cyberinsekt

For most of the last weekend I've been supporting beaupepys while she was selling jewellery at the Godiva Festival. Felt hats, baking heat and an ever-present miasma of frying fish. Truly one of the great cultural events of our time. The music has been:

• chart-friendly (some might even say chart-fellating) rock
  
• earnest singer-songwriters who want the world to know that they are unique and precious flowers, every one
  
• quirky indie-folksters who want the exact same thing
  
• bands with more fiddle and banjo than they know what to do with
  
• easy-listening guitarists
  
• the "Salsa for Beginners" tent and their ever-present PA
  
• middle-aged men in vaudeville costumes playing novelty rock

What's the deal? I thought John Coltrane was supposed to be this great influential figure, and yet I counted precisely zero instances of fiery saxophone roar the entire weekend. Maybe I wasn't listening properly. Maybe I was trying not to listen properly as some kind of protective mechanism, I dunno.

So anyway, I had to come home and check that Manifestation, from the posthumously released album Cosmic Music really is as intense and powerful as I remember it. It was a relief to realise that it was. I thought perhaps my memory had been playing tricks on me; all the stuff I heard the last two days had been built on Coltrane's foundations, it was just that he had actually played overly-pleasant soul-searching mandolin ballads in 4/4 time while wearing a funny wig. Turns out that wasn't the case. Good for him. Have some proper music, everyone.

John Coltrane - Manifestation
(alternate download)

Do you enjoy droning psychedelic noise rock? Me too; let's be friends.

Indian Jewelry - Temporary Famine Shop
(alternate download)

How is it we've never had any James Blood Ulmer here at Doklands before? It defies belief, because his Beeheartian avant-blues/jazz/funk is just the sort of thing that we love. It's sticky and frenetic, and on Open House from his 1982 album Black Rock there's a definite Sonny Sharrock edge to his playing.

If you hear people saying that he plays too many notes, it's because their feet move too slow.

James Blood Ulmer - Open House
(alternate download)

One of my favourite pieces by Michael Nyman is Masque, from the soundtrack to the Peter Greenaway film Prospero's Books. It's from the wedding of Miranda and Ferdinand, and the three goddesses Iris, Ceres and Juno compete in song to bless the wedding with the greatest gift. This may sound naff and contrived, but it's anything but. It's a sumptuous piece of music - it has to be, to match the visual orgy on the screen. With spiralling urgency, Masque builds and builds with waves of breaking sound. I'm not one to be easily moved, but I can seldom listen to this without it bringing the odd tear to my eyes. It's exhilarating and passionate. Even if you usually steer well clear of soprano voices (and who doesn't?) you need to let this wash over you.

Michael Nyman - Masque

Back in 1981, one of the problems with liking the Au Pairs was that no other bugger did. You couldn't meet up after school and listen to them with your mates, because the crossover between radical feminism and post-punk wasn't especially large amongst teenage boys. With time, thankfully, comes a significant upside, in that I can enjoy nostalgia for music that doesn't actually suck. If your 1981 was all Shakin' Stevens and Joe Dolce, that's a luxury you don't have. Sorry.

If there are any flaws in It's Obvious, then I remain blind to them. It's sarcastic, deadpan, spiky and has a great bassline. In my world, it is the sound of 1981. It may have been a shitty year in most other regards, but at least there were some top songs.

You can find today's track on the album Playing with a Different Sex. No, really, how come teenage boys weren't into that?

Au Pairs - It's Obvious
(alternate download)

They're completely untrained. They play no other music. They make all of their own instruments. And for over 40 years, every Monday night they have come together to play improv. Welcome to the hermetically sealed world of the Nihilist Spasm Band.

It sounds too good to be true. They don't make music for fame or money, they do it simply because they love it. It's the folk art of the avant-garde. Until you've sat around with a bunch of friends and turned a bicycle pump into a musical instrument, it's hard to express the joy that comes with this sort of playing. Listening to the Nihilist Spasm Band may give you some idea.

Here's I'm a Real Nice Fellow from their 1999 album Every Monday Night. Play it loud, and join in.

Nihilist Spasm Band - I'm a Real Nice Fellow

As the tinny MIDI chimes of Take On Me start up, there would seem to be only one possible response. Before you cry, "What the hell is this shite? Would you mind keeping it the hell out of HERE?" just sit back and listen. And wait. And HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK, WHAT IS HAPPENING?

What is happening is a voice that sounds like a sandstorm blowing out of the gates of Hell itself. Rank Sinatra sounds as if he's gargling with the gravelly headcheese of Satan. It is completely magnificent, and my love for this abomination of a cover version knows no bounds. Essential listening.

Rank Sinatra - Take On Me
(alternate download)

As anyone who has even done it knows, squatting is big and clever. The more derelict and the less house-like the squatted building, the better. It's a situation where a few missing floorboards are a positive advantage. You show your guests around the place, weaving your way nonchalantly past the holes, and catch the look of admiration in their faces. You'd think that anyone who decides to take up home in a collapsed cooling tower would become the coolest motherfucker on the planet, but it doesn't actually work that way.

So when you hear that Vibracathedral Orchestra recorded Trinity St. David's in a squatted church, you know it's got something going for it. It's hipper than you, and it's probably going to sleep with your sister. It's a richly textured free-played drone, complete with a few choice additions from the actual church organ. Taken from Hot Booty, their 1999 album of live perfomances, it sounds like a gigantic sheet of shimmering metal.

Actually, I may have been wrong earlier. Maybe we should squat cooling towers. If nothing else, the acoustics would be amazing.

Vibracathedral Orchestra - Trinity St. David's

Andrew Cyrille is one of the great free jazz drummers. He got his break in the mid '60s when he joined Cecil Taylor's band, and since then has had a hand in many exciting and challenging projects. On his 1979 album Nuba he was joined by alto saxophonist Jimmy Lyons and by the great Jeanne Lee on vocals.

If you're one to immediately turn away at the thought of vocal jazz, I don't blame you for a moment. The majority of it is bland pop, and of the remainder, most of that is some abominable attempt at sophistication. (And then there's scat. We don't talk about the scat at Doklands.) That's never been the case with Jeanne Lee, and In These Last Days is very much her track. Her voice alternates between a warm baritone growl, and an airy, pinched wail, with Lyons' alto joining in with some uncanny duetting. Cyrille remains utterly mysterious throughout, providing fluttering, textural sounds. It's a great piece of free playing.

Andrew Cyrille - In These Last Days
(alternate download)

The world would be a poorer place without Melt-Banana. For 17 years they have undertaken the unenviable task of taking noise rock and making it fun. Their songs are shiny, sugar-coated tantrums, some only a few seconds long. When they play them live, they always like to thank the audience after each track. It seems a very Japanese approach to hardcore noise pop, but whatever the case they have a bundle of charm.

Here's Cat Brain Land from their most recent album, the 2007 release Bambi's Dilemma. It's just so-o-o-o bouncy.

Melt-Banana - Cat Brain Land
(alternate download)

Oh yeah. There's some stunning avant-punk coming out of Mexico at the moment. I'd forgotten this until I had the good luck to hear Microvibraciones by Monterrey-based outfit XYX. It's taken from their Sistema de Terminacion Sexual EP. What you get is some fuzz, some wailing and some COMPLETELY FUCKING EPIC growling synths. It's tripped out beyond all belief. This one is absolutely essential.

XYX - Microvibraciones
(alternate download)

I've always had a fondness for the jazz/post-punk scene that arose in Bristol at the start of the '80s. Several bands grew from the dissonant ashes of the Glaxo Babies and The Pop Group. Doklands favourites Rip Rig & Panic had some small success, and Pigbag produced the anthemic Papa's Got a Brand New Pigbag. Much in the same vein were Maximum Joy. Here's a track from their debut album, the 1982 release Station MXJY, with production from the then-ubiquitous Adrian Sherwood. All Wrapped Up! is a spiky, clattering slice of funky, reggae-tinged post-punk. Not only has it all the shrieking flute, extended sax solos and slap bass you could want, it's also a veritable goldmine of beats and breaks for the discerning DJ.

Maximum Joy - All Wrapped Up!
(alternate download)

It's generally much easier to enjoy the theories of John Cage than his actual music. Thankfully, that isn't the case with this strange and hypnotic little study for prepared piano from 1947. Music for Marcel Duchamp was originally written for a film by Hans Richter, one of the original Dadaists. Very few notes are used, and because of this it starts to sound like a small ensemble playing on primitive instruments: tentative, exploratory and improvisational. Despite this, there's a distinct rhythmic progression running throughout.

If you've always wanted to like the music of Cage, but have never had the opportunity, this would be an excellent place to start.

John Cage - Music for Marcel Duchamp
(alternate download)

You know you've hit the right lo-fi note when your music sounds like it was recorded on a beaten-up tape recorder in the middle of a sandstorm, when everyone seems to be playing through the only amp for 100 miles around, when everyone is playing too fast just so that everything can get recorded before the generator cuts out. That's the shambolic perfection of Esoterica of Abyssynia by the Sun City Girls. If The Fall played free afro-jazz it might sound something like this. If they were lucky.

Sun City Girls - Esoterica of Abyssynia
(alternate download)

Donovan has had a bad reputation, much of it deserved. Hyped as the British answer to Bob Dylan, there was always something tremendously inauthentic about his folky psychedelic pop. To me, it always seemed as if he was a product of the record companies. It's probably unfair, but hey, what are you going to do?

Still, for all his faults - not least his lyric-writing - I've always loved Sunny Goodge Street, a track from his 1965 album Fairytale. Its warm orchestration and jazz rhythms seem completely at odds with the music of the times. Yes, the words are complete pants, but it's a truly gorgeous bit of sound. In many ways, I've always considered this the precursor to Van Morrison's seminal Astral Weeks album. It doesn't have the artistic depth, but it certainly has the sound.

Donovan - Sunny Goodge Street
(alternate download)

So I'm assuming that everyone knows about Earth, right? A bit doomy, a bit grungey, a bit droney: that seems to be the usual assessment. At one point that was probably correct, but it certainly isn't these days. Take, for instance, Hung From The Moon, from their 2008 release The Bees Made Honey in the Lion's Skull. Sure, it's slow and languid (some might even say clumsy), but Earth have become a band who are not afraid to alienate a few fans by making beautiful noises. Check out the tiny piano part, and relish the high drone that seems to have come from a 1960s stand-up organ. Earth have come a long way in 19 years, and only 6 albums.

Earth - Hung From The Moon
(alternate download)

This little indietronic gem from Sleeps in Oysters has a rare quality: it's music that's imbued with a strong sense of physicality. It's like a densely packed clockwork contraption, with the listener somehow stuck inside, amazed as all the ringing bits of metal glide past in perfect synchrony.

Sleeps in Oysters - New Pressed Pennies
(alternate download)

Back then, I was completely out of the loop. I remember seeing the two Hybrid Kids albums for sale and wondering why anyone would want a compilation of music from Peabody, Kansas. How interesting a scene could it be? I'd spend my pocket money on The Fall, thank you very much.

What I didn't know was that Peabody is a town of about 1,000 people, and that all the bands on those two albums came from the fevered imagination of Morgan Fisher, the man behind the seminal Miniatures compilation.

All the tracks are strikingly inappropriate cover versions or, if you prefer, clever musical pastiches. Here's one of the more successful, "British Standard Unit" doing Rod Stewart's D'ya Think I'm Sexy? as deadpan, Kraftwerkian new wave. One for the compilation tapes.

Hybrid Kids - D'ya Think I'm Sexy?
(alternate download)

So let's pretend there's this hypothetical piece of classical music. For the sake of argument, we'll say that it's equal parts Stravinsky, minimalism, and dissonant boogie-woogie, and it's all about Piet Mondrian's exploits on the dance floor. In theory, it's an absolute disaster.

In practice, it's absolutely compelling.

British listeners, I've got a question for you. About 18 1/2 minutes into De Stijl there's a fanfare that sounds uncannily like a piece of TV music from the '70s. If you're of an age to have been watching, you'll instantly recognise this. The trouble is, I really can't remember what that musical hook signified, and it's starting to get to me. Help me out, someone?

Louis Andriessen - De Stijl

William Parker is a free jazz bassist who has recorded some formidable sets over the years. Just the sort of thing that we love here at Doklands. However, for his 2002 album Raining on the Moon, he decided to take a more accessible approach. It's got that whole '60s Blue Note thing going for it: melancholic and bluesy. Here's the warm and achingly beautiful Old Tears, which has some colossal melodic interplay from horn players Rob Brown and Lewis Barnes.

William Parker - Old Tears
(alternate download)