Tony Allen, Jeff Mills ‎– Tomorrow Comes The Harvest (2018)

Style: Future Jazz
Format: Vinyl
Label: Blue Note France

Tracklist:
01.   Locked And Loaded (Edit)
02.   The Night Watcher (Edit)
03.   On The Run (Edit)
04.   The Seed (Edit)
05.   The Night Watcher (Instrumental / Edit)
06.   Locked And Loaded
07.   The Night Watcher
08.   On The Run
09.   The Seed
10.   The Night Watcher (Instrumental)

Credits:
Composed By, Drums – Tony Allen
Composed By, Programmed By – Jeff Mills
Keyboards – Jean-Philippe Dary
Vocals – Carl Hancock Rux
Mixed By – François Kevorkian, S.Vaughan Merrick
Producer, Executive-Producer – Eric Trosset

Nicolas Jaar ‎– Sirens (2017)

Style: Downtempo, Modern Classical
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Other People

Tracklist:
1.   Killing Time
2.   Wildflowers
3.   The Governor
4.   A Coin In Nine Hands
5.   Leaves
6.   No
7.   Three Sides Of Nazareth
8.   History Lesson
9.   America/I'm For The Birds

There are only about 45 seconds left on Nicolas Jaar’s new album Sirens when something astounding happens. Heralded by a selection of drums and birdcall synths, a gospel cry arrives, shrouded in distortion and punctuated by sharp arrhythmic drumming. The most useful words to describe this are the silliest and most hyperbolic: awesome, transcendent, timeless or more accurately, out-of-time. It begs for pretension, for the vocabulary of divinity and “high art,” for references to religious philosophers and poets of the West that you barely remember from college, Milton and Kierkegaard, Eliot and Blake. And though there are many similarly striking moments on Sirens, this one stands out for its brevity and particular beauty. It is a moment thoroughly earned by the album that precedes it, and in less than a minute, it’s gone. 

This moment—a supernova flash of prodigious skill—can be seen as something of a stand-in for Jaar’s career to date. In 2011, when Jaar was just 21, he released his debut album, Space Is Only Noise**, introducing a downtempo combination of psychedelia and dance music that vaulted him into the vanguard of the world’s electronic artists. The record came alive in a room, its amorphous body emerging from the stereo, its limbs unfolding into every corner. His ability to conjure up what seemed like an extra dimension in his music made you aware of the tautology: space was noise, but he made noise seem like space. 

The next year Jaar revealed the depth of his talent for collage with his Essential Mix for BBC Radio 1. These mixes are often superlative, but his felt more personal than most, even as it showcased his interest in referencing the texts of others. In one of many sophisticated in-jokes, Jaar, who is Chilean-American, introduced the operative sample from Jay Z’s “My 1st Song,” with Jay Z’s own voice. That vocal prepared listeners to hear the Black Album* *closer before Jaar dropped the original version, “Tu y Tu Mirar, Yo y Mi Cancion,” by the Chilean band, Los Ángeles Negros, in its place. The mix was filled with moments like these—jam-packed with allusions but still absorbing for those who didn’t catch the references. 

And then, Jaar shrank away from center stage. In 2013, he started his own label, Other People, partly to foster the careers of his musician friends. Jaar is a generous collaborator—artists like Dave Harrington, his partner in the duo Darkside, have been eager to credit his willingness to help them with their own work. But the instinct to work with others may not have been purely selfless. Jaar felt enormous pressure to replicate his early success. In an interview with Pitchfork in 2013, he confessed that he was scared of releasing music that wasn’t up to those standards: 

“For the first five years of making music, I did it because I had fun,” he said. “When it started to get real, I was like, ‘Now if I put out something else and it's not as good as what I did before, people will start thinking I suck.’” 

So Jaar produced others’ projects and made critically acclaimed records with Harrington under the Darkside moniker. But slowly, over the last two years, he’s been creeping back toward the microphone, using his own name. First there were some extraordinary singles. Then, last summer’s Pomegranates, a slippery alternate soundtrack to an old Russian film. Then *Nymphs—*an uncollected EP, maybe?—excellent, but difficult to evaluate holistically. 

*Sirens *represents a full reemergence, as close as he may ever get to kicking over the mic stand. He doesn't reveal many new tricks, but his knowledge of his own palette is masterful in every moment. More poetic and thoughtful than ever before, Jaar maintains an ability to fit seemingly disparate sounds together as if they were always meant to find each other. Add the strands of political expression that are gathered on *Sirens, *often cloaked in odd textures, in Spanish, or in cryptic lyrics, and you have a record as compelling as any of Jaar’s other works. 

It opens with the track “Killing Time,” which feels like entering a labyrinth, or maybe a pyramid, something forbidding and funereal. The sound of a flag waves in the wind, keys like jagged wind chimes shatter on the floor. Nico is patient, but understands the need for progression, and though slower songs like this may linger in silence or briefly lavish attention on a particular effect, riff, or drum sound, they never stop moving. 

“Killing Time,” is silent, respectful, matching its lyrics (“We were just waiting…”) And then “The Governor” which shares a post-punk edge with another song, “Three Sides of Nazareth,” jolts the record into sudden motion. Those two tracks, with their driving rhythms and clear lyrics, are the easiest to glom on to on first listen. The words are more or less affixed to the music, in contrast with other tracks like “Killing Time” and parts of “No,” where lyrics seem to dwell in the spacious labyrinth evoked by the sound. On those tracks, you’re never sure exactly where you’re going to stumble upon a sudden string of words, of thoughts. 

"The Governor" is fast and loud and urgent. When I listened to it out of sequence, I wondered whether those qualities were imposed on “The Governor” because it's only fast and loud and urgent in comparison to “Killing Time,” or whether it actually is those things. These are the kind of thoughts that psychedelia provokes at its best, and Jaar adores these puzzles. It’s his obsession with setting up dichotomies and resolving them that places him firmly in a Western tradition. He’s able to work a kind of alchemy upon the raw elements of his music, making one thing into its polar opposite: hard into soft, ugly into pretty, slow into fast. Like the word “sirens” itself, (the ancient temptress, the modern alarms), his music is able to evoke opposing ideas at the same time. 

These contradictions give Sirens its strength, particularly during the album’s centerpiece, the song "No." It’s the only segment of music on the digital version of the album that includes a musical element not written, recorded, performed, mixed, and produced by Nico. (It’s a Chilean harp piece, “Lagrimas,” by Sergio Cuevas.) This section helps us to understand the mystery at the heart of Sirens, represented by the line of Spanish lyrics adorning its cover. The end of “Leaves,” the entirety of “No,” and the beginning of “Three Sides of Nazareth,” orbit around two conversations. The first seems to be a recording of a young Nico speaking with his father, the artist Alfredo Jaar. They discuss a statue being attacked by lions. 

The words of “No” are in Spanish, and they contain the second discussion, which serves as a parable that illuminates the first. An unhappy neighbor approaches Nico, and they discuss multiple contradictions—the far and the near, the inside and the outside. But the core of their conversation are the words from Sirens’ cover: “Ya dijimos no pero el si esta en todo.” This translates as: “We already said no but the yes is in everything,” a reference to the Chilean national plebiscite, a 1988 referendum on democracy in the country. In the referendum, on whether Chile should continue to be ruled by General Augusto Pinochet, who had seized power about 15 years earlier, voting “no” was voting “yes” to democracy. 

But if, as Jaar sings, “The yes is in everything,” the idea is that we don’t need to see the future to know that nothing ever really changes, that the cycle continues whether you vote for democracy or not. In turn, it suggests that the statue under discussion between little Nico and Alfredo, (whose own complicated politics are worth noting) could very well have been of Salvador Allende, who Pinochet ousted. 

There are plenty of extraordinary references on Sirens that I’m sure I missed. But, as with the Essential Mix, as with any collage, being ignorant of any of these things hardly lessens the weight of the music. What you pick up from the album is a real suspicion of power*, *from “The Governor” (“All the blood’s hidden in the governor’s trunk”) to “Killing Time” (“Money, it seems, needs its working class.”) And at the same time, Nico, through the music, exercises his own power, pulling on his listeners and compelling them to move, dance, think, and engage with one another, or sometimes to sit silently and take it all in. 

Nico's aversion to authority reaches a climax with that last track, “History Lesson,” which ends with those 45 transcendent seconds that I’m still failing to put into words. “History Lesson” takes its cues from old soul and doo-wop, like the Beach Boys at their most psychedelic. Think “Feel Flows” and those unfolding, enveloping missiles of soul.
The music on “History Lesson” is almost laughably gentle at first, and Jaar employs a trick favored by both John Lennon (“Run for Your Life”) and Paul McCartney (“Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”), juxtaposing inviting music with disturbing lyrics. Here’s how his history lesson starts: “Chapter one: We fucked up/Chapter two: We did it again, and again, and again, and again/Chapter three: We didn’t say sorry.” And so on. The words are a harsh rebuke of any political system. But the music is tender. And the track is bleak and funny, and naïve and wise, and political and personal. It feels like everything all at once. It feels like Sirens.

Jonah Bromwich / Pitchfork

Four Tet ‎– New Energy (2017)

Style: Ambient, House, Techno, Minimal
Format: CD, Vinyl, Cass.
Label: Hostess Entertainment Unlimited, Text Records

Tracklist:
01.   Alap
02.   Two Thousand and Seventeen
03.   LA Trance
04.   Tremper
05.   Lush
06.   Scientists
07.   Falls 2
08.   You Are Loved
09.   SW9 9SL
10.   10 Midi
11.   Memories
12.   Daughter
13.   Gentle Soul
14.   Planet

Nearing 20 years as an ambassador between indie rock and dance music, Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden has winnowed down the parts that clutter up music-making itself: He declines most interviews and still trots out the same publicity photo that accompanied his 2003 breakout Rounds. But after 2009’s sumptuous There Is Love in You, he took the reins himself, releasing a flurry of albums, experiments, collaborations, and singles on his own, and now keeps up a healthy social network presence on Twitter, Snapchat, and Soundcloud. With his legacy as one of the 21st-century’s finest electronic musicians all but assured, Hebden has become more of a populist, making few distinctions between working with Burial or Skrillex, Terror Danjah or Rihanna. 

His restless forward momentum and pursuit of new sounds make every Four Tet album distinct from its predecessor. But with Four Tet’s ninth album, New Energy, Hebden does something unexpected: He revisits previous sounds. There’s the low-key warmth of 2003’s Rounds, the free jazz at the heart of 2005’s Everything Ecstatic, the friendly thump of 2012’s Pink, the sprawl of 2015’s Morning/Evening. Downtempo nodders, beatless passages that flow into big bangers—he synthesizes all this into his most accessible listen since There is Love in You. 

”Alap” opens the album gently with plucked strings, alluding to its definition in Indian classical music as “prologue to the formal expression” of a raga. But as those glissading strings carry on into “Two Thousand and Seventeen,” Hebden yokes it to a beat that very closely recalls Rounds’ centerpiece, “Unspoken.” The opening third of New Energy hews to that album’s sensibilities, highlighting wistful and evocative melodies with breaks crunching beneath them. But despite Hebden’s look back, the strummed strings are more nimble here and the textures are more detailed.

Tempos notch upwards on early standout “Lush,” the gamelan-like tones and double-time shaker providing the velocity as Hebden strikes a balance between new age chill and dance-floor quickener. That mixture of extremes makes “You Are Loved” another clear highlight. The luminous drones at the start are folded into the sort of dusty break that defined so many early records on Stones Throw. But as Hebden dashes in an array of squiggles and blats, the track changes shape again into something heady and electronic, spacy and gravity-free. At times, his attention to textures comes at the cost of exploring new terrain. The wordless female voices and saxophones swirling around “Scientists” add new sonic wrinkles but don’t punch through into a revelatory new space. 

New Energy’s back half toggles between the type of club tracks that have become his forte (“SW9 9SL”) and interludes that give a breather before the next workout (“10 Midi”). It’s a shame that “10 Midi” lasts just under a minute-and-a-half, as its interplay between metallophone, piano, and bowed cello create a neo-classical restraint that remains one of the few places Hebden hasn’t explored. Same goes for the pure ambient waves of “Gentle Soul,” which flows into anthemic closer “Planet.” With its mix of carillon overtones, flickering strings, minced voices, and hiccuping garage thump, it suggests the very place where Steve Reich’s studied minimalism might meet adventurous bass music. 

The heart of the album occurs a few moments prior on “Daughter,” which again recalls Rounds. The tock of snare and bass drum, a vocal loop that just slips beyond comprehension, a dreamlike melody twinkling in the middle of it all—it hooks you while at the same time escapes your grasp. Four years ago, Hebden spoke about why his album Rounds remained a touchstone for all the music that came after: “I really connected with the idea that I needed to make something more personal, something real that counted. I started to give the songs titles that were a little more personal to me.” It’s hard to think of something more evocative than a father naming a piece of music for his daughter, a relationship that—no matter the passage of time—requires one to always remain present, giving, and open to something new.

 Andy Beta / Pitchfork

Alan Hawkshaw & Brian Bennett - Synthesizer and Percussion (1974)

Style: Jazz-Funk, Disco
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Themes International Music

A1 - A. Hawkshaw / B. Bennett - Mon Amour
A2 - A. Hawkshaw / B. Bennett - Oddball
A3 - A. Hawkshaw / B. Bennett - Daytripper
A4 - Alan Hawkshaw - Mile High Swinger (Vers. A)
A5 - Alan Hawkshaw - Mile High Swinger (Vers. B)
A6 - A. Hawkshaw / B. Bennett - Auto-Pilot
B1 - A. Hawkshaw / B. Bennett - Pacesetter
B2 - A. Hawkshaw / B. Bennett - Home Run
B3 - A. Hawkshaw / B. Bennett - Driving Force
B4 - A. Hawkshaw / B. Bennett - Action Man
B5 - Alan Hawkshaw - Funky Chicken
B6 - Alan Hawkshaw - Jolly Roger
B7 - Alan Hawkshaw - Dumbo
B8 - Alan Hawkshaw - Plain Song
B9 - Alan Hawkshaw - Fanfair

Richard Maxfield / Harold Budd ‎– The Oak Of The Golden Dreams (1999)

Style: Modern Classical, Avantgarde, Contemporary
Format: CD
Label: New World Records

Tracklist:
1.   Richard Maxfield - Pastoral Symphony
2.   Richard Maxfield - Bacchanale
3.   Richard Maxfield - Piano Concert "For David Tudor"
4.   Richard Maxfield - Amazing Grace
5.   Harold Budd - Oak Of The Golden Dreams
6.   Harold Budd - Coeur D'Orr

Credits:
Robert P. Block - Violin
Bob Defrin - Cover Design
Edward Fields - Spoken Word
Terry Jenning - Saxophone
Fahrad Machkat - Violin
Charles Oreña - Sax (Soprano)
Nicolas Roussakis - Clarinet
David Tudor - Piano
Richard Maxfield - Composer, Electronics, Engineer, Sampling, Tapes
Harold Budd - Composer, Electronic Devices, Electronics, Performer, Tapes

This CD is a dual reissue of Harold Budd's The Oak of the Golden Dreams and Richard Maxfield's Electronic Music. The album presents complex, haunting, and evocative electronic soundscapes. In these examples of musique concrete occurs the odd coincidence of jazz motifs, Korean folk music, spoken word, and more. The ebb and flow of tape loops present an aural kaleidoscope, exciting to the ear, in Maxfield's pieces. Maxfield's works date six to ten years prior to Budd's 1969 and 1970 creations. More minimalist, Budd's two, lengthy (18:44 and 19:46) pieces feature ambient tone coloring out of a electric organ-like Buchla Box.

Tom Schulte / AllMusic

Fire! Orchestra ‎– Exit! (2013)

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Formar: CD, Vinyl
Label:Rune Grammofon

Tracklist:
1.   Exit! Part One
2.   Exit! Part Two

Credits:
Alto Saxophone – Anna Högberg
Baritone Saxophone, Clarinet – Fredrik Ljungkvist
Bass – Dan Berglund, Joe Williamson, Joel Grip
Bass Clarinet, Sintir [Guimbri] – Christer Bothe´n
Bass Saxophone – Jonas Kullhammar
Drums – Andreas Werliin, Johan Holmegard, Raymond Strid, Thomas Mera Gartz
Electric Bass – Johan Berthling
Electronics – Joachim Nordwall
Guitar – Andreas Söderström, David Stackenäs, Sören Runolf
Organ – Tomas Hallonsten
Piano, Electronics – Sten Sandell
Tenor Saxophone – Elin Larsson
Tenor Saxophone, Electronics, Conductor – Mats Gustafsson
Trombone – Mats Äleklint
Trumpet – Emil Strandberg, Magnus Broo, Niklas Barnö
Tuba – Per Åke Holmlander
Voice – Mariam Wallentin, Sofia Jernberg
Voice, Guitar – Emil Svanängen

Sometimes it's best not to predict. If the idea of expanding Fire!'s core trio of saxophonist/electric pianist Mats Gustafsson, bassist Johan Berthling and drummer Andreas Werlin into Fire! Orchestra's massive, 28-piece behemoth was based on the trio's extant discography— You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago (Rune Grammofon, 2009), Unreleased (Rune Grammofon, 2011), and In the Mouth of a Hand Rune Grammofon, 2012)—then a relentless album of high energy and high volume density would be expected. Which makes Exit! a complete and utter surprise, and in the best possible way.  

That's not to say there isn't plenty of cacophonous chaos amidst Exit!'s two-part, multi-episodic, continuous 44-minute suite; when there is, beyond its six reeds and five brass, a total of three keyboardists, four bassists and four drummers means plenty of potential for some seriously joyous noise, and given Fire!'s predisposition for unfettered and unrelenting improvisation, it's no surprise that, at times, the music builds to wave after wave of climactic peaks. And even when the dynamics drop, there's plenty of angularity clearly not meant for the faint-of-heart.  

Still, Exit!'s biggest surprise—though, following Gustafsson's career in particular, perhaps this should not be a surprise—is that it is a more dynamic piece that, if not exactly beautiful, does break down into quieter passages of greater clarity that allow for Arnold de Boers' text to be delivered—from near-lyricism to ululating freak-outs—by three singers including Sofia Jernberg, whose 2012 Trondheim Jazz Festival performance with The New Song made her an inevitable participant here.  

There's still plenty of freedom, and room for extremes like screaming, whammy bar-driven electric guitars and electronics from a number of sources including Gustafsson, whose occasional unmistakable solo—here, on tenor saxophone rather than the baritone more commonly associated with Fire! (leaving that to fellow Swede, Atomic saxophonist Fredrik Ljungkvist)—is of the visceral, cathartic nature that's become a personal signature. But with its broader dynamic range and Gustafson's conducting, Exit! is somehow more eminently accessible than Fire!'s usual work, the inevitable consequence of past large ensembles like bassist Charlie Haden's Liberation Music Orchestra and keyboardist Sun Ra's Arkesta. Still, neither of these precedents had Berthling and Weliin's joined-at-the-hip grooves, which drive most of the proceedings. Further bolstered with additional players including drummer Raymond Strid and ex-Esbjorn Svensson bassist Dan Berglund, they're even more potent as the group shuffles through a variety of meters ranging from the ¾ ostinato that drives the opening of "Exit! Part One" and the slower, greasier groove in its second half, to the fiery 5/4 rhythm that emerges from the freer opening of "Part Two."  

Exit! ultimately ends with a cluttered free-for-all the builds from sparer, more defined components to an ending more in keeping with Fire!'s usual modus operandi, as more and more of the musicians enter the fray, leading to five minutes of truly joyful abandon. It's a fitting ending to this expanded version of Fire! that's unequivocally its greatest accomplishment to date. Broader instrumentation and a stronger sense of construction make Exit! both an exhilarating first experience and one to return to time and again, as its multiplicity of rewards unfold with each and every listen.

John Kelman / All About Jazz

Fire! ‎– You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago (2009)

Style: Psychedelic Rock, Contemporary Jazz
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Rune Grammofon

Tracklist:
1.   If I Took Your Hand...
2.   But Sometimes I Am
3.   Can I Hold You For A Minute?
4.   You Liked Me Five Minutes Ago

Credits:
Producer, Written-By – Fire!
Recorded By, Mixed By – Johan Berthling
Recorded By, Recorded By, Mixed By – Andreas
Drums, Percussion – Andreas Werliin
Double Bass, Electric Bass, Electric Guitar, Organ – Johan Berthling
Tenor Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone, Electronics, Electric Piano – Mats Gustafsson

From the aggrieved, visceral tenor sax wailing which harries the first five minutes of this album, you could easily be forgiven for thinking this was another typically idiosyncratic dive into the deep end of out-there improv by Sweden’s Mats Gustafsson. 

After all, the dust has barely settled since the release earlier this year of the power-jazz freak-outs of his other outfit, The Thing, with their album Bag It. But after those initial opening moments, it quickly becomes obvious that unlike the other Gustavsson-led trio, Fire! is an altogether more meditative proposition. 

Gustafsson (saxes, electronics and Fender Rhodes) is joined by Johan Berthling (acoustic and electric basses, guitar, and Hammond organ) and Andreas Werliin (drums and percussion), and whilst Gustafsson’s trademark honk is never far from the surface, it is tempered by settings that are subtle and gently persuasive.  

But Sometimes I Am gradually coalesces around a pulsing Hammond drone, with Werliin delivering one of those sure-footed shuffles which Can’s Jaki Liebezeit used to conjure up. The appearance of vocalist Miriam Wallentin on this track and her Damo Suzuki-like moans and mumbles only strengthens the association with the venerable German avant-rockers. 

The mood on other pieces is just as hypnotic. Can I Hold You for a Minute? positively sizzles with distorted, shimmering keyboards, whose single notes are fuzzed-up to near breaking point. The resulting heat-haze, underpinned by steady bass and rolling drums, provides a mesmeric backdrop for Gustafsson to be anything but careful with his sax. 

There’s no doubting the impressiveness of the outré fireworks which frequently burst across the album. Yet it’s the sense of control and restraint which is perhaps the most striking aspect of Fire!’s methodology. Rather than letting it all hang out, the tension created in keeping things constantly teetering on the cusp makes this a relative white-knuckle ride from start to finish, albeit with more control than The Thing's wild tangents.

Sid Smith  / BBC Reviews

Paul Quinn & The Independent Group ‎– Will I Ever Be Inside Of You (1994)

Style: Indie Rock

Format: CD, Vinyl, Cass.

Label: Marina Records,  Postcard Records

Tracklist:
1.   Will I Ever Be Inside Of You
2.   You Have Been Seen
3.   Lover, That's All Over
4.   Mooreefoc
5.   A Passing Thought
6.   Outré
7.   Misty Blue
8.   Stupid Thing
9.   At The End Of The Night

Credits: Engineer – Kenny Macdonald Mastered By – Duncan Cowall
Producer – Alan Horne, Blair Cowan Performer – Alan Horne, Andy Alston, Blair Cowan, Campbell Owens, James Kirk , Jane Marie O'Brien, Mick Slaven,
Paul Quinn, Skip Reid

Glaswegian ex-Orange Juice" backing vocalist Paul Quinn finally brought his own rich deep tones to the fore on his 1995 debut, Will I Ever be Inside of You, cut alongside a coterie of musicians including fellow Orange Juice-ers Alan Horne and James Kirk. 

Within the framework of the Independent Group, Quinn's so-distinctive voice, which lands somewhere between Bowie, Lloyd Cole" and Scott Walker, spins out in front of what amounts to a series of interesting, but unobtrusive, backing melodies. The opening title track is a dirgy, longing lament loaded with odd electronic bits and pieces, as well as an ethereally brief chorus. "Lover, that's you All Over" meanwhile, is a sparse, guitar twang that vividly repaints some of the alternative post punk's gloomier acoustics. And, while the rest of Will I Ever be Inside of You follows along in the same sort of vein and, while it's also true that Quinn doesn't break any new ground, there are some absolute gems in the set, as "Misty Blue" unravels like some long lost ballad spun through cobwebs, and the closing "At the End of the Night", with its subtly buried rhythm, plays out a somewhat beery, and completely fitting nightcap. 

Often startling, Quinn loads Will I Ever be Inside of You with unexpected dips and twists, keeping the mood fairly somber, but ensuring that anyone taking the chance can't settle in and kick back too easily. Sweet and just slightly sinister, this set can't be ignored -- it's gorgeous fodder for the older doom and gloom set. 

Amy Hanson / AllMusic

Paul Quinn And The Independent Group ‎– The Phantoms & The Archetypes (1992)

Style: Pop, Pop Rock
Format: CD, Vinyl, Cass.
Lavel:

Tracklist:
01.   The Phantoms & The Archetypes
02.   Born On The Wrong Side Of Town
03.   What Can You Do To Me Now?
04.   Should've Known By Now
05.   Punk Rock Hotel
06.   Superstar
07.   Call My Name
08.   The Damage Is Done
09.   Darling I Can't Fight
10.   Hangin' On

Credits:
Bass – Campbell Owens
Drums – Tony Soave
Guitar – James Kirk, Robert Hodgens
Keyboards – Blair Cowan
Producer – Edwyn Collins

VA ‎– Spiritual Jazz Vol.8 Japan: Parts I & II (2018)

Style: Modal, Contemporary Jazz, Avant-garde Jazz, Soul-Jazz
Format: CD, Vinyl
Label: Solid Records, Jazzman

Tracklist:
1-1.   Mitsuaki Kanno - Kumo No Ito
1-2.   Tadao Hayashi - My Favorite Things
1-3.   Minoru Muraoka - Positive & Negative
1-4.   Takeo Moriyama - East Plants
1-5.   Koichi Matsukaze - Under Construction
1-6.   Sadao Watanabe & Charlie Mariano - Ragam Sinthubairavi
1-7.   Shungo Sawada - Footprint
1-8.   New Direction For The Arts - Sun In The East
2-1.   Four Units - Scarborough Fair
2-2.   Tohru Aizawa - Sacrament
2-3.   Keitaro Miho - Kikazaru
2-4.   Tee & Company - Spanish Flower
2-5.   Takeo Moriyama - Watarase
2-6.   Kiyoshi Sugimoto - Babylonia Wind
2-7.   Toshiko Akiyoshi - Kisarazu Zinku
2-8.   Yoshio Ikeda - Whispering Weeds

You wait years for a decent Japanese jazz compilation to arrive and several turn up at once. Stacked with enough lengthy modal jams to warrant two double-LP releases, this latest paean to the long-verdant eastern scene arrives hot on the heels of BBE’s recent superlative overview. 

Compiled by collector and DJ Yusuke Ogawa, it’s less rarity-heavy than its BBE sibling and several tracks will already be well-known to Western jazz fans. Minaro Muraoka’s DJ Shadow-approved Positive And Negative is one such crossover; its melding of Japanese shakuhachi flutes with groovy guitars and break-heavy drums a clever cross-pollination of east and west. 

Recognised names such as Sadao Watanabe (who, in partnership with Charlie Mariano, contributes the shimmering indo-jazz jaunt Ragam Sinthubairavi), alongside a number of Western standards such as Tadao Hayashi’s perky, harp-heavy, Coltrane-indebted My Favourite Things, give the compilation a broad appeal. Japanese jazz often seems to thrive over extended lengths and the sublime modal workouts of Mitsuaki Kanno’s Kumo No Ito, Tee & Company’s Spanish Flower and Kiyoshi Sugimoto’s Babylonia Wind use their elongated track times to successfully flesh out ideas and mine some brilliantly hypnotic grooves.

Paul Bowles / Record Collector