Who needs who? No time for editorials, repeat, replete, reheat, let the actual music do the actual walking and the actual talking. Exact same thing as last time once again, another five (or so) slices of music that have passed our way recently, five slices of music cherry picked for your delight and however you like to slice it and of course it was the price of bird seed and…

Five? There’s something rather compelling about five. Cross-pollination? Five more? Is there another way? A better way? A cure for pulling flying swordfish out of the clouds? Is there a rhyme? Is there a reason? What do reasons make? Five more? Cake oil? Snake oil? Bake the oil, everything must go somewhere 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 damn thing, we never should have done and like we asked last time, does anyone bother reading the editorial? We do really try to listen to everything that comes in, 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, skip this bit, there’s music further down the page, five or so pieces of music that have come our way in the last few days and what’s Wordsworth? Just the basic facts and links and those sounds (and visuals), that’s surely all you need from us on these Five pages we reguarly post?

Here we go, five more slices of music that have recently come our way, this time we start somewhere in New York in a purple flower garden…

1: Zoh Amba – Another Time, is from the forthcoming album Eyes Full, which in turn is out on June 5th via Matador Records, it is said to be “an album of tough and soulful songs that feel like a pure transmission from the heart”, here’s our and I guess your first taste of the album from the New York based artist. Kind of makes me think of that Rhatigan album we once released in the way she plays in such a deliciously free way…

2: Eel Men – Glass Hammers mate, get your ducks in a row, don’t make me mad.
North London-based band Eel Men announce details of their new 10” EP release, Glass Hammers, due for DIY release (whatever that means these days?) on May 15th, leading with the wiry, stomping EP title track and an accompanying video. The band also have two London shows planned around the release, with more dates in the works. Those dates; April 25th at New River Studios, London and May 22nd at The Social, London. Here’s the video and their Bandcamp page.

3: Félicia Atkinson and Christina Vantzou – Something from From Reflections Vol. 3: Water Poems and a film shot on expired 16mm and 35mm film stock by Colin Leveque, Elvis Fontaine-Garant, Julie Calbert, Thomas Depas and Florian Berutti….

“On Reflections Vol. 3: Water Poems, Félicia Atkinson and Christina Vantzou channel their friendship and atmospheric artistry into ceremonial focus. Spoken-word environments and orchestral imagination flow like tributaries into a unified stream, resulting in a collection of dreamlike songs and soundscapes anchored in sea, sky and stone. Through electro-acoustic instrumentation, voice, and environmental sound, Water Poems invites listeners into a subconscious space somewhere between everyday intimacy and the oceanic enigma from which all life unfolds….” Bandcamp

4: Kevin Zetina and well, a rather impressive version of Meshuggah’s Dancers To A Discordant System arranged for percussion septet by Kevin Zetina and performed by the University of Tennessee Percussion Ensemble. Directed by Kevin Zetina. Performed and recorded live at the University of Tennessee Knoxville on April 22, 2024. Performers: Annika Blackburn, Anna Davis, Lydia Dodd, Siena Fulton, Chang Gao, Eli, Garcia, & Burke Rivet. Follow Kevin’s Instagram for more about all this, or cut out the social media nonsense and head to www.kevinzetina.com

And should you need the reference then…

5: Hytta Trio and something rather delicious called Dråpeslått, something rather intriguing, the first track from their forthcoming album, Vindespel, on Krets Records on the 8th May.

Dråpe = drop or droplet as in a drop of water 

Slått = strumming, as in strumming of a guitar or hardanger fiddle, used as a type of tune/song/melody, very common as a postfix that defines the type of tune

Anne Hytta:  “Dråpeslått is a warped fiddle motif inspired by the klokkestille tuning used in traditional fiddle tunes. It is kneaded and shaped, turned and developed, imagining the fiddle-playing tradition as something fluid and idea-rich, rather than as finished, fixed melodies”.

Love the artwork, something called Siste Dans [Last Dance] by Jon Krosshus. More about the art, the album, the trio and the dråpe of it all in a few days, this is a wonderful first taste… here for now is a bag of links they’ve sent us

Yes – And there is new Yes, although who Yes actually are now is questionable, this guy They got from a Yes tribute band to replace Jon Anderson (years ago now) sounds likes some too perfect AI clone, in fact the whole band or at least this first track from the new album sounds like an AI version of the once vital band, and well, as recent Yes goes it is worth a mention even though, unlike Jon Anderson’s own rather excellent recent output, we really haven’t heard anything worth mentionng from the recent versions of Yes for years. There only really seems to be Steve Howe in the band now, I guess Billy Sherwood has been around for a good time and Geoff Downes is still there (oh the trouble that caused when those Buggles, Downes and Trevor Horn, replaced Jon Anderson and Rick Wakeman for the Drama tour after we’d all bought tickets and couldn’t get our money back when the line up changed rather dramatically at the last minute and all most of us knew of Downes and Horn at the time was the pop band and that single). Anyway, there’s new Yes, is sound a lot better than any of recent albums that we’ve msotly chosen not to cover even though Yes are conisdered to be one of the finest bands ever around these parts, yes it still sounds like an AI version of something or other and although Jon Davison (recruited in 2012 from Yes tribute band Roundabout) does sound like a Yes frontman should sound it all rather lacks the heart and soul that Jon Anderson brough to the band. The whole thing sounds rather cold and like they made it all (including the video) using AI – apparently they actually used the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Martinkabut – hey, look, it is the best this version of Yes have sounded for years and here it is, not one of our recommended five for the day, but something some might be curious about… Links

Here some early 70s footage when prog bands knew how to do things properly and why not have an official hot air balloon to follow you around on a UK tour?