Alan’s New and Old Music for Autumn 2022

 

Alan Dearling takes us to some snap, crackle and pops from new releases and olden musical nuggets.

A new album from Arthur Brown:  Here is ‘I like games’ from his new album ‘Long, long road’. Some nicely heavy blues…The old God of Hellfire is still exercising his vocal chords along with some incendiary guitar and haunting harp-work. Great to see and hear him still going on strong…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cAE-FB4zwk

Youth and Gaudi: Stratosphere

I love these two guys individually – and collectively they share and create an alchemy about them. I last saw them live at OZORA festi in Hungary. Very rare, very special magical minutes and hours. This is their latest album. The album is very dancey, trancey – reggae electronica. And, actually just a little bit similar in essence to ‘Stratosfear’, the much earlier album by Tangerine Dream. Cosmic bass dub soundz…

This is their on-line album ‘teaser’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tewk5d3Hy84

A spiritual musical experience from 2018, Ajeet Kaur – Kiss the Earth (La Luna) [Live in Amsterdam]. ’Tis heading towards 20 million views on the internet. I first came upon Ajeet through some Sufis. And was reminded of her again by my friend, Tatiana. The music contains a deep sensuality, feelings of love and reflexions on life and death.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6hEvSvpx7M

La Luna Illumina:

“Grandmother Moon illuminates”

‘Kiss the Earth’ is from the album ‘Haseya’

Rammstein are back touring their new album, ‘Zeit’. It’s quite some album and getting much praise from middle aged fans and newbies to the German band’s music. Melodic, bombastic. A large-scale arena ‘event’ even in videos, which include a fully-fledged film in itself.  Rammstein still remain able to frighten the fuck out of you, full-on German vocals and potent images of darkness, that made them heroes of heavy metal a couple of decades ago.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbHGS_bVkXY

 

ZMAN8

Ari Z Satlin is Zman8. He’s based in New York City. And he’s quite some fan of British psych-rock from the likes of Ozric Tentacles; Steve Hillage; Zero 7; Gong and more… He’s been sharing his musical output with me for some time.

https://www.facebook.com/ZMAN531/videos/2673637172767738.

Zman8’s ‘The Shift #thetrip’, FrequenSeed Yayo Beat.

Lots of spacey sounds and images. Day-glo sky-diving. Great stuff!
This is from his debut album: https://zman8.bandcamp.com/track/the-shift

And another video from Ari: https://www.facebook.com/ZMAN531/videos/662042844913818

Here’s a link to a lengthy, in-depth interview with Ari. Fascinating stuff!
https://www.psybient.org/love/interview-zman8/?fbclid=IwAR0HbodnApCSpJ_s5jwE0aHQxE8UXJyX1Y6POvaFytdr4oN_03dU5va4z0I

 

Starry Skies: Small Wonders – Scottish singer/songwriter, Warren McIntyre is extremely talented and charismatic. This is essentially a solo album written by Warren and performed as a Starry Skies’ album by him with lots of his musical friends employing a nice range of instruments from guitars, violin to cello and viola. Lots of variety on this fourth album, but overall it feels quite an old-fashioned, life-affirming record, ranging from up-beat pop to story-telling tracks, including the nice and sleazy riffs of ‘Natural Way’, ‘Highwater Eagle’ – a first-Nation saga reminiscent of Blood on the Tracks’ Dylan. Gentle, graceful with shades of Peter Sarstedt in ‘Iris in the Underground’. The album is a ‘grower’. Worth checking out.

 

Here’s a live version of ‘Natural Way’. You’ll see how catchy and infectious his songs are:

https://www.facebook.com/warren.mcintyre/videos/10215636088434060

Erland Cooper: ‘Music for Growing Flowers’

Lovely, ethereal, gentle floating soundscapes. Tinkling piano, cascading ambient sounds. Nice to be floating along with this as company. Erland is perhaps best known for his work with Magnetic North and Erland and the Carnival, but this takes him further into the territory of Harold Budd, Eno and Virginia Astley. The music was commissioned to accompany the sowing of 20 million flower seeds at the Tower of London. Erland’s Stromness Scottish roots seem to underlie what folk call his ‘psychogeographic’ music.

Link: https://www.erlandcooper.com/superbloom

Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes: Cosey Fanni Tutti

Uneasy listening. Reminiscent of ghostly hauntings. It is Cosey Fanni Tutti’s music for the Delia Derbyshire film – not music composed by Delia herself. But it’s immersive and fascinating if you enjoy electronica special effects and all-round weirdness. Soundscapes for mind games! I really rather like it! It’s not Part Two of an ‘Electric Storm by White Noise’, but it kept my ears pricked open.  I like creepy…magic spells…ethereal imaginings… Here’s a sampling from ‘Cornet Lament’ from the album: https://youtu.be/OUbgjleEEsk 

 

Andy Ellison: Wall to Wall Jive double, 40 track CD retrospective in support of his book, ‘Stunt Rocker’. Kicking off his recording career in 1965 and surprisingly still with us.  He’s been the singer with two iterations of John’s Children, Jet and the Radio Stars. This really sounds like a series of pastiche in-musical-jokes. Indeed, by the end of the first CD, I found myself thinking that it could easily be the Greatest Hits compilation from Del Boy of Trotters’ Independent Traders! Andy recorded his own material, lots of covers and tracks that sounded-like other contemporaneous songs from the Stones, early Floyd, T-Rex, Troggs, Gary Glitter, Sweet, Bowie, Chas ‘n’ Dave and an array of vaguely punk-ish bands. There’s quite a lot of fun to be had. And some little gems from his John’s Children’s days alongside Marc Bolan. But, a lot of it feels as if the tracks were childish imitations of Mods such as the Small Faces, and rockers like Eddie and the Hot Rods. There’s even a hint of a German marching chant in John’s Children in 1967’s ‘Just what you want, Just what you’ll get’. Overall, it’s a veritable oddity (with worryingly, no track writing credits)! ‘It’s been a long time’ – a track featured in the film ‘Here we go round the Mulberry Bush’ is one of the best of the bunch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6okkU1ztys

Likewise, ‘Cornflake Zoo’ and ‘Hippy Gumbo’, which appear to be Marc Bolan songs are at the more adventurous end of the spectrum. Strange version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ and a respectful, ‘Children of the Revolution’. I did enjoy Andy Lewis/Andy Ellison: ‘Heather Lane’ (actually Syd’s ‘Octopus’), a sort of ‘daughter’ of Arnold Layne’ – mildly bonkers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Szq0CQJ1IHk

Another video from the vaults.  I last saw Hang Massive in Vilnius, Lithuania. Mesmerising. I have three of my own Hangs. Meditative and haunting.

Hang Massive – ‘The Secret Kissing of the Sun and Moon’:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvmOoSFhhJ4

Just for fun, here is a pic from one of my musical noise workshops (MSFN) also from Lithuania, including one of my three Hang (drums) and a steel-tongued drum!

 


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One Response to Alan’s New and Old Music for Autumn 2022

    1. I’m enjoying Stratosphere, thanks for the tip. It’s a bit like Global Underground meets Dub. With a bit of Kruder and Dorfmeister thrown in! Nice tewns.

      Comment by Tom Wiersma on 12 October, 2022 at 5:59 pm

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