Doklands

Peter Walker - City Pulse

Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:58:04 GMT

With all the re-issuing of '60s and '70s folk at the moment, every so often you're going to stumble across a real gem. That's the case with Peter Walker's City Pulse, originally recorded in 1970. It's a piece in the then-fashionable raga-folk style, and indeed is prone to a few of the excesses of that genre. I can live quite happily without hearing swooping, shrieking flutes ever again, thank you. But that's only a small part of City Pulse. What makes this is Walker's electric guitar and some fine, propulsive drumming from Maruga Booker. They give it an exhilarating urgency that you don't often get with this music. Taken from the album Long Lost Tapes 1970, this is definitely recommended.

Peter Walker - City Pulse
(alternate download)

Reuben Wilson - Bus Ride

Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:38:12 GMT

I am a man of simple passions. Once I decide that vampy rare groove Hammond organ jazz is what I like, then vampy rare groove Hammond organ jazz is what I listen to. It may be, somewhere down the line, that the pleasure of Reuben Wilson's mighty Bus Ride will pall, but for now it sounds entirely splendid. Deceptively leisurely and funky beyond all measure, it comes from his 1969 album Blue Mode. Killer.

Reuben Wilson - Bus Ride
(alternate download)

Janek Schaefer - Recorded Delivery (7" edit)

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 01:32:42 GMT

The Post Office: it's bloody great, isn't it? It doesn't matter what the management try to do to ruin it: shutting down branches, selling off old buildings, moving counters into the back of hideous chain stores, screwing the workers - somehow we still love it. Despite all of the lost post, despite everything, it manages to remain a much-loved national institution. Oh, and it can take a piece of paper from one end of the country to the other, overnight, for only 39 pence. Extraordinary.

That's why I was so keen to share today's track with you. Recorded Delivery is a piece of sound art by Janek Schaefer. He took a sound activated tape recorder, wrapped it into a parcel, and stuck it in the post. Its 15 hour journey was captured as 72 minutes of sound, which for this edited version is reduced to 12 minutes of highlights. Don't you wish you'd thought of doing that yourself? I know I do.

Janek Schaefer - Recorded Delivery (7" edit)

Angus MacLise - Blastitude

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:24:03 GMT

How different would the Velvet Underground have been had Angus MacLise remained as their drummer? Well, that's an easy one. The answer is "very".

Unlike some people, I have nothing against Mo Tucker. The Velvets were a great band, and in rock music, more than in any other genre, you can't have a great band without having a great drummer. That's my theory, anyway. But MacLise was something else entirely. Listen to this wild drum and flute workout from his 1972 recording Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda and tell me you wouldn't love to hear him behind the kit for a performance of Sister Ray. I'll bet you can't.

Angus MacLise - Blastitude
(alternate download)

The Fall - Hip Priest / The Fall - Big New Prinz

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 02:11:37 GMT

Debate and controversy: what do they mean nowadays? We are told that all sorts of things are controversial. Apparently, there's a debate going on about evolution and global warming and MRSA. This is news to people who actually know anything about these subjects. Pity the poor experts who thought they'd got everything worked out, only for some bloke propping up the pub bar to let the world know that he wasn't satisfied with their answers, and that a proper debate needed to take place. Everywhere. As loud as possible.

All complete bollocks, of course. But rely on Doklands to find a subject worthy of proper debate, a question which has never been properly answered: which is better, Hip Priest or Big New Prinz. You should already know Hip Priest. It's one of The Fall's classic tracks, an aching, groaning grind of sarcasm and bile, a thudding minimal drone that erupts into cacophonous life just when you least expect it. It's grand. Just one problem with it: the production is lousy. So lousy that I can't bring myself to share the standard version, so here's the far superior and even longer Peel session recording. Big New Prinz was the highlight of the band's less than overwhelming I Am Kurious Oranj album, a soundtrack to a ballet about William of Orange. It takes the essence of Hip Priest and re-imagines it as something far more like rock music: punchy, compact and with an absolutely killer riff. It's total dynamite. It might lack the original's bite, but makes up for that with brevity and drive.

Answers below, please.

The Fall - Hip Priest
(alternate download)
The Fall - Big New Prinz
(alternate download)

Larry Young - Monk's Dream

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 01:45:37 GMT

Some days only a bit of jazz organ will do. In those times there are few people better to turn to than that hero of the Hammond, that leviathan of the Leslie unit, that behemoth of the B-3, Mr. Larry Young. Young is probably best remembered for his mammoth cosmic fusion LP of the '70s, Lawrence of Newark. Here's something rather more straightforward: a track from his 1965 album Unity, where he squeezes out every last drop of listening pleasure from the instantly familiar Monk's Dream. You can't listen to this without a huge grin of pleasure on your face.

Larry Young - Monk's Dream
(alternate download)

Giacinto Scelsi - Konx-Om-Pax I

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:25:53 GMT

The Italian aristocrat Giacinto Scelsi had a lifelong love of music. As a young man he had studied the techniques of the second Viennese school, and produced a number of reportedly solid, but unremarkable works. Then came his mental breakdown, during which time he would sit in his music room for hours on end, playing the same note on the piano over and over again.

Konx-Om-Pax: Three aspects of sound, completed in 1969, was named after one of Aleister Crowley's more obscure and witty booklets. Actually, I think Crowley might have preferred a Gilbert & Sullivan treatment, but that's by the by. In typical Scelsi fashion, everything is centred around a single note which ebbs and flows with vast, yawning sonorities. The chorus and horn section of the orchestra are emphasised. It may be (relatively) modern music but it feels as if it has been played through the ages; like light from a distant star, only now is the sound reaching us.

Giacinto Scelsi - Konx-Om-Pax I
(alternate download)

Andrew Flanders - Girl/Boy Song

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 01:08:51 GMT

This is an unexpected treat, at least for me. I've just discovered this recording of the Aphex Twin's classic piece of delicate drillcore electronica, Girl/Boy Song, played on solo acoustic guitar by Andrew Flanders. It works.

Andrew Flanders - Girl/Boy Song
(alternate download)

Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Mond?

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:19:10 GMT

Is there a better band name anywhere in the world than Kammerflimmer Kollektief? You don't even have to know German to appreciate it. If you do, it becomes even better: Ventricular Fibrillation Collective. Admit it, you'd buy their music on the strength of their name alone.

I'd like to think you wouldn't be disappointed, either. It's an apt name. Their music really does come from the heart: not in some tediously metaphorical manner, but in its rhythmic beating. Some listeners have made the connection to Krautrock, but I don't buy that. This isn't a motorik, metronomic beat. This is jazz: it swings, and not in any easy manner either. That's the way the body works, and it's the way Kammerflimmer Kollektief's music works too.

Mond? is taken from their 1999 album Maander. Frankly, it's more Roni Size than it is Conny Plank. A beautifully clipped drum sound is enhanced by some fizzing, sparking electronics. Simple, elegant and not to be missed.

Kammerflimmer Kollektief - Mond?
(alternate download)

Tartit - Eha Ehenia

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 01:44:11 GMT

What do people think when they hear the term "African music"? I'd guess a large proportion of them think of something very much like this: percussion and chanted vocals with a bit of ululation. Any ideas as to why this idea is so pervasive? I'd like to believe it's because when done right, it's a powerful and archetypical sound, but I can't quite buy that answer, even when it's done as well as this performance of Eha Eleneia. Tartit are often linked with the whole Malian "desert blues" sound, but this is anything but: it's the traditional Tuareg sound, full-throated and hypnotic. Great stuff. Sorry about the way it fades off at the end into a bit of Bjork at the end. You can't have everything.

Tartit - Eha Ehenia
(alternate download)

Dokaka - Katamari on the Rocks

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 01:47:28 GMT

I remember the dismay and confusion as if it were only yesterday, yet it must have been nearly 20 years ago. I had just met a man - let's call him Chris, as it was probably his name - who professed that the only music he listened to was video game music. He'd hook up a tape deck to his Amiga, or whatever it was that he had, and make recordings. Sometimes Chris would really push the envelope, and listen to demo scene soundtracks. But that was his limit. If it didn't come from a cheap sound chip and wasn't written on a tracker, he wasn't interested. These days, there may be some people who would view Chris as some sort of pioneer, a lone brave soul. Those people would be wrong. Chris was simply sad. Very sad indeed.

Since those days, video game music has progressed a great deal. Oh sure, some people will point to orchestras and full soundtracks as evidence of this, but they would also be wrong. That's your bog standard commercial music. Nothing unusual about that. No, what I'm referring to are the few games brave enough to take a few risks. One such was the charmingly bonkers We ♥ Katamari, which hired outsider a capella beatboxer and Doklands favourite Dokaka to perform a version of the theme song. Describing him as a beatboxer might be pushing it: Dokaka works by listening to music on headphones, and then singing along with each individual instrument in turn. It's a completely unique style, like nothing else you've ever heard, and yet somehow fits perfectly with the twisted primary colour aesthetic of the game.

More of this sort of thing, please. Let's have fewer games with massive libraries of licensed music, and more that commission sounds from the real cultural fringe. Until that happy day arrives, be staggered by the incorrect glory of Katamari on the Rocks. Chris would have hated it.

Dokaka - Katamari on the Rocks
(alternate download)

Rustavi Choir - Tsmindao Chmerto

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 01:31:57 GMT

Today I am sore and tired and in need of musical relaxants, so if you were visiting Doklands hoping for some more Noism, you're out of luck. If you've developed the quintessentially modern allergy to all things religious, you're also out of luck, for Tsmindao Chmerto is as churchy as it gets. It's sung here by the Rustavi Choir, the famous Georgian vocal ensemble.

Oh yes, I would say sod the cultural provenance and all that, but frankly today I cannot be arsed. Just listen. It's lovely.

Rustavi Choir - Tsmindao Chmerto
(alternate download)

Charming Hostess - Seven Spirits

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 01:43:38 GMT

I love Jewlia Eisenberg and Charming Hostess. They make some of the most thrilling, avant-garde and complete music around. It's a treat emotionally, intellectually and physically. Where I'm more uncomfortable is when they try to extend their sphere into the spiritual. I'm a little dubious about the cultural provenance of Seven Spirits, a recording from their ongoing Bowls Project.

The music claims inspiration from 1,500 year old Babylonian incantation bowls, ritual talismans inscribed with wishes and buried under the foundations of households. What's the significance of raising the profile of this practice? Ritual activities and mythopoeic thought are all well and good, but why recreate some ancient practice? It looks as if they're falling into the trap of giving extra significance to a source based on its age. Eisenberg makes claims for the vibrant, sexually empowered female voices found on these bowls but you could say much the same for slash fiction, and I don't see many progressive artists in any hurry to mine that rich cultural vein.

Sorry.

All of this brouhaha aside, Seven Spirits sees Charming Hostess reduced to a duo but still on top form: a haunting and strangely catchy amelodic refrain and some great tongue-slapping saxophone. You may not like this as much as I do, but like it you will.

Charming Hostess - Seven Spirits
(alternate download)

John Zorn - Peur sur la Ville

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 00:55:39 GMT

I fully admit that yesterday's track might have been a bit lacking, musically speaking. How about I make it up to you? Now, chances are I don't know much about you, but I'm pretty sure we can agree on a couple of things. Firstly, John Zorn is at worst interesting and at best quite fantastic. Secondly, Ennio Morricone was a musical genius. That wasn't too much of a stretch, I hope. So, given all of that, and given the existence of The Big Gundown, an album made up almost entirely of Zorn covering Morricone's film music, it makes for the sort of thing that needs to be heard, right?

I'll be honest with you: I've played this album to death over the years. I've played it so much, and the music has become so familiar, that I'm way past the point of being able to tell you which individual tracks I'm most fond of. It was originally released in 1985, and there was a 15th anniversary special edition that added six extra tracks. Don't get the special edition. There is one track on there so hatefully awful that all the love and goodwill this album engenders could be instantly lost. Anyway, I'm going from the memory of what it was like to listen to this record for the first time when I pick out Peur sur la Ville for you. The film was French thriller starring Jean-Paul Belmondo, and in Zorn's hands the theme for this becomes a gritty, grinding caterwaul with heartbeat drums, detuned piano, mouth organ and some absolutely ripping Arto Lindsay guitar. Just tremendous. But then this entire album is.

John Zorn - Peur sur la Ville
(alternate download)

Child Pornography - Fossil Combs

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 01:42:50 GMT

How much do you know about the band Child Pornography? Absolutely nothing, that would be my guess. Me too. And you know what? Somehow, I don't think I'll be searching for any information either. If I tell you that Fossil Combs is taken from their album Homosexual Cookies you might well decide that they're not only trying too hard, they're also being a bit bloody obvious about it too. You might well be right. That aside, this is good stuff: primitive lo-fi electropunk. But would any of us be listening if they had a different name?

Child Pornography - Fossil Combs
(alternate download)

Power Tools - Unchained Melody

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:35:32 GMT

Is it okay to admit that I feel slightly let down by Power Tools? When I heard that there was a 1987 trio featuring Bill Frisell and Ronald Shannon Jackson and that they were called Power Tools, I thought it was going to be the missing link between Last Exit and Naked City. I wanted them to make a fucking almighty racket. And they didn't.

Sure, the musicianship is there. Frisell shreds and Jackson does his quasi-military thing, but I wanted something with a bit more grunt, a bit more bottom. Instead it's all spacious and delicate, and the funk edge added by bassist Melvin Gibbs is just a little unconvincing. It just doesn't feel like they're filling all of the available space.

Still, what is a drawback on the preceding 9 free jazz originals is made up for by Strange Meeting's closing track. A cover of this '60s pop standard needs the sort of airy subtlety that these three guys were giving. An unashamed pleasure.

Power Tools - Unchained Melody
(alternate download)

Wrnlrd - Marauder

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:00:41 GMT

Time for some inscrutable black metal from the impossible-to-pronounce Wrnlrd. If you're wondering why you should give a toss about some lo-fi noise rock from a one mand band you've never heard of (and are frankly unlikely to ever heard of again) it's simply this: it's fascinating. Take a chance and listen to Marauder. It's only 82 seconds long, but it somehow manages to evoke a dark folk music, with a melody of extraordinary sadness buried beneath the roar of distorted guitars. Startlingly good stuff. It's taken from Wrnlrd's 2007 album Cperadt, which seems to be all about werewolves. Hey, nothing's perfect.

Wrnlrd - Marauder
(alternate download)

Eyvind Kang - Doorway to the Sun

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 01:44:35 GMT

I shouldn't really be posting another Eyvind Kang track so soon, but have come to the realisation that you really ought to hear this one. Doorway to the Sun is the longest track on his 2004 album Virginal Co-Ordinates. It's got that easy lack of genre associated with film soundtracks, and the fact that it's played with a small orchestra helps that. Sonorous textures, chanted vocals, and some particularly satisfying clay pot-sounding percussion keeps this one alive for close to twenty minutes.

Eyvind Kang - Doorway to the Sun

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba - Ngoni Fola

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 01:24:05 GMT

I hope you're not getting fed up of all the recent Malian music that's been featured here of late, because I find this stuff irresistible. This is particularly good. Bassekou Kouyate plays the ngoni, a traditional instrument which looks like a cricket bat and sits somewhere in between a lute and a banjo. Ngoni Fola is taken from his 2007 album Segu Blue and the terse, clipped phrases are played with a rhythmic drive and rush. Just when you think you've got a handle on things, Kouyate starts mixing things up to make some of the most honestly thilling music I've heard in quite some time.

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni ba - Ngoni Fola
(alternate download)

The Mammoth 89 Key 'Gavioli' Fairground Organ - Twelfth Street Rag

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 01:33:01 GMT

Today I had an unexpectedly thrilling adventure, as I was invited to see the inside of a working 89 key, 440 pipe fairground organ.

Let me explain. For years, my father volunteered for the St. John's Ambulance service. This meant that many summer weekends the family would go off to visit some random event, dad in his uniform and the rest of us along for the ride. Summer fêtes, charity sporting events, motocross rallies: we did them all. If you ever needed a childhood education in the absurdity of human endeavour, this was it. A few highlights stand out: playing vintage bagatelle tables, winning the grand prize of a bumper Danish Tourist Board information pack, and standing in front of vintage mechanical organs as they blasted out hokey old tunes.

The Gavioli (of 31 Bond Street, New York) organ is not hokey. It is truly mammoth. It weighs about four tons, fits into the back of a lorry, and when it opens its pipes the volume is intense. I'll tell you something: the recording I've found here doesn't do this beautiful beast of an instrument justice. It sounds slightly weedy, and slightly out of tune. The one I had the joy of exploring was not only properly maintained, but it could make a racket like nothing else. Concertina stacks of punched cards sped through its feeder as the drums, triangle, cymbals, glockenspiel and several hundred feet of organ pipe blared away just inches from my ears, the huge flywheel spinning constantly, and the release valves blowing the unused air back at the operator. Tremendous, and if you ever get the opportunity to see one of these glorious old machines in action you should not pass on it.

Thanks to Slothy's Pigeonshit for providing the rip of this track, taken from the album Fairground Fantasia in Stereo.

The Mammoth 89 Key 'Gavioli' Fairground Organ - Twelfth Street Rag
(alternate download)

John Surnman - Roundelay

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:18:10 GMT

I have very fond memories of John Surman's Private City. It was on my walkman a lot in the early 1990s as dérived through the streets of Edinburgh. I had the notion that this would be the ideal album for exploring the psychogeography of the place. With a title like that, how could it not be? As it happened, I was completely wrong, and it turned out that the urban mythologising of The Fall was far better suited for my purpose, but at least I got lots of exercise and listened to Surman a lot, and that's never a bad thing.

To be honest, on revisiting this album I cringe a little at some of the synth sounds. They're all a bit wibbly wobbly, you know? When Surman was doing his thing with multitracked woodwinds it's all a lot more satisfying. Here's the gentle and quite delightful Roundelay. Surman often used sequencers and delay effects, creating a bass line on one instrument which he could then repeat and play over on another. There's something of that here, but in this case the repeated bass figure gives this an almost baroque feel, despite the pronounced but delicate swing. It might be polite music, but there's a passionate restraint at play here. Excellent.

John Surman - Roundelay
(alternate download)

Boubacar Traoré - Kanou

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:17:15 GMT

Boubacar Traoré has been called the Malian Robert Johnson. A pioneer of West African blues, he was a hugely popular performer during the '60s. It wasn't until 1990 however that he was able to record an album. That was the haunting and desolate Mariama, a classic of the singer-songwriter with guitar genre.

Fast forward to 2005 and the release of Kongo Magni. It's a decidedly different beast, with Traoré in command of a full band. Here's the extraordinary Kanou, where his guitar takes a back seat to some wickedly sprightly Arabic accordion playing from sideman Regis Gizavo. It's got that classic North African call and response thing going on. Real melting pot stuff, and absolutely terrific with it. You will love this.

Also beaupepys.com is open. Go visit!

Boubacar Traoré - Kanou
(alternate download)

Cliff Adams - The Night Rider

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:07:47 GMT

It takes a certain kind of man to leap from a helicopter, dive from a cliff and fight off sharks, leap a broken bridge in a sports car, pilot his speedboat over a waterfall and then blow it up to cause a distraction so he could sneak into a woman's boudoir. In more innocent times, men were doing this on a daily basis, just so they could deliver boxes of chocolates. Nowadays we call those sorts of men stalkers. I wonder though, mightn't the world be a happier place if there were more tight black polo necks and fewer restraining orders? I do believe we can create that world together, dear readers, and we can start by listening to Cliff Adams' The Night Rider, better known as the theme to the Cadbury's Milk Tray adverts. Before you know it, we'll be zipping down rope slides and climbing through skylights like we were meant to. Happy days.

Cliff Adams - The Night Rider
(alternate download)

Michael Harrison - Homage to La Monte

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:41:46 GMT

Michael Harrison studied with La Monte Young and Pandit Pran Nath. You know the difference between equal temperament and just intonation, right? Just intonation divides the octave via use of whole numbers, and is said to produce more characterful sound, but it sounds pretty terrible when you change key. Equal temperament, what we've mostly been listening to since the 18th century, uses a logarithmic division of the octave whereby adjacent notes always have an equal interval. Harrison is firmly on the just intonation side of the musical divide.

For years he had been playing his harmonic piano, a dramatically retuned instrument that allowed the division of the octave into 24, rather than 12, parts. That changed with the release of his work Revelation, where he pulls yet stranger harmonic tricks. From Revelation, this is Homage to La Monte which is a spectral and tentative thing. My only complaint is that this falls into what's become the signature trap of modern microtonal music, melancholic wistfulness. Microtonal music doesn't have to be mournful, and I'd be fascinated to hear what else he could do with it.

Michael Harrison - Homage to La Monte

Nurse With Wound - Two Mock Projections

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:59:39 GMT

Thirty years on, perhaps the strangest thing about Nurse With Wound's debut album is just how non-threatening it now seems. To be sure, Chance Meeting on a Dissecting Table of a Sewing Machine and an Umbrella is still a seminal piece of industrial noise. Perhaps its the nostalgia speaking, or perhaps it's the caterwauling guitar that adds a certain period charm. Still, don't go listening to this looking for an easy ride. Two Mock Projections is the opening track, and so for many people probably marks the first and last time they ever heard Steve Stapleton. But go on. Search out some more. He doesn't bite, much.

Nurse With Wound - Two Mock Projections
(alternate download)