Our Forgotten Ancestors
by Massimo Pupillo
GLACIAL MOVEMENTS GM052 CD
Italian all-rounder Pupillo we’ve mostly heard as a member of Zu, an off-centre rock band who I seem to recall as being quite feisty and punchy in their multi-instrumental bouts. However, our man Massimo has many tendons to his ribcage, and carries an impressive CV of collaborations with some heavy-duty names, as well as a wide range of stylistic diversions which he practices with apparent ease – modern classical as well as electronic rock. For today’s venture, he’s thrown in his lot with the Glacial Movements label, home to ambient releases where reference to the freezing cold or the Arctic wastes is mandatory if you want to collect your paycheck. Pupillo does it obliquely by printing a 19th century photo of an Inuit woman on the cover (taken in Greenland), and with a free-verse poem about “feeling the primordial song”, the better to support his wistful drones which are full of nostalgia, buried or imagined memories, and a longing to be swept back into the past by the mystic winds of time. Matter of fact I see he uses eight panels of a digipak to further express his themes with these grainy old photos. I’d like to read this as an update on The Residents’ Eskimo, except Our Forgotten Ancestors is much less specific about the Inuits, preferring to gesture vaguely at past cultures without making any suggestions as to why, or whether, the old nomad ways of life were better than our wretched contemporary existence. His music is thus a tad more sentimental and not afraid to evoke heart-sore emotions in the listener. (04/10/2023)
Wally’s Ashes
by Somnambulance (NO LABEL)
Odd CDR by some modern hippie types which seems to combine free-form electronic doodling and ambient driftery with a vague protest / anarchist subtext. Wally Hope was an activist who may now be dead, as the band seem to believe their music is being watched over by him or his ashes (suggesting he was cremated). Beyond that I have no interest in finding out more about his actions, nor about KozFest, in whose tents this music was recorded in 2022 by Paul Khimasia Morgan. The five-piece band of unknowns use synths, guitars, samples, percussion and electronics to present their very diffuse proposition, which may have ambitions to to align itself with Situationism in some way. Given the very nomadic nature of these 48 audio minutes of continual and uncertain forays, perhaps the group imagine they are delineating an imaginary dérive in the byways of the air; the “drifting” strategy of the 1960s Situationists eventually led to a more codified strategy, complete with alternative maps of large cities like Paris that suggested pathways and avenues we could use to break out of the metropolitan prison of conformity, and find true freedom thereby. Conversely, Somnambulance just seem to be stuck in a single soggy place, unable or unwilling to lift themselves out of it. I wish I could claim to hear an update on the sound of Ash Ra Tempel, or an attempt to emulate the festival liberation techniques of Hawkwind, but this limp fare doesn’t deliver. (02/10/2023)
A Tonic for The Troops – Realm of Opportunities (ODIN RECORDS ODINCD9584) – second LP by this likeable Norwegian jazz combo, a follow-up to their 2021 Ambush which we quite enjoyed. Bassist / leader Ellen Brekken writes all the tunes, evidently as much at home with upbeat jollisters like the title track as she is with the ballad mode like ‘Song for the Resilient’. As with the previous outing, I’m finding more nourishment in the precision of Espen Berg’s piano work than the rather eager-to-please glibness of Magnus Bakken’s tenor sax. I’m not feeling the same rush of excitement this time around, but they clearly are, judging by the cover photo where their world is all smiles as they look out on the “opportunities” that await their fruit-picking tongs. (15/09/2023)