Throughout March, King Crimson-affiliated experimental rock trio Stick Men wind their bouncing, droning, percussive way around Europe. Fronted by veteran singing Chapman Stick maestro Tony Levin, propelled by drummer Pat Mastelotto (an ever-underrated master of electro-acoustic kit and rhythmic surprise) and completed by polydisciplinary Touch Guitarist Markus Reuter, their journey takes in assorted clubs, small theatres and music eateries in Austria, Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Slovakia, France, Finland, Spain and England. These venues might be somewhat smaller than the lofty theatres which Pat and Tony have recently been filling as part of the current eight-man Crimson, but this is a positive thing. It’s one of the few chances you’ll get to experience this level of inventive extended rock musicality in this size of venue, and Stick Men (playing to growing, enthusiastic knots of people) deserve far better than their spin-off status, a box they’ve long since wriggled their way out of.
Via both instrumentation and the inescapable Crimson connection, the 1980 template set by the latter band’s ‘Discipline’ album casts quite a long shadow over Stick Men – the knotty polyphonic staccato, the metrical puzzles, the whomp’n’chunk of two sets of hands hitting two touchstyle fretboards. But this was always a template partly shaped by Tony; and although the band’s musical direction does draw somewhat on the flinty, monolithic ecstasies of Crimson music (expect a few ‘Larks Tongues in Aspic’ instrumentals to make a bloody-knuckled showing, alongside a voyage through Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird’) and their last album carried the tongue-in-cheek title of ‘Prog Noir’ title, they’re not constrained by style, choosing rather to percolate within it like one of Tony’s beloved espressos before flooding outwards in all directions.
In fact, there’s a surprisingly un-prog breeziness to what they do. Tony might have waited until his autumn years before turning to frontman work, but his warm easygoing nature and gently kidding demeanour proves a fine fit for the role; and it’s his flowing omnivorous musicality (rather than Robert Fripp’s looming shadow) which ultimately sets Stick Men’s tone and releases their flow. Prior to and parallel to Crimson, Tony had five decades of first-call sessionwork: his glomping basslines backed and coloured the songs of Paul Simon, John Lennon, James Taylor, Peter Gabriel et al in a manner closer to conversational doo-wop singing than to simple low-end rooting, and some of that singing quality’s migrated to this project.
To an extent, Markus is stuck with a Frippish guitar role (he provides formidable reflections of the latter’s magisterial chops, ambient auroras and swarming killer-bee solo tone) but he also brings a different game to the stage. Outside of Stick Men, his own output has included free-form electric improv, protracted psychedelic drones, tundra-fire accompaniment to Siberian throat-singers, wild higher-mathematical dance frenzies and immense algorithmic orchestral pieces. With Stick Men his sometimes stern, magisterial-seeming stage presence regularly breaks out into unguarded humour and bursts of cerebral romanticism played out through the fretboard. Meanwhile Pat’s bridging, gizmo-assisted drumming can (and does) slip easily and unshowily between tacit Ringo Starr accompaniment, mathematical sledge-blows and intricate polyrhythmic dance-club rushes a la Marque Gilmore.
While most dates see the band playing alone, in Italy their Veneto date features support from Italian Chapman Sticker/bass guitarist/singer Emanuele Cirani, who usually trades in haunted, distorted block riffage as Colpo Rosso. In England, their Wolverhampton date is shared with friendly British troupe The Fierce & The Dead, who’ve been rebounding around the gaps between garage rock, prog, highlife and post-hardcore since 2010 and now seem poised on the brink of a substantial breakthrough. In Spain, the opening act in Madrid is XaDu, the hanging, questioning, avant-progressive jazz-rock duo put together by cross-genre Spanish drummer Xavi Reija and Serbian texture-jazz guitarist Dusan Jevcovic, who play up a complex two-man interplay while simultaneously sousing it in a dirty, deconstructive electrical storm.
Full dates:
Planet Live Club, Via del Commercio 36, 00154 Roma, Italy, Friday 2nd March 2018, 9.00pm – information here and here
Viperclub, Via Pistoiese 309/4, Piazza Ilaria Alpi e Miran Hrovatin, 5, 50145 Firenze, Italy, Saturday 3rd March 2018, 9.00pm – information here and here
Blue Note, Via Pietro Borsieri 37, 20159 Milano,, Italy, Sunday 4th March 2018, 9.00pm – information
Club Il Giardino Lugagnano, Via Ugo Foscolo, 37060 Sona, Veneto, Italy, Monday 5th March 2018, 9.00pm (with Emanuele Cirani) – information here and here
Porgy & Bess, Riemergasse 11, 1010 Vienna, Austria, Wednesday 7th March 2018, 9.00pm – information here and here
Budapest Jazz Club, Hollán Ernő utca 7. 1136 Budapest, Hungary, Thursday 8th March 2018, 7.00pm – information here and here
Sono Centrum, Veveří 105, 603 00 Brno, Czech Republic, Sunday 11th March 2018, 8.00pm – information here, here and here
Lucerna Bar, Vodičkova 36, 110 00 Praha, Czech Republic, Tuesday 13th March 2018, 7.00pm – information here and here
Robin 2, 20-28 Mount Pleasant, Bilston, Wolverhampton, WV14 7LJ, England, Thursday 15th March 2018, 8.00pm(with The Fierce & The Dead) – information here and here
Acapela Studios, Capel Horeb, Heol Y Pentre, Pentyrch, Cardiff, CF15 9QD, Wales, Friday 16th March 2018, 9.00pm – information here, here and here
Trading Boundaries, Sheffield Green, near Fletching, East Sussex, TN22 3RB, England, Saturday 17th March 2018, 9.00pm – information here and here
L’Empreinte, 301 Avenue de l’Europe, Savigny-le-Temple, Paris, France, Sunday 18th March 2018, 6.00pm – information here and here
Tavastia, Urho Kekkosen katu 6, Helsinki 00100,Finland, Monday 19th March 2018, 8.00pm – information here and here
O.R.k. are an intercontinental quartet of prog, post-prog and art-rock stars: two Italians, one Anglo-Australian, one American. Colin Edwin provides bass bedrock, Carmelo Pipitone adds an impressive assortment of guitar tones, Pat Mastelotto sets up his usual whirl of drums and electronic triggers, and Lorenzo Esposito “Lef” Fornasari sings and handles the odd drapes and strikes of keyboard and synthesizer. Their debut album, ‘Inflamed Rides’, has been attracting quite a bit of attention since its release last year.
They’ve certainly got the credentials, but to my ears O.R.k. remains a band searching for an identity of their own, still trying on various mix-and-match suits beneath which to flex their impressive collective muscle. There’s certainly a strong flavour of other projects which the various members have been involved with (including the clunk-and-cigarette art-rock croon of David Sylvian and Robert Fripp’s ‘The First Day’, which Pat toured around the world, prior to getting the drum slot in King Crimson, and the interim soundscapes of Colin’s work with Porcupine Tree and latterday Ex-Wise Heads). Lef sings and emotes in a variety of familiar tones recalling Sylvian, Maynard James Keenan and Opeth’s Mikael Åkerfeldt, as well as Mike Patton (with whom he shares extreme flexibility and a sense of skewed drama).
Having said that, O.R.k. are accomplished setters of mood and tone, transforming gracefully from folk-prog delicacy to death-metal rasp and ambient billows. Carmelo in particular is emerging as a superb and chameleonic rock polystylist (incorporating but transcending the punk-edged folk guitar webwork he shows with his main band Marta sui Tubi via electric drones, sheet-lightning riffage, and stress-damage lead lines).
All in all, the band are possibly closest to Lef’s work with Fourth World polyfusion project Berserk! a few years ago, but restrained by a thicker wall of progressive metal and possessing less of the jazz, lightness of touch or overall flexibility, as if it were being grappled around the knees by the arty sludge-rock of Lef’s other main recent project, Obake. There’s plenty of latent promise, especially since Lef’s a genuine musical polymath whose other collaborations span work with Bill Laswell, Nils Petter Molvaer, Italian post-hardcore heroes Ephel Duath and even singing in Nino Rota operas.
If there’s a problem, it’s just that O.R.k. are still groping in the dark for the elusive, necessary spark to shock them into fully being themselves. Come along and perhaps you’ll get to see the moment when they catch it. Meanwhile, here’s a chop-and-change video of live snippets from Milan earlier in the month, plus a few more album tracks:
Assuming that my mixed reactions to O.R.k. haven’t put you off, I should add that the support bands are at least as much of a draw.
Pat Mastelotto makes another appearance in the opening act, Komara – a heady and ferocious live-fusion trio which draw equally on the steely tendons of Crimson/Tool art rock, scintillating sheens of club electronica, and the balance of supple inventiveness fiery plasticity in Scandinavian nu-jazz acts such as Jaga Jazzist. Always one of the most inventive yet undervalued drummers of latterday prog, Pat is on particularly stirring form in this collaboration, which hooks him up with Italian electrophonic trumpeter Paolo Raineri (a collaborator with Stefano Battaglia, Junkfood and Blessed Beat, and with LEF in Berserk!) and Slovakian everything-guitarist David Kollar (an audacious polydisciplinary musician, playing his homemade instrument through an unusual array of pedals, effects and electronics).
Described disarmingly by David as “punky, ambient, electronic and avant-garde stuff”, Komara is actually much less of a spass-jazz kickaround than that would suggest. Informed by David’s work in film and dance projects . Paolo’s love for rock and free improv, and Pat’s knack for surging heavy polyrhythms, it has a sense of dark flamboyant drama: filled with kaleidoscopic brass and guitar textures and burning electrical energy, it flows and seethes more along the lines of David Torn’s still-arresting ‘Cloud About Mercury’ or of Andy Diagram’s work with Spaceheads.
The three London bands that make up the rest of the bill are all headliner-worthy, too. I’ve written plenty already about the mordant, tricksy brilliance of Thumpermonkey, whose melodious heavy-progressive songs are packed with mood and texture changes, rich vocals, gruff punk-and-metal-sourced energy and sly, literate lyric puzzles. They’re a band whose work you can stomp and head-bang to, yet spend a happy age unpicking.
The Earls of Mars plough a similarly playful furrow, though in a skinnier and more oblique vein. A morbidly humorous alliance between Harry Armstrong (once of early Noughties prog-metal stoners End Of Level Boss, and ‘90s doom metallers Decomposed and Hangnail) and Dan Hardingham (from horrorscape project Onethirtyeight), plus stand-up bassist Si McCarthy and drummer Dave Newman, they offer curdled cabaret dramatics and Tom Waits-ian/Mike Patton-esque takes on heavy metal, weird fiction and burlesque. The jokes swim under the surface of the music, like lurking alligators.
Landskap are a more sober and slow-welling affair altogether. If you’ve ever felt that Elbow are what happens when a band steeped in pastoral prog hits the mainstream, you might feel that Landskap is what might happen if it were coaxed back again. Although they cite late ‘60s and early ‘70s psychedelic rock as key influences, I’m more inclined to hear Isaac Hayes, Portishead or No-Man in their sound.
With that funk swing to the drumming, the bluesy smears, the clusters of electric piano and the solidity in the whole package, they sound more like a prog band who dream of being a soul or rhythm-and-blues band (as many of them did, back then, at the start). There’s also an authoritative, earthy ache in Jake Harding’s stern singing tones – a little of Jim Morrison, a little of Ian McCulloch – making him an earthbound anchor to the band’s flights. In an evening which has more than its fair share of cosmic jazz blurs, Gothic artifice and mischievous humour, Landskap are likely to add a little human depth and straightforwardness.
* * * * * * * *
Something good ending too soon? Only a few posts ago I was urging you all towards my neighbourhood venue Forks & Corks, the deli venue at the foot of Archway Tower, and its developing series of jazz gigs: I even took my own advice and made it to to the Jonny Gee quartet show the other Friday, bringing along a group of friends to have their feelings soothed in the wake of a funeral. In a swirl of Parker, Ellington and Porter interpretations, plus the quartet’s own originals, the job was done, buoyed up by the warmth of a Forks & Corks full house drawn from around the community and friends, plus the feeling that something was being built up in this unprepossessing but lovingly inhabited, carefully decorated space.
Now I hear that the latest gig there is likely to be the last Forks & Corks jazz show for a while. Quiet and ominous rumours suggest that it will be the last jazz show there ever, and that the venue itself (which was always sitting on a questionable future in the heart of an Archway redevelopment that’s increasingly out of control) is going to quietly close. I’ve no idea what will crop up in its place: presumably it will be yet another coffee shop to go with the newly-announced Coffee Republic a few doors down and the eight or ten other coffee joints scattered around the junction. Part of the scenario for a regenerated Archway appears to be encouraging us Archway residents to circulate, grinning, from well-furnished caffeine pump to well-furnished caffeine pump, pretending we’re in a ceaseless round of ‘Friends’ re-runs.
Anyway, here’s the information for that last gig.
Jazz in Archway presents:
The Pike/Daniels Quartet Forks & Corks, 2 Archway Mall, Junction Road, Archway, London, N19 5PH, England
Saturday 20th February 2016, 8.00pm – more information
A quick scuffle around the search engines turned up a bit of information on the band. It’s co-led by London jazz-noir singer Kate Daniels. and composer/multi-instrumentalist Graham Pike (who can play chromatic harmonica, trumpet, flugelhorn, trombone and keyboards); guitarist Phil Danter leads the jazz-pop octet Straight On Red and generally seems to live the dream, while bass player Kevin Dunford’s been a London fusion mainstay for years and plays with The Incredibly Strange Film Band. There’s not much news on the quartet as a whole, but that shouldn’t count against them. London jazz is full of obscurities, word-of-mouth and ad-hoc teamups: this may well be the start of another one.
As for Forks & Corks, if anything replaces its original spirit and its jazz initiative, I’ll post up that news whenever I get to hear about it. Whatever the future for the venue itself, its manager’s passion for jazz is heartfelt, so I wouldn’t write him off yet… Meanwhile, if you’re passing the deli, drop in for a snack while you still can.
I can tell I’ve not kept my eye on the ball – nothing makes a person feel less alert than suddenly finding that three of his favourite musical projects (plus one new recent favourite and one older interest) are suddenly pouncing out new releases and. I step out for a moment, for another writing project, and someone moves all of the furniture around.
The Duke Of Norfolk: ‘A Revolutionary Waltz’
So… let’s start with news of fresh work from The Duke of Norfolk, a.k.a transplanted Oklahoman folkie Adam Howard, now resident in Edinburgh. He’s currently offering a free single – A Revolutionary Waltz – in part-promotion, commenting “I am launching a Kickstarter project in two weeks to fund the making of a live video EP, and would like to give you this recording in the meantime. It’s just a wee sonic experiment, but I hope you enjoy it!”
If you’re wondering whether there’s a Scottish Nationalist tie-in here, given recent political events in Britain, Adam’s adopted hometown, and that beautifully sympathetic and country-tinged setting of Robbie Burns’ Ae Fond Kiss on which he duets with Neighbour, think otherwise. In fact, this song is a darker cousin to An Evening Waltz (from his 2013 album ‘Le Monde Tourne Toujours’): a foreboding meditation on the inexorable turn of fate’s wheel, tying together three histories of power, betrayal and fall. Despite its timeless trad-folk lyric, Adam’s busking roots (and the lusciously acoustic sound of much of his other material) it’s also a rough-and-ready take on digital folk, either demo-rough or intended to display Adam’s other roots in sound design. A clipped electrophonic waltz picks its way across a murky psychedelic smudge and a droning feedback pibroch: its characters sea-waltz to the grim, dry beat of a hand drum and a scattering of cowrie-shell percussion. It’s well worth a listen. As for progress on the Duke Of Norfolk video Kickstarter campaign, it’s probably best to keep tabs on his Facebook page.
Cardiacs: ‘Guns’
Following the success of their double vinyl LP reissue of 1995’s ‘Sing To God‘ album, Cardiacs are doing the same with its 1999 follow-up, ‘Guns’. While it’s not the magnificent sprawler that ‘Sing To God’ is, ‘Guns’ offers a more concise take on the pepper-sharp 1990s Cardiacs quartet that featured Bob Leith and gonzo guitarist Jon Poole alongside the band-brothers core of Tim and Jim Smith. As Cardiacs albums go it’s an even brasher beast than usual, hiding its gnarly depths under brass-balled upfront confidence and strong seasonings of glam-bang, pell-mell punk, whirring Krautrock, and jags of heavy metal looning.
‘Guns’ is also one of the most obscure Cardiacs works. Drummer Bob joined Tim on lyric duties, helping to turn the album’s words into a dense hedge-witch thicket of allusion and play, in which typically naked Cardiacs preoccupations (dirt, wartime, suspicion, indeterminate life and death) are tied up into an almost impenetrable web, driven along by the music’s eight-legged gallop. The fact that Tim and Bob were slipping in random borrowings from ‘English As She Is Spoke‘, a notoriously bungled Victorian phrasebook with its own wonky and unintentional poetry, only added to the tangle.
You can pre-order the ‘Guns’ reissue here for end-of-June shipping. It’s a single vinyl record, with no extra thrills or treats, but does come with the promise of beautiful packaging and pressing. You can expect to hear news on more Cardiacs reissues over the next few years. The current plan is to reissue the band’s whole back catalogue on vinyl after years of exile (predominantly spent huddled exclusively on iTunes).
Meanwhile, see below for a taste of ‘Guns’ magnificent oddness. Here’s the grinding drive of Spell With A Shell (which encompasses the lives of pets, the terror and wonder of transformation, and the cruelty, loneliness and confused loyalties of childhood). Here’s a collision of outsider folk and reggae in Wind And Rains Is Cold (via a fan video of clips from ‘Night Of The Hunter’, from which Cardiacs frequently filch scraps of lyric). Finally, here’s the scavenged, scratchy prog of Junior Is A Jitterbug with its prolonged and celebrated unravelling coda.
Cardiacs: ‘Day Is Gone’
For those without turntables, there’s been a relatively recent CD reissue of Cardiacs’ 1991 EP ‘Day Is Gone’ – which I somehow managed to miss when it was first announced – and which includes the original three B-sides (No Bright Side, Ideal and concert favourite Joining The Plankton). This is from the pre-‘Sing To God’ lineup: another quartet but with Dominic Luckman on drums and, ostensibly, Bic Hayes on second guitar (prior to his explosive stints in Levitation and Dark Star, and to his current position etching dark psychedelic guitar shadings in ZOFFF).
Actually, since this was a time of shuffle and change in the band it’s unclear as to whether Bic or Jon Poole is providing the extra galactic bangs and shimmerings on the EP. However, for Day Is Gone itself the attention should be on Tim Smith’s grand bottle-rocket of a solo, capping what’s both one of Cardiacs’ most autumnal songs and one of their most headrushing cosmic efforts – a bout of November skygazing gone bright and vivid. See below for the original video in all of its low-budget saucer-eyed glory, and pick up the CD here.
Cardiacs: ‘Heaven Born And Ever Bright’
Note also that a couple of other early-‘90s Cardiacs recordings have made it back on CD in the past six months. ‘Heaven Born And Ever Bright’ (the parent album for Day Is Gone) shows Cardiacs at their brightest and bashing-est, but hiding a wounded heart. ‘All That Glitters Is A Mares Nest’ – the recording of a raucous 1990 septet concert at the Salisbury Arts Centre – was both the last hurrah of the 1980s lineup (with carousel keyboards, saxophone and half-a-scrapyard’s-worth of percussion rig) and, for my money, is also one of the greatest live rock recordings ever made. See if you agree.
Cardiacs: ‘All That Glitters Is A Mares Nest’ (2014 reissue)
‘Mares Nest’ also made a welcome resurfacing on DVD a couple of years ago – see below for a typically quaking example of the band in action. It’s also worth repeating that all of the profits from the recording sales continue to go towards palliative care and physical therapy for Tim Smith, who’s still engaged in the slow painful recovery from his crippling stroke of 2008.
Knifeworld: ‘Home Of The Newly Departed’
Meanwhile, Knifeworld – who feature an ex-Cardiac and, while being very much their own eclectic and tuneful proposition, carry a certain continuation of the Cardiacs spirit along with them – have collated early, interim and now-unavailable tracks onto a full-length album, ‘Home Of The Newly Departed’. The seven tracks (dating from between 2009 and 2012) bridge the space between their ‘Buried Alone: Tales of Crushing Defeat’ debut and last year’s tour-de-force ‘The Unravelling’.
If you want to read my thoughts on the original releases, visit the original ‘Misfit City’ reviews of the ‘Dear Lord, No Deal’ and ‘Clairvoyant Fortnight’ EPs from which six of the tracks are taken. (I’ve just had a look back myself and discovered that I’ve previously described them as a band who could drag up exultation with their very fingernails, as starchildren weighed down by dark matter, as possessing “a knack of dissecting difficult feelings via swirling psychedelic sleight-of-hand” and as “an almighty and skilful art-rock mashup, with horns and bassoons poking out of it every which-way and strangely kinking, spiraling spines of rhythm and harmony locking it all together.” I must have been pretty excitable, on each occasion.)
Alternatively, have a look at the videos below. Also, if you’re in England during the end of May, the band (in full eight-person glory) are out on a short tour featuring the debut of new music.
Tim Bowness: ‘Stupid Things That Mean The World’
With his erstwhile/ongoing no-man bandmate Steven Wilson going from strength to strength as a solo act, Tim Bowness also continues to concentrate on work under his own name – sleek, melancholy art-pop with a very English restraint, fired with a desperate passion and shaded with subtleties and regrets. His third album, ‘Stupid Things That Mean The World’, is due for release on July 17th; barely a year after his last effort ‘Abandoned Dancehall Dreams’ (one of my own favourite records of 2014).
If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. ‘Stupid Things That Mean The World’ features the ‘Abandoned…’ core band of Tim plus his usual cohorts Michael Bearpark, Stephen Bennett, and Andrew Booker, and on spec sounds as if it’ll be a smooth progression and development from the previous album. It also features guest showings from three generations of art rock (Phil Manzanera and Peter Hammill; David Rhodes and Pat Mastelotto; Colin Edwin, Bruce Soord, Anna Phoebe and Rhys Marsh) and string arrangements by art-rock-friendly composer Andrew Keeling.
Expect a typically Burning Shed-ish range of format options: the double CD mediabook edition (with companion disc of alternate mixes and demos including an unreleased no-man demo from 1994), and LP versions in either black vinyl or transparent vinyl (CDs included with each). Pre-ordering gets you a downloadable FLAC version of the 5.1 mix, plus the usual cute postcard. Sorry – I have no early tasters for ‘Stupid Things…’, but here’s a taste of one of the slower, lusher tracks from ‘Abandoned Dancehall Dreams’ for the benefit of anyone who missed it last year.
Earlier on, while discussing Cardiacs, I briefly mentioned Bic Hayes and his time in Levitation. For those of you who are unfamiliar with them – or who weren’t around in early ’90s Britain to witness their brief, Roman candle of a run – they were a band who eagerly fused together an enormous sound, leashing and running with a frenzied and energized take on psychedelic rock, driving post-punk noise and earnest, distressed chanting from their singer, the former House of Love guitar star Terry Bickers. Sadly, they’ve become best known as the springboard by which Terry catapulted himself first into frontmanhood, then into the uncharted and finally (via some tortured decisions and unfortunate outbursts) into the obscure.
In truth, Levitation were an equal conspiracy of five. As well as Terry and Bic, there was Robert White (a baby-faced free-festival veteran and secret-weapon multi-instrumentalist, who’d later lead The Milk & Honey Band), an undersung alt.rock bass hero called Laurence O’Keefe and David Francolini, an astounding and slightly demonic drummer who could run the gamut from pattering rain to pneumatic drill in a single roll round his kit (and who, within Levitation, had the perfect opportunity to do so). Fuelled equally by inspiration, drugs and sheer hard work, they strived for three intense years while living on the outside of their skins, and briefly came close to making some very unfashionable sounds current again.
While they were certainly a “head” band – hippy punks who joined floating threads of British counter-culture, spontaneity and resistance together – it’s vital to remember that Levitation were never your average festival band. They were never complacent, never entitled. More Yippie than trustafarian, they seemed (Bickers, in particular) to be desperately chasing revelations just over the rim of the horizon. Their ethos and experience was best summed up – or, more accurately, caught in a passing flare – in a lyric from their song Against Nature ), with Terry choking out “there is an answer, but I’ve yet to find out where” over a raging foam of guitars. Fingers (and not a few minds) got scorched along the way. In May 1993, it culminated in Terry’s wracked, brutal self-ejection from the band – in a spurt of slogans and despair – during a concert at the Tufnell Park Dome, just a short walk from Misfit City’s current home.
There have been some reconcilations since then (not least Bic, David and Laurence reuniting in the wonderful but equally short-lived Dark Star five years afterwards) but there have been no reunion, and no-one has ever seemed to want to go back. However, on Monday this week – Record Store Day 2015 – the Flashback label released the first Levitation music for twenty years – ‘Never Odd Or Even’, a vinyl-only EP containing three tracks from the band’s lost 1992 album ‘Meanwhile Gardens’ (these being Never Odd Or Even, Greymouth and Life Going Faster). More information is here, although if you want to pick up one of the five hundred copies you’d better find your nearest participating British record store here: they might have some left. (There’s an earlier version of the title track below, in perhaps a rawer form.)
I’ve described ‘Meanwhile Gardens’ as a lost album, which isn’t strictly true. Although the record was recorded prior to Terry’s explosive departure, there was life after Bickers, For just over a year, singer Steve Ludwin took on the frontman role; during this time the band took it upon themselves to partially re-work the album with Ludwin’s vocals rolled out firmly over Terry’s. The resulting version of ‘Meanwhile Gardens’ was only released briefly in Australia. Following the split of the Ludwin lineup and the final end of the band, it’s always been regarded (rightly or wrongly) as something of a bastard appendix to the Bickers-era albums.
The happier news is that, following up ‘Never Odd Or Even’, Flashback are about to give ‘Meanwhile Gardens’ its own new lease of life with the active collaboration of the original lineup (including Terry Bickers). The album’s original vocals have been restored, the songs polished to satisfaction and a final tracklisting agreed upon. Although former album tracks Graymouth and Life Going Faster have been ceded to the ‘Never Odd…’ EP, the 2015 version of ‘Meanwhile Gardens’ keeps four of the tracks familiar from the Ludwin version (Food For Powder, Gardens Overflowing, Even When Your Eyes Are Open and the vaulting soar of King of Mice) and adds five songs previously only available via bootlegs (Bodiless, Imagine The Sharks, Evergreen, I Believe, Burrows and Sacred Lover). Apparently, it’ll be out sometime in “summer 2015” as a single CD and limited-edition double LP, each coming with gatefold sleeve and new artwork by original Levitation cover artist Cally.
It’s probably best to keep track of progress on the ‘Meanwhile Gardens’ release here; but meanwhile here’s the Bickers version of Even When Your Eyes Are Open (the last single the band released before he quit) and a bootleg-sourced version of the startling post-psychedelic stretchout Burrows – just to whet the appetite.
News on two long-awaited second albums, both now available for pre-order.
(Brief rant first. Up until now ‘Misfit City’ has avoided reproducing or paraphrasing current news releases, apart from the odd crowdfunding mention. Too many music blogs are rolling shills, just throwing out links and one or two lines of PR blurb – fine if you only want a quick squirt of info, but I prefer to provide something to read and reflect on. Now I’m relaxing my stance: partly because release schedules are moving too fast for me to keep up with them properly, and also because ‘Misfit City’ readers probably appreciate the opportunity to pursue a few things on their own. Hence this first “through the feed” post, passing on and personalising info on promising upcoming releases or events which I’ve heard about. This will flesh out the City’s posting schedules and also allow me to indulge myself as pure enthusiast, minus the more sober and serious responsibilities that come with in-depth reviewing. Having unbent myself a little, I’ve found I’m enjoying it. Wheedling rant over. Now…)
Tim Bowness: ‘Abandoned Dancehall Dreams’
On 23rd June, Tim Bowness releases ‘Abandoned Dancehall Dreams’ on Inside Out Music. I know I wasn’t alone in hoping for Tim to release a new no-man album this year, but thanks to bandmate Steven Wilson’s ongoing commitments to his own solo career, we get this as an alternative: a might-have-been no-man album reworked as a Bowness solo effort. The album features contributions from the no-man live band (including Darkroom‘s Mike Bearpark and Henry Fool‘s Stephen Bennett) plus a scatter of interesting guest players (King Crimson’s Pat Mastelotto, Porcupine Tree’s Colin Edwin, Anna Phoebe from Trans-Siberian Orchestra, composer/string arranger Andrew Keeling).
Those who’ll still miss the presence of Steven Wilson can console themselves by the fact that he’s done the album mix, but it’s always worth pointing out that no-man is an equal partnership for a very good reason – and that Tim’s work outside no-man during the band’s lengthy absences over the past decade has flowered into much broader areas and accomplishments. For ‘Abandoned Dancehall Dreams’, expect plenty of violins, choirs, an edgy croon and some immediate art-rock songs which should effortlessly combine the wracked, the sleek and a very English blend of wryness and longing. One song, The Warm-Up Man Forever, was premiered as a highlight of the no-man tour back in 2012.
A download version comes later, but as regards the solid options the usual Burning Shed boutique format options apply for the pre-order. For turntable worshippers, there’s not only a vinyl version but also a very limited white vinyl edition, both of which come with a free CD version. For musical completists and sleeve-note fans, the double CD version comes with alternate/outtake versions plus remixes by Richard Barbieri, UXB and Grasscut, as well as a nice fat 16-page essay booklet (of the kind I used to write, once upon a time). Sweet. Some live dates follow in July, featuring members of the erstwhile Bowness band, the no-man live band, and Henry Fool (all of whom appear to have morphed together into an overlapping art-rock amoeba). Loop-guitar thresher Matt Stevens and silky Italian art-rockers Nosound appear as support at some dates.
Stars In Battledress: ‘In Droplet Form’
The week before that, on June 16th, sibling duo James and Richard Larcombe – a.k.a Stars In Battledress – release their own second album ‘In Droplet Form’ on Believers Roast. Their debut album was one of 2003’s hidden, intricate gems – a marvellous multi-levelled faux-antique toybox of sepia-ed wit, sophisticated arrangements, sly poetry and clambering harmony. Fans of Neil Hannon, Robert Wyatt, Stephen Merritt and Cyril Tawney should all have had a field day with it, but for a variety of reasons, it remained hidden. (I’m sure that my own wretched inability to complete a review at the time didn’t help…)
Since then Stars In Battledress have only reappeared sporadically, although the brothers have kept busy both separately and together. Both have worked as ensemble members of North Sea Radio Orchestra and of William D. Drake & Friends: James has played keyboards in Arch Garrison and Zag & The Coloured Beads; Richard has kept himself busy with his Sparkysongs project for children, no less of a challenge than keeping cranky art-rock fans happy. Yet absolutely nothing else that the Larcombes do can top the particular magic they cook up when they’re together and completely in control of their own songs.
With an eleven year gap between albums, some of these songs have been around for quite a while. The romping wit of Hollywood Says So, the rambling melodic spikes of Fluent English (an oblique essay on rebellion, Empire, personal misplacement and embarrassment) and the haunting cadences of The Women From The Ministry – all of these were highlights of Battledress sets back in the early Noughties, so it’s lovely to finally have them arriving in recorded form. If you want some idea of what Stars In Battledress are like live, here’s a review of them at Roastfest in 2011. As a taster for the new album, here’s their video for the opening track A Winning Decree (directed by Ashley Jones of Chaos Engineers).
‘In Droplet Form’ is a CD-only release for now, and can be pre-ordered here, with a London album launch (also featuring Arch Garrison and Prescott) downstairs at the Roundhouse on April 13th.
Also in June, the Laura Moody debut album should be appearing. I’m really looking forward to that one too.
The first new music from King Crimson in a whole decade rolls in with a yawn… or the sound of a hitman’s car tyres slithering quietly past your house. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s subliminal – a dark, stretching, barely audible ambient sound. Reverbed and resting right on the edge of the listener’s attention, it’s something which creeps in and cases the joint, maybe clears it of distractions. The last set of King Crimson albums, back in the ’80s, went straight in with clean, pealing, bell-like guitar patterns. Perhaps there’s a big clue to current Crimsonizing in that this one doesn’t.
Although the band’s known for its high turnover of disparate personnel and fresh starts, ‘VROOOM’ unexpectedly reunites that stable-against-the-odds 1980s Crimson lineup (Robert Fripp, Adrian Belew, Tony Levin and Bill Bruford) but augments them with two new members: Trey Gunn (a graduate of Fripp’s Guitar Craft course, doubling Levin’s 10-string Chapman Stick) and Pat Mastelotto (a jobbing, dextrous rock drummer best known for being part of American AOR act Mr Mister). Historically, when Crimson’s added members it’s been for as much for specific sonorities as much as personal approach. Perhaps a jazz or military saxophonist to break up a beat group, or a violinist to bring in classical textures. Maybe a Stick player to replace, fan out and reshape the bass chair; maybe, to upset the whole applecart and reboot the other players’ brains, an avant-garde improv percussionist with a thousand-yard stare and a junkyard armoury, or a master of cartoonish sound-effect guitar. Conversely, this is the first time Fripp’s apparently hired people mostly to thicken out the existing sound. This might be another clue.
What emerges – after that scouting roll – does and doesn’t sound like King Crimson. The New York brightnesses of the ’80s lineup (those circular Steve Reich and Talking Heads echoes which so thoroughly rebooted Crimson’s former Anglo-prog approach) have been banished. The title track is a descending, angry staircase of screech – simultaneously in synch and slightly ragged, like a gigantic work-worn machine developing a telling fault. If there’s a template for it, it’s the sound and structure of key ’70s Crimson track Red (the frowning, minimalist/totalitarian march which announced that Fripp had honed his once-florid instincts to a fine metallic economy).
The difference is that the big bare bones of this follow-up are fletched with additional details; disruptive flams and spurs, heavy digital processing resulting in analogue splurge, gears splintering but carrying on. A second huge instrumental track – THRaK – lurches forward in angry displacements, a blind giant hammering at a wall. In both tracks there are breathers which aren’t breathers – sighing passages where instruments fall back and Fripp’s misty ambient drones come in; or where a clambering bittersweet arpeggio makes a bed for a solo passage of wracked and pearly beauty before the hammers come down again. Throughout, there’s the sense of highly-stressed engineering precision just one slip away from disastrously throwing a rod, or a kind of hellish chamber music electrified to breaking point.
The band’s nervously sunny human face during the ’80s, Adrian Belew has been sucked backwards into this bigger, blurrier ensemble (predominantly providing a battery of guitar shrieks, leftfield lunges and rubbery solo lines). He still sings; is still the go-to song guy; but it’s clear that the songs have been almost entirely subverted by the new approach. On Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream, King Crimson rattles through a bluesy lurch; Adrian sounding like an animatronic waiter covering John Lee Hooker, delivering sub-Dada wordplay in murmur-to-scream builds before the band explodes into barely contained passages of full-on percussive chaos.
A little of the ’80s Crimson is allowed into Cage, with Fripp’s cackling speed-arpeggios making it a close cousin to ‘Discipline’s breakneck Thela Hun Ginjeet. Like Thela, it’s a neurotic street cry, but what was once simply threatening has now turned actively murderous as Belew’s prissy paranoia is taken up to international level (“walking down the street, do you stare at your feet / and never do you let your eyes meet the freaks, / the deadbeat addicts, social fanatics, / they’re a dime a dozen and they carry guns. / Halloween every other day of the week… Holy smoke! somebody blew up the Pope!”) while didgeridoos yelp and Fripp provides a barrage of his most jarring, churning guitar disruptions.
A third instrumental – When I Say Stop, Continue – mingles both King Crimson’s old knack for doomy improvised sound-pictures and the band’s puckishly dry sense of humour. Over an ambient creeping horror of a Fripp Soundscape, the band knock, shrill, drill and build up a swelling industrial noiseuntil Belew yells “Ok, come to a dead stop. One, two, three, four!…” only for the band to wilfully drift on without him, trailing ghostly shrouds of presence, until the drummers slam and nail the doors shut.
Only with One Time do both King Crimson and Belew emerge from this deliberately uneasy fug. Here, the sextet drop delicately into perfect synch and sweet restraint, a softly-mutated post-bossa pulse and Levin’s springy bassline coaxing along Belew’s lapping reverse-rhythm guitar and gentle vocal melancholia. It’s a reminder that King Crimson also have a knack for the beautiful offbeat ballad alongside the harsh upheaval. This is no exception, grasping wistfully and tenderly after a fleeting sense of centredness, throwing what’s come before into a more human-scaled relief.
King Crimson: ‘VROOOM’
Discipline Global Mobile, DGM 0004 (5 028676 900016)
CD-only mini-album
Released: 31st October 1994 Get it from:(2020 update) some original copies still available from Burning Shed – also reissued, along with the material from its companion volume ‘The VROOOM Sessions’, as part of 2015’s 16-disc ‘THRAK BOX (King Crimson Live and Studio Recordings 1994-1997)’, also available from Burning Shed King Crimson online:
Swoon. /swo͞on/ A verb. To be emotionally affected by someone or something that one admires; become ecstatic. Here are some people and things that make me swoon. #swoon #swoonage
Misfit City 