Twittering Machines

A Hawk and a Hacksaw
Delivrance

AHAAH is percussionist/accordion player Jeremy Barnes and violinist Heather Trost – Albuquerque, NM natives. On Delivrance their newest LP they’ve become a bigger band officially incorporating members of the Hungarian Hun Hangár Ensemble and Chris Hladowski. Before giving this record a good listen I was sceptical – folk-inspired music which so clearly rests on non-western traditions can be, um, pastiche-y and lacking soul. I also got AHAAH’s first LP…

A Hawk and a Hacksaw
S/T

…and I’m sold. Mainly on Jeremy Barnes’ sincere wackiness and love of the other. Jeremy and Heather are living in Budapest and have been while making Delivrance and they recorded in a Romanian village on their previous LP The Way the Wind Blows. But AHAAH isn’t a musicologists’ project or sociological study. Barnes and Trost are not preserving a tradition so much as drinking it in and letting it influence and inspire their music-making.

Delivrance also wears more than their love of eastern european music on their sleeve with sounds and strains of Mexico, free jazz and plain old folk rock peaking through the frenetic energy of Klezmer madness. The first self-titled LP from 2002 is Jeremy Barnes as one-man-band and more all-over in terms of styles genre-hopping were minimalist touches, cartoon sound effects and field recording noises abound for truly zany fun.

Delivrance is party-music par-excellence and it’s nice to know they care about their sound (& image). And they released a 10″ 78RPM single in 2009!!

Angels of Light
We Are Him

Michael Gira & Co in happy valley? This is the 6th post-Swans LP from Angles of Light and Michael is joined by the Akron/Family, Larkin Grimm, Siohban Duffy Gira, David Garland, and Bill Rieflin for a rollicking romp of a double album full of Technicolors, dreamy nightmare lyrics and luscious sounds. While I’m not well versed in the Gira darkside, these songs sound mostly idyllic with a tint (OK maybe a glob) of gloom; a bluer velvety kind of angst hovering around the edges of some plain lovely song-making.

I have Stephen to thank for the heads-up on this one and my feeling at this point is this is one for the more than occasional repeat play. There’s just too much to soak up in a few casual listens. Listen loud, listen often and read along. Stunning & perfectly creepy album art by Deryk Thomas.

Nancy & Lee, Lydia & Rowland. Here’s what Nancy & Lee have to say:

Q. What does “Some Velvet Morning” really mean?
A. We don’t know. The words “Velvet” and “Morning” rhyme in our heads. Phaedra sounds like an “upper” that doesn’t quite make it.

I think Lydia & Rowland know exactly what they mean. Same goes for Blixa’s cover of Lee’s “Sand”. Eerie druggie hippie sexie Americana cowboy loner weirdness. John Ford by Werner Herzog, Edward Hopper by Joseph Beuys, J.D. Salinger by Peter Handke.

Lee:
Some velvet morning when I’m straight
I’m gonna open up your gate
And maybe tell you ’bout Phaedra
and how she gave me life
and how she made it in
Some velvet morning when I’m straight

Nancy:
Flowers growing on the hill
Dragonflies and daffodils
Learn from us very much
Look at us but do not touch
Phaedra is my name

Sand

Young woman share your fire with me my heart is cold my soul is free
I am a stranger in your land wandering man they call me Sand

…

At night when stars light up the sky oh sir I dream my fire is high
Oh taste these lips sir if you can wandering man I’ll call Thee Sand

this is where we ate Father’s Day dinner
The Ship Inn in Milford the oldest brew pub in NJ

I had a few most excellent hand-pulled ESBs. Then we went for a walk through bustling downtown Milford….

 
this is Nicole pointing out our new house to Cathy & Jess…

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Cheval De Frise
la lame du Mat

L’Ocelle Mare
S/T

Here’s a stunning pair of releases on Minority Records from French guitarist Thomas Bonvalet. He’s joined by drummer Vincent Beysselance on the 10″ 33RPM for the duo called Cheval De Frise. This recording is from 2004 and it’s a killer record.  Bonvalet plays amplified acoustic guitar and you can hear strains of flamenco, classical cleanliness and jazz/noise slash & burn combined with Beysselanceon’s savage drums for a roller-coaster ride through some strange hot lovely forest.

Bonvalet goes solo on L’Ocelle Mare the 12″ 45RPM (I think I love this label) and the absence of Beysselanceon’s frenetic energy lets him explore some more serene spaces as well as banjo, harmonica, percussion, shaker and field recordings. “Recorded by Adrian Riffo in different deserted places in July 2006.” Of all the acoustic solo guitar records I have including James Blackshaw, Paul Metzger and John Renbourn, I’d put L’Ocelle Mare right up near the top. There’s a flavor to his playing that sounds desperate and the harmonica and ‘field recordings’ add a wonderful touch of edgy manic outsider strangeness.

You can hear samples from both records on the links provided so check em out and see what you think. I understand from reading some reviews that this music is considered ‘math rock’ which I find almost totally baffling.

Honeymoon in Red
s/t

What do you get when you mix Lydia Lunch, Rowland S. Howard, Genvieve McGluckin, Tracy Pew and Mick Harvey? Oh and Nick Cave. And Thurston Moore. A Sonic Party?A Bad Youth?

These songs were originally recorded in 1982 for what I’ve read was to be a new band but everything fell apart mainly between Lunch & Cave/Harvey. So the later duo pulled out (wonk) and left Lydia with the tapes. She dusted them off 5 years later and had Thurston Moore and Clint Ruin (aka J. G. Thirlwell of Foetus) spiffy up a few tracks which includes Thurston overdubbing some guitar and wa la! A Honeymoon in Red released in 1987 by Dutch East India Trading.

Actually this LP sounds very much like you’d expect – the earlier untouched songs are all Birthday Party jangly and nasty and the later retouched Moore’d tracks have more of that Lydia cabaret vibe going on. Overall another nasty tasty treat.

There’s some viscous liner notes by Lunch calling Nick & Mick “False Profits & baby-fat-kings” and they both refused to be credited on the LP. So we have in their stead “Lydia Lunch and her dead twin”and “…& a drunk cowboy junkie” on vocals and “Dick Strum”. Nice. My LP also came with a 12 x 12 poster of Lydia ready for honeymoon action. Saucy.

In 1957, Edgar Varèse conducted a Jazz Workshop. Participants included Charles Mingus, Teo Macero and Art Farmer. WFMU has posted 20 brief MP3s from this session for our listening pleasure. They also include the original notes that accompanied their release:

It might be the first free jazz recording (totally unissued) of History of Music. Varèse might have influenced jazzmen or was he only aware of what was happening on the jazz scene? No matter of the answer, it’s a bomb, as this music is 3 years earlier than Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman! We also know Charlie Parker wanted to study with Varèse in autumn 1954 but the composer flew to Europe to conduct Déserts. When he came back to New York in May 1955, Parker had already died. We also know that Varèse used to listen to John Coltrane at the Village. 

Material
Memory Serves

Bill Laswell, Sonny Sharrock, Fred Frith, Henry Threadgill, George Lewis, Michael Beinhorn, Charles K. Noyes and Fred Maher are Material. Memory Serves is their first release and it’s an explosion in the funk-fusion candyshop of 1981 (read: blow). While I could live with a little less Beinhorn synthesizer and more Sonny & Fred who are ‘in the mix’ most of the time, there’s more than enough to whet the appetite for anyone with a hankering for a Last Exit Mahavishnu P-Funk and the Gang kinda vibe. There are even a couple no-wave-y vocal tracks (I wouldn’t call it singing, maybe Beinhorning?) AND some Ronald Reagan (speaking)!

One of the more stylistically schizophrenic and fun LPs I’ve picked up in a while for under $5. I have the French Import but I’ve seen another alternate (and cooler?) cover:

Richard Youngs
sleep deprivation single

The {Five Minute Association Records} ( 5MA) label is new to me and my guess is they’re relatively new to everyone. They’ve released two 7″ limited lathe-cut editions (all 5MA releases are limited to 100): BODUFSONGS and this here Richard Youngs sleep deprivation single. I’m also new to Richard Youngs so I’ll let 5MA do the talking:

This is one man’s take on sleep deprivation, a five minute distillation of that unhappy state. Recorded in December 2006 using sound waves ring modulated and filtered, it is also perhaps the weirdest entry in the Youngs’ canon. Imagine Stockhausen’s ‘Gesang Der Jungling’ minus the vocal channeled with a no-wave sensibility. Insomnia never sounded so good.

I completely dig this warbled meditation on sleeplessness and the woozy dreamy pulsing does have that spooky-no-wave edge making it all the more appealing. I will have to dig into Richard Youngs catalog further.

Oh yea, and the packaging is over-the-top groovy. I love the hand-crafted, old-school :zoviet*france-ish charm. Some future 5MA releases that are must-must haves for me include Loren Connors, Kan Mikami and Suishou no Fune!!!

The Boys Next Door
Door, Door

Before he had bad seeds and a birthday party, Nick the Stripper was one of the boys next door. Formed in 1973, this LP from 1978/79 has me wondering. And I’m wondering why I never thought to buy this record before. Well water under the bridge I have it now and it’s a treat. It’s a treat because you can hear all sorts of Nick Cave’s in this one record; hints of many future Caves to come.

What’s as interesting, and I admit I’m conjecturing on this, is the later appearance of Roland S Howard as a boy next door seems to have nudged the boys away from their new wave-y pleasantries toward a harder edged, raw-er sound. The ‘other’ player as muse has followed Nick, I’d argue, throughout his career with Blixa taking up that role in the Bad Seeds for many years followed by the mad violinist and one of a Dirty Three Warren Ellis.

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Back in early Spring I stupidly, OK very stupidly sprained my ankle while running. At two o’clock in the morning. The injury was bad enough to keep me off me feet for a few weeks and while I convalesced I found myself spending more time reading and actually participating in a hifi forum, an activity I generally try to avoid. One thread that caught my attention was on the Stereophile forum and the subject under discussion was the Furutech deMag device. In brief, Stephen Mejias shared his experience of a day at Michael Fremer’s where they listened to, among many other things, an LP before and after it was treated by the Furutech device.

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Junior Kimbrough
First Recordings

“My songs, they have just the one chord, there’s none of that fancy stuff you hear now, with lots of chords in one song. If I find another chord I leave it for another song.” -Junior Kimbrough

This 10″ from Junior Kimbrough contains 6 tracks recorded in Memphis, TN in 1966. Fat Possum/Big Legal Mess rescued these tracks from obscurity (they were originally deemed “too country” to be released) and boy are we lucky they did — Kimbrough is drone-like in his playing, working that one chord until it bleeds.

As time goes on, I find myself more and more attracted to these less ‘conventional’ blues players. More/great info and some MP3s of rare 45s (where he uses up to 3 chords!) of Junior here.

I love finding new raggae, especially new and really great raggae. Of course anything from Mr. Marley never sucks and Soul Rebels is no exception. From 1970, The Wailers (this was pre-Bob Marley & …) approached Lee Scratch Perry and asked him to ‘do’ a record. Soul Rebels is the outcome and it features a number of songs that found their way onto later albums like “Corner Stone, “400 Years”and “Try Me’ but what makes this record so special is Lee Perry’s minimalist approach — guitar, bass, drums and vocals. That’s it. While not the best sound q, this LP rocks steady. Brilliantly.

Culture’s debut LP Two Sevens Clash from 1976 is my favorite raggae find in a long time. A fierce record – music as political and social messenger – by a great group including Albert Walker and Kenneth Dayes on backing vocals with Sly & Robbie, Sticky on percussion and a host of other guest musicians all produced by Joe Gibbs.  The story goes Joseph Hill, lead singer and song writer, had a vision based on a prediction by Marcus Garvey while riding a bus that 7/7/1977 was going to be a ‘day of judgement’.  The lyrics and song followed and “Two Sevens Clash” was a huge hit in Jamaica:

The prophecies noted by the lyrics so profoundly captured the imagination of the people that on July 7, 1977 – the day when sevens fully clashed (seventh day, seventh month, seventy-seventh year) a hush descended on Kingston; many people did not go outdoors, shops closed, an air of foreboding and expectation filled the city.

Sun & weed-drenched Heavyness.

The Tamlins, while looking like badass disco bouncers are in fact Carlton Smith, Junior Moore, and Derrick Lara. They were the backing singers for a slew of raggae artists including Peter Tosh and their harmonies are sweet and cool on their Greatest Hits. More rocksteady than hard edged raggae, American love song soul tinged with Jamaican beat and rhythm.