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Outsideleft Week in Music. Stacked up high. We're hearing from... Seun Kuti & Sampa The Great, Patterson Hood, Brother Lee, The Gentle Spring,  Edwyn Collins, Non Phixion, Domenique Dumont, Miki Berenyi Trio, Morlocks, Kirk Lake, Rhombius, Rare DM, Dragons, Tim hecker, Aphex Twin, Derya Yildirim & Grup Simsek, The Weather Station, Andy Bell, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, Mekons, Florist, Natsuki Tamura – Keiji Haino, Brigid Mae Power, Surprise Chef, Ellur, Young Jesus, Neokosmos, Leonard Bernstein and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Tee Templeton, Babe Rainbow , Little Simz, Okonski, The Rose City Band, Laibach, Iggy Pop, Jean Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines

Outsideleft Week in Music. Stacked up high.

We're hearing from... Seun Kuti & Sampa The Great, Patterson Hood, Brother Lee, The Gentle Spring, Edwyn Collins, Non Phixion, Domenique Dumont, Miki Berenyi Trio, Morlocks, Kirk Lake, Rhombius, Rare DM, Dragons, Tim hecker, Aphex Twin, Derya Yildirim & Grup Simsek, The Weather Station, Andy Bell, Jeff Parker ETA IVtet, Mekons, Florist, Natsuki Tamura – Keiji Haino, Brigid Mae Power, Surprise Chef, Ellur, Young Jesus, Neokosmos, Leonard Bernstein and the Columbia Symphony Orchestra, Tee Templeton, Babe Rainbow , Little Simz, Okonski, The Rose City Band, Laibach, Iggy Pop, Jean Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines

by OL House Writer,
first published: January, 2025

approximate reading time: minutes

SEUN KUTI & SAMPA THE GREAT "...like the best remixes, it utilises the possibilities of the studio to not so much add to, as rebirth the original, creating something entirely, and delightfully new." David O'Byrne

intro.

This Week in Music is written by more reviewers than on some occasions previously there were records. That's thriling, epitomising what Outsideleft has been all about for 20 years. Being a place where writers who wanna write can share their words in a like-minded community. And of course, supporting lots of artists who aren't always household names outside of their own house. Meanwhile, Kirk Lake is down there in the 'So Have You Got Anything Else' section, a rare archived piece. Hear it. This week's reviewers... Hamilton High (1), Richard John Walker (1), Lee Paul (3), Alan Rider (7), Jonathan Thornton (2), Ogglypoogly (1), David O'Byrne (2), Ancient Champion (5), Alex V. Cook (6), Tim London (2), Trevi (1), LamontPaul (5),

singles.

ENDORSED

SEUN KUTI & SAMPA THE GREAT
Emi Aluta (Zamrock Remix)
(Record Kicks)

by David O'Byrne

Fresh from touring UK late last year to promote his seventh studio album, 'Heavier Yet (Lays the Crownless Head)', Seun Kuti is back with a new single - a remix of the album's standout track, 'Emi Aluta', produced by and featuring Zambian poet, rapper, singer, songwriter - Sampa the Great. Dubbed a "Zamrock Remix", the re-imagining takes the heaviest and most up tempo Afrobeat number from HYLtCH which already featured vocals from the self styled "new African Queen". Re-imagined by her production team of Mag 44 and Solomon Plate, and with overdubs from  from her Zamrock backing band, the result is, well quite frankly, almost nothing like the original track. Rather, liike the best remixes, it utilises the possibilities of the studio to not so much add to, as rebirth the original, creating something entirely, and delightfully new. You want a better description? Listen in and write it yourself. Suffice to say it's ample proof that the most innovative and exciting music, comes from mixing it up. Sampa herself says “I've made it a personal goal of mine to be able to work with legendary African musicians who have broken barriers for African  music".   Hopefully that means there are more collaborations of this calibre to come.

 Seun Kuti and Egypt 80 will support Lenny Kravitz on six dates in Europe during March:
4th Amneville (France)
6th Zurich
7th Munich 
9th Vienna
11th Gliwice (Poland)
12th Prague

FLORIST
Have Heaven
(Double Double Whammy)

by Alex V. Cook

I must be going through the changes or something, the way I am craving tenderness and snowed-in intimacy. While I am temporarily a human being with "feelings" and not raw lumber awaiting the planer, this'll do. Plus, any song with counting in it is alright with me. Great band name, by the way. Nails the world they seek to create.

THE ROSE CITY BAND
Radio Song
(Thrill Jockey)

by Alex V. Cook

Hi, my name is Alex and I like the Grateful Dead. There, I said it. The first step is admitting that you have a problem. But what I don't is like Dead-adjacent - groups that forgo the feral nature of death for meaningless joy and excess notes. The sweet spot between the armpit smell of Cornell '77 and sanded edges of a jam band Vegas Sphere residency is occupied by the Rose City Band, lysergic agents of effortless-sounding beautiful riffs filtered through Chicago-grade hipster muso indifference to being likeable. It is roll down the window music, about almost nothing, perfect. Take on their contact high and maybe spin around in your home office between zoom calls. It's a safe space to choogle. Now, they are supposed to have coffee at these kind of meetings, right?

EDWYN COLLINS
Knowledge
(AED Records)

by Lee Paul

Is it okay to say I've really been enjoying this this week? I knew things would be okay from the crack of the opening rimshot. From the ghostly echoes of familiar guitar. Knowledge climbs all the way through, all over Edwyn's typically mordantly earnest lyrics, well weren't they always anyways, really soars at the end, "So hard to let my old self go..." Where the mainly outdoorsy video, shot his friend from childhood, Delbert Anthonio Wright splices some glorious moments. From the forthcoming, March 14th LP, 'Nation Will Listen To Nation', recorded at Edwyn's Clashnarrow Studio in Helmsdale, North East Scotland. I wonder if you can get good property prices up there? "Knowledge is something I think about,' Edwyn says, "I used to be quite brainy, still am in a way. But knowledge is wisdom, combined with all the things you’ve learned. I think, I hope I’ve learned a lot.In the end, Knowledge is giant. Makes me want to bring the 5 Love Heart record scale back to that I could give this 10.

DOMENIQUE DUMONT
To Uknownia
(Midnight Special Records)

by Ancient Champion

Domenique Dumont's 2020 LP 'People on Sunday' kind of put me in mind of someone soundtracking Katherine Mansfield. In that LP music, a soundtrack to a silent movie, was just that observant. When Jay Lewis was surveying all for an end of year list, the melancholy of that LP rocketed it into the top 20 of the year. To Uknownia leans a little more into electro-ambience while wistfully emphasizing the melismatic singing style up top. Reaches out and brushes against you for sure.

DERYA YILDIRIM & GRUP SIMSEK
Hop Bico
(Big Crown Records)

by David O'Byrne

[Editors note: This was reviewed last week too, but Its always good to have another viewpoint on a release] 

Ahead of their new album due out in March, Germany based, psychedelic Turkish-folk combo Derya Yildirim & Grup Simsek have released their take on a traditional Anatolian folk song; Hop Bico  (Jump Bico). The traditional call response format and ba?lama (seven stringed Turkish Lute) are augmented with late 60s style lead guitar and keyboards. Coupled with the deliberately low-if production the result is very much in the vein of Turkish rock music of the period - Mogollar, Erkin Koray, Kurtalan Ekspres - names which mean little outside Turkey but the mention of which is enough to make Turks of a certain age misty eyed with nostalgia. Derya Yildirim herself hails from Hamburg but draws her influences from the music and poetry of her parents' homeland of Anatolia (Turkey's Asian heartland), with all bar one track on the forthcoming album sung in Turkish. Two previous singles - Cool Hand and Yakamoz are also well worth a listen. The former self explanatory - a relaxed, jazzy, shuffling love song, the latter wistful and reflective - taking its name from the single, poetic Turkish word for that trail of reflected light that the full moon traces across the surface of the sea. A sight visitors to the Turkish coast will know well, possibly even seen while seated in a beach side restaurant, poetically named 'Yakamoz'. Every town has at least one. Derya Yildirim & Grup Simsek's new album "Yarin Yoksa" (If there is no tomorrow), is due out March 14th on Big Crown Records.

BABE RAINBOW
Like Cleopatra
(P(DOOM) RECORDS)

by Alan Rider

Could Babe Rainbow be any more annoyingly Australian to the point of cliche?  Blond hair, denim shorts, cheesy grins, tans, unnaturally white teeth, and an overall smug air of self satisfaction about living in a warm, civilised place and being able to piss about playing this throwaway crap instead of having to work for a living. Does it get any better than this?  For them, maybe not.  For us, the worst is yet to come.  Yes, there is a whole album of this stuff on the way.

ANDY BELL
I'm in love
(Sonic Cathedral)

by Jonathan Thornton

Last year's Ride tour, in support of their excellent new album Interplay, has clearly invigorated guitarist Andy Bell. He has a new solo album pinball wanderer coming out in February, and honestly it's just nice to see one of the 90s' best guitarists doing what he's best at instead of playing bass for talentless Mancunian Beatles wannabes. Teaser single i'm in love, a cover of The Passions' classic post punk single, features Bell's exquisite guitar and synth soundscapes aided and abetted by guest vocalist Dot Allison and guest guitar from krautrock legend Michael Rother from NEU!. It's a gorgeous drift of dreampop wondrousness that bodes well for the forthcoming album. 

RARE DM
Skater Hits Me Harder
(House of Feelings)

by Trevi

Rare DM releases an exotic new single, ‘Skater Hits Me Harder’. Brooklyn-based, the brainchild of singer, producer and multi-instrumentalist Erin Hoagg, Rare DM is known for her craftiness of deeply intimate, alluring tunes. She draws from many inspirations from post-punk, minimal techno, to dance-pop and EBM and many other genres. Immediately, I was captivated by the song’s hypnotic melody paired with tender vocals laced with an eerie undertone, and an alluring charge, with trickles of dreamy synths creating a chilled ambience. The harmonies evoke a feeling of a cold late night after a party. Isolated, quiet and intimate. The vintage synths create a nostalgic sound, like a longing from the past. The simple but refraining lyrics convey the sense of the character longing for that euphoric feeling of first date, the first kiss, the exhilaration of carnal affection in a playful way. Around the middle of the song, the dark brooding synth seeps in with intensity, evoking a thrill of suspense; the hard kick drums illustrate a feverish pulse of a beating heart. The song then bursts into dance with clattering of high hats inducing a euphoric, adrenaline rush of fun. This song is excellent. The instrumentation is rich with layers of rhythm and melodies. The haunting melodies of the synths, the cold strokes of synthy pads evoke the essence of the night; the welling desires beckoning from within. The vocals are eerily beautiful, accumulating to a blissful, late-night vibe.

OKONSKI
October
(Colemine Records)

by LamontPaul

Steve Okonski is joined by Aaron Frazer on drums and bassist Michael Isvara Montgomery for a 'Entrance Music' ha! is that en trance or entrance... a new LP of pastoral leaning jazz, Okonski's first since 2023's acclaimed, Magnolia. The recording sessions in Ohio, featured Terry Cole of Colemine records at the controls. On the evidence of this opening track, October, Cole's dead center focus never short changes the gorgeously loose, sweeping beauty of the song for the brililance of the band.  There is great harmony here. If 'Magnolia' resonated with the nighttime streets of New York, 'Entrance Music', Steve Okonski says, “feels... a little more nature-based…a little more ethereal.”

SURPRISE CHEF
Fare Evader
(Big Crown)

by LamontPaul

Surprise Chef, well, they've always been wildly entertaining , although one time I'd just had my ears treated and I'd thought the snare too bright. Apologies for that fellas. In 'Fare Evader' it feels like they have a slightly new niche. All their tight funky rhythm and making the complex sound simple is here while, incorporating a little layer of unexpected weirdness. And the title of course, brings back memories of the good times.

NON PHIXION
Strange Universe
(Uncle Howie Records)

by Hamilton High

Non Phixion alongside ILL BILL, Lord Goat and MF Doom in this Strange Universe gets the the CZAR-KEYS remix. 'The Future is Now' the original LP this comes from is 20 years old now, so I guess it was about time. Still sounds so thrillingly fun and fresh. 'Black Helicopters' from the LP and so many more are equally great too. But here is MF Doom I guess. We've had bangles made up, WWDD. What Would Doom Do. You can never tell.

PATTERSON HOOD
The Pool House
(ATO Records)

by Alex V. Cook

I have been covering Drive-By Truckers since, it seems, before the band started, and while I like Patterson's solo albums a lot, until now, there was not the boldest line between them and the band's output. Here though, is a spooky mood of Mellotron or maybe even real flutes and strings, understated trip hop beat with the delicate side of his range tumbling down the steps with a knife and a confession and a pleading look in it's eyes. Reminds me of American Music Club's Mark Eitzel with more cinematic color. It's an elegant and daring move for one of rock's best storytellers and I want to hear more.

TIM HECKER
Morning (Piano Version)
(Kranky)

by Tim London

When Durham Cathedral was completed around 1133 Tim Hecker wasn’t even a possibility. But without the cathedral there would be no Tim Hecker as we know him. Why? Because of reverb. The Normans built cathedrals the way they did in order to venerate a god. The whole visit was a somewhat psychedelic experience - the light reflecting through the stained glass, the awesome height, the power it represented. Breathtaking. But it was the reverb that tipped a bit of bible/peasant bashing into something closer to tripping on mouldy mead. The reverberations. And, so it is, that Tim’s music is so dependent on reverb that, should it be left dry, then the mystery would disappear faster than margarine melts on hot toast (around 94F). You have a choice: Tim Hecker or hot, marmite-soaked toast? I think it depends on the time of day.

NEOKOSMOS
Caste of The Eskhaton
(Portal)

by Alan Rider

Montréal-based electronic act Neokosmos, has been pushing out singles on every full moon, this being the third in the series.  Its an interesting enough concept and, looking at the video, previously you would have described this as Prog Rock of the Rick Wakeman and Vangelis school.  Things have come full circle when artists like Neokosmos now present themselves as cutting edge electronic artists, yet are indistinguishable from the Prog dinosaurs of the past. Everything is musical soup now I guess, so you just dip your spoon in and see what come up.

TEE TEMPLETON
I have a lotta dreams
(Youtube)

by LamontPaul

I can relate. I took a 30 years hiatus from music while I tried to change the world in other ways. From his mid-40s, Tee Templeton took 20 years off. For me, time off made sense. For Tee Templeton I am wondering whether that was a mistake? He's 66 now and when we get up there like that time, time, time weighs... Songwriting as it turns out is still Tee Templeton's lifeline. And 'I have a lotta deams' has an awful lot to say. And he puts it all together in no way like maybe younger 'uns do. It's a significant chunk of music, slight and epic, in a not boring area of the rock idiom and evoking a not off-putting psychedelia. Sure he's heard a Beatles record I guess, but that's no caveat here because Tee has plenty uniquely authentic going on and perhaps here as a fresh new old artist offering way more than a reheated names seem to be able to do. 

ENDORSED

MIKI BERENYI TRIO
8th Deadly Sin
(Bella Union)

by Jonathan Thornton

It's great to have Miki Berenyi back making music. As one of the vocalists, guitarists and songwriters in Lush, she's made some of the most enduring music to emerge from the shoegaze scene of the late 80s/early 90s, and then with the perennially underrated Piroshka. Following the release of her excellent memoir Fingers Crossed, she has been touring with her new band, Miki Berenyi Trio, with her partner and former Moose guitarist K.J. "Moose" McKillop - so you get two shoegaze legends for your money - and guitarist Oliver Cherer. They released their debut single last year, and their debut album Tripla is due out in April. In anticipation, here is single '8th Deadly Sin'. It's a marvelous song, a classic Berenyi melody with fuzzing guitars and burbling electronics creating an instantly appealing dreampop atmosphere. Berenyi and her band are in top form, and it should make everyone excited to hear the album when it drops. [Miki Berenyi interview in Outsideleft, here]

JEAN CLAUDE VANNIER ET SON ORCHESTRE DE MANDOLINES
La 2CV Rouillee
(Ipecac Recordings)

by Ancient Champion

The Rusty 2CV is the latest single prefacing, if you will, Jean Claude Vannier's forthcoming February 14th LP - 'Jean Claude Vannier et son orchestre de mandolines' - presumptiously perfect for soundtracking, if when it comes to Hallmark's big holiday, Valentine's Day, you do that sort of thing. Jean Claude is one of a handful of musical giants still staggering around the earth, having worked with everyone of significance in the past 50 years and the mandolin LP is loaded with instant ersatz cinemascopic romance.  It's high drama.  "I've always dreamed of writing for a mandolin orchestra, Jean Claude says, "the instrument's tremors seemed apt to expose romantic and sentimental melodies. It brings back old memories. On Sundays, my father used to take us to the countryside in his 2cv. It's a funny car, with the slightest change in speed, a flick of the brake or the gas pedal, and it rocks like a duck on the water. During these drives, I was unable to see the landscape because I was seasick. My father was an inventor, and had come up with a rudimentary air bag that went off at the slightest jolt. Those rides in the countryside were a nightmare for me, and I now avoid trips in the 2CV..." Most of the rest of us romanticise the 2cv in a whole other way, ask Lloyd Cole.

MEKONS
Mudcrawlers
(Fire Records)

by Alex V. Cook

When in doubt (and doubt is the core element of faith) reach for the Mekons. They seem to always be there, like that copy of Leaves of Grass, or a Swiss Army knife, or the cord that stops this goddamn bus already. 

YOUNG JESUS
Low Experience
(YJ)

by Ancient Champion

Well, my daughter exclaimed, "Dad, you only listened to yourself and Young Jesus last year." I was in the top ten percent of my own fans and the top .001% of Young Jesus fan boys (elderly brigade). I am a big evangelising proselytizer for Jesus' LP The Fool. Big fool for it. I hope you are too. I can guide you. Call me. Meanwhile now for something completely different but more precisely in some ways the same. The Young Jesus Low Experience. From the 'Rejected Ambient Works' collection vol 1. Volume 1! you might be excited to note. 'Low Experience' is 1 minute of spartan softly soaring synthetics you won't get back, but why would you want to. Young Jesus is Ace.

THE GENTLE SPRING
Looking Back at the World
(Skep Wax)

by Ancient Champion

Looking Back at the World, The Gentle Spring's opening salvo (from the new LP of the same name out today) gets off to a tremendously and very suitably melancholic mellow beginning, before confidently picking up the momentum and heading off into a terrain bandleader Michael Hiscock knows well. The terrains warmer now though. More acoustic and less angular maybe, but enriched with antecedents and not unaware of the culture Michael was part of creating as leader of The Field Mice. The great critical acclaim that met his band in the 90s may have given way, but The Field Mice retain great good will for their songs which resonated with so many back then. In some ways, Hiscock can't begin to write his own future without looking back beyond the liminal space between, that space that really has no adequate bridge. "Should I set aside the thoughts that set me free?" he asks. Music requires fractures it seems. Sucessfully, with The Gentle Spring, Michael Hiscock, like Brunel, like say Jen Orpin, is showing us what building a bridge entails. It ain't easy, but he makes it seems like something we should all be part of. [The Gentle Spring are on tour now, see them at the beautiful RocknRoll Brewery in Birmingham on January 23rd, few tickets left I am assured, here]

ENDORSED

IGGY POP
Modern Day Rip Off
(Ear Music)

by Alan Rider

There is nothing more I can say about how great Iggy (should we call him 'The Ig'?  Maybe not) is on this live album that I didn't say previously here in my review of that wonderful album.  This has all the hallmarks of a great Iggy song, and his performance too.  Expletives, no shirt, boundless energy.  It's all there.  Granted, the band look a bit too clean and cherubic really.  A bit more grease and sweat certainly wouldn't come amiss, but they are a bunch of session musicians after all, and they do a fine job here of backing the great man.  And a great man he most certainly is.

RHOMBIUS
The Shard
(Own Label)

by Alan Rider

Rhombius is one of those mysterious acts/solo artists/whatever that crop up all over Youtube, Spotify and the rest of the interweb.  There is zero information on who, or what, Rhombius is, other than they/it is from London (maybe) and have produced an 'album' (ie channel of tracks) called 'Londonodrome Vol. I'.  That claims to be a collection of experimental electronic soundscapes paying homage to London landmarks, allegedly all recorded in London, and with titles like 'The Shard', 'St Pauls', 'River Thames'  and so on. None of which evoke those landmarks in the slightest.  It/they also claim to have had no AI involvement in the recordings, although who can really tell?, as its a collection of pointless synthy diddling about, the like of which I regularly annoy others with of an evening.  The interweb sure is a funny place.

LITTLE SIMZ
Hello, Hi
(AWAL)

by Lee Paul

Out a little while. Oh this one is all about the poetry of a woman working way above your levels of conformity. Pretty, resolute, her face in your face, gleeful and cool. Little Simz says more in two minutes than I say in days.

ENDORSED

BROTHER LEE
Kiss The Sky/Winter Sky
(Dime Records)

by LamontPaul

Let's begin with Winter Sky and it's crazy origin as an instrumental recorded for a documentary about an Isle of Wight based skatebord company. Here a 30 second drum break introduces a lackadaisical and fulsome all at once piece of funk and psychedelia. It's got slacker cool. You won't find finer. Recorded in 2012, the legend has it the Lee was paid in boxes of sneakers. So many boxes of sneakers he' still working his way through them now. The track eventually wound up on Kiss The Sky" b/w "Winter Sky" 7" released by Funk Night in 2022. Recorded in one afternoon on a Tascam 8-track cassette recorder, with Lee playing all of the instruments, now we get the welcome imperfections of tape drop out and distortion. It's a melodious joy. The sound of Brother Lee delighting in the "first take intensity" here, is tangible. I'm gonna circle back to Kiss The Sky next week so y'all have something to look forward to.

LAIBACH
I want To Know What Love Is
(Mute)

by Alan Rider

Foreigners anthemic mega hit is an odd choice of cover for stentorian Slovenian oddballs and art terrorists Laibach. They dress up their re-interpreting the cheesy track as "a demand for understanding, empathy and acceptance" and claim that the song underlines that "in the current world there is little that could be more challenging and complex than achieving peace and love".  That is all bollocks of course.  This is just another ill considered and rubbish cover version masquerading as irony.

ep's.

MORLOCKS
Amor, Monstra Et Horrore Profundi
(Metropolis)

by Alan Rider

Previously I raved about Swedish duo Morlocks as "an act that took Industrial music to the next level", with their mix of high production values, well placed humour, and soaring orchestral breaks melding seamlessly with driving industrial beats raising them above the crowd, in what is a very crowded crowd indeed.  A high bar to set then.  Fortunately, 'Amor, Monstra Et Horrore Profundi', which I am sure all of you Latin scholars out there will know translates as 'Love, Monsters And Deep Horror', doesn't disappoint.  From the stonking opener 'The S.N.A.F.U Principle', through the tongue-in-cheek folky sorcery of 'March Of The Goblins', via the atmospherics of 'The Lake Parts I and II', to the epic and filmic closing track ' Young Prisoners', its a very well executed slice of superior modern industrial.  I stand by my original assessment of Morlocks as "reanimating the rotten corpse of industrial" and will be keeping an eye on them for what comes next.

long plays.

JEFF PARKER ETA IVTET
The Way Out Of Easy
(International Anthem)

by Tim London

The ETA club in Los Angeles was, until it closed late 2023, a regular Monday gig for guitarist Jeff Parker and his IVtet, Josh Johnson on sax, Anna Butterss on bass and drummer Jay Bellerose. Reasons given for the club closing were that it just wasn’t practical for the owners. There had also been chat about the venue treating staff bad and a general running down. So far, so LA. Personally I am amazed at both sides of the following coin: there are still jazz clubs in LA that have residencies/there are hardly any jazz clubs in LA. The quartet didn’t play again until June last year, in a different venue, where they recorded this amazing album. First of all, the sound! It’s just excellent. Four mics, one for each musician, including the drummer (suck that up graduates of rock school, UK) engineered by Brice Gonzales. The drums, in particular, are just gorgeous. Then the performance, which in the most jazz way possible is the important thing, not the tunes themselves. Ease into music that is intimate yet ethereal, funky but calming, repetitive but transforming bar by bar. It’s taken decades from the moment when psychedelic bands like Grateful Dead realised they could stretch out to soundtrack an acid trip and blundered into jazz territory like brontosauruses attempting to pick flowers to the 'now', where the zeitgeist we wish for, becomes a mantric groove. If the swirling distortions have been replaced with acceptance of questions never answered that just makes this (and this will be my final antithetical statement about the music) a minor miracle in that jazz, yes, jazz, the hardly changed art form since Dixie swung one hundred years ago seems to have produced the most modern of records. California has always been stoned. Stoned and paranoid. (And ordinary, no doubt as an Ancient Champ might insist). Right now it could obviously do with this eye of the storm calm, sober but happy to inhale the smoke second-hand, perhaps. And, perhaps the fact that, like so many Angelinos, Jeff Parker is a blow-in (from Chicago) means that this Monday night grooving just doesn’t have that cut-cocaine ambition that the city can generate accidentally on purpose. It’s just, there. Perfectly there.

ENDORSED BRIGID MAE POWER
Songs For You
(BMP)

by Alex V. Cook

I am a sucker for haunting female vocal plaintive indie-rock-infused cover records and my heart already runs on Brigid Mae Power so this is an easy win. Opening with Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" and forgoing the "candy colored clown" part is audacious and brilliant, straight out of the Cat Power playbook. To follow it with Television's "See No Evil" feels like she's installed spyware on my pleasure center. Bert Jansch's "Fresh as a Sweet Sunday Morning" establishes her folk cred and doing Slim Whitman's "Rose Marie" is a MOVE. Ending with a ghosty "You Don't Know Me" is a coy conceit, bc obvs she does.

THE WEATHER STATION
Humanhood
(Fat Possum)

by Alex V. Cook

The best analogue for the evolution of The Weather Station is Talk Talk's Mark Hollis and his epic descent into himself, starting with doing a thing (in the case of The Weather Station, Joni-Mitchell-ish indie adult pop) and then falling into an idiosyncratic orbit.  "Mirror" might be what is inspiring this, as that beat hearkens to Talk Talk's "Life's What You Make It" but the comparison stands with the other tracks available as of this review. "Body Moves" is elegant chords dropping in a placid lake of synthesis, making a meta-beauty in the ripples. "Window" marches in like a well-organized student demonstration, breathless yet full of wind and fixin' to burst with  simmering transformational love. Very Sufjan, but very her own. "Neon Signs" is the highway divider line becoming a pulse laser in your windshield as to race to or away from that thing that defines you most. The whole thing is sophisticated, polished, incandescent.

so, have you got anything else.

DRAGONS
Here are the roses
(OHM Records)

by Alan Rider

The title track from now forgotten Bristol band Dragons one and only 2005 album, 'Only The Roses' is a bit of a composite of the sound of indie rock bands of the time and before. Add a spoonful of the Editors, a dash of Killing Joke, sprinkle on a bit of Joy Division, and bake for 20 years until browned with nostalgia.  Fun fact: I own a bass guitar just like the one in this video.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN AND THE COLUMBIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
Rhapsody in Blue
(Columbia Records)

by Ancient Champion

I sometimes wonder whether the clarinet glissando at the opening of George Gerwshin's Rhapsody in Blue, written in 1924, is simply the most eloquent moment in popular music ever. Expressing as it does an optimism for life and a moment and an age to come. A definite epoch. While Stravinsky was causing a riot in Paris, - a European estblishment impulse to reject the future, here was Gershwin getting three weeks to write Rhapsody for the "An Experiment in Modern Music" in New York. In Trumpian times, consider, would there be a space for a modern Gershwin?  These days, Rhapsody in Blue is as familiar as phone as familiar as anything has ever been. This music is fantastically, and in moments frenetically audacious and even now on any hearing, the epitome of western human lightness and being. Leonard Bernstein's version is often considered to be the greatest. Hear it all here, 20 minutes you won't ever need to get back.

NATSUKI TAMURA – KEIJI HAINO
What Happened There – Part One
(Libra)

by Richard John Walker

Coming home on the Yamanote, hearing nothing but Chinese and American, I yearned for Japanese sound. Opened an email, hovered on a link and pressed execute. Hello? What’s happening? It’s Natsuki and Keiji, at play. They’ve just met and have one shot. They done me impressed. Improvisational jazz. Pretentious, perhaps, but to my ears tonight, good. Wolfed down my ramen and listened. Keiji scratching out sound with Tamura’s trumpet. Tamura plays toys on other tunes, even a rubber duck; alas, not here. Haino takes over, shouting of a true identity emerging (‘shoutai ga mietekita’). It’s not transparent. It likes to hide things. Is it capitalism (‘American Doru!’)? A person, wearing new colours, lurking in the shadows?  What’s happening there? We don’t know. It’s not something we can see (‘mirareta mono janai’).

From Natsuki Tamura & Keiji Haino: What happened there?  (Recorded January 2024 / Release date January 24, 2025 )

APHEX TWIN
Alberto Balsalm
(Warp Records)

by Lee Paul

Uncharacteristical gentle seeping like a dishwasher flood across a kitchen floor, the hurry-skurry unseen. I was reading a piece by a person evacuated from one of the Los Angeles fire zones, and this was on a very personal playlist they'd created. This was on repeat. Music can be a restorative. It can't heal everything. Alberto Balsalm would do that most likely for the very hairy but unilke this music it wouldn't do much for me.

ENDORSED ELLUR
Yellow Light
(Youtube)

by Ogglypoogly

Can we all just discover Ellur really quickly, and have her catapulted into headline slots and (even more) radio play? Because more people need to know who she is, this is music that needs to be heard, ideally at a live performance - but in lieu of that, via the streaming service of your choice. Yellow light both showcases and highlights everything about her that I fail to effectively articulate. At this point, I can only conclude there is either a time machine, or a wardrobe into the 'getting really good at music' region of Narnia, in or close to her house - this is unreasonably fantastic material to be releasing so early into a career. Go listen.

KIRK LAKE
Live at the 12 Bar Club London
(Youtube)

by LamontPaul

This entire section is named after Kirk Lake's first LP which is a great one if you can ever find it. Here, what a thrill to see/hear Morphology... "First lizard with wings..." I am in total agreement, I am rapidly moving along on extinction's path. This is a real, newly rediscovered rarity enjoy it while you can,

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Main image Sampa The Great (from Wikicommons)
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