![](../Home/NewHomeButtonB.gif) |
![](../images/Topline.gif) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
![](../images/Reviews_Hdg_New_Colour5.gif) |
|
=
September 2023 = |
|
|
v/a Wicker
Man comp |
Agusa
|
Cobra Kraft
|
Sean Wolcott
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
VARIOUS
- BALLADS OF SEDUCTION, FERTILITY AND RITUAL
SLAUGHTER
(2XLP,
CD and DL from Ballads
Of Seduction, Fertility And Ritual Slaughter
| Was Ist Das? (bandcamp.com))
This
year marks the 50th anniversary of
enduring cult British film, The Wicker Man,
which helped so much to popularise the folk
horror genre, while its soundtrack, composed by
American Paul Giovanni (but borrowing heavily
from age-old traditional music) would inspire
the revival of Wyrd Folk in the late 1990s.
Eschewing the usual horror devices of bloodlust
and jump scenes, the film is open to
interpretation in many respects. So too the
music, comprising of often pleasant melodies and
sung with a sweetness reflecting the outwardly
sunny and friendly disposition of the locals of
Summerisle towards unwitting victim, Police Sgt
Neil Howie, but hides something altogether
darker.
This
re-imagining of the Wicker Man soundtrack
features many names familiar to (and most likely
popular with) The Reader. There is some
adjustment to the original’s running order while
one or two tracks have been split to allow for
greater representation and whereas some of the
contributions are highly interpretive others
remain more faithful. The traditional ‘The
Highland Widow’s Lament’ (by the peerless Burd
Ellen) supplants
‘Corn Rigs’ in pole position, eerily replicating
the drone of Howie’s plane as he attempts to
leave Summerisle, while disembodied vocals seem
to drift in and out of the smoke that would
thwart his escape. Elsewhere, Hawthonn take
‘Lullaby’ to a purgatorial spirit-world
somewhere twixt Carlton and Sharon Crutcher’s
Book of Shadows and a more rustic Dead Can
Dance. It
segues ominously into Teleplasmiste’s
‘Festival/Mirie It Is’ (one of the traditional
medieval tunes) and which dissolves into an
ambient swirl before slowly re-emerging into the
light with a reprise of the pipes from which it
emerged.
We
were alerted to this release by Sharron Kraus
and it would be highly remiss not to mention
Sharron’s vital contribution here - her
multi-tracked voice on ‘Sing Cuckoo’ sung over
sparse instrumentation is a confection of
melancholic loveliness. ‘Loving Couple/The
Ruined Church’ is one David Colohan’s two
nourishing contributions. His other is as part
of Terrascope favourites United Bible Studies
who, working their beguiling magic on
‘Procession/Chop Chop’, incorporate traditional
nursery rhyme and snatches of folk staple
‘Willie O’Winsbury’. Banshees of Bunworth (an
off-shoot of the marvellous Woven Skull) take on
an old Irish reel and almost manage to coax it
into a jig. The track in question is ‘Searching
for Rowan’, namely Rowan Morrison, the ‘missing
girl’ whose disappearance Howie was despatched
to find. The name was cleverly appropriated by
Rowan Amber Mill and Angeline Morrison for their
project a few years back.
There
would be absolutely no point in simply engaging
in note-for-note covers and even those that tend
to hug the original shoreline here still manage
to chart new and interesting courses. There are
in places the tendency to retrofit based on what
we have since gleaned about the original film
and our present discomfort about certain aspects
of 70s permissiveness. Thus the supposedly
playful bawdiness of ‘The Landlord’s Daughter’
is eviscerated by Andrew Liles who transforms it
into a grotesquely lurching waltz and what
sounds like a descent into madness. It’s what
you might expect from a one-time Nurse With
Wound/Current 93 collaborator. In stark
contrast, Meg Baird tackles the oft-covered
‘Willow’s Song’, on which she stamps her
indelible beauty while not needing to deviate
too far from the original melody and form. By
way of conclusion, ‘Sunset’ sounds like it was
made for Dean McPhee spacey Telecaster and a
near perfect way to play out as the flames die
down of their own accord. Of course nowadays
they’d have to have fire marshals and a few
buckets of water just in case, but you get the
drift (and it is still ‘The Wicker Man’ not
‘Woker Man’ so how’s that for a trigger
warning).
With
further notable contributions including an
enticing and mildly disconcerting ‘Maypole’
by Magpahi (Alison Cooper), Ballads
of Seduction...
ranks as a more than respectable
companion to the soundtrack and one that stands
tall without seeking to either emulate or
surpass the original. ‘Folk Album of the Month’?
Possibly so, although its experimentalism and
amorphousness suggests that such a narrow
designation would be insufficient.
Sgt
Howie would never have approved, mind you.
Ian
Fraser
|
|
|
|
AGUSA
– PRIMA MATERIA
(CD,
Digital on Kommun2)
Swedish
prog quintet Agusa returns for a new studio
album full of joyous, well-rounded compositions,
outstanding production, and above all, excellent
performances by its stellar musicians.
We loved 2021’s En Annan Värld,
and with Prima Materia you get four
tracks of more of the same lush, highly melodic,
lengthy, adventurous, mostly instrumental
workouts.
One
might wonder if it’s possible to make great prog
with very little vocals, Mellotron, synths, or
weird time signatures, but Agusa proves it’s not
only possible, but triumphant.
The key lies in keyboardist Roman Andrén,
who sticks mostly to organ, flautist Jenny
Puertas, and guitarist Mikael Ödesjö,
who all take turns shining – over and over
again. Agusa
tends to start with a pretty simple melodic
line, often brief and sometimes as little as two
chords, and just embellish the heck out of them
with instrumentation and solos that never lack
for variation, invention or interest.
It’s a system they have down to a
science.
The
opener “Lust och fägring
(Sommarvisan)” is both the album’s longest track
at fourteen and a half minutes, and its
centerpiece. Flexible
flautist Jenny Puertas plays solos that can be
either Ian Anderson-type breathy or traditional
in style. Mikael
Ödesjö’s
guitar solos are right in the pocket, while Andrén’s
organ
holds the line together well.
Drummer Nicolas Difornas gets in on the
act, too, with some standout fills and solos.
The song takes many twists and turns -
there’s even an interesting Dark Side of the
Moon/Wish You Were Here-esque middle
section, and a false ending where the band goes
out and comes back in for a freakout finale.
On
“Under bar himmel,” Puertas introduces the theme
with a plaintive flute figure, with some great
trippy keyboard flourishes by Andrén.
The melody interestingly contains traces
of Billy Joel’s “New York State of Mind” at
times and Gordon Lightfoot’s “Beautiful” at
others, to these ears at least.
After about three and a half minutes, the
band transitions from melancholy to a delirious
fast-tempo jam.
Again, the three principals combine
melody with super chops in their solos.
The song downshifts again to familiar
Floydian territory, before returning to the
opening melody line, and just a glimpse of that
Mellotron. Did
I mention how splendid the production is?
This track does not miss.
“Ur
askan” combines melodic and rhythmic elements of
traditional Greek, gypsy and/or klezmer music,
with some perhaps unexpected vocals by Puerta
late in the track.
Closer “Så
ock på
jorden” starts with some wordless vocals from
Puertas and Difornas over a strummed acoustic
guitar. It
transitions to a jaunty marching-style section,
before concluding in an elegiac tune.
Puertas again shows her versatile flute
playing in different styles.
With
Agusa you know what you’re getting – great prog
that lays dazzling instrumental playing over the
top of unfussy, uncomplicated but upbeat, catchy
melodies. Have
I commented on the production?
It’s spotless.
(Mark
Feingold)
|
|
|
|
COBRA
KRAFT – THE BAPTISM OF PEDRO DEL ZORRO
(LP
from Crispin
Glover Records)
In
which tenor sax player Petter Kraft and
guitarist Per Borten from Norwegian
Motorpsycho-spin off hard-rock outfit Spidergawd
rope in various band-members and musicians they
admire from local rock and metal outfits to,
initially, prepare something for the Trondheim
jazz festival, and ultimately to explore a
shared love of 1970s jazz-rock – Jeith Jarrett,
Alice Coltrane, Pharoah Sanders and Miles Davis
formed the blueprint, with shades of Hendrix had
Hendrix gone down the jazz rabbit-hole I always
suspected he might had he lived. The results are
way, way better than they deserve to be: there’s
not a trace of self-indulgency here, just some
truly jaw-dropping musicianship and
instrumentation, from the saxophone /guitar
interplay of the opening ‘Kikuchiyo’ to the
outstanding keyboard twinkling of ‘Peder
Morset’; from the swinging ‘Kaltaget’ and the
mind-bending guitar soloing that follows it to
‘Elina Akino’ where everything finally comes
together in a glorious symphonic cacophony. Oh,
and not forgetting the percussive brilliance of
‘Lokken Verk’ that closes the album. This is one
hell of a great debut and most assuredly a
keeper!
(Phil
McMullen)
|
|
|
![SeanWolcott Sean Wolcott LP cover](../images/Sean%20Wolcott.jpeg)
|
SEAN
WOLCOTT – VIOLENT HAND OF THE SLEEPING CITY
(Bandcamp)
From
the ever-popular field of imaginary 70s action
film soundtracks comes Seattle composer and
musician Sean Wolcott’s Violent Hand of the
Sleeping City.
Whether you call it library music, with
its implied ad hoc nature, or a fully formed
soundtrack in search of that ‘violent hand,’
Wolcott connects.
We know this much – the story of said
movie includes a wicked cult in that grimy
metropolis, since the score begins with a chant
from its members, and returns for a couple of
reprises later in the album.
The
tracks also include much of what you’d expect –
tense, funky, jazzy action chase music,
lurking-in-the-shadows incidental cues on
vibraphone, and a wordless female chorus, all
composed and performed flawlessly.
The long-sideburned Nixon-era police are
at the heart of many of the song titles and
their respective musical themes, including
“Nightmare on the Streets,” “Excessive Use of
Force,” “Centurions of the Night,” “Rookie on
the Beat,” “Tangle with San Francisco’s Finest”
and “God Help the Fuzz.”
“Excessive Use of Force” includes sound
effects of a police siren in the background;
might I suggest you not listen to that one
whilst driving around in your car.
The
thrilling score is performed predominantly on
brass and woodwinds, with occasional jazz
ensemble flourishes such as the guitar and
keyboards on “Rookie on the Beat.”
It could use some strings to present a
completer and more accurate representation of
the genre, but this is mostly me quibbling,
since Wolcott probably had a limited budget that
could only go so far.
The exception on the strings is the lush
closing ballad “With All That is Left,” sung by
Lauren Santi, with lyrics about survival and
being left the last one standing, perhaps after
the climactic gun battle.
The sweeping ballad conjures that
pullaway shot of the noirish, big bad city while
the end credits roll.
The
album’s a fun listen, and actually makes you
wish there were an accompanying movie to watch,
complete with film scratches and pops.
In that, Wolcott has done his job
admirably. Pass
the popcorn and watch out for stray bullets.
(Mark
Feingold)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
![](../images/TerrascopePageBottomBit5.gif) |
|