stabs of organ
underpinning its delicate structure. ‘People
Like Energy’, shows off Wes’s quirky style of
song writing to fine effect. Side A ends with
‘The Big Show’, a soft, slow song in waltz time.
Side
B opens with ‘Time In the World’ a cool, bluesy
song about the passing of time. He follows this
with ‘I was Going To Leave The House Today’,
which he decorates with mandolin, it’s a gently
humorous song on which he lists various reasons
not too, after all love is just a click away! It
is the ultimate protagonist’s song and another
favourite. ‘We Take Our Share’, presents a
slightly fuller sound, with double tracked
vocals and electric guitar stabs, here’s a
sample of its lyrics “Complaints upon a stone
twirling in the void, might as well be praying
for the big asteroid”. Shaker and Weissenborn
slide guitar adorn ‘Out Below The Field’, which
is almost instrumental just a few wordless
vocals. ‘Antimatters’, shimmers and glistens and
appears to be about truth. The album ends with
‘Down On The Ground’, a playful song which sees
Wes dusting off his little green canoe for a
trip down the river.
(Andrew
Young)
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ROSE
CITY BAND - EARTH
TRIP
(All
formats from https://www.thrilljockey.com/)
Ripley
Johnson is something of a talismanic poster boy
for us grey beards. Aside from wearing the look
so well, as the founder and front man of new
psych pioneers, Wooden Shjips; the more
commercially astute Moon Duo and now the down
home, semi-acoustic Rose City Band he
demonstrates such deft shapeshifting that even
our present government might marvel at his
audacity.
Essentially
a home-recorded solo effort, Rose City Band is
Johnson’s Grateful Dead/Byrds statement of
stripping back the pine and getting it together
in the country. However the talented Mr Ripley
is very much a Head of his time, despite his
obvious influences. While ‘Silver Roses’ sounds,
superficially at least, like it could be about a
certain town in North Ontario with no doubt
unwitting nods to ‘Green Lights’ by the Edgar
Broughton Band, it’s all interpreted with a
modern twist that may put The Listener in mind
of Kurt Vile. That’s all good to these ears and
a charmingly understated album introduction,
complete with what proves to be a trademark
sound of deliciously languid pedal steel guitar.
Moving
up half a gear, ‘In The Rain’ chucks in hints of
plaintive harmonica and some undeniably pleasant
guitar melodies. If it seems rather overlong at
over 7 minutes it’s probably due to a lack of
variation in tone and tempo, but for pop songs
that skip along pleasantly, dial ‘World Is
Turning’. It’s the sort of mid tempo summer tune
that has you tapping the roof of the car while
hopefully still gripping the steering wheel with
the other, the tinkling keys add to the list of
aural ingredients. ‘Ramblin With The Day’ has
that bumpkin-cousin look of, yes, ‘Ramblin’
Man’, and while it moves along at an impressive
Radio FM crowd pleasing clip, does nothin’ for
my growin’ aversion to g-droppin’ song titles
(in fact, I blame Whitesnake more than our
American cousins. There, international incident
averted).
The
agreeably soporific ‘Feel Of Love’ is an
absolute belter and one of a clutch of
airy-sounding numbers here, including ‘Rabbit’
and the afore-checked opener, ‘Silver Roses’
that lifts Earth
Trip safely clear of the so-so soup of
soft-rock/alt-country-by-numbers.
Best of this not-so wild bunch, though is
the transcendental, oh-so lightly psychedelic
‘Dream Patrol’, with stunning guitar work
straight out of Laurel Canyon back in the day,
and for all the world the best David Crosby
track not to have made it onto Deja
Vu or, for that matter, anywhere else. At
over 9 minutes there is no danger of this one
outstaying its welcome. Au contraire, it’s to
die for, but not before you’ve filled yer boots,
not to mention ears, with heavy rotation. If you
listen to just one song this month, then make it
this one
Conversely,
should there be but one nagging feature then it
is Johnson’s voice, which is a little lacking in
character and sounds a trifle thin and exposed
when carrying a whole album of material largely
unadorned with studio trickery. Otherwise, this
takes me back to my lad-rover discovery years
when I cut my teeth on all manner of cosmic
country rock creations, some essential, others
forgettable and so doubtless forgotten. Earth
Trip inhabits a wide-open prairie
somewhere twixt the twain and which makes for
intriguing and worthwhile exploration. Happy
trails, indeed.
Ian
Fraser
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WILL
BEELEY – 1970 SESSIONS
(Tompkins
Square Records)
Tompkins
Square has unearthed another real find with Will
Beeley’s previously unheard ‘1970 Sessions.’
You can be forgiven if Beeley’s name
doesn’t ring a bell.
He was a Texas troubadour in the orbit of
Townes Van Zandt, Michael Murphey, Guy Clark and
company. His
songs are insightful, tender and observant of
the world around him, his voice warm and gentle,
and his guitar picking accomplished, but not
flamboyant.
His
1971 debut, ‘Gallivantin’ was put out by a
private press label in only 200 copies.
Recorded in San Antonio, it was a glimmer
of an embryonic Texas music scene that would one
day catch fire.
He was picked up by the small Malaco
label, which would eventually issue his second
album, the more accomplished and well-appointed
‘Passing Dream’ in 1979.
But they were predominantly an R&B
label and on the whole were hesitant to put out
his recordings, preferring to use him as a
songwriter, for which they unfortunately didn’t
land his songs anywhere.
When Passing Dream didn’t set the world
afire, Beeley did some hard soul-searching, and
after stints at a small club and owning a record
store, he finally hung up his guitar and traded
his picks for the keys to a long-haul trucking
job. With
his wife by his side, he’s spent the past
several years hauling cryogenics – not things
like Walt Disney’s body, but liquid nitrogen,
liquid helium, natural gas and oxygen.
After finally finding a job that’s
satisfying to him and pays the bills, he plans
to retire very soon.
Tompkins
Square owner Josh Rosenthal reached out to
Beeley and re-released his two albums in 2018.
The reception was warm, and the label
convinced him to go back into the studio to
record a new album, which he gladly did,
‘Highways and Heart Attacks,’ released in 2019.
That, too, was well received.
Which brings us to this release, which
returns us full circle almost all the way back
to the beginning.
‘1970
Sessions’ wasn’t really an album, more a
collection of demos intended to entice record
labels (he eventually signed with Malaco,
mentioned above).
But it has very much the professionalism
of an album, sounding almost complete in its
production, and more importantly, delightful
songs. Written
and recorded mere months before the
singer-songwriter big bang was about to combust,
it slots in very well with the works of Cat
Stevens, Gordon Lightfoot, James Taylor, and
Carole King of the day – not the platinum
sellers, but the stripped-down ones that came
just before, like Mona Bone Jakon, etc.
It’s just Beeley on vocals and guitar,
accompanied by Richard Silen on second guitar,
occasional harmony vocals and harmonica.
The audio setup is simple – Beeley in one
channel and Silen in the other, which is very
noticeable in headphones.
His
songs are direct, no-nonsense, and mostly
autobiographical.
Beeley sings of love, found and lost, as
on “Maybe It Happened for the Best.”
On “A Highway’s Not a Home,” co-written
with Silen, he sings of wanderlust and life on
the road as an escape from being stuck in
poverty and a life going nowhere.
(This is ironic considering his ultimate
full-time gig as a long-haul trucker).
“Singer of Songs” is self-explanatory.
“Passing Dream” would finally find
release nine years later as the title track of
his second album.
It’s a song laden with wisdom, and Beeley
and Siren combine their guitars beautifully.
Melodically, it reminds me vaguely of
fellow Texan Michael Nesmith’s sublime,
underrated “While I Cry” from the year before’s
‘Instant Replay’ Monkees album.
There
are a couple of songs not written or co-written
by Beeley. Jimmy
Driftwood’s “What is the Color of the Soul of a
Man” is a plea for racial understanding, that
we’re all the same underneath.
“No Song That I Could Ever Sing” is
written and sung by Richard Silen, which is a
bit confounding on a demo record meant to nab
Beeley a recording contract.
But that said, it’s actually a delightful
love song. I
wonder what became of Silen.
“Open
Your Window” and closer “Verse One” are
Dylan-influenced, which was inescapable with
this generation’s crop of songwriters.
The upbeat “Won’t You Come Again” is the
most country-influenced on the album.
Beeley,
who looks very Neil Youngian on the cover, has
hinted there might be more on the shelf, from
some 1973 sessions he feels went well.
Hopefully they’ll see daylight soon for
this man whose music deserved far better success
than it initially garnered.
(Mark
Feingold)
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ANDREW
WEATHERS & HAYDEN
PEDIGO – BIG TEX, HERE WE COME
(CD,
Digital on Debacle
Records)
Here’s
a real under-the-radar album by two fine,
intrepid musicians from the Lone Star State.
The album is a brief, 35-minute delight
of instrumental music of the many type stringed
variety. Both
Andrew Weathers and Hayden Pedigo are
multi-instrumentalists, specializing in acoustic
and electric guitar, but adding banjo,
synthesizers, and in Pedigo’s case, piano.
It
reminds me of several other wonderful artists,
including Lake Mary & The Ranch Family Band
(Chaz Prymek), who we really like around here.
The best tracks on the album, such as the
first two, “High Tide on the Land Ocean” and
“Dry Country Ramble,” are all aswirl in chiming
guitar strings, pedal steel, and atmospheric
synths. The
more instruments the two slather on, the greater
the beauty. They
put the tone in the glistening summer haze
dancing on a now verdant, pastoral scene.
Final
track “Windham Hill Summer Bangers” is aptly
named. I’ll
grant you there is a bit of Windham Hill
here, but I’ll give Weathers & Pedigo even
more credit. I
think they go beyond the sometimes dry scope of
Windham Hill and fill their album’s music with
more hues and textures.
The
past year or so has seen so many exceptional
releases of ambient music emblazoned with pedal
steel either as its defining instrument or as
the special sauce on top of the acoustic
guitars, by such artists as North Americans,
Luke Schneider, and Nashville Ambient Ensemble
to name a few, and I put this album up there
with any of them.
Big
Tex, Here We Come is sure to brighten any day,
or as a soundtrack to watch fireflies scurry by
night.
(Mark
Feingold)
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SENDELICA
– AND MAN CREATED GOD (LP
on Regal
Crabomophone Records. Other formats
available through http://www.sendelica.bandcamp.com
)
Following
on from the impressive Cromlech Chronicles
series, Sendelica have focused their sights on
new musical horizons starting with ‘And Man
Created God’, based in part around faith and
belief through human history and the resultant
positives and negatives that ensue. It’s a
compact band recording with the core trio of
Pete Bingham, Lee Relfe and Glenda Pescado
bolstered by Colin Consterdine bringing beats
and electronic sounds and on one track, a
gorgeous vocal performance from regular
collaborator Elfin Bow. Over 9 tracks,
Sendelica, as has been the case over much of
their recorded output to date, mix their psych
tinged space rock with some unexpected detours
into new territory often tested and developed in
their parallel universe laboratory project ‘The
Fellowship of Hallucinatory Voyagers’.
‘Aeolian
Sunrise’ sets things off in a swirl of cosmic
noise where bliss and dissonance collide before
guitar and synthesizer harmonise and settle into
a kosmische imbued and filmic melody, gently
carried by electronic beats. It slowly takes on
a more dramatic grandeur becoming a swelling
wave of progressive, almost orchestral sound as
perhaps the title demands. ‘Exodus From Ur’ is a
motorik boogie with undertones of Vangelis style
space transmissions laced with sax and guitar
which becomes a more pronounced and urgent
Hawkwind style guitar and sax interplay as it
hurtles forward. ‘Deuterosophia’ begins with a
delicate kosmische vibe coloured by breathy,
atmospheric sax and a variety of keyboard and
electronic textures before simple beats,
stirring strings and elegant, spacious fretwork
with touches of Gilmour create an ever growing
dramatic, cinematic climax that surely deserves
some quality end credits to roll straight
afterwards. ‘MMT’ has a progressive feel to
begin with that soon takes on a Crazy Horse
drive and Pete Bingham’s inner Neil Young
emerges in a fine ‘Like A Hurricane’ style
melody and solo. ‘The title ‘Tainted Goat’ had
me wanting to sing it to a Soft Cell melody but
that desire was soon dispelled by a brooding yet
dance inflected and quite exploratory space rock
groove with soaring guitars, fizzing rhythms,
moments of almost ambient sax cool, and a solid
upbeat rhythm. If Sparks wrote space rock, it
might sound like this. ‘The Seekers’ takes
elegant repeating guitar melodies like signals
to or from space into a dramatic and stately
Kosmiche setting before a stark change of
direction where ‘Illuminated Skies’ adds a dose
of prog pop catchiness to a bustling space
rocker. ‘Seren Golawr’ features the natural and
electronically treated vocals of Elfin Bow
within a song that has a lovely Cocteau Twins
feel in its vocal harmonies and layers and the
hazy, dreamy 4AD musical ambience wrapped around
it. ‘Epilogue Sunset’ is the final piece with a
pulsing, slightly chilled ambient dance
electronic backdrop over which soaring guitar
notes bring things to a suitably atmospheric
ending.
This
is another fine outing from Sendelica and
friends which takes their ideas to date and uses
them to push the envelope just that little bit
further, delivering reassuring sounds for
existing fans and something new for the curious
explorer. It deserves your attention and wallet
and as with most Sendelica releases is available
in a wide range of packages if you hurry.
(Francis
Comyn)
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TARAS
BULBA – SOMETIMES THE NIGHT (LP
on Riot
Season Records)
This
is the third outing for Taras Bulba since the
retirement of Earthling Society. As with many
recordings of late this is home recorded by Fred
Laird and it is fundamentally a solo record
where Fred plays everything with the exception
of some sax courtesy of Mike Blatchford (via
phone) and vocals from Daisy Atkinson. It’s also
a change in feel from the previous two releases
which took an eclectic collection of sonic and
cultural ingredients from around the world to
create a mesmerising and often dizzyingly
inventive cross pollination of genres and eras.
Here the sound is a kind of gothic, psych
infused rhythm and blues and elegant
dreamscapes, both exploring the many moods of
the night which is no less gripping and
captivating.
‘The
Green Eyes Of The Dragon’ is a stirring opening
track reminiscent of the Bad Seeds in their
widescreen gothic pomp. It has a lurking
intensity, brooding in its own dark and
mysterious world and rolling on with mid paced
relentlessness. ‘Orphee’ features the voice of
Daisy Atkinson and is a dedication to Jean
Cocteau. Like Cocteau’s film of the same name
there is a dreamlike almost nocturnal quality to
the vocals which float on deep cushions of sound
not unlike the Cocteau Twins in its shimmering
beauty and elegance. It’s a swooningly lovely
thing. From
the blissful to the blistered we next get ‘From
the Grave’ with its red raw guitars and organ
sounds like a nightmarish Link Wray twanging
blues on a ride to hell in a cement mixer – and
that’s a compliment to its stark primal and
indeed trashy garage beauty. This could be a
lost early sixties lo-fi recording of a ripe for
rediscovery punk blues track. ‘Night Train To
Drug Town’ adds an extra gothic twist like an
out of control fairground ride with its
prominent and dizzyingly insistent organ melody
playing over a murky swamp of sound full of
mystery and dread. It’s an otherworldly,
funereal waltz somewhere between the night and
the grave where the dead can dance. ‘One More
Lonely Angel’ has an elegant, melancholic core
around which warped blues piano and wild shards
of guitar spray create dissonant colours. The
title track follows and again returns to the
sumptuous 4AD-esque elegant soundworld and
feather light vocals of ‘Orphee’ albeit combined
with a more reflective folk rock style. I am
also reminded of Sigur Ros in the cavernous,
lonesome, almost glacial ambience in the latter
part of the song. ‘The Sound of Waves’ includes
that very sound and a strong choppy riff
overlain by eastern influenced melodies that
give the sense of drama, majesty and power of
the sea. ‘The Big Duvall’ is another dedication,
this time to Andy Duvall of Carlton Melton and
it is indeed a big organ and guitar led bluesy
beast with a touch of swing, a coating of Bad
Seeds carnival grandeur, a blast of wailing sax
and sheets of guitar, synth and percussion that
raises the intensity levels nicely. It’s a bit
of a steamroller for sure. ‘House In The Snow’
completes the record with a piano led reflection
over a simple beat that slowly incorporates sax,
guitars and washes of synth. It’s an atmospheric
and rather lovely conclusion to a diverse and
engaging record.
The
word that always comes back to me about this
record is nocturnal but not simply dark and
moody. It’s a collection of moods, dreams,
nightmares and twilight world party classics
that will entertain you greatly. This is another
wonderful release, made all the more impressive
as it is largely the work of Fred Laird in his
home studio. Do yourself a favour and delve into
the moonlit and sometimes dark world of Taras
Bulba, you won’t be disappointed.
(Francis Comyn)
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HOT
TUNA - TRILOGY
(Floating
World 3-CD set)
You’re
probably wondering why bother to review a
repackage of old albums already out in various
forms since the advent of the compact disc,
notably that nice In A Can five album
set back in ’96 that quite literally preserved Hot
Tuna, First Pull Up, Burgers,
America’s Choice and Hoppkorv in
an actual tin! And
you have a right to wonder just how much more
mileage reissue labels can milk of what is left
of the baby boom generation’s interest in music
of this kind.
Cynicism
aside, I’ve always had a real soft for Jorma
Kaukonen and Jack Casady, the perennial beating
heart of the Tuna. Let’s face it, apart from
Barry Melton and Jerry Miller (and leaving Steve
Miller out of the equation), there are now no
more practitioners of that late 60s San
Francisco acid rock sound still alive. We
therefore have to cherish and support, the
handful still out there capable of blowing our
minds.
Hot
Tuna need no intro. Legend has it, they were
originally called Hot Shit (sadly, they couldn’t
even get away with that moniker in the liberated
60s!). Jorma and Jack had seen the light at a
Cream show at the Fillmore West and for a moment
it looked like the engine room of their band,
The Jefferson Airplane would crash out
mid-flight. In the end, they stuck with it till
the acrimonious final tour in 72 by which time
the Tuna was a fully-fledged, full-time unit
with a handful of fine albums behind them,
anyway.
Given
that the original plan was a power trio (check
out the live June 69 Before We Were Them,
Bear’s Sonic Journals album for further
reference), it was always a surprise that their
1970, eponymous debut LP (first up here) was
more or less an acoustic affair consisting
mainly of original tunes and blues material (by
the likes of Rev Gary Davis and Jelly Roll
Morton), which Jorma had been playing since his
teens, augmented by the splendid harmonica
playing of Will Scarlet. Unusual too in that it
was a recorded live. And Jack’s usually
rampaging bass style, that gave the Airplane so
much character, is here toned down to a very
mellow level indeed. This re-package, by the way
boasts the fiveextra cuts that have cropped up
on most CD reissues since.
By
the time they released the sophomore set,
another live album, First Pull UP Then Pull
Down in 1971, they were heading towards a
more conventional rock and roll set-up.The
mixture of acoustic and more electric material
(always a sucker for ‘Keep Your Lamps Trimmed
and A Burning’) with Sammy Piazza’s energetic
drumming and Hopalong Casady’s grunting bass on
occasion powering the trio into the
stratosphere, giving Jorma plenty of space to
roll out his pungent, head-crunching licks. What
a player! The aforementioned Mr Scarlet appears
again and making his debut, Papa John Creach,
veteran violinist soon to become a Tuna regular
and part of the greater Jefferson family
throughout the 70s.
Not
quite sure why Floating World chose to combine
these two early releases with 1978’s Double
Dose, possibly because HT were at their
zenith in concert? Produced
by Felix Pappalardi, after it came out, Jorma
finally went solo and Jack joined SVT, which
included some time Tuna member, Nick Buck on
keyboards. Side 1 is actually just Kaukonen on
acoustic guitar and vocals (and includes the
still-astonishing ‘Genesis’, a highlight of
Jorma’s first solo record Quah, about a
man cheating on his wife), before he is joined
by Jack and arguably the trio’s longest serving
drummer,powerhouse extraordinaire Bob Steeler
for a romp through a variety of numbers from the
Tuna back catalogue. This was their L-O-U-D era!
Interesting to note Pappalardi had Jorma redo
his vocals for the band sides at Wally Heider
Studios.
Hot
Tuna reconvened in ’83 and have played regularly
ever since, and it’s great to see them still at
it, with Kaukonen having finally kicked his drug
habits. Incidentally his weekly online solo sets
from his Fur Peace Ranch in Ohio have been joy
to witness throughout the pandemic.
Leaving
the all-time classic Phosphorescent Rat LP
to one side, (what, you don’t have a copy?!?),
this reissue is as good a place as any to start
discovering the joys of this enduring combo,
which has always embraced the spirit of that
long-gone San Francisco ballroom era.
(Nigel
Cross)
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ALEX
REX - PARADISE
(All formats from Neolithic
Recordings)
Alex
Neilson and his regular first lieutenant, Rory
Haye, return with Rex’s fourth long-form outing,
this time abetted by Marco Rea and, rejoice,
Neilson’s former fellow Trembling Bell(e)
Lavinia Blackwall. Mercifully, any fears that
yer man’s impish musical mojo may have been laid
low by seemingly interminable languorous
lockdowns are dispelled from word go. From the
opening bars of the skipping lounge jazz and
country gospel of ‘Low Life’, it’s clear that
Neilson’s adoptive Glaswegian gargle, so at odds
with his fresh-faced Yorkshire countenance, is
on sparkling form. And despite statements such
as “I don’t think I was born evil” and “I can’t
stand what I’ve become” portending yet more
confessional soul bearing, Paradise
actually sounds more confident, relaxed and
playful than its predecessors, as if the long
dark night of the soul actually could be a bit
of fun on the town after all.
‘The Dark Inside The Shadow’ is hymnal in the evangelical sense of
belting it out there and seeing where it lands.
It has a familiar ring to it. It could be that
Rex may already have been touting this back in
2019 when last heard sniffing around the
impolite company of live audiences. Or perhaps
it’s because it has a trail of breadcrumbs back
to 2020’s wonderful Andromeda,
with which much of Paradise
rents common ground, musically if not always
emotionally. Folksy yet gritty, the
Neilson/Blackwell voiced ‘Scandalise The Birds’
is, aptly enough, the closest we get to the
Trembling Bells template of yore, neatly riveted
with some searing guitar work (Haye is on top
form throughout). It’s something of an early
pace setter, while the cod-western themed
‘Dancing Flame’ is hugely pleasurable too.
Picture The Sadies playing Morricone, arranged
by Trad.Arr and your compass won’t be too far
adrift.
Rascally outsider ‘What’s Shouted In The Dark (The Dark Shouts Back)’
fills the boots of ‘Postcards From A Dream’ off
the first album - atypically up-tempo, verging
on the pop-tastic, bursting with ideas, brimful
with infectious hooks and incisor-sharp lyrics,
and which really ought to have “Play List A”
stamped all over it. However you cut, dice and
snort it, this is primo grade gear, in a way
that channels the essence of Nick Cave’s rock n’
roll preacher-ah, all drenched in dark matter,
and with a cheeky lyrical nod to one Nick Lowe.
I mean who doesn’t love the sound of breaking
dreams?
The rest is more typical though no less quality assured Rex-fare, the
bleakly gorgeous ‘Funeral Bouquet’ and the riff
tinged ‘Ida’ worthy of particular mention in
despatches, as is ‘Black Peonies’, another of
those mischievous country-folk send-ups, and on
which Neilson duets with the guesting Kacy Lee
Anderson. It’s irreverent and, yes, a bit
deviant with the opening
lines "I wear the knickers you gave
me/when I play football with the boys", from
which there’s no
coming back (speaking of which, the naughty
pay-off is to be found in the subsequent
couplet, missus). It’s delightfully subversive
and jolly good fun to boot, eventually melting
into Haye’s psych-raga guitar. The
faintly sinister crooning on ‘Man Is a Villain’
hands off to a TV evangelist-style epilogue in
the coda as Alex introduces the boys and girl in
his congregation choir, while fitting finale
‘Every Wall Is A Wailing Wall’ proves that no
Rex is complete without a bit of unaccompanied
digging around in the ear canal..
So there we have it, this year’s contender for “the best Rex album yet”,
one that inhabits the narrow and precarious
strip of no-man’s land separating the twin towns
of Bonkers and Genius, It’s already firmly
camped near top of the personal go-to list for
2021, setting one dauntingly high bar for
everyone else to clear. There’s a tour planned
for October. Let’s sincerely hope it goes ahead
and that we don’t all end up in Lockdown III (or
will it be IV?), reduced to watching The Masked
Flower Arranger or some such on Prime Time TV
instead.
Ian
Fraser
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