Mary Lattimore is a harpist originally from Philadelphia but currently based in Los Angeles, California who played with The Valerie Project (an alternate soundtrack to the 1970 film Valerie and Her Week of Wonders), has released solo albums At the Dam (2016) and Hundreds of Days (2018), and has collaborated with Meg Baird on the …
Rose City Band – Summerlong (2020)
Walkin’ in the park just the other day, baby What do you what do you think I saw? Crowds of people sittin’ on the grass with flowers in their hair said Hey Boy do you want to score? Back in those days, we all gathered at the Red House in Butcher Park. Five, ten, sometimes as many as …
Alice Coltrane and Her Cosmic Healing – On the 50th Anniversary of “Journey in Satchidananda”
I remember. I remember that hot July day when you died. It was the summer of love for everyone else. It was the summer when I lost my love. It was a sad summer. I could not eat because I missed you. I could not sleep because I missed you. In the autumn, I felt …
Glen’s Rockmaggedon – Bass Players
My last article was about the beast that is the guitar solo, the reason I got into rock’n’roll at all. I wrote a lot about how the solo came about and what it means for rock in general. I was just reading the article, as you do as an egomaniac, narcissistic writer, and just had …
Gorillaz – Song Machine, Season One: Strange Timez (2020) – Digital Fascism, Transhumans & The Triumph of Cosmic Order
2020 has been a musical hunger year where most artists degraded their records to ‘products’ and delayed their releases because Corona stole the show, and the cash. Not just for the artists and crews, but also for fans it has been a massively fucked up year with no live culture and little new music being …
Politics, Race, Society, Speaking the Truth – 50th Anniversary of Curtis Mayfield’s Debut
Born in 1942 (the same year of birth as guitarist Jimi Hendrix, who was influenced lyrically by Mayfield), Curtis Mayfield began his career with the R&B group The Impressions. Curtis Mayfield was one of the first African American artists to address the Civil Rights Movement in his lyrics in “Keep On Pushing” (released in 1964, …
Halloween Playlist Vol. 2 – Nightmares & Death Trips
Legend of Hell House (Delia Derbyshire & Brian Hodgson)One of the most haunting horror movie soundtracks because of the experimental genius Delia Derbyshire (born May 5, 1937). Cobwebbed organs, rhythmic synthesizers, and an array of erotic, goosebump-inducing, hair-raising electronically altered ghost voices that get under your skin. “Seven Bowls” (Aphrodite’s Child)Although only one minute and …
Halloween Playlist Vol. 1 – Witchcraft & Bad Trips
“Dark Shadows Theme” (Robert Cobert)This is the perfect introductory track for any and every Halloween playlist. Robert Cobert (appropriately born on October 26, 1924), composed this ghostly, iconic, shivering score with trembling theremin for the Gothic TV show Dark Shadows in 1966. It conjures images of the clammy Collinwood mansion and stormy, windswept seashores. “It …
Dylan Thomas’ Caedmon Readings: Childhood, Death, and the Welsh Wild Wonder
On June 10, 1914, the same month that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, leading later that summer to the “Great War” (World War I) in Europe, on the other side of the Atlantic, in a tiny town named Engelberg, Arkansas, Ida Layton was born. On October 27, 1914, back across the Atlantic in Swansea, Dylan …
Autechre – SIGN (2020)
Sharing the pure discovery of new music and sound. Can you imagine anything more important? Or have we forgotten our higher purpose? (Honestly… it can’t be a good idea to start a review with a series esoteric questions. What am I to do? Begin again?). There is something intimate, even sensual about sharing new music with …