MUSIC | Records – Jazz & World ALSO RELEASED
JAZZ & WORLD
Prosumer JAZZ LARGE UNIT Erta Ale (PNL Records) ●●●●●
As the rhythmic engine behind the Thing and sideman to Peter Brötzmann and Ken Vandermark, Paal Nilssen-Love is one of the world’s most exciting and inventive drummers. Large Unit is his new Scandinavian big band, comprising of two rhythm sections, copious horns, guitar and electronics. Named after an Ethiopian volcano, Erta Ale is a massive three-disc eruption of high-octane skronk, brash riffs and abstract free improv moves. A standout among their big tunes is ‘Culius’ – Finnish for slab of meat – where full-blast horn salvos slap you round the chops while Lasse Marhaug’s electronics drip hot fat and sizzling juices. Out of this emerges a demented 70s cop show theme, all wailing sirens and hot-wired chase riffs, before it all rides off into the prairie night where burbling trombones converse inquisitively with the lowing cows. Tremendous noisy fun, but not without stretches of lyricism or quiet exploration. (Stewart Smith)
JAZZ CUONG VU TRIO WITH RICHARD KARPEN Indigo Mist (RareNoise) ●●●●● In recent years, William Parker and Mats Gustafsson have been among the
creative musicians offering a radical engagement with Duke Ellington. Comprising mostly original pieces inspired by some textual or textural aspect of Ellington’s music, Indigo Mist takes the electro-acoustic train downtown, with pianist Richard Karpen and trumpeter Cuong Vu’s jazz trio offering their melodies and improvisations to four iPad-wielding live electronic performers. The barrage of live processed drums at the
climax of ‘L’Eure Bleu’ recalls Louis Belson’s famous double-kick drum hurricane from ‘Skin Deep’, while the upbeat likes of ‘Billy’ and ‘Duke’ suggest 1930s small group sessions taken way out, with a graceful trumpet forced to make a crash landing over a stormy rhythm section. Their version of ‘In a Sentimental Mood’ goes deep, with Vu’s Jon Hassell-like trumpet tracing smoky trails of echo- drenched melody over mysterious clouds of piano and drums. (Stewart Smith)
WORLD VARIOUS ARTISTS The Travelling Archive – Folk Music From Bengal (Sublime Frequencies) ●●●●●
The latest batch from Sublime Frequencies includes a smokin’ live album from Lebanese / Egyptian guitar legend Omar Khorshid and a compilation of mesmeric Sahel folk, but this collection is of particular interest, representing the first fruits of the label’s relationship with Bengali musicians and researchers Moushoumi Bhowmik and Sukanta Majumdar. Their field recordings from Bangladesh, India and the Bengali diaspora offer
a captivating glimpse of a diverse musical culture: wedding songs, Hindu devotionals, and songs from those travelling bards, the Baul. Ahmed Moyez’s acapella performance of his Sufi poet grandfather’s ‘Paradhi Hoilam Ami’ (‘Friend and Master, by what law of yours am I made guilty’) is deeply moving, while the Tea Garden singing and stories of a group of young women are a delight. (Stewart Smith)
WORLD VERCKYS ET L’ORCHESTRE VÉVÉ Congolese Funk, Afrobeat and Psychedelic Rumba 69-78 (Analog Africa) ●●●●●
Waiting for the delayed Ali-Foreman ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ in 1974, James Brown used his time in Kinshasa to check out the local bands. Above all, the artist who blew him away was Verckys, the charismatic leader of L’Orchestre Vévé. Verckys formed the group in 1968, seeking to modernise Congolese pop with the heavy grooves of the Funky President himself and elements of merengue, rumba and soukous. It’s almost inconceivable to imagine someone not enjoying this music, with its irresistible grooves, hip saxophone melodies and balmy South-American influences. Take ‘Bassala Hot’, with its pimped out bassline and Afrobeat vamp, or the salacious ‘Sex Vévé’, in which a saucy organ rides a dirty blues and a saxophone yelps indecently. A cut above the average African funk reissue. (Stewart Smith)
DARREN HAYMAN Chants for Socialists (wiaiwya) ●●●●● This delightful album ponders the role of the protest song in contemporary music. Designer / activist William Morris’s lyrics find an easy space within Hayman’s thoughtful urban folk sound, which he says is ‘comfort and solace’ to those yearning for more politically engaged times. (Rachel Devine)
DISAPPEARS Irreal (Kranky) ●●●●● The ‘guitars are dead’ contingent may re-evaluate after this, the sixth album from Brian ‘90 Day Men’ Case’s Chicagoan art-rock group. It’s an attempt to recreate the throbbing electronic pulse of industrial / hard techno, played entirely on analogue instruments with reverberating vocal intrusions. Dark and brilliant. (David Pollock)
YO LA TENGO Extra Painful (Matador) ●●●●● PROSUMER Fabric 79 (Fabric) ●●●●●
For the 30th anniversary of New Jersey indie rockers YLT, Matador is reissuing the album that made everyone sit up and take notice, 1993’s Painful. Extras include live recordings, demos and unreleased tracks. The scuzzy, electro-pop magnificence of classics like ‘Nowhere Near’ sound as fresh today as in 1993. (RD) SOUTHERN TENANT FOLK UNION The Chuck Norris Project (Johnny Rock Records) ●●●●●
Maybe the most bonkers idea for a record this year, STFU release an album of tracks named after movies starring leonine martial arts star Chuck Norris. Their trademark acoustic, folk-country sound is augmented by 70s disco influences and the music of John Carpenter, Fabio Frizzi and Gene Clark. (RD)
BEYONCÉ Platinum Edition Box Set (Parkwood/Colombia) ●●●●● Anyone living under a rock may not be familiar with Beyonce’s self-titled album, or Mrs. Carter Show World Tour. Fear not: they're all here along with selected live performances from the tour, two new songs and unreleased remix collaborations with Kanye West, Nicki Minaj and Pharrell Williams. (RD)
Edinburgh-based producer Achim Brandenburg deservedly gets a crack at the Fabric mix. A laid- back but lively set featuring house legend Chez Damier (‘Untitled B2’), Edinburgh’s Linkwood (‘Expressions’), I-F, Axel Boman and more, creating a pulsing house aesthetic with a foot in the past and an eye on the future. (DP)
SMASHING PUMPKINS Monument to an Elegy (BMG Rights Management) ●●●●● The majestically-titled mid-point in Billy Corgan’s three-album, six- year ‘movement’, Teargarden by Kaleidyscope, is sadly a triumph of grand designs over great execution. Recorded with the Pumpkins down to its bare bones, it starts brightly with incisive rocker ‘Tiberius’ but much of what follows feels Pumpkins-by-numbers. (DP)
THE GRAND GESTURES Third (Chute Records) ●●●●● The third of Jan Burnett’s trilogy of collaborative musical encounters features minimal electro-indie with Jill O’Sullivan of Sparrow and the Workshop on ‘Compos Mentis’, an experimental, spoken word ‘You to Me Are Everything’ with Sanjeev Kohli and a thrilling turn by Danny Wilson singer Gary Clark on ‘The World Will Break Your Heart’. (DP)
96 THE LIST 11 Dec 2014–5 Feb 2015