Month: November 2021

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Various Artists – Pyramid Pieces 2

This is a comp we won’t have to wait too terribly long for.  The Roundtable is a record label out of Melbourne, Australia which documents some phenomenal jazz from down under.  Apparently, the first installment of Pyramid Pieces was a tour-de-force of Australian spiritual jazz, and the comp sold briskly, introducing the world to Jazz Co/Op, the Brian Brown Quintet, the Alan Lee Quartet and others.  In this installment, new names such as Allan Zavod (whose track is the only one available to sample currently), The Charlie Munro, Out To Lunch and several others.  My limited exposure to Aussie jazz and improvisational music from from The Necks, perhaps my favorite band from there at the moment, but it’s incredible to hear such deep new names.

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Giedrius Kuprevičius – Erotidijos

Giedrius Kuprevičius is a Lithuanian composer with roots in theater music.  Erotidijos has a rather long history, originally being released on cassette in 1994, but the latest release adds around 30 minutes of music, and is available on vinyl as well as download.

From his Bandcamp site:

Erotidijos is a haunting yet hypnotic tableaux Kuprevičius originally created for a Stanislovas Rubinovas theatre play staged in 1994 in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Lithuanian composer was one of the founding members of the pioneering electronic pop outfit Argo and has written dozens of scores for stage and film over the past several decades, imbuing his soundwork with a multitude of artful moods and emotive depth.

This is really going to appeal to fans of the Belgian record label Crammed Discs‘ sub-label Made To Measure, especially those works (for theater) by Steven Brown and Blaine Reininger.

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Jelena Glazova – Bardo Thodol (Eliane Radigue Tribute)

I came to the work of Latvian noise musician and composer Jelena Glazova originally through her collaborations with the legendary Russian noise maestro Alexei Borisov.

This four-track album is a paean to the work of French soundscape artist and composer Élaine Radigue, perhaps the foremost sound composer operating today.   Glazova used processed voice, her laptop and controllers to sculpt these works.  They were recorded and mastered in Riga between 2016 – 2019.  The drones wash over the ears magnificently.

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Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian – Songs of Horaman

Mohammad Mostafa Heydarian is a Kurdish tanburist who hails from Kermanshah, in the Iranian region of Horaman.  His playing reminds me of a lot of the instrumental music coming out of the Sahel, blended, naturally, with Kurdish rhythms and adding a psychedelic haze to the music.

Though I’m not keen on paying €1,000 for a download, the cassette version is certainly worth a purchase.  It would probably do Radio Khiyaban, the magnificent label who released Heydarian’s work, to consider making these recordings available for upload once the cassettes go out of print.

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Old Time Relijun – Musicking

Though I’ve followed his work for years, this is the first chance I’ve had to review Arrington Dionyso’s vast body of work, specifically his more rock-based project, Old Time Relijiun.

From the first note, it felt like getting hit by a block of cement (in a quite good way).  The first track, Break Through, sounds like a mighty clash between the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Can during its rawer and weirder freak-outs.  Bionic Trunk provides thunderous drums that would compare well to mid-60s garage-rock smashers like The Monks and introduces a bit of throat-singing, of all things.  The cornerstone of the album, for my tastes, is the final track, is You That Is You.  There is a very high-intensity feel in this song, reminding me of art-punk at its finest, yet relevant in 2021.  I suppose calling it “shamanic protest rock” is utterly appropriate for this album.

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D^mselfly – DF​/​C30​-​RW

From Hreám Recordings‘ website:

Originally released as a double-header with St James Infirmary’s ‘Apport’, here now on it’s own and sporting a batch of new jelly-green shelled and cased cassettes….

DF/C30-RW features six re-imagined and re-worked tracks from the first three Damselfly albums. Focussing on some of his more delicate arrangements, Damselfly’s 2020 versions breathe new life into the original soundscapes, where neoclassical meets ambient drone to serve you up an alternative sonic taste of his beloved home county of Sussex.

I have to say that this release by D^mselfly is one of the most pleasant ambient discoveries I’ve come across in the past couple of weeks.  There are long, drawn out notes, very spatial, minimalist drones and tones, and there are near-song elements throughout this disc.  It is as if post-rock and minimalist classical met Robert Rich in a more lo-fi venue.  A gorgeous release.

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Various Artists – Legends Of Benin: Afro Funk, Cavacha, Agbadja, Afro​-​Beat

Benin (formerly Dahomey) has produced so much good music, yet it’s suffered from a lack of availability in the West, meaning that only the most expert crate-diggers or West African music specialists were able to enjoy these artists.

Thankfully, Analog Africa has been doing their best to make sure this music gets documented, digitized, and publicized around the world.  Some of the composers included on this disc are Gnonnas Pedro et Ses Dadjes, Antoine Dougbé, El Rego et Ses Commandos and Honoré Avolonto.  These were the cream of the crop of Beninois balladeers during the 1960s and 1970s.  The comp serves as a great way to whet the appetite for far more.

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Fontän – Svett / Bekçi

Sweden’s Höga Nord Rekords always produces some from psychedelic rock, but this 7-inch singe from Fontän is a kraut-y scorcher.

Fontän hail from Gothenburg, the home of the label, and they produce two solid slabs of fine psychedelic fuzz with a gently grooving drum beat, dubby bass, loads of echo and electronic effects, and some impressively clean production for the genre.  The single will be out on November 26, 2021.

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Various Artists – Wounds of Love: Khmer Oldies, Vol. 2

Death Is Not The End is a profoundly interesting record label (and radio program on NTS) operating out of London, and how they find such oddball gems like this I’ll never understand.

What is clear, though, is that the Khmer music scene really got into music from France (from colonial connections, the United States and the United Kingdom, but also imported genres like bolero from Latin America.  The Khmer language seems to be perfectly adaptable to the quirks of Western Music, and these covers hold their own rather well.

A final note – the cover shows a Khmer beauty with the most glorious bouffant I’ve seen in some time.  This was a time when hair was a commitment!  It’s also good to see where the incredible Cambodian psychedelic scene developed its roots.