Week 3: Jan 21-27
Windy & Carl | ASO | Dave Clarke | Portishead | Morcheeba | Herbie Hancock | Peter Culshaw
Welcome to my weekly recommendation digest. I am posting an album a day on threads and Instagram but this digest has more ways to listen, ways to buy physical or digital releases, a few more images, and some background words from me on why I selected this album.
This experimental project will evolve over time, I may try some themes, some vibes but definitely no requests.
Back from NYC, it’s cold, it’s wet, work is tough, I miss my Archie.
Windy & Carl - Antarctica: Bliss Out - Darla Records - 1997
Antarctica was the third album by Windy & Carl but my first connection to the duo. At the time I avoided guitars and the "rock" scene, like the plague, but this album was different. Instrumental, slow, deep, perfect come down music from raving. The Bliss Out bit of the title I think hooked me.
The minimalist "group" was centered around the core husband-and-wife duo of guitarist Carl Hultgren and bassist/singer Windy Weber. Unlike other drone/ambient artists like Cluster, or Brian Eno, Windy & Carl's drones were created with guitars, and delay, reverb effects, and E-Bow's, rather than synthesizers. It did feel kind of shoegaze at the time.I listened to this a lot traveling through London in the dark, staring into Tube tunnels, walking through cobbled streets.
RIP Marlena Shaw
Marlena Shaw Guardian obituary
A.S.O. - A.S.O. - Low Lying Records - 2023
Trip Hop is both probably my all time “fav” genre, but it does covers a lot. It is a band-aid title for a lot of crappy lounge music, spa music, bar music you name it. ASO popped up on a lot of end of year lists, and people keep talking about a trip hop revival. I had never heard of A.S.O., and this is their first record together.
As ASO They are Tornado Wallace (who I love his house releases) , and a singer called Alia Seror-O'Neill. The tempos are slow, there is the odd break beat, some groovy, jazzy and Alia has a superb, smoky, sultry, sexy voice.
Dave Clarke. - Archive 1 - Deconstruction Records - 1996
The hardest, most intense Detroit techno ever produced outside of the Motor City. Clarke's first album for Deconstruction was a compilation of sorts from previous singles. Though the downtempo first track and funky flavor of the third start things off surprisingly the album stomps from the fourth track on. The inclusion of all the A-sides of all three "Red" singles is the best introduction to Clarke. Proper Techno.
Clarke another Brighton boy, started his career as a producer and his first release was actually under "Hardcore" on XL Recordings in 1990. In 1992 he launched his own label, "Magnetic North", releasing stuff by "Fly By Wire". He also produced a series of EPs under the name "Red", before working with Kevin Saunderson, The Chemical Brothers, New Order and Underworld.
Clarke is one of the first and few DJs who performed live on John Peel's BBC radio show.
Because Dave’s deal were done pre internet, pre music industry situation we have now, He didn’t own the rights to release and reissue. Last year Skint Records got the rights and started to remaster and re-release the singles that made up the “archive”. Dig in. Real loud.
Dummy - Portishead - go beat! - 1992
Another Trip Hop record. This probably if anything is what people think of when they think Trip Hop. Interestingly a genre the band refused to use. Geoff Barrow not only hated the term, but after a few years of adding scratches and dusty beats said he would never scratch another record. Dummy could well be one of my top 3 albums. Dusty, scratchy, soulful, dark, melodic, (does include singing) but rough, and dreamlike too. The bands name comes from a small hamlet outside of Bristol in the UK. Alongside Tricky, Massive Attack, Neneh Cherry, Roni Size, DJ Trust, the Wildbunch and others, created such a unique sound. A mix of dub, hip hop, UK soul and a DIY punk ethic that could only have been possible in Bristol. A melting pot of Jamaican, British, Celtic backgrounds, far enough from London to be able to feel independent, close enough to be inspired by what was going on in the capital.
Geoff Barrow and Beth Gibbons met in Neneh Cherry's kitchen in London while Barrow was hired by her husband Cameron McVey to work on her second album, Homebrew in ’92. They were later joined by Adrian Utley who introduced the band to the cimbaloms and theremins. According to Barrow, "It was like a light-bulb coming on" when Utley joined them, and they were able to make their own samples. They recorded their own music, cut their own dub plates and sampled them again. Barrow said that they distressed the vinyl records they had recorded by "putting them on the studio floor and walking across them and using them like skateboards",
Some of the samples on the album include Lalo Schifrin's "The Danube Incident" and Smokey Brooks' "Spin It Jig"; for "Strangers", Weather Report's "Elegant People"; for "Wandering Star", War's "Magic Mountain"; for "Biscuit", Johnnie Ray's "I'll Never Fall in Love Again"; and for "Glory Box", Isaac Hayes' "Ike's Rap II".
Morcheeba - Who can you trust? - Indochina - 1996
Keeping the Trip Hop thing going. Morcheeba's first album is a solid classic. Deep, soulful, tight beats everything Trip Hop should be. I saw the band a few times around this time, they were a rare breed of bringing the feels live. The production is incredibly funky and tight, and re-listening still stands up. Over the years the quality dipped, and it felt like they became a tired reflection of this album.
The band had all sorts of falling outs. Brothers can often be amazing and at the same time a car crash (Oasis, Chemical Bros, Orbital, Overmono there is a pattern here) The initial singer was fired, a string of touring singers also fired, original singer returns, sounds like a netflix drama - Loads more to read here on Wikepdia
Herbie Hancock - Future Shock - Columbia - 1983.
This is the record that started it all. My dad played this to me when I was a kid - I would have been 10. I will never forget it. it blew my tiny mind. I thought I had heard the future. Synths, drum patterns, turntablism, scratching, sampling. It wasn't Jazz, it wan't funk, it was afro/electro/funk. I still think it sounds like the future.
Future Shock was the thirty-fifth album from Herbie Hancock, working with Bill Laswell and drummer Sly Dunbar.
"Rockit", the album's big hit, was accompanied by one of the most successful music videos of the era. The video, directed by Godley and Creme of 10cc fame, featured dancing robots dancing to the track. Black artists were not allowed on MTV, so they replaced them with puppets! 😓 Apparently it was OK if Herbie was shown on the video if he was on a TV in the video but not actually performing! Hancock won several MTV Music Video awards in 1984, as well as the Grammy award for best R&B performance.
"According to 1999 re-issue's liner notes, when Laswell went to buy speakers at a music equipment store he would insist on testing them by playing the demos of "Rockit". While those songs were played through the speakers, passing by customers apparently liked what they heard and danced to the music. Soon after Laswell let Hancock know about the incident, eventually telling him – "We got something good here."
Peter Culshaw – Music From The Temple Of Light - Iskra Music - 2023
More Jazzy to finish off this third week, and something to relax to on a rainy Saturday here in Portland.
This is a new release, it came out last year but thanks to friends’ bandcamp lists, and some WhatsApp group texts this one kept coming up for me. The album is a mix of modern classical, new-age jazz, Indian and African influences and instrumentation, without being any one of these things, It’s something gorgeously new.
Peter Culshaw used to be a member of the West India Company a UK Jazz band, but with some electronics thrown in, and a lot of chill. Apparently it was recorded between Mumbai, London and Odessa, As Balearic Mike once pointed out “I was not prepared for just how lovely it is. A beautiful, soothing, contemplative record, which doesn’t allow easy categorization. It definitely has plenty Balearic vibes going for it, and the perfect soundtrack to many a sunset”.
Week 3 in the books, enjoying this - any thoughts/comments? (no requests)
My middle kid said I should add Boy Genius - I told them it doesn't work like that. Portland, OR.