This Weeks Releases
So this week is a little weak on releases I have to say on the new release front, but there is at least one really good set of re-issues:
1. Amen releases a live album called Gun of a Preacher Man. Having seen these guys open for Killing Joke in 2004, I was sorely disappointed. They are a truly sad sight on stage,and worse on the ears.
2. Faith Hill's new one is out, replete with Tim McGraw duet (oh, the shock). Buy this if you want music to bore yourself catatonic. Otherwise go find a good Bocephus album (any will do).
3. Bill Bruford started not one but two boutique labels to release his new material and reissue his older material dating back to his 70s fusion days. The results so far have been positive. With the first new album being last years impeccable Random Acts of Happiness as a starter, he also has been issuing new remastered and bonus-tracked goodies from his Bruford and early Earthworks catalog, as well as his collaborations with pianists Michael Bortslap and Patrick Moraz. This week sees a continuation of the reissues with The Bruford Tapes and All Heaven Broke Loose.
The former is of a live NYC radio broadcast in 1979 that shows the quartet blasting through many of that groups best instrumental workouts: Hell's Bells (no relation to the AC/DC song of the same name), Sample and Hold, Fainting in Coils and both parts of The Sahara of Snow are all there. This is a very muscular, quirky but grounded band with a lot of explosive power. The latter is the last studio outing by the electric version of Earthworks. Featuring Bruford's use of what Bruford called chordal drums (using electronic drums to trigger and play unconventional sounds for both rhythmic and melodic parts), and the peerless frontline of Django Bates on Peck Horn and keys and Iain Ballamy on saxes and reeds, and rounded out by bassist Tim Harries, this unit made some of the most adventurous electro-acoustic jazz of the 80s and early 90s. It was not art-rock made jazzy or jazz confined to arty pretense, but unique and innovative in its own way. If you are a Bruford completist, you need to pick these up for the extra tracks and improved sound, but if you want a sample of how good Earthworks Mark I was, pick up the live album Stamping Ground.
1. Amen releases a live album called Gun of a Preacher Man. Having seen these guys open for Killing Joke in 2004, I was sorely disappointed. They are a truly sad sight on stage,and worse on the ears.
2. Faith Hill's new one is out, replete with Tim McGraw duet (oh, the shock). Buy this if you want music to bore yourself catatonic. Otherwise go find a good Bocephus album (any will do).
3. Bill Bruford started not one but two boutique labels to release his new material and reissue his older material dating back to his 70s fusion days. The results so far have been positive. With the first new album being last years impeccable Random Acts of Happiness as a starter, he also has been issuing new remastered and bonus-tracked goodies from his Bruford and early Earthworks catalog, as well as his collaborations with pianists Michael Bortslap and Patrick Moraz. This week sees a continuation of the reissues with The Bruford Tapes and All Heaven Broke Loose.
The former is of a live NYC radio broadcast in 1979 that shows the quartet blasting through many of that groups best instrumental workouts: Hell's Bells (no relation to the AC/DC song of the same name), Sample and Hold, Fainting in Coils and both parts of The Sahara of Snow are all there. This is a very muscular, quirky but grounded band with a lot of explosive power. The latter is the last studio outing by the electric version of Earthworks. Featuring Bruford's use of what Bruford called chordal drums (using electronic drums to trigger and play unconventional sounds for both rhythmic and melodic parts), and the peerless frontline of Django Bates on Peck Horn and keys and Iain Ballamy on saxes and reeds, and rounded out by bassist Tim Harries, this unit made some of the most adventurous electro-acoustic jazz of the 80s and early 90s. It was not art-rock made jazzy or jazz confined to arty pretense, but unique and innovative in its own way. If you are a Bruford completist, you need to pick these up for the extra tracks and improved sound, but if you want a sample of how good Earthworks Mark I was, pick up the live album Stamping Ground.
posted by theloniusfunk at 4:18 PM
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