RYUICHI SAKAMOTO
ANDATA (ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER REWORK)
Sakamoto’s async album track is a mournful piano-and-organ instrumental wrapped in sheets of white noise, which add an intensity and urgency some commentators have related to the composer’s brush with terminal illness in 2014. In his ‘Re-Model’, Brooklyn experimentalist Daniel Lopatin redirects the melancholy, sending it on a long drop into some subterranean ice cave, before it briefly resurfaces via a funnel of epic electronic noise. And is that an echo of Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence’s version of Forbidden Colours? Find It: SoundCloud
2 JOHN GRANT THE SEVENTH SEAL Live at the Royal Albert Hall at the BBC Proms’ Scott Walker tribute in July, Grant goes for soaring, majestic broke on this spaghetti western howl of plague, witch-burning and playing chess with Death. Full marks to Jules Buckley’s Heritage Orchestra, too. Find It: YouTube
3 ALAN VEGA DTM First taster from the late Suicide frontman’s posthumous LP, IT, DTM (“dead to me”) is a phlegmy growl of valedictory disaffection, Vega intoning about “German engineers”, “Cobra Crips” and “days and nights of pure evil” over itchy digital noise, like some faulty EVP recording of Dutch Schultz’s deranged death-bed confessions. Find It: SoundCloud
4 ALL BLUES KELLYE GRAY Is it a human voice? Is it an instrument? Gray confuses and intrigues as she wraps her inspired Texan chops around the Miles Davis standard, creating jazz perfection. Find It: Rendering/Standards In Gray (GRR8)
5 I KNOW YOU GOT SOUL (LIVE) ERIC B & RAKIM Live at the Harlem Apollo on July 7 at a 30th anniversary show for their landmark Paid In Full album, the rap legends blow minds with their James Brown-sampling classic on a milling stag ef ull of seasoned hip-hop heads. Find It: YouTube
6 TROLLKARLEN OCH DUNGEN FÅGELDRÄKTEN (VERSION 2) From the “Häxan” ‘Versions’ double set, where Prins Thomas deconstructs neo-Progg-sters Dungen: here the original’s car chase-in-thewoods psych theme gets extended with bass pulses and ashram-bound bongo freaks. Find It: SoundCloud
7 STOPP, SEISKU AEG! VELLY JOONAS Recorded in Soviet Estonia in 1980, an uncanny piece of swaying Baltic soul-pop with mountain fiddle, unusual electric organ and Cold War suspicion. Find It: YouTube
8 CELESTIAL BLUES GARY BARTZ NTU TROUPE Mind-deepening jazz rap from Harlem Bush Music, a 1971 LP back on vinyl as part of the Jazz Dispensary’s Top Shelf series. Also available, The Elements by Joe Henderson featuring Alice Coltrane. Find It: YouTube
9 BIG MAN TY SEGALL From Fried Shallots, an EP to benefit the American Civil Liberties Union, where Segall collects nuggets from his indie-psych inner-world. This opener finds his natural melodic gift buried in a bleeped-out groove. Find it: Bandcamp/Drag City
10 DRAINED LAKE METZ Reviving the post-punk, pre-grunge tooth rattle of Big Black, Fugazi and more, this Canadian trio announce a third LP with a hyperventilated stinger reminiscent of Helmet’s pivotal Unsung. Find It: YouTube
11 BABY BLUE SKY NICK HEYWARD From Woodland Echoes, Heyward’s first album in 11 years, here are harmonies, guitar jangle and lyrics of emphatic equanimity, amounting to a Zen command to be happy. Find It: SoundCloud
12 RAMONA GONZALEZ, JULIA HOLTER, COLE M.G.N AND NEDELLE TORRISI CONDEMNATION All the contributing talents here worked with late video director Travis Peterson, and this sweet choral lament is their tribute to him. Find It: YouTube
13 CURLEW MODERN STUDIES MOJO’s favourite ornithologically-aware chamber-folk quartet built their contribution to an EP of songs inspired by Bert Jansch’s avian album Avocet around the distinctive call of the titular wading bird. Find It: SoundCloud/ Avocet Revisited (EARTH RECORDINGS)
14 SASQUATCH GIANTS IN THE TREES Krist Novoselic’s new combo connect with their inner earth spirits via moss-covered psych-pop with banjo and gob iron, ideal for raving it up in the ancient forest. Find It: YouTube
15 KORG FUNK 5 APHEX TWIN RD James makes a hardware demo using a variety of analogue Korg Monologue synthesizers: think smooth rhythmic dollopings and chordal elevations of the mysterious kind. Find It: YouTube
15 THE INNERMOST LIGHT COUSTEAUX Reunited demi-monde dwellers bring out the zithers for a slow-burning, noir rocker of perilous romance. From the return album CousteauX. Find It: YouTube
17 STARSAILOR FIA (F**K IT ALL) Moving beyond their plaintive indie formula, this standout from new LP All This Life, hums with dark emotion, with ideas of surrender wrestling with pulsing guitar and swirling electronics. Find It: YouTube
18 SUSAN CATTANEO FEAT. BILL KIRCHEN IN THE GROOVES The esteemed Fred Dellar visited the MOJO office this month with this country rocking celebration of vinyl spinning on his Dansette. It salutes many a Dellar idol, “Cash, Hank, and Lefty too.” Find It: YouTube
19 DAVE GOLD BIG BAND POCKETFUL OF KEYS Brit-jazzer Gold and his orchestra transform Jimmy Webb’s sublime ballad into a gorgeous instrumental on this ’74 BBC Jazz Club recording. Find It: YouTube/Heaven On Their Minds (MY ONLY DESIRE)
20 SPINNING COIN BRAND NEW MOON
Ex- of art-indie combo Fiction, Mike Barrett eats chips and gets loose with stuttering beats and dreamy soft rock. A bouquet not unlike Jane and Barton’s It’s A Fine Day. Find It: SoundCloud