#French multi-instrumentalist

[plus-low-overthrow]

Medline - The Fence (Stereophonk / My Bags)

Flutes, 2025.

wrt. Alan Tew.

[sonicandvisualsurprises]

1972

Continuing the exploration of Ethiopia's musical past, this mesmerising instrumental by Mulatu Astatke caught my attention.

Biography from Discogs :

Mulatu Astatke (Amharic: ሙላቱ አስታጥቄ; also written Astatqé on French releases) is arguably one of the most influential and legendary musicians from Ethiopia. During the 1960’s, he studied music abroad in London, Boston, and New York. He then returned home to Ethiopia armed with a love for jazz and Latin music. There he blended Ethiopian traditional music with the Latin-jazz he was so fond of to create a unique hybrid he called “Ethio-jazz”.

Mulatu Astatke is first and foremost a composer but also a multi-instrumentalist, playing the vibraphone, keyboards and organs. He is further credited as having established congas and bongos, instruments normally central to Latin styles, in Ethiopian music.

However, as Ethiopian songs traditionally focused on vocals his greatest contribution to the music of his country was introducing a new focus on instrumentation.

[musicien]

FULL  NAME.     Michael Oliver Haywood MEANING.     Michael — from Hebrew: "Who [is] like God?" / Oliver — from Latin: "olive tree planter" or "olive branch bearer" / Haywood — Anglo-Saxon origin: person who was in charge of protecting an enclosed forest from damage by vandals, animals, and poachers. NICKNAME.     Mike, Mikey GENDER.     Cis male but watch out ETHNICITY.     French/pied-noir & Kabyle on his mother's side, Anglo-Celtic Australian on his father's HEIGHT.     200 cm / 6'7'' AGE.     20-25 generally ZODIAC.     Pieces (creative, sensitive, sociable, genuine) SPOKEN  LANGUAGES.     English & French

physical  characteristics !

HAIR  COLOR.     A cool shade of dark brown EYE  COLOR.     Cinnamon brown SKIN  TONE.     Fair, warm/olive undertones BODY  TYPE.      Athletic, sculpted muscles, broad shoulders, long legs ACCENT.     Some version of General American English, which (for better or for worse) is usually associated with "high education," vaguely Cultivated Australian English at times. VOICE.     Clear and warm. Lively and youthful most of the time, but can drop very low. Can project his voice easily without yelling. Tends to enunciate everything. DOMINANT  HAND.     Raised to become completely ambidextrous since infancy. POSTURE.     Straight, elegant, open, but sometimes he makes himself appear smaller. SCARS.   Deep scar tissue on buttocks and upper back thighs, as well as knees. Callouses on hands. TATTOOS.     So many. Mostly on arms and torso. MOST  NOTICEABLE  FEATURE(S).     Long hair, tattoos, his height.

childhood !

PLACE  OF  BIRTH.     Sydney, Australia HOMETOWN.     Main places of residence growing up were in Darling Point, Sydney & Hillsborough, California & Upper West Side, New York City. MANNER  OF  BIRTH.     Caesarean delivery on maternal request. FIRST  WORDS.     "Mama." SIBLINGS.     None. PARENTS.     Sara Nour Allard, only daughter of Cabḥa and René Allard, born and raised in Algeria, world-renowned mezzo-soprano and classically trained actress, social activist and philanthropist. Charles Haywood, younger son of Catherine and Benjamin Haywood, hailing from New South Wales, chamber music performer and orchestra conductor, and eventually chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. PARENT  INVOLVEMENT.     Strict, demanding, unforgiving. Both were intensely involved in raising Mike, though they were teachers to him more than nurturing parental figures.

adult  life !

OCCUPATION.   He's been involved with music his entire life. Multi-instrumentalist, but mainly piano player, opera singer, classical music composer. Lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist in a metal band for a while. If he's lucky, music teacher at a private school later in life. CURRENT RESIDENCE.     All over the place. CLOSE  FRIENDS.   Lochlainn O'Hara, Andy Daye, Maddie Kouvatsou, Miriam Baxter. Here. RELATIONSHIP  STATUS.    Depends entirely on verse/timeline. FINANCIAL  STATUS.     Grew up in a very well-off family. Set out into the world as a millionaire. Ended up destitute. DRIVER’S  LICENSE.     Yes. CRIMINAL  RECORD.     Generally, none. VICES.     Impulsivity, jealousy, possessiveness, sometimes arrogance.

sex  &  romance !

SEXUAL  ORIENTATION.     Bisexual. ROMANTIC  ORIENTATION.     Biromantic. PREFERRED  EMOTIONAL  ROLE.     He's just happy to be involved in whatever capacity, but he needs a mutually nurturing and affectionate relationship to feel fulfilled. PREFERRED  SEXUAL  ROLE.     Switch & versatile, he once again is just happy to be involved. He likes switching things up and trying everything. LIBIDO.     Average to high normally, very high when he's in a relationship or actively into someone. RELATIONSHIP  TENDENCIES.     He is so willing to commit for life. Ready for marriage and kids after dating someone for just a few months. This pace and intensity is definitely not for everyone, and he learns that the hard way.

miscellaneous !

THEME  SONG.     Feeling My Boy Builds Coffins by The Florence + The Machine for him lately, but Everlong & Come Home with Me & Cemetery Breeding & Trout Heart Replica & Maniac are all very Mike-core songs in one way or another. HOBBIES  TO  PASS  TIME.     Music :) reading random Wikipedia pages, watching wildlife documentaries, looking at beautiful pictures on the internet, working out, whatever his friends want to do. MENTAL  ILLNESSES.     He's been slapped with an oppositional defiant disorder diagnosis very early on, and then later bipolar I. That's on the official side. PHYSICAL  ILLNESSES.     None, not even a minor allergy. PHOBIAS.     He's easily startled, but no real phobia. Unless rejection/failure/abandonment counts? SELF  CONFIDENCE  LEVEL.     Moderate in his day-to-day life, very high when it comes to his skills as a musician and performer. (Unless going through a manic episode, then it's recklessly high all around.) VULNERABILITIES.      He's just a vulnerable guy in general. Wears his heart on his sleeve. Very easy to manipulate and take advantage of if offered attention/affection/approval. Will die for anything and anyone.

[womenofnoise]

Delphine Dora @delphine.dora is a French multi-instrumentalist, composer and improviser. She works mainly with piano, voice, organ, modular synth and field recordings. Her music displays a pure fascination with sound and straddles the lines between improvisation, modern classical, avant folk, song forms, and electro-acoustic music. (via artist's SoundCloud page).

[Bandcamp]

[daggerzine]

Throwback Thursday #85! The Postmarks- S/T (2007- Unfiltered Records)

The Postmarks were a terrific pop trio who called Miami home for a few years in the 2000s. The members, vocalist Tim Yehezkely (a woman) and supremely-talented multi-instrumentalists Christopher Moll and Jonathan Wilkins (both from the March Records band See Venus) had a pretty special chemistry. Yehezkely's smooth-as-silk vocals seemed to blend perfectly with Moll and Wilkins' chamber pop workings (though two seem like they can play anything and pretty much do).

Discovered by Ivy's Andy Chase and released on his label Unfiltered this debut is confident, varied, and truly beautiful. You'll hear bits of French pop, 60s girl group, Brazilian stuff, Space Age Bachelor Pad music, and indie pop/rock all wrapped up in a sweet little package (a pal who hadn't heard them before today heard some Broadcast in there as well).

Among the choice cuts on this debut are opener "Goodbye," "Looks Like Rain," "Watercolors," "Let Go," and "Weather the Weather," but honestly there's not a band cut in these 11 tunes.

I'm hearing rumblings of three "holiday" songs in the works, but until then pick up this debut (or any of the band's records, really). You can't go wrong!

Check Discogs

[sattawarriors]

BIENTOT DISPONIBLE SUR TOUTES LES PLATE - FORMES DE STREAMING MUSICAL SATTAWARRIORS MEETS KHAYO BENYAHMEEN " BABYLONE KILLING US " -compositeur sattawarriors Music studio -chanteur khayo benyahmeen -mix et Master Nyahbin studio COMING SOON TO ALL MUSIC STREAMING PLATFORMS -composer sattawarriors Music studio -vocalist khayo benyahmeen -mix and Master ALL NATIONS studio PRODUCTIONS : sattawarriorsdub LABEL : GUIDANCE PRODUCTIONS DORS ET DEJA, EN ECOUTE LIBRE SUR TOUTES LES PLATEFORMES STREAMING Spotify, Deezer et sur notre site www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61576745203660 RETROUVEZ, TOUS NOS PROJET COMPLET EN VENTE SUR : sattawarriorsdub.bandcamp.com/album/zion-irie-why-meet-sattawarriors-music-studiocreditsreleased November 10, 2024 𝗞𝗛𝗔𝗬𝗢 𝗕𝗘𝗡𝗬𝗔𝗛𝗠𝗘𝗘𝗡 A discreet yet essential artist of the dub scene, Khayo Benyahmeen is a solid beatmaker and multi-instrumentalist. He collaborates with renowned labels such as Blackboard Jungle, Jah Militant, All Nations Records, and Abendigo Records. He later founded his own label, Ital Melody Records, where he immortalizes his unique style. On the occasion of this DJ set, he will play 12 years of personal compositions. On the agenda: evening selection with guests + DJ set inna roots and culture style. SOLFAYAH AKA RAS MICKAEL BIOGRAPHIE - SATTAWARRIORS SOUND SYSTEM sattawarriors360@gmail.com +33,07,49,94,10,57 It all begins with the story of a Sound System that developed its action from 2001 to 2012 between Grenoble, the surrounding cities and Rouen, Co-created by Solfayah and Sista Mariette. After 11 years without artistic and musical activity, the Lion Sound System is changing its name to adopt the "SattaWarriors Sound System" But first, let's go back to what the "LION SOUND SYSTEM" was... In the beginning, the one who introduces us to the Grenoble stage was "Manu from Suppa Sound System with our Premieres to E.V.E student room based on the Grenoble campus. From the beginning, we started working with local artists:RAS IVAN MC PEPITO MC MADJAH PATKO SOLFAYAH Feat BOBO J Following this, a Crew was created around the " Lion Sound System " which began to participate in events and organize its musical and cultural events. Some examples below These events were on The Abolition of Slavery, the Discovery of Ethiopia with the Coffee Ceremony and the support of students for the Root's and Culture association, we brought Lyricson in favor of the Grenoble Food Bank. Solfayah, continued his momentum by creating his Radio Show ALPHA ' N ' OMEGA on a Local Radio station New's FM 101.2 every Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m by presenting themed shows that retrace the musical career of reggae artists such as: Bob Marley, Dennis Brown, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, and many others... All this embellished by fabulous interwiev of international artists such as Marcia Griffith, Harrison Stanford, Capleton, Jah Cure, Gentleman, Abyssinnians, Alpha Blondy, Aswad and many more. Of course, it was obvious that we would continue the fight for peace, justice and the message that Reggae conveys in its entirety. As you know, providence often knocks on the door when we least expect it, here we met Jah Tool and there we can say it without pretension the "Lion Sound System" enters a mystical dimension by producing Fantastic reggae artists LYRICSON WINSTON MC ANUFF MATTHEW MC ANUFF BRAVEHEART GANJAH TREE JAH TOOL but also French artists KING ELSY RAS MYKHA OBAJAH Later Solfayah created his music creation studio " HeavenStone Productions France " and " HeavenStone Records " for the recording... Releasing 2 EPs named Jah Rastafari Way Chapters 1 & 2 followed by the third Ep JAHOVYAH with the participation of Sista Irecla and the energetic Black Omolo, while preparing his fourth EP SoulJha Victory And later Solfayah had the honor of participating in the creation of JAH TOOL's album entitled Once Upon the Time with the Tracks: Once Upon The Time, Run a Run, Good, Bad ... Then afterwards HeavenStone Productions met NATANJAH, reggae Dancehall artist which concluded with the release of the Time dub with the Tracks performed by Natan TAKE YOUR TIME on 12 " inch on the Italian Label DUBBASS MUSICALY CREATION After all these extraordinary adventures, Solfayah and the lion Sound System moves and settled definitively in the North of France, After the Mountains we are on the banks of the Seine back to the roots, because Solfayah is originally from Rouen. Freshly arrived, we met Yoan from Kumitaka Station "Radio HDR" and Iyah Ruben Big Rastaman of Galleon (27). From then on, Solfayah began to organize Sounds at the Drunken Boat, playing with Sound Systems and not the least such as: Nyabin Sound (Simon NyahBin), Blackboard Jungle (Oliva and Nico), NaturalNess (Feston), SoulSteréo, Terminal Sound, Daktary, DubLivity, Roots Addis, Jah Redemeers, Roots Ista Pose, I'N'I Sound System, BlackRose Sound System, Homeless Sound System. At the end of 2012 Solfayah decided to take a musical break, following the meeting of his wife and the birth of his son... But the story did not end there. 2023 having come the time to return to the foundation by the grace of the Almighty after having let all this mature in his heart and to take a step back from all that had been achieved. The "Lion Sound System" becomes the "SATTAWARRIORS SOUND SYSTEM" Organizing 2 small evenings in favor of the Yawenta Children Center association Based in SHASHAMANE in Ethiopia Having created his studio named SATTAWARRIORS MUSIC STUDIO, Solfayah is about to Release for 2024 Several Projects on Audio Streaming and Vinyl Platforms. The Revelation Time with Bravehaert, Anthony John Mix and Master Blackboard jungle Studio. Manufacture "Cover REVELATION TIME" painting Sist'art Creation Babylon Killing us On the " Dub Mental Slavery " performed by Khayo Benyahmeen Mixed and mastered at the nyabinStudio by Simon Nyabin Fabrication Cover " BABYLONE KILLING US " Peinture Sust'art Création all these projects will be released on the " LABEL GUIDANCE PRODUCTIONS " Label owned by the robust and Proud Big Rastaman Petah Higrade, And a little later will be released to grace, Time Bomb On the "In Your Fabulous Garden" performed by Saah Karim, Mixed by the Blackboard Studio by Oliva at the mix and master... Now you know the new and fabulous story of Solfayah, who is now writing a new page in his history with the " SATTAWARRIORS SOUND SYSTEM " AND HIS STUDIO SATTA WARRIORS MUSIC STUDIO

[dustedmagazine]

Listening Post: Stereolab

In 1993, Stereolab co-founder Tim Gane told MTV Europe that he wanted to make records like the ones he liked listening to. Not an unusual sentiment but a useful reference point to begin with this 85-track, six-and-a-half hour exhumation of his band’s back catalog.

Formed in 1990 with Laetitia Sadier, the only other consistent member, Stereolab are themselves archivists. Beginning in 1992, the five Switched On releases have gathered rarities, singles, EPs and demos between albums for fans who couldn’t keep up with their occasionally prolific output. So nothing here is new. They also released remastered and expanded versions of their first seven albums in 2019.  Which begs the first question, do we need this all together and all at once?

At every point in Stereolab’s career, critics and fans have struggled to discuss Stereolab without referencing their influences. From their early guitar and organ driven garage drone to Neu! style Krautrock, the lounge sounds of Esquivel, Denny and Meek, Ye-Ye, bossa nova, tropicalia, Reichian minimalism and spacey noodling, Stereolab have wandered into many of the byways of pop music history often combining disparate elements in surprising ways. And it seems one’s attitude to them can depend largely on how you react to this magpie approach. I know people who swear by one particular Stereolab LP or sound but have no interest or regard for the rest. And this notion that they are pretentious dilettantes or somehow phony seems to linger. But for me at least there are constant threads that define them even as you move through the diversity on this compilation. 

Sadier’s voice is a deceptively dulcet instrument for her lyrics, sung in French and English and steeped in Marxist dialectic and Situationalist social critique. Her harmonizing with multi-instrumentalist Mary Hansen (from 1992 until her untimely death in 2002) was a key to some of Stereolab’s best moments. The densely layered guitars, analogue keyboards and motorik rhythms of well-known songs like ‘“French Disko,” “La Boob Oscillator” and “John Cage Bubblegum” still sound great. The keen melodic sense that mitigates the whimsy of some of their more outre space lounge moments like “One Note Samba/Surfboard” and “Outer Bongolia.” The groove jams and esoterica of their Can referencing collaborations with Nurse With Wound “Trippin’ with the Birds” and “Simple Headphone Mind.”  These are all highlights for me. Having seen them live at various junctures in their career I can say that when they hit their groove they can be a mesmerizingly heady experience. 

Intro by Andrew Forell

Andrew Forell: I know that this collection is an exhausting proposition especially if you haven’t listened to much or any of their music but I’m interested to hear what you all have to say about the band and which elements of their music particularly strike you positively or otherwise.

[Before we got into the main discussion, there was some preliminary kvetching about the six-hour length of the compilation.]

Bill Meyer: Stereolab is a bit like cake and ice cream, you only need so much at a time. 

I finally took the plunge and have made it through 26 songs — I am on 27 as I type it. I think I’m already pushing past the point where I recognize any of it, since I only heard Switched On 1 and 2 upon original release. Some of the songs hold up pretty well —  “French Disko” is a crowd pleaser for a reason, and if I was in the crowd, I’d be pleased to hear it, too. But a lot of their music relies upon the appropriation of familiar elements  — the Neu groove, the Modern Lovers riff, the “sounds like something I heard in an old French movie” interludes. Even though they didn’t use samplers much, at least not during the years that I was listening, they bring a sampling-age approach that flexes the recognizability of their mostly 1970s-vintage influences. This is not a new observation, of course, but since I have barely listened to them for 10-15 years, I think I’m being reminded of why I haven’t felt like I needed to go back. I’m certainly more likely to put on a Neu record than a Stereolab record these days. 

Jonathan Shaw: I don't have one Stereolab record with which I have that sort of relationship, but it's relevant here that Refried Ectoplasm, the second Switched On volume, was the first Stereolab release I spent any serious time with. I loved it, still do, and soon came to love the first Switched On comp even more. By the time The First of the Microbe Hunters appeared, I had tuned out. The lounge jazz and fizzy Tropicalia reminded me too much of Pizzicato Five — not quite as irritating, but just as blithe. No thanks. It's the guitar-forward version of the band that I like best. I know I am not taking a bold position by saying that "Lo Boob Oscillator" is a surpassingly great song; it's still my favorite thing on Refried Ectoplasm.

It might be less of a common opinion that "Doubt" is a quintessential Stereolab song. Ebullient and anxious in equal measure, it prompts you to get up and boogie even as it saws away at your Achilles tendons. You collapse, pull yourself into a chair, and start sit-dancing, because the song just won't stop being itself.

Jennifer Kelly: Yes, I also was surprised at how muscular some of the early material was.  I'm listening to "Brittle" right now, and sure it has the boppy, cheery vocals, but there's a good bit of bass and guitar churn at the foundation of it.  It's a lot rougher and more visceral than I envisioned Stereolab to be.  I sort of picture a spaceship lifting off during a 1960s French rom.com, you know?

I have a nodding familiarity with Stereolab — pretty sure I saw them in 2006, interviewed Laeititia one time on a solo record, had one or two records at one point — but never really latched on in any committed way.  Gotta say, though, while I was listening to this stuff, I kept hearing other bands and thinking, damn, that's from Stereolab.  Winged Wheel, a whole bunch of Trouble in Mind bands (Dummy, En Attendant Ana) etc.  Their influence is undeniable. 

Jonathan Shaw: Funny, "churn" is a verb I also had in mind this morning, listening to "Contact" and getting lost, for like the zillionth time, in its drony flow.

Alex Johnson: Churn indeed, and I'd throw in "grind," too, for a track like "ABC" — although not so much the outro, which is cool in and of itself and, for me, a different sort of departure in a lo-fi singer-songwriter way. I'm most familiar with Mars Audiac Quintet, so hearing the grittier side of the band here is really expanding my sense of them.

Jonathan Shaw: Mars... is the last Stereolab record I really liked. Pretty great that one of the tunes there is named (sorta) after an Alfred Bester novel. Their pop cultural references are always spot-on, but when the band started getting more clever about working pop forms into their own music ("Outer Bongolia," for example, or "Jump Drive Shut-out"), for some reason it fell flat for me. I think I like the relative spareness and rigor of the early music, which created an interesting tension with the attentions to pop's consumerist, superficial pleasures. 

Bryon Hayes: Interesting, Jonathan, that Mars was the last album you liked.  It was actually my introduction to the band; my friend played me the album when I was a junior in high school and it instantly struck a chord, as it was anathema to the bratty, aggressively punk-influenced, indie rock that I was listening to at the time.  One thing that stood out at the time was that the comparatively softer-sounding nature of music (as opposed to what I was into before I heard this), and the sing-song vocal harmonies, belied the powerful ideology behind the lyrics.  Take the chorus of "Three-Dee Melodie," for example: "The meaning of existence / Can't be supplied by religion or ideology" repeated over and over again.  Such a powerful statement, and it raised a lot of questions in this Catholic schoolboy's mind.  

Over the years, I paid far more attention to the full-length LPs, so I'm pretty much hearing the songs from the Switched On series for the first time.  Right away, I definitely hear the "churn" and "grind" that Jenny and Alex refer to.  I hear it in the rapid-fire, almost motorik drumming and that thick, buzzy synth on "Super-Electric," from Switched On Volume 1.  The band knew how to balance propulsion, spaciness, and bounciness across their music. 

<Hours go by> 

OK, when you get to Aluminum Tunes, the songs seem to be more intricate, informed by French pop, exotica, and electronic weirdness.  I think this material came after the period in which Sean O'Hagan was a member, so I wonder if his influence has rubbed off on the band.  I like this phase of Stereolab equally, so it's neat to hear their evolution as the Switched On series progresses.

Christian Carey: I'll fess up to being the one geeking out to the whole boxed set. Sure, mileage varies, but I don't think there will ever be another Stereolab album. With the passing of Mary, there is no more band. So this is a chance to savor the band without any expectations. I am interested in their work in other contexts, much of it different from Stereolab.

Ian Mathers: "I know people who swear by one particular Stereolab LP or sound but have no interest or regard for the rest."

Hi, it's me! When I first got to university in 2000 there were these huge periodic used-CD sales that filled the courtyard of the student center for a few days at a time, and right after I moved into residence I picked up a battered CD copy of Emperor Tomato Ketchup for $4 (along with my first Fall album, Code: Selfish, but that's another story). I don't know how often others have the experience of falling hard for an album in a way that leaves you with virtually no desire to investigate further (which feels especially odd when it's a band who already has many other records out there), but despite my immediate and now long-lasting love for ETK it took me years to move beyond it. Well, I mean, I listened to Sound-Dust a few times when it came out but found it impenetrable and lacking most of what I loved about the earlier album, and that probably cooled my interest a fair bit. So far of the other records I've tried the only one I've also liked is Peng! Respect to Gane, Sadier, et al for following their muse, and I certainly know plenty who love more of what they do, but I've been pretty content to love a couple of Stereolab LPs and not the band as a whole.

So when Andrew asks "do we need this all together and all at once?" for me, at least, the answer on the face of it is definitely "no and no." But there is a reason the band have also put together Little Pieces of Stereolab (A Switched On Sampler), and I am definitely part of the target audience for it. I have read in the past how the first two Switched Ons, especially, are worth investigating for someone who likes Stereolab in the way that I do, and even if it's nearly 75 minutes long that still qualifies as just dipping your toe in when compared to the breadth (chronologically, sonically, and temporally) of the whole series.

The approach is as basic as you could expect, three tracks from volume. The "sampler" description is more than incidental; if this was any sort of potted "best of" you might expect the three tracks from Refried Ectoplasm to be "Lo Boob Oscillator," "French Disko," and "John Cage Bubblegum" instead of only the latter making the cut. It's paired with "Tone Burst (Country)" (clearly a bit of an outlier) and the wonderful "Tempter," which does make me think looking more closely into these early volumes might be worth my while. So does the whole selection from the original Switched On, "The Light That Will Cease to Fail," "Changer," and especially "Doubt" reminds me that my feelings of polite admiration rather than love for a lot of the Stereolab I've heard has as much to do with them moving away from a sound I really love as it does with the things (genres, sounds, structures, etc) they moved to being ones I'm not necessarily interested in.

And while I definitely tried to keep my mind and ears open for the rest of the sampler, I have to admit my visceral enjoyment of the proceedings fell off more than a bit when I hit the material from Aluminum Tunes and onwards. One big (in a couple of senses) exception is the 21-minute "Trippin' With the Birds," with Nurse With Wound, and I did go back and listen to the 13-minute "Animal or Vegetable (A Wonderful Wooden Reason...)" on the full Refried Ectoplasm, which also features Steven Stapleton doing whatever the hell he wants with their music. Both great, but the former especially feels out of step with its surroundings.

Hearing this condensed version of Stereolab's progression over the years does make me think that their increasing interest in and use of referents and sounds I find less immediately compelling has gone along with a change in their songwriting. Even back on Peng! you had tracks that seemed content to just bask in the beauty of the sound the band makes, but more recently it feels to me like there's an increasing emphasis on texture and atmosphere as opposed to, you know... song-ness. There's nothing at all wrong with that approach, and it's not that I think Stereolab started making bad music, it's just that there are a bunch of melodies, riffs, and choruses on their earlier work that I get stuck in my head, and the later stuff (at this point, most of their career) doesn't do that for me.

So I'm glad for the reason to dive back into Stereolab and see what I've been missing/how my reaction to their work might have changed, but I find I'm in roughly the spot I might have guessed I would be; I think I should check out the first two volumes of Switched On, and can probably pass on the rest (well, maybe give them a listen or two to cherry pick some of the stronger examples of their later work out of there...).’’

Jonathan Shaw: Ian, you may be happy to hear that when I saw the band in 2019 "Percolator" and especially "Metronomic Underground" were among the hottest songs in a hugely engaging set (tho "Miss Modular" left me cold, like the rest of Dots and Loops); hard to do "...Underground" without Mary Hansen, but they made it work. Sadier seemed to be having a great time playing, and while Gane and Co. looked like a group of Cinema Studies profs who'd just wandered out of an especially esoteric conference panel, the band cooked.

Agreed that the collabs with Stapleton are always interesting. "Simple Headphone Mind" is excellent comedown music, even for those of us that no longer actively eat psychedelics. The odd flashback, on the other hand...

Bill Meyer: Ian, I’m with you on the merits of Emperor Tomato Ketchup. While I was aware of Stereolab from 1992 on, to me that record was their peak. It was warm, punchy, and consistently catchy with some great stand-out tunes. Before that, they had great tunes stirred into too-long records. I checked my collection and it ends with a promo cdr of Sound Dust whose ability to still play I have not yet confirmed, but which I recall finding opaque and uncompelling at the time it was released. 

For me, Stereolab is a band that would have benefitted from something I suspect they would never have submitted to, which is a hard-nosed producer with veto power. It’s not that I only like the catchy hits; they made some great side-long tunes, too. But there’s a lot of Stereolab music that never quite comes into focus the way that Emperor Tomato Ketchup did, and as I have waded into the later Switched On material that is new to me, I don’t hear much that’s changing my mind. I also remember finding them uneven as a live band back in the day; Sometimes they could take me places, sometimes they were kind of dull. Thus when they reunited, I did not return to the well.

Ian Mathers: Funnily enough, Jonathan, I was actually thinking while listening to all this that despite my relatively lukewarm feelings towards most Stereolab LPs, I bet they hit pretty hard live. "Metronomic Underground" is easily my favorite song of theirs, and while modern ticket pricing suggests I'd be hasty to pay just for the chance to see that one, I am tempted. (Although I am taking on the other report, of live inconsistency, as well!)

Bill, "stirred into too-long records" is absolutely touching on one of my biggest roadblocks with most of the other pre-ETK albums. Peng! coming in at just under 48 minutes is secondary to how much I like "Super Falling Star," "The Seeming and the Meaning," etc. in my affection for it, but... it's a surprisingly close second. There are plenty of artists where I adore a good hour-plus album, or doubles or triples (or box sets), but Stereolab isn't one of theirs. I had the chance to review Chemical Chords, their last pre-hiatus LP, for the Village Voice at the time and although I don't think my piece was very good I did note approvingly at the time that they seem to have discovered concision in a way that worked for them. 14 tracks, sure, but an average length of just under three and a half minutes (and no epics)! That record is self produced, like everything after Sound-Dust. And on earlier records Stereolab is almost always listed as a co-producer, which isn't surprising; they feel like a band both capable of and willing to exert a certain level of control over that production. Emperor Tomato Ketchup and Dots and Loops had John McEntire working with them (Mouse on Mars' Andi Toma too, on the latter), and then Jim O'Rourke joined McEntire for the next couple. But even on the few ones where Stereolab isn't listed as co-producing, "The Groop" is usually down as mixing. So more than a lot of bands, it seems they're pretty hands-on with the post-performance stuff.

I agree that Stereolab working with a strong producer would be interesting. The question is, who do we think would be a good fit and/or introduce some interesting tensions into their work? I think between his work with Mogwai, Low, and Mercury Rev it might be interesting to see what Dave Fridmann would be like.

Bill Meyer: I suspect that ship has passed. The band might get back together to play the old songs, which makes sense since people love ‘em and Stereolab is a much bigger and more compensatory draw than anything that Gane or Sadier do on their own. But the couple has been divorced for quite a while, and if they’ve been able to make anything together since reuniting in 2019, I don’t know about it. I doubt that the rapport and creative chemistry they once had still exists. I think that what they needed was not someone with a particular sound, but someone who could have combined an ability to facilitate their sound production and respect for their intentions with a readiness to say, “that song needs to be better before you put it on a record.” 

Ian Mathers: That's a much harder quality to spot from the outside, I guess. Also, I apparently forgot they were divorced (or, quite frankly, that they were married)!

Jonathan Shaw: Old songs and the reunion tour — those are always an anxious coupling. One wonders about intentions. But the old songs that crop up on the later editions of Switched On are a treat. I really like the Low Fi EP, which was Hansen's first record with the band and appeared on Pulse of the Early Brain, the most recent Switched On. "(Varoom!)" feels a bit like a demo version of "Revox," a great track from Refried Ectoplasm. But I like the stretched out and distended quality of "(Varoom!)." It's too long, a little unwieldy, not a trance-inducing drone or a dance marathon. Just a groove the band couldn't seem to let go of, which then bottoms out into an extended, abrasive slurry. I don't know if that functions as a sort of metaphor for this collection, but there are similarities with qualities we have already marked: too long; unwieldy. For all that, and even with my own lack of clarity for why these records have been bundled in this collected set (left-handed career retrospective? cash generator? vanity project?), it's been deeply pleasurable to revisit some of these songs. 

Ian Mathers: Interestingly enough, "(Varoom)" is from one of two early EPs not included in the Bandcamp version of these compilations, due to "digital licensing restrictions." I think it's because they were on Too Pure instead of the band's own Duophonic imprint; so were their first two LPs and the original Switched On comp (which you can order from but not stream on BC) but the rest of Switched On presumably made it in because Too Pure were just licensing those tracks themselves. Regardless "(Varoom)" is great (both halves; if anything I find that more aimless second part a bit more compelling, weirdly) and exactly the kind of thing I wouldn't have listened through all of these to get to without some signposting from others.

Christian Carey: What's interesting to me in listening to Stereolab is that the evolution of their work, at least in some ways, mirrors the technical resources available to contemporaneous artists, particularly other electronica. Their palette morphs. Does anyone else notice that?

Bryon Hayes: I definitely notice it on Dots and Loops, where John McEntire introduced the band to ProTools and Andi Toma added electronic wizardry to their already eclectic sound world.

Jonathan Shaw: "(Varoom!)" is a fun title, but also gets at something I have been thinking about as I have been listening. Varoom! It's like 1980s kids quoting from The Jetsons, an ironized imitation of the sound of propulsion that hasn't lost its grip on the fact that ironies can be fun. I like the Stereolab songs from that early-1990s period: pre-Internet, pre-file sharing, crate-diggers grooving on French vinyl and bossa nova sides, Farfisa organs and mid-1960s aesthetics linked to the analog tech that was the material real. I listen and I think about this from Fredric Jameson, from his long essay on Adorno in Marxism and Form: "as in the larger world of business and industry, we find a tiny history of inventions and machines, what might be called the engineering dimension of musical history: that of the instruments themselves, which stand in the same ambiguous relationship of cause and effect to the development of the works and forms as do their technological equivalents (the steam engine) in the world of history at large (the industrial revolution). They arrive on the scene with a kind of symbolic fitness."

Flash forward ten years. The dot-com bubble had burst. Napster was suddenly a thing. A song like "Dimension M2" sounds like an mp3, brittle and crystalline, the chiptune-ish freakout at the song's midpoint emptying into digital groove that's so slick you can't even feel it passing. It has a symbolic fitness, sounding very much like 2005. But there's no resistance in it, no ironies either buoyant or bitter. It's interesting (if a bit of a bummer, for this listener) to tune into the historical dimension. So much changed in music as Stereolab moved from Duophonic to Elektra. So did their sound.

Andrew Forell: Going back to Ian’s post, I’ve been thinking of Stereolab as a kind of Venn diagram of musical influences that I either like, have been momentarily interested in or I’ve been led to explore more deeply. My first real engagement was with Refried Ectoplasm (Vol 2) when the combination of VU garage & Neu! adjacent (or let’s be honest — idolatry— “Jenny Odioline “ which is great but basically “Fur Immer”) crossed with non-English pop was very interesting to me. Having been a fan of Gane’s band McCarthy & and an old leftie, the addition of the Situationalist lyrics was great.  And yes to Jonathan, that pre-internet time when you discovered stuff through a serendipitous combination of other band’s liner notes, mags, record store peeps  friends & whatever unexplained oddities you found at the back of your parent’s record collection (hello Herb Alpert, Gainsbourg, an early 1960s album of “cocktail party” music & some early 70s Moog music) that led you down weird byways. All of that is to say that for all their musical cul de sacs, they’ve always appealed; although I haven’t loved everything, they have always been a band felt an affinity with.  

[singeratlarge]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to ASCAP (1914), Rebop Kwaku Baah, Tony Butler (Big Country), Boudleaux Bryant, Judy Dyble, Roy Dyke (Ashton Gardner & Dyke), soprano Eileen Farrell, Feist, King Floyd, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Marc Fox (Haircut 100), The Fugees 1996 album THE SCORE, Peter Gabriel, bassist Ed Gagliardi, Wardell Gray, photographer Ken Hoffman, Peter Hook (New Order), George Kleinsinger (TUBBY THE TUBA), drummer Irv Kottler, Carol Lynley, Thomas Robert Malthus, Mary of Burgundy, Sarojini Naidu, Kim Novak, Susan Oliver, Oliver Reed, the 1996 musical RENT, Reprise Records (1961), Henry Rollins, George Segal, R.C. Sproul, Gerald Strang, esteemed engineer-producer Bill Szymczyk, Les Warner (The Cult), Robbie Williams, Chuck Yeager, and my late friend and musical compadre, Peter Tork. A lot has been written about Peter the Monkee and how his life intersected with pivotal people and events in popular culture—from the Greenwich Village folk scene to the San Francisco Summer of Love to the Monterey Pop Festival to the Laurel Canyon SoCal music scene. More can be said about his apparent and diverse talents as a composer (his Concerto is on bandcamp), curator of American roots music, and multi-instrumentalist skilled on French horn, bass, guitar, keyboards (he created the piano intro for “Daydream Believer”), and banjo—his contribution to George Harrison’s WONDERWALL soundtrack is just one of Peter’s notable banjo sessions. 

 

In The Monkees, Peter was cast as the smiling imp, like a Harpo Marx who spoke. Offstage, however, he was a pensive, book-smart guy concerned with the grand questions of philosophy and religion. I’m also indebted to Peter for his role in introducing me to my beloved fiance, Uma Robin, in 2013.

 

I started working in the Davy Jones/Monkees orbit in 1992. One day Peter was jamming in the den at Davy’s home in Pennsylvania. Someone said, “If you play the blues with Peter, you’ll be friends for life.” I grabbed an instrument and off we went. Fast forward to the blues-y soundchecks during the 2011 Monkees tour. On the road Peter gave me laundry tips and food advisements. During that tour we performed the HEAD film soundtrack. Here’s a clip of Peter’s song “Long Title: Do I Have to do This All Over Again?”—the fidelity is rough but it shows the multi-media staging. I joked to Peter, “This is a Quicksilver Messenger song you wrote, right?” HB PT—thank you for your light.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZLcBEhFqEY

 

#PeterTork #TheMonkees #GreenwichVillage #MontereyPopFestival #folkmusic #LaurelCanyon #popmusic #poprock #psychedelic #concerto #blues #frenchhorn #bass #guitar #keyboards #piano #DaydreamBeliever #DavyJones #banjo #Wonderwall #GeorgeHarrison #HarpoMarx #Monkeestour #Headsoundtrack #multimedia #johnnyjblair

[burlveneer-music]

Michel Moulinié - Chrysalide (1978) - beautiful electronica (& guitar) reissue from WRWTFWW Records

WRWTFWW Records is wonderfully proud to announce the long anticipated official reissue of Chrysalide (1978), the sole album from French multi-instrumentalist and enigmatic genius Michel Moulinié. The krautrock/ambient/minimalism paragon is available as a limited edition LP with one never-heard bonus track. It is sourced from the original reels and housed in a heavy 350gsm sleeve. Originally released in 1978 on Ange and Jean-Claude Pognant's mythical prog rock label Crypto, Chrysalide is a fusion of minimalist meditations, cosmic soundscapes, and ambient with a human warmth, carried by a profoundly beautiful and unique use of twelve-string guitar, bass, and violin. Ideal for an introspective listening experience, the hypnotic Kosmische Musik of Michel Moulinié belongs to the same psychedelic family as Manuel Göttsching’s Inventions For Electric Guitar, Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, early Tangerine Dream, and Steve Hillage’s innovative guitar mastery. WRWTFWW listeners might also be reminded of the label’s seminal French release, Dominique Guiot's L'Univers de la Mer, which makes a great spiritual pairing with Chrysalide.

[ugliifroot]

Don’t forget that you can find some of my rarer and more obscure songs on SoundCloud including unreleased gems like this one

To find my music in stores and other sites such as socials please use this handy link

[kpoptimeout]

K-Pop Debuts and Comebacks for the Last Week of November 2024 (Nov 25 - Dec 1 2024)

Nov 25

IZNA - IZNA

I-LAND 2's winners IZNA debut in this 2017 style K-Pop track!

TWS - Last Festival

Monster rookies TWS appear to say goodbye to their high school concepts in MV which closes the chapter to first loves and features a graduation performance!

Nov 26

IRENE - Like A Flower

RED VELVET's IRENE shows she is an all-rounded artist in this catchy solo debut!

Nov 27

JAY B - CRASH

GOT7's leader JAY B drops another fire solo RnB performance!

Kyuhyun - Unending Day

SUPER JUNIOR's Kyuhyun releases his first full album since joining Antenna Music!

Nov 28

No release.

Nov 29

DEAN - NASA ft. FKJ

Top Korean RnB artist DEAN teams up with French multi-instrumentalist FKJ in this dark and dreamy track!

Park Je-up - Reset

Former Imfact member Jeup is back with a heartwrenching ballad!

V - Winter Ahead ft. Park Hyo Shin

BTS' V is ready for Christmas with vocal king Park Hyo Shin!

Nov 30

MYTRO - Bomb Bomb Bomb

SM's trot boy band is back with another strong outing!

Dec 1

Im Chang-jung - A rustic ballad

Legendary balladist Im Chang-jung returns with a dramatic performance!

What is your favourite song of the week?

[whileiamdying]

Artist Profiles: Hasna El Becharia

Angel Romero June 10, 2016

Hasna el Becharia

Hasna el Becharia is a female Gnawa multi-instrumentalist. She was born in 1951 in Béchar (formerly known as Colomb-Béchar, a garrison town during the time of the French colonization). This town in southwestern Algeria is a fertile musical ground, with styles such as Diwan, Foundou and the popular Haddawi repertoire to celebrate Arab-Berber weddings of this sub-region.

The daughter and grand-daughter of Gnawa musicians, she plays popular Saharan traditional songs and personal compositions. In 1972, she began to play by herself. With three friends of hers, including Zorah and Kheira who are still singing by her side, singing and playing drums and tambourines. Hasna played traditional desert tunes on the acoustic guitar. They became successful very quickly, playing at weddings, banquets, etc. Everybody wanted to hear Hasna and her pals. During their performance, people sang along all the songs. It was so noisy that Hasna began to play the electric guitar to be heard. At that moment, she became really famous. Beyond the little town of Bechar, her name was known all over the south of Algeria. Algerian producers tried to make her record some tunes on a tape recorder, but she refused because she didn’t trust them.

In less than 4 years, Hasna and her band built their own legend. In 1976, they were the guest stars of a great concert in Bechar, organized by the Union of Algerian Women, in front of a female audience.

She arrived in France in January 1999 when she was invited to a festival called “Women of Algeria. She was one of the two new-comers who emerged from this festival. Fascinated by her music, the organizers of the festival decided to put her on stage every night, although it was originally planned that she would only play one evening. Quickly, rumors spread throughout Paris about this incredible female guitar player from the desert. Journalists and producers showed up and the prestigious French newspaper Libération published an article about her.

Hasna decided to stay in Paris because her situation was too difficult in Algeria. In spite of singing about the Prophet, she did not conform with tradition. She is too free and does not accept the old fashioned patriarchal customs that still rule in her country.

The guimbri and karkabas (two instruments masterfully played by Hasna) are the pillars of North African black music. Hasna creates a powerful and rough guimbri sound and she has an astonishing sense of rhythm.

Like numerous Algerian Gnawa musicians, Hasna takes her roots in the popular wedding repertoire. In addition to guimbri and karkabas, she plays electric guitar, ud, darbuka, bendir and even banjo. At the age of 51, Hasna recorded her first album. She composed the majority of her songs in France. By no means corrupted by stage or studio performance, she took advantage of these new experiences to explore the sound of guitars, vocal timbres on different tonalities, to improvise and make new encounters. In order to make her recording, the producers brought together great musicians from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia and Niger.

[dan-and-the-dandelions]

an introduction of sorts

Established in 1962 in mainland Nova Scotia, Dan & The Dandelions have been a classic on Canadian and American radio stations alike since their debut album. Starting off as a folk quartet in the late 1950s, The Dandelions have come a long ways.

Frontman, Dan Miller, was born and raised in a Nova Scotian farm off the Bay of Fundy. Growing up the oldest of 4 siblings and having both parents pass away at a young age, Dan has always been quite aware of his surroundings and place in society’s food chain. As a boy, Dan adored the music of Hank Snow, Wilf Carter, and Patsy Cline, even naming three barn cats after them. After being diagnosed with autism in the 90s, Dan begins fighting and protesting for the better treatment of children and testing of adults that may have been overlooked.

In 1959, Dan formed a small folk quartet called Miller, MacLaughlin, Murray, and Nixon. It had two school buddies, Simon Nixon and Craig “Crash” Murray, and his life-partner, Pete MacLaughlin(married 2006). After Crash had left the group, the other three renamed the band and began travelling across Canada eventually meeting bassist, Blanc Monet.

Simon Nixon was the band’s drummer, an orphaned southern boy adopted by his aunt and uncle in Nova Scotia. Dan and Simon met at 9 and 10 years old in a one-room schoolhouse. “We met the December of 1954– Simon had never seen the snow before, he was like a cactus in a snowy tundra,” said Dan in his 1994 autobiography, Dan Miller; Maritime Boy, Guitar-Wielding Hero. Simon married Scottish paranormal-investigator, Anne Abercrombie upon finding out she was pregnant with their first child. The couple have three children, Lenora (later Lennan), Esme and Celeste.

Pete MacLaughlin, a multi-instrumentalist, son of the CEO of MacLaughlin Oral Care and later husband of Dan Miller. On top of that, Pete is a devote animal activist and gay-rights activist after being outed at the height of the AIDS epidemic. Miller and MacLaughlin had been together since they were teenagers, the two had met during the summer of 1958 and began dating in 1961.

The last member to join was French-Canadian bassist, Hugo-Michel “Blanc” Monet. When he first joined the band, Blanc could barely speak English and was taught by his bandmates. He is the younger brother of famous model and radio personality, Colette Monet, the siblings grew up in an apartment in Québec city. Before joining The Dandelions, Monet was married to Melvina Harris, the two had no children. After his divorce with Melvina, Blanc married fellow musician, Natalie Benoit in 1969, they had one daughter, Avril Monet. A decade after Natalie’s death in 1973, Blanc married friend of the band’s, Jael Levi in 1983, they have one son, Antoine Monet-Levi, and Blanc began treating Jael’s daughter, Juniper Levi like his own.

The only girl in the band would be single mother, protest singer, and women’s rights activist Jael Levi. After being forced to marry at 16 her verbally abusive dear husband, James Hall, mysteriously died (she killed him and was never caught) the next year. Levi had her first child at 18, refusing to let the child have her dead father’s last name she was named Juniper Levi. Jael began writing songs and met Dan & The Dandelions in 1966 after their second album hit the charts.

Their east coast roots have most definitely influenced the band, the usage of fiddles and even bagpipes and the lyrics and stories of maritimers being woven into lyrics. Blending country, folk, and rock into a genre of their own.

CREATED BY @shitandpissworldtour

[gaymer-hag-stan]

Eurovision 2024 - Meet the Malmö Participants

🇦🇲 Armenia - LADANIVA - "Jako"

LADANIVA is made up of Armenian vocalist Jaklin Baghdasaryan and French multi-instrumentalist Louis Thomas.

From traditional Balkan melodies to the rhythms of maloya, jazz and reggae, the duo's songs have been said to transcend borders, blending traditional Armenian tunes with inspirations drawn from their extensive travels across Latin America, Africa and Réunion Island.

Founded in 2019, Ladaniva initially gained viral acclaim with their hit song Vay Aman (2020), which showcased their fresh style and innovative approach to world music.

The group released their eponymous debut album under the French label PIAS in 2023.

[tagmusicblog]

micks bio from the 2006 birthday party website

i met mick a couple weeks ago at a rowland tribute show and he was lovely. but incredibly awkward lol. signed my room of lights record :-)

transcript ↓

The son of an Anglican minister he began playing music by accident with Caulfield Grammar schoolmates Phill Calvert and bassist Brett Purcell in 1972. They were joined the next year by Nick Cave and guitarist John Cochivera and there with were united the core of what would later become The Birthday Party.

Considered to be an exceptional multi-instrumentalist, Mick only considers himself a drummer and guitarist (in that order!!!).

His sobriety throughout even the wildest of The Birthday Party’s excesses have led to the belief that he was the element which harnessed the potential of the explosive forces around him.

It is true that he took over the bands management after the move to London in 1980. His abilities as a musician, arranger and producer were a major contribution to the band creatively and proved to be even more so for the Bad Seeds in the following years.

Mick has also scored several low budget films, produced many recordings with Anita Lane and released two acclaimed albums of French icons Serge Gainsbourg’s songs translated into English.

[dustedmagazine]

FOUDRE! — Voltæ (Chthulucene) (Nahal/ZamZec)

Photo by Marie Mauve

FOUDRE! (French for lightning and, by association, its elemental force electricity) are multi-instrumentalist improvisers Frédéric Oberland, Roman Barbot and Paul Régimbaud. They work electronic and traditional instruments into a mélange of prog-infused dark ambience, world and industrial music. Their use of the lute-like saz, the double reeded woodwind zurna, chalumeau (a precursor to the clarinet) and acoustic percussion ties their analog and modular synths to pre-industrial times as they delve into subterranean chambers in search of connections between innocence and intrusion. A fusion of thrumming electronics and sparks of acoustic light, Voltæ Chthulucene recalls the middle eastern flavored ambient dub of Muslimgauze and the dystopic imaginary soundtracks of Shinjuku Thief.

At the center of Voltæ are drone and heartbeat. They provide the foundation which connects the ancient and modern, the tectonic and the human. On Visions of Zürütetsu”, Oberland plays long, keening notes on the zurna over shuffling acoustic and synthetic percussion punctuated with squalling electronics. It feels as timeless in its ritual concentration, a summoning as well as a message. “Acid Karma” buries the drone beneath layers of taiko influenced drums then brings it to the fore in ululating vocals and woodwinds. There’s a touch of Clock DVA’s White Souls in Black Suits in both the intensity and the sense that it’s ever on the edge of collapsing into itself. “Badlands” is a haunted ballad, that twinkles along as a solo keyboard piece counterpointed by the cries of underground spirits and a rumbling bass tone. “Cybernetic Reset” combines a thumping bass drum with insectoid buzz to create a robotic scourge of sound. “Transmutação’ is less successful as the trio seem to aim for mordant atmospherics but succumb to a drift absent from the preceding tracks. They close with “A Moment of Eternity: Replicate” on which they sink into a primordial soup of drones and ectoplasmic bleeps. A metronomic ticking marks time, or the absence thereof, as tones struggle to form rudimentary patterns. It feels simultaneously like the beginning of life and a countdown to its end. The metronome plays out alone, then silence. Ancient and modern, light and dark, organic and industrial. FOUDRE! lose their momentum on occasion but Voltæ Chthulucene is an impressively cohesive combination of contrasts.

Andrew Forell