Let the music do the walking, never mind the editorial bit at the top, same thing, different week. Another five slices of music things and however you slice it and of course it was fishy and here comes the introduction that heralds the latest Five Music Things thing and whatever the hell the five music thing is actually all about. Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Do we need to do the editorial bit again? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying pigs out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? Was there ever a reason? What do reasons make? Five more, snake oil? Everything must go and same as last time (and the time before that) 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 why we started this thing 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? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, we do it so you don’t have to, we are very (very) very very picky about what we actually post on these fractured pages or about what gets played on the radio or indeed what we hang in a gallery. Cut to the chase, never mind the editorial, 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 it, who needs an editorial or words or worms in general? What’s Wordsworth? Just facts and links and sounds then. Here you go, play the music, grab your five, eat your greens, go eat some art, go eat some dirt and don’t forget whatever it was we said you shouldn’t forget last time…  

1: Zohra – Zohra Atash (Azar Swan, Religious to Damn) has just announced Murder In The Temple, her debut solo album as Zohra will be out March 17th, 2023 via American Dreams. The news comes with a rather throbbbbbing first taste in the shape of the title track Murder In The Temple, a piece that features vocals from the one and only Lydia Lunch. More details in terms of te album via the Bandcamp page. There is a video, they have it set so you can only view it on YouTube. There is a long press release, we’ll digest all that and the new album and we’ll be back with more, that pulsating drone underneath Lydia has our attention…

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2: The Telescopes – The Turns is the lead single for Experimental Health and borrows from Edward ‘Diogenese’ McKenzie who was capable of arcane wisdom such as “Live while you can and live in clover, when you’m dead you’m dead all over”. The phrase appears in the song as ‘live while you can and live all over, when you’re dead you’ll be dead all over’.

McKenzie was one of many homeless people who found a place with the artist Robert Lenkiewicz. McKenzie agreed to have his body preserved as a memento mori after his death and retained as an artefact beneath the bed of the artist. Stephen’s wife Andrea was painted by Lenkiewicz. Andrea now works in health care, ‘the turns’ is a terminology used for turning a patient in order to prevent bed sores.

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There’s more of the rather warm album to be found on Bandcamp, we haven’t had time ot really explore yet, feeling rather positive about the first tastes though, more soon when we’ve hopefully been able to explore the whole thing. Do like the qulaity of those sounds and the way it is all put together so well…

“Experimental Health is the 14th album from The Telescopes and their third release on the Weisskalt label. The album was created entirely independently by Stephen Lawrie in a remote cottage in West Yorkshire between January to May 2022.

Experimental Health is folk music made with broken toys and cheap synths – mostly Pocket Operators and miniature synths. There are no guitars present on the album, most of the instrumentation costing £50 or less. The complexity of sound rests within the simplicity of the composition and musical arrangements.

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3: Loki’s Folly are a three piece from Minneapolis, Minnesota, they’ve released a whole bunch of singles over the last few months, including the latest, Beaches and Peaches, this week. All this is ahead of a debut album Susi out on February 21st (on Kitten Robot). There’s hints of things like The Beths or The Linda Lindas, there’s quite a variery of flavours in those singles but it does all fall into place on the album we’ve just been listening to for the first time today –  “Loki’s Folly are two sisters and a brother who play loud music that makes them happy and might cause a little mischief”. More soon both here and in other places I expect.. here’s their website.  

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4: Jonah Yano & Badbadnotgood – Now don’t be asking us that much about Jazz, ask us about lots of thing, but not too much about jazz. I do like that dog though and I do like this trach and a good dog and a fine piece of music is more that enough whatever you want tO call it.

Ahead of his latest album, Jonah Yano “shares the final advance single co-produced by Badbadnotgood. The track, “the ordinary is ordinary because it ordinarily repeats” is the final pre-release offering from Jonah’s forthcoming album Portrait of a Dog, out on Friday via Innovative Leisure. Opening with fleet-footed base notes, the track opens into a cresendo of jazz prowess from Jonah and the Badbadnotgood crew, with space for each instrument to shine.

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The album a few more advance tastes ahead of Friday’s release can be heard on the Bandcamp page, some of it it a little to omellow and laid back and well, smooth for these eyes but hey, did like the dog track…

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Enough of that jazz stuff, fire up the Pigs….

4 and a bit: Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs have just unveiled video for new single Ultimate Hammer, another track from Land of Sleeper (out 17th February on Rocket Recordings)

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5: Exploding Star Orchestra – “Rob Mazurek returns with a New Exploding Star Orchestra release” reads the press release headline and here’s something called Future Shaman but don’t let that or the 30 seconds that start the track put you off, let the whole eight and a bit minutes flow and all you really need to know is that the track is from the soon to be released (in March) album Lightning Dreamers and that Lightning Dreamers is new work by composer, trumpeter, interdisciplinary abstractivist and modern music mogul (whatever the hel that means?) Rob Mazurek, who wrote the music for a compacted version of his long-running Exploding Star Orchestra. A follow-up to the acclaimed 2020 Mazurek/ESO release Dimensional Stardust, the album features guitarist Jeff Parker, vocalist Damon Locks, drummer Gerald Cleaver, and pianists Angelica Sanchez and Craig Taborn, among others. It was recorded mostly at the remote Sonic Ranch studios in West Texas, not far from Mazurek’s current home in Marfa, in the days leading up to a debut of the music at Trans Pecos festival in September 2021… read more on the Bandcamp page

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And while we’re here, some more Black Sabbitch, live footage from 2018 this time, a band we’ve mentioned quite a few times now, we don’t really go in for tribute bands but Sabbitch stand out far more than most do…. Got some UK tour dates kicking around here somewhere, May 4th Camden Underworld, London was one of them…

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