Andrew Hill - Compulsion

The second date where Gilmore played with Hill is this record. Compulsion and Andrew!!! are very different records. While Andrew!!! was a demanding exercise in complex modal jazz Compulsion brings in more of an "afro" influence to the table.

The afro influence is brought into the record via two specialized drummers who played various percussive instruments coupled with Joe Chambers who accompanied them with good old regular drum set. Those two components were the main building blocks on which the rest of the album was made. The compositions are long and varied, most of them being around ten minutes. The interesting part is that Andrew tried to use his piano more as a percussive instrument rather than a regular piano and the results vary in success. Sometimes it sounds great but at times it can also sound like he's just bashing stuff in. But probably the main stars on the album are Freddie Hubbard and Gilmore of course. They both get a lot of space and time to improvise and correlate their instruments during these long passages of drumming..

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Molly Rankin ‎- She EP

Molly Rankin is the vocalist of a new-ish Canadian band called Alvvays. They released their first album back in 2014 and it was pretty neat. Musically it was laid back dream pop drenched in delay and reverb. Before all that conundrum Rankin did this little EP back in 2010.

Compared to aforementioned Alvvays it's vastly different in style. She EP is a blend of cutesy folk backed by rock instrumentation and sometimes strings arrangements as well. Rankin's voice, much like her melodies, are also cutesy and happy. Although she usually sings about being broken hearted everything is happy and upbeat. It's a short but very sweet trip and the last song is unbelievably catchy so the whole thing is worth checking out just because of that last song.

Get it.

Andrew Hill - Andrew!!!

Speaking of adventures beyond Sun Ra here's another album that Gilmore was on. Andrew Hill is definitely one of my favorite jazz pianists. His playing is interesting because it sounds so cold and structured as if some alien machine is playing it. The cover art and the album titles tries really hard to convey a different picture which is kinda weird but I kinda get it. Generally he's not very accessible because of his playing so naturally the label will try to lull people into his music. But you can't be lulled into it. It's just too damn weird and good for that at this point. Later on he did some more accessible stuff like Grass Roots and some of his big band stuff but on here it's hard and serious jazz. Bobby Hutcherson on the vibraphone steals most of the show though. The sound of his instrument demands attention and gives very little room for anything else in the back so at times it's kinda hard to focus on what everyone is doing because of it. This makes Gilmore on this record not that very apparent but when he does get a moment to shine he shines greatly. Once you're accustomed to what Andrew does with his compositions this album gets exponentially more fun to listen.

Overall it's a fantastic record but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't more experienced with jazz.

Get it.

Cliff Jordan & John Gilmore - Blowing in From Chicago

This joint album from Jordan and Gilmore is interesting on several levels. The Arkestra of Sun Ra featured a lot of members throughout its fruitful years but John Gilmore and Marshall Allen are two names that you will, without exception, always hear when someone is discussing members of the Arkestra. Gilmore was a very promising and interesting saxophonist but he recorded almost exclusively with Sun Ra which makes this album intriguing just to hear how Gilmore sounds without Sun Ra. He is joined by Clifford Jordan, a saxophonist probably best known for working with Charles Mingus on several records. To me on those Mingus records Clifford often sounded like a  counterweight in the sextet to Eric Dolphy. While Dolphy would of often provide incredibly weird, abstract solos and instruments Clifford would counteract with a more conventional, Coltrane-like style of improvising more grounded in reality. Later on his admiration for Coltrane manifested even more with a couple of spiritual jazz records like Glass Beads.

On the album the two saxophonists are accompanied by Horace Silver and Art Blakey who are arguably one of the most known men in the hard-bop pantheon of giants. The only unknown here is Curly Russell of whom I know very little and can comment even less. In general on this record the focus is on the two leads and their interactions with the tunes. It's like you're at a cutting contest.

Oh and a interesting side note that I'd like to mention: There's a peculiar rumor mainly circulated among Sun Ra fans which implies that Coltrane was very much inspired by John Gilmore. In fact the rumor states that Coltrane had an epiphany after hearing Gilmore play. This was never confirmed fully  but who knows, maybe there is something to it. Whatever the case may be this album lets you take a peek at Gilmore's own talent without being overshadowed by Sun Ra and his special brand of jazz. In any case you can read about the whole Coltrane-Gilmore thing here.

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Grouper - Alien Observer

If I had to choose my favorite song of all times it would most likely end up being Planet Caravan. A lot of things that I adore and seek are in that song. Yes, it's a flimsy song that was created by accident in the studio but I still immensely enjoy it every time I hear it. Ever since I fell in love with that song I've been looking for a band or other some other song that sounds like it. My search proved to be somewhat fruitful over the years. Black Sabbath themselves rarely made anything remotely similar (Solitude comes to mind) and other bands in that vein didn't fare any better as well. Other genres did come relatively close to what I was searching though.

Grouper as whole is the closest to that Planet Caravan feeling so far. This album in particular. The last song if we're being absolutely particular.

In case you have no idea who Grouper is and what kind of music it is let me indulge you. It's a mix of drone and folk. The vocals are mainly composed out of silent humming of barely understandable words. I love it. It's a very particular and well executed atmosphere that hangs on a thin balance of annoying and soothing. Songs are very simple but effective in their intent. There's not a lot of instrumentation here, from what I could discern it's just her voice and a delay ridden guitar. With such a minimal set Grouper manages to do a lot of things, making each song feel unique. Some are more happy, some are sad but they all have this underlying feeling of melancholia, of foggy mornings etc. Lovely stuff in general. I'm pretty sure this artist isn't very rare or unknown but I'm sharing this mostly out of sentimental reasons.

Get it.

Taeko Ohnuki - Mignonne

For the first album of the year here's a heavy dose of jpop cheese coming straight out of the 70s. I'm always infatuated with this sort of tasteless pop from Japan. Mostly because it reminds me of 80s and 90s anime from my childhood. All of the tracks on this album could be an opening or a closing for some garbage 3 episode OVA.

Taeko actually has a very decent voice even though there are several layers of reverb on everything. I hate reverb but I think here it brings that special fuzzy atmosphere. Apart from her voice everything else is the same "city pop" fare that's on every album of this kind. There's even a track with a over the top alto saxophone solo. Choirs in English as well. Piano ballads too!

Wallow in it.

End of the year!

Hello and welcome to the end of the world year!

I don't have anything particular to say this year other than it has been interesting, frustrating and I'm always tired. I also have a suspicion that the next one might be the same.

Have fun in the next one everyone!

Oh and here's a list of 2015 albums that I enjoyed. They're not a "best of" list, it's just albums that I liked from 2015 divided into two categories.

Metal:
A Diadem of Dead Stars - The Mist Bearer pt. II
Abhorrent - Intransigence
Acherontas - Ma-IoN (Formulas Of Reptilian Unification)
Acherontas & Horna - Atavistic Resurgence
Acid King - Middle of Nowhere, Center of Everywhere
Ad Nauseam - Nihil Quam Vacuitas Ordinatum Est
Akhlys - The Dreaming I
Alda - Passage
Awe - Providentia
Barshasketh - Ophidian Henosis
Batushka - Litourgiya
Blaze of Perdition - Near Death Revelations
Blood Incantation - Interdimensional Extinction
BORIS+ENDON - Eros
Clandestine Blaze - New Golgotha Rising
Cruciamentum - Charnel Passages
Crypt Sermon - Out Of The Garden
Der Weg Einer Freiheit - Stellar
Desolate Shrine - Heart of the Netherworld
Devouring Star - Through Lung And Heart
Djevel - Saa Raa og Kald
Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega
Drudkh - A Furrow Cut Short
Egypt - Endless Flight
Elder - Lore
Gorod - A Maze of Recycled Creeds
Gruesome - Savage Land
Havukruunu - Havulinnaan
Helrunar - Niederkunfft
High on Fire - Luminiferous
Horna - Hengen Tulet
Horrendous - Anareta
Imperial Triumphant - Abyssal Gods
Irreversible Mechanism - Infinite Fields
Kampfar - Profan
Katavasia - Sacrilegious Testament
Khors - Night Falls Onto The Fronts Of Ours
Krallice - Ygg Huur
Kronos - Arisen New Era
Lord Dying - Poisoned Altars
Lunar Mantra - Genesis
Melechesh - Enki
Mgła - Exercises in futility
Misþyrming - Söngvar elds og óreiðu
Monolord - Vænir
Nécropole - Ostara
NettleCarrier - Black Coffin Rites
Nile - What Should Not Be Unearthed
Outre - Ghost Chants
Prion - Uncertain Process
Revenge - Behold.Total.Rejection
Sanguine Relic - Sanguine Relic
Satan - Atom by Atom
Scythian - Hubris In Excelsis
Serpents Lair - Circumambulating the Stillborn
Skaur - Farvel
Slugdge - Dim and Slimeridden Kingdoms
Spectral Lore - Gnosis
Steelwing - Reset, Reboot, Redeem
Sulphur Aeon - Gateway To The Antisphere
Thulcandra - Ascension Lost
Tsjuder - Antiliv
Veiled - Omniscient Veil
VI - De Praestigiis Angelorum
Zaum & Shooting Guns - Himalaya To Mesopotamia
ZQKMGDZ (10.000 km² gegen die Zeit) - Dimension Plasma

Other:
Antigama - The Insolent
Atomic - Lucidity
Avishai Cohen - From Darkness
Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba - Ba Power
Beach House - Depression Cherry / Thank You Lucky Stars
Chris Lightcap's Bigmouth - Epicenter
Chris Potter - Imaginary Cities
Colin Stetson And Sarah Neufeld - Never Were The Way She Was
Gnaw Their Tongues / Dragged into Sunlight - NV
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress'
Hop Along - Painted Shut
Jack DeJohnette - Made in Chicago
Joey Bada$$ - B4.DA.$$
John Scofield - Past Present
Kamasi Washington - The Epic
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Knxwledge - Hud Dreems
Komara - Komara
Marika Hackman - We Slept At Last
Mathias Eick - Midwest
Napalm Death - Apex Predator - Easy Meat
Otori - I Wanna Be Your Noise
Rudresh Mahanthappa - Bird Calls
Shlohmo - Dark Red
The Breathing Effect - Mars Is a Very Bad Place for Love
Tim Berne's Snakeoil - You've Been Watching Me
Vijay Iyer - Break Stuff
Yo La Tengo - Stuff Like That There

Desolate Shrine - The Sanctum of Human Darkness

In the last few years (or maybe it has been a decade already) a certain kind of sound started to take hold in death metal. It's the sound that comes out of deep caverns where cambrian fossils play guitars that sound like a swarm of flies mixed with clacking of septic tank hatch doors. Also known as Incantation worship or New York death metal in general or just new old school death metal. There are a lot of bands that do this sort of thing now and a lot of them sound the same. I find them to  be really fun to listen but they can get stale after a while. I've been loving most of these bands but in a very biased way because I like the sound of it. I don't really care if it's the same thing all over again with each new band that I stumble upon next.

Desolate Shrine is one of those new bands that incorporated this sound or style into their music. It's a relatively new band from Finland that released their debut in 2011 called Tenebrous Towers. Tenebrous Towers was a good album but it felt like they were just flexing their muscles with it and warming up. You know, just to prove they can do this sort of music. A year later they released The Sanctum of Human Darkness and everything sank into place. The music finally took its desired form and the band blossomed in full.

The album feels conceptual but that might be just my interpretation. Keeping up with the Satanic theme of the album the music is fittingly bleak, eerie and filled with malice. The riffs are not "fun" nor energetic. Each song is a slow, distorted pummeling of your senses with incredibly deep guitar tone and overall production. They do change the pace every now and then, speeding things up and those parts are especially great. The pacing is done well on most of the songs so when the fast parts kick in they feel really tight and rewarding to listen. The album does suffer at times, some songs feel like they're just a collection of unconnected riffs and such but for the most part it's really good. They did improve on that in the next album which came out this year although they both sound very similar.

Overall it's a great death metal album mixed with some doom as well so if you're into this sort of sound I'd suggest checking it out but if you're not into this cavernous stuff you'll be bored to tears.

Get.

Tacoma Radar ‎- No One Waved Goodbye

Tacoma Radar are a relatively unknown band from Scotland that was apparently around for a long time but their recorded output is not very immense. They have this album, a pair of EPs and that's it. Their album came and went in 2004 and not much else happened after.

So why are they unnoticed? Well for starters the music they do is very confined in their genre of choice. It feels like a lost relic from the lovely, lo-fi and fuzzy days of indie records. I like it at least for what it is. It's very laid back, carefree and melancholic at the same time. It's one of those albums that get played when it's autumn and you're somewhere warm and it's raining outside. A perfect little mix of cozy and sad that makes you cuddle up in bed and read stuff. The female vocals only drives the atmosphere even more. They're less about expressive singing and more about just laid back humming.

It's samey but it's a lovely little homage to days gone by.

Sink in.

Hrid - Synjemorian Serpent Race

Probably the most annoying thing about music is when a band just disappears. This is the case with the band Hrid, they did two demos and then vanished into the void.

They were (or still are but inactive) a black metal band from Croatia. I can't remember where I got this demo but I've recently decided to give it a listen and I was very positively surprised at how good it is. Sure it's nothing spectacular or ground breaking but it's damn fine black metal. Despite it being just a very short demo the songs are very fleshed out with riffs and good drumming. There's really nothing to complain about it aside from its short length. Even the production is good considering that it's a lo-fi demo. All instruments are audible and dirty enough so that they can pack a punch and not sound monotonous or sterile.

It's a great demo and you should give it a try if you're into black metal. It's a shame bands like this get so little recognition around these parts of the world.

Get.