Kay Hoffman - Floret Silva

Reviewed by Mark Winkelmann

"This band sounds like group X meets group Y". We've all heard it but all too often it means a really crappy version of group X meets someone who once read about the Fall in the NME. At best, this lazy descriptive technique is mildly helpful. At worst .... we've all been disappointed by music that didn't meet the hype. So if I tell you the things that Kay Silverman's "Floret Silva" reminds me of Vashti Bunyan meets Henry Cow you've every right to be wary. Except this release is quite unique, greater than the sum of its parts. So here goes with attempting to make you believe that "Vashti Bunyan meets Henry Cow" isn't the worst description of any music since the last issue of the NME hit the newstands. Assuming it even still reviews music, or there are any newstands left.

What we have here is one of the few attempts to integrate Early Music and some form of funky jazz, or is it jazzy funk? Early Music and similar strands turned up as an influence mainly with English prog groups to a greater (Amazing Blondel) or lesser (Third Ear band or maybe Jethro Tull) extent, though this usually seemed like a subset of the widespread integration of classical elements. However none of those bands made much attempt to make a crumhorn swing. It's not entirely without precedent, English session musicians recording as The Roundtable, attempted something similar albeit with more of an easy listening/exotica ting and Baroque moves were adopted by the "swinging" US group Mariano and the Unbelievables. This rather unique project which was finally issued in Japan in the mid 80s remains far more sui generis and exudes none of the whiff of cheesy commercial cash in. Perhaps the nearest fellow travellers were Circulus who set off down this road twenty years later. "Floret Silva" is however distinguished from all of these by its rigour, its austerity and perhaps also its obscurity.

A lot of reissues with a strange back story fail to truly deliver. Their obscurity is often deserved, or at least understandable. Kay Hoffman's "Floret Silva" however is going to stand or fall on the music. The story is borderline dull, no UFO abductions or grand stages on farms in the middle of cornfields. One of the album's collaborators does have form for working with Faust that we could get some mileage out of. Really though the primary composer Kay Hoffman is a student of a variety of musical styles, Bartok, minimalism and renaissance music all get a mention though the primary focus was the 12th Century Carmina Burana texts. There it is, there's not much more to say to hype the back story. They went to Italy and recorded the music, but the deal fell through and it was only issued years later. The magic and mystery comes when you hear the intoxicating and by times austere music. Beautiful voices remind me of Vashti Bunyan, though the Latin and High German lyrics have no twee hippie folksiness. Strange woodwinds, polytonality and complex time signatures remind me of Henry Cow though without the aggressively difficult extended material. I doubt there was any awareness of those acts when this was recorded though, they're just the sounds this active listener was reminded of. Other listeners are bound to identify different reference points.

I suspect there are people who'll struggle with this album, or find it inconsistent, or even an incoherent amalgamation of ill-fitting parts. If you wander in and out of the room as it plays, you'll be greeted with a wide variety of sounds from stripped-down austere voice to whirring rhythmic keyboards and strange combinations of these and other elements. Yet given time it makes perfect sense as a well realised and unique artistic vision.

P.S. As a post script, during the preparation of this review I have remembered the existence of a third fellow traveller alongside The Roundtable and Circulus: Ray Manzarek's mid 70s setting of the "Carmina Burana". More or less regarded as a joke by serious rock fans, perhaps it too is due some critical reappraisal? That's another day's work and the critical heavy lifting involved may yet be too much for any normal reviewer.

Available here.

The High Llamas - Here Come the Rattling Trees

Reviewed by Mark Winkelmann

Setting off on a blustery March Saturday to cycle to town while playing "Here Come the Rattling Trees" with no pre-conceptions beyond "It's another High Llamas album" and more of that anon, presents an intriguing variation on their usual pattern. There's some kind of structure and similarity here, all of the songs are short musical sketches followed by character studies of individuals. Is this some form of concept album? It certainly seems a little more lyrically focused, albeit on some daydreamy characters. Even the music is ...well let's be honest it's not rocking, but maybe a bit more precise, with nylon strung guitars and harpsichords foregrounded and less echoey exotica and orchestral arrangements. A little more Brian Wilson and a little less Burt Bacharach.

So is it a concept album? Well, not as such. It is described by the High Llamas as both "a musical narrative" and the soundtrack to a stage production, apparently inspired by cycling round Sean's South London home in Peckham.There are concerts, or performances scheduled for May 2016. Though the musical gauze of the High Llamas finds its match in lyrics which don't exactly punch you in the face. These songs are slight enough but cumulatively paint a picture of nostalgia and a disappointment with the changes that have been occurring across the area concerned.

But really this isn't all that much of a departure. No, High Llamas fans are not going to be pushed out of their comfort zone. Not even if maybe they should be, or might want to be. Really this is the only criticism you can make. It's not much of a criticism either. After all I doubt anyone wants to hear Sean O Hagan's dubstep album. Though it can present its own drawbacks for both fans and musicians.

The High Llamas have been one of those bands with a distinct sound, a specific niche, that as a result, have been in danger of straddling the border between refining their unique sound and treading water. While the radical departures and experimentation some artists take can fall flat, and trying to stay current is more often embarrassing than hip, there is a real danger of lapsing into samey pastiche. Albums like "Snowbug" and "Hawaii" are great personal favourites but as the years have ground on each new High Llamas LP presents a conundrum. If your 17th album sounds quite a lot like a weaker version of your best one, that can retroactively infect your greatest work. If I'm being honest there's at least two High Llamas LPs I bought straight away but never really played for fear they'd be the one to leave me cold. Maybe the fact that they all seem to feature a pastel crayon drawing of some odd mid-century buildings adds to this effect. "Here Come the Rattling Trees" does not break with this convention, so the journalistic imperative was required to get out and get stuck into this album.

And I'm glad I did. Sean O'Hagan is still refining the High Llamas sound. And given the tone of the lyrics we can be quite sure that this classicist approach will continue. This is the sound of the streets of Peckham done the High Llama way. Now where's my bike?

CD, vinyl and digital available here (UK/EU) or here (US).

Night Beats - Who Sold My Generation

Reviewed by Mark Winkelmann

We long ago passed the peak time for band names and entered an era of ever shittier band names, so it is nice to find a band with a decent name that not only isn't an ugly mess of letters that look like a losing Scrabble hand, but actually in some way tells you what they are about. I'd heard the Night Beats name for a few years, usually after leaning into a DJ booth to inquire about what's playing. Their sound isn't immediately recognisable or catchy but they've proved popular with the sort of DJs who mainly play vintage sixties vinyl.

From Cream to Husker Du to, there's something about a good power trio that seems particularly satisfying. There's nowhere to hide. No room for makeweights. The small group allows the players to really get in sync with each other. There's no multiple guitarists or synth players so the sound isn't too cluttered. Most of those classic power trios had brilliant bass players who could do a lot of heavy lifting in terms of melody. The sort of plodding third rate bass players who can pass muster in larger bands wouldn't have the chops to fill in the sound for a top notch power trio. However, the more I listen to the Nights Beats the more I get the sense that the exact opposite is happening. All three members are hammering the same beat, not because this is all they can do but out of some monomaniacal focus on the riff, the beat, the one. This is their third album so it isn't a lack of musical ability. These are clearly good musicians who can all simultaneously turn on a dime when the riff must be replaced with another. But throughout I hear the floor toms and bass in synch, the cymbals splashing in sync with the guitars.

Night Beats are doing something akin to James Brown, stripping everything down and focusing on rhythm. Obviously though from a different musical starting point to the JBs. A few years ago Ugly Things did a big analysis of Freakbeat and found the unique feature was ditching the chorus as a musical break. At most, bands like Wimple Winch would have a short refrain that worked over, more or less, the same chord sequence. While not necessarily appealing on paper this meant the energy doesn't dissipate but instead relentlessly builds up. And this is what Night Beats do. They did it on their first album and they're doing it again here. On more or less every track. If your trick is to be relentless and focused you'd best follow through on that premise.

OK, not every track is identical but they are pretty consistent. The only significant departure is the opening track which mixes spoken voices and lead guitar soloing. There's a few overdubs and even guest musicians: a bit of harmonica on "Turn The Lights" and "Bad Love" has some honking sax and Seeds-like keyboards for added 60s frat band feel. "Last Train To Jordan" cops the drum beat from The Stooges "No Fun" as opposed to the simpler Velvet Underground style floor tom beat that dominates elsewhere here. Not that I'd compare the Night Beats to those bands, the guitars are more restrained, disciplined. Reminiscent of the tightly wound brittle phased sound of The Electric Prunes or The Feelies. Similarly the vocals aren't making much in the way of clear statements. While the album title might sound like a timely address to the disenfranchised youth of late period capitalism I can't make out much polemic or anything else. Always in service of the murky beat.

Of course the only downside is if you don't like this approach then there's not a lot of point hanging round in hopes the next song is more to your taste. But the murky, mysterious beat they keep pounding out is still pretty damn appealing to fans of both old and new psych.

"Who Sold My Generation" is available on digital, Vinyl and CD here (UK/EU) and here (US).

Circles - S/T

Reviewed by Mark Winkelmann

Circles is the debut release from a new imprint from Guerssen called Mental Experience which will focus on kraut, kosmiche, avante garde, post-punk and vintage electronica from the 60s to the 80s. Mental Experience plan to release the entire Pyramid catalogue of such kraut obscurities as Golem and Cozmic Corridors. These are groups so obscure that their appearance on CD in the nineties caused much head scratching as well as accusations that these were new recordings being passed off as genuinely vintage. However, for their debut Mental Experience are reissuing an even more obscure cannon, the work of a German group called Circles, a duo of multi instrumentalists called Dierk Leitert and Mike Bohrmann.

What I heard on playing this 1983 debut was a series of concise, harsh, mainly instrumental avante garde rock. I was put in mind of This Heat with a little Pere Ubu style vocals and harsh brittle guitar riffs reminiscent of Charisma-era Hawkwind but with the more traditional rock elements stripped away. Though that's almost certainly my own perspective as the sleeve notes instead draw comparison with Cluster and Heldon and the band themselves cite Throbbing Gristle and Fripp/Eno as major influences along with minimalists like Cage, Glass and LaMonte Young. The latter, more recherché influences are interesting as while they are not immediately obvious in the end product, they clearly show that Leitert and Bohrmann were bringing a more intellectual perspective to their sonic project than any rough hewn rock'n'roll looseness.

Sonically this is definitely a post-punk type LP rather than a more "traditional krautrock" release, bar one track which has Micheal Rother style backwards-seagull guitars and Virgin era Tangerine Dream synth arpeggios pulsing away. However, for post punk it is also very well played and produced, especially given that it was recorded on an eight track Tascam and released on a tiny private label. There is little wilful amateurishness or "will this do?" filler. Perhaps their isolation, both geographically and in industry terms, freed them to refine their raw edginess. This is the kind of music that makes little attempt to appeal to the casual listener. The focus is on sonics. While it's highly rhythmic there's not a lot happening that could be called songs, and even melodies are in short supply. Vocals are limited, sounding like they were sourced from radio broadcasts, embedded deep in the mix. The nearest Circles get to a song is on second track "Chant". In what is more an "anti-song" the title is repeated by an uptight yet demented voice reminiscent of Steve Thomas. In less talented hands such wilful harshness can quickly become repetitive and even tedious. However Circles have put a lot of care into ensuring that there's enough going on. By way of contrast the sleeve notes refer to an offshoot called D.O.C. (Das Organisierte Chaos) which was the duo playing live and improvising with a rhythm section, which Circles write off as loud and crap.

Circles released three LPs in all, the second of which Mental Experience are concurrently reissuing. The sleeve notes by Alan Freeman of the Audion fanzine and Ultima Thule shop fame are a nice touch too, and include an interview with the duo.

While I suspect this somewhat austere listen won't be a huge crossover success to casual listeners, keen students of this genre will welcome this release with open arms.