Genesis - Dancing with the Moonlit Knight - Live 1973

This is easily my favourite Genesis song, and one of the few favourite prog-rock tunes of all time. It's been selected as object for analysis here mainly because, as I believe, its message/meaning can be decoded rather easily compared to multiple other 'philosophic' tunes of Genesis. On the other hand, it also presents a lot of interesting arrangement, lyrical and musical details that easily escape the eye, and is structured in an exceptionally intelligent and smooth way, so these are all further arguments for a detailed analysis.
0:00-0:20. The near accappella introduction. "Can you tell me where my country lies?" This, from the very very beginning, sets up a medieval mood - we get analogies with all those Celtic/Anglo-Saxon, etc., ballads beginning with 'can you tell me...' or 'let me tell you...', however, right after the fourth word Gabriel breaks up the analogy and transforms the typical narrative beginning into a 'philosophic' question. This is what characterizes the entire song - an intricate and subtle mixture of the Medieval and the Modern.
"Said the unifaun to his true love's eyes..." Here Peter gets especially sad and tragic (and it's only the beginning of the song!). 'Unifaun' is supposed to be a pun, a cross between 'uniform' and 'faun' - the 'faun' brings in the mythological element, while the 'uniform' brings in certain military associations. Patriotic lament over the fate of one's country? Whatever it might be, the subject of the song is evident from the beginning line: a tragic statement of Britain's current state, a lamentation over the enormous, unbridgeable gap between the romantic past and the corrupt present...
"It lies with me, cried the Queen of Maybe..." Peter changes to near-falsetto (right, to impersonate the Queen), while Mike (or Steve?) enters with gentle folksy guitar chords. Of course! The "country" is now with the 'Queen of Maybe' - the 'Queen of Possibilities', an allegory for commercial success; note that this is, of course, a pun on 'Queen of May', another mythological figure that is vastly commercialized at the present time.
"For her merchandise, he traded in his prize..." No need for explanation. The 'prize' is England, of course. Or the glory and honor of England. The 'merchandise' is evident, and as Peter brings the introduction to conclusion, we really get the feeling this is gonna be one painfully desperate song.
0:20-0:50. First verse of intro. Some of the most gorgeous sonic moments in Genesis' history are captured throughout the song. Here, a strong, yet gentle medieval acoustic rhythm carries the song, while Mr Banks adds a few soothing vibe sounds in the background, just to make the whole experience "deeper" - a bare acoustic strum certainly wouldn't carry the magical-mystical atmosphere so well. Think Jethro Tull or something like that.
"Paper late!.. cried a voice in the crowd". Gotta love how Peter is able to quickly effectuate the theatric transition - from the scream of the delivery boy to the 'explaining' vocal. Funny that, according to Genesis discography, nobody actually cries 'paper late!' in England: the most suitable solution is that this is just 'cut out' from 'late paper, late paper late paper...'. You'll have to consult Peter himself on that.
"Old man dies, the note he left was signed old Father Thames..." It certainly had to take Peter a lot of takes to practice these phrases, because he sings this stuff with the utmost care and masters all the gentleness and reverence he can.
"It seems he's drowned, selling England by the pound...". Simply a lyrical gem. Here, we assist at the tragic passing of Father Thames - another mythological symbol of England. Well, looks like Father Thames simply couldn't stand the process of 'selling England by the pound', in which he himself, whether of or against his will, had to take part, and "drowned" - perished within the limits of his own sphere, which is even more pathetic.
0:50-1.20. Second verse of intro. My favourite. Probably. Same melody as before, but Tony joins in on piano - nice and powerful crescendo element. Ah, if only Tony played piano more often... The piano somewhat detracts from the medieval nature of the song, as it's more Bach, or even Chopin, than Celtic ballad, but by now we're so immersed in Gabriel's poetic world that we don't even notice. Phil adds some power, too, by chugging out a few light rhythms.
"Citizens of Hope and Glory, time goes by, it's the time of your life..." With 'citizens of Hope and Glory' (cf. 'Land of Hope and Glory') we start to get ironic, but there's no real irony in Gabriel's voice - it's more like a desperate cry-to-arms. 'Time goes by! It's THE TIME OF YOUR LIFE!...'
"Easy now, sit you down..." Who's that speaking? What's the change in Gabriel's intonation? Is it the Demon of Temptation who drags the citizens of Hope and Glory away from their glorious past and ushers them into the quiet, problemless, commercialized lifestyle? Maybe so, for...
"chewing through your Wimpey dreams, they eat without a sound, digesting England by the pound..." 'Wimpey' is a British fast food chain, as far as I know (or was, at least), and not a very respectable one. Anyway, what the 'citizens' are doing is simple - all their dreams are of 'Wimpey', and they spend their lives away, never giving a damn about the sense of their very lives, as Ye Olde England slowly gets digested. Note the way Gabriel pronounces the last line - his voice raises to a powerful scream on 'digesting', symbolizing a culminative moment in his pessimistic desperation, and extends 'by-y-y-y the po-o-o-und' in a particularly majestic and solemn way, yet leaving a sense of something unfinished, just waiting to be resumed and expanded. The first part of the song thus ends like a proper introduction to an epic ballad is supposed to end.
1.20-1.31. Short interlude. A cute little electric riff, almost jazzy in its own way, enters, creating a rhythm of its own; each riff ends with a single 'concluding' bass note. This will be our main melody for some time, but here we're given a few seconds to enjoy it on its own, without Gabriel entering. Beautiful and romantic. Note also those 'vibrating' guitar chords that set the background from now on. Almost unnoticeable, but, again, this background is absolutely necessary to achieve the "glorious" and "ethereal" effect of the song.
1.31-1.58. Main part, first verse. This one's a bit tough, but I'll try nonetheless. "Young man says 'you are what you eat, eat well', old man says 'you are what you wear, wear well." Irony enters once again - one of the troubles in modern-day Britain seems to be the gap between generations, but to Peter it's all the same whether our attitude is that of modern hedonism ('eat well') or of yesterday's conservatism ('wear well'). Note the difference in pitch and intonation in the two lines - again, Peter can't resist "impersonating" a little, and the 'old man's whining' is very well done here.
"You know what you are, you don't give a damn..." Don't give a damn about the fate of your country, no doubt. The 'you know what you are' part is pronounced with an air of negligence, almost contempt; the vibrating effect on the word 'da-a-a-a-a-mn' is haunting, although maybe not quite appropriate from a rational point of view. Background vocals enter here, cleverly and intricately mixed in with the 'vibrating guitars' - this is one of the most effective tricks for making the sound 'ethereal' I've ever heard. We had been concentrating on Pete all the time and have barely noticed how the song has rapidly progressed from those bare guitar chords of the first ten seconds to a full-fledged musical background.
"Bursting your belt that is your homemade sham..." You 'burst your belt', taking in all the pleasures of life, and in this way hide away from the problems surrounding you and your personal world in your 'homemade sham'. Thus ends the first verse - obviously the most vicious attack that Peter ever addressed to his fellow countrymen, cleverly masked by untrivial allegories. With all due respect, Ray Davies would be never capable of such subtlety. A gruff low guitar chord now announces the first climactic section...
1.59-2.23. First chorus. With the chorus, we plunge fully into the 'mystical' part of the song - a sudden and total transition from the grim prospects of modern English life to the world of pagan ritual thrill. If the music was somewhat 'inobtrusive' up to this point, here, at a single drumfill from Phil, all the ethereal guitars and equally ethereal background vocals suddenly come out to life. Brilliant musical solution: the 'medieval' 'mystical' elements were kept in the background as long as Pete's lyrics were concentrated on today's situation, but now, all of a sudden, they 'leap' out at you as soon as you're ready to give yourself in to reminiscences of the past. The vocals overwhelm you, and Phil finally kicks in with all his might...
"The Captain leads his dance right on through the night..." Who's the Captain? I'm not sure. I'm not even sure if the 'Captain' is the spirit-leader of the ritual or he's a real person (a druid? a mage?), but probably there should be no direct association. Peter pronounces the first part of the phrase in a hurry before the main melody, since it does not fit into the rhythm: '...dance right on through the night!' is what we hear primarily, like a command for us to take part in the (no doubt) purifying ritual, and it's immediately confirmed further:
"Join the dance! Follow on! Till the Grail sun sets in the mould..." The Grail reference by no means hints at our being transferred into a Christian-dominated world - remember, if it's Arthurian times we're speaking about, pagan practices and Christianity elements were joined in an odd synthesis back then. On the other hand, the Grail certainly is a direct Arthurian reference, as if we yet had any doubts about the particular epoch Gabriel was drawing comparisons with. Another important thing happens here - after Gabriel shouts 'follow on!', Tony joins in with a few major key cheerful synth notes, which somehow change the atmosphere from 'pure mystics' to 'ritual joy'. You're really supposed to enjoy your spiritual wholeness and nature's wonders in the dance.
"Follow on till the gold is cold..." Not quite clear. Is the 'gold' another sun reference here? In this case, 'the gold is cold' means 'till sunset'; consequently, this would mean that our ritual dance lasts all through the day and into the night... on the other hand, it was clearly said that 'the Captain leads his dance through the night', not 'towards the night'. Maybe Pete got a little messed up with his times of day here, or maybe I'm just wrong in my analysis.
"Dancing out with the Moonlit Knight, Knights of the Green Shield stamp and shout..." Again, the exact decyphering of 'Moonlit Knight' escapes me, but surely we must be speaking of an obscure, or invented, pagan deity, a symbolic one, of course. The last line is very confusing; on one hand, 'Knights of the Green Shield' again evoke Arthurian connotations, on the other hand, Genesis discography mentions 'Green Shield Stamps' - some kind of modern-day trickstery related to commercial prize winning. This could be a coincidence, but you can never tell with Peter; on the other hand, here we should suppose that even if it is not a coincidence, it is just a funny pun that Peter couldn't resist, because otherwise the connection isn't clear. A nicely placed red herring, that is.
In other words, what do we get once the main vocal part is over? Two juxtaposed pictures, one of the depressing and decaying life of today, and the other of the joyful and spiritual pagan ritual of days long gone by. Which is the biggest difference, by the way, between Gabriel's and Ray Davies' picture of Britain: if, for Ray, 'salvation' from today's corrupt life can be found by embracing the conservative ideals of the quiet and becalmed XIXth century life (Victorian ideal!), Peter condemns both of these lifestyles and seeks his ideal even back further in time. The music is supposed to illustrate that as well.  From: https://starlingdb.org/music/song1.htm

Bab L' Bluz - Iwaiwa Funk

French-Moroccan power quartet Bab L' Bluz, have released the third track from their forthcoming album Swaken. This new track, entitled 'Iwaiwa Funk' is played on the electric mandole, sung in the higher-pitched vocal style found in Morocco's High Atlas Mountains and themed to remind us that life is short, resentment is futile and dance — whirling, hair-whipping dance — is a conduit to the soul.
Condemning those who cause suffering to others or are blinded by those harmful actions and their inevitable consequences, ‘Iwaiwa Funk’ underscores the importance of listening to distress calls and never underestimating others, whilst advocating for kindness, reflection on our actions and compassion. Life is fleeting…
Recorded at Real World Studios in Wiltshire, England, written partly in Morocco – the birthplace of frontwoman Yousra Mansour — and mostly across a world tour that took the band from Adelaide, Barcelona and New York to Essaouira in Morocco, Lomé in Togo and Dougga in Tunisia. Mansour’s melismatic voice has never sounded so forceful, or the riffage from her electric awisha lute so mighty. Her bandmates Brice Bottin, Ibrahim Terkemani, Jérôme Bartolome (on everything from keyboards, flutes and electric guembri to drums, backing vocals and qraqeb castanets) interact with what might be telepathy, their playing skilled and tight.  From: https://realworldrecords.com/features/blogs/track-of-the-day-iwaiwa-funk-by-bab-l-bluz/

David Wax Museum - Uncover the Gold

David Wax Museum are the kind of band that confuses record store clerks. Are they filed under D, for David? Or M, for Museum? Even they weren’t quite sure—until this interview, when David himself finally settled it: “Straight from the horse’s mouth,” he said. “It’s going under D.”
Clarity achieved, they moved on to more pressing matters: playing Louisville’s WFPK Winter Wednesday, closing the night after Daniel Martin Moore’s golden-age album celebration. “And we’ve got a Louisville native in the band now,” David noted. “Our new electric guitarist, Charles Rivera—he’s from here. Lives in Brooklyn now. We gave him a pass tonight to see his family, but he’ll be onstage.”
It’s that kind of thoughtful, road-tested energy that runs through their 2015 album Guesthouse. The band had just played a stripped-down, kinetic version of the title track, which David calls “the most fun song we’ve ever played as a band.” The track mixes spiritual pondering (“The soul is a guest in the body / You gotta treat it right”) with lemon trees, corner stores, and the quiet desperation of asking for a place to crash.
But don’t call it “Mexican Americana,” or at least don’t lead with it. “I think you’ve been trying to get away from that a little bit,” I suggested.
David laughed. “Well, I don’t think it started out as, like, a conscious thing,” he said. “But yeah, that sound came from when I was living in Mexico in 2006–2007 studying folk music. And that was the freshest part when I came back. But now we’re five records in. I’m present in the American music scene. That Mexican influence is still there, just not as front-and-center.”
Which isn’t to say they’ve abandoned it—it’s still baked into the DNA of the live show, and they recorded more songs for Guesthouse than they actually released, including tracks in Spanish that didn’t make the cut. But, as David puts it, “This felt like a time to put out the strongest record—not the most ‘on-brand’ one.”
That desire to grow and not calcify into a single identity shows up in the songwriting, too. Take the back-to-back tracks “Young Man” and “Time Will Not Track Us Down,” both laced with a kind of hopeful weariness. “You okay?” I asked, mostly joking.
“We'eve never been better,” Suz Slezak laughed. But then she got serious. “We have a little girl now. We bring her on the road with us. So it has to be sustainable. It’s not just about doing something cool. It’s about: can we make this life work for the whole family?”
Parenthood didn’t make them ditch their ambitions, but it did recalibrate them. “I’ve always had this drive, this ambition. So has Suz [Slezak, his bandmate and wife]. But that ambition has to take a backseat to family.”
And still, the touring continues. “We love it,” they said. “We’ve toured with Old 97’s, Avett Brothers, Buena Vista Social Club—so we’re finding our audience. It’s a slow burn. We’re not commercial music. But stations like this, and listeners who really care… that’s who we’re making music for.”
It’s an honest reflection for a band that often finds itself re-introducing who they are with each new release. “Yeah, we’re five albums in,” David said. “But we still feel like the new guys in town sometimes. You just have to keep connecting.”
And when connection happens? Well, they sing it like they mean it. During “Singing To Me,” another track from the record, the whole performance felt like an act of personal reassurance—to themselves, to each other, to the crowd. “Hundreds of people in the crowd,” David sang, “but it don’t matter. I know this is rock and roll.”  From: https://www.lpm.org/music/2015-11-13/david-wax-museum-can-we-make-this-life-work-for-the-whole-family 

Crystal Jacqueline - Siren / The Edge of My Garden

 Crystal Jacqueline - Siren

 Crystal Jacqueline - The Edge of My Garden

 

Crystal Jacqueline was born in Wiltshire, England. From an early age she developed a love and a talent for music. She would busk in Bath and played various events and shows around the region gaining praise and much valuable experience. She later moved further south and played in various bands full time in the UK and abroad. In 2010 she recorded her first album, an album of all originals save "Circle In The Sand". The style is more mainstream than her current work, bringing to mind Stevie Nicks and Bonnie Rait, but there were some signs to the future path; "Lying In The Rain" and "Circle In The Sand" are both pointers to a more ethereal sound.
Crystal Jacqueline was a founder member of The Honey Pot when they recorded their first album "To The Edge Of The World" in 2012. One of the major highlights of the disc, and live concerts, is her performance of"Paper Garden", a drone like contemplation of horticulture in the sky. Her vocals are a major part of the band and her keyboard work live, especially on "White Rabbit", is an integral and much enjoyed feature.
Crystal recorded "Cousin Jane " in November2012 and it was selected as her initial release on Fruits de Mer records. An albums worth of material followed which was released on Megadodo and  features original songs as well as covers. Her distinctive voice has mixed with the dense music to form an original, heady, utopian concoction.
Away from music Crystal Jacqueline tends her gardens which are full of flowers, vegetables, fruit, geese, cats and a pig named Pru. She loves to travel and names Oman as her favourite destination. She reads, writes and wanders...  From: https://blueberryjacqui.wixsite.com/crystaljacqueline/biography

 

The Moody Blues - In Search of the Lost Chord - Side 2

1 - Voices in the Sky
2 - The Best Way To Travel
3 - Visions of Paradise
4 - The Actor
5 - The Word
6 - Om

Side Two

“Voices in the Sky” (Hayward): Aah! That’s nice! The road to self-discovery opens with the gentle sounds of Ray’s flute and Justin’s voice, a combination I find utterly delightful and positively therapeutic. After a complete shutout on side one, Justin offers up three compositions on side two, all reflective pieces brimming with emotional impact. Sorry, Mr. Spock, but life is illogical, and the only way you know you’re on the road to self-discovery is if you feel it.
The composition is divided into three distinct groups: paired verses devoted to natural wonders, paired verses devoted to human activity and two renditions of the bridge containing the Eureka moment appearing after each set of paired verses.
Justin made a wise choice in choosing two of the most beautiful songbirds to represent the wonders of nature: the bluebird and the nightingale. His choice turned out to be quite prescient: “Researchers from Kings College London published a study in 2018 testing the effects of exposure to nature on mental health. Using an app to track people’s interactions with nature, they showed that birdsong (among other things) improved people’s mental well-being. Birdsong was not only relaxing, but made people more deliberate—it reduced what psychologists call impulsivity.” (Source: Gulo In Nature). Though Justin wishes he could understand the meaning embedded in the bluebird’s song offerings, he’s happy to take a moment and listen to the nightingale “harmonize the wind.”
The music shifts from pastoral to intense in the bridge as Justin wonders about the origins of his newfound interest in nature and finds the answers in the setting where life first emerged:

Just what is happening to me
 I lie awake with the sound of the sea 
Calling to me

The second set of verses is equally compelling, but for different reasons. In the age of the Generation Gap, Justin wants to hear the songs of the old and the young:

Old man, passing by 
Tell me what you sing
 Though your voice be faint
 I am listening
 Voices in the sky

Children with a skipping rope
 Tell me what you sing
 Play time is nearly gone
 The bell’s about to ring
 Voices in the sky

In short, he chooses to engage with the world instead of limiting his experience to a single social clique. Though the events he describes are hardly mind-blowing, I think that’s the point—as we go about our busy lives, we tend to pay scant attention to everyday experiences and miss out on the simple joys they can provide.

“The Best Way to Travel” (Pinder): I’ve always liked this song for its brief trips into the blues scale and its key-defying resolution: the verses are in D major, but the resolution chord is B, which resolves to the secondary key of E major, punctuated by the E-G-A-E closing guitar riff. In addition to that break from the norm, I also approve of the underlying message: “Hey, humans! You were blessed with brains and imagination, so why not use them for a change?” I would have appended the phrase, “you dumb fucks,” but that would be quite un-Moodie-ish.

And you can fly 
High as a kite, if you want to
 Faster than light, if you want to
 Speeding through the universe 
Thinking is the best way to travel

The basic arrangement in the verse segments is mid-tempo rock, combining muscular acoustic guitar (played by Pinder), electric guitar (Hayward) and emphatic bass and skip-beat drums from the rhythm section of Lodge and Edge. Pinder’s vocals are calm and steady, strengthened in the closing couplet with harmonies from Mr. Thomas. The centerpiece of the song is the magic created by the mellotron in concert with stereophonic sound.

“Visions of Paradise” (Hayward, Thomas): The combination of Justin’s marvelous voice and Ray’s sensitive flute is a match made in musical heaven, and the arrangement creates a sonic environment suitable for reflection. The opening passage features a warm, downward figure on the flute from C to E minor that turns out to be a bit of musical foreshadowing. The verses are unique in that the lovely melody is set to a single chord (C major), but though a sitar enters the soundscape about a third of the way through the song, Justin and Ray avoided the temptation to turn the piece into a drone song, employing the sitar to provide counterpoint arpeggios in sync with Justin’s acoustic guitar.
Continuing the theme of imagination, “Visions of Paradise” validates the fundamental truth that you’ll never go anywhere if you don’t have a clear idea of where you’re going. You have to envision paradise if you want to create paradise. The main obstacle to “Paradise on Earth” is that human beings cannot agree on what constitutes paradise and are unlikely to do so in the near or distant future, so your only option at present is to create your own version of Eden and maybe find others who share your vision. The narrator’s visions are two-fold, with one involving the personal and the other the universal. The personal vision has already come true in the form of unconditional love between romantic partners:

The sounds in my mind just come to me
 Come see, come see
 And the call of her eyes makes waterfalls
 Of me, of me 
In the garden of her love I’ll stay awhile
 To be, to be

Though relationships can go sour, this path to enlightenment represents his best shot. At this point, Ray repeats the downward run from C to E minor, where we will remain during the brief bridge. Here the narrator presents his universal vision... to which you might respond, “Good luck with that.”

Visions of paradise, cloudless skies I see
 Rainbows on the hill, blue onyx on the sea

As it is more than highly unlikely that he will love long enough to experience a pristine earthly environment, you may ask, “Why waste your energy on something that ain’t gonna happen?” Because giving up guarantees that your vision will never come to fruition—and living in hope is better than living in misery.

“The Actor” (Hayward): Sticking to the theme of relationship-as-refuge presented in “Visions of Paradise,” Justin’s romantic side is at its best in this wonderful love song enhanced by Pinder’s “orchestration.” What I enjoy most about Justin’s love songs is his penchant for placing the relationship in the larger context of daily life instead of presenting a series of trite love song clichés:
I hope I don’t have to answer the question, “What does a love song have to do with enlightenment?” but I will anyway. Forming a deep, lasting bond with another human being is the enlightenment experience par excellence. When two people fully commit to unconditional love for one another, they don’t need acid to banish the ego because they know that one will care for the other and vice versa.

“Om” (Pinder, Thomas): The sacred word has many meanings and is employed in several Asian religions; for purposes of this analysis, the definition I found in a Harvard dissertation will work best: “OM serves as a sonic realization of the divine.” From a practical standpoint, its use in meditation serves to remove distractions and open the door to inner peace.
While I’m sure most rock critics of the day would have labeled the piece sacrilegious, only a few even bothered to mention it in their reviews, except in passing. I find the song rather calming and would firmly resist any accusations of pretentiousness. The basic arrangement has an earthy, rural feel with its light touches of flute, sitar and tabla, evoking images of pilgrims heading down dusty paths to the temple. Ray and Mike take turns singing the verse lines, and both of them sound cool, calm and collected. Other than a tempo change midstream and the powerful sound of voices raised in unison, there isn’t a whole lot of drama for the moribund to complain about. In my opinion, “Om” proves that the Moodies were serious about their interest in Eastern philosophy, making it the perfect closer for an album concerned with the search for enlightenment.

Rolling Stone rarely let up on the Moodies; in the Rolling Stone Album Guide, they spewed this bit of vitriol: “No major band has so relentlessly purveyed nonsense as have the Moodies... Were it not for their titanic success, in fact, they might easily be dismissed as an odd and overlong joke.”
I guess by “nonsense,” they meant “peace, love, and happiness.” Since we continue to live in a world filled with war, hate and misery, I would argue that the Moody Blues are more relevant than ever. In Search of the Lost Chord was one of many works of the era that suggested ways out of our never-ending troubles, and it ranks as one of the best. Revisiting their oeuvre has heightened my awareness of the value of their contributions.

From: https://altrockchick.com/2025/08/31/the-moody-blues-in-search-of-the-lost-chord-classic-music-review/ 

Wilson Pickett - Live Germany 1968 / Live Montreux 1972

 Wilson Pickett - Live Germany 1968 - Part 1

 

 Wilson Pickett - Live Germany 1968 - Part 2

 

Wilson Pickett - Live Montreux 1972 - Part 1

 

 Wilson Pickett - Live Montreux 1972 - Part 2

 

I’d had this short, German TV documentary of Wilson Pickett and his band touring Germany circa 1968 for years on VHS tape. I just noticed some clips from it on Youtube and decided to post ’em since it’s some of the best classic soul footage I’ve ever seen.
Wilson Pickett, born March 14, 1941, in Pratville, Alabama, to an abusive mother, was sent north to live with his father in Detroit at a young age. He began singing in church and was influenced mostly by the Sensational Nightingales’ screaming lead singer Rev. Julius Cheeks.
Pickett joined the Violianaires as a teenager and hit the gospel highway. He eventually left and went R&B, replacing Joe Stubbs in the Falcons, an early Detroit super group, best known at the time for You’re So Fine, the group included at various times Sir Mack Rice and Eddie Floyd. He sang lead on their biggest hit- I Found A Love, one of the greatest soul records ever made, Pickett would re-record it several times over the years, but never matched the original version on the Lupine label. 
Striking out on his own in the wake of I Found A Love, he signed with Lloyd Price and Harold Logan’s Double L label (Logan would be murdered at his Turntable club in 1970) where he charted with a couple of minor hits including If You Need Me (which the Stones covered in ’65).
He signed to Atlantic in 1966 and was sent to Memphis to record with the Stax crew including Booker T. & the MGs, kicking off an incredible string of hits- Midnight Hour, Mustang Sally, his killer re-working of Land of 1000 Dances, Funky Broadway, etc. When Atlantic and Stax split he recorded at Muscle Shoals and in Miami with the Dixie Flyers, but Pickett seemed to run out of material and his later Atlantic records were usually covers of recent pop hits– Hey Jude, Sugar Sugar, Born To Be Wild, good versions, but songs are rarely hits twice in a row, and Pickett’s career suffered. Despite selling millions of records, his royalty statement showed him owing Atlantic money. Atlantic, for all their self-serving re-writing of history, took the money they made in R&B and re-invested it in white, English rock groups like Led Zepplin, Yes, the Rolling Stones, etc. and left the soul and R&B stars who built the company out in the cold. Pickett was dropped from Atlantic and never had a big hit again, although he had a few minor R&B chart showings as late as 1987.  From: https://thehoundnyc.com/2010/04/22/wilson-pickett/

 

Wilson Pickett & Duane Allman

Death Grips - Takyon (Death Yon)

Death Grips is a genre-pushing group in every sense of the phrase. While virtually impossible to assign a single genre to, the group has long been characterized as an “experimental hip-hop” group. While on balance this is true, this label ignores the other genres and sounds that the group regularly explores on this album and in subsequent works. They frequently dabble in the electronic, hardcore punk, cyberpunk, noise rock, industrial hip-hop, and spoken word genres. Some tracks — such as Culture Shock — offer a preview of the futuristic, cyberpunk, and electronic sounds that the group would come to embrace in future albums.
It’s impossible to describe Death Grips to friends and family. When I do try, I often resort to explaining that listening to the group is the auditory equivalent of being high on every prohibited substance available. And perhaps that’s the most admirable quality of the album. After all, I have long maintained that the hallmark of high quality art (e.g., visual art, music, film) is its ability to elicit an emotional response from the listener. The substance of the response (e.g., sadness, joy, anger, fear, euphoria) is largely irrelevant. There are many albums that are great because they make the listener feel happy, understood, or listened to. By contrast, Exmilitary is great because it completely overwhelms you. The result is extremely visceral, intense, and borderline anxiety-inducing.
Perhaps Nate Patrin of Pitchfork described the album best as “a bludgeoning slab of hostility” that “avoids being an overbearing mess”. At the same time, however, the album provides considerable variety in its brutality: the aggression of Takyon (Death Yon) makes the listener feel like they’re being beaten to death with a lead pipe, while Culture Shock is electronic, extremely catchy, and glitchy. On Klink, the guitar melody coupled with Ride’s anguished yelps are demented and urgent.
Released in 2011, Exmilitary spans 13 tracks across 44 minutes. To date, it is one of the only albums I’ve ever listened to that has blown my mind on first listen. The combination of genres, sounds, themes, and samples is completely original (seriously, a Bowie sample on an industrial hip-hop record?). While embracing a rawer, more animalistic sound compared to the group’s later works, Exmilitary offers a glimpe into the sounds that characterized the group’s future albums. While many of the tracks here lean more into the experimental/industrial hip-hop genre, tracks like Lord of the Game and Culture Shock are glitchier, more electronic, and less accessible. These are themes that the group would adopt more comprehensively on later LPs like The Money Store, Government Plates, and The Powers That B. Those looking to push their musical boundaries are encouraged to check this album out. Groups like Death Grips show us that music can be so much more than we think it can be.  From: https://agreenplasticwateringcan.medium.com/death-grips-exmilitary-album-review-aacf14288a55

Lone Justice - Ways To Be Wicked / After The Flood / Pass It On

Released in 1985, Lone Justice is a wild blend of country grit and punk energy—a genre mash-up they coined “cowpunk.” And somehow, it works. Brilliantly. The sound is raw yet polished, deeply emotional without ever tipping into melodrama. Even four decades later, it feels fresh.
Lead singer Maria McKee—only 20 years old when the album was released—brings a soulful fire to every track. Her voice carries weight, vulnerability, and a dose of rebellion, the kind that instantly draws you in. After one listen, I understood why this album has a cult following. It’s one of those rare alt-country gems that slipped past mainstream radar but held on tight to those lucky enough to discover it.
Side 1 pulls you in fast. “Ways to Be Wicked” kicks off with swagger, and Tom Petty’s songwriting fingerprints are all over it. There’s groove, edge, and pure rock energy here. But it’s “Don’t Toss Us Away” that really hit me—an aching country ballad lifted by gospel undertones and a beautiful piano line that feels like it belongs in a dusty chapel. “After the Flood” follows with haunting emotion and depth.
Flip the record, and Side 2 delivers just as strongly. “Pass It On” glows with classic country warmth, while “Wait Till We Get Home” hooked me unexpectedly—subtle at first, but addictive by the second listen. And then the closer: “You Are the Light.” A slow burn finale that rises with conviction. It’s the kind of track you don’t just hear—you feel. Definitely earned a spot on my playlist.  From: https://www.vinylvibes.ca/blog/lone-justice-a-cowpunk-revelation-from-the-80s 

Ninebarrow - Names in the Sky

After twelve years performing together and five extremely well-received studio albums, the folk duo Ninebarrow revisit some favourite songs with reworkings of material from their back catalogue. All of the key components you would expect from a Ninebarrow release are present and correct here: the lovely vocal harmonies of Jon Whitley and Jay LaBouchardiere, the intuitive connection to the natural world around us and the innovative adaptation of traditional material combined with compelling original songwriting.
However, the extra magical ingredient that is sprinkled throughout this collection are the stunning choral accompaniments, with Whitley’s and LaBouchardiere’s own harmony vocals joined by over forty others, courtesy of two locally-based choirs: Hart Voices from Hampshire and Chantry Singers from Surrey.
The genesis of the project can be traced back to the Covid lockdown, when the moratorium on live performances gave rise to a plethora of online concerts, Zoom choirs and sundry charity fundraising singles, the latter ranging in quality from the genuinely breath-taking to the frankly bizarre. But while we can safely assume that few people now sit at home listening to Captain Tom’s rendition of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, Ninebarrow’s own charity single for MIND, ‘The Hour of the Blackbird’, certainly does stand  up artistically. What’s more, it convinced the duo that there was further mileage yet in such an approach.
Jay LaBouchardiere: “The response to that blew us away with people making donations from all over the world and we thought if one song can sound this good recorded through phones and laptops imagine what a studio collaboration could sound like.”
The result is simply stunning, with the thirteen tracks on The Hour of the Blackbird showcasing some truly spellbinding choral arrangements which take Ninebarrow’s elegant, understated, trademark magic to new heights. From the ethereal qualities of ‘Names In The Sky’ to the heart-warming optimism of the title track to the jaunty defiance of live favourite ‘The Weeds’, to the fresh take on folk perennial ‘John Barleycorn’, there’s plenty to marvel at here.  From: https://darrensmusicblog.com/2025/10/29/folk-album-review-ninebarrow-the-hour-of-the-blackbird/

Cobalt Chapel - We Come Willingly

Conceived in 2014 by Jarrod Gosling and Cecilia Fage, Cobalt Chapel’s emergence was momentarily slowed by the birth of Cecilia’s twins. Now, hot on the heels of their much feted live shows and with a new album out, they tell Greg Healey that they are, at last, ready to emerge from the shadows.
A love of psychedelia, old organs and a desire for something different all played a part in the gestation of Cobalt Chapel. Coming from Sheffield, Jarrod Gosling, the keyboard playing purveyor of psych and prog rock magnificence with I Monster and Regal Worm, understands the need for alternative sounds as a means of creating a new outlook. Describing Steel City as being “the synth capital, like the Dusseldorf of Britain,” Jarrod is all too aware of the ubiquity of squelchy analogue oscillations in his hometown’s music. “Everybody uses synths these days, they’re everywhere, and I wanted something different. With the organs it’s also the historical thing, the psychedelic, the sound of the era that it conjures up. A sixties and early seventies thing. And they have a very organic sound, particularly when you put them through effects,” says Jarrod of his decision to build Cobalt Chapel around the authentic textures of Hammond, Philicorda, and CL.
 A chance conversation with his friend, the writer and actor Paul Putner, led to an introduction to Cecilia Fage, a longterm and key member of Matt Berry’s Maypoles. “At that point I wasn’t looking for another project and it came up as a chance thing, but when we got on the phone we just gassed for an hour and we found we had so many similar influences. That’s when we thought let’s try a track together and see how we go,” explains Cecilia.
The aforementioned influences are both potent and wide ranging, spanning Hammer Horror from the late 1960s and early 1970s, traditional English choral works, the album covers of Marcus Keef, early Curved Air and all manner of other psych and prog manifestations. With those influences in the creative mixer, alongside the distinctive instrumentation and Cecilia’s beautifully harmonised vocals, the end product on their eponymous debut album is powerful and unique and offers an all encompassing mode for exploring some interesting subject matter in a narrative and filmic way. Cecilia elaborates: “The song ‘Fruit Falls From the Apple Tree’ is a female perspective on the patriarchal society that we live in and on womankind, and the very idea, the religious idea, that woman was created from a part of man. The thinking was, what would it be like if this was reversed? It’s an imaginary perspective.”
The clever re-examination of established notions, particularly of womanhood, provides a key inspiration. This is especially so when set against the mood of Hammer Horror, as in the track ‘Horratia’. In this song, with its lyrics by Paul Putner, chant-like vocals and creaking effects laden Hammond, the bleak reality of the life of a fading Scream Queen star is deftly explored.
Recorded remotely, with files swapped over the internet, Cobalt Chapel is every inch the hi-tech project, but through Cecilia and Jarrod’s obsessional immersion in the sounds and aesthetics of the late 1960s and early 1970s a genuinely new take on psychedelia has been wrought.  From: https://greghealeywords.wordpress.com/2017/07/29/cobalt-chapel-interview/

 

Dobbeltgjenger - Weatherman

Melody Lane: First of all, can you tell us where the name Dobbeltgjenger comes from?

Vegard Wikne: It actually originally came as a Twin Peaks reference - Doppelganger, which is the evil counterparts of individuals, originating from the Black Lodge. But then we changed it to Norwegian, because there were so many bands called Doppelganger (ironically enough).

Melody Lane: The line-up of the band is confirmed, is it the same from the beginning of the band, or have you had changes in the last years? Can you tell us anything about the roots of Dobbeltgjenger? And where the band was born?

Vegard Wikne: I founded the band, and I'm the singer, guitarist and main composer. In the beginning it was only me from the current line up. It started as a trio with Vegard Wikne on vocals and guitars, Jakob Sønnesyn on bass and John Sæten Lilletvedt on drums. We then played songs that I had written over a couple of years.

Melody Lane: Can you list us 5 songs, from  Dobbeltgjenger ‘s discography (including new material), that can define the sound of the band; 5 songs that can help our readers to know Dobbeltgjenger at the best.

Vegard Wikne: Johanna, La Dee Da, Come On Over, Dive In and Tin Foil Hat.

Melody Lane: Tell us something about the creative process of your music. Is there a main composer or we can talk about a team work? The songs come from ideas of a single member and then the band works on these ideas in the studio jamming together, or your songs are written in the studio and all the members compose together?

Vegard Wikne: Most of the songs are mainly written and demoed by me. With Smooth Failing our drummer Sondre Veland came up with a lot of awesome beats, that started several songwriting processes. All the songs were carefully demoed at Vegards house, and then recorded very similarly in the studio later, where I played all bass, most of the guitars, synths and vocals. Sondre did all drums and Knut Martin Langeland did some guitars. 

Melody Lane:  Can you tell us something about contents and messages of your last album? Can you tell us anything about the whole concept of Smooth Failing? And please tell us where does this title come from?

Vegard Wikne: The record is about the pleasure of doing the wrong things. It's about giving up, in a blaze of neon mist and fireworks. Smooth failing reflects a time in my  life, where I was doing just that: failing smoothly. Just being self destructive and loving it - until… it falls apart. But there is some magic in that period in self deceptive self destruction.

Melody Lane:  After time, are you totally satisfied with your choices about sound and the writing of your previous album? If you could, would you change anything? What did you focus on to make the sound better and perfectly consistent with the musical ideas you had in mind?

Vegard Wikne: I'm never happy with anything. That's the way it has always been and will always be. I am always more happy with my most recent songs, than older ones. So now I think that the best thing I have every created are the 12 demoes for our fourth album haha.

Melody Lane:  So apart from the covid/pandemic situation…will you tour in the next future? Have you already a touring schedule? Any chance for us to see  Dobbeltgjenger playing live here in Italy or in Europe in the next months/year? 

Vegard Wikne: We are hustling and working towards different possible tour locations right now. We would LOVE to play in Italy for sure. Hopefully we get to travel a bit in 2022.

Melody Lane: Could you tell us two bands, from the actual international scene, you’d like Dobbeltgjengerto tour with? Two bands that would represent a perfect line-up for Dobbeltgjenger to play with. And why these bands?

Vegard Wikne:  Queens of the stone age and Unknown Mortal Orchestra! That would of been amazing! First of all we LOVE these two bands, and also I think the music would work really well together. Aim high, crashland low.

Melody Lane: We know that ‘to define is to limit’ but how do you define  Dobbeltgjenger’ sound? Are you an Alternative Rock band, a Modern Prog Rock Band, a  Post Rock band, or…?

Vegard Wikne: I would define it as an alternative rock band, with a strong focus on groove, colours and solid and catchy songwriting.

Melody Lane: Which musicians are/have been your main musical inspirations? And which are your favorite bands nowadays?

Vegard Wikne: Well, I've already mentioned QOTSA and UMO. Those two are definitely two of them. I love anything that is actually unique, that actually brings something new to the table that is music. I also love Tyler The Creator, especially his newest album Igor, as well as a lot of David Bowie and Iggy Pop. I absolutely love Talking Heads and anything to do with David Byrne. The quirkiness and groove is just aaaah.   

Melody Lane: As a musician, what has been your biggest achievement to date and what do you want to achieve in the near future?

Vegard Wikne: Biggest achievement must have been to have completed this last record (Smooth Failing), even tho I was really mentally unwell. Just to have been able to musically express myself through that record, when I was extremely far down some dangerous mental rabbit holes, I am really proud of that. I hope to be able to tour more internationally and play with some great bands!    

Melody Lane: Until today, what was the most important concert for  Dobbeltgjenger's career? And why?

Vegard Wikne: I think that must have been when we played a showcase in Oslo, Norway in 2018. We had just released our second album Limbohead, and it was the first gig where a lot of strangers came to see us, and it was just a magical night. Just one of those nights where everybody in the venue becomes one, through sweat, blood and loud, loud live music. I just want to go back to that! 

From: https://www.melodylane.it/NEWSITO4/index.php/869-dobbeltgjenger

Janis Joplin with Big Brother & The Holding Company - Down on Me / Summertime / Piece Of My Heart / Ball And Chain

Rhapsodic and cathartic, psychedelic music came roaring into existence in the mid-1960s. The style’s guitar-centric, anything-goes approach ushered in an era of extended solos, wild sound effects, ringing eardrums, and an unprecedented merging of influences – from American blues, jazz, folk, and rock to sounds culled from Africa, India, and other parts of the world. “Certainly drugs played a role – that’s way up front,” remembered Sam Andrew, co-guitarist in Big Brother and the Holding Company, one of San Francisco’s seminal psychedelic bands.*
In its earliest incarnation, Big Brother and the Holding Company performed as a four-piece, with Sam Andrew and James Gurley on electric guitars, Peter Albin on bass and acoustic guitar, and Dave Getz on drums. By 1966 this lineup had become the house band at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom, devoting most of its sets to long, exploratory instrumentals. During this period Andrew and Gurley immersed themselves in the recordings of John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cecil Taylor, Ornette Coleman, Sun Ra, and Indian vina and sitar players. Gurley, often credited as the seminal psychedelic guitarist on the San Francisco scene, was especially impressed by Coltrane. “I thought if I could play a guitar like John Coltrane played the sax,” he explained, “it would really be far out. So that’s what I was trying to do. Of course, nobody understood it, especially me!”
Concert promoter Chet Helms suggested that they expand their lineup and recommended Janis Joplin, whom he’d seen singing traditional blues and folk songs in Texas coffeehouses. The 23-year-old completely transformed her style soon after joining Big Brother. “The moment Janis heard the volume increase, she had it,” Andrew remembered. “It was like she switched a channel that brought out the power. And the music was louder by a quantum leap than what went before. It made everything different. It took away all the rules. And the velocity was something too – it would just shift into overdrive.”
James Gurley shared this viewpoint: “As much as Janis made us as a band, we made her as a singer. She had to sing the way that she did in order to sing with us. We didn’t say, ‘You have to sing like this,’ but we said, ‘This is the way we’re gonna play. How are you gonna sing?’ And she went, ‘Whoa! Okay. Here’s this. [Imitates Janis] Whaaaa!’ It went on from there. She had a lot of power.”
Weeks after Janis joined, Big Brother rushed into a studio to record their eponymous debut album for the short-lived Mainstream label, to little acclaim. Soon thereafter, though, their mind-blowing performance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival brought them worldwide attention. A Columbia Records mega-deal led to the band’s landmark Cheap Thrills album, recorded between March and May 1968. Dubbed-in audience noise gave listeners the impression that the whole album was a live recording, but only “Ball and Chain” was recorded onstage. The other six tracks were taped in studios in New York and Los Angeles. Robert Crumb, the preeminent underground comic book artist, created the hippie-influenced cover artwork.  From: https://www.foundsf.org/Big_Brother_and_the_Holding_Company:_Cheap_Thrills

Royal Blood - Out Of The Black

British rock duo Royal Blood have only been around for a short time but have already became a favourite of Arctic Monkeys drummer Matt Helders. Vocalist/bassist Mike Kerr and drummer Ben Thatcher have expanded upon their debut single Out of the Black with an EP.
The title track’s stuttering drums, grunting guitars and howling vocals are an audacious arrival onto the music scene for the duo. Kerr’s voice is a carnal, virile twist on the intense, piercing high notes of Matt Bellamy from Muse. The random, staccato beat of the drums in between choruses and verses, as well as the sped-up outro, are nicely unsettling to listeners. They show that the duo will not stick to the traditional four-to-the-floor rock song structure.
The EP then launches headfirst into second single Little Monster (which is clearly not a reference to one of Lady Gaga’s fanbase). It’s a dirty, slinky offering (‘love on my fingers, lust on my tongue…come on and get some’), anchored by economic yet full-bodied riffs. The final chorus has some marvellously murky, melodic ‘oh-oh-oh’ harmonies and ad-libs that allow the track to reach the climaxes that few bands like Queens of the Stone Age reach.
The same type of comparison can be applied to Come On Over, which is worth more than its status as the b-side of Out of the Black. An unrelenting bass groove makes this a devilish, moshpit-worthy metal headbanger. On the closing stomper Hole, Kerr’s yelps penetrate the din of smoky riffs. The lyrics about being ‘stuck in a hole’ however can apply to the song itself. Hole does not have quite as much momentum as the earlier tracks, as it fails to climb out of its own hole of darkness.  From: https://renownedforsound.com/ep-review-royal-blood-out-of-the-black/

Willow Child - Starry Road

What do we learn in the new Willow Child video? Well, first off, we see that quite literally it’s vocalist/guitarist Eva Kohl driving the band, and while one could make the argument that the totality of the German five-piece’s debut album, Paradise & Nadir — out May 11 on StoneFree Records — works much the same way, it’s not entirely that simple. Kohl is most certainly a forward presence in the band and in the mix of Paradise & Nadir, which was recorded by vintage specialist Richard Behrens (Heat, ex-Samsara Blues Experiment) and features cover art by Harley and J, but the organ work of Jonas Hartmann plays a significant role in “Starry Road” as well as other album cuts like “Eirene” and “Red Wood,” while Eva‘s brother, David Kohl drives languid bluesy grooves there and on the subsequent, progressively-minded “Mayflies,” which not only highlights Eva‘s vocals in its verses, but leaves room for the lead guitar of Flo Ryan Kiss to shine soulfully as it moves through its midpoint while bassist Javier Zulauf adds depth and tonal warmth alike to a spacious soundscape.
So while it may be Eva Kohl in the driver’s seat of that classic Chevy truck, don’t take that to mean the band has nothing else going for them. Paradise & Nadir is a quick-turnaround first album — the band’s lineup only solidified last year — but the songs feel older. Not only older-school, but to listen to the jammy break in the seven-minute “Beyond the Blue Fields,” there’s an established feeling between the players that, no matter how tight they are when they go into the recording studio, simply can’t be faked. Maybe that’s a result of the Kohls and Hartmann playing together longer, but whatever the case, Willow Child‘s dynamic isn’t just making an introduction for itself here: it’s showing that the band entered into the process of making their debut with a firm grip on who they are and what they want to accomplish as a band. Opening both sides of the eight-track offering with the longest piece — that’s “Little Owl” on side A and “Beyond the Blue Fields” on side B — they quickly mark out an expansive feel and balance that with structural traditionalism that only enhances the classic heavy rock aspects in their work.  From: https://theobelisk.net/obelisk/2018/04/16/willow-child-paradise-nadir-starry-road-premiere/

Led Zeppelin - Tangerine / That's The Way / Bron-Y-Aur Stomp / The Battle of Evermore

Robert Plant would sometimes introduce Tangerine at concerts by saying: "This song is for our families and friends and people we've been close to. It's a song of love at its most innocent stages."
Jimmy Page wrote this and first recorded it when he was with still with The Yardbirds. This was the last Zeppelin song Page wrote without any input from Robert Plant. It's also the only track on Led Zeppelin III for which Plant didn't write the lyrics.
Jimmy Page played a pedal steel guitar on this track. He told Guitar Player magazine in 1977: "On the first LP there's a pedal steel. I had never played steel before, but I just picked it up. There's a lot of things I do first time around that I haven't done before. In fact, I hadn't touched a pedal steel from the first album to the third. It's a bit of a pinch really from the things that Chuck Berry did. Nevertheless, it fits. I use pedal steel in 'Your Time Is Gonna Come.' It sounds like a slide or something. It's more out of tune on the first album because I hadn't got a kit to put it together."
This was recorded on April 4, 1968 at one of the last studio sessions for The Yardbirds, under the title "Knowing That I'm Losing You." This first version performed by The Yardbirds, featured music almost identical to "Tangerine" by Led Zeppelin, but with different lyrics (vocals by Keith Relf), and was never officially released. It was supposed to be included on the Cumular Limit compilation (which was released in 2000), together with other materials from the same sessions, but interestingly enough, Page vetoed the release of the song. Since then, the version from The Yardbirds has leaked onto the internet, and Page has been accused of ripping off a Yardbirds composition, simply changing the majority of the lyrics (probably initially written by Keith Relf) in order to avoid any problem with the other members of his previous group. This would explain his veto against the release of the original song. It is not easy to ascertain the above, as the remaining members of The Yardbirds haven't spoken about the subject so far.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/led-zeppelin/tangerine

Robert Plant wrote the words to The Battle of Evermore after reading a book on Scottish history. The lyrics are about the everlasting battle between night and day, which can also be interpreted as the battle between good and evil. 
This is the only song Zeppelin ever recorded with a guest vocalist. Robert Plant felt he needed another voice to tell the story that plays out in the song, so Sandy Denny from Fairport Convention was brought in. Her vocals represent the people as the town crier, while Plant's voice is the narrator. Fairport Convention was a British folk group Zeppelin shared a bill with in 1970.
Sandy Denny was given a symbol on the album sleeve - three pyramids - to thank her. The four members of Led Zeppelin each designed their own symbols for the album. Denny died in 1978 from a brain hemorrhage resulting from a fall down the stairs.
Jimmy Page wrote the music on a mandolin he borrowed from John Paul Jones. He explained to Guitar Player magazine in 1977: "On 'The Battle of Evermore,' a mandolin was lying around. It wasn't mine, it was Jonesey's. I just picked it up, got the chords, and it sort of started happening. I did it more or less straight off. But, you see, that's fingerpicking again, going back to the studio days and developing a certain amount of technique – at least enough to be adapted and used. My fingerpicking is a sort of cross between Pete Seeger, Earl Scruggs, and total incompetence."
Led Zeppelin rarely played this live, but when they did, John Paul Jones sang Sandy Denny's part.
Many J.R.R. Tolkien fans see the lyrics as a reference to his book Return Of The King, where the lyrics could describe the Battle of Pelennor ("The drums will shake the castle wall, The ring wraiths ride in black"). Plant is a huge Tolkien fan, and referred to his books in "Ramble On" and "Misty Mountain Hop." 
A lot of this fits the battle of the Pelennor fields: "At last the sun is shining, The clouds of blue roll by" - as Sauron's army and influence advanced the sky darkened and when he lost this battle it became light again. But a lot doesn't fit to that particular battle/book, including the part about the angels of Avalon, as Avalon was not from Tolkien's world but the legends of Merlin and King Arthur. The song is not completely about that battle but there are references to Lord Of The Rings things like Ringwraiths and most of the song can be interpreted to be about it if you choose.
Sound engineer Andy Johns said of the recording: "The band was sitting next to the chimney in Headley, drinking tea, when Jimmy grabbed a mandolin and started playing. I gave him a microphone and stuck a Gibson echo on his mandolin. Jimmy had brought this stuff before and had asked me to take a look at it. Suddenly Robert started singing and this amazing track was born from nowhere."  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/led-zeppelin/the-battle-of-evermore 

10,000 Maniacs - What's The Matter Here / Don't Talk / Peace Train / City Of Angels

"There is a darker side to the band that never had been completely, thoroughly shown," Natalie Merchant explained to the Los Angeles Times back in the summer of 1989, a few months after the release of 10,000 Maniacs’ fourth studio album Blind Man’s Zoo. "It was something that had to be in a way exorcised and then we could go on to something else. On In My Tribe, there was that separation of lyrics going in one direction and the music going in another direction, one being very jovial and the other one being in some points very violent, other points very melancholy.”
Indeed, it is this paradox of the band’s buoyant melodies juxtaposed with their versatile vocalist’s incisive, often sobering words delivered in her reassuring, maternal-like tone that has always made In My Tribe such an enthralling listening experience. And it this duality that also largely explains why the album earned the Jamestown, NY ensemble of Merchant, Robert Buck (guitar), Steve Gustafson (bass guitar), Jerome Augustyniak (drums), and Dennis Drew (keyboards) the broader fanbase and critical accolades that had eluded them on their previous LPs, the self-released Secrets of the I Ching (1983) and their Elektra Records debut The Wishing Chair (1985).
After the underwhelming commercial reception but promising critical attention The Wishing Chair garnered, the Elektra brass doubled down on their investment in the band, hiring the accomplished producer Peter Asher (James Taylor, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt) to steer the band’s songs in a more polished, radio-friendly direction. Though the group was initially apprehensive about Asher’s influence and recommendations in the studio, they ultimately acquiesced to his vision and created their breakthrough album in the form of In My Tribe.
"The album gave us a great chance to really coalesce as a band," Drew admitted to Rolling Stone in 1989. "At that point we had to save our career and make a good record. We fucking buckled up, tightened our belt and did it."
Elektra’s decision to release the band’s cover of Cat Stevens’ 1971 staple “Peace Train” as In My Tribe’s first official single suggested that while the label had high expectations for the album, they wanted to tread carefully by teasing audiences with something more established and familiar. Included on original pressings of the LP, “Peace Train” was removed from subsequent editions due to controversial remarks Stevens (by then known as Yusuf Islam) made in reference to—and as some interpreted it, in support of—the Ayatollah Khomeini’s fatwa calling for the murder of the celebrated author Salman Rushdie following the 1988 release of his novel The Satanic Verses, which some Muslims decried as blasphemous against Islam.
While the pleasant yet perhaps too familiar “Peace Train” failed to kickstart meaningful sales for the album, the chart success of the two singles that followed gave the record the boost it needed. Driven along by whimsical guitarwork that belies the song’s subject matter, “Like the Weather” is Merchant’s ode to seasonal affective disorder induced lethargy.
With Buck’s jangly, shoegaze-like guitar sheen, the emotionally jarring third single “What’s the Matter Here?” finds Merchant singing from the perspective of a woman observing her neighbors abusing their child and delicately outlining the warranted guilt-trip. Other standout songs abound, and collectively reinforce the human empathy and generosity of spirit that pervade the entire album. The soaring “Don’t Talk” documents a woman’s attempts to temper her alcoholic lover’s verbosity and disingenuousness when he’s under the spell of drink.  “City of Angels” laments the plight of the homeless in Los Angeles, while “Cherry Tree” examines illiteracy. The plaintive “Gun Shy” explores the dichotomy of life inside and outside of the military.
The Michael Stipe assisted “A Campfire Song” condemns greed and materialism gone awry, while “My Sister Rose” finds Merchant scrutinizing the socially-mandated tradition of marriage and the ceremonial pomp of weddings. The album concludes with “Verdi Cries,” her stripped-down, piano and strings imbued recollection of a trip enriched by her fellow hotel guest’s love of the 19th century Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi.  From: https://albumism.com/features/tribute-celebrating-35-years-of-10000-maniacs-in-my-tribe 

Maplewood - Indian Summer

You probably need to be a certain age to understand why any contemporary band would want to sound like Bread, the 70s soft-rock band. Bread’s founder and lead singer, the trebly-voiced David Gates, had a way of yoking bad poetry to gently hooky guitar riffs to create a sum greater than the parts. The ridiculously twisted syntax of “Baby, I’m-a want you/Baby, I’m-a need you/You’re the only one I care enough to hurt about,” paired with a lead guitar shading into a country-western mood, made for a memorable tune that rose to number three in 1971 (undoubtedly on the buying power of 10-year-old girls and their moms). When the molasses of Bread got too glutinous, there was always the palate-cleansing freshness of America, whose weird song about a nameless horse in a desert that was also an ocean (with its life underground and the perfect disguise above) made them more dangerous than David Gates. Their 1972 hit “Ventura Highway” rolled along in a sunny, feeling-no-pain way that most Bread songs didn’t, the proof being how great it felt (and still feels) to drive with that song on the radio. And when the whole cute-blond-sensitive-hippie-boy thing got old, you had the mature FM jolie laide of Crosby, Stills, and Nash (and Young). Which basically brought you back to Bread, who, because of their ubiquitousness on AM radio, were always more present in daily life. Certain moods and motifs seemed to devolve to Bread. There was something about the structural and musical underpinnings of those classic three-minute songs that even Gates’s shitty poetry couldn’t ruin. And Maplewood, a contemporary band from Brooklyn, understands this and can access it without baldly referencing or merely reproducing that influence.
Without a shred of irony—with, in fact, a sometimes embarrassing amount of sincerity—the band purveys an appealing hybrid canyon-rock/driving-with-the-radio-on sound. The layerings of vocal harmonies and strummy guitars on their self-titled debut album, just released on Tee Pee Records, recall classic acoustically driven bands like CSNY, America, and the Byrds; the romantically inclined lyrics and the sweetness with which they’re delivered put one in mind of the well-crafted, catchy hits that once spanned the Billboard Top 40: Sammy Johns’s “Chevy Van,” the Bellamy Brothers’s “Let Your Love Flow,” and Seals & Crofts’s “Summer Breeze” (with a nod to the Isley Brothers’s more sensuous, orientalized version).  There are also echoes of Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water” (the song, not the album) in the opening notes of “Sea Hero,” Elvis Costello’s “Party Girl” (from Armed Forces) in the bass line of “Little Dreamer Girl,” and even a mellow Stones moment in the burnished pedal steel of “Desert Queen.” But more than just the laundry list of influences/references, what’s really interesting is that the five musicians who make up the band come from a variety of other bands that sound nothing like this one: drummer Ira Elliot hails from the Fuzztones (later Nada Surf), guitarists Mark Rozzo and Steve Koester from Champale, Craig Schoen from Winterville, and Jude Webre from the Places. Ten-year music veterans, these guys produce a sound that is purposeful and accessible, informed and inviting.
“Although we had no preconceived ideas about how the album should sound,” says guitarist Craig Schoen, who also produced the album in his home studio, “the main idea was vocals, vocals, vocals. We have three lead singers, basically. On 85 to 90 percent of our songs, at least two of us sing all the way through. Sometimes it’s all three of us. There’s a definite vocal centerpiece to each song, but by the end it’s usually all of us.”
And the harmonies are indeed beautiful, but in a great pop song harmonies exist to serve lyrics, and here Maplewood has work to do. To put it over the top, this album needs an infusion of classic pop polyphony: words and music working together. With a few exceptions—for example, the inviting opening of “Indian Summer” (“The sand—feel the waves between your toes/Can you feel the way the old wind blows/From one to another/Care to discover/Indian summer”), perfectly matched to guitars and vocal harmonies—the lyrics tend to be background for the music, as in “Santa Fe”: “Santa Fe, Santa Fe/We lost the way/Santa Fe, hey, what should I say?/Show me the way, show me the way, show me the way.” The reason why those old 70s tunes were so memorable was that the pure sounds of the words as they fell together—the counterpoint of metered vowels and consonants—were as clever and shapely as the melodies. Those two elements working together create the seemingly effortless beauty of a great pop song. That’s something Maplewood has yet to do. But once they figure it out, look out.  From: https://brooklynrail.org/2005/01/music/maplewood-not-ashamed-to-sound-like-brea/

Möng - Dassun

The duo, formed by Lily Noroozi on vocals, accordion, and daf (Middle Eastern percussion), and Isao Bredel Samson on vocals and nyckelharpa (Swedish keyed fiddle), explores musical landscapes encompassing traditional, Western popular, medieval, Eastern, tribal, and even soul music. Möng's music is unique, captivating, dreamlike, and vibrant… While they use traditional instruments, their music is nonetheless contemporary. It opens a window to worlds where dreams and reality feed off each other, worlds in which they express themselves in "Izalien," a musical and imaginary language that reveals what words often struggle to convey… Their first album, "Finnen," has been well-received by a wide audience in numerous venues and festivals.  Translated from: https://harmonic-festival.com/project/1168/

In the vast world of experimental music, the duo Möng mixes several musical universes. Traditional, popular, medieval, and oriental, with a touch of electro, the two women blend all these musical styles and invent a new language to interpret them. On stage, Lily and Isao take the audience on a beautiful waking dream.
The girls of the duo Möng are nomads in every sense of the word. Their lifestyle is perfectly consistent with the music they perform. An electro-folk with very personal accents.
Lily and Isao sing together and play their music on traditional instruments such as the Daf (Middle Eastern percussion) or the Nyckelharpa, a Swedish bowed string instrument. For their first album "Finnen," the duo surrounded themselves with other musicians. The result evokes oriental and captivating accents and gives each instrument as much space as the voices.
Performed in Izalien, a musical and imaginary language, Möng's music is unique, dreamlike, and vibrant. "The goal of this language is to stop intellectualizing music and to speak from the heart. Each sound evokes an emotion, and everyone can interpret it according to their own feelings," explains Isao.  Translated from: https://www.franceinfo.fr/culture/musique/entrez-dans-l-039-univers-fantasmagorique-de-mong-les-musiciennes-de-la-foret_3345195.html 

Kansas - The Wall / Miracles out of Nowhere / Questions of My Childhood / Cheyenne Anthem

For a long time I considered Kansas to be more like a sidekick act in relation to those truly talented British progressive rock bands. This was probably due, in no small part, to the weak critical reception and tepid coverage that they seem to get from the mainstream rock press, many of whom dismiss them as “corporate rock” or whatever intellectually lazy label they use to dismiss certain acts. But as I listened extensively to Leftoverture while preparing for this review, I came to realize that this band may well equal some of these acts held in higher esteem. While it is i true that they draw heavily from contemporaries like Genesis, Jethro Tull, Yes, Pink Floyd, and Rush, they really have an art for mixing it up in a totally entertaining fashion. Kansas also has a knack for hitting the “sweet spot” when it comes to melody and harmony and they really make their own mark when it comes to true sonic value.
The second epiphany I had concerning the Leftoverture album was actually a question – can this be considered a religious album? There is no doubt that it is definitely philosophical, inspired and spiritual in the new-age lefty kind of way. But is it religious? If so, it may be the best type of religious album; implicit and artful with many subjects left in the form of a very good question, rather than a conclusion or directive.
Which brings us back to the critics of this album, many of which blast it for being a “concept album” without having a true concept. My statement to that is perhaps it is not a concept album at all, just a fine collection of songs with more universal themes than traditional rock and roll. These universal themes may reach beyond the typical conventions of the garden variety rock critic. Others have said the band tries to be too “arty” when they don’t have the talent to do so. To those who say this album doesn’t contain rhythm or composition, I say they simply do not like music.
The first side on the album contains a nice mix of styles, highlighted by “The Wall”. The guitar-led intro is just fantastic and nicely switches to the baroque-inspired verse with harpsichord-like keys that are later accented by strings and thumping rhythms. This song really feels influenced by a mixture of Yes and classic Genesis, but with a more terrestrial feel especially when it comes to Walsh’s lead vocals and Livgren’s poetic lyrics which pre-empted Roger Waters by about three years.
The album’s second half is where I feel the true genius lies. Although, I can’t quite articulate that genus in words (something that no doubt frustrated those harsh critics). Starting with “Opus Insert” which is an absolutely brilliant song to the ears but quite baffling (due to its title) to the mind. It may be an inside joke or puzzle left to be solved, but I’ll just stick to what I can report. It is extremely entertaining, starting with an odd, interesting organ that breaks into a heavier section, very good with thumping bass by Dave Hope. It is a “carpe diem” song with nicely strummed acoustic during the chorus followed by a majestic riff of violin/viola which morphs even further into a marching sound with drum rolls behind vibraphone and piano before returning again to odd and beautiful beginning and then synth-led ending.
Before you can catch your breath “Questions of My Childhood” kicks in with a wild and upbeat intro led by synth then organ. More philosophical themes are explored around maturing and realizing you never get all the answers. A great violin lead in the outtro by string man Robby Steinhardt sits on top of the intro synths, which nicely migrate into the background. “Cheyenne Anthem” is nearly a straight-forward folk song with a message, but it seems to have a deeper, poetic meaning as the verses go on (again, religious?)
Musically the song is once again brilliant, never getting bogged down by any predisposed “message”, with nice acoustic guitars and synth overtones and Jethro Tull-like folksy passages which lead to an upbeat section that sounds almost polka (although probably based on Native American tribal dance). This gives way to more Kansas-style riff before the big mid-section breaks back down to simple strummed acoustic guitars and haunting vocals in background.  From: https://www.classicrockreview.com/2011/12/1976-kansas-leftoverture/