Jonathan Harvey - his Buddhist inspired triptych: Body Mandala, Speakings, ...towards a Pure Land. At Edinburgh Festival last night. BBC SSO with Ivan Volkov and Boulez's IRCAM bods on 'computer music design'. Fascinating.

V/A - Psychedelic Jazz. One of those cheapo comps that I bought not expecting an awful lot. It's brilliant. Bunch of stuff from late 60s/early 70s including Roy Ayers, Don Sebesky, Gabor Szabo, The Dave Pike Set (nope me neither) and Pierre Henry! Best £3 spent in a long time.

Others:

The Red Krayola - God Bless The Red Krayola and All Who Sail With It. International Artists Reissue remastered by Sonic Boom.

Yo la Tengo - And then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out

Kevin Drumm - Land of Lurches

Franca Sacchi - En

Carol Robinson - Billows

Circle X - Celestial

Don Cherry/Ed Blackwell - El Corazon

Eliane Radigue Transamorem-Transmortem

Marc Ribot - Asmodeus Book of Angels Vol 7

Miles Davis Stadthalle, Vienna 1973

Patti Smith - Horses & Radio Ethiopia

Ron Carter/Jim Hall - Alone Together

Have a great week all.

Belle & Sebastian - Fold Your Hands Child, You Walk Like A Peasant (Still can't believe that this album was reportedly sheer torture to produce - it has a real lightness of touch that I always find very winning).

The Bees - Free The Bees (Their second album and the only one I have. It's so consistently great it makes me feel it's all I need. It's worth checking out the video for the marvellous 'Horsemen' on YouTube, which very cleverly places the band into Murray Lerner's 'Message To Love').

Various - Gather In The Mushrooms (Excellent folk compilation which introduced me to several classic bands, including Forest - by way of their best track, 'Graveyard' - and Comus).

The Coral - Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker
The Coral - The Invisible Invasion (In retrospect, these two albums might just show The Coral at their best. Love the first couple, but they do now sound painfully naive in places. Nightfreak was the one knocked off in a week just for the hell of it, and is hugely enjoyable in a devil-may-care sort of way, while the follow up sees the band maturing without getting dull, which seems to be what has sadly happened a bit on the last 2 LPs).

Yes - Tales of Topographic Oceans (Each time I play this I'm more surprised at its bad reputation. Okay, the titles reek of pretension, but the music is consistently melodic and inventive).

Sagittarius - Present Tense
The Millennium - Begin (Curt Boettcher's two finest half-hours. Experimental sunshine pop at its best).

Lilys - Better Can't Make Your Life Better
Lilys - The 3-Way (Kurt Heasley's two ultra-cerebral power-pop classics. Wonder what he's up to now).

The Beach Boys - Wild Honey (Possibly unique take on blue-eyed soul, deliberately undercooked and with very little of those trademark harmonies, making all sorts of odd little details hit you with curious force. Some of Brian's best bass-lines can be found here, and it's probably the only album to be almost exclusively made up of Wilson/Love compositions).

Mr Fox - Mr Fox
Mr Fox - The Gypsy (Dark trad. folk which keeps throwing in real surprises, such as the almost space rock classic 'Mendle'. What a great and unsung duo Bob & Carole Pegg are).

Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (still enjoying this - an antidote to her brother Matt's more indulgent subscription series).

Rumer - Seasons Of My Soul (Picked this up brand new and very cheap from a charity shop, as she has a genuinely lovely voice, somewhere between Bobbie Gentry and Karen Carpenter, although I'm more a fan of the former than the latter. All impeccably crafted, with the assistance of Glen Ponder from Alan Partridge's chat show, but too much of an exercise in retro MOR to get particularly excited about).

Earthling Society / Stations of the Ghost (Well fuck me! I finally secured a copy and t'was well worth the wait! To these ears a very Autumnal album...which works out well as autumn is my favorite season. Right up there with all ES releases and absolutely fucking essential!)

Eternal Tapestry / Beyond the 4th Door (Quite like this!)

Ancestors / Invisible White EP (This is either a short detour or it signals a change away from their harder rocking previous efforts to a proggier, perhaps a bit post-rock sound. I guess time will tell.)

The Heads / Under the Stress of a Headlong Dive (My 1st from these dudes... what else do I need from them? Anything? Bueller? Bueller?)

White Hills / Heads on Fire

Gnod / Drop Out With White Hills II

Mount Carmel / ST (Love this one! Power trio in the Ten Years After vein)

Demdike Stare / Tryptych (Not my usual cuppa but there's something appealing about it.)

Sun Araw / Off Duty - Boat Trip (Well its no On Patrol...sadly)

Nicklas Barker / soundtrack to El Último Fin De Semana (If you like Goblin's 70s soundtrack work you're going to LOVE this all analog affair from Anekdoten/Morte Macabre dude)

The Sword / Warp Riders

Orchid / Capricorn (Lavishly packaged Sabbath worship from relatively new band)

Flower Travellin Band / Satori (RIP Joe!)

Poobah / Steamroller (Late 70s Midwestern US power trio with killer guitar.)

Mainliner / Mellow Out (Quite possibly one of the most deceptive titles ever)

Expo 70 / Black Ohms

Turzi / A and also the slightly better B

The Gates of Slumber / The Wretch

Pholas Dactylus / Concerto della Menti

Embryo / Steig Aus

VA / Giallo! : One Suite for the Murderer

VA / Like Black Holes in the Sky: The Tribute to Syd Barrett

VA / Singapore A-Go-Go

VA / Fluorescent Tunnelvision

Conrad Schnitzler / Gelb, Acon 2000/1, Control, Grûn, Con+2, Concert, '85

Metabolismus / Spriebwärtsdrall

Tim Blake / Blake's New Jerusalem

Tsurubami / Gekkyukekkaichi

Triumvirat / Spartacus

The Tribal Elders / 2-track single The Light of the World & I Don't Know What I'm Doing (featuring former VdGG members David Jackson & Chris "Judge" Smith )

Wobbler / Rites at Dawn

Datashock - Pyramiden von Giessen. A classic modern Krautrock album, loving it!

The Doors - Morrison Hotel/LA Woman

Heldon - Electronic Guerilla/Allez Teia/It's always rock and roll.

Allez Teia was a recommendation from Emil Amos (Grails/Holy Sons) and I liked it so much I got the other two. French electronica (with guitars and mellotron) from 70s, though some solo acoustic tracks also. Some of the tracks sound a little dated to my ears (usually the more bleepy up-tempo tracks). Clearly influenced by Fripp/Eno, King Fripp is one title, Moebius another. The lengthy middle track of Allez Teia reminds me of Black Tempest. But there's at least a good double album lurking within these three. They seem quite rare so I had to go the Itunes route.

Gnod - Somnambulists Tale/Science & Industry. Didn't know what to expect from these cdrs but both v different and both good. I love the female vocals at the start of the first Science and Industry jam - reminded me of Crass.

In Zaire - the 3 tracks from the 2 sides of Vinyl cope mentioned in a drudion and available as free downloads from the band. Well worth it - the 3 actually work well together as an album.

What with one thing or another have been a bit stressed lately and as a result haven't listened to much music. Seems i need an empty head, which until now i've had no trouble achieving, to enjoy stuff fully.

Anyway, did mange to squeeze these in over the last two weeks...

CARAVAN - In the Land of Grey & Pink - with the exception of a Matching Mole LP the Canterbury Scene is one that's completely passed me by, on this evidence though, i need to hear more. For the most part this is top stuff, interminable organ solos excepted ( although i've never been a fan of that early 70's prog organ sound so no surprise there )

MAN - Rhinos Winos and Lunatics 2CD - Studio album's pretty good ( hadn't heard it for 30+ years )but as i've always found with Man the live stuff's way better. Great sleeve notes from Deke Leonard too, he's got a real downer on Brian Ferry, hehe. Oh, and can never complete a post about Man without mentioning the human metronome, Terry Williams, what a drummer he is.

MOON DUO - Mazes - Very Shjips like, but for me personally, more enjoyable( the odd Shjips toon excepted )

...piss poor effort really.

EDIT...

Just remembered, I'm partial to a bit of instrumental flash, so had a bit of trip down fusions memory lane...

JEFF BECK - Wired - Hadn't heard this for years, still sounds cool too, having a few of the Mahavishnu crew on board kinda helps. Or maybe the rose tinted spex.

MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA - Visions Of The Emerald Beyond - Has its moments but the choir ain't one of them. The lyrics they're given to sing just get me running for the eject button too. Was gobsmacked how familiar it all was considering i must have last heard this when i was 15 or 16 though. Much prefer Mahavishnu Mk 1.

TOMMY BOLIN - Teaser - Much written about Tommy on here of late so i thought i'd check this out ( only familiar with him on Billy Cobham's Spectrum where he's out of this world ), hmm, first impressions a bit underwhelming, yeah, there's some good playing but the toons leave me cold for the most part, kinda bland really. Instrumentals impressed more so will go back and give it another couple of plays. No rose tinted spex available for me here.

All the best everyone.

Stone Harbour Emerges
Interesting 2 piece from early 70s with garagey edge to their basement sound. Finally bought this earlier this year after years of hearing about it. Nice & dark.

Screaming Trees Dust
Trying to work out exactly when they were recapturing but vague echoes of say '69 to '72ish should cover things nicely. Psych influenced hard rock for the most part. I think you just categorise it as great as you do with most of their stuff.

Nick Cave Let Love In
The recent remaster sounds really good. I just rediscovered this lp earlier this summer after neglecting it too long. Got it as a d/load then bought it. Love the hammond organ bits & the rinky dink grooves. A lot of this is very danceable, not sure how widespread that notion is cos I don't frequent the kind of place this might make it into the dj booth in. Could be everybody already knows that. I kind of get stuck with Nick as god of gloom which is something he himself has been trying to overturn. Don't like his overtly comical lyricism elsewhere overmuch.

Trojan Rocksteady set disc 1
I had a couple of these tracks on Club Ska '67 which must have been released before the music was redesignated. Groovy stuff anyway. I think I might come back & rewrite a few of these descriptions just not on form this morning.
Anyway, Trojan is back releasing 2 cd compis that are at least of some worth. Shame they deleted all the great ones they've put out over the last 10 years.

Fall Palo alto '81
I like 80s Fall but really love this stuff from around Hex Enduction Hour era. This was a great gig with a lot of great material played. Don't think much happened in terms of audience antagonisation. Would that make the set better or worse?

Annette Peacock I'm The One
Put this on a couple of times this week. Avant jazz meets funk meets singer songwriter from '72. Apparently big influence on Bowie at the time & had Mainman involvement.
Recently reissued in limited edition of 500. I'd try to grab it if I was you.

Etoile de Dakar Once Upon A Time In Senegal disc 1
Sublime early 70s African material introducing Youssou N'Dour who later formed Super Etoile De Dakar to continue their legacy once the original band split.

plenty of other stuff which will come to me later

watched
Torchwood series 4 pretty good, looks like the US are a week ahead of us since I got to watch episode 6 as a d/load. Wondering if the show will become further Americanised which might be detrimental.

Weeds season 7 1-5
Reminded me I never watched the final episodes of season 6. But enjoyed this anyway. 3 years later Nancy gets released from jail and starts again.

Rango enjoyable computer animated Western yarn with debts to the Dollar Films, Chinatown and various others. Mad Max 2 for one.

Cowboys & Aliens
not sure if this was based on comics or computer games. Latter might explain its shortcomings a bit better. Daniel Craig as cowboy badman hero. Harrison Ford playing a supposedly evil cattle baron, not seen him on the wrong side before as far as I remember.

Super 8
Dark Speilberg homage. Feel has more Jaws about it than the kid films one might think of from the plot. Quite good I thought.

Meek's Cutoff
Dark existential(?) film about a wagon train being led astray by a gobshite guide. Again pretty good, worth catching though it might bore some.

Captain America.
Better than some reviews had it. Certainly enjoyed it more than Ghost Rider. Enjoyable Hokum?

Think that's about it. MIght edit this a bit later.

Stevo

Death Grips - Ex-Military
For the last few weeks I've been listening to this pretty constantly. Brutal intense rap. Fecken exhilirating stuff.

Available as a free download at the link above. You can play the tracks there too, if you're wanting to see what you think I'd recommend checking out the Link Ray sampling Spread Eagle Cross The Block.