Cosmic Couriers (Moebius, Neumeier & Engler) - Other Places (1996)

Over four days in May 1996, two krautrock legends reconnected with each other for the improvised sessions that made up this album.  Adding to their number was Jürgen Engler of Die Krupps on guitar and more synths, and the nine tracks that made up Other Places were single-take shots with no overdubs.

The album marked the first time that Moebius & Neumeier had worked together since Zero Set, but where that album was mostly based on frantic electro-grooves, Other Places brought down the tempo to much more of an industrial-rock grind.  Album opener Culture In A Small Room sets the tone for much of what follows - a grungy swirl of electronics, guitar & live drums, not necessarily requiring any development or journey - creating an atmosphere and exploring it was the priority.  Must confess I haven't really listened to Die Krupps, but I do like Einstürzende Neubauten, and there's an interesting resemblance to 90s EN in places here.  Things do get unexpectedly funky around tracks 6 and 7 thanks to Neumeier's deft drumming, which adds a nice bit of variety to the album's second half.

After Other Places, Moebius & Neumeier would work together again a couple more times, and Engler would return for 'Another Other Places', one of Moebius' final recordings of his lifetime.  By then, the 'Cosmic Couriers' tag had gone, as can be seen from the Bureau B reissue of Other Places.

New cover used for Bureau B reissue, 2014

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Liz Story - Unaccountable Effect (1985)

Liz Story's follow-up to her debut Solid Colors (see last week) offered another album's worth of superior Windham Hill solo piano, but with a couple of surprises bookending the album.  The most striking of these was the opening title track, in which Story collaborated with Mark Isham on synth to create a beautifully atmospheric piece.  On the album closer Deeper Reasons, Story collaborates with a percussionist (and also plays some herself) to eerie dramatic effect.

Everything in between these two new-sound tracks is performed by Story alone, but even here there's a definite progression from her debut.  The Bill Evans aficionado of Solid Colors has matured more into her own sound, and perhaps became more of what might be termed a New Age pianist, but still very much on her own terms.  There's no denying Story's considerable talent and lightness of touch on all of these tracks, and I think I'd go as far as saying that this is my favourite Windham Hill piano album that I've heard yet.  Definitely the most satisfying on repeat listens.

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Richard Maxfield/Harold Budd - The Oak Of The Golden Dreams (1999 compi of LPs rel. 1969-71)

Great twofer reissue of a couple of rare LPs, which came out on the Advance label for new music in 1969 and 1971.  One by a composer who ought to be better known, as his slim discography contained intriguing experiments in sound before he tragically cut his own life short at the age of 42.  The other by a very well known composer, but captured here in his earliest recordings that bear no resemblance at all to the gentle ambient pianism that he'd become famous for, so well worth investigating from that angle.

The first composer was Richard Maxfield (1927-1969), a Seattle native whose only full LP in his lifetime was the 28-minute Electronic Music [a Dutch label, Slowscan, unearthed 2 double-LPs' worth of archival material in 2014-15].  The opening piece dated back to 1960, and although titled Pastoral Symphony is actually a heady stew of early electronic tones and pulses.  Bacchanale (1963) is a jazzy collage of violin, sax and clarinet with tapes of Korean folk music dropped in, and a Beat-style narration by New York poet Edward Field.  A 1964 prepared piano work, written for and performed by David Tudor, is next, before Maxfield's album ends with the tape loop piece Amazing Grace (1960).

Harold Budd's debut album takes up the remainder of the CD, and consists of just two spellbinding tracks dating from 1970.  First is The Oak Of The Golden Dreams, a monolithic Buchla drone in which the right channel contains an unwavering (until it detunes in closing moments) E flat whilst a Riley-like modal improvisation gradually gathers pace in the left channel.  The other piece is Coeur D'Orr, in which two tracks of electronic organ are overlaid by a saxophonist.  Both are miles away from even the late 70s music that Budd first became well known for, but are no less enjoyable and are utterly hypnotic in their transportive drones.

Original LP covers

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Harold Budd at SGTG:
The Plateaux Of Mirror (with Brian Eno)
The Pearl (with Brian Eno)
Music For Three Pianos (with Daniel Lentz & Ruben Garcia)

Liz Story - Solid Colors (1982)

Out of the seemingly endless stream of solo piano demo tapes that were being mailed to Windham Hill in the wake of George Winston's initial success, there was one pianist that Will Ackerman was convinced was the real deal.  Born in San Diego in 1956, Liz Story was classically trained and had become set on a career in music following a meeting with her idol Bill Evans after a concert of his.

Story's debut album Solid Colors certainly provided much of the impressionistic accessibility that the Windham Hill audience were looking for - it's been described in retrospect as "the intellectual sister of Winston's December" - but didn't always land with more traditional jazz audiences when "critics, expecting her to tackle Ellington and Monk, panned her performances."

Their loss, to be honest: from this distance, Solid Colors is a great solo piano record, rooted in jazz, that prioritises melody and economy but doesn't dumb down her nimble touch.  Story might not be Keith Jarrett, but she's certainly more versatile than Winston, and breezes through nine originals and a closing cover of Evans' Peace Piece in a great sounding production.  Next time: Story broadens her sound a little with the help of an ambient-jazz legend.

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The Hilliard Ensemble - Perotin (1989)

As a follow-up to the Tallis album posted just before Christmas (link below), here's another heavenly hour with the Hilliards in one of their best-known releases.  Little is known about the actual person who history records as Magister Perotinus, other than that he was part of the Notre Dame school of polyphony around the late 12th century, and pioneered four-voice writing in organum.

As always, the Hilliard Ensemble are more than up to the task of making this ancient music shine in all its hypnotic, droning and swirling glory, and three pieces by writers lost to time fill out the programme of those attributed to Pérotin.  The liner notes quote no less an authority on droning, swirling music than Steve Reich, who credits this music with part of the inspiration for the underlying 'pulse' of his Music For 18 Musicians.

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Hilliard Ensemble previously posted at SGTG: 
Tallis: Lamentations of Jeremiah
Codex Speciálnik

Moebius + Roedelius - Apropos Cluster (1990)

The first Cluster reunion album emerged almost a decade on from Curiosum, and although the group name was referenced in the title, it wouldn't be until the 2010s reissues on Bureau B that this album would be credited to Cluster.  Instead, for this release on a US indie label, Moebius & Roedelius just used their names.

The technology had been updated, as was to be expected from these two electronic pioneers, and one of the criticisms levelled at Apropos Cluster is the sound of the bright digital synths, replacing the analogue warmth of old Cluster.  But it's what they do with this palette that makes Apropos unmistakably a Cluster album.  Right from the opening track (perhaps titled Grenzgänger in reference to the newly opened border in Germany?),  the sounds are tweaked and mixed in pleasingly odd ways, the rhythm constantly tripping over itself.

Emmental, which would become a live favourite, follows with a characteristically aching Roedelius piano melody framed by synth bass and little ambient whispers, then the shimmering surface of Gespiegelt proves to be another beautiful (almost bluesy!) piece that could only have come from this duo.  The album briefly waltzes its way to the end of its first half, then the whole second half is taken up by the title track.  Drifting freely through ambient and rhythmic passages, it ends with a quote from Soweisoso's Es War Einmal, tying together Cluster past and present.  Next week: Moebius catches up with another old friend/collaborator.

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BBC Proms in Japan: The Experimental Session (3rd November 2019)

This concert took place at the fringes of the first BBC Proms in Japan, a six-day festival last November headed up by the Scottish Symphony Orchestra.  At the EdgeOf venue in Shibuya, Tokyo, artists and composers from the Japanese avant-garde journeyed into sound for an engrossing hour and a half, and the concert was first broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on Boxing Day.

The first performer is Sugai Ken, who creates 'vernacular electronic music' that he describes as "neo-japonica".  It's a fascinating 20 minutes of drone & glitch electro-acoustic sound, vocal samples and more.  The middle set spotlights two instrumentalists, on saxophone and piano.  Firstly, Masanori Oishi performs two solo sax pieces, followed by Emiko Mirua on two pieces for piano, including a lovely Takemitsu miniature.

Oishi and Miura then perform together, on a short improvisation and a lengthy piece by Jacob Ter Veldhuis (aka JacobTV) entitled Sho-Myo, which translates as 'voice and wisdom'.  Set in three movements and sampling Japanese Buddhist chants in the first two, it's a gorgeous sound-world that I'd say is the highlight here.  To close, American composer Carl Stone (who has been resident in Japan since the 90s) performs a stunning 25-minute improv with voice artist Akaihirume.

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Toru Takemitsu - November Steps / Olivier Messiaen - Et Exspecto Resurrectionem (1970)

Staying with the loose theme of Japan for this post and Friday's, here's a great work by Toru Takemitsu.  November Steps was composed in 1967 as a commission by the New York Philharmonic, with Takemitsu working in self-imposed seclusion with only a couple of Debussy scores as a reference point.

The result was this striking 19-minute piece in which the solo instruments are shakuhachi flute and the lute-like biwa, which take part in lengthy dialogues that fully showcase their unique resonances.  In the brief orchestral passages, these sounds are echoed in the strings.  November Steps was premiered under Seiji Ozawa in November 1967; this recording by the Concertgebouw/Haitink took place two years later, and was given an inspired pairing on LP with a great version of Messiaen's hallucinatory apocalypse, Et Exspecto Resurrectionem (see links below for a different version).  A tiny bit more Takemitsu - and lots more besides - coming on Friday.

Original Japanese LP, 1970

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More Takemitsu at SGTG: Asterism/Requiem/Green/The Dorian Horizon
and Messiaen:
Quatre Études De Rythme
Des Canyons Aux Étoiles
Turangalîla Symphony / L'ascension
Et Exspecto Resurrectionem Mortuorum (Erato recording cond. by Boulez), etc

Vangelis - Antarctica (1983)

A winter favourite of mine, and an underrated Vangelis album.  Antarctica was the soundtrack to Koreyoshi Kurahara's film Nankyoku Monogatari (South Pole Story) about the ill-fated Japanese exploration of 1958.  I haven't seen the movie, but the music here aptly conjures up great expanses of ice and natural beauty, as well as the treacherous weather conditions and moments of high drama.

The grand, stately theme sets the stage with its simple melody and gradually developing percussion.  The main melody will repeat quite a few times across the album, which would feel a bit like short-changing listeners on a regular studio record, but is perfectly fine on a film soundtrack.  Vangelis always keeps things interesting.  The second track, Anarctic Echoes, is a particular highlight, with the melody slowed right down amid a dreamlike atmosphere; Life Of Antarctica is another that develops really well.  The more upbeat moments of high drama work well too, like the jittery synths of Kinematic, and the darker atmospheres of Other Side Of Antarctica.  Wrap up warm and enjoy.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
L'apocalypse Des Animaux
Soil Festivities
Invisible Connections

Colin Currie with Sam Walton and Robin Michael - Striking A Balance: Contemporary Percussion Music (1998)

An hour of great marimba & vibraphone-based music, released in 1998 to herald the fresh new talent of percussionist Colin Currie, born right here in Edinburgh in 1976.  The well chosen and sequenced programme takes in big name composers from Bach to Reich, with some lesser known ones in between.

The album starts with its knottiest piece, written by Tosh Ichiyanagi in 1982 as variations on a Caprice by Paganini.  Here, as with about half the album, Currie is accompanied by pianist Robin Michael, who also features on the following quartet of miniatures from Chick Corea's Children's Songs.  Currie is also paired on a few tracks with another marimba player, Sam Walton, resulting in a beautiful Alborada Del Gracioso from Ravel's Miroirs, a little bit of Bach from English Suite No. 2, and Reich's Nagoya Marimbas.  Lovely chilled weekend listening.

Alternate cover

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Daniel Lentz (performed by Arlene Dunlap) - Point Conception (1984)

An epic 36-minute work for nine piano parts played in octaves, overdubbed in a 'cascading echo system', Point Conception was written by Pennsylvania-born composer Daniel Lentz in 1979.  It was named for the headland on the California coast that separates Southern and Central CA, and the layers of piano performed by Lentz's longtime collaborator Arlene Dunlap ably evoke the ebb and flow of the great tides.  The seemingly endless waves of sound are often like a grander version of John Adams' early piano pieces, e.g. Phrygian Gates.  Stirring stuff.

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Previously posted at SGTG: Music For Three Pianos, with Harold Budd & Ruben Garcia

Charles Mingus - Jazz Portraits: Mingus In Wonderland (1959)

A fresh, breezy and swinging live set from January 1959, captured as part of a series of 'Jazz Portraits' concerts at the Nonagon Art Gallery, NYC.  The resulting LP went through numerous album covers and permutations of the title, with this version opting for both 'Jazz Portraits' and 'Mingus In Wonderland'.

With John Handy on alto, Booker Ervin on tenor, Richard Wyands on piano and Dannie Richmond on piano, Mingus underpins the group in his usual formidable style through three originals and one bit of classic Gershwin.  The two tracks that bookend the album - the cityscape blues of Nostalgia In Times Square and the gorgeous Alice's Wonderland - were written for John Cassavetes' debut feature Shadows, but most of Mingus' music was apparently cut from the final version.  In between are a lovely take on I Can't Get Started and a spectacular blues rave-up, No Private Income Blues.  Enjoy the sound of Mingus kicking off one of the most golden years of his career in style.

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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
Changes One & Two
Cumbia & Jazz Fusion
plus:  
Blue Moods  
Money Jungle  
BBC Proms Tribute by Metropole Orkest

Alex De Grassi - Southern Exposure (1983)

Solo fingerpicked steel guitar with folk and jazz influences, from Japan-born American guitarist Alex De Grassi.  This was De Grassi's fourth album for his cousin William Ackerman's Windham Hill label - must have been handy to have a relative running a growing enterprise with a cornerstone of Fahey/Kottke-style guitar.

Ackerman and De Grassi were of course destined to sit in the very long shadow cast by WH's most legendary guitarist Michael Hedges, but on this evidence De Grassi had much to offer on his own merits.  Southern Exposure starts with the all too brief Overland, a bubbling spring of sparkling melody, before settling in for the more reflective Blue And White.  After that, great tunes keep coming, worming their way into your subconscious with every listen: 36, Street Waltz, Subway, the short and sweet title track - to name just a few.  And it all sounds fantastic - in the sleevenote detail typical of early Windham Hill, this was all "recorded live to two-track digital using a Sony PCM 1600". 

original LP cover

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Moebius & Plank - Rastakraut Pasta (1980), Material (1981), En Route (rel. 1995)

Happy new year!  Wishing you all a good one, and a huge thanks to all of you who read/follow/download from this blog and leave comments, thanks for four great years.  I believe I did say a year ago that things might be winding down round about now, but on reflection, I reckon I can make it another year.  Five feels better than four.  After that, I'll definitely take an extended break, then come back with occasional posts.

With that out of the way, here's two albums (and one further archival album) by the bleep & tweak master of Cluster, and the sound sculptor whose importance is impossible to overestimate - Moebius & Plank.  Their original records of the early 80s proved that the offbeat, accessible-avant-garde spirit of krautrock was still alive, and they began with Rastakraut Pasta.

The September 1979 downtime in Conny's Studio that created the first Moebius & Plank album was an exercise in just having fun with strange sounds, and sculpting them over chugging, wheezing rhythm tracks - dub by any other name.  By the third track, Holger Czukay has dropped by to add fitting spare basslines to the next three songs.  And it's the second side of Rastakraut Pasta that I love the most - vocodered nonsense reggae, then a gorgeous melodic call & response with a stunning Rother-esque coda, and ending with two more experiements in mixing simple sounds into deepest outer space.

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The follow-up to Rastakraut Pasta was the more streamlined, uptempo Material.  Its first side, only two tracks long, was dominated by the lengthy motorik groove of Conditionierer, in which layers of guitars were accompanied by the occasional sax squak and fun little bits of percussion.  In creating more danceable music, Moebius & Plank were on the way to their spectacular collaboration with Mani Neuemeier, Zero Set - which previously had its own post here.  The next track, Infiltration, returns to slower, dubbier waters, with bits of morse code, wispy synths and other sounds swimming around in the mix.

On Material's second half, Tollkühn is a neat distorted sequencer vehicle, then Osmo-Fantor is another pulsing soundscape that sets up for the gorgeous finale of Nordöstliches Gefühl.  A slow rhythm track carries along beautiful synth work that could've almost sat on one of the Cluster/Eno records.  Overall, Material is an even more minimalist record than Rastakraut Pasta in terms of ideas, but in Moebius & Plank's hands the ideas on each track are never less than brilliant.

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Moebius & Plank's final duo album was shelved after recording for whatever reason, and first saw the light of day in 1995.  It was recorded in 1986, a year before Plank's death, so may have been abandoned due to his declining health - or perhaps 1983 if you believe one of the reissues, but as all the others state '86 the odd one out is most likely a typo.

In any case, the sound has certainly been updated from the two official Moebius & Plank albums, opening with a nice electronic groove, before a sharp left turn into almost EBM harshness.  There are still more ambient experiments in sound, such as Echaos (although even that gets taken over by synth stabs towards the end), but overall this is the brightest and most upbeat Moebius & Plank record.

Muffler A in particular is a nice guilty pleasure that comes with a ghostly dubversion in Muffler B that ends the album before three slightly unneccesary remixes...YMMV.  Even if En Route is an archival release that lacks the feel of a coherent, finished album, there's still lots to love - the little bits of vocoder in The Truth, the crazed sequences in Pick The Rubber; there's more than enough flourishes of Moebius & Plank individuality to give En Route a deserved place in their slim discography.

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