‘The star of the show is Noah’s mesmerising hand drumming, especially on the headspinning Microdosing’ (The Guardian).
‘Easily AHC’s most accessible, vivid approximation yet of Brian Eno’s fabled ‘vision of a psychedelic Africa’’ (Mojo).
‘A ceaselessly unpredictable and eclectic record that manages to sound as traditional as it does experimental’ (Uncut).
‘Eight tracks of jagged electronics, heavy basslines, and fractured spoken word collide in a body-jerking soundclash that is both raw and vital.’
Good On Paper enjoyed ‘Baldauf’s crisp, distanced tones accompanied by Roe’s ominous, pulsating programmed bass line and four-to-the-floor whack, coaxing pure pop out of tension and incongruity.’ Electronic Sound Magazine hailed the LP as ‘a blistering, club-forward workout’, with ‘top-drawer, nose-bloodying electronics,’ positioning the Stroud duo as ‘rather like a wonky Tom Tom Club with added grit.’
Nine tunes copped from the archives of the legendary 78s collector Harry Smith — ‘pointedly taken from regions shaped by major US conflicts since Anderson’s birth in 1970. While her fascinating liner notes track what is lost and found when trying to translate these compositions, their universal musicality still cuts through. Opener Quodlibet is beautiful: an intricate, minor-key medley of Uzbek tunes originally performed on the dambura (a fretless lute), on which Anderson adds bluegrass techniques to counter her inability to play quarter-tones on her guitar. Her take on a qawwali vocal tune, Hamd, is also a highlight, her stacked guitar layers ringing with warmth and emotion. Gisela Rodríguez Fernández adds violin to Sarvi Simin, a shimmering tune from Soviet-era Afghanistan, while a Yemeni tune, Zar, intended to exorcise evil spirits from the sick, sees Anderson and Fernández constantly rearranging five notes without repetition. Dark ambient moods are also conjured in Pair of Duduk, on which Anderson shifts the drones of Armenian woodwinds on to reverb-heavy guitar and bassy synths, while in Vietnamese tune Whistle Song, transferred from bamboo flutes to electric piano, the composition’s closeness to minimalism sings out.’
Wonderful. Here’s to volume two.
Bumptious sauce recorded for Paramount in 1929 by different lineups including Leroy Carr, Scrapper Blackwell, Tampa Red and Blind Blake, and Bob Robinson on banjo and clarinet. Archetypal Crumb; 180g.
Larry Marshall and Alvin Leslie, backed by The Revolutionaries and blazing horns, produced by Alvin Ranglin.
Accomplished late-seventies reggae, never properly released till now; shot through with Marshall’s moody intensity and craftsmanship.
Her third, 1970 album, the brilliant summation of her folky start — with favourites like Woodstock, Big Yellow Taxi and The Circle Game.
The LP is newly remastered by Bernie Grundman under the supervision of Joni Mitchell.