gLASSsHRIMP radio show 28/09/10: including Fonal records feature

This week’s playlist and streamable version of the gLASSsHRIMP show is now up online for your “enjoyment”, and includes a feature on Finland’s excellent Fonal records, much beloved round these parts. This showcases new tracks from the likes of Islaja (pictured above) and Kemialliset Ystavat, as well as some exclusive pieces from forthcoming releases by Es and TV-Resistori. The Fonal feature starts about 45 minutes in, but there is some cracking music before that too.

The Whale Watching Tour, The Barbican, 27/09/10

I had some time to kill, so I sat on the edge of the Barbican’s lake watching the heron. I waited for it to do something. It just eyed me suspiciously, and then went back to staring at the water, waiting for fish to appear, just waiting. Waiting. How apt. From my time spent on the South African coast last year I recall that, just like with fish, whale watching involves a lot more time spent waiting than actually watching. And, what with the volcanic ash incident earlier this year, I’ve spent nine months waiting for the Bedroom Community label’s Whale Watching Tour to finally hit London (one spectacular Icelandic event preventing another; how I’m sure they laughed at that). That wait finally ended for me on Monday night when I swooped down to the lake and scooped up a fish in my powerful beak their musical government of all the talents, namely Valgeir Sigurðsson, Nico Muhly, Ben Frost and Sam Amidon, took to the Barbican stage.

Lobi Traore, Rainy Season Blues (Glitterhouse)

It doesn’t seem that long ago that we lost Ali Farka Toure (I’m astonished to read it has now been over four years), but we have now lost another of the great Malian guitar players: Lobi Traore died in June in Bamako of as yet still unknown causes. Dying at the age of just 49, he leaves a recorded legacy which is disproportionately small in comparison to his undoubted talents; his breakthrough release Bamako was not released until the mid 1990s after all. However, in Mali Traore was of course much better known for his live performances than his recorded work. His raw, electrified guitar lit up the clubs of Bamako, his fiery style blending rock and the blues (his heroes included both Angus Young and John Lee Hooker) with more traditional Malian Bambara styles.

Philip Jeck, Londonewcastle Project Space, 23/09/10

Philip Jeck? Performing live AND playing and talking about some of his favourite records with Touch’s Jon Wozencroft? FOR FREE? Not an invitation I was likely to turn down. Actually, as I’ll probably be returning to the subject of his An Ark For The Listener soon, I’m not going to dwell too much on his performance (as it was based on many of the themes from that new album). Really I’m posting this to a) Give me a chance to put up the photo above, which I really like b) Plug the last weekend of the Anti-Design Festival, under whose banner this event took place and c) To post the track below. Who’d have thought that one of Philip Jeck’s favourite ever records (he also played Howlin’ Wolf, Gillian Welch, and some Vietnamese blues) was this sublime piece of psychedelic soul from Norman Whitfield-era Temptations? Enjoy.

TVO/The Village Orchestra, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale (Broken20)

I was saddened earlier this year to hear about the imminent winding down of the excellent Highpoint Lowlife, a label which succeeded in straddling the boundaries between genres such as techno, drone, glitch and even hip-hop, thanks to some high quality control and high calibre personnel. Thankfully, out of those ashes, something new is rising. A number of those associated with that label have reconvened around a new flag: Broken20. Curated by TVO/The Village Orchestra’s Ruaridh Law, with assistance from fellow Scots Dave Fyans (Erstlaub) and Dave Donnelly (Production Unit), Broken 20 also aims to ignore genre barriers in its voyage into “decay, erosion, entropy, mistakes and errors, line noise and tape hiss, hum and buzz” (you can imagine how my ears pricked up when I heard that particular description). After some (in both senses) buzz-building downloadable mixes from the likes of Erstlaub and Highpoint Lowlife’s Thorsten Sideb0ard, the Broken20 label has now issued its first proper statement: and what a powerful statement it is.

gLASSsHRIMP radio show 21/09/10: podcast

Latest show now “up” for your listening “pleasure”. Features a live session from Junkboy, and music from the likes of Conrad Schnitzler, Oval (pictured above), Philip Jeck and Bronze Horse. Full tracklisting and Soundcloud link over at the gLASSsHRIMP website

The Alim Qasimov Ensemble and Homayun Sakhi, The Barbican, 19/09/10

How well-timed that this event as part of The Barbican’s Transcender festival, celebrating trance-inducing spiritual music from around the world, should have coincided with a visit to London from a certain someone decrying our “aggressive secularism”, while his aides deplored this country’s multi-culturalism. After the Islaja mis-step on Wednesday, here we had the real deal: traditional, devotional music, delivered by some of its finest exponents from across the globe, capable of transporting the listener geographically, temporally and emotionally. Tonight’s lineup was brought to us by the letter A, with music from Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. Rubâb player Homayun Sakhi represented the former and celebrated mugham singer Alim Qasimov, returning to the Barbican after a seemingly successful recent appearance with the Kronos Quartet, the latter.

Vandermark 5 and Atomic at Vortex Jazz Club, 16/09/10

Two variations on a theme at a packed-out Vortex in Dalston. Both the Vandermark Five and Atomic are long-running quintets who mix more straight-up scored jazz compositions with sections of fiery free improvisation, and neither of them play in the UK often enough for my liking. Given their relative celebrity, it wasn’t even obvious who the headliner would be – I figured the Vandermark 5 would shade it, but it was they who took the stage first, much to their evident amusement – I guess being the warmup act is something that doesn’t happen too often to Ken Vandermark.

Islaja and The Family Elan at Cafe Oto, 15/09/10

This was a Barbican-promoted gig taking place at Cafe Oto, something which was confusing enough already, even without someone from the Barbican appearing on stage to tell me that it was part of a series called “Transcender”. A series celebrating “transcendental, devotional, spiritual and sacred music”. Er, and how exactly does Islaja fit into that? There may well be some devotional traditional Finnish music, but (see my review of her recent album) Islaja seems a long way from any such roots these days. I don’t know, maybe a diagram or something might have been useful.

gLASSsHRIMP radio show 14/09/10: podcast

A lot of you have been (quite rightly) asking about whether there is a podcast available of the gLASSsHRIMP show. Well, now there is. Head to the gLASSsHRIMP site to listen to a recording of Tuesday night’s show which featured, amongst other things, a tribute to the late Noah Howard. It won’t stay up forever, so head there now if you want to hear it. Apologies for the distortion on the first track. Apologies also to the residents of Southend “On Sea”.