Outer Music Diary

I’ve written an editorial of sorts at my blog on musical genres if you’re so inclined.

Stark Reality - Now (Discovers Hoagy Carmichael’s Music Shop)

This is the kind of obscurity that makes one happy to be a music fan. A US group coming from the jazz scene making a progressive/psychedelic rock record that would have been comfortable coming out of early 70s Germany or Denmark. Electric piano, fuzz guitar, vibes (also fuzzed quite often), occasional vocals, drums, bass and a little sax and flute. The sound is like a cross between Soft Machine Volume Two, Wolfgang Dauner/Et Cetera and the Dave Pike Set with a zany side more akin to artists like Supersister, Zappa, and Coma. This is just freak out all the way, I think the guitarist doesn’t let up on the fuzz pedal the whole album. The compositional work is bizarre and challenging. Minimum 11. [Tom, this is your next 12+.]

Andrew Hill - Mosaic Select

I meant to bring this to work with me today. It’s the typical 3 CD select set, covering Hill’s larger ensemble work from 1967-1970. I like box sets where the discs come in their separate jewel boxes, so I can listen to one at a time and rotate them, but this set defied my expectations. By the end of the night I had finished the first two discs and half of the third. While Mosaic Select releases often compile album material, from the music in these sessions, only one album was ever pressed, leaving most of this music unreleased until now. It’ll almost break your heart to think that music this powerful could languish in the vaults so long. I have really grown to love some of the sextet and septet work of Blue Note in the latter half of the 60s, albums like McCoy Tyner’s Tender Moments or Lee Morgan’s Searching for a New Land, so getting 3 full CDs of this type of work is a real treat. Another thing that impressed itself upon me is that these are all Hill’s compositions from beginning to end in all their gnarly, thorny, space/time-defying logic. At times, these compositions go head to head with free jazz during some improvisational sections. I got the distinct feeling that processing all this music is going to be a task I’ll enjoy. Already I’m disappointed I managed to leave it behind. I hope to come back to this later.