Tulia - Marcowy

Tulia is a popular folk musical group formed in Szczecin, Poland in 2017. The band consists of three main members: Dominika Sepka, Patricia Nowicka, and Tulia Bicak – after whom the band is named. Originally, the band had a fourth member, Joanna Sinkevich, who, due to health reasons, cut ties with the group in 2019. The first, and most noticeable performances of this Polish quartet were in 2018 – only a short time after their official formation. The group performed folk-inspired covers of the Depeche Mode hit, “Enjoy the Silence” and David Podsiadlo’s song, “Nieznajomy” – both of which received a great deal of attention on YouTube. These music videos, while simple, are elegant and powerful – the quartet wear traditional, colorful Polish clothing while standing in the snow. The nearly all-white backdrop contrasts with their clothing to create an eye-catching video.
In May of 2018, Tulia released their debut album, Tulia, which included original music, as well as covers of songs by various Polish artists. In that same year, the album was the seventh best-selling album in Poland – reaching platinum status and selling over 30,000 copies. In December of the same year, the group released a cover of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters”, which is still their most popular release to date – reaching over 13 million views on YouTube. The cover and video gives the song special meaning, as the girls sing strongly with noticeable accents about the importance of taking pride in one’s identity while wearing their unique national clothing.
In 2019, Tulia represented Poland at the Eurovision Song Contest in Tel Aviv. The group performed the song, “Pali Się” (“It’s on Fire”), written in Polish and English. They finished in 11th place. Later that year, Joanna Sinkevich left the group – reducing the group to only three women. Today, Tulia is still performing and occasionally releasing powerful and enticing music. Although they are probably best known for their unconventional covers of popular songs, the covers often have something unique to add and are something to be admired in their own right.  From: https://popkult.org/tulia-polish-folk/

Spooky Tooth - Feelin' Bad

Considered by many to be the best and strongest of the Spooky Tooth albums, the sophomore release Spooky Two built on the momentum of the smooth psychedelic soul tendencies of the debut "It's All About" but at the same time maintained its trippy psychedelic demeanor and added the occasional heavier doses of hard rock. Likewise the keyboard sounds were better integrated into the musical mix and the band sounded like it was firing on all cylinders. Riding on the wave of a successful American tour, the five members crated a new batch of eight original tracks and left out the filler in the form of cover tunes. Primarily written by Gary Wright, Spooky Two featured a more cohesive stylistic effect than its predecessor and showcased the band's ability to emulate the soulful blues rock of Traffic but by distancing itself even further from that band's similarly styled approach.
By this time keyboardist Gary Wright had also taken control of the lead vocals and had developed quite the sophisticated range of singing styles. The band tightened up its quirky mix of psychedelic rock, blues, soul and even adding a tinge of gospel. The album features a more dynamic songwriting process and the use of the double keyboard attack with the heavy guitar heft accompanied by the psychedelic smooth soul vocal style of Wright was exactly the perfect tour de force for success. Once again the critics raved yet once again the album sales floundered despite a stellar production and engineering job by the combo powerhouse duo of Jimmy Miller and Andrew Johns. The album produced one of the band's better known singles "That Was Only Yesterday" however it failed to chart during its day. Gary Wright at this point was becoming more recognizable as the singer who crafted the huge 1975 hit "Dream Weaver."
The album deftly blends smooth softness with moments of heavier contrast. Compared to both Savoy Brown and the Yardbirds, Spooky Tooth at this point started to become it’s own with even the Traffic connections dissipating and whereas the debut was clearly influenced by the 1967 album "Mr. Fantasy," Spooky Two is a powerhouse that stands on its own with epic performances that evoke a true sense of accomplishment. In many ways Spooky Two prognosticated bluesy rock bands such as Little Feat that would find increasing popularity in the 1970s. Considered a blues rock band that didn't behave like one, Spooky Tooth found a unique intersection between blues guitar, psychedelic atmospheres, Baroque pop compositional styles and a touch of jazz rock influences.
On top of the excellent musicianship and the impeccable instrumental interplay, Wright crafted some of the catchiest pop hooks of the band's entire career with tracks like "Better By You, Better Than Me" and "Waitin' For The Wind" topping the ear worm charts. While considered by some in prog circles to have been a progenitor of the prog movement, in reality Spooky Tooth wasn't particularly progressive and considering this album emerged the very same year as King Crimson's stunning debut as well as other bands like High Tide, Spooky Tooth is actually pretty tame in that regard. The band wasn't about crafting overly complex tunes and on the contrary was about nurturing beautifully addictive melodies into a total band experience and in that regard they reached an apex on Spooky Two.
Due to disappointing album sales the band began to splinter and although several members would stick it out and release a few more albums before the final break up in 1974, the original lineup ended here and the band would never regain the momentum that Spooky Two had delivered so well. Luckily the album has been reevaluated over the ensuing decades and has become designated a classic of period psychedelic soul rock which found all the band's best qualities synergizing for this brief moment in time. This album is very much as good as any Traffic album and although Spooky Tooth didn't stick it out as long or produce as many hits, the first two albums are quite pleasing to the ears with this second offering being the most accomplished.  From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=27641

Mitsoura - Sat Bhayan

Mónika Miczura is the frontwoman of Mitsoura, one of the most progressive Hungarian world music productions of the 2000s. Since the nineties she has sung in the band Ando Drom, as well as on albums and concerts of other bands in Hungary and abroad, and has contributed to numerous theater and film scores. She was the voice of the invisible singer in Tony Gatlif's 1997 César Award-winning film Gadjo dilo.

You have an unmistakably unique voice. Were you trained in this special vocalization?

I never took singing lessons. I did try, but my teachers didn't recommend it either, because learning classical singing techniques would probably take away the uniqueness of my voice. Having worked with professionals continuously for 25 years, I have absorbed a lot of knowledge. Plus, I have an absolute pitch, which means that I can accurately recall pitch and tone without the aid of a reference note, which is said to be a rare talent. It's no virtue, but it comes in handy for a singer.

You started out in Gypsy folk music, then evolved into a kind of Hungarian Björk, and today you combine traditional sounds with progressive electronics. Is the Mitsoura project your most authentic musical enterprise?

Absolutely. I live in a big city, I listen to contemporary music which influences me and I like to incorporate these influences into my own productions. It would be fake and pretentious if I still sang my songs in a colorful skirt, banging on a kettle, accompanied by a mandolin. What makes something or someone authentic? How many hundreds of years must pass before something can be called authentic? For me, tradition is not a dusty remnant of a bygone era, but an opportunity for current forms of expression. In the second half of the nineties I listened to Björk, Massive Attack and Portishead a lot. That's when I had the idea of breaking away from the traditional instruments and looking for musicians who could create the floating, atmospheric sound I've always longed for.

This effectively puts you in a class of your own among Gypsy musicians.

But I'm not proud of that. I do, however, see it as a problem that according to the pundits, as a Gypsy, one can only play Gypsy music, because that's what they are authentic in. Even 20 years ago, folk, jazz and restaurant music were prioritized, and it seems that even 30 years from now, Gypsy music will still be the same. Moreover, one of the positive stereotypes attached to Gypsies is that we "have music in our blood". Which is not true, nor are any of the other stereotypes, and this can be offensive or obstructive to some people.

When did you first encounter such stereotypes?

It became very clear to me when we formed the band, Mitsoura. We hadn't been able to play at home for years, and we financed our second album's release on our own.

And before that? How was your early socialization in this respect?

The first trauma I experienced on account of being a Gypsy was when I was seven years old, at school. On the first day, during the first lesson, the teacher told the class that she would like the Gypsies to stand up. I looked around and nobody stood up, I was the only Gypsy. I stood up. It was a strange feeling. The teacher kindly thanked me, and said I could sit down. I wasn't ashamed at that moment. I only went to that school for a year, but I remember that I did well, I was always praised when I read something out loud, and I was always teased during the breaks. It was like having a stamp on my forehead. Sometimes the other kids would pretend that someone had touched me, then kicked an imaginary ball, threw it at each other and screamed. I would sit on the bench alone and cry. Then a little girl sat down next to me and said, "I know you're not a Gypsy, you're just sunburnt." I knew I was a Gypsy, but I didn't yet know what that meant. I was scared to tell her the truth because I had already figured out that I was hated, although I didn't know why, so I always tried to avoid Melinda. It felt terrible to behave like that with her, but I didn't want to deceive her. The teacher could have written that letter C (Cigány=Gypsy in Hungarian) without making me stand up. (Decades ago in some Hungarian schools the teachers put a “C” next to the name of the Gypsy students in the class grade book).

Did you even know anything about the meaning of the letter C as a child?

We didn't talk about it in the family. My first real experience relating to it had more to do with music. We had a lot of records, but until the mid-eighties there were only two Gypsy singers, Margit Bangó and Pista Horváth. I was a very sensitive child, so at the age of 7 or 8 I already noticed that there was something very wrong with Pista Horváth's lyrics, because the image of Gypsies that came through in these songs was not in harmony with what I saw around me. Pista Horváth was singing very cheerfully, with earrings in his ears, wearing colorful clothes, singing about how good the Gypsies who live in tents have it, how they pick up dead chickens to feed their little ones, plus about how the wandering life is the most beautiful in the world, and this is why Gypsies don't have permanent homes. I hated these songs, it must have been this wounded sense of self that opened something up in me. From then on, I experienced everything to do with being Gypsy through fairy tales. I still read a lot, but as a child I used to devour storybooks.

What did fairy tales give you?

I felt that they were the only ones that told me the truth. Well, not the eternal truth, but the harsh reality. I noticed, for example, that the queens and positive characters were always blonde, while the negative characters always had brown or black hair. Gypsies were portrayed positively – as good thieves who are always in the right place at the right time. Just like Sárközi, the scab-faced Gypsy from Egri Csillagok, (In English: “Eclipse of the Crescent Moon”, a novel about the Ottoman siege of Eger by Hungarian writer Géza Gárdonyi) who was also a dubious character. Even at the age of eleven, I was terribly ashamed of the fact that he was always trying to take advantage of the situation. I have since learned that this is what is known as disguised racism, which is the most despicable.

Where are we now compared to this, what is your experience?

We've had artificially controlled repressive policies for hundreds and hundreds of years. Why is it any wonder that we are still in this situation? Let me tell you something. Gypsies don't usually attach much importance to the New Year, but on New Year's Eve, at midnight, they always turn on the anthem. (Hungarian state TV traditionally plays the national anthem at that time, the first line of the lyrics being: “Oh, God, bless the Hungarians!”) And then they fall silent at that moment, standing there in mournful silence with tears in their eyes. They don't say anything, the Gypsies just stand there silently, as if waiting for God to bless them too and put an end to this hatred. Then the anthem ends and life continues as usual.

From: https://telex.hu/english/2023/03/21/the-gypsies-just-stand-there-silently-as-if-waiting-for-god-to-bless-them-too

Sam & Dave - Wrap It Up

Known as “Double Dynamite,” “The Sultans of Sweat,” and “The Dynamic Duo,” Sam & Dave have long been recognized as one of the greatest live acts of their time and one of the most successful soul duos ever. During the height of their two-decade-long career, Sam Moore (b. 1935) and Dave Prater (1937–1988) consistently delivered hit after hit on the R&B charts, while their crossover success was instrumental in introducing soul music to white audiences. Both Sam (born in Miami, FL) and Dave (from Ocilla, GA) grew up singing in church and began their careers with gospel groups. The two singers crossed paths on the gospel circuit, performing together for the first time in 1961 at Miami’s King of Hearts club. Before long, Sam & Dave had developed a high-energy live act, perfected their harmonies, and scored their first record deal.
Their initial years together spawned a handful of singles and some regional airplay, but an introduction to Atlantic Records executive Jerry Wexler changed the course of their career. At the time, Atlantic was handling the distribution of Stax, and Wexler felt that the duo’s grittier, Southern sound would be a perfect fit for the burgeoning Memphis label. There, Sam & Dave began working with one of the label’s newer songwriting duos, Isaac Hayes and David Porter, and recorded with Stax’s talented house band, Booker T. & The M.G.’s. It was a recipe for success. In 1966, the group scored their first Top Ten R&B single, “You Don’t Know Like I Know,” and kicked off an astonishing run of ten consecutive Top 20 hits on the chart.
Encouraged by Hayes and Porter to employ a call-and-response style (borrowed from their church days) the duo settled into their signature high-energy sound, as heard in their follow-up, “Hold On, I’m Comin’.” Released in March 1966, the fiery single spent 20 weeks on the R&B chart, eventually hitting the No.1 spot. It was also a Top 40 pop hit and the title track of their debut LP, which was a No.1 R&B bestseller. Sam & Dave continued to dominate the charts over the next year with “You Got Me Hummin’,” “Said I Wasn’t Gonna Tell Nobody,” and the soulful ballad, “When Something is Wrong with My Baby.” The tireless duo was playing hundreds of shows a year and had built an international fanbase, thanks to tours in Europe and the UK (their first Japanese tour followed in 1969). While Sam & Dave were at the pinnacle of their career, a song called “Soul Man” was about to secure their place in music history.
Written in the summer of 1967, the idea of “Soul Man” came to Hayes and Porter while watching coverage of Detroit’s 12th Street Riot—one of the deadliest incidents of the Civil Rights Movement. Hayes recalled seeing how buildings that had been tagged with the word “soul” (marking Black-owned businesses) were left intact. “I thought about the night of the Passover in the Bible… And I realized the word soul keeps them from burning up their establishments,” Hayes told Robert Gordon in Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion. In Rob Bowman’s Soulsville U.S.A.: The Story of Stax Records, Hayes added that the song is “a story about one’s struggle to rise above his present conditions. It’s almost like boasting, ‘I’m a soul man.’ It’s a pride thing.” With its funky guitar licks and joyful horns, the single (which opened the group’s third album Soul Men) became an instantly recognizable anthem across the country. Released in September, the song flew to the top of the R&B chart. Despite the fact that racial tensions were growing in cities and towns across the US, the popularity of the song made Rolling Stone note, “When ‘Soul Man’ becomes a national number one record, it indicates that a much more earthy, low-down kind of soul is beginning to get to white America.” “Soul Man” earned Sam & Dave a Grammy Award in 1968. 51 years later, the Library of Congress added it to their National Recording Registry for its cultural significance. Over the decades since its release, the song has been covered by dozens of artists, including Paul Revere & the Raiders, Prince, and—perhaps most famously—The Blues Brothers (aka Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi).
In 1968, as Stax and Atlantic ended their partnership, the duo released their final single with the Memphis label and their final Top Ten hit (on both the R&B and pop charts), “I Thank You.” After a brief split in 1970, the reunited pair continued to be an in-demand live act, but they failed to find the same chart success as they had in the ’60s. The end of the decade offered them a career resurgence with Aykroyd and Belushi’s “Blues Brothers” sketches and subsequent film, but Sam & Dave officially parted ways in 1981. Their legacy, however, has only grown. In addition to helping pave the way for Black artists to crossover into the pop market, the duo influenced a broad selection of artists, including Phil Collins, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, Al Green, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen.  From: https://staxrecords.com/spotlight/sam-dave/

Heart - Dream Of The Archer

This week GGM is celebrating Heart’s groundbreaking third album, Little Queen, which came out on May 14, 1977. Get ready for “Kick it Out,” “Love Alive,” guitars, mandolins, chimes, outdoor effects, Nancy’s Ovation, Roger Fisher’s double neck, and, oh, that ferocious “Barracuda”.
In his 1977 Rolling Stone review of Little Queen, Billy Altman wrote: “Lord knows we need many more women in rock and roll.” Four decades later, of course, many more women are rocking, but Lord knows Heart led the way. By the time Little Queen was released, Heart was a premier live act known for their versatile stage show and Zeppelin-inspired sound. And it was just the beginning of a very long and storied career for the sisters. The album was not only an important one for the band but a milestone in music history, as well. From the full barrel charge of “Barracuda,” to the instrumental mystique of “Sylvan Song,” the band took creative license to experimentally rock.
After the success of Dreamboat Annie, the band started working on their next album for the Mushroom Label, titled Magazine. But record label and contract issues plagued its release. According to their producer at the time, Mike Flicker, from a 1999 interview with Blair Jackson, “The short version of a very long and dirty story is that we ended up in the position of losing the four songs that had been the start of the second album, and we found ourselves having to start over again, and that became the birth of the second album, Little Queen, which was on Portrait/CBS. ”
In true rock spirit, Heart and their manager broke for Seattle to record Little Queen. But there was still the issue of the legally hung-up second album. Later, the Mushroom label would release an unauthorized version of Magazine with half-finished songs and live recordings. Afterward, the courts ruled Heart could release Little Queen if they still re-record and remixed Magazine at a later date for Mushroom. Until then, the band recorded Little Queen rather quickly in 1977. The finished product would cement the band’s unconventional songwriting and melodic rock grooves. It’s success also showed their consistency as a rock powerhouse fronted by two women…a rarity for the times.
The band was really becoming masters at merging their two styles of music. Little Queen’s ten songs had the folk elements of Dreamboat Annie along with the band’s trademark hard edge. It’s a classic guitar-driven album, but one complemented with several instruments not very typically used in rock music like flute and mandolin. But it all made sense for Heart’s earthy but tough mix of ‘70s rock. The guitar work by Nancy Wilson, Roger Fisher, and Howard Leese is truly exceptional and brilliantly layered. Nancy Wilson’s acoustic playing clearly paved the way for today’s singer/songwriters, and it’s especially awesome listening to her developing her sound and style. Plus, her preference for Ovation guitars cast a spotlight on the brand for years to come.  Nancy would go on to be one of the top female guitarists in rock. Legendary guitarist Roger Fisher is one of the founding members of the band (from 1963 to 1980). His innovative electric and double neck mastery provided rich nuances and memorable solos throughout the album; his work is still duplicated by guitarists today.
Howard Leese was an important part of the band as well and would stay in Heart throughout the ‘80s. His hefty credits on the album include acoustic and electric guitars, synthesizer, piano, Moog bass, mellotron, mandolin, backing vocals, as well as orchestral arrangement on “Treat Me Well.” But no question, the heartbeat of Little Queen is “Barracuda” — a timeless rock gem for its lyrics, riff and natural harmonics. On any given day you can still hear Fisher’s open E power chord galloping over the airwaves. But the song’s known for something infamously deeper. Forty-one years ago, Ann Wilson wrote the impassioned lyrics in the wake of mounting sexism from the music industry (namely, the fallout from an unauthorized ad issued by their record company). The promo featured the bare-shouldered sisters under a headline implying they were lovers. The song also spoke to the overall inappropriate treatment the ladies experienced from men in the music industry.
It poses the question, have things really changed? Although women have permeated the music business, the respect conversation is an ongoing one. “Barracuda” is a reminder that offensive treatment has been happening for a long time, and still does; maybe not as obvious as radio station execs asking female musicians to sit on their laps, but in Hollywood (as we’ve learned) the casting couch is still part of the furniture. The upside, “Barracuda” is fuel for self-empowerment. It’s a timeless example that a positive form of art can come from strong emotions – just like Ann did when she wrote those lyrics. Everyone has a song inside them – maybe it’s “Barracuda,” “Take a Piece of My Heart” (Janis Joplin), or perhaps “Dream On” (Aerosmith). Whatever that tune is, Heart reminds us the very best art comes from human experience and self-empowerment.  From: https://guitargirlmag.com/news/music-news/revisiting-hearts-little-queen-timeless-and-telling/

Love - The Forever Changes Concert

 Love - The Forever Changes Concert - Part 1

 

Love - The Forever Changes Concert - Part 2

Can you get copies of music magazines while you’re in prison? I wonder how Arthur Lee found out while he was locked up on a weapons charge that people had rediscovered his music with the seminal 60s psychedelic band, Love. Incarcerated for nearly six years under California’s “Three Strikes and You’re Out” law, Arthur Lee was probably just itching to get out and take advantage of his celebrity status for the second time around.
Released in December of 2001, Lee immediately hired a fantastic group of backing musicians and reformed Love. Touring all over the world, particularly covering Love’s crowning achievement, 1967’s classic Forever Changes, in it’s entirety, Arthur Lee has finally found his admirers. And for now, this seems to be one of the more unique stories of rock and roll with a happy ending.
Love’s The Forever Changes Concert was recorded live in London in early 2003, and fittingly, captures Lee and company playing Forever Changes in it’s glorious, psychedelic entirety. One of the finest collections of songs recorded and played to perfection by an ensemble of expert musicians, including the standout guitar playing of one Mike Randle. This live album deviates little from the original album but sounds fuller and more explosive in several places, such as the rocking “A House Is Not A Hotel” and “Between Clark And Hilldale.” While it might be wiser to recommend catching Love live in concert, The Forever Changes Concert is a quality document that showcases Arthur Lee as an exciting live performer and one of rock and roll’s most formative legends.  From: https://www.tinymixtapes.com/music-review/love-forever-changes-concert

In late 2001, after spending six years in prison on gun charges that were later overturned, Love founder and frontman Arthur Lee was understandably eager to begin performing again, and with members of the band Baby Lemonade backing him up, Lee booked a European tour for early 2003 in which he was joined by a string and horn ensemble to perform the Love masterpiece, their 1967 album Forever Changes, in its entirety. The tour seemed like the sort of thing most fans would at once cherish and dread -- it's hard to imagine anyone who cared about Love not wanting to see Lee free and performing again, but would he have anything left to say, especially tied to the vehicle of an album that was all of 35 years old? The Forever Changes Concert, recorded during one of the tour's early stops at London's Royal Festival Hall, doesn't hold much in the way of surprises, but anyone who imagined Lee would just go through the motions of Forever Changes' eleven songs will be pleasantly surprised. Lee's voice is harsher than it was in 1967, but he sings these songs with genuine passion and an understanding of their emotional gravity that seems to have grown with the passage of time. The arrangements that Lee and his musicians worked up for this material obviously follow the template of the original recording, but there's a fire in the guitar work and a willingness to bounce patterns off bandmates Mike Randle and Rusty Squeezebox that keeps this material sounding fresh and alive, and the small orchestra that accompanies the group go through their paces with charming skill (and without crowding the band). Lee also sings with commendable emotional depth on the two numbers Bryan MacLean wrote for the original album. Some editions of The Forever Changes Concert also feature a second disc in which the band plays a number of other songs from the Love catalog, and it's fun to hear Lee rock out on "Seven and Seven Is" and "My Little Red Book," but what's more impressive is how focused and committed Lee is on lesser known classics like "Signed D.C." and "Orange Skies"; while the Forever Changes gambit probably brought in plenty of fans, disc two suggests that an evening drawn from Love's broader body of work could have been every bit as satisfying. Still, while this package is for committed Love fans (no one who hasn't heard Forever Changes should start with this), it's not so much an exercise in nostalgia as an evening with a vital artist who could still find new wrinkles in his back catalog.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-forever-changes-live-concert-mw0000740254#review

 

Descartes a Kant - After Destruction

The savvy sound fashioning of Mexico’s Descartes a Kant burst forth with bright magenta shades and imaginative art rock sounds on their brand-new album After Destruction. The timely themes of self-realization in the age of artificial intelligence in a push-button world that creates us as we create it, are artfully presented with tight, melodic musicianship and pleasantly processed guitars, drums, keyboards – and the waifish vocals of Sandrushka Petrova up front, narrating colorful existential tales.
A pleasant female computer voice narrates the album, between songs with a decidedly prog punk edge adding depth to the kitsch presentation. “Graceless” tells the tale of optimistic dreams thwarted by a reality, reluctantly faced. Downbeat, and with stylishly insinuating guitars by Petrova and Ana Cristina Moreno, ethereal synths by Memo Ibarra, and drums by Leo Padua, it’s a bittersweet reflection on idealism disappointed.
“The Mess We’ve Made” is a driving, mid-tempo tune about a secret rendezvous, while the new single “Raindrops Of Poison” poses existential questions about memory and trauma, in an imaginative presentation featuring ear-tricking key changes, and Petrova’s animated, dramatic vocal style. It starts off angular and jagged, only to become reflective and sweet.
“Woman Sobbing” evokes Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Jefferson Airplane in a poignant narrative describing those rabbit holes that we often find ourselves in. Guitars on this track are as brilliant as Adrian Belew, while Leo Padua and Memo Ibarra are in perfect sync on drums and bass. Petrova’s vocals excite the imagination with perfect harmony.
The title track “After Destruction” has a driving beat, and a guitar sound that avoids the trap of being too thick or grungy, instead it’s perfectly gritty and melodic. The tune, like the album, has layers and thematic changes, that keep the listener guessing as the melodic narrative progresses. There’s shades of Radiohead here for sure, in the arrangements and also in the care taken to sculpt new guitar and keyboard sounds that have never been heard before.
The album After Destruction is a thematic exploration of a computer guided future, with just the right mix of electronics, visceral guitars and vocal passion. In the world of After Destruction, there’s always an opportunity to rebuild oneself, and for that reason, it’s a guardedly optimistic set from a band that I expect to hear many more amazing sounds from in the future.  From: https://www.punkrockbeat.com/descartes-a-kant-excite-with-artful-prog-punk-future-vision-of-after-destruction/

Toadies - Possum Kingdom

Hello again, fellow watchdogs of the music world. I’d like to thank everybody who has striven to uphold morality in our songs and sent in a horrifying lyric. Together, we’re going to beat this thing. I’ve already had several prominent musicians email me begging me to stop this feature, because they’re DEVILS and they know we’re going to SEND THEM BACK TO THE FLAMES. Okay, that last part isn’t true at all. But it’s amazing to see just how twisted some of these songs are. Today’s submission of “Possum Kingdom” by the Toadies comes from Samantha Smurawa. Thanks, Samantha! If YOU know a profoundly disturbing song that requires immediate analysis, send it in to mailbag@pastemagazine.com. And as always, check out previous installments at the bottom of this post. As per usual, I won’t be looking at any backstory until I’m finished analyzing. Toadies lyrics in bold, my commentary after.

TITLE: Possum Kingdom

Usually I don’t comment too much on the title, because bands are sneaky and call their songs things like “Art Lover” just before chasing little girls around a park. But I want to take a moment to give some credit to the Toadies, because that’s a real weird title. I want no part of a Possum Kingdom, at all. I don’t want to know the king, the queen, the jesters, the serfs or anyone. (Okay, fine, I am kinda curious about the possum jester.) It feels like the kind of place where human beings are brought in strapped to piece of plywood and gnawed to death. Count me out.

(Note: I’ll be saying “the Toadies” even though the band’s name is just “Toadies,” because without “the” it just sounds weird, and all you grammar people can go straight to hell.)

Make up your mind

I ALREADY DID, I DON’T WANT TO GO TO THE POSSUM KINGDOM. Oh wait, the song started…

Decide to walk with me
Around the lake tonight
Around the lake tonight
By my side
By my side

My previous experience has taught me to distrust innocuous beginnings, but hey, maybe I was wrong this time. Maybe it’s just about two lovers strolling around a lake. We need more of that in America. Lake strolls, I mean. When’s the last time you strolled around a lake? When’s the last time you’ve seen a lake? Do we even have lakes anymore? I think lakes have gone extinct. Thanks, Obama.

I’m not gonna lie
I’ll not be a gentleman

There are two ways to take this. One, he’s going to behave like a damnable sexy rogue, which can be exciting and novel. Some people go for that. Some ladies like a bad boy. Two, he’s going to throw her in a possum pit to be chewed to death.

Behind the boathouse
I’ll show you my dark secret

The temperature is warm here in my house, but I just shivered. What is your dark secret, Toadie man? It’s the possum kingdom, isn’t it? Also, a hint: If you want to lure an unsuspecting lady to your boathouse lair, it’s probably better not to lay out your plans in song form beforehand. In real life, I imagine a woman would start to get a little suspicious at the “gentleman” line, and then start running away at “dark secret.” Nobody wants to see anyone’s dark secret. Unless that dark secret is a lake, because WHERE THE FUCK HAVE ALL THE LAKES GONE, OBAMA?!

I’m not gonna lie

And we appreciate that. Again, not great serial killer strategy, necessarily, but it’s refreshing to be warned ahead of time that a bevy of possums is about to consume us bit by bit. Okay, I just looked up the collective name for possums, and it turns out it’s “passel.” A passel of possums. Also, the animal is technically called an “opossum,” but since I already told all the grammar people to go to hell, I can’t really call the Toadies out on this one.

I want you for mine
My blushing bride

Oh good, a weird marriage fetish scenario. No good serial killing is complete without one. I’m no expert, and I’ve never killed anyone, but I strongly believe that if your victim isn’t wearing a bridal gown, you’re not doing it correctly. Either that, or dress her up like your mother. Maybe I’m old-fashioned, but to me, those are the best ways to decorate a victim before setting the passel of opossums loose.

My lover, be my lover, yeah…

I know he says “be my lover,” but I get the feeling there’s no actual sex involved here. The whole situation is a little too bizarre. Wedding dress? Yes. Possums? Definitely. A boathouse filled with screams and terror? You bet. But I’m not seeing sex entering into the equation. And you know what? That’s sort of refreshing. Week after week, we’ve seen songs about dudes being really creepy and secretive and perverse around women (along with one woman taking revenge for her entire gender). It makes you lose faith in humanity. But the Toadies? They’ve got something deeper going on. Mere sexual power dynamics don’t interest them. This is psychological horror on a brand new plane, and THIS WRITER finds it refreshing! (No, I don’t. This is awful. Somebody help me.)

Don’t be afraid
I didn’t mean to scare you

I am finding that difficult to believe, sir! On a positive note, at least there’s no disturbing religious element to this fantasy. That’s the last serial killer trope we’re missing. When you bring God into the mix, it adds that awful ritualistic feeling that really makes me panic. But we’re so far along in the song that surely we’re safe.

So help me, Jesus

Dammit.

I can promise you
You’ll stay as beautiful
With dark hair
And soft skin…forever
Forever

The one thing that always makes me laugh about serial killers is how they think they’re doing you a favor. “You’ll be perfectly preserved to the end of eternity! You should be thanking me!” Nope. I’ll just take a normal life and death without being embalmed in a wedding dress and stuffed into the wall of a boathouse, thanks. I’m not saying I don’t appreciate your aesthetic, but I really feel like this should be my choice to make.

Make up your mind
Make up your mind

Are we still talking about deciding to go for a walk around the lake? I don’t want to speak for all women, but I think that was a flat no like ten lines ago.

And I’ll promise you
I will treat you well
My sweet angel
So help me, Jesus

“Awwww…I don’t know, maybe this guy’s alright. God knows there are some awful men out there, and I can’t seem to keep a boyfriend beyond three dates. Plus, I’d get to see a lake, which God knows is rare in Obama’s America. On the other hand, the possums…”

Give it up to me
Give it up to me
Do you wanna be
My angel?
So help me!

If I have one criticism of this killer, it’s that he seems super unfocused. Is it a religious thing, where he wants to make the woman into an angel for Jesus? Does he want to preserve her eternally so she remains perfect? Does he want to dress her like a bride? And what’s up with the possums? After the title, the possums have never been mentioned again. This is what I mean by keeping it simple. So many serial killers want to complicate things today. And if you do it right, it’s great, but let’s not forget some of the old classics, like Jack the Ripper stabbing prostitutes, or Son of Sam just shooting people with a .44. We need to get back to basics. But I guess that’s not the way things work in the Obamanation, am I right?

Be my angel
Be my angel
Do you wanna die?

Also, there’s never been a serial killer who was so solicitous. “Look, I want to take a walk around a lake with you and then kill you, but hear me out while I tell you the exact plan. In the end, this has to be your choice, and I want you to be as comfortable as possible. On a different note, how do you feel about possums?”

I promise you
I will treat you well
My sweet angel
So help me, Jesus

If you play this song backward, you can hear the bass player whispering “A Passel of Opossums” over and over.

And there it is! Looking at the Wikipedia entry, it turns out that “Possum Kingdom” is the name of a lake in Texas. So all that talk of possums eating people was just a false alarm, unfortunately. I mean fortunately. Whatever. Stop looking at me. An interesting wrinkle is that footage from the music video was found by a local resident, which led to Dallas police questioning video director Thomas Mignone because they thought it was a snuff film. Finally, someone taken to task for their horrifying lyrics!

From: https://www.pastemagazine.com/music/profoundly-horrifying-song-lyrics-possum-kingdom-b

Grandma's Ashes - Cassandra

Grandma’s Ashes are a three piece Stoner Prog band from Paris, France. Their music is a blend of heavy face melting riffs, dark melodies and complex rhythms. Last month they released their debut EP ‘The Fates’ and we were able to have a chat with them about the EP, the band and their influences.

Let’s start with the basics! Tell us about the formation of the band, how did it all come together?

We met four years ago on the internet. Myriam and Eva knew each other for a year or so and were looking for a drummer so Edith came along and Grandma’s Ashes started this way. When we first met we jammed and it felt obvious that we had to play together.

Your sound is colourful and eclectic, you can hear the math rock influences with your use of odd time signatures, along with the filthy desert/stoner rock riffs mixed with some psychedelia. What are your individual influences and musical backgrounds?

Myriam: I began the guitar when I was 13, playing in different rock bands. We were mostly influenced by classic 70s rock such as Led Zeppelin, Sabbath, The Beatles, Bowie etc. I discovered the desert rock scene when I arrived in Paris, by mixing live local bands in underground venues. I was totally fascinated by the heaviness of their sound. Since I grew up in Morocco, I’ve also listened a lot to traditional african music which made me more open to odd time signatures, and I studied jazz for a year at school.

Edith: I’m really influenced by math-rock bands such as Toe, Don Caballero, and Battles for their structures and creativity. Also modern progressive metal bands like Leprous, Night Verses, and Cult of Luna for their massive sound and crazy technique. I’ve been a drummer for 11 years in different bands and I’ve attended different schools including the same jazz school as Myriam.

Eva: I discovered stoner rock with Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss at the age of 15. It totally blew my mind as I was mostly influenced at the time by 70’s english punk bands (The Strangers, The Damned) with rich, high sound and sharp bass lines. This discovery was a revolution in my way to play bass, more encompassing, more massive (Then, late, I heard about black sabbath and type O negative and I totally loved it!) Later I discovered progressive bands such as Yes, and I switched again for more complex bass lines, keeping the heaviness I learned from stoner rock! This prog band also taught me the way to sing some psychedelic voices while keeping complex rhythms in the background. I was amazed it was possible to do both at the same time, and create such a strange, and poetic universe with dark tones!

I read somewhere that you recorded ‘The Fates’ EP live, which is super refreshing to hear and it gives a real human feel to the way it sounds. Tell us about your experience recording with this approach?

Thank you! It was quite impressive to record live in the beautiful Ferber’s A studio, we felt honored. Playing live together is what we prefer to do, we’re used to working this way, feeling each other's energy in order to create and give the best of ourselves. We tried to do what we do best except that we had amazing gear and a crazy crew guiding us toward the best results. It was a bit stressful but very exciting above all.

The guitar and bass tones are one of the defining characteristics of your music, talk us through your rigs and how you achieve such a massive sound?

Our first idea to sound massive was to tune ourselves a whole tone down and use the heaviest strings gauge we could find. It really adds texture because our strings aren’t flexible at all! Then, Myriam began to play on two Orange amps in a sort of stereo or dry/wet setup which opens up the sound and lets more room for the bass. We are still trying to sound heavier by combining Fuzz pedals and splitting signals on amps, but the main idea is to play loud and low. 

The lyrics to your single ‘Daddy Issues’ casts an interesting narrative and complements the theatrics of the heavy and menacing instrumental. What is the meaning behind the song?

This song is about the separation of Eva’s parents. It was a dark theme she wanted to keep powerful. There’s a lot of musical references in it for her, such as a famous baroque bass line during the bridge (“Music for a while” by Henry Purcell) sang by her parents a few month before their separation. It’s all emotional and we decided to name it by a ridiculous title to decrease the pathetic side of the song, and minimise what was a traumatic event to a reductive expression, to stay prude and make fun of it instead of making everyone cry *laugh*

The cover for the EP is distinctive and has a mythological quality to it, what inspired the artwork?

The artwork was inspired by a guy who came talk to us after a gig in Montreal a few years ago. He compared us to the Parcae, the female personifications of destiny who directed the lives and death of humans and gods. He said that each other had a role on stage: Eva spun the thread with her melody and rhythm foundation, Myriam unwind it with her riff and atmospheric effect, at last Edith cut it with convoluted rhythms. We liked this metaphor a lot because we were already inspired by classical art but suddenly it took a musical dimension and it felt interesting to include it in our visual universe.

Are there any bands in the local Parisian scene that you would recommend?

We would definitely recommend to listen to The Psychotic Monks, Cosse and Liquid Bear! 

Finally, what have you got planned next for Grandma’s Ashes?

We’re focusing on our first album since we don’t have gigs coming, but we hope to play live this summer or at least at the end of 2021. We plan to shoot a new videoclip and a new live session also.

From: https://www.smrgoth.com/post/interview-grandma-s-ashes

Teke-Teke - Garakuta

In order to understand the music of TEKE::TEKE, I first need to explain Eleki. Eleki is a type of Japanese surf rock that, whilst similar to Western surf rock, uses traditional instruments and the pentatonic scale. It popped up in the 1960s and has become a niche over the decades. It wasn’t something I’d come across until I discovered TEKE::TEKE and now I want to discover more.
It’s worth noting that TEKE::TEKE are not strictly an Eleki-only band. They also weave Brazilian surf rock and plenty of psychedelia into their sound. There isn’t anything quite like them out there though. On their new album ‘Hagata’, very much my starting point with the band, I was immediately blown away but the visceral explosion of sounds, cultures and rock symphonies the septet create. Opening with ‘Garakuta’ we have a kabuki dance of flutes, brass, guitars and water-filtered vocals. The guitar and bass sound like a throwback to shamisen riffs, or on tracks like ‘Gotoku Lemon’, like a Bollywood riff. It gives a sly and sensual feel to the music. The woodwind and brass are often playing melodies in unison which give a quirky comedic and secretive spin on things too. Add in some Brazilian-inspired percussion and you have a true melting pot of ideas. Am I in Turkey? Am I in Japan? Am I in India or Brazil? Nope, TEKE::TEKE is based in Montreal.
With such a buffet of sounds to choose from, the band refuses to sit still. ‘Hoppe’ eschews the traditional for a punk rock crunch. The brass arrangement really ups the ante in the bridge and choruses but the rock edge reminds me of Shiina Ringo at times. ‘Onaji Heya’ leans into that comparison more with lots of electronic and baroque elements to the track. Then we break into striving, dramatic guitar solos to break the song into segments like a classic rock tune. The palette-cleansing ethereal harp and flute interlude of ‘Me No Haya’ couldn’t feel or sound a million miles away. Yet as it spins itself into a frenzy, more of TEKE::TEKE’s rock members join in for a whirlpool of ghostly rock nods to something darker.
Taking us fully back to 1960s psychedelic folk is the superb ‘Doppelganger’. Between the sassy brass, the timeless electro-acoustic band sound and some of the cleanest vocals on the album, it is a great place to start if you are new to this style of music. The track is more of TEKE::TEKE’s hippy side rather than the rock side but if the band’s charm is ever going to win you over, it is with this song. Fast forwarding to 70s cop shows, ‘Setagaya Koya’ has guitar whammies that come with giant sideburns. It then switches to a rock interpretation of bossa nova and Latin beats, leaning into the Brazilian side of their sound. Sassy, seductive, dramatic and dangerous sounding, I feel like I’m performing espionage in 1972 Brazil.
‘Kakijyu’ is the longest and perhaps most experimental track. It is a taut and rhythmic drum pattern crammed full of whispered vocals that slowly build and build until the entire band joins in with a euphoric outro. It sounds ceremonial but may be a hard sell to start with. Drums lead the way with the chaotic kraut-rock of ‘Yurei Zanmai’. The track barrels along at huge speed and the vocals literally shatter as the guitars pile in. Hedonistic in it’s setup, this feels tribal and primal as all the instruments zipline between two chords like a ripcord. That leaves the haunting closer ‘Jinzou Maria’ to provide a Brazilian farewell. The South American flavoured ballad starts off like a Latin cowboy theme of vocal and guitar before the rest of the band join to give a psyche-folk outro.
There is a certain diaspora around TEKE::TEKE that I find fascinating. I’m sure I’ve called out incorrect cultures and influences throughout this review but it is such a magical blend of ideas, I’m sure I’ve missed about 25 countries out of the mix too. Sometimes it sounds Mexican, Turkish, Indian, Japanese, Brazilian, American and sometimes all of the above and none at the same time. TEKE::TEKE has a genuinely unique sound and I adore it. This album is a triumph in melting pot sound design that works. Sounds don’t feel isolated or fractured – everything has its place and merges superbly with the other elements. ‘Hagata’ will feature highly on my best of 2023 list.  From: https://higherplainmusic.com/2023/07/17/teketeke-hagata-review/

22 Brides - Visions of You

Libby Johnson is an American singer-songwriter. She co-founded the indie folk band 22 Brides in 1992, and released her debut solo album, Annabella, in 2006. Johnson was born on an army base in Germany. She moved around on the East Coast of the United States and moved to Nairobi, Kenya, when she was 13. She started playing piano at age 7. She and her younger sister, Carrie Johnson, started singing together when they were children. They performed in Kenya, before returning to the United States while in high school. They went to the Berklee College of Music in Boston before moving to New York City in 1983.
In 1992, the sisters formed the indie folk duo 22 Brides, and in 1993 they put out the self-released eight-song CD Selling Fruit in Cairo. The band name 22 Brides comes from an Indian folk tale they heard when they were younger. After being spotted during one of their monthly gigs at CBGB's Gallery in New York, the duo signed with indie label Zero Hour Records in 1994. On June 22, 1994, they released their self-titled debut, consisting of remixed songs from their self-released effort plus four new songs. The album was produced by Daniel Wise, with additional production from Godfrey Diamond, and features Jonathan Mover on drums and Mark Bosch on guitar.
On the year-long tour for 22 Brides, and in advance of their second album, Beaker, 22 Brides expanded into a four-member band with John Skehan (guitar, bass) and Ned Stroh (drums) joining Libby Johnson (bass, keyboards, vocals) and Carrie Johnson (guitar, vocals). Produced by Adam Lasus, the album had a more highly produced feel than the folk influences of the band's debut. Following a Zero Hour distribution deal with Universal Records, Beaker was released on Zero Hour / Universal. On September 9, 1997, Zero Hour released the 22 Brides EP Blazes of Light, which was a sampler of sorts, with songs from their first two albums, "Purified" from their upcoming third album, and a cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah".
The band's third LP, Demolition Day, was released in 1998, with a return to the more intimate sound of 22 Brides. In an effort to get back to their folk-pop harmonizing roots, the band worked again with Daniel Wise and recorded their vocal tracks live and switched to a trio formation, with Libby Johnson on bass and vocals, Carrie Johnson on guitar and vocals, and Bill Dobrow on drums. The first single from the album "Another Distant Light" debuted on WNNX out of Atlanta.
In October 1995, 22 Brides toured with Dick Dale. 22 Brides played at the 1998 Lilith Fair, and also opened for Ani DiFranco and Freedy Johnston. In 1996, Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti introduced characters based on Libby and Carrie Johnson in their comic book series Ash. They then created a four-book miniseries, 22 Brides, published by Event Comics, revolving around the characters based on the sisters. Palmiotti later created a spinoff series, Painkiller Jane.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libby_Johnson

Lovely Little Girls - Shadow Of Bees

Chicago's Lovely Little Girls focus on the details; that bit of flab hanging over a waistband, those ill-fitting shoes that carve deeper with each step and that slight underbite - teetering between the lovely and the repugnant.  Led by visual artist/vocalist Gregory Jacobsen and bassist Alex Perkolup (Cheer-Accident, Flying Luttenabachers, Bobby Conn), Lovely Little Girls is a nine-piece art-prog band that features the cream of the crop of Chicago's avant-rock scene. "Glistening Vivid Splash", the band's second full-length for SKiN GRAFT Records propels the ensemble's darkly humorous vision of absurd sexuality, abject failure, and unceremonious death to new heights by utilizing more space, and employing a strange sense of harmony that will strike a chord with fans of Magma, Cardiacs, Arrigo Barnabe, and early Residents. Produced by Greg Norman and mastered by Todd Rittmann (Dead Rider, US Maple), the music of Lovely Little Girls is permeated by an ominous urgency, ripening and decaying before the ears. 

The drawings and paintings of Chicago artist Gregory Jacobsen aren't exactly easy to look at: his favorite subject is body horror, and he loves to combine bright, kid-friendly colors with beautifully rendered deformities and mutilations and revolting masses of flesh and hair and membrane. Since 2001 Jacobsen has also had a band, Lovely Little Girls, and it's a total package: challenging, dissonant, ever-changing experimental rock, conceptually linked songs, and ambitious themed stage productions that often involve makeup, prosthetics, partial nudity, and large casts of players. His longtime collaborator, bassist Alex Perkolup (also of Cheer-Accident), writes most of the songs; Jacobsen animates their lyrics with his abject, frenzied singing and grotesque, even violent stage presence. - Monica Kendrick, Chicago Reader

The music of the Chicago avant-rock oddballs Lovely Little Girls is inspired by the paintings and drawings of artist/vocalist Gregory Jacobsen. It's the sort of artwork that can inspire lyrics like "Inflammation of the harelip," candy-colored grotesques that seem like carnival art intended to scare children with the threat of STDs. These characters are depicted in the band's Frith/Residents-inspired anarchic outbursts, sideshow skronk in [Henry Darger] Vivian Girls colors. The songs come mostly from the pen of Cheer-Accident bassist Alex Perkolup, who translates Jacobsen's deformed portraiture into an equally deranged sonic palette, a no-wave juggling act by turns horrifying and horrified. - Shaun Brady, Philadelphia City Paper

From: https://skingraftrecords.com/bandhtmlpages/llg.html

Polecat Creek - Midway Road

Polecat Creek features Laurelyn Dossett and Kari Sickenberger, two singer-songwriters from North Carolina who have pooled their talents, ostensibly because their wonderful harmonies bring out more in their songs than each of their own individual voices could. Although the women straddle the fence between bluegrass and old-time (leaning more toward the latter), there are also occasional echoes of Cajun music, honky-tonk, and blues. Their second album was recorded in Louisiana with Dirk Powell producing and Riley Baugus as the main accompanist (mostly on banjo and fiddle). Kevin Wimmer (fiddle), Terry Huval (lap steel and resophonic guitar), Mike Burch (drums) and Powell (a mutli-instrumentalist) make up the rest of the backing crew. The songs, written individually by either Dossett or Sickenberger, are memorable and lyrically sophisticated. “Mama”, has nothing in common with the sappy tributes to motherhood that are prevalent in some country music circles. “The Past Ain’t Over Yet”, the story of a prisoner who is haunted by a murder committed while under the influence, is a jaunty blues that includes some classic lines: “Now I can’t look ahead and I can’t forget / My future’s behind me and the past ain’t over yet.” The title track is a touching song about the collapse of a small-town industry and the inhabitants’ struggle to survive. Strong vocals, tight harmonies, compelling arrangements, and impeccable musicianship all help to bring out the best in the duo’s songs.  From: https://www.nodepression.com/album-reviews/polecat-creek-leaving-eden/

Sons Of Zöku - Sun Shines On Everyone

There is an ethereal mist surrounding Sons Of Zöku that completely sets them apart from their peers in psych pop/rock today. Could it be their Australian roots? The remoteness and the otherworldliness also found in bands like King Gizzard and Tame Impala? Who knows, and also who cares really; the important thing is that they are here, and that we can dive into their wonderful tranquil pool of soothing multi vocals, reverb, and fuzz.
Like other contemporary psychedelic indie colleagues Upupayama, Vampire Weekend or Wolf People, Sons Of Zöku have found a natural way to merge ancient folk vibes from all over the world into their mellow psych songs. From the pastoral flutes of the Irish fields to the Tuareg blues of the African desert, or the sitar song of India, Sons Of Zöku respectfully borrows, forges new connections, and morphs it into their own sound.
Another strong vibe that radiates from Endless is that it is more than just a piece of music, it presents itself as a portal or a shrine through which we might find more than just music. When they chant “meet me on the other side if you will” you feel the willingness to take their hands and transcend to a lighter state of being, leaving troubles behind, clearing the mind of clutter. Mindfulness in indie rock form, just the thing we needed in this hurried bustling world. Sounds vague? Nah, you just need to spin this album a few more times…it will come to you.

I reached out to the band and found Portuguese born Ricardo Da Silva (vocals/guitar) at the helm, willing to provide the answers to my questions. An image unfolds of a strong collective with a unified vision that will very probably take them across many seas and hopefully even to Europe. But let’s meet them first and get to know Sons Of Zöku:

Hi guys, how is Sons Of Zöku doing these days? What is the last thing you did that gave you an energy boost?

Pretty exciting to see our second album Endless getting ready to be released, looking at all the amazing art work on vinyls and things like that, it’s pretty exciting. Also getting invited to play gigs like supporting Minami Deutsch in Perth and in our hometown, things like that always give us an extra boost.

Can you introduce the band to the Weirdo Shrine?

Of course, Ric (me) on vocals, guitar and electric sitar, Ica on flute, keys, vocals and everything percussion, Jordan Buck on Bass and so much more behind the scenes, Hannah Yates on vocals, bongos, congas, electric guitar and keys, Oscar Ellery on electric guitar and sitar and Eddie Hannemann on drums.

What are your musical backgrounds?

I started playing guitar and singing with my friends in Portugal, they had a band and I used to come around and watch them play and thought was the greatest thing ever. Eventually they told me if you can learn a song then I would be in the band, I took it literally and started practicing, I still sucked but eventually they let me join because we were all best friends. When I moved to Australia that was always the idea, to create a musical family. With time and watching each other’s bands and projects the band started taking shape, first me and Ica, then Jordan, then Hannah, Oscar and Eddie. A few different members in between but I won’t bore you with that.     

Where are you based, what is the scene like, and how has it influenced your sound?

We are based in South Australia, Adelaide. The music scene is really diverse, lots of different styles and sounds. It’s a great place to live, has a bit of everything, ocean, hills, countryside, a bit of desert. 

What can you tell me about the new album and its path to enlightenment? How should we listen to it in regard to its message?

To us, Endless represents our path to enlightenment individually and as a band. We are all in our own journeys to find purpose which brings us closer to happiness I guess. This album sings a lot about that, songs like Earth Chant sing lines like ”air is all I got, my god is air” or “when here and now we eternally bound” talk about to truly live is to simple breathe and in the moment so cliché yet so hard to achieve, or a song like Hunters, “we strong enough never to drown at sea, just weak enough never to make it to shore” or “we walked and sailed for days at once to a place where all the clouds were gone, to find nothing we found everything still we try and try and try, but words got in our way” and “ many years gone by but we still try searching for something we can’t be sure”, the struggles of becoming a successful band, to find our shore. Yumi, “here we are all form enlightened, here we are the void in spite of” or simply “the arrow is your guru”, what you aim to do in life is your purpose, guides you. Kuhnoo, ”will we ever bloom to bear our own weight”, Nu Poéme, “say what you feel say what you want for once”… so many examples I could give you but at the end of the day we would like to believe that music transcends all that, and that the listener will find their own meaning out of it.

Endless is your second album, what difference in approach did you guys take when creating it?

Sun was more of a collection of songs over the years as a band, Endless is more a representation of the band at a specific moment in time, a time where we are ever-changing in our personal lives and musically. It was a more calculated effort to say what we feel and less stream of consciousness type of writing.

What can you tell me about the non-music influences that inspired you to make the album?

We truly believe art is life and living, getting ideas in terms of music and sound from other artists is a big part of music, but to turn it into art and something meaningful to us, life and how we feel is the most important thing to us. We have lived, and we are living, that is the biggest catalyst in our songwriting.

Who are some artists that you really hold dear at the moment?

Mdou Moctar, Les Filles de Illighadad, The Perks of being a wallflower soundtrack, North Americans “Going Steady” album, Air, Vashti Bunyan, also I swear I have on repeat Raly Barrionuevo “De Alberdi” song and Nicholas Britell “Little’s Theme” from Moonlight motion picture soundtrack.

What does the future look like for Sons Of Zöku? And when can we expect a European tour?

Right now the plan is to release Endless into the world and then to see how our European fans receive it, but we definitely have them in our sights and we can’t wait to meet them all soon.

What should the Weirdo Shrine reader do immediately after reading this interview?

Follow Sons of Zöku on Spotify then put your headphones, ear pods or whatever, press play on any of our songs and go do something, bike ride, the dishes, cooking, jog, lay down, meditate, whatever, just let us be the soundtrack to whatever is happening in your life. If you like it, privately share it with a friend or loved one, that’s what’s all about.

From: https://weirdoshrine.wordpress.com/2024/01/25/review-qa-sons-of-zoku-endless-2023-copperfeast-records/

Jefferson Airplane - Two Heads

Want two heads on your body
And you've got two mirrors in your hand
Priests are made of brick with gold crosses on a stick
And your nose is too small for this land
Inside your head is your town
Inside your room your jail
Inside your mouth the elephant's trunk and booze
The only key to your bail

Two heads can be put together
And you can fill both your feet with sand
No one will know you've gutted your mind
But what will you do with your bloody hands?
Your lions are fighting with chairs
Your arms are incredibly fat
Your women are tired of dying alive
If you've had any women at that

Wearing your comb like an ax in your head
And listening for signs of life
Children are sucking on stone and lead
And chasing their hoops with a knife
New breasts and jewels for the girl
Keep them polished and shining
Put a lock on her belly at night, sweet life
For no child of mine
Want two heads on your body
And you've got two mirrors in your hand

Jefferson Airplane finally finished their third LP Halloween week after two months of off-and-on recording in Los Angeles. It’s called After Bathing at Baxter’s, has a fold-out cover designed by cartoonist Ron Cobb, and, says lead singer Marty Balin, is "a whole new and different thing for the group." Recorded while the San Franscisco band lived in luxury at a Beverly Hills mansion that the Beatles rented on one American tour, the album’s very tentative release date is November 15.
As of November 1st, seven tracks, besides ‘Ballad of You and Me and Pooneil’ and ‘Two Heads’ previously released as a single, were finished. Three are Paul Kantner compositions: ‘Watch Her Ride,’ ‘Martha,’ and ‘Wild Time.’ The other members, except for Jack Casady, have contributed one track each. Grace Slick’s song is ‘Rejoyce,’ originally called ‘Ulysses,’ whose lyric is snatches of James Joyce’s novel. An oboe plays behind her voice. "It’s too powerful for Top 40," says Balin, "it has the line, ‘I’d rather my country died for me,’ and there’s a character in it named ‘Blazes Crotch’." Spence Dryden did his cut, ‘A Package of Value,’ all by himself, putting three drum tracks, a marimba track, and one on harpsichord into a ‘song sandwich’ that is the joke of the album. Jorma Kaukonen’s number, ‘Last Wall of the Castle,’ is ‘a mind-blower,’ according to the Airplane’s personal manager, Bill Thompson. ‘Young Girl Sunday Blues,’ Balin’s contribution, is over five minutes long, the album’s longest cut.
Answering criticism that the album is way behind schedule, Balin said the group had never set a date for the album’s completion. "We’ve just done it when we could." As the Airplane left the Fillmore a week ago Sunday for their last planned session in RCA’s Los Angeles studios (the same ones used by the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead), they had no idea of what songs would complete After Bathing. "We have a few more done," Balin said, "but we don’t like them. There’ll probably be two more and they’ll be things we come up with right at the last minute. We always do that. "Man, we’re the worst people ever in a recording studio. We create our music in the ballrooms. Compared to them a recording studio is so sterile, like a hospital, that it takes us three weeks just to get used to walking through the door." This time, with complete artistic control and without the Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia as ‘spiritual and musical advisor,’ the Airplane has been on its own. "No one helps us," said Balin, "I think everyone there is afraid of us. We try crazy things and no one tells us they can’t be done. Our producer is like a school teacher with a real creative class, letting the kids do what they want and just making sure they don’t smash all the erasers."
Bill Thompson says the album cover is as strange as the sounds inside. Cobb’s cartoon is a monster airplane which carries, in tiny detail, symbols of plastic American culture; beer cans, billboards, ticky-tack houses and buildings, some of which are recognizable San Francisco landmarks. The plane trails a banner inscribed with the album’s title, a name suggested by an "underground-underground group called the Night Owls," says Balin. It refers to no known place or event. Inside the fold are six pictures of the Airplane taken by photographer Allan Frappe. Thompson says they are indescribably far out, with strange color and form distortions. Balin is so impressed that he would like to do a whole book with Frappe’s photographs. If hard times in the studio have held up the works, la dolce vita back at the mansion hasn’t helped any either. The mansion, with a giant pool, sauna bath, rifle range, electronically-controlled gate, and a Japanese houseboy (all for $5,000 a month), has been "a giant toy," says Balin for the group who haven’t always had it so good. "Every night something was happening," Balin said with a fond smile. "There were parties, strange parties, and then weird parties. We just sat there and watched the world go by right inside that house."  From: https://www.rocksbackpages.com/Library/Article/jefferson-airplane-after-bathing-at-baxters

Ritual - Sadly Unspoken

Ritual is a relatively new Swedish band with a very unique sound, using acoustic instruments like violin, mandolina, bouzouki, etc.. Melodic complex rhythms reminds of early Yes but with a personal and innovative touch. An excellent folk-prog production with skilled musicians.

Finally the new Ritual album has arrived. Ritual released their debut album, simply called "Ritual", in 1995. Looking back it's quite clear that their debut album was one of the best debut albums in the 90's, so it was with great excitement I started listening to their follow-up "Superb Birth". Although their music has changed a bit since the debut you can still hear the typical Ritual sound and compositions with great musicianship. Their music is a mixture between Anekdoten, The Flower Kings, Folk music, Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin and Rush. The tracks are the opening "Dinosaur Spaceship", the folky acoustic "Golden Angel", "Coming Home", "Really Something", "Lobby", the oriental "6/8" with cello, violin and viola, "Into The Heat", the Led Zeppelinish "Sadly Unspoken", the single "Did I Go Wrong", the Led Zeppelinish "Mothersong", "A Voice Of Divinity" with only a grand piano and great vocals from Patrik Lundström and the closing "Do You Want To See The Sun". Ritual have managed to record an album that almost equals their debut album, and they have had a great impact on the progressive rock of the 90's. I certainly hope that they will take their music into the new millennium so that we can have many Ritual albums in the future. Highly recommended and a superb album!

From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=1174

Nuha Ruby Ra - Rise

A certain degree of gracious humility might be de rigueur for a rising artist talking about their increasing successes, but when Nuha Ruby Ra says that the last twelve months have exceeded her wildest expectations, you can tell she’s not just playing for compliments. Influenced by Nick Cave’s discordant first band The Birthday Party and German experimentalists Einstürzende Neubauten, the London artist makes hypnotic, uncomfortable, hyper-sensory music that’s about as far away from an easily-quantifiable Spotify playlist category as you can get; on stage, she prowls the space performing to a live-recorded backing track, dressed in leather with a painted N slashed where a third eye might sit. An obvious choice for a mainstream audience, Nuha most certainly is not, and yet in recent months, she’s found herself on a steady stream of high-profile tours, handpicked to support the likes of Yard Act, Viagra Boys, Warmduscher and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. This month, she’ll step it up another notch, joining Self Esteem on her sold-out victory lap.
“I really would not have expected in my wildest dreams that people would connect with the music I’m doing on the current scale of things. It’s already exceeded all expectations. I thought if I was lucky I’d be some niche small, small thing, but it’s given me some genuine hope and belief in people seeing things outside of the norm,” she begins, sat next to a rail of outfit choices that include a vast array of red and black cowboy boots and coats, alongside a black bunny mask procured from a Hamburg sex shop. “Something I get from people at shows is, ‘I’ve never seen, heard or experienced anything like this before but it’s inspired me’. I think it’s a new thing for a lot of people but they seem to be into it. I think what helps is that I’m really not putting anything on. I’m very honest when I’m performing and maybe that travels through somehow. It never comes from a place of antagonism.”
Though, on a surface level, the music Nuha makes exists in an uneasy space that refutes ideas of what should be palatable - both musically and lyrically - she baulks at the notion that any part of what she does would be seen as playing a character. Instead, music is a space to let all the shadow parts come to the light, leaning into the angry, sad, sexual sides of herself and pushing them to the fore. “I’ve found a place where I can let out these parts of me and these ways of being. It’s not a persona, it’s kind of the most real me there is,” she says. “When I was younger I was exposed to pop music and bands where everything was quite ‘correct’ in terms of song structures, and people singing ‘well’ in inverted commas. Then when I came across bands [like Neubaten] I just felt like it was giving across a feeling that wasn’t about perfection, and feeling over perfection remains the most important thing to me.
“I’m lucky enough to be able to write songs and go out and perform them, and that helps shed a lot of trapped emotions,” she continues. “I scream on stage in some of the songs and those screams are a fucking godsend. There are so many times when you need to be a bit primal in life but you can’t go and scream in the street or people think you’re crazy. Recently in ‘Run Run’ I’ve started saying to the audience, ‘This is your space to scream if you want to scream’ and some of the shows people have really let rip! It’s like a little help group.”
This month, the group will receive a new text in the form of ‘Machine Like Me’ - six strangely mesmerising, sometimes jarring yet consistently playful tracks unlike anything else around, that push Nuha’s self-sufficient polymath ethos even further. Having pivoted from her punk band roots to perform with nothing on stage aside from a backing track and herself (“I found myself performing in a really different way because the connection is just between me and the people at the gig”), and having directed her own recent videos on top of designing and making her own DIY merch, now Nuha is playing almost every instrument on the record herself too.
“It’s just this massively narcissistic thing where I do everything myself!” she cackles. “No, but with every record it’s just what I feel like doing at the time. On the first EP I wanted to have the role of the singer because I’d never had that before, and then with the new one I wanted to be like, could I basically create what sounds like there’s a good band here but I’m playing everything? It’s all just play to be honest, and seeing what might be fun. So for the one after that, I really don’t know. I just tend to see what I want to do at the time and where that takes me.”  From: https://diymag.com/interview/nuha-ruby-ra-march-2023-interview

Fairport Convention - Sloth

Full House marked the consolidation of Fairport’s transition from West Coast-styled, hallucinogenics-influenced outfit - a British Jefferson Airplane, perhaps – to purveyors of rocked-up, electrified British traditional folk; a courageous move tentatively started with the inclusion of A Sailor’s Life on Unhalfbricking and triumphantly completed on Liege And Lief, perhaps the most influential and important UK rock album to appear since Sergeant Pepper. But Fairport had then lost arguably its two most important contributors, founder and direction-setter Ashley Hutchings and crystal-voiced frontwoman Sandy Denny. New bassist Dave Pegg proved a valuable acquisition with his rocky style, but the other members had to close ranks and take on the vocal chores themselves. They did so, with an initial naivete that retrospectively evinces considerable charm, Richard Thompson and Dave Swarbrick proving to have distinctively different rural vocal deliveries and Simon Nicol reluctantly airing a melodious tenor that would eventually see him become the band’s leading voice.
The other element that newly marks Full House out is the humour and looseness which its illustrious predecessor lacked. With talented but earnest female vocalist Denny no longer having to be accommodated and adulated, the boys were free to have some fun, and it comes across in these grooves, notwithstanding the doomy themes of some of the lyrics: songs about sexual exploitation, sin and death can be funky, as Doctor Of Physick, Sloth and Sir Patrick Spens show. I recall seeing this line-up play the Bath Festival Of Blues And Progressive Music at Shepton Mallet in 1970, and the high jinks on stage would not have been on display a year earlier.
Walk Awhile is a wonderfully swinging opener, with all three lead vocalists taking turns at the verses and fine, fiery harmony and octave work between Thompson’s guitar and Swarbrick’s violin. Sloth is an ominous, downbeat death march that builds to an almost unbearable tension in the lengthy instrumental break as Thompson’s edgy Strat and Swarb’s compressed, wailing fiddle duke it out in opposite stereo channels: perhaps the best instrumental work the band ever produced. The two cheerful jig medleys offer a variety of familiar and little-known traditional tunes, forefronting Swarb’s and Peggy’s dueling mandolins on Flatback Caper and all four string players on Dirty Linen. Spens is a gloriously disrespectful, steady-rollin’ take on that revered Scottish traditional ditty, while Nicol’s amplified dulcimer provides the backbone for that country’s mournful anthem for the dead, Flowers Of The Forest. The Island CD re-release offers a number of bonus tracks, including the unnecessarily lugubrious Poor Will & The Jolly Hangman that had been removed (probably wisely) from the original pressing at the last moment at the insistence of its writer, Thompson, and the brief but excellent non-album single Now Be Thankful, one of the band’s evergreens.
Full House is arguably Fairport’s last really great album, its release being followed by the departure of Thompson for a solo career and his replacement by Jerry Donohue, whose elegant Nashville style prefaced a gentle slide in the direction of country rock. Henceforth Swarbrick would take over the band’s direction as the quality gradually declined until his own departure, when Nicol as the last-standing original member would take the reins. After countless further line-up changes and albums the band remains extant and much-loved to this day, with its annual outdoor reunion at Cropredy in Oxfordshire attracting swarms of the faithful.  From: https://therisingstorm.net/fairport-convention-full-house/