Editor’s note: I’m thrilled to share a follow-up mix from Barcelona-based DBGO, whose YouTube channel is a treasure trove of rarities, and who makes an equally transportive series of mixes, many of which focus on a time-and-location specific musical subgenres and can send you down months-long rabbit holes. You can listen to Part One here.
This is another selection of French folk avant-garde between 1976 and 1989. Hope you enjoy it.
Tracklist:
1. Dominique Guiot – Wind Surf Ballad (1978) 2. Serge Bulot – Euryale (1981) 3. Teddy Lasry – Seven Steps (1983) 4. Serge Korjanevski – Petales de Voix Instrumentale (1988) 5. Frédérick Rousseau – The Opening (1988) 6. Fred Manda – Incantation (1988) 7. Serge Korjanevski – Saisons Du Coeur Instrumentale 2ème Partie (1988) 8. André Ceccarelli et Bernard Arcadio – Forest (1986) 9. Jean-Pierre Boistel et Tony Kenneybrew – A Capucine (1989) 10. Bruno De La Salle – Melodie Orientale (1978) 11. Hector Zazou – By The Sea (1985) 12. Tamia & Pierre Favre – Maroua (1988) 13. Théâtre du Chêne Noir d’Avignon – La 7 (1976) 14. Madhya – Meditations (1987) 15. Lightwave – Modular experiment 4 (1987) 16. Luc Marianni – Synthetic Suite N°3 Pour Synthétiseur (1986)
Many Hands Make Light, the last of four releases from the elusive Cauhaus Records, is an un-genrefiable conclusion to the mysterious solo discography of American artist Geoffrey Landers. With design appearing to be an independent family affair–jacket layout and cover artwork done by Kelley Jo and Benjamin Landers respectively–the 8-track album was released exclusively on CD in 1987. Written and recorded solely by Geoffrey Landers during what seems to have been the end of the Cauhaus era, this is the only of his three albums to credit no other collaborative efforts.
Being heavily involved in the Denver industrial/punk/new wave scene, Landers was inspired to create a recording studio “available to artists regardless of their financial circumstances.” He thus opened The Packing House Studio in 1981 at the site of a former slaughterhouse in the Denver stockyards. The analog 8-track recording facility was active until 1984, with the studio releasing recordings from only a few credited artists and groups, most notably Allen Ginsberg. It was during this time that Landers released his first two records, Habitual Features & The Ever Decimal Pulse, as well as his only single, a 7” titled Breedlove.
Cauhaus Records, Landers’s only label, was an “entertainment subsidiary” of Local Anesthetic Records. They appear to be the only two labels to have released music recorded at The Packing House, aside from a small cassette-only label named Endemic Music. Landers is credited with mixing on one of the releases on Local Anesthetic’s releases, which suggests that Landers might have mixed for Local Anesthetic in exchange for production and handling of his imprint Cauhaus (the name of which seems like a nod to the studio’s slaughterhouse history).
The silent years in Geoffrey’s discography span from 1984 to 1987 — with ’84 being the year in which output from the both The Packing House and Local Anesthetic seem to die down. This leaves me wondering what happened in those three years to prompt a final release from such a unique musical trajectory. Was this his final go at production after years running The Packing House? Does this release serve as a demo compilation of tracks from the studio’s golden era? Did this record take three years to make? Why was it only released on CD only? The questions are infinite, but the result is truly a masterpiece.
New wave guitars, voice pads, resonant post-punk bass lines, hip swingin’ drum loops–this thing has it all. The stand-out should-have-been-pop-hits come in “Camella” & “Say You’ll Say So,” the former of which is a unique DJ-friendly new wave infused boogie jam with a HUGE snare drum hit sure to light up any day party. The nostalgic feeling induced by tracks “Body Angel,” “The Alluring Pause,” “1 by 1,” and “Carry Me Off” lead me to believe that Many Hands Make Light is in some way a tribute to the golden years of The Packing House, with the title serving as a humble thank you and tribute to all the many hands making light at the studio and label.
A very special thank you goes out to Flo for introducing me to Geoffrey’s music earlier this year.
“It takes time, I — I know that you know I’ll get to you”
Note that while this is long out of “print,” Music From Memory is about to release a compilation of Landers’s work which includes most of the tracks from Many Hands Make Light, and, if the track they’ve previewed on YouTube is any indication, features some gorgeous remastering. With the hope that you’ll pre-order the compilation, I’ll be removing this mp3 download link after a few days.
Nkono Teles was a Cameroonian-born multi-instrumentalist and producer based in Nigeria. He worked under numerous pseudonyms on projects that spanned multiple genres, from disco and reggae, to work with huge artists like King Sunny Adé and Fela Kuti. Fiesta Dancin‘, his first solo record, stands alone as a superb African synth disco masterpiece, on which Teles was responsible for bass, drum machine, electric piano, organ, guitar, synth, lead vocals, production, and writing. Every song is bubblegum roller boogie perfection, guaranteed to fill any dance floor with irresistible electro joyfulness.
A note that this really suffers on laptop speakers, so save it for better speakers or headphones please!
This album gives me the chills. With the expansive synth sound typified by other Australian synth-pop groups like Icehouse, and brutally catchy, Madonna-esque sugary dance beats, this is a record full of earworms.
At the centre is Tina Cross’s exceptional voice, which can range from the cool and gliding (“Over to You,” “Think of Me”) to the effortlessly bouncy (“Body Talk,” “Meant to Be”), and suggests Kate Bush and Cyndi Lauper inspiration.
In several ways Koo Dé Tah stood in contrast with their contemporaries. Australian pop music in the 80s was heavily Anglo-Saxon male-dominated—whether by virtue of the pub rock circuit, insular cultural attitudes, or otherwise. Koo Dé Tah was comprised of two accomplished musicians with differing backgrounds (New Zealander Tina Cross with Māori heritage, and former Russian popstar Leon Berger). That they had a radio hit with “Too Young For Promises” and were still unafraid to take risks and experiment makes this record all the more remarkable.
Editor’s note: I’m thrilled to share this gorgeous mix from Barcelona-based DBGO, whose YouTube channel is a treasure trove of rarities, and who makes an equally transportive series of mixes, many of which focus on a time-and-location specific musical subgenres and can send you down months-long rabbit holes.
This is a selection of French folk avant-garde with a little spice from 1980 to 1991.
Tracklist:
1. Bernard Xolotl – Venusian Aurora, 1981 2. Noco Music – Eclipse, 1989 3. Compagnie chez Bousca – Song For Nyama: Pluie, Départ Arreté – Song For Nyama, 1991 4. La Fondation – Dérive, 1983 5. Costin Miereanu – Piano – Miroir, 1984 6. Philippe Cauvin – Chanson Facile D’Amour, 1984 7. Brigitte Jardin & Claude Marbehant – Poids-Plume, 1980 8. Ginni Gallan – L’Amour Ça Rend Fou, 1982 9. Steve Waring – Cailloux Bambou, 1989 10. Cyrille Verdeaux & Bernard Xolotl – Star Gulls, 1981 11. Didier Bonin – Ecumes, 1982 12. Philippe Cauvin – Lolita, 1981 13. Jean-Pierre Boistel / Tony Kenneybrew – Vas Y Peter, 1989 14. Jacques Roman – Melodie Boreale, 1986 15. Daniel Goyone – Danse Des Lamantins, 1986 16. Henry Torgue / Serge Houppin – New Barocco, 1990
Today we bring you Dance Volunteer, the second and final full-length from Japanese new-wavers Portable Rock. It’s from 1987, but this isn’t the sleek “city pop” sound which contemporary acts like Kero Kero Bonito or Especia aspire to recreate today. Nor is it the coquettish shibuya-kei style which members of Portable Rock went on to pioneer after reuniting to form the much beloved Pizzicato Five. No, this is the big, bold 80s synth pop that time forgot. It seems a lack of commercial success led to the breakup of Portable Rock, and I’m surprised. The songs on Dance Volunteer are full of big, memorable hooks and the kind of spacious synth production that has aged particularly well for modern audiences. Maybe the slick production is the culprit for the abandoning of the project, as it was presumably expensive, and money means more pressure to chart. Yet Dance Volunteer has oddities all over it. Audio quirks stand out everywhere, like little square pegs in the round synth holes that are trying to steer the album into more marketable territory.
Listen to the way “憂ウツの (Hold Me)” breaks periodically to turn into the future, channeling the intro of a 90s house track for trance-like seconds of airtime. Hear how the title track (“ダンス・ボランティア”) is carried by a kind of strange wolf whistle, with an almighty injection of guitar in its chorus that sounds as heady as your first kiss. It’s heart racing stuff. I’m also in love with the vocal lick that “スムース・トーク” (“Sumusu Toku,” a Japanese phoneticization of “smooth talk”) coasts on for its entirety, sounding like a Disney soundtrack to a sunny convertible ride. And the lunar grooves of the ninth track, “キュートな事情” (“Kyuto No Jijou”) make a strong case for it being the first trip-hop track ever made. Listen to this, then cast an ear on any Massive Attack collaboration with Horace Andy, and you’ll see what I mean.
Sometimes the music tells its own story. I bought Yumiko Morioka’s Resonance last year in Tokyo (on the recommendation of someone who knew I’d been devouring records by the likes of Hiroshi Yoshimura, Toshifumi Hinata, Haruomi Hosono and many other names who’ll be familiar to readers of this blog) knowing nothing more than what my ears were telling me – that this was a very beautiful slow-burning piano album; Satie-esque ripples through a tranquil sea of crystalline digital reverb, equal parts Sakamoto, Budd, and the Eno brothers. I fell in love with this album on its own terms, with no real sense of how it fits into the wider story of 1980s Japanese ambient music.
As someone who can neither speak nor read Japanese, piecing together the background of this album is its own adventure, relying a lot on shaky auto-translate services and reasonably intelligent guesswork. Yumiko Morioka was born in 1956, and studied at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. She spent much of the last three decades in the United States; Resonance is her only solo release, although she later released a collaborative album with Bill Nelson called Culturemix in 1995. Under the pen name of Satoshi Miyashita, she wrote a number of hit songs for idol acts throughout the 80’s including Toshihiko Tahara and other performers from the notorious Johnny & Associates stable.
Dig further into Resonance’s credits and associates and some familiar names start to appear. The album was produced by new age keyboardist Akira Ito, formerly of the Far East Family Band, and was the only LP released on Ito’s Green & Water label that wasn’t one of his own efforts. Morioka herself occasionally played piano for Miharu Koshi, and receives a “special thanks” credit in the liner notes to Hosono’s Omni Sight Seeing.
So it’s tempting to view Resonance primarily as another link in the dense latticework of interconnecting artists and albums from 70s and 80s Japan that enthusiastic Western listeners are only now starting to piece together through blog posts, YouTube algorithms and curatorial mixes. Another piece in the puzzle. But you really don’t need to know any of this stuff. Resonance really is nothing more than a very beautiful slow-burning piano album, one whose exploratory pieces gently unfold in a way that slows time and, in the best Eno tradition, pleasantly colour any environment in which they’re heard. It’s an honest, open record, and one that I hope you will love as much as I do.
Difficult to put into words. How to describe Sarah’s Crime? Smooth, evocative, dreamy, and deeply romantic. Perfect solo listening. Much like Soichiro Suzuki of World Standard on later albums like Canon, I’d dub Toshifumi Hinata a master of thoughtful, gentle composition.
While there’s very little information available about his background, it’s known that Hinata spent time in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Surrey, South of England. Lazy English Sundays have certainly been captured on “Premonition.” You can almost hear his cream tea and plate of buttered scones rattling on the piano as he plays, looking out of a window onto the lawn. “Pavement,” with its pastoral field recordings, rain, thunder, and church bells, might also tell of his time in Surrey. Like those two tracks, so the rest of Sarah’s Crime has a cinematic quality that evokes a feeling, a place, even a storyline.
“Boardwalk” is a jazzy little moocher: sandy toes, seagulls in the South of France, and a sweet melodica/accordian duet. More than a hint of Pink Floyd’s “St. Tropez” but with a winking ballroom grandeur. The remarkable opening title track instantly conjures up a yacht slipping towards the horizon as the credits roll. Swells of violin filling the sails, synth pads rolling in and out like ocean waves, with perfectly prim drum machine drama. Like much of the record, it’s unabashedly romantic, but stops just short of saccharine. Tasteful as ever.
“Memories” feels like a take on the Korgis’ “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime.” Plaintive piano chords, reverb-drenched harmonica, and a touch of Angelo Badalementi mystery transport you to a swaying cornfield. The standout track, however, which is alone worth the price of admission, is “Chaconne.” Vaporous whisps of slow curving chords pinned down by a Philip Glass/John Carpenter style repetitive chiming bell loop. Just as you’re drifting away on it (I often have this on my sleep playlists), it spikes up a notch, almost into drama, but the heartrate remains relaxed and sleep is only moments away. I adore this track. Four years of hearing it nearly every night and I never tire of it.
Something worth mentioning about this album, and Hinata’s style generally, is that his use of melody and phrasing over sublime chord patterns is like having someone reading aloud to you. Chord changes set up a scene while melodies conjure up slow but meaningful narratives. If An Artist Of The Floating World is ever made into a movie, the soundtrack is ready to go.
Finally, I’ll leave this review, as Hinata does, on closing track “Pentimento” with a question mark: does a failed romance amount to nothing? Or does the second half, where happy memories appear to come drifting back in passionate swells mean that it was worth it even if it’s over? Sit by the window, listen, and try to figure it out. I’m still trying. It’s alright not knowing sometimes.
I was recently digging through sidebars on musical sculpture, when I stumbled upon two enchanting private press albums by the late Dorothy Carter—mystic, free spirit, wizard of the strings. According to a tribute by her bandmates The Mediæval Bæbes, Carter was born in New York in 1935, studied at Bard and the Guildhall School of Music, and in her later years toured Europe, playing festivals, cabaret, and at least once, a concert in a cemetery. She reportedly lived in a drafty loft in New Orleans, where she collected giant zithers, hosted salons, and played her brand of medieval folk music wherever she could. By another account, she “lived in a commune, worked on a Mississippi steam boat as a ships boy, raised two kids and ran away to a Mexican cloister with an anarchistic priest.”
Somewhat more secular than her 1976 debut Troubador, Waillee Waillee alternates between darkly enigmatic, inward melodies, and jaunty, exuberant hymns. Songs like “Along the River,” while populated with some familiar folk imagery—woodland creatures, mollusks, and rosemary bushes—are absent of the studio chicanery that so often accompanies it. Flutes, maracas, and tambura, some played by new age pioneer and instrument-builder Constance Demby, join Carter’s expert plucking and hammering to great effect. Her vocals might draw comparisons to Karen Dalton, Bridget St John, or perhaps Linda Perhacs, but here, in the service of her wistful paeans to nature, they stand alone. On the album’s haunting title track, Carter croons, “When will my love return to me?” with uncomplicated sentimentality, like a forlorn lover trapped in a block of ice. “Dulcimer Medley” and “Celtic Medley” are sprightly instrumental ballads that would not be out of place in a scene from Barry Lyndon.
For me, the standout on this album is “Summer Rhapsody.” Seven minutes long, expansive and majestic, it begins with a rumble like a jet engine, building to a crescendo of feverish dulcimer. It’s here too that the recording really sparkles, as though the dulcimer’s harsh textures are pushing the tape to its very limits. While it might sound like a hurdy-gurdy, the corpulent drone is produced by a steel cello, an instrument resembling the sail on a medieval cog. Here we see the fruits of Carter’s decades-long collaboration with artist Robert Rutman, who, like Walter Smetak, Ellen Fullman, and others, pioneered a hybrid art that was neither purely aesthetic nor musical. It was with his group the Central Maine Power Music Company, formed in Skowhegan in 1970, that Carter first toured, playing unconventional shows in New England planetariums, sculpture gardens, and museums.
Part of what’s so incredible about Waillee Waillee is that as much as it is a psych-folk record, it is also completely at home with the experiments of Terry Riley, Charlemagne Palestine, Yoshi Wada, Pauline Oliveros and Laraaji. Carter was a fascinating figure whose devotion to her chosen instruments was legendary. I hope you enjoy this record as much as I do.
I found this lurking at the back of a box of records in a charity shop in a nondescript part of north London. I’d never heard of Piero Milesi, but was drawn to both the title and the image on the sleeve, which turns out to be a still from the film to which this is a soundtrack. It depicts an enormous engraving outside a Volterra psychiatric hospital by patient Oreste Fernando Nannetti, who referred to himself as Nanof-11, an “Astronautic Mineral Engineer of the Mental System.” While I’m keen to track down the movie (which doesn’t even have an IMDB page!), in the meantime I make do with the music, which is characterized by lush synthesized themes interspersed with moments of meditative calm. Personal favourites are “The Presence of the City” and “Mr. Nanof’s Tango” (which really begins to soar about half way through, so stay with it). Originally an architect, Piero Milesi created musical installations as well as soundtracks, so you can see why the story of a vast stone book recounting life in a psychiatric institution appealed. Earth to Nanof-11, are you out there; can you hear us?
