:Episode One Hundred Eighty-Six: 5.8.2020

* Not on Spotify:
Nothing this week. Sometimes, they really do have it all.

Description

Among the highlights of this week's show:

Apparently, the musical inclinations of U.K. psych/avant-garde stalwarts Gnod rubbed off onto Dutch space rockers Radar Men From The Moon during their recent collaboration (as Temple OV BBV), since they've subsequently adopted a similar 80s proto-industrial sound, a la early Swans, Cop Shoot Cop, or Caspar Brötzmann Massaker (who just had another of their albums reissued by Southern Lord, a track off of which I play in this episode). I never really dug this sort of stuff when I was younger - a little too screamy and harsh for my taste. But, as many of the bands, such as RMFTM, involved in its revivification are psychedelically-inclined, they tend to smooth over the more jagged edges that kept me away before.

Just in time for summer, the return of Swiss group L'Éclair and their psychedelic, retro jazz-funk stylings. The yacht-rock revival was somewhat lost on me, but not because I don't enjoy music that evokes late-70s, post-hippie decadence. I just prefer to imagine myself strolling down a garbage-strewn New York City street on a muggy, mid-summer evening en route to a disco than lolling on the deck of a pleasure craft, sipping on a Harvey Wallbanger or a Tequila Sunrise or some other noxious, Carter-era cocktail.

Drawn from an album meant to accompany an exhibition of art by the late Moki Cherry (wife of Don Cherry, and mother of Neneh and Eagle-Eye Cherry), a track of glistening, minimalistic, avant-garde drone by composer Maxwell Sterling. Embedded within it are samples of Don Cherry discussing his youth in Watts, Los Angeles, and his early interest in "primitive," hand-made instruments (which would of course be reflected in his music, on albums like Brown Rice or in the Organic Music Society project)

Plus, the spaced-out, Turkish-folk-influenced, synth-heavy drone of Anadol, the very-late-period Kosmische of Lapre, the twee, retro-synth song-sketches of Green-House, and the reissue of Jan Jelinek's second-best album (the best being Kosmischer Pitch).