The Wire's 100 Records That Set The World On Fire [When No One Was Listening] (1998)

he didn't seem to lose his desire to make radical great music to the death, just zero complacency.

Will dig me some Bill Dixon later this year, thanks to both of ya.

Listening to the Kenton album on Spotify now - it's pretty fascinating stuff.

Comus - First Utterance
Michael Gibbs - Michael Gibbs
Al Green - The Belle Album
Kip Hanrahan - Desire Develops an Edge
Ram John Holder - Black London Blues
Son House - Father of Folk Blues
Ken Ishii - Garden of the Palm
Gottfried Michael Koenig - Terminus II / Funktion Grün
Monoton - Monotonprodukt 07

So got round to Comus and I gotta say folk jams I can take or leave (although not as impressive as the weird turns around a song that Incredible String Band can take, if we are gonna keep comparing) but the vocals on this are really not that good.

Koenig/Monoton/Ishii are all bobbins from different times and places - very much here for it. You could listen to those three and take stock, breathe in some history and culture and be impressed and all.

Michael Gibbs is an interesting sorta free jazz not quite record. Heard that about a week ago and would need another listen. I'm guessing there are improv people on the line-up and maybe that's why this made it onto the list?

Ram John Holder is hilarious (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_John_Holder) - its the fella from the Desmonds (have a just about memory of that show). Its a solid band to me, one track had some cool pedal effects. And its a very London album (if you check out the titles), so it has that charm.

Best of the batch was the Al Green, Kip Hanrahan and Son House. With Al I was sorta surprised at...what felt like restraint in the vocals and how much space there is for the instrumentals, and everything just seems so perfect and accomplished and bang on the money about it. The Kip has all sorts of bossa and light jazz arrangements, he seeme to have been an interesting arranger type figure who got all sorts of people involved in his records. Son House is...Son House...yeah. Even when he is much older and 're-discovered'. Showing who is the daddy.

Belle Album is just one of my all time favourite albums. That "restraint" is part of what I love about Al Green - voice of an angel but he has this inward-looking, meditative or reminiscing quality in his singing that he uses a lot - he's entirely capable of going full belt but he rarely does, and it creates this intimacy with the listener more than almost any other singer that I listen to.

Glad you liked Pierre Akendengue too, another favourite of mine and not much discussed as far as I know

Yeah, I've got two more lots of records to listen to from this list but then I think I will look at a few discographies. Akendengue and Al Green are on that list.

Just racing some through some albums yesterday and now...just gotta the powerful sound in Gön Bia Bia. Might be my favourite find.

Larry Young - Lawrence of Newark
X-103 - Atlantis *
Walker Brothers - Nite Flights
Luke - I Wanna Rock
Bally Sagoo Wham Bam 2 – The 2nd Massacre
Public Enemy Apocalypse 91... - The Enemy Strikes Black
Iggy Pop & James Williamson - Kill City
Pearls Before Swine - Balaklava
Annette Peacock - I'm the One
Ron Pate's Debonaires feat. Reverend Fred Lane - Raudeluna's Pataphysical Revue *
Le Nimba de N'Zerekore - Gön Bia Bia
Youssou N’Dour - Djamil
Master Musicians of Jajouka - Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Jajouka

Tim Souster - Swit Drimz**
Nancy Sesay & The Melodaires - C'est fab**
Jean C. Roche - A Nocturne of Nightingales**
Christian Marclay - Record Without a Cover***
Glenn Gould - The Solitude Trilogy****

The Larry Young is the 2nd free jazz find, really good stuff. I think Atlantis is fine but its struck me just how little bobbins has developed over the decades and yet has managed to retain some sort of appeal that is bigger than say, free jazz or improv (I think with those two its os much depedent on what you bring to the room and there is an alchemy, and maybe its like that with the dancefloor too...the correspondances would be good to verify and explore someday).

I wanna Rock vs Public Enemy is a bit of a half-arsed take on rap. One is Public Enemy and the other is notoriety and from that I'm guessing The Wire didn't know where to go with it. The Iggy Pop was kinda fun and must've been liberating post-Stooges, perhaps? I don't whether he was plotting new directions, which is what Scott Walker was definitely doing.

The Annette Peacock is the one from the batch that really should've caught fire if its from the POV of a really well made record/ton of talent on show/'new' voice etc. The electronics are beautiful.

Other than that I love the records from Africa and Le Nimba de N'Zerekore is an incredible band! That is just the record I would've never ever heard of if it wasn't for this list. Same for Ron Pate which is interesting for how its deploying free jazz type sonics, kinda dadaesque and ok.

* Not all tracks available on YT
** Not found at all on YT
*** it is an idea, read and get it
**** this is like a podcast, think its on YT but its 3xCDs, might fuck about with it one day but that's it.

Cabn you still play the Record without a Cover? I thought people were supposed to have been walking on them for the duration of an art exhibition.

Saw marclay in the late 80s at the ULU.
was intrigued by the records he was supposed to have jigsawed and pieced together . Not sure if i have exactly the full picture of the pricess, would have thought there might be some problem with lining up grooves. BUt he was supposed to have made tehse art pieces out of existing records in taht way

Jajouka has some really good stuff on it, i love Your Eyes Are Like A Cup Of Tea would think the core riff might be something somebody would nick and do something more rock with. But noisy repetitive trancey drone is really great,. I heard taht Jones was supposed to have processed things electronically quit e abit. Don't really have soemthing to compare that to though.

& do love Lawrence fo Newark which is pretty awesome and came out on cd about 10 years ago. May be long gone by now. Which isn't great. Would think something like that might stay in print. Have enjoyed most of the Larry Young I've heard from Unity in 65, through LIfetime and up to Fuel in the mid 70s. He;s also on Love, Devotion, Surrender and the support tour which are all pretty great.

Oh forgot Anette Peacock, I'm the one is pretty great.Odd Elvis covers and all. Wish they'd reissue the late 70s stuff though

& Comus really is a thing in itself which might just be undermined by the existence of taht 2nd lp. The First disco of teh Sanctuary anthology is really great and pretty other. 2nd is teh 1974 prog lp and far less essential.
First Utterance hints at madness and obsession and fun things like that though. Maybe possession.

Yes hard to track down Lawrence Of Newark unless you want to pay through the nose. I have one track from it on a Wire compilation. Love, Devotion Surrender is good too.

>Ron Pate's Debonaires feat. Reverend Fred Lane - Raudeluna's Pataphysical Revue *

this did make it to CD! a lot weirder than the Shimmy Disc Fred Lane discs, in a way that sort of safely frames it as performance art but man when they break to that extended performance of Anne LeBaron's 'Concerto For Active Frogs' that really gets me pumping my fists in the air

Got a near mint copy of Lawrence of Newark for a tenner off Discogs last year

There’s a mint copy of it for $16.99/£12.90 on discogs now

wow, was thinking 10 years ago might be a bit less than when the Lawence of Newark cd came out. it's actually close to twice that, Castle put out a number of Perception label reissues in 2001.
Still would think thatmight be something people might want to keepo in print but maybe I'm confusing quality with what sells.

this did make it to CD! a lot weirder than the Shimmy Disc Fred Lane discs, in a way that sort of safely frames it as performance art but man when they break to that extended performance of Anne LeBaron's 'Concerto For Active Frogs' that really gets me pumping my fists in the air

― Milton Parker, Saturday, 15 August 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Ah I think I've heard the wrong record because I mistakenly heard one of the Fred Lane records: https://www.discogs.com/Fred-Lane-Ron-Pates-Debonairs-From-The-One-That-Cut-You/release/2937571

And not this: https://www.discogs.com/Ron-Pates-Debonairs-Raudelunas-Pataphysical-Revue/release/1357335

I will listen later.

Cabn you still play the Record without a Cover? I thought people were supposed to have been walking on them for the duration of an art exhibition.

YT has an excerpt. I assume is just crackly sounds. Might look at that one later as well.

i have a copy somewhere, relatively unwalked on

on YT all records are unwalked on.

(Bally Sagoo was a lot of fun though I think some of the groves are overcooked. Pearls Before Swine was really meh and the Cohen cover wasn't doing anything)

Dug out some old Bally Sagoo CDs in response to this thread: Wham Bam 2 is pretty good but I like Essential Ragga (which the one just before WB2) whole lot more.

Odd that that Public Enemy is on that list, it's hardly obscure and I think was the last time when PE were part of the Zeitgeist.

Odd that that Public Enemy is on that list, it's hardly obscure and I think was the last time when PE were part of the Zeitgeist.

― Boring, Maryland

public enemy were for a very, very long time the rap group White People championed to prove that they were Not Racist

i checked out some of the lesser acclaimed ones, records that the people writing the list probably didn't really listen to much but just wanted to champion to prove that their avant-gardism was not a culturally imperialist project. i enjoyed bally sagoo ok, don't knowk how it's dated but i'm sure there are worse records in the genre. if anybody ever talked at all about bally sagoo in the states i don't know who they are. i liked the chaba fadela too. the rai i know is mostly from, uh, i think a numero comp and the cheikha rimitti album which is really clearly and obviously an attempt to cross over to hipster western audiences but is also very fucking good

re: pearls before swine, balaclava never struck me much but i got a friend who's really into tom rapp. rapp was also big in the terrastock scene, bardo pond, and the free folk and all that, i get the sense that he's up there with the incredible string band in those circles

rapp could write some beautiful songs. "raindrops" is a great one. some of the stuff on "wizard of is" hits me pretty good too, but it's mostly rough and wild recordings - that's my scene. "love, you are not alone", you know, fucking amazing song.

I've subscribed to the wire for a long time and there has been a very visible changeover fro the old guard (yer Penmans, Reynoldses, Watsons with a focus on white 60s derived avant garde) to a less white and male stable of writers and focus of coverage. All to the good of course.