Momma - Lucky

Smile Politely: I’ve been listening for a couple of years and some of my favorites are from Household Name. I love “Speeding 72.” I speed down our 72 all the time. So I’m kind of curious: What is 72?

Allegra Weingarten: I think it’s supposed to be the miles per hour, but I honestly don’t remember. I think it just rolled off the tongue, so we put that number there. 

Etta Friedman: I have a brief memory of us writing the words to that and being like “72 just sounds good, let’s just use it,” and then being like “Speeding 72 is like not even that fast.” But then I think we were just kind of like “It doesn’t actually matter, it just sounds good. Who cares?”

SP: I read that you signed to Polyvinyl after they cold-emailed you. I think that’s so cool. Are you willing to talk a little bit about that interaction? 

Weingarten: It was just in 2020, and we had released Two of Me earlier that year and I had just moved to New York. We kind of didn’t really know what our game plan was as a band. Two of Me kind of flopped; only because we couldn’t tour it and there was a lot going on in the world. We felt like it just wasn’t getting the attention it deserved. But we were gonna keep writing and making music regardless. 
And then it just so happened that Polyvinyl just emailed us. They were like, “Hey, we like your music, we’d love to get on a call.” We didn’t even have a manager yet. So we just talked to them and months later circled back once we had demos. We got a manager and a team together, and talked to them, and ended up landing on them and signing with them.

SP: What did a typical day in the studio look like for you while working on Welcome to My Blue Sky?

Friedman: I feel like we’re a band with weird routines. We like to set weird little things for us [in the studio] because it’s just entertaining. We did half the record at Studio G in New York and then the other half at our friend Sebastian [Jones’] studio, Wasatch Studios in Santa Monica. 
First of all, we had to bring lights, because the lighting there was not great. We all brought lights, literally like lamps from our room, to set a vibe. We brought color changing lights and stuff like that. We would put on King of the Hill at a certain point in the Studio G recording.
But typically, in terms of how we were actually doing it: Drums go first, then me and Allegra are just kind of there like playing along. We have a lot of trust with Aron [Kobayashi Ritch] and he knows how to achieve the sounds that we want and we definitely don’t necessarily know all that it takes to get that. So we get to go shopping for pedals and stuff like that, and I don’t know, get a good lunch. That’s pretty much our day in the studio. 

Weingarten: Yeah, we all have our things that we do when we’re not actively doing something. If Etta’s tracking guitars, Preston [Fulks] and I will play Geoguessr together. 

SP: Are there any songs that didn’t make the cut? Any we might hear later?

Weingarten: There’s plenty of songs that didn’t make the cut that will never see the light of day. Unfortunately, they’re not great songs, but there are a couple B-sides that we’ve kind of revitalized, and those will be heard eventually. I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say, to be completely honest, but yes, it will be heard in some capacity. 

SP: I know that you both met when you were younger in California, and it seems like you lived separately in New York and New Orleans for a few years. What did your collaboration look like during that time? Was there a home base?

Friedman: Going to school in separate places and even in our separate places, [we both] still needed musical outlets. We both like people to play music with, which I think really kept a spark going to generally keep making music, and the drive of it.  
And then — we have always, we just write. We would send each other little ideas, like “I think this would be a fun thing to work on together,” or “Do you have an idea for this?” And then, during winter break, spring break, summer break, we would always be back home in LA. And then that’s when we would flush things out, play some shows if we could, record if we could, stuff like that.

SP: You mentioned that Aron came into the process and was helpful. I read that Aron also produced Welcome to my Blue Sky. How did y’all get involved?

Weingarten: It’s really funny because Aron did our very first project when we were still in high school, called thanks come again. And Sebastian, too, who has the studio where we did Welcome to my Blue Sky. We just knew them from high school. I’ve known Sebastian since I was a kid.
We asked them to do Two of Me. Or, I guess we didn’t really know what it took to make an album at that point and we didn’t really know what a producer does. We had no idea. We weren’t doing pre-production, we weren’t demoing anything. We were kind of like, “Here are the songs, let’s go into a studio and do it.”
We enjoyed working with Aron so much that when we relocated to New York and we needed a bass player, we wanted him to be in the band. It also made sense to have him produce with us as well. He opened up our entire world in terms of how a record should be made. We did a really intense demo process with him, and we were writing with him. It really became like a true collaboration, and it still is now. The band definitely changed for the better when we brought Aron into the fold.

SP: What are your current influences? What are you listening to?

Friedman: Musically, I’ve been listening to this artist that Allegra showed me, Graham Hunt. My friend showed me this band called The Pillows. They’re from Japan, they’re really cool. And then I’ve been listening to Yeule and the new Alex G. I’d say, those are probably my four right now.

Weingarten: I’ve been listening to this band that we’re taking out this fall called Villager. I found this band on tour called Sandpit, and I’ve been slowly putting everyone I know onto them. They’re Australian and kind of sound like Pinback, but just really interesting, angular guitar music. It makes me want to write leads again, because I feel like most of the time when I write, I’m writing chords, like singer/songwriter stuff. Then last night, I got home from the bar, and I listened to Taylor Swift for an hour.

From: https://www.smilepolitely.com/music/momma-talks-recording-touring-and-musical-influences/ 

 

Mr. Elevator & The Brain Hotel - Sunshine Daydream

After five years as Mr. Elevator & The Brain Hotel, the Psych-Pop trio from Los Angeles has decided to shorten their moniker to just Mr. Elevator in conjunction with their sophomore release When the Morning Greets You. While there is no shortage of bands in the modern psych-pop scene, Mr. Elevator differentiates themselves by abjuring the electric guitar, instead creating their soundscapes with organs, synthesizers, electric pianos and bass guitar. The way that co-founders Thomas Dolas and Justin Martinez use effects on their keys and vocals create a sound that harkens back to the golden age of psychedelia with a heavy dose of The Doors. Though When the Morning Greets You does not stray very far from their debut album, Nico & Her Psychedelic Subconscious, it feels like a continuation of the musical journey that that first album started the listener out on.
When the Morning Greets You plays out like a journey through someone’s day-in-the-life. The album opens with “When the Morning Greets You With A Smile,” an upbeat track where the listener can’t help but feel that someone has just woken up in a great mood. The subsequent tracks “Madeline” and “Sunshine Daydream” continue in the vein of up-tempo and optimism. It’s on “Dreamer” and “Are You Hypnotized” that one feels like the reality of the day starts to set in. The waltzing polka tempos of the tracks bring to mind mad carnivals and haunted houses. After the instrumental interludes of “A Lullaby” and “Intro” the rest of the album feels like a descent into madness. The tempo and key effects remain largely the same and tend to meander quite a bit through much of the second half of the album creating a common thread to follow to the last song. The album ends with the appropriately named “Ending”, which puts the listener in mind that the end of the journey has come upon us. The organ drones along in the background as the singer laments how “Everyday you’re getting old/There’s nothing you can do/ It all comes down to you”.
All in all, Mr. Elevator’s sophomore album doesn’t bring much new to the table in regards to innovation within psych-pop, but it still remains a solid album. Feeling like you are being taken on a journey or living out someone else’s day is not something that can be done easily, and When the Morning Greets You manages to not only pull it off but make it sound easy. Like most groups under the umbrella of psychedelia, it is also probable that ingesting or inhaling certain things might even increase the experience.  From: https://glidemagazine.com/179868/mr-elevator-spin-psych-pop-dreams-morning-greets-album-review/

 

Jex Thoth - Obsidian Night

Alchemical doom. That’s the tag I read the lead vocalist use to describe California-based Jex Thoth’s sound in a Decibel Magazine piece on the band. Sounds about right. I don’t love genre tags, but this band was causing me all kinds of confusion before alchemical doom clicked with me and made sense of the tunes on their debut full-length here. This isn’t exactly proto-doom – but fans of all things heavy, slow and early 70s should dig it. And it’s not just throwback psychedelia because there’s something more, well, pagan involved in the acid-drenched, forest-dwelling jams here. Alchemical doom, then.  But genre tags don’t matter and I’m sorry for dragging that old skeleton out of the closet. On to the music.
It’s awesome. I can’t stop listening to it. You may recognize the name of a band called Totem. Well, they changed their name to Jex Thoth (the singer’s stage name). So if you picked up Totem’s debut EP (also quality), get this. Another reason to check this out: Albert Witchfinder (ReverendBizarre) provided the cover art for the album. For those of you unfamiliar with Totem, the band is fronted by a female vocalist and she plays a central role in the proceedings, musically and in the mix, which might be a deal breaker for you if you don’t particularly jibe with her unique and powerful clean style. (At times friends in the car thought I was listening to some unreleased Jefferson Airplane track). The music is heavy and laid way back, led by organs and Sabbath-inspired riffs, full of flutes, spaced-out effects and synths, and a generally fuzzed-out, drugged, lumbering but light-headed feeling. There are bongos, too, just so you know that healthy amounts of green were involved.  From: https://yourlastrites.com/2008/04/28/jex-thoth-jex-thoth-review/

Knifeworld - Destroy The World We Love

Q: I know you were working as a solo artist after having been in several bands over the years. Did you call yourself Knifeworld back then or did you only come up with the band name when you formed the band as it is today?

Kavus Torabi: I wasn’t really working as a solo artist. I’d recorded an album of songs and I suppose I felt a little wary of putting it out as ‘Kavus Torabi’, it had a few guests and friends on it anyway, so I called it Knifeworld. I was a full time member of Cardiacs while I was making it and the plan, originally, had been for Tim Smith  (Cardiacs leader) to play bass in the live band . Nonetheless the awful circumstances that befell Tim put Cardiacs on hold indefinitely. Once the album came out in 2009, I put the band together to promote it without any real plans as to what would happen next but after a few gigs we realised we really had something and so the band was born.

Q: Has Knifeworld always had eight members or have you just gradually kept adding them as your vision has expanded?

KT: We started out as a six piece, with a different druQer and bassist. It was after we released the Clairvoyant Fortnight EP in 2012, on which Chloe had overdubbed multiple horns, that we thought it’d be fun to do some gigs where we could replicate that sound live. Charlie, our then new bass player, knew Josh and Nicki and brought them over to rehearsals. It was never the plan to be an eight piece. As you can imagine, for an underground band, it’s pretty impractical. Nonetheless, I’ve never been one to let practicality stand in the way of an insane idea, besides, once I heard the band with the the horn section it was like taking crack, there was no going back. Nicki, who played tenor sax on the last album, had to leave and was replaced by Olly who plays baritone sax, that changed the sound a great deal. It’s such an unusual horn section, Alto, Baritone and bassoon. It sounds really unique and it’s wonderful to be able to write for them. They’re a lot more up front on this record,  it’s almost as if the horn section play the part of a guitar at some points. I sort of wrote myself out a little. There’s bits where the horns play the chords and riffs while the guitar sort of weaves a line through them.

Q: What does the name Knifeworld mean to you? Is there a story or meaning behind it?

KT: There’s not much of a story. My friend Jo Spratley came up with it at the tail end of an improbable conversation at about four in the morning. As soon as I heard those two words together, I knew it had to be the name of the thing I was working on. It had such a spooky resonance.

Q: What is the intended meaning of the new record being called Bottled Out of Eden?

KT: The title can be interpreted in a number of ways, it seemed to shiQer with a strange magic. I had the title before I’d written any of the songs. That’s always been the case, I have the title for the next album too. Once I’d come up with it then it gave me a general idea about the shape and vibe the album was going to have. It helps give a cohesiveness to the material because, even if fairly abstract and nebulous, you can identify what will and won’t work with the album as a whole. I wrote some songs that didn’t fit with the overall idea so I put them aside to use for something else. Nothing ever gets wasted.

Q: To my ears, Bottled Out of Eden sounds a bit more accessible than The Unravelling. Were you trying to write something that would iQediately grab the listener this time around? (It almost seems like there’s a pop vibe there.)

KT: Absolutely. We wanted this to be our pop album. After our last record, The Unravelling, which was pretty maudlin and introspective, I wanted to make something joyous and upbeat. The real events that surrounded the making of it tried to pull it in a more melancholy direction so it ended up being a bit of both. I think it’s our best album.

Q: Do you write all of Knifeworld’s songs alone or does the whole band get together and write or how does it work?

KT: I write all the songs, and generally the arrangements too although I gladly ceded control a little on this one and we worked on a lot of the arrangements together. I’m a fairly benevolent control freak but this line up of the band has been playing together for a while and we’re all used to each other’s idiosyncratic way of playing. Everyone gets what Knifeworld is about so it’s more a case of showing the other guys the tunes, suggesting a general arrangement and saying, “Well, you know what to do”. The buck stops with me, and I’ll certainly be very vocal about something that isn’t working but this album felt far more like a group effort.

Q: Do you usually write the lyrics or the music first or do they come to you at the same time or?

KT: Almost always music first. Usually as I’m writing the melodies, little phrases and lines will appear and sometimes I’ll keep them. That said, If I happen upon little phrases that I like, I’ll make a note of them to use later in lyrics if I can. I tend to talk far too much and, owing to the law of averages, while most of what I say is largely pointless and annoying, occasionally I might find myself on a particularly florid or colourful rant, and stop myself and say “Oh, that’s good…I’ll keep that” and make a note of it before continuing to talk at whoever happens to be in my vicinity.

Q: How old were you when you wrote your first song? Do you remember what it was called?

KT: A piano turned up in our house when I was seven and I wrote a very rudimentary tune on it called Highway Hotel but I’d been inventing tunes in my head for as long back as I can remember. I used to have theme tunes for all my toys, as if they had their own TV programs.

From: https://loveispop.com/interviews/an-exclusive-interview-with-kavus-torabi-of-knifeworld/ 

Delaney & Bonnie - Poor Elijah - Live TV 1969

I say Delaney and Bonnie (D&B) were amazing. Why? Because they were such a great band? Well, sure they were. But while quite popular for a time (late ’60’s – early ’70’s), they were never in the top echelon of rock/blues bands nor did they have a string of hits.
So, amazing at least as much for how many players came into and out of their band or were associated with them. The short list includes Dave Mason, Joe Cocker, Clarence White, Duane Allman, Gram Parsons, Rita Coolidge, Billy Preston, Tina Turner, Eric Clapton, Bobby Whitlock, George Harrison. And briefly, Jimi Hendrix.
I think of Delaney and Bonnie as the rock n’ roll “glue.” In a sense they were similar to John Mayall in England who, while widely regarded in his own right, is likely best known for the guitarists (Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Peter Green) who played with him.
So who were Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett? Delaney was a Mississippi-born singer/songwriter who moved to LA in the Sixties and became a member of a group called the Shindogs, an in-house band for an American music variety show called Shindig. He later became a producer, cutting albums with the likes of Etta James and the Staples Singers.
Shindig was similar to Britain’s Top of the Pops and guests included The Stones, The Beatles, the Four Tops and pretty much anybody who was hot in music at that time. The Shindogs were no slouches themselves. Other members included Glen Campbell, Billy Preston, James Burton, and Leon Russell
Illinois-born Bonnie Lynn O’Farrell started singing backup at thirteen years old, ultimately becoming the first white female singer to work with Ike and Tina Turner. She moved to LA, met Delaney at a Shindogs gig and married him within the week.
I saw Bonnie recently on a documentary (Eric Clapton – The 1970’s Review) and boy, she is one funny, outrageous hot ticket. Also a songwriter, she co-wrote (with Delaney and Leon Russell), the classic “Superstar,” and (with Eric and Delaney) Clapton’s “Let it Rain.”
Delaney’s work in the Shindogs provided him with connections, enabling him to secure a contract with Memphis’ Stax records, home to, among others, Otis Redding. In 1969, Delaney and Bonnie released their debut album, Home. It was part of a flurry of Stax records and was somewhat lost in the shuffle. Among the musicians on the album were Leon Russell and another Tulsa guy, bassist Carl Radle.
But it was their second album, The Original Delaney and Bonnie and Friends (also 1969) that got attention and great reviews. On hearing it, George Harrison offered them a contract on Apple but for whatever reason, that never happened.
Legend (and Wikipedia) has it that Delaney later taught George Harrison how to play slide guitar. But Delaney himself says that no, George could already play and Delaney just gave him some tips on his style. Maybe George considered that “teaching.”
Eric Clapton said he, “immediately loved the album”, calling it “hardcore R&B and very soulful, with great guitar playing and a fantastic horn section.” In addition to their usual coterie of musicians, joining them were Memphis-born Bobby Whitlock (keys, vocals) and Rita Coolidge. Whitlock “learned Hammond organ peering over Booker T’s shoulder at Stax studios.”
Eric Clapton, by now tired of long, endless jams, had formed the band Blind Faith with Steve Winwood and Ginger Baker. This band toured in 1969 with Delaney and Bonnie as their supporting act. Eric had arranged this based on hearing an early acetate of the album.
Clapton, wearying of the egos and the drama of his supergroup, found himself hanging out with Delaney’s band where he enjoyed much greater camaraderie. Bonnie says Clapton and Baker were just worn out by the Cream thing. But the label wanted another Cream and so, put them on the road.
Clapton later said, “For me, going on with Blind Faith after Delaney and Bonnie was really, really tough, because I thought they were miles better than us.” Clapton dug D&B so much he later toured with them. (I think too, that Clapton was at this point very much sick of being “the guy” and just wanted to be a sideman for a while). This tour was recorded and the result is a 1970 album called Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, On Tour with Eric Clapton.
In addition to Clapton, this band included Dave Mason (Winwood’s Traffic bandmate), Bobby Keys and Jim Price (Stones horn players), George Harrison (on the English leg of the tour), and Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, and Jim Gordon.  From: https://musicenthusiast.net/2016/07/15/the-amazing-story-of-delaney-and-bonnie-and-friends-pt-1/

Cadillac Sky - Live at Romp Festival 2008

Cadillac Sky should be a lot more tired. It’s early Saturday afternoon at MerleFest and the band–Bryan Simpson, Matt Menefree, Andrew Moritz, Ross Holmes and newest addition David Mayfield–has already logged two performances on the day, including a bleary-eyed 9:45 a.m. set on the main stage, not to mention a show on Friday. (By the way, they killed it at the Saturday morning slot.)
MerleFest is kind of like South By Southwest for bluegrass bands. Everywhere you turn, there’s music being played, and many of the buzzed-about bands play multiple shows each day. For Cadillac Sky, the excitement is nothing new. Or, then again, maybe it is.
Back in 2002, when Cadillac Sky formed in Texas around Simpson’s songwriting and the bluegrass chops of Menefree, Moritz and Holmes, the band featured veteran bluegrass flatpicker Mike Jump on guitar. After a couple of outings on the conservative Skaggs Family label (2007’s Blind Man Walking and 2008’s Gravity’s Our Enemy), it became obvious that something needed to change.
Simpson, somewhat perplexed at having to find a new guitarist, called to see if Tyler Grant, a versatile bluegrass guitarist, wanted the gig. Grant declined but sent a list of serious recommendations. “At the very top of the list in triple bold was David Mayfield,” says Simpson. Grant knew he was the perfect guy for Cadillac Sky and when Simpson and the rest of the band heard Mayfield play, “the auditions were over.”
With a renewed faith in Cadillac Sky–Simpson’s got a side gig writing songs for country artists like Blake Shelton and Billy Currington–the band was reborn. “Once you lose the record deal, you do whatever you want,” Simpson says. “Because what’s the worst that can happen?” With Mayfield onboard, the band seems completely reenergized. Their live show is a festering, rambunctious affair with Mayfield leading the charge and riling up the rest of the band.
In another symbolic gesture of change, the band hired The Black Keys’s Dan Auerbach to record Letters In The Deep. When I recently spoke to Auerbach about his band’s newest album (Brothers), I also asked him about Cadillac Sky. “I think with Cadillac Sky, I sort of was there to give them the confidence to record it [more experimentally] because modern bluegrass is not very organic,” Auerbach said. “It was weird because they had been so trained to think about it, and I was there to just tell them to be at ease, sit in a circle, and record these songs. If you feel the song needs electric guitar, let’s put it on there. If you want to try it with a fuzz pedal, let’s try that, too. Here’s this drum kit; you can play that, also. I introduced those guys to the Mellotron, so I think it was all over then.”
And the record plays like a cross-section of old-time bluegrass and, well, something else. “As far as a writer, I feel like I’m just now starting to write songs that I really want to write,” Simpson says, citing the more contemporary influence of songwriters like Jeff Tweedy. “You have to break through that mold of how have much of yourself you can put on tape,” he says.  From: https://americansongwriter.com/sessions-cadillac-sky/

The Eagles - Certain Kind Of Fool

“Certain Kind Of Fool” was a song co-written by Randy Meisner for the Eagles’ second studio album, the outlaw-themed Desperado. The idea for the album originated with Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Jackson Browne and J.D. Souther, who were inspired by stories they’d read about the Doolin-Dalton Gang. Desperado was recorded in 1973 at Island Studios in London with producer, Glyn Johns. Although Henley and Frey were the co-writers of “Certain Kind Of Fool,” it was Randy’s idea to include a song that was a play on words:
Glenn Frey: “We got to doing this outlaw album and we had eight songs finished and we needed two more. The idea Randy came up with was how the guy became an outlaw or how he became a guitar player.”
Randy recalled that he’d started “Certain Kind Of Fool,” but Don and Glenn helped finish it:
Randy: “I had the beginning of it but not the body of the song. So in London they helped me finish it and it turned out real good. It fit with what they were portraying in the theme.” 
Only in the Netherlands was the track released as a single. “Certain Kind Of Fool” spent six weeks on the Dutch charts, peaking at #14.
The Dutch critics loved Randy, so it’s no surprise that “Certain Kind Of Fool was released as a single in the Netherlands. They loved the song and they loved his performances of it when the Eagles toured there in 1973. One of those critics was Gertjen Van Ommen, the pop critic for the Dutch paper, De Tijd. On March 10th, 1973, Ommen saw the Eagles perform at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He felt Randy’s performance of “It Wasn’t For The Money” (aka “Certain Kind Of Fool”) was the pièce de résistance’ of the evening:
“In ‘How Long,’ a solid Poco-style song, they took the aptitude test in close harmony [but] the subsequent song was, as far as I was concerned, their ‘pièce de résistance’: ‘It Wasn’t For The Money,’ with Randy in the vocal lead. What a chillingly beautiful lament that boy can make. Not tremulous, but a sound that would elicit sympathy even from a regiment of mercenaries.” 
“Certain Kind Of Fool” would become a staple at Eagles concerts throughout 1973, then it seemingly disappeared from Eagles setlists. Randy never performed it during his solo career or afterwards. Perhaps he felt that “Certain Kind Of Fool,” with its outlaw theme, only fit within the context of the Desperado album. When it was performed live, it usually preceded “Outlaw Man,” just as it does on Desperado. 

From: https://randymeisnerretrospective.com/2023/02/15/certain-kind-of-fool/ 

Simon & Garfunkel - For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her

"For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" is a song written by Paul Simon and recorded by American music duo Simon & Garfunkel on their third studio album, Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme (1966). It is sung solely by Art Garfunkel, and consists mainly of his vocals with heavy reverb and a 12-string acoustic guitar. The lyrics concern finding a lover, although Simon once characterized the subject matter as being about a "belief", rather than about a specific individual.
"For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" has sometimes been thought to be named after poet Emily Dickinson, who is referenced in another song on the record, "The Dangling Conversation". It has also been considered to be inspired by Simon's relationship with Kathy Chitty, which is forefront in "America". "For Emily" is more lyrically comparable with "Homeward Bound" and "Kathy’s Song" in that it details finding solace in a lover.
While other songs, such as "The Sound of Silence", had taken months for Simon to complete writing, others, such as "For Emily", were written in a single night. In their 1968 appearance on Kraft Music Hall, Simon explained that "For Emily" is not about an imaginary girl Emily, but about a belief, while the song "Overs" (from the album Bookends) is about the loss of that belief.
"For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" has been called an "ethereal showpiece for Art Garfunkel", containing a "mystical quality, created not only by the timbre of the guitar, but also by some of the rhythmic and pitch elements." The song's production is simple, and consists mainly of a 12-string acoustic guitar played by Simon and various studio techniques, such as reverberation and unison overdubs on the vocals.
The song is composed in the key of F major, and is played by Paul Simon with the capo on 3rd fret, which means the harmonies are in relative D. The song barely lasts two minutes, covering five verses. The first three employ "ornate imagery to tell of his dream of finding his lover", the fourth is an instrumental interlude, and the fifth finds the protagonist awakening to find his lover with him. The melody consists of five brief phrases, with the first three being descending series of thirds. "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her" draws on the Mixolydian scale, which is identical to the major scale but with its seventh step lowered. James Bennighof, in his book The Words and Music of Paul Simon, considers the composition exceptionally flexible in regard to its harmonic and melodic scheme: "Simon feels free to vary the syllable and accent pattern of the text lines within the verses, and he adjusts the rhythms and pitches in order to accommodate these alterations."  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Emily,_Whenever_I_May_Find_Her 

Fairport Convention - Flowers of the Forest

“The Flowers of the Forest” is an ancient Scottish folk song commemorating the Scottish army's defeat at the Battle of Flodden Field on 9 September 1513. The original author of the lyrics is unknown; however, the melody was recorded c.1615-1625 in the John Skene of Halyards manuscript.
The Battle of Flodden Field was a clash in the War of the League of Cambrai between the Scottish army led by King James IV and the English Army under the command of Thomas Howard, the Second Duke of Norfolk. According to the English chronicler Edward Hall, “The battle was cruel, none spared other, and the king himself fought valiantly.” A contemporary estimate of the carnage was approximately 10,000 Scots were killed, with no noble family left untouched by the carnage, while the English lost 1,500. It was the largest military confrontation between the two kingdoms. Also, the Scottish King James IV was killed in the battle and was the last British monarch to suffer such a fate.
“The Flowers of the Forest” was recorded by Fairport Convention for their fifth album “Full House” (UK Island ILPS 9130 / US A&M SP-4265) issued on 10 July 1970. The LP was recorded between February and April 1970 at Sound Techniques, Chelsea, London and vocals recorded at Vanguard Studios, New York City in April 1970, with Joe Boyd producing and John Wood at the console. ‘Rolling Stone’ magazine also described the group as "... an English equivalent to The Band ... they have soaked up enough of the tradition of their countryfolk that it begins to show all over, while they still maintain their roots in rock".  From: https://www.facebook.com/groups/922344057869541/posts/6573274316109792/

Róis - Feel Love

It’s hard to put Róis into words, to try to explain anything she does without tainting the experience somehow. You simply have to partake in the tragedy that’s taking place all around you. Like Landless, Lankum, John Francis Flynn, et al., she’s repurposed history and given it wings. And this is ancient, pre-Christian stuff– with the kind of sounds you don’t hear every day.  
Mo Lean is a tribute to, and reimagining of, the pre-Christian tradition of ‘keening’. Like charismatic meditation or talking in tongues, grieving becomes the griever. Language deconstructs into ritual.
As Brecht once asked, in the dark times will there also be singing? In the same vein, ‘What Do You Say’ constitutes an extraordinary opening – once more, closer to theatre than anything else, where a voice wavers, hovers at the enormity of it all. The stuttery, manic repetition evokes Beckett’s Not I, or Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis: ‘What…what…do you…do you say?’
Róis’ voice is astounding – one that will often quiver, as though circling a trauma amid a backdrop of murderous, patriarchal Catholicism and British colonialism. And on one level, it’s horrific, like listening to someone screaming. But, beyond this, there’s healing. And you don’t just ‘listen’ to Róis; you absorb, and finally transform into, Róis.
It’s as though Bjork was actually from Fermanagh and got really into ‘keening’. Sometimes, the production sounds a bit like Sampha or James Blake, with bassy, post-Dub synth. Radiohead’s Amnesiac lingers in the background. Bells abound – like the ushering in of change amid layers of history, not to mention the ubiquitous Angelus on Irish TV.   
This isn’t the stuff of ‘singles’, though ‘Caoine’ is the official ‘single’–  an old keening song with a salient, bassy synth and an earthiness that would have made sense to someone in pre-Christian times. The motif of bells evokes Nicolas Jaar’s micro-deep electro, not to mention Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells. It all feels like the end of something.
Maybe ecstatic song is the most appropriate response to the things we can hardly say. ‘Oh Lovely Appearance of Death’ plays again on our heightened responses to trauma of death. We hear a beautiful folksong, which also alludes to Bach’s Aria, ‘Come, Sweet Death’. ‘The Death Notices’ similarly plays on our cultural misunderstanding of death, replete with irony: ‘Hello and welcome to the death notices. We are sorry to inform you but there will be no death notices this morning’.
‘Feel Love’ is a helter-skelter, electro-pop song with a Brat-ish, manic vocal. The song hangs between deathly nihilism and jubilant escapism: ‘I’m happy now! I’m happy now! I’m happy now!’ Both song and album culminate in a mock-symphonic ‘ending’, not dissimilar to the piano at the end of The Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’– a nod to George Martin, perhaps.  
We don’t quite know where we are anymore, what century it’s supposed to be. She could go anywhere with this; maybe she’ll drop the concept altogether. Regardless, Mo Lean is a masterful album– with incantatory soundscapes that leave you for dead.  From: https://klofmag.com/2025/01/rois-mo-lean/

Big Scary Indian - Jacko

Big Scary Indian, the noise rock project fronted and helmed by Roshan Reddy, has served as an experimental ground for its creator in the years since its inception, allowing him to bridge and put into conversation the dichotomy of sounds he has loved since he was a teenager. The result has been a glistening, complex, and distinctly euphonious catalogue, bursting out in moments of beauty through the dissonance that the genre is typically known for.
From the time Reddy was a small child, his fascination with music was a central part of his life. His older brother had a massive collection of CDs and records, which introduced him to bands like Fugazi and jazz legends like Miles Davis. Moreover, his obsession with movie soundtracks, such as the score for Jurassic Park done by John Williams, made him turn to the piano for the first time, attempting to tinker out an imitation of what he heard in the film.
His mother saw this budding interest and enrolled him in formal lessons. Yet learning out of a method book did not appeal to young Reddy. He craved spontaneity and originality, and he quickly dropped the lessons as a result.
He continued to tinker with the piano at home, but when his brother left for college and left behind one of his guitars, Reddy became consumed by the instrument. In the same way he had emulated Williams’ compositions on the piano as a kid, he began to peel back the layers of his favorite artists, attempting to learn every aspect of his favorite songs by ear alone.

“I would say guitar played a huge role in influencing what I was trying to achieve musically. I mean, you hear this person and they're doing something that's incredible on their instrument to your 14 year old ears. You're like, ‘How do you do that? What the hell's going on?’ And then you just start peeling away at it. Once that enters your musical palette, you can kind of never go back.”

As he continued to be entranced by the guitar, he dove deeper into online rabbit holes, with his taste gradually diverging into two distinct paths. On one side, he fell in love with acts like Mahavishnu Orchestra, Frank Zappa, Paco de Lucia, and King Crimson, attempting to decode the complexities of their music with his own hands and instrument.
On the other, his friend group had instilled in him a love for some of the poppier, more indie-inspired sounds that were percolating on the East Coast at that time; groups like Matt and Kim, The Fruit Bats, and Man Man also held a strong grip on his creative yearnings.
Big Scary Indian, therefore, has from its very beginning represented an act of puzzle-solving for Reddy: determining where and how these two diverged paths can meet through his own artistic expression.

“My whole way of empathizing with music has been trying to figure out– How do I marry technique to writing music that I actually care about or that strikes me emotionally? I think that's always been a puzzle I'm trying to solve with my own music. I don't know if I'm successful at it, but it's something I'm trying [to do]... That's sort of been the dichotomy because there's stuff I really really love and appreciate, but from a more technical perspective, many would look at it as juvenile or delinquent or unsophisticated.”

A tour through Big Scary Indian’s catalog works tells an interesting tale in the context of this dichotomy. Their earliest work, 2019’s EP Chicome Malinalli, features a number of motifs and techniques in relatively undeveloped form that re-appear in their later works, taking on the experimental bent that inspired Reddy to begin making music in the first place.
Their 2022 album, Be Holding No Bodies, represents the first effort that Reddy feels is truly cohesive. Through incorporating sound collage techniques and leaning even further into the tenuous balance between the noisier and the more melodious tracks on the project, Big Scary Indian’s first full album feels like a deeply intentional sonic push into the atmosphere they had begun laying out on their first project.
Their 2025 EP, Road to Wrath, therefore represents the next step in this journey. Originally conceived as an album, the band decided to split the project into two separate EPs, joining together the three songs that were part of Road to Wrath as a result of their shared energy.
Between the two EPs, Reddy’s vocals are featured more heavily than they have ever been in his past work, signifying an increased comfortability not only with his own voice but also with implementing the sort of precise sonic vision he seeks. Yet insofar as it maintains some of the sonic texturing and coloration that defined their previous two projects, their new work remains firmly lodged somewhere between the diverging paths in Reddy’s taste.
For Reddy, this is indeed a puzzle to be solved (or at least one that is worth trying to). He sees his continued and consistent output as the mark of an artist who is deeply committed to this act of entanglement and, by extension, his craft.
As they await the release of their newest EP, Reddy and his drummer have begun working on their next album, aiming to further the sonic developments they undertook during their last writing process.

“I want to push our envelope expression-wise and part-writing-wise. That's sort of the goal with this. But we're also in no rush. I have a desire to create the art because I want to create the art, not because I want to boost my career to the next level in music [laughs]. I don't care. I think all the bands that I love today the most, like Deerhoof or Boris, they just released a record every year for like 30 years. And now they're doing cool as hell shit… I want to just follow a similar path.”

From: https://www.melt-fm.com/artist-profiles/big-scary-indian-interview 

 

Richard & Linda Thompson - The Choice Wife / Died For Love / Layla / First Light

After the release of their third album, Pour Down Like Silver, in November 1975, Richard and Linda Thompson took an extended break from music. They spent much of the next three years living in sufi communes in London and Norfolk.
This prolonged sabbatical was punctuated by occasional session work by Richard Thompson and a short tour in 1977 in which the duo performed mostly new, overtly religious material and were backed by musicians who were also practitioners of the Sufi faith.
In 1978 Richard Thompson accepted an invitation from Joe Boyd to play on Julie Covington's eponymous solo debut album. The musicians hired for this album included highly regarded American session players Neil Larsen, Willie Weeks and Andy Newmark, who had also been working in the studio with George Harrison. According to Boyd the three Americans were hugely impressed by Thompson's playing and expressed a wish to work with him. Boyd also knew that Thompson had some new material and talked Thompson's manager Jo Lustig into taking advantage of the situation: "The material is there and these guys love Richard, they’re gonna kill to play with him. It would be great."
The resulting First Light was the fourth album by Richard and Linda Thompson and marked the resumption of their recording career. It is dominated by spiritual songs, some of them direct translations of sufi and Quranic texts.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Light_(Richard_and_Linda_Thompson_album)

The Rolling Stones - Ventilator Blues

When Exile on Main St. was released in 1972, I was thirteen. The creepy album cover freaked me out, before learning what it was. This was the follow-up to Warhol’s amazing Sticky Fingers zipper album art. It is a photograph by another great artist, Robert Frank. (Frank also directed the Stones’ unreleased documentary film of their 1972 tour Cocksucker Blues).
The photo titled Tattoo Parlor, 8th Avenue (a collage of circus side-show freaks) was shot by the late, great Robert Frank in 1958. It’s an outtake from his book The Americans. One of the featured photos in the composite (of Congo the Jungle Creep) was taken by the legendary Diane Arbus. The freakiest one is Three Ball Charlie who out-does a chipmunk by fitting three balls of various sizes in his wide mouth!
I also didn’t realize the album title’s significance until later – you can’t really hide in exile in the “main street” of a town. The photos of the band are ironically taken in the seedy Main St. section of Los Angeles, an unusual place for rich tax exiles to be seen.  (The Stones album title Beggar’s Banquet was another strange pun. Beggars don’t usually get invited to a banquet, to which they must R.S.V.P.).
Reluctantly leaving their beloved home in England (for tax reasons – hence, the title Exile…) the Stones became outsiders more than ever before – not unlike the outcasts on their album cover. Although they were the hottest band in the world, they were not logistically able to live normally, or within society at all. Of course, being The Rolling Stones, they took this situation to an extreme.
Most ironically, these wealthy tax exiles recorded their double album in depravity and squalor in the basement of the magnificent decaying waterfront mansion Nellcôte, which Keith rented in the south of France. Their only extravagant expense was on drugs. It was an endless all-day/all-night party of heroin, friends, women, children, strangers and criminals. Unpaid drug dealers eventually stole the band’s instruments and ratted them out to the authorities, hence another exile – from France.
The shambolic, yet cohesive result was a ragged swagger of blues, gospel, country, soul and rock n’ roll – all extremely tight, yet seemingly falling apart. (Allegedly, the Beatles’ album title Rubber Soul was an extension of their mocking moniker for the Stones, “Plastic Soul.” This was supposedly the way black musicians referred to Mick Jagger). However, there is nothing plastic about Exile. It all sounds raunchy and free – true anarchy.  It’s amazing that they got one album out of this sordid situation, let alone a double disc with so many miraculous moments. It was a chance for us to hear gritty music without a bearded guy wearing a cowboy regalia singing it. Instead, we got the grungy glamour of Jagger singing in an American southern accent, and the heroin chic of Keith! As much as Jagger tried to be authentic in his words and phrasing, Mick, Keith and all the musicians (at times swapping instruments) created an entirely unique twist on several familiar genres, with a magical glimmer lighting up the darkness.
There were frequent absences by various band members, both mentally and physically. Mick (who was now married to Bianca), Charlie and Bill commuted each day from their homes to Nellcôte. Keith (living at the mansion with Anita Pallenberg) didn’t make it downstairs to many sessions due to his dates with heroin – yet despite all of this, a double album ensued. This was not unlike the intermittent absences to the studio by the Beatles, and the fractured recording of their double (white) album in 1968. It’s amazing that both bands produced so much impactful material out of their most disorganized recording sessions.
Recording began at Mick’s home in England, Stargroves and at Olympic Studios in 1969.  Nine songs were completed in the basement of Nellcôte. The album was produced by Jimmy Miller from America (who played drums and more on some of the tracks when band members were absent). It was mixed in L.A. in early 1972, mostly by Jagger mostly by Jagger, who in hindsight thinks it sounds “lousy” although it has a “particular feeling.” At the time, Mick felt that it was his responsibility to finish the record himself, rather than have it done by “drunks and junkies.” Public reaction (as with all true masterpieces) was general disdain. Over the years, closed minds opened to finally realize its glory.   From: https://madelinex.com/2022/07/16/exile-on-main-st/

 

 

Trippa - Sorry / Speechless

Released in October 2007 and first available at the Summers' End Progressive Rock Festival is the tremendous seventeen track collection on Trippa's 'debut' album Sorry (Tigermoth Records. These songs, originally recorded in the late 1990s have long been awaited by those following the artists. Rob Reed and Christina Booth wrote and performed the tracks prior to their most recent collaboration in Magenta, but the material is timeless, highly accessible female fronted rock. Trippa's line-up is rounded out by Ryan Ashton (drums) and Rhiannon Stundon (backing vocals). 
Listeners will of course hear reworked versions of the four tracks on the 1999 Trippa EP and these indeed do sound great. But what enthusiasts are likely to be most delighted with are the rare tracks that have been locked up for almost ten years and are now only seeing the light of day.
Christina's vocal clarity and tremendous power heard across a wide range of Magenta's tracks is already evident in the classic rock music of the 1990's Trippa. Listen to her crystalline vocals soar above the keyboards in "Alone." In addition to the stunning track "Speechless" now frequently performed by the Magenta lineup, and the everso Trippa classic rock styled "Drowning," a variety of straight rock, electronica, funk and John Barryesque Bond Theme music graces the album.  From: https://musicaldiscoveries.com/digest/digest.php?a=viewr&id=739

Joe Hertler & The Rainbow Seekers - The Garden

Joe Hertler & The Rainbow Seekers will make a sprightly young groove doctor out of anyone. With spectacular energy pulsating from every member of the band, the Rainbow Seekers could illuminate the very chambers of Heaven. Lead singer Joe Hertler splashes through lyrical puddles of golden rain, leaving his audience wearing flowery crowns and bubbling smiles. A ride on the Rainbow will take you across the mountains of Motown, through the fjords of folk, over the archipelagos of Americana, and-at last-into a funky firth, where only the fiercest of friendships can be found.
The Rainbow Seekers began their historic quest 8 years ago, revolving around the pure, unadulterated songwriting of their fearless leader, Joe Hertler. Ryan Hoger was the first among the Seekers to find this lonely songsmith and recognize the twinkling magic in his beard. The young boy gave up all his earthly possessions (besides his guitar, of course) and became the first disciple of the Rainbow. With this, the core of the Rainbow was thereby established, and it didn’t take long for the Rainbow Seekers to continue their expansion. Multi-instrumentalist and notable auxiliary percussion maestro Micah Bracken journeyed from the bowels of Atlantis when he heard tell of the Rainbow, and the earth trembled as saxophonist and all-around badass Aaron Stinson descended from Olympus on a golden rainbow of his own. Then came thunder from the depths of space and as it picked up the bass, a soft exhale escaped the lips of every princess within a hundred moons, “Bambis,” they cooed. All the while, on the other ends of the earth, a young boy was hard at work, honing and sharpening his sticks for the day that the Rainbow would come his way, and when it landed at his door, Ryan McMahon climbed aboard.
Since the early days, their quest has brought them across the nation and upon such noble gatherings as Bonnaroo, Electric Forest, MoPop, and Summer Camp. As you'll know if you've seen the band, seeking the proverbial Rainbow is all about the live performance. "The live show is the purpose of the band. This is why we make music. Playing music is a symbiotic process, the crowd is as much a part of it as the musicians. We give as much energy and love as we can and we can feel that coming from the crowd as well" says Hertler. "We believe that performance is not a High Art operation, and that you should do anything you can to ensure that the crowd is having a good time. From piñatas to confetti, to fog, to flowers, to drum solos, to strobe lights, to Thor, to sword battles-literally anything goes.”  From: https://www.allaboutjazz.com/musicians/joe-hertler-and-the-rainbow-seekers/

 

Pentangle - No More My Lord / Sovay / I've Got a Feeling / The Time Has Come

Where Fairport Convention found ways of merging traditional British folk music with the emerging rock sounds of the ’60s and ’70s, Pentangle took that same music and gave it a jazz-and-blues twist, whether via their original songs, well-worn trad material like “Let No Man Steal Your Thyme” or, as on the live section of this double album, interpretations of Charles Mingus and Furry Lewis compositions. Pentangle were among the leading lights of British folk-rock. I’m tempted to say ‘are’ because the band have sometimes reformed in both altered configurations and the original one, although the latter is now an impossible proposition, given that Bert Jansch and John Renbourn have died. Sweet Child was the second in a run of excellent albums they made for the Transatlantic label before moving to Reprise (who’d issued their albums in the US from the start) for 1972’s Solomon’s Seal which brought to a close their first chapter as a band. If you’re a newcomer to the Pentangle fold, then great pleasures await you.
Sweet Child was the group’s only double-album, made so by its first two sides being taken up by a triumphant 29th June 1968 concert at the Royal Festival Hall, London. The group’s repertoire was already so large that barely any of the tracks from the live performance were duplications of songs from their studio albums – a reflection not only of the band’s adventurousness but also their audience’s ability to accommodate it. On the third and fourth side of Sweet Child, they unveiled their second album proper. These were the days of recorded product being demanded at breakneck speed. Their debut had appeared in May 1968. Sweet Child came in November the same year.
Both LPs were produced by American Shel Talmy, who would remain on board for the following year’s Basket of Light, the band’s bestseller. Talmy was a native of Chicago who’d moved to London in the early 1960s and joined Decca, telling tall tales of producing the Beach Boys to open doors. He eventually helped both the Kinks and the Who forge their distinctive sounds. Having an American producer, inclined to understand the breadth of Pentangle’s musical tastes where a more staid Decca alumnus might not have, was a masterstroke for the band. Encompassing everything from jaunty folk dances to experimental jazz, their albums had an appealing air of mysticism (emphasized by their medieval- and occult-tinged front covers) and a simultaneous earthiness. As is so often the case, what on paper were incongruous musical ingredients in practice worked beautifully together.
Quite why Pentangle haven’t ended up being seen in the same light as Fairport Convention is apparent if you move a little farther ahead in their discography. Listen to “Sally Free and Easy”, the first track on 1972’s Solomon’s Seal, and you’ll hear how little they changed during their classic run of albums. By contrast, Fairport shifted gears with each release from 1968’s Fairport Convention up to and including 1975’s Rising For the Moon, and although there were missteps along the way, they hit an unrivalled peak with Unhalfbricking and Liege & Lief. Consequently, music history favors them over Pentangle.
However, as they demonstrate on the original songs in the studio segment of Sweet Child, Pentangle had the edge when it came to intricate rhythms, musicianship and challenging time signatures. Their sound was prettier, cooler, more ornamental and decorous. An unmistakable jazz sensibility informs their work, giving it a smokiness and a distinctive urbanity. Listen, for example, to the way the title track of Sweet Child builds in intensity as Terry Cox cycles through a series of utterly dazzling rhythm patterns. “Sovay”, the tale of a female highwayman, is a bracing little trad number and there’s even a musical tribute to Moondog, the fabled blind street musician who recorded for Columbia. The high point, however, is “The Trees They Do Grow High”. Its mournful melody is expertly painted by lead vocalist, Jacque McShee (she sounds like an immaculately played woodwind instrument, almost flawless), while Cox delivers his finest, most thrilling percussion arrangement.
Having a voice as clear and swooping as McShee’s and guitarists as nimble as Renbourn and Jansch, were just a few of the numerous aces up the band’s sleeve. They also had, in Danny Thompson, an exceptional double bassist. Pentangle didn’t put a foot wrong during their first run of albums and Sweet Child was a remarkable second statement.  From: https://www.popmatters.com/pentangle-sweet-child-turns-50-2601840684.html

Telyscopes - Metamorphosis

“I need a change of pace, loss of face,” sings experimental Philly artist Jack Hubbell on the first track from the 13th Telyscopes album, Spectacol ///. “I need an unpaid vacation that never ends.” And sure enough, his narrator gets what he asks for, way down at the very bottom of everything. The song is called “MH370,” framed with a two-note guitar vamp that flashes like a warning light, and it ends not with a wonderful splash, but with audio carnage–howling distortion as grim sound painting of the Malaysia Airlines flight whose disappearance dominated the global news in March of 2014.
Telyscopes’ catalog is, on some level, a flight recorder logging Hubbell’s musical fixation on disaster. Sometimes that’s personal (finding blood in your urine, getting swept away in a flash flood) and other times, it’s social and political (nuclear weapons tests, assassinations). Like the best cinematic horrors and thrillers, the setup creates compelling drama by pushing humanity to the most extreme limits–or at least engages in the time-honored tradition of tapping your fellow man on the shoulder and saying, “Hey, was that fucked up, or what?”
To that body of work, Hubbell adds the chilling “O-Ring,” littered with saxophone, theremin, and debris from the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Is it morbid and horrific? You bet–take it up with cable news, I guess. This is a record haunted by the sense that catastrophe can happen at any time, but Hubbell doesn’t make the alternative sound much better: “What is waiting for us, at the end of our numbered days?” he asks on “Python (In the Weeds).” “Maternity centers, custody hearings, nursing homes, marble graves.”
That’s a rare direct soliloquy on an album that, as often as not, invites you to gawk at its wildness. The title Spectacol /// comes from the Romanian word for “show.” To wit: in the music video for “Metamorphosis” (more chant than song, rattling by on chitinous legs), Hubbell drinks raw egg from a champagne flute before flashing a demented smile at the camera. The album follows much the same spirit, pushing the experimentalism of his last full-length With A Y while cutting back on that record’s diaristic tendencies (unless, of course, there’s something he’s not telling us, re: his experience with prion diseases).
Spectacol /// is personal in other ways–this time out, there are fewer instrumentalists hired from Fiverr and more focus on close collaborators from past projects. Patty Hamill provides pianos and synths, Karl Hovmark plays drums, and long-time live singer Madelyn Van Trieste becomes the first guest vocalist to feature on a Telyscopes record. And in the end, there’s no mistaking Hubbell’s singular rhythm, piloting through ecstatic skronk, synth-laden nightmares, and soft fusion jazz like bends in a jungle cruise. He isn’t coy about what lies at the end of the river, but there’s no telling what might happen on the trip (there is a non-zero chance of–random example–being brutally mauled by a panther).  From: https://theallsceneeye.com/2021/09/21/telyscopes-13th-album-casts-itself-as-a-plane-crash-you-cant-look-away-from/