John Martyn / Well Kept Secret

Released in 1982 just one year after the excellent Glorious Fool is it fair to ask if Well Kept Secret was the beginning of John Martyn's long decline? Sure Martyn wholeheartedly embraces the production values of the day and the tracks are submerged in keyboards and easy listening bass and saxophone. However to be fair the songs are passable retaining some hints of the immediately preceding albums, said Glorious Fool and the harrowing Grace and Danger. They just aren’t very memorable and there’s no way songs like this would have passed the quality control on earlier albums.

You Might Need A Man is a catchy upbeat number that reminds me of Perfect Hustler from Glorious Fool. Love Up is similarly upbeat but very corny with an awful sounding heavily treated guitar riff and Hiss On The Tape is light hearted/weight. The soppy lyrics don’t help as evident on the weak love song that finishes the album — maybe Martyn had been hanging out with Phil Collins too long.

Nevertheless the voice is still strong, and clear, and high in the mix. The slightly corny grizzly cracks in the vocals, which became more and more prominent on later albums, are employed with restraint. But after the impressive Glorious Fool this, his second and final album for the WEA label, was a disappointing follow up which set Martyn on the road towards irrelevant easy listening.

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Log #193 - Rainbows Rising

After hearing a respected punter select In Rainbows as one of his Top 10 favourite records of the last decade (or was it ever?) I thought I better give it a spin.

It could be a dog's dinner but the whole sits together beautifully as a unit.

Indeed it's an excellent listen. The band hit it big early with The Bends and OK Computer but to be fair they developed a lot after those early records. OK Computer I've always thought a bit overrated; the following Kid A and Amnesiac developed their sound much further, and In Rainbows continues that trend into more electronically produced sounds (brilliantly produced by the way), interesting rhythms and glitchy effects, string drenching, distorted bass, and jazzy flavours (especially Greenwood's guitar). The instrumentation is excellent - the band presenting their gentler side most, but also riffing out occasionally (Bodysnatchers, Jigsaw Falling Into Place). It could be a dog's dinner but the whole sits together beautifully as a unit. If only I could stomach Thom Yorke's miserabalist moanings a bit better I'd love it.

Boris Salchow - Stars

Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972

Kodomo - Tape Pieces Vol. 1

Keith Jarrett - Koln Concert

Radiohead - In Rainbows

John Martyn - One World 

The Radiohead leads nicely into Tape Pieces Vol. 1 from the fervent imaginations of sound engineers Micah Frank and Chris Child (the latter I believe aka Kodomo). Engineers of Sound? Sound artists? Musicians? Music producers? It doesn't really matter. Many "creatives" (Brian Eno amongst them) are now merging art and music in  their "installations" for example. Just a mini elpee this one, it presents as four experimental soundscapes. The thing is, these are not developed into songs as such like the Radiohead (obviously) although they are all of significant length and do hold one's interest over those lengths. They are essentially sounds and atmospherics drawing on lots of (as the title suggests) analogue tape flutters and distortions. This sort of music has more dynamics than conventional ambience having more in common with musique concrete or "found sounds". The results are endlessly fascinating - but like I say don't expect conventional song structures. It's all about the subtle changes of texture.

From the same stable we have LA based German Boris Salchow with his album Stars. This is a lovely work drawing on samples of treated pianos which are often rendered in beautiful melodies over sharp beats. I've played this one a lot.

A strange hybrid that lives somewhere between the digital and material realms.

I'd previously passed over Tim Hecker somewhat but Ravedeath, 1972, will change my mind. A much celebrated sound engineer/artist, I knew I must have been missing something and this dark forbodeing album of disintegrating hums is the best of his I've heard. Recorded in an old church in Reykjavik, Iceland "the result is a strange hybrid that lives somewhere between the digital and material realms, and it's remarkable how seamlessly the two are combined." (Pitchfork).

I don't know what the 1972 refers to. At first I thought it the year of the record but that was actually 2011. Hecker was only born in 1974.

A friend nominated me to do one of those facebook 10 (or 20 in this case) album cover postings of favourite records, or albums that have meant something to me. I'll probably list them all here at some point but for now for Day 4 I alighted upon Keith Jarrett's legendary Koln Concert from 1975. I posted that it was the most beautiful piano playing I'd ever heard and the opening riff sends tingles down my neck. Hopefully this will encourage a few more people to hear it. 

I fully expect John Martyn's One World to appear in that 20 album list at some point, and for now it retains its place in the player (this time the original album of the 2 CD Deluxe set): again, like Radiohead 30 years later, amazing sounds ahead of their time.

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Log #192 - Water As Sound

Not much movement this week at Bamyasi Towers which describes much of this ambient music too. 

Loscil continues his form with Endless Falls.

Pitchfork write generally about Loscil:

An impressive catalogue of pensive, minimal records that turn computerized sounds into something strangely soothing - the kind of music you want to listen to flat on your back, eyes fixed at the ceiling.

Or eyes wide shut.

Specifically about this album they write:

The idea here is that Endless Falls is a rainy-day album, overcast but cozy, and there's an aquatic theme that extends to its cover art and the rain-droplet field recordings that bookend the record. (Scott) Morgan (Loscil) plays with the idea of water-as-sound throughout and pulls it off in appealing ways. 

Loscil - Endless Falls

Porya Hatami - Shallow

Arovane with Porya Hatami - Chronos

Monolake - Gobi

Monolake - Ghosts

John Martyn - One World (Deluxe CD 2)

Poyra Hatami is an interesting discovery, via his association with Arovane. They've made a few albums together including Chronos (or more correctly C.H.R.O.N.O.S.) sampled here (I always wonder how electronic music producers collaborate, or even why they need to - I guess it can be very lonely being a bedroom laptop musician). Not that Hatami has been confined to his bedroom prior to lockdown - Shallow draws on field recordings from his native Iran that contribute atmosphere to steady drones which remind me of Eno's classic Ambient series, particularly the On Land one (the association with Eno's Norfolk marshes is also reinforced by the cover and the titles like Fen). 

..oh and then there are the geese on the lake in John Martyn's Small Hours again!

Finally for this week I finish with a word on Monolake's Gobi. This is a single piece of just under an hour. It's an interesting sound experiment with a slow glitchy beat and chirping crickets. It pretty much defines ambient actually (as well as "found sounds"). There isn't any melody as such, it's an experience. No soggy marshes here. I like it a lot.

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Log #191 - Pin Drops, Caves and Crickets

More wading through my new ambient discoveries this week, plus an outlier in the John Martyn. 

Loscil - Equivalents

Arovane - Gestalt

Monolake - Cinemascope

Monolake - Gravity

Arovane - Lilies

John Martyn - One World (Deluxe CD 2)

As I said last week these ambient artists - Arovane, Monolake and Loscil in particular, have a well established back catalogue of albums dating back to the turn of the millennium. So lots of listening to come as I dive deeper into these artists. 

From what I've heard so far it's nearly all good which means it's of a consistency in quality that is eventually rewarding, although at first can seem overwhelming as some of the albums are barely distinguishable from each other - until you study them - a paradox of ambient music - it satisfying as background music, and at the same time close up listening. The latter certainly never fails to reveal hidden delights as the tiniest pin drop or cave echo or cricket chirp attains magnificent significance. It's like training for the ear (and consequently the brain) as the music, or sounds, reach previously uncharted territories within your consciousness. I don't meditate as such but I think this is similar. Just occasionally I'll lie on the floor with such an album in the headphones. It's a great way to spend an hour.

Briefly then, the two Monolakes are excellent. I've realised he does make some more upbeat dance beats too, but these two are more my cup of tea - rhythmic glitch similar to the classic Loop Finding Jazz Records by Jan Jelinek (another German producer).

Arovane's Gestalt out earlier this year consists of a series of short ambient snippets rather like Aphex Twin's SAW II. I haven't heard Lilies enough to clock it too well yet beyond an inkling of some Japanese flavour in the instrumentation.

Loscil may just be my favourite of these three - his music is beautiful, yet deep - deep in a sort of "3-D depth way". On the surface simple, but underneath vivid, lush and resonant. 

The production on all these albums is brilliant - everything has its place in the mix such that the deep reverberating multi harmonic drones make space for those pin drops, caves and crickets.

Come to think of it now John Martyn's One World is ambient music in some respect.  In particular his amazing Small Hours track recorded beside an English lake complete with surrounding sounds. On this fabulous deluxe version we get three versions of this magnificent track (and 79 minutes of bonus material) - the original album version, a live performance from an eye opening Regents Park gig recorded in 1978, and an outtake. The whole package is brilliant and the bonus adds to, rather than diminishes, the original. One World came top in my recent John Martyn rundown >>.

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Album Review - The Simmer Dim by John Martyn

The Simmer Dim is both great and poor. In the first place the playing and the repertoire is superb making it potentially one of John Martyn’s greatest live albums, however secondly it loses a significant number of brownie points on account of the poor sound which is of barely bootleg quality.

First the songs. The Simmer Dim (the name refers to the summer twilight in the most northerly part of Great Britain) captures Martyn playing 80 minutes worth of his greatest songs in one coherent solo setting thus meeting a gap in the market I’m not aware is fulfilled by any other official releases.

We are treated to five tracks from the One World album, some on straight acoustic guitar like wonderful versions of Couldn’t Love You More and Certain Surprise, and some guitar effected including Big Muff (dedicated to Margaret Thatcher), Dealer and a One World which segues into an edited version of Small Hours also known as Anna. And of course centrepiece is a masterful 18 minute Outside In where Martyn coaxes soaring melodies from his guitar while grappling with echoplexed rhythms that threaten to run away with themselves.

The performance is book-ended by Over The Hill and May You Never with Martyn slapping his guitar strings and bending the notes with more percussive vigour than the studio versions. Indeed Martyn’s acoustic guitar playing is a revelation peaking for Seven Black Roses a traditional finger picking tune harking back to his The Tumbler album.

Leave it at that and you’d have, with all the One World songs, an album probably greater than Live At Leeds or On Air its closest comparisons.

However the recording. I’m all for intimacy and rawness but this is too visceral to pass muster as an official recording. Taken from a one off gig at the tiny Lerwick Folk Club in the Shetland Islands in August 1980 the recording captures not only Martyn on stage but also every other noise in the intimate room, even a baby crying (which is quite amusing to be fair)!

Martyn is indeed on form in song and between song sharing light hearted and witty banter throughout albeit much of it is inaudible. Martyn seemed to have this slightly schizophrenic personality where he could appear a bit of a drunken yob whilst speaking — making silly noises, putting on mocking accents and berating his band members (Live At Leeds sported a parental awareness sticker on later releases) — yet effortlessly switching into beautiful playing and singing. Here he sounds like he’s enjoying himself lapping up the close adoration and the general pub like ambience lends an extraordinary warmth to the proceedings.

Not for the fainthearted but The Simmer Dim is a fascinating insight for the keen fan.

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John Martyn with Danny Thompson - Live Germany 1986

The late-sixties London music community gave birth to a wealth of beautiful and diverse hybrids. The combination of a jazz scene surrounding venues such as Ronnie Scott's, and a folky, singer-songwriter enclave supported by clubs such as Bunjy's was never the most likely of fusions but, as this album testifies, the music made by such a pairing still pulses as strongly today as it did over four decades ago. John Martyn and Danny Thompson have always jumped genres with ease - Thompson from his early days with Tubby Hayes, through The Pentangle to his more traditional acoustic work with Richard Thompson, and Martyn's friend Nick Drake - while Martyn himself has covered the bases from blues and folk through to reggae and even the occasional show tune.

The pair started their professional relationship in 1970 and this record of a gig from 1986 demonstrates how the odd couple could still breathe fire into these ageing classics. A crowd-pleasingly unvaried set list had become Martyn's stock in trade by the mid-eighties - heavily relying on his 1970s highlights from Solid Air, Bless The Weather and One World - but the intimate setting of his smokey, slurred voice and Thompson's almost abstract double bass truly cements the timeless quality of this work. Both men had spent the previous decade as notorious hell-raisers but their experience only heightens the plaintive, almost spiritual quality of the work.

Martyn's elegy to Drake, Solid Air, is here in all its mournful glory as is the ambient soulfulness of One World and Skip James' edgy I'd Rather Be The Devil. All numbers managing to be both strangely intense and, simultaneously, so laid-back as to be almost horizontal. The sound quality, while a little rough, compliments the night club atmosphere - a snapshot of a relaxed evening in the company of two genial gents of the road. As the man says: may they never lay their heads down without a hand to hold...



CC review by Chris Jones at https://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/hgw6/

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Log #168 - Rumours Going Down

I came late to Rumours as explained here but its charms have grown on me, particularly on the more rock orientated numbers like the excellent The Chain which is so much more than that slightly annoying bass riff used for that very annoying car programme. It was a video I caught this week on youtube of a live performance of The Chain that encouraged me to give the album another spin.

Fleetwood Mac Rumours

Neil Young Hitchhiker

Foals What Went Down

Edgar Froese Epsilon In Malaysian Pale
John Martyn Solid Air

Neil Young Rust Never Sleeps

Hitchhiker was an album by Neil Young recorded in 1976. For some reason it was not released then...

- actually the reason I believe was the record company thought the solo acoustic songs should be recorded as a band.

- indeed some like Powderfinger were later re-recorded with a band and appeared on a subsequent album (Rust Never Sleeps and others).

Anyway Hitchhhiker, like Chrome Dreams and some others, became one of those legendary lost albums of Young's - until last year when the original was released.

It is indeed a shame this album did not see the light of day for so long as, despite it having an air of demo about it, it is actually one of Young's best. There are ten excellent songs, 9 on guitar, one on piano. Eight have appeared on other albums, usually in a differing version / two are previously unreleased. I do believe it may be Young's only entirely solo album??

[By the way any Neil Young fan should check out his Archives website - this is a subscriber service but there is always a free to stream featured album available].

Excellent stuff from the Foals on this, their fourth album. It is a pretty heavy album but still demonstrates their excellent musicianship.

'What Went Down' is unbelievably aggressive, a bold return so to speak, combining a fierce pulsating drumbeat with erratic overdriven guitars that lend a real intensity.

Clash Magazine

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Log #152 - Experiments In Surround Sound

I'm reading a 33 1/3 book on The Flaming Lips. It's about their album Zaireeka. Now this is interesting for several reasons. For one I did not know the Flaming Lips had been around for so long (since the early 80s); I first heard of them around the time of Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and the accompanying hit single Do You Realise?? but that was 2002, their 10th album, and leader Wayne Coyne was already over 40 by then.

The other reason is Zaireeka itself sounds like a very left field art rock statement which I would not have given the Flaming Lips credit for believing they were a fairly average middle of the road sort of indie band (notwithstanding their amazing live shows). I had heard they had done something a bit experimental more recently, after their commercial breakthrough with Yoshimi, and had assumed this must be the Zaireeka album on picking up the book, but no, that was 1997 (before commercial success had really reached the band so not an album you could really say was a career suicide). A quick scan through post 2002 albums does not readily reveal which one I was thinking about but it could have been Embryonic or The Terror? [It's Embryonic, Ed.]

Full Lips Discography:

Hear It Is (1986)

Oh My Gawd!!! (1987)

Telepathic Surgery (1989)

In a Priest Driven Ambulance (1990)

Hit to Death in the Future Head (1992)

Transmissions from the Satellite Heart (1993)

Clouds Taste Metallic (1995)

Zaireeka (1997)

The Soft Bulletin (1999)

Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots (2002)

At War with the Mystics (2006)

Embryonic (2009)

The Terror (2013)

Oczy Mlody (2017)

King's Mouth (2019)

So what about Zaireeka? Well I haven't heard it and as you will read shortly I'm not likely to either. Infamously given a rating of 0.0 by Pitchfork (the follow up Soft Bulletin scored 10.0 from the same reviewer!) the album comes on 4 CDs each containing a quarter of the whole! Wtf? The concept was that four friends would have listening parties where they would each bring their CD player and play one of their CDs in synchronicity with the other 3 thus hearing the whole as it was intended. As it was rare for different players to run at exactly the same speed or even for the operators to start the process at exactly the right moment interesting phasing and echo effects would ensue, and no two "performances" would be exactly the same. It sounds similar to some avant garde experiments going on in the minimalist classical world by composers like Cage, Reich and Riley.

The zero Pitchfork review (since deleted although there is an archive link below) was based on the impracticality of the concept rather than the music. In fact the reviewer had not actually heard the 4 parts in unison admitting he'd "never know because I don't have the proper amount of stereo equipment" concluding that the product was "completely useless".

   
Later Pitchfork published a more favourable response from the 33 1/3 author Mark Richardson that praised the album for being...transient, variable and social.

The 33 1/3 book is honest. It says The Flaming Lips weren't very good and Wayne Coyne has a weak voice that could not even hold a tune for the first few albums.  

Coyne's voice can be good when he finds the right setting, but can also seem frail and thin, and on early records he almost never sang in tune.

Mark Richardson

This isn't news to me as they've always struck me as a high profile band without much substance, relying hugely on their original stage performances which involve amazing props, animal costumes, confetti guns, lazers, blow up balls and balloons (the arena carnage the morning after a headlining gig at Green Man Festival back in 2010 was something to see). 

The Flaming Lips @Green Man Festival, Wales, 2010

Fair enough, they started out like many high school bands without any pretensions and band members picked from friends and family dependent on whether they possessed any equipment (let alone if they could play it at all). Coyne kept his regular job in a restaurant for many years after the The Flaming Lips' formation. 

We will need you and your car, and your tape deck, and your co-operation for about 2 hours.

But in 1996 the ever creative Coyne decided to try something different. The band convened a series of interactive concerts or events dubbed parking-lot and boom-box experiments. Concert goers or "volunteers" would convene at a space and "lend" the band their car or boom-box cassette decks and would orchestrate the simultaneous mass playing of pre-recorded tapes to provide an immersive surround sound experience.

It sounds like a recipe for chaos and understandably concert flyers would warn: "we are sceptical about the entertainment value," but herein was the genesis of the Zaireeka idea. 

At roughly the same time as Zaireeka the band recorded the more conventional The Soft Bulletin album which (as the only Flaming Lips album I own) does gain a place in the magazine this week.

Although it was already their 9th album it represented a leap forward in quality to what had come before and for many fans was their masterpiece. 

There are some epic string drenched songs with multiple parts / some pleasant acoustic guitar fronted sing-a-longs / interesting electronic effects / thumping drums perhaps veering off into out of context funky drummer territory in places / and some fluttery synths which match Coyne's fluttery voice. 

It's an ambitious project and does sound a bit like everyone is playing different tunes sometimes and... that voice: High, weak and reedy but without the emotion of Neil Young. It's hard to hear past it actually and I do wonder what sort of band they may have been with a better singer. It's a wonder they've survived so long and Wayne Coyne is such a confident front man. Granted the instrumentation is excellent, the lyrics are good, and the melodies lovely (especially on regular set opener Race For The Prize, Waitin' For a Superman, What Is The Light? and Suddenly Everything Has Changed), but can Coyne carry them..?

... sometimes, but his singing sounds so much on the edge of breaking down most the time especially on the high notes it makes for an uneasy listen. A difficult song like A Spoonful Weighs A Ton is an example - such a vocal performance on X-factor would ensue an early red buzzer. I wonder whether he has ever considered just singing in a lower register like Lou Reed, Nick Cave, or the Geddy Lee of latter years?

No surprise then that some of the instrumentals are the most pleasing tracks with The Observer for example worthy of Kid A era Radiohead.

Having said that he's the maverick leader, the songwriter, the creative genius, so notwithstanding these shortcomings, The Flaming Lips would not exist without him.

John Martyn Glorious Fool

Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin

The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

The Jayhawks Smile
Tord Gustavsen Trio The Other Side

Emeralds Does It Look Like I'm Here

The 0.0 review in Pitchfork
Mark Richardson's Response
The 10.0 review in Pitchfork

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Log #151 - Glorious Pepper

John Martyn Glorious Fool

Truckstop Honeymoon Big Things And Little Things

The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Harmonia Deluxe
Tord Gustavsen Trio The Other Side

The Black Keys El Camino

Still enjoying the John Martyn album - it's one of his best actually. Possibly his last great album but considering it's his 11th studio album that represents a remarkable longevity of critical success.

Some of the slower drawn out tracks like Hearts and Keys and Please Fall In Love With Me recall the epic Small Hours from One World.

Ever revered by contemporaries that enjoyed greater commercial success, guests include fans Eric Clapton and Phil Collins.

I continue a Beatles retrospective with Sgt. Pepper. You can't really argue against this being their best album, and possibly the best album by anyone ever. The songs are magnificent and furthermore the sum is even greater than the considerable parts (the album being almost a concept with tracks running into each other, bookended by versions of the title track, plus the grand finale A Day In The Life which I think is The Beatles' greatest song)...

... when I was young my favourite album for ages was ELO's Out Of The Blue and when my father used to overhear me playing that album he'd always tell me that there was something on there that was exactly the same as on Sgt. Pepper - it took me a while to realise what he meant - at first I thought it was Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite! - but eventually I realised he meant the coda to Mr Blue Sky being very similar to the "woke up, dragged a comb across my head" section of A Day In The Life - of course ELO were huge Beatles copyists and many of their songs were similar.

Everything they did in their previous 7 albums led to this. The follow ups Magical Mystery Tour, The White Album, Abbey Road and Let It Be, each represented incremental retreats from this peak.

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Log #150 - From Barroom To Stadium - The Black Keys Go Large

I've come late to the Black Keys. Shame actually as this album sounds tremendous - heavy, exciting and melodic. Even my house mates love it. Of course they compare with other 2 bit bands, The White Stripes and Royal Blood for instance, but I think I prefer this; I love the grungy dirty bluesy emphasis and Dan Auerbach's distorted vocals. They seem to have translated well from barroom to stadium without selling out (can the same be said for Kings Of Leon for instance?).

John Martyn Glorious Fool

Truckstop Honeymoon Big Things And Little Things

The Beatles Rubber Soul

The Beatles Abbey Road
Tord Gustavsen Trio The Other Side

The Black Keys El Camino

The Tord Gustavsen album is gorgeous. Previously featured here it will remain one that I return to often. His playing is spare and spacey verging upon classical at many points through The Other Side. I will check out some of his earlier recordings and hope he turns up at Love Supreme one year.

I'm going through a John Martyn retrospective. Log #142 examined Martyn's first 6 albums. I've decided to extend this examination and revisit all of them. Glorious Fool is a "mid-period" Martyn album. I say mid period but, as is the case with all artists who started in the late 60s or early 70s, 1981 (when this came out) is actually chronologically still relatively early period of course, but thematically artists seem to go through a series of eras musically and these eras were stacked up closer to each other in the "olden days". So for young John he went through relatively short eras of folk, folk/acid, trip hop, jazz, and then a long period in the wilderness from the 80s onwards which you'd have to describe as easy listening. I'd say this was his last great album from his heyday before the decline set in. Anyway as I say a retrospective is on its way and there are some latter period surprises.

Finally a word on The Truckstop Honeymoon who are Americana/bluegrass duo Mike and Katie West. They've been knocking around for years and occasionally rock up at my local to play a set here in Brighton. If you ever get a chance to see them live go for it as they put on a blinding show and are hilarious entertainers to boot (think The Handsome Family on speed). Such a live experience rarely translates to a recording of course but their musicianship and songwriting skills are such that the albums don't suffer in comparison. Always on the money with politics and the current climate check out Got No Use (for a Gun) from their latest album:

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Log #143 - Fried Wax To Burn

Julian Cope, him from Teardrop Explodes, and Antiquarian and Krautrock expert, is a genius. His Modern Antiquarian reference guide, 7 years in the compiling, is a fantastic gift to mankind, one of my favourite books, and one that has enlightened many a holiday to the South West. His musical taste is impeccable - an early adopter of Krautrock, his Krautrock Sampler is a long out of print classic of the genre. I've also been enjoying his double autobiography Head On/Repossessed which has led me to the current selection Fried his second studio album following the break up of The Teardrop Explodes.

With the Teardrops over, Cope retreated to his new home in Tamworth with his American girlfriend Dorian, to play on his keyboard, collect Dinky toys and take drugs. 

Tom Pinnock, Uncut 

So what of his music? I have to say I don't know anything about his music, or The Teardrop Explodes, save for the pop single World Shut Your Mouth (incidentally worth noting that Cope's first solo album also uses the title World Shut Your Mouth but confusingly does not include the track of the same name which was not released until 1986, 2 years later).

Fried is a nice surprise. It's pretty raw and heavy and doesn't sound dated in that typical '80s way. It reminds me of The Smiths. I particularly loved the brilliantly sung Mik Mak Mok which appears as a bonus on my copy (generally though I don't think Cope's vocals are that strong but he gets away with the enthusiasm of the band's playing). Other standouts are the catchy Sunspots and Reynard The Fox. 

The bizarre cover features Cope in a turtle shell with one of his toy trucks (Cope was an avid model car collector).

Is his image of eccentricity and edginess at all contrived? Having read his warts and all books I'd say definitely not.

Nightmares On Wax - Feelin' Good

Calexico with Iron and Wine - Years To Burn

Julian Cope - Fried

Michael Hedges - Aerial Boundaries

John Martyn - Bless the Weather

Fairport Convention - Liege and Lief

Feelin' Good is the 7th album from Leeds DJ and producer George Evelyn otherwise known as Nightmares On Wax. And it does just what it says on the can: It's a feel good record of down tempo beats taking in afro beats, Kruder and Dorfmeister like dub, reggae, funk, deep bass and even ambience.

Luna 2 for instance recalls Can's Hallelujah style circular drumming with throbbing Holger Czukay bass and Nile Rodgers disco strumming whereas Master Plan sounds like Portishead.

The Calexico/Iron/Wine collaboration sort of sounds like the whole is not as great as the sum of the parts, or not as great as it should be. Two different artists in combination. Both great in varying degrees over variable careers but together? Is there a point? Sometimes these sorts of collaborations can feel less a real fusion but a "your turn, no after you" situation. You can hear the trademark laid back Sam Beam drawl, and the occasional Calexico mariachi trumpet but I wouldn't say Years To Burn offers much of an advance on either band's individual catalogue albeit “The Bitter Suite is certainly the most compositionally ambitious song either entity has released in years"(Stephen M. Deusner, Pitchfork).

It's a nice cover, like the Father John Misty covers, and that's a good reference point although this ain't so good as his recent records.

It's also very short, leaving me with a "was that it?" sentiment.

Aerial Boundaries is the classic Michael Hedges album, and a staple of the Windham Hill "new age" catalogue. The late Hedges was a much revered acoustic guitarist at the forefront of the rebirth of the instrument in the 80s through guitarists like Will Ackerman, Alex de Grassi and Pierre Bensusan. A dynamic live performer, incorporating percussive effects and even vocals, some of his albums verge a little too close to easy listening for my tastes, especially with the heavy use of fretless electric bass. Also fond of his own arrangements of covers this album includes Neil Young's After The Goldrush.

Hedges was a tragically killed in a motor accident in December 1997, age 43.

I've not heard anything else in the genre that has changed my mind, and general consensus, that Liege and Lief is the greatest folk rock album of all time. Combining traditional songs with a rock beat what I love most about the sound of Fairport Convention at the time is the circular grind of Richard Thompson's guitar and Dave Swarbrick's fiddle. I'm sure you've all heard the double murder ballad Matty Groves many a time but it remains one of their greatest songs:

Lord Donald, he jumped up

And loudly he did bawl

He struck his wife right through the heart

And pinned her against the wall

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Log #142 - The Road To Solid Air

When people think of John Martyn their thoughts usually start (and end) around Solid Air, his masterful jazz folk fusion album of 1973. Many would be surprised to learn that Martyn actually released five albums before this major breakthrough. This week Eddy examines Martyn's road to Solid Air.

John Martyn - London Conversation
John Martyn - The Tumbler
John Martyn - Stormbringer!
John Martyn - The Road to Ruin
John Martyn - Bless the Weather
John Martyn - Solid Air

LONDON CONVERSATION

And though he used no poetry

His words are weaving songs

John Martyn's trad. folk guitar debut arrived in late 1967 in the wake of other guitarists on the London scene at the time - Bert Jansch, Al Stewart, Davey Graham, Ralph McTell, and John Renbourn. Containing some covers (notably Bob Dylan's Don't Think Twice, It's Alright) and with his young (Martyn was only 19) voice far from the bear's growl of later years this is a slight record but still very much recognisable as a John Martyn record. 

THE TUMBLER

Won’t you leave behind your city shoes

And lose your bowler hat

With his follow-up in 1968, the Al Stewart-produced The Tumbler, Martyn expanded his sound, employing backup musicians notably jazz flautist Harold McNair. However this proved a retrograde step as the album consequently now sounds date-stamped in the flower power 60s era, more so than it's predecessor.

STORMBRINGER!

I'm John the baptist and this is my friend Salome

And you can bet it's my head she wants and not my heart only

Stormbringer! was a collaboration with his new wife, Beverley Kutner, a singer from Coventry who was also on the fringes of the UK folk scene (she appeared on the cover of Bert Jansch's It Don't Bother Me album). Beverley is credited as writer of four of the ten songs.

The opening track immediately demonstrates a change of style. Recorded in the then current hotbed of new music, the Woodstock area of upstate New York, Martyn has a full band backing including players from The Band and The Doors.

The harmonies between the two singers are good but Beverley's lead vocals alone are a bit too Nico like for my taste.

THE ROAD TO RUIN

The sun was red and the sky was blue

And I went rowing on the road to ruin

Apparently there was already some pressure from Island for Martyn to record on his own, and you can see why - this second joint outing with Beverley Martyn is one of the least John Martyn sounding albums in his catalogue. In fact the album as a standalone entity sounds like two different albums - one part Beverley, one part John.

The lead vocals are taken in turns and rarely in harmony - the Beverley fronted tracks are funky and upbeat sounding and (obviously with the vocals) nothing like John Martyn. I do prefer Beverley Martyn's tracks here to her offerings on Stormbringer! and her voice sounds more confident.

The John Martyn tracks are more down tempo and acoustic. In fact there are definitely some moments here where Martyn approaches the unique sound he would settle upon in later albums.

The fuller instrumentation is however generally wayward - we have flutes, tablas, piano and saxophone. There is even an instrumental (the throwaway and final title track). However one very significant session player was hired - Danny Thompson from Pentangle played double bass and would become Martyn's constant sparring partner through the 70s both on stage and in the studio.

BLESS THE WEATHER

Pain after pain, I stood it just to see how it feels

Rain after rain, I stood it just to make it real

Ok, as you'd expect, this, John Martyn's first proper "solo" album since The Tumbler, his fifth in all, and the Solid Air predecessor, is where Martyn really hits his stride. It's probably the first album containing some songs that he became renowned for, and staples of his live sets for much of his career - namely the title track Bless The Weather, Head And Heart and his groundbreaking Glistening Glyndebourne, a 7 minute "echoplex" treated acoustic guitar instrumental backed by jazz piano.

Martyn's maturing lyrics are also beginning to reveal ambiguities between the domestic bliss of life with his wife and new children, and his more temptatious male ego.

Beginners could safely start here and pretty much pass over the previous albums.

SOLID AIR

May you never lay your head down

Without a hand to hold

Solid Air (1973) featured some of Martyn's most mature and enduring songs: the slurry title track Solid Air (written for close friend Nick Drake), May You Never (probably the closest Martyn came to a hit and a sing-a-long favourite at live concerts), Over The Hill and an audacious electrified cover of Skip James' I'd Rather Be The Devil.

Martyn's voice had become deeper and bluesier, with words blurring their boundaries, and he expanded his guitar effects whilst retaining his rhythmic acoustic runs and percussive slap style. Members of Fairport Convention guested and the jazzy elements of the record are propelled by Danny Thompson's double bass and John Bundrick's gorgeous laid back electric piano.

Acoustic and electric elements combine in a magnificent acid folk masterpiece the equal of Astral Weeks or Liege and Lief.

... AND THEN...

Martyn continued making exceptional records throughout the 70s and early 80s. In fact I'd say his body of work is one of the most consistent of any artist I know. Inside Out and Sunday's Child continued the Solid Air vibe with a move towards more rock as did the live album Live at Leeds. One World showcased a unique experimental almost early triphop sound, for me personally his peak, and Grace and Danger was a monumental break up (in the wake of his inevitable separation from Beverley) album of heartbreaking jazz ballads. Finally came Glorious Fool, a powerful rock album. That's a winning run of a 7 albums from Bless The Weather without a duffer in sight. Only then did Martyn begin to release some less inspiring middle of the road 80s fayre before a partial creative and critical rebirth in the 90s.


STUDIO ALBUM DISCOGRAPHY (courtesy Wiki)

London Conversation (October 1967)
The Tumbler (December 1968)
Stormbringer! (February 1970) (with Beverley Martyn)
The Road to Ruin (November 1970) (with Beverley Martyn)
Bless the Weather (November 1971)
Solid Air (February 1973)
Inside Out (October 1973)
Sunday's Child (January 1975)
One World (November 1977)
Grace and Danger (October 1980)
Glorious Fool (September 1981)
Well Kept Secret (August 1982)
Sapphire (November 1984)
Piece by Piece (February 1986)
The Apprentice (March 1990)
Cooltide (November 1991)
Couldn't Love You More (August 1992)
No Little Boy (July 1993)
And (August 1996)
The Church with One Bell (covers album) (March 1998)
Glasgow Walker (May 2000)
On the Cobbles (April 2004)
Heaven and Earth (May 2011)

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Is This John Marytn's Greatest Album?

Aren't we lucky those of us who have discovered John Martyn? One World is my favourite album of his and a perfect bridge between the more jazz folky Solid Air and the harrowing Grace and Danger.

All the tracks are gems including the acoustic declaration of unconditional love Couldn't Love You More and the catchy pop of Certain Surpise to the echoplex driven rhythms of Big Muff and Dealer.

Best of all is Small Hours; the ultimate 3 am track. I remember playing this album incessantly one summer and it took me a while to realise the background chattering geese sounds on this evocative final track were coming from the record and not from outside my student digs window! Oh, the nostalgia!

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John Martyn Live At Leeds (and More)

Martyn fans have always had an abiding affection for this particular in-concert memento. Owners of the original vinyl release of 1975 always knew they were getting something rather special coming as it did from the man himself rather than his regular record label, Island. Inexplicably, the company felt a live album at that point in his career (circa Sunday's Child) was unwise, and so left it to Martyn himself to mail it out to punters directly from his kitchen table.

This was a magical period in Martyn's career and this is a magical concert.

Though it has been issued a couple of times since then, this expanded release is the first time we've got the unexpurgated concert plus tracks from the afternoon's rehearsals. This was a magical period in Martyn's career and this is a magical concert, where he's joined by free-jazz drummer John Stevens, a recuperating ex-Free guitarist Paul Kossoff for a few numbers, and Martyn's old mucker, ex-Pentangle bassist Danny Thompson. Martyn and Thompson were always a formidable team, and their astounding interplay makes an album like this very much a joint venture rather than a solo gig with hired hands in tow.

Amidst the between-song cockney geezer banter there are genuinely affecting moments where you glimpse the true bond that existed between Thompson and Martyn. The music oozes with a camaraderie born from shared experience, and a deep respect that comes from understanding that they not only gave each other permission to fly, but that one of them would always be there to help the other land.

On I'd Rather Be the Devil you can hear Martyn yell with something that sounds like approval, but which might equally be surprise at how well they're doing at this point. It follows an extensive echo-drenched free passage that traverses exotic soundworlds which might've been produced had Tangerine Dream hooked up with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble, illustrating the eclectic ambitions hurtling though Martyn's music.

Bonus tracks can sometimes leave you shrugging your shoulders - nice but hardly essential. However, the rehearsal take of May You Never not only knocks the socks off the live version, but gives the original studio rendition a run for its money as well. Astonishing.



Review by Sid Smith shared under creative common from https://critiquebrainz.org/review/8956c2e2-e95b-4a46-be48-68c7b9067a55

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