MELOMANIA bringing you so much music this week
you might have to catch a breath between the Metal and Jazz releases.
EX-VOID - Bigger Than Before [LP/CD](Don Giovanni/Redeye)
There is something so mild-mannered and unassuming about London band Ex-Void. Power Pop has long been underappreciated and missed airplay for any number of bravado-wielding, pre-fabricated, pre-sold artists. Led by ex-Joanna Gruesome members Lan McArdle and Owen Williams, Ex-Void’s earlier tracks bonded manic Punk energy with streamlined Byrds-ian/70’s Pop. On their first album for Don Giovanni, the quartet move up to a Matthew Sweet-ian level of confession/harmony/songwriting. “Churchyard” is a slight refinement of the earlier formula (check the brilliant “Anyone (Other Than U.)”) A smaller punky introduction makes the myriad of chord changes easier to handle, especially during its jangly Westerberg-ian pre-chorus. “No Other Way” may be the most perfect single this year. It pushes beautifully through a Lemonheads-ish heart-tugging verse (McArdle and Williams's dual vocals are a thing of beauty,) a sparkling chorus, a Dinosaur-esque driving solo portion, and wraps up with an elegant and masterful slowdown. “Bigger Than Before” shows Ex-Void already putting songs together that accurately echo their idols, but could easily find their way in your rotation.
YOUNG PRISMS - Drifter [LP/CD](Fire Talk/Redeye)
San Francisco’s Young Prisms already have a vast history as a Shoegazer band. However, “Drifter” goes back to a different construction. The drums on “Honeydew” are mixed right up front, while everything else is exposed through different consistencies of effects haze. Guitars chime more than usual allowing vocal harmonies to catch those MBV-ish lows thus rendering their songs like outtakes from The Jesus And Mary Chain’s classic second album “Darklands.” The remainder of “Drifter” follows this pattern but never sounds either too typically Shoegaze-y (“Outside Air” is like a swishy Lush) or too Nineties (the sweeping chorus of “Self Love” could be a Pop song in anyone else’s hands.) “Drifter” throws back to the melodic songwriting that led to Shoegaze, but wisely employs their effects to sound like a band who uses them - not one that wants to be defined by them.
SIMON BROMIDE - Following The Moon [LP/CD](Scratchy UK)
As an English Rock N’Roller clearly turned singer/songwriter, Simon Bromide takes a 70’s introspective sound and fuses it with the Eighties high jangle of The Church to turn out a series of songs that show him as a promising writer (especially choruses.) Like a more literal Bevis Frond (or Luke Haines even,) Bromide knows how to wrap his middle-octave growl around several late-night stories. “Not That Type” (with its “tape of Led Zeppelin on the other side was Nick Drake” characterization) is a great slow-builder, and the title cut serves up great chord changes over a simple chorus. However, it is the very personal “The Skehans Song” that brilliantly juxtaposes Bromide and his fellow pub mates celebrating the near future (“It’s Wednesday night/we’re feeling alright/Because the weekend’s on its way”) while reveling in the distant past.
LES ROBOTS - Excerpts From The Multiverse [7”](Topsy Turvy NED/Code 7 UK)
The Dutch instrumental group Les Robots continues their journey into both the fanciful early Synth sounds of Jean-Jacques Perrey (“No Response From Albert II”) and Surf music - done for interplanetary travel. “The Rossumovi Univerzaini Roboti Waltz” is a neat Sixties-esque lounge waltz with creative overdubs of unidentifiable sounds. However, it is the all-too-brief Surf-meets-Motorik “Hommage A La Trio Fantastique” that really swings.
HEDVIG MOLLESTAD - Tempest Revisited [LP/CD](Rune Grammofon NOR)
Away from her trio (“Ding Dong, You’re Dead” from 2021,) Mollestad uses her third album to demonstrate her arrangement skills and how she as a bandleader could create a new Soft Machine. “Tempest” is five tracks meant to be heard together. The near-atmospheric opener “Sun on A Dark Sky” builds from its simple motif to carefully introduce all the elements (especially those horns) before its blistering zenith. “Winds Approaching” pits staccato almost-tritone horns against a limber and melodic saxophone before Mollestad slams in on guitar. “Tempest” really works because Mollestad puts herself in the back seat. Horns compete against each other while her drummer Ivar Loe Bronstad seems to only compete with himself for more daring polyrhythms. This is distinctly Modern Jazz, much like the early Hugh Hopper-era of Soft Machine where they were working on Jazz but refusing to make it sound Jazzy. As far as Mollestad’s guitar, her dynamic Frisell-like solo on “Kittiwakes in Gusts” leaps out, while her understated work on “418 (Stairs in Storms) shows her ability to carefully guide a track through some beautiful chord changes. “Tempest Revisited” is Mollestad proving that she does not need to be everywhere on an album to make an impact.
PAUL BLEY TRIO - Bremen ‘66 [LP](Sowing ITA)
It is easy to get mixed up in the post-Coltrane paths of exploratory Free Jazz on one hand and the intersection of electric instruments and Jazz that became Fusion on the other. Pianist Paul Bley cut his teeth with some fantastic players including Charlie Parker, Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, and even Chet Baker. His piano style served as a great influence for Pat Metheny (the 20-minute opener “New Love” is full of those Metheny-esque melodic patterns.) While Bley had been a bandleader for a few years, 1966 was his creative breakthrough. “Ramblin’” and “Closer” marked Bley’s first experiment with Avant-Garde. In his trios, the drummer typically needs to keep a lot of sounds in the air. Bley’s close-handed melodies almost cross each other sometimes. So Barry Altschul’s Latin-ish sweeps on “New Love” give Bley all the room to find weird Mingus-Ian harmonies and unleash a kind of Cecil Taylor-esque point/counterpoint in playing. On his wife Carla’s compositions you can hear Bley humming like Glenn Gould or Keith Jarrett as these chords and abstract melody grow more meaningful. “Ida Lupino” is his showpiece. A beautiful composition that rises and falls as all good piano pieces do. It starts quite simple and metered before they take it. On his original “Mazatlan,” Bley goes for a huge swing part around mostly chords. As he releases the band to solo, the downbeat (especially on Altschul’s feature) becomes most important. Bassist Mark Levinson plays beautifully around the roots until Bley returns with an amelodic part where he plays underneath the piano strings plucking, muting, and hammering toward the big ending. This is Bley perched on the beginning of multiple stylistic endeavors. Some with synths, some solo, some more with powerful trios. However, the true electricity of Paul Bley is captured here.
ORNETTE COLEMAN - The Genesis of Genius: The Contemporary Albums [LP/CD](Craft)
On his first two classic records as a bandleader, Ornette Coleman keeps the Hard-Bop intact but begins his tilt toward wailing and the “Free Jazz” about to come. “Something Else!!!!” is still worth the four exclamation points. With Don Cherry on cornet and Billy Higgins driving every track from behind his drum set, Coleman redefines “melody” to include more wild runs with dissonant notes. “Invisible” is blistering and “The Blessing” charming because of Coleman and Cherry’s slightly off-kilter meshing. Where Coleman kind of “hiccups” against the beat and holds his notes, Cherry slides in and smooths it back out again. The two play in tandem on “Jayne” stretching their melody against Higgins’ swinging Latin-inflected beat. “Chippie” is everyone running so fast they are trying to achieve escape velocity from the chords. Listening to the entire band race through these oddly paced sequences (rarely an 8-bar moment) is exhilarating because it is as if Coleman is announcing to the world that Jazz should have no rules. Its 1959 follow-up “Tomorrow Is The Question!” solidifies Coleman's dense ideas of melody. First of all, while the piano was not an anchor on “Something Else!!!!,” its purpose for chords was what Coleman and Cherry were trying to get away from. The precision of the runs on “Chippie” was good, but the solos on “Jayne” for example are not quite the “unexpected” that Coleman seemed to be pursuing. “Mind and Time” ties Coleman and Cherry in a knot and begins their ability to “converse” with each other through their instruments. Throughout the album, Cherry’s taking over the solo part from Coleman often overlaps. On the slower cuts, minus the piano, when the music drops out for a moment (“Lorraine” and the Red Mitchell bass solo on “Turnaround”) it lends to real drama. Most importantly are now Cherry and Coleman now play around with the accents on their phrases (which are growing in length too) changing them, retooling them, and even using them to fool you a little. (For example, the album title is just a declarative statement. However, change the emphasis, and “Tomorrow IS The Question” takes on a whole new meaning.) All of this harmonic freedom is about to give Coleman flight. Despite John Lewis of the MJQ getting Coleman a deal with Atlantic Records, Coleman will consider quitting jazz altogether. Fortunately, Neshui Ertegun will convince him to keep playing and even change his next album title from “Focus on Sanity” to the more prescient “The Shape of Jazz To Come.” For more on Ornette Coleman, feel free to enjoy this previous deep dive into Round Trip - The Complete Ornette Coleman on Blue Note.
Let’s call it…otherWORLDly music
EL KHAT -Aalbat Alawi 99 [LP(Glitterbeat)
SOCIETE ETRANGE - Chance [LP/CD](Disques Bongo Joe)
SO SNER - Reime [LP](TAL GER)
El Khat turns Yemeni music upside down. Their organs and guitars ring out from every different direction. Vocals appear and reappear as if they are hidden in this place. The horns blare out at neighbor-waking volume at times. Still, the tracks here lope along drawing you further into this melodic puzzle. “La Sama” feels incomplete but it is not - it is El Khat making sense of their culture and how to translate it to the world at large. This quartet hailing from Iraq, Poland, Morocco, and Yemen are figuring out their music while we are digesting it. As a result, a danceable track like “Djaja” is a rule-breaker with the taunting voices of children, a beat purposefully played offbeat, and a keyboard that sounds like horns someone brought home from a bazaar. After you listen, that buzzing in your head is El Khat playing on its own.
The 2020’s have seen a major comeback in artists chasing after that danceable but experimental Downtown NYC 81 sound. Societe Etrange is a gauzy, dubby, slightly motorik revamp of ESG (but more laid back on “La Rue Principale de Grandrif”) and Liquid Liquid (heavy rubbery bass on “Sur La Piste de Danse.”) Their synth sounds are strangely subtle and the best tracks (the closer “Futur”) oozes out of your speakers without announcing itself. Six hypnotic songs (that pitch blend on “Nute” is made for someone’s druggy dreams) that make you listen closely.
In music, we too often focus on the fastest, almost blinding fleet-fingered notes on an instrument where notes appear in a blur. What about the essence of control in slowly coaxing and taming the wilder sounds one can make with just wood and air? So Sner pairs Viennese bass clarinet player Susanna Gartmayer with the minimal synths of Stefan Schneider. Gartmayer’s low notes warm the chirping wooziness of Schneider’s knob-twirling (“Animals Will Help,”) and lend Eastern European melody to the loping “Resistance.” “Tiny Winnetou” has her phantom harmonics mixing with the subtle electronic notes until you cannot tell a difference. Schneider’s looping and sounds are far from being just background. When Gartmayer even uses slapping the keys on her bass clarinet to get a more percussive sound, you know each musician is inspiring the other one to climb - just remember, this is a patient ascent. Expect to be well-rewarded at the summit.
Things get wild…with some searing METAL!
ABBATH - Dread Reaver [CD](Season of Mist/The Orchard)
While "Dread Reaver" may not be as bleak and blistering in the Black Metal camp as previous efforts, it does strangely fuse NWOBHM's gallop with the sheets of guitar and Abbath Doom Occulta's shredding-throat vocals. The energy of both Black Metal and early Metal make "Reaver" a neck-banging locomotive-speed album. "Acid Haze" opens the album with an eye-opening layering of riffs, while "Scarred Core" introduces a Motorhead-ish groove to the proceedings. However, it is "Dream Evil" and its NWOBHM gallop and melodic solo blended with the haze of Black Metal that emerges as single-worthy. Like its Dio-ish title, "Dread Reaver" is very Eighties in the thunderous drums (no worries, that double-kick beat shows up on the barbaric yowl of Speed Metal-laden suite "Myrmidon") and ringing cymbal bells. The guitars sound forged from sheet metal. Riffs slice through the songs, especially stop/start breaks, but that chaotic near-white noise guitar is always lurking in the background. Finally, if they were not wearing enough of their influences and inspirations on their sleeve, Abbath even toss in an epic cover of Metallica's "Trapped Under Ice." "Dread Reaver" is both as Black Metal as its lineage and Venom-ous as the band who gave it its name.
ABSENT IN BODY - Plague God [LP/CD](Relapse/The Orchard)
Frightening atmospheric Metal group Absent In Body sounds the death knell on their Industrial-noise scary debut. Turbulent but slow, sludgy but clean, Scott Kelly of Neurosis sings with Colin H. Van Eeckhout of Amenra over a cauldron of nerve-shattering tones from Mathieu J. Vanderkerckhove (founder of this project) and Igor Cavalera of Neurosis stomping a beat like Godzilla crushing buildings in slow motion. As unsettling in places as Amenra, Absent In Body still find those moments of respite (the middle section of "The Acres/The Ache,") then Cavalera's echoing tribal beat and the band's swirl of noise return to keep you afraid. A chilling debut from more converts to the Church of Ra.
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