More cherry picking through the mountain of albums, more picking of the cherries, picking off the cherries. the never ending pile of demanding cherries that find their way here on a daily basis. You surely know the policy by now? We do, on the whole, only feature the albums and things we feel positive about. We really don’t have time to clutter up these already overloaded pages with negative reviews of things that do nothing for us, there isn’t the time or space, there isn’t any need, although some times there probably is. Here’s another six or so albums, two of them by The Scaramanga Six, two of them by Kandodo…
Kandodo – Solstice / Dub / Dusk / Dawn (Cardinal Fuzz/Feeding Tube) – Something released by Simon Price AKA kandodo. Simon Price being the singer/guitarist with The Heads (are we supposed to say something about the legendary status of The Heads here?). An 80 odd minute couple of pieces of old school slightly space rock flavoured locked on Motorik positively repetative almost relentless psychedelic Kraut Rock instrumental music, the kind those legions of old Can/Neu influenced festival bands would reguarly release on very handmade tape albums back in the days of Hawkwind playing free festivals and the positive anarchy of Stonehenge and Club Dog and such and such. A double release on the Winter Solstice just to add to it all. Find it or them and explore for yourself via Bandcamp
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Adam Walton – Burmo – There’s some delightful moments here, some rather beautiful moments. Songs, just songs, songs about life, about life’s pleasures, simple things, simple is often clever, these are simple songs to really like, clever songs. Mostly uplifting, sometimes melancholic, inward looking but then there is enough of a smile to rhyme spaghetti with telly and well, he does have melodies that weave and glow, that life and flow, he does have songs that make you feel rather good about things on a cold Friday morning in late November – “My name is Adam Walton. I’m from Mold in north Wales. I love slightly off kilter chord sequences and melodies that weave and glow. If the melodies weave and glow for you, I’ll be a happy-ish man”. Adam talks of “scraps of Emitt Rhodes, Beck, De La Soul, Elliott Smith, Love, Teenage Fanclub, Modern Life Is Rubbish-era Blur, Richard Holland’s compilation tapes, The Zombies, Pink Floyd and The Boo Radleys” and yes, I can go along with that and I could probably add one or two more but he does give you that same feeling a good Teenage Fanclub song does, I might even here a moment or two of Misplaced Childhood in there but that might say more about my tastes than Adam’s? The things that are in my old shoebox as it were. These are quietly crafted songs that invite you to just go along with them, he’s right, they are like the things you find in an old shoebox; old photos, train tickets and places you went to, postcards you were sent (or you never sent maybe?), things always somewhere on your mind, hazy rivers, places alive, finches in trees and branches that could break at anytime. Hillside is a glorious closing song, the whole album is rather fine (not sure about the artwork though…). Another one you need to give time to, don’t just do that click on it for a minute thing, give it the proper time and respect it deserves…. Bandcamp
Trinary System – The Hard Machine (Cuneiform Records) –
Trinary System is Roger Miller’s current rock band. He plays guitar, sings and composes, he’s accompanied by Larry Dersch (Binary System, A.K.A.C.O.D., etc.) on drums and P. Andrew Willis (the Web, Crappy Nightmareville, etc.) on bass, vocals and electronics. The Hard Machine is a slow burner, it isn’t an album that hits you straight away, it is way more subtle than that, it isn’t all brought colours and look at me, it kind of creeps up, walks with you, walks home with you, has you retracing your steps as it slowly gets under your skin, you’re kind of thinking well I kind of like it and I did really like his previous band Mission Of Burma, I’ll give it one more play – “I think of Trinary System as my third, and last, really good rock band.” so said Roger C. Miller – his first band emerged in 1969, a band called Sproton Layer, in 1979 it was the excellent sound of Mission of Burma and all that reaching for things like his revolver and now, since 2012 he’s had this third rock band Trinary System (rock bands aren’t the only thing he does). This album came out back in October, I do keep going back to it and I really should point out that the Bandcamp page is set up so you can only hear half the tracks before you buy, you are getting nowhere near all the colour, you might well not be getting the best parts or at least the other more experimental dimensions. I keep coming back to it, I’ve been listening to it on and off since it first landed here a few weeks before release date, it really is a grower, it really is an album that at first has you thinking yeah okay, I kind of like it and no, hang on I more than like it, this is really good, and them maybe a week later you’re thinking hey, this is really really good, that bit there that’s in the shadow of the moon, that bit is really really good and you start to think I really see you…
Roger Clark Miller was born in 1952 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He began studying piano at age 6. Inspired in 6th grade by seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, he picked up guitar and bass guitar in middle school, and played French horn in the orchestra to avoid study hall. He was profoundly affected by the psychedelic movement which was full-blown by 1967 – here was real mind-altering music. Miller found his voice as a song-writer, composer and improviser in 11th grade (1969/ Sproton Layer).
Disillusioned with the conservative state of rock music in the 1970’s, Miller studied composition at CalArts and Thomas Jefferson College (see Cuneiform Records’ release of 1975 by The Fourth World Quartet). There he accompanied dance classes on piano. Adapting his musical skills for dance paved the way for his later soundtrack work (four films at Sundance, multiple silent film scores premiering with Alloy Orchestra at the Telluride Film Festival).
In 1978, Miller moved to Boston, where he co-formed the highly influential post-punk rock band Mission of Burma on guitar and voice in 1979. He continued playing keyboards and other instruments during and after Mission of Burma, starting with Birdsongs of the Mesozoic.
Under his band leadership, Miller has recorded over 60 albums, all of which push various envelopes and have generally received high praise.
When Mission of Burma inexplicably reformed in 2002, things took an amazing turn. But by 2012, Miller was looking for a way to free his guitar playing from the confines of a post-punk environment and conceived of Trinary System. He had played with Larry Dersch in Binary System, and knew that Dersch’s drumming would keep him on his toes. Miller met multi-instrumentalist P. Andrew Willis while Willis was engineering an Alloy Orchestra (now Anvil Orchestra) score. He found his comments intriguing, and, never having seen him play a note, asked him to join Trinary System on bass and synthesiser. It was the right decision. Trinary System began loosely based on previous non-Burma Miller compositions, but covering Miles Davis’ Black Satin and Can’s You Doo Right were turning points. Once the value of each player became clear, Miller began composing for the group in earnest.
“And this brings us to Cuneiform Records’ release of The Hard Machine where Trinary System is in full maturity mode, full-throttle, do or die. What else is there?” What else is there indeed? And here we are at the start of December and the blinkers have lifted, the ear mufflers have fallen off, we see you and maybe Monkey Off Your Back wasn’t the best starting point, it is the obvious radio friendly single off the album but opening the album with it however catchy and infectious and hey hey, come back, there’s lots more to the album that this admittedly excellent pop song that opens it and hang in there for the shuffle of the appropriately titled largely instrumental Late Bloomer, instrumental until they ask us what is is they’re trying to do? Until they start to stomp. Hey, you know what, this is an excellent album, why did it take so long to work it out?
Eight fine tracks that work so well as one whole thing, as one body, as an album in the proper sense. infinity plus tax? Plugs pulled? There are songs, good songs, there are wired riffs, dare we says sometimes rather post punk in nature? But there’s other things, side swipes, side streets, urgent bits, bits that a coloured a slightly different way within those tunes and songs…. You need the obtuse bits to really appreciate the rest of it, you need the whole thing to feel that asphalt and those cracks in time as well as the completed circle it eventually walks you on (through that run down par of town that takes to to where you ended up and then starts again).
Who are the other two?
Larry Dersch played in bands in his hometown of St. Louis, MO, before moving to Boston in 1986. He played on Miller’s 1988 album Win! Instantly!, and then in Miller’s Binary System (1995-2002). He is currently the second percussionist in Miller’s silent film accompanying ensemble The Anvil Orchestra. He has collaborated with Mark Sandman of Morphine, and toured Europe in the acclaimed A.K.A.C.O.D with Morphine sax player Dana Colley. He remains active in the Boston scene and in high demand, and he has won “Best Drummer” awards from the influential local zine The Noise three times.
P. Andrew Willis is “an ex-pat from the Louisville sub-underground” (Byron Coley, 2019), playing in the Web, Azuza Inkh and other improv/noise bands there. He moved to Boston in 1998 to study film scoring. There, he saw Binary System – and knew he’d be playing with them one day. When Miller began putting together Trinary System in 2012, Willis was the only person auditioned. The Hard Machine is a result of those decisions. Willis remains active as a soundtrack composer and improviser in Boston.
And then there was these two…
The Scaramanga Six – Glut (Wrath Records) – Well then, having all your cake and eating it all, it is a thankless task and there never is time to eat cake or count how many beans you might have in any of your hands at any given time. Crossing the eyes and dotting the teas or something like that, another album that came out ages and ages ago, well earlier this year and no we can’t be everywhere at all times. Like I said, it is thankless. No idea how many albums the rather English thing that is The Scaramanga Six have made now, they feel like they’ve been around for ages and ages (and ages), they feel like they make constantly good pop rock albums that a both infectious and full bodied, the kind of band you kind of hoped Pulp would be but never quite are. The Scaramanga Six deal in life, in pop art, the art of good pop songs, colourful ones that are laced with the the details that that, like the friendly orange street lights we miss so much, are missing in so much in these throwaway times of likes and Instagram Stories that are here today gone later today. This is proper full bodied pop that has enough to make it so so much more than just pop art and the parts you throw away. Yes, we should have reviewed it ages ago and not made it someone else’s problem, does everything have to be instant? Sometimes it does feel like rolling things up hills and not switching things off. The Scaramanga Six sound like they’d write a great James Bond theme tune, they sound like they have a better head, a new one growing where the old one was, a lot more than a bland interaction, a lot more than a ‘like’ on social media… They are consistently good, they want that adulation… Bandcamp,
If we have this right, Glut came out in April of this year, (maybe that AI generated video put us off back then?) and if we have it right, they released another album in October…
The Scaramanga Six – Dearth (Wrath Recordings) – Like buses these reviews, you wait all day in the rain in Huddersfield and then two show up. Hey we’ve covered them on our pages lots, we’ve played them on the radio many (many) times since the band from the North of England first emerged somewhere in 1995, enough is never enough.
Two albums in a year, you could easily just say more of the same but then it isn’t quite that. How do we deal with this? Hopeless blind frustration, grounded? Dearth came out in October, is this is kind of how Brit Pop should have been? Maybe but then modern life really is rubbish and one morning when we woke up and… Hey, not just one single hue and cry, no sign of a pattern, they are grandiose at times, pop songs laces with little bites or bits or flavours of The Who, those Sparks or Cockney Rebel or Pulp and come up and see me…. It was the day of the sorting and too wet to go out and so we thought we’d catch up with the things we need to catch up on and who cares what anyone says and how we’re going to pay the rent, we’re gonna do it anyway. Support the music you love, be kind and tolerant, go to a gig and have fun, and hey, support those who support these things as well. They don’t sound like they bang it out, two albums in a year but there is quality control and these songs aren’t like regular chickens, there is no such thing as an average pigeon, and that song about sleeping like the Tollund Man really does add to the rich tapestry of it all. This does take hours and hours and through the glut, through the dearth, cut them up, demand that time. Their twelfth studio album, their second of this year, who knew? Discontent? Our intent? A game of two halves? No, much more than that. have we wasted time? Would we do it all again? No. I expect The Scaramanga Six would though, they do have a way of sounding like no one else…. Bandcamp
The Tea Club – Chasm (96/24) – Let your yes be yes and your no be no, on we go, that bit there does sound like classic Yes without ever obviously sounding like Yes, yes! Oui, here we go the, more Tea Party and when will Isee you again? What kind of life is this? The Tea Club are from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – “Hello, This is Pat from The Tea Club. We’re an Art Rock/Progressive Rock band from the US. You guys have covered some of our music for The Organ. I wanted to reach out and let you know that we released a new record (our 6th) last week called Chasm. Anyway, thanks again for the support you’ve shown to us over the years. Hope you enjoy the new stuff. Take care! – Pat McGowan”. Now I’m going to resist the temptation to make a quip about bands only saying thanks when they want the next review and instead go put the kettle on and put some strawberry jam on a piece of bread and every morning is another day to say what nobody will say and is this your typical U.S band going all Styx or Journey somewhere around 1979 and reigning it all in like they all do? It started to feel like that but no, they’re doing different things this time, playing with electronics and sound a little like a U.S prog band somewhere around ’79 at times but no no no, they’re not reigning it in (not reigning it in with Silicon Sally in uncanny valley). This is good, this is more of that having all your cake and eating it all, The Tea Party are still ringing the right bell here. Hang on, that’s a bombastic piece right there, yes, they still have it, still as prog as flip, Go The Hell? Now that is maximalist, Yes indeed! Carry on you wayward sons and I fell on my face and that bit there in All The Living, that bit is properly sky touching and epic (and thankfully a million miles away from tedious neo) prog. Oh yes, a new album from the Tea Club has landed, let’s tuck in…
Nothing on this latest album from The Tea Club is obvious, which is of course just how it should be if you’re going to declare yourself a Progressive Rock band and details and words to invest time in, don’t be one of the ones who don’t want to work it out, or one of the ones that never saw the writing on the wall, we and they are still having a great time tearing down these gawd-forsaken walls. There’s lots to explore here, Get The Bullet is sounding demandingly good right here right now, Get The Bullet is menacing in a King Crimson kind of way without once again ever being obviously so – all turned on its head if you know what I mean, what an excellent piece of music, deliciously detailed. There something different this time around, The Tea Club are sounding like a band properly challenging themselves, a band making a full-bodied commitment to their art and not just making another album a bit like the last one. That bit there is more than a little bit in the spirit of Heart Of The Sunrise, that bit there in the middle of Low and Lonely, just in terms of feeling, not a copy, not a clone, nothing obvious, nothing like it really, just that feeling, that musical ambition, those demands they’re making on themselves as a band. Okay, so there is the gentle ballad (not even a power pop balled) that would have been the single back in the day and babe I’m leaving and they could maybe have left a few more seconds of silence between The Bell Ringer and the punch in the face that is the start of Go The Hell but nothing is ever perfect and your hurt is not mine and do not be alarmed for this must take place, not one stone left upon another…
Some of this is properly full on proper prog in the sense of that cool as flip prog thing bands like UK or King Crimson or Yes or Kansas once made, some of it is (adult orientated) pop music, challenging crafted pop music mind you, dare we call it, no, no, it isn’t AOR and no, never that boring neo prog thing either, never ever that tedious thing thankfully. Tear down all those godforsaken walls, we’re having a great time here exploring this sixth album from the Tea Club and it doesn’t matter if we never see any of you again and while the foxes have their way or we consider what might be on the other side of the hill and for this ot make sense you’ll have to explore it properly, who needs a review when you can just press play. Come over he said and I have a feeling, a really good feeling and what the hell do I know? Don’t believe a single word, there goes that menace again, Fripp on that bit! That was a hell of a speech. Get The Bullet is so damn good it makes me want to start a record label just so we can put it out a compilation album and say hey, have a slice of this, have some of those goosebumps. Oh yes, this is a good one, The Tea Club have delivered again…
Previously…
THE ORGAN 
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