Alfa Mist - Antiphon

Alfa Mist - Antiphon

Pink Bird

Heartbreakingly CMFCP only just discovered this - too late to bag one of the 250 LP copies that Pink Bird pressed. Stumbled upon purely by chance, Alfa Mist Antiphon is one of the finest modern jazz records in a long time. Possibly ever. It's right up there with Kamasi Washington, BadBadNotGood, Jaga Jazzist or Yussef Kamaal/Kamaal Williams, who are widely recognised as among the elite of today's jazz maestros. Alfa Mist appears to have come from nowhere, but his forward-facing blend of striking jazz arrangements, punchy beats and innovative instrumentation make Antiphon stand out a mile. Apparently conceived and recorded after conversations with his brothers, it's a record that invokes the true spirit of jazz, while not once sounding generic. Stunning stuff.

Jackson - Push Through EP

Jackson                                             

Push Through EP (Self-Released)          

If Stevie Wonder, Pharrel and Public Enemy were taken hostage by Sun-Ra, Mogwai and Mike Patten, forced to spend a decade devoid of outside contact in a Fritzl-esque cellar, and then forced to record an album, it would sound exactly like this. Exactly. Like. This. I fucking guarantee it.

Following on from assured sophomore release Time, Jackson deliver on their unquestionable promise with new record Push Through. 

Building on what is becoming a signature sound, the band, helmed by Jack Baldus, combine world-class musicianship with the kind of relentless creativity that can be as demanding as it is invigorating. Songs swerve violently, lurch and crash through their arrangements; yet every step is deliberate and meticulously performed. Influences and styles coalesce like battery hens, each one fracturing into a mix that defies categorisation; an amnesiac captivated by an unplaced reminiscence; something sinister; something sweet. Golden eggs indeed.

The band are led by songwriter, keyboard-wizard and lyricist Jack Baldus, whose increasingly impressive list of credits include work with Sure Thing. DJ Die, J. Morrison and Laid Blak. Joining him is regular vocalist O.Love, AKA 5 times DMC UK scratch champion DJ Asian Hawk, who combines sharp cuts, choice samples and impassioned vocal performances. This combo are the brains trust, behind which come the exceptional talents of a band of semi-regulars on session duty across drum, guitar, and brass instruments... including Gary Alesbrook on trumpet, he of Kasabian fame.

I could list the influences I hear in the record, but that would do a disservice to the composer, Jack Baldus. His uncompromising dedication to creating his own sound is clearly the driving force here. If you had to classify, you'd call this a jazz-funk-prog fusion record, akin to those the likes of Stanley Clarke gave to the 70s. Yet there's something Punk about the refusal to water down arrangements for modern audiences. 
I'll explain. Punk itself was a violent backlash against the proggy, jazzy sounds of the 70s that irked a generation of upstarts who wanted their music to stand for something, and saw the beardy prog bands as the preserve of a snobby upper-class. These days, music is most often delivered in soundbites; easily digestible simplicity set to a checklist of tired tropes. A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a song without the word 'tonight' in the chorus!

The received wisdom is this: Audiences are over-saturated, over-stimulated and under-educated. The steady dumbing-down of modern radio since the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has had its desired* effect, and the audience clamours for More Of The Same.

Of course, that's not the whole story, and the internet has enabled the proliferation of new styles and sounds, but the audience has dwindled. Represses outsell new records on wax and Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift outsell everyone by a ratio of approximately 10000:1

There is simply no common-sense in a self-funded, self-employed professional musician with only a modest fanbase putting themselves through the agonies and ecstasies of creating a band, recording and gigging when it's one as wildly inventive and academic as Jackson. 

By railing against this received wisdom, Jackson's Push Through delivers a record that might just remind you why you fell in love with music in the first place. You deserve music with passion. You deserve music that aspires to be the best. You deserve songs that mean something to the writer. You deserve Push Through.

Here's a short teaser video

Buy Push Through Here: Bandcamp / iTunes

Also since Jackson isn't the most Google-friendly search term going, here are some links to connect on social media

WEBSITE – FACEBOOK – TWITTER – INSTAGRAM – SOUNDCLOUD

*That's a whole other story, but if you're interested in how the Telecommunications Act affected diversity in the musical landscape, I recommend this illuminating report

The Eminent Stars - Bar Shift

Release date: 1 September 2017

Genre: Funk / Soul / R&B

Label: Tramp Records

Format(s): 7" EP / Digital

Cat #: TR1043

The Eminent Stars were founded by saxophonist Ben Mendes and drummer Toon Oomen. They both share the love for the great music emerging from cities like New Orleans in the ‘60s and ‘70s: Dr. John, Freddie King, The Meters and many more! Just mix up some soul, rhythm & blues, funk and blues and there you have it: a sound that consists of authentic elements: danceable, intriguing, vibrant and fresh!

Their debut Sittin' In With was released in February 2014, accompanied by a single. In the past three years The Eminent Stars heavily toured in their home country Netherlands and in Europe. They kept writing new songs and here we go with two new, fresh cuts. “Bar Shift” features guest vocalist Bruce James while “Brown Thang” is a smokin' blues-funk instrumental. These two sides give you an excellent foretaste of their second full-length album, scheduled for release in early 2018.

Check out this awesome live performance on video 

 

Pre-order now available from the Tramp Bandcamp store
https://tramprecords.bandcamp.com/album/pre-order-bar-shift-b-w-brown-thang

Chicago - I'm a Man (7" version 1969)

The eagle-eyed may notice that Week 3 and 4 have been announced on the same day. Your CMFCP correspondents were sunning themselves in Turkey last week so you'll excuse our poor time-keeping...

Continuing with the Chicago theme, middle of the road Dad-rockers Chicago step up for Week 4's instalment of Charity Shop Gem of the Week. Except on this record, found in a charity shop bin for 99p, they're about as far from middle of the road as can be!
1969 single I'm a Man, a cover of the Spencer Davis Group hit, is a brutal, almost tribal freakout that has been a mainstay of my DJ sets for 10 years. I just had to share it with you as it has possibly the greatest drum solo of all time. Where the later studio recording is clean, polished and by comparison unremarkable, this is an assault on the ears from a band going full throttle!
The first drum solo lasts about 90 seconds and starts about a minute into the song... it's a fucking bold move but the intensity and raw energy is astonishing. I haven't found this version anywhere on the web so I may upload it to youtube myself, but in the meantime, here's a similar live recording from about the same era. You get the gist, but trust me the 7" version is bonkers!

Art Ensemble of Chicago - People In Sorrow

Offering little info upon its battered sleeve than the title and date of recording, this appears to be a late sixties live jam by Lester Bowie and his cohorts, with a somewhat abstract, sombre bent. Eschewing the playful, upbeat jazz of other Art Ensemble... albums, both of the 20-minutes cuts on offer here are beautifully sparse, with the pops and clicks of the record grooves often more present than the music proper. A meandering marimba (?) propagates throughout, accompanied by the occasionally light percussion or brass, and an underlying (if not omnipresent) bass, with every instrument willing to give the others an abundance of space. The groups competence shines not in fast playing and difficult riffs, but rather in the ability of multiple instruments to emerge at once from a seemingly infinite nothingness in perfect harmony, a sudden burst of flowing bass and melodic trumpet that soon falls back into the intermittent wash of throaty sax purrs and lazy percussion. Even at its most active the music doesn't appear to actually be going anywhere - bass-lines and saxophone solos appear to have no discernible start or end,  looping perpetually with neither repetition or variation, only to be unceremoniously lost in a creeping flux of bells or primitive yells. It sounds a world away from 'experimental' jazz as we have come to expect, invoking a far more ritualistic, organic form, and is utterly captivating throughout.

Akira Sakata and Konstrukt - Kaishi: Live at Kargart

I am pretty sure you are not allowed a 'curious music' blog without throwing in the occasional free-jazz record, and this one is a veritable corker. A live collaboration between saxophonist Akira Sakata and Konstrukt, the album comprises four parts taken from a single session in Istanbul earlier this year. What makes this so refreshing is that, whilst it retains the wayward nature of free-jazz, it manages to eschew much of the noisier elements of the genre, with swathes of almost funky bass permeating the erratic drums and horn howls. Closer to Albert Ayler than Peter Brötzmann, the work sprawls dementedly over the 15 or so minutes of each part, but does so with palpable form - even at it's most free, the work oozes an over-riding structure and clarity, however abstract. It's also surprisingly melodic, with extended almost Prokofiev styled riffs running through a mist of tape echo one minute, only to be followed by psyche-inspired arabic sequences the next, rendered on a bed of intricate percussion. Add in some monkish throat singing, and a flirtation with drone, and it adds up to a wonderfully engaging take on a naturally difficult genre.

Limited to just 200 copies on double vinyl, you can get it here - http://www.holidaysrecords.it/