Steve Martland - 266 (1989)

One of the intial group of releases that launched Factory Records' short-lived Factory Classical imprint, this album contains two works by English composer Steve Martland (1954-2013).  Given the parent label's all-consuming obsession with catalogue numbers, I suppose it makes sense that all the initial Classical albums were released under numbered titles: 226, 236, 246 and so on. 

Martland had studied under Louis Andriessen, which may have provided some of the inspiration for integrating rock instruments into an orchestral score, as heard on Babi Yar (composed 1983).  Named after the ravine outside Kiev that bore witness to so many Nazi atrocities, Babi Yar is a firey, dramatic work for three orchestras.  As well as evoking the horror of the Holocaust, it's supposed to also contain hope for humanity, and the slow, dignifed Epilogue is particularly affecting.

The other work on 266 is Drill for two pianos, composed in 1987 and played here by the two Dutch pianists for whom it was written.  With equal amounts of Martland's choppy, striking rhythmic touch and really gorgeous, flowing and lyrical passages, Drill should be right up the street of anyone who likes John Adams' piano works, for example.  Martland would release a few more albums in his lifetime, before his obvious talent was tragically cut short by a heart attack at the age of 58.

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pw: sgtg

The Walker Brothers - Nite Flights (1978)

I'm not sure what exactly was the catalyst that finally ended Scott Walker's "wilderness years", in which he'd produced no new songs in seven years, and in such spectacular fashion.  It's generally written that he'd been coasting through an unhappy state of contractual affairs, then reunited with the Walker Brothers at his lowest creative ebb.  By the time the trio put together their third album post-reunion, they apparently saw which way the wind was blowing for the GTO label and went for broke.  But if Gary Leeds and John Maus turned in a fairly decent two/four songs each, Scott Engel's were suddenly on another planet altogether.

The first 16 minutes of Nite Flights, which were also released as an EP, are in hindsight the obvious curtain-raiser to Scott Walker's late solo career, in which each album reached further into the abyss.  Wonder what on earth anyone who was listening in 1978 thought.  Kicking off with discordant guitar blasts and blistering solos between the verses, Shutout is just the beginning of the much more abstract approach to lyrics that Walker had adopted - there's even a sly wink to Brion Gysin at the start of the second verse.  Fat Mama Kick takes inspiration from French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy against a similarly harsh background.  Both fade out just as they seem to be getting going, but the album's title track is longer and more electronically tinged, with clear inspiration from Bowie (which wouldn't just go one way).  Then there's The Electrician.

How do you follow a six-minute dark ambient (with an orchestral middle section) horror-story about CIA torture?  Gary Leeds has the unfortunate task, and finishes the first side of the album with the respectable Death Of Romance.  Den Haague is even better, with neat production touches.  By the time you get to John Maus' songs that close the album, though, it's impossible to escape the fact that nothing could touch the sheer otherwordly genius of the first four tracks.

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pw: sgtg

Scott Walker at SGTG:
Climate Of Hunter
Tilt
Soused

Terry Riley - In C (1968)

One of the foundational texts of minimalism, and one that still gets interpreted afresh every so often.  A large part of the enduring appeal of In C to new generations of musicians is that the basic score is so open to interpretation: it simply consists of 53 phrases, to be played in numbered order; skip some if you like, and change the instrumentation around at will.

This, though, was the album that preceded them all.  Recorded just four years after Riley devised the score (with a little help from Steve Reich who suggested the underlying 'pulse'), this March 1968 recording was Riley's first album for CBS Masterworks, and significantly raised his profile.  Riley plays sax, Jon Hassell trumpet, Margaret Hassell 'the pulse', and the other instruments are oboe, bassoon, clarinet, flute, viola, trombone, vibraphone and marimbaphone.  The piece spends its opening minutes gathering momentum, and then opens out into a self-sustaining fractal web of hypnotic bliss.  More Riley next week.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Rainbow In Cologne
Descending Moonshine Dervishes

Charles Mingus - Cumbia & Jazz Fusion (1978)

Been filling some gaps in my Mingus listening lately, and this album stood out as a particularly satisfying oddity.  Consisting of two epic slabs of late Mingus, recorded a year apart, Cumbia & Jazz Fusion finds his late-period arrangements still wild, dense and exciting, inspired particularly by Colombian dance rhythms on the title track, hence the name.  Perhaps this is more of a 'let's release these long tracks together' compilation, rather than a proper album - think Big Fun by Miles Davis, perhaps; but like that collection, Cumbia is well worth having.

The second track was recorded first, in Rome in 1976, and was intended to be a film soundtrack for the Italian political satire Todo Modo.  In the end, the filmmakers went with Morricone instead, but luckily Mingus' score was saved for this album - it's well worth a listen in its own right.  Some sections show Mingus clearly working with soundtrack music in mind, and others are just great passages of classic Mingus jazz writing, augmenting his familar musicians of the time with Italian players.  The real treat, though, is the 28-minute title track from March 1977, with its insistent Latin rhythms (including a percussion solo) and a fun vocal section sung by Mingus.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Oh Yeah
The Black Saint And The Sinner Lady
Mingus Plays Piano
Let My Children Hear Music
plus:
Blue Moods
Money Jungle
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

Paul Dresher - Dark Blue Circumstance (1993 compi, rec. 1983-92)

A collection of some key early works by Paul Dresher (b. 1951, Los Angeles).  It was actually that gorgeous cover image that first drew me to this one - photographer's website here - and the music is equally lovely.  The title piece is the odd one out here, and represents the side of Dresher that liked to experiment with electronics & tape loops.  It's a solo electric guitar piece developed between 1982-87, and offers Dresher's take on Frippertronics - not the most original idea, but the overlapping layers are well structured and sound absolutely beautiful as the piece builds.

Everything else on the album is scored for orchestral instruments, and in one case voices.  Firstly, Double Ikat (1988-90) takes its name from the South East Asian style of weaving, and started life as a dance commission.  The violin, piano and percussion dart around each other in the uptempo movement, then create a haunting atmosphere in the (mostly) slow movement.  The latter reminded me of Morton Feldman in places, although Dresher credits Lou Harrison, who I've still to get into, with the inspiration.

Channels Passing is another choreographical commission, for small ensemble, that will appeal to fans of late 70s Steve Reich.  Lastly, Night Songs (1979-81) for soprano, two tenors and six instruments is the longest work here at 28 minutes.  In four sections, it takes fragements of Native American/African/Polynesian verse and allows the singers to free-associate the words, effectively turning them into dream imagery as the instrumental backing alternately pulses and ripples along. On the evidence of this collection, I'll be on the lookout for more Dresher albums - highly recommended.

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pw: sgtg

Scott Walker - Climate Of Hunter (1984)

Still can't believe that this is the year we lost Scott Walker.  Been giving this album, his sole release of the 80s, a fresh appraisal recently, so here it in its short & sweet icy glory.  Written and recorded quickly in 1983 after a sluggish start at reactivating his solo career, Walker assembled a team of high-profile session musicians for Climate Of Hunter.  On tracks two and three, Mark Isham drops by for some subtle shading.

A largely muted and mid-tempo affair, only really catching fire on Tracks Three, Five and Seven (yup, that's their titles - Walker didn't want song titles to 'get in the way' for half of the album), Climate Of Hunter is an intriguing cross between an 80s update of his late 60s albums and a pointer towards Tilt a decade later, with song structures gradually dissolving here.  The seven Walker compositions show his wordplay becoming ever more abstract, and the closing cover of Tenessee Williams' Blanket Roll Blues, backed only by Mark Knopfler on bluesy guitar, suits Walker down to the ground.  More next week.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Tilt | Soused

Pharoah Sanders - Thembi (1971)

A hugely enjoyable, often downright mellow and groovy, mixed bag from Pharoah Sanders' early years on Impulse.  The fearsome free jazz skronk of his previous records and guest appearances began to tone down around this time, concentrated into just one burst of ferocity on the second track here.

Before that is the gorgeous opener Astral Travelling, spontaneously written by Lonnie Liston Smith on his first encounter with a Fender Rhodes.  The title track coasts along on a nice Latin rhythm, then Love, a bass solo spotlight for Cecil McBee, completes the November 1970 recording session.  The final two tracks date from January 1971, and are the most intricate and interesting in terms of their instrumentation.  Sanders packs in turns on koto, flute and sax on Morning Prayer, before the tempo picks up and leads straight into the closing free-for-all of Bailophone Dance.  All in all, a great album that shows Sanders' stylistic versatility to maximum effect.

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pw: sgtg

Nurse With Wound - Gyllensköld, Geijerstam And I At Rydberg's (1983)

Last Friday's selection from the NWW List reminded me that there's been no postings of Mr S himself for quite some time.  So here's some prime early emanations from the haunted house, which sit chronologically in the list below between Homotopy To Marie and Sylvie & Babs.  Stapleton had just met one of his lifelong friends and major collaborators in David Tibet, and this album (often regarded as a mini-album due to its notable brevity compared to most other NWW releases) marked their first time working together.

Stapleton puts Tibet's voice to good use straight away, mangling it into a ghostly hall of mirrors whilst his own clangs and drones from the Homotopy era continue to evolve.  Sped up bits of music, buzzing, creaking and much more fill out the ten minutes of Several Odd Moments Prior To Lunch.  Other, female phantoms are also present, and the whole thing showcases Stapleton's increasing skills in mixing, editing and contrasting dynamics.  Following Tibet's intonation about wild beasts, we're straight into the queasy horns, piano stabs and banjo loops of Phenomenon Of Aquarium And Bearded Lady for another five minutes of classic early NWW.

Taking up the whole of Side 2 on the original LP (for the shortlived Disques Du Crepuscle sub-label LAYLAH) is Dirty Fingernails.  Opening with some of the noisiest NWW outside of Stapleton's earliest collaborations, it only lets up occasionally for more playful or atmospheric sounds.  Eventually, a period of near silence gives way to more scraping and slurping, before an epic crashing and swirling finish.

Until 2007, vinyl was the only way to hear Gyllensköld in its entirety, as only remixed and shortened versions, known as Odd, Aquarium and the third track at least keeping its title intact, appeared on a couple of NWW compilations.  Odd was the most strikingly different, highlighting the more musical aspects of the track in under three minutes, Aquarium was the most similar with the rhythm more pronounced, and the reworked Dirty Fingernails managed to add in some more NWW scraps that also appeared on Stapleton's 1989 clearout exercise A Sucked Orange (must post that sometime).  All three are appended as bonus tracks to the original versions on this 2007 CD reissue.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
To The Quiet Men From A Tiny Girl
Merzbild Schwet
Insect And Individual Silenced
Homotopy To Marie
The Sylvie And Babs High-Thigh Companion
Spiral Insana
Lumb's Sister
Soliloquy For Lilith
Thunder Perfect Mind
Alice The Goon
A Missing Sense
Salt Marie Celeste
Angry Eelectric Finger: Spitch'cock One
Paranoia In Hi-Fi
The Surveillance Lounge 
Painting With Priests

Luciano Berio - Coro (1980)

Italian composer Luciano Berio (1925-2003) might have been particularly notable for his use of electronics, but here's something equally striking that's purely choral-orchestral.  Completed in 1977, Coro runs continuously for nearly an hour, packing in folk lyrics from around the world (sung by soloists) and poetry by Pablo Neruda (sung in chorus) into 31 sections.  The vast array of languages that the texts draw from were translated by Berio to just Italian, French, Spanish, English and German.

Berio took inspiration from the contemporary turmoil in Italy, and the work returns several times to the Neruda line "Come and see the blood in the streets".  In terms of the listening experience, Coro is dense and powerful, especially when the 40 voices and 40 instruments all come together, and took me a few listens to navigate.  It runs on its own internal logic, often reusing bits of text in different contexts, and the massed climaxes with the Neruda text maintain the dramatic momentum.  Hugely rewarding stuff for deep listening.

Original LP cover, 1980

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Also recommended at SGTG:
Luigi Nono: Como Una Ola De Fuerza Y Luz

Azimuth - s/t (1977)

Gave this a fresh spin whilst out on a walk last week, as soon as I felt the first autumnal breeze coming.  Then as the opening insistent piano sequence and Norma Winstone's wordless loveliness washed over me, remembered I still haven't given the album a posting here, to complete the original Azimuth 'trilogy'.  They'd eventually release a fourth and fifth album, but those came nowhere near to capturing the brilliance of the three in the links below.

The trio of the English power couple of jazz (Winstone & Taylor) and Canadian-born Wheeler first came together to record as Azimuth in March 1977.  The result was not only one of the most definitively ECM-sounding records ever, but also offered a jazz-ambient twist on the archetype with Taylor's use of synth.  After the aforementioned opener, and the piano-based O, the looped sequence underpinning the group's title track fades in for twelve minutes of sheer magic.  Winstone floats over the top in drones and gasps, performing an aerial ballet with Wheeler's trumpet smears.

Taylor next returns to piano, but quickly introduces another synth sequence as well, as Winstone begins the first real lyrics on the album then mostly lets Wheeler take the lead for the rest of The Tunnel, another high point.  Wheeler gets a brief solo track afterwards, to set the stage for the beautiful piano-based closer Jacob.  One of the absolutely indispensible crown jewels in the ECM catalogue.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
The Touchstone
Départ

Horde Catalytique Pour La Fin - Gestation Sonore (1971)

French free-improvisation at its finest, in the sole release from this quartet.  As per the group name, they envisaged themselves making music for the apocalypse, birthing an elemental new sound as per the album title/track titles. 

In practice, this means plenty of skronking, ill-sounding sax, slippery bass, bits of vibraphone tinkling around like animated skeletons, and atmospheric percussion.  At times the sax player switches to flute, either calming proceedings or enhancing the creepout according to the moment.  All of this comes together most effectively on the 19-minute closing track, the sustained atmosphere working best at length.  By the end of the decade, the sounds of this strange, great record had wafted across the Channel and onto a certain List - and deservedly so. You can definitely hear the influence on early Nurse With Wound.

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pw: sgtg

Joshua Rifkin - Piano Rags By Scott Joplin (1987 compi, rec. 1970-74)

Just some great piano music from 110-120 years ago - let it never be said I don't keep up with the hip and happening trends in modern music.  These recordings were made in the 1970s by pianist & musicologist Joshua Rifkin, and released in three volumes; this CD reissue contains all of Vol. 1 from 1970 (Nonesuch's first million-seller), plus highlights from the others (original releases '72 and '74).  Around this time, The Sting hit cinemas, and that plus a handful of other key ragtime recordings all fed into a fresh revival of an often maligned and misconstrued musical form.

Rifkin's performances of the piano rags by Scott Joplin (1868-1917) were hugely important in their reverential, serious treatment, presenting ragtime as something of equal worth to classical music.  In Joplin's case, it's well deserved - he honed the emerging syncopated piano style of the late 19th century to a fine art, full of harmonic life and great subtleties.  To make sure this wasn't overlooked, Joplin noted on many of his original scores "Do not play fast - It is never right to play ragtime fast", and Rifkin keeps both tempi and dynamics in check (unless the piece genuinely demands otherwise) to let this gorgeous music speak for itself.  I chanced across this CD a few weeks back and it's been in heavy rotation ever since - I'd only heard the evergreen opening pair of tunes before, but there's so much more to Joplin than that, and new joys emerge with every listen.

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pw: sgtg

György Ligeti - Clear Or Cloudy: Complete Recordings On Deutsche Grammophon (2006 compi, rec. 1968-96)

An epic, five-hour immersion in the music of one of the most extraordinary avant-garde composers of the 20th century - and one of the best known, thanks in no small part to Stanley Kubrick.  György Sándor Ligeti was born in Transylvania in 1923, and this box set was released to mark his death in 2006, and to collect all of the recordings of his music for the DG label.

Sequenced in roughly chronological order, the box first highlights some of Ligeti's least-known works from his time in Budapest in the early 1950s.  This chamber music barely hints at the otherwordliness to come, but still managed to fall foul of official censors, and wasn't performed in its entirety for some time afterwards - in fact, these are the most recent recordings in the set.  Disc 1 is rounded out by the 10 Pieces For Wind Quintet and Second String Quartet, both from 1968 when Ligeti had settled in Vienna and was about to unleash his most memorable music.

Disc 2, then, collects the familiar stuff from Ligeti at the height of his powers, and was re-released as a single-disc compilation in 2012.  The dense, slowly shifting microtonality of his orchestral works like Atmospheres, Lux Aeterna and Lontano is here, along with two stunning pieces for solo organ.  The only work Ligeti would produce that's more alien-sounding than this period would be his brief foray into electronic music under Stockhausen at WDR in the late 50s, but all that really survives of that is Artikulation, which never appeared on a DG record so is missing here - find it on this compilation.

Disc 3 takes us further into the 60s and early 70s, with the vocal works Aventures & Nouvelles Aventures (alternate recordings on Wergo in link at the bottom), plus more concertos.  Announced with a snippet of solo trumpet, Disc 4 covers late-period Ligeti, as his focus turned to rhythm and syncopation, with some piano pieces.  Then his last two great concertos, one for piano and one for violin, prove that Ligeti was still a unique voice into the 80s and 90s.  An absolutely stunning collection, taking in all the major bases of a unique genius.

Disc 1 link
Disc 2 link
Disc 3 link
Disc 4 link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:
Requiem, plus Wergo versions of Aventures/Nouvelles Aventures