Sea of Bees – Build a bridge to the sun LP

http://www.gigslutz.co.uk/album-sea-bees-build-boat-sun/

Sea of Bees, headed by Julie Ann Baenziger (aka Julie Ann Bee), a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist from Sacramento, California, release Build a boat to the sun. After experiencing an epiphany at church, albeit musical as opposed to religious, ‘Bee’ fell headfirst into outpouring and channelling her emotions via music, swiftly and passionately acquiring musical aptitude and technique like collecting stamps.

This newie follows on from 2011’s debut Songs for the Ravens (an album that entranced no less a songsmith as Grandaddy’s Jason Lytle) and 2012’s break-up informed album Orangefarben.

‘Test Yourself’ is like a time-capsule from the 4AD stable, a summery folk-popper in the vein of the off-kilter confessionals of Throwing Muses, Belly or (the recently revived) The Juliana Hatfield Three) a ‘la-la-la’ chorus adorns this endearing and affecting opener.

‘Little sea’ is aural happiness and features a lovely horn section, short, simple and sweet a la Arthur Lee’s Love. ‘Dan’ is the standout, a slow-building moving moodscape evoking Grandaddy’s ‘The Crystal Lake’ with meandering and disorienting electronics that encircle the senses, this is happy-sad melancholy at its best.

The doo-woppy Chiffons/Shangri-Las-like ‘Dad’ is a not-overly mournful lament ‘I dreamed of you last night, building bridge ships to the sky’ with ‘Dad’s outsized footwear deployed as a metaphor for fitting/not fitting in.
Enjoyment of this album will depend on your tolerance of some of the vocals as there are times when they can grate, at worst coming across as simpering and winsome like an even more strangulated Joanna Newsom, an asphyxiated woodland sprite or coming across as a less weary, wary and battle-scarred Kristen Hersh in search of a ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ segment.

However, when they’re great (‘Test Yourself’, ‘Little Sea’ ‘Dan’) this is an enjoyable positively fragile album packed with a myriad of styles and emotions. This is about progression and how to go about negotiating the pitfalls and pratfalls of life. A mellow, meditative and musically varied yet also restrained album which denotes a blossoming future ahead. Climb onboard.

Have we met before? #95

Tags

BItter End, Juicebox, The Pretty Things, The Strokes

Have we met before/ #94

Tags

California, Lenny Kravitz, Let's spend the night together, The Rolling Stones

Peter Zinovieff Electronic Calendar : The EMS Tapes

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Agnus Dei, Brian Hodgson, Delia Derbyshire, M-Piriform, Peter Zinovieff, The Electronic Calendar : The EMS Tapes

http://www.gigslutz.co.uk/album-peter-zinovieff-electronic-calendar-ems-tapes/

Dr Peter Zinovieff is one history’s most enigmatic and influential electronic music composers, described by Deep Purple’s keys-king Jon Lord as “a true mad professor type”, his innovations in the design of electronic music instruments have left an indelible mark on the evolution of music technology.

‘The Electronic Calendar: The EMS Tapes’ is the first complete retrospective of his earliest experiments in 1965 through the bankruptcy of his company EMS Synthesizers in 1979.

Stifled by academia Zinovieff began creating music from splices of tape and after pawning his wife’s wedding tiara in 1964 his ‘shed’ became the most advanced music studio in the world: 384 oscillators with a super-computer at the hub; a hub that attracted curiosity in such forms as David Bowie, Paul McCartney, Pink Floyd and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

During 1966-67 Zinovieff worked with BBC Radiophonic deities, (beloved of groups like The Belbury Poly and The Advisory Circle) Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson and by 1969 Zinovieff formed EMS who developed the EMS VCS3, a portable analogue synthesiser used by The Who (‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’) Brian Eno and Jean Michel Jarre.

On this retrospective Zinovieff’s tackles the Christian song of mass ‘Agnus Dei’, the sound of syn(th) and penance, a ghostly voice escorting you to the altar to be introduced to the Maker and your ultimate fate.

‘ZASP 1-3 sounds like a prototype ‘Simon’ the memory toy with beeps and colours.‘Chronometer ‘71’ uses recordings of Big Ben and Wells Clock using an early form of sampling with pipes clanging, anvils hammered, taps tapping creating a nightmarish cacophony of disorientation.

‘China Music’ at times sounds like the start of the Rolling Stones’ ‘2000 Light years from home’ an ominous eerie atmosphere whilst ‘M-Piriform’ is a ghostly musical, a female voice shrieks and shrills creating an aural assault of noise, the sound of sleep apnoea.

The collection consists of doomy, moody aural suites that linger, resonate and disappear, at times like extra-terrestrial communication. As historical artefacts of forward thinking ‘music’ and the processes required to create such sounds (a feat done with considerable ease nowadays) this is an interesting collection. As a collection of ‘songs’ well, it’s not; it’s unlikely to be adorning coffee tables across middle-England yet more likely to be heard sound tracking coffee-bean ‘Beardfests’ across the nation.

This is the holy grail of electronic music, an archivists’ dream of what could be termed ‘pre-progressive music’. In times when all possible sounds have been captured and stored in little boxes this is the history of sound as sounds; echoes of a past that dreamt of bright futures, futures that didn’t transpire the way we hoped.

In today’s tech-connected hyper-sphere of instant gratification this is a reminder of the patience, diligence and vision once necessary to create the ‘new’, these are the sounds of trial and error, experimentation and dedication. One of the world’s first ‘computer artists’ this has to be listened to in the context of the time of its creation: this loop guru’s fingerprints are all over history from bpm to EDM. This is music as science, eerie sounds and atmospherics that could be the background to an episode of early Doctor Who or The Outer Limits. This thinking-man’s thinking music is a must for electronic buffs.

The Membranes – Dark Matter/Dark Energy LP

Tags

Dark Matter/Dark Energy, John Robb, Magic Eye (to see the Sky), Money is Dust, The Membranes, The Universe Explodes Into A Billion Photons of Pure White Light

http://www.gigslutz.co.uk/album-membranes-dark-matterdark-energy/

Fronted by singer, journalist and one-man mohawk John Robb (Sensurround, Goldblade), the Membranes formed in Blackpool in 1977 releasing ‘Pin Stripe Hype (a dig at the New Romantics?), the still-relevant ‘Death to Trad Rock’ and 1988’s Steve Albini produced Kiss Ass Godhead.

Dark Matter/Dark Energy is the first Membranes album since 1989 and was inspired by a conversation with CERN’s Joe Incandela about the Higgs Boson particle and by the death of Robb’s father. The album is a meditation on life/death/afterlife in the cosmos, the relationship and dichotomy between light and dark.

‘The Universe Explodes Into A Billion Photons of Pure White Light’ is spacey and droney in a song that doubles as a metaphor about sex, orgasm and the light of dying/dying light of life.

‘Do The Supernova’ is thumping with whispered asides, its title as a dance, ‘one for the money, two for the show … ‘Do the Supernova!’ that sounds eerily like the ‘Hi-de-Hi’ theme tune. Albini’s fan-as-producer turn is reciprocated with the Big Black/Shellac-sounding ‘21st Century Man’ which has Robb decrying a decaying body with an ever active mind accompanied by doom-laden piano.

‘Money Is Dust’ is an foreboding address on the cashless society, money as/is a form of control, enough for armaments yet not for the populace, Its place at the route/root of misery and once it’s gone so too is the freedom to move without trace, you are a cog in the machine.

‘The Multiverse Suite features Incandela’s narration and is similar in mood to scientifiction author Michael Moorcock’s work with Hawkwind. ‘Space Junk’ is grinding bass, warped guitar, percussion, ‘legacy of space travel … The future is now hi-tech trash … ‘ sounding like an angry Phil Daniels on Parklife.

‘Dark Matter’ features melancholic piano set to vocoded, robotic lyrics and the beep of a satellite/ship, voices from distant places: heaven/hell/memory? The eight-minute ‘In The Graveyard’ has Robb watching his father leave this mortal coil ‘… ashes to ashes … wind blows high, wind blows low, it doesn’t matter when you’re in the graveyard’ The elements can’t affect you anymore, you are dust to dust in the ether. The bass-driven coda is the sound of disintegration, the erosion of one existence before the eyes, passing from one form to another, physical to memorial.

The Arabic inflected ‘Magic Eye (to see the Sky) is an ode to the telescope, the portal to another realm, the conduit of hope and promise, the means to which we try to understand the meaning of life. The song is a deft nod to the advancements made in the regions aeons before the secret societies of Rome and Britain claimed credit (again).

The dubby and string (theory?)-driven ‘5776 (The Breathing Song)’ is a transcendental rumination on time, its passing and its constructive, constrictive and restrictive binding, there is no yesterday or tomorrow only ‘now’.

Despite the title this is a far from morose album, albeit anger is rife along with sadness and impotence. An eclectic brew of styles (Killing Joke’s anti-structural rage, Hawkwind’s transcendental odes) comprise this outstanding return from the band. Dark Matter/Dark Energy could be a companion piece to The Pop Group’s new album proving once more that the oldies are the goodies.

Anton Newcombe & Tess Parks – I Declare Nothing

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Anton Newcombe, Cocaine Cat, I declare nothing, Meliorist, October 2nd, Peace Defrost, Tess Parks, Wehmut

http://www.gigslutz.co.uk/album-anton-newcombe-tess-parks-declare-nothing/

Humphrey Osmond, psychiatrist and associate of Aldous Huxley wrote ‘to fathom hell or soar angelic, just take a pinch of psychedelic’.

Anton Newcombe, Il Capo of the wonderful titled portmanteau The Brian Jonestown Massacre has resolutely adhered to this dictum over the past 25 years, releasing 14 albums and hiring and firing numerous adhocs along the way, his spat with ‘copyists’ The Dandy Warhols was also captured in Ondi Timoner’s 2004 doc ‘Dig!’. Newcombe also continually champions kindred-spirits like (in attitude not aesthetically) Sleaford Mods, releasing a 10” single version of their ‘Fizzy’ in 2014.

Concocted in Newcombe’s Berlin studio ‘I Declare Nothing’ is the inaugural collaboration between Tess Parks and Newcombe. Canadian Parks moved to London, England seven years ago and met re-Creation bore Alan ‘Did I tell you I used to take the coke?’ McGreed, whose sage advice inspired Parks to produce 2013’s Blood Hot.

‘Wehmut’, Deutsch for ‘melancholy’ or ‘wistfulness’ does exactly what is prescribed. With vox reminiscent of Mazzy Star’s Hope Sandoval after chaining the ciggies, this is strumming guitar, laconic and hazy with woozy, breathy vocals. The sound of coming to after a sesh, the realisation that you don’t actually like anyone there. And they’re still talking about the same things. Again. Let me out. You don’t know where you are. You really do not want to go back in. You walk. Anywhere. But there.

‘Cocaine Cat’ was released as part of the annual, global ruse that is Record SHOP Day in April. That day when alleged scarcity = coolness. FOMO = £$£$£. The ambience is in a similar vein to Pixies’ Surfer Rosa as Parks’s vocals are more husky-do than don’t.

‘Peace Defrost’ continues the acoustic strum and fuzz throb, Parks’s larynx getting gravelly and dredgy, the sound of Granny taking a trip, ‘’ere are, love, gerrus a borrel o’Kool Aid will ya?”

‘October 2nd reminds of David Roback’s Paisley Underground affiliates Opal; languid keys supporting Parks’ laconic delivery. ‘Voyage de L’ame’ (The Journeys of the Soul) adds sweeping strings with lyrics of ‘I feel very small’ evoking Alice’s trip through the looking glass via ‘White Rabbit’s lysergic mania.

A ‘Meliorist’ is an individual who believes that human interference with natural processes can create a better world though altruism and benevolence, be it Individually or collectively; a utopian ideal maybe but not out of grasp. Newcombe adds his dulcet tones to this more upbeat number that has a guitar evocative of Them’s ‘Gloria’ crossed with the bridge in The Moody Blues’ ‘Tuesday Afternoon’.

The album illustrates Newcombe’s steadfast dedication to trippy, hippy, dippy times via the medium of guitar soundscapes. There’s a formula: guitar, drum-thud, illegible, gnarly vox albeit not too much of a departure for either of them, however, this is all about the mood, turn off your phones, chillax and eat an ice-cream.

There is a narrative thread here – if one-paced, like a plane moving round the runaway, you wait for it to take flight and soar. Ly(se)r(g)ics prevail throughout: ‘sunshine, being on the ‘edge of life, the desire to ‘go home’ and ‘reaching paradise’ in an album that grows with each listen, but, personally could’ve have wigged out more.

Famous last words as lyrics … #1

Tags

Master Blaster, Stevie Wonder

Peace has come to Zimbabwe
Third World’s right on the one
Now’s the time for celebration
‘Cause we’ve only just begun

Black – Blind Faith LP

Tags

Ashes of Angels, Black, Blind Faith, Colin Vearncombe, Gigslutz, Good Liar, Parade, When it's over

http://www.gigslutz.co.uk/album-review-black-blind-faith/

Any band would kill to be remembered for a song like 1987’s ‘Wonderful Life’ the hit that thrust Colin ‘Black’ Vearncombe onto the world’s psyche. His sonorous, deep croon uniquely melancholic and sorrowful. Twenty-eight years on he returns with new long-player ‘Blind Faith’; his first in six years and one funded through Pledgemusic.

‘The Love Show’ kicks off the foreplay with sweeping strings with jazzy, earthy vocals in a similar vein to The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon and Scott Walker. A rueful and regretful song that hints at what’s to come (ahem) ‘where love flows he may follow’. Mr Black ups the stakes with ‘Don’t Call Me Honey’ jaunty folk-pop with an electric wig-out guitar like Mark Knopfler fretting with Richard Hawley.

‘Good Liar’ goes for the jugular with, ‘I loved you, I’ve loved you from the start … I am alive when I’m in love’. However, who’s the liar here, is it Mr Black or his addressee? The music, all flowing, suggests he is the devious one in this instance. ‘Sleep Together’ has a riff like David Bowie’s ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’; with a Gallic flourish the song is a lament to the scent left behind, the lingering memories that absence provides.

‘Womanly Panther’ is a fruity chanson with another ‘Ooh la la’ feel. Who’s the cougar, prowling for prey? ‘Between the preacher and the plough, we’ve found our way to where we are’ the relationship between heaven and earth she is urged to ‘let loose, I need to be free, free to do what’s clear’. When you put it like that …

Standout ‘Ashes of Angels’ deploys romantic metaphors ‘stars … walk on rainbows’ before a stern rebuke of ‘Have you heard the one about me? It’s not funny!’ culminating in an abrupt ‘too much too late’ a clinical kiss-off to whomever.

The pleading and Beatlesish ‘When it’s Over’ is a defiant stand, yet there’s a futile inability to see what’s happening: ‘I’m not pretending … ending … I hear what my heart sings, it’s over, not over. It’s not over, it’s never over until it’s over’. Face it, it’s over, clinging on’s not gonna change anything. Closer ‘Parade’ is a trudging away, having turned around it is now the time to take stock and absorb everything that’s happened with your head held high, ‘all the birds are free to fly’.

Lyrically the album addresses the age-old concerns of affairs of the head, amour and soul, specifically the art of falling apart with a broken heart. Yearning, doubt and the passing of time and the onset of the unknown tangled up with memories. Wistfulness and regret are the order of the day as the narrative thread hints at the end of love, emotion in motion in a break-up confessional album joining the likes of Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan and Abba in a creative cath-art-ic outpouring. The word on the street is ‘Blind Faith is this year’s Black’.

Yucatan – Uwch Gopa’r Mynydd (Above the Mountain Summit) LP

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Cwm Llwm, Llyn Tawelwc, Ochenaid, Uwch Gopa'r Mynydd (Above the Mountain Summit), Yucatan

Twenty years ago the music press in their attempt to genre-fy and commodify any band from the principality employed the lazy epithet the ‘Taffia’. Today Yucatan are part of the new breed of Welsh musicians inspired by their identity and heritage.

Eight years from their eponymous debut, Snowdonia’s Yucatan release Uwch Gopa’r Mynydd (Above the Mountain Summit), the album a love-letter to their habitat, the expanse of the wildscapes and rough-hues of the mountains and the elements.

Similar in aesthetic to mountainous compatriots Super Furry Animals and contemporaries Sigur Ros, King Creosote and The Phantom Band, this band evince a spectral, hypnagogic ambience, emanating a tautological upbeat melancholy. The album has been streamed this week at the top of Snowdon, Wales’ highest peak, and 3500ft above sea level, a world first. Led by Dilwyn Llwyd, the four-piece have attracted the attention and patronage of The Charlatans’ vox-mop and DIY’d bleachy Dulux hairdo, Tim Burgess.

‘Ffin’ (Border) is a slow-burning number with emotive vocals and a crashing crescendo which on first listen it is hard to shake the (lazy and obvious) Super Furry Animals allusions, well, it’s in Welsh innit? However, this rarebit is uniquely Yucatan, building on source and crafting anew.

‘Cwm Llwm’ (Cwm Valley) has tinkling nursey-chimes and is a classic example of how mood music is put to images to enhance the ‘experience’ from a drowning vole to a wailing soul who’s lost the egg and spoon race. Dear BBC Sport Editors, I’m getting ‘Ennis-Hill in Bronze come-down’ vibes for 2016. The plodding piano reminds of U2’s ‘With or without you’ fortunately without Bono’s preachy earnestness.

‘Word Song’ is cacophonic, a smattering of distinctly phlegmatic Welsh tones, instruments and noise that wholly is uproarious and affecting. ‘Halen Daear a Swn Y Mor’ (Salty ground and the noise of the sea) has a horn section similar to the Welsh-born Julian Cope’s Teardrop Explodes alumnus, in the words of Cope himself ‘it’s all ethereal’

The onomatopoeic ‘Ochenaid’ (Sigh) finds Llwyd’s delivery exhaled to a backdrop of shimmering instrumentation, it is both weary and uplifting, bleakly bright with a strident finale.

‘Llyn Tawelwch’ (Lake Silence) is a celebratory rock-out to nature, triumph and wonderment a contrast to the suburban sprawl at play across the greenbelt.

The eponymous ‘Uwch Gopa’r Mynydd’ closes the suite in elegiac fashion and acts as a reminder to power-saps like Coldplay that piano-led soundscapes don’t necessarily have to be listened to with an umbrella, this is melancholy as a force of rejuvenation. With music this good lyrics are not necessary, the imagination is inspired by the wall of sound. This is an album created by and required to listened to via osmosis, a sensory gateway into the Snowdonia region and into an-other, nether-world. Gwrando ar uchel (Listen to loud)

Have we met before? #93

Tags

Beautiful Stranger, Light my fire, Love, Madonna, She comes in Colors, The Doors

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