I guess we just pick up like we nearly did last time and where we left off and who needs who? Still 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 yes we did say all this last time (surely no one reads the intro when the music is waiting down there)
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 and who reads editorials?
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, who are the cake? 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? On these Five Pieces of Music pages you 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 Bari, Italy…
1: Gat Osken – “Hi, we’d like to share with you Green Streams, the first single by us, a new Italian instrumental duo. The track blends post-rock, noir math, and percussive ecstasy. It offers a preview of the debut album Baratri d’Azzurro e Pozzi di Fuoco (out October 2). kind of like the sound of theeit Chasms of Blue and Wells of Fire so far… Here a Bandcamp thing and a link or two
Menawhile more from Geneva…
2: Geneva Jacuzzi – She’s made a new video, she doesn’t do things by halves. Directed and edited by Geneva Jacuzzi. Cinematography and art direction by Shannon Cornett. The set is a recreation of a one of the works by artist Steven Arnold, costume by Stacy Ellen Rich and Geneva Jacuzzi Lighting by Tom Nixon and Fred Joseph. The piece of music is from from the album Triple Fire on Dais Records, an album that came out in 2024…
Links: Bandcamp / www.genevajacuzzi.com
Previously –
3: The Velveteers want you to put their name in your mouth, chew it but whatever you do don’t be spitting it out, keep it there, pretty sure they would want you to keep it there. Says here that The Velveteers are “redefining modern rock with a sound that is as ferocious as it is finely crafted”, don’t know about the redifining of anything, juSt sounds like a good pop rock single to me, there have been thousands of good pop rock singles, we probably released a few oursleves back there. Nothing being redefined here, damn good single though; “Hailing from Boulder, Colorado, the trio fuses blistering riffs, hypnotic melodies, and explosive dual-drum percussion into a visceral live experience that has quickly established them as one of the genre’s most compelling new voices”. Here’s some links and for anyone who’s ready to think about next year, here’s some dates…
14 Feb – The Exchange, Bristol, UK
15 Feb – YES, Manchester, UK
16 Feb – Stereo, Glasgow, UK
17 Feb – Rough Trade, Nottingham, UK
18 Feb – Oslo, London, UK
19 Feb – The Hope & Ruin, Brighton, UK
20 Feb – Where Else?, Margate, UK
And for a complete change of almost everything….
4: Howlin Rain – “In celebration of twenty years riding the bus to never-ever land, Howlin Rain delivers Watermelon, due November 13 via Silver Current Records. The nine-track collection is a glittering gift of deep-cut cover tunes drawn from a late-night FM transmission that never was, evoking an era when LPs, waterbeds, and bongs sat side-by-side in headshops strewn across the coasts and flyover states. Watermelon sums up band founder Ethan Miller‘s long, strange trip from the blown-out Blue Cheer nebula of Comets On Fire, to Howlin Rain’s ongoing love letter to ’70’s rock radio (including a stint with Rick Rubin‘s American imprint), then a stopover in the acid-folk lily fields of Heron Oblivion before launching into the ecstatic silver currents of interstellar space with The Odyssey Cult and Orcutt Shelley Miller.
With Watermelon, Miller has reinvigorated Howlin Rain’s ever-changing roster once again, with only drummer Justin Smith from the last couple of lineups, adding Jonny Niemann (keys), Jason Soda (guitar and vocals), Kyre Wilcox (bass and vocals), and notable guests Chris Robinson (The Black Crowes), Ty Segall, and David Nance. The new band doesn’t quite return to the manicured hedges of The Russian Wilds, despite its exploration of some of those AOR tropes, but casts the lessons Miller learned in the major-label wilderness into a mirror of the band’s more modest, stripped-down roots, refracted back through the tighter psych moves of its more recent Silver Current releases.
Which brings us to the songs themselves, all perfect vehicles for the newly-minted lineup delivering tracks by Mountain, Judee Sill, Sugluk, Moby Grape, Fairport Convention, Todd Rundgren, Scott Walker, Tim Hardin, and Mountain Bus (who supplies “Rosali,” the album’s fitting closer, a great Dead-infused jam leading into the cosmic thicket). “Silver Paper,” the lead-off single out today, takes Mountain’s earnest, rough-hewn soul, aptly channeled by The Black Crowes’ Chris Robinson, and fretboard pyrotechnics into a much higher key”
“I have a crystalized memory of Chris and me standing over a record player in the desert, slurping down drinks and listening to Mountain’s Climbing at high volume at some ungodly hour of the night,” remembers Miller. “Of all the music that one might hear flying by over 20 years of friendship, that memory and that music has etched fondly in my mind. So you could say our ‘Silver Paper’ is a dedication and manifestation of that fine, fleeting moment.”
And there’s a lot more to the press release, we’ll save it and leave with the first track off the album for now, great version of a Mountain song…
5: Andrew Jim Gannon – Finally, even though these things are never in any kind of order, something from the just released remix E.P, Hydrate Those Folds! Refolded – “Following the release of album Hydrate Those Folds! earlier this year, today Hertfordshire-based producer Andrew Jim Gannon announces a new EP that contains reworks of standout album tracks from Xiu Xiu, Douglas Dare, Love Supreme and Ibibo Sound Machine.
This is Psychic Nights (Ibibo Sound Machine Remix), a piece that kind of sees the Nigerian-British collective rework the track into something entirely their own. Why we tell you all this I really don’t know but we do for some reason that it galloping off further into the distance….
Previously
Previously…
ORGAN: Five Music Things – Kraanerg’s adventurous kind of maximalism, London-based multidisciplinary artist Lim Orion, more of Perennial’s modernism, Flowers Must Die, Natural Information Society, a group who represent a convergence of musicians and artists who create sonic harbour, meditative space and kinetic momentum music are at Cafe Oto this week and…ORGAN: Five Music Things – The Black Wizards, Wormshot just landed here,
Shearwater featuring Laurie Anderson, Marina Herlop, Joyeria and…
Here’s some new Neil Young….
THE ORGAN 