Log #169 - The Other Side Of God's Favorite Customer

As I come to the end of the year and thoughts turn towards my year end review there are two or three albums in this list this week that will probably make the short list for Album Of The Year. They are the Tord Gustavsen, the Father John Misty, and the KLF.

KLF Chill Out

Father John Misty God's Favorite Customer

Simon and Garfunkel Bridge Over Troubled Water

Bill Laswell Imaginary Cuba

Tord Gustavsen The Other Side

Ketil Bjornstad and David Darling Epigraphs

Taking each in turn we have The Tord Gustavsen Trio's The Other Side which is a simply beautiful album of wistful chilled jazz piano. Gustavsen takes a minimalist approach yet the melodies are Debussyesque. Themes repeat and return throughout the album's 12 tracks, something I did not notice before I had fully absorbed the album several times.

I don't know where this sort of music sits in the jazz pantheon (jazz experts may consider it easy listening or light weight?) but I know I love it and find it much more satisfying than the often too frantic classical solo piano (see Log #166 ) or even the minimalist chamber piano of Bjornstad and Darling's Epigraphs album. It's effortless flow is closer to Keith Jarrett's Koln Concert and Philip Glass's Solo Piano album.

Father John Misty's God's Favourite Customer (English spelling there) album could also be considered slightly on the light weight side but the sheer brilliance of the melodic songs pulls it through. Father John Misty is a cross between Elton John and John Grant.

I can't decide if KLF's Chillout has nothing going on or a helluva lot. Whatever, it remains a fascinating and atmospheric listen - one where you hear more the more you listen. Save for a jumpy number towards the end, the album is essentially a concept piece played out over one continuous 45 minutes of ambient sound effects and samples.

One timeless classic and a pretty nondescript non event make up the numbers this week and we have our 6.

Read More

Log #135 - I Wish Tour '74

Father John Misty God's Favourite Customer 

Rory Gallagher Irish Tour '74

Me'Shell Ndegeocello Peace Beyond Passion

John Grant The Queen of Denmark

Manuel Göttsching - Inventions for Electric Guitar

Wishbone Ash Live Dates

A couple of old favourite live albums this week. I used to love the cover to the Wishbone Ash Live Dates album. It feels very exotic and from another time and place, like Lawrence of Arabia, The English Patient, or Our Man In Havana. I don't think the reality was quite as exotic. Some of these live recordings come from err... Reading. They are superbly recorded though with long instrumental passages displaying the band's famous dual lead guitars.

The track titles are a bit sword and sorcery, like The Pilgrim, The King Will Come, Throw Down The Sword, and Warrior. But it's immaculately rendered if you like your guitar rock on the melodic and slightly soft end of the spectrum.

Several forms of the band are still touring relatively small venues today. I did see one version (with one of the original guitarists - I forget which one) tour Live Dates a few years ago in a church hall type venue. With the crowd seated in metal school chairs the atmosphere wasn't conducive to rocking out. Nevertheless the fans were lapping up the signed vinyl copies of the album after the show. I see they are back again at a venue near me this Autumn.

The cover to the Rory Gallagher album is suitably minimalist. Just some red type over silver chrome (and a gatefold of tour photos inside). It suits the music - straight forward blues rock played by one of the pre-eminent electric guitarists of his day. 

One time, many years ago (Rory died in 1995) I was lucky enough to see him live at a venue in Southampton. He played a blistering 3 hour set including my favourite song at the time A Million Miles Away (which is also on this album). I then drove to Cardiff to see a repeat of the concert the following night. They don't make 'em like Rory anymore.

In January 1974 against a backdrop of the Irish troubles Gallagher toured dates in Belfast, Cork and Dublin, refusing to cancel despite security issues (the day before the Belfast date 10 bombs went off at various locations around the city). 

Unlike many live albums which seemed to catch a band off colour Irish Tour '74 captured Gallagher and his bandmates at their peak, doing what they did best, playing hard and dirty blues rock to an ecstatic homecoming crowd.

With Rory, if he didn’t have somebody to look at then he couldn’t feed off the energy. That’s why Irish Tour is such a good bloody album because it was recorded live, he got the crowd there with him singing along and sort of like urging him along… without the presence of an audience the recording process for Rory was a bit of a strain.

Keyboard Player Lou Martin

Gallagher was one of those rare musicians who could literally make his instrument sing. The guitar became part of his body and the sound (hardly embellished by any effects save for a bit of whammy arm) became an extension of his voice. Indeed, it's been said many times, and probably on this blog before, but Jimi Hendrix allegedly said he was the best guitarist he'd ever heard.

[Can we have some more meat on that bone of a claim please Eddy? Ed.]

Well, not much actually.

There is evidence that in a TV interview (which I can't uncover) that when asked how it felt to be the best guitarist in the world Jimi responded: "I don't know, you better ask Rory Gallagher."

But this urban myth has also had the names Chet Atkins or Phil Keaggy or Randy California or Terry Kath inserted in place of Rory Gallagher, so it seems it probably didn't happen. I've also found claims that ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons was Hendrix's favourite guitarist.

Here, right now, I'll add my own versions of the alleged quote for the sake of confusing google searches!:

When asked what it was like to be the best guitarist in the world Jimi Hendrix responded, I don't know, you better ask Tommy Emmanuel.

When asked what it was like to be the best guitarist in the world Jimi Hendrix responded, I don't know, you better ask Andy Latimer.

[This is just getting silly now. Stop it. Ed.]

Ok, let's just say the dates could fit, and it could be feasible. Gallagher was an amazing guitarist and Hendrix could have heard him sometime after Gallagher's original band Taste were formed in 1966. Hear some of his music or check out footage on youtube and decide for yourself. 'Nuff said.

Read More

Log #134 - Transcendental Music From Another Universe

Father John Misty God's Favourite Customer 

Alice Coltrane Universal Consciousness

Popol Vuh In Den Garten Pharaos

John Grant The Queen of Denmark

Nucleus Plastic Rock

Harmonia Deluxe

Best of Easter bunny wishes to my readers this week. A week that sees a number of re-entries. I've come across a lot of new albums in the last 2 months and many have not had enough plays yet. So this week recent acquisitions from Harmonia, Nucleus, and Father John Misty make a welcome return.

The extended Popol Vuh drones retain a place. It's music that bridges the gap between ambient drone music and Berlin school electronica offering nice background music but at the same time having a lot going on. A recent message I received from London sound artist Keith Berry comes to mind:

Thank you for taking the time needed that my work requires from the listener.

... meaning that this sort of music does require a bit of time and investment but is all the more rewarding as a result.

The super talented John Grant slips in too on the back of my interest in the similar Father John Misty. John Grant is an accomplished pianist and solo singer (which is how I've seen him in concert a couple of times) but his albums are more experimental with a band employing electronics.

Most interesting entry this week is probably the Alice Coltrane. For many years dismissed by the jazz fraternity (I've seen her described as jazz's very own Yoko Ono on account of her influence over the late career of her husband John Coltrane) her own unique music has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance in recent years.

I can't decide if this is the best or worst music I've ever heard!

Coltrane's albums are a mixed bag, covering many different styles including avant-garde, jazz fusion, drone, spiritual, chant, ambient, electronic, devotional, cosmic and orchestral. In groups ranging from a few players to many she personally played piano, organ (in particular the Wurlitzer) and harp. It seems in seeking to step from her husband's shadow following his death in 1967 she chose to push the boundaries and come up with something very new. New listeners should therefore proceed with caution. From what I've heard to date I can't decide if this is the best or worst music I've ever heard! Could this be another case of The Hangman's Beautiful Daughter?

Universal Consciousness from 1971 is often offered up as Alice Coltrane's masterpiece and is probably the best place to start.

Art of the highest order, conceived by a brilliant mind, poetically presented in exquisite collaboration by divinely inspired musicians.

Thom Jurek

This album showcases her electronic organ playing and (to my surprise) mirrors the sounds of Terry Riley - a sound I'd previously never heard from anyone else (I was also very unclear whether I liked the Riley sound or not in a previous post but did say this was a good thing). Piano, harp and violins, very prominent on some of her albums, are less to the fore here, and there are no horns at all, but there is plenty of jazz drumming provided by Jack DeJohnette amongst others.

The opening (title) track is a force to be reckoned with. Coltrane throws everything at this. There is pulsing double bass, frenetic drumming, screeching violins, flowing harp and organ impro. It's a brave start and the omens are unclear at this point, but in fact this turns out to be the most challenging track on the album.

Battle At Armageddon is an intriguing track with a modal organ scale that repeats and steps up in key gradually rather like Robert Fripp's unique guitar solo in Starless. Rashied Ali (who played with John Coltrane) this time provides a great drum solo.

Oh Allah is a gentler tune with drawn out organ chords and more restrained soloing, drenched in strings, and drum flutters this time from Clifford Jarvis. It has a bit of a sudden fade out for some reason though.

Hare Krishna at 8 minutes is the longest track on the album. This is even more chilled than Oh Allah and is perhaps the most beautiful track on the album. If all Alice Coltrane music was like this you'd certainly be on to a winner.

https://open.spotify.com/track/1dQ691F7ixVFl9sTXM77XZ

Sita Ram has an Indian flavour with a tanpura drone upon which Coltrane impros treated organ and harp flourishes. The organ solos even sound a bit like Scottish bagpipes. This track is so very Terry Riley. Spoilt a little again at the end with an all too severe fade (why did engineers do this, particularly on recordings of this vintage?).

The final track The Ankh of Amen-Ra begins (and ends) with a beautiful Coltrane harp solo with wind chime backing which bookends a central section of Soft Machine like organ groove with the drums high in the mix.

I'm a little wary where to go next with Coltrane (it could be all down hill from here) but Universal Consciousness has been an exciting discovery.

Read More

Log #132 - A Mammoth Perfection

Soft Hair Soft Hair  

Sly And The Family Stone Dynamite! The Collection

Popol Vuh In Den Garten Pharaos

Father John Misty God's Favourite Customer

Cluster Zuckerzeit

Various Neu Decade

It's a sharing week in the 6 CD changer this week with an equal showing from Krautrock and Soul Funk (plus a considerable helping of the brilliant Father John Misty which has trumped both camps to be almost certainly the most played CD in the slots).

In the blue Krautrock corner we have more from the very interesting Cluster, a Mojo magazine cover disc and a classic early album from German experimental group Popol Vuh. In the red Soul Funk corner we have a quick return for the sleazy disco of Soft Hair and an overdue one from Sly And The Family Stone (I've also been enjoying another classic album new to me - this one from Isaac Hayes - but that's not here today and will be saved for another time). 

As I said in last week's post I thought I was pretty well acquainted with Krautrock but the Neu Decade compilation disc (touted as "modern European music from 1970-79) from Mojo would, again, indicate otherwise: There's only one track I'm familiar with on here and about ten of the actual bands I've not heard before at all;

Lots to absorb here but I was immediately intrigued by the Tangerine Dream track Ultima Thule Part 1 which sounds nothing like the Tangerine Dream I know. The track was recorded in 1971 around the time of their second album Alpha Centauri and released as a single. It's a heavy rock instrumental with drums and guitar and soaring keyboards. Rather like early Pink Floyd:

I don't have a copy of the band's first two albums but would be very surprised if they sounded anything like this.

We also have some solo works from the Cluster/Neu!/Harmonia personnel featured last week, and a piece by Hawkwind's keyboardist Tim Blake.

There's a nice quote from David Bowie's producer Tony Visconti on the CD cover:

The atmosphere really stimulated David. He loved it there. I think he spent less than two years in Berlin but it really gave him a new perspective and a new outlook on what to do. 

It certainly did, as Low, Heroes and Lodger testify.

"A Mammoth Perfection" - In Den Garten Pharaos so described by Julian Cope.

Popol Vuh were a German electronic avant-garde band founded by pianist and keyboardist Florian Fricke in 1969. In Den Gärten Pharaos (In The Garden Of Pharao) is Popol Vuh’s second album.

The first album Affenstunde (1970) is regarded as one of the earliest "space music" works, featuring the then brand new sounds of the Moog synthesizer together with ethnic percussion. German music guru Peter Cat tells me that Fricke was actually the very first musician to own a Moog in Germany. This continued to be used on In Den Gärten Pharaos, before Fricke largely abandoned electronic instruments, selling his Moog (to Klaus Schulze!), in favour of piano-led compositions from 1972's Hosianna Mantra forward. Check out this beautiful minimalist piano solo from Fricke for instance:

Eat your heart out Philip Glass.

Popol Vuh influenced many other European bands with their uniquely soft but elaborate instrumentation, which took inspiration from the music of Tibet, Africa, and South America (the original "Popol Vuh" was a sacred Mayan text - I love learning new stuff (and not just music) through this blog). With spiritual and introspective music sometimes described as "ethereal", they created dense immersive soundscapes through psychedelic walls of sound, and are regarded as precursors of contemporary world music, as well as of new age and ambient.

Popol Vuh went on to contribute soundtracks to the films of Werner Herzog, including Aguirre, the Wrath of God, Nosferatu, Fitzcarraldo, Cobra Verde, Heart of Glass and The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, in which Fricke appeared.

In Den Gärten Pharaos consists of two side long compositions with the later reissue also adding two bonus tracks. The opening title track begins with water sounds and a gentle drone which are joined by tabla drumming and jazzy electric piano which even reminds me a little of the sound on John Martyn's Solid Air album. This beautiful restful track fades away as it begins, on washes of water.

The church organ and choir drenched second track Vuh is described as "a near religious experience" by Peter Cat. Beginning on a swell of gongs and crashing cymbals a triumphant cathedral of sound is built on three monumental organ chords.

It's truly fascinating to hear these revolutionary sounds at the dawn of the synthesizer.

Eddy Bamyasi 

The bonus tracks are two 10 minute pieces entitled Kha-White Structures (parts 1 and 2). These are a little more experimental. Part 1 has a very revolutionary off key synth loop which sounds just like some tracks from Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works II. Part 2 is a wavering drone with ghostly background most like a Stockhausen piece.

In Den Garten Pharaos is definitely in my top 3 Krautrock albums along with Tago Mago and Zeit.

Raphael Loubert 

All in all a fascinating record of ambience much closer to Tangerine Dream and Brian Eno than the "traditional" rock-based Krautrock of contemporaries Faust, Can and Neu!.

Florian Fricke, 1944 -2001

HERE THE WHOLE THING HEAR >>

Read More

Log #131 - A Cluster Of Faustian Harmonia

I've considered myself a relatively knowledgeable fan of Krautrock for many years - ever since I stumbled across my first Can album in a second hand store in Chichester one school lunch hour nearly 40 years ago (it was the spanner in the sky one which was how it was known, or aka simply Can, or Inner Space) (it was an interesting record pretty unlike anything else I had in my collection at the time (I was unaccustomed to the monotonic singing, the fluttery jazzy drumming and the in-your-face synths) but my life didn't really change until I heard Tago Mago a few months later from whence I was launched into Krautrock space: My rocket ship taking me to planets Neu! Grobschnitt, Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Nektar, and Klaus Schulze).

The caveat being of course that the much maligned (including by the artists themselves) term Krautrock has varied and wide meanings. For me I think it covers a particular genre of rock music that was coming out of Germany in the early to mid 70s. This is music characterised by repetitive "motorik" beats - it certainly wasn't the blues based rock or progrock prevalent in the UK and US at the time although there was a small degree of overlap. It wasn't all the German rock music either - I don't think a band like Scorpions is a Krautrock band for instance.

It is also arguable whether the synth bands like Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream were really Krautrock. Their music is more often associated with the terms Kosmische (cosmic) or Berlin School (although the latter term didn't gain much traction until Eno and Bowie, heavily influenced by German electronic music, rocked up in that city in the mid 70s).

The origins of the more generic term Krautrock are disputed but seem to derive from use by some music journalists and radio DJ John Peel was an early adopter in the early 70s. German band Faust even recorded a track entitled Krautrock as early as 1974 but would later, like most of their contemporaries, distance themselves from the term explaining that "when the English people started talking about Krautrock, we thought they were just taking the piss".  Nevertheless the term gained more credence especially as the bands became retrospectively influential and revered reaching a critical mass through Julian Cope's legendary 1995 Krautrocksampler book. Cope would explain though that the term was merely a subjective British word based on the way the music was received in the UK rather than on the actual West German music scene out of which it grew.

The point of the lengthy preamble is new (to me) Krautrock music is still coming to my ears for the first time pretty much proving I was not as knowledgeable or well-listened (well-listened should be a word too like well-read) on the subject as I had thought. This week I've been enjoying a diet of Faust, Cluster, Popul Vuh and Harmonia. All bands I've not studied before. In coming weeks I'll delve deeper into Krautrock outer space and hope to take trips to Planets Ash Ra Tempel, Guru Guru, and Amon Duul.

This week's selection in the magazine centres on a family of overlapping artists - personnel was shared throughout the bands Neu!, Harmonia and Cluster (also called Kluster and Qluster at different times).

The Neu!/Harmonia/Cluster cast list:

Klaus Dinger - Kraftwerk, Neu!, La Dusseldorf
Michael Rother - Kraftwerk, Neu!, Cluster
Hans-Joachim Roedelius - Kluster, Cluster, Harmonia, Qluster
Dieter Moebius - Cluster, Harmonia
Conny Plank - producer for Can, Harmonia, Cluster, Kraftwerk, Scorpions
Brian Eno - Cluster, Harmonia

The world's most important rock band.

Did Brian Eno really say that about the short lived collaboration of Cluster and Neu! musicians otherwise known as Harmonia? It is indeed a crying shame the band were so short lived and produced only 3 albums as they sound excellent. In fact one of the best Krautrock bands I've come across.

Their first two albums Music Von Harmonia and Deluxe are both superb - containing a hybrid mix of beats and ambience / a sort of half way house between the electro synth styles of Tangerine Dream say, and the rock of Neu!. The synth pads are thick and bassy like the sound on Kraftwerk's Autobahn. The rhythms are hypnotic and ravey. Watussi and Walky Talky are orgasmic tunes. The third album Tracks and Traces featured Eno (forming a bona fide "supergroup") and had an unaccountably delayed release of some 20 years eventually seeing the light of day in 1997. This one is a little more ambient.

Not surprisingly Cluster are similarly excellent. Across a much longer lifespan (13 albums) they started off experimental, before moving more into the mainstream of motorik beat led Krautrock, and then ambience. Zuckerzeit and Sowiesoso both from the mid 70s tend to be the go-to albums for the group.

Last in the Krautrock series this week is Faust and their classic IV album. I like the cover which with its empty music staves takes minimalism to an extreme. I get the impression Faust didn't take their art too seriously. The album is much more psychedelic heavy rock (even punky) than most Krautrock. The distorted guitars and synth effects remind me very much of Hawkwind. There's whimsy with an amateur sounding The Sad Skinhead:

Apart from all the bad times you gave me
I always felt good with you
Going places, smashing faces
what else could we do?

... and the Gong/Zappa like Giggy Smile with its jaunty singing and saxophone breaks. This track sounds very familiar. It is either very similar to something else or I've heard this track before never knowing it was Faust.

The best tracks are more traditionally Krautrock like Jennifer which for the first half is Ege Bamyasi style rumbling bass and distant vocals before it descends into weirdness (in this case massive noise and saloon piano). Lauft... is another song of two halves. The first half is 60s Love-like acoustic guitar, and the second half consists of a slow organ solo. Final track maintains the 60s feel with a Syd Barrett like song interspersed with rude blasts of distorted organ and guitar.

Not much time for the other albums this week (but note the Father John Misty is brilliant - a cross between Elton John and John Grant and certainly one to watch) but for the record they are:

Band Of Horses Infinite Arms  

Harmonia Deluxe

Faust IV

Father John Misty God's Favourite Customer

Cluster Zuckerzeit

Pink Floyd Atom Heart Mother

Read More