South Atlantic Blues (reissue, 1968)
8/10 Appealingly oddball first from a star forever in waiting
TALES of contenders who never fullled their early promise are plentiful in the music game, but Scott Fagan’s comes with intriguing details – including having sired Stephin Merritt – and an idiosyncratic soundtrack. Raised in the US Virgin Islands, he moved to New York in 1964 and there started co-writing songs with the heavyweight Doc Pomus/ Mort Shuman team. Over the next three years, he also penned the songs that were to form his debut album. The “bigger than Presley” success predicted by Fagan’s high-prole manager, Herb Gart, never came to be, while a deal with Atlantic subsidiary ATCO saw him stuck in a contract with no label advocate. South Atlantic Blues disappeared, leaving only a trace.
It’s clearly not through lack of ability or youthful appeal, as this vinyl reissue – which reinstates the original artwork (replacing the 1970 Jasper Johns lithograph, Scott Fagan’s Record, that appeared on 2015’s repressing) – attests. The singer-songwriter was a photogenic 22-year-old when he recorded it with producer Elmer Jared Gordon and the 10 tracks are as accomplished as they are immediately likeable. They’re also diverse, combining folk, country, psychedelic pop and orchestral soul, with calypso and show tuneage providing top notes. Three songs are co-writes with Fagan’s pal and fellow “hardscrabble kid” Joe Kookoolis; one, “Crystal Ball”, with Shuman.
Melodrama is in play, due in part to fêted arranger Horace Ott’s work.
Fagan’s voice is as much a dening element of South Atlantic Blues as his songs’ style: its slightly histrionic push and ¨utter, which recalls early Bowie, may be something of an acquired taste, but in his moodier moments he conjures Scott Walker and Gene Clark. The former is certainly present in set opener “In My Head”, whose lyrics are characteristically allusive (“Myself and I have always seen the sea as secret lover/but does she, does she, does she want the sky instead?/oh, no, it’s something, something in my head”), the strident brass blasts and Fagan’s anguished, paranoid cry sending mixed emotional messages to great e©ect. “Crying” is another standout, a slice of bittersweet Southern soul thrown slightly o© its axis by a plinking keyboard motif at the two-thirds mark. Very di©erent are “The Carnival Is Ended”, a lilting, Bacharach-meets-bowie number with steel pans and mariachi brass, and the socially conscious “Tenement Hall”, a Dr John/van hybrid replete with improv strings and guitar savagery, which exits on Fagan’s near sob of “insane”, repeated to fadeout.
The reissue of his slightly mystical debut will no doubt stoke interest in director Marah Strauch’s forthcoming documentary on Fagan’s life and his new album in the pipeline – the unrecorded soundtrack to Soon, a rock musical co-written with Kookoolis which had a ¨eeting Broadway run in 1971. One more (deserved) shot at wider recognition, perhaps. SHARON O’CONNELL wry sense of humour. You can hear them honing their cra , too – by 1999’s The Golden Band, the songs are sparklier, the rhythms tauter. It’s a perfect soundtrack to hypnagogia: blurred, hazy, very bewitching. Extras 7/10: Booklet with brief notes and photographs. JON DALE
BRITISH SEA POWER Do You Like Rock Music? (15th Anniversary Edition)
ROUGH TRADE 8/10 Siblings-based band’s Mercurynominated pop peak
The idealism which made Sea Power drop their original name’s playful imperial connotations found pointed expression in their third album’s exhilarating choruses. “You are astronomical/ Fans of alcohol/welcome in”, Yan sings on “Waving Flags” as drums hammer down doors and harmonies resonantly soar, a pan-european utopianism rooted in the sessions’ Czech sojourn. “Easy, easy!” goes “No Lucifer”, quoting wrestler Big Daddy’s battle-cry in a lyric also obscurely referencing then Pope Benedict’s Hitler Youth past. The sometimes scratchier indie sound of their previous albums is honed into regular melodic upli ; front-loaded with BSP bangers on Side One, later songs such as yearning instrumental “The Great Skua” retain their intent. Where the original liner notes gave a giddy and gnomic account of adventures from a Cornish castle to becoming Leonard Cohen’s Montreal neighbours, Jan (as he’s now styled) here realises he was “quite severely depressed”, yet is proud his band still managed “lovely sentiments”.
Extras 7/10: BBC sessions and B-sides, including the epic “Everything Must Be Saved”. NICK HASTED
MARTIN CARTHY Martin Carthy
(reissue, 1965) TOPIC
10/10
Distilled, austere folk song from a master: ‘the real stu’
Perhaps one of the two most important gures in the revival of English folk song, along with Shirley Collins, Martin Carthy’s history is complex and inspiring, from his string of peerless solo albums to membership of The Watersons, Steeleye Span, Brass Monkey and Albion Country Band. The tales around his early career are o told – particularly his interactions with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon – but that all pales in comparison to the elemental power of his self-titled debut album. He’d go on to record more complex albums, perhaps some better, but there’s something about the clarity of the performances here, their barebones ranginess, that’s formidable and, yes, deeply moving. Carthy’s playing and singing lacks unnecessary ornamentation, the better to communicate the core of the melodies,
and the songs’ accrued historical resonances; the only embellishment, an occasional guest spot on ddle and mandolin from Dave Swarbrick, is perfectly drawn. JON DALE
COIL Moon’s Milk: In Four Phases (reissue, 2002)
DAIS 9/10 Post-industrialists’ seasonal suite restored a er 22 years
Moon’s Milk came at a turning point for Coil. Aer several years immersed in London’s underground gay scene, the group’s central partnership of John Balance and Peter Christopherson were on the eve of a permanent relocation to the seaside environs of Westonsuper-mare. In preparation, the group underwent a sonic phase shi: out with the club-adjacent electronic rhythms, and in with a newly abstract, psychedelic sound inspired by alchemy and the celestial calendar. A compilation of sorts, Moon’s Milk collects four seasonally themed EPS, but feels like a single body of work. Balance is a shamanic presence, driing through a suite of sensual, exploratory music – from the sun-baked “Beestings” to the chilly, ecclesiastic “A White Rainbow”, augmented by electric viola from William Breeze. Long out of print, this lavish vinyl and CD release restores what may be Coil’s nest moment. Extras 7/10: Several clear and coloured-vinyl editions with artwork from Nurse With Wound’s Steven Stapleton. LOUIS PATTISON
COLOSSEUM Elegy: The Recordings 1968–71
ESOTERIC 7/10 Jazz-rock torchbearers celebrated in six-disc boxset
The name of Colosseum has seldom featured in the pages of Uncut, but with the rise of London’s vibrant jazz scene led by Nubya Garcia et al, perhaps it’s time to reappraise the pioneers of that long-overlooked genre, early British jazz-rock. They were formed in 1968 by ex-graham Bond/john Mayall sidemen drummer Jon Hiseman and saxophonist Dick Heckstall Smith, and this anthology brings together the band’s rst four studio albums plus two discs of contemporaneous live material. The best is to be found on their debut and its ambitious 1969 follow-up, Valentyne Suite, with its three-part, side-long title track – think The Nice at their most prog with added jazz horns. Those albums established Colosseum as trailblazers, but by 1970’s Daughter Of Time the arrival of vocalist Chris Farlowe heralded a more conventional song-based direction.
Extras 6/10: Studio outtakes and
an entire disc of unreleased live performances from 1971. NIGEL WILLIAMSON
COMET GAIN Radio Sessions (BBC 1996–2011)
BUREAU B 7/10 Stalwarts of independent music, broadcasting in ne form
Comet Gain were a natural t for John Peel’s radio sessions – listening to their early records, it was clear they’d raised themselves through the open-minded musical selections that characterised the DJ’S programming. They made a good st of things on the rst two of the four radio sessions compiled here; songs like the opener, “Say Yes! Kaleidoscope Sound!”, summarise everything that was great about early Comet Gain albums like
Casino Classics – energy and tension burning through the pages of David Christian’s articulate, spirited pop songs, equal parts the best of indie pop, mod and soul. But even this early, there was more to Comet Gain, as the acoustic lament of “Pier Angeli” and the stealthy prowl of “I Can’t Believe” both prove. Later sessions are every bit as explosive, with the unbridled spirit of their early years making way for smart, knowing observations and perfect pop moments. JON DALE
ELECTRIC EELS Spin Age Blasters
SCAT 9/10 Furious blur of Cleveland’s nest, sharpest avant-garage gang
It’s wild to think the music on Spin Age Blasters, a doublealbum collection of the music by Cleveland’s Electric Eels, was mostly all recorded across two seasons in the year 1975. Wild because this music, in its raw delity and snotty energy, bests 99 per cent of artists trying to do similar things in 2023; wild, also, because it’s such an outpouring of that energy, as though the metaphoric tap has burst, and the rehearsal lo has ¤ooded. Electric Eels never really got their dues, though their “Agitated” was one of the best in that peerless run of early singles released by Rough Trade, maybe because the bleak city angst of Ohio didn’t translate to squats in London, or perhaps it was their tendency towards violence and provocation. But the music they made sits tight alongside groups like Mirrors and Rocket From The Tombs as proto-punk done right. JON DALE
JERRY GARCIA & DAVID GRISMAN So What (reissue, 1998)
ORG MUSIC 7/10 A meandering and lovely acoustic jazz set
A curious album, this one. Garcia and Grisman were longtime collaborators, having met in the late ’60s, which led to Grisman appearing on the Grateful Dead’s 1970 album American Beauty; they’d soon play together in bluegrass band Old & In The Way, and later, in the ’90s, they released a string of collaborative albums, including an album of children’s music (Not For Kids Only). There were many strings to their collective bow, then, and while their focus did tend to be on bluegrass and folk – Grisman combined these genres with jazz into a form he called Dawg Music – So What feels like a bit of an outlier, given its focus on acoustic jazz. They take on a few Miles Davis tunes here, ¤exing from a spirited “So What” to a tender “Milestones”; the real gems here, though, are the lovely runs through Milt Jackson’s “Bag’s Groove”. JON DALE
EMAHOY TSEGUE MARIAM GEBRU Souvenirs
MISSISSIPPI 8/10 Homemade piano recordings from the sadly departed Ethiopian composer
Last year, Emahoy Tsegue-mariam Gebru passed away just one year shy of her 100th birthday. Gebru had lived a remarkable life. Born to a rich family in Addis Ababa, she attended boarding school in Switzerland and sang for the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, before becoming a prisoner of war in the ’30s and embracing religion, settling in a convent in Jerusalem. As you might expect from such a colourful biography, her music de es easy de nition. A collection of homerecorded songs for voice and piano, Souvenirs dates back to the ’70s and ’80s, a period in which Ethiopia’s Marxist Deng regime were reshaping the country by force and the pious or wealthy were in the crosshairs. Gebru’s playing is humble-sounding but deceptively intricate, drawing from jazz and ragtime. But if “Clouds Moving On The Sky” and “Ethiopia My Motherland” sound on the surface sunny, listen closer for the sad undercurrent: a melancholy born of repression and the threat of displacement. LOUIS PATTISON