Although Course In Fable is, as Ryley Walker albums go, pretty straightforward some sharp left turns indicate that the formerly Chicago-based, now New York-dwelling guitar whizz isn’t content with limiting a single musical line of attack to one song.
To say that Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s new album is not even remotely commercial would be something of an understatement. However, fans of the obtuse Canadian post-rockers are unlikely to be overly concerned, as there are no significant changes to their experimental proggy bombast, even if there is somewhat less nuance than on their last disc, Luciferian Towers.
Close to the back of Jon Savage’s 1991 book England’s Dreaming, there’s a section titled “Discography.” In this, he goes through the records which fed into and were spawned by punk rock and the Sex Pistols, the book’s subject. The wide-ranging selection begins with Fifties rock ’n roll and Max Bygraves, and ends with the “post-house dance music” of The Justified Ancients Of Mu and Renegade Soundwave.
One has to wonder if Hannah Peel ever had a phase, like so many kids, of listening to music under the bedcovers.
Tune-Yards have been much-feted for bringing an original sound to pop. Quite rightly so.
Over 50 years into her career, Suzi Quatro could be forgiven for taking a break. And yet, last spring, staring down almost one hundred cancelled shows, her first instinct was not to put her feet up but to team up with her son Richard Tuckey on a new collection of songs as a follow-up to their recent collaboration on 2019’s No Control.
Praise gets heaped on the already well known. And that often leaves others in the shadows. I’m not saying that Abdullah Ibrahim doesn’t deserve the accolades – notably, “our Mozart” from Nelson Mandela – but there have been other genius level South African pianists: one was Moses Molelekwa who died at just 27. The other is the very great Bheki Mseleku (1955-2008).
This week marks a major step in the songwriting collaboration between British/Italian singer-songwriter Georgia Mancio and Alan Broadbent, the Grammy-winning jazz pianist who has played with Woody Herman and Charlie Haden’s Quartet West.
My first (conscious) encounter with the music of American jazz saxophone legend Pharoah Sanders was 1970’s “Let Us Go into the House of the Lord”, a nearly 18-minute piece which, right until the end, sounds like it’s only just forming through an explosion of light and layers of sound. Promises has a similar effect – an ever-unfolding spiritual journey, marked by repetition, build-ups and climaxes.
“I See Your Face” opens with a short burst of Phil Spector-ish tambourine rattling. The sort of thing also employed by the early Jesus & Mary Chain. Then, a cascading folk-rock guitar paves the way for a disembodied voice singing over a spooky one-finger keyboard line and chugging, reverbed guitar. Occasionally, what sounds like a syn drum goes “pff.”
“Gorgeous Weather” is equally remarkable, equally other-worldly. A spiralling, distant-sounding creation, its subterranean feel suggests an oncoming storm rather than what’s usually thought of as gorgeous weather.