jazz Archives - rabirius

Play It Again and Again…

rabirius — Fri, 31 Dec 2021 13:07:05 +0000

This is my yearly post about my latest music discoveries. Writing this I am listening to the album “Eskimo” by The Residents. The arctic sound effects fit my mood, as I’m sitting here in the middle of winter without heating and warm water. My boiler has some problem causing it to shut down 5 minutes later after turning it on. A mechanic was already here a couple of times and did some repairs, that all lead to further errors. He wanted to finally fix it yesterday, but the manufacturer of the boiler didn’t send out another part that needs to be replaced. So, again, I will sit in a cold flat without warm water well into the new year…

…so, The Residents make a good companion. “Eskimo” is the right album to get under a warm blanket.

This year didn’t really bing a lot of new music that I really liked, but I (re)discovered some older albums that I would like to recommend for your listening pleasure.

I will start to recommend the latest album that I recorded with my own band mockART. We released “Men Who Lost Their Heads” this year as you will probably know already, if you read my blog regularly. As a theme we recorded tracks about conspiracy theories and paranoia that we read about in connection with the Covid Pandemic. If you like to learn more about the album or order it on CD or cassette, please visit our website.

One of my favourite bands bands of the late 1990’s and 2000’s was Arab Strap. So I was happy that they released a new album this year, and a really great one as well. “As Days Get Dark” sounds exactly like Arab Strap without exactly repeating their old sound.

I also really like the new album by Moor Mother. I already liked some of there older works, but “Black Encyclopedia Of The Air” is probably her most astonishing work: I never heard anyone recording music that is so mellow and so groovy at the same time. The music itself weaves a lot of sounds and music styles together in such a perfect way that it sounds like nothing I have heard before.

Nurse With Wound is another band I really like. “3 Lesbian Sardines” starts like a classic electronic/IDM album and slowly gets deeper and deeper into more and more experimental sounds and structures.

A lot of contemporary experimental music is too ambient for me. But “Melanesia” by Roberto Musci is the exception. He mixes ambient sounds with musique concrète and traditional ethnic music to something unique.

Having recorded an album about conspiracy theories myself, we didn’t record a track about chemtrails. Fortunately, Lana Del Rey did the job for us with “Chemtrails over the Country Club”.

But certainly there are also a lot of older albums I enjoyed listening to this year. I really enjoyed the albums Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis recorded as Dome in the early 1980s. For me they are the continuation of Wire’s music from the late 1970’s. Other discoveries from that era are Factrix‘s only studio album “Scheintot” and the collaborative effort by Anna Homler and Steve Moshier ‎that resulted in the album “Breadwoman”. Another interesting project of the early 1980’s is Gray that also features artist Jean-Michel Basquiat and Vincent Gallo. Their unique mix of hip hop, industrial and no wave was collected on the album “Shades of…”. Further I can recommend the experimental electro pop works of Tiziano Popoli that were collected on the album “Burn The Night / Bruciare La Notte”.

I also dived into the works of Bernard Parmegiani. His compositions between electronic experimentation and musique concrète sound very unique. It is hard to pick a favourite, but I think my favourite album is “De Natura Sonorum” because he creates a sound universe here that produces pictures of wide landscapes and natural wonders in my head.

I also discovered Le Stelle di Mario Schifano this year. Mario Schifano was a postmodern / pop art artist from Italy who probably wanted to create his own Velvet Underground. On “Dedicato A…”, their only album, “Le Ultime Parole Di Brandimante, Dall’Orlando Furioso, Ospite Peter Hartman E Fine (Da Ascoltarsi Con TV Accesa, Senza Volume)” is probably the most astonishing track. With more than 17 minutes it changes continuously to parts of psychedelic freak out.

Continuing with some rock music, I explored some of the more obscure krautrock bands. One of the highlights was Zweistein‘s triple album “Trip • Flip Οut • Meditation” that sounds like an aural acid trip. Baba Yaga‘s album “Collage” fuses rock and traditional Iranian music. On “Crawling To Lhasa” Kalacakra sound a little like a gothic rock / medieval folk band. “Elektronische Mythen” is Jürgen Karg‘s only solo album. He ventures into electronic experiments and ambient sounds that are quite unique. Last but not least I listened to Amon Düül I a lot. Most of their albums are freak out sessions recorded in low quality, but if you listen closely there is so much to discover on “Psychedelic Underground” or “Collapsing Singvögel Rückwärts & Co.”.

Last but not least there are two jazz albums I like to mention here as well. The first one is “Aida” by Derek Bailey. It is just a man improvising on his guitar that references many other music styles from flamenco to country and folk to punk rock. The second album is “Parallèles” by Jac Berrocal. Though already recorded in the 1970s, you already hear some tracks that remind you of trip hop and sound collage styles that other artists explored years later. Still innovative I can also recommend his later albums that he recorded with David Fenech and Vincent Epplay.

So, now you have some music to discover for the New Year. And I will grab another blanket and try to keep warm till the heating works again eventually.

I’m looking forward to see you again next year!

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Lost in Music

rabirius — Tue, 29 Dec 2020 17:24:36 +0000

Buy Now

I created a picture especially for this post about my favorite albums this year, which you have already seen when you get to the text. For this written passage I tried to come up with a Top 10, but only managed to find eight albums that were released in 2020 that I really adore. As you can see there were quite different things I listened to this year. I especially liked the new album by The Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus. This band fascinates me since I first heard them. All their albums are really good and I believe that I already introduced them here with their album Beauty Will Save The World. Otherwise, I listened a lot of music with beats including some African music like Nihiloxica. But I also enjoyed the sad beauty of Keely Forsyth’s debut album and some poppy tunes by the Sparks and the Pet Shop Boys. But enough talk. You can take a look at the list and watch the video clips.

The Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus: Songs of Yearning
Einstürzende Neubauten: Alles in Allem
Esplendor Geométrico: Cinética
Nihiloxica: Kaloli
Keeley Forsyth: Debris
Witch ‘n’ Monk: Witch ‘n’ Monk
Sparks: A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip
Pet Shop Boys: Hotspot

However, there were also some reissues I liked and some older albums that I (re)discovered. Certainly, styles and themes from the list above you will also find again here. O Yuki Conjugate also work with percussions, as do Rapoon and Chaino. Though I listed a lot to Jazz this year, I especially focused on the work of Sun Ra from the 1960’s. It was hard to pick a favorite here, but I decided to list Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy, because it is probably his strangest album, however, it is not easy accessible if you are not used to Jazz. (If that is the case I suggest Angels and Demons at Play for example.) Here you also find some records that are more weird and experimental, like Horrific Child and Don Bradshaw-Leather. I also listened to some Minimal and other Contemporary Classical music. Though Stockhausen, Koenig, Xenakis and Boulez were frequently on my stereo, I decided to include Terry Riley and Tony Conrad here, because the others really accompany me for a couple of years now. As most of the records in my second lists were recorded before the dawn of the video clip I decided to not include the ripped albums from YouTube. But you will most likely find the music there and on other streaming sites like Spotify and iTunes as well.

Chaino: Night of the Spectre
Sun Ra: Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy
Tony Conrad with Faust: Outside the Dream Syndicate
Coil: Sara Dale’s Sensual Massage
Katyna Ranieri: and now Katyna Ranieri
Finis Africae: Amazonia
Horrific Child: L’Etrange Mr Whinster
Rapoon: Vernal Crossing
Terry Riley: Persian Surgery Dervishes
Neu!: 75
Roberto Musci: Tower of Silence
Don Bradshaw-Leather: Distance Between Us
O Yuki Conjugate: Into Dark Water

Talking music, I am still working on the new mockART album. Earlier this year my project became a duo and so there are more ideas which resulted in more compositions. But the majority of tracks is finished now so we will probably release Men Who Lost Their Heads early next year. I recently shared the two tracks we have already published. If you missed the post titled Broken please visit and listen to Betörve and Lizard People.

I would also like to ask you a favor and vote for Betörve. If you do so we have a chance that the track will be added to playlists and more people will listen to our music.

As a thank you I also want to share one of the tracks we have already finished. It is called Inoculated and therefore very contemporary.

I hope you are having happy holidays and I already wish you all the best for the new year.

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The Music Within

rabirius — Tue, 31 Dec 2019 13:54:24 +0000

This year was packed with good music, new and old. So let’s see what ended up on my stereo this year.

My latest addition was “The God Within” by Othon. This is one of the rare albums that doesn’t really work in the background. You just have to sit down and emerge yourself in the music. However, if you know his previous works, you will be surprised: Gone is the experimental pop music with vocals by artists like Marc Almond or Ernesto Tomasini. Though there was always something “classical” about his music, I never expected a man and his piano only (though there are some ambient sounds in the background here and there). The compositions are beautiful, meditative and haunting pieces and that makes the album so strong and beautiful. But listen for yourself:

A different kind of piano music came from Amanda Palmer. For “There Will Be No Intermissions” the self-styled “punk piano player” wrote a couple of personal ballads where she hits the key with a hard edge and worked together with a lot of guest musicians.

The album that haunted me the most this year was probably “Everywhere, an Empty Bliss” by The Caretaker. He works with manipulated samples of ballroom music from the 1930 to explore memory and memory loss. After completing his six part cycle “Everywhere at the End of Time” about dementia and Alzheimers he explored the same themes in a more condensed form.

The Caretaker reminded me of Robert Ashley‘s work “Automatic Writing” from 1979 where he explores Tourette’s syndrome musically. Though he has a more traditional approach to writing music, you cannot deny certain similarities.

Another beautiful album is the Soundtrack to the movie “Far from the Apple Tree” by Rose McDowall and Shawn Pinchbeck. Though I haven’t seen the movie, the music is a collection of haunting songs accompanied by guitars and sound effects.

Similar haunting melodies you will find on actress Maria Monti’s album “Il Bestiario” that was already released in 1974.

Another singing actress is Emmanuelle Seigner who teamed up with musicians from The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Limiñanas to from L’Épée. Their debut album “Diabolique” is a cool brew of groovy rock and French chansons.

If you like rock music, you might enjoy the latest album by the Swans. “Leaving Meaning” sees the group developing further with many guest musicians that help create various soundscapes, always changing, dissolving and assembling.

Here I can also recommend the album “Offenbarung und Untergang” that Swan’s singer Michael Gira recorded with Étant Donnés. Together they interpret a poem by Austrian poet Georg Trakl and perfectly capture the darkness of the lyrics musically.

If you like your rock more extreme, I can recommend Sunn O))). When I saw them live this year, their experimental doom metal was so loud that the whole room was vibrating and my whole body with it. Their “Life Metal” album captures the sound of that concert very will – especially when you buy it on vinyl to get the full scope of the recorded frequencies.

Somewhat experimental rock music is featured on “Metaprogramação” by Brazilian band Deafkids. They fuse metal, industrial and alternative rock to their own unique sound.

Land of Kush made great album mixing oriental music with jazz, pop, folk and experimental sounds. For me, the album works more as a whole, but here is one of the tracks so you can see what it sounds like.

To not make this piece too long, here are further jazz and folk artists I liked to listen to this year: Turkish singer and songwriter Gaye Su Akyol, Gabonese musician Pierre Akendengué (especially his album “Nandipo”), the 1960’s and 70’s albums by Jazz legend The Art Ensemble of Chicago (especially “Fanfare for the Warriors”), the ritual music of the “Themes” albums by Psychic TV and last but not least the Colombian band Yak i Kandru who play with Native American instruments. Sadly I only own a live album and have never ever seen any of their studio albums somewhere. But listen how amazing they sound:

As far as searching for records goes: This year I finally found an affordable copy of “The Faust Tapes” by Faust, which, for me, is the best album of the krautrockers. Another interesting collection of sounds, bits and pieces was “Eskimo Deconstructed” by The Residents. They literately blew their classic “Eskimo” to pieces and put it back together to something new. Another interesting project was Nurse With Wound‘s collaboration with The James Worse Public Address Method. On “The Vursiflenze Mismantler” they experiment with all kinds of vocal sounds and strange poems in a fantasy language that very much sounds like English but is not understandable at all. Another linguistic experiment is “Play Wooden Child” by the Nodding God who sing in Akkadian, an extinct Semitic language spoken in ancient Mesopotamia.

Another interesting sound experiment is “Hunters in the Snow” by Anemone Tube featuring Jarl and Monocube, a contemplation of Pieter Bruegel’s “Series of the Seasons”.

Here are some pop records that I liked to listen to in 2019: “More Than a Feeling” by former fun punk band Die Goldenen Zitronen is a pop meditation on building walls. Already released in 1985, Λένα Πλάτωνος album “Γκάλοπ” is probably one of the best synth pop albums of the decade and still works very will today. Lana Del Rey has shown on “Norman Fucking Rockwell” that she really is a gifted songwriter. Last but not least Anni Hogan teamed up with a different singers to record her first pop record since – probably – the 1980’s.

So, now I put on some music and prepare some food for tonight’s party. I wish you all the best for 2020.

Oh, if you haven’t seen it, I also released a new album with my project mockART. Here is another track from Country Songs:

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