Euzen - Phobia

 #Euzen #Maria Franz #experimental rock #alternative rock #progressive rock #electronica #indie rock #Danish #music video

Euzen is a young, highly talented and ambitious band, situated in Copenhagen, Denmark. Their music is experimental, progressive and electronic, with the main focus of creating innovative music, which is both catchy and complex. Euzen present a variety of expressions in a grand musical universe filled with both acoustic and electronic instruments, completed by the captivating vocal range of the charismatic Norwegian singer Maria Franz. It's harmonic and intense, intricate and accessible, the total listening experience is completely and utterly unique and offers a fresh angle to electronic music.  From: https://www.womex.com/virtual/westpark_music/euzen

From the first accords of the Euzen’s ‘Metamorph’ you slide into a magical world of a great piece of work. This must be one of the best electronic releases of this year. Brave and bright, experimental and solid, melodic and light this album is exactly what you expect from a band from somewhere like Denmark. Probably it is not a good thing to mention the nationality in the context of music, but it would be ignorant as well to skip this aspect. There are international trends and terms like Eurohit. But this is exactly what we, the lovers of underground music, hate, right? Those who know the value of the music are looking for authentic and original pieces. And only those musicians who embrace their background are able to bring out something like this. Euzen is a brilliant example. Listening to them it is easy to identify they have some Nordic roots. On the one hand the music of Euzen is quite simple. There are not much of elements or tracks. The compositions of the songs are very ordinary and pop, just like many others. But quiet low bass lines give some feeling of calmness and relaxation. The vocals – something between Bjork and CocoRosie – tell some fairy tales. The charming vocalist immediately catches the attention of the listener. And the guitars give it a drive and colour texture. Exactly, it is possible to feel this music with all of your senses. This must be something like drugs – when you think you’re in control and can get off any moment. But try to turn this album off, if you dare. No, you won’t! This album is absolutely must have for an easy listening, when you want to relax for a while, since this is a fantastic soundtrack for daydreaming.  From: https://www.reflectionsofdarkness.com/artists-a-e-cdreviews-131/15689-cd-review-euzen-metamorph 

Chad VanGaalen - Monster

 #Chad VanGaalen #indie rock #psychedelic folk #electronica #psychedelic rock #alternative rock #singer-songwriter #Canadian #animated music video 

2020 was a terrible year for gardening. It was terrible for peppers, it was terrible for tomatoes, it was terrible for the condition of the soul. But Chad VanGaalen somehow raised a garden all the same: carrots and sprouts and broccoli and a revivifying new album, all of them grown at home. He likes to eat directly off the plant; he says, ”I get down on my knees and graze. It’s nice to feel the vegetables in your face,” and the 13 songs on World’s Most Stressed Out Gardener were harvested with just such a spirit: in their raw state, young and vegetal, at the very moment they were made. What that means is that the Calgary songwriter’s new album is a psychedelic bumper crop. A collection of tunes that does away with obsessiveness, the anxiety of perfectionism, in favor of freshness and immediacy - capturing the world as it was met while recording alone at home over a period of years. “Don’t overthink it,” VanGaalen told himself again and again, despite the push/pull love/hate of his relationship with songwriting. “I’m always trying to get outside of the song - but then I realize I love the song.” This is a record that gleams with VanGaalen’s musical signatures: found sound, reverb, polychromatic folk music that is by turns cartoonish and hyperphysical - like ultra magnified footage of a virus or a leaf. Apparently, the LP began life as a “pretty minimal” flute record. Later it became an electronic record “for a while” and finally, “right at the last second,” it “turned into a pile of garbage.” The good kind of garbage: glinting, useful, free. Music as compost—leaves, and branches ready to be re-ingested by the earth, turned into a flower.  From: https://www.subpop.com/artists/chad_vangaalen  

Sally Rogers & Claudia Schmidt - Hey, Hey, Watenay / I Walk In Beauty

 #Sally Rogers #Claudia Schmidt #folk #traditional #Americana #singer-songwriter #contemporary folk #Appalachian dulcimer

Claudia Schmidt and Sally Rogers have been weaving their voices, dulcimers, and guitars together for decades, creating an atmosphere of joy and musical lushness that audiences find so irresistible, they frequently join right in. Starting with their soaring harmonies - "blood harmony" was how one fan described it - fascinating double dulcimer work, the mix of 6 and 12 string guitars, then brought together with a wide choice of material encompassing their originals, traditional, and choice compositions of contemporary songwriters, a concert by these two masters of their craft is an immensely satisfying and restorative experience. Time has only deepened and enriched the music they create together.  From: https://sallyrogers.com/concert-booking/sally-and-claudia/

The Navaho term for the spiritual path, their practice of the holy life, has been translated as The Beauty Way. This way of referring to spirituality, when I first encountered it, was so different from the dry, ascetic pursuits of Zen or intensive meditation that I was first attracted to in my 20's, and spoke to the deep heart of the Holy that was so missing from my vision of spirituality, and from my young and undeveloped self at that time. Understanding the spiritual path as The Beauty Way also opened me to the wonder of the Creator's creation that shone with holy light all around me, not only in the natural beauty of nature, but also in the simple beauty of sunrise, of the in and out of my breath, of the breath of my children as they slept. All was Beauty. It took this Navaho prayer to open my heart to the same truth that my Jewish roots, in the deep mysticism of Kabbalah, spoke to as well: there is no where God is not - all of creation is made of the sparks of the Creative.

I offer two short versions of Beauty Way prayers here that their resonance may bless you as they have blessed me.

R. Waldrip prefaced his use of this blessing with a note that seemed appropriate to include here:

"Let me be clear: I didn't write this song. When I saw it at the Anasazi Museum at Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, I was so impressed that I copied it for the introduction of my novel, Anasazi Harvest."

Today I will walk out, today everything evil will leave me,
I will be as I was before, I will have a cool breeze over my body.
I will have a light body, I will be happy forever,
nothing will hinder me.
I walk with beauty before me. I walk with beauty behind me.
I walk with beauty below me. I walk with beauty above me.
I walk with beauty around me. My words will be beautiful.

In beauty all day long may I walk.
Through the returning seasons, may I walk.
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk.
With dew about my feet, may I walk.

With beauty before me may I walk.
With beauty behind me may I walk.
With beauty below me may I walk.
With beauty above me may I walk.
With beauty all around me may I walk.

In old age wandering on a trail of beauty,
lively, may I walk.
In old age wandering on a trail of beauty,
living again, may I walk.
My words will be beautiful.

From: http://www.pathwaysforhealing.com/node/160

The Temptations - (I Know) I'm Losing You

 #The Temptations #David Ruffin #Eddie Kendricks #Motown #R&B #soul #funk #psychedelic soul #1960s

The Temptations were an American vocal group noted for their smooth harmonies and intricate choreography. Recording primarily for Motown Records, they were among the most popular performers of soul music in the 1960s and ’70s. Originally called the Elgins, the Temptations were formed in 1961 from the coupling of two vocal groups based in Detroit - the Primes, originally from Alabama, and the Distants. That same year they signed with Motown. After a slow start - with the addition of David Ruffin and largely under the direction of songwriter-producers Smokey Robinson and Norman Whitfield - the Temptations turned out a string of romantic hits. Bass Melvin Franklin, baritone Otis Williams, and occasional lead Paul Williams provided complex harmonies, and the two regular lead singers, David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks, strikingly complemented each other. Ruffin had a remarkable sandpaper baritone and Kendricks a soaring tenor. Paragons of sleek fashion and practitioners of athletic choreography, the Temptations epitomized sophisticated cool. In the late 1960s they shifted to a more funk-oriented sound and to more socially conscious material when Whitfield became the group’s producer and principal songwriter.  From: https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Temptations

The list of Motown songs based around a guitar riff is a short one, but this masterpiece should be at the top of that one and several others. Producer Norman Whitfield wrote the song with Edward Holland of Holland-Dozier-Holland, but the Temps’ road manager Cornelius Grant supplied the signature guitar line. Grant’s contribution not only got him co-writing credit, but earned him the spot to play on the record – that’s him you hear on guitar in the song. The Temptations’ classic line-up was in full effect for this number. David Ruffin nails the vocals. The rasp in his voice makes it sound like he’s been up all night drinking, smoking and thinking about where this relationship has gone. When the rest of the Temps chime in with “looosing you” it sounds like a desperate cry echoing out of the abyss. The subtleties in Whitfield’s arrangement take center stage in the last minute of the song, as the playing of Eddie “Bongo” Brown and the Funk Brothers horn section take over. Check out that great trombone line and how the long low note underscores the desperate feel of the song. You can hear Ruffin’s world collapsing as the horns ramp up and dance with the voices as the song fades out. The gravity of the situation would be dire if it weren’t so easy to dance to. Seizing on the rock elements of the song, Rare Earth cut a 10 minute cover for their 1970 “Ecology” album. Motown cut the track down to three minutes and released it as a single that summer where it peaked at No. 7 on the pop charts, one slot higher than the Temptations’ original. The greatest bar band of all time, the Faces, cut their version a year later. It was also released as a single and appeared on Rod Stewart’s blockbuster “Every Picture Tells A Story” album.  From: https://joelfrancis.com/2009/06/17/the-temptations-%E2%80%93-%E2%80%9Ci-know-i%E2%80%99m-losing-you%E2%80%9D/

The Marshall Tucker Band - A New Life

 #The Marshall Tucker Band #Southern rock #blues rock #country rock #jazz rock #C&W #progressive country #1970s

The Marshall Tucker Band is a Southern rock band. Originally from Spartanburg, South Carolina, the band formed in 1972, and soon signed with Capricorn Records. In 1973 they released their first LP, simply titled 'The Marshall Tucker band. Compared to Southern rock pioneers and label-mates The Allman Brothers Band, Marshall Tucker had a more country and western feel, with the flute being a key lead instrument in their sound. There was no band member named "Marshall Tucker". Originally, the band called itself The Toy Factory (named after lead-guitarist Toy Caldwell). But by the time the band released its first album they had become the Marshall Tucker Band. During a radio interview in Hempstead, NY in 1973, Tommy Caldwell explained the origins of the band's name: "There's an old blind dude that tunes pianos, and his name is Marshall Tucker. We didn't name the band after him, but we just kind of liked that name and stuck with it."  From: https://www.last.fm/music/The+Marshall+Tucker+Band/+wiki

Sunanda Sharma - Patake

 #Sunanda Sharma #Indian music #Indian folk pop #bhangra music #Punjabi folk #world music

Bhangra is a type of traditional folk dance of Punjab. It is done in the season of harvesting. Bhangra is especially associated with the vernal Vaisakhi festival. In a typical performance, several dancers execute vigorous kicks, leaps, and bends of the body - often with upraised, thrusting arm or shoulder movements - to the accompaniment of short songs called boliyan and, most significantly, to the beat of a dhol (double-headed drum). Struck with a heavy beater on one end and with a lighter stick on the other, the dhol imbues the music with a syncopated (accents on the weak beats), swinging rhythmic character that has generally remained the hallmark of bhangra music. An energetic Punjabi dance, bhangra originated with Punjab farmers as a cultural and communal celebration; its modern-day evolution has allowed bhangra to retain its traditional Punjabi roots, while broadening its reach to include integration into popular music and DJing, group-based competitions, and even exercise and dance programs in schools and studios.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangra_(dance)

Sunanda Sharma is one of the most talented singers in the Punjabi music industry. She was born in Gurdaspur, Punjab, India. She is a playback singer as well as an actor. Sunanda started her career by singing cover songs during her college days and uploading them on Youtube. One of her videos caught the eye of many people and that’s how she came into the limelight. One of her songs, Jaani Tera Naa, which was released in 2017, is one of the most viewed songs of hers and brought her the fame and success she had always dreamt of. Sharma has also won many awards for her fabulous talent. Her acting career began when she starred in Sajjan Singh Rangroot opposite Diljit Dosanjh and Yograj Singh. Some of the most popular Sunanda Sharma songs that you cannot miss are Baarish Ki Jaaye, Duji Vaar Pyar, Mummy Nu Pasand, Tere Naal Nachna, Chori Chori, Poster Lagwa Do, and the list goes on.  From: https://fantiger.com/artist/sunanda-sharma

Ghostemane - Bonesaw

#Ghostemane #trap metal #hardcore punk #noise #alternative hip hop #black metal #industrial hip hop #animated music video

Eric Whitney, known professionally as Ghostemane or Eric Ghoste, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He has released eight solo albums and three collaborative albums under his Ghostemane moniker, primarily merging elements of heavy metal, hip hop and industrial music. Whitney has also released music with a number of additional solo projects, pursuing styles including black metal as Baader-Meinhof, noise music as GASM, and electronic music as Swearr. He began his career in local hardcore punk and doom metal bands around Florida. In 2015, he moved to Los Angeles, starting a career as a rapper, under the moniker Ill Bizz. Around this same time, he was a member of the hip hop collective Schemaposse.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostemane

While eagerly awaiting Ghostemane’s forthcoming album, ANTI-ICON, let’s recap some of the defining points in his discography so far. These are the picks from Ghostemane’s creative timeline that reflect his ability to take the elements from trap, metal and industrial worlds and mix them in genre-defying ways that redefine the framework of trap metal and heavy music in general.

Swan: If you could imagine the spooky synth lead in “Swan” played on a guitar in tremolo picking style, the references coming to mind would be along the lines of early Mayhem or Darkthrone, as this haunting melody mirrors some of the most typical riffs in black-metal classics. So much so that you might expect an outburst of blast beats to eventually break the suspense. But instead, Ghostemane’s agitated flows, deep lo-fi beats and crawling atmospheres culminate with a guitar sample from Black Sabbath’s “Electric Funeral,” making the track anything but predictable.

Elixir: Way before he debuted his black-metal side project, Ghostemane put out Blackmage — a record which continued pushing the limits of the genre that in 2016 was already gaining a cult-like following. In “Elixir,” as soon as you get used to the mashup of distressed rap verses, piano melodies and open hi-hats gliding along the guitar hook from Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” the flow gets interrupted by a heavy riff from Pantera’s “Walk.” Its rough, ostensibly random, I-don’t-give-a-fuck placement reflects Ghostemane’s bold and straightforward approach to mashing up references in his Blackmage era.

Rake: In this unruly track from Hexada, Ghostemane’s creative process comes off as that of a painter picking colors for a contrasting yet weirdly harmonious palette. No, wrong metaphor. It’s more like a twisted artistic villain sawing off random body parts from zombified trap, death-metal, nü-metal and industrial-metal archetypes and grinding them up in a superpowered food processor. It takes about one-and-a-half minutes, and that’s all Ghostemane needs to mold this sticky matter into an astonishing trap-metal Frankenstein.

D(R)Ead: If you’ve only heard one song from Ghostemane, chances are it’s this one. If you’ve only seen one music video by Ghostemane, chances are it’s also this one. One year after he debuted the post-industrial/techno side project Swearr, Ghostemane dropped “D(R)Ead,” a single that foretold the dominance of industrial sound on N / O / I / S / E. Chill(y) trap meets glitched noises, and rap verses shift to panicky Slipknot-style vocals as the track, with the help of live drumming by blink-182’s Travis Barker, progresses into a scream-powered industrial-metal explosion—then makes a full circle back to a dark trap ritual.

From: https://www.altpress.com/best-ghostemane-songs/

Belly - Gepetto

 #Belly #Tanya Donelly #alternative rock #dream pop #jangle pop #indie rock #1990s #music video #ex-Throwing Muses #ex-The Breeders

The year was 1993 and a boy said to me, “You know, you kinda look like Tanya Donelly.” I interpreted this as a pick-up line although it migh have been simply a (generous) observation, but at the time there was no higher compliment paid in my estimation. Even the boy from 1993 knew that Tanya Donelly was much more than just indie-rock cutie pie. As a founding member of Throwing Muses and the Breeders, she was rocking the cradle during the infancy of the alternative music movement. These collaborations resulted in a measured amount of critical success (particularly the Breeders’1990 LP Pod) but Donelly shifted focus in 1992 to form her own band, Belly.
Star, one of Belly’s only two albums, listens like the dangerous part of a fairy tale; tucked into bed at one turn only to be climbing out a midnight window at another. The first track, “Someone to Die For,” is a gentle, dreamy introduction to the album. On most releases, that crucial opening song is so often the pull of a ripcord but here, it’s the letting go of a balloon. The flotation ends quickly as the following two tracks, “Angel” and “Dusted” deliver a shot in the arm of swirling rhythm guitars and runaway beats. Donelly uses dynamics to emphasize her narrative, opening her throat wide and crescendoing as the drama gains momentum.
The pop triad of songs on Star – “Feed the Tree,” “Gepetto” and “Slow Dog” – saw frequent play on college radio and landed rotation in the that hallmark of alternative music credibility, MTV’s “120 Minutes.” Although “Feed the Tree” was Belly’s most commercially successful single, “Slow Dog” is the highlight of the album, a punchy little pop song that is anthemic in its simplicity. Similarly, “Witch,” the eerie lullaby of the collection, offers up the flip side of “Slow Dog”‘s emotional dissonance. The soothing introduction of major chord arpeggios on slide guitar is followed with Donelly’s breathy warning: “It’s not safe/ In this house/ In some witch’s bed/ You know the one/ She lies all lit up.” It’s this emotional juxtaposition of imagery and sound – nursery stories turned nightmare – that makes Donelly’s songwriting so compelling.
Star winds down with the lullaby sounds of “Untogether,” “Star” and “Stay,” interrupted only by “Sad Dress,” the most technically interesting effort of the album. Swinging in a 3/2 time signature, “Sad Dress” waltzes dizzily through heavy backbeats and bass riffs that are ratty like an unfinished hem. “Untogether,” an acoustic and bare offering, is the only track that features back-up vocals. Chick Graning, member of the short-lived alt-rock band Scarce, lends just an echo of a male voice in this elegy for an incompatible love.
Indeed, the beauty of Star is that Tanya Donelly’s voice and vision alone drive the album’s conceptual integrity. Her sound, luminous and evocative, was a departure from the disc(h)ord of the riot-grrrl bands that were building steam and fan bases in the mid-90’s. This is not to say that her pipes have no power. Airy and feminine for sure, Donelly can just as quickly tower a hundred stories high when the songwriting insists on it. She plays with notions of vulnerability and invincibility in her vocals, using inflection and even pronunciation to elicit emotional connections.
Donelly’s lyrics are peculiar and specific, conjuring images that are nature-oriented, childlike and vaguely occult. They are the remnants of your baby sister’s bad dream. One of the most memorable lines from “Angel” confesses, “I had bad dreams/ So bad I threw my pillow away.” The songs of Star are subliminal sense impressions, free associations in a way that intuitively clicks. When recalling snapshots of this album rapid fire, my list was “sister doll moon dress witch” – and yeah, that’s about right. Thematically, it’s somewhat of a curious bookend to Hole’s Live Through This. Where Courtney wails wounded about doll parts and witches’ heads, Tanya murmurs dream-like about beheaded dolls and witches’ beds. Both artists identify the trauma, artifice and stigmata that accompany a postmodern womanhood, reaching that place across very different access points. Courtney Love once remarked retrospectively, “I don’t think if I had been Tanya Donelly and put out Live Through This anybody would’ve cared” – and to be fair to Donelly, the reverse might also be true, insofar as only you can sing your own songs. Whether or not Love and Donelly viewed each other as feminist contemporaries, there are disarming lyrical parallels between the two works.
From:  https://spectrumculture.com/2010/06/21/revisit-belly-star/

Kula Shaker - Temple of Everlasting Light

#Kula Shaker #psychedelic rock #neo-psychedelia #raga rock #post-Britpop #psychedelic revival #world music #1990s

Kula Shaker are a British rock band who emerged from the post-britpop era. Named after the ninth century emperor of the same name, their 1996 debut album ‘K’ showcased a different approach than their contemporaries, with a sound inspired by 1960s psychedelic rock and world music and lyrics influenced by Hindu spiritualism. After a brief hiatus from 1999 to 2006, they reformed and are still active today.  From: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/KulaShaker

In Does Rock ‘N’ Roll Kill Braincells?!, we quiz an artist on their own career to see how much they can remember – and find out if the booze, loud music and/or tour sweeties has knocked the knowledge out of them. This week: Kula Shaker frontman Crispian Mills takes the ultimate test

Which band codenamed their seventh album “Kula Shaker demos” to prevent it from leaking?
“The Arsewipes?”
WRONG. It was Radiohead. According to bassist Colin Greenwood, to stop their 2007 record ‘In Rainbows’ being stolen, on the master they’d “write a name which probably nobody would listen to if we lost it; ‘Eagles: Greatest Hits’, ‘Kula Shaker demos’, ‘Phil Collins hip-hop covers”…
“Radiohead are the most overrated band in the universe. I think those guys believe their own myth, and that’s why their albums are so dull and self-important. That’s not me being offended – I genuinely think they’re boring.”
Did you cross paths much with Radiohead?
“We would never cross paths with the gods – we’re just mere mortals! [Laughs] They played opposite us when we played Glastonbury [in 1997], so all The Guardian readers were at Radiohead and then everyone else was at our gig, so it felt a bit more real. But my answer was right: it was The Arsewipes!”

You wrote and directed the 2018 comedy horror film Slaughterhouse Rulez. What is the school’s motto in the film?
“Per Caedes Ad Astra – Through Slaughter to Immortality.”
CORRECT. “The movie ‘If’ was a massive influence on Slaughterhouse Rulez and that was filmed at Charterhouse, a posh public school in the 1960s. A famous Indian saint said around that time that all formal education was like an abattoir for the mind, and you were sending your children to the slaughterhouse because there was no spiritual knowledge in schools. It was a powerful statement that stayed with me all those years until we came to pick the name for the public school.”
You hail from a filmmaking dynasty – you’re the son of actor Hayley Mills and director John Boulting. Were you ever starstruck by any big names as a child?
“The first time I met Harrison Ford he was dressed as Indiana Jones. My mum had worked with Steven Spielberg and was friends with his first wife Amy Irving, and surprised me by taking me to the set of The Last Crusade. I was frozen – all I could do was stare at his boots!”

In 2018, whose psychedelic-influenced album did Liam Gallagher brand as “shit Kula Shaker”?
“No idea. Who was it?”
WRONG. He said of his brother Noel’s High Flying Birds record, ‘Who Built the Moon?’: “It sounds like a shit Kula Shaker.”
“[Laughs] That’s very funny!”
Noel Gallagher used to champion Kula Shaker in the 1990s and you even played Oasis’ blockbuster 1996 Knebworth gigs…
“Being part of Knebworth was like being part of an event rather than a great concert. You can’t see anybody, but you get to say I was there. We didn’t really hang out with Oasis. There was definitely a sense of competition, and they saw us coming and Noel’s approach was probably: ‘Keep your enemies close’. We were rivals and they were at the top. They had the crown and were measuring themselves against the people making waves.”

In 2016, a reformed Kula Shaker made a return to playing live in Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, under which pseudonym?
“Was it The Garcons?”
CORRECT. “On the blackboard outside the pub, it said: ‘Live tonight – Kula Shaker. All the pizza you can eat!’ [Laughs] It was a very auspicious return! But it was great because we gave up trying to play the game, nobody in the industry gave a shit when we reformed, and we spent years making records and building it up again ourselves. It was a total reset that had to be done for our spiritual core.”

What time does the watch on the single cover of Kula Shaker’s ‘Govinda’ say?
“It’s 10 to 10.”
CORRECT. “One of the greatest experiences of being in Kula Shaker is singing ‘Govinda’ because it’s a magical chant that exists outside of space and time. It’s a sacred mantra. When you see our audience – a mass of humanity – engaged in transcendental congregational chanting, it’s overwhelming. That’s why I’d much rather be in Kula Shaker than The Arsewipes [Laughs].”

From: https://www.nme.com/features/music-interviews/kula-shaker-crispian-mills-robbie-williams-radiohead-90s-3252289

Sam Phillips - Black Sky

 #Sam Phillips #alternative rock #indie rock #singer-songwriter #T-Bone Burnett #1990s

With Martinis & Bikinis, Sam Phillips has revitalized the "Beatlesque" category with some substantial songwriting and a woman's voice, which turns the whole sound upside down. The Beatles hardly exhausted the possibilities of their late-'60s sound, and Phillips has the hooks and aphorisms to give that sound a second lease on life. Phillips has rewritten two old Beatles songs into "Strawberry Road" and "Same Rain"; she has even recorded a John Lennon composition, "Gimme Some Truth." Phillips's husband, T-Bone Burnett, cowrote two of the songs and produced all 13, and he adds the Lennon-esque touches of guitars recorded backward and sweet harmonized vocals pitted against distorted guitars. But none of this would matter if the songs weren't so good.  From: https://www.amazon.com/Martinis-Bikinis-Sam-Phillips/dp/B000000W50  

Speaking of her 1994 record, "Martinis and Bikinis," Los Angeles singer-songwriter Sam Phillips recently recalled an anecdote associated with one of the songs from that album--a track called "Baby I Can't Please You." It involved one of the musicians who played on the record, bassist Colin Moulding of the British alternative rock band XTC.
"I remember Colin Moulding coming in from England," she tells CBSNews.com. "We were at Jackson Browne's studio in Santa Monica recording. And I remember when he heard "Baby I Can't Please You," he had this big smile on his face and he said, 'We should do a Bollywood duet, you and me.' At the time I thought, 'Uh, maybe not.' But now I regret that. I think that would have been a wonderful idea and maybe someday we'll get to do that duet."
Still, Phillips did have a chance to rework some of the songs from the record that now appear as bonus tracks on a new reissue of "Martinis and Bikinis," which came out Tuesday. Produced by her then-husband T-Bone Burnett (whose production credits include Counting Crows, Robert Plant and Allison Krauss, and the Wallflowers), "Martinis and Bikinis" is generally well-regarded by the critics and perhaps her most accessible work.
"Martinis and Bikinis" Omnivore Recordings
"It actually came from my publishers at Notable Music," Phillips said about the idea behind the reissue. "They've been talking to this company Omnivore -  they started reissuing these vinyl projects. "It's been quite a while since ["Martinis and Bikinis"] has been released, and also because it's never been on vinyl, they were very excited to be involved."
Released at a time when alternative rock was the rage, "Martinis and Bikinis" was Phillips' third album for her then-label Virgin Records - the others being "The Indescribable Wow" and "Cruel Inventions." One thing she recalls about the record was T-Bone Burnett playing a lot of the guitars on it. "But I also remember that of the three records for Virgin," she adds, "it was the culmination of the other two records that the process that we had started when we first did "The Indescribable Wow." I felt like they were all connected and that "Martinis and Bikinis" was we finally got to the place that we wanted to get after a lot of work. I remember months in the studio for all three of those records."
In addition to Burnett, "Martinis and Bikinis" featured musicians such as Colin Moulding, Marc Ribot, Mickey Curry and R.E.M.'s Peter Buck. And while the album was dominated by Phillips' vocals, melodic hooks, and pristine production, "Martinis and Bikinis" contained soul-searching lyrics that addressed political, personal and social themes.
"Writing melodic songs were going against the grain at that time," says Phillips, "and also going against the grain in terms of what the lyrics were saying. A friend of mine who was very wealthy once brought up the idea that he knew of a man who was a refugee and everything that he had that was of value he held in his heart. I was very struck by that, so I put that verbatim in "Same Rain." There were a lot of different ideas. "Fighting with Fire" was about having to deal with art and commerce and trying to make sense of that, trying to make a life when corporations dictate how you make art and dictate how you get paid and we're still dealing with that today. It was a very serious record."
From: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/sam-phillips-revisits-martinis-and-bikinis/

The Allman Brothers Band - Revival

 #The Allman Brothers Band #Southern rock #blues rock #country rock #jam band #1970s

If you're going to listen to the Allman Brothers, make sure you have the first four records. The band made The Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South, At Fillmore East, and three-fourths of Eat a Peach with its original lineup, before Duane Allman's fatal motorcycle accident in 1971. The Tom Dowd-produced Idlewild South, their second album, comes off with a little less ferocity than their debut -- which is perhaps the result of reaching for new sounds the second time around. "Revival," the album's opener, introduces Dickey Betts as a composer. The countrified flavor of his songs gives an indication of where the band will head in the post-Duane era. Betts' other contribution to Idlewild South is the instrumental "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed," a centerpiece of the Fillmore East recordings. Gregg's "Please Call Home" and "Midnight Rider" are built around piano and acoustic guitar, respectively, and have a different feel than the band's usual twin Les Paul-and-Hammond sound. That sound is showcased in the balance of Gregg's tunes, however: the funky blues of "Don't Keep Me Wonderin'" and "Leave My Blues at Home." The album is also notable for the rollicking version of Willie Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man," with the only vocal bassist Berry Oakley (who died in a motorcycle accident one year after Duane) ever recorded with the group. Though overall it packs less punch than The Allman Brothers Band, Idlewild South is all the more impressive for its mixture of chunky grooves and sophisticated textures.  https://www.allmusic.com/album/idlewild-south-mw0000196446

Stolen Babies - Push Button

 #Stolen Babies #progressive metal #avant-garde metal #gothic rock #alternative metal #experimental rock #dance rock #performance rock

Stolen Babies are an American experimental rock band consisting of vocalist/accordionist Dominique Lenore Persi, bassist/guitarist Rani Sharone, and drummer Gil Sharone. Stolen Babies formed from a 12+ member high school performance troupe named The Fratellis; the band takes its name from one of the skits performed by the group during this period (written by Dominique Persi and her older brother, animator Raymond S. Persi). Stolen Babies released their first demo CD through their own label, No Comment Records.
Among the band's many musical influences are groups such as Oingo Boingo, Mr. Bungle, Cop Shoot Cop, and Fishbone (with whom Gil Sharone has performed). Stolen Babies are known for their unclassifiable odd rock and heavy, energetic performances. Except for the earliest demo, each album has featured artwork by indie comic artist Crab Scrambly.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Babies

Edwin Starr - War

#Edwin Starr #Norman Whitfield #Motown #soul #R&B #protest #1960s

An anti-war anthem deemed a little too forthright for one of Motown’s biggest acts hit the top of the charts for one of its finest soul singers in August 1970. Edwin Starr, who arrived at Motown with a fine track record but had never quite dined at Tamla’s top table, had the USA’s hottest single as “War” started its three-week run atop the Billboard Hot 100. The song was written by Barrett Strong and producer Norman Whitfield, who recorded the first version of it with the Temptations. But even though that creative combination was producing some real cutting-edge social commentary, Motown felt that to release their version as a single would alienate their more conservative fan base. Many politically engaged students lobbied the label to release the Temptations’ recording, but Motown decided on a different tactic. Whitfield recorded a new version with Starr, the soul man born Charles Hatcher in Nashville in 1942 and raised in Cleveland. He’d made his name at Detroit label Ric-Tic in the mid-1960s with such gems as “Agent Double-O-Soul” and “Stop Her On Sight (S.O.S.),” before transferring to the Gordy label when Motown bought Ric-Tic outright. The result of the new interpretation was a soul classic, with a lyric that was clearly anti-Vietnam but has remained sadly relevant throughout the world ever since. Starr’s powerful vocal delivery brought a real sense of anger and frustration to the recording.  From: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/edwin-starr-war-song/

Ruby the Hatchet - Black Tongue

 #Ruby the Hatchet #psychedelic metal #doom metal #psychedelic rock #occult rock #heavy psych #music video

Forming after a series of basement practices in New Jersey circa 2010 before relocating to Philadelphia, psychedelic quintet Ruby the Hatchet brings together doomy, evil hard rock with occult-flavored psychedelia for a witchy brew of dazzled and ominous wild rock sounds. The band features guitarist Johnny Scarps, drummer Owen Stewart, bassist Mike Parise, and keyboard player Sean Hur, and is trademarked by the howling, dynamic vocals of Jillian Taylor. To date the band has released three studio albums among a handful of EPs and have toured throughout North America and Europe.  From: https://riffipedia.fandom.com/wiki/Ruby_The_Hatchet

Ruby The Hatchet have been around since 2011 representing the Doom scene with seductive tones and a mystique. Ruby doesn’t perform the laborious plodding down-tuned dirge but embraces a callback to psychedelic and classic rock. Jillian Taylor, lead vocalist, projects her engaging voice while the band adds the deep rhythms of Owen Stewart (drums) and Lake Muir (bass) and John Scarperia’s chugging riffs. The attraction also emanates from Sean Kan Hur leaning heavy on the Hammond. As the past exhibits, these five create a masterful blend of captivating rock. We can look back to their label debut album, Valley of the Snake, and then their follow up, 2017’s Planetary Space Child. Ruby targeted their brand of mysticism via a space theme (related to astrology) which lends itself just as equally to exploration and isolation. Now, in 2022, they return hypnotizing any audience as a Wizards wicked spell would. Fear Is A Cruel Master is out on Magnetic Eye records October 21st. Ruby defines the Rock ‘n’ Roll ethos. Not just with their sonic declarations, but in addition to being on J Mascis’ (Deep Wound, Dinosaur Jr, Witch, live guest of Negative Approach) prestigious label, Tee Pee, the band has self-released their debut LP, Ouroboros, and two EPs. Independence, rebellion, and defiance are apparent attributes of these five redeemers of the riff.  From: https://newnoisemagazine.com/reviews/album-review-ruby-the-hatchet-fear-is-a-cruel-master/

The Beatles - Revolution

 #The Beatles #John Lennon #Paul McCartney #George Harrison #British invasion #pop rock #psychedelic rock #blues rock #classic rock #British psychedelia #folk rock #1960s #music video

‘Revolution’ was John Lennon’s response to the popular calls for uprising in the US and Europe. It was a revision of a version already recorded for the White Album, and became the b-side of the ‘Hey Jude’ single. Although taped after ‘Revolution 1’, this faster, louder version was the first to be released. The song was written in India while The Beatles were studying meditation in Rishikesh.
John Lennon: “I wanted to put out what I felt about revolution. I thought it was time we fucking spoke about it, the same as I thought it was about time we stopped not answering about the Vietnamese war when we were on tour with Brian Epstein and had to tell him, ‘We’re going to talk about the war this time, and we’re not going to just waffle.’ I wanted to say what I thought about revolution. I had been thinking about it up in the hills in India. I still had this ‘God will save us’ feeling about it, that it’s going to be all right. That’s why I did it: I wanted to talk, I wanted to say my piece about revolution.’”
While ‘Revolution 1’ found Lennon uncertain about whether to join the struggle, on the faster ‘Revolution’ he emphatically demanded to be excluded. The urgency of the new arrangement was a result of Paul McCartney’s resistance to Lennon’s hopes of ‘Revolution 1’ being The Beatles’ next single after ‘Lady Madonna’. With the backing of George Harrison, McCartney argued that the recording was too slow, inspiring Lennon to re-record it in an up-tempo, distorted and spontaneous outburst of anti-revolutionary fervor. After two years lost in an LSD haze, and newly energized in his love for Yoko Ono, Lennon gladly rose to the challenge he perceived.
John: “We recorded the song twice. The Beatles were getting real tense with each other. I did the slow version and I wanted it out as a single: as a statement of The Beatles’ position on Vietnam and The Beatles’ position on revolution. For years, on The Beatles’ tours, Brian Epstein had stopped us from saying anything about Vietnam or the war. And he wouldn’t allow questions about it. But on one of the last tours, I said, ‘I am going to answer about the war. We can’t ignore it.’ I absolutely wanted The Beatles to say something about the war.” ‘Revolution’ featured the most distortion on any Beatles recording, particularly in the twin fuzz-toned guitars plugged directly into the Abbey Road desk and deliberately played loud to overload the meters.
George Martin: “We got into distortion on that, which we had a lot of complaints from the technical people about. But that was the idea: it was John’s song and the idea was to push it right to the limit. Well, we went to the limit and beyond.”  From: https://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/revolution/

Drain S.T.H. - I Don't Mind

 #Drain S.T.H. #heavy metal #grunge #alternative metal #hard rock #nu metal #Swedish #1990s

The all-female hard rock/heavy metal band Drain S.T.H. was formed in 1993 in Stockholm, Sweden (hence the S.T.H., added to avoid confusion with a similarly named American band), and featured singer Maria Sjöholm, guitarist Flavia Canel, bassist Anna Kjellberg, and drummer/vocalist Martina Axén. Displaying an unabashed worship of Alice in Chains, their independent 1996 debut, Horror Wrestling, was dominated by uncompromising grinds of slow, down-tuned guitars, which were then topped with Sjöholm and Axén's beautifully chilling vocal harmonies. Coupled with the band's impressive live performances and supermodel looks, this soon drew the attention of Mercury Records subsidiary The Enclave, which repackaged and re-released the album worldwide two years later with an additional three tracks. The far more accessible follow-up, 1999's Freaks of Nature, shed much of the band's excessive Alice in Chains influences of old and flirted with traces of programmed percussion and even rap, thereby forging a more distinctive sonic identity. But despite extensive touring both in Europe and America (including a lengthy jaunt with that year's Ozzfest) and attaining decent radio airplay in support, Drain S.T.H. never managed to break out of the metal underground, perhaps because they were simply too drop-dead gorgeous to be taken seriously by the notoriously chauvinistic metal masses.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/drain-sth-mn0000806089/biography

Richard Thompson - Beeswing

 #Richard Thompson #British folk rock #contemporary folk #singer-songwriter #acoustic #ex-Fairport Convention

In 1976, Richard Thompson’s glory days looked long behind him. The guitarist who had electrified folk music with Fairport Convention and then made a series of bleak albums with his wife Linda was living in a tiny cottage in Suffolk with her and their children, selling their chickens’ eggs to the village shop. “This old tramp used to come round every three to six months,” Thompson recalled to me many years later in a London pub, “and he’d stay with us. He was a great old boy. He had amazing stories.”
Ted, the tramp, dreamt of settling down in a caravan and putting down roots; he never did. “But also, in the Sixties, the thing was ‘getting your head together in the country’: there were these mythological women, like [folk singers] Vashti Bunyan or Annie Briggs, who would disappear for years in caravans, go off to Ireland or live on a farm and you’d never see them again.”
Years passed. The Thompsons divorced. Richard returned to music, making a series of solo albums through the 1980s to (slightly) diminishing returns. Then, he drew for inspiration on Ted and on Annie Briggs and that “rural underclass landscape”, and wrote “Beeswing”.
In the summer of love, the song’s narrator comes to Dundee and falls in love with a laundry worker, as “fine as a bee’s wing”. They go on the road, busking and fruit picking and tinkering. He wants to settle down and have a family; she refuses. “As long as there’s no price on love I’ll stay.” After a drunken quarrel she leaves. Now he hears only rumors of her, sleeping rough; once marrying but finding “even a gypsy caravan was too much settling down”. Free-spiritedness shades into solipsism. And yet he remains obsessed.
The song’s parent album, 1994’s Mirror Blue, was not well received, and the delicate “Beeswing” was lost amid its general clatter. But the song persisted. When he played it on tour that year, usually straight after the rambunctious “1952 Vincent Black Lightning”, with Pete Zorn’s pennywhistle solo hinting at the voice of the beloved, audiences hushed. It became one of the highlights of his songbook, and lent the title to his 2021 autobiography. At his 70th birthday concert in 2019, he played it as a duet with Alistair Anderson on squeezebox, the two of them lit as if by moonlight, a moment of stillness in a celebratory night.  From: https://ig.ft.com/life-of-a-song/beeswing.html

Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story

 #Rod Stewart #Faces #hard rock #blue-eyed soul #blues rock #folk rock #1970s

Though it’s a truth that’s now largely forgotten, at least among the young and the terminally hip, Rod Stewart was once a pretty righteous cat — foremost among interpretive singers and endowed with gangbuster rock and roll bonafides primarily, perhaps, from his role as frontman for the Faces, as gloriously disheveled, shambolic, and spirited a rock and roll band as has ever existed. The Faces’ greatness never quite gelled into a straight-up killer LP  -  not unless you care to count their peerless and essential Rhino box from 2004  -  but their ragged spirit, careening from bawdy bar-band rock to nakedly emotional acoustic numbers, made them epochal. That spirit was in large part carried over to Every Picture Tells a Story, the solo album that made Rod Stewart a genuine pop star, but with one key difference: With Every Picture, Stewart actually made a top-to-bottom dynamite LP, as big-hearted and gloriously rough-around-the-edges as any Faces album but more unified, more conceptual, and simply better. Surely its emotional candor — its embrace of earnestness, its absence of affectation — are key to its success. You can hear the album as a celebration of what it is to be a young man, swaggering through the prime of his physical, sexual, and creative life, and there’s plenty of evidence to support such a reading, not least the uproariously crude travelogue of an album opener, where the narrator globe-trots from one romantic and geographic misadventure to the next; of course there’s also the big single, “Maggie May,” that made Rod a star, and remains a richer and more sophisticated song than it’s ever given credit for being, a writerly showcase for Stewart’s pop instincts. Rod and his band pound through a rowdy take on the Elvis Presley gem “That’s All Right,” as well, but the track’s Saturday night revelry gives way to a Sunday morning comedown in the form of a yearning “Amazing Grace,” which is maybe the best tip-off here to the record’s emotional complexity. Indeed, it’s as reflective as often as it is jubilant, on covers as well as originals. In the case of the former, there are no less than two songs that ache over time, distance, separation, and desire: A soulful, rolling “Seems Like a Long Time” and then a definitive reading of Dylan’s “Tomorrow Is Such a Long Time,” which offers proof enough that Rod is the second-best singer of the Dylan songbook, bested only by Bob himself. Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe” is present, too, at once big-hearted and emotionally conflicted. It’s the album’s ringing send-off. But its high point is Rod’s own “Mandolin Wind,” an achingly earnest, aww-shucks kind of love song that soars from a tentative whisper to a bold declaration. Throughout the album, Stewart blurs the line separating hard rock and folk music, and seems almost to bend time itself: “That’s All Right” was an oldie even then but it kicks with garage rock immediacy; “Tomorrow Is Such a Long Time” is so earthy and haunted, it sounds like a folk song old as the hills. It’s a celebration of youth, this record, but more than that it’s a celebration of the very art of song — and maybe that’s what makes it ageless.  From: https://inreviewonline.com/2015/01/09/every-picture-tells-a-story/

Vodun - Mawu

 #Vodun #heavy metal #hard rock #psychedelic metal #stoner metal #ritualistic doom metal #occult rock #traditional West African music #afrobeat #music video

Amidst the rushing screams of Mother Earth; the pounding drums of Ouidah; the markets of Lomé and the open heart of Erzulie, there exists Vodun. Born of only three comes the embodiment of crushing noise intertwined with enrapturing harmonies... heavy, weird, soulful... yes, we are expectant of the abnormal and so should you be.  From: https://vodun.bandcamp.com/

From Kiss’s hard rock kabuki to Slipknot’s masks, metal has always loved a gimmick. Factor in bands like Alestrom (pirates), Battlelore (Hobbits) and Gwar (hell knows) and it can often feel as if no schtick has been left unexplored. In 2016, the latest band to go high concept is Vôdûn. A UK-based trio who play lucid thrash spiked with tribal drums while daubed in warpaint, they’re primarily inspired by west African vodou.
“It’s about taking on the spirits we embody, that warrior element, and helping us to be truly in the moment,” explains frontwoman Chantal Brown, formerly of cowl-sporting arkestra Chrome Hoof and, before that, oddball nine-piece Do Me Bad Things. “It’s about entertainment value, too, but our interest in vodou runs deeper than that.”
Brown discovered the religion through fellow Hoof singer Lola Olafisoye. “She’s a spiritual practitioner, and she’d share all these books she had on west African history,” says Brown. It proved a powerful inspiration to a group wanting to write heavy music steeped in spirituality and feminism. “It had feminist undertones: a lot of the gods and priests were female,” Brown continues. “People have tried to demonize it for centuries. It was the culture of a people who have been oppressed, killed off and enslaved. There’s more to it than sticking pins in dolls.”
Vôdûn’s aesthetic could easily be seen as contrived but it undeniably sets Vôdûn apart from other heavy British bands. Musically, they cut through the current trend for floppy-fringed emo-metal in the vein of Bring Me The Horizon. By contrast, Vôdûn’s debut album, Possession, sounds like Slayer doing Black Box’s Ride On Time and their shows are more like acid raves than metal gigs. A similarly rave-y sense of abandon is key to their music, and Brown sees links with her own musical heritage: “I come from a gospel background; being possessed is like catching the holy ghost, or speaking in tongues.”  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/jul/15/west-african-vodou-meets-hard-rock-in-metal-trio-vodun

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Third Stone From The Sun

 #The Jimi Hendrix Experience #hard rock #psychedelic rock #blues rock #R&B #heavy metal #British psychedelia #acid rock #1960s #power trio #Mitch Mitchell #Noel Redding

Strange beautiful grass of green
With your majestic silver seas
Your mysterious mountains I'd wish to see closer
May I land my kinky machine?

Although your world wonders me
With your majestic and superior cackling hen
Your people I do not understand
So to you I shall put an end
Then you'll never hear surf music again