Post Midnight Marauders

Time for some genre splitting music mix -

Actress - Blue Window

A Tribe Called Quest - Steve Biko (Stir It Up)

Neil Young - White Line

Scott Joplin - Treemonisha / Act one - No. 1 Overture

The Comet Is Coming - Birth Of Creation

ENJOY

Snowman

Another Snowman Joke

Dad Maths

Good Morning

Thursday Thoughts

Well, after a nice bright day we are back to the murky ones.
At least I have plenty to keep me occupied.

Yesterday, I visited Canterbury to do a covert shop. Whilst in the cathedral city I bought Christmas pressies for my bro and sister-in-law. That was a pleasant smooch around Waterstones. Posting them all today and tomorrow. I also bought a few books from a charity shop.

I will in Sittingbourne tomorrow and hopefully a meetup somewhere with Ewart after I have done another covert shop.

Just hope it does not rain.

Testing

That Damn Brexit Monster

Brexit is complex.
A no-deal Brexit will cause more damage to us than the COVID shit.
It is done but it will set us back fifty years.
I doubt very few people would know what it meant.
They were uninformed.
I am very pissed off with it all.
The morons have won out.

Xmas Songs #1

My alternative Xmas songs -

Julie London - Warm In December

Joni Mitchell - Urge For Going

Kate Bush - Misty

Fountains Of Wayne - Valley Winter Song

Enjoy

Wire Recordings Of The Year 2020 pt 1

More music from the best of the year in the current Wire magazine -

no.1

Beatrice Dillon - Workaround One

Recorded in London, Berlin and New York, Beatrice Dillon’s solo debut album was a masterclass in rhythmic invention, moulded from FM synthesis and a bank of original samples. Drawing on influences including dub, Afro-Caribbean rhythmic traditions and painter Bridget Riley’s essays on grids and colour, Workaround was forensically experimental but gorgeously tactile: it grooves. Abi Bliss said: “Filled with playful delight, honed by minimalism and absorbingly complex, a constant 150 bpm that’s the opposite of metronomic.” (February/432)


No.2

Moor Mother - Circuit Break

Camae Ayewa aka Moor Mother debuted Circuit City at Philadelphia’s FringeArts in June 2019. Claustrophobic and agitated, the album used free jazz and electronics to address oppressions meted out to marginalised communities – from police brutality to neglected public housing. Mariam Rezaei said: “Part choreopoem and part political play, Ayewa’s first theatrical work Circuit City is a riotous political statement… the creative force that is Moor Mother is at once impenetrable and indefatigable.”

no.3
Mourning [A] BLKstar - Deluze (Solange Say Remix)

Under the aegis of humble bandleader RA Washington, eight-strong Cleveland collective Mourning [A] BLKstar made their most powerful statement yet with The Cycle. A sprawling double album, its retro-futurist take on African-American musical forms – gospel and soul, hip-hop and jazz – spoke directly to the current political moment. Stephanie Phillips said: “It’s the kind of music made for the frontlines of a protest… The Cycle is a fully realised, liberating dive into self-actualisation; one that, given the times we’re living through, couldn’t be more timely.” I totally agree.



no.4
Bob Dylan - False Prophet

Heralded by “Murder Most Foul”, a 17 minute song about the assassination of JFK and its pivotal place in the American cultural firmament, Rough And Rowdy Ways – Dylan’s 39th solo album – marked his return to original songwriting after an extended sojourn through traditionals and standards. Stewart Smith said: “Rough And Rowdy Ways is undoubtedly the work of an artist with one eye on his legacy, yet it’s so full of wit, mischief and life that it positively sings.”

Enjoy

Wire Recordings Of The Year 2020 pt 2

Number five to eight -

No.5
Duma - Lionsblood

Recorded at Kampala’s Nyege Nyege Studios over three months in mid-2019, the debut album from Duma – it translates as Darkness in Swahili – was a frenetic and physical collision of various extreme musics: hardcore punk, grindcore, breakcore, noise. Neil Kulkarni said: “Throughout, Lord Spike Heart is able to make his rage clear yet also use his voice as an effect, an additional layer of derangement – at times it’s as if he’s got a needle on his vocal cords and is scratching up a firestorm.”

No.6
Jeff Parker & The New Breed - Max Brown

The guitarist for Chicago post-rock group Tortoise, on the side Parker has built a reputation as a skilful jazz sideman and solo composer in his own right. A companion to 2016’s The New Breed, Suite For Max Brown mixed up the digital composition and jazz improvisation, drawing from John Coltrane and Joe Henderson along the way. John Morrison said: “Whereas The New Breed was brash, upfront and funky, Suite For Max Brown is soft and elegant… Complex, challenging and infused with a warm familial glow.”

No.7
Still House Plants - Able To

Physically, Still House Plants are located between Glasgow and South London. Sonically, they draw on the vocal melisma of R&B, the improvisational methodologies of free jazz and the minimal end of post-punk. Philosophically, they sit in a place somewhere between improvisational discipline and theatric play. Their second LP Fast Edit was an angular and curious thing, fractured and discordant but presented with an intimacy that was seductive. Claire Biddles said: “There are no conclusions on Fast Edit and that’s what makes it exceptional.”

no.8
Hildegard Von Bingen: In Principio Omnes, from Ordo Virtutum

To create A Late Anthology Of Early Music, the Dublin born composer and former music history teacher handed hours of a cappella recordings to machine learning specialists Dadabots for transformation. With uncanny results: splashes of white noise, glitches and grunts, with tantalising glimpses of humanity at the centre. Louise Gray said: “By setting musical convention and computer science to interrogate each other... Walshe suggests new traditions that are closer than one might think.”

Enjoy

Just Wondering

As a kid -
Did you leave cookies and milk out for Santa?

As a kid -
Did you used to leave carrots out for the reindeer?

One big gift or a lot of small ones?

St Mary, Westwell

St Mary's, Westwell was locked, but a notice directed me to get the key from the lady in a house across the road. I put on my best public school accent to counteract the impression created by the long grey hair and the mask but it wasn't necessary as she was undisguisedly friendly and trusting. I had the church to myself and there were no chivying notices posted about how I should wear a mask or wash my hands- and the whole experience was like stepping back into the world as it was at the start of the year- before the fearmongering began.

Oh, I was forgetting; before we parted she gave me a packet of biscuits and asked me if I'd put it in the food bank box inside the door. Like I said, trusting...

St Mary is nothing much to look at on the outside, but inside it's one of the loveliest churches in Kent. Unspoiled. Very early gothic. With accessories that suggest whoever was paying for the job could afford the best craftsmen going.

The chancel arch or screen- with its slender pillars- is elegant and unusual. I won't say unique because I haven't been everywhere yet- but I can't think I've seen anything quite like it. This is the view looking down towards the west end. Simon Jenkins- who gives the church two stars in his guide to the best churches in England- says it looks Islamic- and who's to say the architect or the patron or someone connected with the building hadn't looked about them and taken notes while they were off on the crusades.



The glass in the East window is a remarkable surival- two complete panels from a 13th century Jesse tree with two others sympathetically reconstructed by the Victorians. The quality is first class and if you'd told me this figure- which I think is either King Solomon or King David- was to be found in Canterbury Cathedral- I'd have believed you. Canterbury is only just down the road- (Westwell is on or just off the Pilgrim's Way) and I'll bet the craftsmen who worked there also worked in Westwell.




Again, look at the quality of these carved heads. One of the sites I consulted says the king might be Edward III- which would make his female companion Philippa of Hainault. Personally, I doubt that they're portraits- because the medievals didn't do portraits- but they're lively and characterful. I love it how the king is giving us the full Cheshire cat.

My Xmas card Wall

As usual, each year I reserve a wall for the Xmas cards. This is the lot received, so far.

Book 98 - James Lincoln Collier "Duke Ellington"

James Lincoln Collier "Duke Ellington" (Pan)



Sir Duke is one of the most popular jazz musicians that has ever lived and that can be a problem for a biographer as his range and styles of music within jazz can be daunting. Ellington was a fascinating, complex, and inspiring historical figure nontheless and this biography does him proud. This book manages to distill the complexity of Ellington and the world he lived in down to an understandable, but nonetheless vivid portrait of the artist.

Jazzy's Thursday Night Funky Grooves

Ah, let's get funky now -

Roy Ayers Ubiquity - Ain't No Sunshine

Average White Band - Goin' Home

The Meters - People Say

Dennis Coffey - Scorpio

Man, I feel so funky!

Enjoy.

Selections From The Wire Top 50 Archive Releases Of The Year

Some massive ones here -

Frank Zappa - Willie The Pimp (Unedited Master Take)

This six-disc box set unpicked the overdubs on Zappa’s 1969 second solo album Hot Rats, which made full use of the then-new 16-track recording technology. Derek Walmsley said: “As with the album .. the real magic is in the origami-like marvels of “Peaches En Regalia”, “Son Of Mr Green Genes” and “It Must Be A Camel”.”



Joni Mitchell - Tell Old Bill

This five-CD box set dug deep into the years preceding Mitchell’s 1968 solo debut Song To A Seagull. Kicking off with a long lost 1963 audition tape for Saskatoon radio station CFQC 600 and taking in live sets and home recordings from Mitchell’s own archive, the collection charted her evolution from folk interpreter to distinctive songwriter, with 29 previously unheard compositions.



The Meters - Cissy Strut

The New Orleans R&B heroes’ hip-shaking funk strut ruled supreme in this box set, but across eight albums and bonus tracks, there was also room for psychedelic soul, ballads, reggae and diversions into disco. Phil Freeman said: “The choppy syncopation, the unexpected yet perfectly placed accents, the hints of melody and that sharp, ringing snare – it’s a sound so precise and so individual, it’s what sets The Meters’ early music apart from everything else on Earth.” a 6CD set on Rhino Records!



Prince - Hot Thing (Extended Remix) (2020 Remaster)

Prince’s 1987 masterpiece received the most lavish yet of his posthumous reissues, expanded to eight CDs – or 13 LPs – and one DVD. Alongside singles and a 1987 live set, the doors opened on the Paisley Park vaults to reveal 45 previously unreleased tracks including material created with Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman for the abandoned Dream Factory project. Richard Stacey said: “This set actually offers a tantalising step towards… a glimpse of the artist behind the myth.”



ENJOY