Mythos, Surround Sound Evolution

Ever since the late '60s when the various avant gardes and the psychedelic realms of rock converged for a little while there has been music with a consciousness-expanding focus. In rock, the stylistic drift went from psychedelic to prog and jamband space to psychedelic revival with plenty falling between categories. And today anything can happen!

Today we have something that nestles into a prog-synth-space rock place rather comfortably. This is electronic music, I suppose you could say, because it's all synthesized from what I can hear. But it's a matter of what does or does not work, in the end. The outfit Mythos gives you a full-length sonic-psychic workout that pretty much works--on the Surround Sound Evolution (Sireena 2109) CD.

Now one (in my position) should avoid judging anything on the idea of "if I did this music, would I do it this way?" because whatever "I" would do has nothing to do with the music in terms of validity. There are things I might not do myself, and of course things I perhaps couldn't do. So forget that.

You might think of someone like Kraftwerk as far as precedents go. It's electronically spacey in that sort of European melodic way, only updated a bit. This is apparently the second album, a follow-up from their first in 2008.

What matters is that the music is highly structured, cosmically electronic but everyday accessible in its prog melodic fashion. I found it kept me continuously enveloped in ways that were pleasing. Would I have added a guitar? Some drums? Well as I say, this is not my record so never mind that. It's nice.

Darts & Arrows, Eyes of the Carnival

It is by no means an easy thing for the music variously dubbed jazz-rock/fusion/prog/jamband to lay right, to sound naturally grooving, to be able to pair down and get leverage before it launches out. There are outfits that can play incredibly difficult technical things yet never really get rocking. This I most definitely would not say about the combo Darts & Arrows on their album Eyes of the Carnival (self released).

Here we have 30-plus minutes of an EP that gets that leverage. Like early Soft Machine and at the same time middle-period Gary Burton, they establish grooves and stay there as a foundational premise. The compositional matrix laid down, mostly penned by guitarist Bill MacKay with one by keyman Ben Boye (that one balladic), sets the possibilities and then the players open up to them.

Bill MacKay's guitar and Ben Boye's keys have leverage and sound as soloists too. They aren't trying to wow you with chops and more chops, but rather say something musical and at the same time express a sound. They do it well. They don't take long solos either. In fact sometimes it's more about the tune and playing it with feeling, opening up to it. But that is fine if they do it right. They do.

Kyle Hernandez on bass and Quin Kirchner on drums are in that same way concerned with feel and less with "wow" technique.

And so in the end you react like you have been hearing real music in a zone that in other hands sometimes loses the music-first thread. Nobody here is going to cut the greatest technical players. But what they do sounds very right. In the end the music satisfies. Good tunes played with conviction. That's very cool with me.

Steve Tallis and the Holy Ghosts, Loko, 2003

Seasoned Australian vet rock blues guitarist-vocalist-singer-songwriter-bandleader comes at us in a 2003 CD of original songs with his acoustic band The Holy Ghosts. Loko (Zombi cd5) is the disk I am writing about today. It's Steve on acoustic guitar and vocals with some nice violin from Dave Clarke and solid percussion-drum accompaniment by Gary Ridge.

The 2003 incarnation of Maestro Tallis is a folk-blues drenched kind of rock-folk. There are primal progressions that take the place of the standard blues variety and Steve gives us strong, emphatic vocals with a definite blues tinge--a touch of Beefheart and Howling Wolf behind his own brand of deep projective declamation that sounds very right.

The songs are personal expressions of outrage, frustration, affirmation, disapprobation about the world he sees around him. The foment of religious upheaval, social bigotry, hypocrisy, chaos, and personal angst. In other words, this is a blues reaction to the modern, post-modern world.

There is much in the way of originality. He is a kind of new Richie Havens coming from another planet. We get 15 powerful songs in a ritual exorcism of the world's inequalities, a swamp-rock incantation to renew us all.

It's hard-edged music that you must hear more than once to dig into what's going on. Once you do, you get a "new" voice on the scene--though he has worked to get to this point hard and well over the years.

It's very real, strong and in-your-face. It's Steve Tallis into a definite original zone. You should get it.

HaUtUllin, Music for Very Electric Guitar, Drums and Live Electronics

Plug in your minds and journey to Copenhagen, where the duo HaUtUllin (Barefoot Records) is doing its own plugging in--guitar, live electronics, effects, drums--readying the arsenal and getting ready to assault your senses. They let loose. Good lord! Guitarist Markus Pesonen and drummer Håkon Berre give you 65 minutes of well-conceived very outside post-Hendrixian free jazz psychedelia. Pesonen is a guitarist of greatly inventive sonic imagination and Berre goes with him like anything but a Mini-Me, more like a musical Maxi-Me. They have some quiet moments (which work quite well) but when they drench your being with effects-laden distortion, bends, thrashes, bashes and growls, you know that they are for real.

This kind of music has come a long way since the olden days when my friends and I traumatized the neighbors from the open-doored garage where we set up and crazed out on weekends. HaUtUllin have made of such Hendrix-inspired noodlings a directed free music that has smarts as well as ultra-space.

If you like out electric free jazz-rock, you probably already know what they can do in Scandinavia, I will bet. This is one of the newest directed assaults from there, and one of the best!

Troy Roberts, Nu-Jive 5

Saxophonist-compositional creator Troy Roberts hails from Perth, Australia and has been making his home in the USA for some time now. He's gotten attention out there as a real artist. I've heard a little of his music but the new fifth album has especially gotten my continued attention lately. Nu-Jive 5 (XenDen) features his fivesome, comprising Roberts on saxes and compositions, Tim Jago on electric guitar, Eric England on electric bass, David Oliverton on the drums and Silvano Monasterios on the keys. It's a tight outfit dwelling in a sort of progressive jazz-rock-fuzefunk realm.

The pieces hang together nicely and there are some very fresh things to be heard here along with some of the more expected groovers. I like how he creates structures of solidity that springboard the music and how all the front line, Roberts and Jago especially, get some time to say some nice solo things.

It may not set the world on fire but it's musically very solid, and sometimes very inspired too. Give it a listen!

Jeff Healey, As the Years Go Passing By, Three-CD Live Set

Jeff Healey, Canadian blues-rock guitar-vocal phenomenon, left this world in 2008, sadly. Cancer. But he lives yet. Especially with the welcome release of a three-CD set of him and his band live in Germany between 1989-2000. As the Years Go Passing By (Inakustik 9119 3-CD) captures Healey in excellent form, playing real-deal bluesy rock guitar, singing strongly, playing the mix of covers and originals he was known for, doing it well and doing it in full fidelity sound.

One CD of the original trio follows with a CD each of two versions of the trio with the addition of a second guitarist. So one disk is the 1989 incarnation, the second from 1999, the last from 2000.

It's the hard rock blues, the hard blues, the hard rock and it's as good a sampling of what Jeff Healey was about as you can get. And that is something. I will be listening for years to come. Rock guitarists take note! Or anybody else, too!

Jay Willie Blues Band, New York Minute

Nowadays there's new blues, borrowed blues, blue blues and faux blues. Now whether it's good doesn't to me mean that it should fall into only one or two of these categories. If it's good, it's good. If it isn't, it isn't.

So we have the Jay Willie Blues band today, and their recent New York Minute (Zoho 201303). It's new blues, rock blues, hard blues and it convinces. This is not a classic Chicago sound with tail-kicking bluesmaster vocals. The vocals are good, they just are not of a Wolf or Bland level of classicity. They are handled with some soul and perfect adequacy by Jay Willie (who also hits guitar and a little bass and a little harp), Bob Callahan (on guitar, bass and piano also), and Bobby T. Torello (who is the drummer). Then we get one guest vocal appearance by Marlou Zandvliet. Oh, also Jason Ricci joins the throng with some nice harp of his own for four cuts.

These folks mostly hail from Connecticut. Bobby T. was Johnny Winter's drummer by the way. And some of that Winter hardness is there as clear influence.

What's good is the very solid instrumental rock-hard bluesiness, solid gritty slide guitar and amped plucking, hot rhythm section and a nice mix of classics and originals.

Yes. A nice one.