COMPILATION SPECIAL #2!

ok, so here's three more groovy compilation albums, today with a more electic taste. I think we can say that these compilation specials occur when I wake up with a hangover! I need proper focus for a regular review, but these are short and sweet.
Today's involve Daevid Allen, Funkadelic and Miles Davis:

Daevid Allen: The Man From Gong The best Of Daevid Allen

Daevid Allen is widely regarded as a musical genius, and rightfully so. From Soft Machine to Gong to a successful solo career and collaborations with Acid Mothers Temple, Daevid has never stopped experimenting and playing with his own unique world of music. This little CD serves as an excellent introduction to the man, with highlight tracks such as Floatin' Anarchy (with Planet Gong), Why Do We Treat Ourselves Like We Do, and the post-punk excitement of Pearls and Bananareggae, you'll get a glimpse at an eccentric genius from another planet. His discography is vast, and you should all dive in!

Funkadelic: You Got The Funk We Got The Funk

2 CDs of pure Funkadelic, what can go wrong? Featuring trademark tracks One Nation Under A Groove, Electric Spanking Of War Babies and Maggot Brain, you know this disc is for true funksters only. George Clinton propelled Funk into a new territory during funkadelic's early albums in the seventies, and this sampler shows us the more refined P-Funk sound of the second half of that decade, grooves in total control, and an excellent tightness in the playing, whilst still staying true to the mothership. Also included are two instrumental versions of previously mentioned tracks, which are just perfect for sampling or backing tracks for jams. A good introduction to these crazy mothas.

Miles Davis: The Very Best Of Miles Davis The Warner Bros. Sessions 1985 - 1991

It's a widely held (and widely inaccurate) opinion, that Miles Davis' eighties work is cold, clinical and lacks the emotion and skill of his previous work. This is a total fallacy. Here we have a true artist going against the contemporary jazz scene (which became dominated by the 'mouldy figs' such as Wynton Marsalis, during the eighties, and still stays true to this day) and carrying on experimenting. Hip Hop production techniques brought Davis down to a real street level, enigmatic playing brought a new unease to his music, and his rendition of Time After Time turns a good pop song into a truely emotive jazz standard, and one of my favourite recordings of all time. Pure emotion that literally brings me to tears everytime I hear it. Tracks such as Chocolate Chip, Mystery, Amandla and Summertime show how Miles took jazz in new and exciting directions whilst also creating new interpretations of classic standards. A great introduction to a much misunderstood period of a great musician.

So here you go, three good compilation albums which can expand your musical understanding. The Miles Davis disc (the first of his I got) had such a profound influence on me as a young guitarist that I still try to model my playing on his horn blowing. I'd say get em all.

John Barry & Monty Norman - The Best Of Bond

James bond movies have over the years become a British institution, outlasting both the cold war and a-ha! They represent an older time, and are movies filled with misogyny, violence and black/white morality, Bond starting out as an anti-hero in his earlier films, but by Diamonds Are Forever, a total dickhead. But anyways, the films tend to have quite apt music (apart from the previously mentioned film with a diamond orientation), and so this record was a total no-brainer. Filled with music from the first five films, Side A has Dr. No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger, while Side B continues with Goldfinger, then features Thunderball and You Only Live Twice.

Doctor No opens up with the now legendary James Bond Theme, brass band meets surf guitar, it's as catchy as ever, and is a very masculine sound, really suiting the character, especially when it gets louder, and the brass really kicks in jazz style. After it ends, we get Kingston Calypso, a gentle island strumming and percussion, with flute leading us into three blind mice in a pre-reggae style, instantly creating a Caribbean atmosphere. The jazzy guitar solo is nice and smooth, rolling through the ears, and this naive sound works well in the film, playing over an assassination. The track fades out, and we get treated to Under The Mango Tree, a simple island style song, sung by Diana Coupland, Monty Norman's wife at the time. It has the familiar naive island theme, a sweet lyrical about love. It's hard to separate the song from the moment in the film where Ursella Andress comes up from the beach, and why would we want to?

We're now onto From Russia With Love, track one is the catchily titled Opening Titles-James Bond Is Back-From Russia With Love-James Bond Is Back. It opens with a harsh sudden horn blast, taking us into the smooth silky romantic melody of From Russia With Love, the violin plays with our silky ears oh so sweet, and then it melts into the James Bond theme and ends with a sudden flare of horn. The second track from this movie is The Golden Horn,  a gypsy themed track, introducing with a percussion loop that keeps going, and bringing us on with a playful upbeat repeating melody, loosing it's gypsy edge a bit and becoming more traditional, but still keeping the same melody. The next track is simply titled 007, a timpani beat followed by horn and drum, the brass and string kicks in, this is the signiture action scene used in most of the seventies Bond films, a nice hint of menace and adventure and romance in the melody, like a European version of the old wild west themes. We also get a nice call and response bit between the brass and string sections. Bond has the edge, and is on the winning team.

Now we're onto the Goldfinger section, opening up with Golden Girl, a haunting melody which pens up with some creeping bass notes punctuated with brass hits and multi-instrument swells. It's got the really strong sense of danger, and builds the tension up with it's irregular structure, Bond's out of luck for sure. The final track is Oddjob's Pressing Engagement, a reprise of the main Bond Theme, mixed in with the big brassy punch of the Goldfinger theme, which just hits the right note for an action-packed sound, and fades into a nice tense section, before punching back up again. The Goldfinger melody on it's own is really inspired, but how it melts with the Bond theme here is just class, and forms a perfect end to the first side of the record. Bond Back In Action Again kicks off the second side of the record and finishes off the Goldfinger section whilst providing a brilliant way to kick start tthe final half of the album. The Bond theme takes on a more tense edge, as Bond's clearly up to some work here, playing with the main Bond rhythm with some neat brass flourishes and espionage sounds.

Thunderball opens up with... Thunderball! Starting kinda jazzy, it takes us quickly into romantic schmaltz zone, with some not-at-all-subtle strings, the brass further accentuates this, while the background rhythm plays with notions of the Bond theme and the Thunderball theme at time, it is all submerged under the main music and the cocktail lounge piano meandering over the top. This really is jazz-lite and doesn't have the strength or convictions of previous tracks so far, choosing to live in the world of Muzak. Ewwww. The second Thunderball track is Death Of Fiona, a caribbean rhythm and simplistic brass melody take us into the track, unusually upbeat for a deathsong, the percussion gets louder and louder before prettymuch overtaking the main music, then suddenly the track gets violent and we see why it's a death song, harsh stabs at strings and brass and a heavy beat before returning to the bland main melody. Mr. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang is the final Thunderball track, action, menace, loud brass hits, all are here! This combines Bond action music with jazz-lite, as the melody from the previous track makes a return, ruining the tension which was built up during the intro of the track. Later Bond movies would have a more successful jazz (and even funk) element to their background music.

The final movie on the record is You Only Live Twice, starting with Fight At Kobe Dock-Helga, which has some really good menacing sounds, keeping with Bond music tradition, the rhythm takes an influence from sixties beat music, while the main melody keeps with the Bond standards. The track punctuates with brass or string hits. The next track is Mountains And Sunsets, again, kinda tense, with some romantic strings layered over the top, and the main melody appearing. There's this faux-eastern sound to it, due to the film being set in Japan, but with random jazz trumpet, kinda weakens it. It's a schmaltzy track. The album ends with Bond Adverts World War Three, which is a pretty dramatic title! starting with the main You Only Live Twice melody with flourishes of harp and vaguely eastern sounding instruments, this continues the schmaltz before going all sinister, keeping a quiet melody plodding on, before the drama kicks in. The main melody is now sounding more menacing, a fake schmaltz. All in all, it's a soft track to end the record on, but after it ends, we get the Bond theme making a reappearance, the track hasn't ended! the drama kicks in! Bond is running out of luck, and has to fight as the brass hits start up, and the strings are suitably menacing!  The track builds up to a big splash and brings a menacing spacey melody into play, building up the tension, we feel like we're nearing WW3, but then the track ends after the build-up and we're done.

All in all, it's a good listen, I enjoy listening to it when reading. It's by no means a must-have but a proper curiosity, and does deserve a place in your collection.

Procal Harum - A Whiter Shade Of Pale

A Whiter Shade Of Pale (now referred to as AWSOP for lazyness reasons) is one of those songs where, it's hard to appreciate how important it was. It's widely regarded as changing almost everything during the sixties because of it's unique sound and musicality. Kick starting prog rock, and becomming a main inspiration for the UK's style of psychedelic music. It's questionable authorship and claims of plagiarism has been in the news the past few years, (but then, the track's always known to be based on Bach anyways) have kinda sullied it's reputation a bit lately, but it's a cracking tune. Let's check it out!

Side A is quite obviously AWSOP, the sublime organ riff takes us into a dreamlike state, and Brooker's voice comes in with the defining opening line "We skip the lights fandango" and carries on singing throughout. The first verse jumps in with a more sweeping Organ playing, and we get the intro melody as well. There are also guitars and stuff as well in the background, but (rare for a rock group) they let the organ take centre stage and get mixed down a bit. An RnB style Bach track is such a weird thing, especially one about a very poe-faced relationship. The track fades out before letting the instrumentalists get carried away. It is a very enjoyable song, and obviously a very important one, but however, it has not aged as well as some sixties tracks have. It's a problem with being ahead of the crowd, it's so easy to become dated unless you're a genius like Frank Zappa or Dave Brock.

For our second side, Side B if you will, we have Lime Street Blues, a more straightforward sixties rocking track. Bouncy beat and melody, trivial lyrics. It's a great fun track to counterbalance the sombre mood of AWSOP, but it does lack the former track's individualistic spark. The neat instrumental bridges show off the band members' fine musical abilities, and show them as solid players, a nice blues boogie. The organ playing during the chorus is neat in the Strawberry Alarm Clock kinda way. Typical sixties.

So, we get two tracks here, one of pop music's all time classics, and a fun little Rock'n'roll number. I'd say that it's a great 7" single and the two tracks play off each other excellently with their contrasting moods. Opposite faces of a coin indeed. This kinda thing really shows what my generation is missing out on when it comes to what a single is, and can be. They're damn fools. It's a great single!

Sly And The Family Stone - Stand!

This ain't no disco chic, this is when funk got serious, this shit's dangerous. This is Sly And The Family Stone. Stand! was the family Stone's last albums of their 'psychedelic period', before they went into a much harsher, grittier, urban sound, and for a band as influential as Sly And The Family Stone, this album manages to stand tall as a masterwork. This also saw the band fracture, with drugs, ego and personality clashes, as well as their adoption by various black nationalist groups(something Sly didn't like at all) and the sense of hopelessness prevalent in early 70's black culture after a turbulent end to the sixties, Stand! was their last cry for optimism. But, does Stand! stand up as an album worthy of such importance? Let's find out!

A drumroll kicks off the title track, Stand!, a song that picks up a soul groove with an optimistic sound, and an amazing chorus of 'STAND! STAND! OOOOH!'. It's a call to stand up for your life, stand up for what's right. Lyrically, it's straight forward but pretty poetic in it's simplicity, and Sly's singing goes perfectly with his music. The track only gets funkier, branching into P-Funk style (P-Funk was heavily influenced by these dudes) and then fades out into track number two, Don't Call Me Nigger, Whitey. Protesting against the racial discrimination from both sides (Sly And The Family Stone were a massive multi-racial band) over a heavy dirty beat, like Hendrix from the back alleys. There's a badass instrumental break and this dark funky dirty beat just continues, highlighting the band's future direction. The beat allows some psyche weirdness to kick in, an organic liquidic sound, a collage of singing and sounds, before that dirty chorus is reprised. "Don't call me Nigger, Whitey! Don't call me Whitey, Nigger!" I'm sensing something Beefheartian in this track, from Sly's menacing voice, to various elements in the rhythm and the heavy harmonica solo. Abba Zabba. With such an extended instrumental groove, it's in the fucking zone in this nasty way that the likes of James Brown could never achieve. It's dangerous music.

I Want To Take You Higher is a total psychedelic funk-rock track of epic proportions, and was a massive hit. The groove is totally where it's at and the guitar oozes charisma in a way that's Hendrix-y, but also of it's own. To be honest, this song is as pure funk as you'll ever get. Optimistic, hopeful, and damn right where it's at. It shows a band that's so tight and working so well, the drum beat keeps up with such a pace and the duelling male/female vocals carry such character. It's impossible to feel down when listening to this track! Somebody's Watching You is the title of the fourth track, more traditional soul like, a traditional groove with a horn section over the top. It's groovy and a neat quieter downside after the loudness of the previous tracks. It's got a nice instrumental break, but generally doesn't carry it's weight as much as other tracks. It's a good singalong though. The next track asks you to Sing A Simple Song, and a great guitar lick and female vocals kick off another great track, a neat dirty groove, a simplistic chorus carried up by amazing singing, and a wailing funkster. This brings all different elements together from awesome vocal harmonies, Arthur Brown style wailing singing, talking, great dirty vocals and a call and response approach to the verses, over an amazing James Brown beat and groove, and a great funk-meets-ska horn section in the middle eight. It's a very busy song despite it's misleading title, over a repetitive beat. It works great.

Track six is Everyday People, a soul track, with a more subdued Sly Stone, a great piano-driven repeating groove, backing vocals tacking the lead. Sly is far more soulful here yet still manages to carry his usual energy. This is a far more commercial track, again like the title track, calling for a more open and enjoyable society. It's the shortest of the tracks but still great. Guitar and drums lead into Sex Machine, a slow groove draws us in, bringing forward the staple funk staccato guitars. A very organic liquid harmonica plaing through an early vocoder returns once again, creating a surreal atmosphere. This is an extended jam over a great beat leading to such a funky guitar solo, more groovier than Hendrix could reach, similar to that of Eddie hazel from Funkadelic. I am a massive massive fan of jam tracks, so this just works fantastically for me, a nice walking beat, a funk solo what's not to like? It's so easy to see why Miles Davis took this as his inspiration for his jaw-droppingly amazing Tribute to Jack Johnson and On The Corner albums. Needless to say, this one track seems to resonate so much amongst prettymuch every instrumental funk-influenced track made afterwards, even European bands such as Can and Brainticket. Sly's bizarre sound kicks back in over the amazing guitar and then the bass takes over as the lead, something quite rare, and then a heavily distorted guitar powers and screams through the music a great dirty sound, before returning to the main rythm now accompanied with a saxaphone solo and a heavier drum beat/solo that just rolls along amazingly, almost tribal, slowing down train-like. This track lets every player shine. Aparently the band where making fun of each other during the recording, resulting in them ending the track with laughter. It's great when a band has fun while playing. The album finishes with You Can Make It If You Try, returning to the album's starting style of upbeat optimistic P-Funk-esque funk. Interlocking vocals, ace instrumentation and a great fun playfulness of the melodies. This is a fun track indeed. Again it's hard to feel down when this great groove is playing. It goes into an instrumental break carrying on with the groove, and letting the soul-chorus singers get the feeling going. The album fades to silence. Ended with some backwards speaking.

Stand! truely is an album that not only lives up to it's reputation, but totally surpasses it, as a landmark of popular music and easily one of the must have albums of all time. I love funk, and I love jams, so this just makes me so happy. The group's later sounds became dirtier and minimalist compared to this orgasmic display of sheer over-the-top creativity, but are still great. You really do have to buy this album at the earliest opportunity!

Mort Garson - Electronic Hair Pieces

Mort Garson is perhaps one of the most influencial unknowns in twentieth century music, his experimental electronic music, made in the sixties, was lightyears beyond what anybody else could dream of. With a string of albums such as the Wozard Of Iz, Signs Of The Zodiac and Black mass, Garson created space age worlds of never before heard sounds. Proper electronic music, proper surreal worlds. This album is a take on the infamous musical, Hair, rendered in an amazingly futuristic and yet somewhat haunting way by Garson's genius. (NOTE: I have not seen the musical, so imagery I use to describe is inspired solely by the music on this record)

A springy aquatic rythm brings us into the first track, Aquarious, verses out of tune and violin like until the chorus plonks in, recognisable and layered of electronic sounds. The music keeps it sounding wet, dripping and the chorus has this kkinda epic majesty to it. It's amazingly done with all analogue electronics. No singing here, just pure space age music. Track two is Frank Mills, a gentle walking kinda music, echoed chords replace soft guitar strums, and a plonky keyboard forms the main melody, resembling an old Sega Master System game's music. It's very sweet and very short. We then get into Be In (Hare Krishna) via a pulsating rythm and a harsh sounding electronic lead, a distorted keyboard. The music pulsates further with percussion taking in, it all loops around the central melody with extra pianos to give texture, then suddenly it gets loud. Violent and fun, the synthyness comes up, the pulsating rythm becomes stronger, and the lead becomes more frivolous and we get treated to some fun pre-Hawkwind spacey wooshes. It's sounding very much like BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, I guess because of the same gear being used. The famous song Good Morning Starshine enters witha Super mario brothers style bassline, a space age keyboard souond plays us the melody, extra texture comes in and we hear the famous 'moog cat' sound. This track keeps a good pace and is nice and gentle after the psychedelic trip of the previous number. Garson manages to bring a nice optimistic sound to what could be harsh electronics a-la Kraftwerk, but this is the polar opposite.  Side 1 ends with Three-Five-Zero-Zero, starting with harsh electronics and wooshes in a very very Radiophonic style, we then get a lovely plonky rythm and beat comming along, and a melody which sounds like it's played flat, but could just be the patch used for it. It's haunting indeed, contrasting the previous song. At moments it's melancholic, at others it marches along. Harsh sounds and whooshes take over ontop of the beat, creating a total headfuck. Kinda an ideal end for the first half of a truely unique trip.

Side two begins with a menacing rythm, punctuated by drowning arps and then the melody comes in in a rather weak whispy noise, background arpeggios come in and more textures make the sound thicker. The track melds into Land Of The Free, and it returns to the normal track. this is the famous song, Hair, but turned into a haunting futuristic world. Bleak and cynical. Track two, Easy To Be Heard, begines more lighthearted and exploratory, it has a sense of wonder and yearning adventure. A playful moog sound for the melody that stretches out to find itself, and is really enjoyable. A flute-like sound comes in, adding more to this adventerous sound, we're walking through woodlands or forests or across landscapes, hills and valleys. Track three askes the question, Where Do I Go? in a wonderful spacey playful tune, it sounds like it's kinda cold and isolated yet warm at the same time, it is very curious, the music reflects the puzzling question in it's title. It's a kinda meandering melody, but seems to stay rather safe, but some nice jazz hooks at points do keep it fresh. Yes, jazz hooks in electronica. The track fades out and we are left with just two more numbers, first is Walking In Space, A majestic WHOOSH followed by a pinky melody become the motif of this ditty. It then bounces and layers on reverbed and echoed sounds, a proper space age feel, before becomming a kinda jazzy number with a decent bassline, space jazz, but not in the Sun Ra variety. Whooshes again return to remind us we are in space, and the rythm changes once again, upbeat and active. Fun and playful. The album finishes off with Let the Sunshine In (The Flesh Failures), starting with a nice beat and some slamming playing just with incredible weight behind the echoed notes. It sounds truely menacing and archaic at the same time, the gentler melody is haunting and melancholic, also almost detuned. Even the playful sections are ghostly. The beat becomes even more aquatic as the track continues, and the whole number fades away.

this album is still such a new and exciting sound, creating a full range of emotions and space age noises with electronic instruments. Mort Garson takes the hair music, and creates his oqen world with it, old hippy ideals become cynical and isolated in a futuristic soundscape. Garson was a true master of layering electronic sounds to create impossible music, and was lightyears ahead of his contemporaries in the field of electronica. This album truely deserves to belong in every home, a real MUST HAVE.

Brooom!

The Turtles - She'd Rather Be With Me

 
The Turtles were a popular 60's band, playing your popular 60's music in popular 60's venues for popular 60's boys and girls. They were also quite good, with songs including Elanore, and more famously, Happy Together. The singers, Mark Voleman and Howard Kaylan would achieve comic fame as Flo & Eddie, the comical music duo. However this was after their stint in Frank Zappa's Mothers Of Invention.

She'd Rather Be With Me is a classic sixties pop tune, lyrics about love, a swinging beat, vocal harmonies, it's got it all. Where The turtles excell is by bringing in a variety of instruments at once, letting the song build up and simply enjoy itself. The beat really holds the track in place, it's almost Motorik, while the organ tinges it with a lovely sunshine flower-power sound. The bridge itself is an excellent harmony where the track really comes together, allowing it to end after repeating the chorus. A typical song, a typical structure, but hey, it's fun!

The Walking Song is more 'psychedelic' pop, combining about 4 styles of pop into one, in a way not dissimilar to The Small Faces. From Pop to pub sing-along to Beach Boys style harmonies, with slight tinges of The Mothers hidden in cracks beneath the surface. The playful nature of this song keeps it as an interesting listen, and I'd say, get it. I picked this 7" up for 99p off eBay, however it doesn't seem to be on there often, so keep your eyes peeled!