Category: track of the day

More Eaze – fine.

 

More Eaze is a performance alias of Marcus Rubio (not to be confused with the walking kernel panic currently running for president) that focuses on fusing dissimilar genres unified through tonal similarities. It’s a really fascinating project, and while I typically only pick one track a day I’ve added the whole release because he synthesizes so many disparate things so effectively that it’d be a shame to leave any out. Blending long synth drones with fingerpicking guitar and chopped and screwed sampling, he manages to blend a lot of things I really like but never thought could be put together. fine. was released on cassette by Full Spectrum records at the end of last year. While he’s released a few cassettes under the name More Eaze, Rubio also records under his own name and performed with {{{Sunset}}}, a group who may or may not be active considering their last release came in 2010.

Oren Ambarchi ‎– Sagittarian Domain

Oren Ambarchi began playing jazz in his native Australia in the mid-1980s as a percussionist, active in the free jazz scene in Sydney. At a session he began messing around with a guitar and from then on it has become a staple in his solo releases and live performances. He described his relationship with the instrument in an interview with Australia Adlib:

I picked it up and starting hitting it with drumsticks and using it in whatever way I wanted to use it in, and one thing led to another. I’m glad I wasn’t trained. I’ve always loved rock music, I grew up listening to pop and rock, so that was in my mind, but I’ve also been interested in electronics. I never wanted to learn to play it properly, it was an object as much as an instrument.

The drive to integrate other electronics with his guitar works and an overall interest in experimentation can be heard on one of his early releases from 1999, Insulation. A shared interest in improvisation and experimentally-driven approaches to composition has led to collaborations with many notable experimental artists like Keith Rowe, Otomo Yoshihide, Jim O’Rourke, and the drone doom duo Sunn O))).

He has collaborated with Sunn O))) on a number of occasions beginning with Black One in 2005. The story goes that Stephen O’Malley was DJing in New York and played Ambarchi’s track Corkscrew and it set off the fire alarm at the venue, prompting O’Malley to reach out and insist on a collaboration. Ambarchi described the artistic relationship between himself, O’Malley, and Greg Anderson–the other half of Sunn O)))–in an interview with Wire magazine:

It’s great being able to work with Stephen and Greg and in some ways doing exactly what I would do in a solo context. However with Sunn O))) I get to do it in a completely different context, to a different audience, and using a much bigger backline. Since I’ve been working with them my solo work has become much slower, lower in the frequency spectrum and much more physical, especially when I perform live. Since I began working with Sunn O))) I’ve learnt a lot about sound pressure, resonance and feedback and how pleasurable it can be to bathe in physical soundwaves.

Sagittarian Domain was released in 2012 on Editions Mego. He’s joined on the release by cellist Judith Hamann, violinist Elizabeth Welsh, and violist James Rushford. You can read more about Ambarchi’s work on his website or peruse his extensive discography on Discogs.

Jerry Garcia & Howard Wales – Space Funk

 

In the lead up to recording their 1970 release Hooteroll?, Garcia and Wales had a standing gig playing Monday nights at The Matrix in San Francisco. This track is a live recording of one of those sessions released on Grateful Dead Records in 1998 under the title Live Side Trips Vol. 1 featuring Bill Vitt on drums and long-time Garcia collaborator John Kahn on bass. Around that same time, Wales would sit in on organ for the Dead’s sessions for American Beauty. Kahn, Vitt, and Garcia would also joined with Merl Saunders on organ for a number of releases, including this cover of “I Second That Emotion”. An active studio musician, Wales appeared on the soundtrack to Alexandro Jodorowsky’s surreal masterpiece El Topo in addition to live performances with Jimi Hendrix and James Brown. Wales released one album of his own, 1976’s Rendezvous With the Sun. You can find a complete list of his credits on his website. You can also find this amazing picture of him flying an airplane organ:

 h3a

I’ve focused more on Wales because he’s less known than Garcia and with Jerry I wouldn’t even know where to start. I can say that I’ve really been digging his playing on China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider on 12-6-73 in Cleveland lately, but honestly I’ve yet to hear a version of that I haven’t liked.

Gimmer Nicholson – Red and White Light Ship

Gimmer Nicholson had been poking around the Memphis blues/folk scene for a number of years before moving to San Francisco in the mid-1960s. He recorded a few demos on a crude reel-to-reel deck and sent them to his brother, who brought the tapes in a brown paper bag to Terry Manning back in Memphis. When Nicholson returned from the Bay Area, he went into the studio with Terry-the same studio where Big Star would later record-and they began combining Nicholson’s acoustic playing with electronic delays.

In a forum post about this release at ProsoundWeb, Manning described the recording process

I recorded on an 8 track 1″ Scully at 30 ips. Although most of the guitar is acoustic, there is actually some electric also. Gimmer had a Gibson Howard Roberts, a beautiful jazz guitar that is almost an acoustic (I liked it so much that I bought one a few years later, but I stupidly sold it when I moved here to Nassau in ’92). He played that through a Fender Bassman blackface amp, through some kind of guitar delay/repeat box I had, which had just come out. Gimmer was euphoric about the delay, and loved to set it very long, then play a phrase, and when it repeated, he would play live a copasetic second phrase, then do the same for the next bar, playing with the second phrase, and so on (sort of like a “round”). When we did the acoustics, I got the longest tape delay that I could to accomplish this. It had to be carefully timed to the tempo of the composition. EMT 140 plate reverb was also used.

With recording finished, Manning began the mastering process only after providing a rough mix for Nicholson to take home. This proved disastrous, as Nicholson was outraged when he heard this new, cleaned up mix and left Memphis in a huff. The album gathered dust and Manning moved on, but not before the sounds of the album would infuse other artists in that milieu, most notably Chris Bell. Manning released the album, titled Christopher Idylls on CD in 1994 on his own imprint, Lucky Seven Records, the first time the songs got any wider audience. However, the good folks over at Light in the Attic Records have recently announced a new vinyl reissue of Christopher Idylls that is available for pre-order and set to ship later this month. Gimmer Nicholson passed away a few years ago after years of working for the Red Cross, according to Manning. He had contacted him regarding some new compositions, but nothing materialized. It appears this beautiful release will have to suffice.

The Trees Community – Psalm 42

The Trees Community was a communal musical project based out of the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. The group were a religious order of sorts in that community, splitting their time between performing music, giving tours of the church, among other duties. A key feature of their work was the use of an array of instruments from around the world including the sitar, tamboura, and Venezuelan harp accompanying complicated vocal arrangements.

According to their website they began meeting in an abandoned loft in New York’s East Village to share meals and discuss all manner of spiritual matters, eventually incorporating music into their spiritual practice. When the building was set to be demolished, they–in true hippie fashion–purchased a bus and began living communally within and performing across the country. A member of the group has written a book documenting their experiences that you can read here. A few years after leaving NYC, they recorded an album called The Christ Tree, which was the only official release that the group ever put out. In 2006, Hand/Eye released The Christ Tree on CD for the first time. This box set contained all extant material recorded by the group, including live performances and a cassette released by the group called Portrait of Jesus Christ in Music. It looks like Discogs is your best bet to track down the release, although digital files can be found on CDBaby if that’s your bag.

Meg Baird – All I Ever Wanted

Meg Baird began her music career as the vocalist and guitarist of Philadelphia psychedelic folk trio Espers along with Greg Weeks before releasing a string of solo releases. “All I Ever Wanted” appears on her first solo record, Dear Companion which was released by Drag City in 2007. The tune was originally penned by John Dawson for the first New Riders of the Purple Sage album, which features Jerry Garcia on pedal steel, Mickey Hart on percussion, and Phil Lesh credited as a producer.

Dear Companion features a mix of covers, arrangements of traditional folk tunes, and original songs and it’s a treat from start to finish. She has since released two more solo records on Drag City, including Don’t Weigh Down the Light at the end of 2015, and has appeared on releases by Kurt Vile, Sharon Von Etten, and Glenn Jones. I couldn’t find much in the way of tour dates in support of her latest album, but if I were a betting man I’d say it’d be a pretty awesome show.

Stellardrone – Cosmic Sunrise

Stellardrone is the musical pseudonym of Lituanian composer Edgaras Žakevičius, who began making music in 2007. Cosmic Sunrise comes off his second release Sublime released in 2010. He began recording in his late 20s, and though he has amassed an impressive slate of releases and has made all of them available for free both on Bandcamp and the Internet Archive under a Creative Commons license. His most recent release was released under the same arrangement, although it is connected to the netlabel Energostatic Records. As somebody also recording music and releasing it for free, it’s cool to see someone producing such high-quality work as an enthusiastic amateur. The current of astronomy and space exploration run through his work, which makes me wonder if his day job involves professional stargazing, in which case, he has put together a heck of a soundtrack. He composes primarily on the computer, and it seems to be a bedroom project of sorts, though there are pictures of him playing online. If you enjoy this piece, I’d encourage you to listen to the rest of his material, especially A Moment of Stillness.

H. Takahashi – Pearl

Pearl kicks off the excellent second installment of UK-based label Where to Now’s minimal ambient series Where to Be, which invited artists to

create works of total ambience, incorporating the idea that the power of the music presented is in that which is barely there, embracing space, silence, cyclical repetition, and minimalism. The music is to help us function – it’s music to work to, to sleep to, to help us find a sense of space and oneness within a world that is increasingly wild and untameable. [sic]

I am obviously not the only one to have taken notice, as the cassette pressing of that release is sold out, though if you can I’d recommend taking a listen and purchasing the digital version. A bit earlier in 2015 he released Sea Meditation through the label Entertainment Systems, which promises “practical audio solutions to everyday living,” which is available on cassette on their Bandcamp site.

Siavash Amini – Fading Shadows of Dusk

Fading Shadows of Dusk is the lead track off Flaming Pines’ upcoming compilation of experimental music by Iranian artists. It comes from Siavash Amini who also released an LP, Subsiding, with Futuresequence (aka the good folks who brought you Madeline Cocolas’ debut). I’ll admit I was drawn to this based on the extensive coverage of Iran in recent months, but Amini, in an essay introducing the collection, offers an interesting counterpoint to that impulse:

The tracks collected for this compilation are a perfect example of art that is not “newsworthy”. And in this way they act as a gateway to the ignored and overlooked landscape of experimental electronic music in Iran. It is helpful to listen to all of the pieces in this compilation in contrast to the established language of what is now an Iranian musical mainstream. This Iranian mainstream is not that disconnected from the global mainstream, and the philosophy, politics and the lifestyle this manifests. The mainstream in Iran is not only what the government endorses but it also consists of very shallow imitations of various musical genres, cleared of any signs of cultural or political resistance, backed and released by private labels and companies.

The artists presented here, including myself, are people who are constructing our musical language as part of our lives – a project which is no less of an experiment than the music itself. We are the voices who choose to be absent from the news and the musical mainstream (and in some cases from the city of our birth) in order to express the complex range of emotions and ideas which make up our lives, as honestly as we can.

The compilation is slated for release in February and is available for pre-order on Bandcamp. In addition to the digital release, it will be released as a CDr with the first 30 receiving a poster.

Mississippi John Hurt – Pay Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVoiHcwp8Bo

 

In keeping with many masters of delta blues, Mississippi John Hurt did not receive much recognition until later in his life, though he is revered as a master of the style to this day. Pay Day comes off his 1966 Vanguard release Today!, released the same year (1996) as Skip James Today!. Like Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt was a self-taught fingerpicker from (you guessed it) Mississippi whose recordings for Okeh records in 1928 met with little success. His music career seemingly over before it started, he spent the next forty years sharecropping and playing local shows and bars and dance halls. Inclusion on the Smithsonian’s Anthology of American Folk Music revived interest in his work and the man himself, who was located in part because one of his few early singles contained lyrics suggesting his hometown was Avalon, MS.

Riding a renewed wave of interest in American roots music throughout the 1960s, Hurt recorded a number of albums first for the Smithsonian and then for Vanguard, Piedmont, and Gryphon. John Fahey memorialized him in the first track from his Requia release, Requiem for John Hurt, which was released following Hurt’s death in 1966. You can see Hurt perform Lonesome Valley here on an episode from Pete Seeger’s Rainbow Quest, a short lived television show hosted by Seeger devoted to folk music. For more info on Hurt’s life and music career, check out this website run by his nephew.