7. A New World Record - Electric Light Orchestra [1976]

The perennial bone of contention being, of course, is Jeff's patented production technique.

To many, a one trick load of old pony:

Close microphone to snare,

Far microphone  to snare,

Compress far  microphone  2:1 and fold into close snare track,

Insert 1/10 second tape delay in-between,

REPEAT ON EVERY F**KING SONG FROM 1974 ONWARDS.

Yes, there is something approaching a global on taking Lynne out to the street and shooting him like a mangy English sheep dog...and yet, and yet...

A New World Record.

Tightrope. A Spector-Lennon glitter stomp dust up.

Telephone Line. Thumbs aloft melody trumps 70s Macca.

So Fine. Whoo Whoo.

Living Thing. A little bit George. A little bit bloody brilliant,

Do Ya. The sound of 80s rock being invented. A good thing. Believe.

Rockaria. Profoundly, irredeemably shit 

Higher and higher baby.

Oddi wrth y brawd

8. The Devil's Music - Keith Richards' Personal Compilation of Blues, Soul, and R&B Classics

Top drawer compilation from man of wealth and not inconsiderable taste.

Yr hen diawl.


Oddi wrth y brawd

9. Early Recordings of the Copper Family of Rottingdean

 

All writ down rough 'n raw by the Copper old guard venerables. 

Oddi wrth y brawd

10. Can The Circle Be Unbroken - The Carter Family

Antediluvian weird.

Voice-Guitar-Autoharp alchymical. 

Facile, immediate and ancient. 

Mind how you go, and keep on the sunny side.

Oddi wrth y brawd

11. The Spring of Sixty-Five - Joseph Spence & The Pinder Family

Ghosts of Carter devotional and Nassau docks inspirational. No hokum ramshackle.

Geneva and Edith Pinder keening to creaky, percussive guitar.

Growling Joseph. Grinning Lord of Misrule and the devil-may-care picaresque strings. Serenading, serenaded, testifying 'n righteous. 

Y brawd bids you goodnight.

                    

Oddi wrth y brawd

12. War War War - Country Joe McDonald [1971]

Thinking of Woody Guthrie, Tonight I'm Singing Just For You, Hold On It's Coming, Paris Sessions. Early 70s Country Joe is good Country Joe, and partial to a concept.

From this period comes War War War based on poems of Robert W. Service, "bard of the Yukon" (1874 - 1958). Service served with an ambulance crew in World War I and his poetry deals with duty and sacrifice as much as waste and futility. 

Yet may it not be, crime and war

But efforts misdirected are.

And if there's good in war and crime

There may be in my bits of rhyme,

My songs from out the slaughter mill:

So take or leave them as you will.

Room for ambiguity gives egress to Country Joe whose commitment to supporting Vietnam veterans is unwavering. Blaming soldiers for war is like blaming firefighters for fire.

So you'll live, you'll live, Young Fellow My Lad,

In the gleam of the evening star,

In the wood-note wild and the laugh of the child,

In all sweet things that are.

And you'll never die, my wonderful boy

While life is noble and true:

For all our beauty and hope and joy

We will owe to our lads like you.

All lyric poetry and more at Country Joe's Place.

Oddi wrth y brawd

13. Akhnaten - Philip Glass [1983]

Synopsis.

Akhenaten. 18th dynasty Pharaoh. Rules seventeen years, causing religious kerfuffle by introducing monotheistic worship of Aten, the sun god. The priesthood gets mardy and it doesn't take.

Akhnaten is the last installment of Glass's portrait trilogy, bringing warmth and depth to the cold precision of Einstein on the Beach and a grittier texture than Satyagraha. 

Open are the double doors of the horizon,
Unlocked are its bolts.
The constellations stagger,
Clouds darken the sky,
The stars rain down,
The bones of the hell hounds tremble,
The porters are silent when they see this king dawning as a soul.
Open are the double doors of the horizon,
Unlocked are its bolts

- Libretto, Act 1 Prelude, Refrain, Verse 1, Verse 2

Oddi wrth y brawd

14. Kesämaan Lapset [Children of the Summerland] - Es [2009]

This recording may well enrich your life.


Sami Sänpäkkilä's Kesämaan Lapset (2009), recorded under his Es moniker, follows four years on from Sateenkaarisuudelma's kaleidoscopic drone n chant.  Kesämaan Lapset dials down the sprawl and explores more accessible electronic sound worlds, in part tribute to 70s Finnish acid-folk waif Pekka Streng. Sami's own Fonal label harkens to days when album label stamp signified common sound and communal mystique. Fonal particular stock in trade: experimental psych-folk, witchy SSW and blissed out electronica.


Opening Ennen Oli Huonommin fanfares a flamboyance of iridescent analog chirrups, skittering and dazzling across four major-key minutes. Clearly, we're located somewhere in the pristine Nordic electrono-Fonal lab, next valley over from the lo-fi forest folk dwellers. Next up, cheery homespun ditty Kesa Ja Hymyilevat introduces spacy vocals and free-ranging electronics. Vaguely Magical Power Mako. Then things start to get really interesting. Sateet Sun Sielusta plays with some piano phrases only to build into a celebratory cascade of drone, combining disciplined minimalism with mind-manifesting kosmische synthesiser worship. 

Still reeling from the meteor shower of trickling lines and deep-space drones, stagger aboard title track Kesämaan Lapset for a twenty minute ride through personal space, childhood summers and euphorically expansive vistas of the latent. First comes a repeated piano phrase  - possibly a Dvořák steal - as pastoral grounding. This morphs into into idyllic trills, washes and field recordings, or perhaps simulated, summoning woods, streams and sea-shore adventure. Final enveloping section builds skywards to a celestial crescendo worthy of Popol Vuh in its pomp. Heady.

Closing, comparatively brief Haamut Sun Sydamesta is a necessary psychedelic come down which serves to remind us that, however abstracted the journey, this is a SSW album at heart. Which brings us back to Pekka.


Oddi wrth y brawd


[Pekka up bonus: Comments]

15. Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven - Godspeed You Black Emperor [2000]

Post-orchestral-space rock windfall for "kitchen sink" production aficionados. Trademark dynamics front and centre: begin sparse n slow, build, build, build...... crescendo.....come down...shuffle...repeat. Textbook.

Oddi wrth y brawd

16. Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet & The Sinking of the Titanic - Gavin Bryars

Two lengthy art pieces packing emotional punch. Cast-iron testament that the experimental and constructivist may cleave to the power to move. 

Gavin Bryars is not light on methodological muscle, working across jazz, free improv, minimalism, avant-garde and neoclassicism. A founding member of the Portsmouth Sinfonia - an orchestra whose membership consisted of performers who “embrace the full range of musical competence” (there’s a euphemism in there somewhere). Sinfonia members included erstwhile pal Brian Eno whose Obscure Records label put out several Bryars works in the mid-70s including the Titanic piece herein.


Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (1971) loops around a field-recording of homeless man vocalising-improvising a hymn. Over the loop, are built rich harmonies, played by live ensemble; slowly increasing in density, and impact before gradual fade. The piece was first recorded for use in a documentary chronicle of street life in and around London’s Elephant and Castle:

When I played it at home, I found that his singing was in tune with my piano, and I improvised a simple accompaniment. I noticed, too, that the first section of the song - 13 bars in length - formed an effective loop which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way. I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this. The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping.


I was puzzled until I realised that the tape was still playing and that they had been overcome by the old man's singing. This convinced me of the emotional power of the music and of the possibilities offered by adding a simple, though gradually evolving, orchestral accompaniment that respected the tramp's nobility and simple faith. Although he died before he could hear what I had done with his singing, the piece remains as an eloquent, but understated testimony to his spirit and optimism.

 - Bryars 

The Sinking of the Titanic (1969), indeterministically allows performers to render various sound sources related to the sinking of the RMS Titanic. Cue heart-tugging, uplifting and perfectly poised melodic motif of Nearer My God To Thee / Amazing Grace against ambient backdrop of chilly ocean noise.

 Oddi wrth y brawd

[Sundry bonus sunderings and landings in Comments]

17. Gôg - Meic Stevens [1977]

Y caneuon hyn oedd fy ail record hir, a gai ei recordio maes o law yn stiwdios Sain yn Llanrug. Roedd y record yma'n gam mawr ymlaen i mi fel cyfansoddwr caneuon; cafodd groeso brwd, gwerthodd yn dda a ges i lawer o waith ar ei chorn.

Recordiwyd Gog o fewn pum niwrnod.

 - Y Crwydryn a Mi

Practical, self-effacing Meic Mortimer Stevens, wizard and true Welsh star. Melodic nous and unquestionable chops grounded in earthy authenticity. He doesn't put a foot wrong on this astonishingly good amble among Breton idylls, wandering blind boys, and country loving. Contender for best folk-rock album of 70s, in any language. 

 Essential.

Oddi wrth y brawd

[Dros ben llestri in Comments]

18. Cœur De Verre / Herz aus Glas [Heart of Glass] – Popol Vuh [1977]

He made visible what would have remained mysterious and forever hidden in the images. What is more, he had a talent for composing music that created whole new spaces, in concrete terms: landscapes that gain an unknown dimension which would not be accessible otherwise.

  - Herzog on Florian

 ...the essence of Popol Vuh is a mass for the heart. It is music for love. That is all.

  - Florian on PV

Clang kosmische to drive away the wolves.


Oddi wrth y brawd


[Deluxe harmonious bonus in Comments]

19. The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (Original Television Soundtrack) - Robert Mellin and Gian-Piero Reverberi

Y brawd's desert island luxury; your abject pleasure.


23 secs, opening titles, crashing surf, sun blessed mid-70s summer morning adrift…cue Robinson’s monochrome adventures. À la recherche du temps perdu be damned.

Oddi wrth y brawd


[TV eyed bonus in Comments]

20. Cannabis - Serge Gainsbourg & Jean-Claude Vannier [1970]

Decades before de facto relaxation of cross border genre regulations, Serge strolled with protean disregard and somewhat arch insouciance through chanson, lounge jazz, world music (sic), ye-ye, pop psych, rock, dub, disco, funk et caetera.... Wanton profligacy did him no favours outside France: artistic fearlessness and a shrug of Gallic shoulders to misconceived Anglo-US notions of authenticity interpreted abroad as dilettantism and promiscuous cheese.


Actor, writer, director, producer, pop svengali, performer, musician, smoker, drinker and, at the end, dilapidated national treasure. Above all else, 20th century composer and lyricist nonpareil who considered writing songs a trifling art form compared to figurative art. Ever the accomplished painter and draftsman who gave up painting because he knew he would never equal Picasso or scatological comrade in arms, Dali. 


Franchement, Gainsbourg / Gainsbarre was a genius; not to be taken lightly.



High watermark must-have is Histoire de Melody Nelson. Go buy it. Cannabis soundtrack - also with Jean-Claude Vannier  - is something of a dry run for Melody Nelson (grooves, break beats, larger guitar riffs, orchestral drama, funked out bass...) and an essential gem in its own right.

Oddi wrth y brawd


[Bag Birkin Bonus in Comments]

21. Odessa - Bee Gees [1969]

Conceptual pop magnum opus. Maximally hook loaded n orchestrated. Double album with not an ounce of fat (read, cheese), and nothing short of a revelation. Remember Bros. Gibb like this.

Oddi wrth y brawd

[Bonus Melody in Comments]