Yaelokre - Kamahalan

Yaelokre understands that sounds alone can evoke fantasy worlds. Arguably the most exciting artist to come out of the Philippines as of late, Keath Osk’s musical storytelling project has rejected the overtly autobiographical tendencies of many songwriters, while still managing to be deeply personal through and through.
If their first EP, ‘Hayfields,’ was an introduction to the world of Meadowlark, ‘Origins’ acts as an expansion of their worldbuilding. The first track “My farewells to the fields” starts with isolated strums of their guitalele, you are instantly taken somewhere else, to a scene in a land of fantasy, to a storyteller gathering listeners around in a circle, sharing a tale in hushed whispers that eventually turn into cries of triumph, a tale of leaving an old home and finding sanctuary in a found family. The track’s thematic richness manages to cut through to even the most casual listener.
“Bird cage blue and yellow” is a track that exudes character, both that of the in-universe storyteller and that of Osk’s. “I can be different, I can’t be puppeted!” they both proclaim in a dramatic declaration of independence and self-determination in the face of the overwhelming pressure to conform. The artist’s heritage is on full display here as Osk softly sings in Icelandic and repeats lines in Filipino, a combination that wonderfully contrasts with each other while still being in harmony.
While “To douse a scalded tongue” seems to promise to be a more mellow track compared to the previous two, that assumption is quickly proven wrong with an abrupt lofi vocal more akin to a condemnation than a song. It’s a call to action, inviting the listener to get up and refuse to stay silent. From here, it’s clear that Osk intends to keep the intensity up throughout the EP, never giving the listener a break from their theatrics and dramatic flair. 
The EP closes with “Kamahalan,” unique in all of the Yaelokre discography by being fully in Filipino. It is every bit as intense as all the other songs in the tracklist, but it achieves this through pounding percussion and a bassline that adds a subtle yet significant groove. While there is no lull in energy, it still manages to be a satisfying ending, and before you know it, the scene of masked storytellers in your head fades away as you’re taken back to reality.
‘Origins’ is a reinforcement of what the Yaelokre project stands for, which is fitting for an EP that explains the backstories of the four main characters. It is a desperate plea to you, the listener, to listen to your inner child, to unapologetically be your authentic self, no matter how much you are pressured not to. It’s just up to you if you have the courage to heed that call, a call made clearer in one of Yaelokre’s most compelling set of stories yet.  From: https://theflyinglugaw.com/ep-review-yaelokre-origins/

Strawbs - The Shepherd's Song

"From the Witchwood" marked the start of the Strawbs’ transition in earnest from a primarily acoustic folk based band, to a prog rock oriented band with strong folk influences. The album represents Rick Wakeman's last venture with the Strawbs, before he was headhunted by Yes. In retrospect, his keyboard skills whilst apparent, were somewhat suppressed in the Strawbs, with only brief displays of his virtuosity such as those on "Sheep" and "Glimpse of heaven". It was perhaps inevitable that when the opportunity arose, he would move on to a band where he would be afforded more room to exercise his skills. Rick Wakeman and Dave Cousins have however remained firm friends, collaborating more recently on the Strawbs flavoured "Hummingbird" album. 
Wakeman does manage to add some wonderfully dramatic effects to "From the Witchwood", particularly with the menacing organ on "The hangman and the papist". The song is an incredibly powerful story of a hangman finding his next victim is to be his brother, who is to be punished for his religious beliefs. You can almost touch the raw emotion as Dave Cousins sings "forgive me God we hang him in thy name".
The opening track, "A Glimpse of heaven" has a hymnal quality to it, with church like organ and choir like vocals on the choruses. The brief keyboard solo has some effective phasing, something of a forgotten art these days. The band's folk influences come to the fore on tracks such as "Witchwood", and "In amongst the roses", while "Cannondale" and "The shepherd's song" have a deeper, more haunting structure. "Sheep" is an out and out rocker, with a great if brief organ solo by Wakeman, leading into a reflective ending. Surely one of the only songs ever written about an abattoir?  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=2912 

Rabbit Rabbit Radio - Tiny Invasion

Rabbit Rabbit Radio is a song spinning duo whose music draws on their love of art song, folk song, industrial music, improvised music and heart-wrenching balladry. Carla is a lapsed classical violinist who wandered away from that path decades ago and never looked back. Matthias is a drummer/multi-instrumentalist with a lifelong commitment to absurdism and a good groove. If you listen closely, you'll hear traces of their other musical associations – Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Tin Hat, Skeleton Key, 2 Foot Yard, Minamo, The Book of Knots, Fred Frith's Cosa Brava – but Rabbit Rabbit Radio dares to peel back influence and to reveal a music that is stripped down and intimate. Their songs are raw and beautiful, sparse and rich, lighthearted and full of pathos - bringing to life the small stories of unsung heroes... and almost always telling the truth.  From: https://www.thirdangle.org/rabbit-rabbit-radio

Planxty - The Pursuit Of Farmer Michael Hayes

John Lyons sang Farmer Michael Hayes in 1974 on his Topic album The May Morning Dew. A.L. Lloyd and Sandra Kerr commented in the sleeve notes:

The period 1850-70 was one of great unrest among Irish tenant farmers. Laws passed enabling landlords speedily to evict any tenants who fell behind with rents. Dispossession was often violent, leading to reprisals in the form of terroristic attacks on landlords and agents. In places, agrarian crime took on the aspect of guerrilla warfare. Against this background, the song of Michael Hayes was made. After being evicted from his farm, the enraged Hayes murdered the landlord’s agent Badel at Thurles, Co. Tipperary, and went on the run. Despite close pursuit, involving telegraph messages and mounting offers of reward, he managed to get to America, thumbing his nose to all his enemies.

Planxty sang The Pursuit of Farmer Michael Hayes on their 1979 album After the Break. Several Planxty live recordings from between 1979 and 1982 were released in 2016 on their DVD Between the Jigs and the Reels and in 2018 on their CD One Night in Bremen. They commented in their original album’s notes:

The Pursuit of Farmer Michael Hayes was learned from several sources: Christy heard versions of it sung by John Lyons, Tom Lenihan, and an unknown singer on Donnacha O Dulaing’s radio programme “Highways and Byways”. He received written versions from Mike Flynn and Seamus Mac Mathuna and there’s another in Zimmerman’s Songs of Irish Rebellion (Figgis, Dublin). The air is that of a song that Andy Irvine used to sing in early Planxty days. The words of that song were not to our taste but we were glad that the air fitted Michael Hayes so well.

From: https://mainlynorfolk.info/folk/songs/thepursuitoffarmermichaelhayes.html 

Paula Cole - Saturn Girl

It would be easy to describe Paula Cole as ‘just another 90s singer-songwriter’. Every biography mentions her association with the Lilith Fair festivals, that zeitgeist of 90s new wave feminism that faded as quickly as it came (attempts to re-create the Lilith Fair hype only a few years ago fell embarrassingly limp). And of course, we can’t forget that this is the woman whose voice opened up every episode of the 90s cultural phenomenon (might be a bit strong a word, but it was certainly popular) that was Dawson’s Creek. While her ambitious creativity was rarely met with commercial success (Where Have All the Cowboys Gone and I Don’t Want to Wait remain her sole Top 10 singles in the States), Cole is an artist in the truest sense. Over the course of her 20 years in the music industry Cole has followed her muse before all else. Where  her contemporaries have often chosen to play it safe (Sarah McLachlan, Sheryl Crow) rather than tip the applecart, Cole has  proven herself a true successor to the likes of Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon, and Kate Bush in her willingness to eschew convention for creative growth.
Growing up in the small town of Rockport, Massachusetts, Paula Cole was the youngest daughter of a elementary school teacher and a scientist. Cole’s family were musical, her father playing in a polka band and family sing alongs encouraged. After surviving the angst of adolescence and high school, Cole followed her musical dreams to the Berklee College of Music studying jazz singing and improvisation. However, studying the works of great composers like Gershwin was paralleled by Cole’s own burgeoning songwriting. Cole found herself at a crossroads: a record contract with a jazz label or pursue her own craft and musical vision. Cole took the plunge, and in 1993 signed with Imago records to begin recording her debut album. While Cole wanted to produce her own album from the get-go, the record label felt it better for her to work alongside someone more ‘experienced’ and the reigns were handed to Kevin Killen. Killen had had a hand in many a great record (and continues to), and was a good fit for the restless and introspective Cole. ‘Harbinger’ was truly a departure from Cole’s jazz studies although remnants of her training would emerge briefly in song structures. Like it’s stark album cover depicting a huddled Cole in a too-big trench coat (this is the better known cover anyway – there were two), ‘Harbinger’ is an album of shadow, introspection, and emotional catharsis.  From: https://matsmusicblog.wordpress.com/tag/paula-cole/ 

Antimatter - Paranoid Carbon

Antimatter was formed by ex-Anathema bass player and song writer, Duncan Patterson, and Mick Moss, a musician who had up to that time, played with several unsigned bands. As a pair, Patterson and Moss released three albums together: Saviour, Lights Out and Planetary Confinement. Shortly after the completion and release of the third effort, Planetary Confinement, Duncan Patterson left the pair to form his own group, Íon. Continuing without his former partner, Mick Moss kept the project alive, releasing its fourth and most recent album, Leaving Eden, with current Anathema guitarist Danny Cavanagh.
The first two albums released by this collaboration were made with a musical focus on melodic, layered vocal lines and an often borderline techno melancholic rock sound, with ambient post-rock overtones. This was often achieved by using techniques such as layering the vocals of female guest musicians to create an eerie effect and ambience. Acoustic guitar riffs and rhythmic sections also helped to give this duo their unique sound. After the departure of Duncan Patterson from the project, the sound rapidly changed and evolved, now developing a more metallic based sound brought on by Danny's input. The early atmospheric sounds are now mostly gone, replaced with a more guitar oriented rock sound, which has earned the band a favor amongst prog metal lovers the world over. Antimatter is easily recommendable to fans of post-metal, post-rock and prog metal, their two most recent albums containing a sound akin to Anathema, Porcupine Tree, Katatonia and many other rock groups with atmospheric overtones.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=5156 

Gone Cosmic - For Sabotage

One of the cruelest fates to befall any given record that comes across my desk at Angry Metal Guy Judgment Emporium is to be totally forgotten. It happens, more often than I’d like. Gone Cosmic’s last record, Sideways in Time, succumbed to such a fate. It was a good record, with tons of groove and fronted by a passionate, powerful vocalist. But it was only because I caught the Canadian quartet’s upcoming sophomore full-length, Send for a Warning, the Future’s Calling, in the promo bin three years later that I remembered that Gone Cosmic existed. Which raises the question: what will they do to ensure I remember them better this time?
If nothing else has changed, I can say that Gone Cosmic grows ever more confident as a unit. Vocalist Abbie Thurgood in particular is even more the versatile performer that she was on Sideways. Musically, their Pink Floyd psychedelia is still fueled by the vim and vigor of Dead Sara and similar acts, which is a winning combo any way you slice it. Groove and energetic riffcraft, especially in the hands of bassist Brett Whittingham, blends wonderfully with blissful swaths of chilled-out, spacefaring drifts, and the balance struck in that duality defines the band’s signature sound. The production quality takes a hit on album two—it received an extra dose of compression, one that I feel was entirely unwarranted as it robs the album of the same breathing room that delighted me last time—but Gone Cosmic’s increased emphasis on softer textures and effortless transitions generally makes up the gap in dynamics.  From: https://www.angrymetalguy.com/gone-cosmic-send-for-a-warning-the-futures-calling-review/

Grant Lee Buffalo - Truly, Truly

With the departure of bassist Paul Kimble, Grant Lee Buffalo became the sole province of singer/songwriter Grant Lee Phillips; he may still be supported by drummer Joey Peters, but now, more than ever, he is the main focal point. With Kimble left, some of the band's appealingly messy ambition has been reigned in, resulting in a brighter, sharper sound. And that means Jubilee, the group's fourth record, doesn't quite hit the heights of Fuzzy and Mighty Joe Moon, but it's arguably their most consistent effort yet, simply because it puts Phillips' songwriting on full display. He still has eclecticism in his blood -- there's everything from lumbering hard rock to sweet country tunes on the album -- but his skills have grown; he now has the ability to make it all sound like it was coming from the same source, instead of different planets. Consequently, Jubilee does sound joyous -- Grant Lee Buffalo fills the record with more genuine ambition and accomplishment than many of their peers have managed.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/jubilee-mw0000036770#review 

Jefferson Airplane - Triad

"Triad" is a song written by American singer-songwriter David Crosby in 1967 about a ménage à trois. It was recorded by the Byrds that year, while Crosby was a member of the band, but their version went unreleased at the time and was not issued until twenty years later. Jefferson Airplane released a version of the song in 1968 on their Crown of Creation album and a live version performed by Crosby was included on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's 4 Way Street in 1971.
"Triad" was written while Crosby was a member of the rock band the Byrds, who were at that time recording their fifth studio album, The Notorious Byrd Brothers. The song's lyrics concern a ménage à trois and were largely inspired by the sexual freedom that Crosby enjoyed at his home in Beverly Glen in Los Angeles. Byrds biographer Johnny Rogan has described the song's subject matter as being perfectly in keeping with the "free love" hippie philosophies of the day. The song also alludes to author Robert A. Heinlein's science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land, with references to "sister lovers" and "water brothers". 
Although the Byrds did record "Triad" and performed it live during a September 1967 engagement at the Whisky a Go Go, it was not included on The Notorious Byrd Brothers album. According to Crosby, bandmates Roger McGuinn and Chris Hillman felt that its subject matter was too controversial, with McGuinn allegedly deriding the song as a "freak-out orgy tune". However, this has since been denied by Hillman, who has stated, "I don't think it was a moral decision. The song just didn't work that well. David was drifting and bored and wanted to do something else, and that song just added fuel to the fire." There had been growing animosity between Crosby and the rest of the band throughout 1967, which, coupled with the discord over "Triad", contributed to McGuinn and Hillman's decision to fire him from the band in October of that year.
Following his departure from the Byrds, Crosby gave the song to the band Jefferson Airplane, who included a recording of it on their 1968 album, Crown of Creation.This version also appears on Jefferson Airplane singer Grace Slick's compilation album The Best of Grace Slick. A live recording of "Triad" performed by Crosby himself was later included on Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young's 1971 album, 4 Way Street. The Byrds recording of the song remained unreleased for twenty years until the 1987 archival album Never Before was issued.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triad_(David_Crosby_song)

Agam - Brahma's Dance

Software engineers by day and musicians by evening or at least over the weekend – such is the story of Agam. Formed in 2006, following a few compositions (which were mere experiments then) by a bunch of friends in an apartment studio, Agam has become a powerful force with their brand of music since then. This Bangalore-based ensemble features Harish on vocals, Praveen on lead guitars, Swamy on keyboards, Vignesh on bass guitar, Jagadish on rhythm guitars, Ganesh on drums and Sivakumar on ethnic percussions.
From winning a musical reality show helmed by maestro A. R. Rahman himself to collaborating with Shreya Ghoshal, the band has had a glorious journey thus far. Though, a performance on the fabled Coke Studio stage has been the talking point for a while now and makes a perfect setting for the release of their debut album. ‘Agam’ literally translates to ‘the inner self’ and hence the album gets the name ‘The Inner Self Awakens’. Each song in the album pivots around a central Raga and is embellished by the elements of progressive rock, which brings into perspective a completely unheard of and unexplored genre – ‘Carnatic Progressive rock’. With the songs quite often delving into religious themes, the cover art of the album has been aptly chosen to depict the Keralite festival of Theyyam.
‘Bramha’s Dance’ starts off with a vedic chant accompanied by war-field percussions and roaring bass-lines that provide a worthy build up to this terrific album – almost as if calling out to awaken the enormous beast from its Carnatic foregrounds. Harish’s violin is subtle but adds the most mellifluous of touches to the song. The appropriate use of cymbals, the ghatam and Praveen’s electric guitar are in complete sync with the vocals as the song goes through a plethora of moods and tempos.  From: https://whatsthescene.com/album/the-inner-self-awakens-by-agam-2/

Christine Perfect - I'd Rather Go Blind

"I'd Rather Go Blind" is a blues song written by Ellington Jordan with co-writing credits to Billy Foster and Etta James. It was first recorded by Etta James in 1967, released the same year, and has subsequently become regarded as a blues and soul classic. Etta James wrote in her autobiography Rage To Survive that she heard the song outlined by her friend Ellington "Fugi" Jordan when she visited him in prison. She then wrote the rest of the song with Jordan, but for tax reasons gave her songwriting credit to her partner at the time, Billy Foster, singer with doo-wop group The Medallions. Etta James recorded the song at the Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. It was included on the album Tell Mama and as the B-side of the single of the same name.
It has since been recorded by a wide variety of artists, including the blind-from-birth Clarence Carter, on his 1969 album The Dynamic Clarence Carter. The song reached number 14 on the UK Singles Chart in 1969 in a version by the British blues band Chicken Shack, featuring Christine Perfect, later to become Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac. After she left Chicken Shack, but before she joined Fleetwood Mac, Christine Perfect released her debut solo album, Christine Perfect. Being that she was on the same label as Chicken Shack, the Blue Horizon label included the same Chicken Shack recording of "I'd Rather Go Blind" on Christine Perfect's album since the song had only been released as a single for Chicken Shack and had not been included on any Chicken Shack LPs.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27d_Rather_Go_Blind 

Puscifer - V Is For Versatile

 Puscifer - V Is For Versatile - Part 1

 

 Puscifer - V Is For Versatile - Part 2

 

During the pandemic, the Pusciforce was not diminished. Instead of sitting around afraid, eating lousy food and watching terrible television, the great Puscifer crew took this moment to find new outlets to express their creativity and share their incredible talent with the world. Lead singer-lyricist Maynard “MJ” Keenan (also well-known from Tool and A Perfect Circle) shows off his hysterical acting abilities in two masterfully recorded and edited concerts that streamed live over Halloween weekend, V is for Versatile and Parole Violator. He has surrounded himself with a group of extremely talented musicians who understand and mesh with his eccentricities, and each brings their own individual flair to the project.
V is for Versatile contains music from the “V” is for Vagina era (yes, I said it) and, ohhh, does it slay. Maynard, playing the wild character Agent Dick Merkin, kicks off this live performance by reminding us that celebrities are the aliens that live among us. The rendition of “Mama Sed” is so heavenly it will put you in a seated position. Maynard digs deep into his lower register from which his vocals reach new heights. Puscifer vocalist Carina Round straight-out sounds like an angel from above. During “Trekka” she plays a slightly out-of -tune guitar that seems to blend perfectly with the different “Art Of Noise”-like tribute sounds. The remaining Puscifer player, Mat Mitchell, is a synth God who also plays a clean Telecaster and key-tar, creating such undefinable music styles on his vintage equipment. The leaps between live songs and studio sessions, and the variety of characters Maynard plays keeps things interesting and entertaining from start to finish.  From: https://brutalplanetmag.com/puscifer-v-is-for-versatile-and-parole-violator-brutal-planet-review/

 

  

 

The Spencer Davis Group - Gimme Some Lovin'

They say the greatest songs almost write themselves. Roy Orbison claimed Oh, Pretty Woman took him half an hour. Tony Iommi came up with the riff to Paranoid while the rest of Black Sabbath were at lunch. Keith Richards supposedly dreamt (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction in a Florida hotel room. The Spencer Davis Group’s classic Gimme Some Lovin’, covered by everyone from The Blues Brothers to The Grateful Dead and Thunder, came together in less than an hour. 
“The classic ‘wrote it on the back of a fag packet’ story was often true,” recalls Muff Winwood, then the band’s bassist. “Sometimes there’s that little bit of magic that you can’t put your finger on, but it happens and it just works. Gimme Some Lovin’ came really fast.” 
“We’d been rehearsing at the Marquee,” Muff laughs, “and he came down at midday but we weren’t there. We were down the road in a café in Wardour Street, and Chris found us in there. He went berserk: ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing with your careers? You’ve got work to do and you’re lazing around here!’ So we said: ‘Just wait until we’re finished, then come back and listen to what we’ve done.’ We’d done Gimme Some Lovin’ in ten minutes and couldn’t believe how good it was. So we’d packed up and gone for lunch. Of course, when Chris came back and heard it his jaw just dropped. It just sounded like an instant hit.”  From: https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-story-behind-gimme-some-lovin-by-the-spencer-davis-group

Marlene Ribeiro – Toquei No Sol

The name Marlene Ribeiro may not mean anything to you, just like it didn’t to me until I took on this review, and started researching a little deeper, but if you do have an awareness of the band Gnod, then you will already be aware of Marlene’s work, even if you can’t place the name. As one of the long-term members of Gnod, Marlene took the decision a couple of years back to step away, and focus on her own musical journey, embracing sounds and feeling that I imagine weren’t a hundred percent compatible with the band.
Obviously, after a trying few years, the fruits of the labours have come together and formulated an album, truly full of wonder and beauty indeed. Born and raised in Portugal, Marlene came to the United Kingdom as a teen and has resided in several different places, before falling into Wales to call home. In that time allegiances were formed, bands created, and throughout the course of an impressive number of years, those skills have been homed into what we see before us today.
And it’s that culmination that I will be looking at, a wonderfully deep, poignant, and warm album, filled with moments of pure joy, heart-melting ambience, and charm, that will leave you feeling like your very soul has been embraced. Toquei No Sol, which translates from Portuguese as ‘I touched the sun’, couldn’t be more aptly titled, because that is literally how it will make you feel throughout the whole experience. It is a six-track masterwork of depth, restraint, and carefully considered moments, guaranteed to leave you absolutely humbled in its wake.  From: https://www.thesleepingshaman.com/reviews/m/marlene-ribeiro-toquei-no-sol/

 

The Fast Camels - Tales Of The Expected

If Glasgow's Fast Camels were a beverage, they'd be a cup of coffee laced with hallucinogens. Alternatively — at times, concurrently — ethereal and driving, their sound can hit you between the eyes and induce headbanging or take those same eyes, lift them towards the lights, and set the brain behind them whirling with swirling, psychedelic mélanges of vocals and instrumentation. In this well-produced debut, one can hear the compositional influence of early Pink Floyd, sweet Byrds-esque harmonies, elements of thematic vastness and darkness reminiscent of The Cure, and the crisp undertow of 60s surf-rock. Yet these are all like well-cited references; The Fast Camels have an original sound all of their own. The album's single, 'Like A Magic Optician' shows what the band can do in the studio. But 'The Hump', with its menacing vocals, tribal drums, incisory riffs and eye-of-the-storm chorus, is where they perhaps shine the most. Then again, the achievement of this cut is no mean feat considering the strength already proven elsewhere on the LP.  From: https://www.theskinny.co.uk/music/reviews/albums/the-fast-camels-the-magic-optician 

Maria McKee - I'm Gonna Soothe You

Maria McKee’s You Gotta Sin to Get Saved opens with "I'm Gonna Soothe You," a disarming seduction of a friend's man. She's not just after the "decent man" mentioned in that song. She's after you. And she'll get you, at least for a while.
If the listener's infatuation with ex-Lone Justice McKee holds up for 35 more minutes, You Gotta Sin to Get Saved is a winding, sun-dappled country road with alternative signposts. McKee's voice keeps your attention, even when it is more faltering than spellbinding. Look to the band, and you'll find a fine collection of session men and young bucks: drummer Jim Keltner, keyboardist Benmont Tench, bassist Marvin Etzioni, guitarists Gary Louris and Mark Olson from the Jayhawks, and even producer Don Was on bass for one track. Two guys from the Posies stop by for background vocals on "Only Once."
The band perfectly executes this Sixties-type blend of Joe Cocker soul, traditional country and Southern gospel, with Louris' distinctive, personal guitar work leaving the most legible fingerprints.  From: http://www.louisvillemusicnews.net/webmanager/index.php?WEB_CAT_ID=50&storyid=12787&headline=Maria_McKee_-_You_Gotta_Sin_To_Be__Saved&issueid=54 

 

 

Squeeze - Hourglass

Squeeze is a wildly popular band in the UK, but much like the English Pop bands Oasis and Blur, they had far less success in the United States. "Hourglass" was Squeeze's biggest American hit, and along with "853-5937," one of only 2 to crack the Top-40. Unlike Squeeze UK hits like "Cool For Cats" and "Up The Junction," there is nothing distinctly British about the lyrics, which may explain the song's US appeal.
The songwriters in Squeeze are their guitarists Chris Difford and Glenn Tilbrook. Says Difford: "We were touring quite a lot in those days. You know, it wasn't anything other than, Okay, I've got to write a bunch of songs, and I don't know seriously where they came from. But they just arrived.
This was the first time we wrote together in the same room, which was Glenn's idea. I'd always thought of writing as a bit like masturbation: something you do on your own, not in the same room as another bloke. However, I went to Glenn's house and within an hour we'd written 'Hourglass.' Lyrically it doesn't mean much but we had some fun writing it."
The song is known for the distinctive rapid delivery in the chorus ("Take it to the bridge, throw it overboard, see if it can swim..."). According to Tilbrook, he created some intentional chaos on this song: "On 'Hourglass,' I got a thumping drum machine. So I thought it would be fun to feed a lot of chords into the drum machine and play it without the knowledge of what they were. The freedom of the knowledge of what they may do is actually very liberating. I think writing is always about tricking yourself into doing something different, and that's just one way you can trick yourself."
An elaborate video was made for this song using various optical illusions and unexpected images. The video was directed by Adrian Edmondson, with contributions from Squeeze keyboard player Jools Holland. It was inspired by surreal art like the paintings of Salvador Dali. It got significant airplay on MTV and won a Video Music Award for Best Special Effects.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/squeeze/hourglass 

Luscious Jackson - Ladyfingers

The genesis of the band Luscious Jackson actually took place a decade ago when Lower Manhattan streetkids Gabby Glazer, Jill Cunniff and Kate Schellenbach were sneaking out to clubs and absorbing the eclectic music of the early 1980s. Fellow street urchins were future members of the Beastie Boys, for whom Kate played drums before joining up with Gabby, Jill and European-bred Vivian Trimble on two live cuts of Luscious Jackson’s first EP, In Search of Manny, (named for a 17-year-old boyfriend of Gabby’s mother). This acclaimed first album, mostly demos, recorded in friend and producer Tony Mangurian’s basement, was released by the Beastie Boys’ own label, Grand Royale. The foursome has stayed together, touring as openers for such acts as the Breeders and Urge Overkill, and recording a second album, Natural Ingredients, now on the charts. A dense and spicy melange of influences, including jazz, hip-hop, punk, dance, overheard conversations, and street sounds, Luscious Jackson’s deep grooves and urban, post-feminist, mythical lyrics make their music impossible to categorize. Just back from the Lollapolooza tour and about to embark on promotional tours across America and Europe, they began lunch at Whole Wheat ’N Wild Berry with a discussion of the dreams each had the night before.

Gabby Glazer - I dreamt that my boyfriend was massaging Vivian’s shoulders.

Lynn Geller - How did you feel about that?

GG - I was watching it all from across the street and I didn’t really feel anything. But then I went over and pulled Vivien’s arm out of its socket.

Vivian Trimble - I dreamt that Mick Jagger insisted I come meet him after his performance. A car service comes to take me there and on the way I asked if we could stop because I needed to get some money. And then I kept stopping for money, accumulating more and more on my way to meet Mick Jagger. Finally we stopped one more time and when I came out of the bank, the driver had left. I saw him driving away with someone else in the car.

LG - Fear of success dream, I’d say.

VT - I kept saying, I have to get there and people would say, Where? And I’d say, I don’t know. And then my teeth started falling out.

LG - Vulnerability . . . Shattered . . .

Kate Schellenbach - I dreamt that all my equipment got stolen out of my apartment. From a window that I never knew opened. You know how dreams just change. I’d go out and come back and the sampler’s gone and the drums are gone. I was thinking, did I buy any of this stuff on Visa, can I get reimbursed?

VT - Having that dream about being in a car and not knowing where I was going, not having directions—it’s being out of control, which is something that exists on tour.

Jill Cunniff - I had dreams like that for five nights after we got back from tour: In a vehicle, I couldn’t find the hotel, was pouring rain. These other hotels, Days Inn, Comfort Inn, (laughter) were across the highway and I couldn’t get across the highway.

LG - Maybe since you all dreamt about touring, we should talk about Lollapolooza. (collective groans) Was it fun touring with other bands?

KS - Yeah, we made friends with the people from Flaming Lips and hung out with the Beastie Boys, who we already knew.

VT - Socially it was great even though we were rushing around. Everyone would share lunch and dinner hours. And there were these Tibetan monks. There was an opening prayer every day and they’d do a chant for it, and then do a closing chant and prayer—to try to help further the Tibetan cause. At first I was really worried about the monks and how they were going to deal with all these crowds circulating. What could be more alienating to them? But they dealt with it really well. There was a basketball hoop and the monks took over and became really good players.

From: https://bombmagazine.org/articles/1995/01/01/luscious-jackson/

Karma - Atlante

After nearly three decades, the Milanese rock band Karma has finally released their highly anticipated third album, "K3," via Vrec Music Label/Audioglobe. Recorded in the United States and Italy and mixed at Mauro Pagani's Officine Meccaniche, the album will be preceded by several singles. The Karma lineup is the original one led by frontman David Moretti on vocals and guitars (as well as piano and programming), Andrea Viti on bass (previously in Afterhours and also alongside Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan), Diego Besozzi on drums, Alessandro Pacho Rossi on percussion and Andrea Bacchini on guitars.
"Atlante" is the third single leading up to Karma's highly anticipated new album, "K3." After "Neri relitti" and the more abrasive rock of "Corda di parole," here comes the more mystical and modern Karma of "Atlante," a song over six minutes long that unites the different souls of the Milanese rock band. The band describes the song as follows: "You understand you're a child when you become a father. Atlante describes the inextricable relationship that underlies life itself in its evolutionary journey. The awareness of supporting, but at the same time being supported in a relentless role-playing game." The stunning music video, directed by Barbara Oizmud, perfectly captures the song's spiritual dimension, shot entirely in black and white with a single iPhone 14.  Translated from: https://www.italiarock.it/newsitalia/karma-atlante-e-il-nuovo-singolo-e-videoclip-della-band-milanese-4-8/

Grandma's Ashes - Daddy Issues

Grandma’s Ashes, can we get a bit of background on the band?


Myriam: I first met with Eva on the internet and joined her punk-rock/noise band and we played with different drummers before we eventually decided we wanted to play heavier music. We started over and found Edith online. We jammed, and her math-rock influences took us in a more progressive direction. That’s how we ended up mixing heavy riffs, progressive parts and powerful melodies. We’ve been playing together for three years now.

Are most of your songs a result of jamming, or do you work from structured ideas?


Myriam: One of us will usually come up with with a riff or melody that suits a particular emotion, then we’ll jam it around and end up with different parts that we’ll put together.


Eva: I write a lot of voice melodies when I’m at home, and often come to rehearsal with voice lines and simple bass lines, then Myriam will find something to do with it, bring heavy riffs before Edith comes with her complex rhythmics.

Are there any artists in particular that have inspired you two as players, or someone that encouraged you to pick up your instruments to begin with?


Myriam: My dad plays guitar and taught me the basics of blues with Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy when I was 9. However, it wasn’t until discovered Led Zeppelin at the age of 13 I became obsessed with the guitar. I’d say Jimmy Page, Eddie Van Halen and Matt Bellamy were my early inspirations as a teenager. I later discovered QOTSA and Frank Zappa, which inspired the tones I use with the band and the modal scales I sometimes use when I improvise.


Eva: My father was my first inspiration, he’s a multi-instrumentalist and was playing in different bands within different genres when I was growing up up, jazz, rock, punk and blues. I was surrounded by instruments as a child and he’d teach me. When I was 11, I discovered The Stranglers and was instantly very interested by the incredible J.J Burnel’s heavy, slamming but fat bass sound! I started playing bass right after that. After that I discovered Flea, and Chris Squier from Yes, both with more complicated bass lines. That paired with my growing love for funk, I started to work on my sound because I wanted to achieve a mix between two iconic styles, the incisive and punk one, and the groovy, melodic tone of my prog rock idols.

From: https://orangeamps.com/articles/interview-grandmas-ashes/

The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969

 The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969 - Part 1

 

 The Beatles - Get Back TV Special 1969 - Part 2

 

The story about a Beatles’ live TV show project had been developing since September 1968. On January 2, 1969, The Beatles entered Twickenham Film Studios to rehearse new songs in anticipation of a live recording planned on January 18 (in a yet-to-be-defined location). January 18 was missed, but on January 30, 1969, The Beatles with Billy Preston performed their final live performance on the top of the Apple headquarters, at 3 Savile Row, London.
Throughout January and early February 1969, the musical press mentioned the “Get Back” sessions, the upcoming live performance and an associated TV documentary. But at the end of January, it became clear that the plans for a live performance in front of an audience were called off. Updates on the TV documentary and the “Get Back” LP would surface again in April 1969.
The Beatles had spent January 1969 rehearsing and recording songs for a television special or a documentary film, as well as a new LP. Aside from a mixing session on February 5, no time was spent on the new LP in February. Early March, John Lennon and Paul McCartney invited engineer Glyn Johns to Abbey Road and gave him the tapes from the January sessions. Glyn Johns would spend April and May 1969 mixing the “Get Back” LP. In parallel, film director Michael Lindsay-Hogg started editing the associated film. Various press articles about the new LP were published in April – May 1969, anticipating a summer release for both the LP and the film.

Film of the Beatles working on their forthcoming LP has been edited from 68 hrs into two television specials, which it is hoped will be screened on successive nights this summer to coincide with the release of the album. Final tracks will now be recorded next month.
Out at the same time as the LP will be a paperback transcript, detailing behind-the-scenes incidents, during the making of the film. Extracts from the forthcoming species – in which the Beatles perform their rush-released single “Get Back” – were being featured on BBC-1’s “Top Of The Pops” last night (Thursday).
The Beatles’ paperback book has been edited by two American writers, David Dalton and Jonathan Cott, with a foreword by the group’s publicist Derek Taylor. It is understood to be “a candid insight” into the Beatles and includes notes of arguments which took place during production. From New Musical Express, April 19, 1968

A TV documentary will detail the making of the Beatles’ new record album. The cats on the roof are, of course, the Beatles. And what they’re up there is a recording session, the entire proceedings of which were, coincidentally, filmed for a television documentary.
The reason for making an album is obvious. The reason for filming the session is to let the world – all over which the Beatles hope to sell the documentary in a few months – know just how the Beatles go about their work. At least part of the world, however, was less than enchanted with the opportunity. Their neighbours (the recording studio just happens to be in London’s elegant Savile Row) dispatched bobbies to quell the noise. Even bobbies couldn’t do that. From the April 19-25, 1969 issue of TV Guide

From: https://www.the-paulmccartney-project.com/1969/04/get-back-rumors/ 

 

Matthews' Southern Comfort - Second Spring - Side 1

01. Ballad of Obray Ramsey
02. Moses in the Sunshine
03. Jinkson Johnson
04. The Tale of the Trial

Former Fairport Convention vocalist Iain Matthews formed Matthews Southern Comfort in 1970. The band’s country-tinged sound proved to be an excellent forum for Matthews’ songwriting talents and in the summer of 1970, their second album, Second Spring, reached the UK Top 40, followed by their chart-topping single, a version of Joni Mitchell‘s Woodstock.
Unfortunately, success was followed by friction within the band and two months later, Matthews announced his intention to pursue a solo career. One more album followed, after which the band truncated their name to Southern Comfort. After two further albums, they disbanded in the summer of 1972.
Matthews reformed the band with mostly Dutch musicians in 2010, releasing two new albums, Kind Of New and Kind Of Live, and again in 2017, releasing two further albums, Like A Radio (2018) and The New Mine (2020).  From: https://nostalgiacentral.com/music/artists-l-to-z/artists-m/matthews-southern-comfort/

The Dilettantes - Good Day

Rob- So, lets begin by talking about how the two of you came to form The Dilettantes. 

Kay- It was pretty much the same week I moved to LA. My good friend Nina Gordon was playing music with Michelle and Tracy Bonham in an outfit called the LadyApples. Well, Tracy was about to go out on a year long tour and Nina had a publishing deal with Columbia Records so she has a solo album commitment. Nina said that I should come meet Michelle because she knew we had similar tastes in music etc. So as soon as we met, we hit it off and have been friends and music partners since.

Rob- And when was this?

Michelle- This was two years ago.

Rob- Performing together… was it easy to read one another’s styles right away, or what it a slow process at first?

Kay- No, we blended well together right away. It felt very natural.

Rob- Where was your first live performance together?

Kay- At the Mint in LA. We did a 3 song improvised showcase. Nina was on stage with us too.

Rob- How was it?

Michelle- ROUGH! ha ha…it was Christmas time, so we had Kay’s sons Fisher Price xylophone on stage with us…it was funny. We struggled through it, but we’ve been together two years now, and it’s just so much fun.

Kay- The crowd was into us though so that was most important.

Rob- Describe the writing process between the two of you.

Kay- Michelle is great at writing melodies. We usually write music first with no lyrics, then I’ll come in and usually start humming a verse..hum hum hum…and we pretty much build a song from there, and it works out great.

Rob- So Michelle…you have written a lot of songs for other artists such as Cher, Jessica Simpson, Kelly Osbourne, Amy Grant..and so on. Would you rather be involved with songwriting with other artists, or are you busy working on a new solo album?

Michelle- If I ever get the itch to do another solo album, I will. Right now I’m enjoying the songwriting process of the business. These acts that go out there and perform as a solo act…….you really have to have thick skin in this business, and I really don’t have the stomach for it. You’re basically just a product in the industry and I don’t want to play that game. I much prefer to write for other artists and develop new singer-songwriters.

Rob- So Kay, are you working on a new solo album?

Kay- Definitely. I’ve been working in the studio with Fred Eltringham ( Gigolo Aunts, Wallflowers ). It’s all good stuff, I’m excited about it.

Rob- When might we see that released?

Kay- Wow, I’m not exactly sure, but sometime this Spring hopefully. That’s not definite though.

Rob- What I would like right now is for each of you to compliment one another. Tell us something about the other that everyone should know.

Michelle- She kicks my ass! Kay is the most kick ass, talented, most loyal, fun, rock n’ roll mom I know. She’s brave. She’s the bravest girl in this business that I know and she has pushed me as a performer and songwriter.

Kay- Michelle is awesome. She is just a great all around friend and knowing her has been life changing. She’s up’d my game and brought me to a new level that I never knew was possible for me. She’s the best.

Rob- Will we see a new Full Length album soon?

Michelle- Yes, next year.

Kay- We’re going to be taking it to some indie labels and shop it around soon.

Rob- (to Kay) You have done a lot of soundtrack work for films in recent years with the Josie Soundtrack and most recently the “Just like Heaven” soundtrack where you recorded a cover of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life….which kicked ass by the way.

Kay- Thanks so much for saying that.

Rob- You’re very welcome. Is soundtrack work something the Dilettantes will be looking at doing?

Kay- We’re always looking. Soundtrack work pays great…better than solo work unfortunately. That’s the sad reality of it. I’ll do a solo album out of love, because it’s my passion, but the bottom line is, we have a family to support and film soundtracks make you the most money.

Rob- What are your thoughts on satellite radio?

Michelle- I’m loving it. My husband and I have our Sirius satellite radio all up and running. He’s a big Howard Stern fan. I think it’s great that artists will finally have a chance to be heard now. It’s exciting.

Kay- It’s great. Now bands can be heard on this medium, in the world of today where all you hear on commercial radio is Kelly Clarkson and hip hop.

Rob- If a young girl came to you and said that she really admired you and wanted to get into the music business, what would you say to her?

Michelle- Run! (laughs) But after I told her to run, I’d ask her if she really loves music. I meet young women all the time that say just that to me, and I ask them who influences them the most musically. If they say “oh well…umm…bla bla bla” then I tune them out. If they are excited about it and tell me that they are really into these artists and why they love them, and this and that..then I’m in. I’ll have such a great conversation with them about music because I know they love it and are passionate about it. That’s what it takes to survive in this business. Passion. If you don’t have it or are not willing to fight for your artistry when times get tough, then I say it’s not for you.

Kay- I tell them to go to law school. But if they don’t want to go to law school, then I tell them to have a back up plan. Always have a plan B, because in this industry, there are more disappointments than there are success stories. It’s all about luck when you get down to it. If you are easily broken hearted then maybe this isn’t for you. At least have a backup plan for yourself for the future in case it doesn’t workout. I see it all the time. A lot of my peers have fallen into this trap and are now stuck in this world of struggling musicians.

Michelle- Can I just say that I can hear the Boston accent coming out in Kay while talking with you… ha ha!

From: https://oceanviewpress.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/kay-hanley-michelle-lewis-2006-interview/

The Zombies - A Rose For Emily

On the face of it, A Rose for Emily by the Zombies seems an odd song choice to end each episode of the acclaimed, record-breaking podcast S-Town – the appearance of the William Faulkner short story that shares its title in the first episode notwithstanding. S-Town deals in real-life southern gothic: it is filled with chewy, sometimes incomprehensible Alabama accents and small-town intrigue and tragedy. But it is hard to imagine a more English record than Odessey and Oracle, the album from which the track originates, with Zombies frontman Colin Blunstone’s cut-glass enunciation, and its songs about parks in Hertfordshire and harmony vocals that sound like the Beach Boys, had the Beach Boys hailed from the home counties and met in a public-school choir. If you didn’t know your Faulkner, you would never guess A Rose for Emily was based on a story set in Mississippi. In the Zombies’ hands, the titular heroine sounds like an Eleanor Rigby-ish spinster pining away somewhere in the British suburbs, a spiritual sister of downtrodden Sylvilla in the Kinks’ Two Sisters or the BO-afflicted lady hymned in the Who’s Odorono.
And yet, you can see why it works. For one thing, A Rose for Emily possesses an eerie melancholy; for another, the Zombies’ retelling of Faulkner’s tale concentrates on the heroine’s otherness, her isolation, her sense of chances missed, her frustration, her pride – themes also found in the life of S-Town’s central figure, John B McLemore. Even the song’s own backstory seems weirdly fitting. By the time Odessey and Oracle was released in April 1968, demoralised by the failure of the two advance singles taken from it, the Zombies had split up. It attracted virtually no attention for another year, when its final track, Time of the Season, became an unexpected hit in the US. With no one to enjoy the fruits of its success, promoters hastily assembled fake versions of the band – featuring none of the actual members – to tour the country. Odessey and Oracle, meanwhile, took another 25 years to start showing up in best-albums-ofall-time lists. By 2008 it was legendary enough to warrant a live performance in full by the band’s surviving members – the group are doing a live tour of the album this year, including a show at the London Palladium in September. Like McLemore, it was long after its moment had passed that the record became known and hailed as the stuff of genius. Now, millions of podcast downloads later, both he and the album are suddenly more famous than ever.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/culture/shortcuts/2017/apr/17/rose-for-emily-s-town-zombies-podcast-john-b-mclemore

Sam Phillips - Signposts

Sam Phillips (not to be confused with the Sun Records impresario) is many things: a gifted singer-songwriter, an underrated alt-rock goddess, a composer of incidental television music (all those “la, la la’s” on Gilmore Girls) and a performer with a stage presence that’s both warmly confident and magnificently eerie. In recent years, she has also become a fiercely independent artist, almost an iconoclast of sorts—a quality one can trace back near the start of her career, when she recorded Contemporary Christian music under her birth name, Leslie Phillips. After four well-received albums in that genre, she concluded she no longer wanted to be “a cheerleader for God” (as she bluntly put it in one interview) and switched over to secular pop music (and professionally adopted a childhood family nickname). Whether brought on by an actual crisis of faith, feeling discomfort from that boxed-in community, or by meeting musician T-Bone Burnett (who became both her longtime producer and romantic partner after helming her final Leslie album), her decision to leave one world behind for another continually enhances the cultural, philosophical, and yes, spiritual nature of much of her subsequent catalog.  From: https://hauntedjukebox.com/2015/12/06/sam-phillips-martinis-bikinis/ 

The Grateful Dead - Estimated Prophet

This song is about people who interpret the Grateful Dead's music as divine and see themselves a "prophet" for said divinity. The Dead have (or at least had) a great many fans who take their music a bit too seriously. You could, perhaps, call them zealots. Members of the band were often a little freaked out by this crazy type of fan. Bob Weir and John Barlow decided to pen a song about it. However in typical Grateful Dead fashion the song is highly nuanced. So much so that most people who hear the song don't understand its meaning. This is great example of the way lyrics to Grateful Dead songs operate on such a sophisticated level. While lots of fans write songs about crazy fans the song meaning is rarely veiled.

According to Weir while on the road they would skip through the Bibles that were in hotel rooms. One night Garcia called Weir and told him to check out the books of Ezekiel and Daniel, they thought it was a reference to aliens visiting earth and other interesting strange things, so the song was wrote about that and people that would meet them after shows and share their spaced out trip experiences. Some of these people were so persistent it got annoying, so part of what Weir is singing is "I have heard it all before so please keep your mouth shut”.  

From: https://songmeanings.com/songs/view/47670/ 

Sally Rogers & Claudia Schmidt - Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing / Mountain Field

Sally Rogers and Claudia Schmidt's lives are riddled with synchronicities, not the least of which are that they share a middle name, Jane, and both of their fathers are named Gus. They met in 1980 at the North Country Folk Festival in Ironwood, Michigan. Their mutual eclectic taste in music and excitement of singing together in harmony led them to do occasional concerts together across the Midwest, as well as several appearances on Garrisons Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion. In 1982 they did their first Mother's Day Concert at the Ten Pound Fiddle Coffeehouse in East Lansing, Michigan, which has become an excuse to get together for song silliness and a tribute to their mothers, to whom this album, Closing the Distance, is dedicated. The CD reissue of this album includes four additional tracks not included on the original LP. Featured players include Jay Ungar, mandolin, fiddle; Molly Mason, bass, piano; Abby Newton, cello; Howie Bursen, harmony vocals; Dakota Dave Hull, guitar, and others.  From: https://www.amazon.com/Closing-Distance-Rogers-Claudia-Schmidt/dp/B000000MKT 

 

Syd Arthur - Ode (Summer Is Leaving Me Behind)

You don't get the impression that many of the performers involved were particularly keen to be seen as part of any Seattle scene at the height of grunge, and even though it's always been a popular place to buy joss sticks and beads we hardly saw bands operating around Dingwalls and environs, during the reign of terror that was Britpop, clambering to be part of any Camden scene.
The same is hardly true of the so-called Canterbury scene of the late 60s and early 70s. Maybe it was the drugs or the laidback, happy stoner vibe (man), but the groups loosely affiliated to the scene based largely around the college halls and bars of the titular town in Kent such as Caravan, Soft Machine, Gong and Camel generally seemed cool with the connections being made between themselves and their contemporaries, although one cannot rule out the possibility that they were too out of their gourd to notice when journalists did it.
Syd Arthur are sons and heirs of those Canterbury musicians who did sometimes whimsical, sometimes intense things with psychedelic and progressive rock and whose improvisational approach made the avant-garde seem accessible, and vice versa. Actually, one of Syd Arthur – violinist Raven Bush, which we smuttily assumed was a pot-induced pubic alias - is the nephew and heir of Kate Bush, a Kent girl herself who grew up surrounded by local musicians (but enough already about her extracurricular proclivities).
Winners of the Canterbury Best Local Band competition and formerly known first as Grumpy Jumper and then Moshka, they eventually adopted the name Syd Arthur. It fits them well, redolent as it is of long-lost rural idylls and days gone by – the "Syd" bit because of Barrett and "Arthur" with its intimations of the Kinks' album Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire). There are only four of them but they make a sound that suggests there are loads of them, all beards and, well, grumpy jumpers, noodling away on a variety of electric and unplugged instruments.
There are traces of folk and world music in their sound, and you can hear some of the intricacies of jazz and rhythms of dance – the band themselves call what they do "psychedelic funk rock" and that really suits a song like Secrets of the Planet Soul, which makes us think of Jamiroquai jamming with Jethro Tull, being as it is fairly equal parts fol-de-rol and funky. The Tale of As Is is Santana-esque while Kingdoms of Experience, an earlier single, could be Maroon 5 tackling something proggy and complex. The pastoral element of the Canterbury sound is made most explicit on the acoustic Berber Mountain Song while the single Willow Tree is like folk played by a funk band, or funk played by a folk band. We're not sure of the extent of their interest in such Canterbury staples as zen mysticism and Buddhism although titles such as ... Planet Soul suggest a pro-Gaian hippie consciousness at work here. Someone get out the flying teapot.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/feb/15/new-band-syd-arthur 

Lais - De Wijn

Laïs is a Flemish folk group featuring the voices of Jorunn Bauweraerts, Nathalie Delcroix and Annelies Brosens. The inspiration for their songs comes from old song books. Their style can best be described as a modern take on medieval songs.The band was formed at the music workshop Volksmuziekstages in Gooik, Belgium. The well-established Flemish folk band Kadril noticed the girls singing a capella and took them on tour as their support act. While touring with Kadril Laïs built up a small fan base with their a capella songs. Their first CD featured appearances by Kadril, but later the girls would find their own musicians to complete the band. Today Jorunn, Nathalie and Annelies are joined by Fritz Sundermann (electric and acoustic instruments, harmonium), Hans Quaghebeur (squeezeboxes, hurdy-gurdy, whistle), Ronny Reuman (percussion) and Bart Denolf (electric and acoustic bass).  From: https://www.last.fm/music/La%C3%AFs/+wiki

Space Opera - Bells Within Bells

Space Opera are a little-known act. Widely believed to be from Canada, the four-piece group actually hailed from Fort Worth, Texas. Signed to a major label, they released just one LP, which quickly faded from view. Stories of missed opportunities are all too common in rock ‘n’ roll, but Space Opera’s tale is particularly lamentable—‘cause there’s magic in them grooves. 
The story of Space Opera really begins with Scott Fraser’s teen band, the Mods. The group got started in 1965, and became a popular local act, but by 1968 they were on their last legs. At this time, David Bullock and Philip White entered the picture, and the three talked about forming a new group. But first, they all took part in a studio project—with a young T-Bone Burnett behind the board—that became the album, The Unwritten Works of Geoffrey, Etc.. Pseudonymously credited to Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit, and Greenhill, the 1968 LP was barely promoted by the label, UNI Records, before sinking without a trace. 
Undeterred, Fraser (guitar, vocals), Bullock (guitar, vocals), and White (bass, vocals) continued on, playing shows anonymously with various drummers. In the spring of ’69, they were introduced to Brett Wilson, a jazz drummer, who was also from Fort Worth. They had actually all went to high school together, but Wilson was from a different crowd. Soon, they were performing their first show as Space Opera. 
The group quickly established a fan base in their hometown, playing frequently at a popular bar, as well as larger venues opening for big name acts that came through Fort Worth, including Jefferson Airplane and the Byrds—one of their biggest influences. Space Opera recorded some demos, and had some label interest, but nothing was happening. Their break came when a Canadian agent saw the play live. This set off a chain of events, culminating with the band signing a deal with the Canadian arm of Columbia Records, in which they were given total artistic control—an essentially unheard-of agreement, at the time, for a new group.
In the spring of 1972, Space Opera moved to Toronto to record their debut album. They played live in the studio, but then overdubbed heavily, saturating the tape with sound. Striving towards perfection, they spent a lot of time on it, which made Columbia nervous. When they finally finished recording in July, they returned to Texas, with the assumption that the label had a plan for them—but they didn’t. Disappointed with the lengths it took to make, mix, and then create the artwork for the album, Columbia was losing interest. Making matters worse, in order to duplicate their studio recordings, Space Opera ordered new, custom equipment, but the gear took a loooong time to arrive, breaking their momentum. 
The album Space Opera was formally released on March 21, 1973 (It came out on Epic Records in the U.S). The wait on the new equipment continued, though, and by the time it finally arrived two months later, the group was all but finished. After just a handful of shows to promote their debut LP—an album that showed so much promise—Space Opera called it a day. Blending country, folk, psych, prog, and pop to great effect, Space Opera is a fantastic rock record that, in a perfect world, would have been a huge hit. The songs are solidly sung and played, with gorgeous harmonies and guitar solos that are positively euphoric.  From: https://dangerousminds.net/comments/the_transcendent_psychedelic_country_rock_of_one-album-and-out_70s_band_spa/