Valerio Cosi – Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock

This album title may make you expect something other than you will get. One more reason to love it.

See, this album has been a part of my life for well over a decade, now. I posted it not long after starting Soundbergs using a Youtube link. However, the great man has now added it to his bandcamp, remastered.

Simply put, this is among my very favourite albums ever. Despite the length of time it’s been in my collection, it still gets played regularly. The opener in particular has a strong claim to ‘favourite peice of music, ever’ (although I don’t believe in absolute favourites and would never dream of compiling some kind of all time top ten or any other arbitrary number).

This music is trance in its purest form, and absolutely ecstatic at that.

Valerio Cosi/Enzo Franchini – Live Archives I: Batcave, Tilburg MMVII

It’s that Friday where Bandcamp do that good thing they do again. As promised, I bought myself the Follakzoid album that I promised myself last time, but I also added this to the cart, because I like this. But I almost always like what Valerio Cosi does.

 

Paisiel – self titled

We’ve met half of Paisiel before in this parish, one Julius Gabriel. He is clearly one to watch.

The other half of Paisiel has done this percussion album which I listened to lately after one of its tracks was played on a Black Impulse show. It’s on my list of things to listen to again.

 

Julius Gabriel – Dream Dream Beam Beam

After the ending of the world, it can take a few days to start assembling a new one

Don’t ask what you should do, ask what you can do
I state the obvious daily, so I am accustomed to blank looks…

 

Narcosatanicos – Body Cults

I’ve been looking forward to this, having been properly into their debut, so much so that they’ve been one of the few acts I check in on every now and again to see when something might be coming. This does not disappoint me, being more of the same but more so, and also a bit different. It is continuing proof of my conviction that the merger of brass and heavy guitar freakouts is a thing of great beauty.

I referenced Monoshock and Puffy Areolas first time up, and they still hold true. But I would also add a strong Stooges groove, occasional Hey Colossus sludge, an occasional veer into Bad Seeds-esque territory and they sound familiar with Swans recent work.

In other words, it is loud and it is aggressive, it is not for the faint hearted, and, oh yeah, I really, really like it. Also, it was available to buy a week before the date on the page, because that’s when I bought it.

 

 

Black Bombain and Peter Brötzmann

Black Bombain seem to me to be born collaborators. Their live jam from late last year was a seriously good piece of music, and if you haven’t heard their collaboration with Gnod, then you should know that Black Gnod’s Innerspace recording comes with the highest possible recommendation from Soundbergs Towers.

This time they’ve teamed up with free jazz maestro Peter Brötzmann, himself no stranger to the collaborative arts, resulting in a superlative work of one of my favourite sub-mashup-genres, saxophone psych. There should be more horns and brass atop these swirling guitar maelstroms generally, and I speak as a guitarist who never used to like brass at all. Brass is the one class of instrument I absolutely cannot play at all, which may be related; however, it adds a tonal element to the ‘psych-rock’ mix which complements it superbly. A whole field with relatively few visitors.

It fascinates me how music that quite obviously came together on the spot can nevertheless sound so coherent and, you know, purposive. Having done some improv over the years (all the best Itto tunes came into being that way) I have an idea; it’s like tuning into some music and being the vehicle of its expression rather than ‘separate’ beings somehow all being creative in the same way at the same time. Maybe we receive before we can transmit? On a very basic level, that is exactly true – you have to listen to your collaborators (receive) if you want to complement the overall sound (transmit). However, there were times when all of us suddenly changed direction at the same time without prompt – you can’t put those experiences into words, and neither can you take the idea of a flat universe seriously anymore.

The music comes with the guarantee that it is good, not that it will make you think mystical things, although that may happen if you are so inclined. You can score it from shhpuma or Lovers and Lollipops

Fantasy collaboration time: imagine Valerio Cosi collaborating with Oneida? (drools like Homer Simpson…)

Fire! Orchestra – Ritual

 Honestly, what is it about Sweden?

You know when music is special when you listen to something whilst in the midst of a fairly drawn out grumpy period, and that music makes you feel alive, positive, and like all the petty crap really just does not matter, which it doesn’t.

People, I give you Fire! Orchestra.

I’ve been more and more of a jazz head, I must admit. This is where the genre really does it for me. It isn’t about technique, it’s about consciousness exploration. That’s why it’s a ritual. That’s why I consider music like this to be psychedelic, and a million revivalists who call themselves that to be not, although everyone has to start somewhere.

The opener, which you will find embedded in this post somewhere, is 10 of the fastest moving minutes in history, it feels like less than half that duration. To me, at least. This is music to get completely lost in. Throw maps in the bin.

There is a strong emphasis on the groove, the many horns don’t get in each others way, and the two vocalists are absolutely incredible.  The album is both propulsive and meditative, noisy and musical.

There simply aren’t enough superlatives to describe how I feel about this album. A true ritual, and a triumphant one at that. A perfect illustration of why humans picked up objects and started hitting, plucking and blowing them. Its purity makes it impossible to pigeon-hole.

This also makes for two posts in a row where the album cover seems somewhat random, although I think art purists will probably prefer the term collage.

Those who are inspired enough to want a physical copy will find one here.

Valerio Cosi

From his Soundcloud page: “Italian unpredictable polyinstrumentalist/composer working in the realm of psychedelic rock, free-jazz and electronic music since 2005.”

The particular album of his that I return to again and again is 2008’s ‘Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock,’ though I have time for all of the music I’ve heard by him. The album in question is just the most entrancing, hypnotic collection of music I’ve had the privilege to hear. ‘Study for saxophone and electronics,’ the 20-minute opener, starts with a repetitive sax riff, which gets transposed, altered, added to and harmonised over with such imagination; it is both spacious and dense, a fully formed sonic entity which is probably more conscious than I (which is why, like all conscious living beings, it can be aware of and embrace its paradoxes without imploding). It is a guaranteed portal into another realm, should such imaginative excursions be to your liking.

The three following tracks are equally brilliant, although each one is unique stylistically, as different from each other as they are from my overly mystical description of the first track. I cannot praise this stuff highly enough.

Unfortunately, I’m not having much luck finding a page where you can listen to the album so you can see whether you agree with me or not, a problem I expect to find with the older releases I suppose. If I had the money and/or time, I would set up a digital library where you could listen to all this stuff (indeed, all stuff). As it is, there are probably other ways that the more imaginative and free-spirited amongst you can try to get a listen.

He seems to have been active again relatively recently, as he now has a bandcamp page, and now I’ve seen this I know what I’ll be listening to later. I make no secret of my love for this platform, primarily because you can listen to an entire album before committing to buy it. It’s the ultimate marketing tool for people whose music is good!