CROSSOVER:
AMIR BAGHIRI: Ghazal CD
Many have tried - most have failed. The perfect fusion of Moroccan and Arabic rhythms and melodies allied to Western electronics has yet to happen - until now. The nearest we got was Dissidenten but that was vocal and not very electronic, while Muslimgauze achieved the latter but wrapped it all up in such an industrial package that it took days to find your way in, often with mixed results. But now, comes this album, and if you want the perfect amalgam of percussive Moroccan rhythms and melodic Afro-Western melodies allied to electronic backdrops and textures, then look no further for this will have you whirling around like a dervish from start to finish and yet, on a listening level, it's simply wonderful. Every track is the perfect blend of accessible, deep, infectious and spellbinding, as the rhythms, synths, layers and melodies all combine to produce compositions that are just sublime, every one holding you in a spell and conjuring images of hot deserts, ancient artefacts and tall minorettes in your mind. There isn't a less than riveting album on the whole thing and if you're not leaping around the room by the time you get to the near seven minute 'Mozhda Sherida' then there's clearly little hope for you. This is one fantastic album - you have to get this album - it's as simple as that.
BON: Two Plus Two CD
Now don't get me wrong - this is a superb album! - but first, a moan………….
The band have only ever produced two studio albums to date - so tell me how on earth can they justify putting out a CD where seven of the nine tracks are taken from the two studio albums? The answer being, that the two studio albums are now out of print and deleted, but that's hardly the point - especially as they've added two new "previously unreleased" tracks - yes, that old trick. Well, if you're a fan, let me tell you that the two new tracks are superb examples of electric guitar-led jazz-rock that will have you glowing with delight if you already know what this band is capable of producing.
So, for the people yet to catch up on this band, let me tell you that it's the brainchild of ex-Gong guitarist and bassist Bon Lozaga & Hansford Rowe, with renowned drummer Vic Stevens on the previously released tracks, and drummer Glenn Leonard on the other two. On tracks 3 and 5, guitarist David Torn and violinist Caryn Lin make an appearance to add to the already solid playing, but, overall, this is a trio of electric guitar, bass and drums playing some of the best, most cohesive, most solid, flowing, melodic, powerful and decidedly highly charged fusion music around, with all the classic seventies hallmarks of Gong, Holdsworth, Dimeola or Stanley Clarke, well in evidence, as mighty track after mighty track unfolds, but with a deceleration of pace and a fantastic sense of dynamics, only serving to add to the already sparkling playing and composing. As jazz-rock goes, this is up there with the best of them and, compilation or not, it's an essential album for any fans of things like the aforementioned bands and similar.
CIRCULAR RUINS: The Alchemy Concert June 2004 CD
A complete internet live broadcast from the guy's studio is what make this a "concert" album, and for over seventy minutes, the guy produces an incredible array of mesmerising synth music that crosses cosmic, ambient, drifting, deep, pulsing, full-sounding, slowly cyclical, multi-layered, multi-textured, slowly melodic, resonant, shifting, shimmering, warm-sounding, solid, occasionally sequenced, occasionally sample-fed, occasionally directly rhythmic, spacey, sometimes dark and always absolutely riveting musical territories. Once you put this on, it's hypnotic, immediately holding you in its spell. You find yourself wondering why you're so hooked as normally, you wouldn't like "this sort of thing", but the way the musician creates, assembles, layers and drives the multi-layered synth music, is nothing short of wondrous, and this album is the result - you might think you wouldn't like such music, but in this case, you will.
INKEYS 19: Electronic Music CD
The latest issue of Inkeys and this time we have a largely Andy G -free disc with the voiceovers done by the excellent voiceover Princesses, Kath G and Dundee's own singer/writer Michelle Mclaren. Musically, the star turns include a world exclusive CD preview of the new Manuel Gottsching album 'Concert For Murnau', musician John Dyson telling us that's he's still around and providing Inkeys with an exclusive, previously unreleased track from Wavestar, a non-album track from emerging ambient act Apologist, a track especially composed for Inkeys by Dundee's very own Box plus album tracks from Gel-Sol, Ian Boddy & Marcus Reuter, Rasal Asad, Ron Berry, Alisa Coral, Free System Project, The Glimmer Room, Kevin Kendle & Headshock.
NECKS (THE): Drive By CD
I haven't a clue where to pigeon-hole this, which is no bad thing, especially as it's just one fantastic album. Consisting of a single sixty (yes, sixty!!) minute track, it starts with metalli-percussive tinkling as a distant electronic drift rises from the back to be joined by liquid, echoed electric piano notes, slowly moving space synth expanses out the back and joined by an undulating bass rhythm, as the piano notes ripples and the atmosphere becomes more akin to something like the legendary 'Mediattion Mass' from the early seventies by Yatha Sidhra. When the drum rhythm, a slowly crunchy, deliberate and atmospheric shuffling beat more akin to something like an ambient Rother-era Liebezeit, kicks in and above this the sound of the Widemann/Gauthier electric piano work joins with the almost early seventies sounding Krautrock organ work adding to the rolling rhythm, languid atmospherics and floating-on-clouds cyclical melodies, the effect is both warm, addictive and positively heavenly. Even though the structure of the track is like a cross between Agitation Free, Can & Rother but all set in a sea of ambient slow-motion atmospherics, the overall effect is pure bliss as you just allow the relative simplicity of it all to wash over you and enjoy some of the most laid-back music around that isn't synth, isn't ambient electronic, isn't jazz and isn't Krautrock, but a music that has clearly been influenced, in spirit at least, by all of those. I think it's a remarkable album and one I'll be playing often - it's the sort of album to which you can just wind down and/or turn off the world, any darn time you like and it will always have the required effect. Quite superb!!
VIDNA OBMANA & BASS COMMUNION: Continuum-Ltd Edition CD
A three-part sixty-one minute instrumental of epic space proportions, this is cosmic music from the darkside as a giant, expansive sea of electronics drifts, drones and generally floats its way through a multi-textured, multi-layered path of deep, dark, mesmeric synths/keys/treatments-based music. Engaging and then some, if you like your space music to unfold in almost slow-motion manner. It's not abrasive, but it is dark - the continuum awaits……….
SEELE: Berlin CD
Not sure whether to class this electronic music album as ambient, synth, industrial or what - all of which means that it's just got to be something very different from the normal electronic music albums - and that, I can confidently state, is the case. You only have to listen to the opening track to see what I mean - it revolves around a cyclical sea of throbbing, shuddering, drawn-out, beefy, twittering, solid and booming rhythms courtesy of all I can describe as electronics, programmes and electronic percussives because this huge amalgam of rhythmic sound just goes round and round and round, speaker to speaker, as all around, inside, above and below, you hear ghostly whispers, twittering electronics, deep rivers of sound and all manner of effects to provide THE most hypnotic, refreshing and rewarding near nine minutes of electronic music that you'll hear for something way above the "norm". After this, the almost languid yet chunky slice of gorgeously solid and atmospheric ambient dub that is 'Karl-Marx Allee' comes almost as a welcome relief but when it ends just short of two minutes, you want more - a good way to be. Instead it's onto 'Postdamer Platz' a track with a most hypnotic quality as this series of repeated beats and effects goes round and round, either mesmerising you or annoying the crap out of you, depending on your mood at the time and level of tolerance for something repeated in this way, but if you stick with it and listen deeper, you'll find all manner of subtleties going on as the electronic drifts and twittering percussives soar and glide way down below, stopping just short of six minutes. There's another 9 tracks and fifty-six minutes of music to go here, and if I tell you that the whole thing becomes this incredible mix of chunky rhythms drifting electronics, industrial soundscaping, ambient dub, space synth, shuddering beats and general electronic soundscaping, you'll get the idea as to how good this sounds - it's inventive, original, immaculately assembled, different, accessible, multi-layered and, above all, it works to perfection as a new and very different aural delight. Not for the faint-hearted, but not avant-garde either, this is simply amazing - and you know who's behind it - none other than Amir Baghiri, that's who!! Superb!!
AMBIENT/TRANCE/TECHNO, etc:
PETE NAMLOOK/DAVID MOUFANG: Koolfang III - Be Aware CD
Very rarely, a CD on the once all-conquering Fax label could be described as repetitive, or adventurous or "difficult" or daring, in other words, taking electronic music by the scruff of the neck, and doing all sorts of unspeakable things with it to produce something altogether "new".
Sadly, this is none of those - this is just unspeakably awful - in parts.
What on earth were the two musicians smoking when they made this? Whatever it was, I'd say "don't do it" because there are some cringeworthy moments on this album, for sure. A couple of the ten and seven minute tracks have this narration that sounds like some parody of a Philip Marlowe detective novel high on a selection of the finest of Leary's substances as this voice drawl and intones you to find a higher plane, all very meditational no doubt. The sort of lazy, languid, Mediterranean style guitar solo that wafts through the light and arid electro-percussive beats and washes of string synths, is all so clichéd, that if your toes aren't curling up, you've probably found that higher plane. In between comes this twelve minute synth instrumental 'Don't Be A Spooner' that sort of burps and wheezes its techno-laced life as an annoyingly repetitive series of electronic rhythms form this cyclical sea of infuriating electronic and electro-percussive rhythmic loops. The fact that, apart from an undercurrent of boinging synth bass, very little else happens, means that, if this track doesn't drive you insane, you're probably already there. Happily, the twelve and a half minute instrumental 'Jeanne' fares a lot better, with a series of layered rhythms, beats and soundscapes that hearken back to the earlier ones the series, and even though the lead synth that solos throughout the track sounds a tad like a rather out of tune harmonica at times, ther rhythmic base chugs along merrily and the surrounding washes of synths and effects overrides any annoyance factor that this lead synth might cause. As a complete entity, once again, it doesn't change structure that much, so you have to like the melting pot of sounds a fair bit to keep it sustained. The near eight minute 'All The Motions' reintroduces the narration in bits as the track progresses, this time more of a "lounge" feel to the music, as a set of slowly moving electro-percussive and electonic rhythms lazily flow their way through life, to my mind all pretty dull and lifeless. The final track, 'Here Comes The Rain' is fourteen minutes long and definitely the best thing on the album, although once again the lead synth that flies slowly above the backing of slowly undulating electronic bass, slowly galloping synth rhythms, chunky but blissful sounding electro-beats, is a slow-motion solo that sounds like something off a rather average eighties EM cassette - OK, not that bad, but it got on my nerves, for sure. On the grounds that you can't like them all, and that I've tried to explain what's going on, I can class this as a disappointing release.
PETE NAMLOOK/KLAUS SCHULZE: Dark Side Of The Moog X CD
A fifty minute track in 6 parts, most of them musically linked, and for which the first sixteen minutes is, to be fair, "adventurous" and, to be not so fair, "awful". A tale of two halves, it spends the first half in 'Seven Up' mode with narration set against a backdrop of electronics then, when he (whoever "he" is) has said enough and lets the synths "speak" for themselves, the music goes into this seemingly random, amorphous sea of unstructured electronics that, at best, has depth and is there to be unravelled and, at worse, just drives you round the twist. Now, bizarrely, the next thirty-four minutes of music, is absolutely superb. From thudding beat-driven ambient bliss through full-sounding space synths heaven to twelve minutes of "ambient-meets-Berlin" styled passages, the music moves through a variety of enjoyable spectra and works throughout - the only thing leaving me wondering was just how much of it, BOTH musicians played on at the same time. All answers on a postcard, please. Anyway, as long as you don't mind spending the money to get thirty four minutes of excellence, then it's worth its while. You never know - you may even grow to like the first bit.
V/A: Psymeditation CD
A truly tremendous album of all-exclusive new tracks that continues the traditions of great British Ambient music that's rooted in the early nineties and the likes of Banco de Gaia, Orb, Eat Static and the like. Following in the grand traditions of Planet Dog, RTTS, Whirl-y-Sound and similar, Organic Records have assembled what can only be regarded as one of the finest new ambient electronic, down-tempo, chilled-out albums to emerge since the excellent 'Gateway To The Sun' double in 2004. Here a variety of artists, including the late Jake Stephenson under his guises as Ganja Beats & White Star, plus V2E, Lemon Tree, Chris Organic, Pale Moon Rising, Perpetual Loop & Indra's Net, have produced some truly awesome ambient music works that range from celestial to rhythmic, often hypnotically so in the former case and thunderously so in the latter. Huge armies of synths, drums, programmed rhythms electronic druims and sequenced electronic rhythms are all put in the various melting pots to provide an end result that is as satisfying, strong, warm and totally mind-blowing a set of tracks as you'll hear, with not a second across the whole album any less than riveting and immensely pleasurable. Essential listening for sure.
CANTERBURY MUSIC:
GONG: Live In Sherwood Forest '75 CD
The title is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the fact that the concert was recorded by and played on a Nottingham radio station, the concert being performed at Nottingham University on the 25th November 1975. But EVERYTHING about this album makes it one of the most essential listening Gong archive albums to hit the market in years.
First off, it's never been out before in any form. Secondly, it features a line-up throughout the whole CD, that's never been featured on a full CD before. In the history of the band, the 'You' album had come and gone with Daevid & Gilli plus Tim Blake, departing the fold. Guitarist Steve Hillage, fresh from the success of his debut solo album 'Fish Rising' was also on the verge of departing, which meant that the future direction of the band was largely in the hands of the jazz-tinged trio of veterans Howlett, Moerlin & Malherbe, and, to this end, the move towards a more fusion-oriented version of Gong was already in its formative stages with the recruitment of new keyboardist and violinist, while the space whisper was still present courtesy of Hillage partner Miquette Giraudy with extra percussion grace in the capable hands of Mireille Bauer.
All of which means that the music you hear on this album is a completely unique Gong playing the last vestiges of the "old days" and the first footsteps of the "future direction'. Thus, you'll hear a red-hot rendition of the old Gong instrumental 'Master Builder', followed by a truly psychedelic version of the track 'Chandra' that would feature on the later 'Shamal' album in a much more down-to-earth form, and then, if all that wasn't enough so far, the band blaze into a stellar performance of Hillage's 'Fish Rising' masterpiece, 'Aftaglid', a stunning trio of tracks with some incendiary playing from all concerned. With further tracks including Gong's 'Isle Of Everywhere', probably THE most accessible and least self-indulgent version of this track you'll hear, Hillage's incredible 'Salmon Song' and three more early Gong-infused versions of tracks later to be on 'Shamal', this album just cooks from start to finish. The end of an era, the start of a new one, this is Steve Hillage's Gong swansong and, for that reason alone, let alone the fact that the album is a corker all the way through, makes it one of the most essential purchases you're facing in 2005.
EURO-ROCK/CONTEMPORARY:
AMON DUUL II: Vortex - Remastered+Bonus Tracks CD
OK - so tell me that you've been under the assumption that this album's not that good - I mean to say, it isn't from the seventies and, even worse, it came years after the last few, and admitted by most to be, quite lacklustre albums for a band whose star once shone so bright as to make them a world force to be reckoned with. But, as I said when the vinyl first appeared in 1981, don't be fooled!!
This is essentially not only a "classic line-up" reunion album, but a red-hot smoking gun of an album, too. OK, so things have progressed. Listening to the opening instrumental title track, you hear the sounds of digitisation creeping in, with electronic drum sounds and synths, but allied to a cascading, slowly shuffling rhythm, and a wickedly pounding electric bass that takes centre stage and fills the track with the necessary "Krautrock" flavour to make you sit up and take notice. The marching, first, song that appears next, features a slowly driving, crunchy sea of rhythms and melodies while the soaring voice of female lead singer Renate reveals itself to be in the best form since the glory days of things like 'Carnival' or 'Wolf City'. 'Die 7 Fetten Jahre' is a classic slice of semi-serious Duul II writing, with a superb dual female-male vocal lead that heads down a mid-song guitar solo that just shines, as the mighty bass work and crunching drumming propel it all forward in corking Kraut fashion, again, those little touches of musical humour giving it the flavour of vintage seventies Duul and a lot better track than you remember. The 5 following tracks reveal the new, admittedly more down-to-earth (compared with the early albums, that is) Duul II in full flight on a firmly song-based album that's solid and highly playable. Of the 2, and seventeen minutes of, bonus tracks, the band first reveal a near nine minute slice of swirling psychedelia that's actually the closest the album has got so far to SOUNDING like the classic early-mid seventies era, with a searing guitar solo and some corking work from the whole band throughout, while the other nine minute track performs a similar function with sizzling psychedelia, only, while slightly slower, a huge sound and a seriously excellent track with red hot playing the way Duul II used to be. With a sound and production that positively glow courtesy of the remastering, this is a great and long overlooked album, the only one they did in the eighties and a stunner to this day.
FAUST: So Far - Brain Label Remaster - CD
For all its incantations, this is the first time that this seminal work from 1972 has been issued in a completely remastered form - and it sounds simply awesome. A legendary and ground-breaking work when it came out, it's still sounding light years ahead of its time, music from a future too far away to contemplate. The sound is now crystal clear so you can hear every subtlety, every beat and the effect is dramatic. The album opens with the mind-bending drumming that leads into the classic 'It's A Rainy Day, Sunshine Girl' with the distant electronic-sounding backdrops, the strummed foreground acoustic guitars, the monotone vocal reciting the only line that is the lyric and those drums - wow, those drums - you could imagine local Dundee band The Wildhouse taking on a version of this and turning it supernova. After that, things go to a more serene level with a gorgeous instrumental and that's followed by the more symphonic 'No Harm', another instrumental with a more expansive sound that then leads into a classic slidce of Krautrock with shimmering electric guitars, crunchy drumming , deep bass and what sounds like a treated wind instrument soaring on top, and then it all changes shape completely once again, going into this splintering sea of guitars, bass, drums and effects, another searing slice of '72 Krautrock instrumental heaven that glows hotter and hotter the more it continues as the sounds and guitars and rhythms just intensify and build over more than ten minutes of absolute genius. If that wasn't enough, we then go into the amazing title track, an instrumental revolving around this cyclical rhythm interspersed with a cyclical sax refrain, over which the assorted guitars, electronic treatments and effects laden instruments create what sounds like an infinite set of sonic layers as the whole thing revolves and builds, and now in its remastered state, you're hearing things in the piece that you've not before witnessed with such clarity, making the track even more mesmerising than it was before - a simply awesome six minutes. The five minute 'Mamie Is Blue' opens with droning electronics, a shuddering electro-percussive shredded rhythm as this massive bass line booms out of the speakers and the whole effect is like some huge factory coming to life as the sounds mass ranks, build, layer, charge, soar and shudder, more and more textures and sonic delights being added as the title is recited against this jaw-dropping sea of sonic headbending proportions. The near four minute 'I've Got My Car And My TV' is a typical slice of Faust playing at being serious and light-hearted with their music as it covers jazz sax, electronic drones, deep bass and an almost throwaway melody from the guitars way down in the mix - but the whole thing sounding just so right!! It couldn't be done any other way or by any other band. A couple of instrumental snippets lead into the final track, '…In The Spirit' where the band, once again, cover more musical territory with equal amounts of seriousness and "tongue-in-cheek" playing, as normality in the world of Faust becomes your normality - and you know you're hooked. So, it's back to the beginning - and relive the experience. Incredible still, one of, if not THE most accessible yet ground-breaking albums they did in the seventies,and simply timeless.
OS MUNDI: 43 Minuten CD
Continuing the Brain label series of remastered CD's from the early seventies, we come to this forgotten album, which, in terms of its standing in the world of Kraut-fusion, can be considered as somewhat of a "lost gem". Firmly in the area of jazz-rock, it nevertheless has that all-important early seventies feel to it, right down to the, thankfully few, inane vocals. But it's instrumentally where this band shines featuring variously lead instruments as sax, swirling flute, violin, electric guitar, with bass and drums driving it all ahead. The trademark seventies approaches are all there, but the remaster has brought out a vibrancy in this album, that it never before witnessed. Anyone into this era of early seventies Krautrock in all its forms, will derive a lot of pleasure from this fusion-meets-early Mythos styled album.
SPERRMULL: Sperrmull - Remastered CD
A Brain-label classic - you know, the one with the orange cover - and the sort of song-based "Krautrock" that, to many, was at the opposite end of what they called the "classic Krautrock" fence. The opener is what you'd call a "seventies stomper" with almost McGuinness-Flint style rhythms, a Chicory Tip style synth solo, Supertramp-style electric piano and a naggingly infectious song in that annoying yet fascinating seventies fashion. Stunner!! Just to confuse you, next up is a near seven minute track called No Freak Out' which is not at all true to its word, and is!! It's a sort of early Duul II (not too early) style corker with distinctly Karrer/Weinzierl tendencies, an organ solo that's fuzzed to death in classic Krautrock style and a scything guitar solo that couldn't be anything else other than seventies - all just fantastic stuff, with the few vocals at the beginning and end being just perfunctory to the instrumental attack yet wholly in keeping with the era and flavour. The six minute 'Rising Up' is an organ-led song that, once again, couldn't be anything other than seventies Kraut-era, as the pounding upfront bass and searing guitar join the song and that trademark Kraut-style split-stereo guitar and Jon Lord-esque organ duelling ensues. A nine minute 'Right Now' goes even further and features some red-hot soloing in that classic fashion while the four minute 'Land Of The Rocking Sun' and the final Man-esque rocker 'Pat Casey' see out an album that, if taken for what it is, represents an era's sounds and songs that can never really be re-created, and to my ears, comes out as both nostalgic, while at the same time, immensely enjoyable, if anything way more so than I thought at the time - yes folks, nostalgia really IS what it used to be.
V/A: Klangbad - Next Step CD
The return of the old seventies idea - a label "sampler" CD at a very decent price that allows you to try before you buy. Even better news is that, as an album in its own right, they've selected a bunch of tracks that hang together really well and have an undoubted appeal to the listener's tastes at which they are aimed. It starts off with Adriano Lanzi & Omar Sodano sounding suspiciously like classic instrumental Circle with a fiery brand of Kraut-esque fusion, while the following five minutes from Permanent Fatal Error is also instrumental and here the feel is much more laid-back but still powerful with some solid drumming, the lead work from, of all things, an acoustic guitar, with the extra strength from some equally solid bass work, while further layers are added, almost like a cyclical electro-acoustic brew of tasty contemporary "shoegazing" fusion. Faust's Irmler is showcased on nearly five minutes of dark, rumbling, ghostly, multi-layered electronics, as a hail of bass rumbles, deep rivers of decelerated electronics, huge expanses of dark soundscapes and an altogether unnerving landscape rolls inexorably forward, before suddenly dying out to leave a few seconds of just seventies Ash Ra sounding electronics and organ. Nista Nije Nista feature on five minutes of cut-ups, samples, displaced voices, percussive rattlings and rumblings, huge, towering waves of electronic thunder, and the combination of this incredibly intricately yet seemingly disparate collection of sounds, voice and instrumental weirdness, is just astounding and, surprisingly, has you hooked every time you hear it. Velma's five minutes of fame starts relatively spacey with deep bass rumbles, tinkling top melodies, as gorgeous female harmony vocal cruises in on top, a distant cascading guitar and keyboard layer providing more texture, as the voices fade, more electronic twitterings and rumblings are added, and the track follows a looped pattern that is quite mesmerising. Faust themselves are represented by a track previously only available on the vinyl edition of 'Ravivando' and it's four minutes of clattering, crashing, structured, multi-layered and absolutely classic Faust, perfect in this context and one solid, smoking gem of a track, complete with all manner of throbbing, flowing electronics, percussive rumbling, lurching drumming and a track of immense stature. Lars Paukstat has five minutes of rolling rhythms from drums, percussion, deep rumbling bass and electronics, while this simple psychedelic lead guitar weaves a cyclical melody line above and around the main body of the song., the whole think sounding like a rather clean-cut, distant universe cousin of 1976-era Can. The final track, from Marku Peltola, also recreates the spirit of Can, this time on an instrumental revolving around Liebezeit-styled drumming, Karoli-like violin, rumbling bass and textural backdrops, sounding for all the world like something off the 'Babbaluma' album. So, there you have it - as a sampler, it's first rate, as an album its own right there's not a bad track on it, and if the musicians' own albums are anything like the tracks on here, then there's clearly a lot of buying to be done. Superb!!!
