It's been a busy week at Outsideleft HQ but, if like us, you've not got that much planned (certainly no street parties, no baking of quiches, that sorta thing), then you'll be able to take a leisurely listen, to all of the records that our team have been so eagerly scribbling about.
Thanks to Alan Rider, Tim London, Lee Paul, Toon Traveler, Jay Lewis, DJ Fuzzyfelt, LamontPaul and Ancient Champion for their words.
SINGLES
M. WARD - Supernatural Thing (Anti Records)
by Alan Rider
I have a friend called M. Ward, although he changed his surname to his wife's after he got married. That's a good thing by the way, as it's striking a blow against a male-dominated culture. So actually, I don't have a friend called M.Ward, not anymore, but he is still a friend. Does he have any connection at all to this record? None whatsoever (apart from the tenuous name thing) but it's a lot more interesting than the record itself, which is dull,dull,dull! In fact, it is so dull I can barely stay awak...zzzzzzz!
BLUE STATUE - Lachrymose (Fourth Dimension)
by Alan Rider
Blue Statue certainly believe in doing things differently. Most acts release a couple of singles, then an album, with download and streaming offered simultaneously with the LP/CD. Blue Statue release an album on CD, then a couple of singles, then the download several months after the original CD release. Musically they don't do things by halves either. 'Lachrymose' is a stormer of a song, brimming over with energy like a modern-day Scars. When played neighbour annoyingly loud, it is epic. Now, you are all probably wondering what 'Lachrymose' means. To save you reaching for the dictionary I will tell you. When I say "reaching for the dictionary", I of course mean Googling it. No one uses a physical dictionary these days, though I think I may have one on a shelf somewhere just to make me look more educated (plus it makes a handy weapon to clout burglars over the head with should the need ever arise). 'Lachrymose' means being tearful or given to weeping. I could say in this case, those are tears of joy but I might be exaggerating a bit there, so let's just say this is a stonking single from a band very much on the up.
JAD FAIR & DANIELSON + KRAMER - In A Lonely Place (Shimmy Disc)
by Alan Rider
They certainly didn't spend a lot of time fleshing out the lyrics to this one. Basically, the title is repeated at intervals throughout over a shimmery, piano-driven piece of atmospherics. I think I may have heard something about being in a room too at one point, but lazy isn't the word for this. If you were given 10 minutes to write this, you'd have 9 minutes left over to make yourself a cup of tea (or maybe two). This gives a bad name to collaborations. If you are presented with this in some random Spotify list that it thinks you will like, my advice is to skip to the next track.
KIM PETRAS & NICKI MINAJ - Alone (UMG)
ZERO s
by Tim London
Everything about this fodder is tired: the voices, the technology, the outfits, the dancer-models in the video. Is Kim Petras actually there? Has she been fed into AI and signed away her rights so that she can get her nails done forever? Stinks of gold taps.
MICK HARVEY & AMANDA ACEVEDO - Love Is A Battlefield (Mute)
by Alan Rider
Another take on the much-covered Pat Benatar hit from 1983, this time from ex-Birthday Party and Bad Seeds member and long-time collaborator with PJ Harvey and Nick Cave, Mick Harvey. This time round he is working with Mexican artist Amanda Acevedo. Mid-tempo and piano-driven, I can't say it adds much to the original track and I'm struggling to see the point of their covering this song. The forthcoming album 'Phantasmagoria in Blue' promises more substantive and orchestral tracks, so this is an odd, populist, choice for a single and seems atypical of the album it is intended to act as a teaser for.
ALISON GOLDFRAPP - Love Invention (probably Mute Records)
by Tim London
People who know me know I don’t recognise people, even relatively famous people. Added to which I don’t remember names. These problems are not helped by artists who play with pop in a sort of art school way, you know, flirting with their Kylie whilst insisting that their heart belongs to Nico. I just don’t know… who are you Alison? Ice-hearted disco diva? Casher-inner? The breathy falsetto sits on a basic preset arrangement and I expect she danced a little in the video but I scrolled down to the comments to try to find out who she is. I’m none the wiser.
OLOF DREIJER & MOUNT. SIMS - Hybrid Fruit (Rabid Records)
by Tim London
In an attempt to counter the kind of constant tinnitus that is brought on by bass addiction, I tend to listen to BBC Radio 3’s Night Tracks as I try not to fall down the sleep hole too heavily at night. This would fit right in - a heavenly steel drum rattle perfect for sweet dreams. In fact, I’ll try it tonight. I'll let you know how I get on.
Update: It works!
KNOWER - I'm The President (Brainfeeder)
by DJ Fuzzyfelt
KNOWER return after a 5-year break which allowed members Genevieve Artadi and Louis Cole to release a number of excellent solo albums on Flying Lotus' Brainfeeder Records as well as numerous collaborations including with Thundercat (check out I (heart) Louis Cole by Mr Cat). Anyways Artardi and Cole have rejoined forces, along with 52 of their closest mates including strings, horns, flutes, a choir, and, of course, two Sousaphone players, to record literally in their house, and, in the case of the choir, on the driveway. Yet somehow it still sounds quite minimal and very jolly in an oompah funk kind of way. There's even an acoustic piano solo. It's too clever by half, full of in-jokes most of which I can't even pretend to understand but it's KNOWER and I love it because it makes me happy.
AFRICAN HEAD CHARGE - Bad Attitude ft. King Aylsoba (On U Sound)
by Toon Traveller
Bad Attitude opens with a great line "A bad attitude is like a flay tyre, you can't go anywhere until you change it", that's a truism. As for the song, there's a strummed guitar, an African acoustic pattern moving in and out of phase. A slow build of an echo, phased overdubs. there are screams of anger, the same repeated guitar, an incessant shouted incoherent dialogue, and then another truism "to make a difference on someone's life you don't have to be rich... You just have to care". So bloody true. So, simple in vocals and guitar and backing, with just a couple of lines. Revealing and universally true in our age. The whole thing is one of those songs you expect to hear blasting from a huge beatbox, at a local street market but not maybe my local street market, on a spring Saturday morning, blowing last night's hangover, and comedown away whilst the 'message' worms, into your thoughts. Great!
KOOL & THE GANG - Let's Party (Astana Music)
ZERO s
by Tim London
Now in their 70s, what’s left of the gang and the original ‘Kool’, bassist Robert Bell, have released this small abomination and I don’t blame them. If their funky flannel was at its wettest in the late seventies it has now been thoroughly wrung dry, but there are a lot of musicians to keep in Panama hats, plus, presumably, various family and lawyers and the USA pension system is pretty basic for freelancers so, fuck it, wheel in a beige dance troupe, call up all your agent’s friends, hire a model to be a DJ and record a horrible 21st-century disco pastiche.
INDIGO DE SOUZA - The Water (Saddle Creek)
by Alan Rider
Indigo DeSouza really loves the water, she says in this here song. It's a thin subject to stretch out for three and a half minutes, but I can appreciate the analogy as listening to this results in similar feelings of panic and thrashing around that you would get if drowning. It's a bit wet too. But mostly, it seems a lot longer than three and a half minutes and your whole life could definitely flash before you wait for this to end.
COSMIC KITTEN - Live By The Sea (Self released)
by Alan Rider
Cosmic kitten look like they are having a lot of fun. They are not the best-looking band. Or the most polished. In their videos and promo shots, they look like they get their clothes out of a skip (they would say dumpster) and have slept in a hedge. They are the polar opposite of the buffed and keen-to-please eager beaver indie rock bands that are ten a penny around here. I kind of like them, not because they are especially original, but because they can do this in such a ramshackle way, self-releasing their music as they go, and not give a fuck.
YOWL - Virile Crocodile Sweat (Clue Records/EMI North)
by Alan Rider
If there was a competition for terribly named bands with terribly named singles, then Yowl would be in the semi-finals with 'Virile Crocodile Sweat', which is apparently about the frustrations of trying to write a song. If you can stop yawning and rolling your eyes for a moment, front person Gabrial claims that "I generally try to avoid songs about songwriting", but then goes and writes one anyway. Go figure. So after all this preamble, what's it like then? It's a Pavement-ish piece of sonorously sung indie schmuck, that's what it is. Despite the vocals being seemingly out of key (and therefore grating a bit), it's a generally inoffensive song with very little to distinguish it. It's stopped playing now and I've already forgotten it.
HIGH PULP - (If You Don't Leave The City Will Kill You) feat. Daedelus (ANTI-)
by Alan Rider
With a tingling electronic foundation and night-time driving backbeat, this latest from experimental jazz collective High Pulp features American Jazz record producer Daedelus who promises to " take the track further out into the cosmos". If you say so. This is actually a very cool jazzy instrumental that veers all over the place, but never feels out of control. It's actually making me type faster so that must stand for something. It probably tunes in to your beta brain waves. This sort of Jazz can quickly get samey and end up as lift music, but in this case, it has more urgency so will probably last longer than the next few floors.
MADGE - Buttonss (Weird Sister Records)
ZERO s
by Alan Rider
Forgive me. Originally I thought this was a new Madonna Single. That'll be cool I thought. Then came the crushing disappointment of realising that this wasn't anything of the sort, but rather a teeth-grindingly dull identikit rave track with this Madge squeaking over the top like she's been at the helium. If there is a hell they'd have this playing on repeat for eternity.
YAKOV BERGER - Acceptance (YB's Own)
by Ancient Champion
A new Yakov Berger release is always something to celebrate I feel. Acceptance, with a lonesome solo piano, follows on from last year's gorgeous trio of 'Tightrope', 'Free To Fly', and 'After A While' which I played over and over. There could be others. Yakov is pretty prolific. Every release eschews superfluous notes and that way I guess ge can save them up for next time. I think they've got to feature him in Outsideleft. Do it! What makes Yakov make this magic? It takes an immense amount of nerve to play quietly.
DRISCAL - You Didn't Stand By Me (Youtube)
by Lee Paul
In a discussion with Woodenhand, the sound sculptor who is added atmosphere to the Outsideleft Quiet Night Out, they said "Driscal do something pretty cool with a space echo..." and that's just the start. The dusky bluesy vocals and timbre of the hook - which burrows instantaneously - and lycan-like does not let go make this a superior blues rock record deserving attention.
HACKEDEPICOTTO - Pretty Silver (David Harrow Remix) (Mute)
by Alan Rider
MAGIC WANDS - Time (Metropolis)
by Alan Rider
Magic Wands are a US dark pop outfit who have pretty much perfected their sound incorporating elements of shoegaze, post-punk and goth. Textured guitars, droning synths, and ethereal vocals - you know the sort of thing. It bowls along in a pleasant head-noddy way but sounds just a bit too limp to be truly as inspirational and euphoric as they claim it is. There is an album on the way (their fourth I think - there is just so much stuff out there these days!) which might be better, but apparently, they are so self-important that they are not allowing reviewers to hear it ahead of its release date. That's ok, I will pass on that one then (plus knock a heart off their score for being too up themselves!).
GENERATIONALISTS - Eutropius (Give Me Lies) (Polyvinyl)
ZERO s
by Alan Rider
I have a feeling it's going to be a testing Summer music-wise. This is another one of those irrepressibly breezy, spangly, happy clappy, indie pop bits of naval fluff aimed firmly at radios on the beach. There have already been a few and I have a sinking feeling there is a long queue of these forming. I hate it.
LPs
MARTA SALOGNI AND TOM RELLEEN - Music for Open Spaces (Hands in the Dark)
by Alan Rider
Music for Open Spaces is one of those ENO-esque albums that is comprised of music segments intended to evoke feelings and atmosphere rather than follow a regular song, or even album structure. Inspired by locations such as the Joshua Tree desert, the Cornish coastline and Marta Salogni, and Tom Relleen's London home, it is really rather beautiful if you listen with an open mind and ears. The vinyl version is also accompanied by illustrative collages and an 'internal map' explaining the album created by the late Tom Relleen, who sadly passed away from cancer in 2020. It's a fitting tribute, which they describe as "opening unexpected perspectives at every step towards a new beginning". Its 11 tracks certainly do that, but it's a quiet record that needs time and space to breathe before you get it. I get it.
TAIKO SAITO - Tears of a Cloud (Trouble in the East)
by Toon Traveller
Let's begin with Daichi the opening track on Taiko Saito's new solo LP, Tears of a Cloud. Wow! What a way to begin a record. This is an LP that many readers might overlook, there's no electricity, no bass line, nor a western melody. Improv rages sanguinely here. If you don't listen then that is a serious loss my friends, 'Tears of a Cloud' has evocation, magic, and a breath-holding spirituality. It tantalises, flits, flirtatiously pollinating ideas, images, and emotions. Firework imagination, bright burning, explosives, illuminating in flashes of dexterous brilliance. This is music that shouts - softly, and sews ideas vigorously into the fertile grounds of our minds. The fast flurries, pensive pauses, delicate diminutive playing, demonstrate a master of her instrument with the highest power. Taiko Saito is an award-winning mallet player-composer born in Sapporo. She studied with marimba virtuoso Keiko Abe and classical marimba and percussion at the Toho School of Music. In 1997 she began to improvise and write music, and moved to Berlin to study vibraphone and composition with David Friedman at the Universität der Künste Berlin. This whole LP is a joyously extravagant concoction. Celebratory. Suddenly calming. This is music that is just, a composer, an instrument, ideas, and the exquisite skill to demonstrate those thoughts, images, hopes, and directions. This music lives and breathes, like life itself. As the music grows and fills the spaces between idle moments and thoughts, you're perhaps realising, just let this music fill small thin spaces with micro-moments of escape, into the beauties of your own contented, contemplative places. This is a brilliant record, seek it out.
THE BLUE AEROPLANES - Culture Gun (Last Night From Glasgow)
by Jay Lewis
A Five Heart LP as anyone who has heard it will attest. Spitting angry. Why are the old dudes, the spitting angry ones? Is any of this their fault? See Jay Lewis' full review here⇒
MONIKA ROSCHER BIGBAND - Witchy Activities and the Maple Death (Zenna Records/Membran)
by Alan Rider
Munich's Monika Roscher Bigband means business. Forget all you thought you knew about what a Bigband was, this is on another level. 'Witchy Activities and the Maple Death' is simply an epic adrenalin rush of an album. Innovative and grand, groundbreaking and ambitious, once you start playing it you won't want to stop until it is done, then start all over again from the beginning. Delve into the interview elsewhere on Outsideleft for the back story, but this is as huge as any Bigband gets. You get all of the singles released to date, including the epic '8 Prinzessinnen', but a highlight for me is the six part 'Witches Brew' which takes up a whole side of one of the LPs in the vinyl double set. “Avant-Pop-Math-Jazz-Experimental Prog” is how Monika Roscher’s eighteen-strong Big Band describes themselves. That description alone gives you an idea of the breadth and depth on display here. The MRB smashes the mould of what a Bigband previously stood for, and make a glorious noise doing so.
WHATITDO ARCHIVE GROUP - Palace Of A Thousand Sounds (Record Kicks)
by LamontPaul
Wow! I've been waiting for this for a while. Then the band sends over a Track by Track to accompany the release. Bit of a coup for OL. Read the Whatitdo Archive Group Track by Track, here⇒
BRIAN MCCARTHY - After | Life (Truth Revolution Recording Collective)
by Toon Traveller
Every now and then a piece of music arrives from a different world or system, and it's wow, where did that from come? Brian's opening notes, low sonorous snores, marry, light as feather cymbals. These echoes, are not of another place, but another time. A time when Jazz was on that cusp of change, from Bop to Kool, and then on the Miles' Magic shows of the mid-60s. It pumps and races, delightful drums, forget all that heavy-heavy, 'hit as many skins, in random order, as you can, as hard as you can, as fast as you can' rock drum solos. This has nuanced drumming supporting horn blowers and bass fingerers. The skins bridge to the piano sparkle that slices through sections like a knife through butter. Of course, it's a horn piece, and it's the sax that dominates and drives. There are fast flurries and romantic, warm frantic playing, expressive, explosive, but it never losses the groove, and races along blowing hard and raging when the full big band horns power in, taking the playing back to earlier times. That's the delight, a journey, a tribute, a celebration, of Jazz at a time of change, when everything was possible.
Other Materials
AMNESIA SCANNER & FREEKA TET - Ride (PAN)
by Tim London
It’s a single but it’s a film! Watch it! Watch it! Watch it!
GHOST WOMAN - Brown Room Sweater (Bandcamp)
by Alan Rider
Occasionally odd things arrive here at Outsideleft, in this case, a review link to a new hooded sweatshirt from Evan Uschenko's Death Metal act Ghost Woman. Not the Hoody itself you understand, just a link for where to buy it. As a music and book reviewer, fashion and textiles are normally outside of my remit, but at Outsideleft we are always willing to be flexible and go with the flow so here goes. First impressions are good. Black cotton jersey fabric. Two arms (both with elasticated cuffs!), a hole at the top to stick your head through. Might not be big enough for my head though. Design on the front. Not sure about the back as there isn't an image, so I will assume it's plain. It's in a limited edition of 30, but is a rather pricey £45. The downside is that it was probably made by children in a Far Eastern sweatshop and will undoubtedly make you too hot at a gig. It will of course fade and go all baggy too once you wash it. So two hearts is the best I can give it at that price. For future reference, T-Shirts and Hoodies must be sent in physically to enable a fair review. Medium size for me, please. Buy it from Bandcamp here
Essential Information
Main image: Taiko Saito by Cristina Marx/Photomusix. See more of Cristina's incredible photography on Facebook⇒ and Instagram⇒
