Featuring: The Little Unsaid, Aoife ODonovan, Arooj Aftab and Badi Assad, Diane Cluck, Nathan Salsburg, Hiss Golden Messenger, Curtis Harding, schroothoop, Montparnasse Musique, Sarah Olivier, Matthew E. White & Lonnie Holley, Endless Boogie, Garcia Peoples, Rosali, Jana Horn, Ben Pritchard, Michael Hurley.
This week’s show opens to The Little Unsaid and a track from his latest album December Songs, also our Featured Album of the Month which we reviewed here.
There are plenty of other new releases including music from Aoife ODonovan‘s new album ‘Age of Apathy’, out on Jan 21 via Yep Roc and Ben Pritchard‘s ‘Up In Air’ which was recently released on one of my favourite independent labels: Okraina Records (available here).
Less familiar names may include Brussels-based trio schroothoop (Dutch for ‘junk yard’) featuring Rik Staelens (wind & string instruments), Timo Vantyghem (bass & clarinet) and Margo Maex (percussion) and Curtis Harding whose classic-sounding soul also has a uniquely modern twist that makes it both familiar and fresh at the same time.
Montparnasse Musique take things up a notch with Makonda from their debut self-titled EP which features the groundbreaking Kinshasa band Konono No1. From their latest album Admonitions, Endless Boogie takes the jam session to another level, here joined by Kurt Ville, a mission that’s equally explored by Garcia Peoples on their new album Dodging Dues (drops Jan 14).
Matthew E. White & Lonnie Holley add to that psychedelic feel of the mid-section of the mix with a track from Broken Mirror: A Selfie Reflection which Thomas Blake reviewed here – “The abstractions come in the form of Zappa-esque cut-ups applied to some seriously hard, lysergic funk – the filthy, fluid bass of opening track This Here Jungle of Moderness brings to mind Sly Stone or Funkadelic…”
Another forthcoming release is from Jana Horn and Optimism which after being self-released on a small vinyl run last year now gets a proper launch on Jan 21 via No Quarter – the LP, “seemed to come about indirectly, almost in passing, a feeling of being in-between things. I was really mobile at that time, living wherever… I had just discovered, late, Raymond Carver Broadcast, Sybil Baier, Annette Peacock, Richard & Linda Thompson, a short story called “Car Crash While Hitchhiking” by Denis Johnson. I had “Heart Needs a Home” in mind, “The Great Valerio;” I was just really moving through the world, hanging in the shadows of the people I wanted to be. Hoping, looking out, this is Optimism. I was looking for anything.”
I round it all off after another Little Unsaid offering with a track from Michael Hurley’s new album ‘The Time of the Foxgloves‘, released earlier this month.
Music Played
The Little Unsaid – Ebb & Flow (Yuletide!)
Aoife ODonovan – Phoenix
Arooj Aftab, Badi Assad – Diya Hai
Diane Cluck – Roma
Nathan Salsburg – Psalm 147
Hiss Golden Messenger – Shine
Curtis Harding – Explore
schroothoop – Obsolescence Programmée
Montparnasse Musique – Makonda (feat. Konono Nº1)
Sarah Olivier – M’as-tu vue ?
Matthew E. White & Lonnie Holley – This Here Jungle of Moderness/Composition 14
Endless Boogie – Counterfeiter
Garcia Peoples – False Company
Rosali – Mouth
Jana Horn – Jordan
Ben Pritchard – Lifelong
The Little Unsaid – Sacred Space
Michael Hurley – Little Blue River
Photo credit: Joanna Kosinska