Mechanical Poet - Woodland Prattlers

Artist:         Mechanical Poet

Album:       Woodland Prattlers

Year:           2004

Line-Up:     Maxim Samosvat – Vocals

                   Lex Plotnikoff – Guitars, bass, keyboards

                   Tom Tokmakoff – Drums, bass, keyboards

Label:         Aural Music

After the glorious years of famous Russian contemporary composers, the Russian music industry hasn’t been that global counting out few exceptions. Huge neighbor of Finland, the mighty mother Russia consists of over hundred million people, but how many Russian metal bands –for example- can you name? Well if you couldn’t name any, at least you can name now.

Mechanical Poet comes from Russia and brings some rather interesting influences to symphonic progressive metal. I couldn’t describe their music on this debut album in just one sentence; the variety of the soundscape is huge: after rumbling riffs and speedy drumming mister Samosvat offers us his tremendous warm voice with full of emotion singing mystical ballads. The album kicks off and finishes in Disney-like, almost classical intro (Main Titles) and outro (Ending Credits) and all in between is like a magical fairytale through fire and water, through strong and mellow, and through comedy and tragedy. The highpoint of the album is a track in the middle called “Natural Quaternion: Sylphs/Gnomes/Undines/Salamanders” running over ten minutes, summarizing everything that I mentioned above and displays the amazing abilities and diversity of the vocalist Max Samosvat.

Founded on the ruins of Russian avant-garde act Glazemaker in 2002, the tale of Mechanical Poet unfortunately is likely to remain a short-story: After Woodland Prattlers, some line-up changes and few concept albums the band played their last gig in 2009.”Woodland Prattlers” was released together with Mechanical Poet’s EP called “Handmade Essence” by Aural Music, an Italian independent metal label concentrating on metal and rock, avant-garde, black metal, death metal, progressive, industrial, ambient, dark. It was founded in 1998.

This album a very enjoyable ride, all fans of metal might appreciate it. Here is Mechanical Poet - Natural Quaternion: Sylphs/Gnomes/Undines/Salamanders

Part1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8CG7djVWxXQ

Part2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR2Cv6pbMiM

Written by: Oz

Uffe Krokfors - The Incense of All Our Prayers

Artist:          Uffe Krokfors

Album:        The Incense of All Our Prayers

Year:           2007

Line-up:      Uffe Krokfors – double bass

Label:          no label

Here we have a real aural obscurity if I have ever seen one. When you think about albums consisting purely of solo instrument performance – that is that there is one and only one instrument and performer playing the music – you might think of such as instruments as the piano and the guitar with which both the melody and the accompaniment can be performed simultaneously. For some of you, The Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello might come to mind. But what about solo double bass? It might seem that creating an interesting piece around solo bass let alone a whole album could almost be an impossible task. There is one solo performance on fretless electric bass on Jaco Pastorious' self titled album called Portrait of Tracy and the British double bass maestro Dave Holland has actually released an entire album of solo bass music entitled Emerald Tears on ECM in 1977 which is another aural obscurity itself. However, on this occasion I will introduce to you a rarer album by an extraordinary bass player named Uffe Krokfors named The Incense of All Our Prayers.

Uffe Krokfors (born 1966) is a Finnish Swede who begun his career as a bass player with the composer and trumpeter Otto Donner's quintet in the mid 1980's. Krofors quickly established himself as a household name playing with legendary Finnish percussionist Edward Vesala in his group called Sound and Fury and in Krakatau of guitarist Raoul Björkenheim recording with both for ECM records. Since then he has become one the most in-demand bass players in Finland playing along side with the most important Finnish jazz figures in. Lately Krokfors has increasingly focused on his own music and compositions which have been featured on his collaborative albums as well as on his own records. As a bass player Krokfors is known for his clarity, purity, sensitivity to listen and to react to the playing of other musicians and ability to play melodious and coherent bass solos – and this is what his first completely solo album, The Incense of All Our Prayers, is about.

The album consists of nine pieces, five of which are completely improvised. The booklet informs us that three of these improvisations draw their inspiration from the poems of one of the most important pioneers of Finnish poetry, Eino Leino. The four remaining tracks are compositions by Krokfors. It should be noted that the album has no overdubs or effects apart from the final track baring the name of the album. The music you hear is all acoustic double bass and oddly the sounds of breathing and panting by Krokfors. The bass playing here is phenomenal: clear and accurate as one could expect of such virtuoso of one's instrument. The majority of the featured tracks are played with fingers except for two exceptions where we can here Krokfors' skills with the bow. As compositions, these tracks are not as perfect as the playing of Krokfors. One obvious factor is the fact that the majority of the music here is improvised and one can only wonder what were the reasons behind these choices. Nevertheless, the music is still very intriguing and requires the full attention of the listener to be truly appreciated. The definite highlight is the last track which uses overdubs and creates a truly mysterious and captivating atmosphere. Let us hope that Krokfors records a new solo album in the future which features more of this kind of material. Until then The Incense of All Our Prayers is a must for all bass players and musical connoisseurs.

Take a peak of the skills of Krokfors on the solo bass in this short clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6kT3hKu61U

Written by Παναγιωτιης

Folque - Folque

Artist:             Folque

Album:           Folque

Year:              1974

Line-Up:         Lisa Helljesen - Vocals
Jørn Jensen - Vocals, guitar, dulcimer
Trond Villa – Fiddle, Hardander fiddle, viola, electric guitar
Morten Bing - Guitar, mandolin, bouzouki, banjo
Eilif Amundsen – Vocals, banjo, guitar, dulcimer, mandolin
Trond Øverland - Bass, flute, piano

Label:             Phonogram (1974), Pan Records (1993 re-release)

 

I don’t even remember how I came across this album, but it got me immediately. Listening to it now after many years I remember feelings from my youth. That is one of the beauties of music; it raises, captures and hangs onto emotions. Folque can bring you beautiful melodies with deep interpretation and cheerful rhythms with joyful attitude.

The story of this rocky folk group takes us back to the 70’s and to Oslo, Norway. After some touring of Morten Bing, Eilif Amundsen and Jørn Jensen and few recruits the band started to make their own music under the name "Brød og Vin" (Bread and Wine) and after their sound developed more they changed the name to “Folque” and Trond Villa, and Trond Øverland joined the band to make their debut album “Folque”. They played translated English folk songs as well as traditional Norwegian folk songs spiced up with mandolin, banjo, bouzouki and dulcimer. Flutes and fiddle followed and after Jørn Jensen bought a Telecaster, the band changed from acoustic folk rock to electric folk rock with male and female vocals. After a TV-appearance and a demo, Phonogram Records (a joint venture between Dutch Philips Records and German Deutsche Grammophon) signed the band and in the fall of 1974 the album was published. It even had a radio-hit called “reinlender”, a schottische.

After the debut-album the band started having problems with its members but managed to have over a decade-long career and one re-union at the turn of the century. The first three albums, “Folque”, “Kjempene På dovrefjell”, and ”Vardøger” were re-released by Pan-Records in the 90’s. Pan-Records is a Dutch label concentrating on traditional music from all over the world. So the first three albums should be easier to find. If folky rock in any ways makes you tick, here is beautiful and well-arranged music for your ears.

Here’s the album opener of the re-released version:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq4hrmUT7Oc

Written by: Oz

Ross Daly & Labyrinth - World Network Vol. 8: Eurasia - Mitos

Artist:     Ross Daly & Labyrinth

Album:   World Network Vol. 8: Eurasia - Mitos

Year:      1992

Line-up: 

Ross Daly -  cretan lyra, laouto, oud, rababa, kemantché, rebab, kemencello, bulgari, saz

Vassilis Soukas -  clarinet, santoon

Pericles Papapetropoulos - saz, tanbur

Jamshid Shemirani - zarb

Spyridoula Toutoudaki - vocals

Socrates Sinopoulos - keménce, saz

Amin Alagabu -  bendir, daff, darabukk a

Petros Tambouris -  kanun

Label:    Network Medien

”Crete is quite unlike any other place in the world, for a number of reasons: its long history and the many powers and cultures which have left their traces here – the special geographic situation, the islands and the people have their own very special character. -- When I visited Crete for the first time in 1971, I was so moved, so drawn to the place that I would say it was by some inexplicable stroke of fate that I ended up here and took Crete as the basis and point of reference for my musical travels.”

Ross Daly

I and my fellow blogger saw Ross Daly perform last year in November in the same festival where I was also had the privilege to hear and see Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan perform (if you have not already read my post on their album, you can find it here). The concert given by Ross Daly Trio was most intriguing and fascinating as the cretan lyra of Κέλυ Θωμά was in a perfect ethereal marriage with the lyra and tarhu of Ross Daly harmonically accompanied by the virtuosic lauoto and soft singing of Γιώργος Μανωλάκης. This particular record is however older than the trio we saw and has a very different ensemble. The band Labyrinth here is a kind of music workshop consisting for the most part of professional musicians concentrating on the many different traditions and cultures which have influenced the music of Crete. Later the workshop came into contact with various musicians from different countries and cultures and thus the range of musical influences broadened to countries like Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Turkey etc. The result is an utterly fascinating mixture, almost like a microcosmos of Eurasian musical traditions which has the magical sensation of sounding at the same ancient but new, alien yet strangely familiar.

Ross Daly is truly an interesting individual: an Irishman born in England, he grew up in Japan, Canada and the USA studying cello and classical guitar and learning the Indian instrument sitar for three years in San Francisco. Later he has lived and travelled around the world studying various forms of local music traditions including India, Afghanistan and Turkey before finally settling in the island of Crete which has been his home for 35 years now. The music of Ross Daly reflects the different musical traditions which he has studied over the years. It should be pointed out, however, that the music always never sounds of new age nor world fusion. The core of Ross Daly's musical journey through the Middle East, Central Asia and the Indian Subcontinent has been the search for certain musical archetypes. According to Ross Daly himself the musical traditions which he has studied ”are not merely a vehicle of self-expression, but something which is able to take one beyond what one normally perceived to be the boundaries of one's self into other trans-personal realms of experience.”

One consistent feature on this album – and generally in the music of Ross Daly - is that the musical basis is modality instead of ”traditional” Major/Minor-harmony which the majority of the modern western music utilises. This CD features seven tracks, some of which are medleys, bringing together music from Turkey, Greece, Middle East, Crete and the ancient and historical locations such as Smyrna and Thrace. The expertise and talent of Ross Daly can be heard clearly on this album as the seven tracks performed here form a perfect and coherent whole. For a layman it is impossible to distinguish the various traditions for one another. I do not find myself competent enough trying to descirbe this album and its' music in a more detailed matter. If your attention has been drawn in any way of the brief description of the music of Ross Daly, I recommend that you give this the record a chance as it is the album by Daly which is more widely available. You can surely expect a musical journey which knows no boundaries of time nor geographical boarders.

”If we are going to be able to appreciate fully the wide variety of music which exists in the world, we should forget all these recordings and drastically increase the amount of live music we listen to. We should see this as an inner and outer journey, in which any attempt to approach the various musical traditions of the world also has to involve an appreciation of the musicians themselves.”

Ross Daly

Unfortunately I could not find the one piece from this album that I wanted to link here, but here are couple of wonderful performances by Ross Daly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGIj7uflacI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MeCXzlAmNA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GX_j59byg34

Written by Παναγιωτιης