Nominations For God XVII

William Blake

Testing For Buzz XXIII: William Blake

Blake had visions all his life. His first, when he was only a child, of angelic beings in the tree outside his house, nearly cost him a beating when he reported it to his parents.

My favourite is when he saw what he called the ghost of a flea. The spirit roamed around the house whilst he sketched its grotesque features. Peter Ackroyd’s marvellous biography relates the conversation between Blake and his ethereal visitor as recounted by Blake’s friend, John Varley.

“During the time occupied in completing the drawing, the Flea told him that all fleas were inhabited by the souls of such men, as were by nature blood-thirsty to excess, and were therefore providentially confined to the size and form of insects; otherwise, were he himself for instance the size of a horse, he would depopulate a great portion of the country. He added, that if in attempting to leap from one island to another, he should fall into the sea, he could swim, and should not be lost.”

The Ghost of a Flea

Testing For Buzz XXII: William Blake III

Blake’s ubiquity continued unabated as I grew up through the 70s and beyond. In music, there was ELP’s horrendously pomped-up rendition of “Jerusalem”, and a more suitably spectral name-check in Van Morrison’s sublime 1974 album, Veedon Fleece and the moving “You Don't Pull No Punches, But You Don't Push The River.”

However, in the 80s it was Mike Westbrook’s The Westbrook Blake Bright As Fire that stopped me in my tracks. This collection of inspired settings contained the devastating “Price of Experience” declaimed (I think) by Phil Minton.

What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
Of all a man hath, his house, his wife, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
And in the wither'd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain.

From more recent times, Andrew Keeling’s “O Ignis Spiritus” from his 2000 album, Quickening The Dead, contains a beautiful setting of Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

Performed by the renowned Hilliard Ensemble, this had a profound effect upon me when I first heard it. Here’s a short extract from this eleven minute long track. If this doesn’t beguile your ears then I suggest you may actually be dead.

Given the date today, some might argue that a chorus of "Happy Birthday" would be more appropriate. However, the above piece is to my ears the most perfect marriage of Blake's words and the sense that lies behind them. It makes the goosebumps rise to attention every single time I hear it.

Andrew Keeling Blue Dawn

Making light work

Blue Dawn
Andrew Keeling
Burning Shed

“Follow nature!” cries Paracelsus in the notes for Blue Dawn, advice which Andrew Keeling has acted upon for several years. Going against the prevailing direction, his writing has been steering a path from egg-headed complexities associated with much of the clatter of the contemporary classical scene, to a pared-back approach unconcerned with knotty grandstanding or intertextual SFX.

Opening with a single attention-gathering piano note, “Distant Skies, Mountains And Shadows” delicately unfurls into the ruminative ambience of the Kerzo Chapel in The Hague. The particular pathway Keeling charts for the piano flute and clarinet of the Het Trio maybe angled and occasionally steep, but throughout the piece radiates lyrical warmth.

However the real heart of the album is to be found in “Blue Dawn”. Written between 2005/6 it consists of seven solo piano pieces touchingly played by Steven Wray. Though each is individually titled they work best when listened to in one sitting.

Occupying the hushed spaces from which Pärt’s “Für Alina” resonates, the themes gently see-saw between light and dark, between hope and fear, constructing a solemn reverie from starkly-drawn materials. Yet the effect of these halting, sensitive movements is anything but austere or simple. Over the course of a half hour, “Blue Dawn” creates a soundtrack to haunting dreams that touch upon the losses we experience and the gains which may be found arising from them.

The dawn of a new day can be viewed as a mere set of physical reactions within the natural world, or something, despite its repetition, that is resplendently unique. With a luminous clarity, Keeling probes for that startling, fresh beauty residing within the mundane, and which leaves us breathless when we find it. Magnificent.

Buy it here.

A Young Person's Perspective

It’s been a weird kind of day. On the one hand I feel simultaneously weighed down and light-headed. This is a result of a doozy of a chest infection which has left me feeling as weak as a kitten.

Tonight I heroically dragged myself to The Cluny to see Theo Travis in concert. He was performing with the line-up that recorded Double Talk, his new album which has been occupying a lot of rotation-time here in the Yellow Room.

The band was in top form with the first set being given over to pretty much all of Double Talk. “And So It Seemed” was an absolute stonker with outstanding soloing from Travis and guitarist Mike Outram. Recently Michael Madden emailed me with this query:

“Seeing as you are the only person I know who has a copy of the album, can you hear any similarity to the track “And So It Seemed’ and KC’s “One More Red Nightmare”? Just noticed it on the way home in the car.”

Yes is the answer to that one. It shares the feel and spirit of slowly ascending / descending arpeggio section after the verses, and it certainly provided a great platform for the players to really shine.

Theo kindly autographed the two copies of Double Talk which are going to be given away as prizes over on DGMLive. He also gave me an update on the forthcoming Travis & Fripp release which has been produced by Porcupine Tree’s, Steve Wilson. Theo’s really excited by it, and so he should be based on the brief excerpt I’ve heard.

The second half of the set was drawn from Theo’s back catalogue and a lively cover of Traffic’s “Glad.” Theo is operating somewhere that veers between straight jazz, rock and Prog. Although I’m sure there are lots of other artists doing something similar, I’ve not heard it done as assuredly as it is with Travis.

For me, the key difference in making Soft Machine Legacy’s latest album, Steam, a success was the kind of fluency and external understanding of that very legacy itself was Theo.

Similarly when the 21^st Century Schizoid Band were first operating, as I watched them in rehearsals discussing the music, it often seemed as though the only person who really “got” what it was that made things Crimson was Jakko Jakszyk, who like Theo, was never involved in the creation of the original material but grasped it from an entirely different perspective.

The concert happened to coincide with brother-in-law Bernard’s birthday, who enjoyed the Double Talk gig as well.

Here's Lesley, Bernard and Issac, who wasn't impressed by anything he heard that tonight. "I had Stevie Wonder on my brain for the whole evening" he declared as we drove back to Whitley." I can't recall who said that youth was wasted on young people but they were right on the money.

Testing For Buzz XXI: William Blake II

Suddenly, Blake seemed to be everywhere all at once in my life. Yet “Tyger,” and the patriotic chorale of “Jerusalem” appeared to represent the establishment, and certainly didn’t seem to square with his emblematic use by the counter-culture into which I was determinately baptising myself.

Then I realised that not only was he everywhere, he was everything to everyone.

This book was the one that made me look at Blake’s world as the connective tissue from the ancient to the modern, the “hip” poetry that was the very antithesis of Elliot’s bone-dry academia. It spoke of the moment, and of raptures, it got lost, it stumbled into old legends and railed against conformity. It reads very stilted now but in the mid-70s, it it spoke very loudly to me.

However, the most important thing about this book is that it got me reading Blake himself. Well, not so much reading Blake, as wrestling with him, trying to make some kind of sense of it all.

Testing For Buzz XX: William Blake I

William Blake came into my life as part of the cultural explosion I experienced in the late 60s/ early 70s. His posters were found in places like Newcastle’s Handyside arcade next to day-glo A3 sheets featuring Frank Zappa’s mug, Bob Dylan, and the rest. Album sleeves such as Atomic Rooster’s Death Walks Behind You and Grave New World by The Strawbs reinforced Blake’s counter-cultural currency and general hipness. It came as something as a shock to learn that this geezer wasn’t designing album covers and painting boutique walls with his drug-induced ker-aziness for a living but was in fact, er, dead for living.

Street Life XCVII

This Sporting Life II

I spent most of Sunday morning on the touchline at Rockcliff Rugby Club. The morning light was held firmly at bay by a heavy quilt of cloud.

The large structure you can see in the picture is the roof of the Whitley Bay Ice Rink, the venue for AWBH (with Tony Levin) on the 20th October 1989.

I wasn't here however to reflect upon the merits of such dubious proggy noodlage but to lend my vocal support to Rockcliff's U14 squad. Which I did until I was hoarse.

They were playing a crack team from Sunderland who tamped them into the ground like tent pegs when they last met.



Somewhere in that pic above Joe is being brought down by two lads from Sunderland. However, he still managed to score a much needed try. Sunderland did beat Rockcliff but only by five points. Joe tells me that his team are now starting to knit together and next time they meet Sunderland they will beat them.

Here's a couple of clips from Joe's press scrapbook rendered from the pages of the News Guardian:

published 15th November 2007

and

published 22nd November 2007

Fame is not the only reward for Joe. He gets to be popular with the girls as well, who kindly brought along a blanket to keep Joe warm before his next match against Scarborough.

l-r Libby, Charlotte, Hannah and the cat who got the cream.

Reports From The Domestic Front

Joe's school report arrived this morning. He approached with some trepidation.

However, he needn't have worried. It's all good stuff in there, and certainly better than anything I ever achieved at school at his age.

Debra's sister, Dude, is our current houseguest. For reasons which now escape me, as we cooked up a storm in the kitchen, we all joined hands.

And after the dance of plenty, a very nice meal with Doris (mother of Deb & Dude) in attendance.

Nominations For God XVI

Will Eisner

Street Life XCVI

Today is my mother’s birthday. I was thinking about her this morning as I walked down to the seafront. On the news there was a report from the Marie Curie cancer charity arguing for more resources so that terminally ill patients can die at home.

Even at the best of times, hospitals are grim places to be. Despite the very best efforts of individuals working on wards, the needs of the organisation itself very often works against the needs and interests of the patient.

Had Doreen been taken into hospital there’s no doubt in our minds the anxiety caused by simply being in unfamiliar surroundings (no matter how benign or caring) would have added to Doreen’s distress (and consequently our own) when trying to meet the greatest hurdle it’s possible for any of us to face up to.

Doreen was adamant that she wanted to die in the house where she’d lived most of her adult life, and the Macmillan nurses did everything possible to enable her to do just that.

When the time came for Doreen to leave us, she did so with her children beside her, in the rooms where we’d all laughed and cried, where she played with her grandchildren, listened to her radio, coped with her own losses and regrets, and shared her triumphs and her love with friends and family.

Happy birthday, Doreen.

Drawing Conclusions

Whitley Bay is cold and very wet at the moment. At various times of the day I can hear the various creaks and groans of the house as the wind lashes in heavy and hard.

Listening-wise my morning is happily occupied by Great Lake Swimmers and their new album Ongiara. The opening track, "Your Rocky Spine"is a gorgeous singalong. I really liked this lyric:

And the mountains said I could find you here
They whispered the snow and the leaves in my ear
I traced my finger along your trails
Your body was the map I was lost in it

Here’s a video of the song in action although I think it actually works better without the visuals but I haven’t figured out how to run an mp3 of the thing on here.

The elements had to braved in order to feed the troops and once back in the warmth, I fired up a pot of tea and buy a packet of biscuits in time for Bernard’s arrival. We know how to live the high life we do.

We’re discussing developments in The Scent Of Cinnamon project. It’s always exciting at the start of the project. My worry is that I’m writing a script that’s too detailed and will hem Bernard in. He seems fairly relaxed about that at the moment, and I think we’re just going to have to get on with the thing in order to find out what the best way of working will be.

Yet More Reasons To Be Cheerful

Firstly, Ed Reardon is back on the air. If, like me, you have a long standing love affair with radio comedy, Ed Reardon’s Week is very good news indeed.

It’s not just the in-jokes about the book trade and writing in general, it’s not just the devastatingly pixilated penguin-style (ask yer mam or dad) performance of John Fortune as Ed’s agent, Felix, it’s not just Ed railing against a world which has been taken over by 12 year olds – it’s just brilliantly funny from beginning to end. This aspect has been sadly lacking of late in the BBC’s comedy slot. The manifestation of Ed has restored the natural balance of the universe.

Ed Reardon's Week

Secondly, Burning Shed are releasing The Metronomical Society, a collection of live and studio recordings made by the band between 1969 and 1972.

Thirdly, Burning Shed are releasing Arzachel Collectors Edition - Steve Hillage plus the above trio in their pre-Egg days.

Order your copy now by clicking here
and whet your appetite by going here.

This Is Just So Bad On So Many Levels

Sent to me by a friend...



...the phrase "with friends like this who needs enemies" springs to mind!

My Favourite Myspace II: Jenny Owen Youngs

I recently saw the totally fabbo Jim White in concert, he of the mega-big Wrong Eyed Jesus Transnormal Skiperoo vibe. The support slot was provided by Jenny Owen Youngs who sang a superbly crafted set. One song stuck out in particular. “Fuck Was I” describes the highs and lows of being in love although the chorus means that airplay is likely to be fairly meagre. A pity because it’s really such a great song.

The version on Youtube has strategically placed drop-outs but you get a sense of elegance of her lyric and style. Her myspace site has the full version along with other numbers of equally high calibre including my other JOY favourite, “Drinking Song.” I’ll be running a review of her album Batten The Hatches in a few days but in the meantime enjoy “Fuck Was I”

Testing For Buzz XIX: La Nuit American

This is the one that hooked me into French cinema. An utterly enchanting movie about making a movie from Francois Truffaut. I first saw this film at the cinema in the mid-70s and fell head over heels with it, prompting a lifelong obsession with Truffaut. Day For Night, (as I knew it at the time) captures the highs and lows of the crew, the petty jealousies, rivalries and camaraderie of the crew. A magical film about things not being as they might appear to be, and the pitfalls of taking things at face value. Plus a fantastic soaring score by Georges Delerue. I never tire of seeing this gem of a movie.

A Question Of Taste

A day off from the computer (well almost) tending to things in the house and tidying the bedroom. Out of the corner of one eye I watched How To Murder Your Wife starring Jack Lemon. I first saw this when I was very young and thought it was absolutely hilarious. It's one of those crappy "battle of the sexes" comedies that were all the rage in the late 50s and 60s. The scripts casual misogyny means it has not travelled well. However, Lemon is great and Terry-Thomas is brilliant as ever.

So there I was in the kitchen...

When I was interupted by the arrival of...


Joe and two of his mates on their way to a fancy dress party...


or at least that's where they said they were going.

Back to cooking.

Risotto rice with mushrooms, onion, red pepper, mange tout and griddle-seared chicken breast. Very tasty.

Later, after the food was long gone, another phone call from Robert Fripp (we had spoken on the blower on Friday). This call was confirming all the news about King Crimson's return to active service in 2008, and Gavin Harrison's addition to the ranks. Also very tasty!

Double Talk Theo Travis

Adventures In Prog-Jazz

Double Talk
Theo Travis
33Records

Theo Travis seems to delight in changing his musical skin with every album he releases. This is no surprise for a player who is at ease in the worlds of blistering tenor work-outs in straight ahead jazz, progressive rock (with The Tangent, Gong) post-rock (David Sylvian), jazz-rock (Soft Machine Legacy) and ambient excursions via Cipher and now Robert Fripp.

If you want to know why Travis is in such demand then the soprano sax solo on “Ascending” tells you all you need to know. His talent for finding the very heart of a melody is reminiscent at times of the steely poise of Jan Garbarek in places, and certainly just as rewarding. That canny sense of judgement is reflected in his choice of the core group.

Pete Whittaker’s ethereal Hammond organ provides a flowing backdrop for Travis and guitarist Mike Outram. The latter’s contributions are simply outstanding – offering splenetic David Torn-like outbursts on “The Relegation of Pluto” and sublimely limpid echo-drenched arcs on “Oblivionville.” Along with Roy Dodds’ shrewd drumming, they fuse into a magnificent unit on the epic “And So It Seemed,” a breath-taking assault played to perfection.

Alongside his own writing, Travis regularly pulls off quality cover versions. 2004’s Earth To Ether breathed life into “21^st Century Schizoid Man”, whilst “Here’s That Rainy Day” (2001’s Heart of the Sun) caught the ballad’s eerie air of haunted desolation. His choice of Pink Floyd’s “See Emily Play” is understandable given his affections for the 1960s (evidenced elsewhere on the record by the fabulously catchy “Portobello 67”). Although it doesn’t quite capture the elusive stellar sparkle of the original, it allows Travis to squeeze out some enjoyable old-school wah-wah on the sax.

Guest player Robert Fripp helps Travis’ looped, multi-track flutes create a refined and sensuous gravity-free ballet, adding to the sense of depth, space and stylistic abandonment that transcends the usual conventions and concerns of the jazz album. It’s a difficult tightrope for any jazz player to walk, but the sure-footed progress displayed throughout Double Talk, Theo Travis makes it look and sound effortless.

Nominations For God XV

François Truffaut

Joe Zawinul Brown Street

Street Life

Joe Zawinul
Brown Street
Intuition

2006

Brown Street is a reminder of just how accomplished an artist Joe Zawinul was. The boy who came down from the Austrian mountains had a real ear for melodies that could easily be as light as a feather or pummel you with the kinds of sub-sonic grooves that could shake you to your boots. Being at ease within these two worlds was his secret weapon yet he rarely overplayed either.

Despite his macho posturing and swaggering pronouncements about his own God-given talents, his style of soloing was always more akin to skimming pebbles across incoming waves than surfing for glory in his outfits before and after Weather Report. With the massed ranks of the WDR big band largely liberating him having to provide the textured layers within his compositions, Zawinul is heard constantly sending mischievous, darting runs of notes between the big band breakers, teasing and tugging in all the right places. Though many of these tunes were originally incorporating a brash rock-orientated ambience, you’d never know that from this collection as they sound as though they were always destined for this large-scale brassy setting. That they swing along like there’s no tomorrow can't hurt either.

For all of Zawinul’s ability to move with the times, infusing Miles Davis’ music with a pungent European twist, or hard-wiring electronics into the body of jazz itself, Zawinul never lost touch with either his roots or their traditions. It’s this duality that informs the incendiary arrangements and provides the scorching back-drops for players to shine. In this respect Zawinul always proved an incredibly generous accompanist and writer.

Brown Street resounds triumphantly to these winning facets of his personality. Released last year well before his death he must have been rightly proud of what he achieved here. He couldn't want for a better memorial to his thrilling abilities than this 2 CD set.

Departures & Arrivals

We’ve been playing host this last week to Debra’s dad, Bill and his wife Kath. Plans were hatched and announced for a Raikes-centric family get together next year in foreign climes.

Everyone in the house is down with variant bugs. Alys has acute tonsillitis, Debbie has gripe, nausea and runs (surely a firm of solicitors if ever there was), whilst Tom, Joe and myself have headcolds. Even brother-in-law Bernard has a chest infection. If you’re thinking of coming here, DON’T.

That said, houseguests looming on the horizon include Debbie’s sister Dude, closely followed by the Lord Beige Peter and Kevin – D’s pals from Birmingham. Hopefully, our collective lurgy will have improved by the time folks arrive.

Joseph’s Rugby coach rang tonight telling me that my youngest son is walking wounded after having taken a bad knock to his knee at practice tonight. As I was waiting for the coach to drop Joe home, Matt Seattle rang.

We haven’t talked for a long while and it was good news to hear that he was preparing another album. Our conversation was shortened by Joe’s arrival and my need to tend to his knacked-up knee but it was cheering to hear Matt's chat.

On an entirely different matter entirely…

Here’s a face regular visitors to this site will be seeing a bit more of in the weeks to come. Lady and Gentlemen, please say hello to Nez.

Nez is the star of our forthcoming blog serial, The Scent of Cinnamon, a collaboration featuring the fabulous talents of Bernard Quinn, brother in law and excellent artist to boot, and yours truly. More details as they emerge.

John Stevens & Evan Parker The Longest Night / Corner To Corner

The Return of the Dynamic Duo
The Longest Night / Corner To Corner
John Stevens & Evan Parker
Ogun

Once again, Ogun have come up with another blistering example from a golden period in British Jazz and in particular, the free improvisation scene which the label did such an important job of preserving for posterity.

Having recorded with each other since The Spontaneous Music Ensemble’s Karyobin back in 1968, Parker and Stevens in particular were already veterans of a highly specialised means of expression by the time they recorded volumes 1 and 2 of The Longest Night in 1976. As Stevens observes in his original liner notes, he and Evan had been “developing and pruning towards this (way of playing) since 1966.” The ardent dedication which forms the spine of their sound, is a kind of a smash and grab raid on the bare bones of what constitutes music itself.

Crisp, brittle notes and strokes are rapidly gathered like so much kindling and then set ablaze by the telepathic interplay that comes from a couple of careers spent listening carefully not so much what was going on around them but what could be happening instead.

The single-minded intensity over this record, and that of their return match,1993’s Corner To Corner (originally released the year before Stevens' death and also incorporated into this release) shows their fondness for pithy angularity remained undiminished and that their unmistakable chemistry was never compromised or diluted.

Inside that myriad of terse exchanges in which clusters of sputtering notes and beats constantly wrestle, one musician dares the other into increasingly tighter spaces, forcing themselves to explore and work with a core vocabulary.

Whilst much of jazz is about extemporising across a lengthy series of verses, Stevens and Parker perform an aural equivalent of a haiku wherein expression is paradoxically both forceful and beautifully restrained. This is the first time The Longest Night has been released on CD and very welcome it is too. Priceless stuff.

Your Arsenal Morrissey

He's A Star, Man!

Your Arsenal Morrissey
EMI
1992

Life after the halcyon days of The Smiths proved to be something of a mixed bag for Morrissey. His solo career was never in doubt of course. There were more that enough fans needing their fix of his fabulous miserablism or those famously tart rejoinders that you’d always wished you’d had the gumption to come up with to ensure the man they call the Moz would never get short-changed in the adulation stakes.

However, whilst his sophomore solo outing, Viva Hate, was indeed a strong calling card full of Northern promise, the following material, particularly the oddly unengaged Kill Uncle failed to delight to the same degree.

The shadow cast by the long list of The Smiths’ unerring, and perhaps for Morrissey himself unnerving, drop-dead classics meant that anything less than the very best from this particular singer would be consigned to unenviable comparisons of those former glories.

Commonly regarded as return to form, Your Arsenal, was also something of an artistic retreat from the sparse pointillistic rockabilly experimentalism of its predecessor to a surer delivery of hook-laden pop. Its reputation as a serious contender is due in no small measure to the deadly double-whammy of the opening “You’re Gonna Need Someone On Your Side” and “Glamorous Glue.”

The first is as dizzying as a fairground waltzer with cavernous growls swirling about as wide-boy twang-bars move menacingly closer, bending your ear the whole time. It’s no coincidence that ex-Spider From Mars, Mick Ronson, was at the helm for this release. The second track shows the muse had decisively moved from 1960s kitchen-sink noir, to plug directly into a harder-edged, 70s glam-rock glower-power source.

Of course, the decade that launched a thousand ill-considered droopy moustaches wasn’t all crap tank-tops and Magpie at tea-time.

Skinheads stomped a brutish path through the cultural milieu as the controversy-courting “National Front Disco” makes clear. Allegations that he was in sympathy with flag-waving yobbos were further stoked as he started unfurling the Union Jack during gigs. Yet the song is clearly and legitimately documenting a social and political phenomenon and who else should be there to chart the ambiguities of class and race if not one of the finest wordsmiths this nation has produced?

If proof were ever needed of this last claim then even a cursory listening to “We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful” will dispel any doubts. A deliciously spiteful gem that could’ve easily graced the incomparable The Queen Is Dead, it’s quality songs like this that enabled Morrissey to continue his irresistible rise.

Holy Ka-Blam!!!!!! Marvel Comics Online

Wow. I came across this bit of news on the Beeb. Marvel are making 250 of their titles available for online perusal as part of their digital archive. The titles will only be up for a limited period but this is great news for those of us who are interested in reacquainting ourselves with men and women leaping around in tights and capes.

Six Organs Of Admittance Shelter From The Ash

Anything but careful with that axe...

Shelter From The Ash
Six Organs of Admittance
Drag City

It sure sounds like San Francisco is the place to be for drone-rock if a clutch of recent releases are anything to go by. Hot on the heels of SF combo Wooden Shjips’ recent tasty release, there now comes guitarist Ben Chasny’s latest Six Organs project whose album is filled with sonic savagery and incredible dynamics capable of wreaking havoc upon unsuspecting ears.

Whilst the guitar is clearly the star, what stops this from being a vacuous shred-fest is the restraint with which Chasny wields the axe. Quicker than you can say 'coruscating', it moves right along into onto 'yowling feedback', then 'soaring' before ending up with our old favourite, 'blistering'. Clichés though they may be, they all certainly apply. The ominous, “Green Manalishi” tension of “Coming To Get You” really adds to the thrill-factor that Chasny painstakingly builds from the first to the last note of the entire record.

A thoughtful production (helped by Tim Green of SF-based power trio, The Fucking Champs) ensures that the heroics don’t end up as high-pitched histrionics. The opening track "Alone In The Alone" paints a vivid picture of a sun-baked high plains drifter around whom scurrying notes scuttle and bend for the attack like scorpions poised to sting.

Also providing the perfect soundtrack to a post-modern Western movie is the truly poignant lament “Strangled Road.” Chasny casts a jaundiced eye upon the chancers you’re likely to meet on the dirt trail of life: 'They’re hiding/waiting to kiss your skull/ they may even eat the horse that you’re riding/swallow the whole world whole.”

Bleak it may be. However, steering a path that includes elements of acid folk, grunge, heavy metal (the album is dedicated to his late uncle who introduced Chasny to Iron Maiden at the age of 8) Neil Young-style arc welding, prog, Krautrock (the title track is especially reminiscent of Neu) and echoes of a dusty Americana, it’s an ambitious mix that succeeds brilliantly.

Never needlessly showy, Chasny makes everything count, fashioning a beguiling order from a sometimes snarling chaos of free-jazz storm-front drumming, clouds of squalling distortion, and some of the most plaintive ballads you'll hear this year. A real triumph and surely a real contender for album of the year.

Testing For Buzz XVIII: The Space Race II

When I was growing up my heroes were cowboys, Casey Jones, Captain Nemo, Doctor Who and Winston Churchill. Though I didn’t think of it like this at the time I suppose they were all rooted in the past or the future. Then, along came the astronauts, sharp haircuts, easy smiles, and impossibly cool. More importantly, they were right here, right now. They talked the talk, and demonstrably walked the walk as each tin can slipped free of our mundane world. With each and every space shot going onwards and upwards, these guys seemed invulnerable. Until the 27^th January,1967, when we all fell to earth with a bump.

Street Life XCV

Kenotaphion Jonty Semper

The Sounds Of Life And Death
Kenotaphion
Jonty Semper
Locus+

Curated by conceptual artist Jonty Semper and released in 2001, this intriguing 2 CD set collects 83 Armistice Day and Remembrance Sundays dating back to 1929. Though the source recordings vary considerably in their fidelity they confirm that there’s nothing quite so deafening as silence.

Each of these frozen moments is anything but silent of course. The crackle and hiss of old technology impregnates the nation’s pause for reflection with an unseemly mechanistic fervour. Even as recording techniques improve, silence itself constantly remains elusive; children cry, unheeding heels click across the cobbles with a subversive insolence; protesters puncture the air.

The one consistent motif is those sombre chimes of Big Ben, sometimes heard close to and sometimes from a distance. Whatever there proximity, they resonate from deep within the seat of Government, reminding us of the place of power that sends its young men and women to lay down their lives on our behalf.

Its mournful echo reminds us of the connections between the living and the dead, becoming the physical embodiment of John Donne’s lines:

“No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

Attempting to capture something as ephemeral as a nation in reflection is an intriguing prospect that is always going to fall short of the task. Yet these acts of public remembrance and our thoughts who’ve fallen upon those fallen and perhaps the reasons for their going, for whom the noise and bustle of life does not begin again after two minutes, is necessarily powerful stuff.

Norman Mailer 1923 - 2007

Norman Mailer died today. Loathed by the Left, X-rated by the Right, Mailer managed to offend just about everyone with his combination of self-important, over-inflated hyperbole.

I first encountered Mailer in 1969 via his commentary of the space race and eventual book, Of A Fire On The Moon, not because I was a precocious child with literary pretensions from an early age, but because I voraciously collected anything (and I do mean anything) remotely connected to the moonshot. His pumped-up prose was way beyond my ken at the time but years later I took to reading it, warming to the macho push and shove that always seemed to be in search of the heroic and heroic failure.

From there I began a sporadic Mailer quest in no particular order; The Naked And The Dead, The Executioner’s Song, Tough Guys Don’t Dance, Ancient Evenings, and started but unfinished, Oswald’s Tale. Initially impressed, ultimately I fell out of love with his work.

The Fight and An American Dream are the only two Mailer books I have in the house. His detailing of the mechanics and metaphysics of the Muhammad Ali – George Foreman boxing match in The Fight is a spellbinding tour de force that can leave you breathless. Similarly his dark mediation on power and corruption in An American Dream is powerfully dramatic. The scene where the book’s central character, Rojack looks up at the moon and gets onto the balcony rail of his skyscraper apartment is hair-raising stuff.

“Half-drunk, half-sick, half on the balcony, half off, for I had put my leg over the balustrade as if I were able better to breathe with one toe pointing at the moon, I looked up into my Being, all that lovely light and rotting nerve, and proceed to listen. Which is to say, I looked out deep into that shimmer of past death and new madness, that platinum lady with her silver lights, and she was in my ear, I could here her music: ”Come to me,” she was saying “Come now. Now!” and I could feel my other foot go over the side of the balustrade, and I was standing on the wrong side of the railing, only my fingers (since my thumbs were up and pointing like horns at the moon), only my eight fingers to hold me from the plunge. But it was worse than that. Because I knew I would fly. my body would drop like a sack, down with it, bag of clothes, bones, and all, but I would rise, the part of me which spoke and thought and had its glimpses of the landscape of my Being, would soar, would rise, would leap the miles of darkness to that moon.”

Greasy Trucker's Party Man / Brinsley Schwarz/Hawkwind

Crazy Vibes Dude…
Greasy Truckers Party
Man / Brinsley Schwarz/Hawkwind
EMI

Remixed from the original master tapes of a benefit concert for at London’s legendary but dingy Roundhouse, this three disc set presents us with something of a strange brew to mull over. The proto-prog of Welsh rockers Man sprawls across the length and breadth of the first disc with no thought or concern for notions of concision. We join the action as their epic “Spunk Rock” is already underway. Despite this late arrival there are still 22 finger-numbing guitar licking minutes of the beast. Whoever made up the rule that if you can’t say it in three minutes then it isn’t worth saying clearly hadn’t bothered to tell Deke Leonard and crew.

That particular message did find its way to Brinsley Schwarz, who sandwiched in between Man and Hawkwind, seem to be the square peg in the Roundhouse hole. At the time when the underground / progressive rock scene was predicated on lengthy exposition, the brevity of the numbers in the Schwarz set seems positively daring with hindsight. Yet their set is a peerless example of country rock and presages the rise of pub rock fundamentalists such as Doctor Feelgood. After a slightly shaky start, Nick Lowe’s personable style eventually wins over the crowd who were more than likely wondering why the music kept stopping every three minutes. Listen out for a stunning version of the William Clay / Judy Bell smoocher, “Private Number”.

Normal abnormal service is resumed when Hawkwind’s brand of trancey shambolic rock takes to the stage. Coming across like Motorhead on mogadon or Status Quo from outer space, the cosmic vibe is based upon a nail-in-the-head thud and a few wah-wah flowery flourishes every now and then. Robert Calvert is on good form delivering lines of pied-eyed Dan Dare-isms. And of course there’s the stellar thump of “Silver Machine”. Though it pains me to say it, hearing Calvert’s scrawny vocal, they were absolutely right to take this version and replace Calvert’s lines with Lemmy’s metal-plated rasp.

Nominations For God XIV

John Coltrane

Street Life XCIV

Mujician

A cold, cold night with a cruel cutting wind was braved as I made my way to The Sage in Gateshead to see Mujician - Keith Tippett: piano and percussion, Paul Dunmall: saxes, Paul Rogers: bass, and Tony Levin: drums.

Of course, getting to sit about ten foot away from Keith Tippett playing a splendid Steinway is worth braving any kind of weather for. From where I sat it seemed to me that the first set they played struggled to gain momentum.

Given Mujician avoid the usual safety net structures of your usual jazz quartet this isn’t especially surprising. And isn’t at least half the joy of improvisation being in the company of world class musicians as they embark on a journey?

The second set seemed more coherent, with a more flowing approach adopted this time around. Dunmall’s sax worked a charm as he laid down a bed of breathy harmonics from which his colleagues chirruped, chattered and clattered their way into a barn-storming session. The entire show was recorded by BBC Radio Three for broadcast on January 11^th as part of their Jazz on 3 strand.

Newcastle by night looking over from the Sage in Gateshead.

No Longer Down In The Mouth...

Pondering time is thin on the ground at the moment. As I need time to think I have lots of deadlines nipping and pinching at my heels. This morning’s deadlines be damned, I kept an appointment with destiny…sorry, dentistry.

Free at last brother, free at last.

A most productive visit to the dentist today, resulting in the offending tooth being given its marching orders. After all these years it was understandably reluctant to leave its home. However with some not-too-gentle persuasion out it jolly well popped.

And now...off to Newcastle or more specifically, The Sage in Gateshead.

Quiet Sun Mainstream

There's A Quiet Riot Going On...
Mainstream
Quiet Sun

Quiet Sun originally formed in the early 70s when they were wide of loon, lapel and long hair as indeed were most of the record-buying Great British Public. However, not too many people outside of a handful of Polytechnic social secretaries were interested in their cerebral blend of jazz and rock.

Going their separate ways (Bill MacCormick to Matching Mole, Charles Hayward to This Heat and Dave Jarrett to life outside the music industry) it was left to Phil Manzanera to strike it lucky with Roxy Music. Calling the old pals back together, they frantically grabbed at the studio downtime during the sessions that spawned his 1975, Diamond Head. Mostly done in first takes, it’s this giddy, breathless urgency and energy that makes this a sensational record.

Imagine the Soft Machine circa Third minus brass but with electric guitar gravitating somewhere between Robert Fripp and Fred Frith and you’ll have some indication of what Quiet Sun were about. There’s a lot of furrowed - brow riffing on this album particularly on the opening “Sol Caliente” and “Trot” with further turbulence provided by Hayward’s consistently creative drumming.

However, a gentle self-deprecating humour pervades the set - how about “Mummy was an asteroid, daddy was a small non-stick kitchen utensil” for a title. The delightful “Rongwrong” with vocals and lyrics by Hayward (later performed by the equally classic but equally short-lived Manzanera side-project 801) provide a welcome respite from the instrumental fury.

Interestingly, Dave Jarrett is the album’s secret weapon. A strong composer and player, it is his contribution which binds the whole lot together. The rhapsodic piano solo on “Trot” from Jarrett, the spiky Farfisa stabbing on “asteroid” and the Ratledgesque noodling on “Bargain Classics” are a joy to hear.

It’s an evocative valediction to a style of music that was already passing out of favour even in 1975. Yet its varied timbres (bolstered by the presence of Brian Eno throughout the recording) and exhilarating blend that is part fusion, part prog and a hint of the Canterbury sound can still raise the hairs on the back of the neck. Essential.

This Could Be The Start Of Something...

Well, that was interesting. Three meetings today. Two professional and one of a personal nature. I noticed when I was out in Whitley Bay this morning how quickly the clouds were moving. Change is definitely in the air.

Testing For Buzz XVII: Billy Liar

We’ve all been here before. We’ve all had dreams and sometimes our dreams have gotten the better of us. Inspirational performances from Tom Courtney (did he ever better this?) in the title role and sterling support from a who’s who cast of UK character actors – Wilfred Pickles, Finlay Currie, Rodney Bewes, Leonard Rossiter, and of course, making a dazzling debut as the free spirit Liz, Julie Christie. Superb.

The Fickle Finger Of Taste?

Joseph went off to play rugby this morning in some far flung corner of the region. He came back a few hours later proudly sporting his latest injury from this unforgiving game.

Meanwhile Tom has taken up supporting the New England Patriots. I have no idea why a young lad in Whitley Bay would adopt a team so many miles away from home but he’s quite happy doing so. He regards the English game (and rugby) with contempt and imperious disinterest. Perhaps it's because he watched Oliver Stone's Any Given Sunday a couple of years ago?

Later in the day I spent a while interviewing David Cross for a forthcoming KCCC release. David was very generous with his time and very enthusiastic about the music – from Kassell, April 1^st 1974. It’s easy to hear why – this is extraordinary stuff and if it was life-changing for a punter like me, imagine what it was like being inside the beast itself.

Debra, a visiting Sam and (separately with his mates) Tom all went off to see the firework display along the seafront. Having a pressing deadline meant I was unable to share in the fun.

Elsewhere, Robert Wyatt’s Comicopera, is continuing to elude me. I’ve been listening to it a fair bit but for some reason I’m not connecting with it. I’ve been a keen Wyatt fan for donkey’s years – I saw him drumming with Matching Mole though not alas with Soft Machine – and I would count Rock Bottom as one of my all-time faves. Schleep was good and Cuckooland I thought at the time was very good. A couple of years later and my recent listenings to the latter album haven’t quite lived up to my previously expressed feelings.

Perhaps it’s because our tastes change? Perhaps it’s because for whatever reason this isn’t quite the music we need at the moment?

Cary Brothers Who You Are

Brand Of Brothers
Who You Are Cary Brothers
Bluhammock

It seems hardly a week goes by without a clutch of new releases from bearded young men, earnestly plying their singer-songwriter wares on the public. You’d think there’d only be so much doe-eyed, shoe-gazing angst the world could take but it appears that supply has yet to outstrip demand in that particular department.

Bearing a passing resemblance to Devendra Banhart (happily without the concomitant kookiness), Cary Brothers has been effective at creating a bit of quiet cult status - the prerequisite of today’s post-modern troubadour.

A college mate of Zach Braff, (indie film director, and star of comedy series, Scrubs), Brothers’ career got a leg-up when one of his songs was used in the show and onto the Grammy-winning soundtrack to Braff’s movie, Garden State. With strategic appearances on other hit TV shows such as Smallville, Grey’s Anatomy and ER, and of course the viral ubiquity of myspace, such slow burn brand-building has raised the temperature of expectation.

The acoustic core of his debut album is augmented by Chad Fischer’s sensitive production, encompassing Daniel Lanois’ chilled-out panoramas and the intimate warmth of Joe Boyd at his best.

This combination finds convincing expression in the lilting simplicity of “Honestly” and the truly beautiful but all too brief, “Loneliest Girl In The World,” where guitar picking is graced with icy trickles of piano and reverb-wreathed strings. “Ride” would lift the most cynical and leaden of hearts clear into the stratosphere.

There are moments when his self-confessed Brit-pop affections jar with the LA sun-soaked melancholy permeating his more mature material. “Who You Are” borrows Snow Patrol’s chugging introspection, whilst “The Glass Parade” aims for some of Coldplay's arid arena-pomp. Soft-rock gambits aside, Brothers is at his best when focussed on smaller, bitter-sweet interaction rather than zippo-aloft gestures.

His PR people imagine him mixing it with primetime David Crosby. Whilst that’s plainly wishful thinking for now, he does share some of the same harmonic instincts of Laurel Canyon’s greatest survivor. Who You Are is an impressive debut. Whether he cuts his hair or entangles the entire area will be interesting to see.

Street LIfe XCIII

Nominations For God XIII

Leonard Rossiter

My Favourite Myspace I: Travis Hartnett

A morning of tax-related dullardism was considerably lifted by listening to the music of Travis Hartnett floating through my PC speakers. What a wonderful collection of graceful tunes.

Listening to them sets off little indie cinema movie scenes in my head. "Overhang" and "John Williams" are simply sublime and the perfect antidote to my bureaucratic blues.

Travis tells me he's just come off the road after touring with alt - country crooner, David Bavas and his band the Down Comforter. "2600 miles in six days. Very discombobulating" says the tallest guitarist I've ever met.

More Travis here.