JULIE DRISCOLL BRIAN AUGER & THE TRINITY Streetnoise
Largely Hammond groove stuff with Julie Driscoll's distinctive
vocals.
Auger experiments with other instruments for a change. A coupla these
tracks feature
acoustic guitar without organ. I take it that auger simply drops out
there. Seems strange for a featured player. Dave Ambrose is pretty
tasty as a guitar player when he ain't playing a secondary role
This contains crossover folky stuff alongside a cover of Miles Davis'
All Blues incorporating Oscar Brown's poem. Seems that All Blues was
a popular track around the time since both Pentangle and Tim Buckley
also base songs on the thing.
They also turn the Doors Light my Fire into a soul-folk thingy.

BEATLES Abbey Road
'69 lp mostly laidback mellow verging on the folky. THe last lp put
out by the still active band. Something here sounds really
atmospheric, lysergic creepy, it went on to be one of the most
covered songs ever. Frank Sinatra seems to have heard it as a
straight love song.
Why is this only available in an '87 master?
Is it down to the beloved Allen Klein? Would've thought there'd be
enough of a market for a better version of one of the more famous LPs
ever. Certainly that LP cover has to be known worldwide.
Who never gives these boys their money? Is that Klein, EMI or who?
Epstein's long dead by this time anyway. I just bought that Mojo 1000
days special on the end period so I've now got the answer to that.
Shame I missed the psychedelic one.

SHUGGIE OTIS Information Inspiration
Floaty soul-jazz stuff with great guitar. Sounds semi-submerged,
something that Lewis Taylor seemed to pick up on on his first lp.
Shuggie was the son of the great singer Johnny Otis with whom he
recorded in his early teens. His voice is pretty cool too, though
this whole lp seems deeply stoned.
This is the Luaka Bop version showing that David Byrne has pretty
good musical taste.

BLACK DICE Beaches and canyons
Impro stuff by Brooklyn crew, somewhat reminiscent of Can though
that's an easy description in this genre. This is more ambient than
that, the second track reminds me of Cold from NWW's Thunder Perfect
Mind. That might just be the wave sound effects though; I think they
may overdo that aspect since the end of the track is about 4 minutes
of the stuff.
I've seen various comments on the non-verbal singing on this record
sounding very weird. I think it fits, another colour blending into
the background. Might be disturbing on overly extended listening but
there is a great deal of difference over the course of tracks here. I
take it these guys are Stapleton fans. Certainly sound like it.

VARIOUS Legend Of A Mind
3cd box of Decca underground stuff. Some of this is recognisably
great.
Other stuff had me a tad surprised. Mirage era Camel actually sound
good.
Benefit of this set is that it works as an overview of the material.
Downside I now know there's even more stuff I NEED to get hold of.
Love this Mellow Candle but it looks like Swaddling Songs is out of
print or something.

MAGMA Mekanik Destructiw Kommandoh
3rd LP by French sci-fi mystics who sing in their own invented
language.
Operatic vocals over Stravinsky meets jazz drumming plus psych
guitar. Though the bass here is more prominent as is the keyboard
Does Kobaian parallel Esperanto in its borrowing from existing
languages?
Apparently Christian Vander started out as an Elvin Jones influenced
gypsy drummer.
It took 3 LPs to get into the swing of Zeuhl . I've got Kontahkorz
waiting to be picked up next week. This stuff has a weird form of
beauty; I hear that one's pretty harsh.

WU TANG CLAN Enter The 36 Chambers
The first LP by the Wu collective. Great stuff the rhythm seems about
as punchy as their kung-fu obsession would suggest. What happened to
this bunch? They started out `from the streets' of Staten Island then
started releasing things with Texas. Can't make sense of it, but from
what I've heard they ain't what they were.
At the time though they were doing great r'n'b stuff with repetitive
piano riffs
That I think still stands up.

BEATLES Revolver
Was surprised by the guitar on here. A lot more hero than I knew
before.
This and the preceding Rubber Soul appear to be the 2 Beatles to get.
Avoiding the oversung-ness of Sgt Pepper, which is pretty far from
the most psychedelic LP of all time BTW. Here the band cover a lot of
ground from Northern Soul tributes to smoke (gotta get you into my
life) through paeans to loneliness. Through well done kiddie songs
and beyond. Hearing Tomorrow Never Knows on here just reminds me how
much The Chemical Brothers and Noel ripped it off, the bassline seems
to be almost exactly the same

MEMPHIS MINNIE Let's Go To Town
Pretty good compi for something that came on the front of a magazine.
I'd been meaning to pick something up by her for ages when I found
this in Dublin a few years back. This has Chauffeur's Blues, which I
was familiar with from the first Jefferson Airplane LP, and now have
by Black Cat Bones. Rare to hear this type of deltaesque stuff by a
woman. Is there something about most blues of this type that seems
overtly masculine? I keep thinking if its woman blues you're going to
be more uptown and have almost early jazz backing.

VOIVOD Killing Technology
3rd LP by French Canadians. Still heavily in the throes of thrash,
this is the first of the classic trio of LPs ending in Nothingface
where the band attempts to reinvent the genre. Apparently their reign
of chaos was stopped by the departure of the bassist and singer after
which they put out some stuff people feel to be some kind of
desecration. They've got a new cd out now + have a new bassist in the
shape of Jason Newsted.

LEONARD COHEN The Essential
French Canadian Jewish poet? This is good cos it covers his complete
recording career.
For some reason I haven't picked up on the early stuff as much as
I've meant to.
There Cohen has a very strange sense of rhythm. It seems to float
unnaturally quite naturally in a way that reminded me of the review
of Dylan's John Wesley Harding
Lacking a normal sense of time. Or is that possessing a feeling of
timelessness?
Leaving Cohen hovering in the middle of the sound.
+I finally get to hear the original version of Hallelujah which is
better known in versions derived from John Cale's cover.

ANIMALS The Complete
All The Alan Price era stuff by the Newcastle r'n'b band. Here I'm
surprised by the amount of jazz in the sound. Seems to be something
the band develop into from their earlier r'n'b stylings which are
pretty close to early r'n'r. Also surprised by hearing tracks I'm
more aware of in versions by other bands of the era. The Yardbirds
for one. This version of Roadrunner seems strange possibly because
the band's growing sophistyication makes into something slightly
different to a straight Bo Diddley cover.
Is there any reason that the band never wrote their own stuff or is
that easily explained by hearing the lyrics that Burdon wrote later?

MELVIN VAN PEEBLES Rated X By An All White Jury
2cds of Great black director narrating 3lps of monologues over great
funky backing. Shame that the band remain anonymous cos these guys is
great.

SAVAGE REPUBLIC Jamahiriya
Final planned studio LP by LA dronerockers. This is one of the best
tripping LPs I've heard largely because of the use of texture. They
seem to keep melody/thrust/and rhythm on even priority meaning that
not only is this deeply eastern-folk melodic but it's also in your
face. Their material is available from here
http://www.mobilization.com/artists/savage.html#


GRAVITAR Gravitaativarravitar
Heavy distorto noise impro stuff from phase 1 of Charnel House band.
Sounds somewhat similar to bits of the last Electric Wizard LP
I've wondered if the level of distortion here is intentional or if I
had a faulty version. Sound seems to drop out in places, totally
ripping

NINA SIMONE Sugar In My Bowl
Late 60s/early 70s stuff from Ms Simone. Covers the Bee Gees, Dylan,
Cohen, Kristofferson, Gershwin and the John Loudermilk song that Nora
Jones has just done `Turn Me On.'
I think the best track here is 22nd century, it's the one that's
popped up in my head more than any other. Smoky Jazz stuff
reinventing tunes in such a way that she gives credibility where
there might otherwise not be so much. For somebody so heavily into
black power politics she seems to be covering a lot of white singer-
songwriter stuff

JETHRO TULL Stand Up
If you can get around Mr Anderson then this is pretty reet.
Heavier than I might've expected. Can't stand the vocals /lyrics on
Fat Man. But the rest of this is pretty class.
Anderson's voice ain't too bad and they ain't too proggy as yet.
no sidelong tracks anyway, this is still 5 minutes at the outside
mainly
The percussiveness of the flute in places is pretty surprising though.
Couples with the mixture of Folk blues jazz and whatever pretty great.
Shame they couldn't quite capture the sleeve though innit?

PRETTY THINGS Parachute
1970 comedown LP. great guitar in places
This is the same as the current Sequel reissue so there are a lot of
extra tracks.
Acoustic led heavy stuff. Surprising that this is so ethereal if you
only know the first LP. Though this band is quite different, Dick
Taylor the guitarist from the start who'd been a one-time stone has
already left. He's replaced for this LP only by Vic Unitt from Edgar
Broughton Band who does add some heavy guitar textures. thenceforth
by the guy from Eire Apparent who's on the singles added as extra
tracks.

THELONIOUS MONK QUINTET Monk
Zen and the art of piano playing? This guy's use of space always has
me asking if Skip James was an influence
Pretty swinging, from '54 with Smoke gets into your eyes
Sonny Rollins, +Percy Heath as sidemen. Better than I remember it.
Dunno what part of jazz to file this under, waiting for a copy of
Monk's Music that I've got on order
Stevo
Np Magma M.D.K. Mekanik Komandoh