K. Leimer (aka Kerry Leimer) has been releasing ambient/experimental music since the late-1970s, primarily on his own label Palace of Lights. Very Tired closes out his 1983 release Music for Land and Water and is a good demonstration of his deliberate method of constructing sonic landscapes, primarily with synthesizers and tape loops. Music for Land and Water was originally composed not for commercial release but as part of a performance and installation series. Though I couldn’t find an audio clip of it available to share, the setup for the lead track “Art and Science” consisted of four tape systems playing loops of different lengths, which sounds like a real treat. Yet another example of the pioneering work that can be found in your local New Age bargain bin. Leimer made extensive use of loops in both his solo work and as part of the group Savant which featured Marc Barreca and other ambient artists. You can purchase physical releases from Palace of Sound here though it doesn’t look like Music for Land and Water is available on the site.
Category: track of the day
Mark Lang – Strawberry Man
Minnesota native Mark Lang began playing music with his brother Peter in the late 1960s, and both began pursuing a life in music once the family moved to California. While Peter was able to record a number of albums, initially with John Fahey’s Takoma Records, Mark’s lone commercial release was Texas John Boscoe released by Symposium Records (early home of Leo Kottke) in 1976. This track appears on one of the comps in Numero Group’s Wayfaring Strangers series, Guitar Soli, which features a whole host of forgotten and unsung guitarists who released instrumental material in the American primitive vein of John Fahey and Leo Kottke. Mark Lang’s fingerpicking and slide guitar work is on display with Strawberry Man, but he played maracas, banjo, and mandolin on that record as well. Texas John Boscoe was well-received within its somewhat niche market, and Mark Lang signed a deal with Capitol records at the start of the 1980s. Unfortunately nothing came of the deal, but he sure left a gem of a record behind.
Hiroshi Yoshimura – Something Blue
Something Blue comes from Yoshimura’s 1986 release Soundscape 1:Surround. In addition to his commercial releases, Yoshimura was a prolific creator of soundscapes and installations for both the art museums and galleries and more utilitarian spaces like train stations. He was also at the forefront of computer music in general, forming a group called Anonyme in the early 70s which focused on exploring the blossoming intersection between computing and sound. Much of his material was self-released in Japan, which means tracking down physical copies may be a bit tough. There have been a number of contemporary artists featured on TOTD that share sonic ground with this (I’m thinking of Sabbatical and H. Takahashi). Finding these early pioneers of sound who paved the way for these current experimental/ambient artists sheds new light on an oft-maligned genre like new age, though a revival of interest in these artists by re-issue labels like Numero Group and Light in the Attic has done a lot to expose this stuff to a new audience like myself who were a few years from existing when this material was being released. Given the hefty price tag of some of the original physical editions on Discogs, I wouldn’t mind a re-issue of this release and his debut Music for Nine Post Cards from 1982.
Mind & Matter – Sunshine Lady
Mind & Matter coalesced around James Harris III, better known to fans of the Minneapolis Sound as Jimmy Jam, in the late 1970s. Though Jimmy Jam is perhaps best known as a producer, his work with Mind & Matter is a high point of the excellent Purple Snow: Forecasting the Minneapolis Sound compilation from Numero Group. In addition to appearing a few times on that release, Numero also put out a separate collection of just Mind & Matter material called 1514 Oliver Avenue (Basement) that is just begging for heavy rotation this summer and any future summers. Sunshine Lady was the b-side to I’m Under Your Spell, the only single Mind & Matter put out while active, which was also reissued by Numero Group. That should be good news for collectors since the original single is currently listing for around $650 on Discogs. You can watch the group perform at Uncle Sam’s, the precursor to First Avenue in Minneapolis, in this awesome video that the heroes at Numero Group found during their research for their compilation. As the title of their comp suggests, this material foreshadows a lot of the Minneapolis Sound that would gain popularity later in the 1980s, particularly the use of synths and other electronics in otherwise more traditional R&B forms. That video confirms what I’ve always a suspected as a Minneapolis-born music fan: Minneapolis will never be cooler than it was in the late-70s and early 80s. If you dig this track I’d encourage you purchase the entire comp over at Numero Group site because it is a treasure trove. I purchased the LP set during a recent sale and not only is the music great but the supplemental book that comes with it is full of archival pictures and other goodies that are more than worth the price.
Sylvan Grey – Rainpiece
Rainpiece comes from the first of Sylvan Grey’s two releases, Ice Flowers Melting, from Fortuna Records in 1981. Grey discovered the kantele while travelling in England, though the instrument is actually of Finnish origin. She trained for a while with the Finnish master Ulla Katajavuori, who herself was an active player from the 1930s through the 1990s. Grey released one more album for Fortuna in 1989 called Recurring Dream that is perhaps more well-known in New Age circles, both featuring original music for the kantele. Fortuna Records is a sister label to Celestial Harmonies, which over the years has put out material by Terry Riley and Popol Vuh along with many other new age and non-Western artists. Since the kantele in many ways resembles the zither, it may sound familiar to anybody who has listened to the work of Laraaji, who was a prominent name in ambient/new age music, although his was electrified where Grey’s instrument has a more acoustic feel to it. If you enjoyed Rainpiece there’s a song from Recurring Dream entitled Rainshadow that feels very much like a companion to Rainpiece despite being recorded almost a decade later. There wasn’t much in the way of biography for Sylvan Grey, but I’m tempted to think that great ambient stuff like this can speak for itself.
Chris Stamey & the dBs – (I Thought You) Wanted to Know
This track comes off a single released in 1978. Chris Stamey and the dBs were one of the groups that sprouted out of the fertile musical soil of New York in the late 1970s, with groups like Television, The Feelies, and post-Big Star Alex Chilton coalescing around Ork Records. In addition to being released as a single, this track also appears on a Numero Group compilation focused on Ork Records output. It was penned by Televsion member Richard Lloyd, coming just after the release of Television’s best known album Marquee Moon. I was torn between choosing this song and a collaboration between Stamey and Alex Chilton called “The Summer Sun” which came out in 1977 as well. Chris Stamey has continued releasing solo work and working with the dBs from the late 1970s to the present, with his most recent release Euphoria coming in 2015 and a release under the name The dBs, Falling Off the Sky, coming just a few years earlier. Lloyd released an album of Jimi Hendrix covers a few years ago called The Jamie Neverts Story, which appears to be a reference to a mutual friend Lloyd shared with Hendrix early in Lloyd’s life, but as there is no citation on Wikipedia it doesn’t meet the strict standards and practices here at Orion’s Bastard. But you don’t have to figure that out to enjoy this power pop hidden gem, so try not to stress about it.
Nicklas Sørensen – Solo1
Nicklas Sørensen has been the guitarist for the Danish instrumental rock group Papir, but he’s just released a solo debut fittingly titled Solo that’s every bit as great as his work with Papir. That might be because his bandmates Christoffer Brøchmann Christensen and Christian Becher Clausen join him on his solo record, but whatever name they decide to release material under is fine by me as long as it keeps coming. While there is a lot of overlap, this release has a pronounced krautrock focus which really gives Sørensen the freedom to explore every conceivable sound he can muster from his Fender. It really reminds me a lot of Hallogallo with a little bit of the Inner Tube record put out by Mark McGuire of Emeralds and Spencer Clark. Both Papir and Sorenson’s Solo are available for purchase on LP over at El Paraiso Records. In addition to his Papir bandmates, Jonas Munk joined Sørensen for these sessions, who is a member of Causa Sui and one of the head honchos at El Paraiso. As if the guarantee of health care and overall high quality of life weren’t enough to make you yearn for Scandanavia, blissed-out psych rock is making an exodus from these United States even more appealing.
Isao Tomita – Bolero
Though his passing will not trigger remembrances of the kind we saw with Prince or Bowie, the electronic music world lost a titan in Isao Tomita when he passed last Thursday (May 5th) at the age of 84. He was a pioneer working in the early days of synthesizers along with Robert Moog and Wendy Carlos and released 37 studio albums over a career spanning from the late 1960s all the way up to 2016. Many of his releases comprised original arrangements of classical pieces in the vein of Wendy Carlos’ Switched-On Bach, though many of his arrangements often focused on 20th century music. He produced arrangements of other Ravel pieces, Grofe’s Grand Canyon Suite, Holst’s The Planets, and Stravinsky’s Firebird. Perhaps his best known release is a set of Debussy songs he recorded called Snowflakes Are Dancing. I was torn between choosing Bolero or his opening of the Grand Canyon suite (linked above) but all of his arrangements demonstrate just what a master he was of the modular synthesizer even in the instrument’s infancy.
If you have a chance to scoop up one of his albums I’d recommend it, and for the most part they have been relatively cheap where I have found them, typically new age or miscellaneous bins. They provide a pretty fascinating glimpse into the early days of commercially released electronic music because he would often list which instruments/tools he used on what tracks. Here’s an example of one such listing:
In addition to his studio work, his live shows often featured stunning theatrics, like the performance of Strauss’ Also sprach Zarathustra which he mixed from a suspended glass pyramid. He was a giant in the world of electronic music both in his native Japan and around the world, and he expanded the vocabulary of the modular synth immensely over the course of his lifetime. Though he may not be as well known as some of the other luminaries lost this year, his contributions to the music of the last century are something to behold. RIP.
DIIV – Dopamine
Dopamine is the lead single DIIV released in advance of a double LP Is The Is Are that came out in February 2016 on Captured Tracks. This was a tough one to pick just one track, but I’ve been humming Dopamine since I’ve heard it so it won out in the end, although “Healthy Moon” and “Valentine” were close behind. DIIV is the brainchild of Zachary Cole Smith which he formed in 2011 following his departure from the touring lineup of Beach Fossils. He’s joined live by Andrew Bailey and and Ben Wolf, though it’s unclear who was present for the recording since Smith, who played both drums and guitar at various times for Beach Fossils, could have recorded multiple tracks. In addition to digital media from Bandcamp, Is The Is Are is also being released on LP, CD, and cassette, all of which can be purchased at this link. You can check out their debut, Oshin on Bandcamp as well and be sure to keep an eye out for them on the festival circuit this summer. A full list of their upcoming gigs can be found here.
Sir Richard Bishop – Narasimha
In addition to his work with the Sun City Girls, Sir Richard Bishop has kept up a steady stream of solo releases which often blend East Asian drone influences with avant-garde and improvisational guitar work. While I think this is a fairly accurate assessment, I should note that both Bishop and Sun City Girls have made careers out of frustrating easy description of their work. This track comes off a split release with Earth put out by Southern Lord in 2008. While most of the instruments are played by Bishop, he is joined on this recording by Randall Dunn, who is credited with providing the “low drone.” It also incorporates electric sitar, lap steel guitar, tambura, and a harmonium, and I think you can really see how Eastern musical traditions have infused Bishop’s work particularly in this track. I should also note that though he records and performs under the name Sir Richard Bishop he has not been knighted by any monarch at least that I’m aware of, though between his own work and that of Sun City Girls there’s seems ample reason to do so. Getting your hand on this split might set you back, but the other side is also excellent and the cover art/disc art seems worth the price.
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