All Christmas songs are rubbish? CODSWALLOP!

IT'S THE ENRAPTURED CHRISTMAS BLOG!!!

Some people will tell you that there's no such thing as a good Christmas pop song, and that those tunes which do masquerade as such are all mawkish, cringe-inducing, nostalgia-fuelled tripe.  Now, many of the Christmas songs gifted to us by the latter part of the 20th century do indeed fall under this long-winded but nonetheless fair description, but there are a few - just a few, mind - which buck the trend.  You won't find any of them in such hallowed lists as are featured in respectable publications like this.  Lists like these feature only songs which have either received the near-universal seal of public approval (Fairytale of New York, War is Over) or revel in their own ridiculousness, whether they realise it or not (Mistletoe & Wine).  What I'm interested in are Christmas pop songs which stand on their own merits, but are often unfairly overlooked in favour of other, shinier hits.  They are still, however, songs which regularly appear on almost every compilation of Christmas pop tunes, so you've no excuse not to seek them out and rediscover their myriad charms this festive season.

1. A Spaceman Came Travelling by Chris de Burgh

'Tis a truth universally acknowledged that Chris de Burgh is rubbish; just ask Bill Bailey.  But like a stopped clock telling the right time once in a while he was destined to produce just one great tune, and this is it.  The lovely sound of proper '70s electric piano lets us know we're in for something special, and despite the insipid lyrics with their bizarre sci-fi take on the traditional Christmas story, de Burgh's voice on this track has what I can only describe as a haunting quality.  Plus, it has a chorus you can actually mosh to, if you try really hard.  Embrace it!

2. A Winter's Tale by David Essex

Singer and alleged actor David Essex's oeuvre is also somewhat lacking in quality tunes, with Rock On perhaps being one of only two exceptions (I don't care what you say!).  The other is this (sort of) Christmas song from 1982, with lyrics written by Tim Rice (best known for his later work with Disney on Aladdin, The Lion King et al).  Perhaps its mournful atmosphere prevents the track from being as widely celebrated as other '80s Christmas pop fayre, but it makes for a nice change in mood every time it turns up in the midst of gurning, parping Christmas party music.  Apart from marking one of the few occasions during the '80s when a soprano saxophone was utilised in a tasteful manner, I also find this song to be deeply evocative of cold winter days and colder winter nights.

3. The Power of Love by Frankie Goes To Hollywood

Lyrically, I'm not sure what this song actually has to do with Christmas.  Granted, the video has a nativity theme, but I think this may have been created to boost the track's chances of a high festive chart position back in 1984.  In any event, it has come by convention to be considered a Christmas song, and a very good one it is, too.  A lush, piano 'n' strings ballad will probably seem somewhat out of place for people who only know this band from hits like Relax and Two Tribes, but this song - in my opinion - trumps them both.  The chord changes and vocal melody are lovely, and singer Holly Johnson gets a chance to showcase his not unimpressive vocal talent.  Although there's a nicely ominous synth and drum break at about three minutes in with which they could have done so much more, Frankie Goes To Hollywood nonetheless showed that they were capable of wonderous things with this song.

4. I Believe in Father Christmas by Greg Lake

Using as its melodic basis the "troika" from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije Suite (which has itself come to be an incredibly popular piece of Christmas music, despite never having been intended as such by the composer), Greg Lake's festive tune is an underappreciated gem which actually features some rather anti-clerical lyrics; a fact not seemingly appreciated by most broadcasters.  With lines like, "they told me a fairy story till I believed in the Israelite", however, the intent seems unmistakable, despite what Lake and (lyricist) Peter Sinfield may have said subsequently.

5. In Dulci Jubilo by Mike Oldfield

Last but far from least is Mike Oldfield's reimagining of a traditional Christmas carol.  His take on In Dulci Jubilo has a nicely rustic feel overall, but the real treat comes about halfway through, when Mike busts out what I believe to be the ultimate Christmas guitar solo (TM).  Whether there are in fact any other Christmas guitar solos is quite irrelevant; this is the ultimate one.  Despite a couple of rather obvious fluffed notes.  Ahem.  Dig it!

These are, in my view, the five most underappreciated Christmas pop tunes ever.  All of them are worthy of your attention and re-appraisal, and I'll tell you why:  atmosphere.  It's something I bang on about an awful lot, but atmosphere is the truly essential component in creating a memorable piece of music.  These five tracks - irrespective of their various flaws and merits - all have atmosphere, specifically a Christmas atmopshere.  Maybe this is just rose-tinted nostalgia on my part - even though I wasn't alive when four of these tracks were originally released - but I recommend you give them a spin this Christmas.  They might even climb to the lofty rank of "guilty pleasures".

MAURICE SENDAK by Not A Teepee

With a total running time of less than 15 minutes, this new release from the Not A Teepee collective is short and sweet, so there's really no excuse for you not to give it a listen, is there?  Ultimately, though, it's quality not quantity that counts, and fortunately this mini-album has the former in spades.

Maurice Sendak (named for the cantankerous author of Where The Wild Things Are) features 5 tracks from various Teepee regulars, and is infused with the same dreamy atmosphere so skilfully evoked by the work of its namesake.  These musical vignettes form a brief yet beautiful journey soundtracked by acoustic guitar, piano and heavenly organ which more than lives up to the high standards set by the collective itself on previous recordings.  Ranging from the exultant to the melancholic, the album's mood is ultimately one of longing, perhaps for the almost forgotten childhood world of imagination which Sendak himself so effectively captured.  As is now customary with Not A Teepee releases, the album's theme is borne out elegantly across the contributions gathered here.

As ever, streaming and free (legit) download is available here.

NORMAL SERVICE WILL RESUME....

The return to university is taking its toll on my free time, unfortunately.  As such, my Enraptured updates will be somewhat less frequent in the coming months, but this is not the end!  I'll still try to come out with dubious ramblings whenever I can, and normal service will be resumed once I am no longer slogging my guts out over piles of textbooks.  My thanks for your indulgence.

(I was going to add a humorous cartoon of a stressed-out student to this post, but the blogger platform is being....difficult.  That is all.)

THE REAL MCCOY by McCoy Tyner

It can easily be argued that the advent of punk in the late 1970s shifted the emphasis from what musicians were playing to how they were playing it.  An obsession with the former proved the artistic downfall of the so-called progressive rock movement, but it's also an accusation that can also be levelled at many jazz musicians of the '60s.  Endless bars of passionless, clinical playing were the bane of a musical form which had only recently received a much-needed injection of innovation and verve from the likes of Ornette Coleman, Miles Davis and John Coltrane.  Despite the intervention of these revolutionary godfathers, however, jazz was sometimes in danger of losing itself in the technical what of music, rather than the passionate how.  Not so McCoy Tyner, Coltrane's former pianist and an accomplished player, composer and performer in his own right.

Tyner never lost sight of the how, as evidenced by the track Contemplation, from his 1967 album The Real McCoy.  The track's brooding atmosphere and seductive groove immediately drag the listener into a private, ethereal world of Tyner's own creation. but the magic really happens at approximately 4 minutes and 46 seconds in, when Tyner spends 8 bars hammering a single piano chord in his inimitable, percussive style.  The effect is stunning; in the midst of his solo, Tyner breaks off from his dexterous yet melodic tinkling to create an almost unbearable tension which keeps the listener spellbound - all with a single chord!  This is a pure expression of the power of how in music, a whole decade before punk's seismic impact. 

The rest of the album is also a testament to music with feeling, with the appropriately named Passion Dance unleashing a joyous cascade of notes powered by sheer emotion, and the tranquil Search For Peace showcasing all the very best elements of jazz balladry.  It's also wonderful to hear Tyner reunited with virtuoso drummer Elvin Jones, after their long tenure together in Coltrane's legendary quartet.  Tyner's massive chords and Jones' percussive tapestry combine - as usual - to forge a titanic sound which seems too overpowering to be the work of a single rhythm section, and fortunately this would not be their last record together.  Tyner has recorded (and continues to record) many great albums over the course of his long career, but The Real McCoy is arguably his best. and a good starting place for non-jazzers, to boot.  This is music to move you, music with passion in its DNA.  Music which is less about the what than the how.    

GOOD DAYS AT SCHLOSS ELMAU by Gwilym Simcock

When I began writing this post, I had every intention of crafting a lengthy diatribe about the need of the Mercury Prize organisers to include one "token" jazz album every year in their shortlist of nominees.  I quickly realised that this would be nothing more than a futile rant, since it's an argument so old as to have been made by Alexis Petridis in an article for the Guardian way back in 2002.  Much as I'm usually riled by Petridis' indie-centric populism, I have to agree that it's pointless to bemoan the Mercury's tokenistic approach to the inclusion of one particular genre, when the very idea of comparing albums featuring wildly different styles and attempting to identify "the best" is inherently ridiculous.  What I really wanted to do was write about Gwilym Simcock's Good Days At Schloss Elmau, although to refer to it merely as this year's "token jazz entry" at the Mercurys does a great disservice to a wonderful record.

I don't like using other artists as reference points in my posts; it smacks of lazy music writing.  In the case of Good Days At Schloss Elmau, though, I'm going to have to make an exception, as this album reminds me so strongly of Keith Jarrett's solo work that it'd be remiss of me not to at least give him a mention.  In particular, Simcock's playing on this album is reminiscent of Jarrett's improvised piano pieces on records like Koln Concert and La Scala, which combine a jazz sensibility with fragments of lush romanticism.  Simcock's training as a classical pianist is evident on tracks like Mezzotint, where rolling waves of arpeggios disintegrate into quiet clusters of notes, drawing the listener in from start to finish.  But the versatility of his playing is also apparent in the bluesy rhythms and lurching solos of Gripper, as well as the dramatic cascade of melodies on meandering epic Can We Still Be Friends.  It's difficult to tell how much of the music here might be improvised, but every track seems to hang on a well-crafted structure; further evidence of Simcock's successful melding of jazz and classical romantic styles.  Perhaps the greatest testament to the performances on this album is that despite being recorded entirely by one man sitting at a piano, they seem to take the listener on a journey through vast, glittering soundscapes which bigger and louder groups of musicians would struggle to replicate with any amount of instrumentation.

The album was recorded at the eponymous "cultural hideaway" of Schloss Elmau in the Bavarian alps, and the cold beauty of the landscape seems to have infused the music.  Across the eight tracks collected here, Simcock paints pictures of love, loss and overwhelming longing using nothing more than his piano keys.  Decent jazz pianists may be ten-a-penny these days, but it's rare to find one whose playing is so evocative.  That said, Good Days... still won't win the Mercury Prize.  It won't win, but I really hope it does.

KEYS by Not A Teepee

If I could play anything other than just bass guitar, I'd be strongly tempted to submit a track for the Not A Teepee collective.  Using a one-word concept to determine the direction of each compilation leaves artists with a lot of room for interpretation, whilst ensuring a measure of uniformity among the tracks on every release.  It's a brilliant idea, and one which has served the collective well since its inception almost a year ago.  The title of this latest collection - Keys - seems to have inspired almost all the participants in exactly the same way, as each track is centred on a theme or chord progression hammered out on the proverbial ivories.  There are a few other instruments thrown into the mix as always, but for this release the humble keyboard (with its myriad permutations) takes centre stage.

Les Pelicans get things off to a frenetic start with the punked-up, lo-fi bossa nova of Paint, which is followed by grandiose waves of Klaus Schulze-esque synthesiser on Detail's Bring Your Cat To Work Day.  Sarah J Stanley complements her keys with some nicely delayed guitar and a haunting vocal line on All My Heroes Are Homegrown, while a maelstrom of synthesised sound envelops the celestial rock-out of It Is A New Day's astronomical hymn, Hey Big Dipper!.  A beautifully wistful piano takes centre stage on Key Note Speaking, a rare instrumental from Tim Courtney, and John Hekert's Green Pony persona marries his ominous organ tones to menacing vocal fragments on the fantastically-named Pussybreaker.  Fiona Keenan's take on the Keys concept results in a decidedly retro piece of electro-pop, which works as a pleasingly jarring counterpoint to her typically down-to-earth lyrics.  The album is thus brought to a close by a synth bossa nova beat not dissimilar to the one which started it.  Maybe the style's making a comeback....

Obviously, "keyboard" is no more an instrument than "strings" or "buttons" are.  It's an interface which can control instruments capable of producing a whole range of sounds, meaning that although the theme of this album is Keys, the seven tracks here gathered showcase a huge amount of variety over the duration of the recording.  There is one sound, however, that seems to come up again and again; that of the organ.  The instrument's ecclesiastical heritage may lend it some inherent gravitas, or perhaps people just think it always sounds cool, but for some reason its warm tones never seem to go out of style.  One thing's for sure, though, and that is that Keys is yet another quality collection of material from a project which never seems to run out of steam.

Available for streaming and free download here.

WAITING FOR ATONESJKA by Krister Jonsson Trio & Svante Henryson

 

The jazz guitarist John Etheridge is fond of saying that the guitar is the most versatile and expressive of all instruments.  I can think of quite a few violinists who'd take issue with that, but he's right in thinking that the versatility of the guitar, in particular the electric guitar, is often undervalued.  Steve Hackett (another underappreciated wizard of the fretboard) echoed this sentiment when he said that there's a whole orchestra in a guitar; it just needs to be unleashed.  Unfortunately, there aren't many musicians who even attempt to utilise this most ubiquitous of instruments to its fullest potential.  There are too many tired, generic riffs and solos polluting the studios and the airwaves, and too many musicians content to regurgitate the techniques they've heard a thousand times before.  In such a climate, it's easy to forget the truth behind Etheridge and Hackett's assertions, that the humble guitar can do so much more than is often required of it.  But this only makes it more of a joy when a guitarist who really does know how to play their instrument appears, and makes an album which showcases the full range of the guitar's capabilities.  One such guitarist is Krister Jonsson, and one such album is Waiting For Atonesjka.

Jonsson is a rather mysterious figure whose official website seems to consist of a succession of blank pages, and if he is known at all in the UK it's most likely for his guitar work with progressive rock supergroups like Karmakanic and The Tangent.  Back home in the Swedish town of Malmo, however, he has his own jazz trio, who in 2004 got together with acclaimed cellist Svante Henryson to record Waiting For Atonesjka.  It's a great album generally, and special mention should go to Henryson for his inventive contributions, but the record is of particular interest as a showcase for the sheer versatility of the electric guitar in the hands of a player like Jonsson.  The group's musical style can roughly be described as jazz-rock, but the incorporation of myriad other influences creates a fluid sound which is ripe for improvisation.  The serpentine melodies and jazzy chords of opener Voices and urgent rocker Shotma sit alongside the stately strumming of Insomniac and the gorgeous, delicate arpeggios of Om Kor and closing track Varsagod.  Along the way the listener is also treated to oriental scales, ethereal drones, full-on rock riffs and even the slow-burning funk licks of Henryson compostion Jog.  Only the Swedish could come up with so delightfully demented a notion as cello-funk!  Through the course of the album, Jonsson lets his instrument breathe in the spaces between and in front of both the rhythm section and Henryson's complementary cello work.  His contributions are never overtly flashy, nor are they generic or conventional.  Everything he plays - whether lead or accompaniment - sounds tailor-made to enhance the piece of music as a whole, whilst still showcasing the uniquely beautiful potential of the electric guitar, as he does in the soaring, emotional majesty of tracks like Confession.  It's a difficult balancing act to maintain, and a rare thing to find in any genre of music.

It's easy to get sick of hearing the guitar, I think.  It's everywhere; it dominates popular music right across the spectrum.  Many of the melodic and rhythmic conventions of modern music have been shaped by its use over the last century, and now to a large extent a lethargy has set in amongst its exponents which can inhibit musical creativity.  This is why albums like Waiting For Atonesjka are important, because they are a reminder that guitarists don't have to pick a style and stick with it, or keep using the same lumpen chords and predictable scales again and again, but can instead unlock the potential of what can be an extremely versatile and beautiful instrument.

In the end, all this waffling only leaves us with one question:  who or what is Atonesjka?  My internet searches have yielded only results connected to this album, and there seems to be nothing else.  Is it a made-up word, or some archaic Swedish cultural reference?  It seems to be, like Krister Jonsson himself, something of a mystery.

HANNA (OST) by The Chemical Brothers

We seem to be living in a new golden age for film soundtracks, or at least film soundtracks which stand up as albums on their own merits, independent of visual accompaniment.  Popular musicians like Trent Reznor (The Social Network), Daft Punk (Tron Legacy) and Alex Turner (Submarine) have all recently recorded film scores which have received much critical acclaim not just as soundtracks, but also as original musical works.  Along with the consistently captivating work of Clint Mansell (Requiem For A Dream, The Fountain, Moon etc) and Hans Zimmer's increasingly experimental post-Batman renaissance, these recordings seem to form the vanguard of a new generation of film soundtracks which hark back to impact-making '70s classics such as Saturday Night Fever and The Taking of Pelham 123, albeit with a fresh, post-millennial aesthetic.  The latest addition to this canon of new and exciting film scoring is the Chemical Brothers' sublime soundtrack to the 2011 UK/US/German film Hanna. 

Despite being known primarily for their pounding electronic beats and funky synth work, the sound of this recording by the Chemical Brothers is a remarkably varied one, and very much inkeeping with the themes of the film itself.  The soothing chimes and vocal samples of opener Hanna's Theme give way to the ominous, bassy pulse and oriental melodies of Escape 700, nicely capturing the idea of lost innocence which is central to the movie's plot.  The closest the soundtrack comes to having a recurring leitmotif is the charming, playful whistling of The Devil Is In The Details, which as well as being an infectious melody is symbolic of the corrupted fairytale to which it forms an accompaniment.  The tune turns up again in the churning Euro-funk of The Devil Is In The Beats, which if ever released as a single would justly be a massive hit.  Spacey electronics abound on tracks like The Forest and Marissa Flashback, and the Brothers are in more familiar territory with the myriad samples and majestic keyboards of Quayside Synthesis, Bahnhof Rumble and Car Chase (Arp worship).  Light and dark are effectively contrasted on Interrogation/Lonesome Subway/Grimm's House, which captures the Lynchian chill of the movie's darker moments, before the climactic tension of the album's penultimate tracks gives way to an upbeat variation of the opening theme.

The listener is taken on a journey through skittering beats, exotic melodies and ethereal soundscapes which mirror the lonely deserts, dark highways and abandoned playgrounds of the film itself.  This dreamlike vibe is shared by both the music and its cinematic counterpart, but while the soundtrack would be worthy of considerable acclaim if released as just a standalone Chemical Brothers album, the movie would be stripped of its all-important atmosphere by the exclusion of this haunting score.  The record has previously only been available in the UK through the iTunes store, but other versions become available as of 4th July and I urge you all to lay your hands on one if you can.  See the film, too!  As with the soundtrack, it's not quite like anything else I've experienced this year.   

SPARROWS by Not A Teepee

It might be thought that a record cobbled together from the recordings of far-flung muscians who rarely meet in person would be a rather piecemeal affair, lacking musical cohesion and feeling more like a compilation than an album.  Each such release from the multinational collective Not A Teepee manages to avoid this trap however, perhaps because each album is based around a unifying theme which has the potential to be at once mundane and profound, and so can be twisted to suit the interpretation of each artist while at the same time lending a cohesion to the project.  Sparrows, their latest album, is no exception.

Musically, it's a typically diverse affair.  Paris-based singer/songwriter Mark McCabe starts proceedings with a gorgeously bittersweet acoustic lament called Fall From The Sky, which features a heartrending vocal melody; Aberdeen band Seas, Starry contribute Dans Les Prisons De Nantes, a collaged soundscape of textured drones and sparse melodic fragments which gives the listener the impression of flying or floating; Fiona Keenan doesn't let her quality control slip one bit with This Is What Writers Do To Each Other, a mournful tune featuring intertwining lines of guitar and vocals; and Kitchen Cynics gives us Sparrow Scratchboard, which is a miniature carnival of ethereal melody bringing a sense of hope and brightness to the album.  Elsewhere, collective leader John Hekert layers warm guitar parts to create short-but-sweet folk song Sparrows (for Mike) and Les Pelicans have some fun on a sample-laden slice of psych-inflected rock 'n' roll entitled Who's Scruffy Lookin'?.  The album concludes with two suitably epic pieces, the first of which is The Vanishing from London artist It Is A New Day.  A haunting chant combined with waves of synth organ give this song the feeling of a requiem, while the distorted birdsong of the electric guitar leads to a wailing crescendo.  Bringing the whole thing to a close is Sparrows Will Sing To Your Beautiful Heart by Tim Courtney, who also contributed the arresting cover art for this album.  It's a lush ballad underpinned by a sparse and glacial guitar part, building slowly to an anguished chorus of countermelodies which goes right up to point of losing control, before disintegrating into silence.

The quality of songwriting and performance on this Teepee release remains consistently high throughout, and it's clear that Hekert has brought together a very talented group of people with whom to collaborate.  What really interests me, though, is the apparent thematic unity of the album.  As can be seen from the song titles, the individual interpretations of the Sparrows theme range from the very literal to the more abstract, but nonetheless a sense of cohesion is maintained throughout.  Is this a psychological trick?  The listener might perceive a united whole emerging from these disparate elements because they are aware that the album is based around a single theme.  Perhaps, but the undeniable feeling of melancholy which suffuses this album makes me think that there's a more interesting explanation to be found, probably in the shared cultural consciousness associated with the sparrow in all its guises.  It's a bird which, for one reason or another, seems to evoke images of loss and sadness, albeit often with the frail promise of hope.  And that's what this album sounds like.

Available for streaming and free download here.

ASCENSION by John Coltrane

I think it was the cover that first drew me in.  The stark black and white of the image contrasted with the multicoloured playfulness of the title font seemed to promise great and exciting things, and certainly didn't fail to deliver.  It's a style that has become so distinctive, and so recognisable amongst afficianados of experimental jazz, that the Manchester-based label Gondwana have appropriated it for several of their recent releases.  When I first heard Ascension, I'd been looking through the music files on a friend's computer, and the cover was the first thing to jump out at me.  I had no idea then that the album was the first of Coltrane's many forays into free jazz, a period which I had previously dismissed out of hand as being simply "noise", but the fact that it consisted of two takes of a single, 40-minute track should perhaps have tipped me off.  That and the fact that in 1966, Downbeat magazine had described Ascension as "possibly the most powerful human sound ever recorded"; such hyperbole is only ever heaped upon the avant-garde.  So I pressed play, and had an epiphany.

Ever heard an orchestra tuning up?  It's a lovely, powerful sound.  Imagine an orchestra filled with saxophones, trumpets, bass, piano and drums tuning up whilst improvising around a simple yet effective 5-note theme.  That's about as close as I can get to describing the ensemble sections of Ascension, where all 11 musicans hurl themselves into a majestic, swirling cacophony.  And although these sections could certainly be described as free-form - albeit a freedom somewhat restrained by Coltrane's original, unifying theme - the music reverts to more conventional structures during the solo interludes, which emerge from the chaos one after another as miniature eyes of the storm.  Each soloist is backed by just the rhythm section, and given plenty of space to weave their own interpretation of Coltrane's esoteric vision.  And it is very much their own interpretation; Coltrane apparently gave the players no direction for their solos save that they were to end with a crescendo, thus signalling the ensemble to rejoin the fray.  Perhaps inevitably, these sections vary in quality; Dewey Johnson's trumpet solo is decidedly underwhelming next to such monumental company as Freddie Hubbard, Pharoah Sanders and Coltrane himself, all of whose solo spots are lessons in passionate and intense spontaneous composition.  Overall though, the music acheives the grandiose feeling of an improvised jazz symphony, which is probably not far from Coltrane's original intentions.  The listener cannot but be effected on an almost physical level by the towering blast of notes hammered out on horns, strings, keys and drums, and by the close of the final ensemble section you're left feeling that Ascension is the only title suitable for such a transcendent piece of music.

As mentioned above, Ascension is notable for being the first of Coltrane's albums where he did what he'd been promising to do for a long time, and completely tore himself away from the structures and conventions of jazz music as it was understood in the 1960s.  It subsequently became a symbol and a standard-bearer for the pioneers of experimental jazz who came later, and its power and influence have never waned.  But the record is notable for another reason.  Even as he was looking to the future with this album, Coltrane was also saying goodbye to his past.  It's often been commented that there are echoes of Coltrane's previous studio album, A Love Supreme, in the musical theme which underpins Ascension, but if you listen closely it seems to hark back even further.  Compare the 5-note theme of Ascension with the 5-note theme of his 1957 classic Blue Train, and it almost sounds like a variation of the same melody.  In terms of structure too, the record seems to be a variation on the more conventional jazz which was Coltrane's background.  Bebop - the style which Coltrane had first come to prominence playing - can usually be characterised by the ensemble/solo/solo/solo/ensemble structure of its tunes.  Ascension, despite its free-form aspirations, sticks tightly to an overall structure of ensemble/solo/ensemble/solo/ensemble/solo...etc.  Is this intended as a pastiche, a mockery of bebop, and thus Coltrane's musical past?  I don't believe so.  I believe it was a tribute, that Coltrane was recognising where he had come from, while at the same time signalling where he, and jazz music as a whole, was going.  He'd finally broken free, but couldn't quite let go.

NOT A TEEPEE

There's a lot of noise out there, as Stanley Clarke once said.  The internet is now so saturated with voices clamouring for your attention that it resembles a gigantic, digital market square, with millions upon millions of vendors bellowing about their wares.  There's an awful lot of chaff and not so much wheat, so it's important that we pick out those voices in the crowd who have something genuinely interesting and worthwhile to offer.  One such voice is that of the bizarrely-named Not A Teepee.

The brainchild of dutch musician John Hekert, Not A Teepee is a growing collective of musicians and artists who release an online concept album every couple of months.  Each album is based around a theme chosen by the collective, and it is this which acts as inspiration for the music and artwork contributed to the project.  To date, Not A Teepee has released four such albums, and their respective themes have been as varied as "mud", "vikings", "Ada Lovelace" and "silver".  Each artist interprets this theme as they see fit, which has led to a pleasingly diverse range of music on each release, as well as some killer album covers.  The artists themselves, while for the most part based in Scotland, are a cosmopolitan bunch; a cursory glance at the collective's Facebook page indicates that their current location is "SCOTLAND/NETHERLANDS/FRANCE/EVERYWHERE!".

I'm somewhat late to the party on this one, so what I'll do here is summarise the first four albums and then review each new release individually as it comes out.  Not A Teepee has thus far been a veritable melting pot of musical ideas, and while there are too many artists involved to list here, a few special mentions are in order to demonstrate the breadth of styles represented on these first four albums.  The collective's music runs the gamut from the dream-folk psychadelia of the Kitchen Cynics to the stark, looped soundscapes of Iliop.  Tim Courtney's mournful croon and shimmering arpeggios jostle for attention with Fiona Keenan's gritty modern folk songs, whilst Hekert himself flits between heart-wrenching acoustic balladry and ominous industrial noise.  There's much variation in the contributions of individual artists, too; Les Pelicans progress from jittery indie-afro rhythms on their first track to a humorous banjo ditty on their second, and How Deep Is The Valley's oppressive synthesizers and jazzy rhythms give way to tribal drumming, electronica and stripped-down acoustic guitar across these inital releases.

I know that you're all weary web-wanderers, living in an age where time is at a premium and information is force-fed to you on a minutely basis, but one of the more interesting quirks of the net's saturation is that word-of-mouth seems to have made a comeback.  When attempting to sift through all that noise you need reliable recommendations, and as such I'm giving you one.  Not A Teepee is very much worth your time and attention, and long may it continue to stand out from the crowd.

Music is available for streaming and free download at http://notateepee.bandcamp.com/, and you can also find the collective on Facebook.

OF DJENT

What the hell is "djent"?  I wonder because I seem to have been listening to it for some time now without actually knowing that I'm listening to it.  I'd never even heard of this elusive sub-genre until two days ago, and yet it seems to have already wormed its way covertly into my music collection, illicitly invading my ears on a weekly basis without my knowledge.  That's assuming it actually exists, of course.

When I first encountered the term in an online album review, I assumed it was a typo.  After it had cropped up in several reviews, I decided to investigate further, and discovered a whole new musical style which I had hitherto never known existed.  Except that it wasn't a new musical style.  The bands and the sound have been around for years; the only thing that was new was the name.  The term "djent" was apparently coined by one of the guitarists from Swedish band Meshuggah, and is an onomatopoeic expression for the sound of a palm-muted, distorted guitar.  While there are an awful lot of metal bands who utilise palm-muted guitar playing, it seems the term has come to refer to a particular group of them.  Trouble is, the unique sonic quirks which mark these bands out as part of the "djent" scene (highly complex riffs and song structures, polyrhythmic drumming and a mixture of melody and heaviness) are already considered hallmarks of such musical styles as technical metal, post-hardcore, progressive metal and math-rock, the overlap between which is such that it sometimes hardly seems worth differentiating.  Already blessed with such an overabundance of genre tags, it seems pointless to add yet another to the same group of artists.  What, then, is the point?

The rise of "djent" is just the latest chapter in the ongoing saga of the human obsession with dividing and categorising music into as many conveniently named sub-genres as possible.  "Djent" is not what I'm listening to when I put on a band like Protest The Hero or Between The Buried And Me, because "djent" is not really music, no more than, say, "rock" and "jazz" are.  They are words that we use to attempt to crudely describe the sounds we're hearing, and create neat little groupings of sonic experience.  Convenient, I suppose, but it's far too easy to get caught up in the application of such meaningless labels.  Using words to describe music can often be incredibly difficult; they're two completely distinct forms of communication.  Why we'd also want to go throwing redundant terms like "djent" into the mix is beyond me.

Plus, it sounds ridiculous.

OF QUEUES AND CURES by National Health

A slightly sinister cover, a peculiar title and a band name you've never heard of.  Yes, you've guessed it; this is a prog rock record.  But all is not quite as it appears.  Released in 1978, the year after the great punk boom and firmly in the midst of prog's wilderness years, Of Queues And Cures was probably the last great album to come out of the Canterbury scene, one of the more artistically successful subgroups of 1970s progressive rock.  Like many other Canterbury bands, National Health weren't actually natives of the town which gave its name to a collective of talented posh boys with a fondness for jazz, but they had a lot in common with their peers musically.  Formed from the ashes of supergroup Hatfield & The North, National Health had a brief but glittering career during which they plowed a furrow equal parts jazz, rock and funk, but always with a quintessentially English twist.  They reached their zenith on this, their second album, and proved that even when so-called progressive rock was at its lowest ebb, it was a style of music which - in the right hands - could still produce stunning results.

The album as a whole is characterised by a strong sense of groove; something which many prog rock groups of the time could rightly be accused of lacking.  The rhythm section of Pip Pyle and John Greaves bubbles away beneath every track, pushing the music forwards but also supporting it.  Keyboard virtuoso Dave Stewart is the most prominently featured instrumentalist, but he never overpowers the sound of the group as a whole.  It's also good to hear him using almost exclusively analogue keyboards at a time when many bands were starting to utilise early digital synthesisers, the sound of which would date painfully fast.  But arguably the breakout star of the record is Phil Miller, a journeyman guitarist best known for his session work throughout the Canterbury scene.  His guitar sound is at once dirtily fuzzy and sweetly smooth, and his playing is technically impressive without ever sacrificing emotional impact.

The track Squarer For Maud is almost a microcosm of the album's sound as a whole.  A creepy melody line on bass and piano leads the track in, joined slowly by Pyle's jazzy cymbal work.  Miller's floating, sustained guitar lines add to the tension, while Stewart piles melody on top of melody with his various keyboards, leading to a dramatic chord progression which acts as a backing for the most emotionally satisfying guitar solo on the album, with Miller wrenching every possible ounce of feeling from his distorted six-string.  As the tension is broken, the track dissolves pleasingly into polyrhythmic jazz, followed by a brief and surreal spoken word section contributed by fellow experimentalist Peter Blegvad.  Stewart hammers out an ostinato with piano chords as the track comes to life once more, supported by another great guitar accompaniment from Miller.  Everything charges to a breakneck climax led by Stewart's organ and Greaves' fuzzed-up bass as the band churns up an almighty groove, leading to an angular, staccato breakdown which closes the piece.  It's a credit to the band's composition and playing that not one of these myriad transitions feels jarring in the slightest.  Elsewhere on the album, the 70s spirit of experimentation is alive and well in the unexpected steel drum work on Collapso, Pip Pyle's vocalised drum solo Phlakhaton, and the intro to the track Dreams Wide Awake, which features Dave Stewart soloing on an electric organ whilst ripping circuit boards out of its side, turning his sustained chords into a hideous squelch.  

The groups of the Canterbury scene were often held in high regard by those outwith the progressive rock movement because of their boundless ability to laugh at themselves.  That whimsical sense of fun is also present on Of Queues And Cures, but it's also tempered by something much darker.  On this album, National Health found the perfect balance of light and shade that many of their peers had been striving to achieve for years.  The tracks collected here never sacrifice melody for complexity, and achieve moments of utter majesty as well as utter madness.  The group is individually and collectively brilliant, and proved without a doubt that a so-called progressive rock band could offer a major contribution to the music of the 20th century, even when no-one was listening.  Of Queues And Cures is one of the great lost masterpieces of the 1970s.

LAST OF THE COUNTRY GENTLEMEN by Josh T Pearson

All of a sudden, a lot of people seem to know about Josh T Pearson.  Those of us lucky enough to discover his now-defunct first band, Lift To Experience, always felt like we were part of something special; some kind of secret society dedicated to the appreciation of biblically-inspired post-rock played by Texans with huge sideburns.  At the moment, however, it's difficult to look through any music publication (of worth), both online and off, without coming upon yet another review heaping praise on this, his debut solo album.  For most people this recording may have come out of nowhere, a breakthrough effort from an enigmatic and laconic singer-songwriter who wouldn't look out of place in a John Ford film, but some of us have been waiting a very long time for this record.  Almost ten years, in fact.  So with all this anticipation surrounding Pearson's first album since the heady days of The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads, we have to ask whether the old magic is still there.

The easiest (and arguably laziest) approach would be to compare Last of the Country Gentlemen with Pearson's work under the Lift To Experience banner.  Interestingly, such a comparison throws up as many similarities as it does differences.  While the sound of LTE was dominated by waves of delayed electric guitar, the performances on this album consist of no more than Pearson's vocals and delicately picked acoustic guitar, occasionally accompanied by a pared-down string section.  While this understated set-up might sound a long way from the full-on sonic assault of Pearson's early work, it is no less devestatingly effective.  Given so much room to breathe, his songs reveal themselves as compelling and nakedly emotional miniature symphonies, shot through with the strong country influence which was often masked by the walls of sound on his previous recordings.  Such a minimalist approach also gives centre-stage to Pearson's awesome vocals, a mixture of soaring high notes, quiet crooning and muttered spoken word which has become his trademark.  It's not difficult to see why his voice has earned him comparisons with the late Jeff Buckley in the past, especially when listening to opening track Thou Art Loosed, featuring as it does an ornate vocal line that wouldn't sound out of place in one of Giovanni Palestrina's choral masses. 

Pearson's lyrics for Lift To Experience dealt with subjects as grand as the return of Jesus Christ and the battle of Armageddon, and while the songs on this album have their share of biblical imagery, (especially on the bad-tempered Sweetheart I Ain't Your Christ) they seem to deal with - at first listen - much more mundane tales of relationship woes and existential crises.  But part of the brilliance of Pearson's songwriting lies in the fact that in his hands, the tale of a single argument between two lovers or the slow breakdown of an unhappy marriage takes on the apocalyptic grandeur of an endless war between heaven and hell; the rage and anguish of a thousand angels and demons condensed into a single broken promise or crossed word.   

This is an intensely beautiful album.  In these seven tracks, Pearson has crafted heartrending stories of love and loss, soundtracked by wearily picked guitar arpeggios which wax and wane in the near-silence, fading only to make way for that incredible voice.   The sense of bittersweet yearning in this music is almost overwhelming, and speaks of the regret left behind by years of hot passion and cold fury.  But despite the downbeat subject matter, Last of the Country Gentlemen is not a miserablist work.  It's an album of undeniable warmth, an album which transcends style and genre and connects with the listener at a primal, emotional level.  In short, it's the Josh T Pearson album that we've been waiting for.

BITCHES BREW LIVE by Miles Davis

The title of this album is misleading.  Reading it, you'd be forgiven for thinking that this is simply a live recording of Miles and his band performing his seminal 1970 album Bitches Brew in its entirety.  But if you know a little about that album, you'll know that a live version of that material faithful enough to justify this record's title is an unlikely proposition.  Bitches Brew was created by Miles directing his 13-strong band in collective improvisation for hours at a time, in his quest to meld rock, funk and jazz into a revolutionary hybrid of musical forms.  The results were cut and pasted by pioneering producer Teo Macero into several vaguely coherent pieces of music which then became the album.  A brilliant combination of composition, musicianship and studio trickery thus resulted in one of the most important albums of the 20th century, but such unusual origins obviously made this music difficult to recreate in a live setting.

While it's true that these Frankenstein tracks would become the basis for many of Miles' live sets during the 1969-71 early electric period, that's all they ever were.  Despite Miles' love of the groove and rhythm venerated by funk, he remained a jazz musician at heart, and jazz for him was all about improvisation.  It's not surprising, then, that the recorded music from Bictches Brew serves purely as a point of departure for the fresh improvisations captured on Bitches Brew Live.  The first 3 tracks on this release come from a performance at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1969, which actually took place a month prior to the recording sessions for Bitches Brew.  Despite these tracks being named after pieces from the studio album (and in the case of track 3, one from the previous album - In A Silent Way), one can hear only snatches of the music which would crystalise during the recording and editing sessions in August of that year.  In fairness, Wayne Shorter's Sanctuary is recognisable in all of its varied permutations, thanks to its powerful, dominating horn theme which floats above the rhythmic tumult underpinning the track, but Miles Runs The Voodoo Down and It's About That Time are connected to their recorded namesakes only in the most tenuous of ways.  The band here is only a quartet, which results in what was a remarkably stripped-down sound for Miles at the time.  There's a lot of reliance on Chick Corea's electric piano, and since much of the music is still in an embryonic stage this is a nice opportunity to hear the furtive beginnings of what would become a paradigm-shifting transformation.

The remainder of this album, however, is an entirely different proposition.  If the release of Bitches Brew first announced the arrival of a whole new way of making music, then this bold statement was fully cemented by Miles and his band with their legendary performance at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival.  In front of a crowd of half a million rock and folk fans, they unleased the full power of of the musical monster they'd created in a single, 34 minute improvisation, propelled unrelentingly by the dark grooves concocted by Jack DeJohnette (drums) and Dave Holland (bass).  It's important to stress that this performance was an original, improvised piece of music, long referred to by fans as "Call It Anything", after Miles' response when asked post-gig what the piece should be named.  Indeed, it appears on its previous (and only) official release as Call It Anything; the bonus track on a 3-disc compilation of Miles' 80s live recordings.  What I find perplexing, therefore, is Columbia's decision to finally give it a proper release only to split it into 6 tracks, and market it under the name Bitches Brew Live.  This peformance has passed into the folklore of both rock and jazz, and it's not like it wouldn't have sold under its own name, so an attempt to cash in on the title of Bitches Brew seems pointless.  It's also misleading because the music only occasionally references the recorded material with which the sleeve notes have identified it, thus compromising the performance's independence from the album.

But griping aside, it's great to hear a decent recording of this wonderful piece of music.  A year had passed since the performance captured on the first 3 tracks of this disc, and the funk had well and truly seeped into the band's playing and improvising by this point.  In particular, it's impressive to hear how funky Dave Holland's playing has become as his electric bass punches through the mix and (along with DeJohnette's dextrous drum rolls) weaves a deep groove which dominates the feel of the music.  The collective jamming of keyboards, saxophone, bass, drums and percussion at times sounds in danger of becoming cacophonous, but Miles' trumpet always returns to the fray to guide the rest of the band.  His playing is sensational its own right, but what is truly fascinating is the way in which he uses certain phrases and runs to prod his musicians in the direction he desires, whether it's the gentle, descending notes he uses to reduce a frenetic boil to a bubbling simmer, or the sudden crescendo he hurtles into during the last minutes of the performance to summon up a visceral groove to act as a finale.  The playing from everyone on stage is inspired, as you'd expect from such masters of their craft.  Miles made a habit of surrounding himself with musicians at the top of their game, and the almost telepathic interplay between Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett's warring electronic keyboards, the flexibility of the rhythm section and Gary Bartz' shimmering sax playing are all a testament to that.  The performance is full of great moments, but my own personal favourite comes about 10 minutes in, when Dave Holland (reading Miles's intentions perfectly) takes one of the bass parts from the title track of Bitches Brew and morphs it into the ugliest, sludgiest riff you'll ever hear from a jazz man.  Jack DeJohnette's synchopated snare hits encircle the groove, and the whole band are dragged into an atmospheric vamp that seems almost beyond their control.

By the time the performance had ended, the crowd at Isle of Wight had been won over.  You can hear their elation in the background following the last note, and it's hard not to feel the same.  What is it that makes this performance so exiciting?  The improvised nature of it, that's what!  The band's whole performance is lit up by the nervous energy felt by musicians who, despite their considerable ability, have no idea where the next note is coming from.  The tension at times is almost unbearable and it's thrilling to listen to, but then that's the beauty of improvised music.  It's said that when he was composing, Mozart felt like he could get inside his symphonies and change them from within, as though they were some sort of physical structure.  That's what you can hear Miles Davis doing during the performance from the Isle of Wight; wading into a mass of music and guiding its creation in the moment of its genesis.  This performance is utterly unique, which makes its being labelled as merely a recreation of Bitches Brew all the more confusing.

SWIM by Caribou

Dan Snaith has pulled a fast one on us.  He's convinced the world that with Swim, he's created a dance album, albeit one with some great melodies and moments of genuine emotion.  What he's actually done, of course, is create a dance album that you're not supposed to dance to.

I didn't "get" this album straight away, like a lot of my friends and most of the music press seemed to.  I'd quite enjoyed Andorra, the previous Caribou release.  Parts of it reminded me of early Pink Floyd, which is not a comparison appreciated in some quarters but there you go.  Swim is a big change of direction in some ways, but not so much in others.  The biggest transformation is the inclusion of a pounding electronic beat in almost every track, which is the main reason for the "dance album" tag the record has received.  But the omnipresence of that beat is the very thing that makes you forget it is there.  Behind the wall of (admittedly tasteful) electronics that Snaith has erected around his songs, there is still the recognisable influence of psychadelia, and the backgrounds of shifting melody become all the more apparent through their juxtaposition with the pulse of the synthesisers.

The first couple of times I heard this album, the beat was what dominated my listening experience.  It could be that's because I don't actually listen to an awful lot of beat-heavy music, but whatever the reason it took me a few listens to hear everything that was on the recording.  The flute and horn parts on the tracks Kaili and Hannibal; the reverbed, staccato guitar part on Found Out; the warm woodwinds on Leave House and the ever-present mixture of acoustic and electronic percussion make for a much richer listening experience than I'd originally realised, something that seemingly everyone else had cottoned onto a long time previously.  Most importantly, Snaith's plaintive vocals remain the emotional core of the music, summed up by an extraordinary section on the track Lalibela where he seems to be channelling a form of Gregorian chant backed by electric organ.  Awesome. 

Dance music is a functional artform.  It's meant to make you move your body; it's designed to provoke a physical, kinetic response.  Despite appearances to the contrary, Dan Snaith's main focus is still songwriting.  He has co-opted the techniques of dance music to accomplish his ends, but they're merely more colours on his palette.

DISFARMER by Bill Frisell

Mike Disfarmer was an American photographer known for taking grittily realistic portraits of the residents of rural Arkansas in the early part of the 20th century.  Not exactly a likely subject for an instrumental concept album, you might think (who is?!), but Bill Frisell has never been a musician known for sticking to the standard template.  A friend reportedly came to him with the idea for creating a musical project based around the life of this unsung and slightly bizarre artist, and Frisell leapt at the chance to explore what he saw as a lost piece of arcane Americana.

Bill Frisell is nominally a jazz guitarist, but his recording output over the years has been so stylistically diverse (as Disfarmer aptly demonstrates) that any attempt to pin him down as belonging to one particular genre is doomed to end in failure.  In the same way, Disfarmer is nominally a country album.  The standard instrumentation of steel guitars, mandolin, violin etc is all present and correct, and Frisell's melodies (as evidenced by the reoccurring Disfarmer Theme) certainly conjure up mental images of rustic farmland and lonely nights on the range, but there's a good deal more going on here.  For a start, the music is full of flourishes that could only have come from a composer steeped in the jazz tradition; a slightly odd chord choice here, an hint of swing there.  Also, Frisell's affinity for guitar loops, as well as the repetitive, hypnotic phrases favoured by violinist Jenny Scheinman (especially on the tracks Focus and No One Gets In) are reminiscent of the sort of minimalism usually associated with the likes of Steve Reich and Terry Riley.  The music still wears its country influence on its sleeve, though, when the band embark on some instrumental covers of genre standards like That's Alright, Mama and Hank Williams' I Can't Help It.  The two sides of this album's sound are however married beautifully on the track Little Girl, in which Frisell's delicate electric guitar melody intermingles with Scheinman's violin ostinato and Greg Leisz's ethereal steel guitar playing, creating a heartbreakingly bittersweet tune which is so much greater than the sum of its parts.  

The absence of vocals, as well as the range of moods conjured by the music almost gives Disfarmer the feel of being a soundtrack to a film which doesn't exist.  I guess in some ways that's appropriate, as Frisell intended the album to be something like a soundtrack to Mike Disfarmer's life.  That said, the music never feels like it's missing anything, and though it is by turns both exultant and bleak, it's shot through with a sort of pastoral warmth which is never less than captivating.  Despite all the research that went into this project on the part of Frisell, it's likely that the more traditional parts of the album sound more like how we imagine early 20th century rural American music to have sounded than how it actually did.  But if the object of this recording was to evoke the feeling of a time and place now lost to us, and the life of a strange old man who somehow captured that feeling in his photographs, then maybe it's succeeded.