As summer rolls on, Elemental Music continues to bring the heat with three more entries in the Motown Sound Collection series. This month’s titles combine two classics from the label’s heyday with a transitional record by one of Motown’s defining groups. More Hits By the Supremes and Make It Happen by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, both offered in mono editions, and Get It Together by The Jackson 5 on red vinyl in a die-cut sleeve, are all available August 16.

Contrary to the title, More Hits By the Supremes is not a compilation; issued in 1965, the vocal group’s sixth album was instead their first non-thematic full-length release since their second, Where Did Our Love Go, which came out a year prior. The themed albums were the British Invasion-focused A Bit of Liverpool, The Supremes Sing Country, Western and Pop, and We Remember Sam Cooke. Another themed album, Merry Christmas, followed in late 1965.

That’s six LPs within two calendar years, quite an impressive feat, particularly as an aura of the slapdash never arises when soaking up these albums in sequence. Of course, they are not all equal in terms of quality. The strongest are the two LPs focused on the compositions of Holland-Dozier-Holland, a partial emphasis in the case of Where Did Our Love Go. For More Hits, the dozen songs are all sourced from the team as the record was produced by Brian Holland and Lamont Dozier.

As representatives of Motown at its most chicly sophisticated, the group’s work could acquire a grandness of scale that sometimes registered as intended for adults instead of encapsulating The Sound of Young America, so the production moxie is worthy of note. Circa More Hits, the sound is still targeting teen dances and malt shop jukeboxes, not the supper club.

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Trafalgar Releasing and Mercury Studios announced an opportunity for audiences to step back in time to 1974 and witness the magic of Paul McCartney and Wings – One Hand Clapping.

A captivating documentary, filmed on video tape capturing the look and feel of the time, exploring their historic recording session at Abbey Road Studios, will premiere as an exclusive cinema event beginning September 26th. This behind-the-scenes look delves into the making of the acclaimed One Hand Clapping album, featuring rare footage, interviews with the band, insights from the creative team, and more. Relive iconic Wings hits, a reimagined Beatles classic, and captivating performances on the big screen.

“It’s so great to look back on that period and see the little live show we did. We made a pretty good noise actually! It was a great time for the band, we started to have success with Wings, which had been a long time coming.” —Paul McCartney

In addition to the full documentary directed by David Litchfield, the event will feature the previously unreleased Backyard Sessions, showcasing Paul McCartney on acoustic guitar performing beloved tracks from his catalog. Highlights include the previously unreleased song “Blackpool” and covers of personal favorites like “Twenty Flight Rock,” the song he played for John Lennon during their first meeting. The screenings also boast an exclusive filmed introduction by Paul McCartney and previously unseen Polaroid photographs from the sessions.

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TVD’s Radar: The Podcast with Evan Toth returns for a new season on September 9. —Ed.

David Duchovny is one of those rare entertainment birds who has managed to craft a career in show business utilizing his many passions. Everyone is familiar with his portrayal of Agent Fox Mulder in The X-Files and his successful run with Californication, both of which afforded Duchovny Golden Globe awards. But there are other artistic outlets that he continues to explore.

An English major and graduate from Princeton University, it’s natural for Duchovny to express himself with a word processor. He’s written four books which have received strong reviews. His latest is titled, Truly Like Lightning: A Novel (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). But he’s also a songwriter and musician. Music serves to fuse together the literary Duchovny with the on-screen actor. With music, he is able to both write and play a part, even if the part he’s playing is himself.

His newest album, Gestureland is his third record. Duchovny explains in our interview that it focuses on signs and signifiers of our modern culture, and the mysterious interest humans have by trying to find meaning in things that may not mean what we think they mean. Sounds like something Agent Mulder might focus on if he played in a band on his off nights from the FBI.

Join Mr. Duchovny and me as we talk about the creative process, his new record, the fabled Princeton eating halls, and much more. If you’re hoping that he’s as intensely conspiratorial as Fox Mulder, well, you might be a little let down, but the fact of the matter is that—like all of us—Duchovny is grappling with what the last few years of our lives mean. We may not be able to quite discern what that is yet, but like Agent Mulder, we all want to believe.

Evan Toth is a songwriter, professional musician, educator, radio host, avid record collector, and hi-fi aficionado. Toth hosts and produces The Evan Toth Show and TVD Radar on WFDU, 89.1 FM. Follow him at the usual social media places and visit his website.

I like to play hard to get. You know, listen to an album for a while before I ask it out on a date. Sure, there are exceedingly rare exceptions—thunderbolts of instantaneous amour that make me lose my composure and babble on about how wonderful an album is, and how I want to take it home to meet my family, and go out and surreptitiously shop around for a ring. This was what happened the first time I heard John Cale’s 1973 LP Paris 1919.

The Welsh Cale will forever be chiefly remembered for his work with The Velvet Underground, but he was playing experimental music—you know, the usual, like an 18-hour piano marathon of a piece by Erik Satie—with the likes of John Cage and La Monte Young before he joined the Velvets, and has recorded in a mad variety of styles since then. I’m loath to call any one a genius, because I prefer to reserve the title for myself, but for John Cale I’ll make an exception. He’s put out many an amazing and influential record—and produced just as many for other artists—and you never know what he’ll do next.

Take Paris 1919. The LPs that bookend it—namely 1974’s harder rocking Fear and 1971’s more experimental and classically-oriented The Academy in Peril—don’t bear the slightest resemblance to Paris 1919, or to one another for that matter. I love both albums for their unpredictability, but most people, myself included, consider Paris 1919 Cale’s masterpiece. The reason why is simple—it’s chockablock with sublime and lovely songs that you’re guaranteed to fall in love with, just as I did.

Cale may have quit The Velvet Underground because he didn’t share Lou Reed’s ambition to become a pop star at any price, but that doesn’t mean Cale was uninterested in exploring pop’s outer suburbs. Paris 1919 is proof positive that Cale had a pop side as well—he simply dressed it up and presto, instant baroque pop. Or art rock, although I’m hesitant to describe Paris 1919 as such because the LP includes only one tune that even vaguely resembles rock, namely “Macbeth.”

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | David Sylvian’s compilation album Everything & Nothing is coming to vinyl for the first time. Originally released in 2000, the 29-track triple LP is a career-spanning compilation containing previously released, unreleased, re-recorded, non-album, and alternate versions of tracks from Sylvian’s twenty years with Virgin Records. The album features key songs from David’s solo recordings, collaborations with Ryuichi Sakamoto, Robert Fripp, Mick Karn, Alesini & Andreoni, and tracks by Japan and Rain Tree Crow.

Sylvian’s approach to the proposition of a compilation album covering his time with Virgin Records was to create an overview of the multiple directions in which his work had taken him during that period. Focusing entirely on vocal compositions, this double album also included a wealth of previously unreleased material, including “Ride” from the sublime Secrets of the Beehive sessions, “The Scent of Magnolia” and “Cover Me With Flowers” from the Dead Bees On A Cake sessions, along with remixes of two of Sylvian’s Ryuichi Sakamoto collaborations, “Bamboo Houses” and “Heartbeat,” as well as a remix of Japan’s “Ghosts” and the unreleased “Some Kind of Fool” taken from Japan’s 1980 sessions for Gentleman Take Polaroids.

With its appearance on vinyl for the first time, Everything & Nothing provides a starting point for newcomers to David’s work and as a companion to the recently released 10-CD set Do You Know Me Now? which explores Sylvian’s work on his own label, Samadhisound.

Celebrating Ian Anderson in advance of his 77th birthday tomorrow. —Ed.

Sometimes you amaze yourself. Or perhaps I should say stupefy, dumbfound, perplex, befuddle, mystify, outrage, and downright disgust yourself. Such was the case when I recently ran over a “little person” in an abortive attempt to pass the D.C. driver’s test. I never saw him; in my defense, he was a very little little person. More like a half-little person. And such was also the case when I decided to review Jethro Tull’s Stand Up, solely as a joke and a chance to pan defenseless Englishman Ian Anderson, who for some inexplicable reason stands poised on one leg while playing the flute, like a hippie flamingo.

Only to discover, horror of horrors, I actually like the damn thing. Who was it that said, “He came to mock but remained to pray”? Because I’ve always considered Jethro Tull, despite a handful of songs I truly like, ridiculous, due largely to Anderson’s flute, an instrument (in my humble opinion) suitable only for tossing out the window. What’s more, Jethtro Tull always struck me as fairly dim. I clearly remember thinking, when they put out 1972’s Thick as a Brick, that it wasn’t the brightest move, touting one’s low IQ on one’s own album cover.

I picked 1969’s Stand Up for the historically important reason that it has a song called “Fat Man” on it. A Facebook friend gave me the idea, and I fully intend to unfriend her. A short history: Jethro Tull (they filched their name from a pioneer of the English Agricultural Revolution) was formed in 1967 as a blues-rock outfit in Luton, Bedfordshire, a town once famed for hat-making. The concrete hat was invented there, and the resulting epidemic of neck injuries very quickly put an end to hat-making in Luton.

Tull’s debut This Was—which includes jazz flute horror “Serenade to a Cuckoo”—came out in 1968, at which point original guitarist Mick Abrahams split to form Blodwyn Pig, balking at Anderson’s decision to expand the band’s sound to incorporate Celtic, folk, and classical influences. (Fun fact: Black Sabb’s Tommy Iommi briefly replaced Abrahams, until Anderson settled on the courtly Martin Lancelot Barre. Fun fact #2: Yes’ Steve Howe flunked the audition!)

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VIA PRESS RELEASE | Keyboardist/composer Doug Carn was the biggest star on the legendary Black Jazz Records label, with four releases to his credit (all reissued by Real Gone Music), and remains a touchstone for spiritual jazz fans and musicians alike. But very, very few folks have heard his debut record, cut for the venerable Savoy label back in 1969.

In fact, it’s so rare that we couldn’t even find a copy to use for artwork, so, with Doug’s help, we enlisted his daughter Eroniffa Ibrahim to create illustrations for our reissue based on the original cover photos. But you know what we did find? That’s right…the original master tapes! So, not only is this the first LP reissue for The Doug Carn Trio, but it’s an all-analog edition to boot, pressed at Gotta Groove Records with their proprietary GrooveCoated stampers to minimize high-frequency loss with each successive pressing.

https://youtu.be/h0I0IdFf90w?si=dH7VeOZXUzPPeO_i

And, we’ve added an insert with liner notes by Aaron Cohen based on an exclusive interview with the man himself. As for the music, it’s a tight organ trio set that starts cooking right from the get-go with a groovin’ cover of Gus Cannon’s “Walk Right In,” which became a folk hit for The Rooftop Singers.

Carn’s fluid, forward-thinking playing anticipates Larry Young’s future keyboard forays, and originals like “Butter from the Duck” and “Yna Yna’s Delight” presage the compositional prowess he flashed on the Black Jazz releases (note: that’s Don Hales on guitar, not Gary Starling as credited on the original record). The opening salvo from a scintillating career, finally available again!

I watched a documentary about Nick Drake last week. It featured a bunch of folkie types spouting all kinds of flamdoodle about what made Drake’s guitar playing so unique. I’m sure many members of the musical fraternity found this technical brouhaha illuminating, but seeing as how I’m a guy who has difficulty distinguishing an acoustic guitar from a tuba, the documentary’s cumulative effect was to render me insensible.

I admit to never having much listened to Nick Drake, mostly because he sounded to me like an oh so sensitive soul singing about so sensitive stuff expressly designed to make my hardened heart cringe. In fact the only Drake song I’d ever heard before listening to Pink Moon was its title track, which Volkswagen used in an ad a while back. I really liked the song, even if I thought its opening line went, “I saw it written in the soy sauce.”

But seeing as how my girlfriend is always telling me what a poetic genius and doomed romantic figure Drake is, I finally broke down and gave his third and final LP, 1972’s Pink Moon, a listen. And turns out I love it, despite the fact that it’s the work of an oh so sensitive soul singing about oh so sensitive stuff designed to make my hardened heart cringe. Just goes to show you it’s impossible to know if you like something until you’ve actually listened to it. Which may sound like Philosophy 101 to you, but comes as something of a revelation to me.

Pink Moon followed on the heels on 1971’s lavishly orchestrated Bryter Layter, and its failure to make a dent on the pop charts led a disheartened Drake to say to hell with it and strip things down to voice, guitar and piano. The results are stark, in large part because Drake chose to work with a palette limited to varying shades of grey. And unlike Bryter Layter, Pink Moon is an intensely private affair. A writer for Melody Maker complained that the music on Pink Moon “hides from you,” which is precisely what I love about it. What I hear when I listen to Pink Moon is Nick Drake playing to an audience of Nick Drake, making you, the listener, an eavesdropper.

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