What are you listening to now? : Non-metal Edition
Peter Gabriel - Passion (Music for The Last Temptation of Christ)
Genre: New Age
I bought "Sonic Temple" on cassette shortly after it was released & played the shit out of it. I haven't heard it in more than half a lifetime now but will always have a soft spot for it. I don't think I've heard anything from The Cult that I regard as highly to be honest, even "Love" which I revisited only a year or so ago.
Yeah, I am a big Cult fan, even since they were known as The Southern Death Cult. Saw them play the last ever gig at Birmingham Odeon before they knocked it down to make way for some development or other and they were fantastic. Astbury and Billy Duffy were a brilliant foil for each other, like Mick and Keef in The Stones. That would have been between Love and Electric if I remember rightly, so '86 or '87 when they were at their height. Sonic Temple, Dreamtime and Love are my big favourites and are interchangeable depending on how I'm feeling on any given day.
Yeah that's right, I was a massive goth rock fan (but not a Goth, I was too much of a biker and metalhead for that). Siouxsie, The Mission, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus and Fields of the Nephilim were all other big favourites and I still listen to all of them pretty regularly.
I had a big thing for buying 12" singles by goth bands in the Eighties and I've still got a ton of them. I will have to dig them out for a spin I think!
I can feel an Eighties gothic rock Spotify playlist coming on!!
I can feel an Eighties gothic rock Spotify playlist coming on!
Uummm… here’s one I created some time back. It’s not ALL 80’s but it’s basically what you’re after.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3E3I9HTnDcYCt1zESsAEVM?si=YPbj334wTHqWEfZgx5_D8g&pi=4JL5lbNBROmkt
I can feel an Eighties gothic rock Spotify playlist coming on!
Uummm… here’s one I created some time back. It’s not ALL 80’s but it’s basically what you’re after.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3E3I9HTnDcYCt1zESsAEVM?si=YPbj334wTHqWEfZgx5_D8g&pi=4JL5lbNBROmkt
Nice one, Daniel. I'll check it out tomorrow. I'm gonna work up an all-eighties one too.
Pink Floyd - The Early Years 1971 Reverber/ation
I have listened to a lot of Pink Floyd Bootlegs over the years and some of my favourites are from 1971 when their set was chiefly made up of tracks from Atom Heart Mother and the newly released Meddle album. This is one of the official releases from 2017 that covered earlier Floyd material. The bulk of the album is an hour-long BBC live session from the end of September 1971. The first track, however, isn't part of the session and is a track called "Nothing", which was often introduced live as "The Return of the Son of Nothing" and is actually a very early demo version of part of "Echoes". The rest of the release is the BBC session which also has the added advantage of featuring the dulcet tones of the late, great John Peel in between each track.
First up is one of my favourite tracks from this live era of the band, "Fat Old Sun", which turns the five-minute, folky studio track from Atom Heart Mother into a terrific fifteen-minute jam which features Rick Wright's keyboards quite heavily. In fact the whole session reveals just how integral Rick was to Floyd's live sound.
"One of These Days" is up next and I love the studio version, but here it is merely OK here as the timing seems off a little and steals some of the impact of the studio version. The third track is a big draw, it being a live version of the obscure track "Embryo" which was originally recorded for Ummagumma, but only ever appeared on a label sampler (against the band's wishes as JP explains in the intro to the track here). I love this track as it features some superb Gilmour guitar work and even if it was cut from Ummagumma I think it would have sat really well on AHM instead of the baffling Alan's Psychedelic Breakfast, the Floyd's most pointless song.
Closing out the set is the full 26-minute Echoes experience, the one track I am pissed-off that I never experienced live as it is one of my all-time favourite tracks and every live version has sounded amazing - see Floyd at Pompeii for proof.
So, quite simply a superb pre-DSOTM Pink Floyd live set from back when they were a bit freer in a live setting. Great though they were in later years, their live shows were very much attempts to faithfully recreate the album experience in a live setting and were inconducive to ad-libbed jamming, an art at which they were actually excellent.
So I listened to Love, Sonic Temple, and Electric. Electric is my favorite because in my opinion it has more hard rock swagger, but "Edie" is an unfuckwithable song.
^"Tempted" has about 60million more listens than everything else on this album.. there is a reason for that. It sucks.
Tenhi - "Kauan" (1999)
The debut album from the kings of the dark folk movement. It's a good one too although it's not particularly dark if I'm being honest. It's more whispy & melancholic with a very smooth production job & precision performances. I probably prefer a little more edge to my folk than this but I can't deny the professionalism & creativity that Tenhi bring to the table which makes "Kauan" essential listening for those that are into this style of music. The use of keyboards is a real highlight but I definitely prefer the deeper & more stripped back material like the wonderful "Etäisyyksien taa" which is my clear favourite from the eight songs on offer.
For fans of Empyrium, Vezha Khmar & "Kveldssanger"-period Ulver.
4/5
I'm gonna blow through all four Lounge Lizards albums today while I polish off The Drawing of the Three. This first one is brilliant so far. Extremely catchy, highly intriguing. There's only one flaw: a couple of these brilliant jazz-rock songs are WAY too short. Two minutes? Really? With a little more length in these tracks, this would be a perfect album. I'm on the second to last track, Epistrophe, which is the longest track at 4:15, and this is looking a lot like this album's getting a 96/100. Really can't wait to get through the rest.
The book's also very well done as well. I'm about to see Odetta getting drawn.
Public Enemy - "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" (1988)
This was the first hip hop record I can remember really enjoying. It was brought to my attention by one of my best mates while I was in early high school & we spent most year 7 & 8 pretending we were Michael Jordan on the school's back basketball courts with this blaring out of a nearby ghetto blaster. The difference with this classic old-school hip hop is that, not only do Chuck D's lyrics have a viciously potent & politically conscious message, but DJ Terminator X never forgets to push the funk that African-Amercian dancefloor culture was built on with a seriously impressive array of high-quality breakbeats. This makes Public Enemy's sophomore album a total dancefloor bomb from start to finish & I can't help but shake my booty to it all these years later.
For fans of KRS-One, Boogie Down Productions & Intelligent Hoodlum.
4/5
Public Enemy - "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" (1988)
This was the first hip hop record I can remember really enjoying. It was brought to my attention by one of my best mates while I was in early high school & we spent most year 7 & 8 pretending we were Michael Jordan on the school's back basketball courts with this blaring out of a nearby ghetto blaster. The difference with this classic old-school hip hop is that, not only do Chuck D's lyrics have a viciously potent & politically conscious message, but DJ Terminator X never forgets to push the funk that African-Amercian dancefloor culture was built on with a seriously impressive array of high-quality breakbeats. This makes Public Enemy's sophomore album a total dancefloor bomb from start to finish & I can't help but shake my booty to it all these years later.
For fans of KRS-One, Boogie Down Productions & Intelligent Hoodlum.
4/5
By a country mile the best hip-hop album ever made.
Astor Piazzolla - Libertango (1974)
Genre: Tango Nuevo
Heard two of his albums a couple days ago and was utterly wowed, and this is said to be better than the two I heard. I made some decent progress on my 1989 chart today with a couple of other albums, and need to keep up with that, but I still need to check out some other genres, so thankfully I found the tango master to help with that.
SPK - "Mekano/Contakt/Slogun" E.P. (1978)
This short three-song 7" E.P. from a little-known Sydney act would go down in history as being one of the most seminal releases from the early industrial movement. It's a very punky record. In fact, I'd suggest that it's there's just as much synth punk here as there is industrial but you can't deny the abrasiveness of the industrial component which must have sounded entirely foreign to a late-1970's audience. SPK made cold, barren, post-punk inspired sounds that tested the boundaries of what could rightfully claim itself to be music, particularly the lengthier B side "Slogun" which almost manages to represent what we now know as power electronics. I don't "love" this stuff if I'm being honest as it's not yet the fully formed model of industrial music I've always enjoyed but it does offer a rhythmic character that somehow manages to get under my skin, even if opener "Mekano" is a little flat in my opinion.
For fans of Robert Rental & The Normal, The Witch Trials & Relaxed Muscle.
3.5/5
Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl (1989)
Genres: Pop Rock
My first venture into Roy Orbison, still working on my 1989 chart.
The Tony Williams Lifetime - "Emergency!" (1969)
A side-project from various members of Miles Davis' early jazz fusion band with the legendary John McLaughlin on guitar who I've always been a massive fan of. The quality is a little inconsistent across the eight tracks with a couple of duds included (see "Beyond Games" & "Something Special") but there's comfortably enough high-quality material here to keep me interested, particularly when these guys decide to dig further into their more psychedelic, Hendrix-inspired side. McLaughlin absolutely rules, of course, & you can easily pick up some of the early ideas that would form Miles' excellent "Bitches Brew" double album the following year.
For fans of Miles Davis, Mahavishnu Orchestra & John McLaughlin.
3.5/5
Premiata Forneria Marconi - L'Isola Di Niente (1974)
Genres: Symphonic Prog Rock
So there are only about 50 prog albums in my 80-100 section on my log. Fixing that. It's about time I got around to these guys again.
Paco de Lucia - Almoraima (1976)
Genre: Flamenco
Returning to this to see if I still consider it a perfect album. It's extraordinarily rare for me to consider an album where every song is practically the same genre a perfect one these days, but this is getting really, really close to it after five tracks. Three to go.
Marillion - Seasons End (1989)
Genres: Neo-Prog, Prog Rock
This was exactly what I needed for my 1989 chart.
There are many of us music reviewers who can't stand it when a band betrays their classic sound or when a major player in a band leaves, and then there are those of us who will accept the change if it's necessary. In this instance, it was the departure of England's most obvious Peter Gabriel wannabe, Fish. With the new AOR-oriented vocals of Steve Hogarth in play, it was time for Marillion to try something new. And is this a good thing? Well, for most neo- prog fans, Marillion is practically the go-to band for the rawest quality and for an introduction. But I treat all genres equally. I have favorites, but I never judge them unfairly towards other genres. And in this case, all Marillion is to me is a very catchy pop group that kept rewriting the same damn pop songs every album during the whole Fish era.
Seasons End might take slack for the chance in sound, but after four albums of the exact same thing which drew me away from neo-prog in the first place (after 12 years I haven't even gotten to 30 neo albums yet), I welcome it with arms more open than the range. Right from the glorious intro, The King of Sunset Town, I was taken in by the more progressive instrumental behavior and its raw beauty. Throughout the whole eight minutes, I was thinking to myself, "It's about time Marillion started acting like a prog band." This proves that Fish's whole vision for the band was, "What would Genesis sound like today is Gabriel didn't leave?" But of course, there's some room for hard- hitting AOR with songs like The Uninvited Guest and Holloway Girl. This gives us a stronger taste of what we had before, the poppier melodies but with a stylistic choice of bands such as Magnum. And as a man who believes On a Storyteller's Night almost rivals the Boston debut, I am not complaining about this. The album will also take time to soak in its atmospheres with the beautiful but potentially overlong titular track. And I even get a little jazziness in Berlin, and jazziness is something neo-prog needs. Do the smooth jazz aspects right, and it's perfect for the subgenre.
This is the Marillion album I wanted: a multi-faceted one. With a more serious and less obvious style, Marillion have finally distanced themselves from the Genesis sound and took some time to expand. I suppose the legal issues that caused Fish's departure were just what the band needed to finally expand their horizons. Seasons End is the more intriguing album of the classic era, and it gives me hope for the albums after this one, even going as far as to potentially ignore the negative reviews.
97/100
Various Artists - "Hadestown (Original Broadway Cast Recording)" (2019)
This two-hour musical soundtrack has really taken me by surprise & has brought something to my life that I'd forgotten ever existed in me. You see, it's full of the purest love & the rawest of tragedy which has really made me feel alive & appreciate those around me this week. The production & performances are utterly incredible with the main singers involved being some of the finest talents I've ever experienced in this format. As with any soundtrack release, there are some less impressive pieces included purely for the storyline however the main highlight tracks (& there are plenty of them) will stay with me forever given just how strong the hooks & arrangements are. I'm absolutely gagging to see this performed live now. American folk artist Anais Mitchell is a musical genius for having written this motherfucker.
For fans of Anais Mitchell, Jess Williamson & Nanci Griffith.
4/5
Popol Vuh - "Hosianna Mantra" (1972)
The third full-length from this experimental German act & it sees them returning with a fresh new sound unlike anything the world had heard to the time. "Hosianna Mantra" saw Florian Fricke & co. replacing their groundbreaking electronic fascinations with a more organic neoclassical sound that really put new age music on the map. This is a deeply ambient record that soothes the soul with the soft vocals of South Korean Djong Yun providing a lovely counterpoint to the abstract musings of some highly inventive instrumentalists. I think this might be my favourite Popol Vuh record these days actually.
For fans of Masakatsu Takagi, Cicada & Toshifumi Hinata.
4/5
Mala - "Mirrors" (2016)
Yellow Magic Orchestra - "Yellow Magic Orchestra" (1978)
I've really struggled with the highly regarded debut album from this early Japanese synthpop outfit. Imagine Kraftwerk crossed with the sounds of early video games & cheap Japanese karaoke & you won't be far off the mark. It's far too cheesy for my taste & it was a major challenge to take it all seriously.
For fans of Kraftwerk, Yukihiro Takahashi & Haruomi Hosono.
2/5
The Mothers of Invention - "Freak Out!" (1966)
This was an incredibly ambitious way to start a recording career, particularly as it was a double album, the first example of someone releasing a double album as their debut record actually. You really have to enjoy tongue-in-cheek music if you're gonna get into this stuff & that's never really been me. I love my psychedelics, of course, & there is a fair chunk of that here but it's often intertwined with intentionally random silliness which I struggle with. Things descend at a very rapid rate through the back end of the release too with "It Can't Happen Here" & twelve-minute closer "The Return of the Son of Monster Magnet" offering very little in the way of musical merit, instead looking to dick with people's heads in a nonsensical fashion. It all ends up amounting to a record that feels more notorious & seminal than it is enjoyable. I can't deny the influence that "Freak Out!" had on the more important artists in the world at the time though (see Jimi Hendrix, The Beatles, etc.).
For fans of Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart & Soft Machine.
2.5/5
I've been on Progarchives lately. Gave a shout out to MartinDavey there. I've been looking for recommendations for more diversified albums since so many of them are samey, but I need to educate myself in the essentials as well.
Arena - Songs from the Lions Cage (1995)
Genres: Neo-Prog, Prog Rock
Impressive first attempt. Energetic and focused on melody and personality.