There’s something thrilling about musicians who go beyond sound to create their own aesthetic universe; musicians who cushion themselves in culture and stylistic choices to the extent where you know, or could make a pretty good guess at, their favourite books, films, fashion choices and holiday destinations. Kraftwerk have it; The Smiths had it; Wu-Tang Clan once had it and Björk definitely has it.
Sinjin Hawke and his Fractal Fantasy partner Zora Jones have it too. The duo wrap their music in hyperreal digital art and darkly sci-fi videos, release it via their own Fractal Fantasy “platform” and even wear their own clothes, designed and made by former fashion student Jones. Their’s is a world of technological utopianism and restless, often self-taught, creativity; a world of near infinite…
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The Bang on a Can All-Stars‘ adventurous story continues on this inspired collaboration with Chinese singer Gong Linna. She might be a largely unknown property in the West, but the Guizhou-born Linna enjoys celebrity status in her homeland. Yet though a performance of the song “Tan Te” vaulted her to fame when it appeared on Chinese national television in 2010, Linna is no vacuous pop star. She dedicated seven years to vocal study at the Chinese Conservatory of Music, performs with her own chamber music ensemble as well as major Chinese orchestras, and is regarded as one of the most important innovators of contemporary Chinese vocal music. Linna blends a number of contrasting techniques into a highly personalized style, with Chinese opera and Folk song…
With Kansas City, Soundway Records signs for the reissue of an almost unfindable piece of South African vinyl from 1979. The Movers were founded in Alexandra, a township near Johannesburg, in the late nineteen sixties, and rose to fame with their mix of disco and funk with elements from marabi jazz and township jive or jaiva.
The track list of Kansas City may only count 6 songs, they’re all disco gems, and even though at the time title track ‘Kansas City’ landed the band a big hit, we were more taken with instrumentals like ‘Shanana’, ‘Beat’ or ‘Take It’.
The line up of the band shifted throughout its existence – however this particular album produced by David Thekwane features musicians L Rhikoti, Jabu Sibumbe, Lloyd Lelosa and Sankie Chounyane.
Every once in awhile there is a track that stops you dead in your tracks. A track that grabs you by the collar, howls in your face and then hugs you tight. “Camile from OHM Makes Me Feel Loved” the lead single from Russian-born, but Berlin-based Machine Woman (aka Anastasia Vtorova) is just that kind of track. It’s the lead track from her first release on Ninja Tune’s Technicolour imprint, When Lobster Comes Home.
“Camile from OHM Makes Me Feel Loved” comes out swinging riding a confident, thumping, shuffling beat. As if that wasn’t arresting enough, Machine Woman litters the beat with glitchy vocal samples and clattering synth noises and effects. The whole thing swells and builds into a turbulent, head spinning mix until a gorgeous…
Samantha Urbani has been exploring the boundaries of pop music since her days as a founder and frontwoman of the Bushwick group Friends. The collective — who channeled ESG and Stacey Q. — was a Brooklyn DIY staple and one among a coterie of producers and performers finding blog acclaim for pushing pop outside of its overly-manufactured confines (see: Charli XCX’s “Nuclear Seasons,” MNDR’s “Fade to Black”). Like other subcultures before it, alt-pop was a direct response to 2010s Top 40 despondency. The artists creating some of the hookiest songs of the year weren’t necessarily trying to navigate the indie world, but rather trying to make glossy, catchy music whose substance and heart were in plain view.
“The current, tragic state of pop music doesn’t…
…Before it was fashionable, producer Creed Taylor’s label had been injecting pop and R&B sensibilities into jazz, paving the way for the commercial fusion sound. Fuse One was CTI Records’ late-period supergroup, releasing three albums beginning in 1980. The “supergroup” concept wasn’t new to CTI; not only had the label sponsored “All-Star” concerts, but its top-tier musicians frequently cross-pollinated each other’s albums in truly democratic style. Robinsongs’ two-fer presents two of the group’s three releases from this unique group designed without a proper “leader.”
The 1980 debut Fuse One brought together guitarist John McLaughlin, bassist Stanley Clarke and drummer Lenny Williams, joined by drummer Lenny White, guitarist Larry Coryell,…
Ladilikan, the new album by Trio Da Kali and Kronos Quartet, represents a landmark in cultural cross-fertilisation that both parties rank among the most satisfying musical experiences of their careers. David Harrington, Kronos’ artistic director and founder, enthuses that the album is “one of the most beautiful Kronos has ever done.” On first hearing their griot grooves being played by violins, viola and cello, Trio da Kali’s musical director Fodé Lassana Diabaté said, “This is going to be the best collaboration of my life.”
Da Kali means ‘to give a pledge’ – in this case to a musical heritage that dates back to the time of Sunjata Keita, founder of the great Mali empire in the early 13th century. The line-up of balafon (xylophone) bass ngoni (lute) and female…
Initially a quartet, London’s Matt Bianco seamlessly blended infectious pop with jazz and Latin flavours and were regular visitors to the UK singles charts between 1984 and 1989, scoring ten hit singles (their biggest was 1988’s double A-side, ‘Don’t Blame It On That Girl’/’Wap-Bang-Boogie’) and three smash albums. Though the chart hits dried up as the ’80s became the ’90s, the group soldiered on then slimmed down to a duo (with singer Mark Reilly and keyboardist Mark Fisher). The records kept coming but their days of mass exposure were a thing of the past. After the passing of Mark Fisher last year, Mark Reilly vowed to carry performing in the guise of Matt Bianco. This new studio album, Matt Bianco’s thirteenth so far (excluding their compilations), follows in the wake of last year’s…
Brandy Clark‘s engaging live shows are something akin to having morning coffee – or late-night cocktails – with a chatty neighbor who has a lot to get off her chest. Clark’s intimate 2017 L.A. show at Hotel Café is captured in the digital release Live from Los Angeles, the six-time Grammy nominee’s first live record and the follow-up to the brilliant studio album Big Day in a Small Town.
Originally, the album was made strictly as a bonus vinyl release last April for independent retailers — part of a limited-edition pressing of 2,500 copies. But because she and others at her label were so taken with the spirit of the recording, as well as with the enthusiasm the Hotel Café audience exhibited that night, they decided to release a digital version so more of her fans could access it.
Trip was an album that happened because of Mike Stern‘s relentless determination to remain Mike Stern. On July 3, 2016, he was hailing a cab when he tripped over some concealed construction debris, broke both arms, and was taken to the hospital. He fractured both humerus bones and was left with significant nerve damage in his right hand, preventing him from accomplishing even the simplest of tasks — including holding a guitar pick. Following a surgery in which 11 screws were put into his arm, Stern emerged in late October with Chick Corea, playing seated and wearing a black glove outfitted with Velcro attached to a Velcro-fitted pick. A second surgery followed and he gained more control of his nerve-damaged…
The late-life creativity of Terry Riley is cause for celebration in troubled times, and this release by California’s Del Sol Quartet makes a fine place to start exploring it. As with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, Riley’s musical language has evolved since his days as the West Coast pioneer of minimalism, but a basic personality has remained constant. Dark Queen Mantra, performed here with Riley’s son, Gyan Riley, on guitar, is flavored by Spanish idioms, but is in no way a neoclassical work. If you had to compare it to anything, it would compare to Reich’s Jewish-themed works, but really it is sui generis. You might sample the melodic “Goya with Wings” second movement, which was inspired by paintings of Francisco Goya. Mas Lugares (su madrigali di Monteverdi) by Italian Stefano Scodanibbio,…
A curiosity of flaky electro-punk and shimmering disco, Los Angeles duo Cobra Man initially formed at the request of skateboarding collective the Worble to soundtrack a video about a mustachioed construction worker who becomes a human skate ramp. To complete this task, Worble cohort Andy Harry enlisted his friend Sarah Rayne (of L.A. indie pop weirdos Babes) and the two emerged with the semi-instrumental action-driven synth jam “Manramp.” Having now invented a project called Cobra Man, Harry and Rayne stuck around to score the collective’s next venture, a full-length skate DVD called New Driveway, whose soundtrack also serves as the band’s debut album for Memphis label Goner Records. Somewhat of an odd pairing, Cobra Man’s blend of moody synth ambience,…
Dutch drummer Han Bennink, who turns 75 next month, has been an unrelenting creative force in jazz and improvised music since the early 60s. In 1964 he played on Eric Dolphy’s legendary final record, Last Date, and in 1967 he formed the Instant Composers Pool with pianist Misha Mengelberg (who died 3 March 2017) and reedist Willem Breuker. He has an instantly recognizable sound — loud, chaotic, furiously swinging — and he’s applied it to hundreds of records. He’s all about improvisation, so leading a regular band has never been high on his list of concerns — he’s more interested in interaction and disruption. Finally, eight years ago, he decided to form a trio.
When the group dropped its 2009 debut, Parken,…
The talent booker at the Roadhouse is an enigmatic figure in the town of Twin Peaks. Unseen, unnamed, and unmentioned, the bar’s curatorial mastermind secures acts to play this small-town dive bar, acts who wouldn’t ordinarily pass within 30 miles of the place. Fashionable English indie rock bands appear as a matter of course, synth-pop trios descend upon the stage from Brooklyn, Latin jazz singers perform alongside Moby, Nine Inch Nails premiere a new single — even Eddie Vedder turns up in an oversized fedora. How do they do it? It’s a triumph of musical programming. Not since Modest Mouse graced the Bait Shop in Orange County has a minor concert venue been so ambitiously booked.
Of course much about Twin Peaks: The Return seems governed by the logic of a dream.
Since forming in 2012, Seattle-based duo ODESZA quickly became one of the most popular, influential indie electronic acts in America. By the time they made their Counter Records debut in 2014, with their second album In Return, they had already become a staple at music festivals, and their headlining gigs were selling out left and right. Their music typically consists of warm, glitchy chillwave beats and choppy, pitch-shifted vocals, as well as an intriguing usage of exotic-sounding acoustic instruments, all fine-tuned for maximum emotional impact. ODESZA may not have invented any of the ingredients of their sound, but their glossy, dreamy brand has become one of the most distinctive of its kind, and their presence on the scene looms large — it’s hard to browse SoundCloud without…
L.A. Witch’s self-titled debut is a thoroughly Californian album. It was recorded in Costa Mesa and mixed in Los Angeles, and just check out that album art… but it sounds born to laze in the shadows rather than soak up the sun. It also sounds little like a debut, because six of the songs on this nine track LP have been around online – in the form of a live video, or a Bandcamp single, or a demo – for a year at least, four years at most.
All this is to L.A. Witch’s credit, though. Bassist Irita Pai, drummer Ellie English and vocalist/guitarist Sade Sanchez have toured tirelessly, and no secret is safe on the internet – particularly not songs as good as these. Nostalgic, stylish and Lynchian, L.A. Witch commit to record, for posterity, exactly how their sound has evolved and grown.
Beaches‘ third album, Second of Spring, may have taken a long time for the quartet to make, but it doesn’t take long to seep into the brain of the listener. The first three songs are droning, overlapping guitar jams with steady rolling drums, pulsing bass, and chanted vocals that feel like windswept, smoke-filled incantations and set the mood perfectly for the rest of the record. After that initial burst of almost-instrumentals, Beaches start sprinkling in poppier, more traditionally song-y songs along with the noise blowouts. “Be” rocks and rollicks like a lost Breeders track, “Calendar” is a heavy ballad with a wistful melody, and if “Arrow” turned out to be Elastica in disguise, it wouldn’t be a shock. These are mixed in with dreamlike shoegaze (“Natural Tradition”), hazy,…
Though Keith Emerson died in 2016, the influential body of work left behind by the keyboardist, arranger and composer lives on. A decade before his untimely passing, Emerson compiled a disc’s worth of previously unreleased tracks. He described 2006’s Off the Shelf as “a veritable cornucopia of potpourri within an audio montage!” Now, that collection has been reissued by Cherry Red’s Esoteric Recordings imprint for those fans of the late artist who missed it the first time.
Emerson first rose to fame as a member of The Nice, establishing himself as a flamboyant virtuoso on the Hammond organ, able to inject heavy rock with classical music as he bashed away on the instrument. Though he had no formal musical training, his parents were amateur…
In the aftermath of his coma and very possible demise back in 2008, pianist Fred Hersch blossomed from a status as a first rate jazz pianist into the rarified air of one of the handful of top practitioners of that art form. A series of post-illness albums, from Whirl (2010), to Alone at the Vanguard (2011) to Floating (2014), Solo (2015) and Sunday Night at the Vanguard (2016), all on Palmetto Records, are all solo and trio outings that reveal a heightened artistic clarity and unabashed vulnerability, alongside a deeper emotive approach, this in comparison to his uniformly excellent, but perhaps more cerebral output before his struggle with serious health problems. Now we have Open Book, Hersch’s eleventh solo piano outing.
Intimacy is a hallmark of Hersch’s music, and…
It’s been four years since fashion model Carmen Maria Hillestad took on the moniker Carmen Villain and released her debut album Sleeper. Villain’s self-produced second LP, Infinite Avenue. weaves an intricate web of emotions brought on by womanhood in the 21st century, and it features a guest appearance from another great artist exploring those themes, Jenny Hval.
Carmen is half-Norwegian and half-Mexican, born in the USA and now living in Oslo, Norway, having moved back after living in London for a few years.
Writing, recording and producing alone, Carmen’s intensely personal songs are entirely self-created in her makeshift studio, made up of tapestries of guitar, piano, programmed drums and synths, making the most she could out of her limited gear.
