.NEW.MUSIC.FRIDAY for you this week!
And you..and you..and you..also there is a BEATLES Deep Dive too
ULRICH SCHNAUSS AND MARK PETERS - Destiny Waiving [LP/CD](Bureau B/The Orchard)
For the end of their trilogy synthesis, Schnauss and Engineers guitarist Peters pull out all the stops and use every song as a means of exploration. While the entire release could have that drowsy meditative feeling, the mix of Schnauss and Peters is sometimes so dense - “Destiny Waiving” is a feast for your ears. The mixture of loose-strung chiming guitars over waves of delay (“Words Can Be Dismissed”) always find their most melodic peaks. Schnauss tends to let the songs build up and then accent or even play against what you have already heard. “Chiaroscuro” is a bright, bubbly, Eastern-tinged track with guitar arpeggios that bring the sense of travel. “Circular Time” dives into Shoegaze against a skittering drum machine, and “Hindsight is 20/20” could be a Folk song adorned with the gaze and bubble of synthesizer delights. ”Destiny Waiving” is a record to bask in.
ILLUDIUM - Ash of the Womb [LP/CD](Prophecy GER)
California’s Illudium is strangely soothing. Their light drone-to-heavy doom switches are surprising on their best songs. The nearly seven minutes of “Aster” is your best entrance to this Desert Rock-meets-Doom band. They introduce the twangy, winding central theme and their drummer comes in to push the beat. With her low Kate Bush-ian voice, Shantel Amundson lends mystery to their music - and then morphs into a real wailer on the anthemic chorus. If the songs of “Ash of the Womb” were slightly protracted, their structure would actually fit into the current return of 90’s grungy Alt. Rock. However, the band is so good at controlling the tension and dynamics that “Soma Sema” gets away with almost Prog-ian shifts but never lets you feel like they just switched on a dime. Illudium proves on “Ash” that they are really intense, but never tire you out.
Various Artists - IF I HAD A PAIR OF WINGS: JAMAICAN DOO-WOP VOL. 1-3 [CD](Death Is Not The End UK)
So much has been written and examined about the early history of Reggae Music. Ska borrows from American R&B. However when Mento was separate music, Jamaicans were already embracing Doo Wop like American Rock N’Roll fans. This collection of tracks from those glory days is astounding. While you will recognize a lot of the names, that simple swaying beat (sound familiar?) gives them the best possible chance to grow into great harmony singers and find the passion to sing alone. On an album with 42 amazing tracks, follow this example. “‘Til The End of Time” from Chuck & Dobby has that homemade charm in its recording where even a slightly wrong note simply cannot deter from the devotion these artists had for this new music. When Dobby Dobson goes solo on the sublime “Diamonds and Pearls,” he becomes a heartbreaker. Elsewhere a young Laurel Aitken favors you with a Johnny Ace-like “Heavenly Angel,” while Annette & Shenley evoke the same male/female magic that thousands of Country records will soon have. “If I Had A Pair of Wings” is an essential collection for any fans of Reggae in its most nascent days.
ALEX NORRIS - Fleet From The Heat [CD](Steeplechase DEN)
DAVID JANEWAY - Distant Voices [CD](Steeplechase DEN)
The Danish label Steeplechase has long been on the leading edge of Jazz. With the recent phenomenon of Jazz growing intensely modern and flirting with other music, Steeplechase has unearthed a pair of American players who make being Trad sound new.
Alex Norris has worked and recorded with a who's who of the last thirty years of Jazz. Betty Carter, Joshua Redman, Brad Mehldau, Chris Potter. On his new album, Norris leads his band through a steaming set of originals. To Norris' credit, he slips so easily from playing with the ensemble to soloing above them. The Hard Bop rave-up "Fleet From The Heat" flips around keys and Norris shows an endless array of melodic ideas. Beneath him, his rhythm section of bassist Paul Gill and drummer Brian Floody keep everything in perfect time and never miss the opportunity to use a quick accent or Philly Joe-like snare hit as a signal to ascend to another level. The light swing of "No Fair It's Mine" features Norris playing in tandem with his sax player Ari Ambrose. The way they complement each other, find a common note, and then one steps away so the other can solo makes these songs impressively cohesive. Even when a composition gets a little more complex like "Quadranemic," Norris and his group play so understated (pianist Jeremy Manasia might cover the most ground musically with those 88 keys - but you never are left feeling like he is trying to use it all at once,) "Fleet From The Heat" is the work of great leader playing with a great band.
David Janeway's post-Bop trio takes a brilliant look back at the piano players that inspire him. Hank Jones' "Minor Contentions" and Mercer Ellington's "Blue Serge" are great studies in the trio coalescing around Janeway's piano which moves from the familiar to his own eminently more modern style. In his own compositions, Janeway proves himself to be a good leader. The hard swing of "One For Cedar" is the best example as Janeway subtly takes them out of the head into his sparkling solo accented by skillful work from drummer Billy Hart. Hart's drum solo is extremely tasteful in its invention and Buddy Rich-ian build. When the trio tries out some intricate rhythms on "Sweet And Lovely," it is to translate Gus Arnheim's 1931 Foxtrot into a Blue Note-worthy recording.
CHERUBS - Slo Blo 4 Frnz & Sxy [LP/CD](Relapse/The Orchard)
Texas’ weirdo noise-rockers Cherubz get sludgy and wild even when they are not surrounding their music with headache-loud drums and severely overdriven guitars. The “Skrewed” versions of songs like “Sooey Pig” shape acoustic guitars into riff-and-drone-wielding beasts while vocalist Kevin Whitley has his vocals pitched down to a sad frequency. “Pig” and “Lazy Snakes” hearken back to the early daze of fellow Texans Butthole Surfers as discomforting sounds make every track one you must experience multiple times. Given that this is an EP’s worth of records, they do their very best to veer from side-to-side in every song before careening into the crevasse of distortion. “A Pair of Pear Tarts” rumbles like ancient Sonic Youth with air-raid guitars and a punishing bass line in a terrifying haze. “Slo Blo” is Sludge but with a distinct edge and punk underpinnings. While these jackhammer jams will likely leave you bleary-eyed and ibuprofen bound, something tells me that is both where they sprouted from and where they want to take us back to.
FLUIDS - Fluids of Death [LP](Hell's Headbangers)
Phoenix's Fluids take old-school Grindcore/Goregrind to a new extreme. "Heinous Ritual" has a precise battering ram of a double-kick run that will make your head spin. (Spoiler: "Varicose" somehow goes even harder.)When they slow down to dive into that classic chromatic wind-up, the guttural voice is over-dubbed several times making it erupt from your speakers. They also choose the most uncomfortable Audio Verite samples to manipulate since the early days of the Butthole Surfers. Their other 2021 album "Not Dark Yet" opens with a horrifying first track that sets the tone for the grisly journey ahead. For "Fluids of Death," they use these breaks to ratchet up your terrifying ride on the roller-coaster screaming downward. These are tracks that will make your eardrums bleed a little - but just in time for Halloween.
FRIED E/M - Modern World [LP](La Vida Es Un Mus UK)
From Missouri, Fried E/M rages like classic Flipper. Their best songs work like Thrash Punk at an amphetamine clip. The throbbing bass and swirl of guitar on the midtempo grind like "Peace and Love" give the band an opportunity to show their caustic lyrics. "Modern World" works both lightning-fast with chock-a-block chord changes and some truly dangerous stops. However, Fried E/M actually write their short, sharp, jagged songs to have structure. "Inner Peace" ramps up from the beginning to hit a double-time groove with thunderous drums and Greg Ginn-esque guitar squall. It is only a minute and ten seconds, but with its three parts - it is so consistent you never notice there is just one lyric (the mantra-like "I want inner peace/But all I feel is chaos.") Outstanding debut.
GIOVANNI LAMI, HANNIBAL CHEW III, AND BARDO TODOL - Stories of The Dotted Indian Whale [3 CS BOX](Sucata Tapes/Discrepant UK)
Three separate tape artists take various levels of noise and exotic field recordings to physically create another more transformative world.
Giovanni Lami's "ghost recordings of India" are entrancing. His pair of pieces are like if Negativland decided to create atmospheres in opposition to media worlds. Hannibal Chew uses a wash of sound and some very real, natural sound recordings (in both their proper form and altered through pitch-bending and other effects) to take you on a mesmerizing trip to a place that time likely forgot. So-called "noise prankster" Bardo Todol closes it out with an odyssey where the natural environment becomes more foreign and foreboding as the signal-to-noise ratios on the sounds are manipulated. Without instruments in play, somehow Todol finds an almost Industrial beat from air moving around the microphone which he then spins into "sections" of an aural spin cycle that carry you to an unknown plane.
A DEEP DIVE INTO THE GLYN JOHNS MIXES ON "LET IT BE" SUPER DELUXE
Controversy has whirled around "Let It Be" since its initial release on May 8, 1970. The Beatles having officially split one month earlier turned in an album that was in disarray and was already facing a lawsuit from United Artists over the release of the accompanying film. So, the solution at the time was to bring in Phil Spector to "fix" it.
As we have learned over the years, the ornate Spector mixes may have deterred from its impact. The "Let It Be...Naked" release, led by McCartney in 2003, was the beginning of new hope for the final Beatles album. Upon its release in 1970 (probably hindered by their squabbling in the press and the ongoing court cases,) "Let It Be" was widely panned. The NME called it "a cardboard tombstone" and "a cheapskate epitaph." However, the album still hit #1 around the world. The single "Let It Be" debuted at an astonishing #6 after its release on March 6, 1970, while the non-UK single "The Long And Winding Road" topped the US charts June 13, 1970. By this time, the damage was done, Ringo's "Sentimental Journey" was released in March, Paul's "McCartney" followed in April. This album made Lennon angry, despite his leaving in September 1969.
After the dissolution of The Beatles revealed itself on 1968's "The Beatles" (a/k/a "The White Album,") the band wanted to return to live performance as a means to capture that lost magic. In January 1969, The Beatles booked time at Twickenham studios and allowed Michael Lindsay-Hogg (fresh from directing the Rolling Stones' scrapped "Rock N' Roll Circus.") to film the process. Lennon was aloof and critical. Harrison was inspired by his time in the U.S. - but soundly rejected. In the end, Harrison and Lennon supposedly came to blows.
Harrison's terms for his return included the abandonment of the live show. They left Twickenham and returned to Apple Studios to record for ten days. With George Martin leaving during the turmoil of "The White Album" as well as his longtime engineer Geoff Emerick, the reins on these Twickenham and Apple sessions were turned over to Glyn Johns. From March 1969 until the end of May, Johns mixed (with the Beatles' blessing) the tracks that would comprise their "back-to-basics" return with "Get Back." To best understand where Johns was coming from, one only needs to listen to the single "Get Back" (released in April 1969.) Tracks still had scraps of dialogue, rough cuts of several ("Two of Us" and "The Long and Winding Road") were favored over the pristine studio takes, and "I've Got A Feeling" actually breaks down.
"Don't Let Me Down" is slightly slower, but Lennon's voice really cuts through the mix. You also get a piano solo from Billy Preston and more silliness from the Beatles around the mic. The song "Rocker/Save The Last Dance For Me" sounds like studio chaff. However, their harmonies start on the Pomus/Shuman classic before evolving into "Don't Let Me Down." Even more important is the inclusion of an old Lennon/McCartney composition from their early days "One After 909" which acts as a touchstone for how visceral yet playful the recordings should appear. The sequenced "Let It Be" relegated it to Side Two between Harrison's bluesy "I Me Mine" and McCartney's "The Long and Winding Road." Johns' "Get Back" starts off with it.
The second set of mixes from Johns came with the explicit instruction that they must be the songs that appear in the film. (For example, McCartney's "Teddy Boy" appears on Johns' first mix, but is omitted from the second - it will appear on McCartney's solo debut.) With a new vision (and less time,) Johns' second mix adds a remix of "Across The Universe" and a take of "I Me Mine" without Lennon. The original "fly-on-the-wall" idea that Johns worked from was quietly muted. In addition, in the interim between mixing sessions, Johns had released acetates of "Get Back" to a pair of radio stations in Boston and Buffalo. WBCN in Boston actually played the entire reel-to-reel on the air. Astute fans recorded it and quickly pressed it as "Kum Back" with the original cover idea. Other broadcasts happened in Windsor, CAN, and Cleveland. Strangely enough, on the day of the first broadcast (September 20 in Buffalo,) Rolling Stone publishes their review saying it is set for release in December. They hailed their "back-to-basics" approach and even mention the "Please Please Me" style cover.
On January 3, 1970, The Beatles rejected Johns' new version and began trying to find their way through the reels of music. Phil Spector had long wanted to work with The Beatles. Late March brought him his chance. As he began to remix and overdub, the album took a different shape. In the end, it was Lennon who decided not to credit Johns. While EMI was forced to inform George Martin that he would not get a production credit either (having been there for most of the early sessions and more than likely being eminently responsible for the arrangement of "Let It Be.") Martin and the band would actually look at completely scrapping the entire project after Johns' first mix and instead go to work on "Abbey Road"
Finally, a note about the packaging. Upon the release of "Let It Be" in 1970, The Beatles made it available in the UK in a lavish package with a 164-page hardback book "Get Back With The Beatles." This elaborate addition raised the price of the record by 33 percent to £2 19s 11d (around 3 dollars US. In today's value, the average price of an LP today.)
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