almaden

almaden - the dream continues in 1,000,000 Roads as the journeyman slumbers to be awoken by the berries of air and forest, a dawn pre-imagined and so owned in footstep and deed as our lovely soujourner of unabysmal light soujourns 4th into willowy and totally purple dawning, day is upon r hero and the golden Rd. of infinitudinous blessedhood! (lattajjaa, 2007)

What a (long) title for the album...giving me over 10 minutes of naturally changing pulsating drones and guitar feedbacks (on “buffalo and daughter”) to think this over, before coming to the semi-drugged-mind pyschedelic folk core expression. On some point this seems like how brains and brainwaves thoroughly become like roots of trees. They grow with the acoustic guitar pickings, with humming droning waves in the vocals, taking time to stretch with its mood creations…(and this especially on “black swan”). The harmony vocals on “Buffalo Forever” will possibly bring Devendra Banhart to mind for some listeners, bringing this kind of loner hippie to a tepee, which thoroughly will be smashing to pieces its wow-wow drumming…on his guitar, very distorted in mind, flesh, and wood. “Prayers for singers” makes it up with flowers, whistles, and witches-brew hummings as flipped romantic religious worships and bubbled colourful consciousnesses. Some songs are listed as dedications to life, while the first one which breaths a pause is the meditational moment; a few others are moments of waiting in vain, and are the songs of death, drooping sadly towards a certain wickedness. “Kill me again” is again a bit more communal, with a whipping and hopping ritualistic feeling in the rhythms, as a controlled wackiness, romantic-religious and keeping finger-crossed control in song while mind-losing and opening its consciousness. “Paean: Kitteridge Sam” is calm and sweet, like celebrated candy butterflies swimming in butter. The whole crowd of musicians sings along, in harmony with harmony and a bit of disharmony. “North Country Girl” is a heretic outburst heart full of romance, love, desire and wining, with troubadour guitarpickings and child playroom glockenspiel remembrances slightly dementing, and some harmonium. “Song of sorrow” is again a song of death and sadness, blowing in the winds of lost times. The same backing musicians (himself) howl along like priests, or play glockenspiel like victims of circumstances. “The golden road” sings to the full lightness of daylights again, of thoughts that first were hidden away in prison pits, while having collected so many emotions with it, its final expression becomes transcendent by its seeing light for the first time.

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silmaril (rare earth XIX)

silmaril - voyage of icarus (1973)

Awash in fuzz boxes and acid trips, the dozens of other overlooked groups from the psychedelic era bear little resemblance to Silmaril. While others buzzed within the hippie epicenters of Haight Street and the Lower East Side, Silmaril formed in haunted, industrial Milwaukee. Other bands might have met at a love-in; Silmaril were friends from a Catholic youth retreat bound together by a doomed figure in the eccentric madman tradition of Syd Barrett, Roy Harper and Mel Lyman by the name of Matthew Peregrine. The Voyage of Icarus captures the dark, mysterious, and achingly beautiful acid folk & Christian themed psychedelic sounds that emanated from 1973’s privately pressed album, Given Time... Or the Several Roads, and their dormant, unreleased follow up No Mirrored Temple.
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Few have pondered harder than Matthew Peregrine, creative director of the churchy early ‘70s folk ensemble Silmaril. The group met at a Catholic youth retreat, and Peregrine was a practicing Catholic Pentacostal. (The Pentacostals are the ones who believe that, to be saved, they must go beyond gossiping and mumbling hymns, have a “personal relationship” with God, and let the Big Fella breathe down their necks at all times.) The Silmaril kids were also, as some of you may have discerned by now, fascinated with the thick arcania of Tolkein. But it wasn’t just a filtered fascination with the black art of imagination that gave Silmaril’s music a self-destructive edge. No, Matthew Peregrine was very, very gay, and no amount of evangelical fervor could change the tingle in his loins. Years after Silmaril dissolved, he became a hardcore leatherman. But, right here, we’re stuck in his conflicted, ascetic, gay-for-Jesus hell. And, man, is it compelling. Silmaril cut one LP in its time on this earth, the weirdly forlorn (but disturbingly optimistic!) Given Time or the Several Roads. It consisted mostly of acoustic ballads, usually detached (in a wannabe-mystic sort of way) but sometimes remarkably tender and wise (“Given Time”). The voices, both male and female, bleed a poisoned irony that can only come from extreme self-consciousness, and thus drink deep of the mortal pain that gives music soul. This is no hippie freakout. This is a deep, resonant conflict. It’s art defined by elements in its creators that they could not release through any other avenue.

Y comienza 'Poustinia'... y lo hace uno de los discos más sugerentes que recuerdo. Ha sido recuperado y redescubierto por Locust para nuestra fortuna. Todo un rare earth que tengo de camino a casa. En 'The Voyage of Icarus' se descubre un acid-folk cristiano que más allá de ornamentaciones y ambientes oníricos, está maniatado por un halo de misterio y de cierto vacío en su ambiente, así, van liberando en bellísimas canciones sus confesiones. 19 canciones son y ninguna abandona lo acústico, en ellas, las evocadores y sugerentes voces conducen a unas melodías del amanecer y entre tanto, alguna vez, el fervor cristiano se cuela por la ventana. Cuando se acaba, a uno se la hace difícil escoger con cual de todas ella le gustaría despertarse al día siguiente, con 'Vespers' quizá. Para colocarlo al lado de Fuchsia, Mellow Candle, Forest o sino, con otros cristianos como Harvest Flight.

Audio:
poustinia
Download:

the voyage of icarus

robert wyatt

robert wyatt - comicopera (domino, 2007)

Since a listening copy of 'Comicopera' turned up a few weeks back, it's hardly left the office stereo. At 62 years of age the ex-Soft Machine drummer could have easily called it a day by now, he's made his mark on the music scene both as a member of one of progressive rock's most important acts and also as a hugely creative solo artist in his own right. But at an age where most artists shrivel up only to emerge for cash-in live shows or charity appearances, Wyatt just seems to get better and better and with "Comicopera" he has pieced together his most beguiling album to date and quite easily one of the years most incredible releases. 'Comicopera' is divided into three acts, the first 'Lost in Noise' being the most straightforward sonically, highlighting Wyatt's talent for writing leftfield pop music of the most sublime kind. The second act 'The Here and the Now' is jazzy and playful, while the third 'Away with the Fairies' is the most unusual, with tracks sung in Italian and Spanish and sparsely accompanied by discordant, dark instrumentals. Wyatt has long been championed by critics but largely ignored by the record-buying public so it seems right that Domino, drunk with their successes with the Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand have put their funds into something truly remarkable and culturally important and given one of the millennium's most fascinating albums adequate support. With songs such as the loungey 'Just as You Are' the comical 'Be Serious' and the melancholy 'You You' straddling such oddities as 'Cancion de Julieta' and the Gamelan-inspired 'Pastafari' there seems no doubt that a new generation of Wyatt listeners will emerge from the mists and will discover a world of genuinely forward-thinking music. The rest of us will simply be dying to hear what the great man does next, one gets the feeling that 'Comicopera' is just the beginning of a very rewarding relationship.

Ahora que publicaciones de referencia, para algunos, se acuerdan de él, las reverencias de muchos acompañan y van detrás, hasta Domino edita el disco. Al final, lo importante es la música y que Robert aún guarda energías para hacernos disfrutar y soñar, y a mí, no se me ocurre mejor manera de iniciar un nuevo año, que con uno de los músicos que más significado tiene en esta pequeña aldea. Siento ser así de cuesto con él, pero no hay más tiempo.

Download:
Comicopera (parte 1)
Comicopera (parte 2)

magic carpet (rare earth XVIII)

magic carpet - magic carpet (1972)

When the North London-based group Magic Carpet's LP was released on Mushroom Records in 1972, it failed to leave an impression on the consciousness of the general record buying public. It is difficult to say why the music of Jim Alford, Clem Alford, Keshav Sathe and singer/guitar player Alisha Sufit disappeared through the metaphorical ‘cracks in the sidewalk’, but it is likely that a combination of the label’s economical restraints, which subsequently led to only a small pressing of the album ever being made and the era’s perpetually shifting musical-climate played more than a small a part in the fate of what has become a jewelled crown in the treasure trove of psyche-tinged folk music. It is in turns haunting and beautiful; happy and sad; poignant and light-hearted. An unique journey of sounds.

Vuelven los rare earth. Han pasado ya años desde que los descubrí y bastantes más discos de pysch-folk de la época por mis orejas, pero apenas ninguno se balancea en mi cabeza hoy, como Magic Carpet. Sus ragas en clave acid-folk están bajo el embrujo de un encantamiento. Desde Escocia pienso en una pequeña y alejada ciudad del este. Imagino que paseo por tierras áridas y que el viento levanta la arena y mis ojos se empeñan en buscar en el horizonte borroso, un sonido que proviene de los sueños. Allí a lo lejos está, lo veo: es el sitar de Clem Alford, que camina junto a la mil veces bella voz de Alisa Sufit que oía a lo lejos. También se escuchan tablas, un dulcimer, una tambura, guitarras acústicas... y el clima místico se va alternando entre lo hermoso y lo triste.

Editado por Mushroom en 1972 con tan sólo 1000 copias, el sitarista Clem Alford lideró este único proyecto, sí desde Escocia. Un disco de sensaciones, sugerente y lleno de candor en canciones como 'Alan Christamas Card', The Pheonix' o ' Peace Song' . Uno de los grandes tesoros del psych-folk que tuvo continuación no hace mucho como Magic Capert II, 'Once Moon' en 1996. Además, en el segundo enlace incluyo: 'Raga' un meditativo tema que grabaron previamente.

Click and download:
magic carpet (album)

Raga (bonus)

Audio:
The Magic Carpet

Pd.: Pronto estará de nuevo aquí, Clem Alford en solitario con 'Mirror Magic'.

danny cohen

danny cohen - shades of dorian grey (anti, 2007)

With Shades Of Dorian Gray, Danny Cohen has crafted the musical equivalent of an accomplished painting. Equally cerebral and serendipitous, his third Anti- album is an eclectic song cycle that thrives, informs and rewards with each successive listen.

Danny Cohen, known for his sharp storytelling, observant lyrics and and poised vocal delivery brings Wilson-esque arrangements and ambitious instrumentation to his latest Anti- release, “Shade Of Dorian Gray”. Mellotrons, horns, organs, and lap steel adorn these 16 terrific songs full of riotous images and indelible hooks.

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fit & limo

fit & limo - astralis (september gurls, 2007)

New studies on strange folk conducted by the Franconian institute of applied psychedelic sciences have resulted in a fine album entitled Astralis. 18 new refined psychedelic folk songs, which remind of Fit & Limo's mid-90ies releases, but also include progressive/wyrd/mystic folk elements of their more recent work. British folk of traditional and late 60ies/early 70ies style is combined with 60ies US flower power harmonies/West Coast acid rock and Fit & Limo's own special brand of Kraut/space folk playfulness. Influences of Incredible String Band and Pearls Before Swine are more distinct again; Beau Brummels, Beatles, Witthüser & Westrup come to mind, as well. Included are three excellent versions of British traditional songs based on recordings by Shirley & Dolly Collins ("The moon shines bright", "Down in yon forest", "The snow it melts the soonest") and a cover of Alex Campbell's "Been on the road so long".

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This might be the most, -slightly romantic-, dreamy release of Fit & Limo, multiple arranged, in cloudy organic movements, with a misty attention attached to the effect of arrangements. Like always they use a lot of instruments of which sitar, mellotron, and soft fuzz guitars found most of my attention amongst other elements of the layers. On just a few tracks I am taken slightly to Elly & Rikkert’s “Parzival”. On a few other tracks it seems like some songs were inspired from medieval or comparable, old songs. The 18 songs are compiled with a convincing consistency; they give me a slightly stoned and take-me-way effect.

'Astralis' es de primeras un disco bonito y en que todas las voces son en inglés. El influjo de un psych-folk enrarecido desaparece al poco de comenzar la escucha con 'The Lovers', las melodías se pasean más desnudas que de costumbre y a mí no me deja de sorprender como los de Bavaria en cada disco, y son unos cuantos, se sumergen en una misma dirección pero con distintos destinos, esta vez me recuerda a sus primeros viajes, se escucha un raga pero de ensoñadora inspiración. Quizá haya algo de romananticismo sugerido por las 3 maravillosas versiones de Shirley Collins. Fit & Limo es uno de esos grupos con los que coincido plenamente en lo que hacen, como con Ghost, a pesar de que no me emocionan tanto, todo me parece digno de escuchar, pero sí algo creo que es cierto, es que alguna que otra vez son capaces de codearse con Emtidi, Carol of Harvest, Flute & Voice... u otros de los inalcanzables del space-folk alemán, sólo ellos, porque en realidad son los únicos herederos.

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maulawi nururdin

maulawi nururdin - maulawi (1973)

Blood should pump nowadays at the mention of another Soul Jazz/Universal Sound release, this one an absolute original that flies in the same circles as some of the greatest jazz and soul records of the early '70s. Maulawi Nururdin's Maulawi covers a staggering landscape, and does a virtual Sherman's March across the territories of funk, blues, post-Palladium latin jazz, samba, and his own unique take on the outtasphere; burning it all down with punishing resolve, and reviving it all in his own image. Maulawi, Nururdin's solo album that died a commercial death shortly after its 1974 release, reveals a palette of compositional depth and sonic intelligence that Nururdin would have had a tough time topping had he recorded again. The product of an era rife with social and political tension, this work highlights a street-hot assembly of musicians as they document their composer/bandleader's detailed, colloquial vision.

A product of Chicago's disparate musical heritages, Maulawi's music, at its roots, shines and glows with the same crackling energy as predecessors like Sun Ra, Muddy Waters and the Art Ensemble of Chicago. Nururdin, himself a multi-instrumentalist, composer and band leader, places his own thumbprint high atop the mix with his sax playing, a sweet, razor-thin layer of liberation to the often dense, and sometimes dark, journeys in sound. Stacks of percussion drive the body of this work, buoyed by the staccato thrust of Rufus Reed's bass work, and every song on Maulawi jerks the listener sideways and back again with shifts in key, time and timbre.

El trabajo de Maulawi Nururdin se encuentra abandonado, tirado en un callejón de Chicago en una bolsa vieja en la que nadie ha reparado, al abrirla, un destello te ciega y te queda la sensación de que uno no es capaz de condensar, en pocas palabras, su contenido. Es un jazz salido de la alcantarilla, allá donde va a parar casi cualquier cosa. Avant-garde que se ve abrazado por el funk y los ritmos latinos y quizá por el ya aparecido rap de The Last Poets. Él, que pasó y sobrevoló por la AACM (Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians) de la que nunca llegó a ser miembro.

Strata Records editó originalmente el álbum y Soul Jazz no los recupera hoy, presten atención a la sección de vientos y a las voces y cuidado con la infección rítmica que está por venir, deep jazz en estado puro.

street rap
eltiton

seesselberg

synthetic

Eckart y Wolf-J, es decir, Seesselberg es otro de los muchísimos grupos alemanes que apenas salieron del subsuelo y que brevemente circularon por los terrenos más creativos, intrigrantes y oscuros de la incipiente eléctronica alemana. Tan solo quedó un album, 'Synthetic' en 1973, que recorre latitudes que los referentes de la escena no vislumbraron, así, su propuesta industrial y verdaderamente weird podría haber sorprendido y calcinado muchos oídos. Clic arriba y vereis.