Souled American - Around The Horn (1990)

Chicago roots rockers Souled American pioneered the alternative country movement of the early '90s and still today the band's true influence on a successive generation of bands remains sorely undervalued. Singer/guitarist Chris Grigoroff and singer/bassist Joe Anducci formed Souled American in 1987 - Scott Tuma and drummer Jamey Barnard completed the lineup, which quickly honed an expansive, compellingly idiosyncratic approach to rock that reduced the idiom to its basic elements - country, folk, and bluegrass chief among them - then reassembled the parts to forge an otherworldly music quite unlike anything produced by the band's contemporaries.

The big tonal distinction is Joe Adducci’s bass, which sounds more or less like it was recorded underwater from three rooms away, though here it isn’t quite as extreme as on earlier albums. Adducci and Chris Grigoroff share vocal duties, both singing in a weird, raspy, twangy voice that occasionally lapses into falsetto. The guitars on this record are, for lack of a better analogy, the shoegaze of country; churning, ringing, and slippery. It seems like the guitars are strummed a few seconds before you actually hear the sound. The whole album has random dissonances bristling about.

Get it here: Souled American - "Around The Horn" (320Kbps)

And enjoy !

TRIO - Trio (1982)

German Punk at it's best. Wow - that is a BIG sentence... Ok, maybe it is all about that they taught me Punk when I was 11 years old... I bought this LP in 1982 at a second hand market. And I loved their energy from scratch.

Their biggest hit was "Da da da". They recorded the song together with Dieter Meyer ("Yello"). The backings were performed by Anete Humpe of German band "Ideal" from Berlin. It was released in 30 countries. For the non-German-speaking countries an English version was recorded (“Da Da Da I Don’t Love You You Don’t Love Me Aha Aha Aha”). Trio became really big in Brazil and Canada. One of the reasons might have been, that “Da Da Da” meant “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me” in Brazil...

Whatever. Apart from the fact that some of the songs are very catchy - there is an extremely aggressive counterpart in songs like "Ja, Ja, Ja" or "Los Paul"... And humor. And putting it all in a nutshell -> This is Punk ! And Pop ! And Avantgarde !

Get it here: Trio - Trio (1982)

And enjoy !

PS: Jezus Lizard loved them and covered some of their songs...

The Thing & Joe McPhee - "She knows..." (2001)

OK - the personnel of this album by "The Thing" from Sweden is the following: Mats Gustafsson – Tenor Saxophone, Baritone Saxophone; Ingebrigt Haker Flaten – Bass; Paal Nilssen-Love – Drums; Joe McPhee – Pocket Trumpet, Tenor Saxophone. That's for that.

Then: "The album opens, interestingly enough, with PJ Harvey’s “To Bring You My Love.” Gustafsson and McPhee recast the Harvey tune in the same mode as this entire Cherry-inspired outing. McPhee, as he has shown throughout his career, is an excellent stand-in on pocket trumpet. Together the pair hover over the territory established by the band Old and New Dreams. That is, they start at Cherry and Ornette, fast-forward to Cherry and Dewey Redman, then take the music into this 21st century open horizon.

The sound of Albert Ayler propels the traditional “Going Home” and the Ulmer track “Baby Talk” with a wah-wah bass-line. We are also treated to a joyous saxophone-duet opening to the Frank Lowe tune “For Real,” where the possibilities of each musician’s horn is realized in passivity before they open up into a shouting match refereed by the energized drumming of Nilssen-Love."

This is a solid hour of music making, and highly recommended.

Get it here: The Thing & Joe McPhee - "She knows..." (320Kbps)

And enjoy !