Elvis Costello - Armed Forces - Side 1

01 - Accidents Will Happen
02 - Senior Service
03 - Oliver's Army
04 - Big Boys
05 - Green Shirt
06 - Party Girl

After beating the sophomore jinx with his second album, 1978's This Year's Model, Elvis Costello set out to prove he was here to stay. On Jan. 5, 1979, Costello did just that with his third LP, Armed Forces. In some ways, Forces represented more of the same from Costello, who held onto his backing band the Attractions for the second consecutive album and reunited with producer Nick Lowe, who'd supervised the sessions for both of Costello's previous LPs. But if this set of songs sprung from a period of relative consistency in terms of personnel, they also found Costello moving forward in musical terms, tempering the aggressive overtones of his early work with a fuller, more pop-friendly sound.
"He wants to be daring, but he also wants to dance," Janet Maslin wrote in her Rolling Stone review, and that's as succinct a summation as any for Elvis Costello at this juncture. Armed Forces stitches a sonic patchwork that at times nearly borders on pastiche, but his lyrics are so subversively clever that it's clear he's in total control of his craft. Rather than concessions, the record's sweet arrangements function as necessary correctives to the caustic vinegar of the lyrics – a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.
The album's first single, "Oliver's Army," is a perfect case in point, with an infectiously ebullient arrangement that, in just about any other artist's hands, would have served as a delivery mechanism for two minutes and 58 seconds of lines about love and heartbreak. Costello's lyrics are far darker, however: Inspired by a recent trip to Northern Ireland, he penned a cheerfully bitter screed against imperialism and governments' propensity to use young working-class men as cannon fodder for their conflicts.
It's the kind of thing that might have turned into an achingly serious anthem if someone like U2 had recorded it, but Costello's winking approach paid off – especially in the U.K., where "Oliver's Army" went on to become a No. 2 pop hit.
"There was an awful lot riding on it," engineer Roger Bechirian said in Sound on Sound, reflecting on the heightened expectations following Costello's first two LPs: "It was also a much more grown‑up record in terms of the writing, the band and the way it was put together. It was a much more dense production than This Year’s Model, which was very sparse and had involved a quick, off‑the‑cuff way of working."
That production stood in contrast to the increasingly catch-as-catch-can approach that Costello was forced to take with his songwriting. "Most of this record was written in hotel rooms or on a tour bus," he told Sound on Sound. "Every shop front or nightclub sign seemed like a line from a song. In some cases, that was just what they became."
Still, if Costello's constant touring made it hard to stop and think, it also fostered a period of unique personal and musical unity; as he put it in the same article, "The confidence and cohesion of the Attractions' playing is the product of 12 months of intense touring. The sessions were not without dissent and tension, but we probably never had quite this level of consistent musical agreement again."  From: https://ultimateclassicrock.com/elvis-costello-armed-forces/

Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida - Side 1

01 Most Anything You Want
02 Flowers And Beads
03 My Mirage
04 Termination
05 Are You Happy

Its “strictly chickenshit” organ may have “bored to death” Rolling Stone in 1968, but Iron Butterfly’s second album In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was a monster US hit and the first album ever to be certified platinum (for sales of a million copies) in America (it’s now sold 30 million). 
The sound of summer 1968, these days its reputation is predicated on the sprawling title track, which takes up the whole of the second side of the vinyl version. A cultural phenomenon, the track is far from the sole positive on an album where dysfunctional psychedelia meets a pumping garage sound – like listening to Led Zeppelin on the wrong drugs. 
As the band’s name laboured to suggest, their riffs caught the moment flower-power first flirted with heavy metal. They epitomised the burgeoning counter-culture almost unconsciously. That title track was a studio soundcheck, fortuitously taped while they waited for the producer to arrive, and its refrain a slurred mondegreen.
While its near-gothic meanderings owe a bass-line debt to Cream’s Sunshine Of Your Love, it still prowls and growls with stoner certitude. Often overlooked is the fact that other songs, such as Most Anything You Want and Are You Happy, have a tingle of inspiration too. My Mirage and Flowers And Beads are also effective. The dark side of hippy ideology.  From: https://www.loudersound.com/reviews/in-a-gadda-da-vida-iron-butterfly

Rickie Lee Jones - Living It Up

Especially on her early records, Rickie Lee Jones would often create characters for her songs that would play out events based on real-life experiences. "Living It Up" stars Eddie, C--t-finger Louie, and a girl named Zero. They all come together, pulled like magnets, to a strange place where it seems everyone is "living it up."
Jones had broken up with Tom Waits when she wrote the song, so listeners often ascribed at least some of it to him.
The "Oh yeah" backing vocals are by Sal Bernardi, Jones' collaborator and sometimes romantic partner around this time. He's the "Sal" of the song "Weasel And The White Boys Cool" from her first album.
Pirates was the second Rickie Lee Jones album, following her stunning debut that earned her a Grammy for Best New Artist. She became more drug-addled and less reliable after that first album, so the sessions for Pirates were a lot more challenging. By her own account, she would show up hours late for the sessions, but still expected the session musicians to remain engaged and develop and understanding of the songs.
On this particular session, she and her drummer, Jeff Porcaro, had a major dustup. Jones asked him to follow her, changing tempo as she did. He accommodated, but couldn't please her. Later, he was playing his part and she kept telling him (into his headphones) to play harder. Porcaro got so frustrated that he stuck his drumsticks like daggers right through his tom-tom heads and walked out of the session. Jones was furious, but got over it a few years later; she brought Porcaro in to play on her 1984 album The Magazine. No drum heads were damaged that time.  From: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/rickie-lee-jones/living-it-up

 

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced

"Are You Experienced?" is the title track from the Jimi Hendrix Experience's 1967 debut album. It has been described as one of Jimi Hendrix's most original compositions on the album. The song is largely based on one chord and has a drone-like quality reminiscent of Indian classical music. It features recorded guitar and drum parts that are played backwards and a repeating piano octave. Live recordings from 1968 are included on The Jimi Hendrix Concerts album and Winterland box set. 
"Are You Experienced?" was recorded at London's Olympic Sound Studios on April 3, 1967, the final day of recording for Are You Experienced. The backwards guitar track was recorded four times, with the last take being used for the final version. According to engineering assistant George Chkiantz, "The original idea for the guitar recording was to do a loop, but that gave a problem... we tried looping it and then we couldn't get it to loop... in the end Jimi got so impatient doing this, he said 'look, it's quite easy, we're just gonna play' and played it in". It is also possible that Hendrix performed some of the backwards drum parts on the song in addition to drummer Mitch Mitchell.
Hendrix historians Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek have praised "Are You Experienced?" as "a majestic setpiece of declamatory anthem rock": Mitch Mitchell's military snare raps out behind the startlingly contemporary hip-hop scratch sound-effects of tapes running backwards punctuating Jimi's condition for being your guide ('If you can get your mind together'). To what? Sexual ecstasy? Altered states of consciousness? Or just finding yourself, taking time out to view what you're doing from the outside, 'from the bottom of the sea', letting go of the daily grind of the 'measly world'. It is all there for the taking. The secret is being at peace with yourself – 'not necessarily stoned, but beautiful'. Despite its studio complexity, "Are You Experienced?" was performed live by Experience several times in 1967 and 1968.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Are_You_Experienced%3F_(song)  

 

The Decemberists - Leslie Anne Levine

Recently (in the last couple of months) I got really into a band called The Decemberists (not the Russian decembrist revolt). For those of you who don’t know, The Decemberists are an indie folk band from Portland Oregon. The band is made up of Colin Meloy, Chris Funk, Jenny Conlee, Nate Query, and John Moen. They released their first album in 2001 entitled Five Songs, and they have been nominated twice for a Grammy for their song “Down By The Water” but never won any. Their most popular song, according to Spotify, is “Don’t Carry It All” from their 2012 album The King Is Dead.
The song I want to look at is probably mine, and many other fans’, favorite song by The Decembeists. It’s from their 2002 album Castaways and Cutouts Entitled “Leslie Anne Levine.” This song is somewhat special because it is a narrative song. The song follows the story of Leslie Anne Levine, but more specifically the story of the ghost of Leslie Anne Levine. 
While researching this song I learned that this is actually a prequel to one of their newer songs “We Both Go Down Together” released in the album Picaresque in 2005.  Explaining the connection is rather difficult so I’ll use a quote from Colin Meloy, the person who wrote the song explaining the connection, colin meloy wrote on substack that he’s  “gone on to suggest that this couple, Leslie’s doomed mother and father, are, in fact, the couple we meet in ‘We Both Go Down Together.’ This implies that the woman survives the man (hooray!) and goes on to die in childbirth in a ditch (ohhhhhh).”  
Before the first verse there is a riff played on the guitar, which my Dad, Patrick Lambert, who has been a fan of them since 2005, said, “independent of the words or lyrics, musically, I like the opening chords they sound very big and open and there’s a lot of open strings.” open strings are when you play a note but don’t change the semitones of the note. 
Anyways, on to the actual lyrical analysis. The first lyrics are probably the darkest this song gets, apart from the connections to other songs (I.E. the suicide in “We Both Go Down Together”): 

“My name is Leslie Anne Levine
My mother birthed me down a dry ravine
My mother birthed me far too soon
Born at nine and dead at noon”

The ravine that she mentions is the ditch mentioned in the interview with Colin Meloy. The ravine was probably just meant to rhyme with her name or vice versa, but it might also be emphasizing her childishness because to a child a ditch would look rather large and very much like a ravine. Fifteen years after her death, Leslie still wanders the parapets of buildings in Dover clinging to her Mother’s petticoats,which is just a skirt that goes on under a skirt. 

“Fifteen years gone now
I still wander this parapet
And shake my rattle bone
Fifteen years gone now
I still cling to the petticoats
Of the girl who died with me”

We know that it takes place in Dover because in “We Both Go Down Together” they plan to jump from a cliff in Dover. Parapets could mean trench parpets, but it could also mean building parapets. (parapets are low protective walls along the edge of a roof, bridge, balcony or trench). But we also know that she is talking about the parapets of buildings because of the verse that comes directly after it.

“On the roofs above the streets
The only love I’ve known’s a chimney sweep
Lost and lodged inside a flue
Back in 1842”

This verse is explaining how she found a chimney sweep, which was usually a young orphaned boy, stuck inside of a chimney or flue, which is really just another way of saying chimney.  When I saw them on tour In August, they performed this song, but they changed the lyrics in the verse so instead of “Chimney sweep” it was “Chimbley sweep,” which is a reference to their 2003 album Her Majesty The Decemberists and a song on that album called “The Chimbley Sweep.”  Colin Meloy talks about this on his blog on substack, which provided a wealth of info on some of Colin Meloy’s  earlier songs and is just really interesting to read: “I’ve since grown accustomed to swapping ‘chimney’ for ‘chimbley’ when we do this live – I like the idea that there is some through line here, some connection between Leslie’s true love and the libidinous chimbley sweep from Her Majesty The Decemberists.” The fourth verse has some obscure language, which is consistent with other Decemberists songs:

“Fifteen years gone now
I still wail from these catacombs
And curse my mother’s name
Fifteen years gone now
Still a wastrel mesallied
Has brought this fate on me”

Rand Hollman, a freshman at the iSchool, pointed out the line “still a wastrel mesallied”  saying how he thinks it “reveals how Leslie feels about his mother and when I learned what waestral meant it revealed a lot about the song.” Mesallied is a pretty obscure French word.  I really like how Colin Meloy talks about how he came across this word on his blog on substack “I fell on this word because it felt good singing it, in this song’s rhythm and meter. I may have actually chosen the word, and then fit the circumstances around it. ‘Hmmm, mesallied,’ I thought, ‘That fits well. What does it mean?’ Of course, the definition is rife with all sorts of drama — a couple mismatched for one reason or another — and I ran with it.”
Wastrel is just a way to call someone a good-for-nothing or wasteful. The line “I still wail from these catacombs” could mean that she thinks of the city as her tomb or catacomb and the wailing could be her terrorizing the locals with ghostly wailing. This interpretation reminds me a lot of “The Chimbley Sweep” specifically the verse where the chimbley sweep says, 

“Upon the rooftops in dead of night you’ll hear me cry, I’ll shake you from your sleep” 

compared to Leslie’s 

“I still wail from these catacombs.” 

Another connection I made between the two was that  both characters have no parents; Leslie’s are dead and The Chimbley Sweep’s parents have orphaned him – “I am an orphan, an orphan boy I’ve known no love, I’ve seen no mother’s joy.”
This is the last, important verse of the song:

“My name is Leslie Anne Levine
And I’ve got no one left to mourn for me
My body lies inside its grave
In a ditch not far away”

Her parents both died so they can’t mourn her, and her grandparents did not acknowledge her parents’ love for each other, so they wouldn’t want to acknowledge a child born of a relationship that they did not approve of. The grave is probably just a metaphor for the ditch. I mean she has no surviving family that might want to bury her or even know of her existence. 
 Benjamin Becker, a freshman at the iSchool, said that he likes this line of the song:  “I don’t know why I liked it but when I listened to it, it made me feel something.” In my case, the line makes me feel kind of sad because nobody cares about her death. This line also makes me feel a little gross with the talk of dead bodies. The final verse:

“Fifteen years gone now
I still wander this parapet
And shake my rattle bone
Fifteen years gone now
I still cling to the petticoats
Of the girl who died with me” 

The song concludes by repeating the chorus. I think that the repetition of “15 years gone now” throughout the song is meant to show the passage of time and the things that she has done over those 15 years. Rattle bone is a line that means absolutely nothing as admitted by Colin Meloy on substack “I don’t know what a rattle bone is, I may have just made it up. Some amalgam of the Smiths’ line, ‘Rattle my bones all over the stones / I’m only a beggar man whom nobody owns.’” Despite it being entirely meaningless, it is still some people’s favorite line. For example Patrick Lambert said, “I guess I always thought of it as a play on a baby’s rattle, since they died as a baby and they’re talking about haunting it seemed like maybe it was a reference to a kid’s toy.” 
I had a lot of fun scouring the internet for people’s takes on the song’s meaning, some better than others (I don’t think this song is “actually about a flying machine created by Lord Quentin Cavendish Levine whose wife died in childbirth on the same day as the machine’s first voyage. He named the machine after his still born daughter who was to be named Leslie Ann.” as a user of the song meanings website might suggest). I was overjoyed when I found a version of the song annotated by Colin Meloy himself. I appreciate him not leaving us to wonder as to the song’s meaning, especially after my demoralizing experience trying to unpack the meaning of other songs only to be stopped dead in my tracks by users of the aforementioned song meanings website and by parts of interviews with Colin Meloy. 
This isn’t the only narrative song by The Decemberists. Other notable examples are The Hazards Of Love, which is a whole fifty-seven minute long album telling a story, The Tain, which is more like a rock song than a folk song and tells the story of “The Tain” which was an ancient Irish legend often called “the Irish Iliad,” and last but not least “The Mariner’s Revenge Song,” which is almost eight and a half minutes long and tells the tale of a mariner seeking to avenge his mother’s death.

From: https://inewsnetwork.net/10764/arts-entertainment/a-lyrical-analysis-of-leslie-anne-levine-by-the-decemberists/

 

 

Laura Love - All the Pushin' / Capricorn & Hominy / Octoroon / Blind Bartimus

It took a hard lesson in integrity to turn Laura Love from a partying-down, dabbling musician into a rich and dignified songwriter. Love, who arrived in Seattle via Portland from her native Nebraska in the early 1980s, has just released her major-label debut album, "Octoroon."
It is a radiant mix of earthy Cajun tones and hypnotic Caribbean rhythms, and follows three relatively successful, self-released solo albums (and two less-fondly remembered records with her old band Boom Boom GI).
"I had joined the band trying to be a bass player," Love says. "We had a singer who wasn't showing up much and I ended up with the job, but they weren't my lyrics." With the band's songwriting already taken care of by the guitarist, Love found herself the female figurehead of a male rock band, mouthing the kind of crass statements some male rock bands are all too fond of.
"I was so stressed about learning to play the bass at the same time that I learned the words of the songs phonetically," she remembers. A local music paper printed a review that called the band "annoyingly pointless" and picked out Love as a mindless mouthpiece. A stunned Love took a step back and saw what she was doing. "That review told me that I do have a responsibility to say what I believe, and whatever it is, it should be honest," she says.
"The cold and bitter lyrics of Boom Boom GI weren't my perspective, they weren't things I agreed with. In my life I have tried to be kind and tried to be accepting and tolerant, and actually embrace things and people who are different from me, and try to find our common ground."
Love clearly is no railing rock chick, but a self-confessed granola-type who in her spare time works on salmon restoration. "I started this group, Friends of Creek and Urban Salmon, FOCUS!," she says. "I mean, you can't get more granola than that!"
Love's stint on the Seattle grunge scene turned out to be merely an introduction to being a musician and a songwriter. "The music I've always enjoyed and listened to has never been grunge. That stuff was always fun to play, but never fun to listen to," she admits with a giggle. But among her rootsy compositions on "Octoroon" is a more or less faithful cover of Nirvana's doleful "Come As You Are."
"One of my biggest regrets in life is I dismissed grunge after I left," she says. "It's just this narrow . . . shallowness. Like when people say, `Hey man, I hate rap.' What do you mean you hate rap? There's good music and there's bad music. There are people who are saying stuff and it's stupid and redundant, and there are people who are innovative who are worth listening to.
"I didn't really allow myself to listen to any of (Kurt Cobain's) music until he was gone. I've been kicking myself ever since; it's been a lesson to me to keep my mind open. You know, I just love `Come As You Are.' "
Her big influences, however, come from decidedly different directions. "I love Sly and the Family Stone and James Brown," she says, her voice gliding over the names fondly. "Now I'm into bluegrass. Jo Miller and Ranch Romance got me into that."
Love recorded a bluegrass record with Miller and played some shows before Ranch Romance split early last year, and the influence is still strong in Love's new songs - a heady mix of blues, folk and bluegrass. Her transition might sound somewhat typical: Alternative rocker entering her 30s turns to an alternative folksinger-songwriter style instead. But Love takes a detour from the stereotype: She still plays bass.
"I tried to play guitar, but there were just too many strings and they were too little and too close together," she laughs. "So, I just went for the bigger string thing . . .
"I just get a groove going, just a mantra kind of thing; it gets good to me after a while and then I start moving my neck. You know, that bass-player neck thing! Then I get a melody and the words come last. "The songs just shape themselves. By the time the beat is there and the melody is there, you know what kind of song it is."  From: https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/19970525/2540982/earthy-laura-love-finds-a-new-groove

Rockfour - Arnold Layne (Pink Floyd cover)

The Rockfour rock band won first prize Saturday evening at an international music competition judged by David Gilmour and David Bowie.
The competition called for various groups to record a cover version of the song Arnold Layne, Pink Floyd's first single composed by the late Syd Barrett, released in 1967.
Members of the group Baruch Ben Yitzhak, Isser Tennenbaum and Mark Lazar won a day of recording at the Abbey Road Studios in London. The studio was used to record a host of classic rock and roll albums, but it is primarily known due to the Beatles' album that bears the studio name.
Once the award was announced, David Gilmor's blog congratulated the winners and all those who took part in the project, saying he hoped everyone enjoyed it they did.
Members of the group are currently on a tour in the US which includes Philadelphia, New York and Texas. Overseas performances are expected to end on March 16th, and at the beginning of April the group is expected to release its new album "Memories of the Never Happened." The group recorded the album in the US last year and it will also comprise only English lyrics.  From: https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3372142,00.html 

Rhiannon Giddens - Avalon

Rhiannon Giddens’ new album, They're Calling Me Home, recorded with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi, will be released April 9 on Nonesuch Records and is available to pre-order here. Giddens and Turrisi, who both live in Ireland when they aren’t on tour, have been there since March 2020 due to the pandemic. The two expats found themselves drawn to the music of their native and adoptive countries of America, Italy, and Ireland during lockdown. Exploring the emotions brought up by the moment, Giddens and Turrisi decamped to Hellfire, a small studio on a working farm outside of Dublin, to record these songs over six days. The result is They're Calling Me Home, a twelve-track album that speaks of the longing for the comfort of home as well as the metaphorical "call home" of death, which has been a tragic reality for so many during the COVID-19 crisis.
They're Calling Me Home features several traditional songs that Giddens hasn't played for years, including some of the first old-time pieces she ever learned: "I Shall Not Be Moved," "Black As Crow (Dearest Dear)" and "Waterbound." The album also includes a new song Giddens wrote, “Avalon,” as well as an Italian lullaby, “Nenna Nenna," that Turrisi used to sing to his infant daughter that took on new resonance during the lockdown.
The minstrel banjo, accordion and frame drums that have become characteristic of the pair’s sound are well represented on the album, but it’s the viola and cello banjo combination that captures unexpected emotion and intensity. Joining them at key moments are Congolese guitarist Niwel Tsumbu and Irish traditional musician Emer Mayock on flute, whistle, and pipes. Engineer Ben Rawlins was key to the shape and sound of the record while Giddens and Turrisi produced and Kim Rosen mastered.  From: https://www.nonesuch.com/journal/rhiannon-giddenss-new-album-theyre-calling-me-home-francesco-turrisi-april-9-nonesuch-2021-02-10 

Spirit - She Smiles / It's All The Same

Spirit’s second album The Family That Plays Together is more of the same only more so, with Randy California now splitting songwriting duties with Jay Ferguson, who wrote nearly all of the first album. The Family That Plays Together plainly benefits from a second creative source of power. Their psychedelic sound was ahead of its time and points forward to progressive rock, particularly in California’s electric guitar. The album is otherwise notable for containing their biggest hit, the soulful I Got a Line on You. It remains a mystery to me why Spirit didn’t achieve the popularity of bands like The Doors, Traffic, Jefferson Airplane and Cream. Maybe it’s because Spirit followed their own muse. I mean, you’d have to go digging into Three Man Army’s “My Yiddishe Mama” to find another rock group that dared to write a song like Jewish (based on the hymn, “Hine ma tov”). Elsewhere, Spirit invites comparison to John Cale (Darlin’ If), Jethro Tull (Drunkard), Cream (Aren’t You Glad) and Steppenwolf (It’s All the Same) without losing their own identity. Again produced by Lou Adler with arrangements from Marty Paich, The Family That Plays Together feels like both a continuation and an expansion of their first album, Spirit. A few of the ideas are undercooked and the rhythm section is criminally undermiked, but otherwise it’s a musically impressive album as late sixties psychedelia goes. The flute is an especially nice touch; I would’ve liked to know who played it. The contrast between California and Ferguson adds an extra dynamic to their music. Ferguson’s character studies (Silky Sam, Poor Richard, “Drunkard”) and California’s Cream-colored compositions create a musical kaleidoscope. There really isn’t a bad song on the album. She Smiles (which would have been my choice for the second single), the dreamy It Shall Be and (naturally) Dream Within a Dream and the jazzy It’s All the Same are all different and all good.  From: https://progrography.com/spirit/review-spirit-the-family-that-plays-together-1968/ 

Autorickshaw - Snake Charmer

A mix of two traditional south Indian snake-charming pieces. This heavily-orchestrated reinvention, with Andrew’s sinuous and sensuous English lyrics, takes this Autorickshaw in a whole new direction. 
Lyrics: I am known as the Great Snake Charmer 
With my voice I control; with my song I will entice you 
Feel my melody hypnotize you 
You are powerless to resist 
With my melody I delight you 
Feel the sway of the great snake charmer 
Will you rise and dance, snake? 
I am the Great Snake Charmer 
I can make you writhe in a state of pain or pleasure 
Rise for the great snake charmer 
‘Til I’m satisfied, you will do your dance for me 
I am the Great Snake Charmer 
I will tantalize you far beyond all measure 
Rise for the Great Snake Charmer 
‘Til I’m satisfied, you will do your dance for me 
Will you rise and dance, snake? Villai aadu pambe Will you come out to play? Villai 
From The Humours of Autorickshaw, released 10 November 2013 
Traditional; additional English lyrics by Andrew Craig and Suba Sankaran
Suba Sankaran: lead and background vocals 
Ed Hanley: tabla 
Rich Brown: electric bass 
Andrew Craig: synth and orchestral programming Adrian Eccleston: guitars 
Patrick Graham: riqq, sabar, gamelan, gong, concert bass drum, assorted sprinkles Larnell Lewis: drum kit
From: https://ethnocloud.com/Autorickshaw/?song=3694&b=2669

Stevie Wonder - Golden Lady / Higher Ground / Don't You Worry 'Bout A Thing / He's Misstra Know-It-All

Innervisions is a tricky album, very much a soul thing with direct ties to records in its Motown lineage like Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, whose social consciousness Stevie tried to channel on 1971’s Where I’m Coming From, although it is best remembered for “Never Dreamed You’d Leave in Summer” and “If You Really Love Me,” notable detours from its political messaging. Innervisions surveys scenes outside of Motown. The anti-drug anthem “Too High” gestures to the technical, intricate grooves of jazz-fusion; “Living for the City” is as much art-rock epic as funk/soul masterpiece. Wonder traveled around the world in nine songs, matching the proggy experiments in contemporary rock gems like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Todd Rundgren’s A Wizard, a True Star; the playful synthesizer parts in the funk bombs from Birds of Fire by Mahavishnu Orchestra and Herbie Hancock’s Head Hunters; the nervous hope of Donny Hathaway’s Extension of a Man; the acoustic jazz of Baden Powell’s Solitude on Guitar; and the horn-filled salsa of Willie Colón and Héctor LaVoe’s Lo Mato. Innervisions collapsed the spaces between avant-garde and mainstream, rock and soul, and jazz and pop music. They had all been playing the same instruments.
Like What’s Going On, Innervisions lays out a problem, then offers solutions: The stresses of the modern age are many, but with truth, goodness, love, and faithfulness, we can beat back the darkness. Wonder’s albums had never been this concise or cohesive in message. Innervisions was his first full-length without any co-writers or covers, a monumental endeavor for both Motown—a hit factory betting against its history again by letting an artist write his own songs—and Stevie, who was pulling thematically consistent pieces out of thin air. The album doesn’t judge or sell easy answers. It nudges you in the direction of a more mindful stewardship of our world and then lets you know that the task will be difficult. (“Jesus Children of America” is fascinatingly slippery. It implores you to place less stock in physical gratification and more in the edification of the mind and soul. It reminds you that this path is riddled with grifters and conmen. And it’s way too hyped about transcendental meditation to qualify as run-of-the-mill church proselytizing. Innervisions is a potpourri of ideas from Eastern and Western philosophies, but its call to inspire change through personal and cultural reckoning is grounded, less pie in the sky and more mutual aid and good vibes. It’s a very ’70s outlook, a specific response to the reverberations in modern bohemian culture as the counterculture grew more fractured and paranoid, but it still rings true in its questing for peace and love in the shadows of systemic racism and widespread political corruption.
Three days after Innervisions was released, Stevie Wonder was traveling through North Carolina on the way to a benefit concert for an independent Black radio station when his driver bumped a flatbed truck packed with wood logs, sending one careening through the windshield into Wonder’s forehead, causing a brain contusion. (It is said that upon hearing “Higher Ground” while in a coma, Stevie moved his fingers.) Perhaps he was right to be terrified in 1973. He was right that America was in dire straits. Nixon resigned in 1974 with Innervisions’s “He’s Misstra Know-It-All”—“He’s a man with a plan/Got a counterfeit dollar in his hand”—still rattling around as Stevie’s latest single. The album’s strides in exploring a wider palette of instruments for Black funk music were met and matched in the brilliance of Parliament-Funkadelic and Prince in later years. (The LinnDrum, American designer Roger Linn’s matter-of-factly titled drum machine, is as crucial to Prince’s ’80s as TONTO is to Stevie’s ’70s.) Innervisions endures as a touchstone for young auteurs crafting expansive, orchestral music and songwriters tackling big issues without overwhelming listeners.
Genius shines in any setting. This is music pliable enough to have been reworked by Barbra Streisand, who had a hit in 1974 recasting Wonder’s conciliatory breakup tune “All Is Fair in Love” as an orchestral ballad; Madlib, whose side project Yesterday’s New Quintet turned “Visions” into a Brazilian jazz workout on the 2004 covers album Stevie; and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose rendition of “Higher Ground” on 1989’s Mother’s Milk added screaming guitars and gang vocals. When R&B group Troop sang “Living for the City” in Mario Van Peebles’s 1991 crime flick New Jack City, it highlighted how little in the character of New York had changed since Stevie sang about the city destroying young Black men almost two decades earlier, a truth reinforced in hundreds more accounts of horrific police killings and brutality stretching out into the 21st century. Innervisions addressed the musical tastes and political jitters of 1973, but foresight keeps it relevant. It implores us to keep striving.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/stevie-wonder-innervisions/

Hanford Flyover - Shallow Waters

We first came across Hanford Flyover on a sampler from the Fruits de Mer label who specialise in psych, prog and anything slightly leftfield.  Much of the label output harks back to the late sixties and inspired by psychedelic pop rock groups on both sides of the Atlantic.
Hanford Flyover represent something a bit different.  Josh and Holly Bowler have fashioned a contemporary sounding album using elements of electronica, pop, folk, prog and rock.  This should have much wider appeal and in fact could become the label’s first major crossover success.
‘Shadows On The Sun’, the track on that sampler, is an upbeat taster for the whole album.  Holly’s vocal in particular puts her in firmly in the late-sixties psych vibe (she also plays keys) whilst Josh’s guitar figures drive the music with added keyboard effects.
The same vibe permeates ‘Shallow Waters’ which reminds a little of another great sixties female fronted psych band, the Dutch Shocking Blue.
There’s an appealing infectiousness throughout, whether it’s ‘This Is Now’ with its evocative keyboard orchestration and proggy playout or ‘Formless’ with it’s ‘Baba O’Reilly’ Who-patented motif heralding one of the album’s standouts.
‘Neutrino’ is essentially an instrumental workout which alludes to other band influences such as Tangerine Dream and perhaps, inevitably, (early) Pink Floyd.
‘Firefly’ has another groovy (Ian Turner) bass-driven riff and together with ‘Golden’ and ‘Entropy’ is the most psychedelic work-out on the album with indie overtones and Josh’s vocals more to the fore.  ‘Golden’ reminding me of another great band the long lost Public Symphony with the blend of harmonies and synth but that band was never as thrusty.  ‘Entropy’ on the other hand has Hawkwind-esque flourishes adding to its hypnotic intensity.
Hanford Flyover have played the label’s annual showcase event in west Wales for two successive years and to great response.  There are several bands operating in the psych/blues rock space and female fronted such as Dead Feathers and Blues Pills, and even label mate Crystal Jacqueline.  But Hanford Flyover are less late sixties Jefferson Airplane and arguably of even wider appeal.
Curious listeners will want to seek out the debut album ‘FreeFall’ (2019) ‘Hanford Tape Sessions’ (2021) and EPs available via Bandcamp (although ‘X To The N’ includes early versions of three tracks from the new album).  From: https://getreadytorock.me.uk/blog/2023/08/album-review-hanford-flyover-source/

Birth Of Joy - Prisoner

The interesting and talented recent crop of retro-rock/metal bands is a lush one indeed. Though Dutch 3 piece Birth Of Joy are new to me they have been steadily building a healthy following since their inception in 2005. “Prisoner” (album number IV) is an organ-stamped retro-fest with influences immediate as well as subtle – differently perceived very much by each individual listener I reckon. The band very cleverly straddle genres so that what could be an obviously pigeon-holeable sound becomes much more difficult.
OK, first to hit you is that they do sound on the whole like The Doors (‘Holding On’ being the most similar), but less morose, usually more up-tempo and heavier. So yes, Band Of Joy have a Doors-type sound both vocally and musically…but they do MUCH more with it. Their organ-led late 60’s psychedelic-plus-groove/stoner style has you hearing Iron Butterfly one minute and Queens Of The Stone Age the next (‘Grow’). And maybe Atomic Rooster through to Led Zeppelin (‘Keep Your Eyes Shut’) on another. Ten Years After, MC5, early Pink Floyd, Soundgarden, ELP, The Quill, King Crimson and Budgie (plus more that as I said, each different listener will pick out) all seem to make sporadic cameos in the various arrangements. The band effortlessly blend all this together so well that it’s really hard to pinpoint what style or who a particular track sounds like. It’s just…Birth Of Joy.
From a more modern perspective, the variation in Tempos and influences is actually akin to that of The Vintage Caravan (I’m sure they will be sharing many a bill this year), the two bands taking their influences from very similar eras, yet with a different instrumental approach. And, like Vintage Caravan, Birth Of Joy are fantastic musicians. The drummer has a slightly tighter, but just as expressive John Bonham style – Ian Paice too (especially on ‘Longtime Boogie’ which also has an excellent Purple ‘Strange Kind of Woman’/’Black Night’/’Lazy’ feel running through it musically). The guitarist/vocalist is absolutely all over every song…in a good way. He fills so many gaps with so many different styles it’s hard to see how he can do it all live, but I’m informed this talented guy does. The organist has plenty of Keith Emerson’s flair but thankfully, unlike Mr Em, remembers that there is an actual song going on and though the organ is a lead instrument it doesn’t need to dominate. All three work SO well together – as a 3 piece should. The whole album sounds new and fresh, but also has a “written in the studio between tours of the seedy Hamburg clubs” vibe going on as well.
Birth Of Joy have managed to personalise yet another variation within this whole retro rock movement. A wonderfully varied, personal take on things – there’s plenty to interest Metal-heads as well as Progsters – you’ve just got to…feel the groove! And Birth Of Joy groove just as much as they musically excel – three expert songwriters and musicians, working in perfect harmony. And let’s face it, they have a guy with a fantastic organ and showing it to full effect – never shoving it in your face, just happy playing with it in the background until he feels the need to make it bigger and display it in it’s full glory.  From: https://avenoctum.com/2014/03/06/birth-of-joy-prisoner-long-branchspv/

Bonnie Raitt - Bluebird / You've Been In Love Too Long / Under The Falling Sky / Walking Blues

Following the 1970 deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, modern blues had suffered immeasurable loss. Furthermore, with the end of Cream in 1969, popularized blues forms were severely lacking, especially amongst the females, who had mostly established themselves in pop soul, the softer side of folk rock, and early a.m. pop. So, in comes a young Bonnie Raitt to keep her beloved blues alive, and to show the white girls how it’s done.
In 1971, Bonnie Raitt released her eponymous debut album, Bonnie Raitt, ensuring her a place amongst the best of the 70s.
This was not the psychedelic electric blues of her aforementioned brethren. This was a return to roots with a hint of the smoothness of the 70s. The wailing of the electric guitar is replaced with honky tonk piano, rustic down home acoustic guitar, swampy harmonica, and sex-infused horn blasts. What you get is the feeling of a late night stroll down Bourbon Street and a chance stumbling into a blues club full of perfectly greasy sleaze and southern fried attitude.
The album begins with “Bluebird”, a song Stephen Stills wrote for his Buffalo Springfield’s Buffalo Springfield Again from 1967. The track’s unpolished blues band intro screams of the 1950s Chess era. Raitt’s vocal is first heard and immediately apparent is how well-studied she is in the blues tradition. Her inflections are appropriate, unpretentious, and deep from the pit of her gut – much unlike the average modern R&B run. At halfway, we are presented with a combo of scat singing and lustful horn drives, perfectly accenting the melody.  From: https://www.bonnieraitt.eu/taking-the-torch-from-janis-bonnie-raitt-bonnie-raitt-1971/

Ghost Dance Collective - Just Say Know

 Tell us a bit about the band: 

We’re an Edinburgh-based 4 piece called Ghost Dance Collective, we've been around since 2015 and are purveyors of the type of music that exists on the border between indie pop and psychedelia. We support the workers' struggle, regularly watch JFK, our favourite number is 32 and are all spoken for. We've got an album out, we're almost ready to release our second album (just finalising the artwork), and have begun the process of recording album 3. 

What has changed for you as an artist during lockdown? 

Well, the biggest impact has been that it's slowed everything right down as we've been unable to record or practice songs we've been working on, and we've certainly missed the buzz we get when we're all together. On the other hand, it's given us a chance to focus on writing new material, so hopefully when the restrictions are lifted we can get the creative juices flowing real quick. 

Are there any tips that you can give to other artists for the remainder of the lockdown, anything to help keep them sane, busy, productive etc.? 

Keep in touch and have a laugh with each other, practice the hell out of your instruments, grow a beard and read the beard. 

Can you recommend any artists that you’ve found during lockdown? 

Ross has mostly been rediscovering some of the bands he listened to back in the day like Pavement, Veruca Salt, The Breeders, Lilys etc Liam has been listening to a lot of '50s/'60s/'70s jazz, dub and roots reggae, Delta and Chicago blues, late '60s psychedelia.

From: https://www.newmusicsocial.com/home/stay-home-interviews-black-market-karma-ghost-dance

Half Past Four - Far Away Here

One of Canada’s finest and most idiosyncratic bands, Half Past Four, are back! If you know them, that’s great news. If you aren’t familiar yet, it’s still great news, because you have vibrant exciting new music to discover on this new album, Finding Time. I use the word ‘vibrant’ advisedly, as their ace in the pack is lead singer Kyree Vibrant, and she lives up to her name on this collection of songs. That’s not to say that the rest of the band don’t shine, because they are polished and tight, but Vibrant leads from the front and the experience is highly entertaining.
Finding Time is the first new music from Half Past Four since 2016’s Land of the Blind, so this has been a long time coming, but I’m happy to say it’s been worth the wait. Tomorrowless kicks things off, with an upbeat piece which one could dance to, should one feel so inclined. Danceable prog? Whatever next? Vibrant laments the lack of future for certain organisms in the modern world, yet the song is bright and breezy, and not a little whacky.
Indeed, but there’s an effervescence about the song which is infectious and intoxicating. The band negotiate the demanding dance steps with ease, and we have a winning opener. Far Away Here by contrast has a jazz fusion intro, and the mood lingers through the first verse. The piece then mutates into a heavy bluesy riff, Boris Kalantyr’s guitar positively smoking. Vibrant turns her vocals up a couple of notches, and we’re cooking nicely.  From: https://theprogressiveaspect.net/blog/2025/06/14/half-past-four-finding-time/

Aerosmith - Same Old Song and Dance / Lord of the Thighs / Pandora's Box

If you were an Aerosmith fan in 1974 you were probably really hip, from Boston, or both. At that point, the burgeoning group lacked much airplay and a breakthrough hit. Even though “Dream On” was hiding in plain sight on their debut album, it wouldn’t make the charts for another year. Word was getting out about this scrappy band that was tearing up clubs in the Northeast, however. All they needed was an album that would capture that lightning.
They got it on Get Your Wings, the sophomore effort from 1974. It’s no secret that Aerosmith were dissatisfied with the production of the debut. Enter Jack Douglas, who was both a veteran and an upstart: As a janitor at the Record Plant, he’d cleaned up after Jimi Hendrix and became an assistant engineer on John Lennon’s Imagine. He was fresh from sessions with the infamous New York Dolls, and in Aerosmith he found a band with just as much swagger and a lot more discipline.
From the start, Douglas refines the band’s interplay, letting Joe Perry and Brad Whitford arrange their guitar parts instead of just doubling each other’s. He hits on the band’s inherent tunefulness, as the riff on “Same Old Song & Dance” grabs you from the start. And he makes sure you can hear every one of Steven Tyler’s lyrics, which are now displaying his trademark cheeky humor. In fact, one of the funniest jokes in the Aerosmith catalogue may be the moment in “Pandora’s Box” where Tyler rhymes “city slicker” with….well, go listen to it.
It wasn’t all laughs, though. “Seasons of Wither” continues the thoughtful streak of “Dream On.” Apparently inspired by the New England winter, it’s a moody gem that remains a band and fan favorite. With its long and atmospheric keyboard intro, “Spaced” may be the closest Aerosmith ever got to prog rock. Lyrically it’s their take on Bowie’s “Space Oddity” or Elton’s “Rocket Man,” about the dislocation you might feel when you’re out in the stars. Another gem, “Woman of the World,” shows the band’s growing instrumental prowess, particularly Tom Hamilton’s supple basslines.  From: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/aerosmith-get-your-wings-feature/

 

Mitsoura - Live in Szczecin, Poland 2009

Six years after the self-titled debut of the band around Hungarian singer Mitsu, Mitsoura deliver their second album. Was it worth the wait? Indeed it was. As it turns out the intriguing mix of traditional lyrics and music with modern arrangements that was already present on their debut was only a preview of what the new album has in store. Connecting original Roma lyrics from Hungary, Romania, Serbia and even Egypt with modern (electronic) music seems nice on paper but, as we have seen in the past, can turn out completely wrong. Not so with Mitsoura who display the ability to create a whole new musical genre on their own. You will recognise of influences from Nordic groups like Mari Boine and Värtinna, gypsy brass band music but also modern electronic music that we hear from artists like Mercan Dede or Transglobal Underground. Even fans of Lisa Gerard and Dead Can Dance will find strands back. The sum of all this is not a copy but a highly original musical approach. Of course the typical voice of Mitsu is the centre point but the contribution of Andras Monori (a.o. bansuri, sax and sitar), Peter Szalai (percussion) and Miklos Lukacz (cymbals) is substantial. To top it of the modern twist comes from the programming of Mark Moldvai. ‘Dura Dura Dura’ is a diverse musical journey around Eastern Europe. From the epic titletrack to the hotblooded ‘Tutti Frutti’, from the stomping ‘Kelushka’ to the powerballad ‘Ederlezi’, from the raga influenced ‘Pala late’ to the introvert closing track ‘Le shavore’.  From: https://rateyourmusic.com/music-review/europopmusic/mitsoura/dura-dura-dura/21922389 

 

 

Moon Mother - Wilderness

Despite being packed full of “joyous” holidays, the winter months tend to sink a lot of folks into a time of despair and with that comes self-reflection. It is a period for the earth to be reborn and for people to atone and make amends in hopes that the new year is different from the last.  This haunting section of life between despair and revitalization is the exact pocket that the new record from Moon Mother rests in. The dark-folk duo from Sweden has released a new album that is held down by darkness but consistently reaches for light. The project has a Nordic disposition that feels like being snowed in and is filled with slow melancholic tones that pull the listener into an unlit space, but at the same time there is a glimmer of fire that crackles and sparks just out of warmth.  
This is the second record for the band after launching their debut album in 2023, entitled She’s A Starry Night.  The new album is Meadowlands, and it pulls from topics of grief, despair, and isolation. Sara Mehner and Patriec Ahlström tell a vivid tale with metrical words and solemn tonality. Think of the avant-garde proclivity of The Velvet Unground & Nico garnished with Mazzy Star and stir in the experimental art-rock guitar stylings of Ahlström, Sara’s gorgeous imagery, and guiding backbeat by drummer Robert Hall and a novel of emotional expression is outlined. It is a story worth being told, and with producer Hans Olsson at the helm, the band is dialed back into a minimalist recording that is layered in simplistic depth.
The eight-track LP starts with a 3:29 journey through a menagerie of ethereal storytelling about psychological scars from the past in “High Houses.”  The opening lyrics breathe to life the songs beginning with “Down on that street my past self once met the present/ What my eyes couldn’t see had left footsteps all over my spine/ And it was the fall before a decade of winter/ It’s so strange, I was burning but the world has never been more cold”.  The words revitalize a time gone but not forgotten by the bard. Underneath these lines, the instrumentation looms softly with gentle brush strokes from the kit and lightly framed guitar.  The vocalization is highlighted through the softness of the players.  Mehner’s voice accent’s themes of depression with want for resolve and acceptance. 
The entirety of the record transports the listener into an atmospheric haze of gloomy, yet pleasing lullabies. One such single resonates with that theme.  The track is called “It Comes With Shadows” and it is a lovely orchestration of divine euphoria.  Although the pacing gives thoughts of defeat, the words battle that notion with aspiration. Poetically placed this thought come through with lines like “The abyss, it laughed as I was swallowed by the shame/ and the sun hung so low but still it poured the purest gold/ My hope was never as strong as in the midst of letting go/ In my last breath of despair, that’s where I dared to face the darkness”.  She is still seeing the beauty between all the black.  There is a driving force gained when facing agony, and its pure embrace becomes recognizable.
The other single that was released before the record drop was “World in a Glass Jar” and there is a mood that Slyvia Plath would find calming.  Piano keys bounce across the background before the blissful crooning of the lead singer comes forth to take hold of the production.  Her voice is angelically soothing.  This song is wrapped up in trying to understand wrongdoing and not necessarily holding the doer totally accountable but recognizing that their actions may have been misguided.  However, the takeaway is that she needs to get out of this place of pain. 
The record is a gorgeous jaunt through a woodland of feverish sentiment.  There is some absolve from hurt that happens with the recognition of trauma.  The message is quite clear that lessons can be learned, and that growth is possible if you choose to accept that things can get better.  “Meadowlands is without a doubt the most powerful thing we have ever created. It is a world for itself and we have undergone a kind of inner revolution in the making of this record. A death and a rebirth, I think it can be felt throughout the journey of listening to this album. Meadowlands – the place outside, the place within,” says Mehner.  From: https://im-musicmagazine.com/f/album-review-moon-mother-meadowlands/ 

CocoRosie - Cut Stitch Scar

As adventurous and idiosyncratic as ever, the Casady sisters are back with their singular brand of expansive, inscrutable art rock. Alternately heavy and restrained, changing rhythms and tones at will, “Cut Stitch Scar” traffics in one of CocoRosie’s superpowers, which is the capacity to be experimental and accessible at the same time. Even as it takes a while to get one’s arms around this one as a whole experience, the song’s initial urgency brings the listener in without hesitation. Bianca Casady sings with that child-like warble of hers, but rather than hesitancy it conveys authority. The lyrics urge us to “Take a leap of faith,” and that’s just what listening to CocoRosie demands. You’re not going to know what they’re singing about, you’re not going to anticipate or necessarily vibe with all of their musical choices, but it’s so clear that they know what they’re doing that I see no reason not to jump in with them.
That said, this song maybe needs a few listens. It starts blippy and glitchy, quickly acquires a satisfying percussive groove, and starts, lyrically, in the middle of some sort of dramatic, dimly understood circumstance, perhaps a dream. The tempo, and much of the instrumentation, disappears at the tail end of the verse and into the chorus. Electronics mix with heavenly backing vocals. The lyrics, as ever with the Casadys, may often baffle but they always always scan. The groove returns, vanishes, returns. Rubbery synths are heard. Vocals get distorted. But we never get too far away from satisfying chords. That may be one of the things that keeps the song legible to the ear, however weird it gets: those satisfying chords.  From: https://fingertipsmusic.com/2025/01/31/cut-stitch-scar-cocorosie/