Welcome again to Altair 5. I'm pleased with the response to the first issue from navigators though less than happy with the response of the major record companies. When I informed EMI,SONY,POLYGRAM and WARNER BROTHERS of my Web'Zine, I was greeted with incomprehension. Not the Classical sides, mind you, but the mainstream rock and pop ends of the trade. EMI were so incomprehending that they had to send me a formal letter and then tell me on the phone that they had no access to the Internet! Sony, for their part, were a little bit more interested but Sony Catalogue Marketing took me off their mailing list because I had transferred from print (Mojo) to the Net! As if print was the future and the Net your old wind-up gramophone. With Polygram and Warners things are just lost in bureaucracy. The majors are playing a see no, hear no, tell no Internet game which just doesn't wash with me. If all the good people in their respective Classical departments can show an interest then what about the rest of the labels press and marketing areas?!?!

Yet, smaller independent record companies have been keen. Innovative thinking always comes from the edges and sort of infects the centre. So this issue U 2 are the featured band because they like to be independent (still being on Island and running their own show in the largest sense of the word). Great music is still being made all around the world and no matter who is putting it out people listen and buy. The old days of powerful record company press offices controlling the dissemination of information about product are over. More information is just more information. The more diverse your networks of communication the more widespread your publicity and the more diverse your audience. People like Eno and Peter Gabriel know this and hence now specialise in forms of music/art/interactive hybrid that are new and exciting. It's time the major labels caught up with the technological revolution which is happening all around them. So for now just sit back and glide through the various goodies on display below.

Mark Prendergast,London.

Jimi Hendrix - First Rays of The New Rising Sun and more: Fifteen years of writing about music and here's the man responsible, Jimi Hendrix. In a move which seems set to put Hendrix into the supernova position as the ultimate rock star Paul Allen of Microsoft is spending $40 million on a new Hendrix museum in Seattle, Washington State. British and European shrines will soon follow with much money being put back into merchandising and fashion accessories for a new generation of fans who instinctively know that Hendrix is the God of all guitar rock music. Moreover, after helping sort out the 2000 or so litigations around the Hendrix Estate, Allen has helped return all rights to Jimi's father Al and sister Janie. MCA Records won the deal to re-issue Hendrix's records which were in a state of confusion for years. Polydor did much work back in 1993 to re-issue the catalogue culminating in 1995 with 'Voodoo Soup', a fair attempt at compiling Jimi's much touted fourth and final studio album. MCA have first re-issued the vinyl catalogue in 180 gramme editions in all the original sleeves with the first album 'Are You Experienced?' coming in its different American and British editions. (The U.S. version had a brilliant fish-eyed psychedelic bang of a cover, the U.K. edition features the slow blues 'Red House'.)

More importantly MCA have gone back to the original 24-Track masters rather than copy masters and have involved Hendrix engineer Eddie Kramer to do the work. The pristine results make the resultant CDs the definitive issues. Moreover Kramer contends that they have compiled Hendrix's final album from original notes left by Jimi. 'The First Rays Of The New Rising Sun' was meant to be a fundamental career statement and a huge change of direction for the guitar supremo. Most of it was recorded at The Record Plant and Electric Lady in New York City in the last years of his life. Two posthuous albums 'Cry of Love' and 'Rainbow Bridge' released in 1971 contained some great material. Alas what Eddie Kramer and the Hendrix Estate have done with their version of 'Rays' was put these two together and add a few tracks from another post 1970 bits and pieces compilation 'War Heroes'. The completed listing for MCA's 'First Rays' is:

Freedom
Izabella
Night Bird Flying
Angel
Room Full of Mirrors
Dolly Dagger
Ezy Ryder
Drifting
Beginnings
Stepping Stone
My Friend
Straight Ahead
Hey Baby (Land Of The Rising Sun)
Earth Blues
Astro Man
In From The Storm
Belly Button Window

This 'new' album leaves out 'Pali Gap' and a welter of other tracks which should be there. 'Beginnings' is really the only interesting thing here and better known as 'Jam Back At The House' with Billy Cox on bass and recorded in July of 1970 at Electric Lady Studios. Kramer promises to unearth unheard and rare tracks from other tapes for definite future release. For many years I've teased over Jimi Hendrix's final album with notes from various sources. Here for your delectation is my personal 120 minute tape of Hendrix final rays of genius simply titled 'New Rising Sun'.

Side 1 New Rising Sun Drifting Night Bird Flying Look Over Yonder Freedom Villanova Junction Dolly Dagger Straight Ahead Pali Gap Belly Button Window Message To Love Astro Man Valleys of Neptune Electric Lady Room Full of Mirrors Angel Hey Baby(Land Of The New Rising Sun).

Side 2 Bleeding Heart Drifter's Escape Power Of Soul Earth Blues Ezy Ryder Sending My Love To Linda Hear My Train A Comin' Lover Man In From The Storm Captain Midnite Gypsy Boy Somewhere My Friend Stepping Stone Midnight Lightning South Saturn Delta

Other Hendrixalia in the pipeline : A television documentary about the making of Electric Ladyland , in my opinion, the greatest rock album in the history of the world. A full-length documentary of the 1969 Albert Hall concert plus out-take footage with Kathy Etchingham around London. What I've seen of this, the concert footage is fair while the music is brilliant. Now this tap has been re-opened the flow will never stop.

Amon Duul: Julian Cope eulogises this group into the heavens in his veird Krautrock book and gives them top slot on the definitive Krautrock albums list. Recently their first four albums dropped through my letter-box courtesy of Spalax France. The good people there thought I should hear them. Amon Duul were a Bavarian commune group who had strange initiation rights like having to perform group sex and take lots of drugs before picking up an instrument. Their name is a conundrum of the Egyptian God of The Sun and the Turkish God of Music. Their first three albums are taken from one huge 1968 jam session and are very hard on the ears. Their debut 'Psychedelic Underground' from 1969 is an unlistenable rough jam with an incredibly lysergic cover of an exploding female statue with angels. Most songs have titles referring to the Sandoz lab in Switzerland where LSD was synthesized. The track titles are classic. Check out 'Ein Wunderhubsches Madchen Traumt Von Sandosa' (A really beautiful girl stoned on acid), 'Bitterlings Verwandlung' (Bitter transformation) and 'Mama Duul Und Ihre Sauerkraut Bandspielt Auf'(Mama Duul and her sauerkraut band take off). Their next offering 'Collapsing - Singvogel Ruckwarts & Co' (Songbird Backwards & Co) has many tom toms and grinding guitars but sounds like a Dada & Surrealism recording from the early 20th century. The standout track is 'Shattering & Fading' (Flattermanner) . Yet this is too anarchic and certainly does not have the finesse of Can. The last track 'Nature' is like an industrial wasteland with a bit of green attached. Bees meets metal. Pure Krautrock. The inside cover is a painting of an amazing coloured bird. 'Disaster : Luud Noma' was released in 1971 is full of very loud drums and distorted guitars. One track 'Expressionidiom' is what this is, all German Expressionism with lots of noises. If you want one great Amon Duul album buy 'Paradiewarts Duul' (Paradise Bound Duul) from 1970 which was their only studio record for Ear records and contains acoustic rock music which sounds like a cross between the Can of 'Unlimited Edition' and The Velvet Underground's strangely spartan third album. Spalax have kindly included the Metronome single 'Paramechanical World/Eternal Flow' on the issue.

Note: Spalax France at 10 Rue des Feuillantines, 75005 Paris France have a great catalogue full of surprises. Fax them on 33145923514 for info on Precolombian music,American Indian music,13th Floor Elevators,Twiggy, Hawkwind,Soft Machine,Gong/Daevid Allen,Van Der Graaf Generator,Popol Vuh (including the full-length ST to Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo'), Tangerine (French prog band), Richard Pinhas, Heldon, Accept,Ennio Morricone, Cosmic Jokers,Klaus Schulze, Cluster, Conrad Schnitzler, Agitation Free,Guru Guru, Floh de Cologne,Amon Duul 2, Manuel Gottsching, Ash Ra Tempel and Ashra, Stomu Yamash'ta and Ryuichi Sakamoto.

Tonto's Expanding Headband - Tonto Rides Again (Viceroy): Ever since I was a teenager I've possessed a copy of 'Zero Time', a way-out gatefold sleeved psychedelic oddity from 1972 which had one of those covers dripping with invisible acid and a picture of two freaks next to machines. Tonto stood for The Original New Timbral Orchestra and was conceived by Robert Margouleff and Malcolm Cecil as the world's first multi-timbral polyphonic synthesizer. It consisted of seven Moog synths designed in a concave fashion and framed in a semi-circle around a series of keyboards. For a time they worked in Hendrix's 'Electric Lady' but most of 'Zero Time' was taped in Malibu Beach. Its six tracks have always sounded contemporary to me, from the Kraftwerkian 'Jetsex' to the sub-house of 'Timewhys'. 'Aurora' is pure Vangelis but still the stand-out cut is the trippy and beautiful 'Riversong' with its incredible synthesized vocal. 'Tama' is like very sad Wendy Carlos. Of the six new tracks only 'Ferryboat' with its lovely Ashra sequences is worthy of inclusion. Margouleff & Cecil went on to work with Stevie Wonder ( winning a Grammy for Wonder's 1973 'Innervisions') and assisting the likes of T.Rex, Quincy Jones, Weather Report and Devo in their creations. Tonto's parents are still working in L.A. and have put Tonto to work on the Net mutating people's music.

John Foxx - Shifting City/Cathedral Oceans (Metamatic) Two albums from 1995 which reveal the neglected genius of John Foxx. Foxx formed Ultravox in 1973 and collaborated with both Brian Eno and Conny Plank to produce some of punk rock's more outre albums. Of course the radical Foxx left in 1979 and the group's leadership was taken up by Midge Ure. Foxx dabbled heavily in synthesizers and released several albums in the 1980s plus some great singles but this is the first I've heard of him for a long long time. 'Shifting City' is a collaboration between Foxx's spiky Futurism and the more Techno fixated ideas of Louis Gordon who is involved with Derreck May's Transmat label. The result is great, an album creaming over with all the sounds which made the work of Bowie's 'Low'/'Heroes' period so interesting. 'Cathedral Cities' is an abstract environmental album sourced from 1983 onwards. Through long delays and echoes Foxx builds up an aural picture of " European & British architecture, statuary, gardens, overgrowth, industrial and classical ruins." There is a dignity and originality to this instrumental Ambience that puts it way above the crowd. File with Eno and Bill Nelson, but this is certainly different.

Third Ear Band - New Age Magical Music (Blueprint): A lost Third Ear Band which has the best sound I've heard off any TEB album. Key track: 'Atlantis Rising'.

Grateful Dead - Dick's Picks Vol Four (GD Records) This was only œ19 for a triple CD and is probably the best Dead album of all time. Recorded by Owsley Stanley in Feb 1970 and featuring most of the stuff on 'Live/Dead' plus bits of 'Anthem of The Sun' and 'Workingman's Dead' it reveals Garcia as a veritable encylopedia of guitar styles. The best stuff here are the incredibly lengthy workouts of 'Dark Star' (29.41), 'That's It For The Other One' (30.07), 'Turn On Your Lovelight' (30.27), 'Not Fade Away' (13.56) and 'Caution (Don't Stop On The Tracks)' (14.25). Instead of the meandering solos of later years Garcia proves himself here to be an out and out brilliant rock guitarist. Other tracks are : 'Casey Jones', 'Dancing In The Streets', 'China Cat Sunflower', 'I Know You Rider', 'High Time', 'Dire Wolf', 'Alligator', 'Me & My Uncle', 'Mason's Children', 'Feedback', 'Drums' and 'We Bid You Goodnight'. A great buy.

ALBUM OF THE YEAR

U 2 - POP (Island): It's quite amazing that this is U 2's eleventh album. Yes eleven albums since they were boys and twenty years under their belts. I've been listening to this for weeks and I'm convinced The Edge has finally reached the pantheon of rock guitar Gods. He's up there with Jimmy Page now and one day may sit beside Hendrix on the guitar supremo throne. Inside he hawks a Les Paul on his shoulder covered in little mirrors. 'Discotheque' which begins the album with the looping sounds of Howie B contains the kind of dirty guitars which made 'Achtung Baby' such a rough ride. The gravitational bass booms throughout but Edge roots the lot with a real distorted rock and roll riff before he lets rip with jetstream octane metal strip set of chords. Cascading guitars and more buzzsaw noise flesh out his ample palette. 'Do You Feel Loved' pitches towards Techno with the Edge underpinning everything with subtlety and noise. 'Mofo' is the track which has struck everybody - weird drum programmes and patterns with an overload of urban chaos, Bono reflecting on the loss of his mother as a child. The whole clatters forward, guitars pulling it here and there, Bono's voice vocodered, Larry Mullen banging the life out of his drums, Edge's sheets of sound sending it into overspin.

By track four we are in need of a break. In 'If God Will Send His Angels' we get a lovely understated country guitar intro and an elegiac Bono lyric about love gone wrong and God being hard to find. After about 1« minutes Edge comes in with a magnificent riff which pulls you right into the song, both Adam's bass and Mullen's drums just quaking along. I love the little light tinkly refrain which Edge peppers the middle of the song with. 'Staring At The Sun' is pure Oasis guitar pop, jangly acoustic guitars with another questioning lyric, this time about possible ecological disaster. Again Edge is beyond reproach, after an assortment of guitar confectionery he hits a killer slab riff at 2« minutes. This is the stuff of Zeppelin dreams. 'Last Night On Earth' is not my favourite track on the album but it does contain some nice samples of the Brazilian singer Nana Vasconcelos. 'Gone' is pure doubt, doubt about fame, money, drug excess strewn throughout with the sound of confusion. Again Edge slices through everything with pointed searing guitar lines. 'Miami' sort of images U 2's time in Florida where they recorded part of 'Pop' and strangely equates the tacky luxury of the city with again Mother. It's anger is born out by Edge blasting his distorted guitar with strafing strums.

Then the album changes. 'The Playboy Mansion' is a beautiful song, Edge's understated guitar tripping into country slide as Bono spills out images of America, Michael Jackson, O J Simpson, Hamburgers and Talk shows as he tries to get into the mind of a gambler hoping to strike it lucky at the casinos. Strangely this floats into the ethereal acoustic guitar quiet of 'If You Wear That Velvet Dress', a simple song about nocturnal love with a great rhythm thing and Edge again surprising everybody with aquamarine trickles of electric guitar. Then comes the real ringer of the album in 'Please', a brilliant denunciation of blind religious devotion in the name of the gun whether it be in Northern Ireland or Israel, Bono's strangled singing and Edge's sharding guitar are desperation incarnate - just like the last gasps of a man on his knees in the typical execution killings of sectarian strife. Seemingly fed up to the teeth with a Godless world in freefall U2 end this magnificent album with 'Wake Up Deadman'. Again Edge's big riffing is a revelation, coming at you one minute and then toning down to soft melodies the next as the sampled sounds of 'Mystere Des Voix Bulgares' are heard in between. Its beginning, Edge tinkling a chord as Bono sings 'Jesus, Jesus help me, I'm alone in this world, and a fucked up world it is too' is powerful stuff. U 2 ask here for God to do something to sort out " all this disorder ". This magnificent record's plea for salvation currently places U2 at the very pinnacle of rock. Without Brian Eno (shortly to be taking a sabbatical in St. Petersburg), U2 have returned to their rock roots. With Flood at the production controls and Howie B. implanting the right dance floor feel U 2 have again confounded their critics. Amen for that.

More Modern

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds:The Boatman's Call (Mute) Nick Cave shares U 2's engineer in Flood but not their sense of uplift. I've slowly been taken by Nick's crooning style since 'The Good Son' and last year's intense 'Murder Ballads' which featured duets with Polly Jean Harvey and Kylie Minogue. For me 'Boatman's Call' is his best work ever. A huge emotional downer after the breakup of his marriage to Brazilian Viviane Carneiro and the end of his love affair with P J Harvey, the album is wracked with pain. Favourite lines are " And I wish that I was made of stone, So that I would not have to see, A beauty impossible to define, A beauty impossible to believe." (from Brompton Oratory). Musically speaking the arrangements are spartan to the extreme, just the merest hint of organ, cymbal, guitar and piano from the Bad Seeds. Nick's Gothic sense ( the last time I saw him he was playing acoustic piano accompaniment to the classic silent film 'The Passion of Joan of Arc') is strongly in place as he quotes from the scriptures. Angels figure greatly, so do protecting female spirits, bad people are everywhere, Nick sits alone on the steps of Brompton Oratory lamenting, stars explode in the sky, weird violins sound underneath carnival reminiscences, a West country girl with a crooked smile appears from nowhere. Some of this sounds like sea shanties, heaven and hell figures greatly and so do fair-weather friends. This is a great Nick Cave record.

The Orb : Orblivion (Island): I don't know why Alex Paterson and Kris Thrash Weston split apart during the making of the sublime 'Orbus Terrarum' in 1995. Alex once said it took Thrash six months to make 'Plateau' and as I was present for a while during the making of that track I confess to Thrash's meticulous methods. 'Orbus' was a classic Orb spin, 'Orblivion' is not. Ever since Thomas Fehlmann of Sun Electric teamed up with The Orb for 'Pomme Fritz'' and 'FFWD' things have been rather shaky. Fehlmann is too computer oriented. Metallic clangs abound and tracks have lost that special linearity and space which made 'Adventures Beyond The Ultraword' and 'U.F.Orb' such exciting sonic experiences. The beats here bump along, tracks in danger of pulling themselves apart at any moment. On 'S.A.L.T.' we get a sample of David Thewlis ranting about the world from Mike Leigh's film 'Naked' but so what. 'Toxygene', a remix of Jean Michel Jarre's 'Oxygene', is the first classic track and that's 8 cuts in. A definite return to the tightness of form evidenced on 'U.F.Orb'. The rest of it wafts around until the final cut "72" begins with the massed chorus of 'The youth of America on L.S.D.' and then after five or so minutes of silence some more pots and pans and bass. Half-baked.

Jean-Michel Jarre : Oxygene 7-13(Epic): Jarre has reputedly sold 55 million albums. Hearing this it is easy to see why. The Orb re-mixed one of his tracks to so much distaste that he withdrew it and in so doing it became the best cut on 'Orblivion' above. This begins at a real metronomic Kraftwerk state with single synth keys underlayed by washes. After a minute and a half it becomes extremely gimmicky. Track 2 is like ad music for a ski-ing programme. Track 3 is more atmospheric, a blobs of sound technique leading to Metropolis-like theme music. Actually all of this sounds like very standard theme music. Five is pure pap. I got very bored after this. Reputedly it took two years to make this thing. Jarre will be touring and has an extremely fiddly website at www.jeanmicheljarre.com. For those who like these things Jarre plays the following equipment : 2600 ARP synth, VCS3 synth, AKS, Eminent, Mellotron, Theremin, CS80, Quasimidi Raven, Digisequencer, Logic Audio, Akai MPC 3000, Nordlead, JV90, K2000, RMI, Prophecy, TR808,DJ70.

Experimental Audio Research - Phenomenon 256 (Space Age)/ The Koner Experiment (Mille Plateaux) : Four records in three years from the collective which boasts Sonic Boom (ex of Spacemen 3), Kevin Shields (frontman of Irish noise group My Bloody Valentine), Eddie Prevost (of '60s improv group AMM) and Kevin Martin (of God & Techno Animal). Their work is dronal, an investigation of the state of held sounds with a variety of mostly electronic equipment. Saxophone, echoes, wind pipes, bowed cymbals, percussion, treated guitar and an old VCS3 are their weapons. Soundscapes are the result. The Koner Experiment is a record done in collaboration with Dortmund Ambient genius Thomas Koner. On the Dutch Barooni label Koner has made the idea of moving blocks of Arctic ice a real aural experience. Unfortunately on the Mille Plateaux album his use of rhythms and pulses over ten similar tracks is not very memorable. Far better is the EAR album Phenomena 256 which sounds like Jimi Hendrix flung to the far corners of the solar system and re-wired in some future electronic theme park. This is music you can just swim in, plops of sound dropping out of your speakers at intervals. John Cage is tributed, Brian Eno hovers behind most things. Titles like 'Space Themes', 'Lunar', 'Spacestation' and 'Delta 6' give you a good idea of the futuristic vibe contained. A real Ambient record for the '90s.

Philip Glass - "Heroes" Symphony (Point Music): Continuing the series of Philip Glass recordings which cover territory done by others which Glass himself previously inspired. During the very early 1970s both Brian Eno & David Bowie saw Philip Glass and his ensemble at the ICA in London and were hooked. Hence the unsurprising pairing for the magic albums 'Low' & 'Heroes' in Koln & Berlin between 1976 and 1977. Really one album, the pair concocted some of the most important electronic music in rock history. "Heroes" abounds with references to important German electronica. 'V2 Schneider' is an obvious reference to Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk while 'Neukoln' refers to Dusseldorf band NEU! Amazingly enough Glass chooses to ignore the most beautifully Ambient track on "Heroes", 'Moss Garden' with its koto and jet-engine wake sound is strangely left out. Bowie was consulted and found the idea fascinating. Eno was busy on other things but all three are photographed sitting on a green chair in strange decadent lighting in one of the most extravagant fold-out CD packages I've ever seen. The music is pure classical musical, taking Glass's style and plopping it straight into the Viennese tradition of Mozart. The title track could be an out from Glassworks with more horns and flutes added. The insistent trademark ostinatos and triadic harmonies fulsomely rising and falling in svelte wave-like motion are all there. 'Abdulmajid' (an out-take which appears on the 1991 disc version of "Heroes" and a straight derivation from Bowie's wife Imam's first names) has become all Sahara soundtrack owing more to Ravel's Bolero than the chugging ethnicity of the original. In fact this is great symphonic work with the right hint of Iberian colour. 'Sense of Doubt' is rendered leaden by the rather awkward use of brass but saved by the beauteous use of flute and vibes on the refrain. Its orchestral middle section is so deft, Mozart would be proud. 'V2 Schneider' is cloaked in the daring do of Aaron Copland, all rippling orchestration and big crescendoes. What Glass has done here is taken a European avant-garde classic and turned it into an American romp. "Heroes" Symphony was originally written for the Twyla Tharp dance company with the approval of David Bowie and performed by The American Composers Orchestra.

Now & In Time To Be - A Musical Celebration of W.B. Yeats (Grapevine): Tribute albums are usually sad affairs. A bunch of musicians take the ouevre of a great artist like Jimi Hendrix or Arthur Lee and kill it off with inferior versions. Poetry is a different thing. Jim Morrison felt he was a poet, so did Phil Lynott even John Lennon. Often the musical statement unhooked from its original musical context can sound unfocused. A glance across any of Bono's lyrics can lead one to think what is the boy about but armed with its music any U 2 song has deep meaning. But what about the other way around, fashioning a great poet's work into song. Yeats is one of the greatest of Irish poets. 'Under Ben Bulben' is simply recited by Richard Harris. 'An Irish Airman Foresees His Death' is trounced into the ground by Shane MacGowan. Karl Wallinger ably teases out the age-old dilemma of wise age and reckless youth in 'Politics'. But when we come to Van Morrison (a musician considered a poet) we hear a rendition of 'Before The World Was Made' which rings true because Van has the sense to adapt the lyrics to his smooth jazzy style. Mike Scott, Sharon Shannon, Sinead Lohan, The Waterboys (in fact members and former members are all over this), The Cranberries, Nervous, World Party all acquit themselves well but those who favour the ballad style like Sinead Lohan and Christy Moore do better. The latter's version of 'The Song of The Wandering Aengus' (a veiled reflection of Yeats's doomed affair with Maud Gonne) is by far the the album's sparkler. A gem of poetry fused with folk music which ends with the splendid lines 'The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.'. W.B. Yeats himself appears with his peculiarly high reedy voice flushed through with a Sligo accent. Earnest but interesting.

Other Modern Spins

G.P.Hall - Figments of The Imagination (FMR Records) Graham Peter Hall is one of the very true mavericks of the English music scene. Growing up through the London rhythm and blues and psychedelic music scenes of the 1960s he fixed on the idea of "mechanical sculptures in music" in the 1970s and invented the concept of " industrial sound sculptures" where the sounds of flamenco, jazz and hard rock would be linked with more unconventional noises. His eighties records on Colors and Kenwest were some of the best instrumental music of the period. His new album works as a career summary. Its eight tracks cover a welter of sound. Glider (1981) is very atmospheric with Lol Coxhill's sax. Hall plays six string bass with steel bars striking the notes and adds acoustic flamenco rolls to come up with something very jazzy. 'Rio Magdalena' (1994) is an acoustic tune about a river which runs through the Northern tip of South America. Hall plays a Conteres guitar in strange DBbDFAD tuning and is very good indeed. 'New Town Suite' (1974) has a beautiful beginning with Lyn Dobson's flute and is about Bracknell's transformation from village to town and runs to 17 minutes. Again there's an interesting use of double bass. 'Figments of The Imagination' (1994) is a group effort with drums plus sax/violin. The use of a crocodile clip on the 4th string bouncing to A minor chord is a typical Hall trademark. The results are solid prog rock. 'Mevva Coast'(1994) is a full rhythmic track full of overdubbed solo flamenco gtrs. 'Full Moon Over Madrid' (1981) sees Hall playing 6 string bass and includes nods to Moorish music. Saxophone and the sound of a metal bar skimming over the strings creates a chaotic sound. 'Heat On The Horizon' from 1995 includes acoustic guitar,6-string bass,Auto and Electric-Harp and conveys the shimmering heat of North Africa. Two volume pedals were used for Hall's industrial Sound sculptors derived from everyday objects on the guitars. Autoharp is also played with tympani sticks. 'Saw Mill Adagio'( 1984) uses a psaltry bow on 6 string bass played like a cello with added string hammers put through a delay. Eerie. A remarkably original record. All re-mastered or whatever at White House, Kewstoke, Avon 1996 by Martin Nichols.

Roger Doyle - Babel (Silverdoor): One of the most interesting musicians to come out of Dublin, Doyle was the very first Irishman to use a Synclavier computer keyboard and wrote quirky/jaunty pop stuff for U2's Mother label. His ability to write experimental pop has made him an in demand theatre musician. Babel is the first CD in a cycle which aims to build a musical tower. This first instalment recreates a radio station, its inane DJs, news and weather flashes and various styles of music from Ambient to Dance, Easy Listening to rock. A high sense of humour is maintained throughout.

Booming On Pluto- Electro For Androids (Virgin): Another quirky record from David Toop which follows last year's Crooning On Venus. This time it's a history of Electro which takes as its source all things Kraftwerk. This is definitely Future Music with 'Bleep & Booster's' Genki sounding like something from the Bladerunner soundtrack. They're all here, Herbie Hancock, Mantronix, George Clinton and A Guy Called Gerald. The primary track is Afrika Bambaataa's reading of Kraftwerk's 'Trans Europe Express' in 'Planet Rock'. As the blurb reads " charting the development of Electro from the early '80s tracks created in New York and Detroit in the wake of Africa Bambaataa through Miami Bass, Latin hip-hop, UK Techno and Asian Bhangra, right up to the new wave of UK and US Electro."

Son of Cult Fiction (Various) Ever try to go out and get a really good hard rock/metal compilation. Hmm difficult isn't it. Well this might be it. The Who's 'Real Me', Free's 'All Right Now', Steppenwolf's 'Born To Be Wild', Deep Purple's 'Smoke On The Water' and even CCS's version of Zep's 'Whole Lotta Love'. These are wodged on a disc which includes music from The Monkees 'Head', Jefferson Airplane, The Velvet Underground, Booker T and themes from 'Blow Up', 'M.A.S.H.' and The Deer Hunter.

Phantom City - Shiva Recoil (Virgin) Live recording of new out-reach jazz combo featuring Bill Laswell and Paul Schutze. Recorded in Finland in Nov 1996. According to Schutze the music is a response to sonic interjections used during the performance. He also mixed and edited the results. 'Black Data 2' is rhythmic, 'Black Data 1' Ambient.

Lisa Carbon - Trio De Jenairo (Rather Interesting): Rather than the cold Ambient Techno of yore here's a warm album by a Costa Rican beauty named Lisa Carbon who released her first disc in 1992 and is a pioneer of E-Jazz, or easy listening jazz. This is great stuff, mostly recorded in San Jose, and then finished in Atom Heart's Frankfurt studio. Pete Namlook plays jazz guitar on one track. Suffused with Latin rhythms throughout this is sexy stuff. More please.

Oskar Sala - Subharmonic Mixes (Fax) : Oskar Sala is most famous for making the screeching noises for Alfred Hitchcock's 'The Birds' during the 1960s. These were made on a Trautonium, one of the early generation of electronic instruments invented by Friedrich Trautwein in Berlin during the 1930s. Basically an electrical stringed instrument developed by composer Paul Hindemith and Sala with Telefunken. There were many versions: RadioTrautonium,MixturTrautonium, ConcertTrautonium and so forth all capable of reaching areas of musical harmonics that most instruments just couldn't get to. The enclosed 23 page booklet is a mine of information about Sala, his studio and so forth. At 86 Sala is one of the last of the great electronic pioneers still performing. An influence on Kraftwerk, this CD presents sounds, weird and wonderful generated by the Trautonium. Interesting.

Octupus - From A to B (Food) Having been bombarded with this music from my Stones fanatic friend Clive of the Beeb I have to admit I'm getting to like this highly diverse album of English psychedelia. More experimental than Andy Partridge's 'Dukes of Stratosphear' this has got everything - brass sections, Syd Barratt weirdness, Incredible String Band's folkiness and a wacky singer. As good live as on album which has a great kaleidescopic cover.

Peter Gabriel's - Eve (Real World) Described as a music and art adventure, Peter Gabriel's 'Eve' pushes us into the next generation of interactive CD-Rom's and again places Gabriel at the very forefront of technology. Critics have been unkind to him before and this time they are at it again. No matter, 'Eve' is genuinely satisfying, funny, brainteasing and has something to say. The press kit trumpets that it took 60 people, two years to develop 22,000 visuals, 160 screens with 80 minutes of video and 45 minutes of music. Apple Macintosh were directly involved in its creation. There is over 60 hours of interaction here and even half an hour is satisfying. 'Eve' begins with the creation of life, the fertilisation of an egg and then you follow Adam's (Peter Gabriel) journey through varying landscapes. Mud bubbles in front of you, a suitcase holding Gabriel walks across a virtually-real world, an orb hovers over a crater. There are buildings in the background which you can enter, rooms within which paintings are hung, these very paintings you can delve into and play with. Musical samples can be picked up along the way which are meant to be used to mix and record your own personal version of tracks like 'Come Talk To Me' and 'Shaking The Tree'. They can even be used to make your own interactive videos. There is a human relations room where people talk about their emotional lives. At one point six Peter Gabriels emerge from the sand carrying suitcases. Opening any suitcase causes a philosophical soundbite to be heard. The funniest bit I encountered was the shoreline scene where one could break garden gnomes against rocks! Four artists, Helen Chadwick, Cathy de Monchaux, Yayoi Kusama and Nils-Udo all have their own environments which are distinctive and fascinating. Again Gabriel has succeeded in creating something new, something that goes beyond music, art and computers. With its stunning 3D feel, 'Eve' is multi-media in the truest sense of the word.

Steve Hackett : A Midsummer Night's Dream (EMI Classics): There was a time in the late 1970s when friends in Dublin tried to convince me of the dubious quality of some early Genesis albums like 'Foxtrot' and 'Selling England By The Pound'. Steve Hackett was in the group then. He had joined in 1971. He made some solo albums. At a recent reception to launch his EMI Classics he confessed to even making music with Yes guitarist Seve Howe! Anyway this new album is good stuff, a series of lyrical classical guitar adagios following the themes of Shakespeare's famous 'faeirie' story. Use of orchestration and an architectural structure emphasis the original play's Greek setting in Theseus. Very pleasant Ambient stuff for mid-summer mornings and afternoons. 18 tracks. Favourite track titles 'In The Beached Margent Of The Sea', 'Lysander & Demetrius'. Royal Philharmonic Orchestra assist. Beautiful booklet illustrations by Kim Poor.

Johann Sebastian Bach : Brandenburg Concertos. La Stravaganza Hamburg (Double CD Veritas Virgin): Both Glenn Gould and Keith Jarrett have made careers out of recording these attributed baroque masterpieces. Violino piccolo, violins, violas, cellos, viola da gamba, violone, recorders, flute, oboe bassoon, horn, trumpet, harpsichords. This sounds like an acoustic rock band in full swing. Bach lived from 1685 to 1750. In 1721 he gathered up his manuscripts of six concertos and sent them with a dedication in French to Margrave Christian Ludwig of Brandenburg, an uncle of King Frederick William 1st of Prussia. He had a large estate in South of Berlin and cultivated an interest in the arts. They met between 1718-1719 and Bach sent him scripts two years later. But these languished in Ludwig's archives as Bach worked in Leipzig. They were not published until 1850. Only in 1873 were they referred to as Brandenburg Concertos. Bach wrote them to demonstrate instrumental finesse and were considered Vivaldian models. The CD booklet includes dedication pages from original copy of 1721. This set was in Wurttemberg between 1993-1995. Siegbert Rampe conducts and writes the highly informative notes. Highlights are the Adagio to Concerto No 1 in f major 1716 and the Adagio Ma Non Tanto to Concerto No 6 in B -flat major.

Music of The French Renaissance - (EMI ):A series of dances, lute pieces by Michael Praetorious and Robert Ballard (1525-1588) played by Early Music Consort of London and the Ricercare Ensemble Zurich. All 16th century. A double CD, no 2 celebrates Clement Janequin (1485-1558) plus various vocal works. Alot of this sounds like the Third Ear Band but the lute pieces are pleasant. Amazingly enough the one I got had sleevenotes only in French.

Jocelyn Pook - Deluge (Venture): A very strange record. The first track is a strong vocal requiem with Melanie Pappenheim and Jocelyn Pook. According to Jocelyn, "The main idea was to link up two millenia via Hindu,Judaism, Christianity and Islam musics." By using the melancholy and poignancy of these sources Pook has created a series of post-modern hymns, some of them chilling some of them light. The most interesting track contains a speech by Robert Oppenheimer (inventor of the Atomic Bomb) in Washington where he eulogises over the birth of weapons of mass destruction in Biblical tones. This CD includes the annoying Orange phone thing 'Blow The Wind Southerly'. In the end this is too earnest with all its cellos, violins, violas and voices and uninteresting synth programming.

Iona Brown Plus The Norwegian Chamber Orchestra (Naim): English born Iona Brown studied in Rome,Brussels, Vienna and Paris and has worked all over the world. This album includes Grieg's two Elegiac Melodies which is outstanding Romantic music. Iona is a solo violinist and in 1986 received the OBE and the order of Merit from King Harald of Norway. Recorded at Salisbury Cathedral in 1994 the recording also includes Tippett's Fantasia Concertante and Beethovan's First Symphony.

Unknown Public 7 - The Netherlands Connection : The vibe around this is that that there is a Dutch way of doing things rather than a Netherlands sound. It likens The Netherlands Connection to a " state of mind for some and a process for others; pragmatic,relaxed, relatively well funded and always ready to welcome the new. " There is atmospheric ambience, sound poetry, a strange sonic tennis match based on the mind of Percy Grainger, the cello magnificence of Frances-Marie Uitti, lots of jazzy bits, a lament for Shane MacGowan and amongst others the music of John Adams. Coming in an oblong box with Situationist arty design this creative music quarterly is one of the very few outlets for radical new music that works.

Classical Moods : With the CDs now only at œ5.60 this is a good way to access the music of Debussy, Faure, Vaughan Williams and Mozart. Check out 'Tranquility', 'Melancholy' and 'Dreams'.

Just in - Mozart Piano Concertos No 18 & 20 (Nonesuch). In superb sleeve the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Richard Goode do Mozart proud.

HAPPENINGS TO LOOK OUT FOR

1. Club Research at The End London, West Central Street, 9th and 10th June from 9 pm onwards. London's 5th Club Research presented by Shinkansen features Mixmaster Morris, Mr C (Shamen), a psycho-acoustic backwash from Mobile Disco Unit, Zoviet*France, a new film exploring club culture in Portugal and lots more.

2. Natacha Atlas at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Mon 16th June, 8pm. The girl with the big voice who leads Transglobal Underground in concert premiering her new album 'Halim'.

RECORDS TO LOOK OUT FOR

Portrait of a lady: Jane Campion's 2hr 24min adaptation of Henry James's novel about a young American girl pitted against Victorian English chicanery is pretty turgid stuff only coming alive with the appearance of John Malkovich. The ubiquitous American actor brings the film alive when he makes his appearance as an Italian based aesthete with a sadistic streak. I won't give the denouement away here.

The English Patient : Anthony Minghella's Oscar-filled adaptation of Michael Ondaatje's award winning novel is a film which demands several viewings before its beautiful symmetries click properly into place. Unlike Campion's work you are never aware of this being a long film but it's nearly three hours. What you are aware of is the way the Sahara warps time and lives. Maybe its the film, within a film, within a film whorl of the things that makes it so satisfying. An English lady, Kristin Scott Thomas, has an ardent affair with a Hungarian with a beautiful name (Count Lazlo Almasy) played by Ralph Fiennes. That's one story. The Count is involved in a war-time air scrap and is nearly burned alive. Cared for by Juliette Binoche in a Tuscany villa we view this Canadian nurses's loving fling with Kim, a Sikh bomb disposal expert. Second story. Then there's a third involving Willem Dafoe which unites the other two plotlines. Every word, nuance, detail and image are in the right place. No wonder it earned 20 or so million dollars over its cost in America alone. Having seen Bertolucci botch adapting Paul Bowles 1947 masterpiece 'The Sheltering Sky' seven years ago its a relief to see somebody bring the mystery of the Sahara (my favourite place on earth) onto the big screen.

Blood & Wine: Bob Rafelson made 'Five Easy Pieces' with Jack Nicholson in the early 1970s. That was a masterpiece. This isn't. Here Nicholson plays a jaded wine merchant in a heavy affair with Jennifer Lopez who messes up his relationship with his wife and stepson. Michael Caine as a sleazy safe-cracker turns the whole thing into slapstick. Ludicrous.

The Crucible: A bunch of girls involved in Satanic rites in Salem, Massachusetts sounds like a Hammer horror cliche but Nicholas Hytner's direction of the Arthur Miller play is full of surprises. Winona Ryder is astonishing as the vampish girl spurned by married man Daniel Day-Lewis for plain but honest wife. The sheer hell of the thing gathers a frenetic pace as insanity and vested interest ride roughshod over simple moral sincerity.

Basquiat : Julian Schnabel's take on Warhol's late years is fleshed out by good actors - Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken and Dennis Hopper. Jeffrey Wright gives an incredible performance as the Haitian art star but David Bowie as Warhol is brutal. Roll on Jed Harris in 'I Shot Andy Warhol', still the best film about the New York '60s trashart culture ever made.

Ridicule : Patrice Leconte's period drama regarding intrigue at pre-revolutionary Versailles is a fabulous dive into the ins-and-outs of autocracy . People bow and scrape to gain favour, fake documents and barter favours along the way. Fanny Ardant plays a gentlewoman with power, Charles Berling an engineer who wants to drain some marshes. The outcome is mouth-watering.

1. Star Trek : The first series, now being repeated on BBC 2, is definitely the best. Just the sheer look of the thing, the clean lines, strong colours, Spock's ears and the great story lines. One episode was particularly good when it portrayed Apollo and the other ancient Gods as superhuman aliens. And the weekly frisson between Uhura and Kirk was a first for American television.

2. Bladerunner: After 2001 still the best Science Fiction movie ever made. Now that terrrestial TV can show the director's cut we see how complete Ridley Scott's vision of the future was. Sean Young and Harrison Ford put in great performances in a film which mixes Raymond Chadler with Philip K. Dick. But the creme de la creme role was surely Rutger Hauer's who got all the best lines. As Tyrell informs him in the film 'The light which burns twice as bright burns half as long.' The quintessential lines in Bladerunner are delivered by Hauer who, after breaking Harrison Ford's fingers, saves his life. They were : " I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shores of Orion...All those moments will be lost in time like tears in the rain. Time to die." Sheer genius. And Vangelis's music still sounds wonderful.

3.Chinatown: Roman Polanski's '70s film never tires. Its continued repetition on TV makes it a winner every time. Not a scene wasted, not a line of dialogue too much. Best interaction is between Jack Nicholson and John Houston. " How much are you worth? How much better can you eat? What can you buy that you can't already afford?, says Jack Nicholson to John Houston who booms " The future, Mr Gittes, the future!" Damn fine, damn fine.

4.The Big Sleep: This is always on the box. Humph, Bacall and a Chandlerian plot of such opaqueness that neither the director Howard Hawks nor Chandler knew what was going on. Still there'd be no Bladerunner nor hundreds of other films without it. Check out Steve Martin's 'Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid' for a very funny take on the noir genre.

5.Clint Eastwood: This man won't ever go away. I read once that Warner Brothers depend on him for millions. Excise the 'Dirty Harry' films and the naff stuff with Orang-utans and you've got a great star. Most of his impoverished early life in San Francisco was spent in menial labour but such material as 'High Plains Drifter' is really the work of genius. A plot which shows a dehumanised sheriff dehumanising a town which left him for dead and literally painting the place red. Clint's career began in the 1950s, reached its first high in the 1960s with the Leone films, made a turn with 'Play Misty For Me' in 1971, went up again with 'The Outlaw Josey Wales' in the late 1970s and soared with the directorial triumphs 'Bird' in the '80s and 'Unforgiven' in the '90s

6. Channel 5: No comment!

U2 - POP

ARCHIVE RECORD OF THE MOMENT

JIMI HENDRIX - ELECTRIC LADYLAND

TEASER TRACK OF THE MOMENT

DJ SPOOKY - DANCE OF THE MORLOCKS (from Songs Of A Dead Dreamer)

COPYRIGHT ON ALL OF THE ABOVE RESIDES WITH MARK J. PRENDERGAST. ANY EDITORS OR PUBLISHERS WISHING TO QUOTE FROM THE ABOVE WRITINGS CAN DO SO AS LONG AS THEY ENQUIRE AT PHONE (LONDON 0181 299 2998) OR FAX (0181 693 0349). THE WRITER IS FREELY AVAILABLE TO CONTRIBUTE SIMILAR IDEAS ON HIS FAVOURITE MUSICS TO PUBLICATIONS WITH A GENUINE INTEREST.

This is Altair 5 signing off for now. Live long and prosper.