Staraya Derevnya - Kadita Sessions

There was really only one way to end my traditional summer blogging hiatus and that was with a review of an album that's done so much to get me through a couple of months of hotel rooms, train journeys and improbable work deadlines.

Kadita Sessions came out in April so it's frustrating that I've not been able to write anything about it before now.  It is, frankly, one of the most magical and bewitching albums I've heard for a long, long time.  From the guttural howl that is the starting point for opener of 'Hram' to the frantic close of 'Kadita', the listener is taken on a journey that's perhaps best described as one third aural Alice Through the Looking Class, one third experimental psych jamboree and one third impossible to describe.

One listen of the aforementioned album opener was enough to tell me that this was a collection that was likely to keep me occupied for a damn good portion of my life, working on the assumption that at some point in the hopefully far-off future I'll lose my faculties at roughly the same time as my bladder control.  An inability to appreciate something as wonderful as this is what makes me dread such a day (the loss of faculties, I mean; the loss of bladder control will be regrettable, but probably something I can learn to live with).

From there we're taken on seven extraordinary journeys, from the understated 'Chastity' to the majestically freakish 'Het', one of the album's shorter excursions but already a contender for my favourite track of 2016.

If that's not enough to whet your appetite you should know that you can download the whole thing here for NYOP, although there's also a CD version available and you can get your hands on a cassette via Weakie Discs.

Reptilians From Andromeda - Sonic Rabbit Hole (Small Bear)

 

 

 

I don't know of many previous match-ups between the Isle of Man and Istanbul - in fact I'm not sure I know of any - but the concept seems loaded with interesting possibilities.  So, when the Manx Small Bear label announced they'd put out an album from Istanbul husband and wife duo Reptilians From Andromeda, I was firstly intrigued, then delighted, then finally blown away. 

 

With cap doffed firmly in the direction of the excellent Postcode, I can't think of a release on Small Bear that's thrilled me as much as this.  Although there's a psychedelic spaciness about RFA, it merges and collides with a discordant new wave jerkiness to take it somewhere entirely different.

 

Take opener 'Psychic Girl' as an example, where a Nico-meets-Grace Slick vocal lies atop a kind of militaristic beat to deliver the kind of triumph of clashing musical sensibilities that makes this collection so instantly unforgettable.  Or take a song that, with a title like 'Wicky Wacky Witches' has no right to work, yet does far more than that, its slow burning melodic growl offering a perfect contrast to the wild cacophony of closing track 'Like the River to the Sea'.

 

The EP's highlight, for me, is 'Jungle', a frantically meshed together tumble of possibilities where a more up-front vocal line meets meandering guitar lines and, yes, animal noises.  It's the kind of meeting of musical possibilities you really hope will work and which, in the hands of Reptilians From Andromeda, certainly does and I'm playing it in my Dandelion Radio show this month.

 

Get Sonic Rabbit Hole from the band's bandcamp site on CD or as NYOP download here.   

Vert:x - Annwn

A couple of years ago, there seemed a real and very concerning possibility that Vert:x might be about to suspend activities indefinitely.  Thankfully that was a threat that proved to be short-lived. 

Neil Whitehead's project returned, now with Vinnie C as his established musical partner, releasing the storming twenty-minute single 'Pure Golden Light' at the end of last year and now comes a fresh release of 'Annwn', produced by Earthling Society's Fred Laird, to remind us, if we'd been stupid enough to forget, why we love them so much.

The lovably intense drone at the heart of the band still remains, but there's an equally lovable playfulness in evidence this release.  Frowning over their instruments they clearly are not: ten-minute opener 'A Witch!', complete with telling exclamation mark, is the work of a band enjoying what they do and possessing the musical dexterity to transmit that with familiarly laid back ease. 

It's an upbeat mood that permeates the whole release, from the swirling synths of 'Atom a.k.' to the nineteen-minute frantic head-shredding extravaganza of closing track 'Y ol i Annwn'.  I'm playing 'Surf Crayola' in my Dandelion Radio show this month, a track that puts space rock tools in the hands of a sixties garage band.  The result are, predictably, shambolically brilliant.

You can download some of the tracks here but it's seriously worth getting hold of the full CD version.  They'll also be recording a session for my show for broadcast some time in the summer - not to be missed, I would suggest.

Schizo Fun Addict/The Bordellos - KASSETTE (Small Bear)

 

 

Before I start you'd better know that the limited edition cassette version of this release has already sold out.  You can still download it from the Small Bear bandcamp site, however, and, even shorn of its deeply attractive packaging, it's one hell of great fantastic release.

 

It's a split, of course, but a split with a difference: rather than sharing space of the length of a standard album (if that means anything these days), you get a complete album-length 'side' from each band.  As both of the bands are wonderful, that means a two for the price of one deal of some considerable quality. 

 

The two bands concerned offer pretty distinctive sounds: this is not one of those split releases that offers you two bands that appear to be aiming to sound like each other.  The Bordellos (who you may have heard a damn fine session from in my Dandelion Radio show last year) offer some of the best things their endearingly ragged guitar sound has ever conjured up, including 'Temperature Drop', which made the Festive Fifty in 2013, and the laid-back stab to the brain that is 'Hit It', which appeared on the EP sampler release for this album last year and which I play in my Dandelion Radio show this month.

 

I play a track from the SFA side too - 'Make A Stand', an intoxicating, woozy slab of off-kilter sub-psychedelic magnificence.  The contrast between the two bands' styles makes it an easy and almost natural thing to flip from one album to the next to get two opposing slices of what makes great music so great both between and through the ear lobes.

 

As you may have guessed, I like it.  If you needed an additional reason to grab a copy yourself (which you shouldn't) every penny generated goes to Save The Children.  Get a copy from the Small Bear bandcamp site here. 

Ramalama Codex & The Universal Unconsciousness - Looming

First release of the new year from my Unwashed Territories label is also the first from this duo, combining the very considerable talents of Mike Seed, formerly of The Chasms, and Neil Whitehead of Vert:x.  Although Looming is their debut release, keen-eared listeners to my Dandelion Radio show will recognise some of what's here as three of the seven tracks were first heard in session on my show last year.

If you caught the session, you'll know what to expect: slickly meandering psychedelic riffs rub up against Mike's distinctive vocals or just against each other, at times playfully undulating around your lugholes, such as on the eerie 'Ganymede', and at others yielding occasionally surprising rhythmic intensity, as on the new track 'The Wrong Salute'. I'm playing 'Sleeping Beauty' in my January show on Dandelion Radio, a track that isn't new to me (I played it on my show several months ago) but which has the fascinating temerity to appear so.  That's the case with the whole collection: you'll play it again and again and find astonishing things you'll swear weren't there the first time.

There have, of course, already been many fascinating spin-offs from the members of The Chasms and I understand there'll be more to come.  For me, this is the best yet and the seven tracks here have a vibrancy and eclectic resonance that suggest Ramalama Codex have enough in the tank to take us on a long and fascinating journey.  Hold onto your hats.

Get it as NYOP here.  

Churn Milk Joan - 8 Black Postcards

It's been a good year for improvised music.   I'm currently enjoying wallowing in the elongated jams of Keller (something from them in my April show) and the Mystical Weapons album was probably the first really outstanding release of the year.   Now the latest collection from Churn Milk Joan is upon us, a five-track monster that's the result of impromptu recording sessions in Hebden Bridge, and it's another stunner.

On the evidence of this, improvisation suits Churn Milk Joan.  For this release Colin Robinson and Richard Knutson are joined by Marian Sutton and Pete Scullion, guitarist with Colin in Block 454.   As I'm a fan anyway, and so never really want their records to end, the prospect of luxuriating in the products of lengthy krautrock-influenced sound experiments immediately tickled my fancy.

But that doesn't really describe what I found, which is actually much much better.  These are not the twenty-minutes plus epics favoured by Keller, but instead the improvised jams have provided an opportunity for the band to unleash their brilliance in a looser framework rather than merely indulge themselves, and the results are even more wonderful than anticipated.

The five pieces on 8 Black Postcards all warrant attention in their own right, but it's the second track 'The Letter (episode 1)' that for me represents the best work of Churn Milk Joan to date.   Characteristic of the album as a whole, its eight minutes do not become a stretched palette onto which the band paste meandering sound collages, but instead yield a taut percussive backdrop against which sparse guitar patterns interweave, Tago Mago-esque musical interludes rise and fall and something not unrelated to a funk vibe drags you into a sonic blender into which sounds are tossed before coming out of the other end entirely transformed, as indeed is the listener.

As usual, you can get the release as name your own price from the Churn Milk Joan bandcamp site and you won't be surprised to hear that I've seized the opportunity to feature 'The Letter' in all its lengthy majesty in my Dandelion Radio show this month.   You'll hear a band who've ceased to be simply an interesting afterthought to enjoy in the gap left by Block 454 and have now confirmed themselves as a fascinating musical proposition in their own right.