Tatran - Eyes

 #Tatran #progressive rock #electronic #experimental #post-rock #avant-garde #instrumental #Israeli #music video

Tatran (formed 2011, Israel) are an eclectic instrumental power trio, with musical influences that range from experimental jazz, rock, classical music, avant-garde, post-rock, experimental and electronic, combining to produce an ecstatic musical experience. Tatran's uncanny melodies, state of the art virtuosic playing and vivid sound, alongside their innovative relentless improvisations and their deep, near psychic on-stage communication, make them a mesmerizing live act. Tamuz Dekel’s versatile, almost omnipotent, psychedelic guitar with Offir Benjaminov’s thick, funkadelic yet-baroque bass combined with Dan Mayo’s diverse, supernatural futuristic groove-oriented drumming, reanimate a lucid dream to their listeners and spectators. Tatran's live act integrates breathtaking sounds with a hypnotizing atmosphere, both of which are considered by many of their fans to be Tatran’s hallmark, and although their show is completely instrumental, the strong feeling of intimacy and personal touch is unharmed and unrivaled.  From: https://www.bandsintown.com/a/3754101-tatran 

Jasmine Sandlas - Patt Lai Geya

 #Jasmine Sandlas #bhangra #Indian music #world music #Indian folk pop #Punjabi folk #music video

Born in Punjab and raised in California, Jasmine Sandlas has an East-meets-West heritage that’s helped her stand out among Punjabi playback's most beguiling singers. Born in Jalandhar, Sandlas was raised in a Sikh family and spent her formative years inspired by Punjabi folk singers. At age 13, she moved with her family to Stockton, California, adding the music of the US West Coast to her palette of influences. By 16, Sandlas was writing her own material, rooted in the style of her Punjabi inspirations but undoubtedly inflected with Western pop stylings. As a recording artist, Sandlas has spun many plates in her career to date, including prolific playback work across three languages as well as stylistically diverse solo pop albums and collaborations with the rapper Bohemia.  From: https://www.shazam.com/artist/jasmine-sandlas/377061445

Bhangra is a type of traditional folk dance of Punjab. It is done in the season of harvesting. Bhangra is especially associated with the vernal Vaisakhi festival. In a typical performance, several dancers execute vigorous kicks, leaps, and bends of the body - often with upraised, thrusting arm or shoulder movements - to the accompaniment of short songs called boliyan and, most significantly, to the beat of a dhol (double-headed drum). Struck with a heavy beater on one end and with a lighter stick on the other, the dhol imbues the music with a syncopated (accents on the weak beats), swinging rhythmic character that has generally remained the hallmark of bhangra music. An energetic Punjabi dance, bhangra originated with Punjab farmers as a cultural and communal celebration; its modern-day evolution has allowed bhangra to retain its traditional Punjabi roots, while broadening its reach to include integration into popular music and DJing, group-based competitions, and even exercise and dance programs in schools and studios.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhangra_(dance)

Mediaeval Baebes - Musa Venit Carmine

 #Mediaeval Baebes #medieval music #choral music #traditional #crossover #a capella #vocal ensemble #ex-Miranda Sex Garden  

The Mediaeval Baebes are a crossover vocal ensemble whose unique style features a deft mixture of medieval music, multi-language texts, modern arrangements, and both ancient and modern instrumentation. Their skillful and attractive arrangements, usually fashioned by member Katharine Blake, often have a dark, somber character while exhibiting contemporary rhythmic and sound features. Consisting of about six to twelve singers, Mediaeval Baebes are typically attired in long, sometimes provocative gowns or gothic-inspired costumes, and may wear, depending on the concert's theme, vampiric teeth, flowered headwear, or other exotic accoutrements. Song texts typically deal with such subjects as death, drunkenness, unrequited love, and religious and supernatural subjects. The ensemble's members often play an instrument during performance. Katharine Blake, Bee Lee Harling, and Jo Burke, for example, are violinists; Emily Ovenden and Blake play the recorder; and other members, Esther Dee, Clare Edmondson, and Tanya Jackson, play various instruments. Over the years the group has made use of accompanists like Frank Moon (oud, cittern, etc.) and Rebecca Dutton (medieval fiddle, psaltery, etc.). The range of languages in which the Mediaeval Baebes sing is vast and includes Latin, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Swedish, Irish Gaelic, English, various older forms of English, and such archaic languages as Cornish and Welsh. The Mediaeval Baebes were formed in London in 1996. Founding members included Katharine Blake, who also serves as the ensemble's musical director, and Dorothy Carter, who played several medieval stringed instruments like the hurdy-gurdy and hammered dulcimer. Some of the earliest members were drawn from Blake's musical group Miranda Sex Garden. After early concert success, the Mediaeval Baebes were invited onto Thames Television in 1997 to sing the 14th century hymn Gaudete. Their first album, Salva Nos, was issued on Virgin Records the following year and it's success led to more prestigious concert venues and a string of popular recordings.  From: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1vQmLYgD92RwmsfHqTwjmQ 

Turn Me On Dead Man - Cyclops

 #Turn Me On Dead Man #psychedelic rock #heavy metal #psychedelic metal #stoner metal #space rock #retro-1960s #retro-1970s 

Turn Me On Dead Man are a ‘heavydelic’ space rock band from San Francisco. combining heavy metal and psychedelia to forge a music that is both transcending and unforgettable. The songwriting plunges listeners into the heavydelic landscapes of 60’s experimentalism and 70’s bombast, creating a sound that is enthralling, imaginative, hugely entertaining, and incredibly hard rocking! The group have been creating their unique brand of lysergic-soaked rock since their inception in 2000, gigging extensively throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and garnering praise from all over their home turf and the country, spurred on by heavy rotation at the influential WFMU station in New Jersey. Alternative Tentacles founder Jello Biafra was suitably impressed by the band’s spaced-out, glammed-up, turned-up brand of audio mayhem enough to re-release their first epic record, “God Bless the Electric Freak”.
Live, Turn Me On Dead Man is a spectacle of epic proportions; a visceral sonic boom that spans the spectrum from the meanest, most gorgeous anthems of rock to the exotic ragas of modern psych, creating an explosive and diverse stage performance as energetic as it is uncommon. Simply put, Turn Me On Dead Man plays Heavy Crush Bliss Rock breaking the sound barrier on their own private Lear Jet headed straight to Hell! The bands twin guitar harmonization, melodic rhythmic switchbacks and trippy apocalypto-mystical lyricism keep California’s psychedelic rock tradition alive. In their own words: “mind melt music for the sick and twisted, heavydelic super rock for the ultimate freak outs”.  From: https://maximumvolumemusic.com/featured-band-turn-dead-man/

In September 1969, as I began ninth grade, a rumor circulated that the Beatles' Paul McCartney was dead, killed in a 1966 automobile accident and replaced by a look-alike. The clues were there in the albums, if you knew where to look. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band's "A Day in the Life," for one, recounts the accident: He blew his mind out in a car / He didn't notice that the lights had changed / A crowd of people stood and stared / They'd seen his face before / Nobody was really sure if he was from the House of Lords. The cover of the Abbey Road album shows the Fab Four walking across a street in what looks like a funeral procession, with John in white as the preacher, Ringo in black as the pallbearer, a barefoot and out-of-step Paul as the corpse, and George in work clothes as the gravedigger. In the background is a Volkswagen Beetle whose license plate reads "28IF" - Paul's supposed age "if" he had not died. Spookiest of all were the clues embedded in songs played backward. On a cheap turntable, I moved the speed switch midway between 331/3 and 45 to disengage the motor drive, then manually turned the record backward and listened in wide-eared wonder. The eeriest is "Revolution 9" from the White Album, in which an ominously deep voice endlessly repeats: number nine ... number nine ... number nine.... Played backward you hear: turn me on, dead man ... turn me on, dead man ... turn me on, dead man.... In time, thousands of clues emerged as the rumor mill cranked up (type "Paul is dead" into Google for examples), despite John Lennon's 1970 statement to Rolling Stone that "the whole thing was made up." But made up by whom? Not the Beatles. Instead this was a fine example of the brain as a pattern-recognition machine that all too often finds nonexistent signals in the background noise of life.  From: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/turn-me-on-dead-man/

SpaceCream - Pterodactyl Sky

 #SpaceCream #Savannah Pope #progressive rock #glam rock #neo-prog #contemporary rock #theatrical #retro-1970s

If there is a hole in your soul that can only be filled with a large helping of highly imaginative, theatrical, cerebral, glitter-fueled, prog-tinged, sexually charged rock n’ roll, then you may not know it yet but SpaceCream are your new favourite band. Self-described as “an intellectually charged revival of stellar rock n’ roll, told from the point of view of a sex-positive feminist revolutionary,” Pterodactyl Sky is set to challenge every norm you never knew to be holding you back. David Bowie, Leigh Bowery, Rocky Horror; a little Queen, a little Yes and a soupçon of Morrissey: all are clear influences here, and yet Pterodactyl Sky is much more than a homage to a time and styles long since passed. One listen to the album’s title track, or the likes of “Nefarious Lothario” and “Feel The Light”, demonstrate that this is a group of consummate musicians delivering complex, erudite and scholarly, yet wholly accessible songs of existential depth, empowerment and unabashed joy. Where else would you find a lyric referencing the allegory of Plato’s Cave and a hair raising guitar solo in the space of five and a half minutes? As well as weaving tales of fearless warriors riding atop Brontosauruses to defeat invading alien hoards, “Pterodactyl Sky” sees SpaceCream visionary and vocalist Savannah Pope deliver a towering performance worthy of the very best rock singers. And nor is that empty hyperbole. We’re talking Ann Wilson, maybe. Or Cass Elliot. A slightly less gritty Joplin or Jett with the range of Mariah Carey. Maybe that sounds crazy, but damn this music works. In fact every single song here provides more than one Doc Brown-esque “Great Scott!” moment. The heavenly arrangement and celestial choir of the title track; the spine-tingling guitar and slow-burn build of “Feel The Light”; the positively sticky and otherworldly intercourse of “SpaceCream” (both band and, presumably, song being named after THAT scene in the Nicolas Roeg-directed, Bowie-starring The Man Who Fell To Earth, by the way); the electric sparkling funk of lead track “Killer.” This is a shiver-inducing collection in the very best sense of the word. And whilst it is the class and quality of the music that should – and does – make its mark here, SpaceCream’s philosophy of living your weird and embracing your strange permeates everything that they do. Just take a look at those album covers, or track down a video of one of the band’s live shows. These guys are the living and breathing embodiment of artists fiercely and fearlessly living their influences, passions and visions for the future.  From: https://skinbackalley.com/2016/01/20/album-review-spacecream-pterodactyl-sky/

Pink Floyd - Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict

 #Pink Floyd #David Gilmour #Roger Waters #psychedelic rock #British psychedelia #progressive rock #art rock #space rock #experimental rock #blues rock #1960s #1970s

Aye, an' a bit of mackerel, settler rack and down
Ran it down by the home, and I flew
Well, I slapped me and I flopped it down in the shade
And I cried, cried, cried.

The fear a fallen down had taken, never back to raise
And then cried Mary, an' took out wi' your Claymore,
Right outta a' pocket, I ran down, down the mountainside
Back on (Battlin'?) the fiery horde that was falling around the feet.

Never! He cried, never shall ye get me alive
Ye rotten hound of the burnie crew!
Well, I snatched fer the blade an' a Claymore cut and thrust,
And I fell doon before him round his feet. Aye!

A roar he cried!
Frae the bottom of his heart
That I would nay fall but as dead,
Dead as I can by a' feet, d'ya ken?

And the wind cried Mary.

Thank you.

One of the most interesting pieces Roger Waters ever produced, Several Species has been consistently underrated. While hardly melodic or even musical, the piece embodies the experimental era of the Floyd and other such bands through its imaginative uses of 'animal' sound effects (most of them done by Roger, then sped up or slowed down) to create a multi-layered chorus, functioning very effectively as a rhythm track. The animal section, lasting about three and a half minutes, supposedly contains hidden messages which are revealed when the record is played at different speeds, such as 16, 45 and 78 rpm. The 'Pict' section, lasting only a minute, is also fascinating. At first listen, Roger's rant makes no sense whatsoever. However, repeated listening reveals a discernible monologue, distorted by a heavily affected satiric Scots accent and some nonsensical words and phrases. Some sources have claimed that this monologue was improvised live in the studio, but it seems a little more coherent and linear than something that might be made up off the top of one's head. Based on the possibly incorrect assumption that the 'lyric' was written and actually means something, an analysis of its content follows.
First, a historical note: the Picts were composed of violent, raiding tribes of both Celtic and pre-Celtic peoples who held power in ancient Caledonia (now Scotland), most notably during the time period c.300-843 AD. After this point, they became united with (and in most minds, synonymous to) the Scots. This 'poem' if you will, which almost seems to parody the style of the renowned Scots poet Robert Burns (1759-1796), tells an interesting story. The transcription above converts the heavily accented words to standard English spelling in most cases (such as 'middin stain' to 'mountainside' and 'doon' to 'down'). The 'Pict' who tells the story starts by referring to the fact that his family settled down in this (apparently) coastal area, probably to fish for mackerel (a common industry in Scotland). But now, conflict and fighting has disrupted his life, all the more so because he is a coward, and has just fled from the battle that his brethren partake in, back to his home. He slaps himself for his cowardice, drops his sword in the shade, and weeps. He is afraid of the heavy blade causing him to fall down in battle — a mistake no-one survives ('never back to raise'). But then he gathers his courage, picking up what is probably his father's Claymore ('your Claymore') and rejoins the fray with a battle cry of Mary! (probably Mary, Queen of Scots, or else the Virgin Mary, a reference to his Catholicism). He sees his friends falling dead around the feet of a particularly ferocious enemy, who screams his defiance. Our young Scotsman grabs for his blade, but his worst fears are realized — it is too heavy, and the enemy's Claymore 'cut and thrust' and he falls at the enemy's feet. The enemy cries that he will not fall and live, and the young Scotsman meets his ignoble end, leaving only the wind to echo his battle cry ('and the wind cried Mary').
The poem seems to imply that it is Scotsman against Scotsman, a situation that did occur during the reign of Mary Queen of Scots in the mid-1500s, as the Catholic supporters of the Queen warred against the Protestant opposition. The above, is however, merely one interpretation of a piece which could mean any number of things — or nothing. What is particularly humorous about this section of Several Species is the elaborate poetic set-up used in order to end with a joking reference to a lyric already made popular by Jimi Hendrix a couple of years before ('the wind cried Mary') — and have it actually make sense. Someone who sounds a bit like Dave Gilmour says 'Thank you' in a normal accent at the end — perhaps Dave was in the recording booth?   From: http://floydlyrics.blogspot.com/2010/03/several-species-of-small-furry-animals.html

Emmylou Harris - Wayfaring Stranger

 #Emmylou Harris #folk #country #folk rock #country rock #Americana #progressive country #traditional #singer-songwriter #bluegrass

There have been many iconic pairings in country music and about half of them involve Emmylou Harris. Gram and Emmylou. Willie and Emmylou. Skaggs and Emmylou. Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou. The list could go on through a litany of country greats and each one would probably remember their collaboration with Harris as among the highlights of their career. One of the most powerful harmonizers in the genre, her delicate singing style had a thread of iron running through it, a strength that gave her mournful twang a heartrending power that made her contributions to ballads and breakup songs essential to the evolution of country as a whole. It’s a shame then, that her solo career should be, while overall consistent, somewhat of a letdown, with a string of minor classics early in her career followed by a slew of releases that never really lived up to everything she offered as a singer. There are, to my mind, two albums that fully live up to the enormous artistic talent Emmylou’s displayed over the years: the titanic comeback that was 1995’s Wrecking Ball, and Roses In the Snow, perhaps the most complete expression of Emmylou’s potential and the perfect closer for the early period of her career.
Roses In The Snow, for the most part, stays true to bluegrass convention, although the music occasionally tends toward gospel and her country roots, two styles which have always had significant overlap with bluegrass. Ranging from wellworn classics to new compositions, she effortlessly makes each piece her own, indelibly marking her takes on the old classics and claiming the new cuts as incontrovertibly her own. Her take on Wayfaring Stranger, one of the archetypal examples of traditional American song, instantly becomes the standard against which all other iterations of the song are measured, the doleful hymn to the hope of a better world beyond this one a clear highlight in Emmylou’s career. No less astonishing is her take on Simon and Garfunkel’s The Boxer, which, by staying largely faithful to the original within her bluegrass framework, she more than lives up to, although she can’t quite lay claim to the song like she can with Wayfaring Stranger.  From: https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/78184/Emmylou-Harris-Roses-in-the-Snow/