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Saloth Sar Sound @ One #72 CD £10.99 Second album from these No Neck Blues Band/Sunburned Hand Of The Man/Izititiz affiliates. Recorded live at WFMU radio in New Jersey, Saloth Sar comes adorned with photographs of Khmer Rouge prisoners taken from Cambodia’s S21 prison archives and invective against America’s involvement in the ‘secret’ war there. The music itself is a whole other program for liberation with Marc Orleans’s guitar, David Shuford’s moog and bouzouki playing and Carter Thornton’s what-the-fuck combining in huge non-idiomatic gestures that refuse any convenient forms or ideologies. Comes in a handscreened cardstock digipak. |
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Lucky Bird Sound @ One #65 CD £8.99 The third release from NNCK satellites Izititiz, Lucky Bird is structured as a cartoon myth-play base around the odyssey of a drummer that looks suspiciously like Animal from The Muppets in his search for a mythic box of Cuban Jade hidden in a paper bag. At points the music, drawn from live blowouts at NNCK’s Hinthouse and the Ecstatic Yod Collective, orbits the more daredevil end of European improvisation, with bassist Matt Heyner (Dream Aktion Unit/Test et al) spooling enough ragged wire to allow Ras Moshe’s horn and James Duncan’s trumpet access to some singularly oblique tonal regions without losing their connection to the narrative drive. But it’s Carter Thornton’s guitar that situates the disc somewhere beyond the reach of established jazz strategy, loosing note blips that sigh like balloons and lunar rundowns that make plenty of sonic sense while remaining melodically obscure. |
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s/t Sound @ One #78 LP £15.99 Limited Sound@one vinyl version of long-time coming collaboration between The No-Neck Blues Band and original ethno/jazz Kraut caravan Embryo complete with a cool poster and two large inserts with extensive liners. Embryo made some great recs in the early 70s, including the super-heavy Bremen 1971 and members of Embryo played alongside Conrad Schnitzler et al at the Zodiak Free Arts Lab and as members of the free-improvising think tank Eruption. Their commitment to guerrilla folk/art actions, their whole get-in-the-van ethos and their multi-disciplinary approach to improvisation makes em ready bed-fellows with NNCK and anyone who has seen that amazing Embryo Eurasian tour documentary will already be fully aware of the parallels. This big band set is heavy on the percussive side, with miniature hand/glock/throat rituals giving way to moments of sublime melodic clarity that have a touch of eastern European klezmer music to em (especially reminiscent of that beautiful Khevrisa set on Folkways) along with a little Marion Brown/Gunter Hampel. Elsewhere there's an almost Sun City Girls level of mutant lip along with touches of contemporary psych units like Dungen although that particularly lop-sided percussive swandive that they invariably tumble into and Michiko's great vocal interjections mean that the whole deal is unmistakably NNCK. NNCK have always done a great job of drawing attention to the crucial breakthrough role played by various non-canonical freaks working well below the radar and this is another swell public service event. And it sounds great. Highly recommended. |
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Some Forgotten Country Sound @ One S@1-77 LP £12.99 Debut album from Dave Shuford of the No-Neck Blues Band's new project, where he combines weird Southern banjo/guitar stylings that draws from a parallel folk tradition that has a pair of working boots planted firmly in a continuum occupied by The Dillards, Michael Hurley and Koerner, Ray and Glover and another in orbit around lonesome satellites like Comus and US Saucer. Indeed, there is something of Brian Hageman in Shuford's weird ass delivery, the way he combines straight ahead mountain hollers with idiosyncratic bullfrog phrasing, though Shuford has a much tighter grip on syncopated pre-war modes while his partners play electric slide guitar as mutant as anything birthed in the volcanoes of Mu by Antenna Jimmy Semens. But a song like "Bound To Ride" is just an absolute joy, up there with Hurley circa "Portland Water" or the more off-the-cuff moments of Dylan's Basement Tapes (particularly Dylan's back-and-forth take on "All American Boy") and as if to toss you a subtle red herring, Shuford even drops in a flash of the kinda hick falsetto that will send you right back to the first time you ever heard Nashville Skyline. It feels almost occult, but I guess the title effectively gives the game away. So pick 'em as a comer, dog hummer. |
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Molly Moonbeam/Johnny Thunder Sound @ One #95 7 £6.99 New single from this No-Neck Blues Band offshoot featuring Jason Meagher, Dave Shuford and Dave Nuss. A-side is whole new side of country scuzz while the flip is a cover of The Kinks' "Johnny Thunder" from We Are The Village Green Preservation Society. |
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In Madagascar Sound @ One #104 7" £6.99 New single from Dave Shuford of The No-Neck Blues Band’s country/song-based group project, featuring Marc Orleans from Sunburned Hand Of The Man and Jason Meagher of NNCK. This one feels closer to an urban NY take on the music of The Flying Burrito Brothers, filtered through Lou Reed’s drug-swagger style circa Sally Can’t Dance and with a nod to Peter Laughner and Mott The Hoople. One of their best yet. |
