What Is This Thing Called Disco? Asphixiation Chapter Music Melbourne, Australian provocateur Philip Brophy, best known for his work with → ↑ → (pronounced with three clicks of the tongue), whose decade-long investigation into the aesthetics of punk and electronic and dance music began in the late 1970s. Created a fake disco band, Asphixiation, that played at Melbourne University’s George Paton Gallery in July of 1980. The ensuing exhibition presented paintings lifted from Italian Vogue, single instruments displayed on plinths, tape loops playing minimalist ambient sounds, and a synthesizer pulsing a loud thump throughout the space. “What Is This Thing Called…
Author: John-Paul Shiver
John-Paul Shiver
Music Journalist who likes more songs about buildings and food. Contributing writer for several publications. Genre is a state of mind that I don't reside in.
Morningside Fazerdaze Flying Nun Records You would not be too misled in assuming Morningside, the début full length release by New Zealand’s Amelia Murray aka Fazerdaze, could be a lost soundtrack to a shelved Sofia Coppola film. The ten song record reads like an interior dialogue that’s bashful in one moment, overtly impudent in the next. From the humble acoustic beginnings of “Last To Sleep” to the melodic “bird-chirpy” last stop that is “Bedroom Talk,” the terrain engenders all the trappings of conflicting brilliance. Opting for smart over sappy hooks and observational commentary instead of cavil lyrical content. A great deal of the selections on the offering…
Mulatu of Ethiopia Mulatu Astatke Strut Records Mulatu Astatke’s Mulatu Of Ethiopia from 1972 is a seminal moment in music. THIS certain type of jazz, a version only found in fleeting moments on blaxploitation film soundtracks…. more funk and groove driven than typical American jazz riffing off Eurocentric classical music constructs. As stated in the liner notes, Mulatu Astake, took the ancient five-tone scales of Asia and Africa and joined them into something unique and exciting – a mixture of three cultures, Ethiopian, Puerto Rican, and American. Astatke moved from the UK to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music where he studied “the technical aspects of jazz”. But he would journey regularly to…
When Melina Duterte, aka Jay Som, performs Saturday April 22 at The Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco, it will be the last show on what has been a blitzkrieg 24 date tour spread out just over a month. Her latest release, Everybody Works, has received high praise from the influencer millennial sect and more traditional music publications. Duterte’s reserved vocal positioning, scattered among the versatile genre-verse that she chooses to peruse…dream-pop, shoegaze, acoustic-folk and slinky r&b leanings…makes Everybody Works a ten song traverse that casts a mature shadow far beyond her 22 years. The overall conviction in her lyrics of acknowledging how to figure out the everyday musings that make all…
Fusion Swing Elusive Aaron Koslow Alpha Pup Records The aptly titled Fusion Swing is the second release from Aaron Koslow on Alpha Pup Records. It’s a meditative…deep dive into the many pathways that experimental hip-hop/electronic music and avant-garde/free jazz from the early 1970’s link up and merge in a very organic fashion. Koslow, who performs and records under the moniker Elusive, documents this concept….a combination used previously by the likes of 4-Hero and Dj Krush, by updating the sonics to work within the present-day cross-pollinating underground hip-hop idiom. The release has received praise from LA vocalist Jimetta Rose and the…
Triumph Ronald Bruner Jr. World Galaxy Records/Alpha Pup Records In the hands of inferior talent or unseasoned musical chops, the prospect of constructing an eleven track “début” release that encompasses seriously deep jazz-fusion, “progressive soul,” R&B, and pop…well it could have some structural issues. Just for starters. Ronald Bruner Jr, who at a very young age participated in jam sessions with Stanley Clarke, George Duke, Kenny Garrett, and Wayne Shorter, showcases his precise comprehension of the aforementioned genres by delivering all the complex sides to his musical being on Triumph. It’s a welcoming multi-hybrid jazz fusion record, that remains unapologetic for…
Damaged Bug Bunker Funk Castle Face Records Anyone expecting John Dwyer, lead singer of Thee Oh Sees and label head of Castle Face Records, to roll out some type of linear A+B=C experience for Bunker Funk, the third installment from his ever evolving, mostly solo, side project Damaged Bug, please exit through the rear doors of his spaceship, where compensation comes with orange slices, handshakes, and Purell. Not being trite or redundant, but Bunker Funk IS… a bug out. Like the previous solo projects, the guitars are mostly swapped out for proggy synths, making room for Kraut rock jam sessions…
Thundercat Drunk Brainfeeder Records It’s the self-deprecating, self-aware mockery of his behavior and his generation at large that allows Thundercat, the bass playing virtuoso with a sometime potty mind and snarky humor, the latitude to be creatively weird and so much more compelling as an artist. Who is constantly pushing the middle of contemporary music… all the way left. He is one of the most sought after musicians, composers, and songwriters of his generation. Just revisit Kendrick Lamar’s “To Pimp A Butterfly” and “Untitled Unmastered,” if you need to ask why. In an alternative universe, Stephen Bruner aka Thundercat could…
The immeasurable number of influences that swirl within the prodigious nebula that is Once & Future Band, released last month on Castle Face Records, provide an entry point to the auditory excursion this four-piece band has fostered in seven unmistakable songs. Run the release from tip to tail. Non-stop. And look. Those crystals on the front cover? NOT a mistake. “How Does It Make You Make You Feel,” the lead single, could be the product of a bright, pop edict constructed by Todd Rundgren after getting his studio “hands” on The Beach Boys. The imposing keyboard work by Joel Robinow,…
Andy Suzuki and Kozza Olatunji-Babumba met while they both were attending Brown University. In the ten years they have spent making music together in New York, they have been quite liberal with their influences…folk, hip-hop, pop, R&B, and soul. That practice has led them to constructing “The Glass Hour,” an invigorating and fluid Juny Mag produced release. It showcases what the group describes as a “future-pop” aesthetic. Mag has worked with the group in the past, in addition to playing keyboards for Beyonce, Queen Latifah, and Kelly Rowland. Suzuki, who is half-Jewish, half-Japanese, not only comes from a diverse a…
French experimental pop band Aquaserge features members of Tame Impala, Stereolab, Acid Mothers Temple, and Melody’s Echo Chamber, all of whom draw influence from psych pop, free jazz, noise, kraut, afro beat, tango, funk, waltz, samba, and Italian film music. On Laisse ça être, the band produces stringent audio constructs that pogo between minimal, experimental and surreal. While the cinematic expansiveness of what used to be Stereolab lurks in oblique corners, Aquaserge hangs their creative hat heavily on the surrealists and Canterbury scene. We recently had the pleasure to talk with Audrey Ginestet, bass player from the band, about Aquaserge.…
“Future is Now” is a memorable and rousing single from the forthcoming album Tiny Mirrors, a sophomore release from the San Francisco based band, The New Up. Amidst a hazy yet uplifting shoegazer type soundscape that includes expansive vocals and anthemic melodies, the lyrics hint at the cautionary parameters that come with attaining a perceived want or goal. So while the sound of the song comes off as a lush auditory hug, the lyrics work in juxtaposition giving the listener a stoic pat on the back and off you go. The song, which has been featured on Aaron Axelson’s Soundcheck…
Funkadelic Live – Meadowbrook, Rochester, Michigan – 12th September 1971 Funkadelic Tidal Waves Music Whenever someone tries to tell you that Funkadelic is not relevant today…you should point said doubter to the artistic sensibilities of ThunderCat, Flying Lotus, and more recently, Childish Gambino. And then give the directive, “pound sand.” Funkadelic, the brain child of George Clinton, was the wildest concoction of a punk DIY ethos and rebel attitude that an all-black rock band had ever showcased in 1971. And possibly still today. While they kindly borrowed from the blues, funk (“the blues sped up” according to Clinton), psychedelic rock,…
Oops! Here I Go Again / Edna Wright Season For Love / Willie Hutch Soul Portrait / Willie Hutch Be With Records Oops! Here I Go Again, originally released in 1977 on RCA, is not just the buck the trend, vocal funk release in a disco age… It’s an adult soul album with mature leaning arrangements. Edna Wright, sister of Darlene Love, released the unorthodox yet streamlined modern soul classic during a period in which pop and rock and roll music carried on a cash only, fetishization period with disco. Think Burt Bacharach meets Barry White during his harpsichord heyday.…
One can only assume the fiercely independent soul/funk/gospel label, Daptone Records, would have no problem bringing their no frills, just focus on the music approach, to rock & roll. Their dedication to superior talent, not flighty trends, is reflected by the core roster of artists which includes Charles Bradley, The Budos Band, and Sharon Jones and The Dap-Kings. Wick, the recently formed subsidiary label from Daptone, continues with that ethos of just releasing honest music that drips with integrity. Not tricks. With resplendent current releases from The Mystery Lights and The Ar-Kaics, Wick has began their own legacy with a…
Masculin Féminin Blonde Redhead The Numero Group In 1995 Blonde Redhead recorded their first two albums, Blonde Redhead and La Mia Via Violenta, for Steve Shelly’s Smells Like Records. This New York band arrived five years after the jam band era and six years prior to the upstart rock and roll revival. Masculin Féminin , released this fall by The Numero Group is a 37 track, 4LP / 2CD set, equipped with singles, demos, radio performances, and dozens of previously unpublished photographs focusing on the bands formative years. At times, Masculin Féminin can be this noisy, cantank- erous, avant-garde document just looking…
The Olympians Daptone Records It is safe to say that when Neil Sugarman and Gabriel Roth started Daptone Records in 2001, the economic and artistic environment dedicated to releasing new soul-based music in analog production form was pretty much non-existent. Back to Black, by Amy Winehouse, introduced the masses to the Daptone technique. Winehouse hired Sharon Jones’ backing band, the Dap-Kings, to accompany her in the studio. That release, which sold over 12 million copies worldwide, turned ten years old last week. Yet it was the 12-inch single, “Che Che Cole Makossa” by Antibalas, released on Daptone in June 2003,…
It’s Immaterial Black Marble Ghostly International According to Chris Stewart in a recent interview with Observer.com, his early attempts at writing music on his laptop using Garageband resulted in his friends complimenting him on the songs. But not the sounds at his digital disposal. According to his friends, they were “kinda shitty.” Stewart, aka Black Marble, began acquiring old synths that would replace the sub-par synthesizer patch he was using and created a bevy of songs that featured real synthesizers. It’s Immaterial by Black Marble, released last week on Ghostly International, is an eleven-song dive into synth-pop discovery. The song…
Brunei Vinyl Williams Company Records If you gaze closely at the cover art for Brunei, you will notice the impression of a worn LP cover. That’s right. Amidst the roads circling the’heady” pyramids you see the manufactured indentations of a record beneath. Giving the impression that actual vinyl has worn its spherical imprint into the sleeve. Giving way to the assumption, this record has been played repeatedly. Joyously. In full 11 song, uninterrupted sequence. Lionel”Vinyl” Williams, grandson of film composer John Williams, could load a U-Haul truck full of labels that fans, critics and inconsistent listeners have come up with to describe…
Nigeria Soul Fever-Afro Funk, Disco and Boogie West African Disco Mayhem! Various Artists Soul Jazz Records There is a simplistic joy and reverence in Christy Essien’s 1979 song “You Can’t Change a Man.” Originally released on the Decca label in West Africa, the minimal lo-fi audio goodness is coupled with Essien’s conviction of message about the unfair components of a relationship that may or may not be working. Her memorandum and auditory delivery system must be identified as the precursor and spirit animal to seminal disco-boogie classics “Gimme Your Love” by Sylvia Stripland from 1981 and “I Want To Thank…