It was 50 years ago since Stevie Wonder released his sixteenth album Innervisions. It was one of the first albums I bought on request of an older friend. At this time I used to listen to late 60s music and glam and with this album I first got in touch with soul music. Since then I came back to this kind of music from time to time. Innervisions appeared in a period Stevie Wonder had his best outputs. Listening to this record again it shows how great and creative Stevie was at this time. Most of the instruments were played by himself and he made synths compatible for our ears long before they were used in the early 80s. He also had a spread in his sound from ballads over funky sounds to storytelling songs. Still a masterpiece after a half century.
During the last days I found once again the first album by Daniel Lanois' Acadie i n my collection and asked myself why I didn't listened to them for ages. Released in 1989 it is a classic in Americana and guitar lead music. Filled with great songs that connects country and rock music in a way other artists tried after but never reached the level of the Canadian singer/songwriter and guitarist. I forgot how good this album was and how much it impressed me when I listened to it for the first time.
My email inbox has been overflowing in the last few weeks and I only got around to deleting hundreds of inboxes and taking a closer look at the interesting ones in the last few days. Once again, an email from Heavenly Records caught my eye, as their releases have been among the most interesting in the last few months alongside Höga Nord Records. Until then, Local Psycho and The Hurdy-Gurdy Orchestra were unknown to me. The orchestra is essentially Jem Finer and Jimmy Cauty, both London based musicians. They released a few weeks ago their first song and return now with remixed versions of The Hurdy-Gurdy Song. What kind of music do you expect in this 23 minutes? A frenetic drone experience that should be listened loud. Seldom a press release nailed it better:
Finally, the Stone Club mix sees the people behind the country's hottest megalithic fanclub deconstruct and pull and reshape The Hurdy Gurdy Song before adding trippy vocal samples and seismic distortion to create a spaced out spiritual ambient dronescape that stretches out over twenty plus minutes of supreme, beautiful, horizontal oddness
On our way back from our education me and my colleague we had to drive home by train for five hours and were too tired to talk much. So we sat and checked the news on our mobile phone. This was the time I got aware that Wreckless Eric released a new record after ages. I didn't expected a new record by him because the last things I read about him that he nearly died and he was battling with long Covid. It seems that he was is better shape and able to record a new album at the age of 69. What I heard impressed me much and it is good he returned to classic song writing and he didn't lost his ability to write great songs. Most of them were recorded with classic instruments and superb arranged. His voice is older but not broken, the Rickenbacker guitar shines through this songs and Amy Rigby appears on backing vocals. Okay it is a record with old fashioned songs but for me the right music at the right time. Welcome back, Eric.
Today I start for a further training for my job in Münster. I can't tell you the reason why my boss sent me for this with a younger colleague because my working time is finite but I accepted to go for the trip. Münster has an old tradition and there was the peace of Westphalia was concluded, ending the Thirty Years' War back in 1648. I was there ages ago and I remember Munster as a town worth to be visited with it's beautiful old dome and an animated old town. I am sure that we will have a nice evening in a great town before our education will start the next day.
I looked for some artist/bands from Münster to feature at this place but didn't find one that was worth for it. So I decided to take a song that shuffled from my mobile phone earlier today. Tom Tom Club was the side project by Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz as a side project from Talking Heads. They released their self-titled debut album in 1981 that was filled with funky dance-floor inspired sounds. Genius Of Love was a formidable hit at these days and many could agree with this sound for these summer.
I have to admit that I am not a fan of blues music. Of course I know the heroes of long time gone by but I saw a several blues musicians live during the last decades but none made me feel to see them once again. Don't know why but maybe because the music was too calculable and the lyrics are too similar to others. But back in 1989 John Lee Hooker returned at the age of at the age of 73 with The Healer and he got rightly much critical acclaim. Not only with his collaborations with Carlos Santana, who was there a shadow of himself but his collaborations with Bonnie Raitt and Gerorge Thorogood were fantastic and still worth to be played after all these years. If you want to listen to blues music try this album and you'll enjoy.
Matt Gunn is a British producer and and composer and very busy in releasing albums and EP's. Since the last two years he works on a new way of electronic sounds. Based on Moog and Roland equipment he adds some drums and guitar to his sound. The result is nothing less than electronic thumping music for today.
One of last years highlights in music was Reset, a collaboration between Sonic Boom and Panda Bear. It was a retro based album using fragments of music long gone by to create something really new. Because of the quality of the songs and the variety of ideas in them it was played often at my place. Now they return with a dub version of this album. Adrian Sherwood on the controllers made these songs more brighter than they were by adding strings, horns and additional piano to this versions. Not bad way to start into another hot and sunny Sunday.
I am not the one looking for samplers about an era - especially when it is about the time music turned from pub rock met punk. But another Kids On The Street another superb compilation by Cherry Red records is one of them you can listen to and bringing back memories from ages ago. I don't have to tell much of the artists, so just enjoy these songs once again.
Hollie Cook released last year Happy Hour, an album that I liked and was played often during last summer. A few weeks ago the daughter of Pistols drummer Paul Cook released a second dub version of an album by her. Happy Hours In Dub is a relaxed and smooth version of her last years record. She got a feeling how to refine her superb songs. Perfectly arranged with horns and great bass-lines and a bit of Western touch she made an album far above mainstream. I wish this would be released a few month earlier to take me through the summer time.
There are band that will ever be a kind of a best kept secret because they celebrate their anonymity and you can't find much of them in the internet. One of those bands are Craven Faults, a British band, and I don't know where they come from. Their debut album Erratics & Unconformities from 2020 was a highland and still on rotation at my place. Since then they released several EP's and in May their last album Standers. Like always they take you out to an instrumental trip. In their tradition of a downtempo and reduced mood the start their songs with longer introductions to let them drift into electronic and guitar inspired sounds. One of those records and songs you can get lost in. Another name for a year end list.
Last Monday the sad news arrived that Detroit singer/songwriter Sixto 'Sugar Man' Rodriguez died at the age of 71. I have to admit that I didn't knew his name until I saw a documentary about his life and songs 10 years ago that showed how a musical career died and how he got the recognition he earned. Sixto Díaz Rodríguez, as he was called by his full name and was born in Detroit in 1942 as the son of Mexican immigrants, had a talent for banishing hard social realities into lyrics and catchy melodies, including in "Hate Street Dialogue" or "Rich Folks Hoax." In Detroit, which had experienced riots in 1967 in which the poor and the discriminated against rebelled, he did not have to search for substances for long. But even though, after the discovery by music producers with his two albums, he was regarded as a great hope of folk music, which had opened up in the direction of pop and rock, the success for Rodriguez remained. The label Sussex Records dropped him again, so that the song line "I lost my job two weeks before Christmas" became bitter reality. As it turned out only a few years later, his songs were also connectable in completely different places in the world. In South Africa, allegedly triggered by the import of a Rodriguez record in the luggage of an American woman, an increasing hype about the singer - believed dead at the time - set in motion, and in particular his "Establishment Blues" advanced to the anti-apartheid anthem.
He had retired from the music business in the early 1970s and kept himself afloat with casual jobs. It was only when his eldest daughter read about it in the then flourishing Internet at the end of the 1990s that he became aware of it. Rodriguez went on tour in South Africa and later in other countries. "Thank you for keeping me alive," he told the audience at one of the concerts in South Africa. Since I got aware of him I often listened to his song and remarkable voice. A very underrated talent.
When I was looking for something else on the Internet a few days ago, I came across a publication from the beginning of this year that I didn't know about until that day. Jah Wobble released another album this January with The Bus Routes Of South London. It is a theme album of musical explorations he recorded and worked on them while he took some bus rides through South West London. The result are nine songs with his incomparable bass and fragments of ambient, guitar licks and dub step. The album is not groundbreaking but another one for the very late hours of the day. An overlooked gem of this year.
Pye Corner Audio is the stage name by British producer Martin Jenkins who released during the last years several releases and remixes. Most of those electronic releases were far ahead of the average of this genre and often played at my home. I really enjoy the groove and the way he shows his version of relaxed electronic music. Last week he released another tune that I played several times since I listened to it the first time. An hypnotic electronic beat with some echoes and guitar licks is sometimes all you need.
Cherry Red is the record label releasing fantastic
compilations since many years. Now they released Where Were You? Independent Music from Leeds 1978-1989 a compilation of Leeds based bands from the early punk/new wave era until the days shoegaze turned into the new next big thing. Many bands are well know on this three CD's but with less known songs; others are new to me. Anyway it is another opportunity to step back to these days. Listening to these songs many memories returns and made me grab out other records from this decade.
A few days ago I was in a mood to look at my blog posts from the time I started starting this blog. I came across an old series, which I kept going at the time and during which I took a closer look at the time of pub rock. I came across a post I wrote 10 years ago and featured Mickey Jupp. He was a singer/songwriter associated with the so called Southend music scene. In the very early 70's he released a few albums with a mix of rockabilly, blues rock and pop. His success was limited but he became a leading figure a few years later at the pub-rock scene and played on the same level as Dr. Feelgood for whom he wrote Down At The Doctors. Other artists like Dave Edmunds and Nick Lowe covered his songs after he signed to Stiff record label. I loved to listen to his songs after decades and I think it is necessary to feature him and his music once again.
Kevin Rowland is back with Dexys after one decade with a new album. Since he appeared with the Midnight Runners in the 80s I followed him and his music through almost 40 years. Rowland brought back (Northern) soul to my ears and I am grateful about it. One Day I'M Going To Soar was a highlight in 2012 and often played at my place. Now he brought a new album filled with nothing new old fashioned sounds. Rousing pop and soul are popular, with wonderfully brass-heavy instrumented, perfectly arrayed pieces, such as the rightly decoupled single I'm Going To Get Free or the similarly intense northern soul piece Coming Home. For me an excellent album that will surely will appear in my years end list.
James are one of those early 80's Manchester bands that are still on duty and I always come back to them. It seems like a long time affair between me and them but I liked the way they wrote and arranged their songs. This year they surprised me first with Be Opened By The Wonderful, an orchestral rework Joe Duddell showing that is possible to release their songs again not on an another simple compilation. These days they released a compilation of their singles most of them remixed. This is another facet of the beauty of their songs. Seems like a fan is speaking to you - and yes it is.
After weeks of absence, I am here again. I had a visit from Sri Lanka for two months and took this as an opportunity to change my leisure time behaviour and to distance myself from a constantly recurring circle of stereotypical processes and to spend more and different time with friends. During this time, I also largely gave up music and only partially ran my blog. The thought of mothballing it came up more than once, especially since little new and exciting music has reached me. But it is also the case that I still enjoy running this blog and will continue to do so and share old and new things with others. Professionally, I am in my last year and still have a lot to sort out before I can retire as planned in the middle of next year.
A band that has appeared here on these pages again and again in recent years is Cari Cari from Austria. They are one of my favourite bands from my neighbouring country. Rumour has it that they only formed to place a song in a Tarantino film. With many of their songs, this would be quite conceivable, because their mix of psychedelic rock, Americana and indie pop would look good in many of his films. Their second single from their last album shows once again that a good song often needs nothing more than a twangy guitar, an almost padded voice and a good melody.
