Crash Test Dummies - Live Karlsruhe, Germany 1997

 Crash Test Dummies - Live Karlsruhe, Germany 1997 - Part 1

 

Crash Test Dummies - Live Karlsruhe, Germany 1997 - Part 2

 

When you hear the Crash Test Dummies, it's very likely you'll recognize Brad Roberts' distinctive deep voice almost immediately. But the group has also relied heavily upon his song writing and can attribute much of their success not only to their unique sound, but to their unique songs. Here is an interview with this very talented songwriter, singer and performer, conducted via e-mail when Brad and the band were in the Toronto area to help promote the Crash Test Dummies' newest CD, Give Yourself A Hand. I think you'll find that he has quite a unique sense of humour too.

Question: What was your first musical experience as a kid and how do you think it contributed to the music you're making today?  Is there a particular incident that sticks out in your mind as a "defining moment"?

my first musical experiences were probably that of listening to my dad play the piano and my mom singing along. then i began taking piano lessons myself.  but my teacher was a horrid old bitch, so i quit. (years later, as a bratty teen, i egged her house.) at age 8 i began buying those K-tel 22 greatest hits packages. listened to them hundreds of times. at age 10, i bought an archie comic with a story in it about the "cave archies". the last frame showed jughead and reggie sitting around a campfire playing prehistoric guitars, called "plinka plunks". the idea of playing guitar around a campfire was very appealing to me, and made me want to take guitar lessons. at age 12, i bought my first "kiss" record, their third album, called "dressed to kill". i listened to it hundreds of times, and decided i wanted to be able to play guitar just like ace did. so i found a guitar teacher who i liked, and took lessons for about 4 years after that. all of the above are factors which contributed to my growing fascination with music throughout my early years. but the most "defining moment" of my musical life was the realization that i was a loser at school, that i couldn't play hockey, that girls didn't like me, and that the only way i could dig my way out of the land of nerds was by becoming a rock star. which i did.

Question: I hear that you studied English and Philosophy in University.  What did those studies do for your songwriting?  And how have your philosophies changed since you first started out?  Do you see things differently now then you used to?  Do different things inspire you?

my studies very much influenced my earlier songwriting, which tended to be more cerebral than my current work. nowadays, i have grown bored of trying to figure things out. i don't read anymore. at present, i am inspired not by philosophy and literature, but rather by alcohol and prostitutes. ctd's new record is mainly about getting drunk and masturbating and going to strip clubs. it's the best work i have done, and i am very glad to be freed from the shackles of the mind.

Question: have to ask this - and you probably knew it was coming.  (No, it has nothing to do with the silly story about your third testicle.) Do you experience the dreaded "Writer's Block"?  And if so, how do you get yourself over it?

when i have writers block, i just stop writing. i have learned that i have to get away from writing and recharge my batteries, in order to be able to continue more writing at a later date. in other words, the time spent NOT writing is as important as the time spent actually doing the work. if i'm really desperate to write something, i'll go on a bender and get drunk for days. then i get ideas during my hangovers. i don't know why, but a hangover often puts me in a writing mood.

Question: Out of all the songs that you've written, which is your favourite and why?  Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to write that favourite song?

this is an impossible question to answer. when i'm writing, i always think that whatever i'm currently working on is the best thing i've ever done. then, years later, i look back at it, and i think its crap. for example, almost everything on "the ghosts that haunt me" is, as far as i'm concerned, total garbage. but hey, those were the first songs i ever wrote, and they paved the way for me to do better work later. everthing on our new record ("give yourself a hand") is my favorite stuff.

Question: Having recorded numerous albums at this point, you've probably been able to do things differently with this newest release.  What have you changed since your earlier recordings?  What about the process has become more satisfying as time progresses?

our recent recordings are different from our earlier recordings in that they are more about attitude and less about ideas. also, in our new live shows, i get to strut around the stage like a rock-star-jack-ass and hurl abuse at the audience, something which they seem to love. go figure.

Question: What's in store for CTD in the future?  I know your latest release is coming out in a few weeks.  Will there be a tour to promote it?

yes, we will tour all over north america, europe, australia, south africa, and parts of south america. it'll take about a year. then i will collapse and swear never to do it again. then i'll write another record, and do it all again. and again. like a hamster on a treadmill.

From: https://www.musesmuse.com/bradroberts.html 

 

The Lemonheads - Into Your Arms

This is a simple, immediately likable song, but it’s also a song that says a lot in a small space. The entire lyric:

I know a place where I can go when I’m alone
Into your arms, I can go
I know a place that’s safe and warm from the crowd
Into your arms, I can go
And if I should fall, I know I won’t be alone anymore

That’s it, sung over and over again. Rarely did the early-Beatles even dare to repeat so few words so many times. The achievement, of course, is that the listener barely notices. The song’s so active, and so catchy, and tightly-edited, that it seems to end one foot-tapping moment after it’s begun.
The key is variation; since the words don’t change, the music must. The arrangement builds and slackens. More instruments join in, then drop out. The melody varies slightly–but tellingly–at each pass. The result is a song that’s saying one thing, over and over, but says so much more.
For example, I used to hear this song as an Ode to a Plan B. The singer struggles with loneliness, and there’s a girl he can always call when he needs a warm body. I heard the “fall” as more literal–if he’s down, he knows the place where he can be picked back up. To me, it wasn’t a love song, but a song about a backup plan, a way to bide the time until real love comes along.
A few months ago, one of my closest friends mentioned “Into Your Arms.”  He said that he and his fiance love the song, so I immediately revisited it.  Suddenly, it sounded different. I heard it as a simple statement of unconditional love. The “fall” is figurative–he anticipates falling in love and meeting his girl there. Lonely days are over; he’s found the one. The words were the same, but their meaning changed.  Or maybe I did.
Great songs find listeners at the right time and the right place and speak to them at that moment. My favorite songs, though, are the ones that evolve as I do, that are flexible and generous enough to offer a hand no matter what I feel that day. They meet me wherever I am.  The lyrics of “Into Your Arms” stay the same, but (through some clever musical devices) sound different in each verse. Similarly, the song’s stayed the same, but over the years (and with some insight from a friend) its meaning has changed.  From: https://chrismilam.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/song-of-the-week-the-lemonheads-into-your-arms/

The Three Degrees - Collage

I’d never heard this song until I stumbled upon it today, but after only playing it for only a few seconds I had no doubt in my mind that this little little soul worm was not going to get out of my head! Steered by a powerful force, this tune is driven by soul and spirit. Vocal lines twirl with spiralling repetition as their melody firmly nestles itself in your head, their grip strengthened by lines such as, “Autumn calls for a change of year/Bringing winter near while spring’s the ground/And the skies are fine/Wintertime is a razor blade/That the devil made, it’s the price we pay/…For the summertime”.
What a really cool tune and very happy accident to have happened upon! Collage was written by US guitarist/singer Joesph Walsh and Colorado-based songwriter/ musician/ producer, Patrick James Cullie. Written in the late 1960’s,the song has since been covered by an array of bands/artists, including the likes of Golden Earring (1995), The Breeders (1999), Lady Blackbird (2021)
James Gang were the first band to release this song in 1969 but, in my humble opinion, this not a patch on the rendition I am featuring today! The Three Degrees recorded their superb version a year later in 1970. Featuring it as the B-side to their Maybe single, this 45 was issued on the Roulette label and I’m sold. Never will there be another version of this song that does what The Three Degrees version does to me. They just simply transform it!  From: https://thelisteningpostblog.wordpress.com/2024/07/06/song-of-the-day-the-three-degrees-collage/

Tears For Fears - Head Over Heels

A friend of mine recently told me he was just starting to get into Tears for Fears and was I fan? I was shocked. Back in the day, on my daily commute to school from SF to Marin County, my bus driver had his favorite easy listening power ballad station on lock, so for me, Tears for Fears are the soundtrack of my pre-pre-pubescent crush on a boy called Bryn who used to let me zip down the hills sitting on his skateboard. Am I fan of Tears for Fears? Did I never actually kiss Bryn but did a classmate called Molly tell teachers she saw us having sex under the jungle gym during recess? The answer to these questions is yes.
But anyway, back to my friend not being familiar with Tears for Fears. OK, he’s 29, so in the 80s he barely existed, but if you saw Donnie Darko then—hello!—that was your moment to retrospectively embrace the mulleted quartet. The pairing of “Head Over Heels” with Donnie getting off the bus and walking through the halls, observing every clichéd high school clique, character, and trope as he makes his way to class, is one of cinema’s finest pairings of song and scene. In fact writer/director Richard Kelly wrote the scene with this very song in mind. It’s also impossible to forget that unfortunate bastardized version of “Mad World” by Gary Jules that became a Christmas number one (in the UK, Canada, and Portugal) back in 2003, lingering around the charts for weeks like a stale dog fart.
But let’s not focus on that. Thanks to my friend’s recent TFF exploration, I decided to have a little re-watch of the proper “Head Over Heels” video. Viewing this now I’m not sure I actually ever saw it in the first place. I think I just re-watched that Donnie Darko scene again and again, because, vintage Gyllenhaal, among other things. Thus today, with fresh eyes I gazed upon this 80s classic and these are some of the things that occurred to me while watching it.
The premise for this promo appears to be that Roland Orzabal is in love with the spectacled, stern-faced, but clearly quite hot librarian. You’d think she’s be down to love him because he’s big into reading, but she’s having none of it. I love that he just walks in, dumps the books on the front desk, and starts aggressively singing at her. This guy has zero game. His opening line is: “I wanted to be with you alone / And talk about the weather,” which is in no way an appealing proposition. It’s not like, “Oh I wanted to be with you by myself so we could gaze at constellations and maybe I could touch your inner thigh.” No. He wants to talk about the weather. Tears for Fears are from Bath, England. I’ve been there several times and can say with some authority that while the architecture is beautiful, the weather is most often grey and drizzly, so already this pick up line is a disaster. Come on Roland Orzabal (say it in full, say it again!), time to step it up. Still you can tell he’s genuinely really into her by the way his eyes can’t meet her gaze and the dejected manner in which he slopes away.
The best thing about 80s music videos is that they’re almost entirely nonsensical. It was a new medium! MTV was a revolution! Record labels were splashing cash! Fans were buying records! Everyone was taking too much cocaine! Just ask director Nigel Dick. He went on to helm videos for Guns N Roses, Oasis, Backstreet Boys, and OMG, many Britney classics including “Baby One More Time.” I have to track this guy down. But back to this TFF video: when Ian Stanley rocked up to the library front desk it made total narrative sense for an enormous keyboard to slide into view. A keyboard which he pretended to play with all the skill of Keyboard Cat, because he knew the most important thing was keeping your eyes on the prize—staring down your prey, eyes glazed like a stoner when he spies a pack of Cheetos in the corner of the kitchen. Not since Kurt gave the game away by simply refusing to play the guitar on Top of the Pops back in 1991 have I seen a musician mock his craft so flagrantly. Sweet leather jacket BTW.
But Roland Orzabal is not giving up. When buttoned up librarian moves a tome from the shelves, whose head should pop up in the gap on the other side? You guessed it! Then in the next scene, he’s right beside her, singing in her face again. Roland Orzabal’s getting a leetle creepy right about now, but we all know it’s better to have tried really hard than to have never tried at all. Pretty sure Lord Tennyson came up with that maxim.
Side note III: Key to any 80s video—absurdist touches like a random man in a gas mask and / or a chimp. Or drummer Manny Elias working a Hasidic vibe. Sure! Why not. Do you suppose people felt emotions much more deeply in the 80s? I think there might be some truth to that. People can be so aloof these days because they’re cursed with FOMO and hand-in-hand with that is the pressing paranoia that if you confess your feelings for one person and jump all in, you might close yourself off from someone “better” and miss that damn boat. Pre-Tinder and pre-internet, people selected partners with at least a modicum of conviction.
Here we have a man in sensible knitwear singing about falling head over heels, begging you not to take his heart, not break his heart, not to throw, throw, throw it away. We can tell that Roland Orzabal really means it because he appears to not care what he looks like when proclaiming his feelings. Thanks to too many mirrors and too much time selfie-ing everyone and their pet rat knows about angles. Kids probably pop out of the womb with their chin dropped, eyes wide, looking coyly upwards, ready for their close up. Roland Orzabal knows nothing of this pose. He is all-earnest. He is letting that camera shoot him up the nose. He is doing that chicken head cluck as he delivers each line. He is 100 percent gesticulating the lyrics (“four leaf clover,” “one open mind”). These are deeply uncool moves. But love isn’t about being cool—it’s about being vulnerable. Clearly.
Does Roland Orazabal get the girl in the end? Well, what do you think? Ultimately, it always pays to be a nerd. I can only conclude by saying it’s never too late to get into Tears for Fears. Perhaps a Tears for Fears newbie who’s never delved into their back catalogue will embrace the sparkly, drive-time goodness of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” or the pleading beauty of “Pale Shelter” (note that punk-funk bassline), and yes, the new wave-y, window-stroking angst of the original “Mad World,” and that newbie will understand a little bit more about love and life and feelings.  From: https://www.vice.com/en/article/head-over-heels-tears-for-fears-video/?

The Joy Formidable - Share My Heat

Most bands want 15 minutes of fame. The Joy Formidable just want 15 minutes of your time. The Welsh trio are taking us on a mighty sonic trip with the release of “Share My Heat,” a rousing alt-rock escapade that arrives today (September 26) via Enci Records, complete with a wild animated video that supplies psychedelic visuals across its entire 15-minute runtime. Hot damn.
“‘Share My Heat’ is about true connection & love,” says guitarist and vocalist Ritzy Bryan. “Deep, selfless love between humans is a beautiful part of our existence, but I’m also singing about our inherent love for nature, the living world & our kinship to everything: Plants, animals, mountains & lake. Can we repair our relationship & bring more reciprocity, compassion and companionship to a world that already gives us so much?” Well, we’ll soon find out.
The epic “Share My Heat” is the third and final Joy Formidable single in a string of new releases, all following 2021 album Into The Blue. At a time when most artists are shortening songs to pad play counts on streaming services, The Joy Formidable have snapped back in to the other direction to release a single song that’s longer than some new EPs.  From: https://vanyaland.com/2023/09/26/the-joy-formidable-go-long-on-the-psychedelic-share-my-heat/

Preoccupations - Slowly

Preoccupations' beautifully rough version of post-punk is equally life-affirming and well-versed in existential dread. The band's debut album, 2015's Viet Cong, mixed post-punk, psych-pop, shoegaze, noise, and electronics in fearless ways that nevertheless maintained a very human pulse. This connection to their humanity remained on all of their albums, though Preoccupations' music became subtler and more open-ended on 2016's Preoccupations, more anthemic on 2018's poised New Material, and more confrontational on 2022's Arrangements.
Vocalist/bassist Matt Flegel and guitarist Scott Munro, a pair of musicians from Calgary, Alberta, Canada, formed Preoccupations in 2012. Flegel was a member of the celebrated Calgary indie rock band Women while Munro had formerly played guitar with Lab Coast. Flegel and Munro began working on songs together during a European tour as part of Chad VanGaalen's backing band; when they heard about the death of Women guitarist Chris Reimer, they realized it was time to start a new project. They recruited former Women drummer Mike Wallace and guitarist Danny Christiansen, who had worked with Flegel and Wallace in a Black Sabbath tribute act. Originally named Viet Cong, in 2013 the band released a four-song cassette -- cleverly titled Cassette -- that they sold at their shows during a North American tour with Freak Heat Waves. Following their performance at the 2014 CMJ Music Festival, the group signed to the Canadian label Flemish Eye, who issued two songs from the cassette as a single (in the U.S., Mexican Summer released an expanded seven-song version of the tape as a 12" vinyl EP in 2014).In January 2015, the band released their self-titled debut album. Produced by Graham Walsh, Viet Cong added noise and electronics to the band's moody mix of post-punk, shoegaze, and straight-ahead indie rock.
Citing concerns that their name might be offensive to some, in April 2016 the band announced they had changed their name to Preoccupations. Their first album under that name, September 2016's Preoccupations, was a more considered effort that nevertheless highlighted the heavy and danceable sides of their music and featured a guest appearance by Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner. A deluxe version of the album included a single with covers of Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Key" and the Raincoats' "Off Duty Trip." For their third album, March 2018's bluntly titled New Material, the band recruited producer Justin Meldal-Johnson, who helped add polish and a grander scope to their anthemic songwriting. That year, Preoccupations also teamed up with Protomartyr on Telemetry at Howe Bridge, a split single that found them covering each other's songs.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/preoccupations-mn0003514608#biography

Sheila Chandra & Monsoon - Wings of Dawn

A precursor to the scene of artists featured on Naya Beat’s South Asian Dance And Electronic Music 1983-1992 compilation, Monsoon was a short-lived Indi-pop trio consisting of musician and producer Steve Coe, multi-instrumentalist Martin Smith, and Sheila Chandra, who has been celebrated as “one of the most beautiful voices on earth.” While the use of sitar in Western music can be traced back to the psychedelic ’60s (The Beatles, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones), Monsoon pioneered the first true fusion of East meets West blending traditional Indian music with ’80s synth-pop, long before the term “World Music” would ever be used in Western media.
In 1982, Monsoon’s self-released debut single was distributed by the influential London-based label Rough Trade, and caught the attention of Phonogram’s David Claridge and Dave Bates who signed the group as the first act on their new sub-label Mobile Suit Corporation. “Ever So Lonely” became an unexpected global hit, making history in the process as Chandra (only 17 at the time) became the first South Asian woman to appear on the UK’s “Top of the Pops.”
Monsoon’s lone album Third Eye would arrive in 1983, and remains a groundbreaking and pioneering classic from the Asian Underground in London. Sitar, tambura, santoor, and tabla meet synthesizers, drum machines, and Bill Nelson’s e-bow guitar for a sound that was unlike anything else being released at the time. Album opener “Wings of the Dawn (Prem Kavita)” sets the stage with an Indian raga featuring sitar drone, Chandra’s enchanting vocal, and Indian percussion before soaring into drum machines and electric e-bow.
The group’s cover of The Beatles’ “Tomorrow Never Knows,” more than likely a suggestion from Phonogram executives, is also sublime and lifts the psychedelic ’60s classic into the ’80s with deep percussive grooves. Crucial to mention, besides Chandra, the album also features some of the best Indian instrumentalists including Ravi Shankar disciple Dari Mankoo on sitar, santoor player Deepak Khazanchi, and Punita Gupta.
Monsoon would disband shortly after the release of Third Eye due to conflicts with their label. Chandra and Coe would continue their collaboration through his Indipop label and further develop their Asian fusion sound through Chandra’s solo releases and The Ganges Orchestra. The label would also establish links with artists pursuing similar fusions of sounds including groups like Michael Wadada’s world music collective Suns of Arqa, and the legendary West India Company, a Blancmange spin-off who brought Asha Bhosle’s voice to European dancefloors.  From: https://insheepsclothinghifi.com/third-eye-monsoon/

Pink Floyd - Echoes

"Echoes" is a song by the English rock band Pink Floyd, and the sixth and last track on their 1971 album Meddle. It is 23+1⁄2 minutes long and takes up the entire second side of the original LP. The track evolved from a variety of different musical themes and ideas, including instrumental passages and studio effects, resulting in the side-long piece. The music, credited to all the band, was mainly written by Richard Wright and David Gilmour, while Roger Waters' lyrics addressed themes of human communication and empathy, to which he returned in later work.
"Echoes" has been regarded by critics as an important song that transitions between Pink Floyd's early experimental material as a cult band and later mainstream success. Several publications have remarked it as one of the best songs by the group. The group have mixed views of the track, but it was a particular favourite of Wright's.
"Echoes" begins with a "ping" that was created as a result of an experiment very early in the Meddle sessions, produced by amplifying a grand piano played by Richard Wright and sending the signal through a Leslie speaker and a Binson Echorec unit. After several "pings", a slide guitar played by David Gilmour gradually joins in.  The verses are sung in harmony by Gilmour and Wright, and joined by a riff played by Gilmour and bassist Roger Waters in unison. This is followed by a guitar solo from Gilmour, played on a Fender Stratocaster through a Fuzz Face effects box, before repeating the previous riff. This leads into a funk-influenced jam, also featuring a mode change from C# Aeolian to C# Dorian.
The middle section of the song features Waters using a slide and a Binson Echorec. Gilmour plays a high-pitched screeching noise, which was created by plugging a wah-wah pedal in back to front (the guitar was plugged into the output of the pedal, and the input of the pedal was plugged into the input of the amplifier). Drummer Nick Mason later clarified that it was an accident, and their experience working with Ron Geesin had taught them to embrace experiments and try anything if it would work on a song. This is followed by a repeat of the opening piano "pings" and a Farfisa organ solo from Wright, said to have been influenced by the Beach Boys' "Good Vibrations" (1967).
Following a final third verse, the end of the piece features a choral-sounding segment playing a Shepard tone. This was created by placing two tape recorders in opposite corners of a room; the main chord tapes of the song were then fed into one recorder and played back while at the same time recording. The other recorder was then also set to play what was being recorded; this created a delay between both recordings, influencing the chordal structure.
"Echoes" began as a collection of separate musical experiments, some of which were left over from previous sessions. Pink Floyd then arranged the pieces in order to make a coherent piece originally referred to as "Nothing, Parts 1–24". Not all of the pieces were used for the finished track, and out-takes included saying a phrase backwards, so it would sound correct yet strange when the tape was reversed. Subsequent tapes of work in progress were labelled "The Son of Nothing" and "The Return of the Son of Nothing"; the latter title was eventually used to introduce the as-yet-unreleased work in its first live performances in early 1971.
Wright said he composed the piano intro and the main chord progression of the song, and that Waters wrote the lyrics. During early development, before the first verse was finalised, it referred to the meeting of two celestial bodies. For the final lyrics, Waters took inspiration from his time in London in the mid to late 1960s, feeling a sense of disconnection and looking for the potential for humans to connect with each other. One particular observation was looking from his flat on Goldhawk Road and watching a procession of commuters walk past, which led to "Strangers passing in the street". "Echoes" established a trend with Waters to write emphatic words and explore the theme of communication, which would be a key theme of The Dark Side of the Moon (1973) and later solo work.
Pink Floyd rehearsed the completed piece before committing a final version to tape. Studio recording was split between Abbey Road Studios, Morgan Studios and AIR Studios in London; the latter two were used because they had a 16-track recorder, which made assembling the individual components of the songs easier. The basic backing tracks were recorded between 7 and 19 March at Abbey Road, with the further overdubs recorded at AIR from 30 March to 1 May, with additional work at Morgan.
Pink Floyd first performed "Echoes" at Norwich Lads Club on 22 April 1971, and it was a regular part of the band's set, up to the concert at Knebworth Park on 5 July 1975. The first significant performance was at the Crystal Palace Bowl on 15 May with an audience of 15,000. It was originally announced by its working title, "Return of the Son of Nothing" and not formally identified as "Echoes" until the group's tour of Japan, starting on 6 August 1971. Occasionally, Waters would introduce the song with silly titles, such as "Looking Through the Knotholes in Granny's Wooden Leg", "We Won The Double" (a reference to Arsenal F.C. winning the double in the 1970–71 season), and "March of the Dambusters".
The song was played at a BBC Radio 1 concert on 30 September 1971 and broadcast on 12 October. Shortly afterwards, Pink Floyd filmed a live performance at the Amphitheatre of Pompeii with no audience for Live at Pompeii, where it was split in two halves to open and close the film. "Echoes" was one of four pieces that Pink Floyd played in collaboration with a ballet choreographed by Roland Petit in late 1972 and early 1973. The track featured a solo ballet piece for Rudy Bryans of the Ballets de Marseille. For the group's 1973 shows at Earl's Court, the performance of "Echoes" featured large quantities of dry ice being poured onto the stage during the middle section, and sheets of flame shooting from a cauldron at the back of the stage. From late 1974 to the Knebworth concert, "Echoes" was performed as an encore. These performances featured backing vocals by Venetta Fields and Carlena Williams and saxophone solos by Dick Parry instead of the guitar solos in earlier performances.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echoes_(Pink_Floyd_song) 

Salyu X Salyu - Sailing Days

The Salyu X Salyu project, a collaborative effort between J-Pop belter Salyu and future-savvy producer Cornelius, showcases one of the rarest forms of the “superstar musicians team up” trope. The duo’s album S(o)un(d)beams neither consolidates one another’s strengths into a unified style…see Madvillainy or to a lesser degree the work of Gnarls Barkley…nor do they cancel one another out into a mediocre mush…hello She & Him. Rather, the individual personalities of each artist manage to shine through brightly here, the two more or less doing the things they’ve always done, now just across from one another. Instead of trying to review Salyu X Salyu as one unit, lets instead focus on how each member of this album fare and draw a grand conclusion at the end.

Cornelius Side

Many people who normally wouldn’t give a lick about Salyu or J-Pop in general seem drawn to S(o)un(d)beams because of Cornelius’ involvement. Tough to blame them – since the mid-90s, he’s been the Japanese Beck, capable of dipping into nearly any genre he wants and coming out with something sounding uniquely his own. Over the course of three albums and all sorts of collaborations, he’s established himself as one of the smartest and strangest producers in the world. Couple this with a stunning live show and a Yo Gabba Gabba! appearance and you can understand why some message board denizens declare they don’t really care about the Salyu in Salyu X Salyu.
Those folks won’t be let down…Cornelius does what Cornelius does best on S(o)un(d)beams. He’s still a man in love with sound and, more specifically, how those sounds bounce around in the listener’s head. Like his own trio of LPs, this album demands headphones, the way noises in the left and right channels play with one another and how majestic it is when they come together in the middle. The funky-bass workout of “Mirror Neurotic” recalls his own “Fit Song,” while closing number “Tsuzuki Wo” seemingly beefs up the skeleton of his Muji jingle into something too joyful to be confined to a store. “Muse’ic” becomes an instant highlight in the Cornelius cannon because of how overjoyed it sounds, his usual approach of breaking apart a song and then reconnecting it into a 3-D puzzle (glued together by fat, electro bass) sounding especially triumphant in a song celebrating the creative catharsis of music itself.
Yet here’s the thing…though this record sounds gorgeous, it’s also pretty standard Cornelius operating procedure. Beautiful, but a lot of the songs on S(o)un(d)beams could easily be slight variations on his previous work (heck, I did that with just two track above, and one seems influenced by a commercial). Most of the time, Cornelius plops snippets of sound down into the song that sound a bit out-of-place at first but eventually everything comes together Intelligent Design like into a proper song. This album is a treat to listen to, but it isn’t a massive departure for Cornelius. Which, hey, is probably a good thing but given the amount of (admittedly, Internet based) people drooling over Salyu X Salyu just because of his production, it seems weird to just celebrate this work for being another example of Cornelius being Cornelius.
To be fair, the producer does explore some new territory over the course of S(o)un(d)beams. When Salyu doesn’t sing proper words but rather just makes noises, Cornelius can take those isolated calls and create staggering soundscapes. “Utaimashou” conjures up an alien world where Salyu coos like a bird, plays backwards and at one point turns into an old robot. In terms of production alone, nothing touches the title track, one of the most daring things Cornelius has done in his career. Given a chorus of Salyus, he creates a slowly unfolding sonic vista that lasts seven glorious minutes. These two songs stand as Cornelius highlights on this album.
Still, for the most part, Cornelius isn’t revealing anything new about his sound. Even given the Siren voice of Salyu, he mostly just dices it up and double it up, treating it like another sound to carefully arrange. Not a bad thing, mind you. On S(o)un(d)beams, he’s an excellent architect doing exactly what his job calls for. He’s just not the soul of the Salyu X Salyu project. That goes to…

Salyu Side

S(o)un(d)beams is Salyu’s album, a celebration of everything great about her past work and a grand rebirth, like Lady Gaga hatching out of an egg if that actually resulted in something. To properly understand why this is, a little history lesson is in order.
Despite being the “mainstream” side of the project, Salyu never really has been an A-list J-Pop star. She first popped up not as Salyu but as Lily Chou-Chou, a fictional singer in a movie in 2000. Four years later she finally debuted as, well, herself. Her albums tend to chart well – sophomore effort Terminal remains her best-selling album having moved 87,000 units and climbing as high as number two on the Oricon album charts (the follow-up got to seven, while S(o)un(d)beams hit 12). Her singles chart all over the place though – at her peak she’s gotten as high as 10 by herself, usually following somewhere between 15 and 23 (before that, though, adjust to something like between 30 and 100). A collaboration with Bank Band titled “To U” remains her best known song, having reached the second spot on the singles chart. Salyu’s not an obscure artist, but she doesn’t demand attention like cornballs Koda Kumi or Aiko.
Her strongest tool has always been her voice, a soaring sound capable of pushing upper registers without losing any power. Last year’s “Atarashi Yes” highlights everything great about Salyu – that voice, mostly, but also the way you don’t have to know a single word of Japanese or even what “yes” means to get the emotional oooomph of the single. She’s shown flashes of the same vocal power Bjork boasts. Yet Salyu’s never had a good album to her name…”Atarashi Yes” was among a pocket’s worth of good songs on her third album Maiden Voyage, a bloated affair weighed down by half-hearted stabs at mainstream balladry. Earlier releases Landmark and Terminal don’t fare much better. Salyu’s not a top-tier pop star, but whoever puts together her full-lengths desperately want her to be. Bjork carved out an identity while still in The Sugarcubes, whereas Salyu remains caught in J-Pop R&D. Up to now, she’s mostly been a case of “what if.”
Yet here, name doubled up, she’s set free to chase her “Muse’ic” without fear of censor. Cornelius hasn’t improved on Salyu’s voice, but rather crafted a sonic world wide open for her to do her thing from all sorts of angles. It’s not perfect – at this point, it should be acknowledged the album opens with a relative thunk via the annoying “Tada No Tomodachi,” a case of both Salyu and Cornelius relying too much on the gimmick of “a lot of voices at once!”…but what artistic re-emergence is? On S(o)un(d)beams she finds someone willing to let her experiment, and she dives headfirst into an opportunity that it seems like she has been waiting a long time for.
So…whereas in the hands of a more chart-obsessed person “Sailing Days” (the latest in a string of songs finding Salyu obsessed with boats) probably would have ended up a minor-key ballad, here it’s a little shanty that turns into a crescendo of Salyu’s crashing against the shore at a dizzying rate. Cornelius steps way to the background on “Kokoro” and just lets her sing hauntingly around minimal strings. “Dorei” and “Rain Boots De Odorimashou” find Salyu having some of the most fun she’s ever had on record, playing with the extremes of her voice on both (screech-iness on the prior, calmness on the latter). “Hostile To Me” doesn’t just feature a Bjork-like title, it finally finds Salyu making something resembling a Bjork-ish ballad. It all comes back to “Muse’ic,” where she emerges from a cocoon with big bright wings and like eight mouths just ready to sing the praises of art.
It’s tempting to give Cornelius more credit than he deserves for how Salyu sounds here, since the draw of Salyu X Salyu has always been “Salyu’s voice all over the place!” He deserves a lot of praise – excellent placing of her various vocal tracks, not to mention creating the music that that allowed her to sound like this – but he’s just an arranger for the most part. Salyu is the one giving the vocal performance of her career, one that doesn’t feature anything resembling the big pay-off moments like “Atarashi Yes” but rather sees her exploring every corner of her sound.

Both Sides

Salyu X Salyu bridges the gap between experimental and accessible better than any other Japanese album so far this year, Cornelius showing off his inventive production techniques but never allowing the project to sink into needless wandering through the strange. Both artist’s involved on S(o)un(d)beams can be heard loud and clear, but they’ve come together to make one of the best albums of 2011.

From: https://makebelievemelodies.com/review-salyu-x-salyu-soundbeams/

Mountain - Don't Look Around - Beat-Club 1971

Bob Dylan once said that the ‘60s reminded him of a flying saucer landing – everybody heard about it, but only a handful ever saw it. Out of that handful who saw the decade up close, few had the view of the musicians who played the 1969 Woodstock Festival. The festival, long since pinned like a museum butterfly under history’s glass, misfired for some and cemented the reputations of others. The performance of Crosby, Stills & Nash marked only their second public appearance. Other bands such as The Grateful Dead still talk about how dissatisfied they were with their performance, while the great Alvin Lee and Ten Years After enjoyed, particularly after the concert film’s release, a considerable boost in popularity. Most famously, Jimi Hendrix’s rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” filled more pages in the guitar great’s growing legend and lingers in public consciousness as the event’s defining moment. 
Treading the boards in Max Yasgur’s field transformed Mountain’s career as well. The band’s close to classic lineup, sans soon-to-be-enlisted drummer Corky Laing, ripped through a set largely culled from guitarist Leslie West’s recently released solo album entitled “Mountain.” The wide-eyed, expressive and impressively built West manned center stage as if the fates conspired to place him there at that moment and time, while former Cream producer Felix Pappalardi stood semi-shadowed to his right unleashing furious bass runs in accompaniment. It is little stretch to say the massive crowd heard nothing quite like this before.
It wasn’t the overpowering bluster or blues histrionics of West’s guitar. By 1969, Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience spawned a host of imitators and influenced countless others to carry on their groundbreaking work to its logical conclusion. However, the public had yet to hear a guitarist capable of uniting accessibility, melody, power, fluent vibrato, and strong rhythm playing into one package. His imposing frame juxtaposed against the small size of his Les Paul Junior along with his surprisingly soulful and muscular vocals completed the picture. His torrid performances on “Beside the Sea” and “Southbound Train” impressed many and didn’t go unnoticed by record executives.
Mountain formed, in significant part, as a vehicle to highlight West’s talents. The July, 1969 release of his first solo album laid down a rough template of the band’s sound, but transitioning from a solo act into a band necessitated changes. Pappalardi, sensitive to musical similarities between Cream and the new band, recruited keyboardist Steve Knight over West’s objections to play organ and fill out their sound. West, an enormous admirer of Clapton’s stint with Cream, shrugged off potential comparisons. Such maneuvers, however, certainly insulated the band from such charges and provided a textural counterpoint for West’s guitar that recalled other emerging bands such as Vanilla Fudge and Deep Purple far more. Knight’s formal approach and reluctant musical improvisation further rankled West’s attitude towards the keyboardist, but the jazz devotee brought considerable chops to bear that few then-prominent keyboardists could claim.  From: https://www.goldminemag.com/articles/story-band-mountain 

In This Moment - The In-Between

In This Moment lead singer Maria Brink seems to live with an angel on one shoulder and devil on the other - a contrast between light and dark. That's the case here where she hears two conflicting voices: One that tells her she's holy, the other that screams she's worthless. These voices represent her mother and father. Her mother was very supportive and encouraging, but Brink's father was never in her life. His absence caused her lot of distress and made her question herself.
"My dad simply wasn't there. He wasn't in my life," she told Kerrang. "As a young girl I struggled with that a lot. My mother always believed in me and was always trying to lift me up. She never doubted me, regardless of the struggles she was going through herself."
"The In-Between" was the first single from In This Moment's seventh album, Mother. The song was written by Brink, her co-founder Chris Howorth, their producer Kevin Churko, and guitarist Randy Weitzel, who had become a key songwriter in the band by this point. Like many of their videos from this era, this one was co-directed by Maria Brink and Robert Kley. The band often translated their videos to their stage performances, and that was the case here, with the "blood girls" (Brink's backup dancers) there for support.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/in-this-moment/the-in-between

David Crosby - Orleans

This week’s fave is “Orleans”, a traditional French song rendered by David Crosby on his 1971 album ”If I Could Only Remember My Name.” Although a veritable who’s who of Bay Area musicians (Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Mickey Hart, Bill Kreutzman, Jack Casady, Paul Kantner, Grace Slick, Jorma Kaukonen, Joni Mitchell, Graham Nash, Neil Young, Gregg Rolie, Michael Shrieve and David Freiberg) appear on the record, I believe this track is all Crosby, overdubbing multiple (gorgeous) vocals.
I’ve wanted to know what this song is about for years, but thanks to the internet, I think it’s merely a listing of church or parish or maybe neighborhood names in Paris.
I always loved this record, from the day it came out. Critics were not kind at the time, but revisionist rock history now places it high amongst influential albums from the time. One thing that really interested me about the record was the way that the Bay Area musicians formed ad-hoc groups like this and performed on each other’s records, in much the same way that jazz musicians do. Many of the players on Crosby’s album also appear on the record ”Blows Against The Empire,” credited to Jefferson Starship but really a Paul Kantner solo project. There was always a great deal of movement between Crosby Stills Nash and Young, Jefferson Airplane, The Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service and Santana, as well as singers like Joni Mitchell and Mama Cass Elliott.
I’ve read that some of this record reflects the pain that Crosby was suffering due to his girlfriend Christine Hinton’s tragic death in an auto accident; the song ”Traction In The Rain” is surely about that. Much of the record (and there’s an alternate version on YouTube that I just discovered) is filled with noodling and meandering jams, but the songs are strong, because Crosby always had a gift for melody. And for good or for ill, he always wrote lyrics with his heart on his sleeve; a lot of his lyrics may be, as Neil Young once said, hippie dreams, but he believed fully in them (even though he was a gun-totin’ coke head).  From: https://dumbfoundingstories.com/2015/07/28/hashs-faves-orleans-by-david-crosby/

Buke & Gase - Revel in Contempt

Buke and Gase (originally Buke and Gass) are an experimental indie rock duo from Brooklyn, New York, who made their recording debut in 2009. Playing unique instruments of their own design, Buke and Gase generate a sonic palette that's very much their own, rooted in the traditional functions of guitar and bass but thrown into different relief. Their songs, usually built from ideas generated during extended improvisation, mix fractured melodic lines and strong but jagged rhythms, generating a sound that's playful but also curiously alien. The duo's early recordings, such as 2010's Riposte and 2013's General Dome, were rooted in the instrumental interplay between musicians Aron Sanchez and Arone Dyer, while 2019's Scholars found the group expanding their boundaries as they relied more on electronics. This trend carried into the next decade, beginning with their 2021 collaboration with fellow Brooklyn experimentalists So Percussion.
Founded in 2008, Buke and Gase is comprised of multi-instrumentalists Aron Sanchez and Arone Dyer; the latter was formerly a member of the band Proton Proton, while both worked together in Hominid. The group's name is derived from two experimental instruments created by the bandmembers: the buke, played by Dyer, is something of an electrified six-string ukulele, while the gass, played by Sanchez, is something of a cross between a guitar and bass (guitar plus bass equals g-ass, thus gass). Buke and Gass made their recording debut in 2009 with +/-, a self-released seven-track mini-album, which was followed by their first full-length effort, Riposte, in 2010. The duo also played occasional shows locally in Brooklyn. They eventually tweaked their name, changing the spelling to Buke and Gase to avoid any confusion about the pronunciation of their trademark instrumentation.
 The pair released their first album under the newly refined moniker, General Dome, in 2013. The band performed extensively in support, playing in North America, the United Kingdom, Asia, and Australia, while also touring as an opening act for the National, who invited Dyer to contribute a guest vocal on their 2017 album Sleep Well Beast. They also shared stages with a diverse range of respected artists, including Laurie Anderson, Deerhoof, Swans, and Shellac. During downtime from the group, Sanchez was commissioned by composer Bryce Dessner to build a set of third-bridge instruments specifically for his 2015 piece "Music for Wood and Strings."
 Buke and Gase took time off from recording after their 2015 projects as they re-evaluated their approach. Dyer and Sanchez developed a strong interest in electronic music, and they created a device called the Arx that would allow them to trigger percussion samples, manipulate vocals, and change effects on their instruments with ease. At the same time, the buke and the gass became less prominent in their arrangements as they explored the possibilities of electronic instruments. 2019's Scholars was the first project from this new incarnation of Buke and Gase; initially, Scholars was going to be a new name for the duo reflecting their change in direction, but they chose to keep the original moniker and use Scholars as an album title. Their next LP, 2021's A Record of, was recorded in a 300-year-old house in Hudson, New York, in conjunction with experimental percussion ensemble So Percussion.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/buke-and-gase-mn0002019109#biography

Aorta - S/T (Full Album)

 Aorta - S/T (Full Album) - Part 1

 

 Aorta - S/T (Full Album) - Part 2

 

This is one is definitely conspicuous in its unusually dark, proto-prog atmosphere. Effectively Psych Pop but with very little of the twee ‘let’s all drink tea in our flower crowns’ vibes. Instead, this brings a certain intensity that gives it a really distinctive feeling. The fuzz guitar is sick and the organ is funereal. The drums go hard and the poppy melodies are delivered with a certain visceral urgency that elevates them significantly. The sound effects are slightly unsettling and even the brighter folk and symphonic elements come across in brief passages amongst the aforementioned maelstrom.

Produced by Bill Traut and Jon Donlinger, 1969's "Aorta" showcased one of the better slices of psychedelic music released by a major label. Aorta was blessed with a deep creative bench with three of the four members contributing to songwriting chores. Musically the album appeared to be a concept piece with the individual songs strung together by a series of four 'Main Vein' segments. If it was a concept piece, I'll admit the plotline was lost to my ears. Featuring largely original material, the collection offered up a nice mélange of pop and harder rock numbers slathered in acid-tinged production. On the pop end were The Buckinghams-styled 'Magic Bed', 'A Thousand Thoughts' and 'Ode to Missy Mxyzosptik' (ignore the title). Harder edged, more experimental efforts were exemplified by the psych-flavored 'What's in My Mind's Eye' and 'Catalyptic.' Even better were tunes like 'Heart Attack' and 'Thoughts and Feelings' where the band mashed up commercial and psych influences. The track listing also included a rerecorded version of the earlier "B" side 'Strange'.  Sure, it wasn't a major creative statement or something that would drastically change your life, but full of Jim Donlinger's impressive fuzz guitar, interesting melodies and weird studio effects it made for a solid player. I found every track worth hearing.   
The band toured in support of the album, opening for a wide range of headliners including Janis Joplin and Led Zeppelin. Commercially the album proved a minor chart success peaking at # 167. Columbia was impressed and offered the band a showcase performance at New York's Fillmore East. Intended to introduce the band to music industry leaders, the performance was reportedly a disaster. It turned out the band had taken LSD prior to the concert. 

From: https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/aorta/aorta/

 

The Crab Apples - Inside Crap - Live 2021

The Crab Apples is an indie pop-rock band formed by three friends from a town near Barcelona (Spain) who started writing and recording their songs when they were still in high school and have never stopped for over a decade.
Being independent and self-managing the band, Carla Gimeno (voice), Laia Alsina (electric guitar), and Laia Martí (bass) have released three albums and several EPs through which they have freely experimented with different sounds. They have gone through grunge, electronics, and rock until they reached a unique sound that blends light and dark elements, sometimes sensual and always elegant, with pop at its core.
With an overwhelming live performance and a chemistry that transcends the stage, they have toured Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, and Austria, have opened for great bands such as Warpaint, The Beach Boys, Nada Surf or Lola Marsh, and have performed at festivals such as The Great Escape, Reeperbahn Festival, Primavera Sound, Waves Vienna, Focus Wales, Vida or Sonorama Ribera.
The Crab Apples, with their wealth of experience, have become one of the most captivating bands in the Spanish music industry. In 2023 they were selected as one of the three Spanish projects by Keychange, a UK-based platform that advocates for equity in the music industry by providing tools and spaces to underrepresented female and gender-expansive artists.
In September, the band released their latest single "Sin Ti" - a track that showcases their four-piece indie pop-rock sound and marks the beginning of a new era for the band: Un Volantazo, their upcoming EP that will be released early in May. With minimal instrumentation - just their voice, guitar, bass, and drums - the band displays in this new EP an impressive sense of unity, power, and connection. The solid sound they've achieved is a statement to their confidence and ability to showcase their personality and strength without relying on unnecessary embellishments.  From: https://www.gigmit.com/the-crab-apples5

Queen - Sheer Heart Attack - Side 1

In November of 1974, Queen released their 3rd album Sheer Heart Attack to the masses, a watershed moment for them, as they climbed out from any definition already affixed upon their music. Having dug deep into a hard rock power sound for their Queen I album, and showing their progressive styles with Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack was indeed an attack on a multitude of styles, sounds and attitudes (including humor) that would eventually become Queen’s legacy. At the time of its release, SHA was arguably rock & roll’s most eclectic collection of songs since the Beatles’ White Album, just 7 years before.
The story of the album starts a few months before its release in May of 1974, as Queen was backing Mott The Hoople in their historic 6-night residency in New York’s Uris Theater (boasting to be the first R&R band to play Broadway). On closing night, guitarist Brian May fell to a spell of hepatitis, pulling the band out of the rest of the Mott tour, and compelling May to fly home to England for rehab.
“I felt bad at having let the group down at such an important (historic) place.” May recalled in 1974, “But there was nothing to do about it. It was hepatitis, which you get sometimes when you’re emotionally run-down.” But Brian May was not going to let his bed rest stop him, he used his convalescing time to write, coming up with a few songs that would end up on SHA including the huge “Now I’m Here.” “It (the song) came out quite easily,” May reflected, “Where I’d been wrestling with it before without getting anywhere.”
That writing liberation was a common theme for the other writers in the band, for after they reconvened with May in the studio 6 weeks later, they all felt a sense of freedom not having the touring road to contend with.  Even John Deacon contributed with his first written song. Now the band enjoyed four writers, along with May, Freddie Mercury, and drummer Roger Taylor.
The 70s were a time when FM radio used to offer a feature known as “Perfect Album Sides” for their listening audience. Sheer Heart Attack’s side #1 certainly met that criterion and was often showcased in the day:
“Brighton Rock”- The album opens with Brian May’s guitar-driven rocker. Once Jimmy Page introduced his extended unaccompanied guitar solo in “Heartbreaker” in 1969, many others would follow this trend. May took his turn with a  3-minute run of harmonizing riffs utilizing his newly purchased echoplex device.
“Killer Queen”- The album’s best-known song, Freddie Mercury’s genius for a four-minute track blossomed with the use of a tack piano, campy vocals, and a memorable melody. As a single, “Killer Queen” broke the band in the USA reaching the top 15 on Billboard (#2 on UK charts) and established them as a band of many sounds, including Producer Roy Thomas Baker’s Beatle-ish layered backing vocals that would become a trademark of Queen (and later perfected in 1975 with “Bohemian Rapsody”). No one missed the comparison when British band 10cc mimicked the song’s sound for their biggest hit, “The Things We Do for Love” later in 1976.
Next up on side one was “Tenement Funster”/”Flick of the Wrist”/ “Lily of The Valley “- the album’s three-song suite…that is, Sgt. Pepper-like, these three songs segue into each other without definitive track silence:
“Tenement Funster”– Roger Taylor’s contribution, continuing his teenage angst theme that he began on Queen II (“Loser In the End”), and continued into the next couple of albums (1977’s “Drowse”). With loaded echo and scaling guitar sequences from May, this is Taylor’s most underrated contribution.
“Flick of The Wrist” – Seamlessly segued via the last cord of “Tenement Funster,” Mercury takes over to spit out a torrid array of hate for their business manager at that time (and he continued to conclude this story with “Death On Two Legs” on their next album- A Night at The Opera).
“Lily of The Valley”- Dropping down the volume after Mercury’s isolated vocal (“Baby You’ve Been Had”), this piano-based fantasy ballad (some have taken the lyrics as metaphors for the gay experience), reveals Brian May’s talent for creating beautiful orchestra guitar arrangements, a tone that would be a full-blown feature for their next album (see “Love Of My Life”).
“Now I’m Here”- As mentioned above, the song reflects Brian May’s disconnect between touring and ending up in a West London bedsit for his rehabilitation. With a shout-out to Ian Hunter (“Down in the city, just Hoople and me”) “Now I’m Here” would become one of their show centerpieces for the next 4-5 years.  From: https://www.culturesonar.com/50-years-of-sheer-heart-attack/

Spanxti - Už Kalnelio Ežerėlis

When you are from a Baltic culture which has miraculously survived centuries of onslaught and foreign domination, it is hardly fair that you should have to remind the world of your existence. Yet, this is exactly the frustrating position Lithuanians find themselves in when confronted with topographical illiterates. It is a cruel fate, indeed, that all ancestral efforts to preserve their distinct culture seem to have culminated in the obligation to explain to yet another foreigner that Lithuania is not, in fact, a province of Russia, nor a nebulous African dictatorship for that matter.
There is, fortunately, a lingua franca that may assist in revealing the finer aspects of one’s culture. This universal language is not English, but art. And music, in its turn, is perhaps its most widely understood dialect. It is also a powerful dialect: musicians who tap into their own cultural roots thrive on centuries’ worth of native artistic beauty — beauty which helped his forebears persevere through the most desperate epochs of history. The folk artist is therefore the noblest of bards; it is through them that a culture’s traits and quirks are monumentalised in a time when Lady Europe is forced into a corset of postmodern meaninglessness.
In the case of the Baltics, an example of such noble artists are the members of Spanxti — a band from the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Their album Dievo žirgai, laimės ratai (EN: God’s Horses, Wheels of Happiness) combines the exploration of Baltic music traditions with savvy pacing, music-writing, and production, all of which makes it appealing to even those audiences who are not necessarily charmed by the traditional side of folk music.
Album opener “Leliumai” treads on with foreboding patience as a keyboard provides an ambient undercurrent through which singer Ingula Rinkevičienė first reveals herself. Though she is a competent singer on a technical level, it is the warmth, depth, and all-around pleasant tone of voice that make her vocals stand out. This first track also establishes that, with her voice, Rinkevičienė is able to cover a large emotional spectrum: while the inaugural broodiness of the composition calls for a placid, restrained vocal delivery, other instruments (violins, guitars, percussion) eventually join in and evoke a more extravert, commanding voice.
Throughout the rest of the album, the overall mood keeps evolving seamlessly, and Ingula Rinkevičienė adapts likewise. While the songs have many different themes and correspondingly diverse melodies, not a single song appears out-of-place. This is no light achievement: lamentative songs such as ‘Aš pas savo giminėlę’ and the aforementioned album opener can coexist with the more festive ‘Pas leišius alaus gert’ and ‘Oi ką kalba apynėlis’ only at the grace of the consistent aptitude of the musicians, as well as the depth of the compositions which they perform.
Though the aid of standard acoustic guitars, keyboards, and other non-traditional instruments may hint towards neofolk, Spanxti’s music should rather be viewed as a novel incarnation of traditional folk. The lyrics have been lifted from old ritualistic proclamations, and the music — in spite of its strong modern seasoning — is merely meant to accompany said texts and convey the imperishable spirituality and history contained therein. In this light, band leader Vytautas Rinkevičius‘s declaration that Spanxti represents, ‘a creative approach to Baltic mythology and spiritual culture in general’, makes all the more sense.
Dievo žirgai, laimės ratai succeeds because it offers plenty of diversity without spinning out of control. Even after a dozen listens, faults scarcely reveal themselves: while some compositions (the energetic ‘Už kalnelio ežerėlis’) stand out more than others (the brief a cappella ‘Palaukėj pamiškėj’), it would go too far to state there are glaringly dull moments contained within this forty-seven-minute listening experience. As a result, Spanxti has managed to deliver not only a great album, but also a worthwhile cultural document. Dievo žirgai, laimės ratai imparts the beauty of a tiny nation’s heritage and the Baltic musical tradition at large, and can henceforth be used by Lithuanians worldwide to culturally enrich oblivious foreigners—no matter in which part of the United States they might be encountered.  From: https://heathenharvest.wordpress.com/2016/05/05/spanxti-dievo-zirgai-laimes-ratai/ 

The Young Rascals - A Girl Like You

The Rascals were widely regarded as the finest blue-eyed soul group of the 1960s, a statement that's accurate without fully defining their importance or the breadth of their abilities. At their best, the Rascals fused the soulful passion of R&B, the tough, swaggering sound of garage rock, the chops of a top-notch show band, and a sense of musical adventure that borrowed from pop, jazz, funk, gospel, and world music. Beginning as the Young Rascals, they were a band of brash upstarts from the East Coast who on their debut album merged rock and soul with a skill and feel that was revolutionary, and with 1967's Groovin', they expanded their range to embrace psychedelia and arty pop. As the '60s gave way to the '70s and keyboard player Felix Cavaliere's leadership of the group became stronger, they advanced from ambitious, genre-spanning sets like 1969's Freedom Suite to the jazzy explorations of 1971's Peaceful World and the funk accents of 1972's The Island of Real. Throughout it all, their music was street smart, impassioned, and brilliantly crafted, the work of artists who desire to entertain was as strong as their creative wanderlust, and it was documented in an epic scale box set, 2024's It's Wonderful: The Complete Atlantic Studio Recordings.
Keyboard player and singer Felix Cavaliere had been trained in classical piano when he developed a passion for rock and R&B sounds, joining a doo wop group while he was a student at Syracuse University. In 1964, Cavaliere landed a gig playing with Joey Dee and the Starliters, who were still reaping the rewards of the 1961 hit "Peppermint Twist." One of Cavaliere's bandmates in the Starliters was David Brigati, who introduced Felix to his younger brother, an energetic young singer named Eddie Brigati. In 1965, Canadian-born guitarist Gene Cornish joined the Starliters, and soon he and Cavaliere were comparing notes about what sort of music they wanted to play. Before long, Cavaliere decided to strike out on his own and form a new group; he persuaded Cornish to join him, and recruited a longtime friend, jazz musician Dino Danelli, to play drums. With the addition of Eddie Brigati on vocals, the new group's lineup was in place; they initially called themselves Them, but when they discovered there was already an act using the name (the Irish blues and rock band led by Van Morrison), they adopted a new moniker, the Rascals. The band began rehearsing intensively, while playing engagements at clubs like the Choo Choo in Garfield, New York and the Barge in Westhampton, New York. They honed their sound, rooted in R&B and East Coast rock, and they landed a gig backing TV star Soupy Sales at live engagements, mostly on college campuses.
The Rascals were brought to the attention of Sid Bernstein, a manager and promoter best remembered for bringing the Beatles to New York's Shea Stadium. Bernstein gave the band an important plug when, during the Fab Four's Shea Stadium concert, he put the words "The Rascals are Coming!" on the ballpark's scoreboard during the show. The stunt created enough buzz that the Rascals were signed to Atlantic Records, making them one of the first white bands to appear on the legendary R&B label. After signing with Atlantic, a group called the Harmonica Rascals demanded the new group change their name to avoid any confusion, and Bernstein changed their billing to the Young Rascals, over the objections of the group. Their first single, "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore," was issued in November 1965 and was a modest success, but it was their second, an exciting reworking of "Good Lovin'" arriving in February 1966, that established them as stars, going all the way to number one. Their debut album, 1966's The Young Rascals, was dominated by covers, but the second, 1967's Collections, made room for more group originals, and one of them, "(I've Been) Lonely Too Long," was another chart hit. Six months later, the third Young Rascals album, Groovin', was released, which found the group exploring more mature pop and psychedelic sounds, producing three more singles, the title cut, the accordion-accented "How Can I Be Sure", and "A Girl Like You". It also saw the Young Rascals adding new colors to their arrangements with guest musicians including bassist Chuck Rainey and flutist Hubert Laws. As the group's music became more mature and exploratory, the name the Young Rascals became a thorn in their side, and in April 1968, they issued the single "A Beautiful Morning," an artfully arranged exercise in soulful pop that was their first record credited to the Rascals, which would be their moniker from then on.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-rascals-mn0000493122#biography

Renaissance - At The Harbour

Renaissance, what a name, and what a band. This is another band that travelled the third way I wrote about yesterday in Amazing Blondel’s post. The third way was a path where you didn’t necessarily have to leave your musical chops or imagination at the door. This group, especially with 1973’s release Ashes Are Burning, said to hell with limitations on what folk should sound like, lets go for broke and harken to a time when folk music could be grand and epic. At the time of its creation they were taking equal influence from the likes of Ralph Vaughan Williams, Debussy, and the likes of Pentangle and Curved Air. Somehow, they found a way to turn their original classical and rock influences into something more decisively perceptive and jaw-droppingly astounding. To me its just surprises me how they even got to that point.
Imagine Fleetwood Mac’s creation story…then knock off Mick Fleetwood and John McVie. Originally created by ex-Yardbirds lead singer Keith Relf and drummer John McCarty, they rounded up a group of like minded musicians who wanted to create music that drew from mostly classical sounds (something unsurprising if you’ve ever heard “Turn Into Earth“) and would wed that complexity with other influences. It wasn’t quite prog but something else. Their first self-titled album in 1969 gave you a semi-literate glimpse of the sound Keith was after. At times symphonic, rocking, funky, jazzy, and eastern-influenced when it clicked like on “Island” or “Wanderer“, which, as sung by Jane Relf (Keith’s sister) provided an initial glimpse of their later female-led incarnation.  Man, there was a sound that hinted at something special. However, when it wasn’t (like on most of the rest of the tracks) boy did it sound dated and half-baked. Somehow, though, this lineup was especially popular in the US and somewhat elsewhere.
Sometime, a bit later, in 1970-71-ish, this original lineup was falling apart. Constant touring severely limited the sense of joy Keith had conceived the band would give him, and McCarty’s fear of flying was forcing him to relinquish his role in the group. From that point on, they would slowly try to save what was left of the ethos of the band by giving up their places in it and much of the control as well. They had by then ceded lyrical duties to a Cornish poet Betty Thatcher who wrote all the music for their 1971 release Illusion onwards and Keith himself effectively quit the band by starting a new hard rock outfit called Armageddon. McCarty, sensing the true end of the band, would rather hand it off to a mate of his Michael Dunford, a guitarist/singer-songwriter than see its original goal lost. Michael was tasked to round up a proper band and continue where they left off. Unfortunately for him, Jane Relf, the last remaining original member up and quit the band as well.
By 1971, with no original member left in the band Michael, with the help of McCarty, set up adverts to start from scratch. Their first goal was to get a new vocalist. During the auditions for their band they were graced by the presence of Annie Haslam a fashion student from Bolton. This student had been trained by Sybil Knight, a noted English opera singer, and had a 5-octave range that dwarfed Jane’s prowess. Now, they had something. Somehow, they rounded up the core with the immensely important John Tout on piano and Jon Camp on bass, which would record 1972’s Prologue, an ever apropos name, even though Michael Dunford absolved himself from group duties to focus on upping his songwriting game.
Prologue provided a small taste of the grandeur which was coming. Splitting duties with Jon Camp, it was their first tentative step moving away from strictly classical and rock motifs, and moving into distinctly Impressionistic and folk music. Now, hardly an electric guitar was heard. Pianos, bass, drums, and acoustic guitars danced around Annie’s growing full-throated vocal flights. The title track gives you a taste of this sound. The main fault of the band was failing to go all in on this new sound. Rather than use actual strings to accompany them, they’d use a mellotron rather than go bigger (something you rarely ask in a band!) for songs that seem like they could do so, like “Sounds of the Sea”. They held back so as not to appear too progressive and decidedly un-Rock. You could tell that there was the sound of a massive heart tugging experience lurking in the album but too much worrying about sounding with the times was still holding them back.
1973’s Ashes Are Burning was that release. Now, with Michael Dunford back in toe, he’d convinced them to get rid of all their electric rock underpinnings and harken back to their name. Rounding up a symphonic orchestra he’d let every member contribute much a classical orchestra would. The acoustic guitar, piano and string orchestra would move the listener to Annie’s charms. That’s what you hear so gloriously in the waterfalls of sound that introduce “Can You Understand“. Driven by John Tout’s simply marvelous piano playing, that owes more to Neo-Romantics than the Slavic, Tchaikovsky-esque playing of Proggers like ELP or the Austrian school by the likes of Tony Banks in Genesis, or Yes’ Wakeman, he’d know the role of such complexity was to maintain a memorable melody. This all starts around the 2:55 minute mark, as John plays the piano strings directly with his hands to accompany Michael. From then on, the album just gets golden.
Simultaneously soft but powerful, the interplay between the band and their string orchestra grows ever more intuitive. Reels, airs, dervishes, crescendos and more all combine with Cornish poetry sung Annie in only the way she could into one epic symphonic folk sound. This isn’t the music of the English country anymore, but the music of its dance halls. Can’t you picture a song like “Let it Grow” with such erudite arrangements forming the soundtrack to an imagined Romantic England, that Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, W.B. Yeats were trying desperately to intone. Where rock and prog bands had members jostle for dominion in a track, with Renaissance you could hear an ensemble unafraid to work as a tandem.
When you get to “Carpet of the Sun” their most pastoral song, you get a quick glimpse of this inviting sound. Naturalist in feeling, its sonic images reminding us of the beauty of our Earth in plain-spoken terms as their grand music conjures up all the glory one can’t simply speak of with any word. Then you get to one of the tracks of the day “At the Harbour” the most Impressionistic track of them all, which opens with John playing excerpts from Debussy’s La Cathédrale Engloutie which then leads off to Michael’s intricate acoustic guitar playing and Annie’s elegiac voice which finishes the track in siren-like fashion. This track starts their ascent to greatness. Grand in its ideals, but deeply humble in sound, it harkens to folk music that could flow like mercury, yet remain deeply moving no matter what shape it took.  From: https://www.fondsound.com/renaissance-at-the-harbour-and-ashes-are-burning-1973/

R.E.M. - Begin The Begin / Superman / Swan Swan H

Though it wasn’t a major commercial hit, R.E.M.’s third album, Fables Of The Reconstruction, ensured that the upwards trajectory the band had been on since their landmark debut, Murmur, continued apace. The band toured Fables… relentlessly in Europe and North America across the latter half of 1985, and, by the dawn of 1986, were on the cusp of breaking through to the mainstream. The songs the Athens, Georgia, quartet had been working up for their eventual follow-up, Lifes Rich Pageant, were significantly more upbeat and less gnomic than the Southern gothic-flavored tracks on Fables…, and the band seemed poised to connect with a much larger audience.
R.E.M. had crossed the Atlantic to work with former Nick Drake and Fairport Convention producer Joe Boyd during the Fables… sessions, but for their fourth album, they opted to stay in the US and enlist the services of Don Gehman, known primarily for his work with John Cougar Mellencamp.
Gehman was renowned for his crisp, efficient production techniques, and he first hooked up with the band for an extensive demo session at John Keane’s Studio in Athens, during March 1986. Later collected as the Athens Demos as part of Lifes Rich Pageant’s 25th-anniversary release in 2011, this session found the band working up early versions of most of the tracks that would appear on the album proper, in addition to future B-sides such as “Rotary Ten” (or “Jazz (Rotary Ten)” as it was known at this stage) and the inaugural version of their 2003 hit “Bad Day.”
R.E.M. decamped to Indiana for the album sessions proper, where they reunited with Gehman at Mellencamp’s studio – Belmont Mall in Bloomington – and completed the new record’s 12 songs across April and May 1986. Gehman encouraged Michael Stipe’s vocal prowess during the sessions and, accordingly, Lifes Rich Pageant is rightly viewed as a watershed for R.E.M.: the record where Stipe significantly gained in confidence as a frontman and began to clearly enunciate his lyrics.
As a lyricist, it was patently obvious that Stipe had also grown immensely, with a number of Lifes Rich Pageant’s key tracks reflecting his burgeoning interest in contemporary politics and ecological issues. Though the apocryphal tale of Galileo Galilei dropping feathers and lead weights off the Leaning Tower Of Pisa, to test the laws of gravity, partly inspired his eventual lyric, the glorious, yearning “Fall On Me” also commented on environmental issues, most specifically acid rain. The brooding “Cuyahoga,” meanwhile, referred to the heavily polluted Cuyahoga River that flows into Lake Erie in Cleveland, Ohio. The lyric “We burned the river down” reputedly referred to several occasions (most specifically in 1969) when the river actually caught fire in the locale.
Stipe, however, wasn’t the only band member to benefit from Gehman’s disciplined approach to recording. The entire line-up was on point throughout the sessions, and from the purposeful opener, “Begin The Begin,” to the joyous closing cover of The Clique’s “Superman,” Lifes Rich Pageant was suffused with a swaggering élan that was almost entirely absent on Fables Of The Reconstruction.
Filler was never an issue with Lifes Rich Pageant, and the record has remained a panacea for the ears to this day. Surging, idealistic anthems such as “I Believe” and “These Days” (“We are concern/We are hope despite the times”) have retained both energy and urgency, while the homespun folk of “Swan Swan H”and the curious, rhumba-like “Underneath The Bunker” – with its distorted vocals and nuclear war-related lyric – remind us that, even at their most direct and accessible, R.E.M. always exuded a tantalizing air of mystique.  From: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/behind-the-albums/r-e-m-lifes-rich-pageant/