Steve Hillage - Rainbow Dome Musick (1979)

Basically an essential post to round up the recent spotlighting of Steve Hillage, and one of the most essential ambient albums ever made, full stop.  Synths and sequencers had been increasing in prominence from Motivation Radio to Green, and for their next studio album Steve & Miquette went all in with these two side-long instrumental pieces.

Written for the Mind-Body-Spirit Festival that took place at the London Olympia from 21-29 April 1979, the album was released shortly before the event and credited its A side to Miquette Giraudy as composer, and B side to Hillage.  Fast forward a decade, and Hillage famously walks into a club's chillout room only to find the record being spun by Alex Patterson of The Orb, leading to Hillage & Giraudy's creative rebirth as System 7.

Rainbow Dome Musick's first half is called Garden Of Paradise, and it appears to be a garden with a stream running through it given the opening water sounds.  The gentle synths, electric piano and bells bubble and tinkle around, and at the halfway point the garden's birds burst into life, soaring and singing with Hillage's lead guitar part.  After the piece settles back down to the synths and fades away, the second half of the Dome experience is announced by a single bell, and the much, much trippier synths of Four Ever Rainbow start to worm their way into your subconscious.  Hillage sparingly plays mellow echo-guitar, but otherwise lets the womb-like electronics envelop the listener completely.  Beyond-essential ambience.

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la! NEU? - Düsseldorf (1996)

Will be completing my posts of the la! NEU? catalogue over the next few weeks, following a well-timed request (well-timed as in, I'm always up for a good Klaus Dinger binge).  So let's start from the beginning.  Following the breakup of Die Engel Des Herrn, Dinger jammed around a bit, including with new Düsseldorf group Kreidler, and for one session in December 1995 invited their drummer to join him and two members of the DEDH concert lineup.

The result was the 33 minutes of gloriously unhinged chaos that appears here as D. 22-12-95; what was just a fun jam session at the time wasn't intended for any serious release until the preparation of this album the following year.  Moments of motorik magic arise frequently from the free-for-all, and the freewheeling la! NEU? aesthetic was born.

Prior to this, in May 1995, Dinger had already recorded a solo track in which a deliberate Sister Ray homage became a cathartic diatribe against contemporary society and the music industry.  The acerbic fire of Néondian was very much still burning in Hero '96, titled for continuity with the original Hero of 1975.  Kreidler's keyboard player Andreas Reihse, who was to become a key member of la! NEU?, suggested a backing vocal overdub, and recommended his friend Viktoria Wehrmeister who was in another band, Superbilk.  Another piece of the la! NEU? puzzle clicked into place.

Now signed to the Japanese label Captain Trip, who were already reissuing Néondian and releasing DEDH material, Dinger completed the first la! NEU? album with two versions of his song Mayday, one with Reihse and one with Wehrmeister.  In the new band's short four-year lifespan, there were several more to come...

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Previously posted at SGTG:
Zeeland
Gold Regen
Live at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf

Per Nørgård - Symphony No. 3 (BBC Proms 2018)

Had a great introduction to another fascinating composer over the past week whilst keeping my usual eye on the BBC Proms programme, so here's the performance in question.  The 86-year old Danish composer Per Nørgård was in the audience for this, the UK premiere a week ago of his 3rd Symphony completed in 1975.

This symphony is generally held to be the point where Nørgård fully integrated his composing style, of serial music generated by fractal-like integers in an "infinity series".  After listening to this being discussed in the radio preamble I was expecting something like Xenakis, but Nørgård isn't quite that explosive, at least not in this work.  Instead, it reminded me occasionally of Ligeti, sometimes of the French spectralists, but those were just really fleeting coincidences rather than similarities (there is definitely some microtonality in the strings though, from what I've read).

Overall, I really enjoyed listening to something unique-sounding in its construction and in the way the instrumental groups interact, and definitely want to hear more Nørgård.  The atmospheric moments of the first movement were right up my street, and the longer second movement, once it gets going, is all over the place (in the best possible way) with its epic choral stylings.  Definitely recommended.

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Van Morrison - Common One (1980)

For the second Friday in a row, some magnificently mellifluous Mark Isham - this time in a supporting role to the living legend that is Van Morrison, on possibly his most ambitious album ever.  Common One kickstarted a seven-year run of albums that were deeply spiritual, meditative and sometimes esoteric, even difficult to get in to - but never less than hugely rewarding.  It's fast becoming my favourite Van era, so may well be posting more.

Common One starts off with the slow, gentle Haunts Of Ancient Peace, ushered in with a plaintive Isham performance.  Following this are the epic fifteen and a half minutes of Summertime In England - seriously, how to even describe one of Van Morrison's greatest epic tracks of his whole career?  Just listen to these joyous evocations of Wordsworth, Coleridge, T. S. Eliot, William Blake, Yeats et al, as Morrison pursues his red-robed muse through the jazzy uptempo sections and heart-rending waltz time sections, and you will realise it ain't why, why, why, why, why, why (etc), it just is.

As a comedown from this lengthy transcendent journey, the album continues with three shorter, much more conventional songs.  The self-explanatory Satisfied, the mellow loveliness of Wild Honey and Spirit with its quiet-verse, uplifting chorus structure are all great tracks, but there's still one more epic to come.  The second fifteen-minute track on the album, and its perfect, meditative closer, is When Heart Is Open, a beautiful experiment in ambient formlessness.  Even more so than the earlier Saint Dominic's Preview, Common One largely stands or falls on the strength of the two longest tracks that dominate its running time, and for me they make it an indispensable classic.  It's an album that might take one or two goes to get its hooks into you, but once it does it'll never let go.

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Manuel Göttsching - Inventions For Electric Guitar (1975)

Out of the three main echo-delay master guitarists of the 70s - Fripp, Pinhas & Göttsching - it's the latter who I've always found most accessible and enjoyable.  Seven years prior to recording the immortal E2-E4, Manuel Göttsching made this, his first solo album.  No electronics here; every sound on Inventions is guitar/guitar effects recorded on to four track.  He'd expand this palette collaboratively shortly afterwards, before integrating it into the early Ashra sound on his way to E2-E4, but the beauty of Inventions is the pure echo-delay guitar sound and what Göttsching does with it.

The album features three tracks, the first of which and the most uptempo is the 18-minute Echo Waves.  The delayed guitar loops are layered and tweaked as skillfully as any electronic sequencer album of the era, towards a memorable ending where Göttsching cranks everything up then grinds it to a halt.  As a breather after this, we get six minutes of lovely ambience in Quasarsphere.  The stage is then set for the second half of Inventions For Electric Guitar, the 21-minute Pluralis.  The main guitar sequence sets up a more mid-tempo rhythm this time, with a gentle funky edge.  Göttsching then spins out a gradually developing melody with ghostly, synth-like tones wafting over the top.  Things just get more hypnotic and awesome from there.  Don't miss this brilliant album.

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Tomasz Stańko Quintet - Dark Eyes (2009)

Another post in honour of the sadly departed trumpet legend from Rzeszów, with one of his most satisfyingly accessible albums.  Dark Eyes was recorded in the South of France in early 2009 with a fresh group composed of Danes and Finns, most notably guitarist Jakob Bro.  Bro, then 31, turned in one of his earliest ECM appearances here, and has more recently established himself as a great bandleader on the label.  On Dark Eyes he's an ideal, shadowy foil to Stańko right from the first track.

Fans of latter-day Stańko will know what to expect here - lots of wonderfully languid, slow-burning melancholy, reaching its most exploratory on Samba Nova.  That's one of only two tracks on Dark Eyes to hover around the 10-minute mark though, with most settling for around six, and the lovely late interlude May Sun (sans Stańko) barely three.  So Dark Eyes is certainly a bit of a pull-back from the gargantuan moodpieces of its predecessor Lontano, and it's also an album that can cook, with Terminal 7 positively breezy by ECM Stańko standards.  What it does have in common with Lontano is another look back to Stańko's formative patron, the great Krzysztof Komeda; two in fact this time, in gorgeous renditions of Dirge For Europe and the closing Etuida Baletowa No.3.

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Mark Isham / Art Lande - We Begin (1987)

Another 80s ECM one-off; the decade in the label's history that never ceases to make me think "wow, that's just gorgeous" or "seriously, wtf?", or sometimes both, as in the case of We Begin.  Recorded by Rubisa Patrollers Mark Isham and Art Lande in January 1987, on its release later that year We Begin must've caused a bit of consternation among even hardened ECM fans when they heard its opening moments.  Anyone who stuck with the album, though, will have found another minor classic to cherish.

That first sound on opening track The Melancholy Of Departure is a drum machine; not just a low-key accompaniment, but a full minute of big, brash beats before Isham's trumpet and synth join in.  His lovely, contemplative melody continues to unfold with subtle piano from Lande; their stately progression completely at odds with the unchanging, Trans Midwest Express rhythm galloping away in the background.  This pairing sounds so wrong at first that it's almost comical, but after a few listens I was hooked on it.  The eerie ambience of Ceremony In Starlight that follows is another weirdly appealing piece, and not just for how uncannily Jon Hassell-like Isham sounds.

The rest of the album, apart from a lengthy shared composition, switches Lande into the driving seat.  The absolutely gorgeous title track shows what the album's opener would be like without the beats, before some subtler percussion is added back in for the brief Lord Ananea.  On the album's second half, the 10-minute Surface And Symbol is arguably the album's most successful exploration of rhythm and texture, with Isham layering his trumpet parts over the insistent percussion.  After that, we get a lovely Lande piano solo in Sweet Circle, and a fanfare duet to close.  All in all, one of the most memorable oddities in the ECM catalogue; it Sometimes shouldn't work, but in Isham and Lande's hands just does.

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Andreas Vollenweider - White Winds (1984)

Another trip into the mid-80s New Age zone, when it was really coming into its own as a commercial force.  White Winds, subtitled Seeker's Journey, was the third major-label release by Swiss harpist Andreas Vollenweider, and his fourth album overall.  There's a Spin magazine review online from the time of White Winds' release that likens it to "bathing in club soda", and finds the album's production "as exciting as a shopping mall full of rice pudding" [Was it just on the shelves, or all over the floors/walls?  Can't get that image out of my head], but I happen to find it's aged fairly well.

Vollenweider's electroacoustic setup of the harp allowed for a fascinating range of sounds, as well as a great dynamic range; he proudly notes in the liners here that the bass sounds were played by him simultaneously with the rhythm, harmony and melody.  On these mostly mid-tempo tracks, the sound is filled out by billowy synth beds and bits of ethnic instrumentation and percussion, with occasional wordless vocals.  The folky and jazzy melodies are nice and uplifting, and there's the occasional switching of the overall tempo with the fun groove of Flight Feet & Root Hands, or the swirling ambience of The Stone (Close-Up).  The percussive interlude of Brothership is an ear-bender too.  Nice little record all round.

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Galina Ustvolskaya - Compositions I - III (composed 1970-75, rec. '93, rel. '95)

We've had a lot of nice, sunny melodic music wafting through these pages of late; nothing wrong with that, and perfectly in tune with my general summer listening.  Don't want to lose sight of the harsher, more abrasive sounds that I love though, and that have always formed a core column of this blog - so here's something I've had hanging around for a while.

Russian composer Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) spent her life in Petrograd/Leningrad/Saint Petersburg, and channeled all of the upheaval that went with those name changes into powerful, cathartic music.  I've still to take the plunge with her notorious Piano Sonatas, apparently physically painful to play; this is where I started, with the three 'Compositions' written during the early-mid 70s.  Each has a subtitle taken from traditional Mass liturgy, but unlike Sofia Gubaidulina Ustvolskaya never professed any faith, and her use of religious tropes was purely for artistic style.

As with much of Ustvolskaya's output, the Composition cycle uses odd instrumentation, with the three-part Composition I (Dona Nobis Pacem) being an ominous cat-and-mouse game for piano, tuba and piccolo.  Following this is the ten part, 21-minute Composition II (Dies Irae), which is the most dramatic demonstration of Ustvolskaya's 'blocks of sound' style, with its attendant extreme dynamics.  Heavily featured here is the "Ustvolskaya cube", a wooden chipboard box played with beaters, as well as piano and eight double basses.  After this exhausting listen, Composition III (Benedictus Qui Venit) for four flutes, four bassoons and piano is positively relaxing by comparison.  A hugely recommended listening experience - make sure you're sitting comfortably.

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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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