Gimme Some Of That Old New Age Music Dept. - Bernard Xolotl

Monsieur Xolotl, yesterday

Too much of the music that falls into the ambient/New Age dump bin sounds indistinguishable from the rest. You rarely hear incompetent, badly-played music in this genre, but even more rarely hear something with its own character and identity. Jettisoning songs involves sacrificing memorability in the hope of creating a sustained (and relaxing) mood.

It's not that difficult to record something that'll sound perfect as background music in a health spa, or sooth you off to sleep. To create a mood that both remains essentially the same and incorporates developmental changes that repay attention is harder. Terry Riley - a major influence on. and friend of, Xolotl - managed it effortlessly.

You'll hear Riley's influence, and it's a good thing. Xolotl is no copyist, and his palette is colored by German experimentalism, French Romantic classical,  ethnic music, Pink Floyd, and maybe some Moondog. It's not minimalist, not drone. It's layered and detailed and sometimes busy to the point of exhilaration. He also brings in collaborators for instrumental colour, never relying on synth patches, sequencing, loops, or effects. It's proper music, if you'll forgive the contentious term. "All notes played by hand", as he says, and it's this very human warmth of touch, an organic feel, that sets him apart.

Bernard (such a shame his given name doesn't begin with an A) has had a long career and produced mucho artworks across various media, and I wish I'd discovered him decades ago. As an introduction, here's a couple of early 'eighties cassettes he recorded at his home studio; Journey To An Oracle, and Return Of The Golden Mean - generic New Age titles for music that's anything but.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT:

Added in comments, a link to another early one, with Cyrille Verdeaux, out of French progue band Clearlight. It's just plain larvely, is what it is.

 

 

 

 

This post nurtured to fruition thru th' patronage of The International Development Association, part of the World Bank Group. My thanks to Knuckles O'Brady for "the suitcase."

Susanna Hoffs Refuses To Act As Clickbait For Obscure One-Shot Sixties Albums Dept.

Susanna Hoffs [above - Ed.] is a svelte n' sultry sixty-five years young, and quite the GILF. When we reached out for permission to use a picture of her in her 'eighties pomp to entice readers to a piece about a couple of psych-pop-rock bands from the 'sixties who only released one album, she demurred.

"It's just not appropriate, Farq," she breathed from her luxurious Pismo Beach hideaway. "Uh - what albums we talking about?"

When I mentioned Wings, she immediately responded "The band on Dunhill? With Oz Bach? That's a great album!" Sensing she could change her mind, I told her the other was Two Suns Worth, by Morning Glory. "Oh! Big fan of their work!" she enthused. "Matt [Sweet - Ed.] and me were considering covering Jelly Gas Flame." Greatly encouraged, I pressed on with all possible dispatch. "So Suzy, we can use the picture? Otherwise it's just the album covers, and that gets pretty boring." The line went quiet for a while as she considered her response, the sound of seagulls in the background. "Yeah," she said, her voice a husky come-hither invitation to love, "it's still no. N-FUCKING-O!" 

I waxed eloquent for a good fifteen minutes, persuasively re-contextualising my request, before realising the line was dead. Ever eager to comply with the wishes of self-important so-called [soi-disant - Ed.] "celebrities", no matter how eccentric and unreasonable and batshit crazy they might be, we reluctantly honor her refusal, wishing her well, and here's the album covers instead. Both these albums are from '68, because of course they are, and both feature the kind of material, performance and production you just don't hear any more (fight me). Also: groovy chick vocalists.

Wings are pedigree. Go here http://www.spankyandourgang.com/ozbach/wings.html for personnel, history etc.

Morning Glory are rockier, evoking the better-known Bay Area bands, with the surprise appearance of JJ Cale in the production booth. And yes, you need Jelly Gas Flame in your life.

 

This post curated by authority of the Rosicrucian Waffle Lodge, Pork Bend, ND

Bands You Can't Even Stand To Look At Dept. - The Knack

"Butt, the little girls understand" - Back Door Man Howlin' Wolf

Lawdy, but these guys were unlovable. The skinny ties, the legs apart stance, Doug Fieger's shit-eating leer, their album covers. It's all just so - what's the word? Cringe. Some bands you like before they even play a note - hey! these are my-type guys! F'rinstance, the original Mothers. The Bangles. But the Knack? They got everything wrong. Even the name is dumb, and not in a good way. Get The Knack! Get it!? What's the word? Facepalm.

The problem is, they were pretty good. The big hit was a big hit because it sounded like a great big hooky pop hit. Brilliant. And they made a two-decade career out of turning out swell comeback albums in spite of nobody really wanting them to come back from slinging hash or being Walmart greeters or whatever their MacJobs were. They kept releasing impeccably-crafted records and nobody cared much because they looked like Pre-Owned Wave, and the covers had all the appeal of Discount Meat windshield flyers.

Are they due for a critical reassessment and that lovingly-curated box set? Probably not. The market isn't ready right now for shiny guitar-based pop, and their lyrics are - what's the word? Problematic. It's your loss. Not a heartbreaking loss. Not like losing your favorite pocket knife or that Springsteen ticket from '75. But if you'd like a bunch of cool music to play while you flaunt your buttcrack tinkering uselessly with the lawnmower, you could do a whole lot worse than blast these tunes out the window. I've done some new sleeves so you won't get a taste of sick in your mouth when looking at them, as some kind of encouragement. But hey, I'm not your mom. You be you.

Get The Knack, now dressed in Leisure Suit Larry polyester

Serious Fun, Stretch Armstrong-style 

Round Trip to th' old abandoned amusement park

Normal As The Next Guy if he's Pee Wee Herman

Zoom call

This post made fungible thru th' Divine Intercession of th' Pope Of Rome, TN

Neil, Younger

Roland Dielh's superb portrait makes one of Neil's best covers. I've added the new title so it doesn't get confused with what you already have.

The beautiful Expecting To Fly from Buffalo Springfield Again sounds like it was expecting to fly into another album entirely, because it was. Recorded with Jack Nitzsche and session musicians for Neil's first solo album, it had zero input from the band, because they weren't invited and weren't there. Neil had his own album to do. When the song got diverted into the Springfield album Richie Furay added aftermarket vox, possibly to make it less obvious that it's not a Springfield track at all. So bringing this song home is the starting point for a more satisfying, better-performing solo debut.

Nitzsche's String Quartet, as attractive and evocative as it is, goes into the wood chipper. Young had no involvement in its composition or performance, and it's basically the sound of Nitzsche cutting himself a slice of the publishing pie. Good for him, but not necessarily good for the album - Young had already contributed his own, superior, Western-themed instrumental anyway, the charming Emperor Of Wyoming.

Also kicked to the curb is the unendurable Last Trip To Tulsa, nine minutes and change of Neil hunched over open mic. This very nearly tuneless dirge closes the album on an epic downer, the musical equivalent of staring into an empty glass (something he'd do more of). I'm betting tone arms were skipping nationwide after the realisation that ten minutes could be better spent than sitting still for this. Way to kill a buzz, and way to kill an album. If you like this, you like Neil too much.

Contemporary songs that (bafflingly - but this is Neil) didn't make the cut are seamlessly integrated into this re-imagining of an album that might have been a first tier debut. Like Harvester, I've avoided that tacked-on bonus tracks approach, and again, there's no filler.

 

 

This post funded in part by The Foundation Funding Finding Foundation, a non-profit organisation finding foundation funding since the Ford administration.

Harvester = More Harvest

Spot the diff?

Fifty minutes, fifty years on [fifty-two - Ed.]. This sequencing, including the fantastic contemporary recordings left off the original, works well, and the orchestrated songs no longer come on too strong, sounding more comfortable in an extended setting. No filler, and no "bonus tracks" vibe.

Strange how that loping beat of Out On The Weekend sounded so revolutionary, so distinctive back then. The album's inevitably dropped a rung or two in critical estimation, what with the (yawn) "problematic" lyric of A Man Needs A Maid, and the massive commercial success that critics resent, but it's timelessly wonderful, all of it.