Outsight
Outsight: A Black Tape and other CDs
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Outsight brings to light non-mainstream music, film, books, art, ideas and opinions.
Published, somewhere, monthly since July 1991. Feel free to re-print this article.
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Black Tape for a Blue Girl
The Scavenger Bride
Projekt
Black Tape for a Blue Girl is the hallmark group in the darkwave movement and from this leadership position they present a beautiful concept album of mysterious minimalism and vocal beauty. The great vocals come from new singer Elysabeth Grant, long part of the Projekt fold. The ideas come from a fusion of the artwork of Marcel Duchamp and the writings of Franz Kafka. Besides reaching, and successfully reaching, thematically, this is the most instrumentally dense of the Black Tape for a Blue Girl albums. The substrate is still Sam Rosenthal's layered electronics and piano. Beside Grant, additional vocalists telling the tale of Prague's tragic 1914 scavenger bride include Audra's Bret Helm and Spahn Ranch's Athan Maroul. Beside the usual flute accompaniment a mini-string section of Vicki Richards (violin), Grant (viola) and Julia Kent (ex-Rasputina, cello) fleshes out the sound. The dramatic presentation mostly succeeds in this consistent album setting a new high water mark for the group. This was well worth the nearly three-year wait since their previous release. (4)
The Ray Vega Latin Jazz Sextet
Pa'lante
Palmetto
Veteran trumpeter Ray Vega performed salsa and Latin jazz in the bands of Tito Puente, Ray Barretto, Mongo Santamaria and more. Also, a percussionist, composer and arranger, Ray Vega continues on Pa'lante the modus operandi of his other solo releases: marrying jazz horn melodies, often in straight jazz styles, onto rich and exotic Latin rhythms. Pa'lante is the fusion of equals in a way that Dizzy Gillespie introduced Latin jazz to the world. Vega learned much from Dizzy playing alongside him in Mongo Santamaria's outfit and also sees no need here to sublimate the melodies of classic jazz or the spicy Caribbean rhythms in forging his energetic and sophisticated hybrid. (4)
Dave Leslie
The Brim
Louie Records, 644 SW 5th, Corvallis, OR 97333
louierec@peak.org
The opening number here, the jovial accordion jazz song "Crackers 'n' Sherbet," instantly breaks the ice. There is serious playing here, but if this jazz is serious music, it is done with a wink. Later tracks similarly roll and leap with the bubbling, percolating percussion of Dave Storrs. Storrs joins Leslie (keyboards, accordion, sequencing) on each track accompanied by a revolving cast of horn and guitar players. The differing instrumentation and maintained cheeriness of compositions keep The Brim moving along as a cup running over with fun. (3.5)
Whirled Jazz
Mukilteo
Louie Records, 644 SW 5th, Corvallis, OR 97333
louierec@peak.org
Reeds player Tom Bergeron leads his quartet through a half-dozen roomy original compositions on Mukilteo. The space in these tunes allows for exciting group dynamics in the delivery, especially between crisp and fluid Bergeron and the understated trombonist Keller Coker. Both the horn players teach at Western Oregon University. Basic and reliable bass lines on the title track from bassist Page Hundemer (Louie Records linchpin) can be misleading, in the shifting focal point of this album, Hundemer gives some great bass melodies on the opening to "Hum-Sah" and elsewhere.
Jacintha
Lush Life
Groove Note
The title of this album, also the name of the excellent Billy Strayhorn song, Jacintha covers here, suggests the rich, sensual, soft delivery that characterizes Jacintha's lyric. Showcased in a classic jazz setting as she is here, these sounds are exquisitely framed in a full string section the size of a small orchestra. Top-notch sound quality marks this recording of Jacintha's subtle phrasing and the interaction with piano, flugelhorn, the strings and more. Lush Life uses Sony's Direct Stream Digital way of digital-encoding an analog signal. DSD was developed by Sony's engineers in order to archive Sony Music's priceless catalog of recordings. Like other jazz divas in that vault, for instance Billy Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, Jacintha produced here a treatment of standards that will itself rightly be preserved and cherished for years to come. (4.5)
Ted Piltzecker
Standing Alone
Equilibrium Records, POB 301, Dexter, MI 48130
Master vibraphone artist Ted Piltzecker recorded this solo CD away from his normal ensemble, the George Shearing Quintet. While he is himself a composer, Ted chose for this album to instead apply his performing talents to the work of other composers, for instance Duke Ellington ("In a Sentimental Mood"), Dave Brubeck ("In Our Own Sweet Way"), and Jobim ("Trieste"). Piltzecker's solo vibes arrangements are very full; there is not a lot of playing with space here. However, in the absence of a rhythm section, the music is still very light and airy, it is very spacious "below." Standing Alone is an exquisite collection of standards he knows well in sophisticated and delicate form delivered from four mallets applied to the vibraphone and nothing else. (Excepting, that is, "La Malanga" where he accompanies himself on the djimbe.) (4)
Ataraxia
Mon Seul Desir
Cruel Moon/Cold Meat Industry
info@coldmeat.se
Led by neo-period chanteuse Francesca Nicoli, Ataraxia performs original music (there are only two traditional covers here) in a medieval style with tone-coloring synthesizer. Sometimes the antique pomp becomes overwhelmingly ostentatious, but generally their faux-strings, classical guitar and Enya-styled vocals work very well. Steeped in the Middle Ages, Ataraxia created Mon Seul Desir as a concept album based on the "La Dame à la Licorne" cycle of tapestries and "Song of Solomon." Another key to this unique music is the chitarra battente, the "renaissance guitar" of Italy used by 17th Century Calabrian peasants to channel the same muses Ataraxia now communicates with. (3)
Plexus
Plexus
Mother West
info@motherwest.com
Plexus is a New York trio that performs live the electronic dance music that is now identified with DJs. Producer/guitarist Allen Towbin brings into the live mix samples, loops and synthesizers while drummer Tobias Ralph imitates breakbeats and bassist Ernie Adzentoivich through in the deep, subsonic tone coloring. On "Telephone," a collaboration with composition professor Ran Blake (The New England Conservatory) on piano, the sophisticated trio successfully mates their styles of post-modern intellectual sounds. A plateau above both the jam band and rave camps, Plexus creates not utilitarian beat music, but advanced drum-n-bass making the group the cerebral art rockers of techno. (4.5)
Switchblade Kittens
Hey Punk! Try Heroine[s]
Switchblade Kittens, POB 93755, LA, CA 90093
This peppy female power pop band needs no guitar. Among the two bassists singer Drama plays on her invention, the guitar-sounding "bassorama" arrangement of playing through her own effects processing recipe. This earned them an endorsement from the Aria bass company. Their punk rock take on "My Heart Will Go On (Love Theme from Titanic)" earned them an impressive Internet following as an MP3 download. Their fun-spirited punk-pop music is infectious and driving; energetic indie rock with a velvet bite. (3)
Lou Christie & The Tammys
Egyptian Shumba: The Singles and Rare Recordings 1962-1964
RPM Productions
They called him 'the Pharaoh of the falsetto' and his piercing, nasal wail marked a pop vocal style that has generally become, like hieroglyphics, a 'lost art' since the decade ending in the mid-Sixties. This excellent overview of Christie's career contains not only singles and other recordings of the five-octave baritone, but also a half-dozen rare sides from his girl-group, The Tammys. Revisiting the sharp-edged harmonies, crisp and clean in some in their first stereo releases, is like handling a Stone Age hand axe and marveling at a forgotten talent that may never again emerge. (4.5)
Various Artists
The Best of Young Blood Records
Cherry Red Records/RPM Productions
Young Blood Records existed in the UK during the 1970's. This was a time when exciting, dynamic sounds were being cut in the styles of Northern Soul, Pop Rock, Glam and innovative extensions to folk and R&B. Young Blood Records was very successful with producing great singles in these genres. The label had Top Ten hits in several countries. The label started in 1969 and ran out of steam by 1975, but during those years it burned bright. During this transition time when a solid pop record also had to be good for the discotheque, Young Blood Records married urgent, bright vocals to undeniable funky rhythms in songs like "I've Found my Freedom" (No. 1 in Holland, Belgium and France) and "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" (US, Top 2) by Mac & Katie Kissoon, and Don Fardon's "Belfast Boy." Fardon, ex of The Sorrows, was also a hit maker earlier at Strike Records with Young Bloods owner Miki Dallon. Interestingly, this compilation contains Billy Ocean's debut with the group Scorched Earth. (4.5)
Outsight is non-mainstream music news and views. The content is wholly based on new releases and a focus on the the eclectic and overlooked.
