Rarely Heard: Vijay Iyer Trio - Historicity

Although Vijay Iyer is probaly one of the most celebrated pianists in contempoary jazz, I assume that most jazz music is rarely heard, if your not really a full jazz fan. I had the opportunity to see the Vijay Iyer Trio live at the jazz festival in Saalfelden, Austria. I didn't know about him till then; I was there to see Ornette Coleman, who played right afterwards. His album "Historicity" was voted by Downbeat's Critics Poll as Best Jazz Album Of The Year 2010, his album "Accelerando" made the Poll again in 2012. And then some say his most recent album "BreakStuff" tops them all.

Rarely Heard: Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa - Bobbejaanland

Hirsche Nicht Aufs Sofa (alos known as H.N.A.S.) have a name that clearly indicates what they might sound like, it translates to: 'Stags not on the sofa'. The brainchild of the German self-taught musical experimentalist Christoph Heemann was founded in the early 80s, H.N.A.S. offered decidedly Dadaist sound collages, obviously influenced by similar projects like The Residents, Renaldo & The Loaf and especially Nurse With Wound, since Heemann became friends with Steven Stapleton. The band disbanded in 1993, but Heemann has gone on working under his own name.

Rarely Heard: Gong - Allez Ali Baba Blacksheep Have You Any Bull Shit

Gong is a Franco-British rock band formed by Australian musician Daevid Allen in 1967 and still active today, although the band went through many phases and reincarnations, temporairly even as a jazz-rock without Allen. But to say it in short, they have always been the ultimate hippie band, their music way out there, if you call it prog rock, space rock, psychedelic, it was their own brand of sound, and no other band was like them. To top things off, the musicians were top-of-the art virtuosos, and even if their songs (or space epics) sounded like they were  free flow and improvised, they certainly weren't. Their best work can be found on their live albums, I particularly loved the double album Live Etc. but Froating Free Anarchy had some pretty ecsatsic guitar solos, so I picked a tune from that one.

Rarely Heard: Steve Fisk - No 2nd Chance

Steve Fisk is mainly known and revered as the producer of a whole slew of now famous grunge bands like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Screaming Trees, and many more. His solo work, however, hardly reveals his grunge background, but consists rather of very inventive and innovative studio manipulations, and is sometimes mindblowing. At least, I loved his 1987 solo album 448 Deathless Days.

Rarely Heard: Esquerita And The Voola

Long before Elvis Presley entered Sam Phillips's Sun Records studio in 1954, rock 'n' roll was being performed and recorded by many fantastic artists, all unsung heroes of rock'n'roll. Esquerita was certainly one of them! Here's the full entry on him from Allmusic.com:
"With a six-inch pompadour, brocaded shirts, rhinestone shades, and a rhythmic, belligerent style of piano playing, Esquerita was the original Little Richard, years before Mr. penniman tutti-frutti'd his way to stardom. Working around the Dallas-New Orleans circuit in the early '50s, Esquerita's shot at the big time came when Capitol Records decided they needed their own version of Little Richard, after signing their answer to Elvis, Gene Vincent. The resulting recordings, though smartly produced, stand as some of the most untamed and unabashed sides ever issued by a major label. Long revered by rock & roll fans the world over, they make Little Richard's Specialty sides look highly disciplined by comparison. Though Esquerita continued to record in a tamer style through the '60s, his Capitol sides stand as a monument to the potential of rock & roll's lunatic power and the off-kilter genius of  Esquerita."

Rarely Heard: Dälek - Spiritual Healing

"Newark, NJ's Dälek undermine the simplistic gloss of mainstream hip-hop with gritty, complex underground hip-hop that at once clicks and whirs like some electronica head trip; layers on environmental ambience; and assaults the listener with aggressive, intelligent rhymes." (Allmusic.com)
While I'm not much of a hip-hop fan at all, I do find some truly great experimentalists that are worh checking out. Dälek are not the only ones I found (I'll be introducing other outfits over time), but one of the first. And when noise is involved, I'm always into it:
"The jarring industrial noise that drives the opening "Spiritual Healing" is your first clue that Dälek is coming from a whole 'nother frame of reference, with producer Oktopus' grinding grooves providing a dense, dark backdrop for some furiously inventive mike work." (Allmusic.com)

Rarely Heard: Clock DVA - Uncertain

"A product of the same mid-'70s England industrial music community that also gave rise to Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, Clock DVA emerged in 1980 from the ashes of Sheffield-area bands including the Studs, Block Opposite, Veer, and They Must Be Russians as well as the Future, an early incarnation of The Human League." (Allmusic.com)
As I was heavily into Industrial music at the time I got their 1981 debut album Thirst, which I found agreeable, but - hardcore as I thought I was - a bit to commercial, since it was all stil danceable (it had to be real noise for me). So I never ventured into their latter albums, and they existed well into the mid 90s. Would be interesting to check them out.

Rarely Heard: Actress - Purple Splazsh

"The alias of Wolverhampton, England-based producer Darren Cunningham, Actress was credited with some of the least predictable, categorization-defying electronic dance music of the 2000s. Since debuting in 2004 with the No Tricks 12" on his own Werk Discs label, Cunningham juggled a diverse array of inspirations -- including early-'80s funk and electro, art rock, raw and classicist house, and noise -- while putting a fresh, challenging spin on them." (Allmusic.com)
His album Splazsh was declared best album of the year 2010 by the music magazine The Wire.

Rarely Heard: You Am I - Berlin Chair

"You Am I is an Australian alternative rock band, fronted by vocalist/guitarist and main songwriter, Tim Rogers. You Am I is the first Australian band to have released three successive albums that have debuted in the #1 position on the ARIA charts and have received ten ARIA awards since inception. The band has supported popular bands, such as The Who, The Rolling Stones, Sonic Youth and Oasis." (Wikipedia)
I assume the band is rarely heard outside of Australia.

Rarely Heard: Caroline Weeks - Elegy

I came across Caroline Weeks via MySpace and instantly got her first album. She is a music and visual artist who works both independently and collaboratively. So far she has recorded an album of solo works called Songs For Edna on Manimal Vinyl in 2009 and is currently working on material for her second album. Caroline has also recorded and performed with Natasha Khan of Bat For Lashes which included touring with Radiohead on their In Rainbows tour where she met Philip Selway (drummer of Radiohead) which sparked another musical project. Caroline is also creatively involved in projects with Collectress and Triangulation.

Rarely Heard: Björk - Álfur Út Úr Hól

I guess I needn't explain much about Björk, most of her music is indeed highly ackowledged and well-known, rightly so. Lesser known is maybe the fact that in Iceland she had already been a star at the age of 11. At that age she released her very first album and it had some lovely cover versions on it. Let's see, if you can recognize this song?

Rarely Heard: Tom Verlaine - Rain, Sidewalk

Of course, many will know Tom Verlaine as the guitarist and singer of the legendary Television, but he has released an impressive amount of wonderful solo albums, which I assume are not recognized highly enough, and his talent as guitarist is still underrated. He's still going strong, and I won't miss any of his albums coming up. Last one was 2006, so I hope he'll up to new tunes soon again.

Rarely Heard: Utah Carol - Angel

 

A duo consisting of Grant Birkenbeuel and JinJa Davis, Utah Carol is from Chicago. I came to posess one of their albums as a drop-away from our company. Checking for this entry I found their clips are indeed rarely heard and there's not much information to be found about them either. I do think they produce nice easy-going pop songs.

Rarely Heard: Cecil Taylor - Air

"Virtuosic jazz pianist and avant-garde radical who combined the compositional grandeur of European tradition with jackhammer intensity." (Allmusic) I'm not quite certain, but I've experienced that Cecil Taylor - one of the true remaining giants in jazz (not just free jazz) - is the one artist that even most die-hard jazz aficiandos (at least the ones who think they are) avoid at all costs. Of course, his music is 'difficult', but I always thought that's what it's all about, and his oeuvre stands monolithic within modern music. I've found listening to him most rewarding and I'm sad I'll probably never be able to see him perform live.

Rarely Heard: Soap&Skin - Vater

I'm a great fan of Soap&Skin, the musical project of the Austrian musician and composer Anja Plaschg. "...often drawing comparisons between Plaschg and celebrated female singer/songwriters such as Cat Power, Nico, Kate Bush, and Björk" (Allmusic.com) I'd say her compositions show a very individual musical vision, all meticulously created song poems, often little operas in themselves, like the song Vater. She's been successful in her home country and a bit in France and Belgium, but I'd say she's deserves much more attention. Most of her songs are not in German, I have included a translation of Vater's lyrics below.

Stop all the clocks,
prevent the dog from barking at the wheel,
wherever i impact i'll find you
you fall into the shadows of days
as silence and stab
i drink a dozen bottles of wine
and would rather be a maggot

the coffin collapses
the flowers fall onto your cheeks
first white then blue then grey then green then foam then leaves and dust

please put yourself out of my mind out of my house
who else should i cope the horror
with which heart?
with which body?
over.
over.

wherever i impact i'll find you
you fall into the shadows of days
as silence and stab
i wait for you returning home
i never wanted to be a maggot more than now
beeing a maggot
beeing a maggot
..

Let me in, in, (your) bones
being hard as you are
let me in your eye
i want to see
pass the test
without pain
without pain
without pain
let me in
you stone

not going to be saved by waiting, by wine, by screaming

for everything in the world
that keeps you alive
i smash my firmament
which collapses under you
until you tilt
and finally show up again

Rarely Heard: The Raincoats - Fairytale in the Supermarket

"One of the more unusual bands to rise from the British punk explosion of the 1970s, the Raincoats were post-punk before punk's first act had fully played out; they had little interest in the speed or velocity of the Clash or the Sex Pistols, instead embracing a more open and dynamic approach which incorporated purposefully chaotic arrangements that made the members' lack of instrumental experience a virtue rather than a drawback. They also occasionally employed acoustic instruments (particularly violin) as well as percussion that showed influences of reggae and world music, and sang lyrics that dealt with feminism and personal politics in a direct yet non-dogmatic manner." (Allmusic.com) They're still active today.

Rarely Heard: Pale Saints - Sight of You

Ethereal pop band the Pale Saints formed in Leeds, England, in 1987. Unfortunately, they only released three albums with the label 4AD. They were loosely labeled as shoegaze and lisening to their you can understand why. I play their albums quite often, especially when I have visitors, since their sound is agreeable to most of my friends, despite that they are not so broadly known of.

Rarely Heard: oOoOO - Sedsumting

"oOoOO (pronounced as "oh") is a witch house/chillwave project created by Christopher Dexter Greenspan, currently based in San Francisco. Along with White Ring and Salem, oOoOO is often recognized as a pioneer of the witch house sound." (Wikipedia) I have their first self-titled EP on vinyl and find their sound very mesmerizing. I know nobody in my circle of friends who have heard of them (with one exception, Gerhard, of course), but checking the views on the clips available at YouTube they do must have a lot of fans.
(Not to be mistaken with OOIOO which I will introduce in a later entry).

Rarely Heard: Nekropolis - Ghul

Nekropolis is the name of the projet that the Munich-based artist and composer Peter Frohmader has been using for his work since 1981. His intention is to describe the realm of the dead with musical means and you could describe his work as dark ambient. Although the music could be fully considered within the Goth and Industrial genres, I've rarely heard him mentioned in such context. At the time I purchased his first albums, but as I see he's still active to this day. Allmusic on his first album Musik aus dem Schattenreich from which Ghul is taken: "The album creates a very dark and disturbing atmosphere and sounds like the screams of lost souls in Hell."

Rarely Heard: Miranda Sex Garden - Peep Show

I came across Miranda Sex Garden when their album Fairytales of Slavery was released in 1994 and I was selling it at my cinema/record store I was running at the time. I fell in love with their music. The all-female group had started off as madrigal singers, and their first record, aptly titled Madra, consisted of songs based on traditional English verse and sung completely a cappella. Eventually,"the sound evolved into a blend of their madrigal-styled vocals with sounds reminiscent of gothic rock, darkwave, ethereal wave, and industrial music. Their sound became increasingly dark and sophisticated over the years. Around the time of their third album, Fairytales of Slavery, they said they wanted to create music that evoked a "seductive garden of earthly delights, full of colour and chaos." (Wikipedia). Sadly, they haven't produced a new album since 2000.