October Project - Live at The TLA Philadelphia 1996

Part 1

Part 2

 #October Project #Mary Fahl #folk rock #alternative rock #alternative folk rock #adult alternative #classical rock #progressive pop #1990s #music video

October Project's music is dominated by distinctive and powerful female lead vocals (nothing to do with waif-like, breathy whisperings). Indeed, Mary Fahl's deep voice has an earthy sensuality that looms larger than life on the band's two albums, both filled with superb chorus hooks and haunting melodies. October Project also features keyboardist/vocalist Marina Belica, guitarist David Sabatino, keyboardist Emil Adler (piano, keyboards and harmonium) as well as his wife Julie Flanders who, although not a musician per se, writes the band's lyrics. They released two fine albums in the mid '90's before getting dumped by their record company in 1996, at which point they simply broke off. Like an afterthought, some of the band members later resurfaced as the November Project but reverted back to their former name and released a self-produced E.P. in 2003. Deemed more pop than prog, the music of October Project is perhaps best described as 'vocal-dominated symphonic prog', something akin to Renaissance for the orchestral textures, although Mary Fahl does not sound at all like Annie Haslam. The band's first two albums, which focus primarily on her rich, sultry vocals, feature intense melancholy ballads that ride on a combination of lush keyboards, strings and guitars. Keyboards and acoustic guitar are emphasized on the eponymous "October Project" whereas on "Falling Farther In", an album of slightly more linear compositions with pared-down arrangements, the electric guitar is more prominent. The E.P. "Different Eyes", which features the late reunion of some of the band members (sans Mary Fahl), showcases some reworked material from the band's early days.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/artist.asp?id=2190

Mary Fahl’s parents weren’t musicians, but they liked listening to music at home in Stony Point, New York. And with one record player upstairs in the boys room, it was the music blaring from the big family console downstairs that seeped into Fahl’s skin and bones. That meant a lot of show tunes from Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza in South Pacific to My Fair Lady, with an original Broadway cast that included Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. “Mary Martin had that big alto voice,” Fahl said. “Even the men that sang on that record, Ezio Pinza … I liked their voices. People in Broadway now don’t even sound like that. I miss those kinds of voices. They sounded like real people back then. Everybody sounds the same to me now. And I used to sing along with those things. And I think it built up my voice.”
Eventually, though, she was turned on to British folk by an older brother, and her tastes shifted from Joni Mitchell and Carole King to Sandy Denny (“There’s something so pure in that voice; it’s so emotional”), Richard and Linda Thompson, and June Tabor. Soul and R&B weren’t played either upstairs or downstairs so, for better or worse, those voices didn’t influence Fahl. “So many modern voices are so gospel-inflected,” Fahl said with a touch of disapproval. “There’s a lot of white girls out there that, they sound like they’re singing in church because those gospel-inflected singers are so great. And the black singers are fantastic.” But one hip and powerful American white chick named Grace Slick did get Fahl’s attention. “Everybody had ‘White Rabbit,’ ” she said. “Everybody had Jefferson Airplane. So I loved her, I loved those powerful alto voices. It’s funny, ’cause I really, I have to admit I don’t recognize a lot of people that are on Top 40 radio right now. To me, I can’t pick one out from the other. I just can’t. And then there’s sort of another branch that has gone off. It’s sort of Feist made a left turn and everybody followed her. And I like her. I think she’s great. But I didn’t grow up with that. That ain’t my voice.”
Raised in a Catholic family with more siblings than expendable outcome, Fahl was fortunate to be a natural-born singer. While never taking a voice lesson, she watched her cousins develop into “great instrumentalists. … Like prodigies. I was not that. I just sang all the time.” If she wanted to pursue a musical career, Fahl was on her own. Laughing at the memory, she remembered her mother saying, “Well, if you were really good, you would be like your cousin Alice. You wouldn’t need lessons. You could just pick it up and play it.” Instead, Fahl performed at holiday shows and plays in the Catholic schools she attended, entered an acting program at NYU for a year with the hope of going into musical theater, then left because “I felt like I was wasting my parents’ money. It was a big stretch for them.” Transferring to McGill University (with $800 a year tuition) in Montreal, she occasionally sang in little coffee houses or rock groups that weren’t much bigger.
Upon graduation, “I didn’t know what I was going to do, really,” she said. “I sort of floundered around and went to Europe and sang a little bit there.” Eventually returning to New York, destiny introduced her to Julie Flanders. “She was not happy and not working and not doing anything creative,” Fahl remembered. And she said, ‘You know, I really want to be a songwriter,’ and I said, ‘That’s funny, I want to be a singer.’ And then she introduced me to her boyfriend, who was working as a clerk at HBO or something like that.”
Flanders’ boyfriend (and future husband) was Emil Adler. And the three of them witnessed the birth of October Project. “We were all sort of that stage where we wanted to do something and we were old enough and serious enough that we just said, ‘Well, this is it. We’re gonna make this happen no matter what,’ ” Fahl recalled. “We really worked so hard and just left no stone unturned. You know, took it very, very seriously.” Within two years, they had a deal with Epic Records, then toured with the likes of Sarah McLachlan and Crash Test Dummies. In 1995, the Los Angeles Times proclaimed, “Mary Fahl is the voice that launched a single promising rock band, October Project.” Taking an artsy, classical approach to the rock genre, the band that also included Marina Belica and David Sabatino seemed like a perfect fit for Fahl’s golden pipes. But perhaps they were too serious for AM or FM radio, especially during the growing grunge era.  From: https://www.nodepression.com/after-becoming-pen-pals-musician-mary-fahl-and-author-anne-rice-form-an-everlasting-bond/

Norihiro Sekitani

As Cesar Cruz once said, “Art should disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed”. And personally, I’m pretty mentally deranged - at least, according to the average twitter tween. So, I think it goes without saying that I often find myself disappointed with many music videos created for my favorite hardcore music. It’s like - yeah, wow, cool, the artist is whipping his hair, or moving erratically. That’s cool and all, but the music without the video produces such an abstract brutality, that your crazy dances don’t really cut it. I could see crazier things if I went down the street and gave my local individual without a home five bucks and told him to dance. It’s for this reason that I was so enthralled with the abstract body horror of Cyriak when I was younger. I wanted to feel a fear that would never meet me in the physical realm - a horror existent within only the creative hellscape of the human mind. Later in life, I discovered music that evoked a similar visceral reaction to Cyriak’s art - and I couldn’t help but think, “what if we combined that aforementioned surrealism with hardcore music, and turned them both up to 11”? Welcome, to the beautifully twisted surrealism of the prolific Japanese mixed-media artist, Norihiro Sekitani. Norihiro Sekitani is a legendary visual artist when it comes to the Japanese ultra-hardcore scene. Hell, he’s even done some videos for hardcore breakcore metal. To give you an idea of his specialty, I’m just gonna read you the names of some bands he’s made visuals for: DJ Rainbow Ejaculation, Zombieflesheater, Maruosa, you probably get the picture. The Pink Tentacle blog described his work as, “medical book meets manga meets [suggestive material].”  From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFZU_E1R2iU

 

Maruosa - ACA

 

 

Zombieflesheater - Face Destroy

 

 

DJ Rainbow Ejaculation - At Numerous Discos On Any Given Night

 

Laboratorium Piesni - Lecieli Zurauli

 #Laboratorium Piesni #world music #European folk #Eastern European folk #traditional #polyphonic chant #Slavic folk music #a capella #white voice #Polish #music video

Laboratorium Piesni (polish: Song Laboratory) is a female-run collective music project, founded in Poland in 2013. The vast majority of their songs are from Polish and Eastern European folk traditions, though they also incorporate other sources. They also host workshops to help people develop their voice and “awaken the human musicality.” Laboratorium Piesni’s primary musical focus is polyphony (multiple voices with little to no musical accompaniment), which is the dominant form of ritual and folk music for animist cultures, also  surviving into Europe as a dominant form into the 1500’s. This music is also known as “a capella,” but many groups have moved away from this Christian label (“a capella” literally means, “in the way of the chapel”).  From: https://abeautifulresistance.org/pagan-music-list/2019/3/23/the-pagan-music-list-2

The band Laboratorium Pieśni can attest to the fact that local and indigenous culture is becoming more and more popular in the globalized world. Let the question of quantity not be an indicator of their quality, but the fact that the Facebook group is followed by over 80,000 people is telling and shows that such music arouses interest. Their white voice is interesting and very eloquent in the 21st century. Thanks to this, the eight-member band also serve as anthropologists who, traveling around various corners, bring various traditional songs into the workshop to present them in their own polyphonic interpretations.
Laboratorium Pieśni draws a vocal map of Central and Eastern Europe (Belarus, Poland, Ukraine), and also the Balkans, Georgia and Scandinavia. It seems that there are no limits, and the singers' heads are full of ideas and enthusiasm for finding songs from different cultures. Many of the songs are sung a capella, but some of them gain accompaniment in the form of subtly introduced shamanic drums, bells or percussions. Thanks to this, the vocals gain a multidimensional character and space. At the same time, they do not obscure the content, on which you can fully concentrate thanks to the simplicity prevailing here. "Rosna", the long-awaited album, collects all these interests on one release. It shows the band in more mystical songs, those taken straight from indigenous villages, but also more lively songs, such as the Finnish "Käppee", which breaks with its Slavic origin. Girls often choose love topics for the workshop, devoted to interpersonal relationships - the album comes with lyrics with translations, thanks to which the songs are more communicative and understandable. But even if we don't decipher them during the first listening, the music still sounds mysterious, shamanic and blunt. In the era of post-produced recordings and sound-packed tracks, such clean vocals, devoid of effects, are perfect hygiene for the ear, because they remind us that something seemingly simple can be complex and multi-threaded at the same time.  Translated from: http://noweidzieodmorza.com/pl/9212-laboratorium-piesni-rosna/

The Verve Pipe - Photograph

 #The Verve Pipe #alternative rock #post-grunge #indie rock #pop rock #1990s #music video

When Brian Vander Ark was a kid growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, he and his brothers often played a perverse game of “church,” with Brian as Jesus and his brothers as the congregation. Once, his brothers crucified him mid-sermon by strapping him to the backyard deck with belts and rope. Alone to atone, Brian wept as his brothers partied on. “After hours of screaming, they finally took me down,” recalls the Verve Pipe singer. “My brothers were relentlessly sadistic Christians.” Along with crucifixion anxiety, Vander Ark says his religious upbringing left him “ridden with guilt,” a subject that figures prominently on the Verve Pipe’s major-label debut album, Villains. Set to a hummable brand of workingman’s grunge, Vander Ark’s painfully earnest tales of regret have made the group this year’s dorm-room poster boys. Either their ascendancy is a sign that for every year there must be a grunge giant, or the scholastic set is more wary of irony than anyone could have imagined. “We appreciate the dynamics of grunge,” says drummer Donny Brown, brushing off charges that the Verve Pipe’s music can sound plainly derivative. “If the song feels heavy and it sounds better driving it, then we drive it. Make it grunge. Who cares?”
Brown and Vander Ark met in the early ’90s when they were both painting a Lee’s Famous Chicken Shack restaurant in Kalamazoo. Along with Vander Ark’s younger brother Brad on bass, the trio enlisted guitarist A.J. Dunning and keyboard player Doug Corella from Michigan-area alternative bands. The band soon found a home on the fertile fraternity circuit, where, says Vander Ark, “they’d still pay us, even after the cops pulled the plug.” Now, six years later, they’re in New York on “the biggest day of our lives,” taping Letterman and VH1 appearances, with the proud Vander Ark parents in tow. After a day of minimal hijinks—the Verve Pipe behave like scrupulous Midwesterners—Vander Ark kisses his parents goodbye and gets ready to head north for another gig. Still, he seems more like a frustrated choirboy than someone living out his rock’n’roll dreams. “I still believe in blasphemy,” Vander Ark admits. “Like that scene in The Exorcist where Linda Blair is masturbating with the cross. That absolutely bothers me. For the sake of the movie, it’s a fabulous scene. But it makes me squirm.”  From: https://www.spin.com/2017/04/the-verve-pipe-interview/ 

His Name is Alive - Can't Go Wrong Without You

 #His Name is Alive #experimental rock #dream pop #avant garde #alternative rock #indie rock #neo-psychedelia #art rock #Quay Brothers #animated music video #stop-motion

The ever-changing project of multi-instrumentalist/producer Warren Defever, His Name Is Alive have explored a veritable record store's worth of music during their decades-spanning career. In the early 1990s, they helped define the sound of the arty indie label 4AD with the experimental dream pop of albums such as 1991's Home Is in Your Head and 1993's Mouth by Mouth. As time went on, their rotating lineup mirrored their shifting sounds. Defever and company surveyed sunny, Beach Boys-tinged pop on 1996's Stars on ESP just as deftly as they channeled gospel and R&B on 2001's Someday My Blues Will Cover the Earth. A few years later, they fused their dream pop roots with African and Asian elements on 2007's Xmmer. His Name Is Alive entered a particularly creative period in the 2010s, combining the ambitious and heavy sounds of prog and metal with ethereal vocals on the concept albums Tecuciztecatl (2014) and Patterns of Light (2016). Later in the decade and into the 2020s, Defever revisited early ambient recordings on collections such as 2019's All the Mirrors in the House (Early Recordings 1979-1986) and reworked them on mixtapes including 2020's Ghost Tape EXP.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/his-name-is-alive-mn0000681402/biography

Starting from the late 70s, US born/England based duo of identical twins Stephen and Timothy Quay produced a whole number of stop-motion animations and their unique style, in turn, influenced a whole number of other animators. Much of their work is based on the writings of Franz Kafka and Bruno Schulz, features little to no dialogue, and relies heavily on musical scores/soundtracks. Their connection with musical world became more pronounced as they directed music videos for His Name Is Alive, Michael Penn and 16 Horsepower. Some  incorrectly assume that they are responsible for creating videos for the band Tool (undoubtedly, very similar in style to Quay’s work, but created mostly by the band’s guitarist Adam Jones).
The two videos that the Brothers Quay directed for His Name Is Alive are “Can’t Go Wrong Without You” and “Are We Still Married.”  From: https://ihrtn.net/brothers-quay-his-name-is-alive/ 

Polecat Creek - Lyin' Man

 #Polecat Creek #bluegrass #Americana #folk #roots country #traditional #singer-songwriter

Most old-time string bands keep their repertoire routed in the classics, learned either from recordings from the 1920s thru 1940s or old master musicians. Polecat Creek, however, offers no less than fifteen original songs on Leaving Eden. Greensboro’s Polecat Creek presents an exceptional balance of traditional country sounds with new songs penned by musical partners Kari Sickenberger and Laurelyn Dossett. The latter’s “Come By Here,” the ninth title on Leaving Eden, won at MerleFest’s Chris Austin Songwriting Contest in 2004. That’s probably not even the best song on an album full of memorable songs. Sickenberger’s “The Past Ain’t Over Yet” reflects all of the hallmarks of the best honk-tonky of more than half-century ago. Yet it switches gender with the female voice into direct opposition to Kitty Wells’ “It Wasn’t God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels.”
All told Kari wrote nine of the songs, with Laurelyn responsible for the other six. Just as important as the writing, the pair sing far more than effectively, delivering a full range of emotional communication. Not only are these their songs, they sing them as if telling their own life stories. That sets them apart from the old school, using the old-time form as a platform for two outstanding singer-songwriter.
The duo receives equally accomplished musical support. Regular collaborator Riley Bauguss, one of the most respected southern string band players of his generation, plays outrageous banjo throughout, along with some fiddle and guitar. Producer and frequent Tim O’Brien collaborator Dirk Powell of Balfa Toujours adds bass, accordion, mandolin, guitar, and fiddle. Former Good Ole Person Kevin Wimmer fiddles on four cuts.
Rather than recycle themes from nearly a century ago, Polecat Creek creates an original roots sound that draws from string band, brother duet, Cajun, bluegrass, and traditional country. Yet they do that without ever losing their spiritual connection to those who have gone before. That makes Leaving Eden one of the most delightful releases of 2004 in any form of country music.
From: https://artmenius.com/more-recent-publications/reviews-for-the-independent-2004-2005/

The Who - Rael

 #The Who #Pete Townshend #Roger Daltrey #hard rock #heavy blues rock #psychedelic rock #art pop #classic rock #1960s #1970s

Rael was Pete Townshend’s first rock opera. A lot of the themes in it were apparently recycled into Tommy and Lifehouse based on musical evidence. The story was set in 1999, where China was the world power. They were conquering lands and destroying the religious cultures in their conquest. China was overthrowing Israel and an Israeli hero travels back to his homeland on a mission against all odds to save his people. There isn't much more information than that as Pete hasn't release many notes or demos from the opera.
According to the book “Who Are You: The life of Pete Townshend” it was intended to be done with a full orchestra written as a genuine opera starring Arthur Brown in the lead. There were to be 20 scenes. We have a prelude song that's easily found on the internet called Motherland Feeling. Rael part 1 has the scene of him leaving on the boat, a storm scene (which is the sparks part) and the scene of him arriving. We also know there was an organ Fugue which may be the organ part of the demo. There is also a lyric floating around for a song called Party Piece from Rael where we learn that the hero’s wife had died years earlier and was buried in the homeland.
Following a visit to Caesarea, Israel in 1966 with his first wife, Karen Astley, and the subsequent outbreak of the Six-Day War, Townshend began work on Rael, a song cycle loosely based on Israel’s struggle to survive despite being massively outnumbered by its enemies. Rael — short for Israel — got sidetracked, partly due to the demands of the Who’s record company for faster delivery of more hit singles, and Rael was consigned to the shelf. The only song that has surfaced from that project is called Rael and appears on the late 1967 album, The Who Sell Out.
In recent years, Townshend’s thoughts have once again turned back toward the concerns he expressed in Rael. As he told an interviewer for Rolling Stone in 2006: Last week, I was reading about this book that’s just come out. It’s about the Polish Jews who got out of concentration camps and went back to their homes, which had been taken over by Christians who assumed the Jews weren’t coming back. What happened was another wave of anti-Semitism in which dozens were slaughtered by Christians in Warsaw. The premise for it was that there was witchcraft going on. The Jews, of course, drank the blood of children. Been there, done that. Fucking hell. And I asked myself, ‘Why am I so heated up about this fucking story?’ But it’s because, as a kid, my best friend, Mick Leiber, was a Jew. We grew up in a community that was about a third Polish. We lived in a house that divided in two, and in the top part lived a Jewish family who were quite devout. Polish Jews were the kids I played with. They were my people. I remember saying to my mother, ‘Aren’t Polish people from Poland?’ And she said, ‘Yes, they were Britain’s first ally in the war.’ I’d say, ‘But they’re not like foreigners. They’re just like we are.’ And she said, “Yes, they’re just like we are.”
From: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWho/comments/slb4mo/can_somebody_explain_rael/ 

Steeleye Span - Long Lankin

 #Steeleye Span #Maddy Prior #Tim Hart #folk rock #British folk #British folk rock #traditional folk #electric folk #British roots rock

Long Lankin is based off a Northumbrian legend where Lankin (who was either a stonemason or robber, depending on the story) entered the hall of a rival lord, and with the help of a nursemaid murdered both the lord’s grandchild and daughter. Lankin is said to have hanged himself, while the nurse was burnt at the stake. Steeleye Span’s version of this traditional song omits the origin story of Long Lankin, instead portraying him as more of a cruel boogeyman.  From: https://genius.com/Steeleye-span-long-lankin-lyrics

"Lamkin" is an old ballad and probably one of the darkest. It gives an account of the murder of a woman and her infant son by a disgruntled mason. Versions of the ballad are found in Scotland, England, and the USA. In the most common version Lamkin, the stonemason, is hired by Lord Wearie to build him a castle. When it is complete, the Lord refuses to pay, saying he would have to sell his land to pay for the castle he had built on it. Wearie soon makes a trip across the sea, and Lamkin, with the aid of the Lord's nursemaid, takes his revenge on his family during his absence. He first attacks Lord Wearie's baby.

Then Lamkin a' tane a sharp knife,
That hang down by his gaire,
And he has gien the bonny babe
A deep wound and a sair.

This gets the attention of Lady Wearie, who offers gold and riches to Lamkin if he will spare her life. No rationale is ever given for the extreme measures Lamkin takes, nor why he refuses money at this stage, if his grievances were merely financial. It is speculated that some verses may be missing, although there is some evidence that the nurse may have had a long-standing personal grudge, and played a more active role in the killings.

"O sall I kill her, nourice,
Or sall I lat her be?"
"O kill her, kill her, Lamkin,
For she neer was good to me."

Lord Wearie returns months later to find his wife and son dead, and Lamkin gloating over the deed.

"And wha's blood is this' he says,
'That lies in my ha'?"
"It is your young son'd heart's blood;
'T is the clearest ava."

Lamkin is hanged for his crimes, as he must have known he would be, again giving him no motive but the cruelest revenge. In some later version, the nurse is burned at the stake, the punishment for petty treason. Other versions follow the same basic story, but the antagonist has many different names, among them "Balankin", "Lambert Linkin", "Rankin", "Long Lankyn", and "Lammikin". Later versions lose the opening of the story, which explains that Lamkin is a mason who has not been paid; in these, Lamkin becomes a sort of a bogeyman who dwells in the wild places; the lord, before leaving, warns against him:

Says milord to milady as he mounted his horse,
"Beware of Long Lankin that lives in the moss."
Says milord to milady as he went on his way,
"Beware of Long Lankin that lives in the hay."

These versions add peculiar incidents that add to the grisliness of the crime. Lamkin and the nursemaid collect the baby's blood in a basin, for no named purpose. This has led to speculation that Lamkin was a leper who sought to cure himself by bathing in the blood of an innocent.
The song has been recorded as "Long Lankin" on "But Two Came By" (1968) by Martin Carthy. Steeleye Span perhaps most famously recorded it as "Long Lankin" on Commoner's Crown (1975), and vocal trio The Devil's Interval also recorded it as Long Lankin on their debut album "Blood & Honey" (Wildgoose 2006). Dave Burland recorded "Lamkin" on his album You Can't Fool The Fat Man (1979) with Nic Jones. The Neofolk band Fire + Ice recorded "Long Lankin" on their album Gilded By The Sun (1992). The song has also given its title to Long Lankin, a collection of short stories by John Banville

From: https://www.last.fm/music/Steeleye+Span/_/Long+Lankin/+wiki

The Tokens - The Lion Sleeps Tonight

 

 

#The Tokens #vocal pop #rock & roll #doo-wop #1950s #1960s

The Lion Sleeps Tonight: A hunting song originally sung in Zulu in what is now Swaziland, the original title was "Mbube," which means lion. This was popularized in the 1930s by South African singer Solomon Linda, who recorded it in 1939 with his group, The Evening Birds. Apparently they were a bold bunch, and got the idea from when they used to chase lions who were going after the cattle owned by their families. Solomon Linda recorded the song in Johannesburg, South Africa after being discovered by a talent scout. The chanting was mostly improvised, but worked extraordinarily well. Released on the Gallo label, it became a huge hit across South Africa. Around 1948, Gallo sent a copy to Decca Records in the US, hoping to get it distributed there. Folk singer Pete Seeger got a hold of it and started working on an English version.
In the 1950s, Miriam Makeba recorded this with the Zulu lyrics, and Pete Seeger recorded it with his band, The Weavers (who dominated the charts with "Goodnight Irene"). The Weavers recorded the refrain of the song (no verses) and called it "Wimoweh." In 1957, it was included on The Weavers At Carnegie Hall, a very popular album in the world of folk music. Seeger thought they were saying "Wimoweh" on the original, and that's what he wrote down and how it was recorded in English. They were actually saying "Uyimbube," which means "You're a Lion." It was misheard for "Wimeoweh" because when pronounced, Uyimbube sounds like: oo-yim-bweh-beh.
Hank Medress, Jay Siegel, and Phil and Mitch Margo, who made up The Tokens, had a Top 15 hit "Tonight I Fell in Love" in 1960, but didn't have a record label in 1961. They auditioned for producers Hugo and Luigi (Peretti and Creatore) by singing "Wimoweh" to them. Hugh and Luigi were impressed by the performance but decided that the song needed new lyrics. With help from George Weiss, Hugo and Luigi rewrote the song, giving it the title "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." The Tokens thought this had been nothing more than an elaborate audition - "Who is gonna buy a song about a lion sleeping" was their general sentiment. They were so embarrassed with the new title and lyrics that they fought the release of the recording (it was scheduled to be the B-side of another "import," a Portuguese song that they recorded in the same May 1961 session, "Tina"). Influential disc jockey Murray the K pushed "Tina," but once a New England DJ started playing the B-side on the air, "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" started its climb to the #1 position, hitting the top of the charts in the Christmas holidays of 1961-62.
The Kingston Trio recorded this in 1959 on their Live From The Hungry i LP. When introducing the song, singer Dave Guard stated that "Mbube" was a song about a sleeping lion (he doesn't refer to the song by name: he gives the background of the song before the Trio sings it). Part of the translated lyrics, as given by Guard: "Hush! Hush! If we all be quiet, there will be lion meat for dinner."
From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-tokens/the-lion-sleeps-tonight

Grandma’s Ashes - Spring Harvest

 #Grandma’s Ashes #alternative rock #progressive rock #stoner rock #prog metal #French

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; 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/

BraAgas - Fraile Cornudo - BalconyTV

 #BraAgas #Balkan folk #medieval #Scandinavian folk #world music #Sephardic folk #traditional #ethno #Czech Republic #live music video

BraAgas is a predominantly female band interpreting folk songs from all over Europe in original arrangements. A significant part of BraAgas' repertoire consists of Sephardic songs, Scandinavian and Balkan folklore, and they enjoy odd rhythms and melodies. On their last album ‘O Ptácích A Rybách’, the band also focused on folk songs from Moravia. In their arrangements of folk music, BraAgas try to use the diversity of the origin of the individual songs and the interesting sounds provided by ethnic and historical instruments, over which great female vocals are soaring. They have performed at leading festivals such as Colors of Ostrava, MFT Zlatá Praha, Rainforest World Music festival, EBU Folk Festival in Cologne, and Sur Jahan festival in India.  From: http://www.folkworld.de/73/e/braagas.html

BalconyTV was a wheeze cooked up by three friends living on Dame St. in central Dublin, and then improbably became a global online phenomenon, before a peculiar and confused descent back to something like obscurity. The story is now the focus of a three-part podcast, allowing those involved to have their say, with the series also showcasing the vagaries of the music industry. BalconyTV was the brainchild of friends Stephen O’Regan, Tom Millett and Pauline Freeman. The podcast is by Mark Graham, a lecturer in the Department of Arts at SETU (South-East Technical University) in Waterford, also a musician himself. In fact, his former band, the highly regarded King Kong Company, turned down the opportunity to appear on BalconyTV - unlike sundry others, such as Ed Sheeran, Kaiser Chiefs, and Mumford and Sons.
According to Graham, the trio who first set up BalconyTV in 2006 were hungover when the idea first came to them. One of the group, Tom, was a musician and was practicing double bass on the balcony. The others thought it looked good and so BalconyTV was born.
“It started a little bit before YouTube,” explains Graham. “They had their own website first, with a Flash media player, then YouTube came on stream so in the very early days of YouTube they were early adopters. It is de rigeur now to video performances but they were the first to do it, not just in Ireland but maybe in the world.” At first the trio recorded a magician doing his act on the balcony, or someone juggling a football, but it was music performances in this incongruous settings complete with background traffic noises, which caught the imagination of people online. For Graham, BalconyTV formed the template for enduring online music shows such as the Tiny Desk series by US broadcaster NPR.  From: https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/artsandculture/arid-41057474.html 

Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol - Death Wagon

 #Rickshaw Billie's Burger Patrol #heavy metal #stoner metal #stoner rock #fuzz rock #animated music video

Space: A treacherous realm where terrifying unknowns eclipse manifest hazards. For example, if one’s spacesuit rips, they fall unconscious before swelling into a bloated mass in mere seconds. And when encountering a black hole, prepare to be stretched into human linguini. Still, what about wild card dangers – aliens, galactic hostage taking, burger babes?
Austin trio Rickshaw Billie’s Burger Patrol ventures to the stars on brand new album Burger Babes from Outer Space - 8 terrifying tales of death to investigate. Is space really the place for a greasy rock band? The adventure unfolds today with a video for “Death Wagon,” animated by Katie McDowell and shot by Billie Patterson, in which members Leo Lydon, Aaron Metzdorf, and Sean St. Germain rocket through the cosmos on a sweet cheeseburger shaped craft until something goes horribly wrong. The expanse beyond our third stone from the sun swirls in silence, but not so when RBBP arrives. In “Death Wagon,” the unit blasts a sonic groove epitomized by Lydon’s exquisitely distorted 8-string guitar/bass hybrid and high vocals. Eventually, the track opens up into a near death metal squall that proves the perfect soundtrack for having your head torn off by the force of an exploding star.
Of the new album, Lydon reveals: “The Burger Babes have always been a symbol of feminism and power. I thought it would be cool to take them into outer space as a superior race of beings that were for peace, but instead, all the Earth guys start catcalling and whistling and try to pick them up, so they end up ‘evaporated’ by space weapons. It’s a very Mars Attacks kind of premise, I guess, but ‘Death Wagon’ comes into play from being in the road. Our van is the spaceship or death wagon. The whole thing is a metaphor for sacrifice and connecting, and giving your life to your art until eventually you die doing what you love. That spaceship burns and explodes as it enters the atmosphere, but no one will ever forget how bright it was when it did.”  From: https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/music/2020-11-13/watch-rickshaw-billies-burger-patrol-die-in-space/

Otyken - Storm

 #Otyken #Siberian folk #Siberian indigenous music #traditional #world music #folk rock #throat singing #tribal drumming #music video

A group of aboriginal Siberian taiga people makes its way across a frozen river. The sky is gray and the wind is growing stronger: a storm is coming. They unpack their gear, pull out large drums and proceed to pummel them. “Are you going east?” A girl in a colorful indigenous outfit and long black hair wails. “Then be careful!” This is followed by a song that can best be categorized as ethnic rock: there is throat singing, a keyboard sampler imitating an electric guitar, drumming and dancing. Also making it into the picture is a bass guitar-looking instrument made out of something that looks like the skull of a large animal - and you’ll find that that’s exactly what it is. This is Otyken and this is how the video for their track ‘Storm’ begins. The band members are all indigenous Siberians who hail from the Krasnoyarsk Region, in the heart of the Russian North. Otyken was founded in 2019 and is the brainchild of Andrey Medonos, director of the local museum of ethnography. Their style is a mixture of rock, R&B and tribal electronica, complete with throat singing. They perform in three languages - Chulym, Khakassian and Russian. All the band members are representatives of the Chulym, Ket and Selkup ethnic groups. And all hail from tiny villages in the remote taiga - no coffee shops, pharmacies or even electricity. The name ‘Otyken’ comes from the turkic word meaning the “holy place where warriors laid down their arms and held talks”. According to Medonos, Otyken gained popularity thanks to foreign tourists interested in Siberian life. South and North Americans and Canadians are frequent visitors, often looking for parallels with their own cultures. At first, Otyken had a more authentic and traditional sound, but, in order to increase their reach, the band began introducing outside elements. The costumes were improvised, as well - they’re not really true replicas, but more of a mixture of traditional and modern elements. You’ll often see animal hides, feathers and modern elements all rolled into one. As for the instruments, the same principle of embellishment applies. “The most unusual instrument we have is the morin khuur [a Mongolian string instrument] made from a horse’s skull. We have other instruments and outfits as well: maracas, horns…” says Tsveta, who plays the Jaw harp.  From: https://www.rbth.com/arts/335614-otyken-siberian-indigenous-band

Led Zeppelin - Poor Tom

 #Led Zeppelin #Jimmy Page #Robert Plant #hard rock #blues rock #folk rock #heavy metal #folk metal #heavy blues rock #1970s #music video

Led Zeppelin’s Poor Tom was composed in 1970 by vocalist Robert Plant and guitarist Jimmy Page when they were staying at Bron-Yr-Aur, a small cottage in Wales, and was recorded at Olympic Studios on 6 May 1970. The song was left off the album Led Zeppelin III but was eventually included on the band's album Coda, released in 1982 two years after the death of drummer John Bonham, having been produced by Page at his newly-acquired Sol Studios. Although the lyrics can be difficult to decipher, the song appears to be about a hard working labourer on the Mississippi River named Tom who does away with his unfaithful wife Ellie May. Tom may also be psychic, as the lines 'Poor Tom, seventh son/Always knew what was goin' on' can be interpreted as a reference to the folk belief that seventh sons of seventh sons were clairvoyant. The title may have come from Charles Kingsley's The Water Babies. In the story, a poor chimneysweep called Tom falls into a bedroom owned by Miss Ellie, who is dying. Tom is accused of being a thief and subsequently drowns in a river after being pursued. This song seems to be a variation on the theme of Robert Wilkins' That's No Way To Get Along, recorded in 1929, which was covered by The Rolling Stones for their 1968 Beggar's Banquet album, under the title Prodigal Son. The music for Zep's Poor Tom also bears resemblance to a track recorded in the 1960's called She Likes It, by Owen Hand, who was allegedly a friend of Bert Jansch's.  From: https://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Poor_Tom

Here's a tale of Tom
Who worked the railroads long
His wife would cook his meal
As he would change the wheel

Poor Tom, seventh son,
Always knew what's goin' on
Ain't a thing that you can hide from Tom
There ain't nothing that you can hide from Tom

Worked for thirty years
Sharing hopes and fears
Dreamin' of the day
He could turn and say

Poor Tom, work's done,
Been lazin' out in the noonday sun
Ain't a thing that you can hide from Tom
Ain't a thing that you can hide from Tom

His wife was Annie Mae
With any man a game she'd play
When Tom was out of town
She couldn't keep her dress down

Poor Tom, seventh son,
Always knew what's goin' on
Ain't a thing that you can hide from Tom
Ain't a thing that you can hide from Tom

And so it was one day
People got to Annie Mae
Tom stood, a gun in his hand
And stopped her runnin' around

Poor Tom, seventh son,
Gotta die for what you've done
All those years of work are thrown away
To ease your mind is that all you can say?
But what about that grandson on your knee?
Them railroad songs, Tom would sing to me

I Draw Slow - Apocalypso

 #I Draw Slow #folk #contemporary folk #Americana #roots music #contemporary bluegrass #Irish 

I Draw Slow is an Irish folk/Americana band that bridges the gap between Dublin and Nashville with exceptional picking and singing and a deep love for American roots music. Citing influences like Doc Watson, Joni Mitchell, the Carter Family, Neil Young, and Hank Williams, the group was founded in 2008 around the talents of Adrian Hart (fiddle), Colin Derham (claw hammer banjo), Konrad Liddy (double bass), and siblings Dave (guitar and vocals) and Louise Holden (vocals). Employing a compelling blend of bluegrass, Appalachian folk, old-timey country, and Americana, the group released their acclaimed debut album, Redhills on Pinecastle in 2011. They tapped veteran Irish producer Brian Masterson (the Chieftains, Van Morrison, Norah Jones) to helm their sophomore outing, 2014's similarly well-received White Wave Chapel, and in 2017, they inked a deal with Compass Records and released their third studio long-player, Turn Your Face to the Sun. 2020 saw the band retreat into isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Healing from that shared trauma was at the core of the group's eponymous fourth long-player. Released in 2022, I Draw Slow looked inward and introduced new sonic elements into the group's rootsy sound, including retro-pop, jazz, and ambient soundscapes.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/i-draw-slow-mn0003232529/biography

Tomorrow - Revolution

 

 

 #Tomorrow #Steve Howe #psychedelic rock #British psychedelia #psychedelic pop rock #1960s

Writing this from a cafe (since PG&E has shut down the power for the weekend), I head back through the decades for one of my favorite eras/genres, the late 60s British psychedelic scene.  Tomorrow weren't exactly a huge seller at the time, and are probably best remembered for (a) the killer single "My White Bicycle," a perennial Nuggets-type compilation mainstay, and (b) guitarist Steve Howe, who left afterwards to join Yes.  But the album is actually pretty great, a mix of heavier psychedelia and lighter, more twee, very British pop. Again, "Bicycle" is the keeper here, a delirious psychedelic rocker with a killer guitar hook and all manner of studio playfulness.  But it's joined by some other winners, among them the silly but amusing "Three Jolly Little Dwarfs," the even lighter but almost Ray Davies-infused "Auntie Mary's Dress Shop," the cool guitar riffs of the more complex "Claramount Lake" and "Real Life Permanent Dream," and the trippy, goofy acid rock of "Revolution" (no, not a Beatles cover).  Not to mention a pretty straight and superfluous but still decent version of "Strawberry Fields Forever" (yes, a Beatles cover). The CD version of the album (and the version that streams on Spotify) adds a bunch of bonus tracks, including a few solo tracks from singer Keith West and, most notably, the absolutely bonkers single "10,000 Words In A Cardboard Box," recorded by a couple members of the band performing as The Aquarian Age; it's one of the best (and most underappreciated) examples of psychedelic pop, right up there with Status Quo's "Pictures of Matchstick Men."  From: https://www.jitterywhiteguymusic.com/2019/10/tomorrow-tomorrow-1968.html

Renaissance - A Song For All Seasons

 #Renaissance #Annie Haslam #progressive rock #British progressive rock #symphonic prog #classical #orchestral #1970s

The 1978 Renaissance album ‘A Song for All Seasons’ is the ideal entry point for showcasing the individual talents and collective chemistry of the band. Underpinning the whole piece is the glorious, soaring, five-octave ranged voice of protean singer and artist, Annie Haslam. In a decade replete with stunning female vocalists, Haslam can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with anyone, using her voice with the precision of a surgeon using a scalpel, yet maintaining the searing beauty in her delivery.
Haslam’s vocal talent notwithstanding, Renaissance are an accomplished collective of musicians. A Song for all Seasons boasts the considerable keyboard talents of John Tout. A classical pianist by inclination, his distinctive, layered style provides a crucial backdrop over which Haslam’s precision vocals can truly be enjoyed. With John Camp and Michael Dunford providing an intricate and layered guitar sound, and Terry Sullivan on drums, this album sees the recognized classic line up for Renaissance (if such a thing truly exists in a band with such a fluid membership).
The album itself is, therefore, an accumulation of collaborations, with the band calling on the production talents of erstwhile Genesis producer, David Hentschel and orchestral arrangements arranged by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s Harry Rabinowitz. All of these diverse musical elements are encapsulated in the spectacular opening track ‘Opening Out’, a piece which actually prefaces the direction of the album. Tout’s classical piano is eschewed in favour of intricate synthesisers, there is considerable orchestration and, of course, Haslam’s vocal prowess.
The rest of the album is a concoction of musical styles. ‘Day of the Dreamer’ and ‘Kindness (at the end)’ are clearly heavily rooted in progressive rock and would not have been out of place on an album released 5 years earlier. Despite this fused style the album manages to maintain an internal coherence. The acoustic-folk of ‘Closer than Yesterday’ sits comfortably alongside accessible tunes such as ‘Back Home Once Again’. The eponymous ‘A Song for All Seasons’ nicely rounds the original album off and provides a welcome reprise of their genuine prog credentials.  From: https://wearecult.rocks/renaissance-a-song-for-all-seasons-3cd-reviewed

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac - One Sunny Day

 #Fleetwood Mac #Peter Green #Mick Fleetwood #John McVie #blues rock #British blues revival #heavy blues rock #psychedelic blues rock #1960s

Their third LP, 1969's Then Play On, was Fleetwood Mac's first masterpiece, building on their beloved blues with edgier guitar tones, expanded arrangements and elements of folk, art-rock and psychedelia. There was plenty of space to get heavy, and a prime example is "One Sunny Day": Over Fleetwood's steadily thudding toms, Green and Danny Kirwan intertwine distorted, descending riffs and high, piercing melodies — even, at times, dipping their collective toe into the proto-metal pool.  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/heaviest-fleetwood-mac-songs/

I don’t want to rock the boat, but to me Fleetwood Mac never meant Stevie Nicks, Lindsey Buckingham or the tedious media fascinations with the band members’ relationship conflicts. To me, Fleetwood Mac meant one thing: Then Play On – one of the greatest blues-rock records ever made. Then Play On was the group’s third album, released on the Reprise label in 1969. This gatefold record is hard evidence of Fleetwood Mac’s growth from an excellent blues band to a blues-based act that defied description. The group at this point featured Peter Green and Danny Kirwan, each on guitar and vocals, Jeremy Spencer (whose only contribution here is piano on “Oh Well”), and the world-class rhythm section of bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood.
I’m impressed by how Then Play On prioritizes what I assume Fleetwood Mac wanted to show of themselves: their ability to create both taut, vocal-led tracks and stunning instrumental workouts. Sure, Fleetwood Mac and Rumours are great albums that served up anthems for an era, but I can usually hear select cuts from those records while waiting at my bank machine, or at the grocery store. On the other hand, when I want to hear brilliant blues rock that never compromises and demands to be heard, I put Then Play On on my turntable and play it loud.  From: https://www.guitarplayer.com/players/why-fleetwood-macs-then-play-on-is-one-of-the-greatest-blues-rock-albums-ever-made

Laura Love - I Am Wondering

 #Laura Love #folk #Afro-Celtic #Americana #Afro-Carribean #folk pop #funk #R&B #world music #singer-songwriter

Laura Love's restless, musically adventurous spirit has carried her in a remarkable array of directions. A bass player with a unique vocal style, Love has performed everything from grunge to jazz to bluegrass. She has covered songs as diverse as Hank Williams' I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Jackie DeShannon's Put a Little Love in Your Heart, and Kurt Cobain's Come As You Are. Most remarkably, she has melded her own funky, folky genre from African and Caribbean rhythms, Irish melodies, and R&B. She calls it Afro/Celtic. "Love has a powerful raspy voice not unlike Toni Childs, and she uses it to full advantage — howling , crooning, and even yodeling," Lahri Bond wrote in Dirty Linen magazine. "These tunes usually have spiritual underpinnings that give Love's lyrics a simplicity with a lot of depth. Love often strings together 'nonsense' words that serve as rhythmic connecting devices similar to scatting or African chant."
With self-deprecating wit, the singer described her sound to Billboard as "more like confusion than fusion. I don't really devour a lot of music, but I hear snippets here and there at festivals without meaning to. Some of it just sinks in — the really emotionally grabbing stuff — and sticks with me. But I've always loved Appalachian — the high lonesome, bluegrassy, mournful, minor-key white soul music — and I love black soul music. Time magazine music critic Christopher Farley has described Love as more traditionally folky than musically exotic, believing that Love could be a descendent of Joni Mitchell, and her songs address typical coffeehouse subject matter. "Love has a voice rich with dark shadings and rural twang," Farley wrote. "She calls her music Afro/Celtic, but it's mostly front-porch folk with a few twists."
Love made her jazz-singing debut for a "captive audience" at a penitentiary in her home state of Nebraska in the early 1980s. She was 16 years old. Later, she developed a following in the Seattle music scene, where she played grunge rock in the early years of her career. Eventually, Love found — or, more accurately, created — her own niche. "The Afro-Celtic label doesn't communicate the full flavor of Love's songs," Nelson George wrote in Playboy. "Her songs have bright, lilting melodies that contrast nicely with lyrics that focus on poverty and pain. But Love isn't as heavy-voiced or didactic as Tracy Chapman. Her vocals are lighter, higher-pitched, and less guarded than those of her fellow pop-folkie. As pained and bitter as the songs are, Love suggests there's room for optimism."  From:https://musicianguide.com/biographies/1608000914/Laura-Love.html

 

Richard & Linda Thompson - A Heart Needs A Home

 #Richard & Linda Thompson #folk rock #British folk rock #contemporary folk #singer-songwriter #ex-Fairport Convention #1970s #music video #The Old Grey Whistle Test

Richard Thompson left Fairport Convention after 1970’s Full House, his reputation secured as an excellent songwriter and guitarist. He released a spectacularly unsuccessful solo album, Henry the Human Fly, in 1972. He then married Linda Peters and they released six albums between 1974 and 1982; their relationship broke down before an ill-fated North American tour in 1982. The duo’s music is often melancholic, and it’s a common trick of Richard Thompson to pair upbeat music with depressing lyrics. They often play acoustic folk-rock, especially on their early albums, but 1978’s First Light uses an L.A. rhythm section and 1982’s Shoot Out The Lights has few vestiges of folk remaining. Linda and Richard share the vocal duties – while Richard’s gruff voice is limited, Linda’s pristine voice is able to capture a range of moods, from joy on ‘I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight’ to resignation on ‘Walking on a Wire’. The pair’s first album, 1974’s I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight and their 1982 swan song Shoot Out The Lights are generally considered as their strongest. In between they spent time in a Sufi Muslim commune, taking three years away from music. Richard has stated that he considers their late 1970s albums as weak, as he didn’t have his mind on the job.  From: https://albumreviews.blog/reviews/1970s-album-reviews/richard-and-linda-thompson/

Linda Thompson's experience with Sufism was, by her own reckoning, not such a good one. She moved to a commune in Maida Vale with Richard, then her husband, after making "Hokey Pokey," and she describes her experience there as grim and self-punishing. For awhile, Richard's mullah told him not to play the guitar, so he didn't play the guitar. Richard & Linda Thompson, British folk-rock royalty, disappeared for a few years in the mid-'70s. Before they did, they sent this epistle. "A Heart Needs A Home" pointed straight toward the "Pour Down Like Silver" LP, Thompson's most explicit bout of Sufi songwriting. "Home" caps "Hokey Pokey," a collection of songs that describe the world as a cold, forbidding, sin-soaked place. Richard Thompson turns to Allah in emptiness, and finds fulfillment there. Odd, then, that he didn't sing it. He gave the song to Linda. Perhaps he identified with her so strongly back then that he felt no separation between his perspective and hers. Or maybe he was trying to convince her of something. Since leaving the commune (and the marriage), she's occasionally suggested that her heart was never really in it; that she followed Richard to Maida Vale because she loved him, and she wore the headscarf because that's what was expected of her. Do we believe her? She certainly does not look uncomfortable singing "A Heart Needs A Home." On the contrary: Linda Thompson is completely possessed, her eyes on the great beyond. Maybe she's singing about Richard, maybe she's singing about Allah. Maybe it doesn't matter. The Sufis have a concept called wahdat-al-wujud: God is the only reality, and all that we perceive is a decipherable pattern emanating from Allah. Nothing exists that isn't a piece of the divine. Linda might have got it better than the mullah did. She might have got it better than Richard did.  From: https://www.nj.com/entertainment/music/2010/08/song_of_the_day_a_heart_needs.html

The Neptune Power Federation - Watch Our Masters Bleed

 #The Neptune Power Federation #hard rock #stoner rock #occult rock #stoner metal #Australian #music video

Like all great threats to decency, the church of The Neptune Power Federation was born far from the tired gaze of the masses. Operating out of dive bars and biker clubhouses, playing to troubled souls with dirty hair and crude intentions, their high volume psychedelic gospel spreads like a glorious subterranean infection.  From: https://theneptunepowerfederation.bandcamp.com/community

10 Megatons of neanderthal rock fuelled by satan and space hallucinogens. Without doubt the Neptune Power Federation are the best live band playing in Sydney at the moment. A band comprised of musicians with the hard won skill earned through a lifetime of rocking deals out a feast for both the ears and eyes. Riffs that we all thought were forbidden are wielded with joy and crunching power whilst the Imperial Priestess Screaming Loz Sutch aka The Rat Queen presides above it all; mocking the heavens, defying hell and laying waste to any mere mortals foolish enough to stand in her path.  From: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/2387664-the-neptune-power-federation
 
I have always loved storytelling. As a child I rapidly ran out of interesting books to devour in the library, and nowadays I get my fill with online free-form role playing. This extends to music as well; a cool concept can really elevate an otherwise unremarkable album. What a good story needs first and foremost is interesting characters though, and The Neptune Power Federation get that. Their vocalist, Imperial Priestess Screaming Loz Sutch, assumes the mantle of a time-travelling space witch for their fourth album, Memoirs of a Rat Queen. 70s space rock that mixes Heart with Hawkwind and AC/DC, a sexy vengeful bombshell on the mic, and a story scattered from the French revolution to boning in a parking lot; what could possibly go wrong here?
I guess we won’t find out, because not much does. That largely comes down to the Imperial Priestess. Like an Oscar-worthy actress, she completely falls into the role. Her character is straight out of a Neil Gaiman novel, a demi-goddess of lust and wrath, of regal rage and justified arrogance, and you believe her every syllable whether she sneers about the deaths of her enemies (“Rat Queen”: ‘Their last words as they fell / were damn that bitch to hell!’) or seduces a mere mortal with her eons of experience (“I’ll Make a Man Out of You,” not even close to a Disney cover!). It certainly helps that her technical skills are off the charts. Her voice is razor-sharp. Some might consider her too shrill, but she conveys supreme passion and power, and with a few momentary exceptions, she is always in complete control of her vocal chords and her role alike.
All that would go nowhere without solid songwriting, and boy, are there some fucking jams on this platter. “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” is both incredibly seductive and a fantastic fist-pumper, reminiscent of the very best glam ever had to offer. “Rat Queen” has more hooks than an angling store and more girl power than a female bodybuilder competition, while single “Watch Our Masters Bleed” goes from reflective reverence to rousing revolution. Every track has a different vibe, thanks to the distinct hooks as well as selective use of classic instrumentation, like the cowbell in “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” and the Hammond organ blasting throughout “Pagan Inclinations.” Traces of soul are plentiful, thanks to the frequent female choir piping in, giving a gospel atmosphere to the electrifying boogie space rock anthems.  From: https://www.angrymetalguy.com/the-neptune-power-federation-memoirs-of-a-rat-queen-review/

 

Nurse With Wound - The Bottom Feeder

 #Nurse With Wound #Steven Stapleton #experimental #industrial #avant-garde #noise #dark ambient #drone #sound collage #plunderphonics #animated music video #stop-motion

A challenging, amorphous entity that has revolved around Steve Stapleton for almost forty years, Nurse With Wound has operated at the vanguard of industrial, drone and ambient music with fearless clarity. Steve Stapleton’s Nurse With Wound project is regularly positioned in the same universe as Current 93 and Coil on the basis of shared roots, ongoing social connections and a vague genre definition. What really unifies NWW with the other two, however, is the sheer uniqueness of the musical vision at play - each band has defined a sound world that echoes known genres, while belonging to any and all they might wish. In the case of Stapleton, his work has rarely featured a front-man or a conventional vocal presence, meaning the focus has always been on his abilities to reinvent and reimagine sounds in new contexts and new situations via his skill as a sound collagist. His focus on the moods and emotions evoked by what he creates has ensured a truly expansive set of alternative visions within his long discography.  From: https://thevinylfactory.com/features/an-introduction-to-nurse-with-wound-in-10-records/

As a testament to the random disorder and beauty of life, London’s Nurse With Wound (Steven Stapleton) functioned outside the normal musical channels for a decade, experimenting with tape collages of disjointed phrases, improvised music, electronics and found sounds on a series of intriguing, provocative, humorous and frequently entertaining self-released records. Between 1978 and 1988, Stapleton collaborated with such likeminded sonic adventurers as David Tibet of Current 93 and Tony Wakeford of Sol Invictus to produce a prodigious body of work that embraces surrealism in both content and graphics.

NWW’s debut, Chance Meeting of a Sweing Machine and an Umbrella on a Dessecting Table, welds introverted, spacey guitar to converging hemispheres of intergalactic blips. Then, like much of the band’s music, it veers into sketchy doodles: between intermittent lulls of humming and buzzing, there are bursts of frenzied screeching, torture chamber screams, piano scales, women speaking French, etc.

To the Quiet Men From a Tiny Girl resembles a nest of vibrating insects, with clinking chains, someone practicing saxophone, an operatic soprano and other voices. “Ostranenie” suggests a house of a hundred rooms — with a different noise in each.

Merzbild Schwet is as challenging as a Buñuel film, with repeated lines (like “We have fallen silent - lost the power of speech - our heads are empty”) as women laugh and sing. Other ingredients: clanking, ripping velcro, angry voices and something like a sick elephant honking.

Those first three albums were later reissued in a CD boxed set (Psilotripitaka), which also includes Ladies Home Tickler, another bizarre cut-up collage: snippets of sappy tunes, electrical noises and taunting laughter. Present the Sisters of Pataphysics compiles passages from the first three LPs.

The avant drippings on Sylvie and Babs — the most guest-laden NWW effort, with dozens of contributors as opposed to the usual one or two — include more laughter and repetition of the word “pardon.” The two Automating albums collect material from the many compilations to which Nurse With Wound has contributed. Slices of show tunes, repetitive background beats and advice like “Never eat anything bigger than your head” are sprinkled throughout. Volume II addresses the hierarchy of biological existence; one segment could be the soundtrack for a science fiction feature about giant rampaging tarantulas.

A pair of 12-inch EPs paired as an album, Gyllensköld bristles the coarsest of hairs with scratching and horror dungeon screams while Brained adds the demonic voice of Clint Ruin yet contains a movement that could accompany an underwater Cousteau documentary.

A Sucked Orange offers 20 experimental vignettes, many of which justify their titles: the scraping murmur of “Flea Bite,” the repetitive clank of utensils beneath a spoken loop of “It ain’t necessarily so” on “It Just Ain’t So,” the catchy ditty plinked out on “This Piano Can’t Think.”

Soliloquy for Lilith is Stapleton’s surprising chef d’oeuvre, a three-album box of contemplative, atmospheric experiments employing treatments of a stringed instrument of his own invention.

Over time, however, the group’s usual organized chaos gained a certain predictability. At the end of 1988, Stapleton moved to a farm in Ireland.

More accessible than much of Stapleton’s ’80s work, Rock ‘n Roll Station is rhythmic almost to the point of being dancefloor-friendly. The combination of rhythms, noise and ambience is in line with work done in the mid-to-late-’90s by artists on the Warp label. The title track begins with a clipped rhythm aided by random vocal samples; “The Self Sufficient Sexual Shoe” repeats the idea with male vocals replaced by female whispers. “Two Golden Microphones” is a multifaceted 17-minute sonic beast that throws together fragments of pop songs, surf instrumentals and tribal rhythms. “A Silhouette and Thumbtack (A Dance in Hyperspace)” slides from spooky ambience to a beat interrupted by random samples/noise. “R+B Through Collis Browne” works together female screams and guitar samples. The disc ends with three minutes of “Finsbury Park, May 8th, 1.35 pm (I’ll See You In Another World),” ambient-drone accented by a thumping beat.

From: https://trouserpress.com/reviews/nurse-with-wound/

 

 

Steven Stapleton