We could do that five musical things again, we could, socially distanced of course, no Cummings-like arrogance here, or Arts Council aloofness,  create is still the word here, always has been. Five more slices of music that have come our way in recent times..

1: Caleb Dolister – “If you like the post-genre music of Cinematic Orchestra, Electric Masada, Jaga Jazzist, Mike Oldfield, Steve Tibbetts, and Tortoise watch for Daily Thumbprint Collection 3, The Wandering an album of new progressive / post-rock instrumental music by composer / drummer Caleb Dolister (The Kandinsky Effect, DR. MiNT).” The album is coming out on June 5th, 2020 on Orenda, the details can be gathered from the label’s Bandcamp page

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2: ILS are a 4 piece “disaster chic” band from Portland, OR.   ILS consists of Tom Glose (Black Elk) on vocals.  Nate Abner (The Days, The Nights) on guitar.  Tim Steiner (Passerby) on drums and Adam Pike (White Orange) on bass and “disaster chic”? Kind of like “disaster chic”, kind of like this, kind of like this lots, so damn nice, so damn rich, the sound I mean, rich sound, raging, kind of how I feel today, hissing out those lyrics to White Meat, yes! This is good, “’cause the problems of this world…”, oh look, this is a conflicted start to the week, this would have hit the spot on most Mondays though, this is what we need, this feel good, thanks for sending this one in Pogo people,  there’s a couple of trtacks on the Bandcamp thing, the two tracks are all we’ve heard so far, but hey, one of the bonuses of all this Organgrinding is that the whle thing is sitting in my in-box waiting to be fired up, stay tuned for more now, for now the Pogo Records Bandcamp will give you a taste….

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3: Penfriend – Now this probably needs more than a mention on a postitnote, don’t stand so close ot me, everything looks normal, now this is good, this is uplifting, I keep coming back to this, sometimes it sounds gloriously good, and then at other times it sound politely twee, no, this is brilliant, no, this is annoyingly twee, no, stop eing so angry jsut bask in the goodness of the tune, the sunshine of it all, can’t be raging against the machine all day every day, take heart. been sitting on this one for days now, does it need more of a mention here? I don’t know, it all seems very nice and polite and well don’t stanf so close to me, take heart, “Debut single “Everything Looks Normal In The Sunshine” was born as the horror of Coronavirus overtook the news. Shocked by the way life in her local neighbourhood seemed to carry on regardless – lawns were mowed, sparrows chirped and Laura’s dogs always need their walks – her heartfelt response was, naturally, a song”, Laura Kidd, She Makes War and such, it kind of feels like it did feel when we did all pull together, but then Bris trashed all that and the need for this kind of uplifting sentiment is battling with the anger and shall we post this here or shall we go riot instead? Everything did look kind of normal in a very not very normal kind of way, we clapped, we were all in it together and and and with alll the bad things that were happening this is still how it felt, then boris trashed all that and now it all feels so so different and right now it feels like…. oh I don’t know.

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Meanwhile, back in another time a million miles from where we are now, back in 2012 when things seemed so much more hopeful than they are and the little battles were nothing like they are now…  You do know you can just click on the bandcamp log ot get to these things and download them or buy them or d owhatever you need ot do don’t you? You do know you don’t actually need an actual link, this album from eight years ago will put more meat on those Penfriend bones and yes, we do need it all here today.

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4: Pierre Omer & The Nightcruisers – “Bonsoir dear team of the Organzine, Pierre Omer & The Nightcruisers is the new project of ex-Dead Brother Pierre Omer: A ten-man/women orchestra, bringing together some of Geneva’s finest musicians from The Young Gods, Hell’s Kitchen, Lyn M & Alain Frey from Elvett/Aloan, Pierre Omer’s Swing Revue plus Christian Aregger from Swiss german duo Blind Butcher” The album was apparently released on 8 May through both Radiogram Records (CH-Genève/ Fribourg) and French label Beast Records. Rather like the warmth of this first taste, bonsoir indeed

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5: The Silver Field – “The Silver Field is a sound world of Coral Rose & friends. Voice, tapes, bass, strings, reeds, drums, small sounds, big sounds, sunlight, moonlight, a lot of water” and.oh look, I can’t be raging, we can’t all be raging, I mean we are Boris, we really are, and it feels not so important as it was a couple of weeks ago, the posting of music I mean, but you can’t take it all away Boris, you and the rest of your lot, treating us with  the contempt you think we deserve, taking away all the beauty in the world,  “Sing High! Sing Low! is the second album from The Silver Field, a sound world of Coral Rose and friends, to be released 12th June 2020 on Crossness Records. Its nine exploratory tracks combine to form an aural postcard – a collection of snapshots following the path of a journey. The story picks up where debut album Rooms (O Genesis Recordings, 2019) left off, with a decisive stepping out into the world, and follows Rose’s next steps, with one eye still trained on that starting point.  A familiar part of Rose’s song craft, many of the tracks on Sing High! Sing Low! are formed around tape loops. These loops often go back to The Silver Field’s inception, drawn from the same collection of source material as Rooms. What sets these songs apart from their predecessors is a striking new sense of extroversion, an exploratory propulsion, charting new musical territory while holding tight to the homemade idiosyncrasies of her previous work. Rose’s vocals stand front and centre, her sonic tapestries unfurled to their fullest, her storytelling more vibrantly human than ever before”.

Sing High! Sing Low!, rather like Penfriend up there, is a tiny bit of haven in an utter shitstorm, there’s only a couple of tracks there to listen to on the Bandcamp page right now, just a taste, not enough to base an album review on, but those two tracks do hint at lots lot more, they hint to hopeful things, beautiful things, of welcoming fires and golden feelings, of beautiful instrumentation, clever paintings, simple ones, simple sound paintings, uncluttered hope…

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