NEW. MUSIC. FRIDAY here for you. To listen. To be listened to. To understand. Comprehend
(and bring you as much enjoyment as we could sift from the stacks this week.)
SOULMADE - Tangram [LP](hhv.de GER/Fatbeats)
A good instrumental Hip-Hop record merits examination (especially since there are no lyrics there to introduce self-examination into the proceedings.) In the wake of the dreaded “Lo-Fi Hip Hop” craze, now too many people think they can just scrape some beats, small sample clips, and other ephemera into a groove. Maybe for you. However, this generation’s instrumental Hip-Hop continues to be mixed like Electronic/EDM music - a lot of switching on, followed by a lot of switching off. That is why a record like “Tangram” works. The beats are solid. They carry that slightly unquantized quality that lets you find the syncopated inner groove. On a track like “Gimme,” the sample is really part of the beat working in reverse. The standout “Rain” hits you with unidentifiable swooping sounds and then an old-school Hank Shocklee-esque sax bump. In the background, some very subtle flutes are spinning away and the whole bed for “Rain” only stops when it needs to. The very A Tribe Called Quest pairing of samples on “Working Class” immediately opens up that groove and flows along. In fact, the whole track is just begging for some Q-Tip vs. Rakim-style rhymes. When an instrumental makes you want to hear verses over it - that may be the highest praise of all.
NALA SINEPHRO - Space 1.8 [CD](Warp/Redeye)
In that twilight world that exists between Ambient’s musical rays of light and the melodic touches of spiritual Jazz, Nala Sinephro composes beautiful otherworldly music. “Space 1.8” is a stunner from start to finish. Like most new “ambient” titles that catch on, it travels well. Time stands still on the airy underpinnings of “Space 2,” while the floating chords and saxophone frills of “Space 4” are like a trip to a modern London Underground Jazz dreamworld. “Space 1.8” is beautifully composed and recreated.
TANGERINE DREAM - Raum [LP/CD](KScope UK)
Modern Tangerine Dream is a tough sell. While this incarnation is full of talented musicians, the magic of their older compositions does not always come through. Working with several older Edgar Froese pieces here, this Tangerine Dream gets it right. The title track is a beautiful exploration of the wash of synths that made their “Thief” soundtrack so riveting with a hint of early TG Seventies composition. While “You’re Always On Time” surprises you with Hoshiko Yamane’s violin but maintains the Froese-like trance. Stretching these long-simmering ideas out seems to play well with these devotees who want their version of Tangerine Dream to get by on more than name recognition alone.
MOVIETONE - Peel Sessions 1994-1997 [LP](Textile FRA)
Contemporaries of the Nineties Bristol scene, Movietone (and the other locals like Flying Saucer Attack - with whom they shared Rachel Brook) were taking the lysergic, meditative side of Spacemen 3 a few steps further. These three Peel Sessions give you a snapshot of the band at their most composition-friendly. Several songs are simply quiet (the haunting “Blank Like Snow” with a Radiohead-esque Rhodes piano part and the dramatic “The Blossom Filled Streets” which finds a fantastic melody without getting above a whisper) and even surprisingly loud (the GbV-esque “Stone.”) However, Movietone finds so many places between that these tracks still sound like they could be released this week. The lengthy “Summer,” and the swishy “Hydra” fit right in with Black Country, New Road; and caroline. While the string-driven, piano-strikes and glass breaking on “Mono Valley” and Arab Strap-esque spoken word and clarinet on “Heatwave Pavement” fit in with all the UK bands who use their music as a talking point. Movietone (and the rest of those Bristol bands of their time) deserve a new perusal.
Various Artists - ALGO SALVAJE VOL. 3 [2LP](Munster GER)
This Spanish equivalent of “Nuggets” gathers a fantastic set of singles that celebrate US/UK Rock N’ Roll in the Sixties with fledgling rockers trying their hands at Garage, Pop, and even a little Doo-Wop based fun. Of course, the most fun you can have is with the myriad of covers (Los Tiburones.) However, listening to these excited fans try to mimic the Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones and more is just as entertaining. Some of the singles (the great Los Bohemios, for example) play within their limitations, but their vocal peaks and all the “surprises” make the recordings jump out. It is even more cool to hear a band work in a real Latin rhythm (the late Fifties swish of Els 4 Gats - complete with froggy baritone,) or wild sax (the driving Los Nivram.) Like the other two (both are also recommended,) “Algo Salvaje” is endless amusement for Garage/Sixties enthusiasts.
MY DAD IS DEAD - …and he’s not going to take it anymore [LP/CD](Scat)
At a halfway point between Steve Albini’s post-industrial Midwest rage in Big Black and Ian Curtis’ vacillation between palpable sadness and self-deprecation, there is Mark Edwards. Starting My Dad Is Dead in 1984 was clearly therapeutic for Edwards who lost both his parents by the time he was 21. Edwards finds punch in the downstroke of his guitar, riding those root notes on the bass and swelling drums or drum machine. However, many years removed from its contemporaries, My Dad Is Dead lives on its own in a world of gloomy honest, and clever introspection. “Talk To The Weatherman” is almost jangly but still bleak. Then as Edwards turns the pages on the memories he is writing from, the music continues to change slightly. He can be blistering either with weirdly danceable beats (“Mary Jane”) or the Husker Du/early Yo La Tengo-ish slam (“Black Cloud” and its pleas to “hold on to the memories” really grabs you.) Where Edwards gets obtuse musically (the squall of “Say Goodbye,”) the choruses or breaks wind up finding the melody. Perhaps, Edwards was even finding the pattern of “release and relieve” in these powerful songs. “…and he’s not going to take it anymore” makes a bold statement in its reconstitution of AmerIndie circa 1985. The most timely song, the character sketch/Minutemen-esque social examination of “40 Hours” could have been a video that sneaked into the last set on MTV’s “120 Minutes.” What is most fascinating, is just how Edwards is also still holding on to the brash sound of Cleveland in the late Seventies. My Dad Is Dead could have easily played with Rocket From The Tombs or even Electric Eels. This is a record that booms and works around the hollowness of its cassette source (“My Head”) and yet never sounds too much like any of its possible sources of inspiration.
ARABS IN ASPIC - Progeria EP [LP](Karisma NOR/Redeye)
Trondheim, Norway’s Arabs in Aspic is one of those Prog bands that does not take itself too seriously. As a result, they pick two separate strata to soar in. “Progeria” is early Arabs in Aspic. While formative, it is most entertaining to listen to the band play outside of all classifications. “Silver Storm” is an organ-constructed, slow-burning rager that brings in enough fuzz bass to sound like early Sabbath. On the other (more Prog-ian hand,) the opus “Shelobs Cave/The Great Shelob/Wizard In White” floats along like a bluesy Hawkwind drifting on waves of effects and the infiltration of Dik Mik-style oscillations. Finally, there is the nine-minute run through “Megalodon” which sounds titanic as it mixes panning, phasing fuzz bass, and synth squiggles until the organ enters to give you that circus/funhouse feeling someone slipped you something.
HASSAN IBN ALI - Metaphysics: The Lost Atlantic Album [LP](Omnivore/Sony CAN)
Jazz involves so much theory, but to be honest, you never really get the chance to hear it as it coalesces. You can listen to multiple takes of a song, and notice how the energy changes, or a different solo makes returning to the head feel different. However, the piano work of Hassan Ibn Ali is one that demands close listening and actual study. Like Bud Powell or Herbie Nichols, Ali is a piano player at the peak of his powers. There is a release coming for RSD 22 (“Retrospect In Retirement of Delay: The Solo Recordings) that has Ali playing standards one after another into a small Norelco tape recorder from 1962-1965. His prowess on the keyboard is astounding and the way just thinking about the song just allows it to then summon the feeling to (what feels like) unknowingly play the song- is entrancing. Those sessions led to this lost album from 1965. The year is key. Ali made two albums. “The Max Roach Trio Featuring The Legendary Hassan” with Max Roach and bassist Art Davis, and this “lost album” with Davis again, drummer Kalil Madi, and saxophonist Odean Pope. Until recently, the Max Roach record was the only Ali record in print. “Metaphysics” supposedly burned up in a fire in 1978. A few years ago, a tape was found in the Warner vault.
The “science” of Ali is the famous “sheets of sound” playing that he once explained to John Coltrane. Listening to Ali plays “streams” of notes over the movement of the chords takes a little while to get used to. Unlike McCoy Tyner or Thelonious Monk, Ali is not really interested in block chording. Instead, these “streams” of notes have the same effect - yet they are always moving. Like the mercurial soloing of Bud Powell, Ali is all over the piano - but never what you would deem “too busy.” The seven selections here (and three shorter versions) have been painstakingly remastered to sound crisp enough to cover the swath of audio frequencies this music needs to exist. His left-hand work is often very Monk-ish, using a lumbering bass line to counter the modal spread of his right-hand runs. When he finally meets in the middle of the keyboard, it is for perhaps just one large chord - but again nothing as muscular as you would hear from the other pianists in the Sixties. In the end, Ali is so lithe and dexterous - even when one of his experimental sections hits cacophonous points - he pulls it back to renew it with a sparkling Bud Powell-esque run.
They only made 1500 of these prizes the first time around. This new Canadian pressing is likely to go as quickly as well. “Metaphysics” (and for that matter “Retrospect”) are a pair of records that teach you what Jazz Piano is really all about.
A METALLIC BIG FINISH (this one is really LOUD)[and FAST]
NAPALM DEATH - Resentment Is Always Seismic - A Final Throw of Throes [LP](Century Media/The Orchard)
WIEGEDOOD - There’s Always Blood At The End of The Road [CD](Century Media/The Orchard)
Fantastically constructed Extreme Metal is going to get you every time. While we realize, this branch of Metal is not for all ears - here are a pair of records that dare to push the limits of Metallic music that can (sometimes) feel played out too quickly. Napalm Death founded this subgenre back in the Eighties with Grindcore. It is hard to fathom how a band once famous for pugilistic songs that were only seconds long, can make a Thrash/Sludge/Doom EP that runs longer than some modern albums do. Like their excellent 2020 album “Throes of Joy In The Jaws of Defeatism,” Napalm Death is getting older and more like a musical battering ram. “By Proxy” is a mosh pit committed to wax. The single “Narcissus” is like Nineties RAWK with a singer that gargles acid in opposition to worshipping Robert Plant. While they have always been “Aggro,” with guitars enveloped in waves of effects and Barney Greenway bellowing through distortion about “sinners,” “Resentment Always Simmers” is new even for a group turning 40 this year. They cover Bad Brains and Slab, but the fact that they take such chances on their originals this time out (the slicing Grindcore of “Don’t Need It” paired with the Doom/dirge outro. This EP is no stopgap. It leaves you dying to know what they will do next.
Black Metal bands need two things: to be amazingly consistent and find some element (or elements) to take chances with to emerge from the throat-scarring, pummeling drums, and shredding guitars pack. The Belgian band Wiegedood issues a real wake-up call for those other Black Metal bands. “Blood” is both eye-opening and cleanly recorded. “FN SCAR 16” sounds like a swarm of bees attacking you while a guttural voice from beyond yells at you to keep moving. There are neat guitar licks added to the middle that never seem lost and it builds up perfectly to leap into the next song “And In Old Salamano’s Room, The Dog Whimpered Softly” which it does without pause or warning. However, a few minutes into “Whimpered,” it slows down to a near Doom-pace but those metallic guitars continue to chug and hit the occasional striking chord. As it slows down even further, a frightening backward crying voice enters and your time of respite is brief as we fire into the abstract, bleak nightmare chime that opens “Noblesse Oblige Richesse Oblige” - a well-arranged cut that leaves you feeling as if you are on a downward spiral to an unknown lair. Through the remainder of the record, those punishing guitar lines continue to come at you from every angle but never lose the impact of their amphetamine-level picking. The massive eight minutes of “Now Will Always Be” descends into a slowdown and then acoustic plucking of the brief “Wade” (which is still uncomfortable with a loud buzz in the background.) This leaves the final three to decimate everything you have thought about Black Metal. “Nuages” and especially the atonal end of “Carousel” show hints of King Crimson in between their consistent waves of noise. While it is obvious Wiegedood is part of that Church of Ra (Amenra would be their closest comparison,) “There’s Always Blood” puts them in their own classification.
Well, another week, another list of several different styles and pursuits in music for you. Enjoy. Listen again. Share as you wish.
NEW RELEASES lovingly compiled for you from this very week!
T-BONES Records and Cafe is a full-service fast-casual restaurant and record store in Hattiesburg, MS. We are a member of the Coalition of Independent Music Stores and are the longest-running record store in the state of Mississippi. If you have questions - we have answers … and probably a lot more information just waiting for you at:
tbone@tbonescafe.com
Visit our website for more information and shop in our ONLINE store if you wish.
T-BONES ships the best music all over the United States daily. We also specialize in Special Orders. Let us know what you are looking for - we are thrilled to help.