Shuggie Otis - Inspiration Information (1974)

Between the release of his second album Freedom Flight and this, his third, Shuggie Otis transitioned from precociously talented and well-connected teenager to a young adult and true auteur.  Working from a home studio, he wrote and produced this album alone, played all the instruments bar the horn and string arrangements, and virtually abandoned his blues roots for something (even) funkier and altogether weirder.

It was a sound that didn't have much impact at the time, and ended up with Otis being dropped by Epic, but Inspiration Information's time would come a quarter of a century later when David Byrne's Luaka Bop label first revived it.  At that time, Shuggie was posited as a proto-Prince, which does hold up in the loose, funky songs and singular artistry and musicianship.  It's also historically congruent with the advances in the studio that Stevie Wonder and Sly Stone had been making in the early 70s, not least in the use of a primitive Rhythm King drum machine.

The first side of the album is a flawless run of four great songs, bursting into life on the smoking funk groove of the title track, followed by the languid Island Letter.  Next are the taut, spare groove of Sparkle City and the drum-machine based comedown experience Aht Uh Mi Hed.  Other than the first 58 seconds, the album's second half is entirely instumental, in common with its predecessor.  Unlike Freedom Flight, there aren't two lengthy jams here but a clutch of short impressionistic sketches, which reach their experimental apex in XL-20 and Pling.  Shuggie might have been too ahead of his time in 1974 for this record to be huge, but now it just sounds timeless.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Here Comes Shuggie Otis
Freedom Flight

Shuggie Otis - Freedom Flight (1971)

Shuggie Otis' second album was such a huge step up from his debut that it's easy to forget this was still the work of a 17 year old.  With two execptions, he's the sole songwriter, and his already prodigious guitar talent continued to shine as well as showing off his skill at several other instruments.  Shuggie's rising profile also brought guest stars on board for this one: George Duke and Aynsley Dunbar are featured here.

Freedom Flight is perhaps best known for Strawberry Letter 23, the gorgeous piece of baroque psychedelic pop that would later be a funked-up hit for The Brothers Johnson.  That's only one of four superb songs on the first side of the album though, which is filled out by one of the funkiest blues covers ever recorded.  The album's second side was taken up by two lengthy instrumentals: the bluesy Purple, which expands on the template of Gospel Groove from Shuggie's debut, and the beautifully mellow title track.  It's difficult to pick Shuggie Otis' masterpiece between this one and the one coming up next week.

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Shuggie Otis - Here Comes Shuggie Otis (1970)

First in a three-Friday exploration of the slim but awesome discography of Johnny Alexander Veliotes Jr, best known by the pet name his mother gave him, and the shortened surname that his famous father already went by.  Shuggie Otis started performing live with his father's band in the mid 60s when he was eleven years old, where he'd "wear dark glasses and a paint a moustache on" to disguise his age, as he relates on this album.

Here Comes Shuggie Otis was his solo debut as a prodigious teenager, and consists mostly of material co-written by father and son, its standout feature being Shuggie's rapidly developing guitar versatility.  The ten tracks touch on the psych-soul and baroque AM pop sounds of the day, with a bedrock of blues and R&B.

The highlights include Oxford Gray, the longest and most ambitious piece that opens the album, and the slow-cooking Gospel Groove, pointing the way to what was to come.  As mentioned above, Shuggie's Boogie starts out with a potted autobiography of his formative influences, saved from being a bit precious and corny by exploding into another great twelve-bar tearup.  From here, Shuggie's playing, singing and writing would just get better and better.

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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

Argo - Discophonia (1981)

Early 80s electronica with a good dose of gentle funk, from Lithuania.  Argo were formed out of the Kaunas Musical Theatre in 1979, and released three albums, of which this debut is the only one available digitally.  Discophonia initially caught my eye due to that wonderful Sticky Fingers-esque cover drawing, and the rainbow's a nice touch.  Given this paired with the album title, I was prepared for something along the lines of Arp Life; turns out that Discophonia's a much more stripped-down affair.

The liner notes explain the album title as referring to the two intended purposes of the music: Disco tracks for dancing, and -phonia meaning tracks for sitting down to listen to.  Things kick off in the former mode, with electric piano, phased funky guitar, a pumping bassline, and a vocal exclaiming "DISCO!" at regular intervals.  This is just the intro to A1 (all the tracks are just titled in sequence like that) though, as it moves through different sections that show off the band's musical chops.  A2 and A3 follow with more grooves, but getting progressively more relaxed; in particular, if someone introduced me to A3 as a great lost track from a KPM library record I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

A4 is pure mellowness by contrast, featuring ethereal vocals - intended, as per the liners, to act just as another instrument.  B1 goes further by starting acapella before a mellow bassline and twinkling synths relax you just in time for its upbeat mid-section.  B2 and B3 are just absolutely gorgeous electronica to finish, with barely-there drum machines and gentle keyboards; stuff of this calibre could've sat nicely on a Sky label release from the same time period.  There's one more disco flourish right at the end to get you in the mood for starting from the beginning again.  Very highly recommended.

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Steve Hillage - Motivation Radio (1977)

Back to Steve Hillage, with his third solo album.  Appearing after two solid slabs of psychedelic prog, this is where Hillage reshaped his sound around the funk and proto-disco music he was unashamedly enjoying at the time (despite fans who spoke to him carping about it, which only spurred him on).  The result was a massively fun record of eight tightly arranged shorter songs, and a cute little cover of Not Fade Away to finish.

Motivation Radio's lyrics can seem a bit dated (however, is it just me that finds Radio quite prescient, given the rise of the internet/social media as an admittedly imperfect counter to mainstream media?) and hippy-dippy, but at their heart just boil down to self-confidence/self-discovery platitudes and other messages of positivity.  Which is kind of nice; there's a great line in the AMG review of the album, although I suspect they won't have been the first to use it, about Motivation Radio being "the light side of the moon" in comparison to the largely downbeat Pink Floyd MO of the era.

Floyd are a vaguely useful musical comparison too; the album has a great 70s rock production with a generous dose of synth, both courtesy of Malcom Cecil of Tonto's Exploding Head Band, and there's also lingering traces of Hillage's time in Gong (see Octave Doctors).  Miquette Giraudy's synth talent, pointing the way to the future, is worth mentioning too.  What really elevates Motivation Radio, though, are Hillage's great guitars, energising the whole record with driving riffs and blistering leads.  When this coincides with the more purple lyrics, the result is a nice balancing act that stops the songs seeming too twee - Light In The Sky and Saucer Surfing are perfect examples.  With a tight rhythm section wrapping all this up, the result is just a wonderful album.

More to come on Monday! ;)

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Miles Davis - Agharta (1975)

Miles Davis, 1975 - in constant pain from multiple health problems, about to bow out for the rest of the decade - and piloting jazz funk/fusion into its most scorching solar orbit, with flares of avant-garde electronica spitting everywhere. Miles and afro-futurist crew landed in Japan early in the year, and taped two concerts for future release in one day at Osaka Festival Hall.  The evening show was called Pangaea on release, and is pretty good; the afternoon show became the mindblowing Agharta.

Like 'Tatu' from the previous year's Dark Magus concert, Agharta thunders in with a breakneck funk vamp that continually gets derailed by Miles crashing down on the electric organ, so that everyone can regroup and charge ahead again.  He's on organ at least as much as trumpet in this era, colouring the music with massive discordant smears, whilst Pete Cosey on lead guitar shares the limelight by coaxing unearthly guitar sounds through an EMS Synthi serving as an effects unit.  After over half an hour of this (the Japanese CD used here corrects the botched track division from the 90s US release) we get to mellow out a bit with the queasy lounge groove of Mayisha from Get Up With It, but even this is soon taken over by a cracking Hendrix-esque solo from Cosey before calming down again.

The second disc here is one continuous track, starting out by jamming on the Theme From Jack Johnson, before a lengthier respite in an eerie, swampy mid-section based on Ife from the album Big Fun.  There's even a blink-and-you'll-miss-it throwback to So What from Kind Of Blue, before the final section cranks up the volume again if not quite at as frenetic a tempo as earlier in the show.  Percussionist James Mtume is the star of this final stretch, but basically every one of the 97 minutes of Agharta is exhilirating, essential groove.

Disc 1
Disc 2

Prince - Musicology (2004)

Prince Rogers Nelson - June 7, 1958 – April 21, 2016

Another truly unique legend gone... seriously, Death, WTF?

Wanted to post this album as it's stuck with me as a personal favourite from Prince's latter-day work (using Emancipation as a rough dividing line).  There's the usual amount of deeply personal, sometimes obtuse soul-searching, but above all just so much joy and a fresh reveling in the all-encompassing mastery of his art.

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