Monthly Archives: February 2016

The recent vinyl landscape has been positively loaded with quality post-punk reissues, and in a fine development the politically raucous experimentalism of The Pop Group’s second 45 “We Are All Prostitutes” and ensuing LP For How Much Longer Do We Tolerate Mass Murder? are getting added to the pile, with the latter offering reproductions of the original release’s four double-sided posters. Both were part of Rough Trade’s glorious amassing of post-punk vitality at the dawn of the 1980s, and they return to the racks on February 19 courtesy of the Freaks R Us label.

Initially composed of Mark Stewart on vocals, Gareth Sager and John Waddington on guitars, Simon Underwood on bass, and Bruce Smith on drums, The Pop Group commenced activity in Bristol, England in the year 1977. Formed in opposition to punk’s tenet of simplicity and inevitable drift into orthodoxy and formula, The Pop Group set to work embodying an alternative to what they identified as a musically if not necessarily ideologically conservative movement.

They achieved this goal by embracing free jazz, dub, funk and general experimentalism as punk’s intensity and usefulness as a vessel of socio-political dissatisfaction were retained. Befitting the non-rudimentary approach, their debut single “She Is Beyond Good and Evil” didn’t appear until March of ’79, but once the ball of wax was set in motion it rolled hard and heavy.

Y, The Pop Group’s first full-length, arrived a month later, and like its 7-inch predecessor it was produced by long-serving reggae figure Dennis Bovell; both were put out by Radar Records, a prominent if fairly unglamorous imprint of the new wave era, and they effectively established the parameters of a unit that grew more uncompromising as it hurdled toward dissolution in ’81.

Read More »

Well don’t I feel like a dummy. Here I was turning on the 2015 release of Fading Frontier by Deerhunter, which has been touted as an experimental noise rock band, and I’m like, “Where’s the noise? Who forgot to bring the noise? Was the noise in the bathroom doing lines of coke when Fading Frontier was recorded? Out scoring a big slice of pizza? Or standing in the scuzzy alley behind the studio, sucking on a joint?

Because to my noise-jaded ears Deerhunter sound friendly, like a dog with matted fur you can pet on the street, and even danceable at times. Beyond “Leather and Wood,” which reminds me of a Sparklehorse tune, Fading Frontier is practically an easy-listening LP.

Don’t get me wrong. I like parts of the LP, especially the super-funky “Snakeskin” and the dance-friendly “Living My Life,” to say nothing of opener “All the Same,” which rocks, and “Carrion,” which boasts a lovely melody and is a great way to shut the LP down. And then there’s the cosmically cool “Ad Astra,” which will make the perfect atmospheric tune for your next acid trip.

I suppose the joke is on me, for paying attention to labels which mean nothing, but to yours truly the words “experimental noise rock” bring to mind Ceramic Dog or, on the more pure noise ROCK side of the spectrum, Cows and Killdozer. What Deerhunter is pandering, on the other hand, at least on Fading Frontier, is for the most part too smooth and soothing, and is far from designed to cause you to punch holes in the walls of your apartment.

Read More »

Circa the mid-’70s Arthur Lee was in the midst of tough times; never a marketplace powerhouse, his critical reputation took a long nosedive post-Forever Changes as his album Black Beauty was languishing in the can. Offered a contract by Robert Stigwood’s RSO Records, Lee reassembled his band and set to work. Detouring from the hard rock of his preceding releases, Reel to Real disregarded familiar garage or psychedelic territory for an unexpected and for some perplexing soul/rock milieu. Few heard the final product, but on February 19 its underrated contents are available again on vinyl and compact disc with bonus tracks through High Moon Records.

A little punkish and considerably Byrds-like, Love’s self-titled arrival from March of ’66 endures as one of the stronger debuts of its decade; opening with the emo-purge throttling of Bacharach and David’s “My Little Red Book” and following with over half a dozen gems and no clunkers, the LP consistently wields aspects of Los Angelino garage beginnings as an advantage. For evidence, look no further than “Hey Joe,” a burner arguably on par with the ’65 version by the Leaves and the famous slowed-down take that introduced the world to the Jimi Hendrix Experience in ‘66.

Roughly eight months after Love appeared Elektra unleashed Da Capo, an expanded lineup pursuing psychedelia and baroque pop while retaining the punk edge on “7 and 7 Is,” though it bears noting that particular song, issued as a classic single in July of ’66, derived from an earlier session. Its second side taken up with a 19 minute blues jam (working title: “John Lee Hooker”), many peg Da Capo as half great; irrefutably an indulgence, “Revelation” is nowhere near the blunder its biggest detractors claim it to be, instead illuminating the breadth of the group’s rapid-fire metamorphosis.

A year did elapse before the emergence of Love’s consensus masterpiece, and given its level of ambition, it’s not difficult to see why; Forever Changes ranks amongst the most vivid and boldly scaled epics produced by the ’60s pop-rock renaissance, and if a commercial failure in relation to expectations, it’s become an undying cult item and a frequent entry on lists of the Greatest Records of All Time.

Read More »

Coloradoan singer-songwriter Josephine Foster is most often categorized as a folk artist, but while rich in tradition her work exudes consistent individualism that’s far from conventional. For a stretch she was averaging a record a year, but No More Lamps in the Morning is Foster’s first since 2013, and it finds her not with a cache of fresh stuff but reinterpreting material from her ample discography. Foster is in fine voice and her nylon string guitar terrific, as is the Portuguese guitar of her husband Victor Herrero and on two tracks the cello of Gyða Valtýsdóttir; it’s out now on vinyl, compact disc, and digital through Fire Records.

Many fringe-leaning neo-folkies strike the consciousness like Johnny and Janet come latelies knocked sideways by Harry Smith’s Anthology, John Jacob Niles, and/or The Basement Tapes, but Josephine Foster’s profile registers as sincerely bohemian. Performing as a funeral and wedding singer in her youth, she desired to become an opera singer but ended up traveling a different path, reportedly working as a vocal teacher in Chicago and eventually amassing output both solo and in collaboration.

Foster cut albums backed by the Cherry Blossoms and the Supposed while playing in The Children’s Hour and as half of the duo Born Heller with avant-jazz bassist Jason Ajemian. And although her recordings span over 15 years, she’s frequently been lumped into the New Weird America bag. But in fact Foster’s reliably sounded quite Old, and not in a precious way; that her 2001 EP of children’s songs “Little Life,” reissued by Fire on CD and 10-inch vinyl in ’13 (and still available) manages to lack affectation as it brandishes a boatload of ukulele is a feat worth considering.

In 2004 the psych-rock flavored All the Leaves Are Gone (with the Supposed) emerged on Locust and was followed by a pair of solo discs for the label, ’05’s Hazel Eyes, I Will Lead You, and ’06’s A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, wherein she freely adapted the German Lieder of Brahms, Schubert, Schumann, and Hugo Wolf and combined them with texts based on the writings of Goethe, Mörike, and Eichendorff.

Read More »

Everybody needs a National Anthem. I’m not talking about the one they play before baseball games, neither. No, I’m talking about the one that’s yours, strictly personal—the one that keeps you going and keeps your heart pumping blood and gives your life purpose. The rednecks on the under side of the Mason-Dixon Line have “The South’s Gonna Do It Again.” Folks from Alabama have “Sweet Home Alabama.” Brooklynites have “No Sleep Till Brooklyn.” And the good citizens of the tiny principality of Liechtenstein have a great one that goes, “We’ve failed to reach our full potential as human beings/Perhaps because we’re double land-locked and there’s no ocean that we’re seeing.” As for the sticks, from whence I come, well, we’ve got The Silos’ “Let’s Take Some Drugs and Drive Around.”

The Silos may have come from New York City but they sounded—just as their name implies—like Heartland rockers to me, like the guys I spent my twenties with, driving down country back roads past cows and farms with toppled silver silos that looked like the wreckage of Skylab lying beside their red-painted barns, as we got stoned and even more stoned until the cows looked at us funny, or maybe it was just our imagination.

The Silos—their mainstays were Walter Salas-Humara and Bob Rupe—were formed in 1985, and gathered lots of critical plaudits for records like 1987’s Cuba (cowpunks meet the Velvet Underground) leading up to the release of my fave Silos’ record, 1994’s Diablo, by which time Rupe was already history. Anyway, Salas-Humara was a former member of the Vulgar Boatmen, Rupe had a long pedigree of his own, and their alt-country sound won the hearts and minds of proto-alt-country rockers, especially with Cuba and 1987’s Eat the Dust.

Read More »

Press Play is our Monday recap of the new and FREE tracks received last week to inform the next trip to your local indie record store.

Nathaniel Bellows – Oh, Now
Sam Fowke – Red Handed
Wood Lake – Easy Love
Polecat – In The Cold
Jon Patrick Walker – Oh, Rosie
Ladada – New Psych
Gazebos – I Don’t Wanna Be Here
Dan Hubbard – Johnny
The Smoking Bells – Good Woman

TVD SINGLE OF THE WEEK:
Cotton Mather – Child Bride

American Killers – Big City
Owen Bones – Grapefruit (feat. Myrone)
zZz – LoverzZz
ISTILLFEELIT – Avenoir
Tryptamines – Nina Shuffles
Love Taps – Falling Fast feat. Maya Killtron
Niko Javan – VIRGO X Niko Javan – Dive
VINDATA – Own Life” Feat. Anderson .Paak (Shift K3Y Remix)
The White Panda – Kung Fu Classic (Carl Douglas // The Knocks)
YaYa Kolo – UNiiQX & Superfreakz