Retsepti--რეცეპტი--Reissue of Powerful Georgian Post-Punk band

I found out about Retsepti accidentally, when I was buying a Pointed Sticks Xmas single from La-Ti-Da records. I was browsing their website and was looking at the Supreme Echo catalog, a reissue label that they help distribute. They put an album out by a Georgian band.

The City reined by Wolves

So I saw the 2006 anthology CD by Retsepti that they put out and I really thought that it would be worth listening to, though I had no idea what I would be getting precisely. Buying music blindly can be a hit or miss proposition, obviously. I had heard no hype from any source about this recording, but as it turns out my musical intuitions panned out. Though the vocals are all in Georgian, which leaves me at a bit of a disadvantage, this is a strong collection of post/punky new wave goodness. And though you can certainly make comparisons to other bands, this is by no-means cookie-cutter imitative music.





The first thing I noticed of course was the elaborate packaging. I have to imagine that it wasn't easy for this project to come to fruition for a label in British Columbia, Canada to release an album from a former Soviet Republic halfway around the world. Jason Flower at Supreme Echo states in the liner notes that "this has been the most challenging and painstaking release to-date." And no doubt there was, beyond a belief in the powerful music of Retsepti, a great deal of economic bravery. If this was a movie instead of an album, which required getting backers to fund it, the concept alone would probably doom this to a thumbs-down. Who would be your market for this, who would buy this release? Not even where's the single here. So obviously a labor of love--a recording that they felt the world needed to hear, and I am in complete agreement. You have to admire people who undertake projects like this. Clearly this collection was intended for an English speaking audience. The song lyrics have been translated into English. There apparently was some restoration work that needed to be done on the music, but as far as questions exist about the sonic quality of the recordings, the music sounds pretty good for me. Nothing was added or dubbed in.

Of course, playing this sort of music must have entailed a great deal of bravery and idealism in the face of oppression. The consequences of speaking your mind over there is probably incomprehensible to a person like me living in the USA.

The Band:
Lado Burduli--lead vocals, guitar
Zaza Sakhamberidze--guitar
Kakha "Josef" Gugushvili--bass
Shalva Khakhanashvili--keyboards
Vova Vardaniani-drums
Sandro "Kirpicha" Kapanadze--saxophone

In trying to describe the band, its almost hard to pin them down, because the songs were recorded over a number of years, and stylistically the songs vary a bit. What is consistent however, are the powerful, tortured, angst-filled vocals of Lalo Burduli. These guys really meant business judging by the music. That must have been a pretty tough era to live through--though the yoke of being a republic in the Soviet union was thrown off during their existence, the transition must have been harsh. As far as the music goes, the band play their instruments with a great deal of competence, with some fairly spectacular guitar work. In a lot of ways the songs I like best on the collection remind me of Adrian Borland and the Sound, or maybe The Chameleons UK. They remind me of early Wire in some places. One of the songs with saxophones had a sort of pop quality that made me think he may have been a Bowie fan. But overall, there is a beautifully ominous tension to the music and when combined with Burduli's fervent singing, there is some great music being made. This album was way way better than my expectations.



There is a long interview with Burduli in the liner notes, very interesting. He definitely seems to be a lifer, rebellious, independent in his opinions, unrepentant yet still a little idealistic. I spent only a few days in Georgia in the 1980's when it was still a CCR, and I was pretty amazed by the country, the culture, the people, the great cuisine and wine. I had an idea of how things were in Russia but for me Armenia and Georgia were a blank page for me--I had no preconceived ideas. I guess I was smitten in the same way Russian writers over the past centuries have spent time in this area to the South and written about it. So maybe that was why I was drawn to this recording initially. But ultimately I was rewarded with my purchase because this music is pretty terrific.

Of course, what is interesting to me may not be to you. This music might not be for everybody, but if you like to hear new things (or in this case a new old thing), this might be just thing to give your jaded ears some relief.

Transistors---Awesome Punk-Pop from New Zealand

Hi folks. It took a good band to get me out of my dotage. Definitely been a mixed bag of a year to say the least.

The Transistors are a band from Rangiora, New Zealand. They have just released their second album Is This Anything? on Arch Hill Records about a month ago. I don't even have their album....yet, but from what I have heard I can't wait to say something about them. They have opened for The Buzzcocks on tour in New Zealand recently, which would seem to be a good fit. They have an aggressive energetic sound combined with a good ear for a pop hook. The locals seem to be hyping the new Surf City and BailterSpace albums (justifiably so) with not quite so much attention being paid to these guys.

Enough jibber jabber..listen to this. No doubt you've heard this sort of thing before, but its still great!



I know I liked that...clever video, too.

If you liked that one, try Dirty Diver on for size.







In addition to Arch Hill Records or the Flyingout Webpage, you can download album at Bandcamp.

Cheers!

Goya Dress---Rooms--She was telling you the greatest secret in the World.....

There's not much I can't do.....

I'm sitting here listening to Astrid Williamson singing, so if I was in a bad mood, you know that I'm not right now. Astrid was in Goya Dress, and Rooms was their sole full length, released in 1996 on Nude Records.

The album was produced by the esteemed John Cale, and I must say that is simply stunning, a superb melding of art and melodicism. Astrid Williamson has one of my favorite voices in pop music, and over the years I've picked up all her solo albums except her most recent Pulse. But you know, being born with a great voice is a great gift, but its what you do with it and how hard you work sometimes. Sure, you might get into the finals on American Idol, or one of those other crappy reality shows, but in addition to having great pipes, she also is a compelling songwriter and musician. Hailing from the Shetland Islands in Scotland, she has carved out a critically acclaimed solo career but far less commercial success than warranted. She is the "diva" that no one is telling you about.

Rooms was never released in the U.S. as far as I know. A real head-scratcher, because it is a very compelling intelligent edgy record.

Astrid Williamson: Vocal, Guitars, and Piano
Terry de Castro: Bass and Backing Vox
Simon Pearson: Drums

Trust me, this is a secret classic album of the 1990's that no one has ever picked up on. I did a post about Astrid's first solo album I am the Boy for You, and I would also recommend that very highly.
She has one of the voices that make your hair stand up on the back of your neck. Oh, yeah, and she happens to be beautiful on the outside too.

The album begins with the strong Sweet Dreams for You--quiet verses leading to powerful choruses with standout vocals, a harbinger for the rest of the album. The second song is Crush, which sounds like the first single, or maybe the number intended to go on the soundtrack, but there is a light endearing quality about it.




The title track, Rooms, is one of the highlights, with nice piano work by Ms Williamson, and a string section. Seems like the perfect vehicle for Cale to work with. One of my favorites. The following song Greatest Secret, is a strong guitar driven vehicle with strongly emotive lyrics.




Maybe the biggest number of all here is Glorious, and it is huge and lives up fully to its title. For me it is the band at the heights of their powers. Which make the album deceptive because this song is near the middle of the album; the last 4 songs are strong, but not quite up to Glorious. You have the sublime piano and strings of Katie Stood on the Benches, the harder rocking pop of Any John, the jazzy finale The Maritime Waltz, and the epic six minute melancholy opus Picture This.





This album would be a great candidate for a reissue with their singles appended(like the above song from the Bedroom Cinema ep), but I'm not holding my breath about it. It is true that they did a lot of good things on Eps before Rooms arrived. Astrid continues to make fine albums and once in a while she tours a bit, though I have yet to see her live. Check out this album and I think you will agree that its unfortunate that this band didn't make more music together.

And of course I owe a debt to America's finest music magazine, The Big Takeover. I would have never known of Astrid were it not for Jack Rapids support for her music. Issue #72 of the Big T will be shipping soon! It only comes outs twice a year. With mainstream magazine failure becoming a running comedy joke (and a tragedy for journalism and the public), music magazines need support from the public more than ever. If you are interested in great modern music, you need to subscribe to this magazine!

I'm not afraid for being that lonely.....The Serenes--Back to Wonder

I forget where I heard about The Serenes, but I know that what I heard about them gave me the impetus to seek out the music of this Dutch pop band from the 1990's. They were from Friesland and put out 2 albums which are pretty great sounding, though maybe not the most original sounding. There are some that consider them to be the best pop band ever from the Netherlands.

Think REM with better enunciation, more polished and pop oriented. A bit on the downbeat side, which I suppose you could guess by the band's name!
.
Janglepop. With some 60's pop stylings thrown in. Probably as good as a lot of bands from this era who did this sort of thing.

The album I am enjoying right now is Back to Wonder, their second and final album, released by RCA, produced by famed American producer Lou Giordano, who has produced a diverse group of artists over the years, from Boston's Moving Targets, Husker Du, Mission of Burma, Goo Goo Dolls, Belly, and the Lemonheads. The sound quality is pretty excellent on this album, with a few intimate sounding acoustic numbers and even a string saturated ballad (Here).

At least in theory, if this album had been released in the States, it could have seen some success. As it stood I had some difficulty locating their Cd's, but struck gold via Discogs.

All in all the songs are impeccable on Back to Wonder. There is not a bad track on this album. The pop songs are understated, and this probably would not be to the taste of some. If this album was a movie, it would categorized as a "date movie". Which is not a bad thing necessarily.

Because there is a lot to love about this album. Starting with the first song---Spirit (Let me Walk), which is a pretty song with chiming guitar. Maybe a little understated to begin an album, but a fine
song, nonetheless.


 

The Serenes are: Theo De Jong; guitar and vocals, Pyter Kuipers; bass and backing vocals, and Joan Hooghiemstra on drums. Personally I prefer the energy of the 2nd song, Feel Me. This is a clip of the band performing the song acoustically on 2 Meter Sessies.





Another great song on Back to Wonder is Wider Green, which has an almost Byrdsy twang to it, which then converts into soaring guitar pop. The song segues into Love under Will, an intimate acoustic number. Here is another beautiful ballad but with strings--it sounds like it could found a spot on one of Colin Blunstone's (Zombies)solo albums of the early 70's. Another standout is Every Sunday---which is right here.




I think you get the idea of what this band's sound is. Their first album, Barefoot and Pregnant is also a very nice album that I would recommend. The band split up in 1994. I know that Theo De Jong later had a band called Simmer which was released Mothertongue on the Dutch label Excelsior, which was also home to Dutch pop stars Johan, who I did a post on a while back. As far as I know, I have no further information about these guys. I'm sure somebody knows something somewhere. Hope you enjoy this post.

The Other Guys of NYC Noise Rock---Live Skull--Cloud One

You know what? You've probably heard a similar argument to the one I'm about to make. It's the QWERTY argument. I learned from reading an essay by Stephen Jay Gould about the evolution of the typing keyboard. Essentially, he gives a basic lesson through demonstration how evolution sometimes work. He throws a cold bucket on the notion that evolution is a progressive process, that life forms are always improving toward better design forms. Well, in a social context, there were other versions of the typewriter keyboard layout, and many of them were more sensible than QWERTY, but that keyboard became the standard setup for keyboards. Just like Windows being the chief operating system of computers, despite other companies putting out better products and failing.

In the context of music, the argument has been made that U2 had many competitors, who were their equal or better. Ultimately, they became at least for a time the biggest band on earth, going toe to toe with the Rolling Stones, Springsteens, Elton Johns, and McCartneys, the rock giants. For many, the bands that were their at least critical rivals, such as Teardrop Explodes, Echo and The Bunnymen, The Sound, and others certainly had some amount of success, but they never became megastars like Bono and friends. A lot of arguments can be made as to business acumen vs art, but maybe at least some of it had to do with dumb luck.

In the US in the early 80's there was a noise band movement that evolved out of Glenn Branca's guitar experiments and the No Wave movement which included bands like DNA, Mars, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, and The Contortions. That was one of the many scenes of the day, where a variety of musical genres bled and mingled with each other in a variety of new and interesting forms. Critic Robert Christgau had a pejorative term for the music in the early , which in retrospect did noone any good, and made him appear to be a bit cranky for somebody I consider to be a very open-minded musical polyglot. C'mon, these days we all can agree that menacing dissonant loud music is a good thing. Ultimately he gained an appreciation for the movement, as did the general public, as the estranged noisemeisters Sonic Youth cast indelible stamp on modern music, both as popularizers and innovators. Additionally their music was hugely influential to other groups, and their legacy continues today.

But what about the others guys? There were a number of bands doing similar work to these groups who are probably invisible these days to most musical fans. Bands like Unsane, UT, Rat at Rat R. The Swans are probably a lot better known because they have continued to release material, recently putting out a new record. And of course the mighty Live Skull. I really loved these guys, and I started listening to them early, buying their first ep from Midnight Records on 23rd st. I never saw them live though, unfortunately. I thought that they were just as good as SY, and I find it baffling that their early stuff has never been reissued other than the fact that their is a lot of great music on the Homestead label that is still in mothballs. I also find it strange that the music that they made prior to Thalia Zadek joining the band seems to be disparaged a bit in some circles. Because I think that they had a great sound before and the Zadek fronted version of Live Skull was also great!

I couple years ago there was some stirrings at Acute records about Live Skull reissues, but to date, no dice. They put out a nice Ike Yard Cd at some point. It's possible the recession had a hand in things not happening, but I don't really know. They are a band that definitely deserves more love than they have gotten. I'm talking about Bringing Home the Bait, Cloud One, Snuffer, and the live album Don't Get Any on You. Essential listening for noise fans. Hopefully something will be done about it someday, but until then, here's a couple of tracks that illustrate perfectly how monstrously great these guys were, even before Ms. Zedek (who incidentally has a new one out herself, entitled Via).
Listen to some of this and I think you will agree that they were one of the great innovative American bands of this era.

From Bringing Home the Bait!





Cloud One:






Cloud One again:




From the 1st ep:



05/22/2013: Update----Live Skull reissues are coming!!! Already available in Mp3 format!!!

I just found out that Desire Records is reissuing the eponymous first ep in expanded form, and Bringing Home the Bait.

Very good news for noise fans. The label is accepting pre-orders and according to their site, they should start shipping product sometime in June.


New Update: Live Skull reissues will be released on September 17. Desire Records also plans on releasing the entire Live Skull catalog... so give them some support, please...

Light the Darkness, Light the Night...and Sing! Shane Howard--Clan

I've known about Shane Howard for a little while, thanks to a great Blog called That Striped Sunlight Sound, a website dedicated to Australian music. Always enlightening, well worth visiting! He's quite famous in Australia, but not so much here in America, unfortunately.

He was originally a member of Goanna, the first pop group to deal with the issue of Aboriginal rights in Australia. Their song Solid Rock is one of the great Australian protest songs, and was a huge hit at the time. The song was the first time a commercial group used the didgeridu on a song. As a solo artist Shane has recorded a number of albums, some of which are available through his own webstore. It has been 30 years since this landmark album was released, and he has just completed an Australian tour in celebration of this event.



But I want to speak a little bit about Clan, Shane's wonderful but long out print album released in 1996. I was fortunate enough to snag a copy on eBay. It's a special album, seemingly a bit of a concept album, beautifully executed, powerfully thematic, incredibly heartfelt and personal.

I wanted to say something about Clan about the time of Saint Patricks, to illustrate another aspect of the Irish diaspora than the Ellis Island experience. And here we are in mid-April. I recall reading about the history of Australia for the first time from Robert Hughes' book The Fatal Shore. But what really spun my head around was when I read True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey, which impressed on me mightily the treatment of the Irish in the early years of white settlement of Australia. Both books are highly recommended reading in my estimation. Carey's book is some of the finest literature, and was the winner of the Booker Man Prize, his second.

So when I saw great praise for Clan on Striped Sunlight Sound, I kept an eye peeled for a copy.
When I finally acquired the disc from halfway around the world, I was completely delighted.

Part of the album is about his heritage as the descendant of Irish immigrants who arrived in this new land (to them) in the wake of the Irish Famine of the mid-1800's.

As he states eloquently in the album liner notes,

"This is the story of my people, my ancestral clans. The story of dispossession of land by an overwhelming force; the story of famine, resistance and uprisings, of exile and survival-the struggle of the oppressed; the burning desire not for revenge but for equity and justice."

Telling this story involved the history of Ireland, the immigrant experience of the Irish people in Australia, and the state of Ireland today.

What makes this recording an album for the ages is the connection he makes with the Aboriginal experience in the wake of contact with Europe. He was struck by the continuities between the two sagas. In some ways a case of history repeating itself.  As he states,

"Here we are, as Australians, descended of migrants of many cultures, now living on Aboriginal country under a British colonial political system. How do any of us non-aboriginal people make sense of ourselves and who we are and what we are doing here?

So Clan is the story of two Clans, and how their stories intertwine in Australia.

This is heavy stuff. As Americans, you can't help but think of our unfortunate legacies here. These are things that are not easily or perhaps even possibly resolvable. Growing up, Howard lived near Aboriginal settlements, but did not really know much about the people. Ultimately, he learned a new narrative about Australia, not just about oppression, but also about people who have a history stretching well beyond our own meager one. Whenever I see exhibitions of Aboriginal art I find myself deeply moved. I don't pretend to have any expertise or understanding, but they reach at some level that I intrinsically know but can't explain. I even bought an artwork a few years ago from a dealer in New York. It was money that should have gone toward a new car, but I can be impulsive once in a blue moon. I am very glad I did it, in retrospect.

So Clan, begins after an introductory No Man's Land, has Silvermines, a fantastic historic tale about a young woman leaving her homeland for an unknown place, told in the first person, about lives turned upside-down, but the ancestral bonds remain.

Set upon the open seas to the corners of the world
Lambs to the slaughter into this hell we've hurled
My only dream was to survive I was just a girl
Hide your face and hide your fear in these dark and tangled curls.

Tarerer follows, a song about the Tarerer Gundidj Clan of the Dhauwurd Wurrong nation, a people Howard grew up nearby.

Rounded up like cattle
Herded unto mission land
Defending your own country
From this cruel and greedy hand...

Howard was inspired by his visit to Belfast in 1993 to write the plaintive ballad Free as Stone. As he states in the preface to the song, he walked through the city on a cold Sunday morning and "the city was absolutely deserted, except for armoured parol cars and footsoldiers in battle fatigues."

Rebel Song is about uprising in the gold fields of Ballarat in the 1850's. Howard's great-grandfather was arrested there in 1854, so the story is a personal one. The songs on the album are basically folk songs with a Celtic touch to them, with fiddle, mandolin, whistles and bodhran. Melding all these themes together in an album does not strike me as an easy task, but I really think he pulled it off.

Often sad, there is a also a lot of themes of empowerment on Clan. One of my favorite songs is Give A Little, a song that makes you want to keep going, even in the face of impossible odds. Don't Say Okay is another inspirational number, with great imagery, reminiscent of one of Alejandro Escovedo's ballads.

The ghosts are back again at the window
They're back again tonight
Looking in on us so we have to get it right....

Clan is a beautiful album, a work that Shane Howard should be extremely proud of. An album definitely in need of a reissue. For me this is an album that practically popped out of nowhere, so I knew at some point I would need to try to spread the word in my own small way. Sorry the videos are not that representative of the record.

Visqueen Celebrates America's Favorite Game!

As a New Yorker, I am not pleased with the way the Yankees are playing right now, but Opening Day of Baseball is the real first day of Spring for most Americans.

So to help celebrate, here's Rachel Flotard and Co., i.e. Visqueen, doing what they did so much better than most groups. The Seattle Mariners should feel lucky.



Though Visqueen is no more, hopefully we will be hearing more from the talented Ms. Flotard soon!