Etc. May 2024 | Vital Suggestions
Brief dispatches from a flaming horizon, burning from end to end
Often, in my permanently online existence, I come across gems that demand sharing with my esteemed and discerning readers. Some are brand new, some are vintage, and all are fascinating.
In the spirit of communal appreciation, I am thus inspired to start a regular monthly column containing short notes about these instances of radical singularity, both audio and visual, with a view towards eventually including books, movies, and more.
Enjoy the first of these reports, featuring the latest from Clay Pipe Music, Castles in Space, a short film starring the great Joey Arias, a Krautrock special for the connoisseurs and more!
Review | “A Shared Sense of Purpose” by Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan
Just released on the reliably brilliant Castles in Space label, this four-track single comes in 12”&7” inch vinyl versions and digital downloads and is the latest release by Gordon Chapman-Fox.
According to the liner notes, it's the first transmission from the (as-of-writing) forthcoming Warrington-Runcorn New Town Development Plan's new album, titled "Your Community Hub"
This album continues on the path of sonic meditations inspired by topological specificity and personal chronology, namely the small community centers that helped the industrial city of Runcorn become a five-minute city, long before the current discussion about fifteen-minute cities, thus fostering optimism for urban regeneration, an idealistic hopefulness that subsequently became problematic, as it was corrupted, perhaps unavoidably, by gentrification.
The opening (main mix) is a chiming synth-scape featuring modulated arpeggios at various time signatures, swelling bass pads, and a cool late '70s electronic vibe, sounding not unlike Visage attempting to imitate Klaus Schulze, capturing a very particular snapshot of swooning New Romantic wanderlust.
In this sense, it is the perfect vehicle for a brooding remix by the legendary Vince Clarke, a musician who actually invented this specific flavor of artificial pleasure back in the super-early '80s, when the Blitz club dancefloor was still swinging with extravagant mutations of glam rock stardust, lop-sided fringes, pirate shirts, Kabuki-inspired make-up, and angular moves, everyone moving to the then-nascent techno sound of Neu Europa, once again culturally dominated by the music coming from the birthplace of Wagner and Bach.
Teutonic, yet not Doric, as in precise but not austere, it is a sound that attempts to bottle the lightning of 19th-century romanticism, whose narrative mourns that last gasp of soulful existence before mystical enlightenment was lost in the electrified twilight of our technological dark age, the era before machines conspired against us successfully, fulfilling the prophecy by John C. Lilly about human vs. solid state intelligence, i.e. the fight for survival between carbon-based and silicon-based sentient life forms, i.e. humans versus AI, two radically opposed entities whose co-existence is a zero-sum game of mutual destruction.
However, the show is stolen by the majestic 1973 Version, the closing track that metamorphoses the foreboding feeling of the precedent versions (and a short interlude of similar tone).
Suddenly, the betrayed visions of civic planning meeting capitalist exploitation, seem inspired by a renewed sense of purpose, as the music is adorned with beautiful acoustic guitar chords and briefly plucked licks, their bucolic dialogue haunted by a choral holding a tense harmony, and a suddenly intruding beat that harnesses the entire lyrical atmosphere to a forward-driving, motorik beat, retroactively giving the preceding tracks an introductory purpose to the dramatic finale.
Review | “Bannau Brycheiniog (A Beacons Companion)” by Vic Mars
Decidedly ambient in its tenor and electronic in nature, with the odd exception of NEU!-adjacent Krautrock drum freak-outs occasionally piercing the foggy veil of languid harmonies, the majority of predominantly synth-laden soundscapes on 'Bannau Brycheiniog' was composed during the final stages of work on Vic Mars’ last LP, 'The Beacons'
Consistently atmospheric in the sense of adhering to a contiguous mood of minor keys and fragmented melodies, the album insists on avoiding explicit compositional statements, retaining a persistently ambiguous melodic definition that is at once insinuatingly descriptive and figuratively elusive.
The carefully considered sound palette is neither clearly digital nor retrospectively analog, its ambivalent charm reminiscent of the hazy vignettes one would expect to find in the more futuristic side of the KPM or Bruton library music catalogs.
Apt as auditory ornamentation for your private meditational décor, this magic book of vague spells casts an imprecise sigil loaded with the zen potential of exquisite nothingness, promising the twilight of certainty: its aim is indeterminate yet no less enchanting for that.
Review | “Spell Blanket - Collected Demos 2006-2009” by Broadcast
Just released, this is the first of two LPs compiled from unheard material languishing in the Broadcast archive kept under lock and key until now by James Cargill, more than a decade later from the tragic passing (in 2011) of his life and work partner, the lead vocalist and songwriter Trish Keenan
These quite polished demos, intriguing sketches, and assured experiments constitute a convincing argument for the enduring reputation of this deservedly legendary group, who added 60's psychedelic pop and corrupted folk to the intelligent electronica usually promoted by the seminal Warp Records label. Along with Boards of Canada, Broadcast were hugely influential in the development of a great deal of what today is called the Hauntological genre.
In this 36-track collection, they are (yet again) confirmed to be a daring, experimental band adopting odd genres for the fun of warping formats through their off-kilter perspective, displaying remarkable adaptability and skill in disparate directions, ranging from the hard edges of Krautrock motorik beats, simultaneously pacifying and relentless, to languid anthems reminiscent of Nico-era Velvet Underground or even the charming playfulness of forgotten psychedelic pop.
Review | Music May 2024 | “Visit Malphino” by Malphino
An underrated release from 2018, “Visit Malphino” is the debut album from a London-based collective of musicians and visual artists forming an outer-national party band playing in the court of a king without a country. Aptly, the members of the Malphino collective come from Japan, Malaysia, Colombia, France, the Philippines, and the UK.
The mysterious Malphino, named after the eponymous (fictional) tropical island, play cumbia, and a heady mix of Afro-Latin sounds, conceivably at some amazing party happening somewhere in their imaginary homeland.
Cinematic and moody, folkloric and academic, voluptuous and evocative, their music serves as a psychoacoustic souvenir from the non-existent isle of Malphino and its ethos.
Think of a Colombian/Caribbean version of other such fusion legends like Calexico or the sublime Hermanos Gutiérrez, only in this instance, Malphino are much less preoccupied with notions of authenticity, following instead an eccentric aesthete's instinctive approach to folkloric tradition.
Their album features their specialized brand of sub-tropical fusion – a hypnotic blend of cumbia rhythms, subtle digital modulations, sequencing, synth effects, accordion-heavy textures, their ritualistic daze kept breezy by effervescent percussion, daring the listener to abandon themselves in an ecstatic embrace of tropical intoxication
Initially emerging from Afro-Colombian funeral processions, cumbia is defined by a distinctive skipping, rolling rhythm created by the wooden guacharaca, a metal brush and wood two-piece percussive instrument that produces the rich scraping sound always present in any cumbia rhythm configuration, enhanced with cowbells, tom-toms and various other spicy beat making whatchamacallits.
Malphino choose to combine hypnotic cumbia grooves with unexpected samples, like cinematic montages of earnest romantic intent, syncretizing disparate influences: the cloying sentimentalism of telenovelas appears in the form of lovelorn sprechgesang in amorous Spanish, succeeded by minimal minor keys harmonizing in the background of motorik-like Kraftwerk approximations that suppose the Teutonic kings of electronic purism were a Latin easy listening combo playing at a party scene in a Sergio Leone film
The joyous, often frenetic, style of cumbia that Malphino have crafted nods respectfully to the various denominations of modern cumbia movements worldwide yet carves its own unique, transcendental spin on the genre.
The bouncy Malphino sound integrates an array of percussion and rhythms from either side of the Pacific ocean, while arrangements and orchestration reinterpret the traditional Colombian street band, featuring organ solos, persistent accordion duels, twangy guitarrón riffs, rousing bongo breaks, spicy maracas and soft tuba stabs.
There is a strong emphasis on East-Asian folkloric traditions, particularly in the tempo and chords, recalling the influence exerted by consecutive Chinese, Philippine, and Thai immigrant waves to Latin American culture, and in this specific case on the Brazilian forró, 1930’s Cuban rumba, Peruvian chicha and their assorted permutations.
This heady mix of volcanic sounds is given extra potency by a fluid use of electronic sequencing, with reverb and echo effects laced into the melodic lines and sparse vocals, thus recreating the dreamlike rapture of their magical island.
Primarily originating from Latin America cumbia by definition melds musical and cultural elements from Indigenous, European, and enslaved Pan-African communities and East Asian immigration. This already very potent mix is further othered by Malphino via the addition of European harmonic scales, classical chord progressions or even symphonic arrangements.
In its complementary approach of attracting incongruous if not oppositional elements - Latin and Asian, local and universal, faithfully folkloric and meta-historically post-modern - the fantastical narrative of an imaginary island posits a thesis that supports the oblique approach necessary to access the quasi-metaphysical interior complexities of cumbia, which is by nature and historical fact a polyrhythmic empire of beats foreign to each other.
The tumultuous human traffic, both criminal and legitimate, voluntary or exiled, adventurous or persecuted, free or enslaved, presupposes radical departures as the main fuel contributing to the dynamic flux of colonial times, epochal and ancient, and of course still ongoing and perhaps eternal, having already defined the human condition irrevocably, their cultural impact now an integral part of human experience, even if they, improbably, stop, which is nigh impossible barring some cosmic disaster.
To grasp the social significance of cumbia, one must account for the evolution of Colombia's complex history, which includes Spanish colonialism, local folk dances, and slave music imported from Africa, every one of these mighty forces introducing a multi-ethnic and diasporic mix of inherent contradictions between social classes, countries of origin, inherited as opposed to invented traditions.
All of these factors inform the varied manifestations of cumbia in a manner that is by definition exotic, other, foreign, and ghostly. It is almost by default the sound of an invented civilization, the music of fantastical people, populating our imaginarium with non-existent archetypes, as if one is listening to the traditional music of indigenous people who do not exist except as ghosts haunting a simultaneously fictional and factual narrative.
Review | “Rotate” by Co-Pilot
Featuring dream-pop female vocals reminiscent of the faux-naive harmonizing by early '80s Glasgow Legends Strawberry Switchblade, this album was released in 2023 as the debut of Co-Pilot, a London-based duo comprised of Alan Peter Roberts and Leonore Wheatley.
The production is seductive, proposing a consciously ornate version of vintage pop arrangements, mainly guitar and vocal led, electro-acoustic and sung in a breathy soprano respectively, opulently accompanied with echoing choirs, psychedelic flourishes like call-and-response backing vocals, sped up and reversed samples, ethereal synth lines, all mounted on an upbeat swing, courtesy of some fantastic drumming and percussion, whose buoyant swing never rises above a gently nostalgic yet assertively confident shuffle.
The entire exercise, including the romantic lyrics, primarily brings to mind the warped easy listening and '60s lounge music perversions of Stereolab, a baroque aesthetic that harks back to Karen Carpenter, Buffy St. Marie, Susan Christie and other space folk muses, re-emerging recently through early Goldfrapp and the less chart-orientated efforts of Saint Etienne, to name but a few enthusiasts of revisionist interpretations of the late '60s and early '70s psychedelic folk, arguably the most creative years for music in the last century.
Watch | “Klaus Dinger, Urvater des Techno / Klaus Dinger, Forefather of Techno”
A German biographical documentary about the force of nature that was Klaus Dinger, the mythical drummer of NEU!, the highly influential and fanatically revered early to mid-'70s Dusseldorf-based Krautrock superstars.
With Martin Rother, the second founder of this legendary duo, they practically defined the New Wave, No Wave, and alternative rock template until today, inventing a simultaneously manic and hypnotic amalgam of organic beats, metronomic repetition and desaturated minimalism. Still sounding as fresh as ever, their seminal releases and influence are talked about by such luminaries as Iggy Pop, Kraftwerk's Ralph Florian, Primal Scream's Bobby Gillespie, Joy Division's / New Order's Stephen Morris and other, perhaps lesser known, yet no less iconic, contemporary figures.
Watch | Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg
Alexis Bloom’s documentary offers a suitably enigmatic portrait of Anita Pallenberg, the mercurial muse of the Rolling Stones.
The film adeptly captures Pallenberg's sheer charisma, portraying her as an enduring icon of 60s rock culture. Through a blend of archival footage and interviews, Bloom showcases Pallenberg's magnetic presence and influential role as an actor and model. However, the documentary leans heavily on her public persona, leaving much of her background and personal history unexplored. This approach maintains an air of mystery around Pallenberg, emphasizing her enigmatic nature. Overall, it is a captivating tribute that highlights her lasting influence while preserving the mystique that surrounded her.
Watch | Joey Arias: Ooh What A Feeling / No One Knows / Whatever
Directed with style, humour and visual panache by Aaron Maurer, this 10 minute long trilogy of music videos is a nothing less than mesmerizing, amounting to a mini-musical that does justice to the multifarious talents of the great after-hours cabaret deity, nightlife legend, part-time Billie Holiday reincarnation and all-around icon Joey Arias. All three songs are excerpted from his long awaited and quite accomplished debut album, "Past, Present, Future” out now on BEIGE Records.
Text written by Panagiotis Chatzistefanou, Berlin, May 2024