Rob Mazurek: “The First Kid in Space” (parts 1, 2, and 3)
by Steve Naud
Follow a little girl’s interstellar adventures to the sound of the first three excerpts from Rob Mazurek’s new album.
On November 20, trumpet player and composer Rob Mazurek will release Dimensional Stardust, the new album from his Exploding Star Orchestra, on International Anthem, a label that’s increasingly essential on the world jazz scene. For this new record, the free-jazz veteran has called upon the cream of Chicago’s jazz community: Nicole Mitchell, Jeff Parker, Tomeka Reid, Damon Locks, and Jaimie Branch, among many others. The music videos accompanying the first three excerpts from Dimensional Stardust were directed by artist Mikel Patrick Avery, who staged the intergalactic adventures of his own daughter, the very sweet Olivia Avery-Velez. Fasten your seatbelts!
Another absurd and deranged clip from Viagra Boys, which augurs well for the album to come.
With the devastating tune “Ain’t Nice” and the delirious video that accompanies it, Stockholm post-punk band Viagra Boys announce their new album Welfare Jazz, which will be available January 8 via YEAR0001. The album is produced by Matt Sweeney (Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Run the Jewels), Justin and Jeremiah Raisen (Yves Tumor, Kim Gordon, Sky Ferreira), and former collaborators Pelle Gunnerfeldt and Daniel Fagerström (The Hives, The Knife). As derisory as ever, the band members return to their saxophonic post-punk to deftly challenge society’s normalisation of toxic masculinity, racism, misogyny, classism and self-obsession. Singer Sebastian Murphy, who cultivated – with little difficulty – the image of a staggering drunk or drug addict in previous videos, is back in that role for the new one, “Ain’t Nice”, but this time making a mess along the way. Stealing scooters and jackets, disrupting picnics, Murphy leaves no innocent bystander unmolested, until a kid knocks him out. He then wakes up in a luxurious estate with all the “nicest” things, surrounded by servants wearing powdered wigs, all very 18th-century… Another absurd and deranged clip from Viagra Boys, making pleasant promises after the rather disappointing EP Common Sense, released last March.
LeeNalchi and Ambiguous Dance Company: “Feel the Rhythm of Korea”
by Rupert Bottenberg
Vibrant views of various cities, with the band’s new-wave pansori and the troupe’s manic moves
While the pandemic stifles travel, the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) aims to cheer the world up by providing picturesque postcards from around the country in the form of peppy pop-music videos, in their Feel the Rhythm of Korea series. The rapid-fire excursions feature the music of formidable funk-punk pansori troupe LeeNalchi, extracts from their excellent album Suggunga, and the outrageous choreographies of their inseparable associates in Ambiguous Dance Company. The first three clips – exploring the major cities Seoul, Busan, and Jeonju – hit the web at the end of July, and have since been seen by some 25 million viewers each. The KTO has just put out three more, showcasing temples, markets, parks, and other pertinent points on the maps of Andong, Mokpo, and Gangneung. The next best thing to being there…
In Armenia’s time of need, celebrated jazz pianist Tigran Hamasyan rallies hope with a splendid video, and a way to help.
Paying tribute to tragic Armenian heroes of a hundred years ago, as history repeats itself, folk-jazz fusioneer Tigran Hamasyan provides more than a sympathetic gesture for his country with the splendid video for “37 Newlyweds”, a cut from his album The Call Within, released at the end of August. He’s also helped launch the Tigran Hamasyan & Friends for Artsakh fundraising initiative, to provide desperately needed aid for civilians in territory under siege – consider making a donation.
Katel feat. Bonbon Vodou: “Je t’aime déjà”
by Luc Marchessault
From Karen Lohier, alias Katel, a portrait of love in eight verses, each based upon a Greek word.
The first single from an album of uncertain release date, which will be the fourth by Karen Lohier, aka Katel. The drawings and inks are by Julie Gasnier, who also directed the video. Katel is accompanied by Bonbon Vodou, a duo formed by Oriane Lacaille and Jerem. It is a portrait of love in eight verses, each based upon a Greek word: Mania, Storge, Eros, Pragma, Philia, Philautia, Agape (sung by Oriane Lacaille in Creole), and Ludus. “I love you that you barely touch me / I have just experienced love, Eros / The flesh, the ass, the blood, the veins / And in the end the skin on the bone”…
From Sunfruits, expression of uncritical affection for Australia’s popular soy-milk brand.
Healthy eating seems to be a major concern for Melbourne garage-pop bunch Sunfruits, who recently unveiled their Mushroom Kingdom EP, a co-release with French label Six Tonnes De Chair and Australia’s own Third Eye Stimuli imprint. The first and second eye need stimulation too, so here’s the video for the EP’s B-side track, “Bonsoy”. It’s an animated extension of the amazing sleeve artwork, care of Indonesian graphic artist Ardneks, alias Kendra Ahimsa, whose neatly assembled psychedelia is already familiar to fans of Khruangbin and Flamingods.
Three months after Resurrectedinblack, Bestial Mouths presents an aquatic and cathartic clip for the track “The Loss”.
Made of superimposed images and kaleidoscopic effects, this experimental microfilm is a perfect accompaniment to the atmospheric impulses of the song. Shot underwater, it shows Cerezo, a Gothic mermaid, sometimes struggling with the ropes and chains around her, sometimes sinking. This near-death experience, supported by a dragging melody with martial rhythms, nevertheless lets a certain light shine through. One comes out of it haunted, not knowing whether death or redemption has resulted.
San Diego’s Prayers bring their chologoth sound to the underworld of their ancestors.
“Life is a dream”, Leafar Seyer repeats insistently on “La Vida Es Un Sueño”, the first single off Chologoth, the latest album from Prayers, the San Diego electro-rock duo singer Seyer forms with musician Dave Parley. It’s a dark dream, with death in presence, but not one without beauty and even a sense of destiny. The title of the album defines the vibe of Prayers, as they express the morbid romanticism of the goth scene, in the vernacular of the cholo – meant both in the sense of the Chicano street culture and gang life of California, and even moreso, that of the mestizo, reaching back to their indigenous roots. The video sees them ferried to Mictlan, the underworld, in a classy Rolls Royce, under the guidance of the Mexica fire god Xolotl.
Belgium’s Bandler Ching rises to the surface with their forthcoming EP’s first single.
Led by saxophonist Ambroos De Schepper, a veteran of Belgian jazz acts like Kosmo Sound, Boogie Belgique and Mos Ensemble, the Brussels-based quartet Bandler Ching have just released the first single from their debut EP Sub Surface, due our October 23 on the Sdban Ultra label. Cool, uncluttered, but amply invested with clarity and conviction, “Pousmousse” (named after a local laundromat, rather randomly) indicates that great things await from De Schepper and his bandmates, keyboardist Alan Van Rompuy, bassist Federico Pecoraro, and drummer Olivier Penu.
Minouche, extrait de l’album posthume Je suis africain, résume bien l’esprit Taha.
It’s now two years since rock ‘n’ raï rebel Rachid Taha took his place in the great amphitheatre of the Beyond, alongside his forebears Dahmane El Harrachi, Sheikha Remitti, Oum Kalthoum, Nina Simone, and Elvis Presley, as well as his buddies Alain Bashung and Joe Strummer. The album Je suis africain was released posthumously a year after his passing. “Minouche” is an extract from it, Rachid had written the lyrics with Jean Fauque and Erwan Seguillon, alias R.Wan, and the music with Toma Ferterman. For the clip, Laurie-Anne Patrikovna created sober and magnificent illustrations, Agathe Nazarenko animated them, and Ali Guessoum directed the whole thing. “T’es ma kahloucha, Frenchwoman – I’m your Apache, the rest doesn’t matter” – this sums up the spirit of Rachid Taha quite well.
A dreamy ode to teatime, from Dim Mak En Fuego’s new Venezuelan star.
Already highly regarded as a visual artist, creative director, and songwriter in her native Venezuela, Andrekza has recently signed to Steve Aoki’s Latin imprint, Dim Mak En Fuego, and makes her debut in that department with the alluring yet mischievous slice of Latin pop R&B, “TÉ”, produced by Grammy-winner Orlando Vitto. An equatorial twist on a certain Asian pop sensibility, “TÉ” arrives with a video that’s a goofy kind of glamorous, though one might want to think twice about taking a sip at Andrekza’s house, if averse to hypnosis or unpaid housework.
Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverley Glenn-Copeland Story
by Frédéric Cardin
A cassette released in 1986 is now the focus of a cult following… and of a documentary film showcased at Pop Montreal.
It took a Japanese collector who contacted Beverly Glenn-Copeland in 2015 for him to realize the cult status of his Keyboard Fantasies album, which was released in 1986 in cassette format, in a run of 150 copies (only half of which was sold to kind “mothers of friends”). The album has recently been digitized and now serves as the cornerstone of the explosion of popularity that the American-Canadian musician, born in Philadelphia in 1944, is experiencing.
Keyboard Fantasies is a masterpiece written for and performed on Yamaha’s DX-7 and Roland’s TR-707 synthesizers. Glenn-Copeland geeks often refer to Keyboard Fantasies as a new age gem. If it’s new age, though, it’s in the genre’s experimental fringe that this album is situated.
It’s light years away from the vaporous chords stretched over entire minutes, for which the term adagio would still seem too frenetic. And forget the sound of waves! Keyboard Fantasies is the baby of a gifted creator, well grounded in scholarly, classical, and contemporary music, but also in the sounds of jazz, pioneering electro pop (Kraftwerk, Can, the Detroit sound of the ’70s) and a particular kind of synthetic film music (Tron, Labyrinth, The Never Ending Story).
Be prepared to be seduced, astonished, and bewitched by this light, zen universe, and even shocked that this degree of imagination, created on ’80s synthesizers, has remained in the shadows for so long! Everything is resolutely melodic, pop, and catchy in an assertive way, but never raucous. Each piece is brimming with subtle details that propel it far beyond any form of innocuous muzak, a label stuck on so many new age albums of that era (and rightly so, in most cases!). Glenn-Copeland sings on a few pieces, delightful with his beautiful, well-balanced mezzo voice, nicely worked out, very elastic, with easy peaks in the treble.
Is Beverly Glenn-Copeland experiencing a renaissance at the moment? No, because, in truth, he was never “born” as he should have been, as an important musician. That said, he’s finally being discovered, and the trans artist (he was one of the first black music students at McGill in the 1960s, before transitioning later) is now experiencing a surge in popularity he never expected at all!
There’s so much to say about this inspiring and colourful character! If you’re under the spell, or even just intrigued by his music, you should definitely check out the documentary Keyboard Fantasies: The Beverly Glenn-Copeland Story on Wednesday, September 23, as part of the Pop Montreal festival.
His Bandcamp page offers not only Keyboard Fantasies, but all the other albums he’s produced, including a masterpiece to melt your heart, a 1970 self-titled folk album that Joni Mitchell and Tim Buckley would have been proud of! Remember the name. It won’t go unnoticed any longer.
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