Cerca:the music students

Strut present 3 separate reissues of the 1970s album trilogy from Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids. As students at Antioch ollege, Ohio, alto saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, flautist Margaux Simmons and bass player Kimathi Asante created three lasting monuments in sound — Lalibela, King of Kings, and Birth / Speed / Merging, a trio of albums produced without any label backing or distribution between 1972 and 1976. Their music is unique among the varied canon of avant-garde and experimental music of 1970s America: high intensity African-styled percussion topped with songs, chants, and horns, laced with African instruments and arranged into long, flowing suites that surge and roll.

Birth/Speed/Merging was recorded in 1976 after the band's move to San Francisco. The album closes the Pyramids' 70s trilogy and makes more use of studio technology: adding overdubs and other effects, a marked departure from the previous two releases, though at no cost to the urgent message and energy of their earlier works.

Strut present 3 separate reissues of the 1970s album trilogy from Idris Ackamoor & The Pyramids. As students at Antioch ollege, Ohio, alto saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, flautist Margaux Simmons and bass player Kimathi Asante created three lasting monuments in sound — Lalibela, King of Kings, and Birth / Speed / Merging, a trio of albums produced without any label backing or distribution between 1972 and 1976. Their music is unique among the varied canon of avant-garde and experimental music of 1970s America: high intensity African-styled percussion topped with songs, chants, and horns, laced with African instruments and arranged into long, flowing suites that surge and roll.

King Of Kings was recorded in 1974 and features a wider array of instruments including Ugandan Harp and Balafon. Perhaps best known for the expansive "Nsorama (The Stars)" a seminal work of Spiritual Jazz.

“I’ve been coming a thousand years / you could call me the endless fuck,” goes the memorable opening line of Rubblebucket’s Earth Worship, a dance-forward, joyously layered collection of songs which work to dissolve the imaginary lines between the natural world and its inhabitants. Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, the group’s front persons and co-writers, first began a friendship as jazz students at the University of Vermont. Soon after, they formed a prolific band that has delved into pop, funk, dance and psychedelia over five records, with performances spanning Bonnaroo to their self-curated Dream Picnic Festival, and collaborations with kindred genre-blenders including Arcade Fire and Questlove. But Traver and Toth initially bonded over another shared passion: the two were part of UVM’s Sustainable Community Development program. Though Toth communes with nature as part of his morning routine, and Traver is adept at foraging in the band’s adopted home of New York, songwriting explicitly about environmentalism in Rubblebucket has felt immaterial—besides, the band has shared its beliefs over the years by inviting anti-fracking, reproductive justice, and other organizations to table at their shows. But Traver was interested in writing love songs for and from the natural world, and both were inspired by their parents’ work in ecology and community facilitation, from which they saw a throughline to music’s communal healing. Traver suggested “earth worship” as a lyrical prompt for their sixth record, and with this concept at its core, the duo began writing Earth Worship: a Rubblebucket album with renewed shimmer, showcasing the group’s intricately sparkling beats, hushed yet hooky vocals and infectious melodic complexity.

“I’ve been coming a thousand years / you could call me the endless fuck,” goes the memorable opening line of Rubblebucket’s Earth Worship, a dance-forward, joyously layered collection of songs which work to dissolve the imaginary lines between the natural world and its inhabitants. Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, the group’s front persons and co-writers, first began a friendship as jazz students at the University of Vermont. Soon after, they formed a prolific band that has delved into pop, funk, dance and psychedelia over five records, with performances spanning Bonnaroo to their self-curated Dream Picnic Festival, and collaborations with kindred genre-blenders including Arcade Fire and Questlove. But Traver and Toth initially bonded over another shared passion: the two were part of UVM’s Sustainable Community Development program. Though Toth communes with nature as part of his morning routine, and Traver is adept at foraging in the band’s adopted home of New York, songwriting explicitly about environmentalism in Rubblebucket has felt immaterial—besides, the band has shared its beliefs over the years by inviting anti-fracking, reproductive justice, and other organizations to table at their shows. But Traver was interested in writing love songs for and from the natural world, and both were inspired by their parents’ work in ecology and community facilitation, from which they saw a throughline to music’s communal healing. Traver suggested “earth worship” as a lyrical prompt for their sixth record, and with this concept at its core, the duo began writing Earth Worship: a Rubblebucket album with renewed shimmer, showcasing the group’s intricately sparkling beats, hushed yet hooky vocals and infectious melodic complexity.

“I’ve been coming a thousand years / you could call me the endless fuck,” goes the memorable opening line of Rubblebucket’s Earth Worship, a dance-forward, joyously layered collection of songs which work to dissolve the imaginary lines between the natural world and its inhabitants. Kalmia Traver and Alex Toth, the group’s front persons and co-writers, first began a friendship as jazz students at the University of Vermont. Soon after, they formed a prolific band that has delved into pop, funk, dance and psychedelia over five records, with performances spanning Bonnaroo to their self-curated Dream Picnic Festival, and collaborations with kindred genre-blenders including Arcade Fire and Questlove. But Traver and Toth initially bonded over another shared passion: the two were part of UVM’s Sustainable Community Development program. Though Toth communes with nature as part of his morning routine, and Traver is adept at foraging in the band’s adopted home of New York, songwriting explicitly about environmentalism in Rubblebucket has felt immaterial—besides, the band has shared its beliefs over the years by inviting anti-fracking, reproductive justice, and other organizations to table at their shows. But Traver was interested in writing love songs for and from the natural world, and both were inspired by their parents’ work in ecology and community facilitation, from which they saw a throughline to music’s communal healing. Traver suggested “earth worship” as a lyrical prompt for their sixth record, and with this concept at its core, the duo began writing Earth Worship: a Rubblebucket album with renewed shimmer, showcasing the group’s intricately sparkling beats, hushed yet hooky vocals and infectious melodic complexity.

God Alone are a 5 piece math/noise rock band hailing from Cork, Ireland comprised of students of the CIT Cork School Of Music. They combine the dense atmosphere of post metal with elements of indie, hardcore, jazz and dance music. They self released their debut EP "INTIVIM" in late 2016 to critical acclaim and subsequently released their first full length release: titled "Poll na mBrón”, an album based on events and stories from Our Lady's "Hospital" of Cork. Shortly after the release of their debut full length, they returned to the studio to create their most eclectic mix of sounds yet: their sophomore self titled EP, released in November 2019 which enabled them to embark on their first Ireland and UK headline tour. They have played numerous Irish festivals including Townlands Carnival, Monolith Festival and the Siege of Limerick and were recently crowned winners of the "Mammothfest Best Band Competition" of Mammothfest in Brighton, beating 200 bands across Ireland and the UK who battled through the heats. They are also currently booked to appear at ArcTanGent 2022 in the UK. Their self described "sad metal with some dancey bits" heard on their first single release "Dagda" has been described by Overblown as "a blast of visceral fury and dance floor filling interludes". They have been featured and interviewed on numerous media platforms including Hot Press, Totally Cork, Kerrang and Metal Hammer. Their latest release will see them push the boundaries of metal even further, until it cracks. "The band’s new self-titled EP hits that sweet spot in a way that makes God Alone memorable from the get-go." - KERRANG. “God Alone that you realize what makes the next generation of metal bands so special." - METAL HAMMER.

Last album recorded by Colombian rock pioneers Los Speakers in 1968 after leaving behind its affinity with yéyé and go-go music. One of the most brilliantly whacked-out psych LPs to emerge from South America. Originally self-released on their own Producciones Kris label, this is an almost impossible to find cult record. Officially reissued for the first time. By 1968, Colombian rock had left behind its affinity with yéyé and go-go music. In Medellín, Discos Fuentes had terminated its contract with Los Yetis, whose farewell record "Olvídate" set a strong anti-establishment tone. While the fire of protest that had spread rapidly among students in Paris was dying out, young people in Bogotá voiced their discontent. Aware of the effervescent political climate across the world, Los Speakers wrote their last record between June and September of the convulsive year of 1968. In order to give shape to these new songs they needed a space where they could experiment freely with sound. The music historian and critic and sound engineer, Manuel Drezner, made a providential appearance and offered the innovative Ingeson studios to the trio under one condition: that his company's name was included in the title of the record. For four months, Rodrigo, Manuel and Roberto created a record that was completely different to anything on the Colombian rock scene at that time. Los Speakers used cutting-edge equipment to record and mix "El maravilloso mundo de Ingeson", It was the first time local musicians had access to a multichannel mixing desk where they could experiment with all kinds of bold sound effects. The silences between songs were replaced with brief intervals of sound including the noise of a train running over a passer-by, a bomb exploding_ Although it's often labelled a conceptual record, the four compositions that each of the band members contribute reveal different aesthetic personalities. From the strong influence of Renaissance and Baroque poetry and music to the virulent social critique and pacifist statements, suffused with religiosity and mysticism. Armed with the demo tape, Los Speakers presented the project to CBS, Philips, Sonolux and Bambuco. The labels' verdict was unanimous: not very commercial and very costly. The group reacted to this negative response by pooling their personal savings, inventing a fictious record label called Kris and released the record just as they had imagined it. This led to the creation of a graphic concept unheard of in Colombia: the record included a booklet containing photos, texts and illustrations. Although there was a big media roll out, which included TV appearances and features in newspapers and magazines, as predicted the album was a commercial failure_ "El maravilloso mundo de Ingesón" is one of the most brilliantly whacked-out psych LPs to emerge from South America.

"Singe" is the new record by Angelo Harmsworth, a musician who hails from the American Southwest and is operating now out of Berlin. Harmsworth’s work deals resolutely in extremes, but this music is not concerned with presenting binary or dichotomous relationships so much as it is with reconciling disparate sensibilities and sounds. Layers of meticulously edited and sculpted tones swirl around one another, creating kaleidoscopic patterns and hallucinated choral motifs that seem to thrive on amplitude or the position of the listener’s head. There is a visceral physicality to this music that aligns it with some of the core tenets of harsh noise, even while its tonal and timbral choices recall those of ambient music. This record follows excellent releases on enmossed/Psychic Liberation, Angoisse, Opal Tapes, Vaknar, and Harmsworth’s own Lime Lodge imprint and may be the high water mark of his published output thus far. There is drama and implied narrative in these seven compositions that seethes and hums as if reveling in a sort of violent gracefulness.

Strut present the first box set release to bring together the 1970s recordings of The Pyramids, led by Idris Ackamoor. As students at Antioch College, Ohio, alto saxophonist Idris Ackamoor, flautist Margaux Simmons and bass player Kimathi Asante created three lasting monuments in sound - Lalibela, King of Kings, and Birth / Speed / Merging, a trio of albums produced without any label backing or distribution between 1972 and 1976. Their music is unique among the varied canon of avant-garde and experimental music of 1970s America: high intensity African-styled percussion topped with songs, chants, and horns, laced with African instruments and arranged into long, flowing suites that surge and

Tape

Charlemagne Palestine (born Charles Martin ni 1947 in Brooklyn, New York) wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences' expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist. Palestine's performance style is ritualistic; he generally surrounds himself (and his piano) with stuffed animals, smokes large numbers of kretek (Indonesian clove cigarettes) and drinks cognac.

Oren Ambarchi (born 1969 in Australia) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, "re-routing the instrument into a zone of alien abstraction where it's no longer easily identifiable as itself. Instead, it's a laboratory for extended sonic investigation". (The Wire, UK).

Oren Ambarchi's works are hesitant and tense extended songforms located in the cracks between several schools: modern electronics and processing; laminal improvisation and minimalism; hushed, pensive songwriting; the deceptive simplicity and temporal suspensions of composers such as Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier; and the physicality of rock music, slowed down and stripped back to its bare bones, abstracted and replaced with pure signal.

From the late 90's his experiments in guitar abstraction and extended technique have led to a more personal and unique sound-world incorporating a broader palette of instruments and sensibilities. On releases such as Grapes From The Estate and In The Pendulum's Embrace Ambarchi has employed glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, drums and percussion, creating fragile textures as light as air which tenuously coexist with the deep, wall-shaking bass tones derived from his guitar.

Ambarchi works with simple constructs and parameters; exploring one idea over an extended duration and patiently teasing every nuance and implication from each texture; the phenomena of sum and difference tones; carefully tended arrangements that unravel gently; unprepossessing melodies that slowly work their way through various permutations; resulting in an otherworldly, cumulative impact of patiently unfolding compositions.

Ambarchi has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide, Pimmon, Keiji Haino, John Zorn, Rizili, Voice Crack, Jim O'Rourke, Keith Rowe, Phill Niblock, Dave Grohl, Gunter Muller, Evan Parker, z'ev, Toshimaru Nakamura, Peter Rehberg, Merzbow, Kassel Jaeger, Anthony Pateras, Crys Cole, Giuseppe Ielasi, Judith Hamann, Sunn 0))), James Rushford, Stephen O'Malley and many more.

For 10 years together with Robbie Avenaim, Ambarchi was the co-organiser of the What Is Music? festival, Australia's premier annual showcase of local and international experimental music. Ambarchi now curates the Maximum Arousal series at The Toff In Town in Melbourne and has recently co-produced an Australian television series on experimental music called Subsonics. Ambarchi co-curated the sound program for the 2008 Yokohama Triennale. Ambarchi has released numerous recordings for international labels such as Touch, Southern Lord, Table Of The Elements and Tzadik.

Belgian drummer Eric Thielemans is one of the most idiosyncratic figures in Belgian music, someone who not only demonstrates that special musicians always seek out (and find) their own place, but above all that they always remain students of the art of questioning and listening. No musician better illustrates the difference between playing music and playing with music than percussionist Eric Thielemans. He gets to the heart of the matter with an at times extremely minimalist approach, but on the other hand he frequently relies on a range of objects beyond the regular drum kit: a drum placed on its side, a bicycle wheel with a bow, hands and the body.

Tape

Charlemagne Palestine (born Charles Martin ni 1947 in Brooklyn, New York) wrote intense, ritualistic music in the 1970s, intended by the composer to rub against audiences' expectations of what is beautiful and meaningful in music. A composer-performer, he always performed his own works as soloist. His earliest works were compositions for carillon and electronic drones, and he is best known for his intensely performed piano works. He also performs as a vocalist. Palestine's performance style is ritualistic; he generally surrounds himself (and his piano) with stuffed animals, smokes large numbers of kretek (Indonesian clove cigarettes) and drinks cognac.

Oren Ambarchi (born 1969 in Australia) is a composer and multi-instrumentalist with longstanding interests in transcending conventional instrumental approaches. His work focuses mainly on the exploration of the guitar, "re-routing the instrument into a zone of alien abstraction where it's no longer easily identifiable as itself. Instead, it's a laboratory for extended sonic investigation". (The Wire, UK).

Oren Ambarchi's works are hesitant and tense extended songforms located in the cracks between several schools: modern electronics and processing; laminal improvisation and minimalism; hushed, pensive songwriting; the deceptive simplicity and temporal suspensions of composers such as Morton Feldman and Alvin Lucier; and the physicality of rock music, slowed down and stripped back to its bare bones, abstracted and replaced with pure signal.

From the late 90's his experiments in guitar abstraction and extended technique have led to a more personal and unique sound-world incorporating a broader palette of instruments and sensibilities. On releases such as Grapes From The Estate and In The Pendulum's Embrace Ambarchi has employed glass harmonica, strings, bells, piano, drums and percussion, creating fragile textures as light as air which tenuously coexist with the deep, wall-shaking bass tones derived from his guitar.

Ambarchi works with simple constructs and parameters; exploring one idea over an extended duration and patiently teasing every nuance and implication from each texture; the phenomena of sum and difference tones; carefully tended arrangements that unravel gently; unprepossessing melodies that slowly work their way through various permutations; resulting in an otherworldly, cumulative impact of patiently unfolding compositions.

Ambarchi has performed and recorded with a diverse array of artists such as Fennesz, Otomo Yoshihide, Pimmon, Keiji Haino, John Zorn, Rizili, Voice Crack, Jim O'Rourke, Keith Rowe, Phill Niblock, Dave Grohl, Gunter Muller, Evan Parker, z'ev, Toshimaru Nakamura, Peter Rehberg, Merzbow, Kassel Jaeger, Anthony Pateras, Crys Cole, Giuseppe Ielasi, Judith Hamann, Sunn 0))), James Rushford, Stephen O'Malley and many more.

For 10 years together with Robbie Avenaim, Ambarchi was the co-organiser of the What Is Music? festival, Australia's premier annual showcase of local and international experimental music. Ambarchi now curates the Maximum Arousal series at The Toff In Town in Melbourne and has recently co-produced an Australian television series on experimental music called Subsonics. Ambarchi co-curated the sound program for the 2008 Yokohama Triennale. Ambarchi has released numerous recordings for international labels such as Touch, Southern Lord, Table Of The Elements and Tzadik.

Belgian drummer Eric Thielemans is one of the most idiosyncratic figures in Belgian music, someone who not only demonstrates that special musicians always seek out (and find) their own place, but above all that they always remain students of the art of questioning and listening. No musician better illustrates the difference between playing music and playing with music than percussionist Eric Thielemans. He gets to the heart of the matter with an at times extremely minimalist approach, but on the other hand he frequently relies on a range of objects beyond the regular drum kit: a drum placed on its side, a bicycle wheel with a bow, hands and the body.

From deep in the heart of Moomin Valley, frozen in time for many
midwinters passed, comes a genuine treasure chest of never
heard Moomin melodies and instrumental comet songs composed
for the continued animated adventures of our Fuzzy-Felt freak folk
friends who disappeared from UK TV pastures in the mid-1980s.
From the top of the Hobgoblin’s Hat and the bottom of Snufkin’s
satchel, original Moomins composer Graeme Miller (‘The Carrier
Frequency’) kindly shares this patchwork selection of spellbinding
sound poems and percussive peons made using the very same
selection of ocarinas, kalimbas, miniature squeak boxes, Waspy
synths, cornflake box shakers and a seemingly endless array of
talent and lo-fi home studio trickery.

Regarded as one of the most enigmatic, beguiling and haunting
imported children’s programmes to ever grace UK TV screens,
‘The Moomins’ was one of the first-ever commissions by Anne
Wood (‘The Teletubbies’) who ingeniously replaced the original
Polish/Austrian/Finnish soundtrack with homemade music
experiments by unknown post-punk theatre students Graeme
Miller and Steve Shill (aka The Commies From Mars) who, after
the screening of two unforgettable series in 1983 and 1985, were
left in eager anticipation of rescoring further Moomin adventures
with new melodies, arrangements and sound designs, which then
lingered in the ether waiting until the Groke awoke and
Snorkmaiden sang once more.

With future felt adventures screened exclusively in Poland and
Germany for many years (often as feature films) these unheard
recordings are the only genuine musical sequel to the bizarre UK
version of ‘The Moomins’ and stand as important inclusions in
Graeme Miller’s own portfolio of theatrical theme music and sound
installations as part of The Impact Theatre Cooperative, including
collaborations with artists and writers such as Russell Hoban.

Witnessed in fragmented form during a short run of incredible rare
live screenings at The Barbican Theatre and various film festivals,
this record marks the first time this music has been heard in its
original full-length form, free from sound effects, dialogue and
whimpers of euphoric joy and nostalgia from those who have
continued to crave the company of our Moomintrolls and their
mysterious music over the last five decades.

Solo bedroom-pop project of Michael Ramos (Flowertown, April Magazine, Hectorine). Mostly recorded between last Christmas and New Year's during a window of isolation at home, “Hey There Flower” preserves Tony Jay’s prowess at making beautifully eerie lo-fi pop; like a hazy memory where your favorite Sixties girl-group melody is perpetually slowed down. Without a band to practice with, Tony Jay recorded the music alone, but recruited a slew of friends to remotely record backing vocals: Karina Gill (Cindy), Griffin Jones (Galore), Kati Mashikian (Mister Baby), Alexis Harper (Al Harper), & Hannah Lew (Cold Beat). "Hey There Flower", the most recent release from the prolific and mysterious Tony Jay delivers real melodies -- both lacey with vocal harmonies and dusty with layered guitars -- as fans have come to expect. This release also carries forward and elaborates on Tony Jay's tradition of songs that express a kind of naked honesty about things we all know -- love and loneliness and all that -- while communicating at the same time a wry edge of skepticism, so that the songs are like coins spinning on edge before landing heads, tails, or lost under the couch. Tony Jay brings us into a nostalgia where we recognize moods from music of the past -- Marc Boland definitely comes to mind, as well as Velvet Underground of the Nico era, and Tony Jay even covers Francoise Hardy on this collection -- but the songs create a three dimensional space with what feels like a thousand layers so that instead of being thrown back in time, it's like stepping into a little world with its own laws of nature, of which the listener gets just a few hints. - Karina Gill, Cindy/Flowertown. “Hey There Flower” is introduced by thudding snare beats eliciting reverb-stained tattered noisy guitar scrapes, to weave abrasive shimmery emotive vibrations, imbued with shattered nostalgic dreams, lit by brittle yet dazzling forsaken keyboard flows, over submerged and distorted male vocal’s whispery deluge of obsessive longing, lonely melancholy, and dark desire to exude a hazy gritty concoction of awkward sadness and brooding unrest.” White Light // White Heat // “What Tony sketches are concise commentaries on love, loneliness and a few things in between. His mode of expression is sparse, intense, and captivating. The arrangements are invariably lo-fi and slow tempo, blanketed with a fuzzy hiss. And it only took one listen to decide that it is a very special album. It has a '60s feel, albeit washed in an eerie slowcore machine. An ace example is "September Skies", which could be the 1965 'last dance' at the prom for the introverted students.” - When You Motor Away

Folksongs and Ballads by Tia Blake & Her Folk-Group, is more than just a “lost classic”. As clear and honest as can be, Folksongs and Ballads is a magnetic record, a refuge like only Nick Drake, Nico, and a few others have been able to create. A graceful, delicately minimalist approach to classic Appalachian and British folk songs.The perfect balance between melancholy and daydream. Originally released only in France in 1971, Ici Bientôt is very pleased to present the first-ever reissue on vinyl.

When she recorded her only album, Tia Blake was nineteen years old and had just arrived in Paris a year and a half beforehand. She spent most of her time at Disco’Thé, a record shop in the Latin Quarter, a free space, peaceful and inspiring, a hub for students as well as the local artistic community.

There, Tia would occasionally sing—when she managed to overcome her shyness. Two young guitarists who were passionate fans of folk music and regulars at the shop began to accompany her, forming “Her Folk Group.” One year later, they cut 11 tracks at Pierre Barouh’s Studios Saravah.

Folksongs and Ballads is composed of traditional tunes that have been covered many times, but they’re not the best-known folk standards. A collection of stories ranging from the Middle Ages to the 1960s, bringing together sublimely doleful ballads, lamentations for a lost lover, and an unexpected, brilliant version of the road anthem “Plastic Jesus.”

Tia Blake's haunting, unaffected voice captivates and comforts us, wrapping us in its cool embrace. Meanwhile, the tasteful, stripped-down, mellow acoustic arrangements provided by the guitarists, reminiscent of Bert Jansch and John Renbourn, occasionally supported by a kena flute, have created the space Tia Blake needed to reinvent these traditional songs.

Folksongs and Ballads is a timeless record, deep and unique, a longtime companion for repeated listening, in the vein of works by Sibylle Baier, Bridget St. John and Vashti Bunyan.

After the Bend is the second album from Louisville based Flanger Magazine, and the follow up to FM’s 2018 debut, Breslin. Whereas Breslin was the solo creation of Christopher Bush, an album noted for “an astute synthesis of ‘library music’ and solo acoustic guitar,” and “a seamless blend into the uncluttered and airier side of classic 1970’s giallo,” After the Bend is an ensemble affair. An ecosystem, a perfect mutualism bodies forth—of strings, outdoor recordings, electronics, reeds, and percussion—featuring new FM players Anna Krippenstapel (Frekons (Freakwater + Mekons), The Other Years), Jim Marlowe (Equipment Pointed Ankh, Tropical Trash, Sapat), Eric Lanham and Benjamin Zoeller (both from Caboladies). The various combos perform with both a distinguished efficacy and unhurried Sunday drift—charged and beautiful, pulsating and pleasing. The production is subtle and tasteful. Mutating past the old saws of bounded individualism, a strange form of tentacular life accrues, cyborgian-fungral-tangles of the more-than-human variety.

Robert Beatty’s cover art of otherworldly and interconnected river-scape gradients, coupled with song titles like “Reservoir,” “Falls Fountain Removed,” and “Sympathies for the River,” cue and clue the listener toward a river as a singular multitude analogue for the album. Interstitial gaps, clearings and openings give rise and merge into an accumulated flow from the tributaries of spirited improvisational performance, palimpsestic song cycles, and high fidelity studio production. The composite sound-image of After the Bend refuses to put both oars down into any one of the eddies of the folk, sound, chamber, electronic, or jazz idioms, and instead glides along the currents found within the slipstreams between.

Gathering samples, a River Doctor Limnologist inspecting the properties of After the Bend might note the specter of Leroy Jenkin’s free-violin heat-light deepin the water’s thermal stratification. Or mortgage the late-Maestro’s time with Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza to pay down the growing river heat budget. Or take one’s dirty buckets to the banks of the 19th laundromat where Walt Dickerson plays his vibraphone parts from Divine Gemini with dowsing rods. Or excavate the bedrock in the drainage basin, noting skeletal remains of a Shostakovich string quartet attempting to tune up a Kentucky Fiddle’s subsequent influence on the chemical composition of the water. Or consult the historical revisionist reenactment troupe’s episode of Fishing with John (Fahey) in which Codona, The Sea Ensemble and Nuno Canavarro guest host as their fleet of paddle boats churn river water into a regal lager, and all the fish get drunk in their quest for the leaner enamel Hosianna Mantra GPS coordinates of the Fattened Herb.

Bush and Marlowe recorded and produced the album at End of an Ear Studios, located in the Portland neighborhood, in the west end of the city of Louisville, bordering the Ohio River, between Kentucky’s Upper South and the Indiana’s Midwest, during the first year of the global pandemic, amidst the planet’s sixth great extinction event. As good a time to be alive as any other. (by Kris Abplanalp)

Idrissa Soumaoro, L’Eclipse De L’I.J.A.’s sought-after album ‘Le Tioko-Tioko’ was originally released in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) in 1978 and has been a long-time favourite at Mr Bongo. Two tracks from the album were featured on our 2017 compilation ‘The Original Sound Of Mali’ (MRBLP135), and we subsequently released the track ‘Nissodia’ on its own 12” (MRB12053) in 2020, complete with a blistering dancefloor re-edit by Mike D of The Beastie Boys.

‘Le Tioko-Tioko' is one of the rarest vinyl albums from the already scarce Malian vinyl discography, partly as the album was never released commercially, only independently distributed via the Malian Association for the Blind in Bamako. Though recorded at Radio Mali under the aegis of master engineer Boubacar Traoré; the album was originally released in East Germany. The tapes had been taken by some Malian students to East Berlin as part of a student exchange program. It was then manufactured and released on the East German state-owned label Eterna with only a few boxes of records being shipped back to Bamako.

A true masterpiece, this legendary LP offers some devastating songs such as ‘Djama’ (society), ‘Nissodia’ (joy of optimism), and ‘Fama Allah’ (an ode to god). Hypnotic organ riffs and breakbeats convey an unknown funk quality in Malian music, it now stands as a loving tribute to an unsung Malian golden age. Sadly, like many of the other now desired and prized vinyl rarities, at the time of release, it almost immediately disappeared without a trace due to a lack of promotion, and distribution. So, it feels fitting to share this gem of a record again, and hopefully it will reach the wider audience it deserved over 45 years ago.

Many thanks to Florent Mazzoleni for contributing sections of these notes.

Ferocious JP / US free jazz bomb. A rare meeting between the NYC free jazz scene and the Japanese free music scene. Old-style Gatefold LP, with rare photographs & liner notes by Alan Cummings.

Following hot on the heels of the first, mid-sixties generation of Japanese free jazz players like Kaoru Abe, Masayuki Takayanagi, Yōsuke Yamashita, Motoharu Yoshizawa, etc., an exciting second wave of younger players began to emerge in the seventies. Two of its leading members were the saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu and multi-instrumentalist Yoriyuki Harada. Both were post-war babies and immigrants to the city, Umezu from Sendai in the north and Harada from Shimane in the west. They first met as students in the clarinet department at the Kunitachi College of Music, a well-known conservatory in western Tokyo. Harada was already securing sideman gigs on bass with professional jazz groups and was active in student politics, making good use of his connections to set up jazz concerts on campus. It was around this time that the two began to play together in an improvised duo, with Umezu on clarinet and bass clarinet and Harada on piano. They also experimented with graphic scores and prepared piano.

These experiments eventually led to the creation of a trio, with a high-school student called Tetsuya Morimura on drums, that they decided to name Seikatsu Kōjyō Iinkai (Lifestyle Improvement Committee) in joking reference to the Marxist discourse of the student radicals of the time. Around 1973, Umezu and Harada decided to call it a day and go their separate ways. Umezu began playing with the Toshinori Kondo Unit and Harada with the Tadashi Yoshida Quintet. In 1974 Harada formed his own trio and began to play at jazz coffeehouses across Japan.

Then, in September 1974 Umezu travelled alone to New York, where he set about building connections with the loft jazz scene in the city. It was a fortuitous moment to arrive in New York. Rents were cheap in the Lower East Side, possibilities for squatting existed, so many musicians and artists had moved to the area. Umezu soon became known on the scene as Kappo and he started to make connections with some of the young musicians like David Murray, Arthur Blythe, and Oliver Lake. He recalls making the rounds of the lofts every evening, checking out the performances, and getting the chance to sit in with many groups including Juma Sultan’s Aboriginal Music Society and trumpeter Ted Daniel’s orchestra.

Things were going so well that Umezu wrote to Harada and invited him to come to New York. He accepted and arrived in the city in July 1975. Harada and Umezu took the opportunity to resume their artistic collaboration. Their first concert together in over two years took place on July 20th at another loft, Sunrise Studios at 122 2nd Avenue. Umezu remembers Sunrise as an unusually sunny loft with the rarest of things, a grand piano. He invited along Ahmed Abdullah, a trumpeter he had got to know while playing with Ted Daniel. Abdullah led his own group and was a long-term Sun Ra sideman. William Parker, one of the key figures in the loft jazz scene of the period, was on bass. Abdullah also brought along Rashid Sinan on drums. Sinan drummed in Abdullah’s units throughout the seventies, but he had also played on Frank Lowe’s immortal Black Beings album and collaborated with Arthur Doyle, playing on Doyle’s Alabama Feeling album. By all accounts the evening was a huge success, with speed and dynamism of Harada’s piano playing gaining him lots of support.

Since they had managed to save some money from their day jobs, Umezu and Harada decided to set up a recording session with the same line-up on August 11 at Studio We, where there was a well-equipped studio on the third floor. Umezu recalls the session as follows, Of course, we recorded our performances in one take, with zero retakes as far as I remember. On all the tracks we recorded, we moved as one unit, sharp and fast. That was the nature of Lifestyle Improvement Committee, New York Branch.

Umezu and Harada would later become known for the elements of parody and entertainment that they brought to their music, a freewheeling blend of pastiche, humour and on-stage performativity that paralleled the approaches of the Art Ensemble, Sun Ra, and Holland’s ICP. But here, on their first recordings, the humour element is not yet present. Instead, there is a febrile sense of joy in creation and connection. On the Umezu-penned “Kim”, for example, Harada opens the piece with a speedy exploration of the full-range of the keyboard, hitting hard on the bass keys to create a rhythmic bed out of which patterns begin to emerge. Umezu enters at a much slower pace, longer held notes that at first float weightlessly over the urgency of the piano before they begin in splinter and accelerate. When Parker and Sinan kick in, it’s a rollicking tempo with Parker plucking deep and hard and the left-handed Sinan skittering hard across the topside of his kit. Abdullah kicks in a glorious solo twelve minutes in, bright and breathy at once. The piece slows and grows more spacious towards the end, giving Parker a chance to showcase some arco work that shades beautifully into the air against Abdullah’s trumpet.

Legendary privately pressed 1979 LP from Scotland. This illusive, super rare and sublimely wonderful percussion album is like no other. Hypnotic, celestial, even cosmic and ambient in parts and totally unique in all ways, it was played by a group of 11 girls with an average age of 14. The group included Evelyn Glennie, who was destined to become one of the world’s greatest percussionists. This is her first ever record.

The Cults Percussion Ensemble was a group formed by percussion teaching legend Ron Forbes in the mid 1970s. The ensemble must have one of the best group names of all time. To many it will immediately come across as something sinister, a touch spooky and possibly a bit dramatic too. They are certainly two of those but the use of the word “Cults” here is easily misinterpreted. Cults, in this case, is the suburb of Aberdeen.

The average age of the students was just 14. They came from a few of the schools in the area, including the Cults Academy, Ellon Academy, Aboyne Academy, Inverurie Academy and Powis.

My original copy of the album came from Spitalfields market in London. I loved the music the second it started, because it reminded me of Carl Orff and peculiar library. So I started to investigate it further, and eventually, thanks to the highly tuned world of percussion, was given the address of Ron Forbes. I got in touch with him and now we have this, a formal release of something quite lovely that was only previously available very briefly in 1979 at concerts when the young girls performed.

The music here is really quite unique, with a celestial swirling hypnotic quality. The blend of glockenspiels, xylophones, vibraphones, marimba and timpani drums is quite intoxicating and can recall the shimmering warmth of the desert sun one minute (“Baia”) or freezing glacial ice caps the next (“Circles”). The Ensemble perform with an effortless tightness and deftness of touch, building textured layers with recurring percussive motives which appear simultaneously dense and yet sparse, almost sounding like modern sampling. In fact, while struggling to find a musical comparison, during the pulsating introduction to "Percussion Suite" I found myself recalling "Gamma Player", a piece of soulful Detroit techno minimalism from Jeff Mills (Millsart - “Humana” EP 1995) with its rhythmic percussion layered with complex emotion. Weirdly enough, other tracks on that EP also prominently feature xylophone and tuned percussion, although obviously synthesised and programmed, a good 20 years after the CPE first recorded.

Sleevenotes also include a letter from Ron Forbes:
“I decided to form a percussion group to provide an outlet for my percussion pupils to play music specially written for them. The group soon became well known in the region and as a result of winning the outstanding award at the National Festival of Music for youth on three occasions, they were invited to play at other festivals within Europe, one being in Erlangen in Germany - hence the Erlangen Polka - and Autun in France - hence the Autun Carillon. During these visits we were often asked if we had any recordings and so it was decided to make an LP”.

Thanks to Ron Forbes and Trunk Records, more people can now enjoy the simple hypnotic musical charms of the Cults Percussion Ensemble

In March 2020, Tahiti 80 had a plan to start recording their new album in the studio. That plan, of course, along with everything else in the world, got derailed. But the five-piece group was resilient and resourceful. They quickly shifted to a socially distanced plan B that included file swapping and virtual sessions, all refereed by producer Julien Vignon. The result, due for release in March 2022, is the buoyant Here With You, a collection of eleven upbeat songs that unfold like a prescription for a post-pandemic panacea.

“When lockdown in France happened, we said, 'We're not going to stay at home not doing anything,'” says singer-guitarist Xavier Boyer. “And our new plan became a hopeful thing, waking up every morning and seeing what the other guys had worked on. It wasn't always easy, but this new method allowed a freer approach where we could really go all the way with an idea without being influenced by each other’s suggestions. It must've been overwhelming for Julien, who ended up selecting all our arrangements. But he stayed positive all the way through.”

To help stay inspired and focused during their time in isolation, the band created a mood board, with the centerpiece a photo of an early '90s rave in the UK.

Boyer says, “Whenever you see pictures from this era, people seem very innocent. There are no cell phones and everybody is in to what they are experiencing. We kept that picture in mind as a kind of mantra that would help everyone feel connected to this idea of people celebrating, gathering and just having fun. We were missing the connection with people, and thought it would be great if we could create music that would inspire that kind of emotion.”

Indeed, the songs on Here With You are brimming the feeling of communion that we've all been missing over the past two years. It's there in the catchy opener Lost in the Sound, which walks the walk with Chic guitar flicks, urban nightfall sparkles and an inviting chorus (“Your heart grooves like a thousand 808s on the right time”). It's there in the Jackson 5-style syncopated bounce of “Vintage Creem,” the lush, dreamy “Breakfast in L.A.” and the panoramic sweep of “UFO.” And it's there in the first single “Hot,” which matches an irresistible groove with a neon-lit, percolating arrangement that evokes the disco clubs of 1979.

What's remarkable is that though Tahiti 80 displays a clear affection for sounds of the past, from bubble gum to '70s soul, they never trade in mere pastiche. Their take is more a slightly warped and playful carnival mirror mash-up of classic pop styles, given depth through Boyer's hang-gliding, coolly emotive vocals and lyrics that often rub against the euphoric grain of the music.

“I like to think of songs as a three-minute drama,” says Boyer. “This concept of drama definitely adds different levels to our music. There's the melody, the lyrics, then the production that can maybe emphasize or counterbalance the interaction between the yin and yang in a song.

“There's a difference between the very upbeat, sunshine-y soft rock and the lyrics, even on our past albums,” he continues. “Not dark, but a little more melancholy, and also looking for some kind of motivation, talking to yourself. Like with a lot of Motown songs, you get that feeling where you body’s dancing while your mind’s reflecting, reminiscing.”

That alluring blend of happy-sad has been a signature part of the Tahiti 80 sound from the time Boyer and bassist Pedro Resende formed the group in 1993, as students at the University of Rouen. Taking their name from a souvenir t-shirt given to Boyer's father in 1980, the duo recruited guitarist Mederic Gontier in 1994, and with the addition of drummer Sylvain Marchand a year later, the lineup was complete. The foursome released a self-produced and self-financed EP, 20 Minutes, in 1996, which resulted a record deal with French label Atmospheriques in 1998. Their full-length debut Puzzle, produced with Ivy's Andy Chase and mixed by Tore Johansson, went gold and featured the international hit “Heartbeat” that established the band throughout Europe and Asia.

In the years since, Tahiti 80 – with the additions of Raphaël Léger on drums and Hadrien Grange on keys - has released eight acclaimed albums. The band has fused what MOJO called a “glorious entente of old and new technology” (including singles like “Yellow Butterfly,” “1000 Times,” “Sound Museum,” “Crush!” and “Big Day,” which was featured on a FIFA video game soundtrack), while collaborating with such producers and arrangers as Richard Swift, Tony Lash and Richard Anthony Hewson, who famously arranged The Beatles' “Long and Winding Road.” Boyer has also put out two solo albums, the first under the anagram Axe Riverboy and the second under his name. In 2019, the band released Fear of an Acoustic Planet, a stripped-down reimagining of some of their best-loved tracks from the previous twenty years. It served not only as a look back but a reminder of their formidable songwriting skills.

Boyer is definitely a student of the timeless three-minute pop song format pioneered by '60s artists like The Beatles and The Beach Boys. He says, “I see it as kind of a frame for a painting. Most of the songs on this album, I wrote a verse, pre-chorus and chorus. There aren't many middle eights. I wanted it to be very concise. I feel like people have less attention. There's so much music. It's too easy to switch off or skip to another track, so I want to hook the listener. The three-minute song is kind of an easy code to crack, but at the same time you have to figure out a new way to tell the stories that we've heard before.”

And the stories on Here With You are very much about the longing for connection. Of the album title, Boyer says, “In the world right now, that can mean a lot of different things. Like missing our fans, missing going to concerts. In a way, it can be a statement of what happened last year, and a wish of 'I want to be here with you again.' It's our ninth album. We've had some had some very open, conceptual titles like Puzzle, Activity Center. Sometimes they were more specific like Fosbury orWallpaper for the Soul. Here with You, seems more personal, more engaging in terms of relationships. When I suggested that title, everyone in the band said, 'Yeah, that's it.'”

Until Tahiti 80 can resume a full tour schedule, Boyer says he hopes the new record will make that personal connection. “If I see from the point of view as a music fan, sometimes I see albums I like as companions throughout my life. So if we can be a part of people's existence, even if it's a song that reminds them of the time they were driving with the windows open and it was sunny. Or a sad song that resonates with them after a breakup. That's what we're all looking for when we're making music. You do this very personal thing and you want it to touch as many people as possible.”

“hi leaves” is the new full-length record from soft tissue, the duo of Glasgow-based artists Feronia Wennborg and Simon Weins. Following their self-titled debut for Penultimate Press in 2019, this collection examines microsound by way of extended amplification technique, bone conduction, domestic recordings, and digital feedback. Tracks like “plant pot” and “kettle” appear to disclose their source material, presenting wonderfully tactile environments of highly articulate sound. Wennborg and Weins prove themselves to be masterful arrangers of discrete, organic material, weaving together knotty and immersive compositions from these sharp, prickly sounds. Ultimately, soft tissue inhabits an intoxicating soundworld somewhere in between the patient abstractions of composerly EAI music, the haptic indulgences of ASMR, and the diffuse digital pastorals of the 90’s a-musik/Cologne scene.