Dead Can Dance - Act II - The Mountain

Today, it’s the resurgence of Dead Can Dance, who has just released it’s latest album Dionysus, which is the duo’s first album in six years and consists of two acts across seven movements that represent the different facets of the Dionysus myth. “The Mountain” is the first movement of the album’s second act, where, explains Perry, “listeners will find themselves visiting Mount Nysa. This mountain was Dyonysus’ place of birth, where he was raised by the centaur Chiron, from whom he learned chants and dances together with Bacchic rites and initiations.”
Formed in Melbourne in 1981 by Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry, the style of Dead Can Dance over eight previous studio albums can be described as compelling soundscapes of mesmerizing grandeur and solemn beauty that has incorporated African polyrhythms, Gaelic folk, Gregorian chant, Middle Eastern mantras, and art rock.  From: https://ghettoblastermagazine.com/uncategorized/dead-can-dance-share-new-video-act-ii-mountain/

The amazing musical project Dead Can Dance--Lisa Gerrard and Brendan Perry formed it in 1980--have just released their first new album in twelve years. Called "Dionysus," it is structured like a classical piece. A suite of seven movements in two acts each portray an aspect of the cult of this ancient Greek god of wine and pleasure.
The album sprang from two different inspirations. Perry had a transcendent experience twenty years ago in which he and his brother traveled to Spain and found themselves visiting during a festival called Rompida de la Hora in which thousands of drummers play for 16 hours, through the night. And being musicians and students of ethnomusicology, they grabbed some drums and joined in, overcome with a kind of Dionysian frenzy. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Perry said, "You just get into a trance after a few hours of playing and you wander around the streets and you meet other drum groups and realize there’s thousands of them playing throughout these little towns, and they’re covered in blood. Our hands split open. We didn’t feel anything. We were completely oblivious to the pain."
Then about two years ago while researching Greek music, Perry fell down a rabbit hole after reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s The Birth Of Tragedy: Out Of The Spirit Of Music which explores two schools of cultural thinking: Apollonian and Dionysian. In a simplified explanation, the former is about order, control, and logic while the latter is about freedom, chaos, and emotions. But much like our left-brain/right-brain minds, both are needed to create something. Perry responded to this idea and thus "Dionysus" was born.
He wanted to create a piece of music without creating "songs" so the structure assembled itself almost as chapters in an epic myth. And this Dead Can Dance "Dionysus" is indeed epic. Using world instruments such as the zourna from Turkey, the Bulgarian gadulka, the Ancient Greek bowed psaltery, and the gaida (a bagpipe from the Balkans and Southeastern Europe) blended with field recordings of ambient sounds such as Mexican singing birds and goatherds in remote mountain areas of Switzerland, the results are sweeping and cinematic.
Rolling Stone reports on the very special vocals of Perry and Gerrard: To craft the language of Dionysus, he used a computer plug-in of choral libraries that has an engine called a "Syllabuilder." "It’s basically a directory of sung syllables, which you can then put together into phrases and sentences from a directory," he explains. "You can invent your own words and phrases, and then you can play them polyphonically. You can have a whole group singing the same phrase in different harmonies. So I made a combination of that with Lisa’s and my voices to create the ensemble effect."
"I have no idea what language is on the album," Gerrard says. "I think the album is very much about Brendan unlocking his own language. He’s always been a genius and a remarkable composer, but I think that in this album he is coming to something very innocent and brave."  From: https://ohbythewayblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-mountain-by-dead-can-dance.html

New Grass Revival - Austin City Limits 1987 / Live in Japan 1984

 New Grass Revival - Austin City Limits 1987

 

New Grass Revival - Live in Japan 1984 - Part 1

 

 New Grass Revival - Live in Japan 1984 - Part 2

 

New Grass Revival, affectionately known to many of their fans as NGR, was a band that formed in 1971 and gave rise to a musical movement known as newgrass. The accent was on taking the older forms of bluegrass and reinterpreting them with a contemporary/progressive sensibility. The group took its cues as much, or more, from rock music as it did from Bill Monroe. Visually, with long hair, beards, and no discernible dress code, they were a sharp contrast to the staid, more traditional bluegrass groups of the day. In a career than spanned nearly twenty years, NGR toured the world, gained a legion of fans, and charted new directions for bluegrass.
New Grass Revival was an offshoot of a Louisville, Kentucky-based group known as the Bluegrass Alliance, whose first version included Dan Crary, Danny Jones, Harry Shelor Jr. (aka Ebo Walker), and Buddy Spurlock. By 1971 band members were Shelor, 19-year old mandolin and fiddle prodigy Sam Bush, Courtney Johnson, and Curtis Burch. Fiddle player Lonnie Peerce was the acknowledged leader of the group. In 1971 Peerce parted ways with the band and took the name with him. Those left behind formed a new group which they called New Grass Revival. Sam Bush explained that the name was coined to convey the band’s intent to build upon bluegrass innovations of groups like the Country Gentlemen, the Osborne Brothers, and the Dillards.
New Grass Revival began to appear regularly on festival stages, notably Carlton Haney’s and Jim Clark’s, where they were an instant hit with younger audiences. In August of 1972 and again in July 1973, they were hired by Bill Monroe’s brother Birch to play at Bill’s Brown County Jamboree Park in Bean Blossom, Indiana, despite Bill’s opposition to their bluegrass/rock fusion.
The group’s self-titled first album was released in early 1973 on the Starday label. Due to the progressive nature of the music, at least one venerable bluegrass mail order outlet refused to review it. But Bill Vernon of Muleskinner News praised the versatility and proficiency of the band, noting that “Sam Bush could ‘jam,’ on mandolin and fiddle, as he does on the seven-minute ‘Lonesome Fiddle Blues,’ for several hours without ever repeating a ‘lick.’”
Bass player Ebo Walker bowed out in 1973 and was replaced by Butch Robins, a Virginia-born musician usually noted for his banjo work. Robins’ stay with the group was brief and the group recruited electric bass guitarist John Cowan to take his place. Cowan didn’t have a bluegrass background and his early indoctrination came from other New Grass Revival members. In short order, Cowan’s vocals became a real asset to the group. Courtney Johnson noted that “John brought a whole new vocal scene to the band. It was weak up until that point, but now the band had a good strong lead singer.” Also impressive were his soaring tenor vocals.
New Grass Revival signed with the independent label Flying Fish and released their first album with them in 1976. Fly Through the Country featured the new line-up, but rank and file bluegrassers still weren’t sold. Bluegrass Unlimited reviewer Dick Spottswood acknowledged that the album was “well produced and the musicianship is fine” but expressed his own bias against the “attempt at integrating pop-rock with bluegrass.”
Throughout the middle and late 1970s, the group played concert clubs and outdoor festivals throughout the nation. They released a string of albums for Flying Fish that included Too Late to Turn Back Now (1977), When the Storm is Over (1977), and Barren County (1979). If their 1978 season was any indication, they were a busy band, logging forty-two weeks of work.
For two years, starting in 1979, the New Grass Revival toured with rocker Leon Russell. Sam Bush looked on the association favorably, noting that they learned valuable lessons in how to relate to their audiences. In 1980, while performing at Perkins Palace in Pasadena, California, New Grass Revival participated in the making of The Live Album with Russell. An overseas tour with Russell included performance dates in Australia and New Zealand.
The group’s final album for Flying Fish came out in 1982. Entitled Commonwealth, it was also the last album to feature the long-time line-up with Curtis Burch and Courtney Johnson. The two were replaced by guitarist/vocalist Pat Flynn and banjoist Béla Fleck. A later newspaper clipping said of this new foursome that “using bluegrass instruments, they play a combination of rock, jazz, country, reggae and bluegrass. Bush plays fiddle and mandolin, the percussive trademark of the group. John Cowan plays bass and sings in a rhythm-and-blues style. Pat Flynn flat picks guitar with a fluid drive and Béla Fleck has turned the banjo into a bona fide jazz instrument.”  From: https://www.bluegrasshall.org/inductees/new-grass-revival/

 

The Youngbloods - S/T - Full album

01 - Grizzly Bear
02 - All Over The World
03 - Statesboro Blues
04 - Get Together
05 - One Note Man
06 - The Other Side of This Life
07 - Tears Are Falling
08 - Four in the Morning
09 - Foolin' Around (The Waltz)
10 - Ain't That Lovin' You, Baby
11 - C.C. Rider

By 1965, bassist and vocalist Jesse Colin Young was twenty-four and had already enjoyed a degree of success as a folk singer. He had already released two albums The Soul Of A City Boy in 1964, and Young Blood in 1965. However, Jesse Colin Young’s solo career was in the past. 
Things changed when Jesse met twenty-two year old guitarist Jerry Corbitt, a former bluegrass musician. The pair decided to form a band, which they named the Youngbloods. Initially, the Youngbloods was a duo, with Jesse Colin Young playing bass and Jerry Corbitt switching between piano, harmonica and lead guitar. This initial lineup of The Youngbloods made their debut on the Canadian circuit. However, before long, Jerry Corbitt introduced Jesse Colin Young to Banana.
This was none other than Lowell Levinger, a bluegrass musicians who was born Lowell Levinger III. However, the nineteen year old multi-instrumentalist was known within the music community as Banana. Jerry Corbitt thought that Banana could flesh out The Youngbloods’ sound. Especially since Banana could play banjo, bass, guitar, mandola, mandolin and piano. Once Jesse Colin Young met Banana, he became the third and final member of the band. 
After that, things happened quickly for the Youngbloods. Having made their live debut at Gerde’s Folk City in Greenwich Village, within a short time The Youngbloods were the house band at the prestigious Cafe au Go Go. By then, the Youngbloods had already signed their first recording contract.
Having signed to RCA Records, the Youngbloods discovered that the record label were unsure how to market the band. At one point, RCA Records tried to market The Youngbloods as a bubblegum pop act. However, in 1966, the Youngbloods released their debut single, Rider, which failed to chart. The followup was Grizzly Bear, which reached fifty-two in the US Billboard 100. Both of these singles featured on the Youngbloods’ eponymous debut album.
Work began on the Youngbloods’ eponymous debut at RCA Victor’s Studio B in New York in late 1966. This was the start of a new chapter in their career. By then, founder member Jesse Colin Young was regarded as the focal point of the band. He was the band’s lead singer, and later, would become the band’s songwriter-in-chief. 
For The Youngbloods album, Jesse Colin Young only penned two songs; Tears Are Falling and Foolin’ Around (The Waltz). Jerry Corbitt contributed just the one song, All Over The World. The remainder of the songs were covers of old blues and folk songs. This included Blind Willie McTell’s Statesboro Blues, Jimmy Reed’s Ain’t That Lovin’ You Baby, Mississippi John Hurt’s C.C. Rider, Fred Neil’s The Other Side of This Life and Chet Powers’ Get Together. These songs were recorded at RCA Victor’s Studio B, with producer Felix Pappalardi.
Once the album was recorded, The Youngbloods was scheduled for release in January 1967. When critics heard The Youngbloods, they lavished praise and plaudits on what was primarily an album of folk rock, with excursions into blues and pop. Ballads and rockers sat cheek by jowl on the album, which allowed the band to showcase their talent and versatility. Critics forecasted a bright future for the Youngbloods.  From: https://dereksmusicblog.com/2019/03/16/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-youngbloods/

Snowgoose - The Making Of You

Scottish indie mainstays Snowgoose are known for their emotional warmth, their songs representing an exploration of folky, 60s-style nostalgia with a little psychedelia along the way. New album ‘The Making Of You’, their second full-length, has drawn them the vibrant backing of novelist Ian Rankin, who’s a huge fan, and also saw the band backed – more literally, on several tracks – by much of the Scottish indie community.
The duo’s core – although there are many others regularly on stage – are former Soup Dragons guitarist Jim McCulloch and vocalist Anna Sheard, though members of Scottish indie royalty Belle and Sebastian and Teenage Fanclub are amongst those that appear on the new record alongside the songwriting pair.
“There’s a mutual respect in the music community that’s built around trust and integrity,” McCulloch says of the depth of collaboration. “Then all it takes is a phone call or email to see if and when someone is available to record. I’m not saying that it works for everyone and every time, but if your pals are the best at what they do then why the hell not ask them?”
Unlike their debut record, vocalist Sheard is heavily involved in the writing of this record, and that has contributed to the way it’s performed, and indeed its very feel, alongside all those big names. “In much of the new material, Anna isn’t having to sing words where she is second-guessing motivation or whatever,” McCulloch says of the change. “There is a much deeper connectivity with the material there, and she is much less the auteur or interpreter and more the artist… I feel this is a much more satisfying approach, both as a musician and writer.”
“From my perspective,” Sheard adds “‘The Making of You’ feels a cohesive progression toward the subtly sinister, where the recognizably hopeful spirit of Snowgoose shines amongst the eeriness. For me personally, it has been a very transformational time between records, both in becoming a mother and returning to my roots in Somerset. These experiences have been hugely grounding and inspirational, allowing me to find my confidence as a songwriter with greater focus and less fear.”  From: https://www.hendicottwriting.com/2020/08/snowgoose-the-making-of-you-feels-a-cohesive-progression-towards-the-subtly-sinister/ 

Plainsong - Call The Tune

Plainsong was originally a British country rock/folk rock band, formed in early 1972 by Iain Matthews, formerly of Fairport Convention and Matthews Southern Comfort, and Andy Roberts, previously a member of The Liverpool Scene and Everyone. Plainsong's line-up consisted of Matthews, Roberts, piano and bass player David Richards who had played with Roberts in the band Everyone, and American guitarist and bass player Bobby Ronga, who Matthews and Roberts had first met in the summer of 1971 when they toured the US and Canada as an acoustic trio with former Fairport guitarist Richard Thompson. 
Managed by record producer Sandy Roberton, Plainsong released just one album during their original existence, In Search of Amelia Earhart in October 1972, before splitting up at the end of December that year in somewhat acrimonious circumstances. A second studio album Now We Are 3 was recorded before the split but remained unreleased until 2005. 
Matthews and Roberts have revived Plainsong several times since the early 1990s, firstly as a quartet in 1992 with two new band members: Mark Griffiths, Matthews' former colleague in Matthews Southern Comfort, and British singer-songwriter Julian Dawson, recording a new album Dark Side Of The Room in 1992 and then going out on tour in August 1993 for the first time in 20 years. Two more albums followed - Voices Electric in 1994 and Sister Flute in 1996 - before Clive Gregson replaced Dawson in the band in 1996, touring Europe in 1997 and recording another new album New Place Now in 1999. Dawson rejoined Plainsong in 2003 for their next album Pangolins. 
Ian (later Iain) Matthews had been a member of Fairport Convention between 1967 and 1969, sharing vocals on the band's first two albums, the self-titled Fairport Convention and What We Did On Our Holidays, singing with Judy Dyble initially and then later Sandy Denny. By the time of the recording of band's third album Unhalfbricking, Fairport, under Denny's influence, had largely abandoned their original American singer-songwriter material and were moving towards what would become known as English folk rock. The genre was somewhat alien to Matthews' tastes at the time, leading to a discontent within Fairport that saw him essentially fired from the band after a meeting with producer Joe Boyd in February 1969.
He then left to work solo, soon afterwards forming his own band, Matthews Southern Comfort whose greatest success was topping the UK Singles Chart with their version of Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" in late October 1970. After that band split up, he recorded two solo albums in 1971 for the Vertigo label, If You Saw Thro' My Eyes and Tigers Will Survive, on both of which Andy Roberts had played guitar. 
The beginnings of Plainsong stemmed from Iain Matthews' tour of the US in the summer of 1971 to promote his If You Saw Thro' My Eyes album released at the beginning of May that year. Matthews visited the US in June 1971 to meet with record industry contacts and to promote the album through a series of press conferences for Mercury Records, the distributor of the Vertigo label in America. That trip took in several US cities and laid the groundwork for a return at the end of July as an acoustic trio - joining him on the tour were Andy Roberts and his former colleague Richard Thompson, who by that time had recently left Fairport Convention. The tour would see them play residencies at The Bitter End in New York, the Poison Apple in Detroit and the legendary Troubador nightclub in Los Angeles. Their driver for the tour was New Yorker Bobby Ronga, who also happened to play bass and piano. Ronga was invited by Matthews to join them on bass during their mid-August Bitter End residency, where they were booked as the support act to the singer Dion (DiMucci), who at that time was reinventing himself as a folk singer some ten years after coming to fame with chart hits such as "Runaround Sue" and "Teenager In Love". 
Following that tour, Andy Roberts was booked as the support act on an upcoming Steeleye Span tour and needed a bass player. His Everyone bandmate David Richards was his immediate choice but was unavailable as he was already out on tour with Sandy Denny. Roberts had liked Bobby Ronga's bass playing style on that summer tour and invited him to fill the vacant slot. Ronga duly moved to the UK for the tour, and also ended up playing piano alongside Roberts’ guitar work on the recording sessions for Matthews' second Vertigo album Tigers Will Survive. 
Throughout that period, Matthews and Roberts frequently discussed the idea of playing together on a more formal basis. It came to fruition in late December 1971 after a meeting at Matthews' Highgate flat, where with Richards and Ronga they tried out the Tandyn Almer song "Along Comes Mary" and agreed that if it worked satisfactorily they would go ahead and form a band. The band's name was picked on a whim when later that evening they randomly opened a copy of The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music to find Plainsong at pages 450-451.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plainsong_(band)

Offa Rex - Sheepcrook and Black Dog

As band-building chat-up lines go, “We’ll be your Albion Dance Band” is certainly niche. Still, it worked when US indie-rockers the Decemberists approached Olivia Chaney to form Offa Rex. They were long-term lovers of folk-rock; Chaney was a well-known collaborator but relative newcomer (her 2015 debut album, The Longest River, nevertheless gained her support slots with Robert Plant and Shirley Collins).
She has a magical voice, full of heft, soul and sunlight, reminiscent of Sandy Denny and Maddy Prior, while feeling refreshingly heartfelt and true. Add Colin Meloy’s brilliant band, and this collection of traditional songs sounds stirringly new. Take the well-known Willie O’Winsbury, or The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face: guitars, harmonium drones and Chaney’s control lift them to different places. Surprises lurk too. Lal Waterson’s To Make You Stay becomes an iridescent, piano-drizzled duet, while Sheepcrook (the Steeleye Span staple) gains brilliantly filthy, Black Sabbath rock edges. Everything works, though, loudly and proudly.  From: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jul/13/offa-rex-queen-of-hearts-review-folk-rock-thats-full-of-heart-soul-and-sunlight

JEFFREY BROWN:

At this summer's Newport Folk Festival, an early English ballad called "The Queen of Hearts." It dates back in various forms to at least the 1700s. In the 1960s, it was taken by the likes of Joan Baez and the influential English folk singer, Martin Carthy. Now, looking back once again comes a group called Offa Rex, a transatlantic collaboration of the English singer Olivia Chaney and the American indie rock band The Decemberists led by Colin Meloy.

COLIN MELOY, Musician:

The first thing is my love of old folk songs, and particularly narrative songs, the melodies, the focus on the voice and the story, that really simple approach, sort of like really rudimentary rock ideas being brought into these centuries-old songs.

JEFFREY BROWN:

The Decemberists formed in Portland, Oregon, in 2000, and have put out seven albums to date. Olivia Chaney is a classically trained singer who plays several instruments. She first received wide notice on this side of the Atlantic with her 2015 debut album, "The Longest River."

OLIVIA CHANEY, Musician:

We kind of figured it out as we went along, and sometimes we didn't agree on things. And we would say, well, I want to do this song or I want to do it this way. And we — I think that was the beauty of the project, is we came from different cultures and different relationships to the history of the music.

JEFFREY BROWN:

On this project, the two are consciously picking up on the 1970s electric folk revival of traditional music by bands like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span, from whom Meloy says he learned the "Blackleg Miner."

COLIN MELOY:

And I selfishly wanted, I was like, if only I could have a time machine.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Nostalgia for a revival of a revival of a revival. The music goes back centuries. But you're talking about something that goes back 50 years.

COLIN MELOY:

A nostalgia for a time, you know, mostly I wasn't even alive during, but that itself was recreating or reviving old music by injecting something new. It is a sort of love letter to that era.

JEFFREY BROWN:

Chaney says she first listened to '60s and '70s folk revival music as a young girl with her dad. She never saw herself as part of a pure folk scene, but was eager to arrange anew several of these traditional songs, including "Willie O Winsbury."

OLIVIA CHANEY:

When I sit down and try to arrange a song as I did for this project, I'm never trying to sound like any of those singers. I have learned from them, absolutely, but when I arrange something, I am really trying to get to the essence of that song. But also, I think I am trying to make them a bit more contemporary. You know, the paradox of you tying to protect something or preserve it, and then it dies because you're trying to protect it, I wouldn't want to be guilty of that. I hope not.

From: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/offa-rex-revives-centuries-old-folk-songs-new-sound

Meat Puppets - Violet Eyes

Meat Puppets may be a band that you’ve never heard of, but the stalwart Arizona rockers got what was arguably their biggest break thanks to a band whose name will certainly ring a bell. In 1993, Nirvana covered the Meat Puppet’s ‘Lake Of Fire’ as part of their now legendary acoustic MTV Unplugged performance.
The result was that experimental indie rock outfit Meat Puppets, who had already existed as a group for over a decade, suddenly reached a whole new level of mainstream exposure. Their 1994 album Too High To Die, their eighth studio LP, subsequently became their most commercially successful record. Too High To Die takes the band’s eclectic tastes and shapes them around 14 tracks united by a 90s grunge rock aesthetic. Twenty years on, it is still the Meat Puppets’ most accessible and most critically acclaimed record.
This ‘overnight fame’ could well have been the source of chagrin to a band who had already established themselves over the ten years prior as a cult favourite, thanks to an eccentric back catalogue that traverses hardcore punk rock, alt country, folk rock, and indie psychedelia. But according to guitarist/vocalist Curt Kirkwood – who comprised one third of the band’s original lineup along with brother and bass player Cris Kirkwood and drummer Derrick Bostrom – whether the Meat Puppet’s success is seen as a direct product of that fateful Nirvana cover is neither here nor there.
“I take it all with a grain of salt,” says Kirkwood when asked whether he thinks Meat Puppets deserve more recognition in their own right. “I enjoy whatever attention we get, however we come across it,” he adds frankly. This forthright outlook is also reflected in the band’s ethos regarding the hype that surrounded Too High To Die. For a group that in 1994 had been around for over ten years, it might have been fair to assume that the Meat Puppets had all but given up on achieving fame and fortune. But as Kirkwood reveals, mass commercial appeal was never the band’s foremost ambition.
“We never spent much time with the idea of mainstream success from the get-go. We always thought it was a stupid motivation,” the frontman states. Though Kirkwood asserts that mainstream success “wasn’t that important”, he does concede that “it was fun though, in some ways.”
“It was a fun time,” he continues. “I met a lot of new folks as the punk rock came out of the sewers into the limelight and we were having a blast purveying our crap to the mainstream.” He may refer to it as “our crap”, but unlike many other artists who come to resent or revile their most popular works, it is clear that Too High To Die remains an album of which Kirkwood is still extremely proud.
“My favourite things about (the album) are the production and the diversity of the material…there’s lots of fun stuff to play from that record and the mixes sound pretty unique,” he says. “I wouldn’t change a thing…I think it’s as good as it could be,” the singer goes on to declare.
And does Kirkwood feel that the album measures up against the many other records that were released in 1994 and are now regarded as ‘classic’ albums? “I think it holds its own and stands shoulder to shoulder with most stuff from that year,” he says.
It’s a bold proclamation, but one that is not without merit. Too High To Die is liberally scattered with diamond-in-the-rough tracks, least of all the single ‘Backwater’, an upbeat, fuzzy anthem resplendent with Kirkwood’s squalling riffs, which reached the #2 spot on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart. Fans may be surprised though to learn that the hit track didn’t initially take the form of a grunge rock staple. “I think ‘Backwater’ was a hit because it’s really a simple gospel-like song at its core…at least that’s how I wrote it,” Kirkwood reveals. “The demo was a lot slower and organ based.”  From: https://tonedeaf.thebrag.com/20-years-on-meat-puppets-too-high-to-die/

Jockstrap - Debra

The obsessed performing arts student is one of Hollywood’s favorite clichés. Movies like Whiplash, The Perfection, and Nocturne verge on melodrama, detailing the oppressive confines of classical training to varying degrees of absurdity. Their tortured protagonists meet one of two fates: triumph or crack-up. UK duo Jockstrap sound like they are flailing toward both. Graduates of London’s prestigious Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye have made a career of tearing down the academy walls. Their early revolt was scrappy and hardheaded; 2020’s Wicked City EP sounded like two star pupils lashing out, constructing jagged sculptures of string instruments and synthesizers. On their long-awaited debut album, I Love You Jennifer B, they refine their plan of attack. With the help of an 18-piece orchestra, Jockstrap stage elaborate, theatrical scenes atop the conservatory rubble.
Jockstrap’s earliest music was clever but disjointed. Ellery, who studied jazz violin at Guildhall, is the duo’s principal songwriter, and since the release of their first EP, 2018’s Love Is the Key to the City, it’s been clear that she has an advanced ear for pop structure of a certain vintage. In the opening minutes of “Joy,” she invoked the orchestral balladry of Van Dyke Parks and Harry Nilsson before Skye hijacked the song. He stripped it down to a few programmed bleeps and pitched up Ellery’s voice until she wheezed like a helium huffer: “Kiss me, fuck me, make much of me!” On Wicked City, Jockstrap plunged deeper into identity crisis; the songs were more intricate, lurching from gnarly EDM beats to impressionist piano sketches.
The band is still rummaging through a trunk of masks, but the characters in I Love You Jennifer B’s vaudevillian drama have better lines. Ellery stands downstage, discreetly changing costumes as a backdrop rolls in for the next scene. On the medieval dirge “Lancaster Court,” she plays the chamber-bound maiden plotting her escape. Plasticky rattles and whomped war drums jostle a plucked guitar phrase, as Ellery tiptoes from whisper to chapel soprano. On highlight “Greatest Hits,” she reigns as Disco Queen, dripping in sequins and rotating on a motorized bed. As Ellery does Donna Summer-at-La Scala, Skye slips in raygun synths, salt-shaker snares, and piano pulses straight from Fatboy Slim’s “Praise You.” It’s a pop soap opera shot with a smear of Vaseline on the lens.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/jockstrap-i-love-you-jennifer-b/  

 

U2 - A Sort of Homecoming

 

“A Sort of Homecoming” is a strange song in the U2 canon. It was not a hit, it is rarely played live (more on that, later), but it has long been one of my favorites—and in researching this piece, I found that there are many U2 fans who really love the song. As most of us know, U2 burst upon the scene with their remarkable debut, Boy, in 1980. I remember hearing it and playing it on WPRB, and being struck by the uniqueness of their sound, their earnestness, and their confidence, despite the fact that they were so young. The next album, October, was a minor stumble—not terrible, but somehow not fully realized. Their third album, War, was, start to finish, a great album, filled with anthems and love songs, delivered with passion, bravado, and musical talent. I saw them on that tour, at the Pier in New York, and was blown away. The album was a huge hit, and the album spawned hit singles—it was U2’s breakthrough into mass popularity.
When the band prepared to record its follow up, though, they wanted to move in a different direction, with less bombast and sloganeering. They wanted to work with Brian Eno, who initially was unimpressed by the band, and was planning to fob them off on his engineer, Daniel Lanois. Ultimately, though, Eno was convinced, and he agreed to work with U2 (along with Lanois), and try to create a more mature sound for the band. Not surprisingly, considering the production team, the collaboration resulted in The Unforgettable Fire, which was a more atmospheric and subtle album, but without losing the power of War. The two records are probably my favorite U2 albums (most critics probably go with The Joshua Tree or Achtung, Baby!, and I like them, too, but not as much).
“A Sort of Homecoming” is named after a line by poet Paul Celan, who Bono had been reading, in a speech he delivered on October 20, 1960, about five months after Bono was born, when Celan was awarded the Georg Büchner Prize. In that speech, Ceran discussed Büchner’s work, art, and poetry, and in his view, the circularity of poetry. He went on to say (in German, but I found a translation):
Is it on such paths that poems take us when we think of them? And are these paths only detours, detours from you to you? But they are, among how many others, the paths on which language becomes voice. They are encounters, paths from a voice to a listening You, natural paths, outlines for existence, perhaps, for projecting ourselves into the search for ourselves. . .  A kind of homecoming. 
I’ll bet you never thought that we’d be discussing German literature when you started reading this music blog post, did you? But critics note that this song, and the whole Unforgettable Fire album, show a more Celan-like spiritual doubt as compared to the more certain religious themes of their prior work.
Although I've never read Celan (but have read a little Büchner), what grabbed me about the song was the sense of yearning, both lyrically and musically, that is palpable from its quiet, polyrhythmic opening, to its more intense end. Note that the song is not called just “Homecoming,” it is “A Sort of Homecoming,” so it is fitting that lyrically it works on so many levels—as a personal homecoming to Bono’s native Ireland, as the “homecoming” of his late mother, as a return from war (possibly the violence that was engulfing Ireland at the time), and as a spiritual renewal. 
U2 played the song pretty regularly from 1984-1987, as they toured in support of The Unforgettable Fire and its follow-up, The Joshua Tree. There’s an excellent, if more triumphant and less atmospheric, live version from 1984, released on 1985’s EP Wide Awake In America (which is an odd title, because the song was actually recorded at a soundcheck before a show in London, with the crowd noises dubbed in later).  From: https://sixsongs.blogspot.com/2018/10/homecoming-sort-of-homecoming.html

Maria McKee - I'm Not Listening

To my ears and soul, Life Is Sweet is not just one of the greatest lost albums of all time, but one of the greatest, period. It’s glam. It’s rock. It’s operatic. It’s art. The story behind it: While touring in support of her country-rock classic You Gotta Sin to Get Saved in 1993, one of the members of Maria’s band is said to have given her a mixtape of classic glam and glitter tunes. Maria listened. Loved. Obsessed. And then wrote and recorded a set of songs, released in 1996, that blended those glittery hues of yore with dramatic colors of her own design.
“Scarlover,” the opening track, is a great example. It’s rough, ragged and refined all at the same time, with guitars giving way to strings that give way to guitars, set to Maria’s seemingly stream-of-conscious admission that “ugly inside of me taught me of beauty/I wouldn’t trade that work of art.” As a whole, the album explores self-doubt, self-loathing and, ultimately, self-acceptance. At times, yes, it’s stasis in darkness (aka Sylvia Plath set to song). More than that, however, it’s Maria McKee unshorn, seemingly exploring her rapid-cycle bipolar disorder in ways that both replicate it and make it relatable. It’s the Bowie homage “Absolutely Barking Stars” with lyrics that delve into yin-yang duality and the dramatic “I’m Not Listening,” in which she attempts to ignore the voices inside her head that are taunting and haunting her. 
The utterly catchy “Everybody” explores celebrity and Andy Warhol’s infamous “15 minutes of fame” maxim: “We’ve all been flirting/with the perfect day/when they think we’re perfect/Yeah, but who are they?” There’s also a flat-out incendiary guitar break. “Carried” is another highlight and, of course, there’s the title track, which may well be the greatest song she’s yet written or recorded. 
Geffen, her record label, hated the album. AAA radio stations like WXPN, which embraced and promoted the hell out of You Gotta Sin, refused to play it. Some critics slammed it. Some fans did, too. Artistic growth often comes at a price, and in this case the cost was Maria’s major-label career. Life Is Sweet failed to sell, and she left Geffen not long thereafter. The album also fell out of print, and has never been reissued, even digitally. (A true crime against art.) Twenty-plus years since its release, however, and it sounds as fresh and hauntingly familiar as it did upon first listen.  From: https://oldgreycat.blog/2018/06/23/the-essentials-maria-mckees-life-is-sweet/

Melody Fields - Rain Man

  

The fact that this Melody Fields album has come out on the ever excellent Kommun2 label is already a tick in the positive column for me, and tells me that the musicians behind this album are most likely to be Swedish, and so it proved. Even more exciting is the fact that it was recorded at Parkeringshuset Studio where the likes of Goat and Hills have also recorded. Like these other bands there is a nice blend of Swedish and other musical sounds to create something different, which I think is where my appreciation for this album is taking root.
The album opens with ‘Morning Sun’ which immediately establishes the band’s credentials as putting out music that is upbeat and, well, sunny. There are some lovely melodies here and in some senses you could be sitting on the West Coast of the USA looking out to the Pacific. By the same token you could also be looking out onto the Kattegatt from the West Coast of Sweden with the track’s folk underpinning reminiscent of Träd Gräs och Stenar. Then the sax kicks in and just takes you off into the sunlit uplands… lovely!
If that puts you in a right good mood then you’re going to be positively beaming when ‘Liberty’ kicks in with its smooth edges and lysergic tone. This is just so laid back, but not in any passive or banal way… there’s just something about it that feels very spiritual and deep. Melody Fields have influences, but they are not copyists. After that ‘Run’ steps things up with the guitar coming to the fore more and in between some more chilled out vocal which retains that ray-soaked atmosphere, even though the lyric talks of ‘summer rain’… this is one of a few albums that are bubbling up that I can see are going to be my soundtrack for the summer this year.
‘Rain Man’ keeps us guessing for a few seconds with it’s low key jangly intro before that multi-part harmony drops in and takes us off into a heavenly realm of pastoral melodies, I can already imagine me staring out at the same Kattegatt on my holidays in Denmark later this year… I’m sure the ‘Rain Man’ will make an appearance at some point, but with this on I won’t care.  From: https://fragmentedflaneur.com/2018/03/27/album-review-melody-fields-by-melody-fields/

PJ Harvey - Hair

Straight out of England’s rural Southwest, Polly Jean Harvey always had a spiritual connection with the American South – the birthplace of backwoods-gothic sin and redemption – and of the blues, which she discovered through her first musical hero, Howlin’ Wolf. With that lineage, it was no surprise that the debut album by this young Englishwoman was unlike anything else that appeared in 1992. Almost three decades later, it’s no stretch to say that it’s still startling. Albums like Dry are so way-out-there that they don’t belong to a decade or scene.
The feral blues-rock underpinning Harvey’s volcanic presence on the record raises the hair on the back of your neck. More than that: hearing Dry‘s gnarled guitar/bass/drums attack is like being in the same room as something disquieting and eternal. Though Harvey’s sonic armory later included a bit of goth, a little electronica, some plain old rock, and something approaching pop, it was the blues that unlocked her storytelling abilities.
The other remarkable thing is that despite being only 22, PJ Harvey was already fully-formed as a singer and songwriter. This “guitar-toting succubus,” in Rolling Stone’s description, had an emotional spectrum that skewed toward drama, and she had no filter. But she wasn’t out of control – as some contemporary reviewers speculated – she was just conveying her truth, figuratively ripping away Band-Aids to show some wounds, while leaving others safely covered. One 1992 rave review – that didn’t quite grasp her – contended that Dry was an “honest irrational outpouring.” (The reviewer also claimed she’d reinvented “post-rockist guitar.”) In fact, the album was only irrational in the sense that human feelings are irrational. Honest, though, it certainly was. While Polly Jean later rebutted the assumption that her songs were autobiographical, Dry was undeniably influenced by her own life.
She and her band (Rob Ellis, drums; Stephen Vaughan, bass) had moved from her home village of Corscombe, Dorset (population 445), to London in 1991, and it was a wrench. While the move was musically productive – they signed to indie label Too Pure and were championed by influential Radio 1 presenter John Peel – Harvey was deeply unhappy. Her first real relationship had just ended, she was renting a damp flat in North London, and the city felt overwhelming.
Thus, the songs that ended up on Dry have a definite narrative arc. Over 11 tracks, the mood gradually shifts from heartbroken pleading to a thirst for revenge. Aptly, it kicks off with a discordant clang – that’s Harvey’s guitar, welcoming you to the opening “Oh My Lover.” Dark and bass-heavy, it grimly gives her boyfriend permission to see another woman while still involved with Polly.
On “Dress” and “Sheela-Na-Gig” (the first and second singles), Harvey first adopts a teenage whine, begging the guy to look at her in the dress he bought her; in the second song, she offers him her “childbearing hips…ruby-red ruby lips,” only to be rebuffed by his brutal retort, “You exhibitionist…Wash your breasts, I don’t want to be unclean.” All of this, including the furious payback tracks “Joe” and “Hair,” is thrust along by Harvey’s caustic guitar-playing and the cavernous noise kicked up by drums and bass. In the latter song she’s Delilah, cutting off Samson’s crowning glory as he screams, “Wait!” an image that any wronged lover will relish.  From: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/pj-harvey-dry/

The Verve Pipe - Villains

In this song, there's "another villain on the cover of every major magazine." Verve Pipe frontman Brian Vander Ark wrote the song after the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995, when Timothy McVeigh killed 168 people with a truck bomb at the Federal Building. McVeigh was all over the news and his face was on the cover of just about every news magazine. Vander Ark, who was in the Army from 1983-1987, had a day job at the time. "I'd get my coffee and pick up a magazine, but I'd have to get back to work before I could read it," he said in a Songfacts interview. "So my point was, when his face is on the cover of all of these magazines, we would get distracted and didn't have time to read about the victims and feel that empathy for the victims. So the villain usually wins this kind of popularity contest, and for me that was a very sad state we were in, and we're still in it. In fact, we're probably in it worse now than ever."
This was the follow-up single to The Verve Pipe's biggest hit, "The Freshman." It didn't make the Hot 100, nor did any subsequent Verve Pipe track. Their next album was a difficult one for the band - they blew a big budget and weren't happy with the result. Their 2001 album was primed for success, but was thwarted by 9/11 (to that point, the Oklahoma City bombing was the worst act of terrorism on American soil). The band broke up that year and didn't re-form until 2009, when they added children's music to their repertoire.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-verve-pipe/villains

The Nields - Yesterday's Girl

Now billed as a twosome, Nerissa and Katryna Nields have retained the signature sound of their former band the Nields on their newest release, Love & China. The key to the Nields' sound over the years has always been the slightly quirky combination of the sisters' voices. Despite the duo billing, former band mate Dave Chalfant is very much involved in this record -- as bassist, producer and husband of Katryna; former band mate Dave Hower also appears on drums on several tracks. 
Love & China offers a listener-friendly collection of songs all written by Nerissa, which vary from the folk-rock that the Nields are known for, to alt-country and even alt-pop -- maybe even alt-power pop in the case of several songs such as "Yesterday's Girl," which in some alternate reality would be, could be and should be huge hits. Perhaps this is what the alt-labels are really all about. "Ticket to My House" leads off the album with a nice slice of folk-pop that would also go down very easily on the radio. 
Tracks three through six move resolutely into country territory, with "Love Me One More Time Before You Go" sounding more traditional than alt-, featuring pedal steel guitar and a classic story of soon-to-be-lost love. "Tailspin" follows with some wonderful fiddling by Alicia Jo Rabins and excellent production to match. Look out Dixie Chicks! "I Haven't Got a Thing" continues the country groove established by the two previous tracks. 
Intelligent and clever writing also makes this record special. On "Christmas Carol," the Nields put their unique vocal stamp on Christmas with an original song that uses the titles of familiar Christmas carols in the lyrics. Lines like "Merry Christmas, new born baby" in addition to the obvious Christmas connotation, have a nice double meaning as a reference to Dave and Katryna's daughter Amelia, who was born just before the recording of this album began.  From: https://www.rambles.net/nields_love02.html 

Arcane Roots - Triptych

  

As I enter the studio where Arcane Roots are busy beavering away on the follow up to 2013’s Blood & Chemistry, the first thing that strikes me is hooks. Gigantic ear worms that wrap themselves around your auditory cortex and simply refuse to let go. It’s no exaggeration to say that these songs are some of the catchiest tunes the band have penned to date.
“The grand plan is to get these songs stuck in people’s heads for days," says vocalist/guitarist Andrew Groves. ‘It's that fight between the melodies and the heavier side of our music and trying to get those two elements to marry together. The problem is when you start sticking loads of riffs together without melody, then it just sounds like a bunch of riffs that have been shoved together rather than a song that’s actually going somewhere.”
The band have returned to Stakeout Studios, the very same studio that bore witness to the recording of their debut mini-album Left Fire, partly because it’s local and partly because, as Andrew enthuses “Reuben recorded Racecar is Racecar Backwards here!” They're here to record a new EP, Heaven & Earth, five gloriously anthemic songs that are amongst the most joyful the band have written to date. The main focus of the two days I spend in the studio is on recording Andrew’s guitar parts and vocal lines, the bass and drum tracks having been laid down a few days before.
If the melodies I hear cascading out of the vocal booth are anything to go by, it’s clear that they have been refined and finessed into succinct infectious vocal lines that are begging to be sung back to the band en masse in a live environment. Andrew has pushed himself as a vocalist, utilizing his voice in ways that we’ve not heard from him before. (He mentions singing along to White Christmas at home to reach the low notes of one particularly deep vocal line). “I'm putting myself out on the line as a frontman really and I think this is the first record where I’ve really thought about my role as a frontman. (When the band started) I didn't want to sing, I just wanted to play guitar. Now I sing and play guitar and I thought, ‘if I'm gonna do both I'm gonna do both well!’”  From: https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/features/arcane-roots-in-the-studio-the-grand-plan-is-to-get-these-songs-stuck-in-people-s-heads-for-days-10416987.html

Ben Folds Five - Sessions At West 54th

 Ben Folds Five - Sessions At West 54th - Part 1

 

 Ben Folds Five - Sessions At West 54th - Part 2

 

One of the better episodes of the now defunct late-'90s PBS music show Sessions at West 54th was when Ben Folds Five performed in an intimate setting in support of their second album, Whatever and Ever Amen, back in the spring of 1997. The original episode saw the group share equal billing with Beck, so many of the trio's performances were left on the cutting room floor. But with 2001's The Complete Sessions at West 54th, you finally get to see the complete 15-song Ben Folds Five set, and it proves to be a dandy. While it may lack the zany and unpredictable energy of a BF5 club show, due to the fact that they're performing in a TV studio, Complete Sessions serves as a solid reminder as to how good BF5 were in concert. Drawing from a set list comprised almost equally of ballads ("Missing the War," "Selfless Cold & Composed," and, of course, their big hit, "Brick") and up-tempo pop/rockers ("Kate," "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces," "Underground," "Battle of Who Could Care Less"), there are also several rarities sprinkled throughout, including a deconstructed cover of the Flaming Lips' "She Don't Use Jelly," an outtake from their debut album, "Emaline," as well as a soaring instrumental that became a perennial concert highlight, but never found its way onto an album, "Theme From Dr. Pyser." Included as a bonus on the DVD is a Ben Folds Five biography, plus extra live footage titled Spare Reels, which features the group in their natural concert setting, and contains a pair of songs ("Don't Change Your Plans" and "Army") that would appear on their final album, 1999's The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-complete-sessions-at-west-54th-video--mw0001190243 

 

Wicking Ground - Cool Pool

Piper Josephine, the artist known as Wicking Ground, has been singing and playing the piano since early childhood. She plays multiple instruments and creates layers of vocal loops into what she calls avant folk, edging industrial, dark and hymnal. Piper frequently includes butoh inspired dance in her performances, alongside original music.  From: https://www.facebook.com/reel/857872326119896  

Gin Blossoms - Found About You

The Gin Blossoms maneuvered through the 90’s music scene with a nuanced touch, occupying a distinctive space that distinguished them from their contemporaries. While they sidestepped the heavy gravitational pull of grunge and bypassed the confrontations within the nascent world of hip-hop, they also avoided the veneer of artifice and superficiality often associated with pop acts of that era. Instead, Gin Blossoms served up an unpretentious and accessible version of rock, securing a role in the broader context of ’90s music and culture.
Despite not being the flashiest or most audacious band in the crowd, the Gin Blossoms provided a haven for listeners yearning for music that echoed a more grounded, relatable narrative. They quietly etched out their own space, representing the more thoughtful, less boisterous facet of the ’90s alternative rock scene. Their hits like “Hey Jealousy” and “Til I Hear It From You” might not have made a loud, sudden impact, but they gradually permeated the cultural fabric of the time, leaving a subtle yet enduring imprint that is still felt today.
But despite their unassuming image, Gin Blossoms were not immune to internal strife. During the recording of their seminal album, New Miserable Experience, the band faced a turmoil that echoed the bitterness lurking just underneath the surface. The struggles within the group often echoed the struggles they sang about – tales of emotional turbulence and quiet resilience, juxtaposed with catchy melodies and unforgettable hooks as they were.
New Miserable Experience, despite its ultimate commercial success, was born from those struggles. It was an album conceived in the crucible of interpersonal conflict and emotional tension, offering an even more authentic resonance with fans who could feel the genuine sorrow and frustration seeping through their music. The fact that they managed to channel these experiences into a powerful artistic expression speaks volumes about the depth and resilience of the band.
The discord within the group, primarily stemming from the substance abuse and erratic behavior of band member Doug Hopkins, and his subsequent tragic departure and suicide, added a layer of tragic poignancy to their music. Despite, or perhaps because of, their internal turmoil, the Gin Blossoms’ legacy is one of making deeply affecting music that reflected both their personal struggles and the broader anxieties of the time.  From: https://v13.net/2023/08/gin-blossoms-robin-wilson-interview-cover-story-sugar-ray-new-miserable-experience/

Sea Moss - Candy Run

In 2017, Noa Ver and Zach D'Agostino were both solo electronic artists. Then, one fateful night in March, they were both scheduled to perform at a house show that became overbooked.
"I have a dorky circuit tattoo and so does Zach," Ver says. "We sparked a conversation at some show about our dorky habits, and that's how it started." Instead of playing their planned solo sets, the pair decided to team up and play gibbering vocals and improvised noise.
Three years later, that spontaneous collaboration has grown into two biting EPs and Bidet Dreaming, an album that Sea Moss released last year. In Ver's words, Sea Moss' music is "mostly nonsense." But that doesn't do justice to the complex circuitry that creates their chaotic music. Using a swarm of homemade feedback oscillators and drum synthesizers, the duo constructs music that both needles your nerve endings and makes you want to dance. It's warped, glitchy and very, very noisy.
Live, the two play face to face: D'Agostino behind a drum set with a cowbell fastened to the cymbals, and Ver stationed at a table covered with wires and analog circuitry, which she calls her "critters." Vers sings while pressing a contact mic to the vibrations in her throat, creating the urgent, drill-like voice that wails to the rhythms.
Whenever they can, Sea Moss plays on the venue floor instead of the stage, surrounding themselves with the moshing crowd. Sometimes, a vigilante audience member will take it upon themselves to protect the band's gear from being knocked over, a gesture that the band appreciates but which isn't wholly necessary. "If our shit gets knocked over in the middle of a set," says Ver, "it means we're doing a good job."  From: https://www.wweek.com/music/2020/07/08/experimental-duo-sea-moss-was-born-out-of-a-chance-meeting-and-dorky-circuit-tattoos/

Genesis - The Cinema Show

Let’s talk about this romantic song, shall we? It’s a lovely little opening here with the tinkling 12-string sound. It gives similar vibes to “The Musical Box” a couple albums earlier, though the notes and structures are very different. But it almost wasn’t to be.

Steve: When it was originally put together it was linked to “Dancing with the Moonlit Knight”. We had a very sort of contentious meeting about this at the time. I remember Phil saying, “Well, if there’s a 12-string passage in something, does it mean that every long song has to have a 12-string passage in it?” There were some crestfallen faces. So we started to do some long songs that didn’t have 12-string passages in them. 

You can almost see Mike’s face getting even longer than usual at an exasperated Phil saying “Enough with the 12-strings already!” And indeed, while the 12-string wouldn’t exactly go away until the three-piece era, after this album it did become slightly less ubiquitous. But by golly, “The Cinema Show” is a romantic song, and romance means 12-string guitar!

Mike: Another good example of when I tuned my 12-strings. Normally you’ve got twelve strings and they’re paired up, and you tune each pair to the same note. I started tuning each pair to harmony notes. Which is how the song starts with that little rundown. Now what the hell that tuning is, I haven’t got a clue. Because the other day in New York they were saying, “Let’s do the first half of ‘Cinema Show’ maybe.” And I said, “Well, I have no idea how I played it. We’d have to work a compromised version out.”

Spoiler alert: they never did work a compromised tuning out, so if you’re disappointed that you never got to hear “The Cinema Show” in its entirety in the 21st century, it’s all Mike’s fault. Anyway, there are a lot of guitar strings tinkling around in this one. 

Steve: I was influenced by the flute work of Ian McDonald working with King Crimson, so I tried to play very pastoral phrases. I developed it a bit more when we did it live, doing percussion noises and whathaveyou. But in some ways it typifies the Genesis sound because you’ve got almost a plethora of 12-strings going: sometimes two 12-strings, sometimes three. And an electric 6-string as well. And this jangly sound where you can’t tell: it sounds almost...is that a keyboard? Is that a guitar? What is that sound? 

And then we get the story, or really more like a snapshot, of this busy young woman trying to tidy up her place and herself before going to catch a movie with her date. I confess when I first heard the lyric that she “clears her morning meal” I thought it meant she was having some gastrointestinal difficulties, if you catch my drift. Decidedly unromantic, that. But I wouldn’t have put something like that past Peter. Was it Peter? Who did the lyrics to this one, anyway? 
In any case, from Juliet we go straight to Romeo, who is basically just looking to get laid. It’s a classic story. Boy meets girl, boy lusts after girl, girl agrees to a pleasant night at the cinema, boy gives girl chocolates, girl thinks boy is nice, boy propositions girl, both go home a little more tired. Tale as old as time, that one. And it’s from there that Tiresias makes his appearance, where his actual background is relayed. There are variations on the classical myth, but Genesis lands on one of them in particular. 
Tiresias, as the story goes, was hiking up a mountain and saw a pair of snakes “getting nasty,” as I think they called it back then. He used his walking stick to “break that shit up,” I think was the parlance, which incurred the wrath of the goddess queen Hera, who was aspected to things like fertility. Hera was a capricious and impulsive goddess, and so she immediately decided that interrupting a pair of fornicating snakes was punishable by forced sex change. Thus, she transformed Tiresias into a woman and made Tiresias one of her priestesses so (s)he could atone. Tiresias was surprisingly not much put out by this turn of events, and found a nice man to settle down and have kids with. After some years, Mother Tiresias found some more snakes doin’ the deed, and left them alone. Hera then turned Tiresias back into a man since he’d seemed to learn his lesson, which meant that in a very strange twist of fate, his kids now had two biological dads; I imagine the family dynamics probably got a little awkward after that. 
Later, Hera and her husband Zeus found themselves in an argument over who derived more pleasure from sex - men or women. Being exceedingly petty gods with victim complexes, each one wanted the other sex to be the “winner.” That is, Hera argued that men enjoyed sex more, and Zeus the opposite. At an impasse, Hera summoned Tiresias on the basis that he was the only person - mortal or god - who had experienced sex from both sides of the equation. They posed the question to him, and though he was a priest(ess?) of Hera, he felt compelled to answer truthfully: women get way more out of it than men do. Genesis translate this reply thusly: “Once a man, like the sea I raged. Once a woman, like the earth I gave. But there is, in fact, more earth than sea.” A furious Hera struck him blind on the spot for embarrassing her, but a very pleased Zeus tried to make up for it by giving him foresight instead. Thus, Tiresias became known as a blind seer, a title as fittingly oxymoronic as his status as the first man-woman-man. 
So, in summary, “The Cinema Show” isn’t an adolescent fixation on sex. No, it’s an adolescent fixation on sex combined with classical Greek mythology. See? All grown up now! In fairness though, musically that maturation is very clear. After our first dalliance with Tiresias, we go into a veritable forest of guitar strings once again, featuring oboe and flute solos.  It’s such a unique atmosphere. As much as I love the live versions of this song, listening to this section on Seconds Out you can’t help but feel like an entire audio channel is missing. Those jazzy, improv style woodwind lines have an impact that to me can’t be overstated. 

From: https://www.reddit.com/r/Genesis/comments/ixm1qe/hindsight_is_2020_9_the_cinema_show/

Hooverphonic - 2 Wicky

Along with the dawning of the grunge rock movement, rise of Britpop, commercial ascendance of hip-hop, emergence of the neo-soul subgenre, and (regrettable) resurrection of boy-band pop, the musical landscape of the 1990s was also defined by the proliferation of the so-called chill-out phenomenon.
Particularly pervasive across Europe, and markedly less so stateside, during the final decade of the 20th century into the early years of the new millennium, chill-out was the convenient classification for music largely defined by lush, downtempo and midtempo electronic beats and rhythms. The perfect late-night, come-down complement to a long, adrenaline-fueled and/or drug-enhanced evening of dancing your fanny off to high-energy dancefloor stompers at your local club, in other words.
While plenty of hackneyed acts gave the style a whirl to capitalize on the genre’s popularity, offering banal, soulless, and ultimately forgettable tunes in the process, there were thankfully a handful of respectable artists that actually crafted music of substance and stamina during the period. Artists who, while lumped within the broadly defined chill-out category, possessed noticeably more refined, kaleidoscopic musical vision and ambition that defied such lazy labels. 
Included among this rarefied group were Air, Chicane, Groove Armada, Gus Gus, Kruder & Dorfmeister, Lamb, Morcheeba, Nightmares on Wax, Sneaker Pimps, and Thievery Corporation, among others, in addition to the Bristol contingent of Massive Attack, Portishead, and Tricky, all of whom, bless their creative souls, were often tagged with the chill-out brand as well.
Perched high at the top of the class with their aforementioned peers is Hooverphonic, the Belgian band formed in 1995 by the quartet of Esther Lybeert (vocalist, who was replaced by Liesje Sadonius soon thereafter), Frank Duchêne (keyboardist), Alex Callier (multi-instrumentalist, programmer, producer), and Raymond Geerts (guitarist). Originally named Hoover, the group added the “phonic” qualifier to avoid potential copyright issues with the famous vacuum cleaner company, not to mention the now-defunct Washington DC-based and German bands that had already staked their claims to the name.  From: https://albumism.com/features/tribute-celebrating-25-years-of-hooverphonic-a-new-stereophonic-sound-spectacular 

David Bowie - Cracked Actor

With the release of his album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and his performance of "Starman" on the BBC television programme Top of the Pops in early July 1972, David Bowie was launched to stardom. To support the album, Bowie embarked on the Ziggy Stardust Tour in both the UK and the US. He composed most of the tracks for the follow-up record on the road during the US tour in late 1972. Because of this, many of the tracks were influenced by America, and his perceptions of the country. 
In October 1972, Bowie and an entourage of 46 people (including Mike Garson's family and Iggy Pop) stayed at the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles for a week. The entourage spent time at clubs and the hotel pool, accumulating a $20,000 hotel bill by the time they departed. "Cracked Actor" was written during this stay. It was primarily inspired by the numerous barely-teenage prostitutes and drugs that Bowie witnessed on Sunset Boulevard. According to author Peter Doggett, the song encompassed "three layers of prostitution" on the Boulevard: "offering money for sex; sex for drugs; worship for fame." Regarding the Boulevard's clients, Bowie recalled: "They were mostly older producer types, quite strange looking, quite charming, but thoroughly unreal."
"Cracked Actor" was recorded at Trident Studios in London in January 1973, following the conclusion of the American tour and a series of Christmas concerts in England and Scotland. Like the rest of it’s parent album, the song was co-produced by Bowie and Ken Scott and featured Bowie's backing band the Spiders from Mars – comprising guitarist Mick Ronson, bassist Trevor Bolder and drummer Woody Woodmansey.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cracked_Actor_(song)

Luscious Jackson - Under Your Skin

An interview with Luscious Jackson vocalist and bassist Jill Cunniff (conducted 12/97) 

What do you think of Lilith Fair?

“I think it’s a really great idea. I’m sorry we missed this last one. We did something else and we weren’t sure if we made the right choice, but…. [laughs] We’re doing this and hopefully we’ll do another one, a full tour in the future.”

The number of artists performing means that everyone gets relatively short sets. Since you have a lot of material, how will you determine which songs to perform?

“I think we have 45 minutes. That’s more like an opening length set. So we know how to do that. We do certain songs that people have to hear, definitely the singles from both records, we have three records, but… certain things we just have to include, like ‘Naked Eye,’ obviously, and ‘City Song’ from the first record, ‘Why Do I Lie?’ from this one. That’s between eight and ten songs, a 45 minute set.”

Your first EP, “In Search Of Manny,” seemed to have a more raw, sometimes spontaneous sound to it. What do you think led to the more polished sound of “Natural Ingredients”?

“I don’t think we were even conscious of anything changing. We just made the music. I guess the first one was made with lunch money basically , on less expensive equipment, and we thought it sounded really slick. But people were like, ‘oh, it’s really lo-fi’ but we thought it sounded really slick! So we never knew we were doing anything lo-fi. We just chose the sounds that we liked. We did the same thing for the second record, and for the third one we really tried to get a live band. So if anything’s spontaneous, I would say it was some of the live performances.”

Since sampling was used so heavily in the studio, did playing live pose any problems?

“The second record probably has as much sampling as the first, and that one was like, we didn’t really have our live show together until we toured for a while. We figured it out. We had to take those songs that were all sampled from “Natural Ingredients” and learn them. They were not written live, they were written on samplers mostly, except for maybe two or three songs. So that was a whole process to learn. Vivian was learning the sampled parts on the keyboard and playing them in time and we all had to re-create something that was not written by us as a band. So that was interesting.”

Did that influence the way you wrote the most recent album, “Fever In, Fever Out”?

“Yeah, I think the touring did. We played together so much as a group touring that we decided to pursue that side of it for “Fever In, Fever Out.” We just wanted to record the live band as it was. I’d been getting very into song writing, returning to basic song writing on acoustic and then translating it. Instead of going in with samples. There’s a lot of different ways to write, a lot of what we’d done was taking samples and writing over that. And I started to go back to the other way, which is to go in with a piece music, lyrics and vocals, and translate that into something with samples.”

Emmylou Harris appears on the album. How did that come about?

“She’s a friend of Daniel Lanois. He had produced her record “Wrecking Ball”. So one night he said ‘oh, Emmy’s in town, let’s call her and see if she wants to sing.’ And of course that’s an unbelievable honour. She has such a great voice. She was such a good sport too. She came over and we did harmonies and it really brought the track up a lot.”

You recently appeared on the TV show “Clueless” – what was that experience like? 

“That was fun. The director was ‘Potsie’ from “Happy Days,” Anson Williams. He was very excited and fun. They can make it fun, or it can be a drag. It depends on the show. There’s a lot of sitting around.”

Do you see those things as a way of promoting yourselves, or just something different to do for fun? 

“It’s for both. The “Pete And Pete” show [a Nickelodeon series where they appeared as a band playing at a school dance] – so many people have seen the show. They must have re-run it 15 times. These kids – we got a whole other audience from that. Young kids, who watch “Pete And Pete,” they just know us now from that. That’s something about television shows, people really see them. So it’s a good thing to do.”

From: https://chaoscontrol.com/luscious-jackson/