Sam Kidel from Young Echo opens proceedings with a beautifully rolling, pastoral re-arrangement of the melodies of South East Of The Mountain, keeping a watchful eye on the original, dread b-line. Then some chilled ragga from O$VMV$M, versioning Skeletal. Finally Helm takes the helm, with a startling re-animation of Bloom, brilliantly tipping the registers of Music For Airports on their side.
A re-rub of classic Digital Mystikz to celebrate Ancient Monarchy’s fifth release already, laced with oblique, Autechre-style melodiousness, and bass-bin armageddon. Next up, Sweet Sixteen is psychedelic techno-not-techno for early-morning dancefloors, complete with a sleazy EBM/New Beat dub by DJ October.
Funkdafied, discofried, cosmic soca-boogie from 1984. Let’s Get It Together is a monster.
Multi-layered, expansive, reflective, feelingly political, musically expert. Dev Hynes, Kelani and How To Dress Well all in the mix; Q-Tip, Tweet, Lil Wayne… and old man Knowles, most tellingly of all. Knockout singing.
Their classic, influential, second Saravah, from 1974, joined by the great Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos. Leftist folk prog turned outernational psychedelic fusion. Try fourteen-minutes-long La Ville Pue.
Fierily imperious roots from 1998, for Opera House. With Mikey General and a dub; and a show-stealing toast from label-boss Buccaneer.
Ishu and Xylon from Sound Iration, produced by Manasseh for Youth Sound in 1990. Quality digi UK steppers, with a nice melodica version, and a hollowed-out dub.
Tearaway call-and-response vocal ska, rare and deadly; with a killer Baba Brooks.
Top-notch Japanese presentation.
JING-BANG, n. Also jin-; ging-bang; jabang. A considerable number. Gen. in phr. the hail jin(g)-bang, the whole lot, company, concern, affair. Also used attrib. and contemptuously — a worthless collection or lot (Uls. 1924 W. Lutton Montiaghisms 24, Uls. 1947).
Wgt. 1880 G. Fraser Lowland Lore 172: ‘Ye maun ken that the haill jingbang o’ them’s as Eerish as Rosy Monahan.’ Sc. 1892 Stevenson Wrecker xviii.: ‘He was the only one I ever liket of the hale jing-bang.’ Ayr. 1901 G. Douglas Green Shutters xiv.: ‘We’ve got the jing-bang lot if we’re quick.’
‘Rashied Ali stood as a magnetic force for the musical environment around him. In his last decades he sponsored rehearsal opportunities for young musicians, tightened up neighborhood street-corner drum circles he happened to pass, and for years would pull promising young talents into his orbit. One unique group that Ali led at the 2002 Vision Festival in NYC, along with Frank Lowe, he also took into the studio. Sidewalks in Motion features Ali and Lowe along with young musicians Jumaane Smith (trumpet), Andrew Bemkey on piano, and bassist Joris Teepe. In the years after Lowe’s death Ali selected the best takes, and mixed and mastered them for release, but the material remained on the shelf… till now.’
Presented in an old-school tip-on jacket featuring photos and Joris Teepe’s recollections.
The 1994 return of pioneering electronic guru Richard ‘Heldon’ Pinhas to the forefront of the French underground scene. The fruits of a two-year collaboration with John Livengood from Red Noise and Spacecraft, inspired by Norman Spinrad’s novel Rock Machine. First vinyl issue.
Keyboardist with Heldon, Magma and co, joined on his debut LP by the likes of Richard Pinhas and Christian Vander — no less — together with Bernard Paganotti, François Auger, Didier Batard… An outstanding mixture of synthy electronics and jazz-rock. First vinyl issue.
No-one else makes music like this: devilishly complex but warm and intuitive, stirring together a dizzying assembly of outernational and outerspace influences, whilst retaining the subby funk-and-hot-breath pressure of Shackleton’s soundboy, club roots.
The result is an evolutionary, truly alchemical music — great shifting tides of dub, minimalist composition and choral song (Five Demiurgic Options); ritual spells to ward off the darkness (Before The Dam Broke, The Prophet Sequence); radiophonia and zoned-out guitar improv (Seven Virgins); even the febrile, freeform psychedelia of eighties noise rock (Sferic Ghost Transmits / Fear The Crown).
Over the five years since Music For The Quiet Hour, Vengeance’s vocal and lyrical range has rolled out across this new terrain. Throughout these six transmissions he’s hoarse preacher, sage scholar and ravaged bluesman; blind man marching off to war, and exhausted time-traveller warning of impending socio-ecological catastrophe.
Six dialogic accounts of our conflicted times, then, expanding beyond the treacly unease of the duo’s early collaborative work into something subtler and more emotionally shattering — its shades of brightness more dazzling, and its darkness even murkier.
“We almost didn’t hear it when the foundations went.”