The Five Stairsteps - Ooh Child

They were known as the “First Family of Soul,” and, while they never achieved the acclaim as the next First Family of Soul, The Jacksons, The Five Stairsteps made an indelible mark on the music world. The children of Chicago police detective Clarence Burke, Sr. and his wife Betty, The Five Stairsteps (named by Betty because of their varying heights when standing together, like stairsteps) consisted of teenage boys Clarence Jr, James, Denis and Keni, as well as sister Alohe, usually backed by Clarence Sr on bass guitar. After creating buzz in the Chicago area, they were signed by Curtis Mayfield to his label, and they released a number of moderate hit songs, the biggest of which was 1966’s “You Waited Too Long.” Stardom eluded the talented group until 1970, when they released the Stan Vincent composition, “Ooh Child.” It became an instant classic, shooting all the way to #1 and turning the Five Stairsteps into the hot young soul group. While they had another charter with a cover of “Dear Prudence,” the Stairsteps (they dropped the “Five” when Alohe left in 1972) went a half decade before hitting the top 10 again with “From Us To You” from their Second Resurrection album. By 1977, the group had disbanded, but they weren’t quite done yet. Clarence Jr formed the disco band The Invisible Man’s Band, and recruited his brothers to join him. The result was a huge dance hit, 1978’s “All Night Thing.” While all of the siblings were talented musicians, brother Keni Burke developed as a legendary bass guitarist, both establishing a solo career (his “Risin To the Top” is one of the most sampled songs ever) and becoming a sought after studio musician. Over the next two decades he worked with virtually every major R&B act.  From: https://www.soultracks.com/five-stairsteps

The Bangles - September Gurls

The song September Gurls features lead vocals by Michael Steele (the track info is incorrect). It was recorded for the album Different Light. Despite the number of successes on this album, not all was well with the Bangle-verse. Tensions had escalated with their producer, David Kahne. During the recording of Different Light, he brought in replacements, at one time or another, for all the Bangles except Micki Steele, who has said, “He loved Sue’s voice, and he loved the way we did harmonies, but everything else was basically shit and he felt like he had to get rid of it, or try to work around it, or do something to make it palatable. I don’t know, maybe he ran out of money before he replaced my bass parts.”
Vicki Peterson says about this, “At one point, I’d had to leave the studio for an emergency, and I came back, and he had had his guy show up and do a solo. It was the backwards thing on ‘September Gurls.’ I hate to burst your bubble, I didn’t play that.
 This is one of my nightmare, nightmare stories. I walked into the studio after I had to leave, and this was already done. And Micki’s loving it—she thinks it sounds great! I looked at Kahne and I went ‘Oh! OK.’ And he said ‘Oh … did you want to try something?’ My will had pretty much been broken successfully by that point. It was really awful.”
Susanna Hoffs was more sympathetic towards Kahne, saying “I remember thinking ‘Boy, being a producer is a hard job.’ And I think he made it seem really hard because he was so driven by angst, and kind of perfectionistic. He had been an artist himself and never succeeded as an artist, so I think he was always tormented by ‘How would I do this if it was my record?’”
Of all the Bangles, Debbi had been affected most by Kahne. She said, “He said I physically couldn’t sing one of the songs. Physically couldn’t sing. It was one of those things where you might as well just stab me right now, just kill me. Cut my throat. Cut out my vocal chords. It was so devastating. It was hard for me to bounce back from that.
“I was actually, at one point, feeling kind of suicidal. This guy was screwing with my emotions so bad, and made me feel so shitty, that I just thought well, OK… I should’ve just told him to piss off. But we were caught between a rock and a hard place.” For their next album, Everything, the Bangles found a different producer, Davitt Sigerson.  From: https://genius.com/The-bangles-september-gurls-lyrics

"September Gurls" is a song written by Alex Chilton that was first released by Big Star on their second studio album Radio City in 1974. "September Gurls" was also released as a single. The song was named in tribute to the Beach Boys' "California Girls". It was inspired by three of the women in Chilton's life who he was thinking about at the time, including his ex-wife, having birthdays in September. According to Big Star bassist Andy Hummel, Chilton "was going through a lot of different girls that he was having relationships with, kind of simultaneously, and a lot of what's in those songs [including "September Gurls"] is him really just telling of his experiences with them and how he felt about them."
While "September Gurls" was never a big seller, it is considered a classic song by publications such as Rolling Stone and Allmusic, as well as by music journalist John M. Borack who wrote: "September Gurls" was and is the sine qua non of power pop, a glorious glittering jewel with every facet cut and shined to absolute perfection. While the Raspberries' "Go All the Way" provides a definitive encapsulation of what power pop is, "September Gurls" goes even further, not so much as the embodiment of a genre, but as a peerless, aching distillation of love and longing. "September Gurls" may not actually be the greatest song ever recorded, but for the duration of its 2:47 running time, you can be forgiven for believing it is.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_Gurls

Mooner - Hei

Indonesian stoner metal isn’t a term that gets thrown around lightly in these parts. To be fair, its not a term I think I’ve ever thrown around up to this point, but given the thick billowing riffs on Mooner’s debut, it’s probably time to start exploring the rest of the Indonesian scene. The band is comprised Voltron style of members of existing Indo metal bands – The Sigit, Sigmun, The Slave, and Sarasvati. The music follows the tone of The Slave most closely and like that band the tracks from Tabiat were intended to back their own skate videos. The Slave/Mooner’s Absar Lebeh has been kicking around the skate world for some time actually which serves to explain why one of the only other US mentions of Mooner comes via Thrasher.
“So what does this all mean for me, the listener?” you say. Well, the band is riding nimbus clouds of guitar bearing down on a ’70s Flower Travelin’ Band / Mountain / Blues Creation highway. In fact, with the prog-ripped backdrop propping up the cinder-psych vocals from Marshella Safira, the band draws a pretty good side by side to Blues Creation’s collaboration with Carmen Maki when BC are at their heaviest. Even more apt in the recent reissue box touchstones would be the still overlooked Hungarian psych goddess Sarolta Zalatnay if she might have lasted to front the New Wave of British Metal. Comparisons aside, though, Mooner are 100% killin’ the nu-prog vibes and reveling in what are sure to be stacked crates of their own heavy faves seeping into the sound. The band cites Indonesian bands AKA and Panbers, so probably best to start there for some real-world comparisons. High quality crushers abound on this one that should have their American stoner metal counterparts sweatin’ their game.  From: https://www.ravensingstheblues.com/mooner/

Although they’re relatively unknown outside of their native Indonesia, Mooner are something of a supergroup on home soil. The band feature members of The Slave, The SIGIT, Sigmun, and Sarasvati – all well established acts, commanding huge audiences. These four musicians have carried some of that winsome magic over onto this Mooner release. Recorded at Red Studio, Bandung, mixed at Rebuilt Studio and then mastered by James Plotkin, Tabiat was originally released in Indonesia earlier this year via Bhang Records. The record is pure heavy psych with strong influences of Indian Raga and Middle Eastern touches thrown into a stoner rock stew. Tabiat is an update to the sounds found in early 70’s Indonesia while staying true to the roots of the original scene. We asked Rekti from the band what his 3 most influential releases are. So sit back, and enjoy the trip!

Shark Move – Ghede Chokra’s
Before it was reissued by Shadoks Music, a small boutique label from Germany, this record has been buried for more than 30 years and was unbeknownst to Indonesian music fans. It’s most killer song ‘Evil War’ gained both local and global attentions after Those Shocking Shaking Days an Indonesian psychedelic compilation released in 2011. Beside being the first self released Indonesian album, Ghede Chokra’s is a bold, uncompromised and explorative, with solid musicianship and song writing. This album is all killer-no filler. Other Indo counterparts (Koes Bersaudara, Panbers, AKA, etc) have their killer songs, but their albums always had that turn off moment for me. Ghede Chokra’s is one of few 70’s Indo albums that I can listen to in its entirety.

Hot Lunch – Hot Lunch
This is one of our all time best for sure. Because it has the best riffs, best guitar sounds, best driving bass lines, best drumming that shapes the songs’ dynamic, and album that sounds like a Greatest Hits Compilation. We want to emulate their sound so much when we recorded our album Tabiat, but never quite get it right. They covered ‘Knife Edge’ by Emerson, Lake & Palmer and I think Hot Lunch’s version is better than the original. I find Hot Lunch to be bit proggy, but in a very enjoyable way, which is also what we were trying to emulate at some point when we recorded our album.

Shocking Blue – Scorpio’s Dance
We love 60’s and 70’s rock hits that have dark and doomy feels to them. I think Shocking Blue has their dark and gloomy moments, especially in Scorpio’s Dance. There’s an obvious influence of country music and spaghetti western, almost CCR, but by listening to the intro track ‘Scorpio’s Dance (First Movement)’ alone, which is pretty heavy, I could tell that this album is not a peace & love hippy album.  Plus there are song titles like  ‘I Love Voodoo Music’, ‘Hello Darkness’ and ‘Daemon Lover’ that sounds gloomy and mysterious. They switch back and forth between heavy and light throughout the album, but those couple dark and gloomy songs left some sort of evil / demonic impression on me. I think I unconsciously modeled Mooner after Shocking Blue. Female singer, hooky riffs, doomy feels…

From: https://echoesanddust.com/2017/12/under-the-influence-with-rekti-from-mooner/

Kosmonaut - Euphoria Rising

It was sometime in the fall of 2019 that my friend BJ Kuhn and I decided to embark on a music journey. We wanted to make some music that was conceptually interesting and pay homage to all of the influences that we had. We embarked on our first record, a collection of EP’s that we had created that we decided to self title. It was an affirmation to everything that we were hoping it would be. It was raw, spontaneous, and honest. It was primitive and shamanistic, and absolutely us. We decided to rip the fucking rear view mirror off our proverbial hot rod that we were cruising in and continue to pursue our sound. “Blues in solstice “ was created while we kept working past our first album. It was literally a couple of months apart from the first batch of songs we created, and in some ways, it sounds like years were spaced in between the two. We picked up some momentum on this record thanks to Rob Hammer. He posted our first two albums to you tube and it was fucking inspiring. To think that we were lucky enough to have people listen and like our project was absolutely rewarding as fuck. We kept the momentum up with “frequency and vibration”, writing continuously since the first record. We wrote most of this record via email. We love to record, produce, and engineer music. Since we both have studios in our houses, we could work on music at our convenience, and move fast by just reacting off of each other’s material. That’s ultimately what makes this band so great. The spontaneity that exists in the writing. We have so much music to share with you! We don’t buy into the industries bullshit. We just love fucking music. We are metal heads, raised on the radio in the 90s, grunge-aholics, and well versed in all things recording. We wanted to put together a band that was all of those things, and I honestly think we succeeded with it. Check out all of our records at https://kosmonautofficial.bandcamp.com/. Most of the material is “name your price”. This means if you are fucking poor like we are, you can download it for free. It is worth it. We love our music and want you to have it. Thank you so much for listening, and if you actually read all this shit, then god bless you, you are fucking one of us, the lovers of music. –Bryan Blake – Kosmonaut
From: https://writteninstonedimension.wordpress.com/2020/06/07/kosmonaut-hyper-buzz-love/

Joan Armatrading - One More Chance

 

Singer/guitarist/songwriter Joan Armatrading—born in the West Indies and raised in Birmingham, England—makes records of warm, emotionally resonant music that has earned her a devoted following on at least two continents. Having never managed to move beyond a dedicated mid-sized following in the US, Armatrading had to watch as the singer/songwriter resurgence of the late ’80s sent likeminded artists (including nominal soundalike Tracy Chapman) catapulting past her hard-earned level of success with music that was not substantially different from hers. The subsequent slowing of her album output can certainly be presumed to have something to do with the more densely populated field into which it is now being released.

Whatever’s for Us, produced between Elton John albums by Gus Dudgeon, was a collaborative effort with lyricist Pam Nestor; on her own, with Dada/Vinegar Joe member Pete Gage at the helm, Back to the Night proved equally uncommercial. Armatrading then teamed up with Glyn Johns, who brought in ex-members of Fairport Convention as backing musicians for Joan Armatrading, an extraordinarily thoughtful and moving album that contains “Down to Zero” and “Love and Affection,” two of her most enduring and powerful compositions.

The intimate, upbeat Show Some Emotion is lovely, a casual-sounding album of songs that, if not among her best, are more than presentable and occasionally captivating. Johns also produced the harder-rocking To the Limit, a slightly dated-sounding collection of strong songs (which includes the notable “Bottom to the Top,” set to a gentle reggae beat) played by a small electric band that, at its most exuberant, resembles a modest Mad Dogs and Englishmen. He also produced Steppin’ Out, a live document of American performances: backed by a five-piece band, Armatrading delivers nine songs, including “Love and Affection” and “Cool Blue Stole My Heart.” How Cruel is a four-song 12-inch containing some non-LP material.

Me Myself I was produced by Richard Gottehrer and performed by a stellar cast of Anglo-American rock musicians (including Chris Spedding, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici and three members of David Letterman’s band). Even in this all-electric setting, Armatrading and her songs hold up nicely. “Me Myself I” is brilliant, a chillingly beautiful declaration of independence with a memorable pop melody; the rest of the record explores the vagaries of love and percolates with energy, grace and sensitivity.

Steve Lillywhite took over the production reins for Walk Under Ladders, which fields a fascinating selection of players—XTC’s Andy Partridge, King Crimsonites Tony Levin and Mel Collins, Sly and Robbie, Thomas Dolby. Although the stylized results shortchange Joan’s personality a bit, successful numbers like “I Wanna Hold You” and “At the Hop” affirm her courageous desire to explore uncharted areas.

The Key is a slick package that employs many of the same players as Walk Under Ladders to recapture the potent melodic pop elements of Me Myself I. “(I Love It When You) Call Me Names” is a should-have-been-hit with spectacular multi-tracked harmonies and a hair-raising Adrian Belew guitar solo. “The Game of Love” has an Edge-like echoed guitar sound and a memorable chorus. Motels starmaker Val Garay produced the bristling “Drop the Pilot” (Lillywhite did all but one other track) with loud power chords and a stomping backbeat; although spoiled by ill- advised synths, “I Love My Baby” ends the record with a tender lullaby.

Secret Secrets lays open a world of pain and suffering. In “Persona Grata” Armatrading announces, “I’m your whipping boy,” adding “I’m in love with you” in a resigned, grim tone. “Love by You” and “Friends Not Lovers” mourn the end of a relationship with tragic depth. In “Strange,” she realizes “I am not missing you”; other songs (“Moves,” “One Night”) allow more hope to shine through the tears. Pino Palladino’s inimitable fretless bass provides the most notable instrumental character; other than on “Moves,” the sophisticated modern backing is rather faceless.

Armatrading produced Sleight of Hand, using just a drummer, bassist and keyboardist (with a few minor guest contributions) and staying out of any easily identifiable musical niche. She acquits herself well, both on guitar and behind the board, offering songs that suggest more personal happiness and stability than those on Secret Secrets.

From: https://trouserpress.com/reviews/joan-armatrading/

Stonefield - Live at Daytrotter Studios 2018 / Audiotree Live 2020

 Live at Daytrotter Studios 2018

  

 

Audiotree Live 2020 

 

Amy Findlay isn’t just Stonefield’s drummer she’s their vocalist too. Which is why, I think, that when she sings, she belts it out, a hard rock howl echoing over some rolling otherworldly expanse. The freedom to play and sing this way hasn’t always been something Amy and her sisters held within their grasp. Stonefield’s career in music started in a head-spinning daze of hype, major labels, and high rolling record producers. While this pushed the band’s music to a large audience, Amy has her reservations whether the group really had the opportunity to grow and evolve as organically as they otherwise might have. Fortunately, things have changed. Currently vibrating closer to the Do-It-Yourself attitude of King Gizzard and The Lizard Wizard and their label Flightless, Stonefield are free to create as they please, to pursue the eerie and mysterious dimensions of their sound. Their fourth record Bent reflects this. The Stonefield you hear on this album is no longer the group once vamped as The Next Big Thing (and good riddance to the whole idea). These musicians aren’t out to please anybody who doesn’t want to be here and in doing so are a step closer to the elemental energies of four people playing together in a band. Wasn’t that what this whole rock ‘n’ roll business was supposed to be about in the first place? As for the band, more than a few things are coming together. It’s a good feeling. As Amy herself would put it, there’s a light at the end of the tunnel.
 
HM: Your new record Bent is being released via King Gizzard’s record label Flightless. How did that come about?

AF: We met the Gizzard guys about seven years ago now. They played a show with us when we were doing… Hmm, what tour was it? It might have been the ‘Black Water Rising’ tour. Frickin’ years ago! It was a long time ago. We became friends with them all. We, at the time, were signed to a different label, Wunderkind which was supposed to be through Warner [Records] but then changed over to Mushroom [Records]. So I guess we came from a very different world to those guys in terms of the industry side of it. They were always very D.I.Y. which was something that we admired a lot, seeing them be able to do just whatever they wanted without having to convince anyone or have anyone else on their side. And it just kind of happened over time. We evolved and we wanted to eventually change the people we were working with, change our musical direction a little bit and do things the way we wanted to do it. We actually released our last record [Far From Earth] through [Flightless] but we had finished recording the whole thing and did it all ourselves without – well we were actually still signed to [Wunderkind] but it kind of just worked out that we really weren’t on the same page. And then Flightless were like, “Yeah, cool! Let’s put it out!” So it all worked out really well for us.

HM: You also recorded Bent at Flightless and King Gizzard headquarters…

AF: Yeah, it’s in Brunswick East. We did it when we got back from our January tour in the states. We did it fairly quickly. Those guys have always got a lot of stuff going on, so we did it with Stu [McKenzie] and Joe [Walker]. They squeezed us in between the million other things they’ve got happening. We just sort of prepared ourselves as much as we could to just kind of go in there and record it as live as possible. It took us about five days in total. Most of it was at night. But yeah, it was good. It was a really different experience to anything that we’ve done before. It was so quick and easy. We just went in there and did it! [Stu and Joe] didn’t really have too much to say other than, “Yeah, sounds sick! Keep going.”

HM: Looking at Stonefield’s four albums your sound seems to have been this interesting evolution towards a rawer and more live sound. Is that something you’ve consciously been trying to build toward?

AF: Definitely. Our sound has evolved so much. Thinking back to our first album [Stonefield] we feel like we were just so young and naïve. It’s kind of been interesting because I feel that, in a way, we’ve sort of worked backwards. For our first album we had this producer come in from the UK and did heaps of days in the studio in pre-production. It was also so proper, a big-label all-hands-on-deck kind of thing. And I think that experience, as much as it was great, threw us off a little bit because these were our first ever songs. We hadn’t really written any songs before that – we’d done a couple of EPs. It’s weird having to grow as a person and as a musician from the get-go rather than being around in a band for years-and-years playing covers then all of a sudden going, “Shit I’ve got to write an album.” It’s definitely evolved. We are at our rawest point now, which is definitely good. It’s what we always did want to do. But yeah, it’s kind of about catching the raw energy of your live set. It used to be difficult for us, but this is the first time we’ve actually achieved that and it’s just from like, not stressing over anything and just doing it. Getting it done the way that we do it and not focusing on a guitar sound for hours. It’s just like, “What we do live is cool. We like that sound so let’s just do that.” So yeah, it’s no stuffing around. And I think that’s the best we’ve ever done.

HM: You’ve been in a band, a rock band for 13 years. And it seems that even from the outset you had a firm idea of what you wanted to play and how you wanted to play it…

AF: Yeah.

HM: It’s a big commitment, not only being dedicated to a certain sound but also to playing with a certain group of people…

AF:  From the get-go, we’ve always been a rock band. That’s always what we’ve wanted to do and we wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve never thought, “Oh, I’d like to write a solo album.” (Actually, we have joked about that.) [Laughs] No, yeah, we’ve stuck to that and not ever seriously thought about changing. Thinking back to all, you know, those years and all those songs that are currently hits on triple j – there’s a lot of y’know electronic music and whatever. And yeah, it’s hard being in a rock band. In all this time that rock has been at the absolute forefront of what’s in… I think we just missed that rock ‘n’ roll riot when Wolfmother and all those bands were big.

HM: But obviously you’ve toured all over the world and can see that there is another kind of audience for rock. It might not be the huge audience that it once was here in Australia but there are these large pockets of people who are still very much in love with it. You think that sound has finally had its day and then you see someone like King Gizzard starting to get really big in the states after they had released all those albums back in 2017…

AF: Yeah. Definitely. In Australia, it was easier when we first started off because we had that whole sort of triple j hype, which is definitely a specific kind of audience. But then I think that if you are sticking to being a rock band you are really relying on that fan base that just loves rock music. So I guess that we always feel like there is some sort of audience in Australia but we definitely got to the point where we were like, “Okay. Australia is a big country, but the population isn’t big enough to sustain a career playing this music and just staying here.”
It’s not enough. So that’s why we really started to focus on going overseas because there are so many more people that love that music to play to and kind of you know, broaden our audiences. It’s been really interesting playing in the states and in Europe as well. While it’s still not a mainstream genre of music, there’s just so many more people in the rest of the world. You can go to all these different cities, drive a few hours each day and be in a whole different city with a big group of people that love that music. So it definitely has – I don’t know I guess it’s like seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. You can see that, yes, you can sustain doing what you love. And there is an audience that’s big enough for it. Watching Gizzard achieving what they’ve done, it’s definitely inspiring. I feel like they are kind of like an exception. What they’ve done is pretty amazing and every band would love to have that. But it is great to see that so many people are into the music. That’s probably going to help shift things a little bit.

HM: Circling back to this idea that you’re committed to this certain kind of music, you might even go as far as to say that you love it. I’m interested in where that comes from if you could put a finger on it. Is there something about rock that you’ve always connected with or thought, “That’s what I want to do, there’s no other way!”

AF:  I think it’s just because that’s literally what we grew up on. Rock ‘n’ roll was our childhood and all of our memories ever. And I think it’s just such a fun genre to play live.
And it’s also quite broad. I feel like that within rock there’s a lot of different ways that you can push it, like doing the wholes stoner rock thing or dreamy, shoegazey kind of stuff. You can kind of explore it and there’s a lot of places to go. Which is something that I feel like we’ve been doing a little bit as well. I never really feel restricted or anything like that. It’s just what comes out of us. I don’t know, I hadn’t really about it too much. That’s just what we do.

HM: Some people have called Stonefield ‘psychedelic’. Does that word hold any special meaning for you or is the music just something that happens when you get together and play instruments?

AF: I guess it’s just what happens really. But definitely with the last record, we were like, “Let’s make something a bit heavier and more eerie.”

From: https://cosmicmagazine.com.au/features/stonefields-amy-findlay-on-touring-king-gizzard-and-the-psychedelic-sound/

 

Timber Timbre - Beat The Drum Slowly

 In 2009, when Timber Timbre released their self titled album, there was a night where I found myself in a Montreal strip club on a quiet Tuesday and I witnessed a beautiful dark haired woman strip to “Lay Down in the Tall Grass.” It was a strange moment. I’d heard the album by then but I’d never considered Taylor Kirk’s menacing lyrics to be sexy. Until then they put me in a discomforting mood. They were words too dark to face reflected back to you. Timber Timbre’s latest and fifth release, Hot Dreams, gets darker and sexier still with their title track and, as if in reenactment of that wonderful Montreal night, accompanies it with a video in a strip club where time seems to slow to a stop. But the darkness is still overpowering. The songs from their new album are funeral marches and laments. They’re predatory, film noir inspired dirge pop. They’re the kind of songs Nick Cave would write if Nick Cave were Lee Hazelwood. It’s easy to take the darkness of a writers words and twist them into a mythical cloud surrounding the person. When I walked into a Toronto bar to meet with Timber Timbre singer Taylor Kirk, I walked past without recognizing him. Far from the dark and broody pictures that Timber Timbre paints with their music, Taylor was wearing flannel and a touque, drinking beer like an old time hoser at the bar. He was warm but nervous, soft spoken over the Pavement album that played in the background. We spoke of the brewing controversy of their song “Hot Dreams,” Taylor’s reluctant celebrity and his disenchantment with Hollywood.

Noisey: Your new song “Hot Dreams” begins with the line, “I wanna dance with a Black woman.” The song seems to be about the desire to feel something new whether that be good or bad. How does “dancing with a Black woman” fit into that narrative?

Taylor Kirk: “Hot Dreams” is about fantasy and exploring and reconciling love and sex, love and fantasy, sex and fantasy. It’s about exploring otherness. Someone asked me if I’d considered that it’s a fetishization of a race and I still don’t know how to answer that question. I consider that we have, with our records and songs, we’ve fetishized certain kinds of music and certain records. I asked this person if he felt that we had fetishized Black music because I think we have and I think we do with this song. I’m trying to write a song about sex and fantasy in what I understand. I think we understand American Black music to be a sexy music so it’s congruent with that concept. I mean, a friend of mine who is very into playing roles and embodying different characters with her writing and her storytelling and her lyrics, which I’m doing to an extent but to a lesser extent, she felt that in the song I must be embodying a jerk. I considered that the line is dangerous but not a damaging thing to sing.

Do you understand why people might have a problem with that line?

Of course. That’s what I mean, I considered it to be dangerous but I still don’t think that it’s destructive or damaging.

You brought up blues music and a white appropriation of it. Do you think that’s still an issue? How do you feel about playing blues music?

I think it’s done. I was thinking more of soul music with the previous comment but I don’t know, I think it’s over, I don’t even think it’s interesting. The idea of white blues was never something I liked or wanted to hear and it was something I avoided. My Dad plays in a blues rock band and I always felt some aversion to blues rock. But at some point I was trying to not sound like myself and trying to embody that sound, just the aesthetic of it.

Do you think you sound like yourself now?

More so. I think with each song I write and each recording there’s less pretense to what I’m doing and there’s less of an affectation. One thing that I’ve noticed on every album, except Cedar Shakes, is that the figure of the “hunter” always comes up. It’s in "Patron Saint Hunter," "Magic Arrow," "Lonesome Hunter," it comes up on the new album in "Bring Me Simple Men."

What is the hunter to you? What does it represent?

With the most recent recording Simone Schmidt wrote the words to that song, or I guess we wrote them together. I considered avoiding those kinds of images and motifs that I had explored previously. But I think that one, along with other kinds of images or references that seemed to be menacing or predatory, I wanted to leave out. I guess this was something I’d been considering previously as a way to offset the vulnerability I felt as a songwriter, as a singer, as a lyricist, mainly. It felt good to sing and disguise what I was singing about in something powerful.

Do you consider yourself a hunter?

In the past I would have considered myself the prey, more vulnerable. Then to wear the mask of the hunter. It seemed to be some kind of equalizer going into the act of performing or putting music out. I guess mainly for performing.

Are you uncomfortable performing?

I’m getting better. It’s taken me a long time to get comfortable. I think I’m used to it. Maybe I’m used to being uncomfortable.

What makes you comfortable?

Whiskey, usually.

Do you see yourself as a reluctant figurehead or a reluctant celebrity? Do you think a lot of the things you’ve fallen into, you’ve fallen into them reluctantly?

Yes. It feels very unnatural. Nothing about doing this professionally feels like a natural thing to do except the act of making the thing. Otherwise there’s very little about the rest of it that feels obvious.

So why do you do it?

That’s a good question…I’m used to it. I’m getting used to it.

I’m of the understanding that you’ve been reluctant to form a rock band with bass and drums and guitar, which is the form it’s in now. How did your guard come down to the point where it could be a traditional rock band?

I was more interested in the people I was playing with than the instrumentation. So I found people who were nice to be around and nice to play with, being Mika and Simon. Then we started to work with Olivier, who is a drummer, and I was never interested in playing with a drummer, particularly, it’s not like he would be replaceable. I like playing with him. And it’s the same with Matt. The project has always been a little nebulous in that format that it was in before. It was unconventional, I guess, and it got to be a little bit boring to not be able to always win people over. Where something that is in the rock format, it’s just so much more reliable. It’s undeniable and familiar and it doesn’t demand as much of people to adjust their mind around what it looks like. Optically as well, like what’s happening onstage. People really struggled with that before.

Are you looking to challenge your audience less?

No, it’s more that I don’t want to challenge myself. I never felt it was so strange, what we were doing before, but once we started to play with drums and bass the reaction and response was so much more a polar opposite of the reaction we were getting before, which was exciting and different. The set before was really languid and it was almost experimental at times and meditative and it required a lot of attention and patience and focus. Now it’s innate. It’s rock ‘n roll. Almost.

The first song on the new album, "Beat the Drum Slowly" seems like a condemnation of our celebrity-obsessed culture, especially concerning film. Is it a condemnation?

It’s more of a lament. I was staying in Laurel Canyon in Los Angeles and I was around Hollywood and Hollywood film people and it made me lament a time of film making and an aesthetic that I really liked and that I really related to somehow. Hollywood is such a surface thing. It’s not an exaggeration, you really see it when you go there. You can feel it. It feels like a superfluous, self contained thing and it feels like people are really delusional. There was something about being in that place and hearing the stories come up and the mythology that surrounds that place that made me want to go and watch Chinatown. Meanwhile The Hobbit would be opening down on Sunset or the Wizard of Oz movie with these computer generated movies which are, to me, so pathetic and so gross. And the red carpet stuff and all that whole scene, it was annoying.

Just before the album Timber Timbre was released, years ago, I saw you perform at a label party and there was already some excitement about it, there were a lot of people who showed up to see you for the first time. You sat onstage and you played bird noises from a record player for about half an hour and then you walked off. It seemed like a rebellious move. I don’t know if it was rebellious or if you would view it that way, but how connected are you to the performer you were then?

My friend Jonas and I had this collection of Solitudes records on vinyl and we made loops and made essentially a noise set with these things, like ocean waves and birds. It’s funny because I wouldn’t do that now. It was a rebellious thing. I think at the time I really wasn’t interested in playing that space. I had played a lot of big rooms like that and played to people talking through the whole set and to do that solo a number of times is so disheartening. I knew that that’s how it would be in that place so I said fuck it, I’ll do what I want and I’ll have fun with this show and I won’t expose myself. Or I won’t put myself through anything. But it didn’t feel like I was doing a stunt. It didn’t feel like there was that much interest in the project at that time, I didn’t think anyone would be bothered by it. That was naive, I think.

From: https://www.vice.com/en/article/rb8wjw/timber-timbre-its-going-down

The Last Dinner Party - My Lady of Mercy

One drunken evening in 2019, Abigail Morris and Georgia Davies rushed into a discount store in Brixton, south London, and bought a cheap notepad to write down their band’s manifesto. At that point, the rock group, then called the Dinner Party, only had three members, and had never actually rehearsed any songs. But Morris and Davies — the singer and bassist — knew exactly how they wanted to look and sound: “Gothic,” “Indulgent” and “Decadence” were at the top of their list. As the English literature students went from pub to pub, they added to their proclamation, including modest ambitions (playing shows with hip British bands) and more grandiose aims (“We want to be role models for younger girls”). Later in the evening, Morris accidentally cut herself on a broken glass, and dripped blood onto the notepad. “I was, like, ‘This is perfect!’” Davies recalled in a recent interview. The splatters emphasized the pair’s vision for a band teetering between the beautiful and the grotesque.
Some four years later, this meticulous yet playful approach has helped Davies and Morris achieve some of their goals. Now called the Last Dinner Party, the theatrical rock group — which also includes Emily Roberts (lead guitar), Lizzie Mayland (rhythm guitar) and Aurora Nishevci (keyboards) — has this year become Britain’s buzziest new band. The group has built a following through its theatrical live shows, which have sometimes featured a dress code for attendees.  In January, the group — whose sound is often compared to the sweeping pop of Florence + the Machine — topped the BBC’s Sound of 2024, a much-watched annual poll, which has previously anointed Adele and PinkPantheress. At a time when rock bands often struggle for attention, the Last Dinner Party has broken through by taking a surprisingly traditional route, prioritizing touring, rather than producing social media-targeted hits. A North American tour starts Thursday, including sold-out dates at New York’s Webster Hall on March 26 and Brooklyn Steel the following day, as well as the Coachella festival in April.
Morris said this approach, with which the band has gone from playing pubs to selling out 5,000-capacity London theaters, would help them sustain a career. “There’s no longevity in having a viral song blow up,” she said. “That’s not how you build a community.” A striking visual aesthetic, though, can help. The band’s fashion sense is magpie-like, taking inspiration from various historic eras and fantastical styles. Last fall, the group set dress codes for a British tour and although it’s stopped that practice, at a recent London gig, dozens of younger audience members donned outfits including floral headdresses and corsets, inspired by band’s theatrical imagery. Even those who didn’t dress up seemed all in. The comedian Kerry Godliman, 50, said she’d become a fan after her daughter came back from a festival raving about the group. “I love the grandeur of it, the camp archness of it, the theatricality of it,” Godliman said. The fact that the band is made up of women and a nonbinary person is “still such a rare thing,” she added. After releasing its debut single, an expletive-filled love song called “Nothing Matters,” in spring 2023, the Last Dinner Party’s ascent has been so fast in Britain that, on social media, some observers have accused its members — who are all in their mid-20s — of being “industry plants,” brought together by record label executives.
Roberts, the guitarist, said she found such suggestions “quite sad,” as if people “don’t want to believe that a young female and nonbinary band can be successful.” The reality is less dramatic, Morris added: She has been an aspiring rock star since her teens at a Catholic school, where she developed “a crushing need to be adored by everyone at all times at whatever cost.” She met Davies at college in London; the other three band members were also music-obsessed students in the British capital, who Morris and Davies gradually brought into their fold. With Britain in and out of lockdowns because of the coronavirus pandemic, the nascent band initially couldn’t play live, and honed its sound instead: moody, grand indie-pop, topped by Morris’s swooping vocals. By the time of its first show in November 2021, Morris said the members had “rehearsed so long, we were fully formed.” By its fourth show, at an out-of-the-way venue on a south London industrial park, record labels were deluging the band with messages.  From: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/arts/music/the-last-dinner-party-prelude-to-ecstasy.html

The Doors - The End - Live at The Rock Scene Like It Is 1967

“The End” served as the finale for many of The Doors' most notable concerts. The lyrics are a combination of different variations sung during jam-style performances over several months at the Whiskey A Go Go nightclub in Los Angeles in 1966.
The song was famously used in the iconic opening scene of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 film Apocalypse Now, with images of the Vietnam War to the cinematic battle towards the end of the movie between Willard (Martin Sheen’s character) and Kurtz (Marlon Brando’s character).
In a 1969 interview with Rolling Stone, Morrison said the song means something different every time he listened to it: It started out as a simple good-bye song… Probably just to a girl, but I see how it could be a goodbye to a kind of childhood. I really don’t know. I think it’s sufficiently complex and universal in its imagery that it could be almost anything you want it to be.
Several musical influences are apparent in Robby Krieger’s composition of this song, including Chopin’s “Funeral March.”

Sometimes the pain is too much to examine, or even tolerate… That doesn’t make it evil, though – or necessarily dangerous. But people fear death even more than pain. It’s strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah – I guess it is a friend…
Jim Morrison

He was giving voice in a rock ‘n’ roll setting to the Oedipus complex, at the time a widely discussed tendency in Freudian psychology. He wasn’t saying he wanted to do that to his own mom and dad. He was re-enacting a bit of Greek drama. It was theatre!
Ray Manzarek

A “Roman wilderness of pain” is a metaphor to describe situations that one struggles to overcome, or a bad experience that has to be dealt with. Morrison was heavily influenced by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who argued that over coming difficulty and dealing with struggles makes a person stronger and better.

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I'll never look into your eyes again

Can you picture what will be?
So limitless and free
Desperately in need
Of some stranger's hand
In a desperate land

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain
And all the children are insane
All the children are insane
Waiting for the summer rain

There's danger on the edge of town
Ride the King's Highway
Weird scenes inside the gold mine
Ride the highway west
Ride the snake, ride the snake
To the lake, the ancient lake
The snake, he's long, seven miles
Ride the snake
He's old and his skin is cold
The west is the best
Get here and we'll do the rest
The blue bus is calling us
Driver, where you taking us?

The killer awoke before dawn
He put his boots on
He took a face from the ancient gallery
And he walked on down the hall
He went into the room where his sister lived, and then he
Paid a visit to his brother, and then he
He walked on down the hall
And he came to a door
And he looked inside
"Father?" "Yes, son?" "I want to kill you"
"Mother? I want to..."

Come on baby, take a chance with us
And meet me at the back of the blue bus
Doin' a blue rug, on a blue bus

Come on yeah
Fuck, fuck, fuck yeah!
Come on baby, come on
Fuck me baby, fuck yeah
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill

This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend, the end

It hurts to set you free
But you'll never follow me
The end of laughter and soft lies
The end of nights we tried to die
This is the end

From: https://genius.com/The-doors-the-end-lyrics

Puscifer - A Singularity (Re-Imagined by Carina Round)

 Puscifer have now rolled out a fourth music video for the Carina Round reimagining of their track “A Singularity“. The alternative rock outfit, who are fronted by Tool/A Perfect Circle vocalist Maynard James Keenan, wound up with multiple videos for that reworked version of the song.
This latest clip was helmed by actor Yul Vazquez. Puscifer commented of his take: “Many of you know Yul Vazquez from one of his numerous TV roles (Severance, The Outsider, Russian Doll, etc.) but he’s also a talented photographer and painter. Yul lent his talents to our series of “A Singularity (Re-Imagined by Carina Round)” videos.
‘As an actor I have the opportunity to travel to incredible places and witness beautiful and often lonely things. I do my best to photograph these moments, the architecture, the shadow and light. I used some of this footage I’ve photographed all over the world for this track. But when Maynard revealed to me the source of these lyrics it altered the edit. The song now had far more emotional impact on me which sent me on my own journey and prompted me to include some very personal footage. It’s my contribution to a song about loss.'”
Further videos done by Odin Wadleigh and Keenan‘s daughter Lei Li are also lined up for this track. The song itself serves as a tribute to Keenan‘s late dog MiHo, with the man himself having previously stated: “On Oct. 7, 2021, I lost my Muse. Deadly Little MiHo lost her 2 year battle with pancreatitis and kidney disease. We thought we lost her in late 2019, so I panicked and wrote her this song. We were certain she was done for. But we were blessed with a second chance and a bit more time. I rarely share things like this. Too painful. But this one can’t be kept bottled up. As I have mentioned before, she has been hiding in most of my vocal tracks since 2005. She was either in or near the vocal booth every time I tracked. Her sigh, her bark, sniffle, sneeze. Her jingling collar. Her squeaky toys. Usually poorly timed.  From: https://www.theprp.com/2023/02/12/news/puscifer-release-fourth-music-video-for-carina-rounds-a-singularity-remix/

Carina Round: Maynard’s vocal for this song is synonymously a sorrowful hymn and a siren of celebration. I wanted the main vocal and the bass and drums to be anchors in a sea of jubilant chaos. A kind of controlled cacophony of celebratory joy. Familiar, but a bit unnerving. Even Carla’s groove, so meticulous and powerful, sounds like it could derail into a delightful nervous breakdown at any point. The horns and saxes at the end are all moving together but somehow so loose, dispersing off into foam and then coming back together into one harmonious wave and then breaking off again, cascading. I feel excited when it’s over and like I want to get back on the ride. Birds, a charm of finches bookend the song. You can feel their energy. And within, there’s Maynard’s lone whistle, mimicking them. The one who keeps them alive and in turn draws his own life force. The synergy of composure and chaos in a dance reverence.  From: https://genius.com/Puscifer-a-singularity-re-imagined-by-carina-round-lyrics  

Ramona Falls - I Say Fever

Ramona Falls is beautiful. Seriously, check it out on Google Earth some time. A multi-tiered waterfall in a dark glen on the slopes of Mount Hood in Oregon, it's one of those endlessly photographable landforms that makes you want to be there any time you see a shot of it. As a sort of shorthand for the natural majesty of the Pacific Northwest, the name works well for Portland's Ramona Falls, aka Brent Knopf of Menomena and a huge cast of his friends. In fact, of the various Menomena side projects, this is the one that most matches that band in terms of both sound and quality, paying meticulous attention to sonic and compositional details to emerge with a record full of memorable surprises.
Sometimes it's just an unexpected element that mails a song all the way home, like the impromptu choir that suddenly emerges from the acoustic guitar and spaciously recorded drums of "Bellyfulla" or the unbelievably gorgeous violin part that shines like a vibrant light from the center of "Russia". The violin melody interacts with the chord sequence to grow more aching by the second and turns a decent song into one you can't forget. Knopf is piano player and programmer for Menomena, and he comes up with some wild stuff here, especially on "Always Right", where he sticks you with these bizarre, stuttering phrases for the odd-metered verses. It's offset by big choruses and a strange Eastern European-ish bridge with a carnivalesque atmosphere. More simple is "Boy Ant", a short piano instrumental with a sense of melody derived more from traditional European songs like "Edelweiss" than anything in contemporary pop sphere.
Any Menomena fan will recognize Knopf's voice, which is a delicate instrument-- it's not rangy, but he knows his capabilities and uses them. He gives himself a bit of electronic assistance on "I Say Fever", falling down a processing rabbit hole on the title refrain, which precipitates a sudden downpour of heavy guitar. Sleater-Kinney's Janet Weiss provides the song's pounding rhythmic floor, but Knopf's own piano gives it its funky stride. Knopf's solo songs share with Menomena an ear for contrast--"Going Once, Going Twice" swings between easy-flowing passages and lurching sections that build tension for the next rhythmic release.
Intuit, a word that nicely serves as a homophone for "Into It", works as a title for the album because it so neatly seems to describe the writing process-- very few of the odd shifts and unexpected turns in the songs sound contrived or forced. Down to the cover art, it feels like a strong echo of everything great about Knopf's primary band. There are no cut-outs or flipbooks, but Theo Ellsworth's elaborate, grotesque illustrations are worth taking in-- they're like a combination of Where the Wild Things Are, a fever dream, a pagan woodland ceremony, and a notebook doodle. The music is worth taking in, too, over and over again.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/13418-intuit/

Ghost Funk Orchestra - Eyes Of Love

 

 

Ghost Funk Orchestra is a retro-toned combo whose layered sound traverses a number of different styles including psychedelia, jazz, soul, R&B, and exotica. The band emerged from New York in the late 2010s under the leadership of producer/arranger Seth Applebaum. Initially an experimental recording project, Applebaum slowly built his endeavor into a dynamic live group supporting a series of small releases before making their label debut with 2019's A Song for Paul. With 2022's A New Kind of Love and 2024's A Trip to the Moon, their sound grew to include orchestral pop, lounge, and surf.
Known for his work with bands like the Mad Doctors and Mom Jeans, Applebaum started Ghost Funk Orchestra as a personal side project, alternately playing all of the instruments himself and borrowing musicians from various New York bands to capture the gritty, heavily reverbed mood-funk of early releases like 2014's The Haunt and 2016's Night Walker. The project grew into a live band the following year with a series of shows in New York and the vibey, self-released Something Evil. By this point, their sound had evolved to include a series of female vocalists and a horn section.
After signing with Colemine Records' Karma Chief imprint, Ghost Funk Orchestra made their full-length label debut with 2019's A Song for Paul. The group's next album, An Ode to Escapism, arrived in November 2020 and featured guest appearances by Julian Applebaum, Kam Franklin, and Sean Pastorok. On their cinematic third LP, 2022's A New Kind of Love, Applebaum steered the band's sound toward mid-century exotica and classic orchestral pop. From there, the Ghost Funk Orchestra's pastiche grew to include film music, surf, and dense, '70s-inspired funk on their deeply layered 2024 release A Trip to the Moon.  From: https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ghost-funk-orchestra-mn0003776450#discography

School of Seven Bells - The Night

Like many bands before them, School of Seven Bells were born as the result of a late-night revelation. Benjamin Curtis connected with sisters Alejandra and Claudia Deheza in 2004 while their bands--Secret Machines and on!air!library!, respectively--were on tour. While watching PBS at 3am, Alejandra caught a show about the School of Seven Bells: a mythical South American pickpocket academy that may or may not have existed in the '80s. The idea of seven minds working as one appealed to her, as did the phrase's cryptic musicality, and a creative spark ignited.
By the end of 2006, Curtis and the Deheza sisters had completely disappeared into School of Seven Bells. From the outset, it was clear that the trio's music transcended the usual genre restrictions. Early recordings popped up on Sonic Cathedral, Table of Elements, and Suicide Squeeze, then Blonde Redhead tapped School of Seven Bells for a tour. Remixes came from Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie and Prefuse 73, whose "Class of 73 Bells," a re-imagining of SVIIB's "Iamundernodisguise," ended up on his 2007 album Preparations (Warp).
School of Seven Bells' music is full of tensions--Curtis' gentle guitars wrap around jagged beats; silky vocals hide behind grumpy, alien synthesizers--but the resulting songs are effortlessly cohesive, and insidiously catchy. Elements of dream-pop, Afrobeat, IDM, and 4AD's gauzier moments provide a constantly shifting frame for the Dehezas' lyrics, which they write as mysterious missives between the School's imaginary seven members. On their Ghostly debut, Alpinisms, we get the impression that the three seasoned musicians have taken up full-time residence in a dizzying fantasy world; they move freely within the realm of pickpockets and dreamers, composing a soundtrack according to their own odd, beautiful logic.  From: https://ghostly.com/artists/school-of-seven-bells

Strawbs - Queen Of Dreams

 

The departure of Rick Wakeman didn't stop the Strawbs from fully embracing a sort of "symphonic folk" song, but it did shake the band's confidence - especially band leader Dave Cousins, whose feelings of betrayal at the time leak out in the lyrics to Tomorrow on here. Depressed by this turn of events, Cousins turned to the rest of the band members for songwriting support, but the end product is both extremely consistent and, what's more, conceptually cohesive, the album tracing the journey of an everyman protagonist from cradle to grave. Blue Weaver's keyboard style is less prone to showboating than Wakeman's, but arguably that's what was needed at this juncture - someone to provide keyboard textures whilst the other band members demonstrate their instrumental and vocal chops. The band absolutely needed to prove that there was more to them than Wakeman's technical virtuosity - some sectors of the music press thought that Wakeman leaving would spell the end of the band, which in retrospect seems crazy but considering what a major presence he was on From the Witchwood does kind of make sense. The group step up to the challenge admirably, play their hearts out, and sing beautifully - the harmonies on opening track Benedictus are simply divine. With a heavier dose of acoustic guitar than most prog bands of the time (aside from Jethro Tull), and a new willingness to get experimental - there's some really *strange* instrumental tracks on Queen of Dreams, Grave New World sees the band perfecting their own model of progressive music which is uniquely theirs. It might not be as complex as their competitors, but it's certainly powerful and emotionally moving - as on the best song on the disc, the harsh and biting New World. This album is the first real Strawbs classic.

It had been just during the promotion tour of their From The Witchwood album when Rick Wakeman decided to leave the band for joining Yes (which was understandable considering his big talents) actually without saying any word of farewell to them (which hadn't been that nice though). As if the remaining band members wanted to supply evidence that they can do very well without (not yet by then) keyboard wizard Rick they created their most ambitious (and arguably best) effort, the album here in review "Grave New World". It's a concept work reflecting the story of one man's life, from the cradle to the grave. The title is most obviously a hint to Aldous Huxley's famous novel and the fantastic cover art depicts William Blake's "Glad Day" painting. As Dave Cousins points out in the leaflet notes, Tony Visconti, who had produced their live album, was beginning to have an increasing influence on the band during onset of this record. Let me cite here his own words: "He was into martial arts, and encouraged me to read 'The Tibetan Book Of The Dead'. I even managed 'The Egyptian Book Of The Dead' - hence the quotes on the sleeve!" He also says there, that people were beginning to write the band off after Wakeman's demise but I think this album here had been the best prove that the Strawbs were still a great band. The opening track "Benedictus" being written when Wakeman left the band sets the tone for the whole album with its devotional and contemplative sound. Derek "Blue" Weaver took over the empty keyboard stool and he did an excellent job here I've to say. Cousins tells a mysterious story in the leaflet notes about how he came upon the words for the lyrics. He played the solo on his electric dulcimer with a steel through a fuzz box, and there are also two guest vocalists, Trevor Lucas and Anne Collins added here. After the short acoustic interlude "Hey Little Man" which supposed to tell the story about an older man giving advice to his young son, who probably didn't listen we have "Queen Of Dreams" which is the most experimental song they've ever done I'm quite sure. They used a play back in reverse of a recording of the guitar and first verse of the song for this track which provides a quite interesting psychedelic touch. Then there is "Heavy Disguise" written by John Ford and as well performed by him with a brass section played by the Robert Kirby Silver Band giving this track a nice special note. The rather bombastic but brilliant mellotron-laden "New World" is the next one and Dave Cousins tells about its creation that it had been written after he had seen a tv report about young kids in Belfast being asked to paint pictures in their art lessons, and many of them had painted soldiers lying dead in the gutter; what else to tell about such type of inspiration? After the nice acoustic folk song "The Flower,” comes the next big highlight on here with "Tomorrow" with a really great symphonic sound. The next two tracks are early songs from them of which the first one "On Growing Older" still fits quite well though sounding rather Byrds-alike (one of Cousins' big favs) whereas the pastiche to a very old English song "Ah Me, Ah My" sounds to me quite awkward and inappropriate. But the latter one is really the only redundant song of this album since the Eastern inspired "Is It Today,Lord?" with Richard Hudson on sitar and as well the final "The Journey's End" are very good tracks.

From: https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=2897

Pizzicato Five - Sweet Soul Review

 “Imagine every great record you’ve ever heard stuck in a blender overlaid with the most experimental heavy metal guitar you’ve never heard combined with the most outstanding montage of video clips you can’t imagine plus super-adorable camp fashions, all synthesized through a demented Japanese consumerist impression of America. Then try to imagine something better than that...” These are some of the words I wrote nearly 20 years ago about Pizzicato Five’s San Francisco stop on the Tokyo-based group’s first US/European tour. Even looking back today, I still think about my initial 1995 encounter with P5 as one of the most startling, fully realized concerts I’ve ever experienced, and their records remain among my most beloved.
Pizzicato Five were many things, but never ordinary. They’d started in the mid-’80s as an easy listening quintet, switched vocalists to favor smooth plastic soul, discovered samplers around the time their third (and defining) singer Maki Nomiya arrived in 1990, then morphed into a dance/pop-art/retro-futurist act that pulled from just about every musical genre and aesthetic movement since the mid-20th century. By the time leading American indie rock label Matador Records introduced them internationally with the 1994 samplers Five by Five and Made in USA, P5 was only two, the absurdly productive songwriter/multi-instrumentalist/producer Yasuharu Konishi the sole original member. When the act called it quits in 2001, Pizzicato Five had released 14 studio albums, at least that number of compilations, about as many EPs, and every kind of single conceivable.
When popular music was at its bleakest and most monochromatic, Pizzicato Five were neon-hued and eclectic. Their international arrival occurred between the sudden deaths of Kurt Cobain and Tupac Shakur, figureheads of the grunge and gangsta rap that defined American music in the ’90s. Even house music – severed by this point from its gay and black roots – was straighter, whiter, less melodic, and more formulaic. The resulting electronica was hailed as “the new rock” while Britpop reintroduced previously retired orthodoxies. Although the ’90s featured more successful women rockers than any other decade, the era’s sensibility remained traditionally male – loud, brash, barbaric. Even the guitars were often downtuned to sound more ominous and growling. Juxtaposed against the furious flannel-clad sasquatches of the Pacific Northwest, P5’s worldly, feminine lightheartedness was even more refreshing than it would be today. “I don’t like dark, brooding music – I don’t understand the purpose of it,” Konishi mused during a 1996 interview I conducted with the pair that went unpublished until now. Intrigued by my concert review, the band merely wanted to meet the American critic who they felt understood them. “I don’t think music should reflect reality. I think music should be more of a magical entity, something that lets you escape from reality.”
P5 found inspiration in both the sunniest and most radical qualities of the ’60s. “I have three superstars: Godard, Warhol, and Maki,” Konishi told Puncture. As P5’s vocalist, Maki was unrelentingly cheery and extraordinarily composed, as if she were biologically incapable of striking an unflattering pose or emitting a wayward note. A professional model before, during, and after her P5 reign, Nomiya was rail-thin like the face of ’60s Swinging London, Twiggy: Pizzicato Five’s most internationally popular song, “Twiggy Twiggy/Twiggy vs. James Bond” was a souped up 1991 remake of a track on her 1981 solo album that streamlined and simplified its source material with a caffeinated, sample-invigorated arrangement that would serve as the prototype for most P5 to come.
Like early Warhol superstars Baby Jane Holzer and Edie Sedgwick, Nomiya exuded larger-than-life glamour: In the mode of subsequent Factory graduates like Mary Woronov, she was a beautiful woman presenting herself like a drag queen imitating a faded Hollywood starlet. Her favored fabrics were vintage and synthetic; her wigs even more fake. In the video to “Sweet Soul Revue”, she struck moves like Jagger while radiating the poise of Hepburn before morphing into a Pan Am-esque flight attendant.
Even more than the early De La Soul and Deee-Lite records that almost certainly provoked their initial Maki-era shift, P5 were vigorously post-modern: A Pizzicato jam might feature astoundingly accurate pastiches of the vocal and orchestral arrangements from baroque pop acts like the Fifth Dimension and the Left Banke, discothèque breakbeats played live and continuously at double time, and hip-hop production techniques that recall Godard’s jump cuts. Occasionally the guitar got harsh, but sophisticatedly so: Bravo Komatsu – the guitarist who temporarily replaced founding member Keitarō Takanami on the 1995 tour – could wail on his instrument while flaunting enviable chops: Check out the virtuoso surf-metal spew he shoots over prerecorded “Twiggy Twiggy” tracks while Konishi dances the Frug on UK music show The Word.  From: https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2014/11/pizzicato-five-feature

Squeeze - Last Time Forever

 This mid-eighties release by Squeeze is unique. Most reviewers back in the day gave it low marks primarily due to the cluttered, heavy-handed, and high-tech production by Laurie Latham. Squeeze was primarily revered for its intelligent songwriting and traditional (and often sunny) pop sensibilities and this album was certainly new sonic territory for the band. The organic pop sound of previous Squeeze records is replaced with synths, drum machines, and psychedelic Sgt. Pepper cello/string flourishes, all processed through tons of effects. The overall result is a dark, moody sound that was atypical of Squeeze. As for the songs themselves, they are strong. Full of odd chord progressions that match the dark mood and make them less accessible than most of the band's other song sets, and tackling heavy subject matter like family strife, alcoholism, broken relationships, etc, this album will take repeated listens to appreciate but is worth it. "By Your Side," "I Learnt How to Pray," and "Last Time Forever" are all darker tunes than just about any Squeeze had done so far but they carry an emotional punch. "Big Beng," "No Place Like Home," and "Break My Heart" are quirky and disjointed but they are intentionally so and are really quite finely crafted tunes. "King George Street," "Heartbreaking World," and "Hits of the Year" are more straightforward melodically and are all quite good. While this isn't the typical Squeeze, it is still good and deserves more credit than it has received. Not the best place to start if you're just getting into the band (see "East Side Story"), but for fans willing to explore new territory with the band this album has its rewards.  From: https://www.amazon.com/Cosi-Fan-Tutti-Frutti-Squeeze/product-reviews/B000NDFK7C

Old Blood - Slothgod

 Old Blood: Interview With Vocalist Lynx

Having been without live music since March of 2020, I was beyond ready for a show. Lucky for me Old Blood stopped at Barleycorn’s in Wichita, Kansas on Halloween night. Their lead singer Cat Braithwaite aka Lynx was kind enough to have a brief chat with me before their blend of soul and psychedelic doom burned the landscape.

Thank you for performing in Wichita on Halloween.

I’m ready to get witchy in Wichita.

How did you prep for this tour? With concerts being so scarce for so long I’m sure you were equally excited and a bit apprehensive?

This tour has been on the book since spring. We started planning it in mid-August. We were so ready.

I’m sure you’ve missed the energy exchange when performing in front of a crowd?

Yes, we were excited to get back out there. We did a lot during 2020. We shot videos, I honed my makeup skills, we released the Acid Doom album. I don’t feel like we wasted that time. I learned a lot about music marketing, also we’d be ready to tour again.

As someone who has a major in cosmetology, I have to compliment the outstanding makeup. Is it to add to the music experience or is there a deeper story behind it?

The half face makeup I’ve shifted it into, I feel like it plays at the duality of Lynx. She is a seer. A knower. She sees stuff no one else can. She keeps her secrets, but she tells you about yourself. You’re not going to get away. Lynx will catch you.

Lynx will kill the guitar player for some cool album artwork?

Yes. It was out of love. And thankfully I didn’t have to sit on him [laughs].
The half face makeup I’ve shifted it into, I feel like it plays at the duality of Lynx.

Lynx, I looked up your Discogs and was floored to find out this was your only professional release as far as I could find. How long have you been singing?

I’ve been a singer all my life. I’ve sung on other albums. I’ve been in a disco band. I’ve done a lot of musical theatre stuff. But this is the first time I’ve ever been in the kind of band I’ve really wanted to be in. When I saw Old Blood was looking for a singer, I went all in and auditioned.

What’s the strangest thing that’s happened at any show?

Ohhhhh [laughs], well in Seattle my parents showed up. I mean. They’ve never been to a metal show before.

Did they like it?

They actually did! I was shocked they stuck around after the music started. I thought they’d come by, give their best wishes, meet the guys and go home. Maybe go to the yacht club or something. But no. They came. Stayed for the first band. Saw us. The third band started and they said ‘okay we’re gonna go now’.

What’s your favorite Halloween tradition?

I listen to the music of Twin Peaks.

My wife and I watch that religiously.

…and you’ve never seen me because I ended up on the cutting room floor.

Wha…what?

Yeah, I don’t remember how old I was, but I was an extra. It was a rush call, and I was there about half a day. I don’t think I made it on camera because I watch that…a lot.

We need to talk more about that later! Back to music, does it bum you guys out that outdoing an album named Acid Doom is damn near impossible?

We’ve been working on new material since September. But I’m not telling you the title for that one yet. And that it’s even more mind-blowing.

Then we both geeked out over David Lynch…

From:  https://www.thesleepingshaman.com/interviews/g-q/old-blood-lynx/

Animal Collective - Also Frightened

 With their constantly evolving sonic identity, in-your-face vocal mannerisms, and open-ended ideas about what their music might "mean," Animal Collective seem designed to inspire obsessive fans and vociferous detractors in equal measure. Merriweather Post Pavilion, their latest full-length, has been anticipated to an almost ridiculous degree, with blogs and message boards lighting up with each scrap of new information or word of a possible leak. No one who's been looking forward to it should be disappointed. Everything that's defined the band to this point-- all those strands winding through their hugely diverse catalog-- is refined and amplified here.
Since their inception, Animal Collective have wandered the territorial edges of music, scoping out where boundaries had been erected and looking beyond them. They've punctuated perfectly likeable indie rock songs with bleating vocalizations. They've seeded pretty instrumentals with irritating noise. They've juxtaposed West African rhythms and melodies cribbed from British folk. They've stayed on a single chord for 10 minutes. But Merriweather feels like a joyous meeting in a well-earned, middle place-- the result of all their explorations pieced together to create something accessible and complete.
Although it will be tagged as Animal Collective's "pop" album, Merriweather Post Pavilion remains drenched in their idiosyncratic sound, a record that no one else could have made. The album is named for a Maryland venue that last year played host to Santana, Sheryl Crow, and John Mayer, but its songs won't be heard on the radio, and besides, Animal Collective's M.O. requires them to exist outside of rigid formats. Nonetheless, they've found a natural way to integrate the sing-along melodies, sticky hooks, and driving percussion that have long been hallmarks of celebratory popular music.
Animal Collective's two vocalists, Dave Portner (aka Avey Tare) and Noah Lennox (aka Panda Bear), have never sounded better together, and the way their styles complement each other is the story of the album. On the one hand you have Panda's straightforward melodies, his fuzzy, head-in-the-clouds dreaminess, and his instinctual trawl through pop music history. The tracks that favor his songwriting typically have an underlying sense of drone, with everything moving forward along a line in relation to some subliminal center: They begin, then build, expand, and contract. Tare, meanwhile, tends to work within a more classic pop structure, with clear bridges and snappy choruses, greater harmonic development, and a sharper lyrical focus. Here, he reins in the blurting vocalizations that he's so often used as punctuation (the hardcore faithful might miss this unhinged emoting just a little). Both songwriters are on exactly the same page and, working with sonic spelunker Brian "Geologist" Weitz and producer Ben Allen (no Josh "Deakin" Dibb this time), they've found a sumptuous musical background for their most accomplished songs.  From: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/12518-merriweather-post-pavilion/