Happy 100th Birthday Trane! View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize View fullsize John Coltrane was born 100 years ago today. In celebration of this occasion I’m posting this classic on Atlantic which has eluded me for years.Such an iconic album with a title track for the ages. It’s so bloody good. No wonder the album gained major commercial success. At this time, pre Reggie Workman…

Listen to my new mixtape on Spotify, Apple Music, or YouTube “Still Summer” is a mixtape full of jazz and electronic music that evokes the kind of autumn wind and crunchy leaves that I pine for here in Texas when the fall equinox hits and it’s still 99 degrees outside: I started the tape with the working title “See you in the fall,” which is a phrase I used as a sign-off in my last newsletter. (Reader Pamela B. responded, “Paraphrased from IG: When people say, ‘See you in the fall’ it takes me…

We’ve got a rare foray into semi-self promotion today. The “semi-” because Blue Drops, the forthcoming debut album from Toronto’s Azure Rose, does not feature me in any way, shape, or form. It’s the solo project from Justin Hinman, formerly of Toronto bands Fjord Rowboat and Bluescreen, both staples of the local ’00s shoegaze scene […] The post Azure Rose – “Villains” appeared first on Space Echo.

I loved jazz as soon as I discovered it, but it was when I heard John Coltrane that I realised it could take me to a different place. That would have been around 1960, and the first thing I heard was his solo on Miles Davis’s “Milestones”, on an EP. Then I used the money from my paper round to buy another EP, this time released under Coltrane’s own name. Issued in the UK on the Esquire label, it paired “Bass Blues” and “You Leave Me Breathless” from his third studio album for Prestige, recorded…

John Coltrane Quartet - Schwab Auditorium, Pennsylvania State University, January 19, 1963One hundred years of John Coltrane! The man’s birthday on September 23 should be some kind of international (interstellar?) holiday during which the entire globe shuts down and listens to nothing but his music. It might bring about some necessary changes! Maybe someday. But I’m going to get the ball rolling and listen to nothing but John Coltrane today. Join me! John’s time on this plane of existence was…

Clive James in his essay on Louis Armstrong in Cultural Amnesia (2007): “[F]or the way I thought prose should move I learned a lot from jazz. From the moment I learned to hear them in music, syncopation and rhythm were what I wanted to get into my writing. And to stave off the double threat of brittle chatter and chesty verve, I also wanted the measured, disconsolate tread of the blue reverie.” Genuine influence is difficult to gauge in any writer, and probably in the other arts. Copying, a…

Scribed by Sandre the Giant Released: 3rd August 1996 The self titled debut of Norwegian progressive black metallers Borknagar thirty years ago signalled somewhat of a changing of the guard for how black metal was evolving from its second wave roots. Enter Øystein Brun, sick of doing death metal in Molested and ready to take the leap to what he viewed as the more flexible and expansive black metal genre. Gathering around him some serious legends of the genre (Garm from Ulver, Ivar Bjørnson from…

sort of the proof of concept of a long term project im building towards. its been almost a whole year of working with tape loops, thats crazy! still learning so much about processing and building sound around them. i found a nice seamless loop for this track, but there are some other more jagged loops i have collected i just cant crack. the refrain in this track is "ang buhay magandang, mahirap ang buhay," "life is beautiful, life is hard." a current struggle i have with loops is that i find it…

Walking back from lunch just now I suddenly remembered the significance of today’s date. Today is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great John Coltrane, who was born on 23rd September 1926 in Hamlet, North Carolina. I won’t attempt to do a full tribute to Trane, whose influence on jazz saxophone playing, and jazz in general, is incalculable. I will, however, take advantage of the fact that today is the day of the Autumnal Equinox (as it was on the date of Coltrane’s birth) to post one…

[1966]A Mexican garage classico. We all know because La Flama Blanca: Kenny Fucking Powers!Mesmerising bass, mucho twangery and a groovy beat baby.

What’s a song you’ve had on repeat recently? Recently? Ever since I first heard this I can’t listen to it once. Love the flow, the beats, the attitude, the lyrics, just love her voice in this too. Plus it’s only 2:39 long so easily repeatable. Seriously, how catchy is this track? Been 2 years and I still hit that repeat button whenever it comes on. “DENIAL IS A RIVER” by Doechii Listen on Apple Music Your browser does not support the audio element. Listen to Gordon McLean's Apple Music playlist…

I recently played the Tom Sharkett Edit of LCD Soundsystem's beautiful Home. I ended up playing it several times and dancing around my living room. This then sent me on a bit of a trip down the rabbit hole of LCD alternative mixes, edits, remixes and also Franz Ferdinand covering All My Friends. I'll definitely need to feature this as a cover version of the month in the future.As I listened I made a playlist of my favourites. Expect radical reworkings, prepare to get lost in the music, marvel…

"Hearts on Fire" by Gram Parsons What’s a song you’ve had on repeat recently? Hearts on Fire by Gram Parsons If by recently, if you mean for the last twenty years. View Lou Plummer's Crucial Tracks profile

This isn’t the first ambient tuba music I’ve heard, not by a longshot, but like previous ambient tuba music, it is deep as can be, with digital processing taking the inherent low-end tones and making them reverberate out into the ether. The musician is running the tuba through a chain of effects on an iPad, and thanks to the space-filling, extended sounds, he is able to pause his playing in order to manipulate the tones on the screen manually. Occasionally the iPad interface comes into view, so…

“Where The Echoes Bloom” is the debut solo work of L.A. based artist, Alia. A 9-track collection of electronic exotica, that showcases her virtuosity on theremin and kacapi, a Javanese zither. With assistance from percussionist Jamal Mohamed, she sets about creating the soundtrack for an alien tropics. “Crescent Sun” moves to a slow, sleek beat. The results in orbit with Water Melon’s Bond theme parody, “Moon Shaker”. “Jogja” incorporates field recordings, croaking frogs, songbirds, slo-mo…

Such beautiful drums. See also from Wikipedia: Noble & Cooley is an American musical instruments manufacturing company based out of Granville, Massachusetts. Having been established in 1854, it is the oldest drum company in the United States and is one of the oldest in the world. Having manufactured toy drums at the beginning, Noble & Cooley soon entered the professional drum market. Noble & Cooley has specialized in snare drums, although the company also manufactures whole drum kits. The…

Women of Music 32Pauline Shivers on cover

From DJ and Producer Ivan Berko over at thought enthusiast: “I buy records every day. Lately, I buy a lot of CDs, too, because there are a lot of things that only came out on CD in the 2000s. They’re super cheap, too. You can get a stack of CDs for a dollar apiece, rip them to the computer, put them on a USB, and walk around listening to them.” I just posted some of the ways I find new music with a little less big tech, so this piece is a fun read, especially as some of us get back to the…

When I mentioned Hey Ya! in my music memories post the other day, I ended up listening to a whole bunch of covers of it. This is always a fun time. Think of a song, listen to covers. Good covers are such an art form and I really appreciate them. My wife and I have a playlist of our favourites. Some of my favourites! Wrecking Ball by Gordi La Vie en Rose by Lucy Dacus Across the Universe by Fiona Apple Smooth Criminal by Alien Ant Farm I Want to Know What Love Is by Amason The song with the most…

Say Mama direct link) Informative article and comments at garage hangover plus a Mobie Records listing

This week’s earworm is Reign, a track off the second album by UNKLE, from 2003. James Lavelle has always had incredible taste in collaborators (Ian Brown, Josh Homme, Autolux, Big In Japan, Mark Lanegan, 3D, Chris Goss), and even if the quality of his output has dropped since Psyence Fiction—which is an impossibly high bar to jump. Never, Never Land was a really good album, and this is one of the standout tracks. This is not the first time it’s been stuck in my head; something in the stuttering…

Absolutely delighted to announce I’ll be bringing some wonky tape loop action to the inaugural AURIS FESTIVAL, this October in Manchester! Three days of sound, listening and experimentation, spanning installation, live performance, spatial audio, talks, workshops and soundwalks, exploring the breadth of sound art and the many ways we experience sound. The Howlround Soundsystem will be in full effect, with live tape loops and analogue delay and not a single synth, sampler, pedal or plugin in…

This week in US Pop History class, we are talking about early jazz, and that means talking about Louis Armstrong. If you are not deep into 1920s music, your relationship with him almost certainly begins and ends with this: Bob Thiele and George David Weiss wrote the tune specifically with Armstrong in mind. He recorded it in 1967, four years before his death, and many decades after his period of peak cultural relevance. It wasn’t a big hit in the US, though it did top the UK singles chart. The…

Maddy Prior & June Tabor - Peel Session, September 23, 1975Head over to Aquarium Drunkard to read Emily Hilliard’s appreciation of one of the best albums ever — Silly Sisters by Maddy Prior and June Tabor, which hits its 50th anniversary this year. Just a perfect record, with Maddy and June hitting those laser-beam harmonies on beautiful traditional numbers, backed by a murderer’s row of britfolk geniuses, from Martin Carthy to Danny Thompson to Nic Jones. “[T]their close harmonies produce some…

What does the metalhead do on their day off and why is it ambient? I listened to all the “black ambient” releases from the 90s to find out. If you were to press me on a pithy definition of metal, I would say it’s music written through the organisation of riffs. This means it can choose to bypass the traditional verse/chorus structure, but doesn’t always do so. This focus on the riff makes it distinct from equivalent genres that eschew the traditional song format such as jazz, which does so…

For 50 minutes at Wigmore Hall last night, the bassist Linda May Han Oh and the tenor saxophonist Melissa Aldana delivered a lesson in how to take the finest material from the past and weave it into something that belongs firmly to the present. The Australian (born in Malaysia, of Chinese heritage) is the current answer to any question about which bassist you would choose to add energy and invention to your contemporary jazz group. The Chilean specialises in an unstoppable flow of creativity,…

Love a good “electpic” horn. (And yes, I know it said “electric” before part of the R got rubbed off, but first, for a while after seeing the sign, I thought it said “elliptic,” like a descriptor of the sound running up and down in cycles, or something like that.)

I slept less than four hours last night. So I was feeling sleepy and blue. On the way to work, I listened to this playlist titled 'mood', which I created some time ago. It's something I listen to when I feel unhappy. It never fails to amaze me how songs are able to transport us. A song can be tied to an era. To a place. To a state of emotion. To a person. To a memory. To a version of you. And when I hear these songs, it's always an unbelievable feeling. Sometimes comforting. Sometimes hurtful.…

But first, this. And, also, because someone on Threads made me think about Dave Pirner, I'm going to force ask you to listen to Soul Asylum's outstanding cover of Victoria Williams' "Summer of Drugs". Soul Asylum was one of many bands that contributed Sweet Relief, a tribute record that was an integral part of teenaged Dave's world. Pearl Jam's cover of "Crazy Mary" and Evan Dando's cover of "Frying Pan" are also standouts. 🌲 gonna 🌼 go 🌱 touch work on feeling okay about only 🌳 grass writing a…