period MICHAEL YONKERS with the BLIND SHAKE

also picked up a brand spanking new copy of this LP today at End of an Ear...this LP is top notch! dirty, psych tinged garage rock from a legend and a great younger band from Minneapolis. S.S. Records released this beauty and continues to amaze me with some of the best releases lately! (if you don't have a copy of S.S. Records reissue of Prisoners Go-Go Band go to their website now and buy it, thank me later).

Michael Yonkers with the Blind Shake - Carbo Hydro by S. S./ Sol Re Sol Records

check out the track above for a little sample and then head over to the S.S Records catalog and get your copy! I'm sure there are only 500 or some small amount of these pressed so go get it!

song for JOSEPH JARMAN

picked up a real clean original copy of this LP today at End of an Ear. totally stoked. i've really been digging on a lot of Art Ensemble of Chicago and related material. picked up a copy of Roscoe Mitchell's Solo Concert recently reissued by Tizona Records and it is killer. but back to the LP at hand. i had a CD copy of "Song For" back in college and loved it but kinda forgot about it once I got rid of all my CD's. so it is a very welcome surprise to hear this again on vinyl.

the other really great thing about this LP is that it features some of the lesser heard from AACM dudes...Steve McCall and Thurman Barker on drums, Christopher Gaddy on piano and marimba, Charles Clark on bass (who really holds it down. seriously awesome bass playing) and the best surprise is getting to hear a young Fred Anderson (!!) and Billy Brimfield. the LP starts off with "Little Fox Run" which is a great mix of AACM style improv with Ayler style fire music of the time. the mix seems a little more ahead of it's time than a lot of jazz from this era. it was recorded in 1966 after all. "Non-Cognitive Aspects of the City" is a total slow soundscape/poetry tune in the style of future Art Ensemble of Chicago pieces. The B-side starts off with "Adam's Rib" which moves at a dirge like pace but has some really amazing solos (especially from Brimfield) and Clark's bass playing is incredible and seriously holds the entire track and band together. "Song For" closes the album on a really graceful and beautiful note...in the words of Jarman himself:

"SONG FOR is made of sound and silences from musical instruments, controlled by seven men; it's music that lasts 13 1/2 minutes, it's for itself, for love, for hate, & for the God within us all--it has no "meaning" outside of itself, the MUSIC."

this is a must have for any fan of AACM, Art Ensemble of Chicago or even Fred Anderson fans who want to hear some of his earliest recorded playing. listen to it here.

shinu toki wa betsu WHA-HA-HA

quite a score today at End of an Ear...an original pressing of Wha-ha-ha's 1981 album "Shinu Toki Wa Betsu." (check out this review from Pitchfork (!?!) from way back when in 2005 of a reissue of this record). i will admit the only reason I picked this LP up to check it out is because Akira Sakata is part of the group! Sakata's name may be familiar to some as he's recently gained some noteworthy acclaim from his playing with Jim O'Rourke and Chikamorachi (Darin Gray & Chris Corsano). He's released excellent CD's and LP's on the Family Vineyard label (Live at the Hungry Brain is pretty great) and an amazing double LP on Presspop outta Tokyo which features a qartet of Sakata, Jeff Parker, Nate McBride and John Herndon! video of the show that's on the record here:



i digress...back to the record at hand....WHA HA HA.

judging by those recent outings by Sakata you might not be expecting Wha-ha-ha to be what it is...which is to say it's out there in a great way. this is definitely a pop record, granted a very odd pop record that only early 80's Japan could produce. mix together 70's Zappa-esque prog sensibilities with early synth/keyboard pop and occasional weirdo free-jazz breaks and lots of scat singing on top. it's definitely a bit cheesy but in a great way. what's even weirder is that Sakata is not the only japanese jazz star on this record. drummer Shuichi "Ponta" Murakami has played with Yosuke Yamashita (where he met Akira Sakata in the early 70's) and keyboardist Shuichi Chino has played with Otomo Yoshihide among others.

although this might not be the most amazing LP you'll hear, it's pretty damned interesting and especially considering some of the people playing on the record. "Inanaki," the lead track is worth it alone, but the album as a whole stands as a really pleasant fun pop record from the early 80's japan. a lot of hip kids with synths would kill to make a record like this now. this is the real deal. listen to it here.

challenger BURNING STAR CORE

while on the subject of challenging records....Burning Star Core has made quite a few of them. the nom de plume of C. Spencer Yeh who has been released limited cassettes, CDR's and LP's since the very early 2000's. "Challenger" was released back in 2008 on Plastic Records (and CD on Hospital Records) and was his first LP to show a markedly different tone and direction. granted some of the noise is still in there but it's more composed on this record and is intertwined with slowly moving synth lines and other subtler touches. can't say I'm really surprised to see this direction from BSC considering his nonstop touring and collaborating, especially in the last 3-4 years with free jazz musicians and other non-noise dudes.

great record of more composed pieces. bought it a while ago but hadn't given it a full listen really and recently was looking at my LP's with artwork by Robert Beatty and thought I'd give this another spin. well worth it. check it out here.

new slaves ZS

quite possibly the best LP released in 2010 (or for a few years for that matter). Zs formed way back when in 2000 and have had multiple configurations from a sextet (2 saxes, 2 guitars & 2 drums) to everything in between and now for "New Slaves" (released in 2010 on Social Registry, with amazing cover art from John Dwyer of Thee Ohsees, Coachwhips, etc) they are a trio of sax, guitar and drums but you wouldn't know it from the sound of the album. This is the fullest, most confounding, genre-defying and challenging record they've ever made. it's also worth noting that longtime co-founder Charlie Looker left after their 2007 album "Arms" to focus on his project Extra Life which left just the trio would didn't even know if they'd continue making music as Zs....read here.

this LP is definitely not for everyone to say the least. but if you are even remotely interested in new experimental music you have to hear this record. most of the time you can't even tell who is actually playing what...to quote Ben Ratliff in his review of "New Slaves" from the New York Times, "the saxophone ends up sounding like an electric guitar and the electric guitar ends up sounding like a dentist’s drill. The drums sound like subway wheels heard from half a station away, or a clapping game." as a double LP this is definitely an endurance test but there are so many ideas and sounds crammed in here that it's hard not to listen to the entire thing at a time. in fact, I can't remember the last time I sat down to listen to this LP and DIDN'T listen to the whole thing. you almost have to take it in it's entirety just to get an idea of what's going on.

for example:


if that's not enough to convince you then listen to New Slaves right here and get hip. Zs are at the top of the vanguard of new music right now. LP and CD versions of this album are both out of print so if you happen to find it at a record store I recommend buying it.