ALTAIR FIVE
THE ALTERNATIVE GUIDE TO INTERESTING MUSIC BY MARK PRENDERGAST.
This is an archive edition.
The most recent issue is here.
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text © 2000 Mark J Prendergast
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Contents
*
RECEPTION
THE AMBIENT CENTURY:FROM MAHLER TO TRANCE -
THE EVOLUTION OF SOUND IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE *
*
MODERN
RADIOHEAD * U 2 * MADONNA * ENYA * MOBY * THE ORB *TIM BLAKE * STIGMATA OST * AQUEOUS *
*
ARCHIVE
KING CRIMSON * THE DOORS * JIMI HENDRIX * GEORGEHARRISON * LENNY KRAVITZ * THE COCTEAU
TWINS * DAVID SYLVIAN * TRAIN KEPT A ROLLIN' *
THE ELECTRIC PRUNES * CURTIS MAYFIELD * THE
FLYINGBURRITO BROTHERS * JIMMY PAGE * TIM
BLAKE *
*
CLASSICAL/COMPOSITION
THE EARLY GURUS OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC *
ANOUSHKA SHANKAR * LAURIE ANDERSON * HAROLD
BUDD * THE DREAM SYNDICATE * MINIMALISTS *
* DANCE/ETHNIC/AMBIENT ELECTRONICA
LTJ BUKEM * BILL LASWELL/ZAKIR HUSSAIN *
MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA/ZAKIR HUSSAIN *
RECEPTION
The Ambient Century is finally out there and making its way in the world. The culmination of a dream I had since the mid 1980s to unify the history of modern music, the reality of the book is still a shock even for me. Like a child leaving home, as its parent I found it a little difficult letting go.
The actual gestation of The Ambient Century took about five years. After Bloomsbury had agreed to support the book I spent about a year clearing the decks and getting down to writing. In the Spring of 1996 I began 'Book One : The Electronic Landscape' which was completed by the end of that year. In 1997 came 'Book Two : Minimalism, Eno & The New Simplicity', in 1998 'Book Three : Ambience In The Rock Era' which tipped into 1999 and then 'Book Four : House, Techno & 21st Century Ambience' which was delivered in March 2000. After that it was hell-for-leather work on the Discography and Bibliography as well as copious amounts of reading work with my editors. Then of course it was picture setting, captioning and the ardurous process of proof-reading which is much harder than it sounds. By the end of August the cover design was in place and everything was set for the printers who took six weeks to get the first copies done. In the meantime I helped with the design of The Ambient Century website which is simply called ambientcentury.com
Now that the book is out and the critics are having their say some friends are quite shocked at the splenetic nature of certain writers. The reality is that any work of art will attract a rainbow of responses, some good, some bad and many indifferent. Ambient Century covers one hundred years of music over 500 detail-packed pages. It's the culmination of twenty years of music journalism and writing on my part and I don't expect anyone for an instant to get to grips with it quickly. Some critics will read the press release, skim through the book and come to their own conclusions. Others will have personal axes to grind and attack me, my publishers and Brian Eno (who penned the foreword) on the basis that we exist. The insightful will read the book, judge it on its own terms and offer useful insights which open further avenues for exploration.
I remember talking to Robert Fripp about the extreme reactions King Crimson used to get from the press. He answered by saying "never react". That wise old sage of Wimborne felt that any critical response whether positive or negative was a yardstick of the impact his music was making on the world. And to back-up his view Fripp has always included bad press alongside good press in the sleevenotes to his constant Box Set and CD re-issues of Crimson music. So in that spirit I accept all reactions to Ambient Century as valid, whether positive, negative or merely tepid.
One upshot of the book is that I'm put in the interviewee chair for a change. I've sat in BBC studios talking about music and playing records. It's a great buzz to be able to play excerpts from Radiohead's Kid A on Wisconsin Public Radio or air Terry Riley's glittering A Rainbow In Curved Air on the BBC's predominantly classical Radio 3. Stranger was hearing Front Row¹s Francine Stock talking about Ambient Century in terms of a sonic interpretation by Scanner on BBC's premier spoken-word channel Radio 4. All in all the book has been a life-enhancing experience and I hope you will get as much out of the work as I have done thinking, writing and talking about it. Happy reading.
Mark Prendergast, Winter 2000
MODERN
* Radiohead * U 2 * Madonna * Enya * Moby * The Orb * Tim Blake *
Stigmata OST * Aqueous *
RADIOHEAD - KID A
For years people have been telling me how great OK Computer is. Simon Reynolds argued recently about the whyfores of rock's greatest album being released in the 1990s rather than the 1960s. I never got it. With the exception of some nice choral features and a centrepiece track which borrowed equal parts from Durutti Column and U 2, I felt the rest was without coherence, the guitar parts in particular too often veering to overblown bombast rather than true innovation. Certainly there wasn't anything in their guitar playing which rivalled the sonic blasts of Jimmy Page or the sheer emotional dexterity of David Gilmour.
U 2 - ALL THAT YOU CAN'T LEAVE BEHIND
At first hearing U2's tenth studio album sounds bland. It's Anton Corbijn band photograph in indifferent black taken in Charles De Gaulle airport harks back to Joshua Tree times. (Note: the J33-3 numbers on the monitor on the left are a hidden biblical reference!) But like Achtung Baby it's Bono's lyricism which draws you in. His words seem to fall inside the emotional cracks of everybody's lives, nowhere better illustrated than on the uncannily fascinating 'Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of'. On 'New York' Bono speaks of losing it all to "you and your vices...staying on to figure out my mid-life crisis". Whose he really talking about here? It's this mysterious quality which marks him out (as it did Jim Morrison) as one of rock's greatest writers. This track has some excellent lithe percussion by Mullen and Edge's customary circling guitar nuances but the whole is partly creased by a well over-the-top crash/bang/wallop of a mid-section rock crescendo. In contrast 'Grace' which follows it is absolutely magnificent. Bono delivering his characteristic Catholic-tainted symbolism to the subtlest of U2's ambiences floatingly abetted by the old-firm production team of Brian Eno & Daniel Lanois.
The more you hear this album the better it gets. Christ Edge's guitar on 'Grace' seems to tribute David Gilmour's slide work on say 1969's 'Fat Old Sun'. The No 1 single 'Beautiful Day' is a much better track than it sounds on the Radio. Play it loud to hear Edge's cascading guitar shards and its super-complex organisation. 'Elevation' soars and rockets between Bono's yelps and Edge's full-throttle metal guitar. 'Walk On' is another one of those great emotional U2 ballads where Edge's guitar drops in in such a way you want to hear it over and over. In fact Edge co-writes four of the album's eleven tracks (Track 12 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet' is a European bonus only and was written by Salman Rushdie) and is throughout an equal partner to his Voxness. There's acoustic stuff, slide guitar stuff, big rock things and 'Peace On Earth' supposedly written after the Omagh bombing. The latter is U 2 doing a Christmas song and it works. Personally I loved the direction taken on 'Pop' but Larry didn't. At least this return to fundamental U2ness is not the retrograde step that most critics would have us believe. I'll be putting this in my CD deck for a long time to come. On Island, see www.u2.com
MADONNA - MUSIC
After the brilliant Ray of Light I thought Madonna just couldn't get any better. Then she makes Music, sells 12 million albums around the world and performs for 29 minutes in London for the record Internet earnings of half-a-million dollars! Even the glitzy cowgirl image is a touch of genius as Madonna's mining of black dance music is as far away from Nashville/Las Vegas red-necked hokum as you can get. The big guns are out for this one. Mike ' 'Spike' Stent of U2 fame, Talvin Singh, William Orbit and kingbee of French dance production Mirwais Ahmadzai. So Music catches electronically-treated dance music and pirouttes it around the globes airwaves. On 'Impressive Instant' she Trances it up rather impressively. 'Runaway Lover' is great stuff, Madonna and Orbit pulsating it away in a starburst of squeaks and bleeps. (I can see Louise Veronica Ciccone on a horse for the vid of this one!) Then she goes all acoustic and ballady but doesn't quite dip into Sheryl Crow territory. 'Don't Tell Me' is country-tinged dance music, but it is DANCE MUSIC. On 'Nobody's Perfect' somebody bends a synthesizer pitch wheel to weird effect. What makes Music a great album is that it's impossible to predict. 'What It Feels Like To Be A Girl' is introduced by the elfin actress Charlotte Gainsbourg and emotionally tells us boys that being a girl is very different. At 42 with two kids it's a tribute to her strength that Madonna can still see herself as a girl. 'Gone' sees her singing in French to faux Japanese music and lots of gurgling old sythesizers. The European version of the album ends with Don McLean's 'American Pie' which you lucky Americans don't have to put up with. It's colourless to the extreme and even has Rupert Everett on it. All the same this is just one hellava album. Kicking. On Warners, see www.madonnamusic.com
ENYA - A DAY WITHOUT RAIN
" A cathedral of sound, a glorious all enveloping choral tide " trumpets the press release. This is Enya, the famous multi-platinum disc inhabitant of an Irish castle, after a break of five years raising her voice yet again above the parapet. According to she " I've been busy customising my studio. I do all the vocals and harmonies with no samples. Everything you hear on the album is played by me. Therefore, we are inclined to take much longer in the studio than other people." And this is a short album by modern standards, all 37 minutes of it! After a few string-led ditties a la 'Orinoco Flow' we encounter 'Tempus Vernum', a soundtracky thingy which would suit a modern production of Macbeth sung in Latin. (Try Enigma without the thumping beats.) Then she hits her mark with 'Tears On My Heart' a half Gaelic/English ballad of the kind of Ambient intensity Enya has made her own. 'Pilgrim' is also in this vein but for me there is too much material here that's catchy rather than genuinely tuneful. As for the pale cover shot of Enya seated against an equally pale wall, for God's sake girl get out of that castle and get more colour in your cheeks. On WEA, see www.enya.com
MOBY - PLAY LTD EDITION
Moby, who describes himself as "the little idiot", spent a lot of his time on the sleeve of his 1999 bestseller talking politics - the plight of prisoners, the existence of fundamentalism, veganism, antisemitism, Christian violence, kindness to animals, it's all here. Of course much of that album has passed into the mainstream particularly the ubiquitous tinkling piano of the Gospel classic 'Porcelain'. It was Moby's brilliant fusing of black Gospel and blues with Ambient Techno which made him a star. Both 'Why Does My Heart Feel So Bad?' and 'Natural Blues' are classics of his chosen idiom. Above that Moby is a multi-instrumentalist writer of considerable skill, as much at home with folk strumming or grunge rock as his expansive beautiful Techno ambiences. PLAY LTD EDITION comes with a bonus disc of B-Sides. I would say that these are much better Ambient music than his 1993 Pinnacle release Moby Ambient. There's a level of quality-control here that many Techno boffins would envy. Painterly but injected with enough eclectic nuances to satisfy any taste. Recommended. On Mute, see www.moby-online.com
THE ORB - CYDONIA
In Brian De Palma's recent film Mission To Mars, Tim Robbins and his gang descend on Cydonia and have a frankly 2001 meets X-Files experience. Cydonia is the famous Martian face image which has haunted recent Science Faction. As the title of a new Orb album it returns us to their interstellar days of the early 1990s. Alex Paterson is still on the job as is Andy Hughes. Production is paramount and more Lounge-Core friendly than recent albums. Eastern exoticisms, female vocals and jokes abound but the question is how will The Orb, kings of the post-Acid House frontier, fit into today's music culture? On the expansive 'Terminus' they make another great Ambient linear creation. Maybe they want us to float. On Universal/Island.
TIM BLAKE - THE TIDE OF THE CENTURY
Don't be fooled by the fey Prog cover of Tim Blake's new album. Working away in a Brittany mill house he is still capable of producing beautiful music. He sings yes but the instrumental textures of acoustic piano, analogue synthesizer and New Age bubblings all work to his advantage. The mid-section 'Byzantium Dancing' is one long ten-minute instrumental. Worth an ear. On Blueprint.
STIGMATA - OST
The original score for this film was written by Billy Corgan with Mike Garson (of Bowie fame). Its final eleven atmospheric tracks are pure sound-film, one even credited to Sckhausen which I'm sure is the great Karlheinz himself. This is yet another example of the film music out-doing the film (Patricia Arquette and Gabriel Byrne as a priest doing a special-effects laden rehash of The Exorcist). Elsewhere we get full-on weirdness from Bjork, Bowie, Sinead O'Connor, Massive Attack and a dreamy thingy from Natalie Imbruglia. On Virgin, see www.mgm.com
AQUEOUS - ENTERTAINING ANGELS
With a motto which states " everything live, everything played and no overdubs " Aqueous produce stellar results that are classic Ambient music. This 1998 release is an essential listen. Mainman Felix Jay was born in Africa but grew up in Dublin. He can play upright bass, bass clarinet, bass flute, keyboard, percussion, marimba and has a predilection for the Javanese Gamelan. Here his speciality is the Fender Rhodes. A meeting with Brian Eno and Harold Budd in the studio during the sessions for the 1978 Ambient milestone The Pavilion of Dreams set the tone for his future career. After much work with Roedelius, Jay met keyboardsman Andy Heath in 1994 through a Sound On Sound ad and they gelled. 'Entertaining Angels' is their third collaboration, the result of live-studio performances with Rhodes,Prophet and Yamaha keyboard/synthesizers. On listening the sources of sound are rendered irrelevant by the sheer beauty of the results- refined sounds painted in silence - I wish more Ambient music sounded like this. Bewitching. On Hermetic, see www.clever.net/trevelyan/hermetic/
ARCHIVE
* King Crimson * The Doors * Jimi Hendrix * George Harrison * The
Cocteau Twins * David Sylvia * Train Kept A Rollin' * The Electric
Prunes * Curtis Mayfield * The Flying Burrito Brothers * Jimmy Page * Tim Blake * Steve Hackett - John Martyn - Sandy Denny - Richard Thompson - Mahavishnu Orchestra - David Bowie - The Grateful Dead - H.P. Lovecraft - Spooky Tooth - The Slits - Gordon Giltrap - Klaatu *
KING CRIMSON
LARKS' TONGUES IN ASPIC
STARLESS & BIBLE BLACK
RED
First,let's get the facts out of the way. These are 24-bit digitally remastered vinyl facsimile cardboard edition CD re-issues of Crimson's heaviest incarnation 1973-1974. Led by Robert Fripp this included ex-Yes sticksman Bill Bruford, ex-Family bassist John Wetton and violin/flautist David Cross. Crazy percussionist Jamie Muir was in it for a while but left before the release of Larks' Tongues In Aspic in 1973. His touch on strange oriental drums, cymbals and bells is a highlight of the album which veers from light delicacy to heavy-heavy progressive rock. The final crescendo of the title track is one of the greatest moments in Crimson's history with its voices, bells and gargantuan bass sound. What makes Larks' Tongues so good is this constant veering from light to shadow, from over-wrought heaviness to the most subtle of Ambiences.
Now a four-piece the group toured their new sound in Europe and the States. The found time to record the 1974 Dylan Thomas dedicated opus Starless & Bible Black. This one's got the seductive 'Night Watch' and the glorious Mellotron/bass instrumental 'Trio' on it. After an American tour Cross left the group during the Summer of 1974 which Fripp then split for the fifth time. Red was the glorious swansong from this era with contributions from old Crimson stalwarts Ian McDonald and Mel Collins. The hard as a diamond rock salvo of the opening 6 minutes makes most bands of the period sound like The Tweenies. But it is the glorious closing 12 minutes of 'Starless' that does it all. A soaring melancholic vocal, Mellotron, horn composition which imbues elegy, sonic delight and huge drama in its enormous closing spectacle. The hugely-detailed sleevenotes which include all related press cuttings and even charts (a music press chart which positions 'Starless' under Yessongs and Todd while the lamentable Tales From Topographic Oceans by Yes held the top slot is surely injustice) makes these re-issues some of the very best ever produced. On Virgin, see www.disciplineglobalmobile.com
THE DOORS
The Doors
Strange Days
Waiting For The Sun
The Soft Parade
Morrison Hotel
L.A. Woman
Essential Rarities
The Best of The Doors
" In the beginning we were creating music, ourselves, every night...starting with a few outlines, maybe a few words for a song. Sometimes we worked out in Venice, looking at the surf. We were together a lot and it was good times for all of us. Acid, sun, friends, the ocean, poetry and music." So says Jim Morrison of his early days with the lords of L.A. dread The Doors. This latest re-issue craze is another 'digitally remastered vinyl replica series' push job where you can buy the complete catalogue in a box. Individually they are mid-price and great value too. For me the first three albums are a peerless mix of Morrison's arresting wordese and the group's feeling for musical drama. Even 'The End' is restored to its Apocalypse Now yelping version. The Soft Parade , with its orchestral slush and whiskey/cigar steeped vocals still manages to raise the hackles when Robby Krieger gives it a bit of Sneaky Pete on the old guitar. The rest as they say is history.
For the fan the real interest is the new stuff. The Essential Rarities boasts the unreleased live/studio tracks from the 1999 boxed-set including a remarkably vicious version of 'Five To One'. Also a good bet is The Best of The Doors double Digipak affair. Here you get a 17-track compo plus a bonus disc of 'Riders On The Storm' Ambient Dance remixes including work by Down-Tempo legends Nightmares On Wax. Moreover you can put this in your computer and get interview footage, a photo gallery and other Doors stuff. Good going for a band that was finished by 1971. On Elektra/Warners, see www.thedoors.com
JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE - THE BOX
Fifty-six tracks of rare and unreleased Hendrix spread over four CDs is in the words of Mojo's Mark Paytress " more than we can expect this late in the day ". The Hendrix estate represented by half-sister Janie Hendrix, engineer Eddie Kramer and archivist John McDermott has put together a treasure-trove of material which to someone like me (who has everything Hendrix) is quite impressive. Disc One gives us out-takes of familiar material including a fascinating alternate cut of 'Third Stone From The Sun' with extra space babble. 'Title # 3', 'Taking Care of No Business' and 'Lover Man' are all unreleased tracks from Spring 1967 London recording sessions. Disc Two really takes off with Take Two of the gorgeous 'Little Wing', Take Two of 'Bold As Love', a full reconstruction of 'Little Angel', a version of 'Somewhere' without the Alan Douglas-added backing musicians, the rare instrumental version of 'Electric Ladyland' from Loose Ends and two bluesy workouts in 'Room Full of Mirrors' and 'It's Too Bad'.
The centrepiece of Disc Three are the two tracks from Hendrix In The West both recorded live in 1969. 'Little Wing' at the Albert Hall is truly majestic, extending on the subtlety of the 1967 original without losing any emotional potency. 'Red House' from San Diego Sports Arena is 13 minutes of genius Hendrix - building from the coolest of note trickles to an almighty blast of guitar electronics! Disc Four covers his last American years with the Band of Gypsys. Highlights here are the 1970 jam 'Country Blues', a spunky 1970 version of 'Lover Man', a meditative take of 'Cherokee Mist', an integration of 'Hey Baby' with 'In From The Storm' from the Maui film/concert of July 1970 and concludes with a fragment of 'Slow Blues' recorded at Electric Lady in August 1970. Seemingly Hendrix's final session it is a fitting finale to this tremendous box. Though fascinating I think it one for the fans rather than the novices. On MCA/Universal, see www.jimi-hendrix.com
GEORGE HARRISON - ALL THINGS MUST PASS
A year ago a crazy guy named Michael Abram broke into George's beloved Friar Park in Oxfordshire and tried to kill him. Still recovering, the timely 2001 re-issue of this monumental album is the best retort I can imagine to bad craziness. Bathed in an optimistic light and overflowing with that generosity of spirit to be found in all Beatles records All Things Must Pass quickly topped the US/UK album charts in Dec 1970 and went on to sell a staggering 5 million copies worldwide (even though it was a triple vinyl box set!). The effusive Krishna-consciousness single 'My Sweet Lord' sold a million, was No 1 on both sides of the Atlantic and got poor George in trouble with Chiffons writer Ronald Mack. The album is great stuff with a host of friends: Ringo, Gary Brooker, Dave Mason, Eric Clapton, Badfinger, Peter Frampton and Phil Spector producing. Highlights are 'My Sweet Lord', 'Isn't It A Pity', 'If Not For You', 'Behind That Locked Door', 'All Things Must Pass', 'Hear Me Lord' and the electronic/guitar jam 'I Remember Jeep'. There's a strong Bob Dylan connection plus five bonus tracks on the new issue. Good stuff. On Apple/Parlophone.
LENNY KRAVITZ - GREATEST HITS
I thought 'American Woman' was one of the great songs of 1999. A real rocker of a thing with a brilliant video of a bunch of ahem American women on Harley-Davidson motorcycles with Lenny and crew performing in the desert against a giant pulsating neon American flag. Does he need a greatest hits compo? Not really but here it is anyway. We get the Hendrixy 'Are You Gonna Go My Way', the limp 'Fly Away', the unbeatable 'Rock And Roll Is Dead', the luscious 'Can't get You Off my Mind', the rock monster 'American Woman', the atypical club aimed 'I Belong To You' and a lot of stuff that sounds like John Lennon. From the bonus new track 'Again' methinks that Lenny should stick to the metal rock. Nice photos but for the curious and completists only. On Virgin, see www.virginrecords.com
THE COCTEAU TWINS - STARS AND TOPSOIL
A collection which runs from their clattering 1982 debut Garlands all the way to the glorious burn-out of Heaven Or Las Vegas in 1990. I interviewed them some time around Blue Bell Knoll. Little did I know the band were asundering under a snowstorm of cocaine! But back to the music. The early stuff is unique but basic. Despite what the band say 'Pandora' from 1984's Treasure is glorious music. Always better when they let their sound of drifting guitar, heartbeat rhythm and soaring vocalise just emanate upwards as on 1986's 'The Thinner The Air', The Cocteau Twins became synonymous with Ambience. With its inclusion of rare EP and Single tracks this is a compo to (burp) treasure. And look I didn't even have to use the word 'ethereal'. On 4AD, see www.4ad.com
DAVID SYLVIAN - EVERYTHING & NOTHING
Gosh!, he's done it again. The enigmatic "beautiful man" of Japan has produced another stunning album. And this time it's his back-catalogue but not served up in a hash, pick 'n' mix fashion. Instead he chooses his material carefully, opting for the more obscure songs from EPs, collaborations, box sets and out-takes and splattering them amidst great performances from 'Ghosts' to the brilliant 'I Surrender'. His voice can pull your heart at a distance of 6000 miles for this was all achieved in Napa Valley in San Francisco. Everything's been remixed, remastered, re-vocalised and whatnot but it works a treat. Two discs, twenty years worth of music and it opens with a corker: 'The Scent of Magnolia', a driving beat-laden magnifico of a thing left off 1999's Dead Bees On A Cake. Many would kill to be able to put such genius on any kind of disc not alone leave it off. Gobsmackingly good. On Virgin, see David Sylvian website on www.virginrecords.com
THE TRAIN KEPT A ROLLIN'- 30 YEARS OF ROCK
I've always dreamed of a compilation album which amply summates rock's highest peaks. This comes close. Starting with Dylan, The Byrds, The Yardbirds, Fleetwood Mac and Santana this twin CD set comes into its own with the Bowie/Mott The Hoople classic 'All The Young Dudes'. Then it reaches the lofty plateaux of American rock of the mid-1970s with a killer trilogy of Boston's 'More Than A Feeling', Blue Oyster Cult's '(Don't Fear) The Reaper' and the monster riffology of Aerosmith's 'Walk This Way'. There's plenty here for everyone - punk is here in the form of Iggy Pop, The Clash, Elvis Costello as is the heavier music of Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne et al. There's even a Pink floyd track and of course Oasis' classic 'Wonderwall'. Buy. On Columbia, see www.sonymusic.co.uk
THE ELECTRIC PRUNES
Echo effects, fuzz boxes and the piercing acid guitar work of Ken Williams were the trademark of this Seattle band whose Los Angeles work with producers Dave Hassinger and David Axelrod is immortalised on these sumptuous re-issues. Shot to late fame by inclusion in the famous Nuggets collection of 1972, The Electric Prunes were a bona-fide acid band whose 'Kyrie Eleison' was used to soundtrack the infamous Easy Rider acid trip sequence. Amazingly all three albums were recorded between 1967 and 1968 and emit a definitive wish to experiment with sounds, colours, lyrics and instruments. Often brash but capable of real musical adventure these records are real artefacts of their era. Forget rumours that The Prunes don't play on Mass In F Minor, they do with other musicians. But after a Santa Monica concert with an ochestra in 1968 this great psychedelic band split up. Excellent sleevenotes by former Option editor Richie Unterberger. On Collectors' Choice, see www.collectorschoicemusic.com
I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
Underground
Mass In F Minor
CURTIS MAYFIELD - CURTIS / CURTIS LIVE!
Having racked up 26 chart hits as leader of The Impressions during the 1960s, Curtis Mayfield formed his own all-black label and recorded Curtis. Released in September of 1970 (Marvin Gaye's What's Going On wasn't issued until 1971) it was a fully-fledged socio-politico soul/R'n'B album which ranged from edgy funk to lush ballads. It was five weeks at No 1 in the States and spent a year in the pop charts. This incredible re-issue includes nine (yes 9!) bonus out-takes and demos. Curtis Live from May 1971 in New York features Impressions stuff alongside 'Stone Junkie' and his famous blaxploitation anthem 'Superfly'. On Rhino, see www.rhino.com
THE FLYING BURRITO BROTHERS - HOT BURRITOS! 1969 to 1972
From the off you know you are in a different world. Gram Parsons and Chris Hillman wrote 'Christine's Tune' in 1969 which is the most psychedelic country track I've ever heard in my life. And then of course there's that incredible cover photo shot in Joshua Tree National Monument (yonks before U 2 had even heard of it) with the boys and two incredible looking chicks dressed to the nines. And what's that on Parsons perfectly tailored Nudie suit (a company famous for tailoring Nashville hick country stars) but marijuana leaves on the front and a big dazzling cross on the back! So here it is the first four Burritos' albums and a heap of out-takes on 43 tracks of peerless country rock which with Sweetheart of The Rodeo started the whole craze in America. Both 'Sin City' and their version of The Stones¹ 'Wild Horses' are incredible. Kill for this one. On A&M/Universal, see Byrdwatcher on www.ebni. com/byrds/ spfbb1. html
JIMMY PAGE - HIP YOUNG GUITAR SLINGER
Fifty-three tracks of Jimmy Page sessions from 1963 to 1968. Coasting through the Beat Boom Page played with The First Gear, Gregory Phillips, Chris Farlowe, The Lancastrians, Wayne Gibson, Carter Lewis, The Kinks, The Primitives, The Fifth Avenue, Les Fleurs De Lys, Twice as Much, The Masterminds, The Factotums and John Mayalls Bluesbreakers. There's the predictable Nico sessions for Immediate and a whole pile of stuff with Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. If you thought Page's heaven-sent guitar work with Zeppelin came out of nowhere then think again. The sound of a boy learning and developing his craft is all over this two-discer. With input from Record Collector's John Reed and Andy Davis, Alan Robinson has assembled the definitive pre-Zepp collection replete with fold-out picture encrusted sleevenotes. A thorough historical document. On Sequel, see www.sanctuarygroup.com
TIM BLAKE - CRYSTAL MACHINE / MAGICK
Still one of the great underrated synthesists of the 1970s, Blake has been a member of both Gong and Hawkwind. Armed with two EMS Synthi A's, MiniMoog and various flangers, frequency shifters and string devices, Blake toured France in 1976 and 1977. Aided by the argon lasers of Patrice Warrener and a Ziggy styled-image Blake made a big splash. I bought Crystal Machine on the face of his incredible space-cadet image alone. Sounding like the more electronic parts of Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here, Crystal Machine is still one of the great analogue synthesizer albums: that is warm, evoluting music which bathes rather than jars. Retiring to a windmill in Brittany Blake wrote lyrics and came to grips with sequencing. Magick is pleasant enough but without the high impact of Crystal Machine. On Voiceprint, see www.voiceprint.co.uk
ALSO OUT
Steve Hackett - Feedback 86 (Camino)
John Martyn - Solid Air / The New York Session (Island/One World)
Sandy Denny - No More Sad Refrains (Island)
Richard & Linda Thompson - The End of The Rainbow (Island)
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds of Fire (Columbia Legacy)
David Bowie - Young Americans (EMI)
The Grateful Dead - Fillmore East 2-11-69 / Ladies & Gentlemen..
(Grateful Dead / Arista)
H.P. Lovecraft - Two Classic Albums From...(Collectors' Choice)
Spooky Tooth - That Was Only Yesterday (Island)
The Slits - Cut (Island)
Gordon Giltrap - Airwaves / On A Summer's Night / Music For The
Small Screen (La Cooka Ratcha/Voiceprint)
Klaatu - Klaatu 3:47 EST / Hope (BGO)
Steve Hackett's 'lost' album from 1986 features Brian May, Bonnie Tyler and people from Marillion and Manfred Mann. It has one of those eccentric King Crimson covers and contains typical American rock music of the 1980s because Hackett was in GTR, an American metal act. Then there are the surprising Baroque numbers which remind you of Genesis. Yes he was in Genesis. But why is this frankly awful album being released now? It contains 20 bonus tracks as MP3 files but that is no excuse. Far superior is John Martyn's Solid Air, recorded in a few weeks near the end of 1972. The sleeve says " the album was done by sampling the original master at 176K and 24bit giving effectively a dynamic range of more than 120db. The audio was then 'noise shaped' to 16bit and decimated from 176k down to 44.1K for CD release." It's always sounded good anyway but this issue includes a live bonus of 'I'd Rather Be The Devil'. I have no idea where this Martyn New York Session comes from. It's on One World records and I surmise it's from 1996. All through the tape sound is off and Johnny boy sounds out of his gourd. Recorded at WFUB this is one of the worst things I've ever had the misfortune to hear and insults John's integrity as a musician. Avoid at all costs.
Sticking with the folk scene the 34-track Sandy Denny compo contains some fine takes notably 'The Ballad of Easy Rider' from the Liege & Lief sessions and the Fotheringay classics 'The Sea' and 'The Banks of the Nile' from 1970. The Richard Thompson package covers his early 1970s career including 'Beat the Retreat' from his 1975 Sufi-inspired recordings. The Mahavishnu album is a full-scale re-package, 24-bit digital remaster of the Orchestra's 1973 half-million-selling opus. Contains the blistering 'Thousand Island Park' and 'Open Country Joy' and rounds off the recent reissues of Inner Mounting Flame and The Trident Sessions from the first incarnation of McLaughlin's famous band. I wish Bowie took the same approach to his catalogue. Re-issuing Young Americans on EMI and slicing out the bonus tracks which were on the Sound+Vision version of the early 1990s seems like a slap in the face to me. OK, there are nice photos but those bonus tracks were great fun. I betcha he deletes this one and re-issues the Sound+Vision version some time in the future, making even this cynical remaster a collector's item!
The Grateful Dead gravy train rolls on regardless. The 1969 two-for includes a version of 'Hey Jude' and a legendary second show dovetailing 'Mountains of The Moon' with 'Dark Star', 'St. Stephen' and 'The Eleven'. The 1971 show documented on Ladies & Gentlemen is 4CDs of excellence featuring some of the last performances by Ron 'Pigpen' McKernan. Here we get stuff from American Beauty and Garcia's first solo album as well as stuff like 'Wharf Rat' and 'Cold Rain & Snow'. Superb. Collectors' Choice have finally properly rendered H.P. Lovecraft's two 1960s albums on one disc with a two single bonus. The introduction to Spooky Tooth is interesting as it contains a cross-section of material from this prog/bluesy band whose vocal style was similar to Stevie Winwood's in Traffic. What's appealing here is the snatch of 'Prayer' recorded with French composer Pierre Henry. It's from Ceremony-An Electronic Mass, a misfired 1969 concept album. Yikes!
The original feminist punk band, The Slits with Viv Albertine and Ari Up combined reggae rhythms with call-and--response vocals derived from Hollywood musicals. Produced by Dennis Bovell with Budgie on drums Cut featured that famous Pennie Smith mud/loincloth cover shot and a great version of 'I Heard It Through The Grapevine'. Nice re-issue with sleevenotes by Mojo's Mark Paytress. Voiceprint have re-released plenty of Gordon Giltrap albums in the last year. These three pose the same problems as all the others. Why this music? It's so characterless despite what Steve Howe says. Sure he's a great musician but I've sat through lots of nice fiddly Mike Oldfield bits, folky strummings, prog-rock things, big band things and electronicity without being moved. On A Summer's Night, recorded live in Warwick in 1991, reveals him as a bloody good guitarist with a Medieval lute technique. Music For The Small Screen is a compendium of TV music for the BBC and ITV used in the likes of Holiday etc. The excuse for the album is slight and there's a track 'Heartsong' with Brian May, Rick Wakeman, Midge Ure and Steve Howe on it. Blimey there's even a pic of May and Giltrap on the sleeve! Finally Canadian band Klaatu get the re-issue treatment with their first two Beatles-inspired albums on one disc. The 1976 debut Klaatu 3:47 EST is great stuff which includes the later Carpenters hit 'Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft'. The successor Hope was far too fussy to match the majesty of the original. To quote George Harrison 'wasn't it a pity'.
CLASSICAL / COMPOSITION
* Early Gurus of Electronic Music * Anoushka Shankar * Laurie Anderson * Harold Budd * The Dream Syndicate * Minimalists *
OHM - THE EARLY GURUS OF ELECTRONIC MUSIC : 1948-1980
A triple CD set housed in a very elaborate fold-out digipak inside a transparent casing with a full colour booklet featuring a foreword by Brian Eno and written thoughts by Robert Moog, David Toop, DJ Spooky, La Monte Young, Simon Reynolds, Pete Namlook, Bill Laswell, Sonic Youth and more doesn't come cheap. I paid nearly £30 for mine as a Dutch import through Spin and that was on the cheaper side which is a shame really as The Early Gurus of Electronic Music is quite simply the first great sonic compilation of electronic music history.
Realised in New York by Ellipsis Arts (Thomas Ziegler and Jason Cross) this first set (we are promised others) had to limit the length of pieces and exclude rock-based electronica. What we are left with is an essential compendium which adequately covers the expansion in "pitch, duration, timbre and loudness" which Eno outlines in the Foreword. On CD1 we begin with the sounds of the Theremin and Ondes Martenot before diving into the musique concrete worlds of Cage and Schaeffer. Otto Luening is there as is the Canadian inventor Hugh Le Caine. We get the Forbidden Planet theme and an eye-popping segment of Varese's original Poeme Electronique. The disc ends with Stockhausen and the anarchic Italo/American faction Musica Electronica Viva. CD2 begins with Raymond Scott and courses its way through the work of Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Morton Subotnick and Holger Czukay before concluding with Xenakis and the rare 1969 La Monte Young piece Drift Study.
CD3 covers much American experimenters in electronic sounds like Charles Dodge, Paul Lansky, Robert Ashley, David Behrman, Maryanne Amacher, Alvin Curran and Alvin Lucier before it rounds things up at 1980 with the work of Klaus Schulze, Jon Hassell and Brian Eno. Overall many of the pieces were unfamilar to me which means the choices tended on the obscure side. Yet the loving detail of the booklet (which also analyses instruments and breaks down studio histories like those of WDR Koln, GRM Paris, Columbia-Princeton and collectives like the American Sonic Arts Union) cannot be faulted. It even includes web sites for all the artists featured and a full source list for all musical excerpts. Of great interest to those already fascinated by electronic music Ohm:The Early Gurus works as a further study to my book The Ambient Century rather than a companion piece. Still it has eight original minutes of Varese's 1958 Poeme Electronique which is worth the price of admission alone. On Ellipsis Arts, see www.ellipsisarts.com
ANOUSHKA SHANKAR - ANOURAG
>From the off it's like listening to a different person. The fierce attack and consummate skill of Anoushka on her second album is a giant leap forwards from her rather tepid debut of last year. The alaps and gats are all there in this selection of traditional and new ragas composed by father Ravi. There's even a tabla duet by Tanmoy Bose and Bikram Ghosh. Ravi himself comes on-board for a duet with his daughter on the lengthy 'Pancham Se Gara' which is quite impressive but the best thing about this album is that Anoushka is now much much more than a pretty face. On Angel, see www.ravishankar.org
THE LAURIE ANDERSON ANTHOLOGY - TALK NORMAL
Laurie gets the Rhino deluxe treatment on this lavish package which includes two digipak CDs in their own cases housed inside a box with a neat 52-page booklet chronicling her entire career. Of the many photos we notice Anderson going from lurex-suited spikey cutey to shaven Buddhist monk in the space of 15 years. And no Britney it was not you who popularised the headset microphone but Laurie as evidenced by the brill selection of photos included here. One of the greatest of all performance artists Anderson's very presence with technology was a statement in itself. We hear excerpts from Big Science (1982), Mister Heartbreak (1984), United States Live (1984), Home of The Brave (1986), Strange Angels (1989), the Eno produced Bright Red (1994) and The Ugly One With The Jewels (1995). Oh yeah, 'O Superman' is on it too. On Warner.Esp / Rhino, see www.cc.gatech.edu/-jimmyd/laurie-anderson
HAROLD BUDD - THE ROOM
" I was accidentally skirting the tiny Piazza San Pancrazio in Florence and glancing over to the medieval facade of the Museo Marino Marini. The museum was empty - the space was central: stairs to nowhere, dead-end alcoves, clerestory windows that allowed no light...The Room opened, in dark", waxes Harold Budd on his superb new disc. Inspired by work he did in Edinburgh in 1988, a period which saw him work with The Cocteau Twins, Budd delves further into still compositions which evoke thirteen different spaces. 'The Room of Oracles' and 'The Room of Accidental Geometry' are some of his fancier titles for a pendular music of changing light and velvet touches. One of the greatest living Ambientizers, Budd's exquisite work on piano/keyboards is ably assisted by pedal-steel guitars, metal crotales and acoustic guitar. Recorded in Mesa Arizona and his first for Atlantic this has to be played and played and played. Sublime, see www.atlantic-records.com
INSIDE THE DREAM SYNDICATE VOL 1 - DAY OF NIAGARA (1965)
" What I had learned first about John Cale was that he had written a piece which pushed a piano down a mine shaft. We hungered for music almost seething beyond control - or even something just beyond music, a violent feeling of soaring unstoppably, powered by immense angular machinery across abrupt torrential seas of pounding blood ", says violinist Tony Conrad of his work with La Monte Young in mid-1960s New York. In my Ambient Century John Cale talks of this period as a " benchmark experiment in drones ". For years the work of Cale, Conrad, MacLise, Young and Zazeela was inaccessible due to Young's resolute personality. Thought lost , a new cache of tapes now allows us to glimpse just what these bunch of radicals were up to under the guise of The Theatre of Eternal Music aka The Dream Syndicate. This CD is half-an-hour of held drone on violin, viola and reeds. Nothing much happens but it's definitely of an Oriental flavour similar to but not as varied as Marrekesh snake-charmers music. It's nicely dressed up but of interest to researchers and hardcore fans only. On Table of The Elements, see www.tableoftheelements.com
MAXIMUM MINIMALISTS - ADAMS, GLASS, REICH & RILEY
A beautiful transparent slipcase utilising white and greaseproof paper to evoke minimal simplicity is what first impresses about this package. Inside K. Robert Schwarz talks of Minimalism's non-Western influences, its derivation of the steady pulse and rhythmic drives of jazz plus its borrowings from Gregorian chant, Baroque music and elements of Wagner, Satie and Ravel. Adams is considered a post-Minimalist and the selection is impressive: Reich's Music For Eighteen Musicians, Adams's Nixon In China, Glass's Music In Twelve Parts and Riley's Salome Dances For Peace to name some. On Nonesuch, see www.warnermusic.com
Look Out For
Keith Jarrett - Live in Paris (ECM)
John Adams - Century Roll / Lollapalooza (Nonesuch)
Steve Reich - Three Tales (Nonesuch)
Philip Glass - Symphony Nos 3 & 5 (Nonesuch)
Henryck Gorecki - New Album (Nonesuch)
DANCE / ETHNIC / AMBIENT ELECTRONICA
* LTJ Bukem * Bill Laswell / Zakir Hussain * Master Musicians of Jajouka / Talvin Singh * Pete Namlook - Biosphere - EAR *
LTJ BUKEM
Producer
Points In Time 7,8 & 9
Looking Back
MC Conrad Vocalist
Out there in Watford there is a man with a missionary zeal to bring the loveliest of Drum & Bass records to our doors. LTJ Bukem could have given up years ago but ever since the early 1990s he's been flooding our ears with textured, Fender Rhodes driven tracks that are the foundation stone of the term Intelligent Drum & Bass. Producer gathers together the best of these on one disc and includes 'Cosmic Interlude', 'Music', 'Demon's Theme' and 'Atlantis'. If you haven't heard buy, if you have add. Points In Time plunders the back-catalogue over the last eight years and gives us music by Bukem, Blame, Tayla, Artemis, Blu Mar Ten, Seba and Intense, Photek, Peshay, PFM and G-Project. The Looking Back record gleans the back-pages of the sister label and features harder music by Makato, Future Engineers and Rantoul. MC Conrad is credited with " changing the public perception of the MC " and his Vocalist album features PFM, Blame, Axis, Big Bud, Seba, Heard Collective and more under a variety of psuedonyms. On Good Looking, see www.glo.uk.com
TABLA BEAT SCIENCE - TALA MATRIX
Originally titled Ambient Tabla and subtitled Adventures In Electro-Acoustic Hypercussion¹ this is Bill Laswell grand tribute to Indian tabla music everywhere. All the big guns are out for this one : Zakir Hussain, Talvin Singh, Trilok Gurtu and Ustad Sultan Khan. In the sleevenote we are told that the tabla player must stick to the 16-beat cycle and his own "gharana" or tradition. The "punjab gharana" uses the third finger differently and the "chilla" ritual requires 40 days of meditative continuous playing. Dedicated to the memory of Ravi Shankar's greatest tabla collaborator Alla Rakha the standard throughout this disc is jaw-droppingly excellent. Laswell coats many of the tracks with discreet electronic washes while Singh tips his contributions towards dance music. As the notes say " Tabla has shone a spotlight on modern electronic music for South Asian youth worldwide. Hindustani musical science follows a 16-beat cycle coupled with the Ambient and ever-present drone; this combination in its essence is Jungle music, and stretches its definition as far as hardcore Gabba." On Palm Pictures, see www.hypperreal.org/axiom
MASTER MUSICIANS OF JAJOUKA - FEATURING BACHIR ATTAR & TALVIN SINGH
Another Talvin Singh project, this time as producer/player with the legendary Moroccan musicians who fired the imaginations of Beat writers, Rolling Stones, Ornette Coleman and many more. According to the copious dedications on this lavishly designed album the entire Moroccan Royal Family as well as Catherine Deneuve, Donovan, Sonic Youth and dozens of others all had contact with the musicians whose name has become a byword for ethnic conciousness expansion of the 1950s and 1960s. On holiday in Morocco recently I stood in the Jema El Fna of Marrakesh and listened to the intense drum bangs and body-shattering volume of Moroccan musicians. It is truly deafening. Recorded in Jajouka and Calcutta 1999 this new album is by far the best sounding Jajouka album ever updating the Brian Jones classic of the early 1970s and the Bill Laswell work of the mid-1990s. A fully rounded work it both respects the ethnic origins of the music in the Atlas mountains while shining new light through electronic experiments and even a bonus dance remix. Recommended. On Point Music , see www.universalclassics.com
AMBIENT NOODLINGS
Pete Namlook - Possible Gardens / The Audiolounge (Fax)
Biosphere - Cirque (Touch)
EAR - Vibrations EP (Rocket Girl)
The Pete Namlook CD Possible Gardens begins with samples of Popol Vuh's debut recording ,1971's Affenstunde, and with the help of Peter Prochir explores new sonic possibilities in drift. The Audiolounge is a collaboration with David Moufang recorded in Heidelberg in the Summer of 2000. Their are dedications to Ray Manzarek and Oskar Sala on a project which seems to reach back to the sounds of such knob twiddlers as Tangerine Dream. Geir Jenssen as Biosphere continues his Arctic journey on Cirque. As usual the music is bathed in soft snow as if we were in a warm igloo listening to muffled sounds outside. The digipak contains a series of pictures taken in Norway, London, Greece and the Ionian sea. (See www. notam. uio.no/geirje/ biosphere.html). EAR or Experimental Audio Research continue on their merry path. This new EP is 44 minutes long and thus justifies as an album. EAR is now Sonic Boom with help from Delia Derbyshire (oft credited with realising the Dr. Who theme at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop in the early 1960s). Four tracks based on African rhythms and instrumentation transferred to such synthesizers as the EMS Synthi AKS and the Serge Modular make up this EP. To quote the sleevenote: " The musical scales used differ little from that used by everyone from John Lee Hooker to Pythagoras and these new pieces stand to show the similarities and links between African tribal rhythms and Brian Eno, between this so-called 'Avant-Ambient Music' and music that is as 'useful as it is simple, as it is experimental, as it is essential." See www.spaceagerecordings.com
COPYRIGHT ON ALL OF THE ABOVE RESIDES WITH MARK PRENDERGAST. ANY EDITORS OR PUBLISHERS WISHING TO QUOTE FROM THE ABOVE WRITINGS CAN DO SO AS LONG AS THEY ENQUIRE AT PHONE (LONDON 0208 299 2998)
OR E-MAIL markprendergast@cdboxset.co.uk
This is Altair 5 signing off for now.....
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