Fuzzhead – "El Saturn" (Ecstatic Yod - Actuel 7– FYPL-11) 1995

Another rather lovely interpretation of a BYG gatefold from the early seventies,this time involving improv weirdo's Fuzzhead from Cleveland (?) ,honoring original BYG artist, the Saturn dwelling Sun Ra.

Basically, garage-psychedelic freak-outs is what we have here, lengthy and totally improvised space jams that I'm sure Sun Ra would have approved of,even though he insists that all his music was written down and followed note for note.This I cannot apply to Fuzzhead,who, quite clearly are making this all up as they go along.Even daring to meddle with a few of Ra's Greatest Hits.Remember that K-Tel album,"The very Best of Sun Ra and
His Intergalactic Research Arkestra"? Not the
Sun Ra & His Solar Myth Arkestra one, that was on Ronco...not available in stores.

Just a quick note of interest, that Marshall Allen is still at the helm of the Sun Ra Arkestra,which is remarkable bearing in mind that he is in fact 100 years old and counting as this goes to press!?

However,Side 2 returns us all briefly,well,22 minutes worth anyway, to the bizarre mushroom and Ayahuasca influenced form of abstract Hip-Hop that Fuzzhead used to do in the early nineties.

It definitely is After The End of the World......Don't you know that yet?

Tracklist:

A1 Its After The End Of The World
A2 We Travel The Spaceways
A3 I Am The Brother Of The Wind
B1 El Saturn

DOWNLOAD and return to saturn HERE!

Sunny Murray – "Sunshine" (BYG Records – 529.348) 1969

Ex -Ayler skins technician , Sunny, not Sonny, Murray, gathers some of his highfalutin Jazz chums for an album of madness,while he continuously bashes his Ride cymbol for forty minutes and gets the top billing.

The opener suggests that we're in for another respectful spacey  hommage to Africa, but the "Trane" word is used, so we get a slowly evolving hommage to the "Trane"...instead....again!

It's side B where the action gets serious, with some grade A sax abuse howling in your delicate shellikes  via a triangulation of  automatic sax playing from Arthur Jones, Archie Shepp,and Kenneth Terroade,backed up by Lester Bowie on a rather angry trumpet.Alan Silva's back on Bass and Dave Burrell is drowning on a rather submerged Piano.All done in an afternoon's work on August 15th, in Paris 1969. Now where the fuck did I put that damn Time Machine?

Tracklist:

A1 Flower Trane 13:44
B1 Real 8:44
B2 Red Cross 7:50

DOWNLOAD some black sunshine HERE!

Alan Silva And The Celestrial Communication Orchestra – "Seasons" (BYG Records – 529.342-43-44) 1971

Lieutenant Castillo's Incan ancestor with traditional instrument

This Gargantuan free jazz odyssey over six sides of skronking wax has to be heard to be believed ... played by a massive free jazz orchestra that knows no bounds.Orchestrated by a man who looks like Detective Lieutenant Martin "Marty" Castillo of Miami Vice as he would have been if he had lived in the heyday of Machu Pichu.

Silva provides us with the same filing problems as does Captain Beefheart's Magic Band, as this one features "The" Celestrial Communication Orchestra, whereas the other BYG album, "Luna Surface", is played by "His" Celestrial Communication Orchestra!?...Causing no end of problems for computers' filing systems....another argument for Vinyl with attending Nerd.

Talking of Vinyl, some smart-arse pointed out, when referring to Gong's BYG album, that BYG didn't issue their albums as 12",but they were infact 30 centimetres in diameter!?......some people really do need to find another hobby!....(ps...it was Steve Freeman of Ultima Thule mail order on discogs who killed brain cells with that laughable observation!?....they have a track record...geddit...of doing mind numbing nerd-outs like this!Now where's that left-handed screwdriver?).

Tracklist:

A Seasons Part 1 25:12
B Seasons Part 2 22:45
C Seasons Part 3 23:15
D Seasons Part 4 20:08
E Seasons Part 5 26:08
F Seasons Part 6 27:00

DOWNLOAD some golden silva HERE!

Alan Silva And His Celestrial Communication Orchestra – "Luna Surface" (BYG Records – 529.312) 1969

Ahhh the joy of rediscovering your musical innocence......on the Moon.

We all crave that epiphanal moment when ,as a child, we first discover something magical.....Alan Silva spent an entire career recreating that moment;but to do that you have to unlearn everything you've been taught and start all over again. These orchestral free improvised work-outs is that process in action,and it can clear a large auditorium of sensible adults in five minutes.

A deeply guarded secret at NASA is that this is the actuel sound of the Lunar Surface.The secret government of the Earth and beyond don't want us to know this fact.....it could lead to the breakdown of society are we don't want to know it anymore thanks.

As you know my bestest favourite Parlor game is 'Free Jazz Look-a-likey's', and the Shape-shifting Bass player Beb Guérin is usually the main target,although there is a suggestion of poncified French footballing legend David Ginola in his profile here.....however, another Bernard,one Benard Vitet,the wildman of the French Horn, seems to be a doppelganger for Kevin Godley of 10CC and co-inventor of the Gizmotron as featured on Godley and Creme's "Consequences triple album. Would have liked to have heard Benard having a go on the 'Gizmo' as part of his celestial communicating.

Alan Silva, is primarily a Bass player,but,as we know, Bass Players are never satisfied to be just a 'Bass Player'.Usually they are humored and ignored when they have ambitions of getting on the writing credits.This time Silva the orchestra leader, has forced his ideas onto a whole crazed free jazz orchestra....including Archie Shepp as one of his sidekicks...takes some doing that. Also there is another of the handful of appearances by Kenneth Terroade.

This is what musical instruments were invented,or discovered, to do.

Now we know the mind of God?.....yep...he's a nutter!

Tracklist:

A From The Luna Surface Part 1 14:00
B From The Luna Surface Part 2 14:09

DOWNLOAD this celestrial communication terrestrially HERE!

Kenneth Terroade – "Love Rejoice" (BYG Records – 529.322) 1969

Kenneth's crew featuring David Koresh on the Contra bass?

Well, we may as well go on a BYG Actuel tour,to further laud plaudits on France for helping save Jazz,even if they do insist on explaining away their imperialist past by insisting that anyone in the french empire was 'French' so how could they have been Racially prejudiced?Hmmmm.

This very Free Jazz outing by the groovily named Kenneth.......they have such hip given names these Jazzers, Clifford,Archibald, Albert....Terroade.The tradition continues,with Kenneth,avec some wild free improvisation on his Tenor Axe.

Included in the personnel is the shape-shifting Bernard Guérin again on Bass..... this time he resembles a couple of everyone's favourite mass murders, the late David Koresh,and/or, the late Dennis Nilson? He's got that fashionable murderer look going on here.

However,This album sure is a Killer of equal intensity as Béb Guérin's look-a-likey's Dave and Den,isn't that right Ken?....Ken???

Tracklist:

A Blessing 17:25
B Love Rejoice 17:55

DOWNLOAD and rejoice with the great kenneth HERE!

Clifford Thornton – "Ketchaoua" (BYG Records – 529.323) 1969

Cliff Thorton and friends featuring Gregory Peck on Bass.

"Music has no colour",said the French Jazzer...I'm certain Archie Shepp would disagree,as he plays Soprano for his buddy Cliff Thornton on this afro-centric polyptych of free jazz. Both he and Thornton were trying their level best to remove as much whiteness as possible from this french released miesterwerk. Africans may not have invented the wheel, as some enlightened bigot pointed out alongside our advocate of 'colourless music'in the comments section, but they certainly gave us honkies virtually all our modern musical forms.For which they are rarely acknowledged,but after-all it belongs to all of us innit.....sorry Archie?

Shepp's presence gives this platter a distinctive Archie Shepp flavour with his instantly recognisable style,augmented by Thronton's very capable horn blowing.

Would you believe it?...there's Béb Guérin once again on the Bass, and this time the photo of him reveals the distinctive look of Gregory Peck as Captain Ahab in "Moby Dick", as the White Whale In the Room.

Tracklist:

A1 Ketchaoua 12:35
A2 Pan African Festival 7:50
B1 Brotherhood 10:40
B2 Speak With Your Echo (And Call This Dialogue) 9:15

DOWNLOAD the tomato ketchaoua of slavery HERE!

Sonny Sharrock ‎– "Monkey-Pockie-Boo" (BYG Records ‎– 529.337) 1970

You know, I don't have a problem when anyone,upon hearing this record,and hundreds like it, say that its a pile of utter shite. I totally understand.

Yeah, we 'sofistikatid'(sic) music bores (I'm so arrogant that I include myself in that category,but obviously not the boring part) can look down our smug noses at them (and MAGA-non's), alluding to their lack of intellectual depth,and scoff ;but they have a point.

It's not their fault that they haven't been exposed to such a huge volume of music in one's life so the Abstract becomes Pop reflected back at you from a mirror. You don't become entertained by stuff like this from year zero.One has to start with the childrens music, like U2 for example, then take another couple of decades re-learning how to listen to music that sounds like it was actually made by children rather than teenagers trying to be....,here's that word again.... "Sophisticated".

As Picasso said, and I've used this quote quite a few times over the years, "It took four years to learn to paint like Raphael,but a whole lifetime to paint like a child". Not that U2 is the musical equivalent of a work by Raphael, but "Monkey-Pockie-Poo" is certainly a Picasso,although probably more of a automatic painting by Pollock. A conventional piece of music cut up and reassembled  into something primal and challenges the definition of Music.....maybe even defining it as the "utter Shite" that the vast majority of Human kind would have us believe that this is. It helps that I like utter Shite as it happens,and am also a purveyor of the Good-Bad,like The Shaggs for example. This Sharrock outing is Good/Good,rather than Good/Bad. The Shaggs had no clue what they were doing, but there is some obvious thought behind this album at least.It may be just a case of 'Hey!Lets Do What Ornette Coleman does,but with Voice and Guitars",or it may be far deeper?Either way there is a concept involved.Even the adoring Linda looks like she knows what she's doing.Back on wailing vocalisations duty,and there's what seems to be a guest appearence by The Clangers on "27th Day".......but,you know what?There are times when I think I don't know what the fuck I'm going on about,or even why?....don't blame me, i'm writing automatically.....i'm THAT "sofistikatid"!

Tracklist:

A 27th Day 16:55
B1 Soon 8:00
B2 Monkey-Pockie-Boo 8:55

DOWNLOADY pokey poo HERE!