PLAN B (Joe McPhee / James Keepnews / David Berger)

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digital edition available via Cafe Oto

At age 78, Joe McPhee shows no sign of slowing down. Plan B is the master improviser’s new trio, with James Keepnews on guitar & laptop and David Berger on drums. A soundtrack to a science fiction movie existing only in their heads, From Outer Space finds McPhee and company envisioning the first encounter between alien life and a delegation of earthlings (while giving a nod to jazz’s original man from another planet, Sun Ra, with a side-long suite dedicated to him). It’s quite unlike anything else in McPhee’s vast discography. Cover art by Judith Lindbloom. Download coupon included.

“Overture”

“RECOMMENDED
Lasers differ from other light sources by focusing light in a coherent way, and therein resides their power. Joe McPhee, who is one-third of the trio Plan B, was born in 1939. He’s old enough to have had the opportunity to see Buck Rogers in the newspaper, laser guns on projected in black and white on neighborhood cinema screens, and Plan Nine From Outer Space upon its initial release. I can’t tell you if he actually did any of these things, but this much is known: McPhee is a science fiction fan of long-standing; he’s still making new work and taking real chances at the age of 78; and his playing is laser-like in its concentration of information drawn from his own life, the histories of jazz and improvised music, the complicated story of the USA and its relationship with its African-descended residents; and whatever is happening at the second he puts one of his several horns (pocket trumpet and alto and tenor saxophones on this record) to his lips. There’s always a lot of information in every note, reaction, and reference, and so it is with this LP.
McPhee likes to honor inspirations, ideally while they’re still alive, but he doesn’t quite after they have passed. This LP pays tribute to three figures. One is Judith Lindbloom, who was once acknowledged by Sonny Rollins, who once said he practiced in a room with nothing but one of her paintings on the wall, and whose brushwork adorns several of McPhee’s albums for Roaratorio. The untitled image on this LP’s cover was done on December 15, 2015, just seven months before her death. The other is Sun Ra. “The Shadow of the Sun Suite,” which covers side two, is dedicated to him. There’s precedent for this LP’s combination of free jazz and electronics in Ra’s work, but more importantly, McPhee gets the deadly serious message behind Ra’s claims that he is from outer space; if humanity, and especially African-Americans, stick to what they know, they know what they’re going to get, and for most that isn’t very good. In his own time, many people though that Sun Ra was an incompetent clown, kind of like filmmaker Ed Wood, the auteur responsible for Plan Nine From Outer Space. But just like Wood made himself something that others said that he could not be through sheer determination, Ra preached that humans could remake themselves if they let go of their earthly blinders. Space is Plan B for a species that’s made a serious hash of Plan A. And whatever you think of Wood’s movies, you have to give him credit for surviving in a hostile creative environment.
Plan B made From Outer Space in Beacon NY, near McPhee’s hometown of Poughkeepsie, so this is a Hudson Valley affair. The other players aren’t people from the European and Chicagoan scenes that he frequents, nor are they especially well known in wider free music circles, but at least one of them, guitar and laptop player James Keepnews, lives in Beacon. Drummer David Berger’s zip code and affiliations are unknown to me, but the guy delivers what this session needs even though he sounds rather more traditionally rooted than a lot of the drummers McPhee plays with. One intriguing tension on made From Outer Space is the ongoing resolution of the differences between the musicians’ approaches. I’d guess that Berger plays in more straight-ahead contexts, because his playing emphasizes forward motion and swing. But he also a knack for understated coloration, which meshes well Keepnews’ pedal-processed smears, and his brushes-on-snare excursions resonate with the more jazz-rooted guitar gestures. Keepnews’ guitar playing shifts between acid noise, psychedelic slide work, and big brush-stroke atmospherics; there are a few moments where it feels like someone let David Torn into the studio. His laptop playing encompasses piano samples, vibrant outer space tones and startlingly boingy stuff reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle in novelty instrumental mode.
Some of this sounds pretty unlike the material McPhee usually faces, but he didn’t get where he’s at by shutting down when presented with unfamiliar information. He has an opposite response to every notion that his fellow musicians propose. Melancholy balladry complements stuttering guitar athletics, hackle-raising multiphonics mix well with plush electronic sound, and wind splayed prismatically through brass mixes puts some backbone into a swirl of synthetic chimes. This album plays out as a serious of respectful challenges and spontaneous negotiations in which differences are understood, not rejected. – Bill Meyer, Still Single

” ‘Your government of Earth refused even to accept our existence. Even though you’ve seen us, heard our messages — you still refuse to accept us,’ says the exasperated extraterrestrial Space Commander Eros to the cops, by way of explanation for reanimating the dead, in Ed Wood’s flying saucer caper Plan 9 From Outer Space. Foolish humanity was going to destroy not just the world but the universe, and they needed either shaking out of their complacency by zombies, or annihilating. That was 1959, but not much has changed, so it looks like Plan 9 didn’t work out. Luckily, Joe McPhee and company are here with Plan B. From Outer Space takes the form of a double suite: the A side is an interstellar journey culminating with a visit to — or more likely, from — another world, while the flip, ‘Shadow Of The Sun,’ is a tribute to Sun Ra in five parts. McPhee is joined by David Berger on drums, and James Keepnews on guitar and laptop.
The first set opens with an ‘Overture,’ with McPhee laying a brief lyrical phrase over a dark wash of electronics, then things really get moving with ‘Space Travel.’ Berger taps out a fizzling countdown while Keepnews initiates the launch sequence with a shifting palette of harmonics, before McPhee’s tenor motif takes the sound vessel out to interstellar space through an Oort cloud of scrawls, computer bloots and asteroidal drum clatter. The whole side is surprisingly narrative: Keepnews’ guitar and computer variously sound like the roar of thrusters and the blink of instrument banks, Berger beams down freaked codes from the exoplanet, and McPhee delivers a cosmic warning from the stars in tongues both gentle and harsh.
‘Shadow Of The Sun’ sways sidelong across the spaceways, with passages of circuit-blown swing collapsing into Arkestral turmoil or dissipating into vacuum-cold star-sparkle and digi-solar wind. McPhee blows pocket trumpet lung-balloons, spits ultra-close encounters with reed and mouthpiece, and unspools a dark forest of star charts and secrets.
‘It’s been absolutely impossible to work through these Earth creatures,’ complains Eros. ‘Their soul is too controlled.’ No danger of that, even if the Earth creatures down here still deny the messengers and the cops still need schooling.” – Francis Gooding, The Wire

http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/sun-ra-his-astro-ihnfinity-arkestra-sun-embassy/ http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/sun-ra-his-astro-ihnfinity-arkestra-sun-embassy/#comments Sun, 21 Jan 2018 15:35:54 +0000 http://roaratorio.com/?p=701

SUN RA & HIS ASTRO-IHNFINITY ARKESTRA
SUN EMBASSY
roar45 LP

Ship To :USA-$23Canada-$40Rest Of The World-$46

digital edition available via Cafe Oto

Roaratorio’s survey of the unheard Sun Ra continues with Sun Embassy. Consisting of recordings from Sun Studios (aka Ra’s house in Philadelphia) from 1968-1969, the album features nine tracks : six compositions which have never been heard before in any form, plus fresh coats of paint on such 1950s classics as “Sunology” and “Ancient Aiethiopia,” and an early rendition of “Why Go To The Moon?”. Essential listening for Sun Ra devotees. Download coupon included.

“The Stranger” ]]> http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/sun-ra-his-astro-ihnfinity-arkestra-sun-embassy/feed/ 0 http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/fraser-debolt-flight-of-the-light-air-force/ http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/fraser-debolt-flight-of-the-light-air-force/#comments Sun, 13 Nov 2016 23:36:14 +0000 http://roaratorio.com/?p=640 FRASER & DeBOLT
FLIGHT OF THE LIGHT AIR FORCE
roar44 7″ EP

Ship To :USA-$9Canada-$21Rest Of The World-$24

A companion EP to the recent double LP retrospective This Song Was Borne, Flight Of The Light Air Force features three exclusive tracks by cult favorite psych-folk duo Fraser & DeBolt. The majestic title track is an outtake from their second Columbia LP With Pleasure; left off that album for reasons of space (it clocks in at 8 minutes), it would’ve easily been the finest song on the record & a highlight of their career. On the flip side, we have two cuts recorded live at a February 1970 concert in upstate NY, as performed by Fraser, DeBolt & violinist Ian Guenther : their signature song “Dance Hall Girls” and a rollicking version of the Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” Fraser & DeBolt are a secret handshake among those who know : come acquaint yourself. Digital download included.

“Zero ± 22 and Holding (Flight Of The Light Air Force)”

]]> http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/fraser-debolt-flight-of-the-light-air-force/feed/ 0 http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/david-maranha-ensemble-salt-ashes-goat-skin/ http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/david-maranha-ensemble-salt-ashes-goat-skin/#comments Tue, 30 Aug 2016 14:12:53 +0000 http://roaratorio.com/?p=634 DAVID MARANHA ENSEMBLE
SALT, ASHES, GOAT SKIN
roar43 LP

digital edition available via Cafe Oto

“In an everlasting process that continuously repositions and reevaluates infinity as a consciously unachievable but ultimately rewarding goal since the early 90′s, David Maranha’s music has been riding that arc with ferocity and aplomb. A unique vision that has been translating the ETERNAL in a sprawling language through countless performances, approaches and records like Marches of the New World and the Roaratorio-released classic Antarctica. Always the unsettled mind, Maranha conveys his spiraling vision towards its core with this new ensemble. Comprised of Diana Combo on drums, Filipe Felizardo on electric guitar and David himself on organ and violin, they are a speculative tour de force around animic and sensory principles of movement, stillness and reaction. Long drawn out semi-riffs feedback along the drifting textures of the violin and the organ like rock’s ultimate coda stretched into nowhere. Drums plodding in restraint, sustaining the drone-like vortex of electricity without ever reaching any sort of conclusion in four pieces that inhabit their own universe continually. As it should.” – Bruno Silva

“Goat”

“Sometimes a man’s just got to cut loose, and so it has been with David Maranha. The Portuguese multi-instrumentalist (organ, violin) has been exploring the sounds that escape when drones rasp against each other for some time, but recently he’s turned up the rock elements in his sound. On Sombras Incendiadas, his duo with cellist Helena Espvall, that involved the radiant amplification of savagely stroked strings, but the flow of energy reverses on this recording. Maranha, guitarist Filipe Felizardo, and drummer Diana Combo seem less unconcerned with progress or any other sort of outward-bound motion. Instead they bear down on the riffs and repeat the beats, pounding the music into a ground that’s shrinking and crumbling, drawn into a black hole core. Sure, feedback tendrils escape and swipe around like sea monster tentacles swiping hapless sailors off some old whaling vessel, but they’re inescapably drawn back into the deep. Imagine how White Light/White Heat might have sounded if Faust’s drummer had taken over the band, broken the vocal mics, and thrown out all the songs, and you’ve got a pretty good idea of what this record is like.” – Bill Meyer, Dusted

“RECOMMENDED
Portuguese composer/EAI savant David Maranha has been in the game since the early ‘90s, having collaborated with artists as diverse as Z’EV, guitarist/cellist Helena Espvall (Espers), and Dirty Beaches’ Alex Zhang Hungtai. In this lineup, alongside guitarist Felipe Filazardo and drummer Diana Combo, he explores every centimeter of the rough surface between his violin and its bow, along with a prepared organ, as guitars buzz and slash away underneath, and martial drumming pounds out the time. The scrape of Maranha’s violin bow remains the heaviest and most deliberate element of this sound, like a rusty anchor dragging across a scrapyard of a record that fits more comfortably amidst a small group of bands (Swans, Nohome, Caspar Brotzmann Massaker) than in a genre. You won’t soon forget it.” – Doug Mosurock, Still Single

THOLLEM / OLIVEROS / CLINE

*** no copies left here — try Forced Exposure ***

Thollem McDonas : “This is the third trio album Nels and I have made together, each time with a different 3rd partner. The previous two were The Gowanus Session with William Parker and Radical Empathy with Michael Wimberly. Though each session has been unique in itself (different prescribed approaches, the environment and of course the uniqueness that each individual brings), there are definitely overarching themes pollinating each album. As the instigator of each of these sessions, I’ve always been curious about the sonic experience created each time a unique combination of musicians gather. So, in a sense, this is really kind of a scientific experiment with a control and a variable. I also love the trio format: there’s plenty of room for everyone, yet still many possible depths of complexity in relationships between the individuals. The three of us seemed immediately intertwined, psychically and sonically. An amazing place to record with amazing musicians/human beings. I think it all comes through in the recording… an experiment with fascinating results!”

Pauline Oliveros : “This recording brought us together for an unusual musical conversation. There was no plan or guiding structure. Thus the conversation set the pace between eGuitar, V accordion and piano. Each of us contributing, conversing in response to the other from our own individual perceptions. The music develops as a result of those moments of conversation. As different subjects are triggered or introduced the conversation shifts, turns and integrates making the music.”

Nels Cline : “It started on a beautiful sunny day in a rental car to Accord, NY, Thollem at the wheel, his lovely partner Angela riding shotgun. Thollem had instigated yet another miraculous and rather unexpected improvisatory recording session. This time, I was really going to meet the legendary Pauline Oliveros and improvise with her – and Thollem, of course! We met at a market and caravanned it to a beautiful barn studio. Pauline was immediately welcoming and gracious – a good start! A few improvisations, some bucolic photos, and precious lungfuls of sweet air later we were headed back to The City. How was that? Did that really happen?? Yes, it really did. A concentrated portion of our probing explorations is thankfully here, on this petrochemical slice: Molecular Affinity. It’s a good thing!”

Jacket & label are adorned with confocal microscopy images of a Coleochaete green algae, by Fernán Federici. Download coupon included.

“In Particular” (excerpt) ]]> http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/thollem-oliveros-cline-molecular-affinity/feed/ 0 http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/cleveland-wrecking-company-say-theres-a-reason/ http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/cleveland-wrecking-company-say-theres-a-reason/#comments Sun, 03 Jan 2016 19:48:43 +0000 http://roaratorio.com/?p=519 CLEVELAND WRECKING COMPANY
SAY THERE’S A REASON
roar41 7″

The Cleveland Wrecking Company were formed in San Francisco in 1965. Their members came from jazz, flamenco and R&B backgrounds, but together their psychedelic brew verged on Blue Cheer heaviness. As perennial local favorites, they gigged at every stage in the area. They left behind no recorded artifacts during this time; a deal with Vanguard went nowhere, when their manager absconded to Mexico with the album advance on an ill-fated mission to buy a kilo of pot. A later incarnation of the band – with a completely different lineup and musical style – released a 45 that has since become a favorite of cratedigging DJs, but This is not That. These two tracks hail from 1967-8 : one studio, one live (the sonics on the latter may remind of the VU’s “guitar amp” boot, but with a solo as overdriven and atonal as this, it’s a plus). With liner notes by Jim Moscoso (CWC vocalist, bassist, brother of Victor) and rare photographs.

“Say There’s A Reason”

“…the songs see the band in acid-punk mode, with ‘Say There’s A Reason’ featuring searing, barely controlled leads from Norman Beals and snotty vocals from singing bassist Jim Moscoso. Cut in Nick Gravenites’ studio, it really is a find. The flip was recorded live at either The Family Dog or The Fillmore West, and packs even more demented fuzz into the mix.
These two unreleased tracks will certainly excite psych-punk fans. File somewhere between early Blue Cheer and one of the many mind blowing acid-punk obscuros from the same period.
Snap it up before they go!” – Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills, Shindig!

“Although my first instinct is to yell from the rafters, upon hearing the kick-your-teeth-in underground rock that is the sole 45 issued by the first version of the Cleveland Wrecking Company, my gut is telling me to keep the secret, because you’ll only be sad there’s not more to hear…. Swimming in the thick fuzz and snarling garage vocals that any self-respecting UT reader admires, these two tracks document a formidable lost band that will have you flipping the sides several times over just to get a full album’s worth out of it.” – Alex Stimmel, Ugly Things

“Debut single recorded in 1967 or 68 by a Bay Area quartet/quintet, led by Jim Moscoso (ex-Serpent Power and the brother of artist Victor Moscoso). One side’s studio and recalls Quicksilver of the second Dino Valente era, but the live flip has two drummers and wonderfully slippery acid guitar. Could very much stand to hear more.” – Byron Coley, The Wire

SUN RA & HIS ASTRO-IHNFINITY ARKESTRA

One might think, with a discography as extensive as the one Sun Ra boasts, that the scope of his work has been fully apprehended by this point, but The Intergalactic Thing demonstrates its seemingly bottomless depths. This is not a complete surprise: anyone who saw Ra and the Arkestra perform will remember the sight of the band quickly shuffling through an imposingly thick stack of sheet music, when Sunny would call the next tune on the program with an encrypted hint on his keyboard. Band members tell stories of spending long hours practicing a newly-written composition, only to never play it again. Here, we have a taste of what’s been hidden: drawn from rehearsals at the Sun Ra house in Philadelphia from 1969, The Intergalactic Thing introduces a dozen never-before-heard pieces from Ra’s songbook – tunes that may have never even made it to the bandstand, let alone the recording studio – along with a handful of reworkings of such Ra classics as “Spontaneous Simplicity” and “The Exotic Forest.” Without a doubt, this is one of the most important augmentations to the Sun Ra catalog in many a moon. This double LP set comes in a beautiful gatefold jacket, with extensive liner notes by Ra discographer Robert L. Campbell and a download coupon for the full album.

“The Others From Another World”

“Discipline Of The Pharaohs”

“Sun Ra capitalised on The Arkestra’s communal living situation by having them practise at all hours, waking them up to play arrangements and tunes that he never called on the bandstand. The tape recorder ran nearly the whole time…and the stash of unissued material is so deep that solid collections like The Intergalactic Thing are still coming out nearly a quarter of a century after Ra’s demise…’The Others From Another World’ is so challenging that it might have existed mainly to keep the band on its toes. Brass, reeds and organ chart three related but separate courses that come together like some Ives-ian big band experiment. The splendid ‘Discipline Of The Pharaohs’ prefigures the numbered ‘Discipline’ series with both its title and its interlocking riffs, but the way the beat is distributed across congas, reeds, and Farfisa make a case for this being a training exercise designed to shake up players’ assumptions about how a rhythm can be expressed.” – Bill Meyer, The Wire

” [****] Sun Ra’s constant rehearsals were more than just practice. The music here is meditative, soul nurturing medicine.” – Mark Corroto, All About Jazz

FRASER & DeBOLT
THIS SONG WAS BORNE
roar39 2LP

Allan Fraser & Daisy DeBolt met in the summer of 1969. They had both been working individually on the coffeehouse circuit in their native Canada; over the next five years, as the duo of Fraser & DeBolt, they created a sublime body of work that still sounds remarkably fresh decades later. They recorded two albums for Columbia which garnered rave reviews at the time, but saw little commercial success. Both have since become cult classics in psychedelic folk circles; the first, With Ian Guenther, being particularly beloved amongst a coterie of die-hard fans. Their combination of ragged-but-right salt & pepper harmonies, evocative lyrics, beautiful songs shot through with occasional dissonant grace notes, and careful arrangements that still managed to sound off-the-cuff made for some of the most beguiling music of its era. Now, Roaratorio is proud to present This Song Was Borne, a double LP collection of previously unreleased demos, studio outtakes, radio sessions, and live recordings from Fraser & DeBolt’s archives, spanning their entire career, in a deluxe tip-on gatefold jacket with detailed liner notes from Allan and Daisy. Download coupon included.

“Doors Will Appear (…And Swing Open)”

“Daisy Sky”

“…top-shelf songwriting and dreamy harmonies throughout. Roaratorio does Fraser & DeBolt a huge service with its new collection…the previously unheard “Abide With Me” captures the quintessence of Fraser & DeBolt’s sound: intimate, plaintive acoustic folk backed by just an open-tuned guitar that moves from finger-style clarity to slightly strummed menace in its chord structure…the sheer volume of original material, excepting a sole Dylan cover, which is a great fit, is impressive, and merits close inspection… the duo can take their place alongside great male/female folk-rockers like Richard & Mimi Farina or Richard & Linda Thompson.” – Alex Stimmel, Ugly Things

JOE McPHEE

sold out

** no copies left here — try ordering from a-musik

In 1976, Joe McPhee recorded the landmark album Tenor, kicking off a solo period of finding and refining the distinctive voice that continues to inform his music to this day. Solos : The Lost Tapes (1980 – 1981 – 1984) is a collection of material from McPhee’s personal archives that shines new light on the legendary multi-instrumentalist’s work during this time. “Wind Cycles,” for tenor saxophone, explores the permutations of breath on reed and brass, from quiet whispers to full-throated cries and back again. With “The Redwood Rag,” McPhee takes a jaunty melody and gives it a swinging workout with Steve Lacy-like precision. The free-blowing alto excursion “Ice Blu” is, in McPhee’s words, “a sound which evokes an image, which asks a question ‘What is that?’ and the answer is, a sound which evokes an image which asks a question.” “Voices,” one of his signature compositions, gets a particularly haunting treatment here on soprano, with McPhee incorporating various electronics to mesmerizing effect. All together, Solos : The Lost Tapes (1980 – 1981 – 1984) is the distilled essence of one of the most important creative improvising musicians of our time. Cover art by Judith Lindbloom. Includes a download coupon for the full album plus a bonus interview, conducted at the New Music America Festival in 1981.

“Whether it’s amplifying keypad pops or finding harmonics that split his notes into a mass of complex, unfurling tones, he gets you with a feeling as well as a sound… Although McPhee’s music is without compromise, he’s always struck me an excellent gateway figure for people trying to get a handle on free improvisation because the connections between his confrontational and approachable sides is never too hard to find.” – Bill Meyer, Still Single

“Voices” (excerpt)
]]> http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/joe-mcphee-solos-the-lost-tapes-1980-1981-1984/feed/ 0 http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/crystal-syphon-elephant-ball/ http://roaratorio.com/uncategorized/crystal-syphon-elephant-ball/#comments Wed, 08 Apr 2015 22:02:24 +0000 http://roaratorio.com/?p=408

CRYSTAL SYPHON
ELEPHANT BALL
roar37 LP

For decades, Crystal Syphon were, at most, a footnote in the music history books: a name on posters from the psychedelic ballroom days, and a fond memory to those who’d seen the Merced, California band perform on the west coast circuit in the late 1960s. That changed with the release of Family Evil in 2012. Their debut album – evidence that the mine of hidden gems from the original psych era had not yet been picked clean – caught the ears of fans worldwide, garnering raves and equal-footing comparisons to Quicksilver Messenger Service, Jefferson Airplane, and the Byrds; the group reunited and began playing out again, with their vintage sound intact. Now, Roaratorio is proud to present Elephant Ball, a second helping of unearthed material from the band’s archives. Starting with three tracks from their earliest recording sessions under the Crystal Syphon name, in 1967 – the swaggering garage-rock miniature “Dawn Sermon” and the folk-rock of “For All Of My Life” and “Tell Her For Me” – it then moves on to a Fillmore West gig from November 1969, featuring the final incarnation of the group during their original run. With the same complex harmonies, nuanced songwriting and top-drawer musicianship that won Family Evil its accolades, the half-dozen tunes range from the crunchy riffs of the title track and “It’s Winter” to the lightly jazzy “Don’t Fall Brother” and the Latin-tinged moves of “There Is Light There.” Comes in an old-style “tip-on” jacket with a digital download.

“It’s Winter”

“Elephant Ball”

“Without doubt one of the great ‘lost’ ballroom acts, Crystal Syphon’s Elephant Ball is an essential purchase for all devotees of West Coast psychedelic rock.” – Gray Newell, Ugly Things