New Outlets Popping Up for Legendary Music
by Steve Matteo
With so many alternatives to commercial radio (satellite radio, Internet radio, etc.), there is a profusion of music being exposed that previously had no outlet. Much of the music is being released by new and small record companies from around the world. Also, many artists are releasing music on their own labels. The sheer amount of releases is staggering. Keeping up with it all is another matter. The following are some rather obscure releases that are truly inspired and well worth the extra effort to seek out.
Sanctuary Records in the U.S. has just issued three releases from Joe Meek that originally came out through Castle in the U.K. Meek was a pioneering record producer who is best known for producing "Telstar" by the Tornados in the early 1960s. While not as influential or enjoying as lengthy a career as Phil Spector, Meek must certainly be considered one of the first truly visionary and groundbreaking record producers in the early days of rock and roll. First up is Joe Meek The EP Collection. This beautiful box includes 12 EPs replicated to look like U.K. EPs of the era, which was a common way that music was released in England at that time. While many of the artists included here may be unfamiliar to American music listeners, they represent the era in pop music just after the first flush of rock and roll (Chuck Berry, Jerry Lewis, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, etc.) and before the Beatles changed the world. From easy listening to rock instrumentals and other decidedly English novelties, the music holds up surprisingly well and exhibits how much can be done with very primitive recording equipment. Vampires Cowboys & Spooks: The Very Best of Joe Meek's Instrumentals, a two-CD, 60-track collection, might be a good starting point for the Meek novice or the faint of heart. Joe Meek Freak Beat You're Holding Me Down is a single-disc release that represents a more British beat sound and includes the best of the music he produced in the last 18 months of his life, before he committed suicide in 1967. He was clearly trying to latch on to the burgeoning psychedelic sound before it even had a name or was a trend. Like many who were ahead of their time, Meek was a complete outcast and may never get the due he so rightly deserves.
Speaking of artists who deserve to be recognized for their unique contribution, check out the latest release from Bert Jansch, The Black Swan (Drag City). Jansch, along with John Renbourn, founded the beloved English folk-rock group Pentangle. Pentangle, along with Fairport Convention, Steeleye Span and the Incredible String Band, comprised the main groups of the English folk-rock scene of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Jansch, like Renbourn, has continued to sporadically release idiosyncratic, mostly instrumental acoustic guitar albums to the delight of a small yet enthusiastic coterie of rabid fans. This Jansch release, though, has received an unusual degree of unanimous critical attention. While his trademark acoustic guitar signature remains, a more fleshed-out sound and the addition of vocals on several tracks by Beth Orton and Devendra Banhart have opened Jansch up to a whole new young audience of fans who see this new album and his previous works as part of what has now become a whole new "freak folk" sound.
Another cult face has just released one of his best albums ever. Billed as Robyn Hitchcock & The Venus 3, Ole! Tarantula (Yep Roc) may be one of Hitchcock's most accessible and fun albums ever. Along with The Venus 3, which includes Peter Buck of R.E.M., Hitchcock has made an album that, while maintaining his unique world and musical vision, has the kind of jangly rock beat of the best mid-to-late-1960s British invasion pop-rock.
One of Hitchcock's contemporaries, Graham Parker, is back with Don't Tell Columbus (Bloodshot). Within a very basic, uncluttered musical framework, again Parker creates blue-eyed-soul-inflected music with a leaner folk-inspired feel that he has been honing of late. Less angry, more thoughtful and more compassionate lyrically in his later years, Parker seems on this album to be more influenced by Van Morrison on some cuts than ever before. Continuing to be one of the true greats to emerge out of the pub/post-punk scene, Graham Parker is still squeezing out sparks.
A trio that seems poised to break through to a larger audience, given the new avenues of exposure more adventurous artists now have, is Peter Bjorn and John. On their latest album, Writer's Block (Almost Gold), the Swedish trio cooks up a hearty stew of disparate influences that range from the aforementioned Hitchcock to the Proclaimers and others. The sound bounces back and forth between very accessible catchy pop to edgier sounds. This is a band to watch.
Miracle of Five (Zedtone), from Eleni Mandell, is hard to describe. Clearly part of the singer-songwriter scene, but with plenty of quirks and odd twists and turns, the album seems to float on air. Forceful and original, but often airy like a lullaby, Mandell's music penetrates one's consciousness and stays in one's head long after one listens to it.
Tim Finn, who along with his brother Neil formed Splitz Enz and later Crowded House in addition to recording as a duo, is back with a fine solo album, Imaginary Kitchen (Manhattan). A little darker and more dissonant than Crowded House or brother Neil, Finn still proves to be one of the best pop craftsmen around, and this new album may be his best yet.
