A gem in the dirt rind! A merciless, unforgiving & abrasive masterpiece of sweltering urban decay & anti-establishment dissidence from the bowels of NY (I think it’s the Bronx? they never seem to specify?). Continue reading Assault & Battery – S/T CD
A wonderful piece of Avant-Garde class from 1974. Carla Bley was the Norse arch-bohemian Blanca lookin’ nut-case & composer bad-ass running with a crew of super cool NY envelope-pushers. This is also the first outing on her long-running record label Watt that she co-produced (& I assume founded?) with trumpeter Michael Mantler. Mantler is on this recording as well along with the great Dave Holland on bass, Howard Johnson on tuba & a whole gaggle of loons (seven in total) all enabling a herculean scope of detail & depth. Continue reading Carla Bley – Tropic Appetites 12” LP
So two words to kick the door in with – VITAL & MANDATORY!!! Capitalism & calamity, profit & crisis – are becoming like conjoined twins. War-pollution-incarceration… inflict, sustain, clean-up/eradicate, reaping revenues at every stage. You notice how many of today’s greatest problems/threats/fiascos crawled out of yesterday’s solutions or technological advancements (ISIS/Terrorism, Climate Extermination, Food Insecurity etc’ etc’ etc). Continue reading Disaster Capitalism – Making a killing out of catastrophe (Antony Loenwenstein)
Somehow, despite my huge interest in the topic, I only discovered Joanna Blythman recently. Not unlike fellow peer Felicity Lawrence (who works more on the abuse of workers & modern slavery in large-scale commercial food production), Blythman shares the front-line of food journalism/activism. This is her fifth book on food & deals predominantly with the hidden ingredients & deceptive stealth-feeding from an increasingly abnormal industry. Continue reading Swallow This – Serving up the food industry’s darkest secrets (Joanna Blythman)
“The rise of a major power is made up of thousands of details; like dispatching troops, mining mountains, building trading ports and skyscrapers, and most importantly entering the hearts and minds of the people without anyone noticing.”
This is a book for me that will most definitely be contending for 2016’s best title (I snatched it only this February). In this extraordinary piece, intellectual/observer/moralist/dissident/ analyst/”bad element” Xu Zhiyuan delivers an unprecedented critique & perspicacious reflection on China’s “economic miracle” & the true cost of this disastrous achievement. With remarkable clarity, Xu serves an almost sublime invective, with a grace & composure that almost contradicts the strength of the criticism & quiet outrage that he enacts. Continue reading Paper Tiger – Inside The Real China (Xu Zhiyuan)
And so! Pianist & rollicking bohemian cool-dude Paul Bley drags in the super duo qualities of bassist Dave Holland & drummer/percussionist Barry Altschul to form the Scorpio trio, sliding around the deck in the Avant improvisational district over premeditated skeletons arranged by knock-out Carla Bley & Annette Peacock. Now, to seriously add the rainbow-fluid, magic-dust, cosmic-bollocks to an already exciting proposition – Bley is playing a plump expanse of synthesisers, electric keyboards & what’s either a killer moog or a synthesizer modal that’s damn close to one! Like a bad sweet-tooth, I have a real pash on mad moogs & the idea of them in an unbridled orbit backed up by Holland & Altschul is pretty goose-bump dappling.
A tremendous 1978 hidden (so to speak) recording from enigmatic guitarist, singer & multi-instrumentalist Michael Gregory Jackson & reedist Oliver Lake. Jackson is one of the drollest characters in the, um – Jazz/Avant-Garde arena operating a confusing chameleonic surf between categorically pioneering & highly astute intellectual Jazz innovation, ultra Avant-Garde, JazzFusion, Noise, Improvisation, Pop & R&B. his wildly contrasting history from cutting-edge 70’s New Music vanguard, major stardom, quite obscurity & genre defenestration is a fascinating, rare, unique & as of yet undisclosed (at least fully) page from Jazz history (presuming we can limit the definition to Jazz in this most multifaceted of musicology cases?). Continue reading Michael Gregory Jackson – Karmonic Suite LP
An excellent, highly balanced equilibrium into one of Braxton’s greatest phases. Through the early 70’s he dispensed a slew of brilliant records for Arista, backed frequently by the awesome finesse from rhythm-section Dave Holland & Barry Altschul, also regularly joined Kenny Wheeler on trumpet. Braxton’s phenomenal technique, smouldering soloing capacity & highly intricate, if not hifalutin, compositional directive is superbly relayed through these eight pieces capturing a snap-shot of his many miens. What does that entail exactly? Continue reading Anthony Braxton – The Complete Braxton 1971 DBL LP
This is another of my favourite & most recommended Braxton recordings, scaling a large gamut of his styles from, for me, his greatest period. Bolstered by both George Lewis & Kenny Wheeler, the exceptional double act Barry Altshcul & Dave Holland & on the final splendid piece – The Berlin New Music Group (an Avant-Classical ensemble conducted here by Herr Hummel). Naturally, brilliant performances emerge from everyone, & Braxton himself renders both awesome playing & compositional accomplishment in a toweringly versatile pallet & persona.
Continue reading Anthony Braxton – The Montreux/Berlin concerts DBL LP
A major maverick eruption & ginormous flouting of rules & conventions! Recorded in July 2015, Endogeny & Exogeny, an entirely improvised excursion with all three musicians never having previously played together & recorded in a single day, severely effloresces the Avant-Jazz, Extreme Improvisation & “Cosmic” tilting genre/terrain to new escarpments. From some of the most drastic, frenzied & chaotic turbulence, to hyper baroque & consistently complex nuances & sensitivities, sprawling space-scapes, foreign-planets & supernatural eco-systems, anomalous Continue reading Kikanju Baku (drums), Michael Gregory Jackson (electric guitar/FX/pedals), Joseph Daley (tuba/FX) – Endogeny & Exogamy CD 2016
