Jim Sullivan Reissues from Light in the Attic

My latest Vinyl Anachronist music review is now live at Part-Time Audiophile. You can read it here.

The Jack Wilson Quartet's Call Me: Jazz from the Penthouse

When I think of Light in the Attic Records, I usually don't think of straight-ahead jazz releases. LITA is more about the fascinating stories in the music industry, the people who should have been famous but weren't, the long lost discoveries in some old vault and the occasional alien abduction. When I first slapped The Jack Wilson Quartet's Call Me: Jazz from the Penthouse into the CD player, I didn't know about Jack Wilson. I thought this was another contemporary jazz release, something to put in the pile and eventually review. LITA has a habit of sending me CDs and LPs in the mail with no press kit, no liner notes, no nothing and it has to slowly dawn on me, over the course of weeks, that I've got another LITA release in my mitts. And that's always an awesome thing.

The story on the Jack Wilson Quartet is a combination of two of those LITA tropes, the old vault and the guy who should have been more famous. Wilson was a pianist who recorded for both Atlantic and Blue Note, which is a good start. He and his quartet used to go on tour with Redd Foxx back in the day, and the liner notes state that he was "ubiquitous" through most of the '60s. All of this makes sense because, well, as soon as I hit play I said wow. This quartet swings. And listen to those vibes! Who is that? Roy Ayers? A young Roy Ayers? These guys are good. They're not journeymen.

These live recordings were captured from three performances at the Penthouse in the summer of 1966, and that's part of the magic. Wilson and his quartet, which also includes bassist Buddy Woodson and drummer Von Barlow, have chosen some contemporary pop tunes for inspiration, songs like "Call Me," "Here's That Rainy Day" and "The Shadow of Your Smile." I'm starting to truly love this era of songwriting, when melodies were both sophisticated and catchy, and at a point in our culture when big shifts were starting to happen. It's almost a poignancy to it, a song built by the past but already nervous about what's around the next corner.

In addition, the recording quality is very nice on Call Me. LITA is occasionally more concerned about search and rescue than remastering for audiophiles, but they always insist on the best-sounding and faithful remastering of the recording. Sometimes the recording is a bit rough, but that's due to the source and because the story behind the recording adds an important context. But the sound quality here is so good that you might think "Why did they wait so long to release this? Didn't they listen to it and know how good it was?" Well, that's the thing about LITA. They always supply all the information you need--in this case a 24-page booklet with the whole story and plenty of photographs. LITA is always a class act, and this is one classy and thrilling jazz performance. And now I gotta go get some more Jack Wilson recordings.

The Haruomi Hosono Archival Series--The Deep End

My latest Deep End column for Part-Time Audiophile is now live. This one features the Haruomi Hosono Archival Series from Light in the Attic Records. You can read it here.Enjoy!

Ofege's Try and Love

I had no idea what to expect when the needle hit the groove. Several moments later, I was still unsure of what I was hearing. Try and Love from Ofege sounded like a lot of the African pop and rock I used to listen to back in my college days--I loved both King Sunny Ade and Mick Fleetwood's The Visitor. I'm also in love with Ethiopiques, that mid-60s collection of Ethiopian jazz that was featured so prominently in Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers. The sound, the beat and even the feel of the studio reminds me of all those recordings and more, but the music itself, well, it's really different. It's almost otherworldly.

Ofege was a funk-pop-rock group "formed in the early 1970s by a bunch a teenagers at the St. Gregory's in Lagos Nigeria," according to the obi. Ofege went on to be one of the most celebrated pop groups in Nigeria's history, and that's probably because they sounded so different from everyone else in Africa. That doesn't mean you haven't heard the components of their sound before, you just haven't heard this blend before. The group was inspired by psychedelic rock, especially the guitar-driven music played by Santana, Jimmy Page and of course Hendrix, but the scorching solos here are also informed by African artists such as The Funkees, Ofo the Black Company and BLO. Try and Love was Ofege's 1973 debut, and it was released while most of the members were still in high school. When you listen to this album, that last comment is probably the most amazing since this is such a confident and audacious album.

As I've mentioned, Ofege sounds alien but in all the right ways. You've heard the both the fuzzy distorted electric guitars from the West, and the twangy, distant soul/funk/R&B guitars of West Africa, but together they create a sound that makes you smile because, well, because it rocks pretty hard. Melvin Ukachi, the lead vocalist and lyricist, sings mostly in English, and his light tone reveals his young age but in an innocent yet accomplished way that reminds me of Jackson 5 era MJ. The drumming, from M-lke Meme, is what squares the music off into its African origins--even when he backs into a standard pop-rock beat, the complex polyrhythms bleed through and give the songs an extra ounce of pure adrenaline.

This all sounds charming and interesting, which it is. All of these influences hit you at once, and while your brain is busy trying to categorize everything, your feet are tapping and your head is bobbing. Music with a story this fascinating can only come from one place--Light in the Attic Records. If LITA excels in just one thing, it's capturing those windows in time, that feeling like you're hearing a lost piece of history that was mummified and restored to its former luster. It's the kind of recording where you think about the world in which it was recorded, and how different it is from now.

I'm a little bummed--just a few days before I listened to Try and Love the first time, I had already submitted my Top 20 list to several publications. I would have included this near the top, perhaps right next to that Lee Hazlewood surf-rock album, which was also released and curated by LITA. Highly recommended.

The Ar-Kaics' In This Time

Have you ever watched a movie where they show some "archival footage," all scratched up and made to look ancient, but it's not convincing because the quality of the print lacks that patina that the real old stuff has? There are a lot of indie bands out there doing the same thing, making music in 2018 that's supposed to sound like music from 1967, but there's something lost in the translation, something that gives the whole thing away.

When I first received The Ar-Kaics' new album, In This Time, I assumed it was another one of those fabulous Light In The Attic reissues, something found in the vaults of some recording studio that didn't quite gel at the time but now has a real prescient value. The Ar-Kaics' sound is prime late-sixties garage band, heavy on reverb to the point where the buzzing of the guitar amps become a fifth member of the band, and it all sounds like a fantastic discovery from a quartet of musicians who spent their summers learning songs from early The Who, the Velvet Underground and The Animals. But they're not. They're a new band from Virginia, and this is their sophomore album. It's killer.

Yes, the Ar-Kaics have mastered this classic grungy studio sound to the point where even seasoned ears will instantly believe this recording is at least 50 years old. Thanks to producer Wayne Gordon, who's worked with everyone from Black Lips to the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, these four young musicians--guitarist/vocalist Kevin Longendyke, guitarist/vocalist/keyboardist Johnny Ward, bassist Tim Abbondelo and drummer Patty Conway--have completely mastered garage band sound to the point where this not only feels like a lost classic, it feels like an album that would have been an influential and beloved release if it had come out way back when. Longendyke and Ward's two-guitar attack is simple yet inspired and sounds like something you've heard before but can't put your finger on. The comparison of Conway to Mo Tucker seems a little on the nose, but it's probably intentional since she has such a catchy and primitive style.

The Ar-Kaic's fidelity to this old sound was partially due to the execution. Recorded in just three days in Montrose Studios, In This Time sounds like an album that was caught on the fly, between gigs, since the band needed to pay rent before they were thrown out on the street. If you're a dedicated rock and roll fan and you crave that raw energy that seems to be in short supply among today's indie bands, this album will be a revelation. The songs are strong, memorable and grimy, and you'll keep playing it over and over.

Lee Hazlewood's Woodchucks--Cruisin' for Surf Bunnies Now Live at Positive Feedback

My latest review for Positive Feedback Online is now live! This one is about Lee Hazlewood's lost surf rock recordings from 1964, now lovingly restored from the original master tapes by Light in the Attic Records. You can read it here.

New Vinyl Anachronist column up at Perfect Sound Forever

It's that time again, time for a new Vinyl Anachronist column (number 84!) at the e-zine Perfect Sound Forever. This one concerns the wonderful record label Light in the Attic and how they have succeeded in the marketplace through great re-issues at great prices.

You can read it at http://www.furious.com/perfect/vinyl84.html. Enjoy!

Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson on LP

If I'm a year late in reviewing the awesome LP reissue of Jim Sullivan's UFO from Light in the Attic Records, I'm two years late in getting Serge Gainsbourg's Histoire de Melody Nelson from the same folks. I almost grabbed the CD at Waterloo Records here in Austin a few months ago, but a little voice told me to hold out for the vinyl. As a result, the idea of owning this legendary album slipped away, and I didn't think about it again until the other day when I found an new, sealed LP at End of an Ear Records, just down the street from Waterloo. It was between this and She & Him's new Xmas LP, and eventually I came to the conclusion that I hate Christmas songs more than I love Zooey Deschanel. Melody Nelson it was, and I know now that I made the right choice.

If you're not familiar with this 1971 concept album, it's considered Gainsbourg's masterpiece--even though it flopped when first released (an all-too familiar theme in the arts when you think about it). In less than 28 minutes, Serge tells the story of a bored 40-year-old man who hits a teenage girl riding a bike while cruising around in his Rolls. Tu t'appelles comment? he asks. Melody. Melody comment? Melody Nelson. Before you know it, Serge has taken her to a sleazy hotel and has deflowered her. Then she jumps on a flight to Sunderland but her 707 crashes in the jungle of New Guinea. That's a lot of melodrama in less than half an hour, but it's told in a way that's very poetic, very sexual and very melancholic.

When Light in the Attic reissued this two years ago, however, it was the first time it had been released to the US--with the lyrics in both French and English. Until then, you had to know French very well, and Gainsbourge's half-whispered and half-muttered French even better, to know the whole story. Once translated, the extraordinary lyrics begin to rise above the slightly sordid plot:

Adrift on the currents have you already touched?
Those bright corals of the Guinean Coast
Where indiginous magicians act in vain
Who still hope for smashed up planes

The music, of course, has to be equally special when you think about the fact that hipsters have loved this album for almost forty years without knowing all or even most of the words. It takes a few listens to really dig in; the tracks sound like typical 1971 Euro-grooves with funky bass lines, distant and scattered drumming and a guitar that sounds relaxed but ever vigilant. It's dated on the surface, but at the same time it's played with the skill and the textures that only come from the best session musicians available.

And then the orchestra kicks in. Much has been said about the influence of Melody Nelson on Beck's Sea Change, and once you listen to the older album you'll be amazed at how close "Paper Tiger" comes to Gainsbourg's original vision, and what a wonderful homage it is. The soul of this album resides in the string arrangements and the way the disparate pieces come together and float beneath Gainsbourg's voice.

That brings me to the only disappointment I have with this album: Serge's voice is very front and center in the mix, and the band is too far in the background. You're tempted to turn up the volume to hear all the subtleties in the music, only to be overwhelmed with Gainsbourg's immense, God-like French booming over your speakers. I wouldn't mind a little equalizing for once.

That said, this is a hell of an LP, and a hell of a pressing. I was a tiny bit disappointed in the sound quality of the Jim Sullivan LP; they didn't find the original masters and had to deal with a subpar copy. The sound quality here, however, is fantastic, and the 180-gram pressing is very, very quiet. Once again, Light in the Attic comes through by charging $20--not $30 or $50--for a great remaster with great packaging. I need to start ordering their entire catalog now, instead of waiting a year or two to discover what everyone else already knows.