CHANO POZO El Tambor de Cuba (Tumbao)
Tumbao has been a great archiver of vintage Cuban sounds and this new 3CD
set (with 148-page book) is a royal jewel in their crown. Within these
1939-52 recordings lies a rich array of an amazing musical
history; percussionist Pozo was a major nail in the seal of African and
Cuban rhythms, working as a percussionist with orchestras from those led
by Arsenio Rodriguez to Dizzy Gillespie and Perez Prado. His story is both
legendary and shrouded by mystery, Pozo was credited as being a "wildman",
especially after his ascent to the New York City scene. This collection is
full of amazing recordings, plus spoken anecdotes punctuated in
between. Stunning stuff indeed.
MICHAEL YONKERS BAND Microminiature Love (DeStijl)
GARY WILSON You Think You Really Know Me (Motel)
Armed in 1968 with a mutant Fender guitar covered in dials and tinfoil,
Minnesota wildman Michael Yonkers knocked us flat on our ass several years
back with a 7" reissued on Get Hip. So now with a full LPs worth of primo
1960's rock and roll weirdness, we now have a genuine helping of serious
primitive whumping complete with an orgy of feedback from
Yonkers' self-designed arsenal. Imagine a wedding of Hasil Adkins and Von
Lmo and you get sort of the picture. Hearing the extended lo-fi electronic
shriekfest that is tagged on to the end of "Boy in the Sandbox" will send
shivers, worth the price of admission alone. Words has it he is playing a
midwest show once again (w/Sun City Girls!) and may come east for a visit.
Another rock and roll space traveller, Gary Wilson, IS hitting the city
very shortly, and it's quite the stir around town. For the uninitiated,
his 1977 opus "You Think You Really Know Me" has been beloved here at WFMU
for years (we even carried the LP in our mail order catalog). Now on CD
(no extra tracks) after some years of high praise from various rock
circles (Beck even gives him a lyrical shout-out in a song), Wilson's rock
is a bit more airy than Yonkers. Well, that's an understatement. This
thing is all 4-track recordings full of bizarre Steely Dan-isms, loungy
synths, and an extremely unsettling persona singing along. A true loner in
his own universe, Wilson makes the likes of Skip Spence & Syd Barrett seem
like grounded studio pros. Behold at last...
JAY MUNLY Jimmy Carter Syndrome (Smooch)
DON HOWLAND The Land Beyond the Mountains (Birdman)
Described as "looking like death on stage and heckling audience members
who aren't watching him", one could also claim that Bay Area
singer/songwriter Munly has a lot in common with GG Allin or Gallagher II,
but in reality this is not the case. Member of the popular Slim Cessna
Auto Club, this record is a great visit to the underbelly of American
roots music: eerie carnival organs, weepy strings, plodding/surging
rhythms anchored around Munly's dark persona (see Cohen, Cave, Mark
Growden). Unique, beautiful, original.
Kentucky hills resident Don Howland also has a majorly strange mojo
happening; his old group the Gibson Brothers were the closest thing you
could imagine to be a hayseed version of Pussy Galore as being (Jon
Spencer even joined up for a while); later on he flexed his blues scholar
muscles with the great Bassholes, and now he plunges deeper into a well of
despair laced with lo-fidelity feedback & fuzz on this solo outing. The
liners depict Howland as having offed himself with a screwdriver (yeesh! a
picture to boot in the booklet, did we need to see that?) with the lack of
"success" in the Bassholes, but you know it's just another fib as a
spoof of past blues-legend liner notes (thankfully). Howland rocks out at
home, offering up some killer covers too: Fuzzy Lewis. Thom Rapp (Pearls
Before Swine) and grandmother of gutbucket herself Jessie Mae
Hemphill. Music for LSD-ingesting boll weevils.
NELS CLINE SINGERS Instrumentals (Cryptogramophone)
That's right, there's no real singers in this band, hardeehar. But there
is an amazing and diverse trio of Nels Cline (guitar), Scott Amendola
(percussion/loops/effects), and Devin Hoff (bass) who draw from a pretty
umlimited palette of sounds to create a really undefinable music somewhere
amidst jazz and rock. Cline has been a west coast fixture for years,
shredding strings with Thurston and Watt, creating smooth and sublime
soundscapes for so-called "serious jazz" labels, drawing equally on
inspiration from Jimmy Giuffre and Deerhoof. Instrumentals shows a vast
array of Cline's colors, from meditative bop ("A Mug Like Mine") to a
roaring noise testimony ("Blood Drawing") worthy of Gravitar and
Fushitsusha fans' attention.
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