MARCO ROSSI finds himself distracted by German drone-rock, Swiss meditational acid-folk and bespectacled jazzers spectacularly losing it in the ’70s.
Tell you what, in auditory terms it’s been one hell of a good month.
I’m always wary of making these pronouncements because such hubris reminds me of that old Public Information Office film which used to be on the telly in the ’70s. You know, the one in which a northern septuagenarian looks back over his day’s activities... which seemed to consist of trotting alongside a shire horse in a drab field, playing Ker-Plunk and drinking flat beer the colour and temperature of gravy. “It’s been a good day,” he mutters, before nodding off with a lit ciggie and torching his swirly brown and orange armchair.
So, without wishing to invite such calumny upon my own head, let me cautiously reiterate that the month has been characterised by some top-notch listening experiences: a sneak preview of the tidily arranged twin lead guitars of October’s forthcoming WISHBONE ASH album, a thorough immersion in Dancing To The Devil’s Beat (Witchwood Media), the startlingly robust and politically charged new LP from the classic ’74 line-up of THE STRAWBS, and then the 4-CD COLOSSEUM compilation Morituri Te Salutant (Sanctuary) which has been hitting the spot in carefully monitored doses. Undeniably brilliant as Jon Hiseman, Dick Heckstall-Smith and their fellow jazz rock colossuses were, their tendency to give it maximum beans, constantly, can be as cumulatively draining as a sleepover with Vampyra and the legions of the undead, all armed with cocktail straws. One has to occasionally step away from the fray to check that one’s fillings haven’t been dislodged or that one’s bowels haven’t appallingly moved.
Speaking as we were of sax supremo DICK HECKSTALL-SMITH, his remarkable debut solo album from ‘72, A Story Ended (Esoteric), is a combination of costermonger muscularity and nightingale lyricism. Listening to it is like sitting next to one of those blokes you encounter at the end of the night down the pub who alternate between weeping on your shoulder and punching you repeatedly in the face. As with Colosseum, this is hyper-intense, bolshy jazz/prog (‘Future Song’, ‘The Pirate’s Dream’); a geyser of vulgar fraction time signatures and ruptured blood vessel soloing. So far, so tumultuous: but the magic ingredients are Pete Brown’s immaculately crafted lyrics and their lusty interpretation by notoriously gruff, pendulously-bollocked vocalists Chris Farlowe, Paul Williams of Juicy Lucy and UK R&B lynchpin Graham Bond. A bonus clutch of insanely boisterous live tracks adds purchasing incentive.
Speaking as we also were of Graham Bond and Pete Brown – Christ, you’d think there was a plan to all of this – the oft-overlooked ’72 BOND + BROWN album Two Heads Are Better Than One (Esoteric) is up for reappraisal. Brown’s lyrics are beyond reproach, naturally, and the canny assimilation of Afro-based rhythmic motifs (‘Oobati’, ‘Amazing Grass’, ‘Macumbe’) lends real urgency to B&B’s full-fat diet of bluesy rock. It’s a slightly uncomfortable listen in places for me, however; Bond was already well down the road of holy magick, and his demons were steadily amassing. This was in fact to be his last recorded work: two years after its release, Bond tragically died beneath the wheels of a London Underground train. It’s a fine epitaph nevertheless, best exemplified via the rolling barrelhouse swing of ‘Ig The Pig’ and the enthusiastic hustle of bonus track ‘Milk Is Turning Sour In My Shoes’.
Kudos in passing to CIRCUS, home of the pre-Crimson Mel Collins, whose eponymous ’69 debut album gets a full remastering from Esoteric which buffs it up until it gleams. ‘Monday Monday’ and ‘Norwegian Wood’ are among the beneficiaries of the band’s spring-heeled jazz-pop approach.
Now, the quickest way to my heart – other than directly through the sternum with a set of pinking shears – is to sit me down with a can of Heineken and a selection of German rock music from the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and I’ll generally be as happy as ein schwein in der scheiße. Quite why it appeals so much is a mystery even to me – I’ve never made it through an entire Ring Cycle and I only wear lederhosen in the bedroom, on demand – but I think I’m just a sucker for The Shock Of The New.
The movers and shakers of Germany’s post war generation were so keen to distance themselves from the unspeakable events of the recent past that they started with an excitingly clean slate.
Not everyone was as heroically untethered as Can and Faust, however. For all the rhetoric bandied around back then about freedom of expression, bands all too often fell back upon that undistinguished rehearsal room staple, the extended one-chord jam. UFO (Lion), the legendary ’70 debut by GURU GURU, talks a good game, features some splendidly clattery and propulsive drumming from Mani Neumeier and conveys the headily authentic reek of the commune; but it’s still essentially monochord wah-wah shod jamming for the most part. ‘Next Time See You At The Dalai Lhama’ does at least channel something of the slobbering essence of Fun House, but it’s really only on the free-form title track and ‘Der LSD – Marsch’, wherein Ax Genrich’s maltreated effects pedals summon forth a darkly impressionistic ozone fug, that they fully achieve transcendence. I like my free-form jams to either feature intuitive development of melodic motifs or to be utterly fucking mental; and these fulfil the latter criterion nicely.
While on the subject of transcendence, I recommend you knock the furniture aside in your haste to hear Lord Krishna Von Goloka (Lion) by SERGIUS GOLOWIN, a levitational acid folk masterpiece from ‘73. Golowin, high-minded Swiss sage and friend of Timothy Leary, recites tranquil, disembodied incantations in German over a backdrop of acoustic guitars, flutes, vibes, bells and Mellotron, and one’s cares dissolve like bath salts. If I’m making it sound like one of those new age meditative tracts that dribble away in the background while you’re having your Indian head massaged, rest assured it’s considerably lovelier and about a trillion per cent more worthwhile. Try all 17 beaming, benevolent
minutes of ‘Der Reigen’ and feel your bones turn to soup.
Champing at the bit for more of that extended Deutsche jamming? Aufbruche! Die Umsonst & Draussen-Festivals 1975-1978 (Sireena) offers you four CDs’ worth, ranging from the considerable nift of Embryo and Real Ax Band to the endearingly lumpy efforts of Molle and Hammerfest. Beautifully packaged and pristinely recorded, it’s a wonderful keepsake for veterans of the festivals in question, if admittedly of limited appeal otherwise as no “name” acts are featured and the generous sleeve notes have no English translation. Still, I’m glad to have made the acquaintance of the fantastically named Julius Schittenhelm, the dissolute, giggling talent responsible for the fiendishly catchy acoustic ode ‘Drei Orchideen’.
The advent of the synthesizer naturally meant that those one-chord jams could subsequently be underpinned by one-note drones; a fine tradition maintained today by ATELIERTHEREMIN, whose Morgen Im Garten Des NeoKrautrock (Krautopia) is an oddly compelling repository of solemn bleeps, buzzes, sine waves and discomfiting chants. You will be variously reminded of Cluster, Can and Tangerine Dream – no bad thing – while ‘Ba Khura Ranga’ magnificently sounds like Cabaret Voltaire fronted by a pissed Dalek.
Yes yes, but where’s the prog?” you may well be bellowing if you’ve made it this far: in which case your reward comes in the resolutely anachronistic shape of To Wake The King (Holyground) by SECRET GREEN, helmed by Enid founder member Francis Lickerish. ‘Guinevere Suite (Five Courtly Dances)’ sets the tone here: tonight we’re going to party like ‘twere 1543. Rock is body-swerved entirely, and what emerges is a rather lovely, flawlessly performed repository of medieval minstrelsy, in which diaphanously-clad maidens disport themselves on rolling English lawns accompanied by gambolling lute players (or whatever the collective term is: I think it’s “looters”).
|
