MUSIC

Vertigo is album number 18 for Australian jazz trio, The Necks. They like to take a simple idea and allow it to develop organically through improvisation. They don’t know where they’re going when they set off but they always seem to get there. Their music is very human, it allows room for space, it’s ambiguous allowing the listener to interpret it in their own way.

Originally released on Prestige in 1957, this is the third LP from NYC street performer and avant-garde/minimalist composer Moondog. Perhaps the least accessible of his early releases, this album is made up of percussive jams, usually on instruments of his own creation, street sounds, poetry, and Far East melodies, despite opening with a swinging number that is, oddly, the most bizarre thing on the album. Another classic from Moondog reissued with its original Andy Warhol artwork. Limited edition of 1,000 on purple and green starburst vinyl.

The Miles Davis Septet alive in Tokyo with stunning rendition of such fabulous pop hits by Michael Jackson (Human Nature) and Cindy Lauper (Time After Time). Miles Davis (trumpet), Bob Berg (soprano sax, tenor sax), Robert Irving III (keyboards), John Scofield (electric guitar), Darryl Jones (electric bass), Vincent Wilburn, Jr. (drums), Steve Thornton (percussion)

Side A
One Phone Call - Street Scenes
Star People
Human Nature
Code M.D.

Side B
Time After Time
Ms. Morrisine
Katia

Soul singer Barbara Massey and jazz guitarist Ernie Calabria paired up for this rare 1971 album. With Calabria having worked with Nina Simone and Harry Belafonte, among others, and Massey having sung backup for artists including Jimi Hendrix, Cat Stevens, and Herbie Hancock, the pairing was an inspired one and resulted in this superb soul-jazz outing. Massey has a dry yet passionate and evocative vocal quality that often brings to mind Grace Slick. Fittingly, the duo takes on Jefferson Airplane's "Somebody to Love," turning the Summer of Love anthem into a steamy and hypnotic soul-funk jam. Elsewhere, the duo touches upon such varying styles as folk, Latin, and psychedelic rock with cuts like "For You" and "Do You Know?," bringing to mind such similarly inclined acts as the Free Design and Bill Withers. Anyone who has even a passing interest in this kind of '70s cross-genre aesthetic will certainly want to seek out Prelude To.... ~ Matt Collar

This is the 1976 album by Weldon Irvine, an American jazz piano player who has a huge following among jazz and rare groove enthusiasts.

Born from ten-hour jam sessions in peeling Brighton bedsits, the technical parameters of a bootstrap recording process and the osmotic, multi-genre influence of internet music archives, quintet Ebi Soda have been steady-cultivating a unique sound amidst the exploding UK jazz scene.

Balancing irreverent musical and technical improvisation with an uncompromising instinct for vibe and prodigious musicianship, the Ebi ascent has been swift. Their eponymous debut EP, follow-up aptly titled “Bedroom Tapes” and debut LP ‘Ugh’ were originally released on Sola Terra, and won international plaudits, major radio plays and performances at Gilles Peterson’s We Out Here, London’s Jazz Re:Freshed, EFG London Jazz Festival and Latitude.

Despite their steep rise – the Brighton outfit have preserved as much as possible of their unique recording process, originating from their very first sessions. With just a two-track recorder around, the band would lay down whole takes, one instrument at a time, then immediately transform the overdub, digitally reshaping the sound with the same mischievous, adderall energy as the musical performance. This call-and-response between performance and production spurs an instinctive development – with musicality, player and producer egging one another on through naturally developing phases and textures.

‘Honk If You’re Sad’, their sophomore full-length album, stays true to these foundations, while bringing more ambitious experimentation, technical mastery and a stellar lineup of guest players to the studio including Yazz Ahmed, Deji Ijishakin and Dan Gray.

In typical Ebi style, while recalling jazz pioneers in playing style, ‘Honk If You’re Sad’ draws from a vast neural network of influences: the Ebi Brain has been marinating in a digital soup of trap, drill, dub, post-punk and no wave to name but a few. The result is a mercurial record that beams in psychedelia, dissonance, serene ambient passages, tough, neck-snapping beats and lush textures, all underscored by the intersection of jazz, hip hop and electronic music.

Across opening heaters, “Tang of the Zest” and “My Man from College”, Will Heaton’s trombone growls in and out of focus over a tight uptempo breakbeat. Deji Ijishakin’s tenor sax solo shrieks and shudders between lush layers of sound. Driving basslines, liquid keys, murmuring dissonant brass, delay and hazy reverb tumble into progressive cycles of frenetic climax and oceanic calm.

These patterns recur over the record. “Giraffe Bread” and “Listen, King” opens with a tight funk on the bass; short crisp phrases from drummer Sam Schlich-Davies dissipate in cascading dub echoes and the track opens into an instrumental, psychedelic jam, with rippling synth pads and trombone murmurs peeking out from a deep, reverberating soundscape. Ijishakin’s hyperactive sax solo on “Gated Community with a Public Pool” sits on a glitched-out rhythm section: a rocking, window-shaking bassline and sparse stuttering drums.

From influences as diverse as Kokoroko, Can, Lounge Lizards, BadBadNotGood, Ronin Arkestra, and The Fall, ‘Honk if You’re Sad’ focuses a cohesive whole; an explorative, playful and technically brilliant record that coaxes the listener through immersive phases of fun, chaos and harmony. 

In the previous work "Isted Serenade", the amplification was modest and the emphasis was on the deep acoustic sound, but in this work, his new frontier is heard with the electro sound that has been synthesized (synthesized). On the surface, that's the case, but his philosophy "isophonic" is still pierced in the core, and what is expressed through Young's unique conprovisation (composition and improvisational compound word) is "isophonic. His world that continues from "Bugiugi". Therefore, the degree of discipline of the sound is different from that of the electro guys there, and the density is able to withstand deep listening. Also, the sound pressure and facial expression of the sound was a problem until the end of completion, and his realism still living in Brooklyn is reflected in the tension of this aggressive and tingling sound.