MUSIC | Records – Jazz & World ALSO RELEASED
SUPER ADVENTURE CLUB Straight From The Dick (Armellodie) ●●●●● Bands as fun as Glasgow’s Super Adventure Club are rare, so this posthumous release is something of a bittersweet final hurrah. Straight From The Dick is a tight collection of wondrously daft songs anchored by the kind of intricate math-rock rigour that normally comes with compulsory po-face. Songs about dogs with double appendages and men falling in love with pillows sit comfortably alongside methodical musicianship – a band worth celebrating.
BLOOD ORANGE Cupid Deluxe (Domino) ●●●●● Dev Hynes is often the man behind the pop these days, writing and producing for Solange and Sky Ferreira – but Cupid Deluxe is the kind of slick pop behemoth to put him front and centre. Taking cues from Prince, but twisting smooth jazz-flecked funk into woozy modern shapes coloured with ambient and hip hop, he’s crafted an album that dances effortlessly around genres. Late-night grooves don’t come much better.
74 THE LIST 14 Nov–11 Dec 2013
TALVIHORROS Eaten Alive (Fluid Audio) ●●●●● The latest release from London guitarist Ben Chatwin (pictured) is the result of two years spent exploring the most desolate areas of the capital, and its many tales of loss, abuse and drug addiction. Chatwin channels urban displacement into the core of Eaten Alive – his most textured and melodic album to date. His intricate acoustic picking rubs tersely against frayed electronics and splashes of noise, sculpting an engrossingly melodramatic atmosphere of decay.
UBRE BLANCA Polygon Mountain (Clan Destine Records) ●●●●● Former Shitdisco and Divorce members make up Glasgow’s pre-eminent new instrumental duo. Joel Stone and Andy Brown’s debut EP is a maelstrom of retro- futurist noise that nods heavily towards artists like Oneohtrix Point Never and Emeralds. A robuster rhythm section than that of those counterparts helps sculpt some irresistible grooves, though, and tracks like the hypnotic sci-fi doom of ‘Hyperion’ are sure to sound huge live. A very exciting debut. ■ See page 75 for our interview with Ubre Blanca’s Joel Stone. (Chris Tapley)
JAZZ & WORLD JAZZ THE THING Boot! (The Thing Records) ●●●●●
Fresh from their crossover collaboration with Neneh Cherry (more please!), heavy Scandinavian jazzers The Thing strike out on their own with Boot! The trio of saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love are renowned for their free-jazz takes on rock riffage – Lightning Bolt, PJ Harvey and The Stooges are favourites – but this time it’s jazz collosi John Coltrane and Duke Ellington
getting the Boot! A short figure is torn from ’Trane’s ‘India’ and loaded inside the molten metal of Gustafsson’s bass horn. What emerges is a seething radioactive beast, howling as it’s strafed by Nilssen-Love’s machine-gun snare volleys. The originals are strong too, particularly ‘Reboot’, which begins with a sustained howl of feedback and pneumatic drill drumming, before Gustafsson makes a surprise entrance on soprano sax, drawing impossible shapes in the air while Håker Flaten’s fuzz bass spits electric filth. (Stewart Smith)
JAZZ EVAN PARKER & JOE MCPHEE What/If/They Both Could Fly (Rune Grammofon) ●●●●● Two masters, deep in conversation. One of the most important saxophonists of the post-Coltrane era, Evan Parker needs no introduction. American multi- instrumentalist Joe McPhee is perhaps less known, but at 73, he remains a major creative force, working with his free-jazz peers and young radicals like Chris Corsano and The Thing. Taped at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway, this is only the second time the pair have appeared on record as a duo. With Parker on tenor and McPhee on pocket trumpet and soprano saxophone, What/If/They Both Could Fly is a gorgeous duo exchange, with no showboating or competition. Parker comes out with long, undulating spools of tone and fluttering birdsong, while McPhee whistles and vocalises through his trumpet valve. This is a highly lyrical set, with abstract sections flowing gracefully into more melodic passages where Parker explores boppish figures while McPhee holds down long, silvery notes. (Stewart Smith)
WORLD JUANA MOLINA Wed 21 (Crammed Discs) ●●●●●
Making ingenious use of live loops and samples, Juana Molina’s electronic folk-pop brightened the mid-00s. Wed 21 is the Argentinian singer-songwriter’s first album in five years and it may well be her best to date. It finds her moving into ever more experimental territory, with weird sonics and complex structures, yet it’s full of strong vocal melodies and propulsive rhythms. Molina has gone way beyond the layering of loops to go deep into her
laptop and construct an intricate patchwork of acoustic and processed sound. With its blissed-out synth bass and drum kick, ‘Eras’ begins like a vintage acid- house track, only for Molina’s breathy vocal and ghostly synth trails to carry it elsewhere. She delights in the curious earworms – wobbly electronic basslines, glitchy industrial beats and pitch-bent steel pans – that she deftly weaves in and around her gorgeous vocals, which are layered, looped and processed into a cosmic chorale. (Stewart Smith)
WORLD VARIOUS ARTISTS Mountain of Tongues: Musical Dialects from the Caucasus (LM Dupli-cation) ●●●●● Dubbed ‘the mountain of tongues’ by Arab travellers, the Caucasus is home to a remarkable range of languages and culture. This collection documents music from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, recorded from 2012 to 2013 by ethnomusicologists Stefan Williams Fa and Ben Wheeler. The collectors aim to capture the music of the region’s smaller folk cultures and ethnic minorities. There are some beautiful singers here, such as Ashig Garib, whose throaty ululations add grit to his high and lonesome tenor, and the collected voices of the Anchiskhati Choir, whose starkly beautiful ‘Adila Ali-Pasha’ recalls Gaelic psalmistry. Perhaps most striking of all are the Molokon cousins singing along to a recording of their grandmother – a magical dialogue with voices from the past. (Stewart Smith)