A Few Forthcoming Releases (Feb 2009)

Feb 2nd
CHRIS ECKMAN – Last Side of the Mountain (Glitterhouse)
DAKOTA SUITE – The End of Trying (Karaoke Kalk)
HARMONIC 313 – When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence (Warp)
SYNTHEME – Lasers ‘n’ Shit (Planet Mu)
VARIOUS – Rough Trade Shops – Counter Culture 2008 (Rough Trade)
VARIOUS – Complete Motown Singles Volume 11a (UK) (Universal)

Feb 9th
JON HASSELL – Last Night the Moon Came Dropping Its Clothes in the Street (ECM)
MOS DEF – The Ecstatic (Downtown)
NELS CLINE – Coward (Cryptogramophon)
RAYMOND SCOTT WOOLSON – Broken Things Mended (Clairecords)

Feb 16th
BEIRUT – March of the Zapotec and Realpeople Holland (Pompeii)
BUSHMAN’S REVENGE – You Lost Me At Hello (Rune Grammofon)
DRONES – Havilah (ATP)
LARS HORNTVETH – Kaleidoscopic (Smalltown Supersound)
MOUNTAINS – Choral (Thrill Jockey)
SUSUMU YOKOTA – Mother (Lo)
SVALASTOG – Timer (Beatservice)

Feb 23rd
AND YOU WILL KNOW US BY THE TRAIL OF DEAD – Century of Self (RSK)
B12 – B12 Records Archive Vol.4 (B12)
CARL CRAIG & MORITZ VON OSWALD – Recomposed (Universal)
JACKIE-O MOTHERFUCKER – Blood (Fire)
JAZZANOVA – Of All The Things (Universal)
KEEF BAKER – Pen Fifteen (Hymen)
LOREN CONNORS – The Curse of Midnight Mary (Family Vineyard)
MARCHING DYNAMICS – The Workers Party of Haiti (Hymen)
MATTHEW SHIPP – Harmonic Disorder (Thirsty Ear)
PAN AMERICAN – White Bird Release (Kranky)
ZUKANICAN – The Stumbling Block (Pickled Egg)

Mar 2nd
FAUST – C’est Com… Com… Complique (Bureau B)
GRANDMASTER FLASH – The Bridge (Strut)
NEKO CASE – Middle Cyclone (Anti)
SVARTE GREINE – Kappe (Type)

Mar 9th
LAND OF KUSH – Against the Day (Constellation)
MY BLOODY VALENTINE – Isn’t Anything / Loveless remasters (Sony)
SUBTRACTIVELAD – Where the Land Meets The Sky (N5MD)

Mar 16th
BAJA – Aether Obelisk (Other Electricities)
BELMEZ – Aparaciones (Acuarela)
BONNIE PRINCE BILLY – Beware (Drag City)
TIM EXILE – Listening Tree (Warp)

Mar 23rd
MONO – Hymn to the Immortal Wind (Temporary Residence)

Apr 13th
BILL CALLAHAN – Sometimes I Wish I Were An Eagle (Drag City)

Album: REMEMBER REMEMBER – Remember Remember (Rock Action ROCKACT42 2008)

Rubber shark? Check. Sellotape dispenser? Check. Wind-up monkey? Check. Bubblewrap? Check. As far as a list of instruments used on a recording is concerned, there can be few stranger than the credits on the debut album by Graeme Ronald, aka Remember Remember.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who’s seen him live. Tunes are built up using self-samples – layering loop upon loop to give a big and complex sound. Often they begin with the click of a lighter or the clack of a pair of scissors and work up from there. It’s a methodology fraught with danger. A conventional musician can play a bum note and move on, but a bum note sampled keeps returning to haunt you. When it all goes according to plan, it can sound wonderful, but when it doesn’t…

Of course, in the studio, none of this matters. Mistakes can be eradicated, and the finished article probably sounds much more like it was intended to, than it often does live.

Remember Remember runs like a ten track suite, with each of the tunes seamlessly morphing into the next. At least, it does for the most part. The opening piano piece sets the scene but ends clunkily, and in the grand scheme of things, doesn’t seem particularly necessary. It’s the only real reservation about the record. From that point on, the music ebbs and flows, twists and turns, builds and falls with a series of beguiling melodies. Sometimes the tunes are mellow and low key; on other occasions (such as “Imagining Things (i)”), they swell up into a grand sound that encompasses live drums and violin. There’s none of the post-rock quiet/loud cliché, though – the music is much more subtle than that.

Some of the tracks move into serialist territory, with tight repetition a la Philip Glass or Michael Nyman, but others are looser. “Genie” comes across like Can attempting to provide a soundtrack to Trumpton. The last four tracks are probably the best. By this point, it feels like the music is flying on its own. It’s an excellent debut. Now he just needs to sort out the live shows.

Tracks
1 And The Demon Said… (1:19)
2 The Dancing (5:11)
3 Genie (For Amaya) (7:01)
4 Fountain (4:17)
5 Mountain (4:12)
6 The Swimming (5:15)
7 How Did You End Up Like This? (5:33)
8 Imagining Things (i) (5:22)
9 Imagining Things (ii) (5:57)
10 Up In A Blue Light (9:10)

Websites
www.rock-action.co.uk
www.myspace.com/rememberremember

The M M & M 1000 – part 14

Here’s the latest batch of Music Musings and Miscellany’s unapologetically subjective selection of the twentieth century’s best 1000 singles. Continuing the Ds.

BLIND BLAKE – Diddie Wa Diddie / Police Dog Blues (Paramount 12888 1929)
Ragtime and blues guitarist Blind Blake wrote many songs more serious than this, but it’s an engaging little piece of nonsense. “I went around and walked around, somebody yelled, said, “Look who’s in town” / Mister Diddie Wa Diddie / Mister Diddie Wa Diddie / I wish somebody would tell me what Diddie Wa Diddie means!”

DELFONICS – Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind This Time) / Down Is up, Up Is Down (Philly Groove 161 1970)
This classic sweet soul ballad gained a new lease of life when it was heavily featured in Tarantino’s Jackie Brown. It’s an uplifting tale of escape from an emotionally abusive relationship.

JOHN LEE HOOKER – Dimples / Bay Lee (Vee-Jay 205 1956)
Hooker’s best uptempo songs had a swagger of machismo that no blues band acolytes could ever hope to match. You wouldn’t have thought a song called “Dimples” (which sounds like somebody’s pet bunny rabbit) could be so full of testosterone.

KING OLIVER’S CREOLE JAZZ BAND – Dippermouth Blues / Weatherbird Rag (Gennett 5132 1923)
The Original Dixieland Jazz Band may have been the first to record a jazz record in 1917, but this was probably the first true masterpiece of the genre. Though hailing from New Orleans, the band were actually based in Chicago when they made these recordings, away from the stifling grip of the Jim Crow laws. “Dippermouth Blues” features Joe Oliver on cornet, future husband and wife team Louis and Lil Armstrong (then Hardin) on second cornet and piano and brothers Baby and Johnny Dodds on drums and clarinet: a collection of some of the finest talent of the pre-bop era.

UNDERWORLD – Dirty Epic / various mixes (Intercord Tonträger 893019 1994)
OK, I’m cheating a bit here. “Dirty Epic” was never actually released in the UK as a single, except in remixed white label bootleg form. And the US issue (which I wrote about here) is a sprawling 70 minute plus collection that’s an EP in name only. So I’ve plumped for an obscure German issue of the track to fit it into my criteria. Why? Because it’s just a wonderful, hypnotic, melancholy AND euphoric stream of consciousness.

STANDELLS – Dirty Water / Rari (Tower 185 1965)
The Standells were one of the best garage bands to emerge in the mid sixties. The “Dirty Water” in question is the Charles River in Boston. But despite their snotty, punk, east coast attitude, the band were from Los Angeles, and the song was written by record producer Ed Cobb. To undermine authenticity further, they had a former Mouseketeer amongst their number. They still sound like a gang of street ruffians, though, so there’s no harm in pretending.

FRANK WILSON – Do I Love You? / same (Soul 35019 1966)
THE CONTOURS – Do You Love Me? / Move Mr Man (Gordy 7005 1962)
For more on Frank Wilson’s little piece of history, go here. Four years previously, the Contours gave Motown an early smash with the raucous “Do You Love Me?”. The song was almost a throwback to early rock and roll acts like The Treniers. It quickly became a beat group standard over here.

STEELY DAN – Do It Again / Fire in the Hole (ABC 11338 1972)
“Do It Again” was the band’s first hit, but already it contained their trademark snooty misanthropy. A cautionary tale about folk who never learn from their mistakes.

PULP – Do You Remember The First Time? / Street Lites (Island 574 1994)
A lot of Pulp songs seem to concern themselves with reminiscences of teenage affairs and adolescent sexual awakenings. “Babies” and “Disco 2000” mine a similar field. Like those two (and others) “Do You Remember The First Time?” is a mini play about working class life topped off with a veneer of glamour and a glorious pop chorus.

OTIS REDDING – (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay / Sweet Lorene (Volt 157 1968)
Soul? Country? Rock? Pop? “Dock of the Bay” ties them all together with string, leaving a genre-defying piece of hazy idleness. No song conveys that supreme satisfaction of just sitting, contemplating and smelling the sweet salt air as well as this. It’s a cruel irony that such a life-affirming song should be a posthumous release. Best whistling on a record, too. No debate.

JELLY ROLL MORTON’S RED HOT PEPPERS – Doctor Jazz / Memphis Shake (Victor 20415 1926)
Ferdinand Morton was one of the pioneers of New Orleans jazz, but came relatively late to the recording studio. “Doctor Jazz” became something of a theme tune for Morton, even though it was written by Joe ‘King’ Oliver. Whether it’s talking about jazz using drug metaphors or the other way around is a moot point. “The more I get, the more I want it soon / I see Doctor Jazz in all my dreams / When I’m in trouble bounds are mixed / He’s the guy who gets me fixed / Hello central give me Doctor Jazz”.

HOLE – Doll Parts / The Void (Geffen 91 1995)
Courtney Love is such a controversial figure that the music gets forgotten. Live Through This is a great album, and “Doll Parts” one of the very best songs on it.

FRED NEIL – Dolphins / Badi-Da (Capitol 5786 1966)
Greenwich Village folk legend spent only around a decade making records, before spending the rest of his life working with dolphins in Florida. This song may partly explain why. It’s a weary tune, resigned to the fact that the ways of the world – violence, war and suffering – are never likely to change. A cheery note on which to end this latest installment.

More soon

The Guardian’s 50 great moments in jazz

Just a note on an interesting 50 part series that kicked off on the Grauniad website today, a selection of fifty of the most significant recordings in jazz history, selected by John Fordham. It kicks off, reasonably enough, with the first jazz recording ever made – “Livery Stable Blues” by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band. They were a white band doing a sanitised version of a black sound – a bit like Elvis I suppose!

One of the first comments on the piece mentions a song by Byron Harlan and Arthur Collins called “That Funny Jas Band from Dixieland” and recorded in 1916, the year before the ODJB record. It’s a comedy music hall number, not a jazz tune as such, but includes a painful approximation of a jazz troupe by an orchestra who clearly haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. Anyway, that little curiosity can be found on the Internet Archive, right here.

TV: Folk America

BBC4 has run some excellent music documentary series in the last couple of years in the ‘Britannia’ string. There was Folk Britannia, Jazz Britannia, Pop Britannia, Dance Britannia and, most recently, the frequently hilarious stand-alone doc Prog Rock Britannia. All have followed a straight forward formula of telling a particular genre history through archive footage and relevant talking heads. No gimmicks, no flash – just letting the reminiscences and film tell the story.

The focus shifts across the pond for this latest three part series that tells the story of American folk from its recorded beginnings at the dawn of the twenties through to the boom of the early sixties. The first episode of Folk America looked at the extraordinary period between around 1925 and 1929 when the whole blueprint of twentieth century American music was established. A booming economy meant money in people’s pockets, and that led to the huge rise in demand for consumer goods including phonographs and records.

The record industry was transformed. Prior to the twenties, most recorded music was either classical (Caruso et al), from music hall and vaudeville, or ethnic music designed to appeal to European immigrants (polkas, Yiddish music, Irish sentimental ballads and the like). The American South was an unexplored and unexploited terrain. That changed in the twenties when all the major companies went on a signing frenzy. It was like lifting up a paving slab on a hot day, uncovering a myriad of bustling life.

The film looked at the stories of many of the major artists of the era – Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Dock Boggs, Uncle Dave Macon, Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family among many others. These were fascinating stories of cotton pickers, mill workers, hobos and miners who struck lucky and managed to break away from the grind through their extraordinary talent.

The interviewees were an impressive mix of big names (Pete and Mike Seeger, Tom Paxton, Steve Earle), family members of some of the old legends, respected historians like Tony Russell and a few of the remaining old timers. David ‘Honeyboy’ Edwards and Slim Bryant are both active and in their nineties. Banjoist Wade Mainer is 101, and can still pluck a mean tune out of his instrument.

The boom didn’t last. The Depression came, and the record industry was virtually wiped out. The lucky musicians returned to their former jobs. Some ended up as street performers. Many died young in extreme poverty.

This was an exemplary documentary. It was hard to believe they managed to cram so much into an hour, and yet still give the music and the artists due attention. The next episode airs on Friday 30th, and covers the Depression era politicised folk music of the likes of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Josh White and others. In the meantime, those of you in the UK can see episode one on the BBC iPlayer for the next week. If you can, you really should.

EP: TIGRICS – Brokenret (Highpoint Lowlife HPLL032 2009)

As from this year, Highpoint Lowlife has announced that it’s eschewing physical releases in favour of digital downloads. While that’s a decision that’s eminently understandable from an economic point of view, I still think that it’s a shame. The virtual vs physical debate is one that has raged on, and will continue to do so. I think everyone knows the arguments on either side by heart by now.

The good news, of course, is that the label hasn’t done a Resonant / Woolworth / UK Economy and disappeared altogether. Indeed, with costs cut back, we are promised more music not less. The first thing to surface in 2009 is an EP by Budapest native Robert Bereznyei aka Tigrics.

Brokenret is a compact affair that contains three tracks and runs a little under a quarter of an hour. It’s an eclectic triptych. Lead track “Snyki” is a strange piece, with a scuttling, insectoid rhythm, that skittles along at a rare old pace, punctuated by almost random three-note analogue clusters. “Boko” has a more recognisably techno rhythm, with quasi-acid runs, and what sound like snippets of modem squeal. It seems to build up steam as it goes along before fading into crackle and fizz, and a distant melodic coda. The trio is completed by the 76 second sweet analogue melody of “Volatile”, a track that’s anything but.

This is a nice little selection that makes its point and leaves without hanging around for any small talk.

Tracks
1. Snyki 4:58
2. Boko (Katch kanari acid mix) 7:30
3. Volatile 1:16

Websites
www.tigrics.hu
www.highpointlowlife.com