Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Tobacco City is the handle used by at least a couple of shops dedicated to the sale of all things legally smokable, but it’s also the name of a band form Chicago, and don’tcha just know it, their country-infused sound harkens back to the days when the air in bars was thick with secondhand carcinogens. Not that the five-piece’s debut is a mere retro trip. No, it plants its shovel deep in the fertile soil of lightly psych-kissed country-rock and pulls up eight mineral-rich tunes, many with sweet guy-gal harmonies that should warm the cockles of anybody with an unquenchable thirst for the brilliance of Gram and Emmylou. Tobacco City, USA is out July 30 on LP and digital via Scissor Tail Records.

Tobacco City consists of vocalist-guitarists Lexi Goddard and Chris Coleslaw, bassist-vocalist Eliza Weber, drummer Josh Condon, and pedal steel specialist Nick Usalis. Across the eight songs that tidily comprise Tobacco City, USA, the members click together with impressive proficiency for a first album. Although they have been together for a few years, it hasn’t been with this exact lineup, as the initial impetus was to play a Halloween gig as a Neil Young cover band.

That’s a fine platform from which to emerge, but Tobacco City has far surpassed that modest objective with growth that’s apparent straight away through the album’s opener and digital single “Blue Raspberry,” the band hitting a relaxed zone that connects as perfectly suited for recuperation after a late night’s early sunshiny morning.

Goddard and Coleslaw’s voices blend together with vibrant echo and then further intermingle with the siren swells of pedal steel, but the real kicker is how the bedrock of strummed guitar and drums expands the cut’s usefulness beyond simple accompaniment for extended couch lazing, meaning “Blue Raspberry” is as appropriate for preparing to ramp it up as it is for gently coming down.

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Olivia Newton-John remains well-known for a string of ’70s-’80s hits and for her starring roles in Grease, a box office smash, and the roller-disco musical Xanadu, a commercial and critical disappointment in its day that has subsequently acquired cult status. But before all that, young Olivia was part of Toomorrow, a group assembled by Harry Saltzman and Don Kirshner to star in a sci-fi R&R musical film of the same name. That the movie persists as essentially a footnote in the career of Newton-John is reflective of its quality. As for the soundtrack, which is coming out on vinyl July 30 through Real Gone, it also falls far short of a classic, but with numerous points of interest, which we’ll consider below.

Let’s begin with Don Kirshner, the music publisher, songwriter, producer, manager, and talent coordinator whose biggest credit is as a guiding hand in the formation of The Monkees, though he was also responsible for cartoon pop group The Archies. Swinging over to rock seriousness, Kirshner’s eponymous record label featured lite-progsters Kansas, who, in a startling conflict of interest, once performed on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert.

In attempting to extend his good fortune with The Archies (a rebound after being jettisoned from involvement with The Monkees) by reaching into the realms of motion pictures, Kirshner’s partnership with Harry Saltzman was a savvy move. This is specifically due to Saltzman co-producing (along with Albert “Cubby” Broccoli) the first nine James Bond films, a string that was still in progress as Toomorrow was taking shape.

Although some will harrumph at the notion, putting together a group not just to make records but to star as that group in films (yes, plural, as a series was apparently the objective) is an idea with potential for positive returns. But conversely, things could go horribly awry. That didn’t really happen in this case, as the music of Toomorrow is underwhelming but largely listenable. As the album is a soundtrack, a handful of instrumental middle-or-the-road-isms bring a wild unevenness to the affair; those approaching the record with Newton-John as primary point of interest will likely get the fidgets.

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Seattle’s Blue Glass is headed by Michael Shunk, his outfit having debuting in 2019 with the album Pale Mirror. It was a set undeniably impacted by UK goings on between 30 to 40 years’ time ago (you know, the 1980s), and its contents remain solidly likeable. But with Jardin des Étoiles, Shunk’s approach has undertaken a considerable detour, specifically into ambient territory. This is by no means a complete break from his prior work however, as guitar remains part of the design. Available now digitally, the limited edition (500 copies on double orange wax) ships out August 6 through the Two Roads label.

In giving Pale Mirror a short review a little over two years ago in this very column, I was impressed, if not blown away, by Michael Shunk’s adeptness at conjuring the moodier side of the ’80s Brit post-punk experience while maintaining urgency and heft, and with better than average songs. Cited influences included The Smiths, New Order, and Durutti Column, though sticking out to my ear was The Cure and The Church (who I realize aren’t from the UK, but neither are The Chills, who also made that list of influences). Also, in the drowsy near-rasp of Shunk’s voice, Pale Mirror recalled the Psychedelic Furs.

But what a difference a pandemic can make. There will be no comparisons to Richard Butler this time out, as Jardin des Étoiles is a record without vocals. The scoop is that after Covid scuttled a West Coast tour, Shunk opted for a shift of gears into what’s described as a meditative, healing zone, as he took additional inspiration from the films of director Chris Marker (La Jetee, A.K., A Grin Without a Cat, Take Five, One Day in the Life of Andrei Arsenevich) and Shunk’s son’s interest in the stars up above (the album’s title translates to Garden of the Stars).

The impact of Marker, who is frankly one of the greatest of all filmmakers, and in particular Shunk’s love of the masterful essay film Sans Soleil, is a promising sign that Jardin des Étoiles will unfold with positivity. And for that matter, so is taking inspiration from a childhood fascination with galaxies in the night sky (very relatable, as I shared this interest as a youth).

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Dolphin Midwives is the recording and performance moniker of Portland, OR-based harpist, vocalist, sound artist, and composer Sage Fisher. Her chosen instrument might lead the uninitiated to anticipate ornate cascades of gorgeous pluck, but woah there, partner; while not lacking in glistening strings, Fisher’s latest gravitates toward the realms of contemporary experimental pop. Huh? But as the record unwinds, the inviting unusualness of its contents make it clear that Fisher hasn’t neglected her strengths. That’s nice. Available digitally, on CD and on either black or limited (100 copies, signed and numbered by Fisher) transparent aqua blue 140-gram vinyl, Body of Water is out now via Beacon Sound.

The cassette Orchid Milk was Dolphin Midwives’ first release, coming out in 2016 in an edition of 100 copies on the Obsolete Media Objects label, though it is Liminal Garden, which arrived early in 2019, that is designated as the project’s debut studio album. Body of Water, produced with Tucker Martine, is its boldly conceived follow-up.

Fisher has been additionally busy since the release of Orchid Milk, with her installation Naturaphones, which featured “large-scale interactive acoustic sculptures, ambient performance, and sculptural prototypes,” culminating a six-month residency for the Pacific Northwest College of Art and the Oregon College of Art & Craft. She also formed Dröna Choir in 2017 to realize invisibility ritual, her choral work intended to be performed on the new moon and in complete darkness.

That sounds like the makings of a good time, but it’s Fisher’s 2018 sound art performance/ installation Break: preparations for the apocalypse that’s most pertinent to Body of Water, as “Break,” with lyrics indeed referencing the apocalypse, is the album’s sixth track out of a dozen, standing as a mid-way point showcase that mingles experimental pop qualities, and the pleasantness of Fisher’s singing in particular, with the breadth of ambition that helps to define sound art. “Break” travels a considerable sonic distance, from jungle war ambience giving way to an enveloping vocal swirl, and all in just five minutes.

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Bassist, composer and bandleader Charles Mingus is an eternal jazz heavyweight, but with the release of Mingus At Carnegie Hall Deluxe Edition, his stature, and more specifically his late-career potency, has been given a boost, as the set expands the severely truncated initial single LP drawn from the January 19, 1974 concert, now offering the complete performance on two compact discs via Rhino Records, released on June 11 to coincide with Black Music Month, and on triple vinyl through Run Out Groove, available July 16. Soaking up the entirety of the evening is to luxuriate in the footprint of this giant of 20th century music as realized by his stellar sextet and guests, including Rahsaan Roland Kirk.

Although on the original album cover as replicated by this edition, Mingus’ group is listed as pianist Don Pullen, tenor saxophonist George Adams, baritone saxophonist Hamiet Bluiett, and drummer Dannie Richmond, this seems to repeat an error of omission in concert promoter Art Weiner’s opening remarks, as he momentarily forgets to mention trumpeter Jon Faddis and begins his introduction by describing the evening as divided into two parts, the first featuring Mingus’ quintet and the second expanding the quintet with guests for a jam session (Faddis is part of the band for the whole performance, however).

Atlantic extends Weiner’s error on the cover by crediting Faddis as a guest alongside saxophonists John Handy, Charles McPherson, and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, who also plays the stritch. While opening this review by emphasizing Weiner’s mistake might not be a particularly auspicious beginning, rest assured that Mingus At Carnegie Hall Deluxe Edition is an utter gem, with the exquisite mayhem of the original LP sweetly intensified by the context of the evening’s progressions.

It’s also worthwhile to highlight Faddis as part of the sextet, as this particular Mingus group is a vibrant representation of jazz music’s stylistic breadth. Bluiett, Adams, and Pullen are all affiliated with the avant-garde, but to varying degrees, with Pullen having recorded in duo with Milford Graves and on Giuseppi Logan’s two ESP-Disk albums in the ’60s, and Bluiett co-founding the Black Artists Group in St. Louis (roughly comparable to Chicago’s AACM) in the late ’60s, and later in the ’70s, the World Saxophone Quartet.

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Based in Los Angeles by way of Nashville, guitarist and songwriter William Tyler is well-known for his contributions to Lambchop and Silver Jews, and more recently for a string of ambitious instrumental solo albums. On the 4-song EP “Understand,” he collaborates with pedal steel ace Luke Schneider, who currently hangs his hat in Nashville with credits including Margo Price, Caitlin Rose, and Orville Peck, and with a budding solo career of his own. A tidy and fresh mingling of ambient and Krautrock influences, “Understand” is available on limited edition cassette (250 copies) and digital July 12 through Leaving Records.

Although “Understand” was recorded in one day in a Nashville studio during the pandemic 2020, the collaborative fruits of William Tyler and Luke Schneider run deep, as the latter lends his skills to the former’s second and third full-length solo records, specifically 2013’s Impossible Truth and ’16’s Modern Country, both terrific, and additionally, the no less nifty EP “Lost Colony,” which dates from 2014, all three released by Merge.

There are a few moments across Tyler’s discography that forecast the direction the duo has taken on “Understand,” but the primary artifact of precedent is Schneider’s solo debut, Alter of Harmony, released by Third Man a year ago last May, with all of its sounds made by Schneider on a 1967 Emmons Push/Pull pedal steel guitar.

That Schneider goes it alone rather than basking in the spotlight accompanied by a band might read as an unusual choice for a pedal steel guitarist, but then again, after learning that Alter of Harmony is a New Age album, perhaps not. The best part of the whole scenario is that Schneider, as stated in an article published by Bandcamp last year, was shooting to make a private-press-style New Age record, which means its contents are as edgy and weird as they are meditative and expansive.

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Remembering Albert Ayler, born on July 13 in ’36. —Ed.

Although some have managed to expand upon his groundbreaking intensity and flights of abstraction, Albert Ayler is one of the few sui generis figures in the history of jazz. An uncompromising player with only a small following in his lifetime in music, he cut a record in 1968 that initially seemed to satisfy nobody except for (perhaps) Ayler himself. That LP was New Grass, lambasted as a sell-out by those who favored his prior work, while less adventurous listeners weren’t buying. The album has been reevaluated since however, and Third Man has given it a vinyl reissue that’s available now.

I’ve been contributing to this column for over eight years, but until this piece, I haven’t delivered a full review of a record by Albert Ayler, who’s one of my favorite jazzmen, though I have included him in this site’s New In Stores column and in at least one group review. As this omission is remedied, I feel it should be immediately qualified that the term jazzman isn’t necessarily a tidy fit for Ayler’s brilliance.

Albert Ayler was certainly a man whose work falls inside the boundaries of jazz, so calling him a jazzman isn’t in error, but it still might give those unfamiliar with his work the false impression of a figure, sharply decked-out in a classic tailored suit maybe, who excelled at extending, through live gigs and studio sessions, the core tenets of Modern Jazz.

While innovators are surely jazzmen and vice versa, Ayler remains one of the ever-evolving form’s major freedom-seeking iconoclasts. In short, he’s best placed in the avant-jazz category, which means that for long stretches after his death in November 1970 (presumably by suicide, as his body was discovered in the East River of NYC) his music was difficult to obtain. This was especially true at the end of the 1980s, which is when I first learnt of his existence.

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Remembering Lee Hazlewood, born on July 9, 1929. —Ed.

If Lee Hazlewood lingers in the contemporary cultural memory, it’s easily due to his work with Nancy Sinatra. On The LHI Years: Singles, Nudes & Backsides (1968-71), the Light in the Attic label collects a bunch of his post-Nancy collaborations and a welcome helping of his solo shots, and the results are highly recommended not just for Hazlewood’s fans but for anyone with an inclination for well-crafted oddball pop.

Though his music never wavered from its thoroughly commercial designs, Lee Hazelwood was still a truly strange duck. And the undeniable datedness of his work can really add to the overall weirdness factor, though that’s in no way a bad thing; if often possessing production values and orchestrations that are accurately assessed as “middle of the road” (not the same as “mainstream”), his songs almost always avoid falling into simple kitsch.

But Hazlewood was more than just a bizarro/sophisto cowboy that blended Vegas-inclined pop with a country-inflected folksiness both on his own and in a collaboration with Sinatra that still comes off like a Swingin’ ‘60’s reaction to Dolly and Porter. Indeed, while loads of folks are familiar with the string of late-‘50s hits that he produced and co-wrote with Duane Eddy, it’s also true that most of those listeners aren’t cognizant of Hazlewood’s actual involvement with those songs, a short flowering of creativity that stands amongst the finest instrumental rock music ever recorded.

He was also the impresario of Lee Hazlewood Industries, a fleeting subsidiary label of ABC Records. Naturally, a fair portion of LHI’s relatively slim discography is dedicated to its namesake; both his solo album Forty and The Cowboy and the Lady, credited to the duo of Hazlewood and actress Ann-Margret were released in 1969, and Cowboy in Sweden came out the following year. Back around 1999 or so, Steve Shelley’s Smells Like Records began admirably reissuing some of Hazlewood’s harder to find stuff on compact disc. This program included both the Ann-Margret collab and Cowboy in Sweden, but plenty of worthy bits and pieces slipped through the cracks.

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In 2009, Important Records released The Harmonic Series (A Compilation of Musical Works in Just Intonation), a Duane Pitre-curated compact disc with a thematic purpose related with precision inside the parenthesis of its title. In a superb development, on July 30, the label is offering The Harmonic Series II, with this installment’s contents also selected by Pitre, but this time offered as a triple vinyl set with one work per side by Kali Malone, Pitre, Catherine Lamb, Tashi Wada, Byron Westbrook, and Caterina Barbieri. Through a confluence of format and pure compositional brilliance, the results are both intellectually stimulating and emotionally stirring.

Unlike equal temperament, where a musical interval is divided into equal parts, most commonly a group of 12 (i.e., the 12-tone system of tuning utilized by most Western Classical music), just intonation employs whole numbers in the formation of its tonal system, a practice which results in pure (or just) intervals. Unsurprisingly, this presents a textural landscape that is audibly distinct from music that’s built on the principles of equal temperament, and yet it’s no less foundationally sturdy, as just intonation is rooted in traditions (Indian, Persian, East Asian) that span back thousands of years.

Therefore, rather than formidable, just intonation is a doorway swung open onto myriad possibilities for the listener, past, present and future, and with numerous roads leading into the realms of the Drone. And yet for many listeners, the initial exposure to drone music comes through the work of prominent 20th century avant-garde Westerners such as Terry Riley, La Monte Young, and Harry Partch, all of whom composed works in just intonation, though not exclusively.

The list of composers utilizing just intonation includes Karlheinz Stockhausen, Ben Johnston, Lou Harrison, James Tenney, Catherine Christer Hennix, and Kraig Grady. Spanning into the 21st century through the first volume of The Harmonic Series, there is Ellen Fullman, Theresa Wong, Greg Davis, Michael Harrison, R. Keenan Lawler, Pauline Oliveros, Zachary James Watkins, Charles Curtis, and Pitre, who’s also that set’s curator, making him the only return contributor on The Harmonic Series II.

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Eugene McDaniels had a long and multifaceted career, but if he sticks in the memory of most folks, it’s due to his pop-R&B hits from the early 1960s as Gene McDaniels (including “One Hundred Pounds of Clay” and “Tower of Strength”), plus the pair of wilder, funkier, protest-themed cult albums he cut for Atlantic in ’70-’71 under his full given name, of which Headless Heroes of the Apocalypse is the second and strongest, and also the angriest. As the source of numerous hip-hop samples in the ’90s (including a couple bona fide classics), that LP belongs in any ’70s soul collection, though only 1,750 people will land a copy of Real Gone’s edition, out July 9, assuming nobody goes gauche and buys themselves two.

In addition to his own recordings, Eugene McDaniels wrote songs made famous by others, most notably “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” a hit for Roberta Flack, and “Compared to What,” a soul jazz smash for Les McCann and Eddie Harris (as a single and on the classic Swiss Movement live LP); the latter song was also waxed by numerous others including Flack as the first single from her ’69 debut First Take.

McDaniels left the USA for Scandinavia in ’68 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. It’s a decision that often sits as a dividing line in synopses of his career, for when he returned to the States and recommenced recording in the early ’70s, going by Eugene and adopting the alternate moniker “The Left Rev McD.,” the contrast couldn’t have been much sharper.

But complicating matters a bit is that “Compared to What,” with its lyrics critical of the war in Vietnam, was copyrighted in 1966 (appearing in a studio version on McCann’s Plays the Hits that year), and it’s also worth noting, particularly because hardly anybody else mentions it in summaries of his career, that McDaniels sang on and co-wrote much of the too often slept on ’69 LP Now!, by the outstanding jazz vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson.

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Celebrating Debbie Harry on her 76th birthday. —Ed.

Any discussion of ‘70s-era pop-rock is incomplete without due time spent on Blondie, and vinyl mavens unversed in their essence can play catch-up in one fell swoop with Universal’s box set of the six LPs from the group’s original run. As no-frills as its title, Blondie offers exact reproductions and absolutely nothing extra; the totality captures the heights and depths of a highly successful and influential band.

If the most commercially solvent entity to emerge from the ‘70s New York City punk/new wave scene, Blondie’s style, at least for a significant portion of their ’75-’82 existence, is most aptly compared to the Ramones. Purists may balk, but honestly I’d be perplexed if by this date on the calendar there are more than a handful of bitter goats clinging to the notion that Blondie were hangers-on or sellouts.

Spearheaded by vocalist Debbie Harry and guitarist Chris Stein and after early personnel changes solidified through keyboardist James Destri, bassist Gary Valentine, and drummer Clem Burke, in December of 1975 Blondie’s self-titled debut appeared via fly-by-night independent Private Stock Records. It didn’t shift many units, but their popularity surged once Chrysalis scooped them up, releasing Plastic Letters in the fall of ’77 and reissuing Blondie in the bargain.

There were lineup adjustments, with Valentine out and replaced by Frank Infante, who promptly switched to guitar upon addition of bassist Nigel Harrison. The membership remained stable until ’82, when disappointments revolving around The Hunter inspired a breakup. This collection doesn’t include everything; missing are the five illuminating ‘75 demos cut with Alan Betrock and the ’80 Giorgio Moroder collaboration “Call Me” from the soundtrack to Paul Schrader’s American Gigolo; instead it simply boxes-up the half-dozen long-players devoid of editorializing.

All of these platters were once extremely cheap and relatively easy to pick up used (though I’ve never glimpsed a Private Stock edition of Blondie), and I can’t imagine the situation has changed. But I realize there’s a breed of vinyl connoisseur equivalent to those licensed drivers who wouldn’t stoop to buy a second-hand car; bluntly, this set is for them.

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