Ubeboet, Archival (Moving Furniture)

Christ, it is hot. I can’t remember a summer as ceaselessly and oppressively warm as this one. Well, not since I moved out of that bungalow on the planet Venus. I really don’t know what I was thinking of there. All the radiation from the sun meant that 3G reception was a bit patchy too. It was cheap, I suppose. Well, at least compared to the London property market; maybe if I’d been moving from Grimsby or somewhere it would have seemed a bit less affordable. At the moment I can barely be bothered to lift my fingers to the keys to tell you how good this new album by Ubeboet is. I can’t believe I actually want it to rain, a proper hard, sharp rain shower to cleave this solid wall of heat.

The Ex Guitars Meet Ken Vandermark / Paal Nilsen-Love, Lean Left Volume 1 (Smalltown Superjazzz)

This is an absolute blast. Given the personnel involved, that may not be a surprise. Between them, Chicago saxophonist Ken Vandermark and Norwegian drummer Paal Nilsen-Love have played with some of the heaviest heavyweights around, from jazz titans like Peter Brötzmann and Fred Anderson (RIP), to noise behemoths like Kevin Drumm and Lasse Marhaug. Here, they join with the guitarists Terrie Hesspal and Andy Moor from Dutch anarcho-punks The Ex for an album of huge math-jazz-punk-funk grooves.

The Uranus Music Prize

Yesterday the nominations for the 2010 Mercury Music Prize were announced. If you took it at its word, as a list of the twelve best albums released by UK and Irish artists in the last 12 months, you’d be left of the opinion that our music scene is in a pretty depressing state. That our music scene is, pretty much an indie rock scene, made up of bands who’d be comfortable jamming inoffensively with Jools on the Jools Holland Show. All of which is news to me. To counterbalance this somewhat limited definition of “music” which the Mercury Music Prize ascribe to, myself, @mattpoacher and @HughesTLOBF went about putting together an “alternative” shortlist which hopefully better reflects some of the much more exciting albums which have been released in the past 12 months by UK and Irish artists. After a bit of a debate, in which some incredible releases fell by the wayside, we decided on a final twelve. We called it the Uranus, because that planet rotates on a different axis to all the others. What, you mean Uranus has an another meaning?

For the full list head over to The Line Of Best Fit. Watch that space for the winner, to be announced in September.

Mark Templeton, Khroustaliov/Ravalico and Inch Time at Cafe Oto, 19/07/10

Hellosquare are, as they kept reminding us through the course of this evening, “a small Australian label”. Humble Australians. Fancy. They made this voyage round the globe to put on a one-off show at Cafe Oto featuring some friends of the label – not just from Australia, but from Canada, Italy and the UK too. They’ve previously featured on this site thanks to releases by ex-Triosk pianist Adrian Klumpes, but they’ve quietly gone about amassing an experimental catalogue which also includes notable albums by the likes of Seaworthy, Mia Clarke and Andy Moor, M.Rosner and Mike Cooper, making this show a good time to check in with where their heads are at.

Damo Suzuki at The Kings Head, 16/07/10

On Friday night, Can legend Damo Suzuki played a gig in my local pub. I’m going to have to repeat that, just to try to convince myself that this actually happened. On Friday night, Can legend Damo Suzuki played a gig in my local pub. His designated sound carriers for the evening were London’s Bleeding Heart Narrative (whose albums have been reviewed on here previously), and Cissy from Leeds. I always imagine that at the start of these Damo Suzuki shows, the musicians involved aren’t quite sure how it is going to pan out. But yet, it always seems to pan out much the same way: Damo muttering rhythmically, luring the drummers into a huge krautrock figure; the other musicians (in this instance guitars, keyboard and cello) spitting and snarling in the empty spaces. And, to be honest, who’d want it any other way?

North Sea Jazz Festival 2010, Ahoy Rotterdam (Part 2)

After yesterday’s post, covering some of the more boundary-pushing electronic music to feature at the North Sea Jazz Festival, you could be forgiven for wondering if there was any jazz worth seeing at all. And while it wasn’t all tame vocal jazz and funk-lite, you still had to navigate the programme carefully to avoid making wrong turns. Pat Metheny’s peformance turned out to be somewhat saccharine, full of gurning and noodling, while Marcus Miller’s Tutu set featured one slap bass solo too many for me (i.e. I left after the first one). But elsewhere some of jazz’s elder statesmen, as well as its innovative young guard, were to show the way.

North Sea Jazz Festival 2010, Ahoy Rotterdam (Part 1)

Just look at some of the headliners at this year’s North Sea Jazz Festival: Norah Jones. Earth, Wind & Fire. Macy Gray. Diana Krall. Jools Holland and His Sodding Rhythm & Blues Orchestra. You’re probably already wondering what on earth possessed me to get the bus, train, tube, train, ferry, train and Metro from London to the city of Rotterdam for the festival. But if you looked beyond the unashamedly populist fare that was being peddled on some of the main stages of the huge Ahoy complex (13 stages, over 20,000 visitors each day; the scale of the festival was mind-blowing) you’d see some innovative and risky programming which meant that both meteorologically and musically this was to be one of the hottest weekends of the year.

Fennesz Daniell Buck, Knoxville (Thrill Jockey)

Have I ever mentioned a band called The Necks on here? Hmmm, I’m not sure. Certainly not recently. And what about Fennesz? Actually, I’ll check the press release to make sure I’m spelling his name right. Yes, Christian Fennesz, that is right – I don’t recall ever reviewing anything by him. So you’re probably pretty surprised to see me covering an album on here which features both of those two, along with David Daniell (who has collaborated with Loren Connors, Thurston Moore, members of Tortoise, and loads of others I’d never dream of writing about on this site).

Taylor Deupree, Shoals (12k)

Taylor Deupree doesn’t work quickly. In the three years that have passed since the release of the majestic Northern, there have been but a few short releases of new material- the Weather and Worn 12″, the Snow (Dusk, Dawn) and 1am CDs, and the Live:Mapping download. Maybe he was waiting for inspiration. Maybe his other projects, whether it be the running of the 12k label, his graphic design work, or the frequent collaboration take up a lot of his time. Having heard his new album Shoals, I’m inclined to put it down to him being something a bit of a perfectionist.

Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni Ba at the Barbican, 02/07/10

At one point during the set of the Malian griot Bassekou Kouyate and his band Ngoni Ba, Kouyate – who played at the Glastonbury festival last week – held his instrument up towards the mic. “This is a ngoni”, he told us. “It is not a guitar”. And despite the obvious differences – the ngoni is a four stringed cricket bat-shaped instrument made of wood and goat skin; the guitar, well, isn’t – it was a point worth making. This was a show which constituted approximately 75% ngoni soloing. And not just soloing – but proper foot on the monitor, head tossed back to the roof style soloing, with Kouyate even playing his instrument through a wah-wah pedal.