Mondo Times: Coagule
Straw Man Army, Elori Saxl, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, Uninvited Guest, Fela Kuti, Aeson Zervas, RIP Zakir Hussain..
Hello and welcome to the penultimate newsletter of the year. All in all I could only manage to make just 10 posts this year. There’s a wealth of music that deserves pointing out, so when I look back 10 seems abysmally low, but we all know ours is not a reading society anymore. Well I know I’m not going to be bothered to make video reviews, so hopefully I’ll make shorter and more frequent newsletters next year, suitable for the contemporary man/woman’s attention span. That said here are some of the new stuff that I’ve been listening to / reading.
♩Straw Man Army: I can’t remember where I heard about them, it was perhaps on bsky, the network that I’m the most active nowadays.. This Anti-USA punk band is the most political band I’ve heard since Propaghandi/Bad Religion. Courageous lyrics, great vocal harmonies. Underrated! More detailed review on Post-Trash.
What does it take to get locked away?
Being poor in a public place?
In the shadows of self liberation
United States of Occupation
♩Elori Saxl's new full-length album Earth Focus consists of material Elori created to soundtrack the PBS show of the same name. How cool is that!
♩Kyle Shepherd has a wonderful cover of Massive Attack's Teardrop on his third album. #jazz
♩I was amused to read the "You" in Carly Simon's classic "You're so vain" is heavily contested and has an impressive drama behind it including Warren Beatty, James Taylor, Bowie, Cat Stevens, David Geffen and Dan Armstrong! Indulge! And I think I have already mentioned many times that I am enamoured by this video, everything, the times, the styles. It makes me so nostalgic and wholesome for the 80s.
♩I made a new Undomondo playlist, the last one before I can make a best of 2024 playlist.
Named Uninvited Guest after the opener by the legendary Jazz double bassist William Parker’s first Spoken Word album. I think it's got a good flow from Jazz (Immanuel Wilkins & Cecile McLorin Salvant, Eric Chenaux, Moses Sumney covering Sylvester's You Make me real) to indie rock from the likes of Squid, Immersion, Upupayama, and then to danceable/electronic stuff from Holy Tongue & Shackleton, new single from Yazmin Lacey, wild organic gqom sounds by Poland's Alameda 5, drum & bass (?) from Dungen.. check for yourself and enjoy!
📖 I’ve read this NY Times article about this iconic 1958 photo featuring the who’s who of jazz. Sadly only one artist is alive from this photo and it’s Sonny Rollins! .. If you want to see the details of the photo or see who the artists are, head to this earlier feature by The Guardian.
♩One of my 2021 faves, Swiss French band Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp has a new album on Bongo Joe, and it's fantastic, again! Avant art folk big brass band in French / English!
📖 I fell into a rabbit hole from John Cale to Brian Eno to Talking Heads and to Fela Kuti.
All roads lead to Fela!
”In May 1977, John Cale takes Brian Eno along with him to see Talking Heads support The Ramones at London’s Rock Garden. They all meet backstage, and Eno and David Byrne hit it off right away, agreeing to get together the next day at Eno’s flat to listen to music.”
On a different video Brian Eno talks about Fela Kuti’s influence on Talking Heads, which lead me to this brilliant full performance of Fela @ Berliner Jazztage from 1978.
♩Aeson Zervas: I was reading about Eyad’s album on the same label (Heat Crimes) on the boomkat newsletter, when I saw these short quips. "The Caretaker processing crates of rebetika instead of the usual ballroom dirges.","satisfying plunderphonic experiment, obscuring Greek folk at its most entrancing in a hypnogogic haze.” How could I have looked away.
♩I'll mention it again for new followers, I'm keeping my soundcloud online for a month or two.. These vintage Postcards series will give you a taste of the undomondo new year spirit of easy listening, exotica, lounge, Italian soundtracks, library music.. New Xmas & NYE mixes coming soon!
📖 Sadly, we have lost Zakir Hussain, the tabla player who might have made the rest of the world discover tabla..
Here’s an obit piece by The Guardian if you wanna read, here’s a great video from 2013, when they played as a trio with Charles Lloyd and a young Eric Harland. But the most amazing thing is his final transmission to the world, this brief encounter and fascination with trees and their change of color. Hope everyone’s final transmission will be as wise and chill..
And with that said, I’ll leave you be.
Happy Holidays, we see each other on the next edition which will have my best of 2024.