One of my favorite bands of all time has returned with their eighth album. Have they changed the formula? Have they reinvented the wheel? Have they altered course for new destinations in uncharted regions? No on all counts. Nothing is different. Their concoction of ambient doom and jazz meets lounge need not change. The adagio / requiem is a perfectly haunting and romantic melancholy to soothe the thinker's soul. With sax, keys, bass and drums so flawlessly executed and painstakingly slow, the patience required to play this music seems an other worldly talent. These German masters win me over yet again. Timeless.
Listen to the full album here or on Spotify below:
This man is a monumental figure in my life. I'm consistently amazed by his artistic output. His films, paintings, animation and even musical compositions have all been enormous influences. Everyone is familiar with his film and television but I'm not sure most are aware the the music in Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks primarily composed by the great Angelo Badalamenti is actually a collaborative effort.
Badalamenti is brilliant but Lynch is quite the musician as well, the mischievous jazz setting for Twin Peaks being his concept. Unbeknownst to the dynamic duo, their tunes would spawn one of my personal favorite subgenres, doom jazz, a form of music that combines the slow tempos, and sense of despair of doom metal with jazz style and sensibility. The music usually conveys an aura of pessimistic introspection, punctuated by dark ambient influences. Championed mostly by Bohren and Der Club of Gore, its also practiced by Mount Fuji Doom Jazz Corporation, Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, Dale Cooper Quartet and the Dictaphones, and many more.
Celebrate the legend's birthday by listening to these great scores below:
The band describe this work as, "approaching an apocalyptic noir narrative," and Night Within, despite its slate visual appeal which recalls the grey paintings of Gerhard Richter, thematically points towards a world occupied by the early postmodern detective stories of Paul Auster and the urban neon dislocation of Taxi Driver with its existential protagonist roaming the city alone late at night."
Heavy words for heavy music. The atmosphere of this record makes me think "jazz for a dark alley". There is a definite lurking menace here, a modern take on noir soundtrack. Reminiscent of the doom jazz artists like Bohren and der Club of Gore and Mount Fuji Doom Jazz Orchestra, LAND wisely forego the Angelo Badalamenti elements. They know how to create tension and build to a near crescendo. This is really intense music with a casual delivery, much like the calm and cool demeanor of a film noir character. My first thought was Alain Delon in a 60's Melville film set in a cold Scandinavian climate.
The two composers are UK musicians Daniel Lea And Matthew Waters. These two assembled quite a cast for this faux soundtrack. Guests include David Sylvian (Japan), Daniel O'Sullivan (Ulver, Guapo, Miasma, Aethenor), Alexander Tucker (everywhere with everyone) and an ensemble of woodwinds, brass, guitar, keys, bass and drums. The album was sculpted in Reykjavik by Ben Frost.
This one will certainly sneak into my End of Year list.
As big a fan as I am of the Chicago Underground albums through the years, I still think this is Rob Mazurek's crowning achievement. He assembled the cream of the crop in Chicago Avant-Garde Jazz musicians into John McIntyre's studio for an unbelievable undertaking, a contemporary big band orchestra. Not one based soley on free improvisation either. These are complicated compositions requiring rehearsals that only a certain brand of disciplined musician could endure.
Here you'll find the enormous, blustering and sometimes furious sounds of Sun Ra Arkestra's "Space is the Place", the tact and grace of John Coltrane's "Africa Brass Sessions" and the elegance of Steve Reich's "Music for Mallets, Organ and Voice".
The narrative here is a regeneration myth included in the liner notes. A star explodes, sending light energy barreling through the cosmos. These wave particles enter the atmosphere of a planet and strike water, which transforms the photons into an elegant sting ray. Human pollution quickly chokes the ray, but like its stellar point of origin, the animal cannot be destroyed once and for all. The sting ray’s ghost ascends into the sky, rockets beyond the stratosphere, bursts in outer space, and ultimately births a new star. Then the entire journey happens in reverse, leading us right back to where we started.
Mazurek wants to heal us with his music. Call him pretentious if you want. I see him as the new and necessary mystic guru of the genre that made me truly fall in love with music. This is a beautiful album that heralds the struggle for the survival of Jazz. And this is the crew that will keep the ship afloat.
The 13th album by Australian improvisational trio The Necks is my favorite of their catalog. Here they changed the formula. Instead of hour long tracks as on their prior outings, they opted for three 20 minute tracks.
The typical modus operandi for this band is to begin simply with a thematic phrase and explore it as deeply as possible over a lengthy period of time. There aren't many obvious changes in this process. However, to the attuned and refined ear, these minute changes will actually feel intense and dramatic over the course of the interminable forms. Their tact, patience and subtlety puts them in the categories of Minimalist compostion and Krautrock.
The improvisations feel completely natural in these lush, heavy and emotional recordings. The Necks provide an outstanding example of artful repetition. Hybridizing elements of the ECM label, 70's Minimal Prog and 80's Serial music layered in a crust of Doom and darkness. Essentially, this band is making Jazz by true definition.
If you're not familiar with Doom Jazz but enjoy the music of Angelo Badalamenti and David Lynch, you're in for a treat. Since 1992 this German quartet has been creating what I refer to as a demonic extension of the music for Twin Peaks. Also present is the influence of Barry Adamson's work on the "Lost Highway" soundtrack. Thanks to Mike Patton for re-issuing this on his Ipecac label in 2004. Its the Bad Angel on Codeine. I love this band.
They describe themselves as "an unholy mixture of slow jazz ballads, Black Sabbath Doom and down-tuned Autopsy sounds".
They've released a handful of albums through the years but "Black Earth" is their finest work. They work with traditional jazz instrumentation (minimal brushwork and sizzle cymbal on the drum kit, subtle upright bass, sparse piano, fender rhodes and breathy haunting saxophone); but eerier than you could imagine is the very creative and ghostly input of the mellotron. I'm also impressed with the way this album is mixed. I like the levels but be careful with your subwoofers when you throw this one on. This truly is Jazz for Doom Metalheads.
