Log #170 - What Was The Secret Of David Sylvian's Beehive?

Built on noir balladry, instrumental abstraction, and an abiding sense of distance.

...So Pitchfork describes David Sylvian's sumptuous 4th solo album Secrets Of The Beehive. It's a far cry from his pop work with chart topping new wave band Japan in the 80s.

Al Stewart Year Of The Cat
Nucleus Plastic Rock

Nils Frahm All Melody

Jeff Buckley Grace
David Sylvian Secrets Of The Beehive

Floating Points Elaenia

Probably only half a dozen times or so I've heard something so unique and different and significant and new to me it has left an indelible impression on my life - when I heard Can for the first time (taking a chance on a 2nd hand record - their Spanner fronted one, closely followed with Tago Mago and Hallelujah in particular), Black Dog by Led Zeppelin (possibly on TV?), Van Morrison (I bought Astral Weeks and Moondance together when I was about 19 and feel lucky I took that plunge relatively early in my music listening career!), discovering The Cocteau Twins (hearing Heaven Or Las Vegas and Four Calendar Cafe on a long journey in a friend's car), the coda to Mr. Blue Sky (Out Of The Blue being my first ever LP purchase), Re-ac-tor by Neil Young (borrowed on cassette tape from someone), Epitaph by King Crimson (my school friend Guy was moving on all his King Crimson albums in favour of Neil Young incidentally - come to think of it he probably lent me the Re-ac-tor tape), Captain Beefheart (not Trout Mask Replica but Clearspot), and The Orb's Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld.

There have probably been lots more life changing moments actually although the experience is less frequent than once was. Anyway the point is Secrets Of The Beehive was one such experience. It was one of the most beautiful records I'd ever heard, the experience was no doubt enhanced by the setting - 1987, late one cold winter night, in a smokey student room (where it was so cold I had to put my coat on to come indoors). It was also an utter surprise, coming from the bloke in Japan of course. I remember the crystal clear acoustic guitar, the tender piano, the horns, swirling strings, and Sylvian's slow easy going baritone. It's an album that flows from start to finish, one of atmosphere. Like Astral Weeks.

Oddly like a number of classic albums (and the similarly brilliant Grace by Jeff Buckley is another - what a voice that gentleman had) it is not one I play that often any more - I wonder why. Maybe it belongs to that time when I first heard it. Maybe I remember it too well.  But nevertheless if it is a record you've never heard I recommend you do and see if it leaves a similar impression.

David Sylvian released a number of other solo albums and ambient collaborations with the likes of Holger Czukay and Robert Fripp. They vary from minimalist experimentation to more traditional rock music but all are of a consistently high standard. 

Checkout the other records in this week's playlist here>>:

Elaenia

Year Of The Cat

All Melody

Plastic Rock

All four excellent albums, three will be near my Album Of The Year shortlist.

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Log #149 - Where The Rubber Soul Meets The Abbey Road

When you've been playing weird music for weeks you just want to hear some songs after a while. Hence dipping back in time to the ultimate song-writing of The Beatles this week with a spin of Rubber Soul and Abbey Road.

William Basinski Disintegration Tapes III

Nils Frahm All Melody

The Beatles Rubber Soul

The Beatles Abbey Road
Metallica St. Anger

The Black Keys El Camino

For me, particularly where The Beatles' single hits and compilations have become ubiquitous (and now on Spotify too), an actual review of their proper original chronological album discography and each album's contents is enlightening:

Please Please Me (1963)

With the Beatles (1963)

A Hard Day's Night (1964)

Beatles for Sale (1964)

Help! (1965)

Rubber Soul (1965)

Revolver (1966)

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)

Magical Mystery Tour (1967)

The White Album (1968)

Yellow Submarine (1969)

Abbey Road (1969)

Let It Be (1970) 

And as for these two records, their track listings were:

RUBBER SOUL 

Drive My Car

Norwegian Wood

You Won't See Me

Nowhere Man

Think for Yourself (Harrison)

The Word

Michelle

What Goes On (Lennon–McCartney–Richard Starkey)

Girl

I'm Looking Through You

In My Life

Wait

If I Needed Someone (Harrison)

Run for Your Life

ABBEY ROAD 

Come Together

Something (Harrison)

Maxwell's Silver Hammer

Oh! Darling

Octopus's Garden (Starr)

I Want You (She's So Heavy)

Here Comes the Sun (Harrison)

Because

You Never Give Me Your Money

Sun King

Mean Mr. Mustard

Polythene Pam

She Came In Through the Bathroom Window

Golden Slumbers

Carry That Weight

The End

Her Majesty

All songs Lennon-McCartney except as marked.

Rubber Soul is the more straight forward album packed full of hits. There is already a maturity to the songs despite this album (albeit already their 6th studio production) coming only 2 years after their debut. In My Life sometimes tops polls of the greatest Beatles song of all but to be honest there are 100s that could claim that accolade - their consistency was astonishing.

Abbey Road is more experimental and heavier moving on from the previous year's The White Album and side two even branches off into concept with mixed results. Perhaps the best songs are actually George Harrison's Something and Here Comes The Sun.

Oddly Abbey Road was actually the true Beatles swansong being recorded after Let It Be which had a delayed release.

Interesting to note that both album covers did not display the name of the group such was the fame of the fab four - a concept of self sabotage that was unheard of in those days and  rarely adopted even later (with the notable exception of Led Zeppelin). There are also some fascinating conspiracy theories all over The Beatles myth but many originating from outlandish interpretations of the covers especially Abbey Road. Most of these centre around the rumour that Paul McCartney had actually been killed in a road accident and replaced by a look-a-like. Note the following from an over analysis of the Abbey Road cover:

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A funeral procession
Lennon wears white, Ringo black and Harrison denim. All colours associated with mourning in some countries. Other interpretations say that Lennon represents the preacher, Ringo Starr is the mourner and George Harrison is the grave-digger. 

McCartney holds a cigarette in his "wrong hand"
Paul held his cigarette in his right hand, even though he is left handed. A cigarette was also known as a coffin nail in slang. [This is ridiculous Ed.]

McCartney is bare footed.
In some cultures the dead are buried without their shoes but:
 

I was walking barefoot because it was a hot day

McCartney is out of step with the others
Oh yes.

The car license plate
In the background we see a Volkswagen Beetle with the plate "LMW 28IF" Conspiracists claim this to mean that McCartney would be 28 if he were still alive, oh and LMW stands for "Linda McCartney Weeps".

The police van
Parked on the side of the road is a black police van, which is said to symbolize authorities who kept silent about McCartney's fatal crash. This shot was a thank you from the Beatle's manager Brian Epstein who bought their silence [he died 2 years earlier so not sure this one adds up. Ed] 

The girl in the blue dress
On the night of McCartney’s supposed car accident, he was believed to have been driving with a fan named Rita. Theorists say the girl in the dress featured on the back cover was meant to be her, fleeing from the car crash.

Connect the dots
Also on the back cover are a series of dots. Join some of them together and you can make the number three — the number of surviving Beatles [please stop, Ed.]

Broken Beatles sign
On the back cover the band’s name is written in tiles on a wall and there’s a crack running through it. This was to symbolise the imminent break up of the band.

The onlookers
In the background, a small group of people dressed in white stand on one side of the road, while a lone person (Paul) stands in black on the other. 

The line of cars
A line can be traced from the VW Beetle to the three cars in front of it. If it is drawn connecting their right wheels it runs straight through Paul's head, with theorists suggesting that means Paul sustained a head injury in the car crash.

The bloodstain
On the Australian version (only?) of the album, the cover showed what could be a bloodstain splattered on the road just behind Ringo and John, supposedly backing claims of a road accident. 

Grim Reaper
If the back cover is turned 45 degrees anticlockwise a crude image of the Grim Reaper appears, from his skull to his black gown. 

Paul's final resting place
If the writing on the wall is split into sections, it conveys the cryptic message, 'Be at Les Abbey'. In numerology the following two letters, R and O, are the 18th and 15th letters in the alphabet. By adding these together (33) and multiplying by the number of letters (2), we get 66, the year Paul is supposed to have died.
On the other hand 3 also represents the letter C so 33 could also stand for CC. Cece is short for Cecilia, with theorists claiming Paul final resting place was St Cecilia's Abbey in Ryde, Isle of Wight. [Didn't the Beatles also pen a song Ticket to Ryde and sing about being on the Isle of Wight when they were 66, or was it 64? Ed.]

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Paul McCartney parodied the cover for his 1993 Paul Is Live album

The location continues to draw fans. You can even view a live webcam which shows traffic waiting as tourists try to snap a shot while crossing the zebra. This was much the case for the real shoot back in 1969. Six hasty shots were snapped in between the traffic. The Beatles chose the one where all their legs were astride and that was it. Imagine arranging all the above too!

Abbey Road right this second

Incidentally I did enjoy the new Danny Boyle rom-com film Yesterday although I'd been playing these albums before seeing it to be fair. There are many amusing scenes including the record companies disdain at the lead artist suggesting his debut album of "unknown" Beatles songs be called a very politically incorrect The White Album, or perhaps even Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for some reason, and a hapless Ed Sheeran suggesting Hey Jude should be retitled Hey Dude.

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Log #148 - The Cosmic Joke That Went Too Far

The Cosmic Jokers were a sort of unofficial Krautrock supergroup including Klaus Schulze and Manuel Gottsching.  Apparently unbeknown to the musicians their jams were recorded and later released. Gottsching first heard "his" record in a store in Berlin and had to ask who it was! Schulze was so angry he actually sued the record label responsible.

It is scarcely believable that The Cosmic Jokers actually went on to be credited with 3 studio albums and several compilations and remixes (all released in 1974).

This album is their first. It's a shame it was released under such unsatisfactory circumstances as I think it is actually one of the best albums I've heard from the so-called second string of Krautrock artists. It consists of two extended instrumentals - side one being more rock based, side two more ambient. The Gottsching influence dominates and side two particularly could be an Ashra or solo piece.

Cosmic Jokers Cosmic Jokers

Guru Guru UFO

Manuel Gottsching E2-E4

Beuno Vista Social Club Beuno Vista Social Club
Nils Frahm All Melody

Coldplay X&Y

The Guru Guru album (their 1970 debut) is of much more basic rock. With it's screeching guitar, driving bass and crashing cymbals, it sounds much like Jimi Hendrix (not quite so good of course) and Interstellar Overdrive psychedelic era Floyd. The tracks are all instrumental and of not much particular interest apart from the experimental title track.

I'm not a huge Coldplay fan but X&Y is a grower and much heavier than I had previously given them credit for. Where does it rank in the echelons of Coldplay? Well, firstly I'm surprised to learn they've only made 7 albums. This is a good thing, or should be, in the quality over quantity stakes. X&Y was their third released in 2005. A cursory google browse suggests this album ranks somewhere in the top/middle range. 

Is the view (one I've previously held) of the band being middle of the road, intellectual, nice guys, and a less interesting copy of Radiohead, justified? I think there may be more to them and I'll play this album, and the other one I have (Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends) some more to find out.

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Log #128 - Virgins Born Under A Bad Sun

This week we take in 3 new artists to the blog all from the experimental electronic stable: Tim Hecker, Mark Pritchard and Venetian Snares. These new boys on the block sandwich entries from Nils Frahm, Edgar Froese and Burial whose strong albums deservedly maintain a place in the magazine for further absorption.

Mark Pritchard Under The Sun

Nils Frahm All Melody

Edgar Froese Epsilon In Malaysian Pale

Burial Untrue

Venetian Snares Rossz Csillag Alatt Született

Tim Hecker Virgins

Tim Hecker is an artist I've read a lot about but up until now not actually heard. Thank you once again to @TheElectricApe for supplying this #NewMusicAlert.

Who is he? A Canadian electronic musician and sound artist. Tim Hecker is also an academic and lecturer on sound culture with a PhD (including a thesis on urban noise) from McGill University.  

What does he sound like? I'm only going by this 2013 album (bear in mind he's produced 10 albums since his 2001 debut Haunt Me, Haunt Me Do It Again - don't be misled as I was that his preceding album Ravedeath, 1972 was actually from 1972!) but on this evidence his sound includes elements of ambient and glitch but is closest to classical minimalism. 

The phased piano loops of Virginal I and II are from the Philip Glass and Steve Reich schools of minimalism. Yet Black Refraction is a beautiful slow piano solo similar to some of Nils Frahm's works or Glass's Solo Piano - at least until the piece literally decays towards the end. Decay and distortion are constant bedfellows through the album calling for obvious comparisons with William Basinski.

Virgins is not an easy listen as a whole but ever interesting and highlighted by moments of sheer beauty that occasionally surface above the noise: Live Room and Live Room Out combine both the jarring repeating loops of the minimalist composers and the chordal string beauty of artists like Stars Of The Lid. Stigmata II does something similar beginning with a hypnotic pulsing ripping sound that merges into gorgeous wavering synth flutes like those frequenting the Edgar Froese album which has taken up residence in the magazine.

Mark Pritchard comes from the Warp music label which, as a home to Aphex Twin, Luke Vibert, Boards of Canada, and Autechre, amongst many other groundbreaking experimental artists, is almost always a good sign. 

On initial listens of Under The Sun, however, I'm not so convinced here. The first half of the album particularly could possibly suffer from "guest vocalist syndrome" where vocals are plastered over the top of an otherwise instrumental piece (reading that back that sounds obvious, all songs would be instrumentals without vocals - I think I mean there is sometimes a sense of shoehorning some vocals in as an after thought although perhaps this is just my current predisposition to instrumental music). 

Worse when the guest vocalist is a named star such as Bono or Gabriel (I'm thinking of some mid-era Afro Celt albums that attempted to go mainstream) or in this case Thom Yorke. Maybe good for kudos and sales but I find Thom Yorke's miserabalist mumblerock moanings ill fit most music. 

We also have a spoken word track The Blinds Cage which I think would be better as an instrumental - this one voiced by someone called Beans, and the title track which has an annoying high pitched female choir round possibly manageable as a one minute synthesizer interlude like tracks Hi Red or Dawn Of The North but at 6 1/2 minutes it grates. 

In another about turn You Wash My Soul has very ghostly vocals backed just by acoustic guitar - it comes over as very righteous. I think the best vocal track is Give It Your Choir although even this one, with it's choral proggy leanings, is possibly a fish out of water in this variable album. It's a nice song nontheless.

Unsurprisingly then, it's the instrumental sections of the album I like best. Strip out the songs and you'd have a decent album of ambient drones, loops and ghostly sound effects.  Longest track Ems is probably the pick. The trouble is these sorts of records rely on building tension and atmosphere over a sustained period. The disjointed nature of this album fails to do this for me.

Bonkers! There isn't a better way to describe Venetian Snares. I describe it as classical music set to drum and bass. How does that sound? Well, it sounds like Rossz Csillag Alatt Született, prolific Canadian (another) electronic musician Aaron Funk's 15th album released in 2005. The track titles are in Hungarian and the album title translates as Born Under a Bad Star. The album was inspired by a visit to Hungary and encounters with pigeons in Budapest (hence the classy cover photo at the head of this post):

It's just a pigeon, looking for its nest
It doesn't know that it's wild
It doesn't know that it scares me
Why am I frightened so easily?
Pigeon, why can you scare me?
Am I not a part of your life anymore?
Am I not welcome anymore?
Am I not part of your life?

Some works great: Öngyilkos Vasárnap is Portishead turned up to 11 with super sharp beats and sawing violins (the sampled vocals belong to Billie Holiday's Gloomy Sunday). It's a truly haunting and moving song.

Felbomlasztott Mentőkocsi is brooding and portentous, sounding like Arvo Part or Gorecki (I'm assuming all the classical music is sampled and am not going to attempt to list the sources).

Hajnal is a masterpiece moving from jazz flavoured piano to full on breakbeat. (I was surprised on seeing Goldie with The Heritage Orchestra last year that you could actually have live drum and bass drummers, but I'm certain no human drummers could drum as fast as this).

But Szamár Madár is frankly horrible. It's a familiar classical piece and as such comes over as classical pops.

It's an intriguing and novel approach but part of me wonders if there is much more to this than simply setting classical pieces to random banging beats. And, like I say, sometimes the marriage works like on the Billie Holiday number but sometimes the union seems mismatched and irrelevant. It may miss the point somewhat but one of my favourite tracks is the final Senki Dala which combines guitar harmonics with plaintive violin and piano. It's a beautiful piece and ironically there are no drums. 

ps. I'm trying a new concept this week. Any Spotify users out there? Here is the link to a playlist for this week's selection. I understand it should play the complete tracks although some users (possibly non account holders or non logged in people) may only get 30 second previews (which would suit many anyway). Here goes: 

Looks like success!

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Log #127 - Things Just Got A Lot Weirder

Eddy continues his bid to name-check every band under the sun this week with 4 brand new artists and 2 making only a second appearance.

Nucleus Plastic Rock

Nils Frahm All Melody

Edgar Froese Epsilon In Malaysian Pale

Burial Untrue

Soft Hair Soft Hair

Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate Out Of Mind

Firstly the 2: Edgar Froese's sumptuous Epsilon In Malaysian Pale easily slots into the Tangerine Dream early to mid 70s canon of classic Berlin school albums somewhere in between Phaedra and Rubycon. Eddy went all green and moist over Epsilon in a recent review.

There was also a degree of moistness with the Nucleus album which Eddy discovered in log #125, Plastic Rock easily claiming the "record of the week" spot in his Roger Dean retrospective.

For those that like their jazz fusion just a little bit more easy listening than Bitches Brew.

On to green pastures anew: Hats Off Gentlemen It's Adequate appear a curious proposition. For a start what's that name all about? It's not even the album title name. It's actually the band name. Are they actually a band even? It seems like Hats Off / HOGIA are perhaps just two people, in which case their complex prog rock sound is remarkable. They are either a couple of amazing multi-instrumentalists or computer geniuses or both.

HOGIA throw the full prog gambit at Out Of Mind which takes us on a whirlwind tour through Marillion and Genesis infused music containing a myriad of instruments, time signatures, involved lyrics, dynamics and tempos, not only across songs but within them too. It's a lot to take in but fans of those two bands (particularly the Marillion on the vocal tracks, and the Genesis on the instrumental passages) will lap it up.

With it's gurgling keyboard Defiance is like one of the instrumentals littered throughout The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway. But it's the guitar sound I love most. The latter half of the album in particular exhibits some gorgeous slow drawn out guitar glissando with pleasing chord changes that strike you right in the gut; reminiscent of Neil Young on Zuma or Alex Lifeson at his best on La Villa Strangiato or By-Tor And The Snow Dog, but with the Steve Hackett (a fan apparently) sound (and a hint of Mark Knopfler too). Take Maze for example with its gentle guitar arpeggio, the spacey If I Miss The Stars, or If You Think This World Is Bad, an impressively efficient bass pulse driven 3 minute instrumental break amongst a sea of 6 and 7 minute epics. Favourite track and most gorgeous of all is Losing Myself (and indeed I do in that guitar figure).

No entry at the music map as yet but I've made a nomination.

The disturbing cover at the head of this log belongs to the Soft Hair album. It actually fits the album of sleazy funk disco really well. I like the band's unusual sound which is a dark mash-up of Michael Jackson, Prince, and Sly and the Family Stone (you can't get more sleazy than a Jackson-Prince-Stone menage-a-trois), and as if produced by Boards of Canada too. It came out as recently as 2016 although was many years in its conception by co-collaborators Connan Mockasin (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and Sam Dust (LA Priest and Late Of The Pier). The Gainsbourg connection perhaps being significant as despite never hearing her father's classic sleaze disco album Histoire de Melody Nelson all the way through, I am confident this record is from that lineage.

I like to watch you run
But I'll never touch your bum

Check out this track which pretty much summarises this peculiar album (be warned the parental advisory sticker should apply to their videos as well as the music):

Who are Burial? Well, in fact, Burial is electronic music producer William Bevan from South London. The reclusive Bevan remained anonymous for a while leading to speculation that Burial was in fact another pseudonym for Richard James (Aphex Twin) or Keiran Hebden (Four Tet). His cover was blown in 2008 when his second album Untrue was nominated for the Mercury Prize.

This acclaimed album draws upon breakbeat, dubstep, rave, and drum and bass, but also there is a lot of ambient glitch, vinyl crackle, distortion and decay.  Think of the aural innovation of Portishead when they first came out, and factor it up by ten.

It could be a dog's breakfast with all those influences but is actually a coherent whole and oddly the distorted vocal fragments in particular make Untrue quite an interesting companion (or counterpoint?) piece to the Soft Hair (maybe that Boards Of Canada aesthetic being the common touchpoint?).

Who is Nils Frahm? I've heard the name and had my expectations. This album by the Berlin composer surpasses them. Why? Unsure. I think, again (and how often do I say this?), it wasn't what I was expecting. There is beautiful treated solo piano which is minimalist with space to breath. But there is pulse and beats too. The title track has a gorgeously hypnotic gated synth which is right up my Tangerine Dream / Jean Michel Jarre strabe / rue (and get the Daft Punk influences too). Here is Frahm performing title track All Melody live:

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