Suche:david steel

David Tattersall, the Wave Pictures guitarist and frontman releases a solo album of interpretations of John Fahey tunes, recorded live in the studio. "I have been a fan of John Fahey's music since I was very young; it has always been with me and I can't remember a time when I wasn't affected by it. It is weird music, and very good. Of course, Fahey is an important cult figure in the history of music: as the first man to find a language for steel string guitar that can stand proudly alongside the established tradition of nylon string classical guitar; as one of many men who rediscovered obscure old blues musicians and recorded them for a new generation in the 1960s; as one uniquely able to reconcile 20th century avant-garde music with folk tradition; as an early indie-label DIY pioneer. For me personally, Fahey went beyond technique, and to some extent beyond historical or intellectual justifications for his work. He explored his emotions through his instrument of choice, and in so doing made the case for the guitar as the ultimate conduit for emotional expression. While there are many imitators who try to play ''like Fahey'', I avoided using his fingerpicking style or sense of rhythm, and tried instead to use his music to explore my own emotions, my own dreams and memories. I was more interested in the lyrical and expressive aspects of Fahey's music than in the techniques of it. I tried to find myself within his compositions and without composing anything I feel that I have managed to make a David Tattersall record that says as much about me as any of the many albums that I have written. John Fahey's beautiful discography shows that the guitar can carry as much mystery and soul as the human voice, and simply put, I wanted in on a little of this action. This is my second all-instrumental solo acoustic album, and where this differs from my first attempt, Little Martha, is that here I improvised freely. I used Fahey's originals only as guides. I'm not sure what I was looking for, perhaps something beyond explanation, but I tried to be as free as possible, and I am delighted by the spontaneous results. Hopefully, they will make the listener feel happy and dreamy, just like the effect that Fahey's many albums have on me. One of the most important things that Fahey ever said was his advice to guitarists to try to feel the emotions that each chord they play on a guitar brings forth. He is telling guitarists to not only play the guitar, but to let the guitar play them. I did my best to follow this advice. I think Fahey was a genius of the kind that creates a whole genre single-handedly. There could be thousands, millions, of reinterpretations of his compositions. In fact, there probably already are. And long may this continue. All tracks were recorded live with no tampering

LP reissue of Collective Calls, the first duo LP from Evan Parker and percussionist Paul Lytton. Mythically alluded to as ‘An Improvised Urban Psychodrama In Eight Parts”, Collective Calls utilises electronics, pre-records and homemade instruments to wryly in/act self investigation. Having just recorded the cliff jumping Music Improvisation Company with Derek Bailey, Christine Jeffrey, Hugh Davies and Jamie Muir, Parker was at the point where he was thinking, ‘what’s the next thing?’ On Collective Calls, only the 5th release to appear on the newly minted Incus label, percussionist Paul Lytton arrives with an arsenal of sound making sources to push Parker into ever new territory. Recorded in the loft of The Standard Essenco Co on Southwark Street by Bob Woolford (Topography of the Lungs, AMM The Crypt), Collective Calls has more in common with noise or music concrete than with jazz; sitting comfortably alongside Italian messrs Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza or the husband-wife duo of Anima Sound. According to Martin Davidson, it was a Folkways record that Lytton was obsessed with around the time of this release - Sounds of the Junkyard - its track titles like “Steel Saw Cutting Channel Iron in Two Places” working to give you a good idea of the atmosphere of Collective Calls. Paul Lytton had encountered the use of electronics in music in 1968 when he was invited to play drums on the recording of An Electric Storm by White Noise (along with David Vorhaus, Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson). He had seen Hugh Davies using contact mics in the Music Improvisation Company, and soon set about assembling a Dexion frame akin to drummer John Stevens’, except that his own was armed with several single-coil electric guitar pickups, long wires and strings with connected foot-pedals to modulate pitch. Influenced as much by Stockhausen, Cage and David Tudor as he was by Max Roach and Milford Graves, Lytton’s percussion is abstract, expressionist and at times totally mutant. Sometimes rolling extremely fast, then screeching almost backwards over feedback, Lytton gives Parker room to play some of his weirdest work. Parker is listed as performing both saxophones, but also his own home made assemblages, including one dubbed the ‘Dopplerphone’ - a length of soft rubber tubing (activated by a saxophone mouthpiece and manipulated to alter the rate of airflow) attached to a longer length of clear plastic tubing (whirled around the head whilst being played) ending in a plastic funnel. Thickening the brew even more, Parker would also add a cassette recorder, on which he would play back collected sounds and previous recordings of the duo. Imagining the set up in a 70s loft, it’s an assemblage more akin to what today's free ears might see at a Sholto Dobie show, spread out on the floor of the Hundred Years Gallery, the shadow of Penultimate Press lurking in the corner. It’s a testament to Parker’s shape shifting sound - the ever present link to birdsong being at its most warped here - terrifically free and unfussy, wild and loose from any of the dogma that might come in later Brit-prov years

Whisky soaked, nocturnal, brooding. Aging’s album »Troubles? I Got A Bartender« was a noteworthy, film-noir infused suite that quietly slipped out on cassette in 2015 by a then budding Manchester avant-jazz ensemble, led by David McLean.

In 2020, amidst the pandemic’s tempest and winter's gloom, the idea manifested of showcasing McLean’s slow burning, wistful soirée in a new light via a curated effort by Berlin’s Vaagner label, which invited a series of hand-picked artist to rework selected compositions from the album, rendering its mournful, smoke-tinged resonances into new shapes.

Its result is »Reworks (Rewoven)«, and it presents 6 new interpretations by 5 artists. These range from ruminating, tape smudged ambient works interlaced with sublime acoustic strums by fellow Manchester musicians The Humble Bee and Tape Loop Orchestra, to poignant steel guitar renditions by Nashville based Kelby Clark. Furthermore, Barcelona based Dania and London based Laila Sakini, each present pieces that draw the listener into opaque realms harbored by swooning reverie and eerie, glistening prophecy.

Carefully assembled across two sides of vinyl, McLean’s penchant for hard-boiled detective novels, vintage Japanese crime flicks and film noir iconography have a continued lurking presence in the reworks, yet the new pieces each add a modern facet to the original’s cinematic narrative, its morose and sulky mood now opening into new avenues of interpretation. And whilst some artists have chosen to dive further into the themes of contentious ambivalence and pensive solitude, others have sought to slightly lift the haze, stirring up melodies tinged with a sense of hope, hinting at times, towards instants of poise and vivacity.

In the end this leaves us with a new body of work that manages to feel poignant in its complexity whilst remaining dissonant and elusive in its renditions, hinting at a modern day existence even more opaque, intricate and convoluted than the film noir classics of old might have pictured the world.

Two years after his debut album under the moniker Aboukir, Ralph Maruani returns with a new record titled “Change”. Fitting title for a record that was written and recorded during a period of great turmoil in his life. The intimacy of these songs are reflected in the music itself.

Whereas “Digital Introversion” was floating in a sea of psychedelic infused echoes and reverb, “Change” is much more stripped down, sporting a singer-songwriter ethos. The album was recorded between December 2022 and March 2023 in Paris, France almost entirely by Maruani except for the drums which were recorded by Louis McGuire in Berlin, Germany and pedal steel by Reggie Duncan in Mississippi, USA.

The album opener “Alright” is an upbeat number with guitars reminiscent of John Fogerty’s Creedence Clearwater Revival, Strawberry Fields inspired Mellotron and Stereolab aesthetic on the outro, assuring that whatever may come next, everything will be alright. Then followed by “Release” the track that makes a direct link with “Digital introversion”, an 8 minutes Floydesque hazy jam. “Rolling on” shows a different side to Aboukir’s music as it opens up to folk/country accents in a 1970s singer-songwriter vibe. “Croz” is Maruani’s immediate reaction to David Crosby’s passing. A tribute to one of his lifelong influence and inspiration.

The album then unveils itself going back and forth between more stripped down tunes and psychedelic ones, eventually reaching its climax with “Changes”.

Emm Gryner is an award winning singer, songwriter, actor and best-selling author. Emm sang and played keyboards in David Bowie's band, and appears on numerous recordings, including his landmark 1999 SNL appearance, Bowie at The Beeb and Toy. Bowie's acclaimed Glastonbury 2000 documents her performance in front of more than 100,000 fans at Worthy Farm. With Trapper she shared arena stages with Def Leppard, and she also helped bring the first music video recorded in outer space to the world.

Detroit radio formed the soundtrack of Emm's life and career and her brand new record is a celebration of that music. From Motown,jazz and pop, to Steely Dan, Fleetwood Mac and the Doobies, Business & Pleasure is infused with the sunshine soul and stellar playing of the late 70s and early 80s. These songs, produced by Fred Mollin, written with poet Michael Holmes, and recorded with drummer Shannon Forrest (Toto), keyboardist Pat Coil (Michael McDonald), bassist Larry Paxton (Alison Krauss), and guitarists Tom Bukovac (Taylor Swift) and Pat Buchanan (Hall & Oates, Dolly Parton), embody a take on yacht rock that sails deep into the 2020s and introduce the world to a bold new character: a powerful woman whose passion, presence, conviction, humor and grace serves to unite the world in

music, joy and love, once again.

ONLY AVAILABLE ON PREORDER!!

The first-ever LP box set gathering the entire 10 albums collection of Obscure Records produced by Brian Eno’s.
Curated by Gavin Bryars

Originally issued between 1975 and 1978, nearly 50 years on the output of Obscure remains radically forward-thinking - offering glimpses of a future yet to be fully seen - and amounts to one of the most important, influential, and creatively accomplished album series ever conceived.
Co-curated by Eno and the composers Gavin Bryars and Michael Nyman - issuing the recording debuts of Bryars, Nyman, John Adams, Christopher Hobbs, David Toop, Max Eastley, Jan Steele, Simon Jeffes / The Penguin Café Orchestra, and Harold Budd, in addition to important works by John Cage, Tom Phillips, and John White - Obscure’s collective output is a groundbreaking landmark in the histories of Minimalism, modern composition, and Experimental music, and laid much of the groundwork for the soon to emerge movement of Ambient music.

Illuminating the remarkable, and largely otherwise undocumented, creative ferment within and between the British and American scenes of experimental music during the mid to late 1970s, this collection - made in full collaboration with all of the composers or their estates - contains the entire 10 album output of Obscure, the majority of which have been out of print for years, with a number having never received a CD reissue.

Offering each of Obscure’s albums, completely remastered and housed in faithful replicas of their original covers and liner notes, as well as a 80-page book (LP dimension) for LP-BOX SET, filled with rare photos, archival material and texts by - among others - Gavin Bryars, Bradford Bailey, David Toop, Max Eastley, Richard Bernas, and Tom Recchion, this historic collection marks the first time this seminal series has received a complete LP repress.

25th anniversary release of the album from 1998 as expanded special limited edition. It is the eighth Dub Syndicate studio album mixed by Adrian Sherwood. Originally released as catalogue number Lion & Roots 002 in 1998 on Style Scott"s own label here"s the expanded and remastered collector"s limited edition as 2LP-set including six additional tracks not available on the original vinyl release and also as 18-track CD release, with the booklet including excerpts from an unpublished interview. Main vocal contributor is the legendary artist Big Youth plus Little David courtesy J.R. Productions (Junior Reid"s camp), backing vocals by Skip McDonald and Style Scott"s inimitable laughter. The basic tracks were recorded in Jamaica, with some of the pals from the Roots Radics days (i.e. Flabba Holt, Steely Johnson) at Studio 2000 (Steely & Clevie"s studio) and the legendary Tuff Gong Recording Studio, followed by overdubbing in the USA at Greenpoint Studios (Bill Laswell"s studio) and Playroom Studios in New York, with additional overdub and final mix at On-U Sound (London) by Adrian Sherwood.

The sophomore album from NYC musician and singer-songwriter Kyle Avallone, is a collection of nostalgic meditations that take you out of the smoky bar and into the gray daylight of a seaside town. It is a cinematic dreamscape steeped in warm vocals, lush synthesizers, and sweeping steel guitars. Throughout the ten songs, tender narratives play like home movies on a living room wall, revealing little worlds and distilled memories.
Recorded at Studio G in Brooklyn with Jeff Berner (Psychic TV), Avallone reaches beyond the lo-fi sleaze of his 2020 debut, Last Minute Man, for a higher fidelity and grander sound palette. “After making a record by myself on an old four-track tape machine, it felt like a natural progression to go into a proper studio and play music with my friends". The core band consists of Mark Perro (The Men) on keys and Russell Hymowitz on bass, who both sing backing vocals, along with David Christian on drums. On several tunes, pedal steel played by Jon “Catfish” DeLorme (The Nude Party) dances around Avallone’s baritone voice, delivering a twang that is distinctively more New York than Nashville.
Inspired by the conversational storytelling of artists like Terry Allen and Lou Reed, Avallone was moved to capture the drama and mystery of his own life experiences. The characters we meet here are flawed. Mistakes are made and lies are told. Love is either lost or on the line. Dreams manifold as both echoes of the past and hopes for the future – the faded glow of childhood impressions in “Down the Hill”; the single mothers’ kitchen table reverie in “Going to the Beach”; the lament for summer’s end in “Vacant Sea”.

100 only

AhGeeBe is the stage name of Welsh songwriter, pedal-steel player and general all-round multi- instrumentalist, Rhodri Gwyn Brooks. Through the past decade performing and recording with various artists (Melin Melyn, Gia Margaret, Novo Amor, Georgia Ruth & Ivan Moult to name a few), Rhodri has drawn on inspiration from artists such as George Harrison, Wilco and Neil Young, to produce his distinct brand of country Americana.
Through Bubblewrap, Rhodri has released lo-fi home
recordings and a couple of EP’s under his own name, as well as a Welsh Music Prize nominated album ‘Pontvane’, alongside Eugene Capper. Now, a decade in the making, AhGeeBe’s debut album ‘Chin Up, Chief‘ drops on November 3rd, through Bubblewrap Collective.
Rhodri shares some of his thoughts and processes...
Over the years I’ve come to realise that I much prefer playing for other artists, and collaborating with people, more than writing and releasing my own music with all the ffaff and headspace it takes up. But here we are.
The name of the record comes from a line in TV show Fargo, where police officer Molly tries to cheer up the police Chief. It stuck with me and seemed all too fitting a title for the songs as a whole.
Musically I wanted to make an album with all the sounds and feel I really love from artists like George Harrison, Wilco, Neil Young etc with piano and acoustic guitar, interupted by spikey electric guitars or mad fuzz solos with a solid slight funk to the rhythm section - my attempt to sound like a David Axelrod record. I got a pedal steel guitar around 3 years ago so there’s a veriety of bottleneck slide, lapsteel, and pedal steel guitar on the record. And then on the flip side, have moments of calm and sparsity, with room to woozily meander around.

Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975) is the latest entry in Rhino’s ongoing, GRAMMY-winning series exploring the vast untapped archives of rare Joni Mitchell recordings — a project guided inti-mately by Mitchell’s own vision and personal touch. Joni Mitchell Archives, Vol. 3: The Asylum Years (1972-1975) will be available as a 4 LP with an accompanying book featuring photos and a conversation about this period between Joni Mitchell and longtime friend Cameron Crowe.

The collection begins with an early cut of “Cold Blue Steel And Sweet Fire,” one of two songs (along with “For The Roses”) test-driven during a visit to a Graham Nash David Crosby recording session at Wally Heider’s in Hol-lywood.

From there, listeners are treated to early demos and alternate versions from sessions from For The Roses, Court & Spark, and The Hissing Of Summer Lawns; historic live show recordings, including the entirety of Mitch-ell’s triumphant 1972 return to Carnegie Hall and a definitive gig with her Court And Spark backing band Tom Scott & the L.A. Express; and tracks from sessions cut alongside James Taylor, Graham Nash, and Neil Young.


















q 5. Sunrise Raga [3:41]

»This River Only Brings Poison« was released in 2002 as the sixth full-length album of Chris Hooson’s Dakota Suite project. This first-ever vinyl edition of the record includes four bonus pieces and makes it possible for fans to re-evaluate one of the most crucial Dakota Suite albums in the project’s vast discography while also providing new listeners with an entry point into its intricate musical cosmos. With contributions by artists as diverse as steel guitarist Bruce Kaphan and drummer Tim Mooney from American Music Club, Derald Daugherty, and Laura and Chris Donohue as well as long-time collaborators such as David Buxton, Colin Dunkley or Ed Collins, »This River Only Brings Poison« turned out as a sonically rich and stylistically versatile as it is emotionally multi-layered.

»Writing music for me has always been a cathartic exercise,« explains Hooson. While the instrumental pieces generally serve to express a raw sense of his internal struggles, his vocal-led songs communicate them more directly. »Those are the words I cannot say openly. It’s not that I cannot voice them in a conversation, it’s just that they only seem half-formed and not ›true‹ unless they are located within a song,« he says. What makes Dakota Suite unique is that throughout the project’s history, the music and lyrics have always had a single addressee: Hooson’s wife Johanna, whose photographs were used for the album artwork and who is featured on clarinet on »sand fools the shoreline.«

»The title of the record was something that I had said when Johanna and I first met to make her see that the journey she was considering taking would be full of love, but also come at a cost,« explains Hooson. »The songs were written at a time when I was really struggling to think I could be the person that she deserved.« In the end however, »This River Only Brings Poison« marked a turning point in Hooson’s oeuvre after highly productive time with Dakota Suite: it would take another five years until he returned with a new album. »The reason for that was that I needed to accept that she had made her choice to be with me and that was a big thing for me to get my head around,« he says.

Hooson’s highly personal approach to writing songs also has an impact on the ways in which he works with his collaborators when recording them. »The people with whom I play really need to understand how I perceive the world to be able to play what I need,« he says. »My instructions would always be things like, ›This is what the song means to me, this is what I am trying to communicate to Johanna when she hears it, so your cello, for example, needs to sound like you have noticed that the cloud is covering the sun, and the weight of the air on your skin is heavier and it has unsettled you.‹«

For this particular record, he reached out to Mooney and Kaphan as an admirer of their group American Music Club. Expecting to be rejected, he instead found himself on a flight to San Francisco together with multi-instrumentalist Buxton shortly thereafter, about to make what he today calls one of his most cherished recording experiences. After the four musicians finished the basic tracks, overdubs were added in Hooson and Buxton’s respective houses as well as Daugherty’s home studio while Hooson was visiting his old friend in Nashville.

Hooson emphasises that revisiting his older releases can be complicated. »I feel intense feelings, as every record is a diary of who I was in that period and what I was feeling. That is why having to play the songs live is always like having PTSD: I need to re-experience the event that caused me to write the song, and I do not enjoy that.« He remains, however, proud of »This River Only Brings Poison,« pointing especially to the opener »the lepers companion« as what might perhaps be his favourite song of his. »But overall I just hope that Johanna feels it spoke to her,« he says, adding that the two do not discuss his records. »For me it's enough that she is listening to the things I mean to communicate to her.«

Es beherrscht ein grauer, stimmungsvoller und dichter Spätherbst-Tag das Geschehen. Viel zu früh hat der Himmel sich verdunkelt. Jetzt plätschert gleichförmig und regelmäßig Regen auf die Straßen, auf die Erde, auf die griesgrämig wirkenden Menschen herab. So stellt man sich die Atmosphäre vor, in welcher das sechste Subsignal-Studioalbum "A Poetry of Rain" entstanden ist.
Fünf endlos wirkende Jahre ließen Subsignal ihre Anhänger auf neue akustische Klang-Abenteuer warten. "Und auch das hatte wieder mit der Pandemie zu tun", offenbart Markus Steffen den Grund für die quälend lange Pause. "Existenzängste schlichen sich ein", reflektiert er. "Im Zuge dessen verließ der langjährige Bassist Ralf Schwager die Band. Mit Martijn Horsten aus Rotterdam war allerdings rasch würdiger Ersatz gefunden. Dennoch schwelgen die zehn Kompositionen vor Sehnsucht und einer gehörigen Portion Wehmut."
Der progressive Mix aus Rock, Metal und Artrock gelingt scheinbar spielerisch. Ausnahme-Drummer Dirk Brand setzt dabei eine fulminante Basis, auf die mal rockige, mal elegante Gitarren-Sounds zusammen mit den Keyboards einmalige Klangwelten zaubern. Darüber schwebt das wunderbare Timbre von Sänger Arno Menses - immer präsent, immer einnehmend, voller Leidenschaft und Kraft. Dazu trägt auch die kristallklare und druckvolle Produktion von Yogi Lang von ihrem Label Gentle Art Of Music bei.

Presse:
Rocks 9/10: "Songs wie ›Impasse‹ oder "Marigold‹ berühren, transportieren Gefühle und packen den Hörer, wie es sonst Marillion, Yes oder Kansas am besten können. Auf welch hohem Niveau die Herren musizieren, wird bei Nummern wie The Art Of Giving Ins oder ›Sliver (The Sheltered Garden)‹ klar, aber Komplexi-lät ist hier nie Mittel zum Zweck."

Deaf Forever 8.5/10: "…meistens die wie immer großartigen Refrains, die einen aufrichten. ….wie gewohnt exzellent gesungene Artrock-Stücke, die von den nach fünf Jahren Wartezeit dürstenden Anhängern nun endlich auch zu Hause genossen werden können."

Rock It - Soundcheck #6/32: "…so steht der Name Subsignal auch auf Album Nummer sechs doch für handgemachte Qualitätsarbeit mit Herz und Seele. Reinhören, eintauchen und mitfühlen!"

Break Out: "Mit "Poetry Of Rain" unterstreichen Subsignal ihre Ausnahmestellung im Rock: Scheibe unbedingt zulegen! Ich bin mir sicher, dass niemand bei diesem Longplayer enttäuscht sein wird, der sich in melodischen Bereichen mit progressiven Parts wohlfühlt."

Gäste:
David Bertok - Keyboards "Embers Part II - Water Wings)
Marek Arnold - Saxophon "The Last of its Kind"
Yogi Lang - Keyboards
Dietmar Waechtler - Pedal Steel "The Art of Giving In"
Iraklis Choraitis - Backing Vocals "Sliver (The Sheltered Garden)"

Mix & Master von Yogi Lang, Farm-Studios Freising

Es beherrscht ein grauer, stimmungsvoller und dichter Spätherbst-Tag das Geschehen. Viel zu früh hat der Himmel sich verdunkelt. Jetzt plätschert gleichförmig und regelmäßig Regen auf die Straßen, auf die Erde, auf die griesgrämig wirkenden Menschen herab. So stellt man sich die Atmosphäre vor, in welcher das sechste Subsignal-Studioalbum "A Poetry of Rain" entstanden ist.
Fünf endlos wirkende Jahre ließen Subsignal ihre Anhänger auf neue akustische Klang-Abenteuer warten. "Und auch das hatte wieder mit der Pandemie zu tun", offenbart Markus Steffen den Grund für die quälend lange Pause. "Existenzängste schlichen sich ein", reflektiert er. "Im Zuge dessen verließ der langjährige Bassist Ralf Schwager die Band. Mit Martijn Horsten aus Rotterdam war allerdings rasch würdiger Ersatz gefunden. Dennoch schwelgen die zehn Kompositionen vor Sehnsucht und einer gehörigen Portion Wehmut."
Der progressive Mix aus Rock, Metal und Artrock gelingt scheinbar spielerisch. Ausnahme-Drummer Dirk Brand setzt dabei eine fulminante Basis, auf die mal rockige, mal elegante Gitarren-Sounds zusammen mit den Keyboards einmalige Klangwelten zaubern. Darüber schwebt das wunderbare Timbre von Sänger Arno Menses - immer präsent, immer einnehmend, voller Leidenschaft und Kraft. Dazu trägt auch die kristallklare und druckvolle Produktion von Yogi Lang von ihrem Label Gentle Art Of Music bei.

Presse:
Rocks 9/10: "Songs wie ›Impasse‹ oder "Marigold‹ berühren, transportieren Gefühle und packen den Hörer, wie es sonst Marillion, Yes oder Kansas am besten können. Auf welch hohem Niveau die Herren musizieren, wird bei Nummern wie The Art Of Giving Ins oder ›Sliver (The Sheltered Garden)‹ klar, aber Komplexi-lät ist hier nie Mittel zum Zweck."

Deaf Forever 8.5/10: "…meistens die wie immer großartigen Refrains, die einen aufrichten. ….wie gewohnt exzellent gesungene Artrock-Stücke, die von den nach fünf Jahren Wartezeit dürstenden Anhängern nun endlich auch zu Hause genossen werden können."

Rock It - Soundcheck #6/32: "…so steht der Name Subsignal auch auf Album Nummer sechs doch für handgemachte Qualitätsarbeit mit Herz und Seele. Reinhören, eintauchen und mitfühlen!"

Break Out: "Mit "Poetry Of Rain" unterstreichen Subsignal ihre Ausnahmestellung im Rock: Scheibe unbedingt zulegen! Ich bin mir sicher, dass niemand bei diesem Longplayer enttäuscht sein wird, der sich in melodischen Bereichen mit progressiven Parts wohlfühlt."

Gäste:
David Bertok - Keyboards "Embers Part II - Water Wings)
Marek Arnold - Saxophon "The Last of its Kind"
Yogi Lang - Keyboards
Dietmar Waechtler - Pedal Steel "The Art of Giving In"
Iraklis Choraitis - Backing Vocals "Sliver (The Sheltered Garden)"

Der in Texas aufgewachsene Singer-Songwriter und Big Thief-Gitarrist Buck Meek kündigt sein neues Album "Haunted Mountain" für den 25. August an. Seine erste Solo-Veröffentlichung bei 4AD folgt auf das 2021er Album "Two Saviors" und handelt von der Liebe...und etwas anderem. Etwas Größerem, etwas, dass Liebe nicht wirklich herausfordert, eher im direkten Kontrast dazu steht. Eine völlige Erfüllung der Seele. Meek gesteht ein, dass Liebeslieder für ihn die am schwersten zu schreibenden sind. Vielleicht holte sich Meek auch deshalb beim Schreiben Verstärkung in Form der Freundin und langjährigen Heldin Jolie Holland, die bei fünf von elf Songs des Albums Co-Autoren-Credits hat. Die ersten zwei Verse und der Chorus von "Haunted Mountain" stammen von der Texanerin, die diese als Liebeslied für Mount Shasta in Nord-Kalifornien geschrieben hat. Meek fügte den finalen Vers hinzu, in der gemeinsamen Suche nach dem Austausch mit der Natur. "It"s about being humbled by the thing you"re drawing power from only at which point an actual, fair relationship begins", erklärt er. Seit seinem selbstbetitelten Solo-Debüt sind Meeks Band-Kollegen die gleichen: Adam Brisbin (Gitarre), Austin Vaughn (Schlagzeug) und Mat Davidson (Pedel Steel, Bass). Für "Haunted Mountain" stießen noch Ken Woodward (Bass) und Meeks Bruder Dylan (Klavier, Synths) zu diesem eingeschworenen Haufen dazu. Davidson übernahm die Produktion, während Adrian Olsen, der auch die Sound Manipulation mit einem Modular Synthesizer übernahm, das Album innerhalb von zwei Wochen mixte. Der Ansatz war ein hi-fi-Album als Gegensatz zum lo-fi-Ansatz des Vorgängers zu erschaffen, während die Intimität erhalten bleiben sollte. Meek glaubt selbst daran, dass alle großen Liebeslieder noch nicht geschrieben wurden. Zwischen den Zeilen von "Haunted Mountain" hört man, dass Liebe in jeglicher Form die Erschaffung eines Zuhauses ist, von innen - für immer auf der Suche nach dem anderen.

Charlie Hunter’s 1995 Blue Note debut Bing Bing Bing! was a groove-heavy tour-de-force that announced the arrival of a virtuosic new guitarist on the scene. Hunter’s unique concept on his 8-string guitar allowed him to lay down a bass line and play chords as well as a melodic line at the same time, producing music that was at once impressive and irrepressible. With his powerful trio featuring tenor saxophonist Dave Ellis and drummer Jay Lane plus contributions from trombonist Jeff Cressman, Ben Goldberg, pedal steel guitarist David Phillips, and percussionist Scott Roberts, Hunter delivered a 10-song set of propulsive originals including “Greasy Granny” and “Fistful of Haggis” plus an unforgettable cover of Nirvana’s “Come As You Are.” Hunter would go on to record six more excellent albums for Blue Note, and also gain notice for playing on D’Angelo’s 2000 neo-soul masterpiece Voodoo.

Two Saviors is Buck Meek's second album, following 2018's self-titled LP also released on Keeled Scales and currently on its third pressing. The Big Thief lead guitarist worked with producer and engineer Andrew Sarlo on this album (who's produced all four of Big Thief albums, as well as coproducing Bon Iver's i,i ). Andrew agreed to record it only if it was made under his conditions-- that they make the album in New Orleans during the hottest part of the year, spend no more than seven days tracking live, on an 8-track tape machine, with only dynamic microphones and no headphones, and not allowing the players to hear back any of the takes until the final day. The band, featuring Adam Brisbin (guitar, vocals), Mat Davidson (bass, pedal steel, fiddle, vocals), Austin Vaughn (drums), and Buck's brother Dylan Meek (piano, organ, vocals), set up in a Victorian house one block from the Mississippi River, and worked within these limitations, encouraging every recording to be imbued with the living, intuitive, and human energy of a first take.

Mike Cooper wrote his final songwriter record, a suite of gloaming glam-rock anthems performed with a spiritual jazz trio, while living on the Costa Tropical of Granada, Spain, an era when he was considering retiring from music altogether. A chance encounter and a last-ditch record deal convinced him to make one last album, which he recorded in 1974 at Pathway Studios in London, with “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World,” featuring the inventive South African jazz rhythm section of Louis Moholo and Harry Miller with UK saxophonist Mike Osborne. This first-ever reissue includes a bonus CD of Milan Live Acoustic 2018, a previously unreleased solo set that represents Cooper’s return, after forty-four years pursuing free improvisation and electronics, to a new, deconstructed approach to singing, steel guitar, and songcraft. The deluxe LP+CD edition also features a six-panel insert with additional artwork and an essay by the artist about both records. The deluxe 2xCD gatefold edition features an eight-panel version of the same insert. In the wake of his magisterial triptych of early 1970s avant-folk-rock records Trout Steel (1970), Places I Know (1971), and The Machine Gun Co. (1972) the British songwriter, guitarist, and fledgling improviser Mike Cooper retreated to the Costa Tropical of Granada, Spain. With no prospects for touring or recording again, his fiery band the Machine Gun Co. had disintegrated. Cooper sets the scene in his liner notes of the first-ever reissue of his unjustly forgotten next album Life and Death in Paradise (1974): No one came running with offers of fame and riches, and we fell apart, and I left the country and headed for the beach, disillusioned and a bit disorientated musically. I went to Almuñécar in Andalusia, a place I had been going since 1969, because a painter friend from Reading, Rowland Fade who made the collage in the gatefold of my earlier album Trout Steel had moved there in 1968. It was in this synthetic coastal “paradise,” unmoored and adrift, considering retiring from music altogether, that he began tentatively writing new songs. A chance encounter with producer Tony Hall, who offered Cooper a last-ditch record deal on Hall’s nascent Fresh Air label, convinced him to make one last album with the stipulation that he could assemble what he called “The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World.” I told Tony that I would do it if I could hire some of my South African jazz musician friends that I had used on my Pye/Dawn albums and some friends from Reading that I still knew and admired. I called up Harry Miller, Louis Moholo, and Mike Osborne, who were in fact a trio at the time … and several local Reading heroes, including the singer-songwriter Terry Clarke. The result, recorded live with minimal overdubbing at Pathway Studios in London, was Life and Death in Paradise, an utterly singular suite of gloaming glam-rock anthems performed with a spiritual jazz trio comprising the inventive South African jazz rhythm section of Moholo and Miller with UK saxophonist Osborne. Unlike anything else in Cooper’s extensive catalog. Fresh Air fizzled, and Life and Death became Cooper’s final record as a songwriter, having pushed the form as far as he could. Drifting north from Spain back to the UK, he fell into the scene of the London Musicians Collective (LMC) including Paul Burwell, David Toop, and saxophonist Lol Coxhill, Cooper’s bandmate in the Recedents and fully embraced free improvisation. He was still, however, interested in singing and lyrics, so, influenced by Tom Phillips, William Burroughs, and Brion Gysin, he began experimenting with text collage and cut-up techniques, arriving at his own hybrid compositional strategy for improvisatory songs. The previously unreleased solo set Milan Live Acoustic 2018 represents Cooper’s return, after more than four decades pursuing free improvisation and electronics, to a new, deconstructed approach to singing, lap steel guitar, and songcraft. Presented here together with Life and Death in Paradise, the two records provide fascinating bookends to Mike Cooper’s long, mercurial, and pioneering practice as a songmaker.

Cathalepsy ist ein Metal-Projekt aus Valparaiso, Chile, gegründet von Luigi Ansaldi, das 2006 sein Debütalbum "Fight in the sky" veröffentlichte, das in Ländern wie Brasilien und Japan großen Erfolg hatte. Leider war das Abenteuer nur von kurzer Dauer und die Band löste sich 2010 auf. Im Jahr 2019 beschloss Luigi, die Band wiederzubeleben, diesmal jedoch als Projekt, und begann, kraftvolle und energiegeladene Songs mit Texten mit starken Botschaften zu komponieren. Heavy Metal mit Herz und Wut, dies ist ein kraftvolles und wütendes Album, es ist für alle Metalheads, ohne Scheuklappen. Im Jahr 2019 schließt sich Fabián Valdés diesem Abenteuer an, ein prominenter chilenischer Gitarrist. Cathalepsy sind dabei, den Heavy Metal Fans die ganze Kraft ihrer Musik näher zu bringen! "Blood and Steel" ist der Inbegriff erstklassiger Metal-Musiker in nur einem Album mit Gästen, die von Sängern wie Tim "Ripper" Owens (KK Priest, ex-Judas Priest), Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Harry Conklin (Jag Panzer, ex-Riot), Herbie Langhans (Avantasia, Firewind), Frank Beck (Gamma Ray), Giacomo Voli (Rhapsody of Fire), Ivan Giannini (Vision Divine), Thiago Bianchi (Shaman, Noturnall), David Readman (PinkCream 69, Voodoo Circle), Sologitarristen: Joel Hoekstra (Whitesnake), Roland Grapow (Masterplan, ex-Helloween), Ross The Boss (ex-Manowar), Glen Drover (ex-Megadeath, King Diamond, Testament), Pontus Norgren (Hammerfall), Thobbe Englund (ex-Sabaton), Jens Ludwig (Edguy), Danilo Bar (WhiteSkull), Sigurd Fylling (Legend Of Valley Doom), Keyboarder: Scott Warren (Dio, Heaven and Hell, Black Sabbath), Oliver Palotai (Kamelot). Das ist Heavy Fuckin Metal.

FÜR FANS VON: Manowar, Queensryche, Kamelot, Savatage, Running Wild, Vicious Rumors.

In einer Zeit, in der kulturelle Innovationen so stark wie nie zuvor in den Hintergrund gedrängt werden und viele außergewöhnliche Musikformen der Versuchung des kommerziell lukrativeren Mainstreams erliegen, sind Virgin Steele der hell scheinende Silberstreif am Himmel. Seit mehr als 40 Jahren hält Mastermind David DeFeis mit seinem exzellenten Songwriting und seiner charismatischen Stimme eine der ideenreichsten Bands des
Power Metal-Genres auf Kurs. Gleichzeitig hat DeFeis nie aufgehört, sich als Komponist, Musiker und Produzent weiterzuentwickeln und seinen symphonisch gefärbten Sound mit spannenden neuen Einflüssen zu aktualisieren. Dies ist ihm mit Klassikern wie ‚Invictus‘ (1998), ‚The House Of Atreus I & II‘ (1999/2000) oder ‚Visions Of Eden‘ (2006) bereits mehrfach gelungen. Auf dem aktuellen Album ‚The Passion Of Dionysus‘ setzt DeFeis seiner unbändigen Kreativität nun die Krone auf. Mit brillanter Handschrift manövriert er das Werk durch ein packendes Gleichnis über Kontrolle und Freiheit und sorgt acht Jahre nach dem umjubelten Studio-Opus ‚Nocturnes Of Hellfire & Damnation‘ (2015) für einen weiteren Höhepunkt der Virgin
Steele-Karriere. Veröffentlicht wird ‚The Passion Of Dionysus‘ am 30. Juni 2023 über Steamhammer/SPV als Digi-CD (inklusive Poster), als
Gatefold-Doppel-LP und in digitaler Form. Bereits vorab werden Virgin Steele drei Singles auskoppeln.

Nach dem Erfolg der ersten drei Alben 'White on blue', 'Secret Love' und 'Carousel' veröffentlichen Crossfade aus Schweden nun 'Innocent Days'. Herausgekommen ist ein tolles Rock-Album, das den charakteristischen Klang von Crossfade mit würzigen Zutaten von Toto, Steely Dan und den Eagles zu kombinieren weiß. Gemastered von Tony Cousins (Peter Gabriel), und das Artwork stammt von Steven Knee (David Gilmore). Jetzt erhältlich als LP.