The Triffids

We might get a The Triffids revival this spring, when Domino will release the box "Come Ride With Me ... Wide Open Road – The Best Of The Triffids" on april 5th. Domino claim the box will hold approximately (!) 8 CDs, and will span the bands whole career. A celebration is planned in London on April 9th.
These good Australians made lots of good music, and I´m glad I was able to see them perform live in Bergen early in their career.

Check out this band, if you don´t know them already. You´ll find melancholic pop music on the studio albums: "Treeless Plain" (1983), "Born Sandy Devotional" (1986), "In The Pines" (1986), "Calenture" (1987) and "The Black Swan" (1989).

The band is of course named after John Wyndham´s book "The day of the triffids" from 1951, a book turned into a movie too (more than once).

The Granite Countertops

I´m sorry if you end up here looking for furniture, but we are talking about the band The Granite Countertops here, even if we already have had a post with the same topic a couple of months ago.
The album "Crashing Into the Future" is now out on (Ear Candle Productions 2010), and on it you will find a beautiful, tender version of Robert Wyatt´s "Lullaby for Hamza" (from Cuckooland, 2003).
So far I have only downloaded this very song, but there might be more, and among them Donovan´s "Riki Tiki Tavi".
The Granite Countertops is J Neo Marvin and Davis Jones, and these guests were also invited: Matthew Grasso, Lizzie Borden, Junko Suzuki, Mark Parsons, and Stephen Abbate.

Comicoperando

Dagmar Krause, Richard Sinclair, Gilad Atzmon, Annie Whitehead, Michel Delville, Alex Maguire, John Edwards, Chris Cutler og Cristiano Calcagnile all participate in "Comicoperando. A Tribute to the Music of Robert Wyatt". It all happens 1 March in Modena (Italy).
Thanks a lot to Aad.

The imagined village

January saw the release of "Empire and Love", the second album from The Imagined Village. This project was started to explore the musical roots and identity as English musicians and music makers. Read more on their MySpace-page and their own site here.
On the first album, Billy Bragg, Paul Weller and Sheila Chandra participated, while the band now is Andy Gangadeen (Drums), Eliza Carthy (Fiddles, Viola, Voice), Martin Carthy (Guitar, Voice), Simon Emmerson (Cittern, Guitars), Simon Richmond (Keyboards, Electronica), Ali Friend (Bass), Sheema Mukherjee (Sitar, Voice), Chris Wood (Fiddles, Viola, Voice), Barney Morse Brown (Cello) & Johnny Kalsi (Percussion, Dhol, Tabla).
Jackie Oates is guesting on "The Lark in the Morning".
Both albums may be checked out on Spotify, and please note Eliza Carthy´s great Ewan McColl song "Space Girl", and Martin Carthy´s version of i Slade´s “Cum On Feel The Noize”!
While you are on Spotify, listen to Peggy Seeger´s "Space Girl's Song" too.

Rune vinyl

Today I will just pass on a message from Rune Grammofon:

"Because of overwhelming demand we have pressed another 300 copies of Elephant9´s great debut album. This is the same as the first edition, white vinyl and the same fantastic gatefold sleeve.

The same goes for the Shining two-pack, 300 copies, but this time on white vinyl. Both the original Rune Grammofon releases are included in full and the sleeve is the same as with the first edition.

For international customers it´s smart to order these at the same time as they are just under 1 kg and will save you good money on postage. But please note that even one cd in addition will make it over 2 kg and much more expensive. The difference in postage for Norwegian customers is smaller.

Please also note that on 22. February we will release the new Elephant9 album on both CD and LP and the first Motorpsycho 7” for quite some time. This is a shorter version of X-3 (Knuckleheads In Space) b/w I.C.U (Boinganoid), an outtake from the HMF sessions, and comes in a Kim Hiorthøy picture sleeve. Please note that this little beauty comes in a limited edition of 1000 copies for the world and only on Rune Grammofon. Please don´t email us orders, these will be ignored. We will accept pre-orders soon.
www.runegrammofon.com".

Gong: "2032"

I´m afraid I soon may turn into a hippie, after listening to Gong´s "2032" (2009) too many times lately . Last autumn the original gang materialized with the strong album "2032", with glissandos and space whispers, like in the good old days. The album might be a little too much for my taste (or too long), but the first part is fantastic, with songs like "City of self fascination", "Digital girl" and "Dance with the pixies" (the folk track).
Not that I have listened intensely to Gong lyrics through the years (that might even be strictly forbidden in Norway), but it seems like they inhabit the same universe they lived in 40 years ago.
The band: Daevid Allen, Steve Hillage, Gilli Smyth, Miquette Giraudy, Mike Howlett, Chris Taylor, Theo Travis, Didier Malherbe og Yuji Katsui.

This should be enough for a straight guy like me, but I just finished Daevid Allen´s "Gong Dreaming 1. From Soft Machine to the Birth of Gong" (1994, ny utg. SAF 2007) too. "Gong Dreaming 2. The Histories & Mysteries of Gong from 1969 -1975" (SAF 2009) is also published, and two more books are planned. They consumed and transported substances no parent will admit they tried, performed bodily activities I´ve only heard about, and our good friends Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayers are part of the history too (behaving well of course!). Get both books from Amazon UK.
You have probably not even heard about Daevid Allen if you think this is a straightforward story.

Poor SAF try to explain the copyright rules for us (that is: don´t do anything, but read the book), but some pages later Allen´s rules occur: "All rights unreserved. All parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored, transmitted, used in any way at any time forever without anybody´s permission".

The Godforgottens

In January I suggested that you should try to get Sten Sandell Trio´s great "Face of Tokyo". I don´t regret that, but what happens when they invite trumpet player Magnus Broo, and Sandell finds a Hammond B-3 organ in the studio? The result might be even better, and they call themselves The Godforgottens. "Never Forgotten, Always Remembered" was released on Clean Feed in 2009. I call it jazz, but may be completely wrong. It doesn´t matter anyway, as long as the music is as exciting as this, and it´s made by Magnus Broo (tp), Sten Sandell (p, org), Johan Berthling (b) and Paal Nilssen-Love (dr).
2009 was quite an average year for Paal Nilssen-Love I guess, participating on 15 albums.
(And who made the dramatic cover? Anyone with a CD version out there, might be kind enough to comment?).