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from Julian Cope’s Head Heritage...
Okay, now let’s move on to this month’s Vinyl-Only Reviews Section, starting with the molto meditative ice dramas of DIRTY POOL by guitarist Chris Forsyth and organist Shawn Edward Hansen. Released on Italy’s excellent Ultramarine Records (www.ultramarinerecords.com), DIRTY POOL delights in liberating hackneyed blues guitar flourishes by rendering them not as the accompaniment for some journeyman singer but re-contextualized as glorious epiphanies ringing out across Terry Rileyan organ drones. Like Henry Flynt’s glorious (and gloriously inauthentic) backporch blues, DIRTY POOL is a horribly more-ish hybrid, one that confidently unites the amphetamine over-reaching gymnastics of unaccompanied early T. Verlaine with the conservatory sedateness of Overhang Party, elsewhere imposing the droning starkness of Nico’s ‘It Was a Pleasure Then’ with Ry Cooder’s PARIS TEXAS soundtrack. Neither rural nor urban – yet defiantly unsuburban – DIRTY POOL occupies a highly useful between-time hinterland that has me spinning this vinyl again and again.
Final vinyl of this month has to go to those three unsane practitioners known as Amolvacy, whose sensational new album A LU LA LU is out now on Ultramarine Records (www.ultramarinerecords.com). I raved about their debut in my Drudion for May 2008CE, but this newbie nails the Amolvacy metaphor even more firmly to the mast. Imagine Dagmar Krause’s Art Bears attempting Longfellow’s ‘Hiawatha’ with just tuned percussion and traps; imagine sparsely orchestrating Jaki Leibezeit’s most overt drum-a-thons with ESG vocal escapades; imagine the tragic childlike ‘Loud Loud Loud’ monologue of 666-period Aphrodite’s Child interspersed with Muslim Gauzean drones; imagine all of this and you’ll maybe glimpse just one miniscule aspect of Amolvacy’s hefty and rigorous worldview. But then, I believe superb shamanic vocalist/priestess Sheila 16 could make a catchy chorus out of anything and soon have the world singing along. Kiddies, Amolvacy is one hell of an original proposition, and their new clear vinyl 12” record comes replete with that same beautiful die-cut packaging as their first offering. If you have limited funds with which to deploy sonic weaponry against your neighbours, make sure you pick A LU LA LU by Amolvacy!
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The album is put together as a double lp- four sides, each with a couple movements a piece. Morgia is joined by Daniel Carter on horns and Jeff Arnal on percussion. Morgia himself plays various tonalities of electric guitar throughout, along with the occasional touches of keyboard and the like. Morgia’s work is informed by noisier experimentalists, jazz players, and classic psych styles alike. He blends these together to form a tasteful yet colorful pallette of textures and tones. While Morgia might be the leader of the group, his guitar never seems overbearing, and the other musicians really get a chance to shine. The structures of these pieces have the general push and pull common to a lot of farther-out jazz. Elements of classic Miles Davis, Albert Ayler, and Sun Ra all come to mind. Both the chaos and the quite are represented well.
I start to cringe a little when I hear an e-bow on the C-side of the lp, but I’m so relieved to hear Morgia using it in such a non-traditional manner. Likewise, the use of wah wah and slide are presented in ways that are totally non-cringe inducing. A great example is the opening track, which contains a certain menacing charm and some undeniably funk-influenced guitar work. It’s a delightfully strange composition that defies easy categorization.
A personal highlight for me is the cosmic creeper on side D. It’s a nice halfway point between “In a Silent Way” era Miles Davis and the droning psych of Expo 70. The subtle touches of mystery throughout the record really come to fruition on this track, and when it’s over I just want to start the journey again. This is a really pleasant listen for me overall, and for a double record it’s pretty easy to digest in just one sitting. 9/10 – Charles Franklin (24 February, 2010)
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Temperatures
Eksra
Ultramarine LP
Given that Noise as a movement was predicated on a desire to break free of straightjacket musical structures, it’s ironic that some of the more stimulating groups working in that zone have retained elements of rock. Units such as Mathew Bower’s Skullflower, the transatlantic trio PeeEssEye and Edinburgh’s Muscletusk have blended guitars and drums into the hum and roar of Noise to create a visceral, hybrid free rock. Temperatures are a London based duo of bassist/vocalist Peter Blundell and drummer James Dunn, who strip the form back to the bone, relying on the natural properties of their instruments, a handful of pedals and a synth wired up to the drums to create unruly, improvised Noise rock.
The obvious comparison would be Lightning Bolt, but Temperatures have a less bludgeoning, more light-footed approach, with Dunn’s drumming owing more to free jazz than hardcore, even hints of Prog. But there’s an infectious sense of irreverence and adventure that stops them getting bogged down anywhere too long. The two untitled tracks on the A side of this debut LP move from arrhythmic clatter, through shambolic Beefheart-style riffs and into an extended Krautrocking trance-groove. Through all of this, Blundell adds an extra layer of intrigue with murky, unintelligible vocal proclamations, sounding like Vivian Stanshall with his head in a bucket, learning to speak Esperanto in his sleep.
The B side is less propulsive – and less compelling – exploring instead some of the electronic textures you might experience at a standard Noise gig, with distorted bass and synth loops that hark back to late 1980s Industrial. When Dunn rises up with a heart-stopping swell of freeform percussive activity – and a touch of Chris Corsano’s feverish attention to cymbals and toms – it’s enough to make you thankful that the drum’s not dead.
Daniel Spicer
The Wire # 313 / March 2010
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Questions In A World of Blue - by Ed Pinsent / The Sound Projector
http://www.thesoundprojector.com/2009/12/06/ultramarine/
The Ultramarine Records label used to be based in Brooklyn, now it’s in Italy, but its New York allegiances are still somewhat in evidence…pleased to receive four vinyl items which represents almost their entire output to date. Ninni Morgia Control Unit (UM005) is a double LP by this Brooklyn guitarist who teams up with veteran free honker Daniel Carter and drummer Jeff Arnal, to create four sides of not-unpleasant jazz-rock fusion music. Superficially, the sound of the album seems to be in thrall to the 1970s – Bitches Brew, Weather Report and late Soft Machine records are some obvious touchstones, but I’m hoping to find time to engage with Morgia’s soloing work (he also plays electric sitar, autoharp, keyboards and percussion) to discover something original he may have to offer us. Scott Colburn’s mastering gives the set added dynamic punch, and SpiralSmokey provided the dazzling cover art.
Chris Forsyth is the Brooklyn guitarist who can do no wrong for me. Here he is with Shawn Edward Hansen (from Phantom Limb and Bison) withDirty Pool (UM002), a gorgeous LP of instrumental music blending Forsyth’s golden-sunshine notes with the balmy Farfisa organ work of Hansen on these 2005 recordings. The entire A side is devoted to ‘I First Saw You’, a totally gorgeous continuous improvisation played in a single key inhabiting some zone of paradise where the best of Popol Vuh meets up with languid psychedelic musings. Forsyth’s confident strokes and licks contain compressed moments of pure genius. The cover here is attempting to emulate the look of an old Folkways or Origin Jazz Library LP, both of which wraparound paper pastedowns on black textured sleeves.
Amolvacy is an ad-hoc trio comprising two New Yorkers, Dave Nuss (No-Neck Blues Band) and Sheila 16 (Laboratory Theatre Group), joining forces with English wackster Aaron Moore from Volcano The Bear. A La Lu La (UM003) situates itself quite some way from the lengthy explorations of No-Neck, offering rather short and condensed tunes where the two guys demonstrate instrumental prowess with percussion and acoustic instruments, throwing out stark and wayward notes with inspiration. Over the top of these faux-primitive rhythmic backdrops, Sheila 16 caterwauls her unintelligible free-form wailing in shrill tones. Homage to various hip underground records from the 1960s is implied in these musical statements, and the back cover is printed with lines of quasi-Beat Poetry. Pressed in clear vinyl and housed in a very unusual fold-out cover with flaps.
Temperatures are of course English, the London duo of Peter Blundell and James Dunn, for whose recorded output I have cultivated a very soft spot of earth in the garden of my mind. Eksra (UM004) shows them using bass, drums, and synth as though the instruments had only just been discovered out of an archaeological dig, and the players are two scientist-musicians speculating wildly as to the original purpose of these unknown artifacts. Most effective is when Blundell adds his hideous grunting vocalising to certain tracks, arriving more successfully to my mind at the sort of primordial semi-conscious holy utterances that Sheila 16 claims to be aiming at. Eksra is not as outright brutal as their early work, yet still delivers many crushing tromps and bludgeoning moments. I have no idea what the image on the front cover could be, but it feels decidedly sinister, like the printout from a ghastly machine that measures psychic disruptions in the atmosphere.
Ultramarine is a new label, but hot damn is it looking like one hell of a keeper. Started in the bowels of New York City but now operating out of scenic Italy, one look at the artists that they’re working with will tell you all you need to know. Longtime Foxy Digitalis favorite, Chris Forsyth (of Peeesseye, etc) has a record coming out with the insanely underrated Shawn Hansen while Amolvacy is readying the follow-up to their killer LP on Black Velvet Fuckere. Keep in touch, cuz they’re gonna be on fucken fire.
Who started the label and why?
What’s the story behind the name?
What keeps you inspired to continue doing the label?
What’s the hardest thing about running an independent label these days?
If you could work with any one artist, who would it be and why?
What’s your demo policy?
What do you have planned for the future?
What’s the best record you’ve heard in the past year?
Any closing advice?
– Brad Rose (19 August, 2009)
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The Right Moves “The End Of The Empire“ CD
On their 2007 debut This is Your Message, The Right Moves consisted of trumpeter Peter Evans, guitarist Ninni Morgia (La Otracina/Quivers) and drummer Kevin Shea (Talibam!/Storm And Stress). That line-up produced a raucous jazz/Noise hybrid, but The End Of The Empire takes a mellower tack. This is due in part to Evans being replaced by bassist Stuart Popejoy, but also to Morgia employing a more open, sky-seeking guitar style. Patiently doling out twangy echo and shimmering textures, the guitarist turns the Brooklyn based trio’s approach from jazz to jam. While the eight pieces here sometimes sound like beatless soundtracks, they often reach higher, into the territory occupied by Davis Redford Triad, Marble Sheep And The Rundown Sun’s Children, and Karl Precoda’s underappreciated Last Days Of May.
“Meet You At The Black Sands” starts mysteriously and almost Wild Western in style before escalating into an enveloping thundercloud, while on “When We Were American” Popejoy’s and Shea’s initially sparse rhythms congeal unpredictably into clusters of beats. The group follow those with the somewhat stagnant “Cleaning Up The Desk”, whose lethargic motion seems to be about waiting for a kickstart that never arrives.
That’s a rarity though. Most of The End Of The Empire leans toward the heights of its best track, “Living Underground”, a revving rumble in which Morgia bends and buffs his fiery tones like Jimi Hendrix to fit the rhythmic shuffle that surrounds him. It feels odd to say any group could be better without Peter Evans, but tracks like that one makes a pretty convincing case for the increased sonic coherence created by this line-up of The Right Moves . (Marc Masters, The Wire Magazine, August 2009)