Steppenwolf - Don't Step On The Grass, Sam

 #Steppenwolf #psychedelic rock #blues rock #acid rock #hard rock #Canadian #1960s #1970s

Starin' at the boob tube, turnin' on the big knob
Tryin' to find some life in the waste land
Fin'ly found a program, gonna deal with Mary Jane
Ready for a trip into hate land
Obnoxious Joe comes on the screen
Along with his guest self-righteous Sam
And one more guy who doesn't count
His hair and clothes are too far out

While pushin' back his glasses Sam is sayin' casually
"I was elected by the masses"
And with that in mind he starts to unwind
A vicious attack on the finest of grasses

Well it's evil, wicked, mean and nasty
(Don't step on the grass, Sam)
And it will ruin our fair country
(Don't be such an ass, Sam)
Well, it will hook your Sue and Johnny
(You're so full of bull, Sam)
All will pay that disagree with me
(Please give up you already lost the fight, alright)

Misinformation Sam and Joe
Are feeding to the nation
But the one who didn't count counted them out
By exposing all their false quotations
Faced by a very awkward situation
This is all he'd say to save the day

Well it's evil, wicked, mean and nasty
(Don't step on the grass, Sam)
And it will ruin our fair country
(Don't be such an ass, Sam)
Well, it will hook your Sue and Johnny
(You're so full of bull, Sam)
All will pay that disagree with me
(Please give up you already lost the fight alright)

You waste my coin Sam, all you can
To jail my fellow man
For smoking all the noble weed
You need much more than him
You've been telling lies so long
Some believe they're true
So they close their eyes to things
You have no right to do
Just as soon as you are gone
Hope will start to climb
Please don't stay around too long
You're wasting precious time 

Porno For Pyros - Tahitian Moon

 #Porno For Pyros #Perry Farrell #alternative rock #psychedelic rock #indie rock #funk metal #heavy metal #neo-psychedelia #space rock revival #1990s #ex-Jane's Addiction

Perry Farrell's post-Jane's Addiction band, Porno for Pyros, followed the same path as his previous band, combining art rock, punk, heavy metal, and funk into one shrieking whole. On their self-titled 1993 debut, Farrell's pretensions got out of hand at times, resulting in some ridiculously self-absorbed conceptual pieces sitting next to some straightforward rockers and pop songs. While he prepared new Porno material in 1994, Farrell returned to the organization of Lollapalooza - the traveling rock festival he conceived - for the first time since 1992. The band released Good Gods Urge in 1996. Although Good Gods Urge was a successful release from both an artistic and musical standpoint, the album disappeared from the charts shortly after its release. On the album's ensuing tour, former Minutemen/Firehorse bassist Mike Watt filled in for the departed Maryn LeNoble, and to the delight of longtime Jane's Addiction fans, guitarist Dave Navarro was a special surprise guest on select dates as well. After the album's ensuing tour wrapped up in early 1997 (and a pair of Porno for Pyros songs appeared on the motion picture soundtracks for The Cable Guy and Private Parts), Farrell promptly ended the group, and focused on a solo recording career as well as sporadic Jane's Addiction reunion shows.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/porno-for-pyros-mn0000355208/biography

Laura Love - Bad Feeling

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

Over the past several years, Laura Love has become quite acclaimed in the Northwest music scene as an unparalleled vocalist, bassist, and songwriter. Love's style is a synthesis of inner-city funk and folk-ish sensibility. One of the most difficult tasks for a musician is to find an apt label for her music; folk/funk, African/Appalachian, and House/Celtic have been bandied about for Laura Love. Whatever you choose to call it, Love's original music is at once fresh, def, and rooted in tradition. Although a popular headliner in her own right, she has opened for John Lee Hooker, Lyle Lovett, Bo Diddley, Karla Bonoff, and Elayne Boosler and been invited to perform at a number of folk and eclectic music festivals. Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Laura Love began her career at the age of 16, singing jazz and pop standards at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Since then, Love has played in a blues-grunge outfit, in a duo, trio, and in the funny feminist foursome, Venus Envy. Love has released three albums: Menstrual Hut (1989), Z Therapy (1990), and Pangaea (1993), all on her own label, Octoroon Biography. Shum Ticky followed in 1998 and Fourteen Days arrived in 2000 on Zoe Records.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/laura-love-mn0000116761/biography

Singer-songwriter Laura Love isn't yet a household name, but she's done pretty well for an African-American woman who grew up in abject poverty in Nebraska - a place where other black faces like hers were few and far between. She's got her own flavor of music she calls folk-funk, and has sold more than 200,000 records over the span of her short and very independent career. Her latest creative blast is a combination memoir and CD of songs inspired by the trials during her young life, You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes. Love's life story isn't an easy one, but her words and music convey a wry wit and deep sense of joy and humor. Almost all of the songs on the You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes CD were composed at the same time she wrote her memoir. The book reveals Love's often shocking struggle against adversity - her mother's mental illness, the family's deep poverty, her stays in foster homes and other setbacks. But instead of hitting back, Love's words and music recall the gratitude, joy and sense of humor that characterize her outlook on life.  From: https://www.npr.org/2004/08/26/3871856/laura-love-two-for-easter 

Kuunatic - Tītián

 #Kuunatic #psychedelic rock #experimental rock #progressive rock #folk rock #noise rock #post-punk #avant-garde #Japanese #animated music video

Kuunatic is a thrilling Tokyo based tribal-psych trio bolstered by diverse global sonics and powerful female vocals. Drawing on the members’ different musical and cultural perspectives, their music explores ritual drumming, pulsing bass lines, atmospheric keyboard sounds and Japanese traditional instruments. Having previously released an EP (“Kuurandia” 2017) as well as a split 7” (with Taiwanese fuzz psych garage band Crocodelia), “Gate of Klüna” is Kuunatic’s much awaited debut album. Produced by Tim DeWit (Gang Gang Dance) the record reveals a mesmerizing sound world that transcends genres and hemispheres and succeeds in being both boldly experimental and wildly catchy. Kuunatic are Fumie Kikuchi on keys and vocals, Yuko Araki on drums and vocals and Shoko Yoshida on bass and vocals. The possibilities to project onto Kuunatic’s music are endless. This is because the band has created that rare thing: catchy music that is impossible to pigeonhole. The track ‘Lava Naksh’ is a form of renaissance dance; a pavane, maybe, albeit with Kraftwerk’s early organ sound. ‘Full Moon Spree’ could be a ritual version of The Fall’s ‘What You Need’. ‘Raven’s War’ is a dry-as-dust progressive soundtrack, it could be a lost cut from the Valley of the Dolls record. The transportative elements in all are key: certain beats and near-melismatic melody lines hark back to archaic processional and ritual music. In ‘Desert Empress Part II’ for example, a glowering bass line walks ponderously alongside the toms, framing and guiding the mood. Finishing matters off with what sounds like a backwards organ is also discombobulating. Such sonic sleights of hand are part of the Kuunatic playbook.  From: https://swampbooking.com/kuunatic/

Stevie Wonder - Living for the City

 #Stevie Wonder #Motown #soul #R&B #pop soul #funk #rock #gospel #jazz #progressive soul #1970s

Inspired in part by the fatal shooting in New York of a ten-year-old black boy by a white plain-clothes policeman, the audacious centerpiece of Stevie Wonder’s experimental 1973 album was a seven-and-a-half-minute meditation on the brutality of black America: Living for the City. Just as Wonder’s saccharine, middle-of-the-road smash hit You Are the Sunshine of My Life was selling millions around the world, the virtuoso former child star was busy in the studio pioneering the sound of black music by recording a concept album: Innervisions. Expanding on the ambitions of Talking Book the year before, it would secure his transformation from Motown pop star to legendary artist and activist.
Meanwhile, early on the morning of April 28th, 1973, Clifford “Cleophus” Glover was walking with his 51 year-old stepfather along New York Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens, New York when a white Buick Skylark drew up alongside them and a white man got out of the car shouting “You black son of a bitch!” and started shooting at them. They ran for their lives, but Cliffie did not make it. Police Officer Thomas Shea claimed that Add Armstead and his stepson resembled two known thieves – thieves who had been described as around 24 years of age and about six feet tall. Shea, who became the first police officer in almost 50 years to be charged with committing murder while on duty, claimed that the child had reached for a gun. Forensic evidence proved that the ten-year-old had been shot in the back; no evidence of a gun was ever found. Thomas Shea lost his job on the force, but in June 1974 a jury of 11 white men and one black woman found him not guilty of murder and he walked away a free man. Riots had followed the initial shooting and worse still came when the verdict was announced. Hundreds took to the streets. White children playing baseball were attacked by angry rioters on a local playing field. Cars were turned over and burned and two police officers were injured by rioters.
Stevie Wonder attended the funeral of Cleophus Glover, and sang for the congregation as the procession left the church. “I have followed the case,” he told Jet magazine. “It brings America down another notch in my book. I hope that black people realise how serious things are and do something about it”. This was the burning issue on Stevie Wonder’s mind as he wrote the epic Living for The City. With an infectious funk swagger – and complete with authentic street noise sound effects, spoken dialogue and the poignant slamming of a jail door – Living For The City contains a cinematic intermission that tells the fictional story of a wide-eyed innocent who comes to the big city to make his fortune and finds himself quickly duped into becoming a drug runner, arrested by the police and sentenced to ten years behind bars. There is not a lot of hope in this tale of the boy from “Hard Times, Mississippi” – his dreams are crushed and any prospects of a productive future along with them. Far from finding a welcoming community and useful work, he is plunged into a heartless ghetto populated by unscrupulous gangsters in a city controlled by a draconian white establishment. As the story concludes we hear a jailer yelling: “Get in the cell, nigger!” brutally underlining the unfeeling institutionalized racism. There is no happy ending in this potted saga. As Stevie gruffly sings: “If we don’t change, the world will soon be over.”  From: https://www.musicto.com/active/fight-evil/living-for-the-city-stevie-wonder/

The Babe Rainbow - Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest

 #The Babe Rainbow #psychedelic rock #neo-psychedelia #psychedelic pop #alternative rock #indie rock #retro-1960s #stoner pop #Australian

Australian neo-psych outfit the Babe Rainbow first introduced themselves in 2015 with a sprinkling of cheery nuggets like "Ashmay & Dr. Love Wisdom" and "Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest." The trio's affable take on cosmic Donovan-inspired flower pop won them a contract with Danger Mouse's 30th Century Records imprint, which offers up this eponymous full-length debut. Natives of the coastal surfing town of Byron Bay, New South Wales, the Babe Rainbow comprise singer/drummer Angus Dowling, guitarist Jack "Cool-Breeze" Crowther, and bassist Lu-Lu-Felix Domingo, who collectively espouse the sunny peaceful vibes of late-'60s California in their music and imagery while folding in elements of modern psych and electronic experimentation. Recorded in their hometown by King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard frontman Stu Mackenzie, the LP is a generally lighthearted affair, though the Babes are no slouches in terms of craftsmanship. Layered throughout with spry riffs, jazzy instrumentation, and attractive grooves, the record comes across as more of a vibe generator than a dazzling display of songwriting. While standouts like "Losing Something" and "Survival in the 21st Century" offer more thoughtful pop missives, the bulk of the album is concerned with fun grooves and textures.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-babe-rainbow-mw0003062347

Paula Cole - Mississippi

 #Paula Cole #singer-songwriter #alternative rock #alternative pop rock #indie rock #art rock #piano rock #1990s

I may have gotten here because of Dawson's Creek, but I am staying for the wonderful blend of 90s alt-rock and art pop on Paula Coles’ This Fire! Paula Cole, the winner of Best New Artist 1998, released a searing critique of the men in her life with some more marketable songs tossed in for good measure. When Cole can blend the acerbic edge of her 1990s sisters with the art-pop sensibilities of a musician like Kate Bush, she is unstoppable. 'Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?' feels particularly relevant in the current cultural moment. In fact, Cole's question predicts the shifting archetypes of American Heroism that artists (Mitski, Lil Nas X, Mac) continue to think about today. Paula Cole does a good job at maintaining the same level of intensity throughout, and she has an ear for thoughtful production and fantastic images. She utilizes religious imagery, in particular, to think about her relationship to history. Take, for example, the crazed, 'Throwing Stones,' where Paula matches her intense vocals with equally fierce lyrics and a piano that just won't quit. 'So call me a bitch in heat, I'll call you a liar' Cole screams on each chorus; Her voice feels sharp and violent. She partners this with the story of David and Goliath, conflating her experience with biblical struggles. It's a powerful moment that feels challenging, but the song maintains a catchy chorus that helps the sentiment get stuck in your head. Paula Cole's This Fire manages to be compelling throughout while not sounding too one-note. While I think there are direct comparisons to Kate Bush, Cole's music manages to differentiate itself by embracing the guitars and pianos of alternative rock. Her music is a little rough at times, but the creativity behind this music is fantastic. If you only know, 'I Don't Want To Wait,' give the rest of the album a chance!  From: https://www.albumoftheyear.org/user/musicmagpie55/album/26256-this-fire/

Black Moth - Moonbow

 #Black Moth #Harriet Hyde #stoner rock #heavy metal #hard rock #grunge #alternative rock #indie rock #music video

Posed by one scribe as 'an onslaught of monumental riff sorcery and serpentine grace' Black Moth rose from the Leeds underground scene at the end of 2010, indulging their love for both Sabbath sulphur and Stooges squalor. Equal parts horror movie atmosphere, thunderous drive and maverick spark, with Harriet Bevan's biting and beguiling voice leading the charge.  From: https://blackmothband.bandcamp.com/

This weekend, Leeds-via-London stoner metallers Black Moth will play their final shows. After breaking onto the scene in 2012 with debut full-length The Killing Jar, they harnessed the power of the occult and the morose with a healthy dose of Black Sabbath, Nick Cave and Uncle Acid to become one of the brightest lights in the British stoner/doom scene. However, such is life, circumstances didn't work in their favour. Their final album, Anatomical Venus, was recorded a year before it was eventually released, which ultimately slowed the band's momentum – leaving over three years between records.
"The album was done but we weren’t out there promoting it," vocalist Harriet Hyde tells Kerrang! from the comfort of a north London pub. "Although we did some really nice things off the back of it. We toured with L7, played with Sleep, which for us were ultimates. Hearing Donita (Sparks, L7 vocalist) say to the crowd that I was their frozen embryo child (laughs)… It genuinely made me cry.” Couple the delay with the fact that Black Moth's lineup are split across England – two members living in London, and three living in Leeds – made touring and rehearsal a trying ordeal.
"I quit so many jobs because we’d been offered a tour, and you can only do that for so long. What’s sad is you’ve got five people who have this incredible chemistry for making music together, but it all ends up being frustrating because you can’t scrape two hours together on a Friday night." Logistically, it became impossible to carry on. Harriet herself was burning out, using every available holiday she had to go on tour, she never found time to actually rest. "There was a heartbreaking moment where we were playing Vienna on tour and I was desperate to go see Vienna. Did I see it? Did I fuck!" she laughs. "I saw the back of a van then a venue, then we left." Ultimately, Harriet wrote the band an email, calling time on Black Moth. Admitting it was a hard pill to swallow initially, the rest of the band agreed that the band should leave it at the three albums they're proud of, instead of "pissing it away and falling out."
From: https://www.kerrang.com/a-farewell-to-the-perverted-darkness-of-black-moth

The Jayhawks - Save It For A Rainy Day

 #The Jayhawks #Gary Louris #Mark Olson #alternative rock #country rock #alt-country #folk rock #Americana #roots rock #1990s

I once heard The Jayhawks described as the “greatest Lutheran bar band ever,” and though I’m still not exactly sure what that means, I know I like it. It’s certainly better than the “alt-country pioneers” label they normally get saddled with. Or worse, heirs of Gram Parsons’ “cosmic American music” legacy. (Which is not a knock on Gram in any way, just on the flaky non-genre he coined). My own description would be: jangly God-haunted Midwestern country-folk with fuzz guitars and harmonies that essentially define the phrase “sandpaper-and-honey.” But even that doesn’t cover the oddly circular progression they’ve undergone, from breezy singer-songwriters to arty and somewhat angsty recordmakers, and back again. Regardless of how they’re categorized, The Jayhawks are an American treasure, responsible for at least four brilliant albums, two of which feature co-founder/-lead singer Mark Olson (Hollywood Town Hall and Tomorrow The Green Grass), two of which don’t (Sound of Lies and Rainy Day Music are exclusively Gary Louris-led affairs).  From: https://mbird.com/music/weds-morning-jayhawks-mark-olsons-still/ 

Traffic - Every Mother's Son

 #Traffic #Steve Winwood #Dave Mason #Jim Capaldi #psychedelic rock #progressive rock #British psychedelia #blues rock #jazz rock #folk rock #1960s #1970s

At only 22 years old, Steve Winwood sat down in early 1970 to fulfill a contractual commitment by making his first solo album, on which he intended to play all the instruments himself. The record got as far as one backing track produced by Guy Stevens, "Stranger to Himself," before Winwood called his erstwhile partner from Traffic, Jim Capaldi, in to help out. The two completed a second track, "Every Mother's Son," then, with Winwood and Island Records chief Chris Blackwell moving to the production chores, brought in a third Traffic member, Chris Wood, to work on the sessions. Thus, Traffic, dead and buried for more than a year, was reborn. The band's new approach was closer to what it perhaps should have been back in 1967, basically a showcase for Winwood's voice and instrumental work, with Wood adding reed parts and Capaldi drumming and occasionally singing harmony vocals. If the original Traffic bowed to the perceived commercial necessity of crafting hit singles, the new Traffic was more interested in stretching out. Heretofore, no studio recording had run longer than the five-and-a-half minutes of "Dear Mr. Fantasy," but four of the six selections on John Barleycorn Must Die exceeded six minutes. Winwood and company used the time to play extended instrumental variations on compelling folk and jazz-derived riffs. Five of the six songs had lyrics, and their tone of disaffection was typical of earlier Capaldi sentiments. But the vocal sections of the songs merely served as excuses for Winwood to exercise his expressive voice as punctuation to the extended instrumental sections. As such, John Barleycorn Must Die moved beyond the jamming that had characterized some of Traffic's 1968 work to approach the emerging field of jazz-rock.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/john-barleycorn-must-die-mw0000197791

The Grip Weeds - All Tomorrow's Parties

 #The Grip Weeds #power pop #psychedelic rock #psychedelic pop rock #alternative rock #indie rock #folk-pop #Velvet Underground cover

The Grip Weeds: A powerhouse pop-psyche band extraordinaire who write insanely gripping melodic nuggets - a gorgeous alchemy of the 60's and 70's brought into the 21st century, with ripping guitars, explosive drumming and golden harmonies. Bands like The Grip Weeds usually aren’t built to last. The clichéd “personal and musical differences”, changing tastes and Father Time have brought down most of the greatest bands in history. And yet, over two decades and counting after their debut album House Of Vibes, The Grip Weeds continue to survive, thrive, surprise and innovate. They do it on their own terms, defiantly refusing to play the usual major label/name producer/big time studio game. Critics, while praising The Grip Weeds, often try to pigeonhole them with the “Power Pop” label. This is a bit of a misnomer. While there are plenty of driving, poppy melodies, chiming guitars and close harmonies, The Grip Weeds’ releases have sported many different styles of original material, from Psychedelic and Garage Rock to Folk-based ballads and thought-provoking social commentary. This diversity has landed several Grip Weeds songs on the top of the Little Steven’s Underground Garage "Coolest Song In The World” list, as well as placed Grip Weeds music in several television and film projects.  From: https://www.gripweeds.com/bio/biom.html

Rïcïnn - Doris

 #Rïcïnn #Laure Le Prunenec #neoclassical darkwave #art pop #avant-garde metal #baroque pop #experimental #gothic rock #French #animated music video

Laure Le Prunenec returns with another avant-garde masterpiece on her solo project Rïcïnn's sophomore album Nereïd, mixing classical influences with folk, electronics, and gothic sounds. Laure Le Prunenec is well-known for her work, among all those who enjoy the more experimental and avant-garde end of dark music. Her operatic vocal delivery on Igorrr, Öxxö Xööx, and Corpo-Mente has rightfully earned her a strong fan following, but what often flies under the radar is her solo work under the moniker of Rïcïnn – a captivating project, whose debut Lïan in 2016 put Le Prunenec’s vocals front and center, while bringing together bits of all the previously mentioned projects, to form a colossal masterpiece unlike any other. Four years later, Rïcïnn returns, taking a broader yet nuanced approach with a sophomore full-length – Nereïd. What made Rïcïnn‘s debut stand apart from her other projects is that it showcased Le Prunenec in her most expressive form, free from any restraints on style. Yet Lïan was just the first step of expression for Le Prunenec, whereas Nereïd sees her break all the shackles and soar high. The multiple layering of the vocals is more refined, and the vocal delivery has an even wider variety.  From: https://everythingisnoise.net/reviews/ricinn-nereid/

Jethro Tull - Nothing Is Easy

 #Jethro Tull #Ian Anderson #progressive rock #folk rock #hard rock #blues rock #British folk rock #art rock #classic rock #progressive folk #1970s

No, Jethro Tull is not just another English blues band. ‘This Was’, their first album, made some gestures in that direction, obligatory, in a way, for the time (summer of 1968); in its differences it was intriguing even as it disappointed. Its inadequacies were unconventional; the essential problem seemed to be a style in search of a subject. Bob Dylan once said that the English know how to pronounce “marvelous” better than Americans, but that they have a little trouble with “raunchy.” ‘Stand Up!’, Jethro Tull’s new album, has a fairly low raunch quotient, true to form, but it is quite marvelous. For one thing, the band’s orientation is more definite than before. With the removal of Rick Abrahams to form Blodwyn Pig, the musical tug-of-war which could be heard on the first album has here been effectively curtailed. Ian Anderson simply dominates the proceedings — doing all the writing and singing, and playing a potpourri of instruments. He reveals a melodic gift on this album not apparent on the earlier one, a fuller awareness of the coloristic possibilities of the flute, and a catholicity of taste. ‘Stand Up!’ has great textural interest, due, in part, to a more sophisticated recording technique, in part to the organ, mandolin, balalaika, etc., which Anderson plays to enrich each song. The band is able to work with different musical styles, but without a trace of the facile, glib manipulation which strains for attention. I can hear ethnic influences throughout the album — a hint of Greek rhythms on the flute break of “We Used to Know” and in the body of “For a Thousand Mothers” — but they are too well assimilated to be easily pinpointed. “Bourree” has that unmistakable baroque swing, a suggestion of the traditional English round, some jazz interludes, and a straight-forward yet breathtaking bass solo before, it winds its way to completion. “Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square” has a sense of the vague, charming disorganization of medieval music. “Look into the Sun,” which finishes side one, is in its melodic twists and turns, a song of genuine poignance, with Martin Barre’s guitar playing a model of lyricism and understatement.  From: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/stand-up-192622/

Diamanda Galas - Broken Gargoyles 1 - Mutilatus

 

 #Diamanda Galas #avant-garde #experimental #avant-goth #classical crossover #performance art #operatic #blues #jazz #spoken word #piano #a capella #no wave #bel canto #Schrei opera 

Diamanda Galás composes violently compassionate music about suffering. Her late-1980s Masque of the Red Death Trilogy focuses on AIDS, which killed her brother, Philip-Dimitri, in 1986, while other projects delve into the oppressive Greek Junta and the Armenian, Assyrian, and Anatolian Genocides. The 67-year-old goth icon performs less harrowing stuff, too - a hard-grooving 1994 collaboration with Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, a bevy of brilliant takes on blues standards. Yet at her best, Galás sharpens her cutting sense of empathy, slices open difficult subject matter, and approaches it from inside: Her 1991 dirge for HIV’s most deadly era, Plague Mass, might be the heaviest live record ever made. Ultimately, Galás’ haunted ritual, like all of her releases, is a ceremony of tenderness.
A master of the early 19th century style of bel canto singing, Galás uses her operatic genius to explore tropes uncommon in experimental composition - especially the breakdown of tortured, diseased bodies. Shaped from spectral piano and electronics, her soundscapes batter, unsettle, rouse us. Her virtuosic voice, inspired by avant-garde saxophonists Albert Ayler and Ornette Coleman, spans an untold number of octaves. She screeches, wails, bleats, and slips between characters, usually vengeful, demonic figures skulking around like a bad conscience. Both performance artist and diva, Galás has a potent theatrical sense and a persona at once progressive and full of fire and brimstone. Echoing obsolete medical drawings that illustrate sickness as floating miasma or bodily humors to be drained, she rebukes ignorant societies while harnessing their wild imaginations.
Her latest record, Broken Gargoyles, highlights the chronic nature of our callousness toward the ill and injured. Inspired by the mistreatment of wounded World War I infantrymen, Galás unearths devastating source texts from a slightly earlier era: the verse of Georg Heym (1887-1912), son of an assistant in a yellow-fever clinic and an enfant terrible of German expressionist poetry. Before his death at 24, Heym wrote unflinchingly about sick patients, maimed soldiers, and other doomed souls he might have been exposed to through his father’s work. Setting four of Heym’s poems to pulsing, droning accompaniment, Galás traces a throughline of ostracized invalids across the past century-plus of public health catastrophes. Appropriately, she premiered some of this material at a medieval German leper sanctuary and began cobbling the album together during COVID lockdown. Broken Gargoyles targets governments’ botched coronavirus responses - implicitly, it sets sights on their homophobic sluggishness to protect gay men from monkeypox, too. The album may not shock the singer’s die-hard fans, but Broken Gargoyles is a moving, painful listen and an ideal access point for the uninitiated.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/diamanda-galas-broken-gargoyles/

Dr. John - Desitively Bonnaroo

 #Dr. John #Allen Toussaint #The Meters #blues #jazz #soul #funk #R&B #New Orleans #psychedelic voodoo rock #1970s

Dr. John further defines an ass-shaking new synthesis on Desitively Bonnaroo. Even today, there’s really no roadmap for the crazy-eyed co-mingling of R&B, jazz, island beats, blues, boogie funk and hoodoo splashed across this LP, recorded alongside fellow New Orleans legends Allen Toussaint and the Meters. At the same time, the grooves here are so sleekly ingratiating as to be therapeutic. Desitively Bonnaroo doesn’t aspire to the brash, edgy soul of contemporaries like George Clinton or the Ohio Players. No, it’s too sophisticated, too mysterious, for that. Which is probably why this 1974 cluster-funk didn’t sell nearly as well as its predecessor, Dr. John’s break-though In the Right Place. Stirred together at Allen Toussaint’s Sea-Saint Studios in New Orleans, Desitively Bonnaroo is the sound of a group of musicians in perfect sync. And, yeah, having a ball. Dr. John has rarely sounded more loose, more committed. “High steppin’ mama!” he crows at one point, with a singing voice like a knotty live-oak knee. “Better keep on foxin’ with your foxy self!” Nearby, the slinky, coolly salacious backup singers match Dr. John and Co., wail for wail: “Give me what you got for me!” (Named after a south Louisiana expression meaning roughly “better than the best,” ‘Desitively Bonnaroo’ later gave a Tennessee-based music event its name).  From: https://somethingelsereviews.com/2011/02/19/dr-john-with-the-meters-desitively-bonnaroo-1974/

Chron Goblin - Deserter

#Chron Goblin #stoner rock #heavy metal #psychedelic rock #blues rock #stoner metal

From the dusty coulees of Alberta’s Badlands to the jagged peaks of the snow-capped Rockies, the musical entity known as Chron Goblin is a true force of nature. Yet there’s simply no reckoning the immensity of the sound that these hard rockin’ Calgarians are capable of generating once they hit the stage boards. Grinding it out in the trenches and pits of venues and festivals across North America and Europe since 2009, the fuzz clad foursome knows no bounds when it comes to laying down the rugged riffage and cranking up the volume on a sweet Southern rock tinged blues-metal breakdown. Surrender to the smoke show, heed the call of the Chron and inhale the melodious commotion churned up by the Goblins. The botanically infused gin in your work-a-day tonic, Chron Goblin will obliterate those vexing worries and liberate your immortal soul.  From: http://www.chrongoblin.com/bio

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/