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MUSIC MAGAZINE – 21 OCTOBER 2022
21st October 2022
The vinyl, newsy previews continue in this Music Magazine. Another 10 items for you this week
SUICIDAL TENDENCIES
This self-titled album has been reissued by the Spanish audiophile outfit, Munster. Released in 1983, the Venice, California band would emerge as a hardcore outfit but this first outing looked back (just a tad) to a more punk-ish suite of flavours. For some, it was downhill from this high point. Politics, humour and the frailties of the human condition. A heady mix and a well crafted one too.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3EYwgPe
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3ToLwt8
WANDA
From the Munster imprint, Vampi Soul comes the album Vagamente. Originally released in 1964, Wanda has a beautifully breathy, slightly husky, rather sweet, slightly naive vocal presentation. It’s extremely 1964 and could easily derive from France.
This is a jazz/bossa release and thus will have you hip shuffling all the way to the kettle when you need to make a coffee. This is a superb period piece. Wanda’s vocals are front and centre while the low-key bossa nova jazz rhythms noodle quietly behind her. Lovely.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3Tle72z
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3sfWDIN
RONNIE HAWKINS
I tell you what, Bear Family is pretty darned busy, right now. I finish one release and bang! There’s another one. But hey, I’m not complaining. In fact, I love the 10” vinyl format and this is another one of those. This time from rock’n’roller Hawkins. Called Red Hot Rockin’, the package includes a 12-track 10” vinyl disc, 32-track CD and a 12-page folder with excellent notes from Bill Dahl.
And don’t forget, his original backing band, the Hawks, ended up evolving into The Band. In fact, Levon Helm and Robbie Roberston have song credits on this release.
This high-energy compilation spans 1958-1959 plus a track from 2008 but also includes Chuck Berry’s Forty Days. This is raw stuff.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3eTSVBB
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3shmyzU
JULIAN LAGE
This LP, View With a Room (you see what he did th…oh, you did) on Bluenote features New York jazz guitarist, Lage offering a richly toned guitar style that takes control of the music, directing and dominating but in the same way that a large chocolate fudge cake might. Via a convincing, consensual, sumptuous presentation.
Bassist Jorge Roeder and Drummer Dave King join him here. There’s a gentle, yet determined and always rhythmic underplay to this Lage album.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3F24bX6
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3MSFgY6
ARBENZ/LIGHTSEY/ELEKES/LANDOLF
This jazz quartet of avant-flavoured jazz, swamps this double album – Conversation #6 & #7. Rotating around the Arbenz percussion, #6 focuses on Arbenz/Lightsey with tracks ranging from traditional fare to Charlie Parker and Wayne Shorter. #6 is dominated by the piano meat of the 86-year old Lightsey with Arbenz filling space with percussive delicacies that add colour. The combination provides sonic contrast and a rhythmic attraction.
#7 features the quartet, titled above featuring Arbenz creations, Shorter and Parker again with a Lightsey track at the end. The jazz here is less considered? Free and frivolous perhaps – which is not a criticism, just a mood. Playtime after study?
BUY HERE: https://florianarbenz.bandcamp.com/
FRIJID PINK
Reissued by long-standing and respected UK audiophile outfit, Repertoire, this 1970 debut from the band learns a lot from Detroit bands of the era like MC5 or the Stooges. The vocals – often treated with ye olde echo – have a real gritty power here while the fuzz-guitar freak outs demand that you flail your fringe jacket in time to your lava lamp. Even so, there’s old fashioned rock’n’roll mixed into the psychedelia with soul inflections to add exotica. This high-power rock always keeps you guessing.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3VO3eHZ
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3SowGRQ
ALISON SUDOL
On clear vinyl and from Kartel Still Come the Night is a spacious folk rocker whose delivery demands a sense of intimacy with the listener. There’s a slight, what, David Lynch flavour to her work at times? Sometimes otherworldly, a little out of phase, perhaps? She whispers into your ear. She conveys secrets. She wants to be your friend. Or possibly your enemy.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3SmtYMS
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3z2p8xz
CLARK
A 2LP reissue of the original 2006 release, Body Riddle (Warp) is an electronica album of complex rhythmic constructions and what some journalists used to call (possibly too often), back in the 90s, “fractured beats”. The time signatures are thrown out with the dirty bath water while more melodic, sweeter synth trails lay overheard. Jazz pervades this LP as does a sense from a soundscape on a TV with dodgy reception. A contrast of the ambient with the chaotically glitchy. There, work that lot out and you qualify to listen to the second disc, a standalone compilation, called 05-10, collecting new material, previously unreleased tracks, and rarities.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3Dk8Rqm
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3eT7Uf8
MICHEAL MONROE
I Live Too Fast To Die Young (Silver Lining) from Michael Monroe (the vocalist who co-founded the band, Hanoi Rocks in 1980) shows an ageing, faded glam rocker, with pouting, bleach blonde hair, snakeskin shoes and an unconvincing bad boy demeanour. He’s been fading since the mid 80s when his band crumbled and he went solo and yet he’s still here. Still producing LPs with cliche-ridden titles. And yet. His music is packed with fun and frolics. It puts a smile on your face. He’s deadly serious (wouldn’t have it any other way) and he gives his all. Long may his snakeskins tread the byways of rock.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3Dk9ccC
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3SgQK8Z
SYMPHONIC TONE POEM FOR BROTHER YUSEF
This Bernie Maupin and Adam Rudolph’s tribute (Strut) to tenor jazz man and boundary-crossing musician, Yusef Lateef (who died in 2013) in honour of what would have been Lateef’s 100th birthday. This release plugs into those broken boundaries, across five movements that touch on jazz, ambient/new age, asiatic and tribal. Mostly low key, experimental and also ambient, this is a thought-provoking piece of work in its own right.
BUY HERE:
USA – https://amzn.to/3DhW7QM
EUROPE – https://amzn.to/3TBSNVW
