Soul Jazz Records’ new album Kaleidoscope – New Spirits Known and Unknown brings together many of the ground-breaking artists involved in the new jazz scene that has developed in the UK over the last few years. Featured artists include Matthew Halsall, Yazmin Lacey, Ill Considered, Tenderlonious, Theon Cross, Emma-Jean Thackray and many, many more in this ground-breaking release.
“As well as sharing a pioneering spirit in these new artists’ approach to frontier-crossing musical boundaries, a further theme of this album is that many also share a determination to independent practices – and most of these artists’ recordings featured here are either self-published or released on independent labels. While the attention…

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…of this new wave of jazz artists up until now has been London-based, this album shows how this movement is spread across the whole of Britain (and indeed beyond).
‘Kaleidoscope – New Spirits Known and Unknown’ shows that while there is commonality in these artists’ approach to music, there is a wide variety of styles – from deep spiritual jazz, electronic experimentalisation, punk-edged funk, uplifting modal righteousness, deep soulful vocals and much more.”

1. Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra – When The World Was One (7:35)
2. Yazmin Lacey – 90 Degrees (4:15)
3. Hector Plimmer – Communication Control (3:03)
4. Ill Considered – Long Way Home (Live At The Crypt) (8:01)
5. The Expansions – Mosaic (6:56)
6. Chip Wickham – Red Planet (5:42)
7. Levitation Orchestra – Odyssey (9:24)
8. Emma Jean Thackray’s WALRUS – Walrus (2:45)
9. Tenderlonious;The 22a Arkestra – The Shakedown (6:15)
10. Pokus – Pokus One (4:15)
11. Theon Cross – Candace Of Meroe (5:47)
12. Joe Armon-Jones;Maxwell Owin;Nubya Garcia – Tanner’s Tango (4:45)
13. Collocutor – Gozo (5:59)
14. Makaya Mccraven – Untitled (3:14)
15. NAT BIRCHALL – Ancient World (9:49)
16. Ruby Rushton – Moonlight Woman (9:04)
17. Ebi Soda – Dimmsdale (3:09)
18. The Cromagnon Band – Thunder Perfect (5:11)
19. SEED Ensemble – Mirrors (7:37)
20. Ishmael Ensemble – Kito’s Theme (4:11)
21. Vels Trio – Yellow Ochre, Pt. 1 (3:01)

Bossa nova was created in 1958 when one of its pioneers, Brazilian guitarist João Gilberto, recorded a song called “Chega de Saudade” that became immensely popular in Rio. The term “bossa nova” literally means “new wave” in English, and young listeners quickly became enthralled with its brightly-colored mix of samba and jazz. Six years later, bossa nova made its way to France, partially due to Gilberto’s collaborative album with American saxophonist Stan Getz, which won the Grammy for Album of the Year and made bossa nova a global phenomenon.
A new compilation, Tchic Tchic: French Bossa Nova – 1963/1974, offers a comprehensive look at the subgenre’s massive influence in France, collecting 22 of the best French bossa nova…

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…songs ever recorded. Boasting names like Jean Constantin, Marpessa Dawn, and Magalie Noël, Tchic Tchic also illustrates how the biggest luminaries in French cinema and music were swept up in the trend. Constantin had been a singer-songwriter who’d composed various film scores; on the track “Pas tant d’chichi ponpon,” with its soft string melody and polyrhythmic drum taps, one can hear his dedication to simply staying out of the way. Bossa nova and movie music go hand in hand; both qualify as “easy listening,” and are meant to recede within the scenes they accompany. Other album songs—namely Billy Nencioli & Baden Powell’s “Si rien ne va,” Sophia Loren’s “De jour en jour,” and Isabelle de Funès’ “Jusqu’a la tombée du jour”—fit this aesthetic: the work is still quite active, even though it’s designed to soothe.

The music broadens and grows more psychedelic toward the album’s back half. The song “Corto Maltese,” performed by singer Sylvia Fels and first released in 1974, unfolds as a festive jaunt incorporating spoken word, call-and-response chants, and nods to tropicalia. “T’as vu ce printemps,” by actor and conductor Aldo Frank, has a bigger orchestral sound, like the theme of an imagined comedy series set somewhere in Paris. In a similar vein, “Iemenja” contrasts big drums with muted horns, and the vocalist’s exceptional delivery accentuates the track. On the surface, the terms “French” and “bossa nova” might seem strange in unison, but Tchic Tchic proves that this combo makes perfect sense—and is the rightful sound of summer.

Electro acholi is a modern reinterpretation of traditional acholi music from the Luo region of Northern Uganda. Much like the Sound of Sisso compilation from Nyege Tapes, which rounded up many of Tanzanian singeli music’s key players, Electro Acholi Kaboom from Northern Uganda shines a light on the numerous artists that make up the scene. The compilation is comprised of 15 hard-to-find tracks, recorded between 2003–2015, that helped define the sound.
When this style first emerged, the Lord’s Resistance Army, led by Joseph Kony, was still terrorising Northern Uganda (the LRA had been active in the region since the late ’80s). One side effect of the conflict, however minor, was that traditional Larakaraka bands became too…

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…expensive for young couples to hire for their weddings. In their place, recording studios offered deals where they would not only produce a song on commission, but also come to the wedding, film the ceremony and perform the track. Once this music got into local nightclubs, electro acholi took on a life of its own—these days, Otim Alpha and Leo P’layeng can be found touring it across the world.

Electro acholi music is intensely celebratory. There’s a strong call-and-response element that lends itself to the social settings for which it was designed, and this attitude is best characterized by “Awinyo Bila” by Jahria Okwera, the compilation’s most cheerful track. Besides being bright and summery, the vocal has a storytelling quality, and the digital wind instrument is silly and carefree. Bucketloads of melody and percussion seamlessly weave in and out of these songs. They are also all insanely catchy—Lakoc Jojo’s “Apiyo Nyara” has a rowdy singalong that stuck with me long after listening.

Aside from the synthesisers and digital drums that replace the traditional instruments of the region, there’s one primary difference between electro acholi and the music it looks to replicate, and that’s speed. Most tracks hit 160 BPM. But there are two notable exceptions, Brother Q & City Boy’s “Can Deg Ming” and Bosmic Otim “Bandera Pa Kaka,” which are 106 and 112 BPM respectively. “Can Deg Ming,” in particular, is a highlight—though it’s less raucous and demanding than the other tracks, it’s still centred on the joy of social occasions.

It’s this spirit that makes Electro Acholi Kaboom From Northern Uganda such a compelling compilation. Speaking to RA in 2017, Leo P’layeng, creative partner of Otim Alpha, and a key player in the scene, said, “We want electro acholi to be for everybody, we want people to sing it in Spanish, English, French, Swahili, Luganda—every language. This is not our music, it’s music for the world, like reggae, pop and rock.” The release of Electro Acholi Kaboom From Northern Uganda should bring that vision one step closer. — residentadvisor.net

Nowhere is the beat of a drum more symbolic of a culture than in Africa, where it’s forever been the heartbeat of daily life. From the trance percussion of South Sudan to the gnawagroove of Morocco, this is an exploration into a continent’s rhythmic life source.
Drums hold a very special place in African history and culture. For much of the world, drums are mainly relegated to the realm of entertainment, adding another musical dimension to songs and other performances. In Africa, drums hold symbolic meanings that have played an important part in the history of the people who call the continent their home. Considered the heartbeat of Africa, they unite the people of the continent, binding their pulses together in rhythm.

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Although percussion takes centre stage, this collection also features an array of melodic instrumentation that thrives in such fertile rhythmic conditions. The opener by Wayo is taken from their album Trance Percussion Masters Of South Sudan,and is a celebration of the joy of communal music making, as the beating drums and hypnotic chants summon the ancient polyrhythms of Africa’s newest nation. This track wasn’t made by a soloist, by a band, or even by an orchestra – this was made by a village. During the music-making process, three villagers play the kpaningbo, a large wooden xylophone. Another man sits atop the gugu,a log drum, and alters its pitch by lifting his leg up and down. Other villagers circle around the ensemble, switching in and out to play the drums. Bells and other hand-drums are also passed from person to person at will. This relay race approach to percussive participation adds a tangible fluidity to every riff and figure, the mood and timbre ever changing and ever unique.

In bordering Kenya, the musical revivalists Kenge Kenge have long been guardians and masters of an ancient but living tradition. With a name which roughly translated, means ‘fusion of small, exhilarating instruments’, their music is a return to traditional Luo instruments, from which the ever popular benga beat originally drew its sound. The track ‘Obare Yinda’ is a tribute to Mr Yinda, a benefactor of the band who sacrificed so much to make sure that Kenge Kenge’s music reached out to diverse audiences throughout Kenya and beyond.

Seamlessly infusing his Berber origins with deep gnawa grooves, Simo Lagnawi’s trance-inducing music is an unstoppable expression of freedom and liberation. Now living in the UK, he has travelled across his North African homeland, learning gnawa grooves and ahwash chants from teachers and friends along the way. Gnawa is both an ethnic group and a cultural tradition that can be traced back to the slaves brought to Morocco from sub-Saharan Africa and the ancient empire of Ouagadougou. The krakebs percussion, so omnipresent in gnawa, create the hypnotising clip-clopping sound that loops under the texture. These instruments have their origins in the iron manacles that shackled the slaves together on their ill-fated journey northwards. Simo says, ‘When my mother was pregnant my grandmother dreamed that the baby was playing the krakebs before she even knew if it was a boy or a girl.’

Sotho Sounds are funky shepherds from the kingdom of Lesotho who have quite literally invented their own music, created their own instruments and now continue to follow their own mission – turning junk into funk. The band craft their instruments with aplomb, never stopping to worry about the look of the thing but are solely concerned with the sound. As a result, their thick-layered music features the rich reverberating thud of the drums, the melodious rattling of tin-can guitars and the fuzzed ring of one-string fiddles. Atop the mix, swinging unison vocals bring to mind the hugely popular choral tradition of Lesotho. ‘Ha Kele Monateng’ translates as ‘When I’m Happy’ and is a bright, positive number with catchy call-and-response vocals.

As a nomad of the Toubou tribe, the late Malam Mamane Barka was the world’s only remaining master of the harp-like biram. He maintained the tradition single-handedly, bringing the boat-shaped instrument to the world’s attention with his own unique blend of desert blues. With the help of percussionist Oumarou Adamou, Mamane Barka released his self-titled and widely acclaimed Introducing Mamane Barka album which pays respect to the spiritual biram, but also gives homage to the traditional percussive instruments of the rich Nigerien culture: the douma (the spiritual drum), the kalangouand the calabash.

Known as “The Princess of mbira”, Hope Masike hails from Zimbabwe, and her music draws its inspiration from both traditional and modern African culture. On ‘Zunde’, Hope puts aside her mbira as she journeys into her musical roots with the help of traditional Zimbabwean percussion. Similarly, Baba MD (aka Mamoutou Dembele) is celebrated in his native Mali for mixing Bwa traditional tunes with kora and other Mandingue instrumentation. Although not known outside of his homeland, he featured on the ground-breaking Riverboat Records album Lost In Mali, which highlighted some of the country’s best kept musical secrets.

Long Before the guitar became a popular instrument in West Africa, a range of chordophones (stringed instruments) provided the harmonic and melodic accompaniment for traditional music. One of these was the critically endangered seprewa, which was given a new lease of life by three virtuoso musicians who recorded under the name of Seprewa Kasa. The beautiful track ‘Nkaso’ also features an array of percussive instruments, including the efiritrsewa – a metal clave played with two fingers – and the atumpan, which is a traditional ceremonial African drum that can be found in both a male and female version.

1. Wayo – Kpaningbo (Xylophone) (4:20)
2. Kenge Kenge – Obare Yinda (7:42)
3. Simo Lagnawi – Bolami (4:43)
4. Sotho Sounds – Ha Kele Monateng (3:28)
5. Mamane Barka – Doro Lelewa (5:39)
6. Hope Masike – Zunde (3:34)
7. Mamoutou Dembele – Taro Maro (4:42)
8. Seprewa Kasa – Nkasoo (5:44)

Despite having an evocative sleeve illustration that screams late sixties Jamaica, All Aboard: The C.N. Express has been newly put together to compile Clancy Eccles’ productions just before he hit the jackpot in the skinhead/boss reggae era. It is easy here to see that his star was already ascending during the later stages of rocksteady and this set features some big names in Alton Ellis, Eric “Monty” Morris and his pal Lee Perry among others. Ellis’ production techniques at this stage showed an ear for off-beat rhythms and a willing to experiment with faster tempos, something that pushed the sound forward towards the birth of reggae. Indeed Clancy is credited with pioneering the term itself, deriving the sobriquet from the Kingston argot word streggae.

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But back in rocksteady’s high-water mark year of 1967 Clancy returned to music full-time after a two year spell tailoring, which was his father’s trade. He made mainly stage outfits for bands and singers, but soon felt the pull of music again. As he started back he produced sessions far more than he recorded himself (only later recording more prolifically on his own again). One of the earliest successes behind the decks on his return was the very jolly opening track here, Say What You’re Saying, cut with Eric “Monty” Morris.

Lee Perry pops up with Hey Mama, garnished with a typically nutty talkover intro and also the pretty rocksteady of You Were Meant For Me, the song adequately masking his vocal limitations. Anything Alton Ellis turned his hand to usually has a stamp of quality written through it like Blackpool in a stick of rock and so it proves on the superb Feeling Inside, also known as True Loving. Bye Bye Love, yes the song the Everly Brothers made famous, was also cut in the same session by Alton and though ok, it is for me very much a lesser entry in his canon. The booklet notes that Clancy didn’t produce these two tracks “hands-on” – it was apparently a policeman only identified as C. Burgh, who moonlighted as a sound system proprietor, who should be credited.

Theo Beckford had been a ska trailblazer with his hit East Snappin’, which provided the quantum leap from boogie blues way back in 1959. Here he recuts this landmark in a boss reggae mode and the adjustment to the more modern style goes down well. Monty Morris also scores with a top vocal on a rock-solid rhythm on Tears In Your Eyes and the steel drum-enhanced My Lonely Days.

As with many of these sets, there are jewels to be found from lesser-known artists here. The Coolers have a couple of corkers in the nicely rough Terrible Headache (great title that) and Birds Of The Air. They were a vocal duo that disappeared soon after this release, only to reactivate themselves in the 1970s and 1980s and their line up included one Dufton “Don” Taylor. The sparsely recorded Hemsley Morris provides a trio of great tracks in You Think I’m a Fool and the addictive skank of Stay Loose, but perhaps the pick is Bad Minded People. His occasionally nasal, sometime throaty vocals are really unique here and it’s a shame he only recorded a few sides afterwards. He clearly had something to offer, though showing talent ran in the family his son Hemsley Jr has had plenty of success solo and as part of the band the Innocent Crew.

Velma Jones’ strident vocal stylings may have had their genesis in the shrill early ska sound of Millie Small etc, but used the correct way they could still pay dividends, which is the case on the soulful I’ll Hold You Tight. She returns to duet with Clancy himself on Let Us Be Lovers. The Inspirations would later record Tighten Up For Lee Perry, but rocksteady was made for their cool vocal group talents, as best exemplified on swinging groove of Mother’s Advice.

There’s a skilful DJ toast on the title track which is credited to Clancy’s All Stars and No Good Girl shows the blossoming of reggae in full flight, with the Mellotones’ gospel vocals being accompanied by an organ groove the like of which featured on many a moonstomping instrumental. This band also recorded for Derrick Morgan and Lee Perry along the way.

From the basis Eccles set up in the years documented on All Aboard… he would go onto even greater success, most of which is neatly documented on the Freedom/Fire Corner and Foolish Fool/Herbsman Reggae sets. After all this came a spell in politics which meant somewhat of a retreat from music, though he still had the occasional hit with socially conscious material and did return to have more limited success after concluding his political career.

All Aboard The C.N. Express captures the time when Clancy Eccles was just coming into his own as a producer. A year later he had his backing band the Dynamites in place and became one of the key music men during the original reggae era. You can hear the experiments that he was conducting to change the rhythm as things developed, but he never sacrificed the need for a good tune along the way.

Though perhaps not as consistently great as Freedom/Fire Corner and Foolish Fool/Herbsman Reggae, All Aboard… has more variety and many fine selections. Eccles could cut key rocksteady tracks that pointed to the near future and seldom produced anything less than enjoyable. A very pleasing compilation that does an excellent job rounding up Clancy’s output just before the reggae boom and another quality Doctor Bird set.

As a songwriter, producer, or vocalist, Curt Boettcher had a hand in some of the most unique and memorable songs of the late ’60s, whether it was the bubblegum of Tommy Roe’s Sweet Pea,” the baroque pop of the Association’s “Along Comes Mary,” or the psychedelic weirdness of Sagittarius’ “My World Fell Down.” He was also behind the scenes on lots of songs and albums that didn’t crack the public consciousness at the time but later became treasures to lovers of delicate and harmonious pop, the main example being the Millennium’s Begin.
Looking for the Sun focuses on a period just after his successes with the Association and Tommy Roe when he was set up with a production company and unlimited studio time.

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It gave the 22-year-old fledgling producer and talent scout plenty of opportunity to work on perfecting his sound while also looking for pop hits. With a talented cadre of cohorts, including his partner in Our Productions Victoria Wilson, Boettcher worked with a wide array of artists from different segments of the pop spectrum. Gathered up here are cuts from girl groups (the Bootiques,) Roy Orbison-style crooners (Keith Whitley), British folk-rockers (Jonathan Moore), and garage bands (Action Unlimited), along with a few cuts featuring Boettcher himself (both sides of an early Sagittarius single “Another Time” and a song from Summer’s Children, an avant-pop duo with Wilson). The main thing all the artists had in common is that none of them had any hits despite Boettcher’s best efforts. It does make for a fine collection of left-field pop, hidden gems, and weird moments though.

The best tracks are where his lush and echoey production techniques meet up with first-rate songs and interesting singers to create magic. Cindy Malone’s “You Were Near Me” is a haunting slice of bouffant pop made special by the wooly production that makes the song sound like a train barreling through a tunnel, Summer’s Children’s “Milk and Honey” gets spooky thanks to the way Boettcher’s and Wilson’s vocals blend like demon-eyed twins, Action Unlimited’s minor-key garage rock ballad “My Heart Cries Out” features some disembodied, swirling echo, and “Another Time” is otherworldly baroque pop sung by Boettcher with elfin charm. His more straightforward songs and productions are just as satisfying; the Spector-sized sound of Ray Whitley’s “Take Back Your Mind” is powerfully huge, “I Didn’t Ever Know” by Jonathan Moore is a jangling slice of heartbreak folk, and the Bootiques’ “Did You Get Your Fun” is a frothy bit of innocent girl pop. Confusingly, there are a few songs that don’t have a tangible connection to Boettcher, but they are mostly in the same vein as his work (Eddie Hodges’ “Shadows & Reflections”) or by friends of his (both sides of an early Sandy Salisbury single), so it doesn’t disrupt the flow sonically.

Despite that bit of archival weirdness, Looking for the Sun is a fascinating, quite listenable, and often brilliant survey of an undocumented section of Boettcher’s career that’s well worth investigating.

The latest in the popular Saint Etienne Present series – soundtracks for places both real and imaginary. This time, Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs have put together a selection to fit a bar in mid-’70s Los Angeles, the kind of place where Warren Beatty and Julie Christie might meet in the afternoon for a secret rendezvous between shooting scenes for Shampoo.
There’s a high quotient of airy, top-down soul, FM yacht rock, and an even larger amount of blue-eyed soul, with the odd singer-songwriter from Laurel Canyon making an appearance. Familiar summer sounds come from Todd Rundgren (‘Love Is the Answer’), Millie Jackson (‘A House for Sale’) and Seals & Crofts (‘Get Closer’). Among the discoveries are Daryl Hall & John Oates’…

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…deep cut ‘Lilly (Are You Happy)’; Bill Quateman’s irresistible acoustic guitar and string-powered ‘Only Love’; Marvin Gaye’s gorgeous ‘Where Are We Going?’, from the period between “What’s Going On” and “Let’s Get It On”; and the £100 crossover soul gem ‘One Way Or The Other’ by the Fifth Avenue Band. These gems are the kind of thing Netflix will be tripping over themselves to use next season.

Amid the potted palms, the pace is strictly mid-tempo. The windows are wide open, the sky is a clear blue, and this is the perfect summer soundtrack. Warren’s drinking a Tom Collins, Julie’s having a Sloe Gin Fizz (she’s too English to ask for a Slow Screw). Amid the potted palms, the pace is strictly mid-tempo; it’s too warm for anything faster. It’s the right place and the right time to take your time.  – acerecords.co.uk

20 years after the release in Japan of P-Vine’s limited-edition “Modern/Kent Blues Treasures” CD series, the anniversary isn’t going to spark a lot of commemorations, but it does make a renewed appreciation for these obscure 1950s and 1960s West Coast blues from the vaults of the Bihari Brothers’ labels a little extra timely. Accordingly, Ace has compiled two CDs from the Bihari archives, based strongly on the four-volume P-Vine series but with a few additions (and obviously a couple of CDs’ worth of omissions).
This first volume, Dirty Work Going On, reflects the West Coast band blues of its time. The blues side of the company’s output was largely a blend of the pacesetting B.B. King, rhythm & blues, funk and social consciousness in the lyrics…

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…as the civil rights movement brought change and turbulence. Volume 2, “If I Have To Wreck LA”, to follow later this year, will retain the Texas blues base but focus more on gutbucket, downhome blues, which means harmonica will replace horns and the shadows of Lightnin’ Hopkins and John Lee Williamson will loom large.

Together, these two collections evoke a time and place that feel increasingly remote. Most of these sides never made it to vinyl, and stayed largely or completely unheard for over 60 years in some cases, other than the small-run Japanese CD releases. We have included several versions minus their subsequent overdubs, or probably awaiting some that never happened, and alternate takes. When this music was created it was during a time of change, for the blues and for society, and the music and sociopolitical perspectives heard here are well worth a look back.

The sequel to their excellent 2018 box set, NWOBHM: Winds of Time, Cherry Red Records offers up the nearly as mighty NWOBHM Thunder: New Wave of British Heavy Metal 1978-1986, another searing stockpile of deep metal nuggets from this golden era of hard music. Playing out over three discs, an array of emerging, bona fide, and would-be metal legends from Britain’s then-burgeoning new wave scene toss their blades into the forge, wielding to varying degrees an influence that would shape generations to come.
Among more respected institutions like Saxon, Raven, and Venom are lesser-known cult faves like Elixir, Cloven Hoof, and Witchfynde, all of whom issued highly rated if somewhat obscure releases during their heyday. The taut thread…

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…of eminent masters Iron Maiden is woven through NWOBHM Thunder as well, with deep cuts from ex-Maiden frontman Paul Di’Anno and his band Battlezone (the seven-minute epic “The Land God Gave to Caine”) and from his successor Bruce Dickinson’s early band Samson (“Earth Mother”). Unearthed rarities like Streetfighter’s rugged “She’s No Angel” with its blazing solos by future Tygers of Pan Tang axeman John Sykes, and Tarot’s spiky “Feel the Power” both come courtesy of the influential 1980 Logo Records compilation New Electric Warriors. The dreamy “En Cachent (Demo Version)” from relatively short-lived power trio Shiva is another highlight as are tracks from pioneering women of British metal like Rock Goddess and Girlschool.

As with so many of Cherry Red’s wonderfully curated specialty boxes, few listeners are likely to chance upon this collection who weren’t already looking for it. Nonetheless, enthusiasts of British metal’s colorful past will no doubt delight in this second treasure trove from the archival label.

On the night of October 28th, 1975, Howard University’s Cramton Auditorium was packed. Oneness of Juju had made the drive from Richmond to play this show, which was no ordinary gig: this was Howard University in the ’70s, the Mecca of Black culture and thought. Oneness of Juju’s bandleader, James “Plunky” Branch, was going to give the crowd a show to remember.
“The most spiritual music in the ancient African days was the music that made you move.” Plunky tells the audience before the band launches into “African Rhythms,” the lead track from their newest album of the same name. “We created this piece so we would have a piece of music that was spiritual, informative, and at the same time, something you could get off to.”

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A recording of that concert, released for the first time, is included on Soul Love Now: The Black Fire Records Story 1975-1993, a 10-song compilation out via Strut Records that celebrates the foundational black-owned record label founded by Plunky and local DJ and record promoter Jimmy Gray. Much of the Black Fire catalogue was birthed during the mid ’70s, when Black America was living with the results of the Civil Rights movement. This makes Soul Love Now all the more poignant in the present—the compilation is an unearthed gem of long-forgotten affirmations of Blackness.

“It’s one thing to practice four hours a day and do it at home; it’s another thing when you have the tribe, that audience,” Plunky says, calling from his home in Richmond. As he tells the story, he first met Jimmy in late 1974, after discovering a copy of Black Fire, a magazine that featured a Juju album on its cover. Plunky called his record label at the time, New York City’s Strata-East, to inquire about Black Fire. It turned out Jimmy was Strata-East’s third-party promotions person for much of the Mid-Atlantic and Black Fire, the magazine, was his project. After assisting Strata-East with distribution for Gil Scott-Heron’s Winter In America, along with it’s hit single “The Bottle,” Jimmy got the idea to start a label of his own, using the Black Fire moniker he’d employed on other projects.

The two became fast friends and, eventually, business partners, as Jimmy’s knack for distribution and personal philosophy meshed well with Plunky’s musical inclination towards Black empowerment, and his desire to learn more about the record business. Black Fire adopted the Strata-East cooperative model; the artist would press the first 1000 copies of the album, and the label assumed distribution costs—provided the record performed well. Artists on Black Fire also enjoyed an extremely favorable royalty rate.

“The whole idea was to empower [the artists on the label] to do their own thing,” says Strut Records founder Quinton Scott. “It’s an amazing thing they did with those labels back then because, you know, you forget that…back in the ’70s, it was very very hard to get that music on the radio. So it was always a fight economically—it was very hard to run these things.”

By the late ’70s, like some of their Black-owned independent Jazz contemporaries, Black Fire wasn’t doing well financially. Jimmy and Plunky were pooling together as much money as possible to fund the recordings, but after releasing just five full-lengths and a few singles, the label went dormant for 13 years beginning in 1980. The reality was that, apart from Plunky, most of the roster never made enough noise to fund their first 1000 albums.

“I think the shame about Black Fire is that it only ran really for sort-of two or three years before it became a financially difficult thing to run,” says Scott. “Given that, I think the quality of the music and the bands they had there were phenomenal. It’s just a small catalogue, but it’s dynamite, it’s brilliant.”

For Scott, Black Fire represents an “important piece of the jigsaw puzzle” in decoding Black indie-labels’ history. While Strata-East and Tribe were more about “serious” jazz, Black Fire—in part thanks to Plunky’s input—released more R&B-oriented jazz and soul, often the kind of music you could “get off to.”

One standout from the catalog is the first release from Experience Unlimited, 1977’s Free Yourself. The band would eventually develop into a more funk-oriented group, later introducing the world to the Washington D.C. funk offshoot Go-Go with their song “Da Butt”, which appeared in Spike Lee’s 1988 film School Daze. “You can hear by the way they play it, that it’s the blueprint for what’s coming,” says Scott. “I love that. Literally, a few years later, everyone is on that same rhythm, and go-go has cemented itself as a sound.”

That willingness to cross genres is present all over Soul Love Now, from upbeat songs like Wayne Davis’ “Look at the People!” to more Afrocentric numbers like “Nia” by Juju and Byard Lancaster’s “Drummers From Ibadan.” Inspired by his time spent in San Francisco in the late 1960’s playing with a South African ex-pat, Plunky instilled a fluidity to the label that prioritized a performance’s energy and the beauty of the artist’s intention over more strict genre restrictions. “I love dancing in that nuance, where [the genre] is not definitive. And in that place, as a musician and as an audience, we revel in that—that’s freedom. That we can float, we can feel this together, without the rigidity of rules,” concludes Plunky. — daily.bandcamp.com

1971 stands as an odd, rather surreal year in British pop history: while American soft-rockers and singer-songwriters were dominating the album charts, the year in which the country changed over to decimal currency saw the homegrown pop/rock scene becoming increasingly eccentric.
Marc Bolan invented glam rock, David Bowie wore a dress on the front cover of his latest album, The Kinks provided the soundtrack for a film about a penis transplant, DJ Tony Blackburn chose a single by The Edgar Broughton Band as his Record of the Week, and Jonathan King was backed on Top of the Pops by Fairport Convention.
Peephole in My Brain documents the progressive-pop sounds of the year as the underground rock scene crossed over to the mainstream.

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Our 71 tracks from ’71 include major hits for the likes of Curved Air, Atomic Rooster and John Kongos as well as a selection of key album cuts from Procol Harum, ELP, Magna Carta, Barclay James Harvest, Cressida, Help Yourself, Legend and many others.

We also include tracks that were first issued in 1971 but which would only make a mark later on: Status Quo would have to wait a while for ‘Mean Girl’ to hit the charts, Terry Dactyl & The Dinosaurs would find success twelve months later when ‘Sea Side Shuffle’ was reissued, and the Curtiss Maldoon album track ‘Sepheryn’ would be discovered more than twenty years later by Madonna, who used it as the basis for ‘Ray Of Light’.

We disinter bona fide classic 45s from Kevin Ayers, Medicine Head, Wishful Thinking and The Move along with the song that Bowie wrote for his old friend Dana Gillespie, a clutch of righteously obscure but fascinating singles, a handful of essential singer/songwriter cuts and a raft of unissued-at-the-time nuggets from bands who existed outside of the major label pop bubble. — cherryred.co.uk

Willie Nile is one of the most honest, driven songwriters in rock but remains under the radar for way too many as indicated by the word in the title – “uncovered.” His body of work across four decades, and especially in the most recent decade, lends itself to a diverse array of interpretations as evidenced by the breadth of artists herein on Willie Nile Uncovered: 40 Years of Music. They are Nils Lofgren, Graham Parker, Richard Barone, Richard Shindell, Elliott Murphy, John Gorka, Slaid Cleaves, Rod Picott, James Maddock, Dan Bern, Jen Chapin, Caroline Doctorow, Pete Mancini, Emily Duff, and a dozen more.
In the ‘60s they dubbed folk artist Dave Van Ronk as the poet laureate of Greenwich Village.

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Today Greenwich Village resident, the veteran rocker Willie Nile, would be considered by many to be the poet laureate of the city at large. New York at Night, Nile’s 13th studio album, was released this past May as his most direct homage to his adopted hometown yet. With NYC as the epicenter of COVID-19 at the time of the release, it serves as a soundtrack of what the city once was and can hopefully return to at some point, although it may take some time. Nile is one of the best combinations of songwriter and rocker we’ve had over the past four decades and his albums seem to get progressively better each time out. There’s plenty to admire in his writing whether it be romance, humor, or just his fervent embrace of rock n’ roll. It’s more than appropriate than most of the artists who cover him have NYC roots, and the lion’s share of the material is drawn from eight studio albums he’s issued since 2006’s landmark Streets of New York which boasts six selections.

…tribute albums are by definition almost always uneven and this one certainly falls into that category simply because there are so many different styles at play from rock to country to punk to folk, yet the interpretations of the many artists is commendable and reflects a deep respect for Nile’s severely underappreciated songcraft. It may cause some listeners to see him in a different light, fulfilling the project’s objective. The artists certainly impressed the man of honor, “I’m humbled and deeply grateful to all the artists involved in this project for taking the time to record such beautiful versions of these songs. When I first heard there was going to be a tribute album, I was a little embarrassed as I don’t feel I’m any more deserving than anyone else for an album like this but after a few glasses of red wine and hearing the album I was elated. It was startling to hear such unique, different and poignant interpretations of my songs. Heartfelt thanks to all involved for making this songwriter’s journey through the back roads of a soul more than worth the effort.”

Attesting to Nile’s influence on the songwriting community, the album was originally intended as a single disc but when word got out about the project, artists from far and wide begged to participate. The Manhattanites and metro area artists were likely in from the beginning – Elliott Murphy, Richard Barone, Jen Chapman, Caroline Doctorow, Gene Casey and Pete Mancini. Other artists who have ties to NYC but began their careers elsewhere include Nils Lofgren, Graham Parker, James Maddock, John Gorka, Dan Bern, and Rod Picott.

Listeners will gravitate toward their favorite tracks across the two discs based on artist preferences or certain Nile songs. This writer tends to favor Disc One as closer to Nile’s raspy-voiced rocking sound with artists such as James Maddock, Graham Parker, and the bands Leland Sundries and Iridesence. It has the most city-centric songs too with Richard Barone’s “Streets of New York,” “The Day I Saw Bo Diddley in Washington Square” by Leland Sundries and “Life on Bleeker Street” from Dan Bern. In addition, New York country gal Emily Duff kicks off the album with the spirited “Hell Yeah,” Quarter Horse delivers one of the best songs with “When Levon Sings” and Elliott Murphy delivers the memorable “Les Champs Elysees.” Yet, we need not overlook two especially strong tunes positioned back to back on Disc 2 with Lucy Kaplansky’s rendition of “When the Last Light Goes Out on Broadway” and Richard Shindell’s “The Road to Calvary.” Maybe it’s these stay-at-home times but those especially hit the sweet spot. The sequence of three of today’s best songwriters – Gorka, Cleaves, and Picott should not be missed either.

Cherry Red issue Musik Music Musique, a new three-disc various artists compilation that explores the arrival of synth-pop.
This collection – subtitled ‘1980 The Dawn of Synth Pop’ – focuses on that one year and songs by household names (OMD, The Human League, Ultravox, Toyah, Spandau Ballet, The Buggles) rub shoulders tracks from the likes of Fad Gadget, Dalek I Love You, The Residents along with some forgotten gems and lesser-known curios.
…As the dust settled following the punk rock explosion, countless new genres began to solidify and coalesce. Chief among these, in a field of its own, was Synth Pop – a suitably descriptive umbrella for the new electronic pop sound which had emerged over the previous couple of years.

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Originally considered a novelty, or perhaps the eccentric sound of the laboratory technician, 1980 saw Synth Pop shake off the stigma and become the most vital, modern and energetic musical movement on the planet. From upbeat disco evolutions to ice cold post-punk expressions, dancefloors, record racks and the music press soon filled with unusual and futuristic new artists, many of whom found homes with major labels, a long way from the independent DIY aesthetic which predominated.

‘Musik Music Musique’ captures a snapshot of this milestone moment in music. Independent novelties and curiosities sit alongside big budget pop perfection. Artists who would go on to sell millions take their first steps into this new landscape whilst others make the briefest contribution before the wave moves on. For every too-cool-for-school Human League there is a so-far-out-it’s-in Yello. For every Kim Wilde a Kevin Harrison. In retrospect, the speed at which these new instruments and production techniques were absorbed by such a variety of artists astounds and confounds.

Not to be confused with so many synth-pop-by-numbers budget releases, ‘Musik Music Musique’ is an essential and insightful compendium of a place and time unique in musical chronology. Within a year, electronic pop was the rule rather than the exception, but for now it was as cutting edge and unfamiliar as anything heard since Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville first unveiled his Phonautograph in 1857. — cherryred.co.uk

CD 1
1. Messages – Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark
2. Musik, Music, Musique – Zeus
3. Coitus Interruptus – Fad Gadget
4. Computed Man – Xynn
5. Metal Love – Rod Vey
6. Performance Vendor’s Box – Gina X
7. Lawnchairs – Our Daughter’s Wedding
8. Tokyo – Science
9. Only After Dark – the Human League
10. Victims of the Riddle – Toyah
11. DCT Dreams – Nick Nicely
12. Diamonds, Fur Coat, Champagne – Suicide
13. Waiting – Ultravox
14. Money – Moebius
15. Falling Years – the Fallout Club
16. Da Vorne Steht Ne Ampel – Der Plan
17. No, Nothing, Never – Dark Day
18. Sons and Lovers – Hazel O’Connor
19. Sympathy – Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls

CD 2
1. Glow – Spandau Ballet
2. Official Secrets – M
3. Chip N Roll – Silicon Teens
4. Galactica – Rockets
5. Tuning in Tuning on – Kim Wilde
6. European Man – Landscape
7. Can’t You Take a Joke? Ha Ha Hi Hi! – Henriette Coulouvrat
8. A Circuit Like Me – the Metronomes
9. No One Driving – John Foxx
10. Kebabträume – D.A.F
11. Harmonitalk – Gary Sloan and Clone
12. Yellow Pearl – Philip Lynott
13. Dalek I Love You (Destiny) – Dalek I
14. Mannequin – Taxi Girl
15. This World of Water – New Musik
16. Quiet Life – Japan
17. Chase the Dragon – Kevin Harrison
18. Diskomo – the Residents

CD 3
1. Astroboy (And the Proles on Parade) – Buggles
2. Mannequin – Berlin Blondes
3. A Certain Way to Go – the Passage
4. Between – Sic
5. Bimbo – Yello
6. Images of Delusion – Genocide
7. The Lonely Spy –
8. Lori and the Chameleons
9. Lucy – Craze
10. I’m a Computer – the Goo-Q
11. Doctor…? – Blood Donor
12. Brushing Your Hair – Alex Fergusson
13. Drawn and Quartered – the Korgis
14. Mind of a Toy – Visage
15. D’ya Think I’m Sexy – British Standard Unit
16. Living Wild – Mataya Clifford
17. Private Lives – Systems
18. The Eyes Have It – Karel Fialka
19. Suis-Je Normale – Nini Raviolette
20. China Blue Vision – Eyeless in Gaza
21. The Russians Are Coming – the Red Squares
22. Dampfriemen – la Dusseldorf

As the ’60s gave way to the seventies, psychedelia prepared to kiss the sky and say goodbye as it exited stage left. However, all wasn’t well despite all the groundbreaking music released during the last few years.
After Woodstock and the Altamont Free Concert the press wrote about acid casualties, bad drugs, chaotic festivals and the death of some the genre’s leading lights. It was a sad end to what had been an exciting musical era. There was no encore, although many mourned psychedelia’s passing.
Instead, music was in a state of flux as record buyers awaited the “next big thing.” When it arrived it was progressive rock. There was a new kid in town and the times they were a changing in Britain.
During the post-psychedelic and…

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…pre-progressive era the music being released is best described as eclectic as musical genres melted into one as musicians created new types of music. That was the case during the period that the music on Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs Present Occasional Rain covers. It was recently released by Ace Records and features Traffic, Cressida, Keith West, Clouds, The Moody Blues, Yes, Argent, Michael Chapman, Andrew Leigh and Catherine Howe. They combined elements of disparate genres, including folk and jazz as the sixties gave way to the seventies.

Meanwhile record buyers in Britain awaited the white smoke which was the signal that The Beatles had split-up. Now the blame game could begin.

This wasn’t the only change taking place in Britain. After six years, Harold Wilson’s labour government was defeated at the polls by the Conservatives. It was a new start for the country which had changed over the last few years.

Especially town and city centres which had been redeveloped and were now unrecognisable. Brutalist buildings scarred the skyline and even the newly built homes were starting to crumble across the country. For many it was a worrying time.

That was why many musicians were writing about what was happening around them in Britain. They watched on and wrote about crumbling towns and cities, poverty, people struggling to find a direction in how and how bad the weather was. All this is documented on Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs Present Occasional Rain.

Opening the compilation is Hidden Treasure from Traffic’s 1971 album The Low Spark Of High Heeled Boys. It was released on Island Records and produced by Steve Winwood and Hidden Treasure is an evocative tale of the beauty and benefits of country living, something the band dealt with earlier in their career and decided to return to.

Progressive rockers Cressida signed to the Vertigo label and released two albums between 1970 and 1971. Home and Where I Long To Be is one of the highlights from their 1970 eponymous debut album, which finds the London-based band fusing and flitting between classical, folk and jazz on what’s a vastly underrated album.

By 1967, the Scottish trio 1-2-3 had moved to London and were a popular draw at venues like the Marquee. Despite that, the band changed their name to Clouds and released three albums. However, Once Upon A Time didn’t feature on any of the progressive rockers albums and made a belated and welcome debut on a 2010 compilation Up Above Our Heads (Clouds 1966-71).

In 1969, The Moody Blues who are regarded as the inventors of the progressive suite of songs released their fifth album To Our Children’s Children. It was their first album on Threshold label and the version on the compilation is the single version. It’s atmospheric, beautiful, cinematic and one of the highlights of an excellent album.

Although Shape Of The Rain were formed in Sheffield in 1964, they only released two singles and one album. Wasting My Time was on the B-Side of their single Woman when it was released in 1971. The same year it featured on their debut album Riley, Riley, Wood and Waggett when it was released on RCA’s short-lived imprint Neon. This hidden gem combines elements of the West Coast sound with a quintessential Englishness and is part of an underrated album that deserved to find a wider audience.

When Yes released their eponymous debut album in 1969, it was very different to much of the music being released at the time, and as new, exciting and innovative. One of the album’s highlights is Sweetness. It features a tender Beatlesesque vocal which combines with a dreamy, ethereal arrangement on this beautiful melodic track that played its part in the success of this classic album

Freefall is a track from Argent’s 1969 eponymous album. It was released on CBS and is marked a new chapter in the career of keyboardist Rod Argent. The group rose like a phoenix from the ashes of Three Dog Night and released six albums between 1969 and 1974. One of Argent’s finest moments on their debut is Freefall a jazz-tinged and melodic rock track.

After training as an art and photography teacher, Michael Chapman taught at Bolton College, in Lancashire and spent his spare time playing the folk circuits. That was where he first encountered John Martyn and Roy Harper. By 1969, Michael Chapman had signed to Harvest Records and turned his back on teaching. Later that year, he released Rainmaker with Fully Qualified Survivor following in 1970 and reaching forty-five in the UK charts. It featured Postcards Of Scarborough which is a tantalising taste of this truly talented and maverick the singer-songwriter and guitarist who is still going strong and releasing music fifty years later in 2020.

Very few people will have heard of ‘Igginbottom, a short-lived band that was the first to feature guitarist Allan Holdsworth. They only released one album ‘Igginbottom’s Wrench, which released on Deram in 1969. It was a mixture of fusion and progressive rock and has been described as variously bizarre, complex, eclectic and understated. It’s also underrated and innovative as The Castle which opened this oft-overlooked hidden gem of album proves.

Closing Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs Present Occasional Rain is Innocence Of Child from Catherine Howe’s 1971 album What A Beautiful Place. It’s a highly personal album where the Halifax-born singer-songwriter lays bare her soul. One of the most beautiful tracks is the understated and jazz-tinged Innocence Of Child which is the perfect way to close the compilation.

Of all the compilations Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs have curated, this is the best by far. They’ve managed to combined tracks from familiar faces with hidden gems from new names and real rarities like ‘Igginbottom’s The Castle and Catherine Howe’s Innocence Of Child. They’re part of what’s a captivating and lovingly curated overview of the late-sixties and early seventies during the post-psychedelic and pre-progressive era.

During this period, the music was eclectic and insprired by a variety of genres, especially folk and jazz. Musicians created genre-melting music that was new, exciting and innovative. The songs are variously beautiful, dreamy, ethereal, haunting and ruminative. Other tracks on Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs Present Occasional Rain are cinematic and paint pictures and take the listener back to a time and place, when both music and Britain was changing, and not always for the best. — dereksmusicblog.com

1. Soccer Mommy – Bloodstream
2. Waxahatchee – Can’t Do Much
3. Mike Polizze – Do Do Do
4. Phoebe Bridgers – Chinese Satellite
5. Blake Mills – Vanishing Twin
6. Nadia Reid – Get the Devil Out
7. Angel Olsen – Whole New Mess
8. Sufjan Stevens – America
9. Ren Harvieu – Teenage Mascara
10. Hand Habits – Placeholder
11. Anjimile – Maker
12. Bright Eyes – Mariana Trench
13. This Is the Kit – This Is What You Did
14. Emily Barker – Return Me
15. Molly Tuttle – She’s a Rainbow

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Free CD with MOJO magazine October 2020 [Issue 323]

1977 was the year that British punk rock burst out of the underground and became the new big thing in the U.K. music scene (not to mention a new youth movement to outrage the tabloid media’s readers). A year later, if punk was still widely seen as a fad, it had grown so fast that a scene that barely existed two years earlier was now overrun with hundreds of bands, as labels both big and small documented the explosion.
1978: The Year the UK Turned Day-Glo is a three-disc box set that features 79 tracks, offering a well-curated overview of the length, width, and depth of punk and its variants in the year the Sex Pistols broke up. (The majority are from the UK, though the Electric Chairs and Johnny Thunders, two American acts that enjoyed greater…

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…popularity abroad than at home, also make the cut.)

Compilers David Wells and John Reed have assembled an impressive selection of good-to-brilliant recordings, running the gamut from scene stars (the Jam, the Boomtown Rats, the Stranglers) and future legends (the Fall, U.K. Subs, the Cure, and the Coventry Automatics, soon to rename themselves the Specials) to the hopelessly obscure (the Exits, whose sole release existed in an edition of 500 copies), and folks whose punk rock parodies actually turned out to be great punk records (Jilted John, Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias). The set also shows how the initial 4/4 stomp of punk quickly made room for any number of subgenres, including power pop, mod revivalism, and even the dawn of post-punk. Wells’ liner notes include information on every act here, and they’re fun reading, as well as providing thumbnail histories of a number of bands even most punk loyalists have never heard of. (It’s also amusing to note that for every band of kids inspired to pick up guitars by the first salvo of punk, there was another formed by experienced musos jumping on a bandwagon that seemed simple and lucrative.)

Even the most devoted punk collector is likely to find a few tracks here that aren’t in their personal library, and 1978: The Year the UK Turned Day-Glo is a thoroughly enjoyable collection documenting a year full of great, passionate music.

Another lovingly curated rock & roll gem from Cherry Red’s archival Grapefruit Records imprint, A Slight Disturbance in My Mind is an expansive 3-disc set entirely devoted to the opening phases of Britain’s budding psychedelic movement. By late 1965, the American underground, particularly San Francisco’s LSD-inspired drug culture, had begun to infiltrate popular music. The Byrds and other West Coast groups began to adopt a more experimental attitude while in the U.K. bands like the Yardbirds and, more prominently, the Beatles forged their own new directions away from rock’s more easily digestible conventions. The inventive flourishes on the latter’s Rubber Soul LP set the table for a paradigm shift, and by April of the next year, they were at Abbey Road…

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…building the bones of their pioneering psychedelic opus, “Tomorrow Never Knows,” which would later blow minds upon its August release. Although outright psychedelia was a concept still bubbling below the mainstream, 1966 was poised for a revolution, and throughout that crucial year, it arrived in paroxysms of creative possibility.

At a whopping 84 tracks — all released in 1966 — A Slight Disturbance in My Mind deftly captures a diverse swath of what it bills as “British Proto-Psychedelic Sounds,” ranging from current stars finding new sounds (the Kinks’ droning jewel “Fancy”) to future stars finding their footing (David Bowie’s indelibly groovy “I Dig Everything”), and an array of young acts bringing fresh ideas to what seemed like a new dimension of music. The potential danger — and appeal — of mind-expanding drugs begat dangerous sounds, like the menacing undercurrents of the Creation’s masterwork “Making Time” and the snaky darkness of the Misunderstood’s “I Unseen.” The latter were a mercurial quartet of Californians moonlighting in London at the behest of John Peel, and their influence among the British scene that summer was considerable. Elsewhere are some wild cuts by the ‘N Betweens — whose members later became glam greats Slade — jazzy freakbeaters like the Artwoods, and lush early baroque-poppers the Ivy League, all adding to the pot their impressions of what would loosely become psychedelic rock.

A lot of ground is covered here, and peppered in among the knowns and well-knowns is a nice spread of previously unreleased nuggets and demos from cult favorites and curious one-offs. As with all of their box sets, the label provides extensive song-by-song liner notes, scads of intriguing ephemera, and a genuine love for the source material.

…Psyche Oh! A Go Go details some of the forgotten songs and musicians of the Malaysian and Singaporean pop music scenes from 1964 to 1974.
“Our hope is that this book would inspire more people to come join the fight,” says Adly Syairi Ramly, writer, web-show host and co-creator of book-and-music compilation project Psyche Oh! A Go Go, before correcting himself. “I mean, for more people to join the fun.”
…Adly’s initial sentiment encapsulates the notion that the need to document music from this part of the world is something that can only be accomplished through some personal struggle, and that it won’t come gift-wrapped in a pretty bow. “Rather than wait for someone else to do it, why not just do it ourselves?”

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The ‘struggle’ to birth this project is most accurately embodied by its other co-author Naza Mohamad, lead singer of indie band The Times and owner of Kuala Lumpur-based record store Sputnik Rekordz, who sold his personal collection of vintage tees to fund Psyche…’: “I knew this book needed to happen, so I had to just find a way.”

The result is a full-colour, 116-page hardcover that looks as groovy as the music it features on an accompanying 22-track compilation CD. The impressive book design by Syazri Zamrod (better known as CultKids) takes centre stage. “It was important to us that everyone involved with this project understood the music and where we were coming from,” shares Adly.

The idea for Psyche…, which was published by Sputnik Rekordz and Obscura Malaysia, germinated from an episode of a web series, hosted by Adly, called ‘Korek Fizikal’, where Naza appeared as a guest. In the episode, they discussed how there was so much great local music that no one knew about. That thought eventually grew into the book.

A large portion of the music collected in the book originated from Naza’s personal collection; his interest in local ’60s psychedelic music and pop yeh yeh started when he wanted to research the origins of Malay music as his band was starting to write in that language and format. “I wanted to learn from the original Malay music artists,” he recalls.

Watching Naza prowl around his cosy record store, you get a sense that if you asked him what his dream job is, he’d still tell you: owning a record store that’s located in a wet market. (No kidding, look it up.)

He constantly enthuses about the music featured on Psyche…, showing us his impressive collection of local seven-inches proudly displayed on his store wall and telling us about a “two-day Malaysian Woodstock” that happened back in 1972 in the Kuala Lumpur neighbourhood of Cheras. He’s like a kid in a candy shop.

“I just think it’s exciting that these artists, from random locations across Malaysia, were making edgy, non-mainstream music,” he shares. “How were they influenced to make music like that?”

He has a theory: when British soldiers were stationed in the country in the ’60s, they may have introduced the local bands they hired for their dinner parties to fresh sounds coming out of the UK and the US.

Playing through the CD that comes with the book, it’s clear that these bands were not simply mimicking popular mop-top pop. The opening track ‘Kembali Lagi’ by Johor-based A. Halim & De’Fictions features a fuzzy opening guitar lick that could’ve been found in a post-punk track from the ’80s, while the track from Kelsom Hashim & Plastic Deers (a brilliant name) opens with a driving punk backbeat before transitioning into a bright, choppy three-chord riff that’s straight out of Charlotte Caffey’s playbook.

They sang about life in the city, prostitution and infidelity through drinking too much – not strawberry fields or streets in Liverpool. They sang about life in this grimy part of the world in the ’60s, and, in some ways through their music, we get a glimpse of what was actually important to the youth on the streets at the time. The twang of their Stratocasters provided an escape from their conservative surroundings. “They were making rebel music,” says Adly.

According to Naza, these songs were quick-and-dirty recordings: “They had the entire band in a room and they just hammered out the tracks in a couple of takes.” The recordings were published by little-known record labels all across the length and breadth of Malaysia, from Ipoh to Batu Pahat. “An interesting thing we discovered was that a lot of these labels were owned by Chinese businessmen at the time, who were also owners of sundry shops,” adds Adly.

The research to put together a historical project like this can be painstaking. Literature on these artists is rare. They weren’t written about, and hardly spoken of. Even if you did own a copy of some of these recordings, there’s almost no information on its sleeves.

So in putting together Psyche…, the writers instead chose to combine whatever available information they had with their own perspectives on the music. They would’ve loved to track down these artists to get their front-row views on how the music scene looked and felt like back then, but they were cognisant of the challenges in doing that. “We did not want to be too ambitious, otherwise the book would never be published,” says Adly. “What we wanted was something we could put out there quickly.”

It was therefore serendipitous that when NME stopped by Sputnik Rekordz to pick up our copy of Psyche… that we bumped into Adibah, the daughter of Rubia Lubis, a musician featured in the book. She was there to pick up a complimentary copy for her mum. Dubbed the ‘Connie Francis of Malaysia’, Rubia’s singing career started after she won a singing contest at 17, then released a seven-inch single and an EP.

Adibah says her mum is surprised that people today are interested in her music: “The family was never really exposed to her music. We knew about it, but it all happened before we were born. I’ve never seen any copies of her records in our home.”

That seems to be a running theme as Naza recounts an instance when a musician that was featured in the book offered to buy a copy of his own album off Naza: “I told him, ‘Sorry, but it’s my only copy’.”

There is a sense of relief that a whole generation of music that was made in this part of the world, which had disappeared into musky storerooms and dusty boxes to be eventually discarded as trash, would’ve been lost forever if not for the work done here on this project.

The migration of people of Oklahoma, ‘the Okies’, to California from the mid-’30s to the mid-’50s, stirred by the Dust Bowl era, is a huge part of American history captured in the award-winning Steinbeck novel ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ as well as the Woodie Guthrie song ‘The Ballad of Tom Joad‘.
…Back to Paradise: A Tulsa Tribute to Okie Music is the result of a group of musicians from Tulsa, Oklahoma, travelling to the iconic Paradise Studio at Grand Lake to record this, the first album recorded there since 1978 thanks to the restoration work of Tulsan, Rick Huskey. It honours numerous Oklahoma musicians from over the years including influential artists such as Leon Russell and JJ Cale.
With a total of 20 Tulsa musicians contributing to this album and Okie music encompassing…

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…a wide-ranging mix of country music, this album has something for everyone with an interest in all things Okie.

Mostly recorded live, the album opens with the groovy sound of Paul Benjamin and his cover of the JJ Cale song ‘I’ll Make Love to You Anytime’ showcasing some tremendous musicianship from the participants. Next up is the rockier sound of young & prominent John Fullbright with ‘Crossing Over‘ (Steve Ripley). Again, the accompaniment is wonderfully atmospheric.

Benjamin & Fullbright between them take the lion’s share of the leads on this album, along with the inimitable vocal of Jesse Aycock who graces three of the songs. Aycock bringing his own Okie style to the likes of ‘Rock n Roll Gypsies‘ (Gypsy Trips) and ‘Tulsa County‘ (Jesse Ed Davis).

The fact there was a core group of musicians playing throughout the four days this was all recorded gives a consistency to the high quality of the sound and musicianship. For the most part, the vocal performances are fresh and alluring with the seventeen songs selected to make up this tribute album range from the acclaimed to the enigmatic. — AmericanaUK

In the often lamentable field of multi-artist tribute albums, no one put together better or more interesting ones than the late Hal Willner. While Willner had a real gift for matching artists to material, his real talent was the juxtaposition of diverse talents under one tent (1985’s Lost in the Stars: The Music of Kurt Weill is the only album where you’ll find Sting, John Zorn, and Johnny Adams in the same place), and finding imaginative ways to link the material (using the recitations of Ken Nordine to bookend 1989’s Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films). More than just a bunch of folks covering songs from the same artist or genres, Willner’s projects were ALBUMS, using their diverse ingredients to create something…

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…more than the sum of the parts.

Willner died on April 6, 2020, and at the time of his death he was working on an album honoring Marc Bolan, the flamboyant mind behind T. Rex. Five months later, that record appeared, and Angelheaded Hipster: The Songs of Marc Bolan & T. Rex is at once very much his kind of album and something of a disappointment. Bolan’s songs were the joyous ramblings of glam rock’s greatest hippie, blessed with a playful, trashy, but decidedly cosmic world view. Angelheaded Hipster, however, takes the unexpected approach of taking Bolan’s songs seriously. The boogie that was the trademark of his best-known work is almost entirely absent, and while Bolan’s wordplay was often marvelous, many of these artists opt to treat them as grand philosophical statements, ignoring the wit that was so much of his lyrics. A few of the performers make this work, notably Lucinda Williams, who sounds beatific on “Life’s a Gas,” and Nick Cave, who somehow finds a mournful nostalgia in “Cosmic Dancer.” However, most of the time this album offers us grandly arranged and beautifully rendered covers of songs that were never meant to sound this way, and for every grand surprise (Peaches sounding just the right amount of sleazy on “Solid Gold, Easy Action,” King Khan shaking out “I Like to Boogie,” and the orchestral sweep of Emily Haines’ “Ballrooms of Mars”), there’s another that just doesn’t click (Gavin Friday trying to scare us on “The Leopards,” U2 being upstaged by a barely audible Elton John on “Bang a Gong,” and Marc Almond’s klezmer-infused “Teenage Dream,” fine in theory but clumsy in execution).

Every artist brings their A-game, the accompanists are in stellar form, and in the last third of the album, things start to jell in a Willnerian manner as Todd Rundgren, Sean Lennon, Victoria Williams, David Johansen, and Maria McKee drift through well-chosen samples from an old comedy album. In those moments, Angelheaded Hipster sounds like the visionary tribute to Marc Bolan he truly deserves; the rest is brilliant craft and genuine heart in search of a sense of purpose, though there are far too many good things here for any thoughtful music fan to ignore. — AMG