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.