Astrud Gilberto / Walter Wanderley - A Certain Smile, A Certain Sadness (1966)

Light and uplifting bossanova pop from the genre's legendary vocalist, backed on this occasion by organist/pianist Walter Wanderley's trio.  The two title tracks are up first, with A Certain Smile serving as a brief overture, and A Certain Sadness featuring an uncredited guitarist who may or may not have been João Gilberto.  From there, a breezy twenty-odd minutes goes by in lovely, classy style, staying true to the album's concept-of-sorts in contrasting downbeat ballads and frothy poppy numbers, with the emphasis on the latter.  Instant musical refreshment.

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pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG:

Getz/Gilberto

The Astrud Gilberto Album

Look To The Rainbow

I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do

Gilberto With Turrentine (scroll past main post)

Astrud Gilberto - Look To The Rainbow (1966)

Astrud Gilberto's third solo album showed her vocal range and interpretive skill beginnig to mature, and with this came a gorgeous half hour of arrangements by Gil Evans (with the exception of the third last and second last songs, arranged by Al Cohn) and production by Creed Taylor.  Perhaps trying to position Astrud as both international pop star and authentic bossanova voice, just over half the album's tracks are sung in English, and Look To The Rainbow presents a cracking selection of songs by the likes of Jobim, João Gilberto, Vinicius De Moraes and Baden Powell.

Mixed in with these are I Will Wait For You from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and Maria Quiet from the considerably less well known (and never fully performed as written) Brazilian musical, Pobre Menina Rica (Poor Rich Girl).  Without that context, the latter song, sung in English, can seem a little...odd, but never mind - as a whole, this album is pure bossanova-jazz-pop perfection.

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Previously posted at SGTG:
I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do
Gilberto With Turrentine

Sweet People - Summer Dream (1981 compi, rec. 1978/81)

Another nice little charity shop oddity, which I picked up suspecting it had a bit of the James Lasts about it.  Wasn't actually far off; Alain Morisod's Sweet People are a Swiss easy listening/instrumental pop outfit that have been on the go since the 70s.  This release compiles the highlights of their first two Polydor LPs from 1978 & 1981, with such minor European hits as Et Les Oiseaux Chantaient featuring wordless vocals, birdsong and a gentle background.  Elsewhere, there's bits of whistling, lapping waves, and more birds.

Oddly enough, several Sweet People albums on discogs have been given the 'Downtempo' tag, as if they were Boards Of Canada records or something.  To modern ears, I suppose there is a certain strange, odd appeal to this stuff in places, and it could be highly sampleable in the more chilled corners of today's electronic world.  Enjoy just under an hour of pure musical diazepam.

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Various Artists - Motown Chartbusters Volume 3 (1969)

Here's another thing I started listening to in the late 90s, which also subsequently became a summer tradition for me to dig out and enjoy afresh - although it's still 45 minutes of truly timeless music at any time of year.  In 1997, these British Tamla-Motown compilation LPs from the 60s and 70s came out in a fresh wave of budget CD reissues, and this one was reviewed as the absolute jewel in the crown.

Not all the tracks selected for these original LPs were the most recent Motown hits of the day - some dated back a few years, reflecting either a re-release of the song, or the delay in being issued for the UK charts, and suchlike.  This is what led to Volume 3 having a particularly outstanding tracklist, bookended by I Heard It Through The Grapevine (1968) and The Tracks Of My Tears (1965).  Virtually everything in between is pure gold, so to mention the highlights would be to list almost all sixteen tracks.  Just enjoy some prime pop-soul music - and in the words of one of the album's extra sublime entries, summer's here, and the time is right for dancing in the streets.  Or if your physique's anything like mine, at least walking sedately in the streets.

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Ray Lynch - Deep Breakfast (1984)

Spied this the other week lurking in a 99p bin, and the album title and all that delightful salmon pink background made me grin and grab it.  On first glance looked either a bit jazzy or a bit synthy.  Turns out it's only one of the most successful electronic New Age albums ever produced, having initially been a private release, then reissued a couple of times including by Windham Hill, who kept it in print resulting in a platinum certification by 1994.

Ray Lynch was born in Utah in 1943, and after classical training and playing in a baroque group as a lutist, wound up in California in 1980 to switch to electronic music.  Deep Breakfast was his third album, and contrary to my thoughts of a bottomless bowl of Shreddies, the title and in fact many of Lynch's track titles came from a book by his spiritual teacher (and alleged dirty old letch) Adi Da Samraj, aka Da Love Ananda, Bubba Free John etc etc.  Anyway, the music here is all instrumental, and the titles could really be anything.  Let's listen.

Deep Breakfast is a really nice mix of analogue synth and early DX7, and the composition and arrangements definitely reflect the skill of one classically trained with a baroque affinity.  There's a good balance of sunny, poppy and upbeat tracks with more mellow, reflective material.  The first half of the album is purely electronic, and the second adds guitar, piano, flute and viola in places.  Lynch apparently disliked the New Age tag, considering his music a cut above much of the dross being produced, and he's not wrong - this is top-drawer stuff in its era.  My favourites are the gorgeous, Roedelius-like miniature Falling In The Garden and its neighbour Your Feeling Shoulders, which shows a definite Vangelis influence.  Some nice TD-esque sequencing here too, in the second and the last tracks.  Superior sounds for getting the muesli crumbs out of your futon.

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Geraldo Azevedo - s/t (1977)

Hailing from Petrolina, Pernambuco, Geraldo Azevedo started out as a songwriter and a player in a few minor groups, which included crossing paths with Nana Vasconcelos early on.  This was his first solo album, following a collaborative release with Alceu Valença five years earlier at the height of the Udigrudi underground movement.  Cross-fertilizing MPB with folk styles from Northeastern Brazil proved to be a good combination on this album, allowing Azevedo's fingerpicked guitar talent to shine.

There's a good balance in these ten songs between string arrangements (and occasional synth) and earthier guitar sounds - lead guitarists Robertinho do Recife & Ivinho are particularly well featured on the 8-minute medley in the first half, and on the following Domingo De Pedra E Cal and Em Copacabana.  That stretch of the album contains its strongest highlights for me, and it's arguably the style that fits Azevedo best: languid and contemplative, but with just enough fire to drive the tracks forward.

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Milton Nascimento/Lô Borges - Clube Da Esquina (1972)

Back to Brazil, with possibly the most stunning high water mark in MPB (música popular brasileira).  Clube Da Esquina (corner club) was a collective of musicians from the Minas Gerais state, led by Milton Nascimento and Lô Borges, the latter just 20 when this double-album was recorded.  With 21 songs in 64 minutes, Clube Da Esquina is like a fat-free White Album or stripped-down Manassas.  Over the succinct running time, it manages to take in regional folk influences, hazy, languid psychedelic pop and a huge dash of Beatlesque styling in a journey that feels more perfect with every listen.  Even the album cover has a great story behind it.

A track-by-track is pointless on an album like this; picking out highlights near-impossible for one with literally no duds - even the two tracks that don't break the minute mark are necessary, rather than jokey filler.  So here's a handful of favourites.  From Lô Borges' seven compositions, I'll go for the sun-dappled goodbyes of O Trem Azul with its gorgeous harmonies, and Trem De Doido, a poignant ode to mistreated psychiatric patients, with Beto Guedes' stinging lead guitar.

Out of Milton Nascimento's phenomenal songwriting and legendary voice... what to choose as favourites?  I'm going to plump for his more impressionistic side that comes out in the Side 3-4 split, on Um Gusto De Sol's woozy, sleepy personification of a pear in a fruit bowl, and the swirling production effects of Pelo Amor De Deus.  But then he's just as good as an interpreter, of Spanish songwriter Carmelo Larrea's bolero standard Dos Cruces, or duetting with Alaíde Costa on Me Deixa Em Paz.  Or indeed with no lyrics at all, on the near-title track or on the ode to his adoptive mother Lilia, soon to be re-recorded with Wayne Shorter (Wagner Tiso from Native Dancer is also all over Clube with his great organ style). Stay tuned for more of the near-instrumental side of Milton later this week, but for now make sure to download this perfect album.

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Amiga Electronics (2017 box-set of 5 albums, rel. 1985-89)

Tangerine Dream's legendary, Berlin Wall-crossing concert at the Palast Der Republik at the beginning of the 80s was a landmark in many ways.  Not least in raising the profile of electronic music in the GDR, to the point where the authorities in charge of Amiga, the state label for popular music, began to take it seriously.  Excerpts of the TD concert were released as Quichotte (Pergamon everywhere else), and eventually a short series of LPs by East German artists, often stating 'Electronics' on the album covers, emerged.  This little CD box collects five of these, giving them their first digital outing and making a fascinating piece of Iron Curtain electronica history easily accessible.  Here goes then...

Reinhard Lakomy & Rainer Oleak - Zeiten (1985)

Reinhard Lakomy is by far the most high-profile artist among all those featured in the box set.  By the start of the 80s, 'Lacky' was well known in East Germany as a pop/rock artist, and had even recorded albums for children.  His electronic period began with 1982's Das Geheime Leben, which I've seen featured on a few blogs over the years, and it's a good one.  Three years later, Zeiten was a collaboration with Rainer Oleak, who'd been in a handful of minor GDR bands, and it's one of at least two essential listens out of the five albums in this post, with the longest, most exploratory tracks.

The first two tracks, Gleichzeit and Raumzeit, are the most abstract and atmospheric, gradually becoming more sequencer-based.  Ruhzeit is a more mellow interlude; Klangzeit follows the ambient to uptempo pattern of the opening pair, and Hochzeit is an anthemic closer.  As might be expected, the influence of Tangerine Dream is very much apparent, but Zeiten is in no way a ripoff - it's a very strong album in its own right.

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Servi - Rückkehr Aus Ithaka (1986)

The Cottbus-based duo of Jan Bilk and Tomas Nawka started out as a larger rock band called Servi Pacis, before slimming down to an electronic act and playing (apparently very well received) church services.  A few years later came their debut LP, which seems to be a sort of concept piece inspired by Homer's Ithaca.  It's another winner, with a variety of moods and tempi and good bits of sequencing, much of it likely on the locally-produced Tiracon synthesisers.  My favourites here are the 10-minute Kirkes and 7-minute Nausikaa.

Again, the influence of Tangerine Dream is unmistakable, but the overall sound is unique enough to produce a fascinating and enjoyable album that stands up to repeated listens.  By this point in the 80s of course, TD were fast losing the subtle atmospherics that Servi conjure up, especially on the slower tracks like Laistrygonen.  And what really makes for Servi's USP is the use of accordion on the track Sirenen, integrating folk melodies from the Germany/Poland-straddling Lusatia region that they hailed from.

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Jürgen Ecke - Sound-Synthese (1986)

Jürgen Ecke's main gig seems to have been as a film/TV music composer, and his contribution to the 'Electronics' series was this LP.  Rather than approach Sound-Synthese as a cohesive album, it's best enjoyed as a collection of soundtracky/library music-style synth-pop tracks.  And enjoyable it certainly is on those terms - there's a good variety of uptempo and midtempo stuff, all of it nicely produced and well composed, as you'd expect given Ecke's background.  Most of the digital synth tones might sound a bit off-the-shelf and accordingly dated, but he does sound like he's having a lot of fun exploring the rhythm tracks and breaks available to him and his collaborators in the studio.  Perhaps one for the crate-diggers in that respect.

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Key - Key (1988)

Speaking of fun... ah, Key, how much I've come to love you pair of wacky studio hands (check out the pictures at the bottom of this post) behind this album.  They did play live quite a bit too, once being spontaneously joined on stage at the Palast Der Republik by two breakdancers who were then invited to become part of the group.

This album though... I've probably listened to it more than any other in the box set since acquiring it.  Honestly, this music could be prescribed as an antidepressant.  Sure, it's mostly instrumental synth pop, including covers of Crockett's Theme and Axel F, but it's just So. Much. Fun.  Like Ecke above, Frank Fehse and Andreas Fregin of Key did seem to know their way around a bit of rhythm programming and sampling, with the best uptempo tracks ageing strangely well because of this.  Kein Anschluss (No connection) suggests an awareness of Kraftwerk's Electric Cafe, and album highlights Mikado and Abaca wouldn't have been entirely out of place on a compilation of rare European electro.  Or am I way off with that?  Don't care, got too much love for this album.

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Hans-Hasso Stamer - Digital Life (1989)

Little is known about Hans-Hasso Stamer, responsible for the last Electronics-series album before reunification, other than that he was a computer programmer who liked to windsurf, according to the liner notes of his only LP.  For that little gem, and much of the other info in this post, thanks are due to Achim Breiling of the German website Baby-Blaue Prog Reviews.  Also drew on this wonderful article, which reveals that Stamer subsequently became a poet and pianist.

Digital Life is pretty much exactly the album that you might imagine a windsurfing computer boffin making in 1989, with some blaring, MIDI-tastic keyboard tones.  There could've been scope to enjoy this along the lines of Jürgen Ecke's album above, and the first few tracks would make pretty good video game music, but you get the idea that Stamer had a higher-minded serious album in his sights.  Tackling Ravel's Bolero definitely suggests classical training, but the result doesn't match up to the warmth of the attempts of others that I've heard from the 70s, much less Isao Tomita's benchmark (interestingly, Ecke's LP also used the rhythm of the Bolero on one track).  Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy Digital Life on its own terms, and it is cheesy fun to listen to today, if only somewhat amusing as opposed to the outright hilarity of the Key album.

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As a bonus, here's a couple of pics of Key in all their glory.  Andreas Fregin, eh?  That is clearly Jeremy Beadle (that's one for UK TV viewers of my age and above) in the second picture.  Bonus points for any eagle eyed tech-spotters that can work out what all their gear is in the first pic.

Arp Life - Jumbo Jet / Z Bezpieczną Szybkością (2014 compilation, rec. 1975-78)

In 1975, library music composer Mateusz Święcicki (1933-1985) teamed up with film soundtrack composer Andrzej Korzyński (b. 1940) to start off a studio ensemble for Polish Radio.  The name given to the project, which Święcicki had been using a couple of years earlier, was Arp Life: he'd liked how the Arp Odyssey synthesiser sounded much more refined compared to the rougher Minimoog.

For the next three years, additional musicians associated with the radio studios, most of their names lost to history, would come and go to add strings, brass or percussion as desired.  And ironically enough, Arp synths were scarcely, if ever, used - pretty much everything electronic here is either Fender Rhodes or Minimoog.  The best known artefact to emerge from this arrangement, and a mainstay of crate-digger blogs for as far back as I can remember, was the Jumbo Jet LP, released by Polskie Nagrania in 1977, and featuring new core member Maciej Śniegocki as writer and arranger.

Whether on a vinyl rip, or a remastered CD like this, the sampling appeal of Jumbo Jet is undeniable - wah-wah guitars, funky Rhodes and nifty bass & percussion riffs are everywhere, along with a handful of great fuzz guitar leads and melancholy disco strings.  Vocals are either wordless or limited to the track title; only the title track has more than that.  Only two tracks top the four minute mark - Jumbo Jet is basically a library LP par excellence, and a few tracks saw use in film, with Baby Bump and the gorgeous Hotel Victoria featuring in Andrezj Wajda's Man Of Marble.

original cassette cover, 1978

The following year, the Wifon label released a series of cassettes specifically promoted for in-car use, with the titles encouraging Poland's motorists to 'have a nice journey', 'don't dazzle [with your headlights, presumably]', and 'drive at a safe speed'.  That last one - in Polish, 'Z bezpieczną szybkością', was effectively Arp Life's second and last album.  Three tracks on the tape were taken from Jumbo Jet (Motor Rock was presumably a no-brainer to open the tape with), and the remaining ten were never released in any other format until this 2014 CD, which was followed by individual vinyl reissues.  The sound of these tracks is much the same as on Jumbo Jet, although Korzyński is the dominant writer rather than Śniegocki, leading to a bit more brass in the arrangements.  A couple of non-album singles and an unused signature jingle written for the Tonpress label round out this great compilation.

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Rheingold - s/t (1980)

Debut album by Neue Deutsche Welle legends Rheingold, who took their name from the luxury Trans-Europe Express train that always passed through Bodo Staiger's native Düsseldorf.  As mentioned in the previous post, Staiger had played guitar on the 1977 second album by Lilac Angels, rock n' rollers formed out of Klaus Dinger's brief attempt at becoming some sort of svengali.

Staiger did become a fan of La Düsseldorf, and it shows in the sound of this album.  In fact, if I had to describe Rheingold in one sentence, it would be to imagine La Düsseldorf had been fronted by Michael Rother rather than Dinger: the propulsive energy is there (check Internationale) but a lot of the guitar tones are softer, cleaner and overall much closer in melodic sensibility to late 70s Rother.  This shows up most in the album's five instrumental tracks.  There's a bit of a Neu! influence too (is it just me, or does the outro on Pirata sound uncannily like the intro to Hero?).

Lyrics are all in German, other than the sweet ballad Rendezvous which is tri-lingual and also gives a vocal spotlight to keyboard player Brigitte Kunze.  To make a bigger impact outwith Germany, Rheingold went on to release English-language versions of the two big singles here, Fluss/River and Dreiklangs-Dimensionen/Triad Dimensions.  The latter is probably still this group's best moment, sounding like Kraftwerk with a muscular rhythm guitar added.

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Party Time - Euro Disco Style (compis rel. 2009-11)

Why not have something nice and uplifting to go into the new year with?  Well, parts of these three compilations by Reckless Records' Disco Discharge series kind of fit the bill, but the more I've discovered (and absolutely loved) about late 70s-80s Euro Disco this year, the more I've found it's just as likely to be suffused with melancholy and/or just plain strange.  Which suits me just fine. 

Besides getting hold of these discs, my interest in Euro Disco has definitely been helped by Opium Hum for posting a fair bit of this stuff, so go seek there for full albums by the likes of Space and Change who feature here in some of their best tracks.  Other highlights for me of 'Euro Disco' (the 'pink' volume, links immediately below) include Sparks' Number One Song In Heaven, and Giorgio Moroder's perfect From Here To Eternity.

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Highlights for me on 'Euro Beats': Ryan Paris' Dolce Vita, Modern Talking's Atlantis Is Calling, and Fun Fun's Baila Bolero.  One criticism of this series among those in the know has been that the sound quality can be variable, and the source/master lineage of some of the tracks a bit suspect (almost everything here ends up being labelled "Original 12" Mix", which might not always be the case - but if, like me, you just want an introduction to some great pop/dance music, it's really a moot point.

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Highlights for me on 'European Connection': Space's Carry On, Turn Me On, sounding at the start like a missing piece of Air's Moon Safari; another great Moroder track, If You Weren't Afraid; the epic 16 minutes of Tantra's Hills Of Katmandu.  In fact, this volume is probably my favourite of the three - there's just so much buried treasure: the 'dub' B-side of Sylvia Love's Instant Love; the instrumental bombast of Hypnosis' Droid, and the gorgeous melancholy of Alba's Only Music Survives.

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Laura Nyro and Labelle - Gonna Take A Miracle (1971)

Absolutely love, love, love this little gem.  For her fifth album, Laura Nyro took a break from songwriting to put together a heartfelt tribute to the music she grew up listening to in The Bronx in the 50s and 60s.  With new friend Patti Labelle and her group singing backup, and Gamble & Huff producing at Sigma Sound, the result was a perfect mix of classic girl-group and soul material with a now-legendary Philly sheen.

A huge part of this album's charm for me is its spare instrumentation and production, and just how alive and joyful each track sounds.  According to legend, everything was recorded first-take in a single day, after almost all the studio time had been frittered away just goofing around and enjoying the songs that everyone knew so well.  This freshness makes the uptempo selections absolutely burn through their grooves (Jimmy Mack, Nowhere To Run, the medley of Monkey Time and Dancing In The Street) and the ballads shine in their ethereal, stark beauty (Desiree, and my personal album highlight The Wind).  And if anyone's recorded a more perfect version of Spanish Harlem that just drips with languid, urban midsummer eroticism, I've yet to hear it.

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Janelle Monáe - The ArchAndroid (2010)

Forgot how much I loved this album until one of its singles (Tightrope) turned up on a TV advert recently.  Back in 2010, this was Janelle Monáe's first full-length album, and was one of those rare double-albums where not only do none of its 18 tracks feel like filler, but it just appears to get better and better as it goes on, with the most stunningly ambitious material in its second half, culminating in a deft reconfiguration of Debussy's Clair De Lune in the penultimate song.

Before getting to that, prepare to luxuriate for an hour in an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink stew of pop, soul, folk, punk rock and a full blotter-sheet's worth of psychedelia, as the rough overall concept unfolds of the titular android being sent to liberate humanity in the funkiest possible way.  If I had to pick favourites, they'd be the woozy Mushrooms & Roses with its blistering guitar solo, or the hushed choral folk of 57821, but the whole thing is just a stone cold masterpiece.  Definitely time for me to pull out the follow-up album (The Electric Lady from 2013) and enjoy it afresh, and keep my fingers crossed for the new material she's been promising for this year.

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Astrud Gilberto - I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do (1969)

This is the 100th album I've posted, so time for something extra special.  Put up a few Brazilian albums about a month ago, including Jobim's magnificent Wave, one of my top 10 albums of all time - here's something I hold in almost the same esteem.  This album however doesn't have quite as strong a Brazilian stamp on it as the artist's previous releases.  By the time Astrud Gilberto got to this stage in her career, she wanted to expand her horizons beyond bossanova and ended up making this baroque pop/chamber pop masterpiece of lush, dusky melancholy - in Gilberto's words, "my fireplace album".

So why do I love this album so much?  It's just a pure and utter Goldilocks Zone of a singer a few years into her career, coming into a more confident vocal maturity, selecting a perfectly complementary set of songs and having a first-rate arranger on board (Al Gorgoni).  In just 28 minutes, I Haven't Got Anything Better To Do weaves an achingly romantic narrative that hangs together perfectly, sounding like an extended reminisce of a fleeting summer affair now being remembered only through photographs.  Late 60s adult pop perfection par excellence.

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