Two Foot Yard - Lugano 2009.03.16

Another fake cover from an imaginary label catalog.

You can find the first "issue" [Steve Lacy in wuppertal] on InconstantSol.

Two Foot Yard

is
Carla Kihlstedt (violin, voice, percussion),
Marika Hughes (cello, voice),
Shahzad Ismaily (drums, guitar).


Recorded at Studio 2/ RSI Lugano" (Switzerland)

March 16, 2009.

01 RTSI Radio Intro

02 Rootin For The Shy Librarian_Drizzle

03 Spinney

04 Unidentified Track

05 Unidentified Track

06 Untitled Instrumental

07 Unidentified Track

08 Crisis

09 Seven Houses

10 Unidentified Track

11 Unidentified Track.

12 Unidentified Track

13 Red-Rag & Pink Flag

14 Unidentified Track

15 Museum Of Tears.

16 50 Miles

17 Borrowed Arms

When Lucky gently invited me to post in this blog (about one month ago?) I had no great doubt about what would have been my first post: for sure it will be Carla Kihlstedt's "2 Foot Yard" radio date.

I've discovered Carla Kihlstedt in those same days and listened a lot to four dates of this astonishing trio (at least to my ears!): two radio broadcast from an european tour (the other is from Cologne) and two official recordings. Really dont' know well, and can't clearly explain, why I suddenly fell in love with 2FY's trio music. I discovered Fred Frith first, than the Tin Hat Trio and finally Carla Kihlstedt's 2FY.

I've never listened so much to rock, pop or electrical blues, never loved the timbrical, rhythmical and structural aspects of those musics. This seems to be, and is described as, a rock-pop song band. But for me it's true in the same way in wich we can describe Naked City (with Fred Frith again) as a rock band.

Highly original music, very "listeneable" and "easy", played by three master musicians; music that uses the external shape of pop-rock, blues and folk in a song form as a comfortable shied, but Luckily! is another thing so far away from those almost boring (at least to my ears, brain and feel) places.

What astonishes me is the wide musicality and open mind of the 2FY: as in Fred Frith music in any moment You feel like everything can happen in the next track or in the next second .

Three musicians that many times become six: Carla plays the violin and sings, Marika do the same with the cello and Shahzad plays guitar with arms and drums with legs. Everything happens with simplicity and naturally most important never as a technical dexterity demonstration but always to reach a clear musical end. Fred Frith, Leroy Jenkins, Steve Lacy work on song, european classical music, blues, folk, rock and art song this seems to me some of the musical sources of this fresh trio.

Enjoy!

Two Foot Yard from their website is

"1) a very small urban garden in which things grew organically, both feeding off of and defying their greater context.

2) a short-changed context

2 foot yard is a trio that explores the boundaries between art song and pop song, using distinct elements of both, formally and aesthetically. The instrumentation includes violin, cello voice and drums, which alternately evoke the intimacy and warmth of chamber music, and the raw and visceral expression of rock. 2 foot yard navigates through a social and aesthetic cross-section, creating a very personal vocabulary that references various musical genres, but comfortably avoids letting down anchor. 2fy is as likely to couch a text such as an e e cummings poem in the context of a pop song, as they are to sorround observant narratives with more esoteric or avant-garde compositions.

prae-kraut kindergarten

"THE SHAGGYS... Ah, the band that started it all! It was the irresistible charm of kindergarten bands like Rene & The 10 Less 5, Ric & The Skyliners, Magic Herbs and Wildcats that pushed us to share the results of our vinyl archaeology with the rest of the world. The Shaggys' first 45 was always top of the bill. Rumours of a second single gave us quite a hard time until we finally tracked it down. Like the Ragged Men record, it came out on Patria, formerly known as the R&B label. (R&B stands for whatever you like, but definitely not Rhythm and Blues.) "I'm Shy" features the immortal line, "You know it's hard to say, because I'm many shy". How can they say there's no German sense of humor?"
-original liner notes

Seventy-nine minutes of personal favorites from the (no longer!) defunct twenty-some volume Prae-Kraut and Electrick Loosers series, concentrating on the very weediest. To misquote the immortal Rhythm Checkers, 'I know a dog when I find it'; to paraphrase Captain Beefheart, 'They couldn't have done this if they knew what they were doing'.

prae-kraut kindergarten
german beat group compilation

01 The Starfighters - I Like Trouble 2.42
02 The Slaves - Shut Up 2.15
03 The Skins - It's Too Late 2.13
04 The Rhythm Checkers - Theme Of The Rhythm Checkers 3.25
05 The Red Devils - Little By Little 2.02
06 Gesine Darieux & The Chosen Few - Crazy, Crazy 2.02
07 The Slaves - Get Out Of My Way 3.07
08 The Ragged Men - Love Is A Fight 2.52
09 The Candidates - Bad Bad Baby 1.43
10 The Slaves - You're The Only One 2.22
11 The Loosers - Understand 2.42
12 The Pralins - Jumpin' Run 2.30
13 The Wildcats - All Right 3.01
14 The Bats - Got A Girl 2.01
15 The Shaggys - I'm Shy 2.14
16 The Party Brothers - Every Night 2.38
17 The Retreads - You You You 2.01
18 The Robots - Soldier Beat 2.12
19 Time Out - Babe 2.01
20 The Shaggys - I Need You So 2.39
21 The Shaggys - Only An Hour 2.12
22 The Venture 5 - Yes Pretty Baby 2.19
23 The Slaves - Panic 2.01
24 The Slaves - Slaves Time 2.22
25 The Party Brothers - Our Love Is Gone 3.19
26 The Pontiacs - You Know Me 2.36
27 The Venture 5 - What's Your Name? 1.42
28 The Robots - It's Hard To Say 3.20
29 The Skins - What To Do 3.35
30 The Roadrunners - Little Ruby 2.27
31 The Rhythm Checkers - On Your Way Down The Drain 1.57
32 The Loosers - Sensitive 2.14

Germany, Switzerland, Austria 1964-69

mp3 downloads

paul bley trio - (canada)

I started listening to Paul Bley in the sixties and never heard of this until a big money eBay listing appeared a few years back. I finally located a seller in Montreal with a reasonably priced copy, which arrived at my address broken in half. Eventually another one turned up, with a Peter Dunn Vinyl Museum Toronto inner sleeve. Thanks, long-gone emporium! Bley seems a little more intense than usual here, the muscular rhythm section keeping him on the move. In the coming months, Bley would prepare to unleash his controversial (+/- Annette Peacock) Synthesizer Show.

paul bley trio
(canada)
radio canada international 305 (1969)

01 Blood 8.00
02 Nothing Ever Was Anyway 8.30
03 Paul 9.05
04 Pigfoot 8.55
05 Touching 11.50

Paul Bley / Mario Pavone / Barry Altschul
Montreal December 1968

vinyl @320

horoya band national - savane profonde

Here's another national orchestra from Guinea's golden age of authenticité. Horoya, from Kankan, were not as prolific as comrades Bembeya Jazz, Balla et ses Balladins, Keletigui et ses Tambourinis and Super Boiro. This was their only full-length Syliphone LP, although the label did release nine Horoya Band 45s, including a five-single sequence (SYL 557-561) from early 1974. Available where??

horoya band national
savane profonde
syliphone slp 41 (1973)

01 Zoumana (tentemba) 10.36
02 Konimba (rumba savane) 5.18
03 Paya Paya (rumba savane) 6.28
04 La Guinee Horoya (rumba savane) 4.17
05 Touraman (rumba son) 7.27
06 Djama Ba Labo (rumba savane) 3.55
07 N'Fala Dyamana (morna) 6.49

vinyl @320

zaire: musiques urbaines à kinshasa

"The tale of how a collection of Congolese thumb pianos provided the missing link between punk, techno and all points in between, has taken 25 years to tell. And like fellow music visionaries across the globe, the remarkable sound they created was forged in the most desperate of circumstances and in the harshest of places.
Konono No 1 emerged from the Angola/Congo border bush and relocated to Kinshasa, steeped in the traditional Bazombo trance music. They amassed a collection of differently pitched likembé (thumb pianos, or metal rods attached to resonators and pick-ups), plus pots, pans, cutlery, microphones adapted from car parts, whistles, massed vocals passed though megaphones and a massive sound system.
This remarkable, unique noise soon garnered a fanatical following at home. The DIY nature of their equipment provided an integral, distorted sound, a healthy hum seeping into every rhythmic pause. The combination of all these elements created something notably African in pace and texture, coincidentally nodding to Western electronica.
The likembé merge to provide a brutal, hypnotising beat, the cousin to The 13th Floor Elevators' electrified jug or John Cale's manic viola. The rapid intensity of rhythm matches the finest exponents of Krautrock, occasionally drifting close to the confused energy of Aphex Twin or Autechre, with the damaged tempo of Beefheart or Marc Ribot slithering in.
It could really be from anywhere, at any time; its rawness at odds with the slow fall towards slickness and a polished, homogenised sound so sought after these days. And like all the best music, it needs to be played loud, as loud as their legendary, dizzying live performances...
This music comes from somewhere unknown and offers hope that there are worlds of music out there, unexplored and waiting to be discovered."
- Dale Shaw BBC (UK)

zaire: musiques urbaines à kinshasa
ocora c559007 hm65 (1987)

01 ORCHESTRE SANKAI Rythme Kuatankuaka 14.25
02 ORCHESTRE TOUT PUISSANT LIKEMBÉ KONONO No. 1 Mungua-Mungua 26.50
03 ORCHESTRE BAMBALA 9.25
04 ORCHESTRE BANA LUYA Animation 23.05

Recorded live November 1978 Kinshasa

cd @320

ornette coleman - the great london concert

Ornette Coleman arrived in London in August 1965 as a tourist, for he was far too dubious a commercial proposition for any British promoter to risk engaging his trio. However Coleman did want to appear in public, so he simply became his own promoter; he persuaded me to organize a concert for him, and financed the whole operation himself. Within three weeks of his arrival, his European premiere had given him his first taste of unqualified acclaim from listeners and reviewers; the impact was so profound that Coleman was elected "Musician of the Year" and Izenzon "New Star of the Year" in the 1965 Melody Maker Critics' Poll (their first-ever poll victory) on the strength of just the one solitary performance, and later the Melody Maker remarked that, "The concert has already assumed almost legendary status".
- Alan Bates liner note

Scheduled for US release on the short-lived Arista/Freedom imprint in 1975, legal threats resulted in its cancellation after promotional copies had been sent out, banishing this historic document to obscurity in Coleman's homeland. Released on International Polydor as An Evening With Ornette Coleman and on Freedom and Black Lion as Ornette Coleman In Europe Vol. 1 and Vol. 2, it seems to have successfully eluded many fans there as well.

ornette coleman
the great london concert
arista/freedom al 1900 (1975)

01 Forms And Sounds For Wind Quintet 24.55
02 Sadness 3.05
03 Clergyman's Dream 11.58
04 Falling Stars 7.37
05 Silence 9.00
06 Happy Fool 6.50
07 Ballad 5.00
08 Dough Nuts 5.53

Ornette Coleman / David Izenzon / Charles Moffett
live at Fairfield Hall, Croyden UK August 29, 1965
w/ the Virtuoso Ensemble

vinyl @320