Blod - (2021) Missväxt LP

 

Grapefruit Records – GY11-5

Blod is the solo project of Gustaf Dicksson (Enhet För Fri Musik, Oroskällan), a prolific and crucial figure in the Swedish Underground scene radiating out of Gothenburg and centered around a number of independent labels and including bands such as Enhet För Fri Musik, Monokultur, Oroskällan, Loopsel, and Neutral. Blod has released various home-recorded cassettes and a handful of LPs since 2014, all mercurial in nature, exploring various facets of Dicksson’s preoccupations. The melodies borrow from tradition and possess a lonesome quality inspired by Swedish melancholy, close relations, and white trash culture. Combined with intentionally banal artwork, the experience can be beguiling and sometimes bleak but at the same time warm and humorous.

Missväxt is Dicksson’s greatest work yet, exploring the myth of ancient Swedish being and misery but with a sound that is uniquely ecstatic. Inspired by medieval folk music, it’s reminiscent of Fairport Convention’s marriage of traditional folk music and psychedelic rock.

Missväxt features guest appearances by Elin Engström (Loopsel, Monokultur) on drums, Astrid Øster Mortensen on vocals and flute, Joakim Karlsson (Facit) on production and synth, and Magnus Jäverling on flute.

Roy Montgomery - (1998) And Now The Rain Sounds Like Life Is Falling Down Through It CD

 

Drunken Fish Records – DFR-41

Perhaps, of all the records New Zealand guitar wizard Roy Montgomery has ever released, this is the one talked about least. Not because of its lack of quality -- it's as good as any of his other material -- but because musically it is also markedly different than his other material. While the swirl and weave of layered and knotted guitars is everywhere -- it's the man's trademark after all -- so are a number of vocal tracks that express sorrow, grief, survival, and transcendence; these are the first vocal tracks Montgomery has issued on a solo record. Also featured here are sparse, haunting piano tracks such as "No, She Never Made It to Japan," which opens the album, and "The Opportunity Passed Us By in Less Than a Minute," as well as open echo effects not hidden by other sounds. There are also more straight "rock" runes on this recording, such as "Down From That Hill and Up to the Pond," where multiple layers of guitars go striding through intricate chord progressions and engage a tape looped lead line and piano, which carry listeners deep into the track and never allow them the courtesy of leaving by a back door. Percussion, as well as found and natural sounds, is employed in the creation of other sound sculptures like the title track. Montgomery's vocals are put to improvisational effect on "Kafka Was Right." Here, his deep, plaintive tone makes sounds like a Jew's harp, while another, higher-pitched voice basically weeps throughout the song as a textural backdrop. Guitars and keyboards make the effect more tenuous; they sound as organic as bells and whistles as they flit through the mix like life fleeting before the eyes of a condemned man. The track "A Little Soundtrack for Epic," for the late Epic Soundtracks, is another grief song, albeit an unconventional one. Progressions of guitar lines enter after a solid backdrop of feedback has been established. The tension between the sweet dark melody line, a drone, and the noise is excruciating but exquisite. The final two tracks, beginning with "Ill at Home," offer views of how wide the experimental streak on Montgomery's back is. Here hushed, indecipherable vocals are sifted through a mix of distorted pianos and guitars at a snail's pace for over 12 minutes, only to have the entire thing completely turn inside out for the two and a half minutes of "In Another Time," which closes the set; simple open-tuned chords are played through one another in a collage that is airy and light as a summer breeze. It shifts the feelings of alienation, grief, and resignation into a space where hope itself is once again possible..

Thorium Remix 2011

 

2h 23m 3.83GB .VOB file

While researching means of powering a NASA space colony, Kirk Sorensen stumbles across ORNL's Thorium Molten Salt Reactor. History of this design is recounted as well as the politics (and lack of weaponizable byproduct) which killed it.

Chris Heaphy / Roy Montgomery - (1999) True CD

 

Kranky – krank033

In a way, True almost the third Dissolve record partnering again with Chris Heaphy (lead singer, guitarist for brief NZ mid-80's garage band, The Remarkable's). Also sounding more relevant or interesting today than in 1999, showing either signs or my aging compromise, or most likely, my increasing patience and palate for the more soothing and new found attention for the small details (I am hearing here all sorts of amazing backdrop noises now, check the amazing and all too brief "Picnic Time" - gorgeous). Recorded Sept-Oct 1996, tracks 4-7 featuring the duo of Chris and Roy. All remixed by Roy in 1998. Debuted in theatre in October two years prior shortly after being completed. A highly understated work, great to revisit here again now. I'm fairly certain I've never shared this one before just ripping tonight for what seems like the first time. Another standout.

--------------------------------------------------------

"With True, Montgomery has turned to composing music for the theater to accompany acting, dialogue and stagecraft. True matches the introspective, unfolding melodies that graced Roy Montgomery's previous albums with stark, edgy guitars and some stripped down melodies. Montgomery and Heaphy bob and weave their guitars across the soundfield or unravel wiry melodies. True is an involving, sometimes uneasy listen."

Bruce Russell & Roy Montgomery - (2012) Split LP

 

Grapefruit Records – GY2-01

Roy Montgomery: In keeping with the aesthetic principle at one time espoused by the Residents and their Theory of Obscurity (as applied to the work Not Available) which dictated that work should not be released until its makers had completely forgotten about it I had notions of using this 1994 piece as one side of an album at the time but then I forgot about it for a decade or so. It came to light after the earthquakes of 2010-2011. Recorded on Tascam Porta One using same gear as that used for Scenes from the South Island and Temple IV.

Bruce Russell: My piece was recorded at a show I did with xNoBBQx (I think that’s the correct ‘spelling’) in 2009 at the High St Project, and alternative artspace in Christchurch, NZ. You can hear the high ceiling and wooden floor. Live guitar, through two signal chains and two amps. Now that building, like so many in this city, has been demolished in the wake of our 10,000 earthquakes.

Undertheradar Review:

It’s an odd irony that many local bands or musicians, well known here, crave and struggle to achieve international recognition while on the flipside there are New Zealand artists who are better appreciated overseas than they are at home. This release is an excellent example of such phenomena. Thanks to the American label Grapefruit Records Club, we now have this excellent vinyl-only pairing of two of New Zealand’s finest experimental musicians: Roy Montgomery and Bruce Russell.

Arguably the lesser known of the pair, Roy Montgomery nonetheless posses a rich and lengthy musical history. Initially a member of the Pin Group, on Flying Nun in the early 1980’s, he was later in Dadamah before embarking on a solo career that produced a number of fine albums including 1995’s Songs of The South Island. His solo guitar work is typically lo-fi in production and consists of layered drones and chiming guitars. Montgomery’s contribution here Tarkovky Tone Poem is true to form. Lush and beautiful, Montgomery’s music is inviting and peaceful. There is a mesmerizing and meditative quality to his sound that effectively suspends time, recalling the early works of American minimalist composers such as Terry Riley or La Mont Young.

Bruce Russell is well known for his work with the Dead C but has had a strong involvement with local music going back as far as the late 1970’s, including label work as well as music-making. While consist with the theme of homage to dead greats, Russell’s side entitled Mistah Chilton, He Dead has little in common with Big Star. Recorded live in 2009 at the High St Project in Christchurch, the recording has a spaciousness not confined to just the environment it was made in. While naturally abrasive, Russell is on fine form on this occasion and this piece of howling freeform noise is typified as much by its restraint as it is by its excesses – it is dynamic and oddly tuneful. It’s a different world from the one evoked by Montgomery but one possessing a certain rugged beauty that is charming nonetheless.

This really is a good split. If you are already an aficionado of improv/noise music, then this is an excellent pairing; it is quite remarkable how complementary the two sides are, despite the stylistic divergence. If you are merely noise-curious then this could be an excellent inroad. Either way, this is a refreshing reminder of our often-over-looked greats.

Roy Montgomery - (2018) Suffuse CD

 

Grapefruit Records – GY8-1

Despite praise and acclaim throughout his career, Roy Montgomery
hates his singing. From his point of view, it’s done out of necessity,
when he doesn’t have anyone else around to substitute. Roughly one
quarter of Montgomery’s epic multi-album 2016 release R M H Q had
his singing, and those are his least favorite tracks.
Grapefruit has done the best they can to argue that his basso
undertones are the center of his appeal throughout his entire body of
work, from the first The Pin Group single on Flying Nun in 1981,
through his work in Dadamah, Dissolve and on to his legendary
’90s solo releases. However, is it a surprise he jumped at the idea
of composing an album for other vocalists? This began as a series
of alternate takes of the material on Tropic Of Anodyne, the tracks
with vocals off his last release. That concept morphed into assembling
vocalists to sing on new songs, and he conceived instrumental material
that would fit each singer. Half of the songs came together, resulting
in Suffuse.
The album charts a slow progression from those who share
similarities with Montgomery’s rumbling vocal technique to those
who come at singing differently, with minute contrasts throughout.
Haley Fohr (Circuit des Yeux) and Jessica Larrabee (She Keeps
Bees) bring the first two tracks, with Katie Von Schleicher following
with a raw expression of emotional loss, and the sisters Clementine
and Valentine Nixon (Purple Pilgrims) expressing emptiness
by stripping away words, weaving their voices together through
Montgomery’s elastic webbing. Julianna Barwick adds drive and
nuance to the foamy sonic waves of “Sigma Octantis,” as “Landfall”
crashes in slow motion chaos over Liz Harris’s (Grouper) multitracked
layers. These compositions generously embrace their guest
leaders, and for the first time in his career, Roy Montgomery has made
a cogent artistic argument as to why he shouldn’t be singing these
songs himself.

Emma Johnson & Roy Montgomery - After Nietzsche

 

Aguirre Records – ZORN62

After Nietzsche is a response to Nietzsche's assertion in Twilight of the Idols that “Without music, life would be a mistake”. Roy Montgomery and Emma Johnston recast this as “Life is a mistake set to music” and they take issue with one of Nietzsche's principal tenets concerning fate.

After Nietzsche is in a way the sister-album to last year’s Suffuse, where Montgomery composes songs for guest vocalists. Only this time it’s in close partnership with Emma Johnston. Montgomery's distinctive, interweaving guitar play is set as background for Emma Johnston’s angelic vocals & experimentations. Swimming through the four tracks of the album, it’s surprising to notice how different they are. The opening track could have been plucked from one of Montgomery’s 80s projects, while the rest of the a-side takes us into more shadowy territory, Realm Of The Senses with it’s slow strumming and echoing vocals evokes Grouper (who points to Montgomery as being an influence of her work) and the title track After Nietzsche with dramatic vocals and strings, cleverly builds up to a climax that never happens. The last song clocking in at 21:10 is a post-postmodern duet between the two musicians in a dark philosophical mood. Tell me does it get any better than this?

Roy Montgomery - (2016) R M H Q: Headquarters 4xCD

 

Grapefruit Records – GY6-8 It’s been over a decade since Roy Montgomery’s last album, and R M H Q is a hell of a return. This release contains four distinct records of new material. Listening to any of his work is a visceral experience—repeating phrases swell and decay, immersing the listener in the cyclical narrative of his compositions. Montgomery was in his rock band period in the eighties, when the dark, minimalist post-punk of The Pin Group lead into the gloriously open-ended freedoms of Dadamah. After a quiet spell, he returned in the late nineties, producing towering spires of guitar lines that exposed fragility between the strums. With his solo releases and in collaboration with Flying Saucer Attack, Bardo Pond (Hash Jar Tempo), and Chris Heaphy (Dissolve), his focus shifted from the truth-mining of rock music to epic celestialism. His ambitious yet humble tracks outstrip their origins, and Montgomery toured the world sitting cross-legged on the floor, playing twenty-plus-minute compositions. A long period of silence followed, marked only with a split album with Grouper (who lists Montgomery as a primary influence), involvement in Torlesse Super Group, and a couple thematic variations serving as soundtracks for films. Instead, he focused on his personal and professional commitments. Unfortunately, two horrific events preceded his return: the Christchurch earthquakes of 2011 condemned Montgomery’s entire neighborhood save for his home, stripping his street of a community; and, as a volunteer firefighter, he saw first-hand the destruction and loss of life in the city center. Additionally, since 2014, illness in the family has dominated his life. Self-expression once again demanded an outlet. R M H Q is four albums conceived and recorded over a very short period, each of them carrying a distinct focus and mood.

Roy Montgomery - (2018) Refuse LP

 

Grapefruit Records – GY8-2

Refuse is a limited LP edition of tracks that didn't make Suffuse. They were made for specific vocalists, like the songs on Suffuse, but things didn't work out for some reason or another. This LP is strictly limited to 70 copies.

Roy Montgomery - (2021) Island Of Lost Souls LP

 

Grapefruit Records – GY11-1

Island Of Lost Souls is the first of four new albums by Roy Montgomery coming out in 2021 to commemorate Montgomery’s forty years in music. His debut release was also Flying Nun’s first, the Pin Group 7-inch from 1981. Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest album for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he’s managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefront of experimental independent music. Island Of Lost Souls follows his acclaimed 2018 LP Suffuse—a novel departure in which he consigned all vocal duties to ambient / experimental peers Liz Harris (of Grouper), Julianna Barwick, Purple Pilgrims, Haley Fohr (of Circuit des Yeux), Katie von Schleicher, and She Keeps Bees. But the veteran evolves again. On this release Montgomery creates resounding, aerial compositions for guitar. Where some might be inclined to relax and lean into their legacy at this stage in a sprawling career, Montgomery’s new music continues to seek and challenge, moving like the eye of a storm. This latest album cries out like a chorus, though there are no vocals on the record. Its tracklist instead builds upon the lonesome and polyphonic dimensions of guitar in order to express universal feelings of communion and isolation, resisting conclusion but never resorting to fatalism. Life is all about navigating these contradictions and everyone is with Montgomery on this island whether they’d like to admit it or not. Here, the artist has created a work of wisdom and grit, a searing beauty, a new masterpiece for an uncertain and restless time.

Roy Montgomery - (2021) The Best Forgotten Work LP

 

Grapefruit Records – GY11-2

Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest series of albums for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he's managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefront of experimental independent music. To commemorate, Grapefruit will be releasing four new Montgomery albums in 2021 which can be purchased individually or via subscription. The first installment, Island of Lost Souls, arrived to great acclaim in January. The second and latest album His Best Forgotten Work features Montgomery’s rare, brooding vocals across nine gorgeous tracks recorded from his home in Christchurch, New Zealand.

His Best Forgotten Work follows the intense, all-instrumental Island of Lost Souls. It departs in spirit with darkly buoyant variations on popular songs, including two highly anticipated covers of legendary songs by the Carpenters (Superstar) and Tim Buckley (Song to the Siren). Montgomery shows us that these influences aren’t such strange bedfellows after all; one need only listen closely.

Where some might be inclined to relax and lean into their legacy at this stage in a sprawling career, Montgomery’s new music continues to seek and challenge. His compositions are beautiful as well as disconcerting, and often speak to precarity and dread. His Best Forgotten Work is a title with tongue planted firmly in cheek, alluding to the artist’s position of enjoying a peculiar bit of fame in relative obscurity. But listen to his dry wit and rich voice, you’ll find it isn’t easily forgotten.

Roy Montgomery with Emma Johnston - (2021) Rhymes Of Chance LP

 

Grapefruit Records – GY11-3

Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of the NZ underground, believes there is always new sonic terrain to investigate. His latest series of albums for Grapefruit marks forty years of rigorous exploration in which he’s managed to navigate disparate genres, scenes, and atmospheres, always at the forefront of experimental independent music. To commemorate, Grapefruit will be releasing four new Montgomery albums in 2021, which can be purchased individually or via subscription.

The third release of the series, Rhymes Of Chance, is the darkest entry of the four. Songs sound particularly spacious and minimal, with two tracks centering forlorn melodies around trusty collaborator Emma Johnston’s singing and two others sung by Montgomery himself. While Side A presents the six-part “Rhymes Of Chance” suite, Side B’s “Aspiratory” holds a clue to Montgomery’s approach on this record; a floating dirge stretches time, much in the manner Mark Hollis (to whom the song is dedicated) approached music.

Marisa Anderson - (2013) Traditional and Public Domain Songs LP

 

Grapefruit Records – GY3-4

Solo guitar renditions of traditional and public domain songs. Recorded August 2013 for Grapefruit Records, with the support of the KBOO Artist In Residence program.

Simon Joyner - (2019) Pocket Moon LP

 

Grapefruit Records – GY9-4

“‘Singer-songwriter’ is a frustratingly confining term; to truly understand exactly just how confining, look no further than the recorded works of Simon Joyner, an artist whose work consistently transcends the narrow parameters of genre classifications and record shop bin cards. Though his music has always honored, reckoned with—wrestled with—the tradition set forth by his songwriting forebears (Cohen, Van Zandt, Ochs, Dylan, Reed to name a few), Joyner can always be counted on to defy expectations; as a lyricist, melodicist, and arranger, Joyner likes to keep us on our toes. “For his new album Pocket Moon, Joyner opted to engage in a risky artistic challenge. Instead of leaning on his fertile pool of Omaha musicians (the amorphous Ghosts band), he asked friend and frequent collaborator Michael Krassner to assemble unknown players on his behalf specifically for this recording. He then traveled from his home base to Krassner’s ‘7-Track Shack’ studio in Phoenix to record the album, abandoning the literal and figurative comfort zone of old habits and home field advantage. Simultaneously sparser and more immediate than 2017’s obliquely topical Step Into The Earthquake, Pocket Moon is instantly one of Joyner’s finest albums since his redoubtable 2012 double album masterpiece, Ghosts, or to some ears the excellent, sonic 180 he managed with his follow-up, Grass, Branch & Bone. Krassner’s wrecking crew is sturdy, versatile, and complementary. Utilizing a wide range of instruments and textures, the band contributes additional nuance to each of the ragged, sublime songs here. The result is another song cycle stylistically unified, dynamic and rich.”

Dadamah - (2020) This Is Not A Dream LP

 

Grapefruit Records  – GY10-1

This Is Not a Dream is a double album collection of every song released by the legendary Dunedin, New Zealand quartet Dadamah, including the This is Not a Dream LP, and their three 7” singles and one unique compilation track. Grapefruit’s release is a thirteen song collection with the full album on one LP and all the 7” and compilation tracks on the other. Inspired by the Kranky label’s CD compilation of Dadamah’s existing catalog in 1994, this vinyl version includes two additional songs from a posthumously released 7” and it’s been sequenced and designed by the band. Before Dadamah, Peter Stapleton played in The Terminals, Vacuum and The Victor Dimisich Band as well as The Pin Group with guitarist Roy Montgomery. Singer Kim Pieters and organ/synth player Janine Stagg had never been in a band before Dadamah.

Dadamah only played live three times, devoting their efforts to four-track recording. Nevertheless, word managed to get out about the band and they were asked to contribute to the 1991 Drag City single “I Hear the Devil Calling Me” which featured twelve songs hovering around one minute each by a who’s who of the then current New Zealand underground music scene. They released their only album in 1992. Jay Hinman (currently of Dynamite Hemorrhage) noted Dadamah's solitary place in the NZ underground in his Superdope fanzine:

"Dead C. might blare and scrape, the Terminals might twist and wind, but Dadamah positively shimmer with beautifully earthy lo-fi Velvets/Ubu sound."

Limited edition singles on the Seattle-based Majora label followed the LP, earning Dadamah praise as "one of the most overwhelmingly great exponents of layer-shifting drone-on master-rock" in the Forced Exposure catalog. Roy Montgomery's soaring droning guitars were offset by Janine Stagg's stabbing organ and gurgling moog synths, and Kim Pieter's vocals ebbed and flowed, somehow evoking Patti Smith, Ian Curtis, and David Thomas simultaneously.

"Synth woosh, organ-wheez, possessed femme voice over, cavernous man-voice under, guitar and drums punch through... into where? Your dreams friend, if you let 'em."

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After Dadamah, Roy Montgomery went on to form Dissolve and Hash Jar Tempo as well as maintaining his eclectic solo career which continues to feature intense collaborations like those found in Dadamah (find other Roy Montgomery titles on Grapefruit). Peter Stapleton and Kim Pieters formed Flies Inside the Sun and Peter continued his work with The Terminals and his independent label Metonymic which released tons of experimental and underground New Zealand music through 2009.

75 Dollar Bill Little Big Band - (2020) Live At Tubby's 2xLP

 

Grapefruit Records  – GY10-3

NYC’s 75 Dollar Bill began its prolific career in 2012, after percussionist Rick Brown – a veteran of the indie underground (Fish & Roses, Run On, V-Effect) – and noise scene guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Che Chen – connected via MySpace. Since that initial jam session, when Brown began experimenting with his signature plywood crate drum rhythms, they have released 3 LPs and a clutch of self-released cassette and digital releases. Last year’s 2xLP I Was Real received serious critical acclaim – The Wire calling it 2019’s Album of the Year.

On their first live album, Live at Tubby’s, 75 Dollar Bill assembled a unique “little big band” [Sue Garner on bass, Cheryl Kingan on sax, Steve Maing on guitar, Jim Pugliese on percussion and Karen Waltuch on viola] for the small Kingston, NY club show. Recorded on the last day of their spring tour, the record puts a new perspective on themes from their body of work: a little more intimacy, a little more freedom, a little more controlled chaos. Brown’s idiosyncratic rhythms are all the more hypnotizing in Tubby’s cozy setting, and Chen’s furious guitar work cuts and hums with sounds seemingly only attainable on stage. It's an album both challenging and immediate. The expanded 75 Dollar Bill's affinity for improvisation and the avant-garde even leads to a rousing take on the Ornette Coleman classic, 'Friends and Neighbors' that feels right at home in their own repertoire. The listener can't help but feel present and part of the communal joy and catharsis being shared here in this room. This performance at Tubby’s turned out not only to be the last show of their tour, but the last show possible as the pandemic hit. Originally offered as a digital-only release on 75 Dollar Bill’s Bandcamp, Live at Tubby’s now documents a highlight and closure of sorts; this kind of musical improvisation and community interaction being on hold for the foreseeable future. The double LP on Grapefruit will have to tide us over until it can all happen again.

"75 Dollar Bill has always been a duo of Che Chen and myself, but many of our most satisfying and just plain fun experiences have involved some (or almost all) of our great crew of friend musicians who've worked with us for years and who play on our studio recordings, like 2019's I Was Real (Thin Wrist/Glitterbeat). Live at Tubby's presents a couple of sets recorded just as Spring and the coronavirus were arriving on the scene. We didn't plan for this as a “Little Big Band” concert, but we took advantage of timing and geography - as well as the fact that “everybody knows how to play WZN #3” - and sent out a call for any who could make it to come to Kingston, NY for the night's blowout, the last gig of a short tour we'd done as a duo. The material comes from I Was Real and its predecessor Wood, Metal, Plastic, Pattern, Rhythm, Rock plus a cover of the great and inspiring Ornette Coleman's song “Friends and Neighbors.” Hopefully, you'll agree it turned out pretty good – at the very least, it should be obvious that we had a good time! We sure do miss playing music with our friends and for our neighbors."- Rick Brown

VA - (2017) Milk Of The Tree, An Anthology Of Female Vocal Folk And Singer Songwriters (1966-73) 3xCD

 

Grapefruit Records – CRSEGBOX039

Notwithstanding one or two isolated exceptions, it wasn’t until the mid-Sixties that independent female voices really began to be heard within the music industry. The feminist movement naturally coincided with the first signs of genuine musical emancipation. In North America, Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie emerged through the folk clubs, coffee-houses and college campuses to inspire a generation of wannabe female singers and musicians with their strong, independent mentality and social compassion, while the British scene’s combination of folk song revival and the Beatles-led pop explosion saw record company deals for a new generation of pop-folkies including Marianne Faithfull, Dana Gillespie and Vashti Bunyan.

Within a year or two, the burgeoning counter-culture saw the arrival of psychedelia and folk-rock as the likes of Pentangle and (in the US) the Linda Ronstadt-fronted Stone Poneys emerged from the clubs and into the charts. But in America at least, burnout soon set in, and the era’s excesses duly gave way to a quieter, more reflective musical and lyrical style. The LA rock and folk communities decamped to Laurel Canyon, in the Hollywood Hills region of the Santa Monica Mountains, to chill out in bucolic, soul-searching introspection. With Sixties stalwart Jackie DeShannon’s 1968 album Laurel Canyon leading the way, workers from the hit song factories of the publishing companies joined the dyed-in-the-wool folkies in a new movement of singer/songwriters that reached its zenith in 1971 with the release of seminal albums like Joni Mitchell’s Blue and Brill Building refugee Carole King’s multimillion-selling Tapestry.

In the last two or three years of the decade, the demarcation lines in British music had become similarly blurred, with amplified rock bands becoming attracted to the more pastoral strains of the folk idiom, and traditional folk club performers developing an affinity with the underground. Folk clubs evolved into Arts Labs, and the burgeoning college/university circuit provided equal opportunity for heavy rock bands, electric folk-rock acts and the introspective acoustic singer/songwriter. Suddenly, the scene was awash with female performers looking to become the British answer to Joni Mitchell, a huge influence on the scene ever since exiled American record producer Joe Boyd had circulated Joni’s songs amongst British musicians in late 1967. Mitchell quickly became established amongst aspirant performers as the singer/songwriter template.

Over the course of four hours and sixty tracks, Milk Of The Tree focuses on the music made in the late Sixties and early Seventies in both Britain and North America by either female solo artists or acts with featured female vocalists. Along the way, we encounter San Franciscan psychedelia, LA folk rock, Swinging London pop-folk, electric folk, progressive folk and even folk club folk as well as (of course) a plethora of singer- songwriters (including various ladies of the Canyon) from the movement’s golden age.

As well as featuring most of the leading figures from both sides of the Atlantic, Milk Of The Tree includes many performers who received little attention at the time but who now have a cult reputation amongst collectors. A significant number of tracks were unreleased at the time, while the set also includes the first-ever appearance by pioneering female rock duo Emily Muff, two American girls who were based in England during the period in question but failed to land a recording contract.

VA - (2021) Peephole In My Brain - The British Progressive Pop Sound Of 1971 3xCD

 

Grapefruit Records – CRSEG076T

Cherry Red's archival Grapefruit imprint has been on a roll in recent years with delightfully thorough multi-disc anthologies celebrating a parade of different U.K. psych, garage, and folk pocket scenes from the 1960s and '70s. Ranging from more-expansive celebrations like Strangers in the Room: Journey Through the British Folk Rock Scene 1967-1973 to hyper-specific moments in time like A Slight Disturbance in My Mind: The British Proto-Psychedelic Sounds of 1966, Grapefruit's mission as intrepid rock musicologists always feels like a labor of love. Falling in line with the latter of the two aforementioned sets is another calendar-year time capsule, Peephole in My Brain: British Progressive Pop Sounds of 1971. Framed in the collection's extensive booklet as a sort of bubbling-up year in U.K. rock, Peephole's 71 tracks chart a dazzling array of forward-thinking acts as they helped merge the underground scene with pop's mainstream.

Morteza Mahjubi - (2021) Selected Improvisations from Golha, Pt. I

 

Death Is Not The End – DEATH48

A collection of stunning Persian-tuned piano pieces cut from Iranian national radio broadcasts made for the Golha programmes between 1956 & 1965...

Morteza Mahjubi (1900-1965) was a Iranian pianist & composer who developed a unique tuning system for the piano which enabled the instrument to be played in all the different modes and dastgahs of traditional Persian art music. Known as Piano-ye Sonnati, this technique allowed Mahjubi to express the unique ornamental and monophonic nature of Persian classical music on this western instrument - mimicking the tar, setar & santur and extracting sounds from the piano which are still unprecedented to this day.

An active performer and composer from a young age, Mahjubi made his most notable mark as key contributor and soloist for the Golha (Flowers of Persian Song and Poetry) radio programmes. These seminal broadcasts platformed an encyclopaedic wealth of traditional Persian classical music and poetry on Iranian national radio between 1956 until the revolution in 1979.

Presented here is a collection of Morteza Mahjubi's stunningly virtuosic improvised pieces broadcast on Golha between the programme's inception until Mahjubi's death in 1965 - mostly solo, though at times peppered with tombak, violin & some segments of poetry.

The vast collection of Golha radio programmes was put together thanks to the incredible work of Jane Lewisohn & the Golha Project as part of the British Library's Endangered Archives programme, comprising 1,578 radio programs consisting of approximately 847 hours of broadcasts.

Γιώργος Κατσαρός - George Katsaros: Greek Blues in America, Vol. 1

 

Death Is Not The End – 022

Death Is Not The End present a two-part collection centred on two emigrant Greek artists recorded in New York during the 1920s and 1930s.

'Greek Blues in America' explores the recordings of George Katsaros and Kostas Dousas, who mainly recorded solo, accompanying themselves on guitar in a unique finger-picking style. This, along with the sub-cultural subject matter of the rebetiko, reflects somewhat of a cross-continental echo of the American blues - captured in the USA following a wave of immigration from Greece and Asia Minor, just as the new demand for regional and ethnographic music in the recording industry was beginning.

Kostas Dousas - (2018) Greek Blues in America, Vol. 2

 

Death Is Not The End – 023 Death Is Not The End present a two-part collection centred on two emigrant Greek artists recorded in New York during the 1920s and 1930s. 'Greek Blues in America' explores the recordings of George Katsaros and Kostas Dousas, who mainly recorded solo, accompanying themselves on guitar in a unique finger-picking style. This, along with the sub-cultural subject matter of the rebetiko, reflects somewhat of a cross-continental echo of the American blues - captured in the USA following a wave of immigration from Greece and Asia Minor, just as the new demand for regional and ethnographic music in the recording industry was beginning.

Various Artists - (2020) The Sun Is Setting On The World

 

Death Is Not The End – 33

Apocalyptic rebetika recordings from the 1930s through to late '50s. Songs of sorrow, poverty, loss and the general end of this god forsaken planet.

Various - Earthdom: 2020​, The Battle Continues Vol​.​1

 

HELL Communications – none

Compilation albums to support the live venue Earthdom in Shinokubo, Tokyo, Japan which has been closed since March to help prevent the spread of the Coronavirus.

A total of 110 compilation tracks from various bands are to be released in June 2020 featuring familiar songs, newly recorded ones and otherwise unreleased material.

The "2020, The Battle Continues" project is run by a group of volunteer artists associated with Eartthdom called "HELL Communications".

All sales, go back to the house (excluding expenses).

Lee "Scratch" Perry & the Spacewave - (2021) Dubz Of The Root

 Megawave Records – MEGW0522

Pioneer of the dub culture, magician, inventor, alchemist of the sound, so many qualifiers that can be attributed without difficulty to Lee « Scratch » Perry – but is it still necessary to introduce him ?

Following his career which debut in the 1950s in Kingston Jamaica, his influence quickly spread internationally, setting himself apart from all other artists, thanks to his innovations and his revolutionary aspect, both on a musical and personal level.

He releases in this year 2021 a new album entitled Dubz of the Root, oscillating between a return to the roots of the Jamaican dub – as in the totally revisited tracks « Stir It Up (In the Pot) Dub » or « Punky Reggae Party Dub » (which he originally produced at the time of the Wailers in 1977) – and particular sound experiments where the rhythm becomes a ground of experimentation.

« Speak Easy On A Quiet Moonless Night Dub », which almost closes the album, shows Lee Perry‘s need to persevere in a direction of the strange, the particular ; a kind of free jazz of the dub which allows the renewal of the genre. As always, the sound elaboration and the studio arrangements are meticulously worked here, creating this particularly captivating atmosphere proper to the artist. The Upsetters works here with musicians of great quality recorded in Jamaica and in the United States, offering us a wide range of instruments and sound effects which give body to the album while making account of its particularity. Therefore, it is sufficient to hear his voice on the rhythmic lines to immediately recognize him.

Lee « Scratch » Perry plays with trends, defying, twisting and modulating them to create a substance of his own, capable of delivering his messages of spirituality and his own ideals about the human condition in our society. As he himself suggests, he is a provocateur, both in his musical intelligence and in his attitude. Humor and wordplay are an integral part of his artistic creations, giving a special place to language – in a musical field where it can unfortunately often be excluded – underlining his ability to carry an awake look, sometimes cynical, on the world that surrounds him.

een roots reggae, dub and underground – so desired in our current musical field – is enough on its own to captivate the attention. If one does not appreciate this work, if the strangeness and dissonance are too disturbing for some listeners, it will be impossible to deny the musical astonishment it provides. Perry offers us here a true, intimate and intelligent creation whose undeniable quality honors a sound universe which, as always, remains so singular.

This new album, which brings a subtle balance between roots reggae, dub and underground – so desired in our current musical field – is enough on its own to captivate the attention. If one does not appreciate this work, if the strangeness and dissonance are too disturbing for some listeners, it will be impossible to deny the musical astonishment it provides. Perry offers us here a true, intimate and intelligent creation whose undeniable quality honors a sound universe which, as always, remains so singular.

Various Artists - (2021) Essiebons Special 1973 - 1984 -- Ghana Music Power House

 

Analog Africa – AACD 093

Dick Essilfie-Bondzie was all ready for his 90th birthday party when the Covid pandemic hit. The legendary producer, businessman and founder of Ghana’s mighty Essiebons label had invited all his family and friends to the event and it was the disappointment at having to postpone that prompted Analog Africa founder Samy Ben Redjeb to propose a new compilation celebrating his contributions to the world of West African music.

For most of the 1970s Essilfie-Bondzie’s Dix and Essiebons labels were synonymous with the best in modern highlife, and his roster was a who’s-who of highlife legends. C.K. Mann, Gyedu Blay Ambolley, Kofi Papa Yankson, Ernest Honny, Rob ‘Roy’ Raindorf and Ebo Taylor all released some of their greatest music under the Essiebons banner.

Essiebons Special features a selection of obscure workouts from some of the label’s heaviest hitters. But in the course of digitising his vast archive of master tapes, Essilfie-Bondzie found a number of Afrobeat and Instrumental maszterpieces tracks from the label’s mid-70s golden age that, for one reason or another, had never been released. Those songs are included here for the first time.

Sadly Essilfie-Bondzie passed away before the compilation was finished. But his legacy lives on in the extraordinary music that he gave to the world in his lifetime.

Various Artists - (2021) Is It Really Goodbye? More Ryūkōka Recordings, 1929-1938

 

Death Is Not The End – DEATH050

A further volume of Ryūkōka recordings, covering the end of the 1920s though to the late 1930s, supplementing the recent Longing for the Shadow collection...

Emerging during the early stages of the recording industry in Japan, the Ryūkōka style adopted western classical, blues & jazz elements into traditional and classical Japanese music.

Is It Really Goodbye? further collects pre-war Ryūkōka records which capture the hauntingly unique sound of a cultural merging that was starting to reflect itself via popular song, ahead of the widespread influence of western pop music during post-war US occupation.

Tracklist

1. Fumiko Yotsuya – Let's Dance the Tango (03:07)

2. Kiyoshi Utsumi & Asami Kuji – A Wandering Journey (03:23)

3. Kusunoki Shigeo – White Camellia Song (03:20)

4. Michiyakko – Oh, That's It (02:52)

5. Nakano Rhythm Boys – Kazuhisa Yamadera (03:14)

6. Noriko Awaya – Blues for Farewell (03:27)

7. Kouta Katsutaro – Kanaka's Daughter (03:13)

8. Sato Chiyako – Tokyo March (02:37)

9. Wantanabe Hamako – I'll Forget It (03:13)

10. Dick Mine – Yukari's Song (03:21)

11. Fujiyama Ichiro – Recollection (03:37)

12. Kouta Katsutaro & Shigeo Kusunoki – Tairiku Bushi (03:18)

13. Issei Mishima – Over the Kuroshio (03:07)

14. Fumiko Yotsuya – The Izu Dancer (Dancer's Song) (03:03)

15. Hanko Kagurazaka & Toshiro Oumi – Hatsukoi Nikki (03:04)

16. Akasaka Koume – Is It Really Goodbye? (03:20)

Total length: 51:16

Various Artists - (2021) Wounds of Love: Khmer Oldies, Vol. 1

 

Death Is Not The End – DEATH047

From the late 1950s onwards a music scene developed around Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, inspired by the prevalence of imported early rock & pop records arriving in the country from US & UK and also chanson and bolero records from France & Latin America. This collection documents some of these early home-grown slow rock, pop & rnb 45 recordings from the early 60s, prior to the further embrace of US psych & garage rock-orientated sounds in the mid 60s and into the Vietnam war era.

Various Artists - (2021) Wounds of Love: Khmer Oldies, Vol. 2

 

Death Is Not The End – DEATH049

A second volume of late 50s and early 60s Cambodian slow rock, pop and R&B tracks...

From the late 1950s onwards a music scene developed around Cambodia's capital Phnom Penh, inspired by the prevalence of imported rock & pop records arriving in the country from US & UK and also chanson and bolero records from France & Latin America. This collection documents some of these early home-grown slow rock, pop & rnb 45 recordings from the early 60s, prior to the further embrace of US psych & garage rock-orientated sounds in the mid 60s and into the Vietnam war era.

Tracklist

1. Chhun Vanna – Lone River (02:59)

2. Sieng Dy – Missing Couple (02:56)

3. Sinn Sisamouth & Keo Setha – Night to Meet Face to Face (03:10)

4. Im Song Soem & Huoy Meas – Looking at the Moon (02:31)

5. Mao Sareth – Love Hard (04:03)

6. Chin Sakon & Chhun Vanna – Word of Promise (05:00)

7. Huoy Meas – Sekong Night (02:44)

8. Ros Serey Sothea – I've Had My Heart Broken (03:43)

9. Chhun Vanna & Im Song Soem – Rose Garden (02:33)

10. Sinn Sisamouth & Mao Sareth – The Night Is Soft (03:00)

11. Pen Ran – Night at the Seaside (02:56)

12. Rina & Chea Savoeun – Market Break (04:06)

13. Sinn Sisamouth – The Letter Sent to You (02:51)

14. In Yeng – Ivory River (04:50)

Total length: 47:22

Wailing Souls - (2004) Wailing Souls At Channel One (7's, 12's And Versions) CD

 

Pressure Sounds – PSCD 42

Pressure Sounds is geared towards recovering Jamaican roots rarities and Wailing Souls at Channel One fits that bill. There is a lot of high-quality music here, but it's better for collectors and completists nosing around the fringes for Wailing Souls' alternates and oddities than initiates looking to get core essentials.

Only ten of the 16 tracks actually feature the Souls, here featuring the four-man incarnation, including ex-Black Uhuru singer Garth Dennis, so a liking for the Revolutionaries dub versions that appears back-to-backed with several vocal tracks doesn't hurt. It's not that hard, since this is the Revolutionaries in their militant rockers prime, and roots reggae just doesn't get much more prime than that. The Souls rank as a classic vocal group, but their harmonies are fairly understated and in a certain sense, are overshadowed by many backing tracks here. More mysterious at first is why Dillinger's "Natty BSc" is included but turns out it's a riddim thing. The song and its dub boast the same track as the preceding "Things and Time," where the Souls lock down into an infectious groove with loping bassline and horns countering the cutting lead vocal. It's excellent, the first single they cut for Channel One, a huge hit, an adaptation of the earlier song "Back Out With It" the group re-recorded as "Back Out" using the new rhythm track that's also included here along with its accompanying dub version. Got all that?

It means five of the 16 tracks work off the same track -- good thing it's a good one and that Jamaican music-making can be so dub-elastic. The Souls' harmonies dominate "Back Out" more than the horns that drive "Things and Time," but the Dillinger track is sparer and more riddim-section driven with skank guitar and organ dubwised in and out. It dispenses with horns, whereas the Revolutionaries' dub version resurrects them for opening fanfares before going totally skeletal. Just in case you were wondering.

Elsewhere, "War" is serious militant rocking, with plenty of dubbed-out organ, huge echoing snare shots, and deejay Ranking Trevor fitting perfectly in the 12" mix. The "Jah Jah Give Us Life to Live" 12" serves up breaking lead vocals over whooping basslines (sorta like if "Dock of the Bay" was Montego Bay) and unusual, arresting piano trills plus a very spare, atmospheric dub section anchored by bass and echoed-out percussion clatter. "Fire a Mus Mus Tail" is a nice mid-tempo reggae, based on Jamaican folk proverb and "Back Biter aka Back Slider" hits very solid groove time. "Lawless Society" has an almost underwater snare sound (a syndrum test? Mid-'70s sonica electronica barrage? Who knows?) but the dub may be more interesting with its horn and bass anchor and loose percussion. "Very Well" closes very strong with ragged horns, staccato Morse-code organ fills, and full harmonies on an African repatriation theme.

At Channel One is a decidedly odd duck. The Wailing Souls don't imprint their personality on the music that strongly, but there are many very strong performances here. The liner notes span the group's entire career but largely skate over the track specifics and general Jamaican context for these tracks, rare for a Pressure Sounds release. Maybe the best guideline would be that it's probably an essential disc if you have any good reason to believe this specialized take on the Wailing Souls might be, but not if you have your doubts.

Ekin Fil - (2017) Inflame CS

 

Helen Scarsdale Agency – HMS044

Currently in a crucial phase of her oeuvre, Istanbul’s Ekin Fil presents the results of her first soundtrack commission with Inflame, a 30 minute collection of evocative, murky electronic cues reflecting the paranoia of Ceylan Özgün Özçelik’s psychological thriller.

Rather than her signature, reverrb-laden guitar and glossolalic vox, Ekin uses a palette of synths, electronics and drum machines to convey a tense and claustrophobic sound, where severed voices float thru minor key melodies and slow, epileptic hallucinations, sometimes prodded with skeletal electro rhythms, at other left to linger uncomfortably in crepuscular mid-air with curt resolutions.

Ekin Fil - (2017) Ghosts Inside LP

 

Helen Scarsdale Agency – HMS042

Istanbul’s forlorn shoegaze spirit Ekin Fil returns to haunt our waking life with Ghosts Inside, the 2nd late night bloom in her fruitful relationship with San Francisco’s Helen Scarsdale Agency after Being Near [2016].

It arguably contains the most assured bedroom pop songwriting and elusive, shadow-chasing production to be found in her cultishly admired catalogue of the past decade, and, just like the work of comparable artist, Grouper, maintains an ever crucial temporal and metaphysical bridge between the original ethereal craft of Cranes, Cocteau Twins and Slowdive and the modern day for those who need it.

It would take some kind of glossolalic deciphering device to work out what Ekin is singing, but that’s really not the point, as her gauzy lilt conveys something practically, literally ineffable that transcends prosaic meaning and works with a plasmic, osmotic effect that really gets in the pores, perfusing your system with an efficacy worthy of the album’s title. In Ekin’s hand, or at her feet, an array of guitar pedals becomes her scrying diffusion prism, sublimating her sylvan piano, guitar, and vocals into something that by-passes language and deals instead in pure, yet elusive emotion.

While maybe not immediately apparent, this heavily introspective sound stems from the current socio-political upheaval Ekin and people of her generation are experiencing in Turkey right now, and we could say across the Middle East in general. It could therefore be heard as a numbing salve for “psychic distress, heartache and depression”, as the label puts it, perhaps offering a middle-distance focus that penetrates all the crap and finds a mutual, meditative point of audition and perception familiar to anyone sensitive to those issues, both within the region and far beyond. Which is probably why we’re just as rapt, here in a drizzly Manchester summer as the guys at her label in San Fran and, soon enough, other listeners across the globe.

There’s no doubt that Ghosts Inside is a masterful album, Ekin Fil’s definitive opus, no less.

There’s no doubt that Ghosts Inside is a masterful album, Ekin Fil’s definitive opus, no less.

Ekin Fil - (2018) Maps LP

 

Helen Scarsdale Agency – HMS 048

Ekin Fil revels in negative ecstasy on her 4th haunting for the sympathetic ears at Helen Scarsdale Agency. Make sure to check for the Sarah Davachi-like spectre of ‘On The Move’ and the billowing glossolalia of ‘Nocturnal Arc’ for her most shivering sensations, and clock the closing number ‘At Dawn’ for a surprising new electronic angle to her sound recalling the most opiated Alessandro Cortini works

“Ekin Fil continues her quietly complex dream-pop oeuvre on Maps. For many years now, this Istanbul musician has been writing mysterious and haunting songs, rich in heavy-reverb effects and an introspective torpor. With each successive album, her songwriting has blossomed through broader instrumentation and more intricate melodic phrasing, though the somber atmospherics and ghostly manifestations remain a judicious constant. Minor-key, tear-stained notes of piano, organ, and guitar veer along elliptical orbits as a soft-whisper lilt of Ekin's voice narrates more by emotive decree than by literary couplet.

Maps addresses the distance and dislocation of the self from the bustling center of Istanbul, where Ekin FIl (neé Ekin Üzeltüzenci) had once called her home. Having spent her first winter on a relatively quiet island in the Sea of Marmara (while still in the greater metropolitan umbrella of Istanbul), Maps is "lonely, different, kind of isolated," according to Ekin, who also noted that the island had "too much silence around. There is no other choice but to concentrate, I guess." Her poetics of silence on her previous recordings had been noted as an antidote or a dream capsule of sound in response to Istanbul's cauldron of politics, culture, and philosophy that has been boiling almost since the beginning of civilization. Maps bends that maritime silence into wind-swept smudges that complement her already spacious compositions.

The saddest songs of The Durutti Column excised of rhythm and those few plunges into sorrow by Harold Budd make for apt comparisons to Maps, in addition to the drone-on classics of Grouper, Slowdive, and Sarah Davachi. “

Ekin Fil - (2019) You, Only CS

 

VAKNAR – VAK13

On the new dual cassette release You, Only, both piano and voice emerge with more clarity only to crawl deeper into the soft gauze of the noise floor. On “Other Others” they are joined by the vibrato of vintage organ, and on “You, Only”, they are overtaken by a collage of field recordings and glistering synth whorls. The two long tracks of the second tape (“Scar” and “Incident Light”) reveal Üzeltüzenci slipping deeper into a more esoteric and piecemeal compositional style. Her simple, textured melodies give way to abstract forms forms that stretch and refract against a horizon line of eerie silence. Ekin Fil’s penchant for burying sounds in drones reverb and self-effacing static make these gasps of open space all the more striking. These are moments of perforation and permeability - places where the thin line between nothing and something has worn away completely.

Ekin Fil - (2020) Coda LP

 

Helen Scarsdale Agency – HMS054

In recent years, the Turkish drone-pop composer Ekin Fil (born Ekin Üzeltüzenci) has been refining her talents in the realm of the film score. Since her first recordings that were published by Root Strata and Students of Decay, she has always exhibited a preternatural ability to express the saddest of emotions through sound. Once channeled through the lens of a gauzy shoegazing smear of guitars and voice, she has peeling away layers of her ephemeral songs to reveal their emotional core. That compositional process that works so well for her award winning film scores informs the soft-focus tenebrous pieces of her 2020 album Coda. It’s true that any number of these pieces on this album could announce the finale to an emotionally draining movie, but Ekin sculpts the entire album as a whole, dissolving one perfectly tempered piano motif, an impressionist ambient plume or a sibilant vocal melody into another. Just at the threshold of perception, she occasionally invokes cascades of distant noise that easily can be interpreted as the ominous premonitions for natural disasters - incoming storms, earthquakes, or tidal waves. This subtle disquiet amidst the introspective melancholy furthers the emotional weightiness of Coda. Her somber, blissful compositions have considerable gravity of their own in the constellation of Grouper, Felicia Atkinson, and Harold Budd.

Ekin Fil - (2021) Feelings

 

A Sunken Mall – none

Turkish ambient shoegaze reductionist Ekin Fil recovers from the anxiety of 2020 with a foggy set of introverted folk and melancholy cinematic piano. RIYL Grouper, Deaf Center, William Basinski.

Following an impressive run of releases for Helen Scarsdale Agency and Students of Decay, Ekin Fil's latest album is an exercise in emotional catharsis. Her soft vocals are the album's anchor, and add a beam of optimistic humanity through the thick fog of doom. On 'Little One', he voice cuts through piano and sounds like a lost Cocteau Twins demo, while on 'Infinite Space', it's almost reduced to a ghostly whisper, struggling to be heard beneath the sound of rain.

The album's most successful moment is the title track, a collaboration with Bulgarian artist Krāllār. Here, Fil's voice is blown out into psychedelic harmonic prisms that swirl through slow-moving frozen soundscapes. The piano is still there, but re-sculpted into warped icicles - it's disarmingly beautiful.

Aidan Baker & Ekin Fil - (2020) The Dark Well CD

 

Torn Light Records – ART 01

"The Dark Well" contains four new compositions from the collaborative debut of Ekin Fil and Aidan Baker that spill out in a slow cascade of organ, guitar, and voice. In the works for over a year, the duo have created a soundscape saturated with swells that hum and hiss but ultimately pacify instead of crash.

Various Artists - (2018) Wound 2xLP

 

Carbon Records – CR239

Continuing the tradition of its milestone-marking compilations, Carbon is using the occasion of its 25th year to bring together an impressive roster of guitar-based artists. Showcasing the use of guitar in its many forms, this compilation consists of some of the most exciting new and established purveyors of Americana, psych, free-improv, rock, and experimental sounds.

Artists:

Alexander

Bill MacKay

Bill Nace

Brett Naucke

Bruce Russell

Campbell Kneale

Curanderos

Daniel Bachman

Eric Hardiman

James Plotkin

Joe+N

Jon Collin

Kryssi Battalene

Loren Connors

Michael Morley

Mike Shiflet

Morning Scales The Mountain

Rat Bastard

Rob Noyes

Ryley Walker

Tashi Dorji

Wendy Eisenberg

William Parker - (2021) Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World 10xCD

 

Centering Records – 1020–1029 / 1.58GB

William Parker is one of the most recorded bassists in jazz history, a celebrated, wide-ranging composer, multi-instrumentalist, bandleader, poet, essayist, and painter. Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World comprises ten unissued albums written and recorded for various soloists and ensembles between 2017 and 2019 -- he doesn't always appear -- including seven for vocalists.

The music is not limited to jazz: There are excursions into classical, soul, free improv, blues, global sounds, and more. Blue Limelight features vocalist Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez fronting a piano quartet with two drummers, chamber strings, and oboe. The music ranges from crystalline ballads ("Listen,") to bumping R&B ("Cosmic Funk"), gospelized soul ("A Great Day to Be Dead"), and syncopated jazz recitatives (Recall"). Child of Sound contains 14 songs for piano performed solo by Eri Yamamoto. They showcase Parker's love of simple melody.

"Baldwin," the opening track on The Majesty of Jah, features James Baldwin's disembodied voice alongside Jalalu Kalvert Nelson's muted trumpet and sonic effects. Ellen Christi lends her voice to the strolling jazz-cum-reggae of the title track to the vanguard scatting in "Freedom" and the provocative spiritual drift of "Sun Song."

The experimental fourth disc Cheops is performed by vocalist Kyoko Kitamura and a group consisting of vibes, tuba, soprano sax, drums, and bass. It ranges across classical, world, and freely improvised terrain. Harlem Speaks, fronted by Fay Victor, engages bop, swing, and blues with Parker and Hamid Drake as her accompanists. Mexico consists of four long vanguard works, performed by an international ensemble of artists/activists fronted by Mexican vocalist Jean Carla Rodea.

Seven of its songs are titled for Italian directors, reflecting Parker's long obsession with cinema and film composition, extending the medium he exercised on his contemporary score for Alphaville did. The final two discs are instrumental. They include The Fastest Train wherein Parker and trio play dozens of wind, reed, and percussion instruments between them in spacious improvisational pieces. Manzanar comprises abstract folk suites played by string quartets, with reeds, winds, and percussion. Parker plays ethnic flutes and a khaen mouth organ, while saxophonist Daniel Carter guests on the provocative closing suite "Being Native."

Two enclosed booklets contain liner notes from Parker, interview fragments and beautiful art, as well as lyrics. Each disc is unique, intimate, revelatory. Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World offers proof that Parker's vast, edifying sound universe seeks nothing less than to decode the world with beauty, inspiration, revolutionary lyricism, and spiritual aspiration, without pretension or artifice

Worth - (2019) Black Medicine CS

 

Wonderland Media, LLC – WM012

Worth - (2020) Heroin Vampires CDr

 

Nefarious Activities – NF43

The Offset: Spectacles - (2020) 2010-02-02 燥眠夜 Zoomin' Night 2xCS

Rose Mansion Analog – RMA-008

Compressed, self contained, and brazenly unique, each song by the Offset: Spectacles hits like a short, sharp shock. Percussive guitar and organ scrape at the surface of the left eardrum, and the bass hits like a combination of a synthesizer and a bongo. Get ready to be hectored by the ghosts of Cantonese poets and the Kowloon King. Sure as you can draw a straight line from The Offsets’ birthplace in Hong Kong to the site of their self-imposed exile in Beijing, there’s a connection between their music and the Velvet Underground, just somewhere along the 24 hour train ride things got muddled. Oscillator solos are reinterpreted for guitar, Bo Diddley blues get played drum-less, with only phantom rhythm for company. Songs like “Bodies’ Descendents” and “Snags” may bring to mind the endless empty highway, but the only possibility here is a brief sprint on an overpass above the midnight lights of a rotting port. Today, no escape is possible from a(ny) city, so the Offsets simply claim ownership, pushing back against at the neon signs, TV’s, and computers with a seductive spectacle of their own.

 

Wince - (2019) Shame CD

 

White Centipede Noise – WCN035

Jeph Jerman - (2019) Arcane Facture CD

 

White Centipede Noise – WCN038