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ALTAIR FIVE
THE ALTERNATIVE GUIDE TO INTERESTING MUSIC BY MARK PRENDERGAST.

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CONTENTS

• RECEPTION - Hendrix, The Prisoner, U 2.
• MODERN - Portishead, Bob Dylan, U 2, Robert Wyatt, Keith Jarrett, David Toop, Paul Schutze, Kelley Deal, ECM.
• ARCHIVE - Cream, The Doors, Pink Floyd/Grateful Dead, Hendrix. Classic Guitars, Pixies, Cult Fiction, Krautrock.
• CLASSICAL - Stokowski, Takemitsu, Truffaut, Ravi Shankar,Gidon Kremer, Michael Nyman (added 3/11/97).
• ROUND UP - Film, Television, Albums Of The Issue.

Oh boy! What a summer. Since I wrote last I've experienced three things I never thought I'd go through - being present at Portmeirion, North Wales during a Prisoner convention, seeing U 2 pack Wembley Stadium to the gills, and proudly witnessing the unveiling of a blue Heritage plaque in London to the genius of Jimi Hendrix. Being in Portmeirion was dreamy, trancey even surreal at times. The tiny village poised in an estuary on the extreme North West coast near Snowdonia is like a giant folly, radiant with the pinks,blues and ochres of an Italian palazzo. Every corner is different, every view a fresh perspective on something antique and strangely European. You can see why it was chosen for The Prisoner series and seeing people wander around the village in schoolboy uniforms, straw boaters and little penny-farthing bike badges with numbers on them brought memories of the cult TV series flooding back.

Back from there and within a few days I was at Wembley for U2's first UK POPMART performance. As a guest I was treated very well indeed - hospitality rooms and great seats next to the Royal Box. Jarvis Cocker, Dave Stewart, Elvis Costello and such were there but a standing ovation was reserved for Bob Geldof who, as always, took the photographers and claps in his stride. U 2 were simply magic. Edge in his various rhinestone cowboy outfits. He even karaoked his way through an Elvis song at one stage. The band were on for 2« hours and played the whole of 'Pop' interspersed with a great selection of 'hits' - 'I Will Follow', 'Where The Streets Have No Name', 'All I Want Is You', 'Until The End Of The World' - you get the picture. Edge was like a firebrand onstage, peeling off riff after riff, knitting songs together with a guitar hero's aplomb and even playing guitar and piano at the same time for one number. Bono sang his heart out and covered Kraftwerk's 'Neon Lights'. And the show - well the huge TV screen featuring everything from Warhol to Burroughs, the arc-lights and of course the Lemon which opened , with band inside, for 'Discotheque'. L ike the great rock and roll band they are, U2 simply burned.

If he were alive today Jimi Hendrix would simply take his hat off to them. So instead hundreds gathered in Brook Street, London, near Grosvenor Square to take their hats off to him. Nearly 27 years after he died at 27, Hendrix is the first rock musician in history to get a blue English Heritage plaque. Old girlfriend, Kathy Etchingham spent six years on the job and the event was historical. Noel Redding, Kathy and Pete Townshend unveiled the porcelain homage which sits fittingly near one for George Handel of 'Messiah' fame. I stood to the left of the doorway and heard some choice quotes. One girl came up and asked 'Is this for Princess Diana?'. Another asked her friend 'Is Madonna here?' A well-heeled lady and her son had a strange interchange 'Mom? Was Jimi Hendrix a black man?', he enquired quizzically. 'Yes', she replied, 'And he died when he was only twenty'! Between the police, the photographers, boom mike holders, fans, well-wishers and half the staffs of Q and Mojo magazine, the place was buzzing. As I left I noticed a group of media people break away and coming rusing towards a crowd barrier. As I looked back I discerned Jimi's dad, Al Hendrix and step-sister Janie being mobbed for quotes, autographs and photos. I must say I was proud to be present and the first real British event to celebrate my greatest musical hero. Later the BBC news featured footage of the occasion and establishment art critic Brian Sewell pooh-poohing the presentation as an irrelevancy. 'I don't see the point', he sneered, with an accent which sounded as if his mouth was full of marbles. The point is Jimi Hendrix will still be remembered long after this century and probably the next.

Timing could not have been better as Universal via the family have allowed the release of a new album 'South Saturn Delta'. Other fascinating listens this issue come from Portishead, Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar and Toru Takemitsu. There are brill boxed sets from Cream and The Doors and a highly recommended Zabriskie Point soundtrack re-issue with unreleased Pink Floyd and Jerry Garcia music. Again all the gates are open, all you have to do is step right in. And for a change, this time, I'll be brief!

Mark Prendergast,Autumn 1997, London.

PORTISHEAD - PORTISHEAD
Beth Gibbons's voice was the sound of '95. At so many outdoor and indoor parties the slow-tripped, emotive sound poured from the speakers. This was a soundtrack full of noirish samples that seemed precisely English but precisely now (then). Then the melancholic soundtrack to a film that played in your head, was used as a real soundtrack to adverts and real films. It even turned up on the latest David Lynch thingee 'Lost Highway'. Portishead hit gold with 'Dummy'. So what's the long-awaited follow-up, curiously titled 'Portishead' like?

Well it's strange, I mean it sounds strange. There are soft guitars and basses, break-beats and strings. There are things spinning - at the end of 'All Mine' whose dramatic orchestral splash has a Russian quality to it, something starts to aurally spin! It's vertigo-inducing (and that's not a Hitchcock pun). The Theremin is much in evidence and Geoff Barrow's home-made hissy vinyl samples are tres effective. There are little voices in the background. 'Half-Day Closing' sounds like a West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band out-take from sunny L.A. 1967. There are lonesome guitars, cue 'Over'. There are gravity-defying depth charge bass sounds. And of course that strange Portishead squawking-sound, most audible on 'Only You'. Things shimmer in and out of focus. Aural genius Geoff Barrow may have been a year late on delivery to Go! Beat but he wanted it to sound right, which means very strange indeed. And Gibbons is simply the voice of ineffable emotion. Astonishing.

BOB DYLAN - TIME OUT OF MIND
Unusually for me I just went out and bought the new Dylan album, sight unseen, note unheard. The reason - Daniel Lanois is the producer. The last studio set Lanois produced 'Oh Mercy', back in 1989 was pretty good. Lanois co-produced the widescreen U2 sound of 'The Joshua Tree', as well as great albums by Peter Gabriel ('So') and Robbie Robertson ('Robbie Robertson'). Lanois has that rare ability to make music come alive. Put him in a studio with anybody and he gets something going. He once told me that 'Bob supports himself extremely well on guitar.' He then set up a studio in such a way that he could capture Dylan playing his guitar as he sat in his kitchen supping coffee and scribbling notes. What better way, some might say , to capture a genius mind in motion.

'Time Out Of Mind' (Columbia) is full of old organs - Wurlitzer, Vox Continental, Hammond B3. Lanois accompanies Dylan's guitar, harmonica, piano and vocals with an assortment of guitars : Mando-guitar, Firebird Martin, Gretch gold top, Electric L5 Gibson. There's a heat to the record, reminiscent of its Miami surroundings and an air of the mid-'60s era 'Highway '61' or 'Blonde on Blonde'. 'Love Sick' entwines itself around your head, Dylan per normal spinning out a bittersweet tale and as we're constantly reminded there's nobody on this earth better at spinning out a tale. There's jaunty, there's sad, there's the blues (Dylan nearly died last year from histoplasmosis, a noxiously rare infection), there's love's mystery, regret and anger; there's impending death, there's strength and most importantly a late-night smoky bar sound, courtesy Lanois, which suits Dylan to a tee. At this stage in the game Bob Dylan is still a revelation.

U2 - PLEASE
I love the cover of this new Island single. Gerry Adams, David Trimble, John Hume and Ian Paisley all treated to dayglo colours a la Warhol by Dublin artist Steve Averill. He used to be in The Radiators From Space and I saw him fall off a stage at a Thin Lizzy gig in 1977 when they were the support act for The Boomtown Rats. 'Please' could never come at a better time in Anglo-Irish relations. The single version has had new mixing by Howie 'B' and 'Spike' Stent in Germany, Holland and France and even an additional string arrangement. 'Dirty Day' from 'Zooropa' has been junked up with extra cello by Mary Gaines on two mixes from Wisconsin. 'I'm Not Your Baby' is a soundtrack excerpt from Wim Wenders new film 'The End of Violence' with vocals from Sinead O'Connor and Bono (now good friends) - its dreamy one minute, U2 trashy the next.

ROBERT WYATT - SCHLEEP
Joe Boyd, the legendary record producer of '60s acts such as Nick Drake and The Incredible String Band has done the decent thing and given Robert Wyatt, a new record deal on Rykodisc. An old friend of Jimi Hendrix and a mainstay of English psychedelia, Wyatt played the 24-Hour Technicolour Dream alongside Pink Floyd in 1967. During the '70s he made some stunning solo albums culminating in the tour de force 'Nothing Can Stop Us' on Rough Trade in 1982 which featured some of the most exquisite single records ever released :'At Last I'm Free' and 'Shipbuilding' (penned by Elvis Costello). This is his first proper solo outing since 'Dondestan' in 1991 though contrary to press reports Wyatt has been busy with collaboarations, notably Fish Out Of Water on the 1995 'Lucky Scars' album and their acclaimed 2 Player re-mix of 'Cry From The City' on LO Recordings 'Further Mutations' (1997) reviewed in last Altair5 edition.

With any Wyatt album you get quirk and humour, songs played to slow-tempoed organs and odd time signatures. This opens with the aerial synthesizers and washes of Brian Eno who also does backing vocals. Wyatt is playing guitars and things, pulled away from his customary role behind the piano. The result is joyous, zestful music, leagues ahead of the pale noises made by those half his age. As Wyatt has always leaned towards jazz there are turns from saxophonist Evan Parker, trombonist Annie Whitehead. Philip Catherine, the Belgian guitarist, turns up (check out the stringed cascades of 'Maryan') as does former Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera at whose Chertsy studio the album was recorded over six months. Wyatt drew his inspiration from Spanish memories of his wife Alfie and life in an estuary dacha or summer house in the Humber. A notable return to form, Paul Weller plays loud guitars on the 'subterranean' Dylan tribute 'Blues In Bob Minor' and wrote the droning,Ambient 'The Whole Point of No Return'. The Hannibal/Rykodisc CD is sumptuously presented with amusing Benge/Wyatt drawings, copious personal sleevenotes and a beautiful Benge cover painting of sleeping Wyatt clinging to an airborne dove.

Also Out

Keith Jarrett - La Scala
I still haven't recovered from hearing 'Vienna' in 1992. Without a doubt Jarrett is the kingpin of ECM. 'Vienna Concert' was a return to artistic bliss, the spiralling piano inspiration of 1975's Koln Concert. Now he's famous for Bach and Shostakovich cycles and for his own orchestral music - 'Celestial Hawk' (1980), 'Bridge of Light' (1991). Also he's a receptor of the 'Office Of Arts & Letters' from France. 'La Scala', recorded in Milan, is another Jarrett solo piano improv. Would it be as sublime as the sound of Koln Concert in Nick Roeg's Viennese odyssey 'Badtiming'? Well it's strange stuff, more meandering, more meditative, less simply melodic than his old stuff. And yet Jarrett pulls a stroke of genius out of the bag by doing an Ambient interpretation of 'Over The Rainbow'.

David Toop - Spirit World
No matter what his credentials are for Ambient, Toop is a man who wants to be a writer and a musician at the same time. I am told this is where " the ritualistic, the modern, acoustic, electric, Ambient, spoken, improvisation all collide". And it is all genuinely weird. Scanner (soundscapes), Robert Hampson (guitar drones), Max Eastley (violet ray vitalator, bubbles, buzzers, inflatable percussion, electric motor) and a variety of others on trumpet, tablas, shakers, cymbals, taiko drums and gongs make this music with Toop. He plays guitars, programming, flutes, synths and talks. His selective prose reaches deep into the collective primitive but is used here as atmosphere. Often , you think, that Toop has never got over the experience he once had in the Amazonas with the Indians there. This is genuinely spooky stuff.

Paul Schutze - Second Site
'The mosaic of starlight slips back like the lid of an opening eye.' This is printed on the inside of this beautifully packaged modern artefact from the brain of the prolific Australian/German Ambient composer Paul Schutze. I have to say that Schutze makes a lot of records, not a lot of them are any good. He stretches ideas to breaking point and beyond. Here we have 102 separate fragments based on the Site 27ø37'35"N 77ø13'05"E which is a location in Jaipur, India of an early 18th Century astronimical garden. The text is spoken by Paivi Bjorkenheim and relates to sound, memory and the architecture of the site. Percussion and reed flute fill the backdrop of over 100 minutes of sound. It's a wonder this kind of experiment gets released at all. And that in itself is a credit to Virgin and project co-ordinator Simon Hopkins.

The Kelley Deal 6000 - Boom! Boom! Boom!
When you were young there was a band called The Pixies. Then there was a band called The Breeders. They made buzzsaw punk surf. In them I remember two sisters by the name of Deal. Kim was famous because of The Pixies, Kelley was not. This is all memory stuff now so bear with me. Anyway the cover of 'Boom! Boom! Boom!' is very simple, it's on Play It Again Sam. It's Kelley Deal's new thing and it's interesting. There is a lot of fun here, the kind of fun you saw in 'Swingers' and you can hear it on songs like 'Shag' ,'Stripper' 'My Boyfriend Died'. She's good on the sensitive stuff as well, acoustic guitar and voice. This is an album made in Minnesota in the wake of a difficult druggy and police hassly period for Deal. It sounds a lot better than it looks - 'Skylark' being a beautiful piece of writing and playing.

Selected Signs,1 - ECM Anthology
The packaging of ECM records is always a marvel. With a photo that could be from an Antonioni movie, a rock in a desert is covered in neon writing : 'The Essential is No Longer Visible'. Inside a similar photo says : 'The Battle Against Telluric And Cosmic Forces'. This is basically a superior compilation of 1997 releases with photos of album covers included. A lot of this is cool European jazz but there's other stuff : the soft bandoneon (like an accordion) playing of Dino Saluzzi, the impressionistic piano of Misha Alperin,the sublime guitar of Ralph Towner, the percussionist Marilyn Mazur,Charles Lloyd playing tenor sax and Tibetan oboe, Kenny Wheeler's trumpet, the famous percussion of Jack DeJohnette, the quiet brilliance of guitarist Terje Rypdal.

Look Out For New albums by:

Courtney Pine - Underground (Talkin' Loud).
Kate St John - Second Sight (All Saints)
Tanya Donnelly - Love Songs For Underdogs (4AD)

THE DOORS - BOXED SET
No one has to tell you that the first three Doors albums on Elektra make for essential listening. Both 'Strange Days' (1967) and 'Waiting For The Sun' (1968) are two of my favourite albums of all time. I love the ballads, the tender way that Morrison coiled his way around your mind on 'Moonlight Drive' and 'Summer's Almost Gone'. And that first album 'The Doors' had its share of jewels - 'I Can't See Your Face In My Mind', 'The Crystal Ship' and the incendiary 'The End'. I'm absolutely certain that the latter track made more people go and see Francis Coppola's 'Apocalypse Now' than the fact that Marlon Brando was making a comeback in 1979. I'm always chilled by that moment on American Prayer (1978) when Morrison makes a telephone call from the desert and says he's killed someone. Its so filmic, so bloody believable. He sounds so out there as 'Riders On Te Storm' kicks in. Was this guy capable of killing someone? From the evidence, maybe. He obviously dreamed much of death.

From the moment you hear the first track of this exhaustive Doors celebration package ( done by the remaining band members Densmore, Manzarek, Krieger and producer Bruce Botnick) Morrison would not be my first choice of meeting in a dark alleyway on the way home from a party. 'Five To One' recorded in Miami 1969 shows a man goading his audience to the brink of frenzy - 'You're all a bunch of fucking idiots...how long are you gonna let people push you around ...maybe you love having your face stuck in the shit...your all a bunch of slaves.' And it gets worse, Morrison sounding as if he's on the brink of true dementia - a demonic force incarnate. No wonder he was arrested afterwards, supposedly for exposing himself, but in Miami in the '60s his very presence would be enough.

Unlike most boxed sets Elektra's 'The Doors' offers three discs of unreleased material. The final 'band favourites' disc picks released tracks from the catalogue. Hence, here you'll get a live version of 'The End' , a huge slice from the Live In New York 1970 disc and Ray Manzarek's favourite version but not the album take. The Madison Square Garden CD also contains a version of the ritualistic 'Celebration Of The Lizard King' which is over 17 minutes long. There is loads and loads of blues on this. The first and third discs ('The Future Ain't What It Used To Be'/ 'Without A Safety Net') offer live material interspersed with studio demos and outs. As I've only got cassettes the following is the interesting material from the three unreleased discs:

Who Scared You (Bill Burroughs influenced, Studio 1969)
Black Train Song (Live blues 1970)
Whiskey, Mystics & Men (sea shanty,Studio 1970)
I Will Never Be Untrue (Live blues 1970)
Moonlight Drive (two different demos/1965/1966)
Rock Is Dead (lengthy 'Morrison Hotel' session 1969)
Albinoni's Adagio in B Minor (instrumental 1968 plus Jim favourite)
Hello To The Cities (Live Jim speech to cities 1967/1970)
Rock Me (Muddy Waters live cut 1970)
Money (Live John Lee Hooker track X 2,1970)
Someday Soon (new song , only Live 1970)
Go Insane (first Doors demo, 1965)
Mental Floss ( Live improvisation, soundcheck 1970)
Adolph Hitler ( Live jocular fragment, 1970)
Soft Parade (Only Live version, 1970)
Tightrope Ride (Workshop recording with Manzarek on vocals,1971)
Orange County Suite (New Morrison 1970 Studio for Pamela Courson and best single cut!)
Gloria (Live 1970 tribute to Van Morrison)
Crawling King Snake (John Lee Hooker Live take 1970)
Poontang Blues/Build Me A Woman/Sunday Trucker (Erotic blues, Live 1970)

Box also contains 80 unseen photos, full Doors bibliography/discography with track listings (very handy), plus a thirty year perspective of the band by Tom Robbins, Michael Ventura and the late Doors producer .Paul Rothchild. In a word fascinating. Check East-West for more info.

ZABRISKIE POINT - NEW SOUNDTRACK
For years I've loved the soundtrack of this film . I bought it in the early 1980s just for the Pink Floyd takes and the gorgeous excerpt from The Grateful Dead definitive 1969 track 'Dark Star'. I tracked down an American version of the soundtrack a few years ago but to find out that the long lost Floyd out-takes would be finally released was a welcome surprise. We all know that the film has been revitalised in recent years. But the television is no place to view it, get a cinema with a cineramic screen and just bathe in those colours. Whatever its director Michelangelo Antonioni was accused of , it could never be for bad cinematography. The colours in Zabriskie Point, particularly the road scenes, are simply ravishing.

Rhino in the States are responsible for this new double CD edition. I paid œ26.50p for it and it's worth every penny. For starters the unreleaased music is truly exceptional. Floyd fans have heard of tracks like 'Midas Touch' and 'Omayyad' languishing in a Rome vault since 1969. Antonioni was very fussy and made the Floyd go through take after take, plying them with the best red wine he could find. Here we get four lengthy tracks - a whimsical early '70s 'Country Song' from Roger Waters, a fascinating acoustic/electronic instrumental 'Unknown Song', a ripping David Gilmour blues 'Love Scene Version 6' and a Rick Wright Ambient piano instrumental 'Love Scene Version 4'. Another take 'Riot Scene' was to become 'Us & Them' on 'Dark Side Of The Moon' so is not on this.

David Fricke's 36 page essay on the genesis of the soundtrack is fascinating plus the photo stills are excellent. You learn here that Gerry Garcia bought a new house with the fee he was paid from the $7 million budget that Antonioni was allocated. Moreover his classic 'Love Scene' guitar suite was an edit of four different tracks together and there all here. You can also read about the sad demise of actor Mark Frechette, who after been spotted in Boston shouting 'Motherfucker!' to a policeman, became a temporary star and then died in prison after a hippie-style stickup at the early age of 27. The lithe Daria Halprin ended up married to and divorced from Dennis Hopper whose gritty film 'Easy Rider' ruined any commercial chances for Antonioni's artistic perfectionism. See also Zabriskie Point

JIMI HENDRIX - SOUTH SATURN DELTA
Here we go again. Lovers of Hendrix can see my review of this new Universal release in Uncut. This new CD is a revelation for the interested, a welcome out-of-the-vaults release for the diehard. There are only four genuinely unreleased tracks - 'Little Wing' (inferior demo), 'Loverman ' (studio blues rock), 'Sweet Angel' (uptempo studio ballad) and 'Midnight Lightning' (studio blues). The latter two are excellent new additions, Hendrix laughing at his own guitar fills on 'Sweet Little Angel' , a precursor to 'Angel', heard after his death in 1971 on 'Cry Of Love'. Of the rest 'Look Over Yonder' and 'Pali Gap' come from 'Rainbow Bridge ' (the soundtrack only ever available on bootleg CD); 'Tax Free', 'Midnight' & 'Bleeding Heart' were on 'War Heroes'; 'South Saturn Delta' (a jazz thing) and 'Drifter's Escape' were on 'Live & Unreleased' from the late 1980s; 'Message To Love' and 'Power Of Soul' were released by Alan Douglas in 1975 on 'Crash Landing' with different musicians - these are The Band of Gypsys versions; there's a slightly different version of 'All Along The Watchtower' and at last 'The Star's That Plays With Laughing Sam's Dice' is included on a record having only been available on the long-deleted 'Smash Hits' and obscure 'Loose Ends' compilation. Check out the new Experience Hendrix site on http://www.jimi-hendrix.com.

Guitars On Mars
Another wacky compo from David Toop (see http://www.hyperreal.com) in his 'Ocean Of Sound Series' for Virgin. The idea is simple, weird guitar sounds from the history of music. There are Memphis guitars, scratchy guitars of Ennio Morricone from the spaghetti Western 'Once Upon A Time In The West'. There's Beefheart and the Magic Band, Holger Czukay (from the excellent 'On The Way To The Peak Of Normal'),King Sunny Ade, Jason Pierce's Spiritualised and the best track from 'Lazer Guided Melodies', some Joe 'Telstar' Meek stuff from 1960, Sonic Youth, John Barry, Jet Harris and The Ventures. Of course Hendrix, Grateful Dead,Frank Zappa, Brian Eno, The Beach Boys and John Lee Hooker are also present. If you like guitar sound you won't hear a compo as diversified as this for a long time. The Toop track 'I Hear Voices Too' is particularly good.

The Pixies - Death To The Pixies
Not to forget for the first time The Pixies have a compilation album out on 4AD. Anyone who thrilled to 'Monkey Gone To Heaven' off 'Doolittle' in 1989 will thrill to this. Indie darlings, the Boston, Massachusetts band were a great retort to jaded English punk. This disc comes in 17 track studio plus a free 21 track liver for a short time and a 10" vinyl collector's edition. It contains stuff from all five albums 'Come On Pilgrim' (1987), 'Surfer Rosa' (1988), 'Doolittle' (1989), 'Bossanova' (1990) and 'Trompe Le Monde' (1991).

This Is Cult Fiction Royale
Another sprightly series of theme musics stitched onto the Pulp Fiction theme from Virgin. There are two classics on here , Lalo Schifrin's theme music from 'Bullitt' and the incomparable psychedelic theme from 'The Prisoner' with its thunder, tablas, descending guitar scales and car noises. The usual stuff is here: The Pursuaders, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., 007, The Avengers, Hill Street Blues, Twin Peaks, The Saint, UFO, Space 1999, The Sweeney (topical as Regan & Carter are on the box), Get Carter, Joe 90, The Professionals (an awful series and it's coming back), Mission Impossible, Danger Man (pre Prisoner MacGoohan series) and the funniest thing of all 'The Magic Roundabout'!

Krautrock Archive - Volume 2
Another Virgin compo (how many great things are Virgin putting on the market these days?). This one features Spirulina, Ten To Zen, Temple, The Nazgul, Golem and The Cosmic Corridors. 'Who are these? , you say. Well they were a bunch of bands from 1972 to 1974 who used to play around the Cologne area and were signed to the Pyramid label. According to the eye-catching sleeve they were recorded by someone who worked with Stockhausen, Can and The Cosmic Jokers. Spirulina just floated, beautiful Ambient rock. 'Ten To Zen' went for a wall of quiet sound. Temple are simply weird hippie shit. The Nazgul had people in their group with names like Frodo, Gandalf and Pippin and made music like Stockhausen on acid. Golem were simply a guy with a wah-wah pedal and some friends. Cozmic Corridors were as far out as their name, one track spilling out like ripples in a lake, another a ploppy synth extravaganza. Bizarre.

Look Out For
Megha-Duta (Sirius)
Krautrock Archive Volume 3 (Virgin)
Robin Williamson - Dream Journals 1966 - 1976 (Pig's Whisker)
Roy Harper - Flat,Baroque & Berserk (Science Friction)

RAVI SHANKAR - CHANTS OF INDIA
Through Nonesuch and Warner brothers George Harrison has facilitated the release of this new Shankar disc which follows the 'Ravi In Celebration' four disc set of recent years. Shankar is pivotal not only to The Beatles but to the history of Minimalist music, his importance is again detailed in my work-in-progress book. This was recorded in Madras and London under the supervision of Harrison and Shankar's lovely daughter Anoushka. Recorded in 1996 it is an ooverview of the sacred Sanskrit chants from the holy books of India. The different pieces are titled Suktas, Shlokas and Mantras and are supported by new music by Shankar. This music is so clear and beautiful that Shankar must be raised up there with the true greats of 20th Century music. And don't think that this is a return to the George Harrison of 'Wonderwall Music' because it isn't. Shankar's musical interludes are just on the money every time. And sleepy old George plays autoharp, glockenspiel, vibraphone, bass and acoustic guitar. In fact he even sings!

MICHAEL NYMAN - CONCERTOS
Michael Nyman is one of the few modern composers to make people laugh. His creations which are full of bleeping horns, reeds, brass and pianos have decorated film, play, theatre, video and other media for fifteen years now. He openly adapts classical themes for Minimalist compositions which like his contemporaries Glass and Reich have got more complex in maturity. Here we get a batch of concertos for different instruments. The 'Double Concerto for Saxophone, Cello & Orchestra' is performed by John Harle and Julian Lloyd Webber is a lovely 27 minutes, full of sweet airs and Minimalist cadences. I saw Elisabeth Chojnacka perform a part of the 'Harpsichord Concerto' and it reminded me of Nyman's eminently funny Draughtman's Contract with its zippy arpeggios. The 'Trombone Concerto' is an exercise in Rough Music or Rude Cacaphony as practised in 17th Century England. The roughness is in the metal percussion, the trombone playing of Christian Lindberg runs the gamut of 20th Century styles, Ives, Varese and even jazz. Nyman as versatile as ever and now on EMI.

Also Out

Gidon Kremer - From My Home
A Finlandia disc where the Latvian violinist/conductor celebrates his Baltic homeland. In true Kremer fashion he even revisits his greatest triumph, Arvo Part's 'Fratres', which made him famous on its release in 1992. There's Romantic music, elegiac music, a concerto written by a schoolday friend and a recent piece 'Conversio' written three years before Kremer's fiftieth birthday. The quality of this music is testament to its earthly source but also to Kremer's impeccable taste. Recommended.

ROUND UP

FILM

1. CAREER GIRLS
   Mike Leigh's brilliant follow-up to 'Secrets & Lies' is undoubtedly the best film of the moment. Katrin Cartlidge and Lynda Steadman play two sets of characters during and after university. This is so close to the bone it hurts. Riveting stuff and a must for anyone with nostalgia for the '80s.
2. L'APPARTEMENT
   Gilles Mimouni's strange tale of a guy (Vincent 'Le Haine' Cassel) who accidentally gets involved with two women just before he is to be married to a third. The beauty of this is the way we see the action from three different angles and it is fabulously photographed in Paris by Thierry Arbotast. A real film buffs film!
3. SWINGERS
   Doug Liman's directorial debut is one of the slickest films ever made about what it's really like to be a bloke. Nerves, shyness, show-offness, awkwardness at parties, drinking sessions, male bonding, sex and the fearful moments with telephones and answering machines. Their all here. Essential realistic stuff and an antidote to gun-toting, testerone filled males of Hollywood trash.

TV

1. THE SWEENEY
   Easily the best English cop series ever. In the vein of 'Get Carter' this is gritty stuff, set in a run-down early '70s South London. John Thaw is unrecognizable in his role as Jack Regan , the hard drinking, womanizing, fist fighting detective in flares and big ties. Dennis Waterman is his able sidekick as they cruise the streets in their Ford Corsair looking for villains. Every other British law enforcement series was milk by comparison. And don't even mention The Professionals. (Channel 5).
2. THE PROVOS
   Over 25 years of bloodshed has finally led to peace talks and a double think on the IRA. The BBC's visually stunning series shows it like it was - Bloody Sunday, Internment, Shoot To Kill; it's all here in spades. And if anyone thinks that the present situation is bad just look again at those bombs, those gunfights and the sheer warzone of Belfast and Derry a quarter of a century ago.
3. THE NAZIS
   Another BBC series with an agenda. This time to look at the very reasons why one of the most blood-thirsty regimes in the history of mankind stayed in power. We see how Hitler contrived the media to give him a good image and how the German people (not all) went along with this hypocrisy. Better still is the interviews with old SS and Nazi supporting citizens who deny everything or say it was somebody else's fault. One German artist , dispatched to a concentration camp for having, bohemian taste was set up by a neighbour. When confronted by a letter she wrote to the Gestapo the neighbour acts as if it never occuurred. Riveting stuff. ( Interestingly Channel 4 recently screened in its Ba Ba Zee slot a history of black people in Hitler's Germany. 20,000 died but incredibly ,some, who worked in entertainment and were artists, survived to tell the tale!)

MODERN ALBUM OF THE MOMENT

PORTISHEAD - PORTISHEAD

ARCHIVE ALBUM OF THE MOMENT

THE DOORS BOXED SET

TEASER TRACK OF THE MOMENT

JIM MORRISON - ADOLF HITLER!

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. This is not the end......

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