Sunday 31 August 2014

Harry Revel

Music Out Of The Moon (1947) ... 

Musical direction by Les Baxter who formed an unusual group around cello, french horn, theremin and 12 voice choir ... Theremin played by Dr Samuel Hoffman, who played on Hitchcock's Spellbound soundtrack ... Original released as 3x 78rpm disc album, considered the best selling theremin record of all time ...

Lunar Rhapsody ...


Celestial Nocturne ...
"Harry Revel created the basic "idea" and themes while Leslie Baxter, conductor and arranger, has given them appropriately unique tone color, using mass harmonies of human voices as well as unusual instrumental effects with woodwinds, strings and bass; some without rhythm, others with a dominant, demanding beat [...] The artist who plays the Theremin is Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman, whose brilliant technique was heard in "Spellbound", "Lost weekend", "Spiral staircase" and "The Red House"... (from liner notes)


Moon Moods ('Les Paul-ish' guitar) ...

Les Baxter's instrumentation on "Music Out of the Moon" was unusual and experimental. The Theremin, wordless voices and a piano are prominent in a relatively small group of varying instrumentation including violins, harp, organ, woodwinds, and percussion. At times, a mild swing/jazz aura dominates, and at other times, the mood is rapturous. The overall result is a listening experience that lives up to the title, albeit in a quaint and somewhat dated manner. The amazing cover, featuring a scantily clad young woman seemingly emerging from a moon-like surface, was revolutionary in its time... ele-mental.org ...


Neil Armstrong took a cassette of this album on his trip to the Moon in 1969 ...

Mist o' the Moon ...



Saturday 30 August 2014

Friday 29 August 2014

Pantheon

Orion (1972) ...

Panthéon were a symphonic Dutch prog group and this was their only album ...very suggestive of Van der Graaf without vocals, but with organs, wordless choruses and woodwind ...Not guitar driven, but very nice sax and flutey bits ...

Orion ...


Apocalyps ...
  • Bass Guitar, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar – Albert Veldkamp
  • Design – Jan H. van Ude
  • Drums, Percussion – Rob Verhoeven
  • Engineer – Albert Kos
  • Flute, Alto Saxophone, Tenor Saxophone, Vocals – Hans Boer
  • Organ, Spinet, Celesta, Piano, Vocals, Synthesizer [Arp] – Ruud Wouterson
  • Producer – Tony Vos
  • Written-By – R. Wouterson* 
  • Recorded at the Phonogram Studios, Hilversum, 1972.

Pantheon are an instrumental progressive rock group with focus on flute, sax and organ and a dazzling, jazzy style rhythm section. Short tracks like "Daybreak" and "Anais" sound like outtakes from a Focus session with beautiful melodies carried by flute. Where Pantheon really shine are on long songs like "Apocalyps" (10:53), a jaw dropping composition. Carried by at least two melodies you will be whistling for days, the track goes through multiple movements with sax and organ leading the charge. The complex bass and drum work is startling as well the addition of electric guitar, flute and wordless voice adds to the many ideas on display. It is exactly this sense of melody that is missing in most of today's music (underground or commercial). Afterwards, the whimsical short "The Madman" introduces the 19 minute title track. Everything that makes Orion special is highlighted here. The complex instrumental arrangements, the strong comprehension of melody, the variation in instrumentation (organ, piano, synthesizer, sax, flute, choral vocals, acoustic and electric guitar) and different styles (jazz, baroque, rock). It's a whirlwind journey and worth every listening second. A still unknown classic and now everyone has a chance to be a part of it.
(Tom Hayes, Gnosis, 2001)


Gnosis ... 

boyzmakenoyze.blogspot.co.uk ... 

Wednesday 27 August 2014

Didier Bocquet

Sequences (1980) ...

Didier Bocquet's third album...Very fine French space electronica influenced by Tangerine Dream and Kraftwerk (on their less rhythmic side) and definitely hints of Jean-Michel Jarre in some places ... On the Pulse label (Pulse 004) ...

Sequences ... 



Sequence start ...





Garden of Shadows ... 
 

Tuesday 26 August 2014

Pere Ubu

Carnival of Souls (2014) ...

Warping back to present times briefly, we find Pere Ubu and the just-about-released Carnival of Souls, coming to a ghost town near you ...

Golden Surf II ...


Well if she's got a problem it'll go right along with her ...



Irene ...



"In the real world, the real Sex Pistols was a band called Henry Cow."...

Viva Pa Ubu ...Henry Cow ... 





"I’d say the leap from, say, Woody Guthrie and Chuck Berry to “Like A Rolling Stone” is greater than the one from “Like A Rolling Stone” to Pere Ubu. And yet Dylan is a cultural icon while Pere Ubu maintains only a cult following. Why is this? Is there a threshold for challenge in popular culture that “Like A Rolling Stone” walks right up to, but does not cross? Are the sales and marketing departments of today––and the hierarchical power structures they’re associated with––more powerful and, seemingly by corollary, more scared of new ideas? The answer to both of those questions is probably “yes,” at least to some extent. But does it have to be this way? I don’t think it does... " ...In praise of Pere Ubu ...
www.ubuprojex.com

Monday 25 August 2014

Terry Riley

Shri Camel (1980) ...

Terry Riley playing solo Yamaha keyboard in just intonation ... recorded 1977, based on a  piece commisioned and recorded for Radio Bremen in 1976.  Riley performed the work solo on a modified Yamaha YC-45D combo organ tuned in just intonation and augmented with studio digital delay...

Desert of Ice ... 


Celestial Valley ...
 


Shri Camel (Mr Camel) ...




Lora Logic

Pedigree Charm (1982) ...

Lora Logic's solo album, recorded in 'Milton Groovy, Arizona', better known as Cold Storage studio, Brixton, London ...Very playful, funky, indie pop record, totally ignored at the time.  All tunes revolve around Lora Logic's saxophone ...

Hiss and Shake ... 


Stop, Halt! ...

Phil Legg, Guitar
Charles Hayward, Drums
Benn Annesley, Bass
Lora Logic, Saxophone, Vocals


Rat Allé ...


killrockstars.com ... released a compilation of Lora Logic tracks (under the name Essential Logic: Fanfare in the Garden) which includes most Pedigree Charm tracks...

Brute Fury ...


Sunday 24 August 2014

Colorblind James Experience

Colorblind James Experience (1987) ...

The original Colourblind James Experience from Rochester ...'old, weird America' ...

I'm Considering a Move To Memphis ... 
 

A Different Bob ...
 







An utterly perfect crackerjack of an album -- the Colorblind James Experience throw a cocked eye at country music of all stripes, resulted in a manic, cartoony collection of songs that sound like Raymond Scott throwing a hootenanny in an downtown Manhattan bar. The centerpiece track, "Considering a Move to Memphis," received the alternative airplay in 1987, but, in some ways, it's dissimilar from the rest of the album -- a long rambling groove propelled by a vibes-and-guitar riff, over which Colorblind James drawls out deadpan surreal nonsense, a love letter to a city he may never have visited in the first place. Everything else is much shorter, with more traditional song structures -- but what songs! "First Day of Spring" contains the winner chorus "she's a witch!/You were going to marry that girl!" as jug band polka percolates underneath. "Why'd the Boy Throw the Clock Out the Window?" plays like a wind-up toy band spinning out of control. And "A Different Bob" is a slinky, lounge number with a dream logic to its words. Largely ignored by the American public, it took British DJs from the BBC to break the band in Europe. Listen and you'll agree they were onto something... allmusic.com

Fledgling Circus ...






Saturday 23 August 2014

Magma

Mythes et Legendes Volume I and II (2006) ...

Live DVDs of Magma in full flow ... Recorded in a club in Paris (Le Triton) over a four week run in May 2005, a series of DVDs documenting their history resulted (Epok I, Epok II etc) ...

De Futura ... (Epok II) ...

 
  • Volume 2 personnel
  • Bass – Jannick Top
  • Bass, Bass [Basse Piccolo] – Philippe Bussonnet
  • Electric Piano [Fender], Keyboards [Clavier] – Emmanuel Borghi, Frederic d'Oelsnitz
  • Guitar, Vocals [Chant] – James Mac Gaw
  • Leader, Drums [Batterie] – Christian Vander
  • Vocals [Chant] – Antoine Paganotti, Himiko Paganotti, Isabelle Feuillebois
  • Vocals [Chant], Percussion – Stella Vander

  • Volume 1 personnel
  • Bass – Philippe Bussonnet
  • Guitar – James Mac Gaw
  • Leader, Vocals [Chant], Drums [Batterie] – Christian Vander
  • Mixed By – Francis Linon
  • Piano, Electric Piano [Fender] – Emmanuel Borghi
  • Saxophone – Fabrice Theuillon, Remi Dumoulin
  • Saxophone, Flute – Yannick Soccal
  • Vocals [Chant], Keyboards [Clavier] – Stella Vander
  • Vocals [Chant], Percussion – Klaus Blasquiz 

Theusz Hamtaahk (1972)Epok I




Friday 22 August 2014

Paul Haig

The Warp of Pure Fun (1986) ...

Warping back to 1984, Paul Haig was the ex leader of Scottish indie pop Josef K ... Here with a big voice and big tunes from former Associate Alan Rankine ...This was his second solo album, scrapped by Island Records and released by indies Les Disques du Crepescule...

The Only truth (1984 with Bernard Sumner, guitar and Donald Johnson, bass) ... 




Heaven Help You Now ... 

  
Ghost Rider (Suicide cover version) ...

 
Love and War ... Guitar by Bernard Sumner, Keyboards Alan Rankine...

ltmrecordings.com ...

Island

Pictures (1977) ...

Swiss progressives, very Van der Graaf Generator/Gentle Giant influenced with Genesis undertones and a Frank Zappa complexity ...

Pictures album ...
 



Benjamin Jäger / lead vocals, percussion
Güge Jürg Meier / drums, gongs, percussion
Peter Scherer / keyboards, pedal-bass, voices crotales
René Fisch / sax, flute, clarinet, triangle, voices




1. Introduction (1:28)
2. Zero (6:13)
3. Pictures (16:51)
4. Herold And King / Dloreh (12:13)
5. Here And Now (12:15)
 

Bonus track on cd...
6. Empty Bottles (23:35)


Thursday 21 August 2014

Gil Melle

The Andromeda Strain (1971) ...

American jazz musician Gil Melle composed this electronic soundtrack for sci-fi classic movie The Andromeda Strain ...

The Andromeda Strain ... 




'His score for The Andromeda Strain is by turns haunting and gnarly, and it sounds right at home in the 21st century, whether alongside the similarly handmade malevolence of Wolf Eyes or the drugged dronescapes of Tim Hecker. For the film, Mellé built his own electronic studio on the Universal lot and a slew of one-of-a-kind electronic devices. He re-processed the recorded sounds of buzzsaws, bowling alleys, and orchestral instruments for the film, creating a remarkable score that anticipates future electronic music. Mellé captures the sound of booping radar, red light-triggered epileptic seizures, satellite transmissions, weather pattern feedback, scanning microscope whirrs, and mutating super-germs. The ever-pressurizing pulses and oscillations only heighten the film’s biological warfare anxieties and–much like the noisy music itself–such fear continues to riddle us in the present... idolator.com ...




 All records should be polygons ...



 Regardless of the debunked myths of "firsts" that Melle claimed, his soundtrack takes all the elements of primitive electronic music and approaches them in a compositional way, rather than through the more random applications from which most users of Moogs and ARP Odysseys got their sounds at the turn of the decade. For non-organic sounds, Melle makes his cascades of beeps, ticks, swishes, and so on come alive, building in tension and even rhythmic counterpoint. He sets the tone well with each piece, and there's a great flow and logic - and even musicality - to the otherworldly sounds he's able to coax from his homespun collection of cables. Sadly the sountrack itself - which must've taken a long time to create - is super short, clocking in at under 1/3 the length of the actual movie, a brief and disappointing 26 minutes... listofthelost.blogspot.co.uk ...

Shirley and Dolly Collins

For As Many as Will (1978) ...

Sisters Shirley and Dolly Collins singing traditional English tunes plus a Richard Thompson song and a medley from John Gay's Beggar's Opera ...Their final album together, recently reissued on CD (2011) ...

Never Again (Richard Thompson) ... 




Gilderoy ... 

Shirley Collins vocals
with
Dolly Collins flute organ, piano, synthesiser and vocals
Barry Dransfield fiddle, ‘cello and vocals
Tony Engle concertina
Michael Gregory percussion
Paul Nieman euphonium
Phil Pickett recorders, shawms, curtal, cornett and gittern


Lancashire Lass ... 


thebeesknees.com ... and ForAsManyAsWill.pdf

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Bley-Peacock Synthesiser Show

Revenge (1971) ...

Doing the right thing at the right time, but 20 years too early ... Composer and singer Annette Peacock singing through ring modulators and other electronics, with Paul Bley...  Recently reissued on Ironic Records, retitled I Belong To A World That's Destroying Itself ...

A Loss of Conciousness ... singing through synths, Mike Garson on piano ...



Mr Joy ...


Recorded live by Annette Peacock and Paul Bley on the 6 April 1969, 2 June 1969 and 3 November 1969 at the Philharmonic Hall, Lincoln Center
-
Gary Peacock - Bass [Electric]
Barry Altschul - Drums

 
destination-out.com ... 



Tuesday 19 August 2014

Basil Kirchin

Abstractions of the Industrial North (1966) ...

British jazz musician Basil Kirchin's library album for De Wolfe, later released through Trunk records ...

Heart of the North ... 



The Lonely Ones ...  (originally from The Wild One)

  • Bass – Peter McGurk
  • Drums – Chris Karan
  • Flute – Duncan Lamont
  • Flute, Saxophone, Whistle [Penny] – Peter Hughes
  • Guitar – Cedric West
  • Piano, Organ – Harry Stoneham
  • Saxophone, Flute – Tubby Hayes
  • Trumpet – Kenny Wheeler
  • Vibraphone, Saxophone [Alto] – Alan Branscombe
 
Prelude and dawn - The Experiencer ... 

The complete album “Abstractions Of The Industrial North” is on this recording, and we have added a selection of recordings from other rare Kirchin, Jack Nathan and John Coleman productions, including The Wild One, Don't Lose Your Cool, Town Beat and finally “Mind On The Run”. These are all ten inch De Wolfe releases, are exceptionally rare and includes some incredible session musicians, including Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan.
As library music goes, Abstractions is unlike any other recording. It's possibly the most beautiful but worst library music ever made, in the way that it doesn't adhere to or follow any normal library music genre. It is wonderfully sad unforgettable music, with the signature Kirchin hypnotic grooves stirring it all up every now and again... trunkrecords.com ...

Viva Tamla Motown ...  (originally from The Wild One)

Pageing Sullivan ...(another from The Wild One with jimmy Page on guitar)



beardedmagazine.com memoir of Basil Kirchin ... 
 

Gas

Nah und Fern (2008) ...

This was a reissue of 4 albums from the 1990s by Wolgang Voigt, under the name Gas ...ambient meets 4-beat Techno, often in the same track.  A trance in the Black Forest ...

Untitled 2 ... 






Monday 18 August 2014

Sunday 17 August 2014

Bill Bruford

Feels Good To Me (1977) ...

Bill Bruford's first solo album, with Annette Peacock, Alan Holdsworth, Dave Stewart and Kenny Wheeler ...

Adios a la Pasada ... 



Feels Good To Me & Back To The Beginning (The Old Grey Whistle Test) 

Bruford’s first release, Feels Good to Me (EG, 1977, reissued Winterfold, 2005) came as a shock, even to those who’d been following the drummer’s career closely. Bruford’s core group featured Stewart, along already-becoming-iconic guitarist Allan Holdsworth and bassist Jeff Berlin, another too-often overlooked player. It was a muscular band, as capable of navigating Bruford’s mind-bending rhythmic twists and turns as they were a surprisingly sophisticated harmonic conception that came from the collaborative writing efforts of Bruford and Stewart. Bruford’s debut also featured the sultry-voiced Annette Peacock, mixed so far up front that, despite her relatively brief appearance, her contribution became an inescapable fundamental of the release... jazz-rock.com ...

allaboutjazz.com... 



Seems Like a Lifetime Ago (Kenny Wheeler & Annette Peacock) ... 

 

Mogwai

My Father, My King (2001) ...

Post-rock band Mogwai, released this single sided 12" vinyl 'single' in 2001... Produced by Steve Albini, and based on Jewish tunes from Avinu Malkeinu ('Our Father, Our King'), taught to the band by Arthur Baker...

My Father, My King ... 





Some versions of the EP on CD include 2 live tracks, recorded at Rothesay Pavillion, Bute ...

New Paths to Helicon, part 1 ... (a John Peel festive fifty favourite from 1997) ... 



Saturday 16 August 2014

Gryphon

Gryphon (1973) ...

Gryphon were formed as an all acoustic group playing medieval rustic folk tunes... They gradually acquired players of 'standard' rock group instruments and played more of a 'rock' format, but with medieval instruments included ...Their first album was mainly acoustic ...


Kemp's Gig
Sir Gavin Grimbold
Touch And Go
Three Jolly Butchers
Pastime With Good Company
The Unquiet Grave
Estampie
Crossing The Stiles
The Astrologer
Tea Wrecks
Juniper Suite
The Devil And The Farmer's Wife


Multi-instrumentalist Richard Harvey and his fellow Royal College of Music graduate Brian Gulland, a woodwind player, began the group as an all-acoustic ensemble that mixed traditional English folk music with medieval and Renaissance influences. Shortly after this, the duo was joined by guitarist Graeme Taylor and drummer/percussionist Dave Oberlé. After their self-titled debut, they expanded their sound to include electric guitars and keyboards as well as wind instruments, such as bassoons and krumhorns, not previously used in rock music. Gryphon's music often sounded as much like rural English folk or renaissance chansons as it did rock, at least on their early recordings... discogs.com