Cabaret Voltaire: Plasticity

This one, a 2-LP vinyl set, was bought just after its October 1992 release at a Portland, Oregon record store and, a few years removed from Groovy, Laid-Back and Nasty, with the 44-minute EP Colours and Body and Soul as precursors that found CV trying to rebound from that strange 1990 relic, Plasticity was a welcome move into a new (and final) phase for Cabaret Voltaire. 

Released on the Plastex label set up by Stephen Mallinder and Richard H. Kirk after their EMI debacle, the recording was the first of three releases, followed by International Language (1993) and a personal favorite, The Conversation (1994), in which the music was all-instrumental.  While it has been said that Mallinder still had an active role, it sounds like Kirk exercised more control over these albums.  They can also be compared to such projects as Sandoz and Electronic Eye from that era.

In any case, a favorite CV track, "Low Cool," opens the record with a sample of Los Angeles gang members casually talking about the violence and nihilism of their world. "Soul Vine (70 Billion People)" took found sound from the 1981 underground dance floor hit, "Yashar," while "Inside the Electronic Revolution" is a highlight, as is "Neuron Factory."  More ambient tunes like "Resonator" and "Deep Time" nicely provide alternates to the flow of the album, while "Soulenoid (Scream at the Right Time)" hits the sample peak with an eerie and unsettling series of female screams to end a fascinating record.

The CD version omits "Brazilia" and "UFO" erasing almost 13 minutes from the double vinyl version and a planned 60-minute video was shelved because of financial concerns, but, despite this, Plasticity rates high among the mammoth CV catalog and showed the Kirk and Mallinder were able to find redemption and relevancy after a significant bump in the long road of their 20-year career.  The duo managed to stay abreast of changes in electronic music, while keeping the core of what made them so great going back nearly two decades, including abundant sampling, unnerving ambience and potent up-tempo elements.

John Coltrane With Eric Dolphy: Evenings at the Village Gate

To hear some critics, with their infinite reservoirs of wisdom, tell it in 1961, the inclusion of the masterful multi-instrumentalist and composer Eric Dolphy in John Coltrane's band was a blasphemy against jazz.  The Los Angeles native wrote and played in unconventional and highly distinctive ways and to those unimpressed ears, his work was harsh, noisy, dissonant and not tonal enough.  

Not unlike those who could not wrap their heads (ears) around other great innovators of the era, whether it was Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor or others, these critics were also generally unhappy with Coltrane's move into more experimental territory after he left Atlantic Records to join the upstart Impulse! label, where among his first recordings were the amazing performances from November 1961 at the Village Vanguard in New York City.

The album released early in 1962 with three tracks "Spiritual," "Softly, As In a Morning Sunrise," and the astounding "Chasin' the Trane" were divisive among many so-called experts, who decried the leader's explorations into the varieties of sound generated by his soprano and tenor saxophone playing.  Dolphy played bass clarinet on "Spiritual" and did so on "India" when that tune and "Impressions" appeared on the 1963 release titled after the latter.  In 1997, however, a 4-disc set of the complete Village Vanguard recordings provided devotees with an aural feast with Dolphy and Trane joined by pianist McCoy Tyner, drummer Elvin Jones, and bassists Reggie Workman (the sole survivor of these recordings and now 86 years old) and Jimmy Garrison.

A fascinating complement to these recordings is Evenings at the Village Gate, released last year after the tapes, recorded by engineer Rich Alderson with the venue's new sound system, were discovered at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts by an archivist working on Bob Dylan recordings, as the folk artist was recorded at the Village Gate that year, as well.  These tapes were from August 1961, but with the same sextet format and with Art Davis as the other bassist.

Coltrane and Dolphy famously issued a published answer to the naysayers in Down Beat magazine, but this album and the Vanguard tracks should suffice in hindsight because Trane's observation that Dolphy broadened the band's sound as well as freed its musicians to take the music in new directions is on the mark.  All that critical angst is a reminder that innovators have to be allowed to pursue their passion for finding new ways to express themselves and those wedded to "tradition" shouldn't stand in the way or criticize honest and authentic artistic endeavor.

These pieces range from 10 to 22 minutes allowing the band to explore at a comfortable and organic pace and for soloists to take their showcases wherever they need to go.  The hit "My Favorite Things," which would be reprocessed into much freer territory in subsequent years, "Impressions," and, especially, "Africa," long a favorite of this listener, are especially impressive, while "Greensleeves," part of Trane's repertoire at the time is also taken to new levels of expression.  The surprise here, perhaps, is "When Lights Are Low," in which the 1930s chestnut sounds somewhat out of place on one hand, but, on the other, shows what innovators can do to both respect and expand upon tradition.

Sadly, Dolphy died in 1964 at age 36 after falling into a diabetic coma and a 9-disc box set of his complete Prestige recordings is a phenomenal document of his underappreciated career.  Coltrane went on to greater success, peaking with the transformative A Love Supreme, but was soon stricken with liver cancer from which he died at age 40 in 1967.  These two giants, criticized as they were in 1961, left behind some of the greatest music ever produced and this is a great document to show that.

México: The Festival of San Miguel Tzinacapan

Issued in 1996 on the great Ocora label from Radio France, which has issued some of the most amazing world music available, this recording from the village of San Miguel Tzinacapan, in the state of Puebla northeast of México City, is a reminder of the importance of going back to the essence of music as a part of some vital human activity.

In this case, the hour-and-fifteen-minute album is a showpiece for the Nahuat people, who live in the Sierra Norte Mountains and merge ancient indigenous traditions with more modern European ones in the annual celebration of the festival of San Miguel (St. Michael.)  It is also good for us to remember that music and dance, as well as pageantry, theatrical presentation and others, are usually not separated in much of the world.

The performances here reflect Christian themes, as well as those relating to Spain of centuries ago, so the Santiago dances concern the Reconquista in which Spanish Christians battled to reclaim their land from the Muslim Moors, who conquered most of the Iberian peninsula in the 8th century.  This is reflected in dialogues in the sons, or the compositions, between St. James and Pontius Pilate, but there is also the syncretic aspect of words in Nahuatl, a language of the broader indigenous Uto-Aztecan family.

There are also dances related to bullfighting, to St. Michael the Archangel battling evil angels the voladores invoking indigenous gods of water and the negrito concerning a Black teenager's treatment for a snake bite with African rituals.  Drums, flutes and bells are the main instruments and, while there was an indigenous clay flute, the ones used in the recording seem more European.  

Listening to music from other parts of the world feels educational as well as entertaining and this one is a transport to a place that holds on to ancient native traditions while adopting those of the colonizers, even as these are now from five centuries ago.

Alexander Scriabin: Mazurkas (Complete)

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) was one of the many remarkable Russian musicians and composers of the late 19th and early 20th century, creating, as the empire was in rapid decline and revolution in the near future, some of the greatest music of the era.  He was the son of a pianist and became a virtuoso on the instrument receiving, just barely past his teens, the Gold Medal, the highest honor of the famed Moscow Conservatory.

Later, he taught at the institution for several years before leaving to focus solely on writing and performing, including spending six years in western Europe and touring America in 1906.  He became fascinated by mystic teachings and abandoned religion to delve deeply into esoteric philosophy.  While Scriabin wrote a few symphonies, a pair of tone poems and some other pieces, he is best know for composing more than 200 works for the piano.

He wrote 23 mazurkas, the name coming from a fast-tempo Polish folk dance genre, and these date from 1888 to 1903 and these are redolent with beautiful melodies, strong emotion and, even as the liner notes that the young composer was under the spell of Frederic Chopin and Robert Schumann, it adds that there is a distinctive characteristic of "poetic improvisation, full of magic and charm" and that, as the pieces became more complex and with greater feeling and atmosphere, Scriabin demonstrated the marks of a mature creator.

The pianist for this 1995 recording issued four years later by Naxos is Beatrice Long, a Taiwanese artist who teaches at the Brooklyn Conservatory for the campus there of the City University of New York, and her excellent playing is beautifully recorded.  Her rendering of these amazing short pieces has lately been a tonic for tense and troubled times and anyone seeking such a balm could benefit from listening to this excellent recording.

The Kinks: The Kink Kronikles

Years ago, a friend gave me the 1972 double-disc set, The Kink Kronikles, comprising 28 pieces from the last half of the Sixties and very early Seventies and, after a listen or two, it was put away and largely forgotten.  Why it didn't get more of my attention is baffling now, especially because as a long-time admirer of The Jam, it should've been abundantly clear to me just how much Paul Weller drew/nicked from one of his idols.  This hour-and-a-half recording is a staggering compilation of consistent greatness from a band that was part of the first British Invasion with proto-metal tunes like "You Really Got Me" and "All Day and All of the Night," but moved into richer, deeper territory that left them far less appreciated stateside than such peers at The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who and others.

Presumably, a major reason why The Kinks did not resonate as much with American listeners, excepting tunes like "Lola," is because they were "too British."  Principal songwriter Ray Davies crafted carefully constructed character studies coupled with remarkable instrumental touches steeped in music hall, as well as rock, and with the occasional horns or the vastly underappreciated keyboard work of frequent contributor Nicky Hopkins (who did this for the Stones and many others).

Davies told of British life in ways that were wistful, ironic, critical, comedic, wry and detached, yet trenchantly observant.  The other band members including Davies' brother Dave, whose guitar work is not always as recognized as it should be; drummer Mick Avory, bassists Peter Quaife and John Dalton and keyboardist John Gosling that could, though often after intense arguments or outright fisticuffs, adapt beautifully to his highly unusual and idiosyncratic methods and provide top instrumental accompaniment to these immersive works.

It should be added that Ray Davies is a preeminent songwriter, but three songs by Dave Davies, including "Death of a Clown," "Mindless Child of Motherhood," and "Susannah's Still Alive," are top-notch tunes, as well.  Those early 1964 hits, as well as "Tired of Waiting For You" and other tunes may not be here, but this album is filled to the gills with unforgettable and remarkable music, much of which should be better known here in the States.

Mary Halvorson Octet: Away With You

This remarkable composer and guitarist, who'd played her instrument since she was 11 years old, was studying biology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, when she took a class taught by the great multi-instrumentalist and composer Anthony Braxton (oft-featured here, though not as often as wished) and decided to change her career course.

Like her mentor, Halvorson writes and plays in a dizzying array of styles even if she, like Braxton, is generally considered a jazz musician.  She has a clear tone, a clean sound and is a masterful soloist and sensitive accompanist to the wide variety of players with which she associates, but she can also unleash wild and unorthodox solos that are dazzling.

As importantly, she is a very interesting writer with wide latitude for the improvisation that makes jazz such a great musical form, though she brings rock, flamenco and other genres into her mind-bending works.  Notably, Halvorson recently commented that she had a tendency in the past to overwrite in her compositions, but 2016's Away With You, released on Firehouse 12 Records, which has featured Braxton and many other great musicians (Tyshawn Sorey, Myra Melford, and co-founder Taylor Ho Bynum) on its roster.

With four horns (alto and tenor sax, trumpet and trombone), a pedal steel guitar and bass and drums, Halvorson creates a diverse palette of sound in the eight pieces on the recording.  Like Braxton and another great composer/musician Henry Threadgill, she deftly orchestrates for the several instruments in ways that are richly creative, sometimes spiky, often contemplative and always interesting with an unerring eye for experiment.