Saltspringunderground mines deep musical roots
SALTSPRINGUNDERGROUND Saltspringunderground | saltspringunderground.com Genre: Classic punk/garage rock Key track: Bring Me One of Everything
“Chop wood, carry water, make music. Such is the life in saltspringunderground.”
Not many bands arrive on the scene with such a ready-made tag line. But not many bands can claim the pedigree of Saltspringunderground. This Gulf Island quartet covers a spectrum of the Canadian music scene that covers almost five decades.
Guitarist and vocalist Chris Arnett was the leader of the Furies back in 1977. The band is credited with being the beginning of the Vancouver punk scene, playing its first gigs before any of the more legendary acts such as D.O.A. or the Subhumans had even formed.
Drummer and vocalist Adrian Mack pounded skins for John Ford, Rich Hope and a host of others as well as scribing some great pieces in the Georgia Straight. Bassist Josh Cook plays in Barefoot Thieves and other acts, while keyboardist, guitarist, vocalist Marta Jaciubek Mckeever was key to the avant-folk pop of the wonderful group e.s.l.
They all share Salt Spring Island as a home. Now they also all make music together and released a self-titled debut late last year.
Here are five things to know about it.
1
All I Wanna Hear You Say
There is no mistaking a deep love for the Velvet Underground on all 10 tunes of the debut. But Arnett's laconic sing/speak on the opening track — matched perfectly by Mckeever's much sharper calland-response vocals — owes plenty to the late Lou Reed. That is most certainly not a bad thing either, as the band showcases a snaky sense of gutter jamming that sounds far more like its coming from the Bowery than Ganges.
2
Blue Diamonds
The album mostly rocks. But the longest song of the set is this snaky exercise in stoner country. The soft folky vocals are perfectly matched by Mckeever's spacey keyboards and quavering background vocals paired against Mack's concrete drum thuds. It's a good guess that this tune gets plenty of space to extend into trippy guitar excess live.
3
Bring Me One of Everything
Imagine an early recording of X heard played on an old car cassette deck while a rainstorm cascades down and you've got a feel for this swaggering song. It's got a great guitar hook that chimes over the noisy hiss of the rest of the backing track that brings a smile to an old punk's face. Nice goofball video too.
4
Teardrop Falls
This has a sound one might associate as more “Gulf Islands.” It's a kind of off-kilter folk waltz confessional about things getting messed up enough that it all gets so quiet you can hear a teardrop fall. The chorus is downright Sixties, which also seems quite appropriate for an Island group. Love the way Cook's bass just lopes along on this tune.
5
I Let You Go
Only 1:07 minutes long, this is the closet thing to a pop single on the album and is a perfect example of how to let a good organ riff drive a song. There is absolutely no extra meat on this track, with a fast drawled vocal that almost leaves the listener breathless.
OTHER ALBUMS OF NOTE Cousin Harley
Let's Go | Little Pig Records Genre:
Key track:
Rockabilly/roots rock
Let's Go
To play guitar as fluidly as Paul Pigat is the dream of so many. Few ever attain the ability to distil everything from the best of the 1950s to blues, country plucking and more with the ease displayed on the 10 tunes on the new Cousin Harley album. With every release, the band of bassist Keith Picot and swinging drummer Jesse Cahill just get better. But they've never sounded as heavy as they do on the title cut which is like Gene Vincent-meets-budgie.
Jazz Is Dead
Doug Carn JID005 | Jazz Is Dead
The album series helmed by Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad continues to showcase the work of underappreciated jazz musicians from the early fusion and new thing era with this release from keyboardist Doug Carn. A key recording artist on the legendary Black Jazz label, Carn dropped four albums between 1971-75 that married the Afro-futurist space jams of contemporaries from Dr. Lonnie Liston Smith to Herbie Hancock with driving R&B and proto-funk. The 11 jams on this album range from the airy organ of Windfall to the almost prog-rock shuffle of Freedom At Sunset. Nunca Um Malandro gets into a Hermeto Pascoal vibe and just rides the groove.
Miss Lava Doom Machine | Small Stone Records Genre:
Stoner metal Key track: Fourth Dimension
Talk about accuracy in a description. Small Stone Records heralds “the finest in fuzz since 1995,” and this new album from Lisbon, Portugal, doom groovers Miss Lava more than delivers with killer tracks such as Fourth Dimension. A sonic lament for guitarist K. Raffah's infant son's untimely passing, the 16 songs incorporate rage in every riff while delivering the kind of high-volume release that stoner metal fans desire. With plenty of retro feel married to some pretty surprising turns — the short instrumental pauses are all oozing psychedelic echo — this is music for fans of Dessert Session-style buzz.
Sleaford Mods Spare Ribs | Rough Trade Genre:
U.K. rap Key track: Elocution
In the press for the latest from this one-of-a-kind U.K. scuzz-rap duo, lead ranter Jason Williamson claims he was dealing with “a period of feeling ashamed about being working-class and the way I talk.” Based on the 13 tracks collected on this album, he got over any feelings of inadequacy and delivered some succinct two-fingered salutes to the Tory rules, posh elites and anyone else that got in the way. As always producer Andrew Fearn comes up with beats so raw and ragged that it's almost like anti-beat science. But just crank up something like the first single Mork N Mindy — featuring U.K. newcomer Billy Nomates — and there is no doubt that these Mods are in a class by themselves.