Emanative – The Light Years Of The Darkness

It’s rare I buy an album on one play only though it does happen. This is the most recent example, and the song that did it was Music is the Healing Force of the Universe, which is a Pharoah Sanders tune (I think). And absolutely true.

This album seems to be a collection of standards from the spritual jazz canon rendered in frankly ecstatically joyous fashion. This is a positive vibes album at its most positivest, which is a real word and is described at length in the famous Dictionary of Really Real Words, available from all good book stores. Your book store no got it? It no a good book store…

And if my brain is working properly, this should post on a Saturday. I think this is a perfect Saturday afternoon album, but will undoubtedly work on many other occasions also. Recommendations for times, and places if you also desire, can be put in the always busy* comments section.

*comments section may not actually be always busy.

ZAÄAR – Magická Džungl’a

I think this might be my find of the year, saved right until almost the very end. But first I have to know – what is that accent thingy over the middle a in their name? Does it change how you pronounce said name? Me ignorant Englander. Actually, I don’t know how to pronounce any of it.

I’ve had at least three images evoked whilst listening to this – a kind of middle eastern bazaar (though I’ve never been to the middle east, or indeed a bazaar), the early stages of a long night dancing round a campfire when everyone is gradually getting into the sounds and rhythm, and a kind of sordid, late night carnival where the pleasures are unexpected and never subsequently spoken of (sadly, I’ve never been to that sort of carnival either).

It’s kind of jazz, I suppose, though very psychedelic and with regular, hypnotic pulses. Spacious, yet dense. Loads going on, but loads of room; an all encompassing sonic experience. There probably are reference points, though I know them not. Perhaps the nearest I can think of, albeit still distant, is Miles Davis’ Get Up With It, itself a very fine album and one I should listen to more.

And on that note, I wish you all a marvellous 2022. May the music you find be especially resonant to you.

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.

Abronia – The Whole of Each Eye

I reckon I was Spanish, or at least mediterranean, in a previous life (totally a thing). That period of an afternoon between 1ish and 4ish is just not me at my best. It’s just coming up to 4pm now and I’m beginning to perk up a bit. Do you know how hard it is to stay awake and look at spreadsheets at the same time in normal circumstances? Well, what about when you should be having a siesta? What’s worse, I think I picked the wrong time to suggest that we Brits might want to consider some more European levels of humanity in our working lives…

None of which has anything to do with the music at hand. The music at hand is by someone who’s been here before. They’re just as good this time, if not more so.

Idris Ackamoor and the Pyramids – An Angel Fell

I’m a stranger in my head
on the ghost of a ladder
climbing a false promise

Somehow I always knew it would come down to this: me and you
and a random number generator

It may look like one, but it’s NOT an exit

The villains leg is twitching
and it makes the cat nervous
but it’s not allowed to move
because the camera is still on
there’s rules you have to serve
when you want the freshest tuna

 

Nat Birchall – Sounds Almighty

I looked for you
And I found me
What a disappointment that was
I had to try again to become lost
So I looked for me
And I found you

From the perspective of a man hanging from a tree, by any limb, if necessary: the world goes by withall wherewithout, changing only according to the colour and the contour of the eye. A concave statement, when applied to a complex bio-lens instrument, shall be interred by deferment, a symbol of which is your lassitude. I wish you well, the tree is my protector, the tree is my anchor, the tree is my mantra and will put me up, for sale. When all I feel is falling, all is what I’ll be.

A minimalist in all but execution

I took my clothes off
Oh!
You meet so many people

Abronia – Obsidian Visions / Shadowed Lands

In the first place was the winner of the people chase, a lank haired fox named Orville, who won because of the magic imparted by his evil anvil. Orville, who counted several devils amongst his drinking accountants, promptly took his previous second best certificate and rolled it into a ginormous reefer which hit him harder than his hammer and he had to put it down. The people got away again, thus setting up a new race, this one won by His Majesty Gumley St. Helene-Trouser Slew, whose corpulent incompetence was passed through the ages to a present that neither knew nor cared as now is the time and cares nothing for tradition because tradition is history and history doesn’t exist. So the people got away again, the shackles giving up in a wimp of smoke and this time the moguls went after them – by this and by that they did keep gesticulating, transforming life into matter and then selling it as the status they craved. But the moment ignored them – after an enlightening experience it takes long persistences of abuse to make one forget that light but it only takes one instant flash to undo all that damage and see all the abuse for what it really was.

Maleem Mahmoud Ghania with Pharoah Sanders – The Trance Of Seven Colors

Even given my recent lack of words, this doesn’t need them.

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.

Phil Cohran & Legacy – African Skies

Despite the fact that I don’t think I need to discover anything ‘new’ for at least 16 years now to give me time to absorb all the music I have come to know, I nevertheless find myself being a sucker for lists of other artists recommendations, even if I don’t really listen to the music of that artist in question. Case in point – the recent listed feature by Rhyton over at Dusted in Exile contains some good tunes, but it introduced me to this beautiful album by Kelan Phil Cohran, alumni from Sun Ra’s majestic school of thinking freely who composed this tribute after Sun Ra’s death.

I am at even more of a loss for words than is usual with this album. It is simply stunning. One of the albums I would play to any visiting alien as the an example of the superlative best that humanity can offer. Big words, I know, and I don’t usually like that sort of hyperbole. It sounds completely timeless, genre-less – a meditation on life, perhaps.

The nearest frame of reference I can give you from things that I know would be Alice Coltrane, perhaps the Journey in Satchidananda, which I have just discovered features Pharoah Sanders, whose work I cannot recommend too  much – if this cosmic jazz vibe that I’m laying on you is to your taste then seek out his work too.

The CD is available here, although you can’t actually listen to any of it there which is odd for bandcamp. Maybe a licensing thing. So here’s another youtube: