All the striving and the doing it, on we go, the Five music things thing yet again (and again) for whatever it still might be worth. Five? There’s something rather compelling about five, cross-pollination? Five more? Do we need to do it again? Is there another way? A cure for pulling cats out of hats? A new editorial yet maybe? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever? What do reasons make? Again and again and again (and again). Five more, same as last time (and the time before) five, and no, we never do and the proof of the pudding is in that proof reading. When we started this thing, oh never mind, it doesn’t matter and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? Does anyone ever actually look down the rabbit hole or is it all just method acting? Cut to the chase, we could just cut ‘n paste the editorial from the last time, there’s loads of music further down the page, well five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and cut cut slash and cut to the damn chase, who needs an editorial? Here’s your five for today.
1: Telefis with Jah Wobble “Telefís are proud to present, in collaboration with Jah Wobble, this full reworking of Falun Gong Dancer. It has LOW end, play loud! What an honour to work with one of the signature instrumentalists of the years we’ve each been operating in music…” You can find and indeed buy various versions of the rather beautifully warm piece via Bandcamp. I must admit it was the beautiful low end of Jah Wobble that pulled us in more than the album that Telefis – a collaboration between Cathal Coughlan (Microdisney, Fatima Mansions) and Jacknife Lee (ex-Compulsion) – have made. Read more about the Telefis album down there underneath the Wobble YouTube…
That Jah Wobble painting just up there, Towerblocks and Sunsets, was from his January 2020 exhibition Towerblocks and Sunsets that happened at Stash Gallery, Vout-O-Reenee’s back in the old world
“Telefís is a collaboration between Cathal Coughlan (Microdisney, Fatima Mansions) and Jacknife Lee (ex-Compulsion and producer for U2, REM, Modest Mouse). During the lockdown period, the pair have created their debut album, ‘a hAon’, a wry, mischievous collection of songs that express a “corrosive nostalgia”. ‘We Need’ and ‘Mister Imperator’ are the first songs to be shared from this record”
On the new collaboration Cathal observes…”Collaborating in this way, with a dynamic and consummate artist, who has access to a wide range of skills which I don’t have, but with whom I share many common interests and cultural/historical reference points, has been one of the highlights of my creative life. It’s made me so glad that I’ve been able to remain active for long enough to see something like this happen. Easily as spontaneous and full of surprises as any in-person collaboration, it’s shaken loose many weird and hopefully wonderful things in my verbal workshop. And nobody has heard me use my voice in some of these ways before now, either.” More from Bandcamp
.
2: El Ten Eleven‘s new album ‘New Year’s Eve’ will be out on March 4 via Joyful Noise Recordings. Don’t ask us why an album with a title like that didn’t come out on on December 31st, we could read the press release, I;m sure there’s a damn fine reason why an album called New Year’s Eve is coming out in march but hey, things to do, paint to throw, here is that press release, just under the video. if you feel the need to know
“El Ten Eleven, the SoCal duo whose 2020 triple-LP Tautology series presciently and ambitiously put the arc of human life to music, return with a joyously unrestrained six-song album, New Year’s Eve out March 4th on Joyful Noise Recordings.
“New Year’s Eve is a reference to guarded optimism about what is to come. At the time, it seemed like our national divisiveness might be waning and the end of the pandemic was near. But of course that’s not how it turned out,” bassist Kristian Dunn said of the album’s inspiration. “That’s what New Year’s Eves are. You think it’s gonna be a fun night, but usually it’s disappointing at the end.”
The outfit preview New Year’s Eve with the release of a new song and accompanying video for “Meta Metta”. The performance clip was filmed at The Cube in Los Angeles.
Over the course of 20 years and 11 albums, El Ten Eleven has continued to redefine the potential of bass guitar and drums. With an arsenal of pedals, labyrinthine arrangements, and a deft use of looping, Kristian Dunn (bass) and Tim Fogarty (drums) create two-man symphonies. With New Year’s Eve, the duo melds electrifying disco grooves with their tried-and-true experimental rock atmospherics.
Throughout its six tracks, New Year’s Eve romps through infectious grooves, Rototom blasts, electrifying breakdowns, and meditative reprieves. Along with the pedal-fueled trickery and musical prowess fans have come to expect from El Ten Eleven, New Year’s Eve channels Dunn’s lifelong love of disco. Memories of a childhood spent spinning Niles Rogers and Chic while his peers blared heavy metal, Dunn imbued his own emotions onto the delightful excess of disco.
“I’m a huge fan of disco music, and I mean that completely sincerely,” Dunn says of the Sonny DiPerri (DIIV, Portugal The Man) produced album. “I’m a bass player, so the bass is often the driving lead instrument of disco music, so that appealed to me–that’s just in my blood. This love was always in me, and it was time for it to come out. The album is kinda funky and kinda dancy, but with my sad boy Kristian Dunn crap on top.”
The band closed out 2021 with a debut of the album’s title track and an ongoing U.S. tour, which resumes this Friday in Los Angeles. The full list of dates, which sees the pair on the road for the first three months of the New Year, are below. Supporting artists include Sego, Mylets, Cedric Noel, and A Beacon School”.
They have some UK dates as part of a European tour – May 12: Glasgow @ Broadcast, May 13: Leeds @ Boom, May 14-15: London @ Portals Festival, May 15: Bristol, @ The Crofters Right
And here is that lead track via Bandcamp
.
3: Pom Poko – “Enduro Corner” is taken from the Pom Poko EP “This Is Our House” released 28th January 2022 via Bella Union
“Pure Norwegian Punky Sweetness. A punk attitude combined with a nerdy knowledge of pop history makes for an explosive package often compared to Le Tigre, Deerhoof and Duchess Says. Sweet sing-song vocals are mixed with intense grooves, bouncy guitars and crazy riffs, and make Pom Poko a feat to behold live. Reduce the testosterone, increase the sugar rush, and get ready for this K-PUNK explosion”.
Here’s their album from last year, we should have paid a bit more attention to it…
.
3: Black Flower – Five-piece hybrid jazz outfit Black Flower are set to release new single ‘Morning In The Jungle’ today (7th January), the third single to be taken from their forthcoming critically acclaimed album ‘Magma’, released 28th January via Sdban Ultra. Piloted by Brussels-based saxophonist/flutist/composer Nathan Daems (Echoes of Zoo, Dijf Sanders), the quintet is a vibrant, hypnotic mix of Ethio jazz, afrobeat, psychedelia and oriental influences, inspired by Mulatu Astatke, Fela Kuti and varied western musical traditions
“Featuring Belgian singer-songwriter Meskerem Mees on vocals, ‘Morning in the Jungle’ was born not in a jungle, but in a city near a jungle. Black Flower were on tour in Brasil in 2020 and drank deeply from the cup. There were concerts and there was contact: spiritual, musical, cultural. Late one particular evening in the Lapa neighborhood of Rio De Janeiro there was a hand reaching through a crowd, owned by a dancing woman, reaching for a cell phone or wallet, finding its mark, then handing off the prize to a waiting accomplice. The remarkable aspect was the strange, deranged, toothless smile of this otherwise very beautiful woman, looking for an instant in recognition: of theft, of addiction, of pleasure, of complete loss of hope. What happened after that is a fantasy, of these two characters, the thief and the victim finding each other in a psychedelic moment of epiphany. Alone. In a holy jungle. Waking to a growing brightness finding its way through a canopy of leaves and wilderness”.
5: Binker and Moses – and while jazz flavours are flowing (as they were just now with Black Flower), a track from the forthcoming Binker and Moses album ‘Feeding The Machine’ (out on Feb 25th via Gearbox Records)
“Today, London jazz trailblazers Binker & Moses return with details of a new album titled “Feeding The Machine”. The new album marks the band’s first studio record since their widely-acclaimed 2017 album “Journey To The Mountain Of Forever”, and its subsequent live albums “Alive In The East?” and “Escape The Flames”. The album will be released 25th February via Gearbox Records (Abdullah Ibrahim, Graham Costello, Chiminyo, The Cookers, Levitation Orchestra) on ltd. edition ECO vinyl (200 Rough Trade Exclusive / 300 directly from the label), standard vinyl, CD, and digitally.
Recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios by legendary producer Hugh Padgham, the new album features honorary third member Max Luthert on tape loops and electronics, moving their sound into an entirely new dimension that crosses into ambient, minimalism and experimental electronic territories, whilst also nodding to the duo’s roots in riff-heavy free jazz.
Alongside the album announcement the band have shared a new single titled “Accelerometer Overdose”. The new track perfectly exemplifies the new dynamic that Luthert brings to the duo’s sound, with the atmospheric looping and distortion of Binker Golding’s saxophone creating a frenzied yet meditative soundbed, which Moses Boyd’s drumming manages to groove with and experiment on, propelling the track to the outer limits. “Accelerometer Overdose” is smattered with electronic idiosyncrasies and sonic rug-pulls, setting the tone for an album with surprises to be unearthed at every corner.
Speaking on the new material Moses Boyd says, “I feel myself and Binker have been wanting to create this album for some years. The timing was never right, and I also feel we needed some more experience under our belt to attempt a record like this. We knew we wanted it to be different from all our previous material. Each Binker and Moses record has a strong identity and we wanted to maintain that whilst contributing something new that excites us both.
When the opportunity came up to record it was quite last minute. We had no material planned but just a concept. Really, we took a huge leap of faith and went in the studio empty-handed. The only concept I had was this idea of feeding our improvisation through these different machines / configurations in the studio. We enlisted our long-time friend and collaborator Max Luthert on tape loops and modular synths to achieve this.
This album is less about the forms and melodies but more about pushing ourselves creatively within a different way of working. I feel we achieved something special which I’m very proud of.”
Binker Golding went on to say “I think the album for the most part has a really lonely feel. It’s the loneliest of the Binker & Moses albums, despite the dance tracks and I quite like that about it. It marks it out as different. Moses and I wanted to expand the sound of the band, but without adding more instrumentalists as we had on previous albums. In order to expand the sound of the saxophone and drums, we decided to ask Max Luthert to assist us on modular. Most of what you hear coming from the modular is actually a re-ordering of acoustic sax and drums. The only thing is it’s so distorted, that you wouldn’t recognise the acoustic sounds.”
Max Luthert has played live with Binker and Moses in various ensembles around the UK over the last 10 years, and also collaborated with the pair in Zara MacFarlane’s band which saw them tour around the world together.
On the new album, he says, “There wasn’t a lot prepared at all, if anything. I felt like Moses had a clear idea of the process and then we worked through it methodically. This was a big change to recording sessions I’d been involved in before and it was a really exciting way of working so very experimental from my perspective. I was very conscious not to detract from the sound of Binker and Moses and that I was very much there to compliment them. Taking that in to account I used modules that manipulated and effected sounds from them and the tape machine as that really felt like building on them and their playing rather than forcing something totally new. We agreed as well that there shouldn’t be lots of bass/sub sounds. Binker and Moses also have a very raw sound and so we settled on a lot of clean/pure sounding tones as those sounds complimented them really nicely.”
and while we’re here –
Can there be anymore Peter? Peter Gabriel, Peter Hammill, Stewart Copeland, L Shankar, David Rhodes, and Larry Fast performing “A Ritual Mask” at WOMAD in 1982.
THE ORGAN 