theartsdesk on Vinyl 89: Wilco, Decius, Hot 8 Brass Band, Henge, Dub Syndicate, Motörhead and more

VINYL OF THE MONTH

Rattle Encircle (Upset! The Rhythm)

Rattle are an unusual band. Consisting of Nottingham duo Katharine Eira Brown and Theresa Wrigley, their set-up is two drum kits, with which they build simple hypnotic patterns then add repetitive vocals over the top. They don’t sound like anyone else. Well, perhaps a little like the more outré work of femme-centric post-punk bands such as The Raincoats, The Slits, The Au Pairs, and ESG. It’s not music that most will put on to chill out to or bounce around to – it’s too spooked and odd for either – but it also has a weird power, almost like ritualistic music. On one level it’s plain and flat but, on another, it slowly fascinates. Something truly different, which is always welcome.

VINYL REVIEWS

White Magic for Lovers The Book of Lies (Chord Orchard)

Thomas White is a prolific musician. He is a musician’s musician. Best known for Electric Soft Parade, he contributes currently to The Waeve and Sea Power, but has had a number of incarnations over the years, notably Brakes, but also the underrated Restlesslist and The Fiction Aisle. Now he returns with his husband Alfie as White Magic for Lovers and a new album, initially wrought during a time of personal turmoil, ill health and bereavement, then blossoming alongside the pair’s love for each other. White Magic for Lovers’ music is proggy but in a Soft Machine-ish way, combined with delicate, blissful small ensemble orchestration. White’s falsetto-leaning voice provides an emotional core, whether he’s mustering madrigal-like part song on “A Riddle Without a Clue” or Topanga Canyon strummery on the title track. It’s apparently impossible for me to write about White’s work without making reference to Pink Floyd. In the case of The Book of Lies, what occasionally springs to mind is the more bucolic, laidback Dave Gilmour cuts of the early-Seventies, but the album is no retro pastiche. It has rustic charm and a purposeful, almost cinematic musicality. Vinyl is a limited run of 100, cut and mastered pristine, with a 12” x 12” lyric insert on which White also details the album’s back story.

John Mayall and the Blues Breakers Crawling Up a Hill/Mr James (Decca) + The Attack Try It/We Don’t Know (Decca) + The Score Please Please Me/Beg Me (Decca) + Loose Ends Tax Man/That’s It (Decca)

A smashing quartet of 7”s from the Decca singles club. In much the same way the early adopters of my generation embraced house and techno from black urban America, flipping them to a whole new sound and scene, back in the early Sixties venues such as Twisted Wheel in Manchester revelled in obscure blues sounds from black urban America and did the same. One of those at the forefront was John Mayall, who died last year. He never blew up like The Rolling Stones, who came to exemplify where this music could go, but he was a key figure nonetheless. His 1964 debut single is a self-composed double-header; the raucous “Crawling Up a Hill”, blueprint for ten thousand punkin’ American garage bands a couple of years later, and the more trad bluesy “Mr James”, a tribute to Skip. The Attack blasted briefly into existence in 1966, containing later members of The Nice, Atomic Rooster and Marmalade. Their debut, “Try It”, is a suitably feisty snippet of mod pop, but it’s the B-side, “We Don’t Know”, that draws the attention, a rhythmic assault of snarling Hammond-jacked teen angst-sneer “We don’t know ‘bout the H-bomb/We don’t know ‘bout drugs/We don’t know what is going on/They say that we are thugs”!). Mancunian proto-rockers The Score were only around for the blink of an eye circa ’66 but had time to fire out their go at The Beatles’ “Please Please Me”, backed with Northern soul banger “Beg Me”. Both are touched with the sonic spirit of The Animals’ “We Gotta Get Out of This Place”. A more don’t-give-a-damn version of The Beatles is delivered by Bexleyheath beat band Loose Ends, who really do sound punk, Sixties style, on their raw, dirty version of “Tax Man”, originally released contemporaneously to the original, albeit to slightly less acclaim. All come on transparent vinyl.

Decius Vol. II: Splendour & Obedience (Leaf)

The nearest comparison to London outfit Decius, in terms of vibe, would be Paranoid London (whose Quinn Whalley is a member), but where that band revelled in techno grit, Decius are more sensual, offering a druggy gay sleaze take on acid house. Attendees at Glastonbury’s NYC Downlow will be familiar with the feeling. The other members are Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi and sibling duo Liam and Luke May, of Medicine 8 and Trashmouth Records. It’s a south London pub lock-in take of amyl-tronic bangin’. Their 2022 debut was a righteous set and its sequel more than holds its own by comparison. Saoudi’s falsetto vocals are icing on Nineties-flavoured dance music which balances lo-fi Chicago house, 808 State-style raving, and Hardfloor 303 snark. Listen to it all and the mind becomes smeared in strobe, dripping walls, and the lovely sense of never coming down, ever, in some lost sound system cellar. Arrives on double in photo-art gatefold

Various The Original Sounds of Mali 2 (Mr Bongo)

Record label Mr Bongo once again excel at archive research and curation as they present a second volume of music from Mali of the Seventies and early Eighties. On some tracks these are emulations of American soul and funk, as on a lo-fi take of Wilson Pickett’s “Midnight Hour" by Tiwara Band de Kati or Las Ambassadeurs du Motel de Bamako’s “Get Up James”, a blaring Afro pastiche of the one and only Mr Brown. On others they are pieces that feel deeply local in sound and instrumentation, such as the Mystère Jazz de Tombouctou’s hypnotic, looping “Sidi Yahia” or “Kefimba” by Ousmane Kouyate & Ambassadeurs Internationaux, an Afro-beat tribute to the prime black bull of the singer-guitarist’s mum. The two record set on photo gatefold comes with a 20-page photo-info booklet in which French journo Florent Mazzolini lays out the background in almost too dense a fashion. We learn along the way that some of the bands involved musicians such as Mory Kanté and Salif Keita, but those who come purposefully to this album will likely be more enthused by simply uncovering such a range of long-lost and rambunctious obscurities.

Various More Sin Boxset (Demon)

A second volume of Demon Records' celebration of gay club music of the British 1980s. To these ears, this four record collection is even better than the first boxset, revelling in extended mixes and concentrating less on the pure cheese end of Hi-NRG. Each record is themed. LP1, Where is my Man?, majors in disco and electro, stompy or slick, one side exemplified by Sylvester’s “I Need You”, the other by Hazell Dean’s “Searchin’”. LP2 is Dolce Vita, best described as Euro-pop that wants to get naked and clamber into bed with you. It includes film star Raquel Welch’s preposterous orgasmic “This Girl’s Back in Town”. LP3 is packed with smarter synth-pop by the likes of Pet Shop Boys, New Order and Visage. LP4, Heat it Up, acknowledges the international arrival of house music into pop as the decade closed, with cuts by Grace Jones, Wee Papa Girl Rappers and more. Other artists aboard include Bobby O (of course), Divine (of course), Eartha Kitt (of course), Laura Brannigan, Natalie Cole, Village People, and Pete Shelley. It comes in gatefold in a sleeve box with a 24-page booklet featuring summations of each tune and an intro by Ian Wade, author of 1984: The Year Pop Went Queer.

Gus Englehorn The Hornbrook (Secret City)

Gus Englehorn has quite the biography. Born in Alaska, raised in Canada, he became a successful professional snowboarder, before mutating into a garage rocker, then moving to Hawaii. His second album showcases equally admirable disregard for convention, opening with Violent Femmes-ish trash-country rock’n’roll, before heading into a set that includes psychedelic balladry, grunge-punk noise, epic oddball folk, gothic indie-pop and much more. The whole has the feel of someone whose brain has deep-dipped in psychoactive substances, but retains a raw 13^th Floor Elevators aspect, rather than pastoral hippiness. Mainly, these are offbeat songs recorded in an eccentric manner, and are all the more-ish for it,

Various Mizik Maladi: Disques Debs International Vol. 3 (Strut)

By the1980s entrepreneur Henry Debs had a musical operation that bridged from Paris to the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, encompassing a studio, record shops, musical instrument emporiums and a nightclub, but at the heart of it was his label, Disques Debs International. The respected and venerable Afro-centric label Strut now fires out a third volume of back catalogue, covering the years 1982 to 1993. The first thing one notices is how utterly danceable this stuff is, based not on 4/4 urgency but polyrhythmic percussive extravagance. Take “Apre Nou Byen Cheche” by Ka Lévé, nigh-on-nine-minutes of abstract-ish funk that would sit equally well in a DJ set of New York no wave or drum-led post-punk as it would in an Afrobeat club. On the other hand, “Fo’w Maye” by minimally named unit Yo offers classic Afro-centric jollity with a singalong backing, while Christian Yéyé’s “Misyé Zanndo” is synth-laced Gallic radio pop with dancefloor bubbliness. The material is consistently enjoyable and varied. Simply put, this is a great collection, on two records in photo/info gatefold, which should set legs moving wherever mind are open.

Dub Syndicate Strike the Balance + Stoned Immaculate + Echomania + Ital Breakfast + Obscured by Version (On-U Sound)

At the heart of Dub Syndicate was drummer Style Scott of Roots Radics and Creation Rebel. The tragedy is that he was shot dead in his Jamaican home a decade ago. Working with futurist basshead maverick honcho Adrian Sherwood and multiple others in the On-U Sound family, he and Dub Syndicate fired out albums that pushed dub into new spaces. A selection of these are now reissued, alongside a new collection, Obscured by Version, which sees Sherwood effectively reimagine late-Eighties/early-Nineties cuts. This period was the band’s golden era. For this writer, the 1991 album Stoned Immaculate is a key release, one that would go on in the wee hours, after the rave, defined by its opening double-header “Wadada (Means Love)” and the Jim Morrison-featuring title track. It was Dub Syndicate’s quirked technological approach that made them a great fit for the period’s musical-cultural changes. 1989’s Strike the Balance was the one before, a bridge from their earlier, more organic dub albums, and features singer Bim Sherman. 1993’s Echomania is more expansive and has a couple of contributions from the mighty Lee “Scratch” Perry, rapping from Michael Franti, and added flavour from tabla kingpin Talvin Singh. It sounds like a band who aren’t ever going to sell out but who are also hopeful their moment has arrived. At that point in that particular decade such things were possible. Ital Breakfast was previously the least available of these albums, originally out in ’96, after the zeitgeist had moved on. Not that this bothered Scott or Sherwood who held true to their course, albeit offering murkier, earthier dub sonics. There’s a likeable visit from I-Roy on the title track, but it’s probably “No Lightweight Sound” that sums the whole enterprise up best. All come with inner sleeves of photos and background notes. Now, On-U, please, please reissue the 1987 album Dub Syndicate did with Lee “Scratch” Perry, Time Boom X De Devil Dead which, for theartsdesk on Vinyl, represents one of On-U's all time high points...

Mama Terra Chameleons: Live Interpretations of Herbie Hancock (Acid Jazz)

In a bold move, Glaswegian jazz keyboard don Marco Cafolla follows up his 2023 debut with a concert tribute to Herbie Hancock. He and his band (Konrad Wiszniewski on sax, Ross David Saunders on upright bass, and Dough Hough on drums) more than get away with it. The gig was at the Glasgow Jazz festival last year and contains the band interpreting the groundbreaking 1973 jazz-funk opus Head Hunters, adding in fresh takes of “Cantaloupe Island” and “Butterfly”, each originally on one of the two albums the followed Head Hunters. There’s audience clapping but I hope they were dancing rather than just sitting as this music deserves righteous booty-shakin’. Serious plaudits to Rachel Lightbody’s scat vocalising throughout, which adds human richness to the virtuosic groovin’ Somehow, Mama Terra take untouchable classic material and invest it with their own raw punch. Comes with a 12” x 12” photo/info insert that tells the back story

Wilco A Ghost is Born 9LP/4CD Deluxe Edition Boxset (Nonesuch)

21 years after its release comes a whopping boxset version of the US Americana-rock band’s Grammy-winning follow-up to their breakthrough Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album. The original A Ghost is Born held its own beside its predecessor despite Wilco head honcho Jeff Tweedy being amidst the crisis of prescription painkiller addiction and rehab. It still does so now. The 11-minute “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” is a case in point, combining enigmatic, intriguing lyrics with music that sounds like Television if they’d been a motorik German band of the 1970s. But this huge boxset also includes a mass of insight and back story, so, for instance, we can hear the slow development of “Spiders (Kidsmoke)” over a series of takes very different in character, from folk to rock to something more Wilco. The original album is spread over the first two records, then we have four discs that explore two years of outtakes and alternate versions, including lovely lost material, such as the gently depressive, piano-laced “The High Heat”. Vinyl discs seven, eight and nine contain a sprawling, dynamic concert from October 2004 at the Wang Centre in Boston, Massachusetts. This is theartsdesk on Vinyl but we’ll still mention that there are also four CDs of “Fundamentals”, off-the-cuff studio jams that act as part of Tweedy’s creative process. They are, by their nature, raw spillages which veer between those that went nowhere and those that offer glimpses into what came next. I am no Wilco deep-diver but found this boxset enjoyable, thus I imagine that for serious fans, it’ll be a gold mine. Especially as it also contains a 48-page hardback book full of photos and background.

Hot 8 Brass Band Big Tuba (Tru Thoughts) + Kuna Maze Layers (Tru Thoughts) + Tara Lily Speak in the Dark (Tru Thoughts)

None-more-Brighton label Tru Thoughts fire out a trio of albums worthy of attention. Each represents a different side of the multi-faceted imprint. One of their biggest acts is Hot 8 Brass Band. The ebullient New Orleans unit’s latest pays tribute to their late co-founder Bennie Pete, who died of COVID complications in 2021, with the title track an effervescent celebration of his life and memory. There are plenty of dancefloor-friendly originals on board as well as a cover of Bill Withers’ “Ain’t No Sunshine”. On vinyl that looks like a spilled blue pineapple Solar Eclipse cocktail, it comes with a bonus 7” which includes the Bossman edit of their well-liked take on Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing”, and a jolly, never-before-on-vinyl version of Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together”. There’s also a 12” x 12” photo insert. Kuna Maze is Brussels-based French producer and virtuosic musician Edouard Gilbert. His second solo album hones his crafted, mellow melding of choppy beats, jazzy keys’n’instrumentation, and bubbling basslines. It’s tuneage that twinkles and soothes with a nod to the most laidback of dancefloors. “Broken beats” is a term I’ve never liked, as it sounds more interesting than the smug, chin-strokey music it represents, but if we insist on using it, Kuna Maze gives it a good name, his music, busy and friendly, underpinned with a Roy Ayers-ish marijuana funk. Most exciting of the bunch is the debut album by Brit-Bengali south London singer-producer Tara Lily, the latest in a long line of fabulous but sometimes underheard female singers discovered by Tru Thoughts (check out Tiawa for just one item of proof). Against a backdrop of Portishead-ish beats and strings, lightly marinated in Indo-Asian feel, with occasional dub and drum & bass interludes, Lily’s delicate voice is plaintive and the whole set a solid listen, full of feeling, a producer’s album that also boasts “sad girl pop” songwriting chops.

Motörhead Motörhead (Chiswick) + Lonnie Liston Smith & The Cosmic Echoes Expansions (Flying Dutchman)

Two very different albums from the mid-Seventies. The story goes – and it’s the truth – that incorrigible atavist rockers Motörhead were about to split up when Lemmy blagged financial support for a final goodbye gig at the Marquee. This never occurred but the ever-persistent singing bassist negotiated upwards to recording a single. This, in turn, became the recording of their debut album knocked out rough and as fast as possible, in little over a day, then released in 1977. It scraped into the Top 40, opening the career of one of rock’s greatest bands. In fact, a different line-up had recorded another album two years earlier but United Artists wouldn’t release it and dropped them. This proved to be a boon as, when the label eventually released On Parole, following Motörhead’s early Eighties success, it proved not to sound much like Motörhead as everyone had come to love them, more in the vein of early-Seventies Quo-adjacent blues rock. Their eponymous debut recorded by Lemmy, Phil Taylor and "Fast" Eddie Clarke, however, is raw and punkish, and featuring the snaggletooth logo on its cover, nailed down EXACTLY what Motörhead were about. It contains “White Line Fever”, “Iron Horse/Born to Lose”, the classic “Motörhead”, and another song left over from Lemmy’s Hawkwind days, “Lost Johnny”. Happily, this reissue also arrives with a second record that contains seven alternative mixes of songs from the album, as well as 1980’s Beer Drinkers & Hell Raisers EP, which includes their brash covers of ZZ Top and John Mayall, and the “Motörhead” single’s B-side “City Kids”. The photo-filled inner sleeves contain an extensive essay by Chiswick’s Ted Carroll, telling the whole story (including how the “h” in Motörhead looks the way it does because sleeve artist Phil Smee didn’t have a Letraset “h” so bodged together a small “L” with part of a “W”). Also creating waves in the mid-Seventies was Lonnie Liston Smith who, like Herbie Hancock, had spent time in Miles Davis’s band. His Expansions album has become a smooth jazz staple since its 1975 release, sampled by everyone from Stetsasonic to DJ Sneak. “Smooth jazz” is not normally a term of endearment at theartsdesk on Vinyl, yet Liston Smith and his crack Cosmic Echoes seven-piece inject a richly percussive and funky, keys-fuelled spin on. Sure it’s jazzily erudite, but it’s also slinkily danceable, pouring instrumental sunshine left, right and centre, always groovin’. This reissue is richly mastered and cut to plastic, arriving in info gatefold, replete with a 12” x 12” photo-info sheet in which DJ-scribe Frank Tope interviews the man behind the record.

Alfredo de la Fé Alfredo (Criollo)

A Cuban-born, Juilliard-educated violinist Alfredo de la Fé, rather than go then classical route, adapted his virtuosity to the vibrant New York salsa scene of the 1970s. By the end of the decade he’d worked an apprenticeship with Santana, Eddie Palmieri and others. His 1979 debut album was one of the first to forefront the violin in such strongly Latin styles. Larry Levan, settling into his game-changing DJ residency at the Paradise Garage, was paying attention. The album’s stand-out tune, the six-and-a-half minute percussion’n’whistles, four-to-the-floor extravaganza “Hot to Trot” became one of his go-to numbers. Released as a single, it eventually made it into the top half of the Billboard 100 (just!). Alfredo de la Fé was on his way and, now in his early 70s, is still performing today. The rest of the album is also likeably exuberant, but less disco.

Kathy McCord Kathy McCord (BGP)

This extremely obscure cult album, recorded by a seventeen-year-old girl in 1969, receives a well-deserved reissue. The sleeve notes by her brother, the Hollywood songwriter Billy Vera, close with a poignant quote: “What remains are the recordings. My sister had the goods. She could sing, she could write and she looked great. Like so many other talented people, she just failed to get lucky. Listen and enjoy her. I love her stuff.” Kathy McCord died of cancer in 2015. He’s right about her talents (and her looks). Listening to her eponymous debut, it sounds like an established classic from that era, full of original songs, all written by her except a version of The Beatles’ “She’s Leaving Home”. To name but three golden cuts, “Baby James” is a bouncy baroque honkytonk, “New York Good Sugar/Love Lyric #7” is a loose country roller, and “Rainbow Ride” spectacularly combines brassy pop with hard rocking guitar play. It’s a lovely album. Fuelled by the hippy ethos, McCord, based in Woodstock, scraped by on the outskirts of the music biz, rubbing shoulders with many who made it. But she never did and gave up, focusing instead on painting instead. It’s the way of the world but still sad. And our loss.

Songdog Mirabilia Mundi (Junkyard Songs)

For the last quarter century Welsh singer-songwriter Lyndon Morgans has been quietly turning out albums, of which this is the latest. Songdog was once, I think, I band, but is now Morgans, albeit with is regular accomplice Karl Woodward. Against a backdrop of delicate acoustic guitar patterns and sad-sound strings, Morgan talk-sings novelistic impressions, (for example, “1.32 AM, all the lights still on at the church, the priest popped the hood of my heart, fell to his knees, said he’d pray for me”). His songs are weepy but noticeably literate; imagine Elvis Costello or Lambchop giving up on choruses and, indeed, actual singing, but focusing instead on broken-hearted canvases filled with elusive, poetic narratives. Not for everyone but the ones it’s for will love it. Comes with a 12” x 12” lyric sheet.

ALSO WORTHY OF MENTION

Henge Journey to Voltus B (Wipe Out Music): I’m conflicted about Henge. I’ve seen them live twice. I want to like them. Their manic sci-fi hippy loon schtick should be a right blast but, instead, they seem like geography teachers with synths pretending to be Gong via the medium of retro video game music. Again, even that sounds like it should be fun but I just found them a bit annoying. Happily, their fourth album, a concept piece about a journey to a planet on the verge of discovering nuclear power, is more entertaining than anticipated, zinging along on a wave of theatrically silly spliffed electro, plastic rave snippets, whacky exotica, prog rock quirk and more. It’s Marmite but a stoned giggle for those into it. Come on bright light green vinyl in an inner sleeve covered in art that owes a debt to Roger Dean.

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers Like Someone in Love (Blue Note): Recorded in 1960 but only released in 1967, Like Someone in Love was created during the same sessions as the more critically appreciated A Night in Tunisia. Peerless drummer Blakey steps sideways from the hard bop sound that defined him for the previous decade. Instead, he provides rhythmic architecture for the sterling Jazz Messengers line-up of Wayne Shorter on tenor sax (he also composed all three tracks on Side B), Bobby Timmons on piano, Lee Morgan, wild on trumpet, and Jymie Merritt on bass. Showy but relaxed it’s smooth yet buzzy, holding its own without leaping in your face.

The Vapors Wasp in a Jar (Absolute): The Vapors may have split in 1982, one hit wonders via the deathless “Turning Japanese”, but after decades as a music lawyer, lead singer and songwriter Dave Fenton spent his retirement resurrecting his band and, here’s the kicker, it’s as if their music followed straight on from their second and final early-Eighties album, Magnets. Their latest, their fourth and second since reappearing, is chocka with what used to be called power pop, snappy tuneful punk-infused songwriting (in the vein of their most famous tune). It’s not broke so Fenton is not fixing it, and these 12 catchy songs have consequent zip and energy. Comes in photo/info inner sleeve and a 12” x 12” insert thanking everyone who made the release possible.

Derya Yildrim & Grup Şimşek Yarin Yoksa (Big Crown): Based in Germany, Derya Yildrim & Grup Şimşek are an internationalist group, featuring members from France and South Africa, while singer Derya is of Turkish-German extraction. Their fourth album, which arrives in lyric gatefold on transparent mauve vinyl, might be their most approachable yet, an easy going amalgam of Anatolian folk, warm, floaty Sixties psyche and mod-ish Seventies funk. They sound like a band to catch at a festival on a sunny afternoon.

Bakermat Grace Note (Big Top): Lodewijk Fluttert, AKA Bakermat, had a bunch of success when “tropical house” was the buzzword, around 12-13 years ago. The term referred to a wave of producers who combined Balearic house sounds with indie-pop and jazz songwriting. His big hit was “One Day (Vandaag)” but he also did tons of remixes that were everywhere for a while. Still earning a decent crust as a producer and DJ, his latest album is his third, arriving on gatefold with a 12” x 24” photo-poster insert. The music on board is a juicily produced and bouncy fusion of 4/4 electronic grooves and gospel panache, coming on somewhere between Italo-house, electro-swing and 1990s Primal Scream remixes. Sounds like something that would work at summer festivals in mainland Europe.

Pit Pony Dead Stars (Clue): Pit Pony are a femme-fronted five-piece from Newcastle who deal in straightforward indie rock, deep-dipped in the genre’s shambling guitar band origins. Loosely speaking, they’re as much House of Love and Motorcycle Boy as they are Wolf Alice and Black Honey, in fact, probably more so. This is no hindrance to a meatily produced second album which is as happy rocking noisily out (in a Mary Chain way) as it is delivering fuzzed balladry. Comes on pink-splodged green vinyl in photo/lyric inner sleeve with a set of stickers.

Tukan Human Drift (Layva): This four-piece from Brussels are sometimes described as existing between the worlds of jazz and post rock but their second album recalls, as much, the club backroom grooves of deep house and MDMA-tronica. Theirs is a warm rolling instrumental sound – guitar, bass, keys and drums – yet the feel is head-noddy, often breezily four-to-the-floor. The exceptions are “Breezer” and “Reset, the former a technoid-flavoured banger and the latter vaguely EBM-ish. Other than those, it’s smooth’n’easy all the way. Comes in photo inner sleeve.

Franc Moody Chewing the Fat (Night Time Stories): Born of north London’s party scene a few years back, Franc Moody is a band, a duo, rather than a person. Consisting of Ned Franc and Jon Moody, their third album follows in the shoes of their other two, a smorgasbord of accessible electronically enhanced funk, catchy, a bit L.A. smooth, cheery and ready to be liked by a wider audience. This is not edgy underground music, it’s ripe for a wider listenership. They have toured with Chic and others. They write pop songs. Is the audience there? We shall see…

Maribou State Hallucinating Love (Ninja Tune): Hertfordshire electronic duo Maribou State appeared in one of the very first editions of theartsdesk on Vinyl with their debut album. Ten years later, they achieved their first Top 10 album this February with this album, their third. Arriving in art/info inner sleeve, their music mixes layered organic-sounding electronic pads and splashes with soul-pop songwriting. Featuring vocals from Andreya Triana and Holly Walker amongst others, it reminds of Jamie xx in places, and also late period Quantic, music that takes edgy club electronica and moves it somewhere approachable while retaining just enough ear interest. Comes in art gatefold.

Various The Montreux Years – Moments: Volume 1 (BMG) + Ella Fitzgerald The Moment of Truth: Ella at the Coliseum (Verve): A couple of tasty slices of heritage live jazz. The Montreux Years collects together a bunch of cuts from the famous Swiss festival, an accompaniment to the artist albums in the same range, albeit featuring different songs. The cuts range from 1977 (a jovial honky-tonkin’ “The Blues Had a Baby and They Named it Rock’n’Roll”) through to 2006, but most of it’s from the 1990s, and includes a raucous rock’n’rollin’ Etta James take of “I Just Want to Make Love to You”, and an incongruously jolly “Mississippi Goddam” from Nina Simone. Other artists on board include Dr John, John McLaughlin, Chick Corea, McCoy Tyner and Marianne Faithfull. Comes on transparent pale aquamarine vinyl. It’s an enjoyable selection but even tastier is the release of a previously unknown June 1967 concert in California’s Oakland Coliseum by Ella FitzGerald. The recording is impressively crystal clear, pristine, really puts you there, and pressed fat to plastic. On it, Fitzgerald is on fine form, playfully embracing songs we might expect, such as “Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love)” and “Mack the Knife”, but also jolly, first-time-on-record versions of “Music to Watch Girls By” and Burt Bacharach & Hal David’s “Alfie”. Comes on gatefold, featuring an essay about the music.

P.P. Arnold A Life in Song (Demon): As it says on the cover sticker, “Very first (and long overdue) career-spanning retrospective”. Long overdue, indeed. theartsdesk on Vinyl first came across P.P. Arnold via acid house hit “Burn It Up” (by The Beatmasters) in ‘88, on which she sang, but, of course, she’d been around for well over two decades before that, ever since she dropped into London in the mid-Sixties. She arrived in Britain, only a teenager, an American backing singer to Ike & Tina Turner, and was soon part of the scene, bursting into the public consciousness with the first hit version of Cat Stevens’ “The First Cut is the Deepest”. Signed to Rolling Stones Manager Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label, she was at the heart of Swinging London, then spent most of the next decades in Britain. This collection, spread over two records, in inner sleeves of detailed notes, images and back story, reveals a singer who’s worked with everyone from Paul Weller to Roger Waters to Andrew Lloyd Weber to Bee Gee Andy Gibb to Ocean Colour Scene, and many others. Like Linda Lewis, she brought soul into the white Brit hippy milieu, but never busted into the big time, taking jobs as they came but also creating her own material. The songs here, then, range from musical theatre to prog to funk-rock and much else. It’s so varied that some will find the whole trip bemusing but is, nonetheless, an intriguing dip into the musical world of a hardy perennial.

Blaiz Fayah Shatta Ting (Creepy Music): You may not have heard of Blaiz Fayah – I hadn’t – but he’s hitting the tens of millions on Spotify. Info about him is hard to find but he seems to be a Jamaican-raised dude who splits his time between Paris and London. Including Shatta Ting, he has six albums, three of which are called Mad Ting. So, yes, his music is contemporary dancehall, a slick amalgam of trap-ish skank beats and his DJ vocals. Not so keen on the Autotune ones but others, such as “Ghetto Whine”, have a slick booty-shakin’ roll to them. He’s not afraid of poppiness either. Whatever you make of it, nice to see this style of music on plastic.

Brooke Coombe Dancing at the Edge of the World (Modern Sky): Brooke Coombes is a young Scottish singer who was briefly signed to Island Records but has now struck out on her own with guidance and production from The Coral’s James Skelly. Her debut album is Duffy-esque rock-soul, boasting confident retro songwriting chops that step in the footsteps of Dusty in Memphis, even hints of Burt Bacharach along the way. Which is to say that it’s a strong, populist-sounding set that, with the right tail wind, could “do a Michael Kiwanuka”, and receive heavy play on BBC Radio 2, building a wide audience. Comes on powder blue vinyl in photo/lyric inner sleeve.

Fantastic Twins Suite of Rooms (House of Slessor): The third album from Berlin-based French producer Julienne Dessagne continues her journey into the maximal compositional potential of electronic music. Suite of Rooms is based on the myth of the Minotaur and was originally created as the soundtrack to a contemporary dance piece. Featuring occasional guest vocals from Oscar Vofrei, it veers between large scale atmospherics to tribal percussiveness, the whole having an appropriately cavernous feel. Comes on transparent red vinyl.

Étienne de Crécy Warm Up (Pixadelic): To certain niche travellers Étienne de Crécy is a name to conjur alongside Daft Punk in the Gallic-tronic muso-verse. This is primarily because, many moons ago (well, 1996, to be precise) he released an album called Super Discount that, as well as being visually/conceptually sleek, laid down an early blueprint for the house music micro-genre known as “French touch”. Many albums later, his latest is an efficient balance of genial electronic dance and vocal pop, notably featuring Alexis Taylor of Hot Chip and Damon Albarn (both shown off to good effect). In fact, every track has a guest vocal but most of the names won’t be familiar outside France, for instance Olivia Merilahti of French-Finish indie sorts The Dø, fronts the enjoyable disco-funkin’ “Karma”. It’s a likeable set but also probably too comfortable to revitalise mass interest in its maker.

Taffy Lull (Club AC30): Female-fronted Japanese indie band Taffy have slowly built an underground reputation for their excavations into C86 and shoegaze stylings. The kids being bang into shoegaze, by the way, is one of the surprises of our times, but it makes sense; soothing music for the anxious, but with enough druggy hubble-bubble not to blatantly sound like a comfort blanket. Taffy, however, don’t mire down solely in opiated cuddle sounds. They are equally capable of snarking riffage, baggy jangle and close their album with a cover of R.E.M.’s “Hairshirt”. There’s enough meat on the bone to make the ears pay attention.

Children of the Night Children of the Night (Mannequin): One look at this album’s darkwave graphics suggest it’s going to be full of spooky synth sounds emulating old Italian giallo films. Nearly. But not quite. Mexican techno producer Dellarge, AKA Alejandro Barba, put this together with French film-maker musician Pierre Labret for a trash-tastic Spanish horror film that was eventually never made. It’s a set of moody but dancey pulsers; think EBM-touched 4/4 aimed at a club for goth robots. For those who wish to up the dancefloor ante, the second record is a four tracker containing remixes by technoid sorts Legowelt, David Caretta, Alessandro Adriani and, perhaps best, an industrial electro version from Oliver Ho in his Broken English Club guise. Comes with a poster based around the cover art. Both records come on murky transparent brown vinyl that looks like greasy bong smoke.

Point Contact A Fleeting Point in Terrifying Beauty (WW): London-based music and culture explorer Jo Wills goes by many names and does all sorts. His latest to vinyl is a limited edition of 100, each with unique, handprinted vaguely Dark Side of the Moon-ish cover art. The sounds, however, are not in the least Floyd-ish. Instead, the ears are treated initially to gnarly psyche-noise, loosely akin to Terminal Cheesecake and the like. Wills is on guitar, bass and synths, assisted by associates Guy Wood (drums), Rasmus Zschoch (additional guitar) and Rhia Parker (the sole vocal, on the gothic-ethereal “Dark Luminous”). On the second side the cacophonic approach gives way to blurry tones and – even – tuneful synths. Unapologetic underground art music that arrives on darkest green marbled recycled vinyl.

6161 6161 (Severn Songs): Appearing on The Ishmael Ensemble’s label comes the debut album from Bristol drummer Matt Stockham Brown and his troupe of saxes, brass and electronics. He has performed in the past with a huge array of musicians , from Gregory Porter to This Is The Kit to Ghostpoet (and many more) but his solo project is stridently 100% jazznik’s jazz, taking no prisoners and giving the horns their freedom while he lays down the beat. It’s overtly serious music but lively when it wants to be.

AND WHILE WE’RE HERE…

Regular readers of theartsdesk on Vinyl know that this section usually contains further written appreciations. Unfortunately, I’ve been on Jury Service for a few weeks and, due to time constraints, it’s not possible for this edition. I wish it were. Most records I’m sent deserve attention. Then ones below were listened to and chosen by me for small reviews, so I’m sorry not to be able to write them as I’d like. I can only offer a list, where each record has a listening link, almost all Bandcamp (which offers a chance to seek the vinyl, should you wish). So do explore.

• Mezanmi Always Upwards (Always Upwards) – listen here
• Eddie Chacon Lay Low (Stones Throw) – listen here
• Blair Jollands Little Comet (Glowb) – listen here
• Ledley Ledley (Impossible Ark) – listen here
• Kjetil Mulelid Trio And Now (Grappa) – listen here
• Kali Trio The Playful Abstract (Ronin Rhythm) – listen here
• Constant Follower The Smile You Send Out Returns to You (Last Night From Glasgow) – listen here
• Jerzy Mączyński DO555PS (Vibrasjon) – listen here
• Jo David Meyer Lysne For renstemt klaver (HUBRO) – listen here
• Gates of Light Gates of Light II (Last Night From Glasgow) – listen here
• Maud the Moth The Distaff (LaRubia Productions) – listen here
• Ralph Heidel Anyways. Onto Better Things (Friends With Oranges) – listen here
• Alabaster DePlume A Blade Because a Blade is Whole (International Anthem) – listen here
• Malmin with Åshild Vetrus Malmin with Åshild Vetrus (Krets) – listen here
• World Sanguine Report Songs From the Harbour (God Unknown) – listen here
• The Folk Implosion Dare to be Surprised (Joyful Noise) – listen here
• Whatever the Weather Whatever the Weather II (Ghostly International) – listen here
• Blendreed Tales of Tides (Tenorio Cotoblade) – listen here
• In The Country, Solveig Slettahjell & Knut Reiersrud Remembrance (Jazzland) – listen here
• The James Taylor Quartet In the Hand of the Inevitable (Acid Jazz) – listen here
• Frànçois & the Atlas Mountains Âge Fleuve (Infiné) – listen here
• TB Ward Professional Human (TB Ward) – listen here
• Springhouse From Now to OK (Independent Project) – listen here
• Wardruna Birna (Music For Nations/Sony) – listen here
• Alex Koo Blame it on my Chromosomes (W.E.R.F.) – listen here
• Sunday (1994) Sunday (1994) (Arista) – listen here
• Joe Armon Jones All the Quiet (Part 1) (Aquarii) – listen here
• Art D’Ecco Serene Demon (Paper Bag) – listen here
• Oi Va Voi The Water’s Edge (Parallel Skies) – listen here

We welcome any and all vinyl for review. Please hit thomash.green@theartsdesk.com for a postal address.

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