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July 2021 = |
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Alex Rex |
Kitchen
Cynics |
Moongazing
Hare |
Mia Doi Todd |
Cubs |
Belong to the
Wind comp |
Alchemysts |
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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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KITCHEN
CYNICS - SEVEN
MEDITATIONS FROM A MORTHOUSE
Limited
edition
lathe cut 10” (Sonido
Polifonico
| sonidopolifonico )
DL
(Music
| Kitchen Cynics (bandcamp.com) )
Like
most of us I have lost count of how many albums
Alan Davidson has released under the guise of
The Kitchen Cynics. What is not in any doubt
however, is that every release I am privileged
to hear cements the fact that the man is a
national treasure who should be revered for his
storytelling, soft melodies and wondrous tunes
that always stir the imagination.
Long-time
fans
of Alan will know what to expect from this
collection, tales of dead Cockerels, apple
trees, graves and family surprises. Within its
beautiful grooves is the sound of waves crashing
on pebbled shore, the smell of pine forests
after rain, a fluttering insect, a candle lit at
a window calling a loved one home, each tune a
melancholic delight, a flute running through the
music its delicate tone recalling the sweet
beauty of “Comin' Back to You”, the oft
overlooked gem from Jefferson Airplane.
Call
it
Psychedelic Folk, singer songwriter, or whatever
you want, this is timeless and wonderful music
that feeds the soul, allowing you to drift into
your fairy tale mind, each tune painting
pictures, you can almost smell the soil, feel
the grass beneath your feet.
Featuring
seven
tracks this exquisite lathe cut album is
perfection from start to finish the disc housed
in a box containing photos, dried bracken,
badges, images pressed in clay and other
ephemera, a thing of beauty and one that sold
out incredibly quickly as do most of the labels
output. Thankfully the music is still available
and you should definitely go and investigate.
(Simon
Lewis)
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MOONGAZING
HARE - THE MIDDLE DISTANCE
(CD/DL Moongazing
Hare
(bandcamp.com) )
I
first came across David F. Emmanuelli Drost, AKA
Moongazing Hare, at the rather excellent
Weirdshire festival, held a few years ago in
Hereford. Also on the bill were David Colohan,
Kitchen Cynics, and Trappist Overland, and you
can hear shades of all these artists in the
music on this album, drifting folk ambience,
psychedelia and a love of melody and drone in
equal measure. Live I was spellbound, hanging
onto every note and happily getting lost in the
music and this album comes close to capturing
that magic, a collection of 11 songs that will
take you on a journey, held together by a soft,
wistful voice and beautiful guitar playing.
Opening with a soft rolling beat and
waves of guitar, “After Vementry” is a sweet
tune that floats through the air, delicate and
delightful. These same qualities can be found
on”King Neutral's Dream” another soft tune with
a haunting chorus and synth work that adds
emotion and texture.
Moving on, “After the Brush Fire” is
more experimental in nature as it scrapes and
squirms across the room before escaping out the
back door, whilst “The Highland Widow's Lament”
has lyrics adapted from a poem by Robert Burns,
the music shimmering and twinkling,
demonstrating a lightness of touch that can only
be admired, the addition of David Colohan's
vocals only adding to the melancholic sweetness.
Just a beautiful song, “We Could Live
Here” forces you to listen to both melody and
lyrics, the arrangement drawing the best from
the track with ease, a magical moment.
As the album continues, there is a
sense of purpose, a realisation of the moment,
each track the natural successor to the last,
the mood never broken. This is demonstrated with
an unexpected cover of “Maize Stalk Drinking
Blood”, written by John Darnielle (The Mountain
Goats), a ripple of almost commercial sunlight
that briefly changes the dynamics, in a good
way, before the experimental drone of “Before
The Smoke Clears” twists our ears around again.
Ending in style, the eight minute
“Between The Calm Remains” reminds me of Red
House Painters, its languid nature slowly
leading us back to the everyday, a smile on our
face, knowing that we are loved.
(Simon
Lewis)
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MIA DOI TODD – MUSIC LIFE
(LP, CD,
Digital on City
Zen Records)
Singer-songwriter
(she hates that term, but begrudgingly accepts
it) Mia Doi Todd offers a world of
multi-cultural tales on this exceptional album.
It’s her twelfth since her recording
debut in 1997, but her first of original songs
in ten years. In
that interval she concentrated on a movie
soundtrack and a pair of covers albums.
She returns with a fully fleshed-out
record spanning many subjects and styles.
Many of the songs on Music Life were
written at different times along those those ten
years, it wasn’t a sudden burst.
The record encompasses a lot of living in
that time.
First of all,
I loved the sound of this album.
My stereo loved it, too.
Incorporating the whole of her
experience, both in her travels, in the studio,
and as a wife and mother, Todd reminds me in
ways of such artists as Maria Muldaur, Buffy
Sainte-Marie, Astrud Gilberto and Miriam Makeba;
or, among contemporary artists, Bedouine comes
to mind. Each
song is arranged, orchestrated and recorded
beautifully. In
a year+ with a lot of albums - caused by the
seeming parting of the earth’s tectonic plates,
swallowing a core of humanity - graced with
musical minimalism and singular laptoppery, it’s
a breath of fresh air to hear this album
(recorded before the pandemic) with these
arrangements and production positively bursting
with REAL INSTRUMENTS.
You can practically feel the breath in
the reeds of the clarinets or the native flutes,
and sway with the full band in a welter of
rhythmic styles.
This is down to, of course, Mia Doi Todd,
but also her producer, guitarist, and husband
Jesse Peterson, bass player Brandon Owens,
drummer Will Logan, and percussionist Andres
Renteria. Todd
also brought along some very special guests,
including guitarist Jeff Parker, organ player
Money Mark, plus guitarists Fabiano do
Nascimento and Sam Gendel, and Laraaji.
Mia’s tales are simple and
straightforward, many revealing an underlying
moral; her melodies are rich and accessible, her
voice is pretty and her clear enunciation
perfect. Refreshingly,
you will not wonder for one moment “wait, what
did she say there?”
The record is
a ‘round the world journey, starting at home
with the jazzy title track.
Composed after she came home from a
memorial service for a musical friend, it’s a
tribute to both the spiritual triumph and
fulfillment, and potential crash-and-burn of a
life dedicated to music.
She sings, “Chances are you’ve got a few
friends/always swimming on the deep end/chasing
dragons and sunsets/shooting whiskey and
hallucinogens” and later “Chances are you’ve got
a few friends/who burned the candle at both
ends/And every day was a weekend/until the dark
night came for them/in a hotel or hospital
room.” The
song morphs into an extended Steely Dan-type
jam, with the great Jeff Parker soloing while
Todd sings “I love you, I love you” over and
over to her lost friend.
Very cathartic indeed.
“Take Me to
the Mountain” has an air of folky mystery.
Punctuated by bass clarinets and flutes,
the mountain ascent is depicted as almost a
native ceremony somewhere beyond the roads and
byways of normal civilization.
When Todd intoned “Michael, take me to
the mountain/we’ll leave behind these city
streets/I can no longer be around them/let’s go
someplace where we can breathe/where we can
breathe,” some took it as a nod to the past
year’s anguish over civil rights and police
violence against people of color. Todd
admitted that wasn’t the original intent of the
lyrics, but appreciates and welcomes the
interpretation.
“My
Fisherman” is told from the point of view of a
mermaid, who gently helps the fisherman she
loves reap the sea’s bounty to bring home to his
family, but also knows the uncompromising waves
will one day take him, where he will rest with
her in the deep.
The song is replete with sounds of the
ocean, sweeping percussion, a mournful cello,
and a gently strummed guitar of the islands.
“Little Bird”
is a lovely Brazilian samba.
Assisted by the hypnotic acoustic guitar
playing of Fabio do Nascimento and
multi-instrumentalist Miguel Atwood-Ferguson,
the bouncy song tells of a girl who’s never
ventured far from home, encouraged to fly, to
see the world. The
surprise ending has a dark undercurrent that
belies the lively, upbeat song, telling of a
long-concealed sexual abuse as a child, which
grounded this little bird.
“Mohinder and
the Maharani” tells of a camel trek across the
desert in Rajashthan, India.
The music is exuberant and boasts of
wide-open sandy spaces and bustling bazaars.
“Wainiha Valley” trades previous
Caribbean scenery for Polynesian, with Todd’s
story, reflective of bringing up her daughter,
told from the perspective of a happily growing
little girl in an idyllic setting, all to the
gentle zither playing of Laraaji.
Finale
“Daughter of Hope” is just that, a message of
hope to her daughter.
At nearly ten minutes long, the verses
pour and pour out of Todd, both a lament and
prayer, of tension and release, from a baby to a
young woman. It
tells of the reality of an “ocean of tears” and
a blessing for “a world without sorrow, a world
without pain/a better world tomorrow and the
best day today.”
Isn’t that all any of us could ask for?
Music Life is
a fully realized work, and it sticks every
landing perfectly.
Lovely melodies; straightforward,
thoughtful lyrics, tremendous instrumentation,
and magnificent production.
Even the cover art, by Mia Doi Todd as
well, in a Greek vase theme, is handsome and
lovingly detailed.
This is one to savor.
(Mark
Feingold)
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CUBS
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RIVER OF AMBER/FROZEN WATERFALLS
(CD/DL from Music
| Rusted Rail (bandcamp.com) )
Comprising ten new songs and the
previously released, as a download,
“Frozen Waterfalls” album, this
collection of tunes highlights all that is good
about Cubs, melody, atmosphere and imagination
combining to create a highly listenable album
that will become an old favourite.
As I have already reviewed “Frozen
Waterfalls” (Terrascope
Reviews
for July 2020 ) this review will
concentrate on the first ten songs, collectively
known as “River of Amber”, with “Solstice song”
setting the scene perfectly, a shimmering
doorway into a musical landscape, the promise of
adventure enticing you to step through, the
music soft and lysergic like your dreams. With a
gently picked guitar and the sweet voice of
Cecillia Dannel, “Forest Gate” is a folk
lullaby, a tune to relax with a Cello adding
texture and warmth to the track.
Featuring the distinctive voice of
Aaron Hurley, “Faster in the Dark” is another
tune where simplicity is its strength, the
arrangement allowing the song to shine out
before the psychedelic meditation of , “We'll
See How the Cat Jumps”
gets all Eastern and trippy reminding me
of Kaleidoscope (U.S. Version) and spinning my
head around.
After a brief fog of electronics and
backward vocals, “Crystal World” is revealed as
a slow, shoegaze tune that floats majestically
above strummed
guitar and droning background sound, whilst
“Falling Petals” mixes folk and soundscape to
fine effect,music from another realm that is
delicate and wondrous.
Utilising a whole host of instruments
both electronic and acoustic, each song on the
collection has a unique sound palette yet works
perfectly with those around it, the album
flowing beautifully allowing tunes such as the
Mandolin led strangeness of “Hot Honey Glaze” to
blend perfectly into the droning, experimental
sweetness of “Tape Owl” without interrupting the
rhythm or flow.
Only halfway through but ending “River
of Amber” and this review, “Windflower” sways
delightfully, filled with rattling percussion
and yet more softness. The track also features
the talents of David Colohan, but you knew he
would be there somewhere, whilst the
contributions of
James Rider and Keith Wallace should also
be mentioned the album definitely a team effort
and one hat is well worth hearing. (Simon
Lewis).
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VARIOUS
ARTISTS – BELONG TO THE
WIND
(LP,
Digital on Forager
Records)
In
its mission statement, the new imprint,
L.A.-based Forager Records, is dedicated to
“unearthing and breathing new life into rare and
under-appreciated sounds from the past.”
This is their first release, and they’re
off to a good start.
Belong to the Wind is a collection of
songs from the early 70s by such non-household
names such as Autumn Dust, Snuffy, and My
Partner in Crime, that went unnoticed at the
time. What
they have in common is a certain brand of US
melancholia in a radio friendly style of the
time. So
instead of a Fading Yellow vibe, the sound is
more like that of, say, Don McLean, Lobo, Brewer
& Shipley, Scottish band Marmalade, Seals
& Crofts, or Dan Hill - OK, not Dan Hill -
with the occasional production sheen of a CSNY
or America.
These
longing, yearning, keening songs of heartbreak,
misery and bummertude are, like many comps, a
mixed bag, but plenty deserved better than
obscurity, and right on to Forager for
unearthing them.
They haven’t revealed much about the
secrets of their foraging, but for one example,
the excellent “Anticipation of the Sun” by Jeff
Laign, Forager discovered it allegedly upon
hearing it on the radio in Estonia (Jeff Laign
is alive and well, by the way, and living,
presumably not in Estonia).
Winner
of the most unique track on the album has to be
St. Elmo’s Fire with “The Lady Has No Heart.”
Imagine a 1975 Olivia Newton John singing
a semi-graphic account of a prostitute whilst
curled up on a couch and you’re almost there.
Elsewhere,
Denny Fast’s “Tuesday Morning Monday’s Feeling
Gone” takes the CSN vibe in a different, Stephen
Stillsian direction.
The closer and title track, by Shane, is
the most different feel, more like a mid-60s
R&B track, with a Hammondtastic solo Brian
Auger would’ve been proud of.
But with lyrics like “why was I born, I
cried/was I born to die?/please give me a reason
to live” the sentiment fits in oh so perfectly
with the others.
It's
an interesting, enjoyable collection (if you
don’t mind wallowing in the collective misery)
of laid back coulda shoulda woulda songs you
won’t be sorry you checked out.
Well done, Forager.
And they’re just getting started.
While it appears Belong to the Wind is a
one-off and won’t be the start of a series like
the aforementioned Fading Yellow, Brown Acid or
Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs’ outstanding
compendiums, Forager already has a couple more
intriguing looking releases in the pipeline this
summer, so stay tuned.
They also have some rather nice
collections on Mixcloud under Forager if you’re
so inclined.
(Mark
Feingold)
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ALCHEMYSTS
-
ONE EYED AGAIN
ALCHEMYSTS - OVER AND OUT
(DL
from
Tee
Pee Annex | Tee Pee Records Webstore)
A West of England band beloved of Terrascope,
Alchemysts appeared at each of the first five
Terrastocks, placing them neck and neck at the
time with Bardo Pond and Bevis Frond as prime
candidates for the exclusive Life Membership
club, and which for a while included a clutch of
other acts, such as Windy and Carl and Damon and
Naomi, all of whom rightly revered by The
Faithful (that’s you, by the way). Unlike those
names, Alchemysts never quite passed into the
realm of legend, such is the fine line between
hit and myth. Fast forward more than a decade
and a half and their first two albums receive a
welcome (though digital-only) re-release,
courtesy of Tee Pee Records, providing us with
the chance to reappraise the power trio of Paul
Simmons, Jon Guard and Mat Love.
One
Eyed
Again (Behemoth Records) gathers early material from
1991-93 and is a stylistic smorgasbord of
disparate and occasionally very good ideas, well
executed. Given when this material was put down,
it’s remarkable how they were able to swerve not
just grunge but shoegaze, indie and anything too
overtly psychedelic, whereas there’s no
concessions whatsoever towards what would soon
become Brit Pop. That must count as quite an
achievement. Mostly it’s unashamedly old school
in its melodic take on monster riffs - hard rock
with an infusion of pub, punk and the merest
hint of country rock, so rooted in a different
era that a (doubtlessly souped up) cover of
Chris Farlowe’s ‘Out Of Time’ might have worked
as a mildly ironic theme song. On ‘Lost’ and
‘Swarm’ they sound
reminiscent of Sun Dial in the sense of
being blessed with enough strong hooks to grace
a chapel hat rack while being either ahead of or
behind the zeitgeist, depending on your
viewpoint. ‘Blind Side’ and ‘Bloody Mary’ both
pack commendable punch, while the moody ‘Cuff
Link’ menacingly stalks those Mendip mean
streets. If ‘Dust Devil’ is an entertainingly
Dick Dale style take on Neal Hefti’s Batman
theme, the live sounding ‘Phantom Gun’ is
delightfully dirty B-movie garage rock and a
welcome nod to the Deviants and Kings Of
Oblivion-era Pink Fairies. The album even boasts
its own extended, main course signature dish,
the 11-minute ’Stoned In Jerusalem’, a more-than
decent sparring partner for Bevis’ ‘Superseded’
but with added Jagger/swagger vocal.
Released on Australian label Camera Obscure in
1998 (two years after their debut), Over
and
Out feels more cohesive than its
predecessor. Without downplaying what is
undoubtedly a capable enough rhythm section, it
is again hot-shot guitarist/singer Paul Simmons
who stands out, displaying more licks than a
starving cat let loose on a bowl of cream. A
sitar drone ushers in the compelling ‘Forget
About It’ and promptly disappears into a dense
narcotic fug. The edgy, driving ‘Big Black
Beetles’ is also outstanding, possessed of a
dumb but effective call of ” yeah, yeah, yeah”
punctuating each line of verse and a killer
chorus making it pretty much essential, and boy
doesn’t it feel good to (re)discover such a
hidden gem. It may be tempting to write off the
rest as pale in comparison, but don’t. That
would constitute a disservice to the organ and
guitar feedback on the crunching instrumental,
‘Numinous’ and the cloying, spy movie/Cold War
paranoia that is the hallmark of ‘Laugh’, with
its gunshot reverb and machine gun precision
drumming. ‘Dead
Time’ is an altogether route-one rocker, which
goes down all guns blazing, while the most
bizarre thing here is the bouncy ‘(Bracket’),
which is the sound of a toe being dipped in the
chlorinated waters of Blur and co. Well this was
the late 90s after all, even for Alchemysts.
The rest is an enjoyably mixed bag of intriguing
incongruity and incredibly near misses. Despite
its title, the scuzzed-up
‘Alpha Centauri’ isn’t at all cosmic,
while ‘25th of July’ begins in an
alluringly desolate acoustic manner, eventually
kicking into life with a squall of feedback,
where-after it sounds more urgent but less
interesting. ‘A Surreal Meal’, meanwhile,
desperately wants to be Be Your Dog but, in its
rush to sound Fast and Furious, overeggs it just
a fraction. A pity, as a little less could have
been a whole lot more.
It wouldn’t quite be “over and out” for
Alchemysts. Their third album, a glorious orgy
of pilfered riffs from the Stooges/Damned vaults
called Zero
Zen, came out on Nick Saloman’s Woronzow
label, as did a hook-up with Silver Apple,
Simeon Coxe (whom they met at Terrastock),
before calling time. And speaking of Mr Saloman,
as many of you will know, Paul Simmons is on
course for a long service medal as Nick’s
current guitar foil in the Bevis Frond.
That-there Terrascope/stock link just
keeps-a-rolling. As for the Alchemysts, well
there’s a story to be told about how it began,
how it all ended and how it played out in
between. It’s one we’d like to help tell. It
would be no less than they deserve. For thrills,
spills, and just the right amount of frills,
check them out.
Ian
Fraser
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