Author Archives: Joseph Neff

In 2017, the Now-Again label released the compilations Welcome to Zamrock Vols. 1 and 2 on double vinyl and compact disc, with the sets delivering an ample serving of the fuzzy, funky rock music made in 1970s Zambia. Two tracks from the Ngozi Family stood out as highlights, one of them from the band’s ’77 LP 45,000 Volts, which is fresh out on wax through Now-Again in its first official reissue. Featuring guitarist-lead singer-band leader Paul Ngozi with bassist Tommy Mwale and drummer Chrissy Zebby Tembo (both of whom add appealing harmonies), the contents groove and glide amid plentiful amplifier bite. Rather than a mere approximation of US-UK hard rock, this album is its own sweet thing.

A characteristic that’s often shared by compilations shedding retrospective light upon hitherto unheard realms of sound, especially when the music on the records is of consistently high quality (this is the case with the Zamrock volumes detailed above), is the sense of mystery over whether the assembled music constitutes the tip of a worthiness iceberg or instead represents the delectable cream skimmed from atop a larger but lesser body of work.

Of course, mileage will frequently vary depending on an individual’s level of investment in a particular style. To elaborate: if some enterprising label dishes a comp of previously unheard vault recordings by ’60s garage bands from the state of Nebraska, what many listeners will chalk up as not much more than competence will strike a fervent few as another delightful chapter in the history of the genre.

A big part of the Ngozi Family’s success on 45,000 Volts derives from its solidity as an album as it’s the most recent reissue illuminating Zamrock’s qualitative depth, following earlier editions from Now-Again by Chrissy Zebby Tembo, Witch, and indeed, a prior set from the Ngozi Family, the 1976 album Day of Judgement.

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Cooler Returns is the sophomore full-length from Kiwi Jr. and is additionally the Toronto four-piece’s first record for Sub Pop. The titular suffix and the releasing label are representative of an unreservedly indie state of mind, with the use of the affectionate nickname for New Zealanders insinuating that the album’s 13 songs will dig a little deeper than the expected norm. Theirs is a bright, catchy, energetic sound with an undeniable likeness to Pavement, and if Kiwi Jr. don’t reach the heights of that ’90s indie behemoth, the resemblance is one of shading rather than mimicry. Cooler Returns is out on vinyl, CD, cassette and digital January 22.

Kiwi Jr. consists of vocalist-guitarist Jeremy Gaudet, bassist Mike Walker, drummer Brohan Moore, and guitarist Brian Murphy (he of Alvvays). To get right down to it, the similarity to Pavement is directly related to Gaudet’s singing, as the man frequently just sounds like Stephen Malkmus. In fact, at a few points, Gaudet really sounds like Malkmus, though more often there is a liveliness (that can border on exuberance) that brings tangible distinctiveness to the table.

Some whose ears were active during Pavement’s original tenure may wonder if there is a difference between Kiwi Jr. and ’90s acts of a decidedly Pavement-like bent such as Silkworm and The Grifters. Well, there is, and it’s absorbed through Cooler Returns’ straightforward pop sensibility, a consistent facet that is inextricably tied the Gaudet’s spirited approach at the mic.

And instrumentally, Kiwi Jr. are tidy rather than disheveled (as was Pavement’s wont). But this pop inclination maybe isn’t such a surprise for a band whose 2019 debut Football Money came out on noted Canadian indie label Mint (distinguished for releasing or co-releasing the first few records by the New Pornographers). The connection is plainly discernible in the strummy, then punchy, then anthemic opener “Tyler,” but it’s really driven home in the infectious but muscular “Undecided Voters.”

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Out of the UK’s punk scrap yard came Gary Numan, first as part of the ever more synth-imbued Tubeway Army and then as a solo artist for a long string of albums. His chart dominance in the waning moments of the ‘70s was fleeting but huge, and his most commercially successful run of LPs detail a pop-savvy artist of much deeper value than his hit singles.

Gary Webb started out in the bands Mean Street and The Lasers; recording with neither (Mean Street waxed one song after his exit for the Live at the Vortex comp LP), after departing the latter with bassist Paul Gardiner they formed Tubeway Army with Webb’s uncle Jess Lidyard in the drum chair. Promptly signed by Beggars Banquet, with Webb on guitar they initially dished out beefy Bowie-influenced punk, the singles “That’s Too Bad” and “Bombers” later compiled with a mess of demos from the same era as The Plan.

It’s a cool acquisition for serious punk collectors, but ’78’s Tubeway Army was even better. By the point of its release Webb had adopted the name Gary Numan (he’d briefly wielded the handle Valerian) but his signature sound was still in development, the debut augmenting the punk excursions (which occasionally leaned into a hard rock/glam merger) and sci-fi themes (impacted by Phil K. Dick and William Burroughs) with interjections from a Minimoog discovered in the studio by Numan after recording began.

Tubeway Army is very good record with a few excellent spots and conversely a handful of lags; ‘79’s Replicas is more fully-formed, and while the group’s name remains on the cover it’s flanked by Numan’s on later editions; the LP is clearly his show and any doubts over such will be quickly dispelled by the icy/edgy opener “Me! I Disconnect from You.”

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Remembering Vanilla Fudge bassist Tim Bogert. —Ed.

To soak up Vanilla Fudge’s talent as song-interpreters the best route is their eponymous ’67 debut. A further understanding of them as a singles act is most appropriately gleaned through the Rhino compilation Psychedelic Sundae. If an immersion into the multifaceted positives and negatives of these trailblazing late-‘60s hard rockers’ everyday reality is what one wants however, then one should look into the contents of Near the Beginning.

There’s no question Vanilla Fudge are an important band. “You Keep Me Hangin’ On,” the group’s reading of a Holland-Dozier-Holland tune originally by The Supremes, is a vital evolutionary brick in the hard rock megastructure, and it stands as a one-song distillation of nearly everything that was good and potentially less than stellar about this hard-touring New York quartet. There are two versions of the Fudge’s recording, a just shy of three-minute single edit and the take found on their debut; that one’s over twice as long, and this duality is to an extent indicative of the group’s creative problems. It’s far from that simple though, and their somewhat brief and highly eventful initial existence provides a consistently interesting story, if one that’s only sporadically fruitful in musical terms.

Vanilla Fudge’s beginnings are in The Electric Pigeons, the soul cover unit featuring organist/lead vocalist Mark Stein and bassist Tim Bogert. They soon acquired guitarist Vince Martell and drummer Carmine Appice, and after hooking up with Shangri La’s producer Shadow Morton, they changed names and focused attentions on the studio.

The first effort turned out to be the best, but it was also a problematic record. Those soul roots were still showing; in fact, they never went away, flaring up rather flagrantly later in their tenure, but on Vanilla Fudge, it’s not a decisive detraction. It’s true that “People Get Ready” (and the first album is composed entirely of covers) is no great shakes, but “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” is one of the better R&B lifts in ‘60s rock precisely because it displays a disinterest in mimicry (a real issue with NYC bands of the era) to instead hone a variation on a then new sound.

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Chris Brokaw is noted as guitarist, drummer, vocalist, and songwriter, but between his work as a solo artist, soundtrack specialist, collaborator in numerous bands and session player, he’s also been one of the busiest musicians on the global scene. This says a whole lot about the guy’s dedication, temperament and sound decision making. His latest solo album, Puritan, is equally loquacious on the subject of staying power through creative verve. Offering nine solid songs elevated by seamless execution, it’s out January 15 on 140 gram vinyl (black) and digital via 12XU.

Although he was active in the late 1980s, notably in the band 7 or 8 Worm Hearts (alongside guitarist Glenn Jones, tape manipulator Phil Milstein and others), Chris Brokaw’s made his proper splash into the indie milieu at the dawn of the following decade as the drummer in Codeine, and then followed that up a couple years later in Come, where he shared guitar and vocal duties with Thalia Zedek.

Brokaw’s talent has impacted dozens of scenarios since then, but that Zedek sings and plays guitar on two of Puritan’s tracks underscores cohesiveness amid the breadth. Along with Zedek, Tricia Anderson and Claudia Groom sing on a track apiece, but the album’s core trio is Brokaw on guitar and vocals with Dave Carlson on bass and Pete Koeplin on drums, their playing sharp throughout.

However, as a solo record, this set appropriately finds Brokaw consistently in the foreground, with his vocals immediately up front in the opening title track. But it’s his guitar that gets an extended instrumental spotlight in the cut’s back half, a stretch simultaneously establishing a trio dynamic that’s both heavy and lithe. For the very next selection, “Depending,” the gears shift into melodic-rock territory of a near singer-songwriter comportment.

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Midnight Sister is the duo of Los Angelinos Ari Balouzian and Juliana Giraffe, two interdisciplinary artists who are releasing their second full-length Painting the Roses January 15 on vinyl, CD, and digital via Jagjaguwar. Established as co-writers, the classically trained Balouzian brings his skills as arranger while Giraffe’s impact is felt through a voice that’s warm and rich. Breathy? Oh my. The songs are consistently vivid, frequently lush and reliably strange, as Midnight Sister maintain a pop sensibility throughout. Hovering between warmly retro and approachably surreal, there’s never a dull moment as the LP’s dozen tracks unwind.

The label bio relates that Midnight Sister’s halves have worked in “fashion, visual art, video and film scoring,” with Giraffe a filmmaker and Balouzian having arranged for musicians Tobias Jesso and Alex Izenberg. Their 2017 debut Saturn Over Sunset is described as her first time writing and performing music and his inaugural dive into dishing out “true pop music.”

True pop it is, but Painting the Roses is frequently as bent as a box of boomerangs, though with appreciable acumen on display, the record flows instead of just amassing a succession of shallow attempts at weirdness. This is apparent right off in opener “Doctor Says,” which blends the sophistication of strings and the measured emotiveness of Giraffe’s voice with cascades of pop-rock guitar.

As a beginning, it’s engaging enough, but the ’70s big-beat soulfulness of “Satellite” kicks the album into cruising gear, with bass large enough to bring the productions of Leon Michels to mind, plus a handful of diagonal violin lines and recurring surges of tweaked, occasionally backward, mellotron. Next, “Foxes” starts out as vividly baroque-poppy as prime ’70s ELO but then gets glitter-funk sassy and with hints of Beatles-esque psych-pomp (meaning we’re back in Jeff Lynne territory).

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French vocalist Françoise Hardy openly disdains being described as an icon, though of course her modesty plays a large role in why she continues to be revered by so many. Naturally, the most important component in her enduring reputation is the music; a superb singer and true artist from within the oft-unrelenting 1960s pop machine, her records have aged exceptionally well, retaining the allure of their era as they lack period gaffes. Hardy’s first five French language albums, all originally issued by Disques Vogue from ’62-’66, comprise a highly worthy run of productivity.

Françoise Hardy is a cornerstone of the ’60s Euro-pop phenomenon known as yé-yé. Akin to rock, girl groups, svelte male crooners, and the majority of the era’s teen-oriented sounds in general, yé-yé was widely considered to be of an ephemeral nature, and by extension was basically dominated by the collusion of producers and labels. The singers, amongst them France Gall, Sylvie Vartan, Clothilde, and Chantal Kelly, were the crucial ingredient in a very calculated recipe.

Hardy differed from the norm by writing a significant amount of her own stuff, all but two songs on her debut in fact, and as a result she evaded the sometimes embarrassing subject matter thrust upon other yé-yé girls. Furthermore, she was regularly photographed with guitar in hand, though it’s unclear to what extent she actually played on these recordings. To borrow a phrase relating to Studio-era Hollywood, Hardy transcended the “genius of the system” method of pop manufacture, instead excelling at a subdued auteur-driven approach.

In the tradition of the original filmic auteurs, few recognized Hardy as a major talent during her emergence on the scene. She definitely sparked interest in fellow musicians however, including The Beatles, Mick Jagger, and Bob Dylan, the last so struck by her skills he dedicated the poem “Some Other Kinds of Songs” to her; it’s on the back of Another Side of Bob Dylan’s sleeve.

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Genesis, the sole album from the teen femme duo Wendy & Bonnie was released in 1969 to no fanfare, but over the decades it has quietly grown into a solid cult item. 2008 found Sundazed issuing a 2CD/3LP set with a massive helping of extra tracks, but that still in-print edition is a reward for the record’s most ardent converts. In a nice turn of events, on the 21st of this month the label is offering a fresh 180gm vinyl pressing of the original release’s fitfully strong but likeably minor charms, and it’s a gesture far more fitting to the needs of a moderately admiring listenership.

Calling Genesis a period piece will automatically impact some readers as a putdown, in part due to many folks’ yardstick of measurement for the art of the past relating directly to whether or not it’s relevant to right now. On the other end of the spectrum, at least a few of Wendy & Bonnie’s most passionate fans surely prize the duo’s only LP precisely because it is indeed so evocative of the time and circumstances of its making.

Though I’m generalizing, those who love Genesis purely for its Flower Power era ambience are likely to value Roger Corman’s ’67 film The Trip over the great cinematographer Haskell Wexler’s first directorial effort, ‘69’s Medium Cool. The former is a spirited teen-exploitation flick that uses clichés and stereotypes as inspired playthings, but the latter is a one of kind motion picture with a seriousness of intent specifically concerning the upheavals of the tumultuous year of 1968.

And people who expressly use the term period piece as an insult could easily be prone to burdening The Trip and Medium Cool with that problematic bag, though with the possibility that Corman’s movie might be “appreciated” as camp and Wexler’s effort referenced as symbolic of the folly inherent in attempting a formally challenging, legitimately political cinema. And if the denigrators were asked to pair Genesis with one of these films on the basis of shared traits, I’m pretty sure the majority would choose The Trip.

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As operated by Deano Sounds, the Boston label Cultures of Soul has been methodically documenting the global reach of the once-derided musical phenomenon known as disco through a series of various artists compilations, the latest being Saturday Night: South African Disco Pop Hits 1981 to 1987. Offering ten selections from seven acts, the set illuminates a transitional period in South African sound falling chronologically between the persevering style of mbaqanga and the subsequent fleeting pop flourishes of bubblegum. It’s out January 8 on vinyl, CD and digital with informative notes by Uchenna Ikonne.

In 2014 there was Bombay Disco and Tropical Disco Hustle (surveying the sounds of Bollywood India and the Caribbean, respectively), both of which inspired second volumes as they were joined by The Brazilian Boogie Connection and Boogie Breakdown, with the latter the label’s first foray into the disco of South Africa (specifically synth disco), covering the years 1980-1984. As befits the international movement and adaptation of musical genre, Cultures of Soul’s disco releases often span periods postdating the root form’s decline and supposed demise, offering a hybridized sound. So it is here.

Although this comp’s opening track “Saturday Night Special” by Verikweru wasn’t a big seller, the cut is situated as foundational to the whole South African disco pop impulse. Featuring bass player Bakithi Kumalo (known for his later work with Paul Simon) and the multifaceted supervision of Emcee Studios cofounder (and trumpeter) Peter Hubner, Verikweru are descried as taking considerable inspiration from the commercially inclined jazz of the late ’70s.

The Crusaders, The Blackbyrds, and Bob James are mentioned in Ikonne’s notes, though with their substantial threads of mbaqanga and US funkiness (as embodied by Kumalo’s bass), Verikweru hit my ear as nearer to the later, sunny, celebratory pop moves of Kool & the Gang and Earth, Wind & Fire. It’s a difference I find preferable, especially as the ensemble sound, if laden with the pop-inclined techniques of the era, is heartier than its more streamlined US equivalents.

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Inspector 34 call Lowell, MA home, and have been extant for roughly a decade. Across that span, they’ve amassed a discography including a CD/ cassette, a few 7-inch releases, a handful of digital-only artifacts, and a slew of compilation appearances that have been compiled on a limited edition lathe-cut laser disc (which, like much of the catalog, is sold out in physical form). Love My Life is the band’s latest, featuring 13 tracks hovering between 1990s indie rock and post-Elephant 6/ Animal Collective psychedelia, out now on vinyl and digital through the Sad Milk Collective label.

The outfit responsible for Love My Life– that’d be Jim Warren on guitar and vocals, Pat Auclair on guitar, Silas Price on synth, Ben Kaplowitz on bass, and Alexandra Derderian on drums (everybody sings, with Warren and Auclair credited with various other instrumental input), self-identify as “junk rock” and “sludge pop.”

Both terms underscore a general tendency toward the disheveled in their approach, though simultaneously, they keep a firm grip on structure. Another way of putting it is that, instead of sanding away the music’s rough edges in the pursuit of refinement, Inspector 34 see the rawness in their sound as a virtue.

It’s a decision that’s appreciated, as the album manages to harness and commingle assorted strains of the indie experience that have become less common over the last couple decades (or maybe have just undergone a reduction in profile). This is increasingly apparent in “Everybody,” which hits with a wobbly momentum that’s like prime era Animal Collective, but more raucous and rocking.

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