Manafonistas

 
 
vor wenigen tagen ist mir jemand mit den initialen M.E. über den weg gelaufen
ein bunter vogel
 
ich hätte auch gleich schreiben können
noch so ein bunter vogel
 
 

London time travel report, mid-90’s. During that week we (Olaf Saddeler, the photographer, and me) made a lot of interviews for three 90-minute episodes for Michael Naura’s „Jazzlaboratorium“ including meetings and tea time with David Toop, Max Eastley, Robert Hampson (Main) a.o., at their homes or record companies. As these names may tell some of you, Naura let freedom rule and allowed us to leave well-defined jazz fields and dive into the experimental London „underground scene“ (not exclusively, we also talked to a street musician playing, well, „Heart of Gold“, which I think, is the no. 1 evergreen in London tubes and railway stations). Olaf says it was 1995, in my memory it was 1997. I’ve always loved long dark coats, and had been wearing one seven days – it was nearly always raining. When we came to David Toop’s place, there were thousand records, uncountable book shelves. Discreet sadness lingered in the living space – not long before his wife had died, and I’m quite sure writing and listening and making music were essentials in his survival kit – we talked about „Ocean of Sound“ which broke so many frontiers between the ancient and the avantgarde. It was the time when coffee shops in big numbers seemed like being built over night. We had a knack for Indian restaurants, and finally, for the rain. We loved wet clothes, wet hair, wet microphones. We loved walking through Hampsted Heath in the rain. Though it was London, we felt like living in two fucking genius John Fogerty rain songs. P.S. David Toop is in Kristiansand giving a lecture these days at the Punktfestival. Normally I would be there, too, sitting at Mother India with my old friend Christoph Giese sipping Mango Lassi and eating Tandoori chicken. (m.e.)

 

 

„This book was extremely important to me, like finding the key to a puzzle that had eluded me all my life. Basically, how to write up weird ideas without losing readers in the first page and how to make connections that had been deliberately disconnected. It was written in a half-mad state during impossible personal circumstances but the response gave me a confidence I’d never had before. This week it’s re-published – new cover, new subtitle, new author’s note from me and a new forward by novelist Michel Faber. Plus, those typos that have been driving me crazy since 1995 are now corrected.”

 

David Toop

2010 – 2019

first half:

anouar brahem souvenance

jakob bro

oton jon bang

paul bley

second half:

jon balke: siwan

mod

steve tibbetts: life of

OTON ARENI

areni agbabian: bloom

mod

björn meyer: provenance

„Life Of“ is an album that despite the relatively infrequent music making of Steve Tibbetts is well worth the wait for long time fans. For those just entering his singular sound world, it’s an appealing gateway– with the ECM catalog now on Spotify, listeners can check out his previous work with ease. For audiophiles, this album is a treat as Tibbetts mixed the album in the concert hall in Macalester College near his Minnesota home by placing 2 sets of microphones in the hall during playback to capture the rich ambiance. With one set in the center of the hall and one in the rear, it really captures a sonically rich and broad domain. Tibbetts’ guitar tone with its massive depth, fretboard squeaks and fretless like character are enough to captivate the listener for the entire duration of the album along with its meditative mood.

„Life Of“ is an album that despite the relatively infrequent music making of Steve Tibbetts is well worth the wait for long time fans. For those just entering his singular sound world, it’s an appealing gateway– with the ECM catalog now on Spotify, listeners can check out his previous work with ease. For audiophiles, this album is a treat as Tibbetts mixed the album in the concert hall in Macalester College near his Minnesota home by placing 2 sets of microphones in the hall during playback to capture the rich ambiance. With one set in the center of the hall and one in the rear, it really captures a sonically rich and broad domain. Tibbetts’ guitar tone with its massive depth, fretboard squeaks and fretless like character are enough to captivate the listener for the entire duration of the album along with its meditative mood.

CJ Shearn

hilflos
hilflos
better hilflos

hilflos
hilflos
Die wahre Cigarette hilflos
hilflos

hilflos heuer
hilflos sonst ungeheuer
hilfe los
hilflos

HILFLOS JA
hilflos!!!
TOD DEN BONZEN hilflos

hilflos hi
hilflos
hilflos Glücklich

(Anonymus: „hilflos“, um 1980, Sprühdose auf Zürich)

1) Brian Eno: Foreverandevernomore

2) Lambchop: The Bible

3) Father John Misty: Chloé and the next Twentieth Century

Ad 1) Perhaps the reason I was never a real fan of Roxy Music was they had the wrong singer. This, of course being an offense for Roxy Music die-hards, may raise eyebrows. In hindsight I would have preferred Eno taking center age on the first two albums, but then again, with a voice not perfectly suited for stadium rock, the band might only have gained underground status, who the fuck knows, you can‘t rewrite history. So, when „For Your Pleasure“ was circling our tables in school, I only became mildly interested. (Ferry did a great job, no doubt, but I was looking for something else. Paradoxically, my favourite Roxy album, one I really liked, was „Stranded“, the first without Eno.) This all changed on a rainy December day 1975 in Würzburg, when my first copy of an Eno album blocked my record player for weeks, „Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy)“. The songs, their sonic textures, their singing voice, their lyrics had an entrancing quality, and I knew from the start, I had found another favourite musician – and singer.

As time goes by. Now, after those other, quite rare song- or song-related albums (all a class of their own), Here Come The Warm Jets“, „Another Green World“, „Before and After Science“ (close the 70‘s at this point), „Wrong Way Up“ (with Cale), „Drawn From Life“ (with Schwalm), „Another Day On Earth“, „Someday World“ (with Hyde), and „The Ship“ (close the next four decades at this point), here we will have another song cycle, to be released on October 14, „Foreverandeevernomore“ – no catchy songs, no singalongs, no fairytale searches of parallel worlds, no hooks, no future evergreens, oh, hold on, in their own peculiar way these songs which could be coined as modern day lamentations, may contain a collection of future „everblues“ at least, striking quite a special, different note, corner, space, in Brian Eno‘s song life. The album is a challenge, haunting, uncanny, ethereal, anti-nostalgic, lost in space, beautiful in a dark way, and a fantastic melting of ambient and song worlds. Even Scott Walker, I guess, would love it in his tower of song, Leonard anyway. 

Ad 2) These endless twists and turns that Wagner keeps making musically – that in many ways have come to define Lambchop’s late career – may feel disorientating for some early-day adopters used to that more classically Americana sound. However, despite being born from a period of deep questioning and self-reflection, The Bible doesn’t feel like a confused or lost musician chasing the zeitgeist or wandering aimlessly. Instead, it’s the work of a focused artist who is consistently attempting to stretch out the parameters of their own ever-expanding sonic world. Last year, City Slang label boss Christof Ellinghaus told Uncut, “Kurt doesn’t have a single nostalgic bone in his body”, and that’s no more evident than here. Everything about The Bible suggests a fierce, steely gaze locked onto the horizon, proving that maybe more artists should stop for a moment and ask, “What the fuck am I doing?” In this instance, it has resulted in yet another late-career highlight. (Mickie Winters, Uncut)

ad 3) Those two main strengths of “Chloë”—the expanded instrumentation, complete with a full orchestra, and a new propensity to tell stories with vivid detail, absent any hint of that trademark snark—are what makes the whole of Chloë and the Next 20th Century such a songwriting triumph that continues to reveal more about itself upon each listen. Fans of Father John Misty’s past, more straightforward tracks, from the heavier “Hollywood Forever Cemetery Sings” to the catchy folk-rock of “Total Entertainment Forever,” might be disappointed at first to hear a full album that takes after Randy Newman, or the kind of songs that would’ve soundtracked a Gene Kelly dance routine. But let its full beauty sink in, and there’s just so much to love here. (Steven Edelstone, Paiste)

One of the magic tricks of Jon Balke‘s „Hafla“ is the handling of time. I mean, come on, poems, thousand years old, and translated in modern day English, they sound like simple gestures from everyday life, open for a look to the stars, daydreaming included. Simple as that. These songs all have the length of singles, and, like following an unwritten rule, Jon Balke and his collaborators just ignore any kind of ornamentation or excursion. By just sticking to a song‘s essence, they achieve a beautiful paradox: each track is packed with ideas, nevertheless transparent in every second. How can something overflowing and passionate be so up to the point, so crystalline, so calm? Longing and loss in equal measure, and lyrics from eternities ago that could easily have been written, in certain moods by, well, Leonard Cohen or Robert Burns.

Ich war lange nicht mehr abends ausgegangen, die 20er Jahre boten dafür ja auch eher wenig Gelegenheit. Ohne je dort gewesen zu sein, war der Ort mir seltsam vertraut: niedrige Decken im Keller einer ehemaligen Grundschule, ausrangierte Sofas und Sessel, ein zu einer Bar umfunktionierter Konditoreitresen, ein kleines DJ Pult in einer Ecke, gegenüber einer winzigen Bühne. Der LSD Barde begann um halb zehn (als Michael gerade mitten in den JazzFacts war) gemeinsam mit seinen drei Musikern zu spielen. Die Musik war lässig, die Songs wurden nur notbedürftig an den Fugen zusammen gehalten, das Saxophon steckte im Mundwinkel, die Bassistin kauerte auf ihrem Verstärker. Geboten wurde eine beglückende Mischung aus Mantren und DIY Jazz, mit Alabaster DePlume als überaus sympathischen, kommunikativen und humorvollen Frontmann. Sein ohnehin schon gutes Album macht seit dem Konzert noch mehr Spaß.  (geschrieben von Olaf Westfeld, irgendwann 2022)

Die Basis der allermeisten Songs hier ist von einem ebenmässigen Schleichtempo, die Gesänge von Alabaster trauen sich was, und wir könnten freiweg von einem herzfrischenden Update des „spirituellen Jazz“ reden, wenn man so frei ist, jenseitige und andere religiöse Wallungen beiseite zu lassen,  und den hier wirksamen Humanismus als tiefe Klangmassage in sich eindringen zu lassen. Tatächlich sind die „vibes“ näher an Dadwah und Nyabingji dran als an Pharoah Sanders „Karma“. Schlurfen vor der Erleuchtung! Es ist ein Doppelalbum  wie geschaffen für die gute alte Tante Doppel-Lp. In vier Einheiten zu verkosten, nicht am Stück. Let‘s sing and whisper of love, with a twist. (hingehuscht von M. E. an einem der letzten heissen Sommernachnittage, und gewiss eines der drei Alben meines Jazzjahresrückblicks im DLF)

Now, after nearly 30 years, Wilco are still a major force in their Americana landscape (and outside). Far away from becoming as cozy as R.E.M. in their later years or an alias for pure Classic Rock nostalgia like The Eagles, they cannot do bad albums. Jeff Tweedy takes care of his restlessness, his hunger for melodies (that stick in mind) and lyrics (biting and seducing at the same time). But where is the fucking „vinyl“ (or cd) of this excellent and rough collection of new songs? Streaming will never do it for me. „Cruel Country“ is Wilco caught in the moment, and it suits the music that nothing is worked over and streamlined. The most country thing about this body of work is the hard-lived wisdom it offers up. The love songs are very grown-up, they range from the arresting storytelling  through to the cognitive dissonance of the closing tune, The Plains, and the title rocker: “I love my country, stupid and cruel.”

Are there pioneers of the post-Krautrock era? If so, Kreidler should be placed first row! Once I had the band  in a live broadcast, and we talked about the salad days of Kraut (a children‘s memory for them), we talked about „die alte Bundesrepublik“. After all, Kreidler named themselves after the historic moped. „Spells and Daubs“ is incredibly fresh music (an audiophile delight by the way, from bureau b), more than a touch hand-made. There are definitely pinches of Cluster and Harmonia, but so cheerful, so relaxed and probably shaken out of the electronic sleeves unconsciously. Random parallels and echoes, a myriad of inspirations. Wondrous drumming too, sometimes reaching our for another neon-lit horizon from the 80‘s. As Boomkat writes: „Now approaching their 30th year in business, Kreidler elegantly keep moving forwards/backwards with a taut but supple tribute to their mutual influences from British pop music. In 10 tunes, reduced from more abundant early sessions, they beautifully home in on the rhythmelodic impetus that was morphed in translation from US soul into english synth-pop circa the early ‘80s; juicing its essence into sleek instrumental forms that have been polished to a tip-of-tongue shimmer by Peter Walsh, who was hand-picked by the band for his paradigm-setting mixing desk credentials, perhaps most notably on Heaven 17’s new wave/synth-pop ultra classique ‘Penthouse and Pavement’.“