Twittering Machines

Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010)

Paul Bley
Barrage

Recorded in NYC on October 20, 1964 Barrage is aptly titled and features Paul Bley on piano, Dewey Johnson on trumpet and Marshall Allen on alto sax (both from the Sun Ra Arkestra), Eddie Gomez on bass and Milford Graves on percussion playing compositions by Carla Bley.

Ideas and improvisations at the speed of sound – Paul Bley anchors the barrage with Kodachrome-atic colors like Cecil Taylor in love while Eddie Gomez comments, slaps and slides, Allan and Johnson blast into space leaving Milford Graves to stomp out time like a locomotive on fire hopping on and off the rails. This record is relatively short with six 4-5 minute tracks sounding as fresh and exciting as cool spring rain on a hot tin roof leaving you wanting more, steaming.

Originally recorded for ESP-Disk, I bought the reissue on Get Back Records. “We tried to keep the artwork as keen as possible to the original ESP Edition”. Cool keen cover art by Mike Snow.

Memorial Day, originally Decoration Day was enacted to honor the fallen Union Soldiers of the American Civil War. The first observance was in Waterloo,  NY on May 5, 1866.

From Wikipedia: Map of the division of the states during the Civil War. Blue represents Union states, including those admitted during the war; light blue represents Union states which permitted slavery (border states); red represents Confederate states. Unshaded areas were not states before or during the Civil War.

Not surprisingly many Southern States refused to celebrate Decoration Day due to lingering hostilities. Decoration Day officially became Memorial Day in 1967.

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According to the Guardian, Robert Johnson’s recordings are too fast – “And now, nearly 50 years after Columbia first packaged his work as King of the Delta Blues, we discover that we’ve been listening to these immortal songs at the wrong speed all along. Either the recordings were accidentally speeded up when first committed to 78, or else they were deliberately speeded up to make them sound more exciting. Whatever, the common consensus among musicologists is that we’ve been listening to Johnson at least 20% too fast.”

No news on a correct speed re-release but I’d sure be interested. The article also mentions other speeding screwups including “all the early Doors LPs and CDs” being too slow, Miles’ trumpet on the original CD release of Kind of Blue, and “all the original Rolling Stones ABKCO releases were mastered at the wrong tempo, an error first noticed by Keith Richards when the albums came out on CD”. Who says drugs are bad?

Pharoah Sanders
Live At The East

Simply stunning performances all around make for a mightily musical spiritual experience. A peak a mountaintop of music-making. You want this, you need this. Pharoah is the man.

Recorded live at “The East” in NYC in 1971.

Pharoah Sanders – Saxophone
Cecil McBee – Bass
Stanley Clarke – Bass
Lawrence Killian – Congas, Percussion [Bailophone]
Norman Connors – Drums
William Hart – Drums
Carlos Garnett – Flute, Voice
Joseph Bonner – Piano, Harmonium
Harold Vic – Tenor Vocals
Marvin Peterson – Trumpet

Some jokes, especially those related to fancy smokes, just aren’t funny. Don’t read on John, it’s just too sad. And don’t worry, I’ll bite this bullet and keep these dastardly sticks. All of ‘em. I’ve got your back, brother….

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and O what a box it be….

(thank you Jonathan)

I first saw Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Effi Briest at the original Thalia Theater on 96th Street during a weekend-long Fassbinder-fest. I can remember falling asleep and waking to see a parade of cockroaches marching along the seatbacks in front of me while in front of them Hanna Schygulla was even more captivating. Ahh, old NY.

The band Effi Briest takes their name from the German novel by Theodor Fontane written in 1894 which Fassbinder based his film on but their debut LP Rhizomes on Sacred Bones Records does not sound like 1890s Berlin. It does have big dollops of 1970s Berlin and even 1980s Wim Wender’s version complete with aching reverb guitar and doom. All of which is more than OK by me.

So is this. And this…

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Walls
S/T

Walls is Sam Willis (of Allez-Allez) and Alessio Natalizia (of Banjo or Freakout). If that doesn’t mean much maybe the fact that this record is on Kompakt.FM does. Either way, or neither, Walls is some lovely soft and flowing beat-trippy guitar, vocals, synth and samples that reminds me of other music (Boards of Canada, Durutti Column) but what it does even more is take you away.

“We take our inspiration by the sense of discovery, curiosity and playful nature of our approach to making music. We have a pastoral take on the natural world, music that has a natural, unique and personal feel – utilizing the best that old / modern technology has to offer.“

“It’s easy to make noisy and difficult music, what’s harder, and feels natural to us is to make music that skates along the edges — melodic, but with a sense of sadness, hope and euphoria at the same time.”

I’d say skating along pastoral edges is the perfect description for where this records leads but you can listen and decide for yourself.

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CocoRosie
Grey Oceans

I got a hopscoth tear drop ready to drop (repeat)

Is it playtime? For sisters Sierra (born in Iowa) and Bianca (born in Hawaii but I’d like to see a copy of that certificate) Casady it is. After dropping out of high school, moving all over the US and spending time with their Native American/Syrian mother in Iowa and their father on Indian reservations, Sierra left for opera lessons at the Conservatoire de Paris, Bianca for linguistics, sociology and art in Brooklyn. Five years later they reunited in Paris in 2003 and started making music.

Gray Oceans is their 4th LP, their first on Sub Pop and it is filled to overflowing with fairies, twinkling diamonds in the sky, tears, mermaids, tattoos, death, love, spells, dreams, wishes and kisses. Bianca and Sierra traveled the world while making this record – Buenos Aires, Melbourne, Berlin, New York, and Paris – and you hear musical pieces of things they picked up along the way along with their trademark toy instruments, strings and squeaked and strained and lovely vocals. Listening to Grey Oceans reminds me of turning the knob on some old radio in the dark and finding all of the different music interpreted through the same sisters-at-play.

we climbed the rocks in snow and rain / in search of magic powers / to heal our mother’s pain

Compared to their others, Grey Oceans is quieter – less brash and jarring. You have to almost peek inside, past the outfits, wigs, pasted on mustaches and beards to find the beauty. But for me it’s there and worth the quiet-time (time out?) it takes to discover.

I’ve read no small amount of blog comments declaring their overblown hatred for this record which proves, at least to me, it is wonderful.

Fanajana
A Collection of Recordings and Photography from Madagasikara

Is anyone surprised to learn that this is a simply wondrous and joyful record? Hearing and having it certainly makes not having the triple LP version that much harder but let’s act un-collector-like and be thankful for what we have.

Charles Brooks spent two years traveling around Madagascar with guitar, omni-directional mics and DAT recorder. All of this music was recorded on-site meaning in houses, under trees and in churches. You can hear birds, crickets, babies and more in the background bringing the fact that this music is woven into lives home.

Instruments include some wicked accordion, fife and drums and home-brew stringed instruments – Kabosy, Jejy Voatao, the Jejy Lava and the Valiha Marovany (the French banned this bad boy during the colonial period because it scared them with its power (I kinda made that part up)).

From the booklet – Ethnomusicologist Ron Emoff has remarked with respect to the Marovany “Sound production not only notifies ancestral spirits that they are needed in the present, it contributes greatly to the ancestral embodiment of spirit into medium.”

The accompanying 12-page booklet is filled with pictures of all of the musicians and instruments as well as descriptions of Charles Brooks’ experiences and some proverbs and poems. A real spiritual journey captured and shared. This alone is worth the price of admission…

I must admit, I’m not a big fan of God. Gods OK, but God especially the Big Organizations Thereof seem to cause as much harm as good. A slight of hand, the ultimate magic trick sees one rabbit pulled from a hat of many rabbits and the ensuing centuries are spent filling that hat with money and blood while the parishioners praise the chosen one (his comforting fur, his long ears the better to hear you with, his long teeth the better to bite the sinners with…), they rage against all others and the money and blood are used to build monuments to power. And corruption of the worst kinds foment.

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Ishman Bracey
Suitcase Full of Blues

Blues, Rags and Stomps from 1928/29 on two LPs represent every track cut by Ishman Bracey before the big man upstairs got a hold of him and he lost interest in playing and even talking about his blues-playing past. Even though Ishman lived until 1970 and plays some wicked Mississippi Delta-blues style guitar and sings with a straight-forward powerful delivery (you don’t dare doubt him), his name is not as household as Skip and Mississippi because G*d sidelined him during the ’60′s blues revival.

Monk Records based in Firenze, Italy has complied these tracks from the original 78s and the quality goes from good to WTF – I can only imagine the power an original 78 would convey…

Special Live Event –“Return to the Pleasure Dome”, a benefit concert event for Anthology Film Archives with a Life Achievement Honor for Kenneth Anger. Featuring Technicolor Skull (Kenneth Anger and Brian Butler), Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, The Virgins, Moby & other special guests, Wednesday, May 19 at the Hiro Ballroom, NYC.

Mezzanine seats are available for $99 but we could chip in for a booth and have some beers for only $5,000/booth (priority seating for up to 6 people).