LISTEN UP: NEW RELEASES OF VARYING DEGREES OF BRILLIANCE (9.17.2022)

 KASHMERE STAGE BAND - TEXAS THUNDER SOUL 1968 - 1974






It is unbelievable to think that deep in the heart of Texas in the early '70s a high school band was making hard funk and winning high school competitions with it. While most bands were lumbering through odes to the changing of seasons or traditional arrangements, the Kashmere Stage Band were mastering a contemporary sound and laying down some of the best and unappreciated deep Texas funk.

The teenagers in the Kashmere Stage Band produced a sound equal to that of the contemporary funk bands The J.B.'s and the Bar-Kays. Although lost for decades, since 2003 the KSB recordings have been released, some for the first time, on both vinyl record and CD and have become prized by hip-hop artists and DJs for their inimitable sound.           

LISTEN HERE:

https://kashmerestageband.bandcamp.com


JAGATH - SVAPNA




Jagath create their music at abandoned industrial locations - the bottom of a moist underground sewer shaft and inside huge hollow oil tanks - without using digital synthesis. Simple, mostly hand-crafted instruments, found objects and voices are used to share their vision of decaying post-industrial age, to unleash the spirit of deep beyond-world and unveil life in the abyss.   They are from Perm, Russia.

LISTEN HERE:

https://coldspring.bandcamp.com/album/svapna-csr304cd?from=fanpub_fb



JAC BERROCAL - MDLV






Jac Berrocal is a 1946-born musician (trumpet player), poet and sometime film actor who came of age in the ‘70s Paris improv scene, where the boundaries between music, art and theatre were porous and begging to be breached. Inspired by bebop, chanson, free jazz, beat poetry, early rock ‘n roll and myriad Eastern influences, and with an iconoclastic, anything-goes approach to instrumentation and technique that would later align him with post-punk sensibilities, Berrocal blazed an eccentric and unstoppable trail across the underground throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, both solo and as part of the Catalogue group he co-founded. During this time his uproarious performances routinely wound up jazz and rock audiences alike, but earned the admiration of many musicians: Steven Stapleton invited him to perform on two Nurse With Wound albums, and other notable collaborators in his career include Sunny Murray, Lizzy Mercier-Descloux, Lol Coxhill, Yvette Horner and James Chance. In the 90s his protean achievements were celebrated on the Fatal Encounters compilation, but far from slowing down in the autumn of his life, Berrocal has maintained an extraordinary work-rate, keeping studio dates with Pascal Comelade, Telectu and Jaki Liebezeit, among others. 


LISTEN HERE:

https://jacberrocal.bandcamp.com/album/mdlv?from=fanpub_nfnb



ROLAND KIRK WITH JACK McDUFF - KIRK'S WORK






Roland Kirk was one of the most creative, extravagant figures in jazz history. A master multi-instrumentalist with no boundaries in terms of language, style, and technique. Here, you find him co-leading a strong studio session with organ specialist, Jack McDuff. Backed up by Joe Benjamin on bass and Art Taylor on drums, Kirk and McDuff give voice to a soulful post-bop set full of groovy riffs and highly inventive instrumental ping pong. Recorded by Rudy Van Gelder and released in 1961 by Prestige Records, this is a fine early step in Kirk's varied and intense career.

LISTEN HERE:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQmmYBkQnJ4



GLORIA DE OLIVEIRA & DEAN HURLEY - OCEANS OF TIME







With its impressionistic synths, shimmering guitars, and ethereal sonics, Oceans of Time at moments recalls the foundational dreampop of 4AD acts and early 90’s New Age pop. Frequent David Lynch collaborator Dean Hurley sets the tonal and sonic backdrop of each track on the album, lending a layered ether that envelops, frames and spotlights de Oliveira’s vocals. The album feels especially attuned to the connections between the physical and transcendental realms, and like the best dreampop, has a way of making the veil between two worlds feel just a little bit thinner. Oceans of Time is a key that has the power to release its listener from the handcuffs of reality, however briefly… 

LISTEN HERE:

https://deanhurley.bandcamp.com/album/oceans-of-time





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ONCE AROUND THE BLOCH: AN UNAUTHORIZED AUTOBIOGRAPHY - ROBERT BLOCH (1995)

Image
  Nearly everyone knows Robert Bloch as the author of Psycho, the book which became a movie that redefined the horror film in Hollywood. What few do know however, was just how rich and varied Bloch's Ше and career was. His work spanned generations and in addition to novels he wrote for pulp magazines, radio, film, and television. An eternal optimist at 55 and a tireless writer, Bloch managed to maintain his integrity even after being pulled behind the gleaming facade of Hollywood. Bloch was bom in Chicago in 1917, a period of transition in postwar America. and one which Robert recreates with loving detail. An early reader. Bloch's precocious intelligence had him skipping straight to the fourth grade upon entering school. "The gameplaving routines I'd invented for neighborhood kids kept me from being a loner.” Bloch recalls. "but the lure of the public library was strong: at eight 1 was granted a special dispensation to borrow books from the adult section. What I f...
Read more

HERMAN HITSON: A GUITAR PLAYER'S GUITAR PLAYER

Image
    When Music Maker Foundation took the latest version of our Music Maker Blues Revue to the Telluride Blues & Brews Festival in Colorado, the band included a guitar player and singer from Atlanta named Hermon Hitson. He was brand new to the Music Maker family, but he had a musical track record of more than 50 years, playing with the likes of Jimi Hendrix, James Brown and many others. When Hermon first met the Gospel Comforters — another band we brought to the fest — they all looked at his shoes. “Where did you get those James Brown boots?” a member asked. “They don’t make those anymore. Only James had those made.” You, dear reader, have probably never heard of a guitar player named Hermon Hitson, but there he stood, in Colorado, wearing a pair of custom-made boots that no one but James Brown himself and those who played with him could ever put on their feet. Like those boots, Hermon Hitson himself is unique in the truest sense of the word. No one else is like him. No oth...
Read more

BEST CLASSICAL RELEASES OF 2021

Image
  CUT CIRCLE - JOHANNES OCKEGHEM: LES CHANSONS Cut Circle has produced a splendid new recording — their enunciation, sense of tempo, phrasing, and blend, and approach to emotional communication are all spot on. What sets this recording apart from others (such as Blue Heron’s stunning 2020 album) is their choice to sing this material with voices only, fully texted - Early Music America SINFONIA OF LONDON - ENGLISH MUSIC FOR STRINGS Forget any notions of wistful pastoral this title might suggest: English Music for Strings, performed by the Sinfonia of London, conducted by John Wilson (Chandos), is a collection of works from the 1930s, with a sharp, modernist energy to match - The Guardian PIERRE HANTAI - HANDEL HARPSICHORD SUITES At last – a masterful account of Handel’s harpsichord suites on the instrument for which they were written. Pierre Hantaï allows the music to breathe, with unfussy, clean playing.  BBC Music Magazine LATVIAN RADIO CHOIR - BRUCKNER:  LATIN MOTE...
Read more