Sounds for Summer

Summer is coming here in Aotearoa New Zealand, and with summer comes BBQs, drinks, days at the beach and general relaxing with friends and family over the summer holidays. What one always requires with such occasions is good music, and thankfully there is always plenty of good music out there across all styles and indeed from all decades to complement such times.

So in preparation for the summer I have selected some of my favourite summer albums that are perfect for those sunny days on the beach, or deck with beer in hand, good food and good people. Now I know some people might be thinking albums, do they still exist? Well shock horror, yes, albums still exist, and as a format are perfect for gatherings where you can just put the needle on the record and let it spin, or pop that CD in and press play before lying back and chilling for a good forty minutes without having to get up and skip through a bunch of tracks on an iPod, or playlist.

Al Green – Let’s Stay Together (1972)

Soothing soul from the reverend, perfect to relax to as the sun sets.

Bob Dylan – Nashville Skyline (1969)

Country in the sun. Bob puts his crooner voice to good effect on this country folk classic.

Buena Vista Social Club (1997)

An oldy but a goody, and always a must have on hand for summer gatherings, bringing a fantastic Latin American flavour to proceedings.

The Byrds – any greatest hits collection

It would not be summer without the jangly guitars and psychedelic harmonies of The Byrds, bringing the sweet sounds of 60s LA to the beaches and suburbs of New Zealand.

The Clash – London Calling (1979)

This punk rock classic is perfect for summer with its mix of reggae, dub, jazz, and punk rock.

El Michel’s Affair – Sounding Out the City (2005)

This American collective’s unique fusion of jazz, funk, and R&B is perfect to chill out to in the sun.

Elvis Costello – My Aim is True (1977)

Who would have thought new wave would sound good for the summer season. Well Costello’s rock and roll-fused debut does the trick.

Fat Freddy’s Drop – Blackbird (2013)

It just would not be summer in New Zealand without these guys, and their last album was simply superb so it has to be here.

Gil Scott-Heron – Pieces of a Man (1971)

Gil Scott’s jazz tinged masterpiece would suit any summer gathering, but would go especially well if cordial worldly discussion was on the agenda, given this albums social and political commentaries.

Herbie Hancock – Head Hunters (1973)

This jazz fusion masterpiece does the trick for chill out sessions, with its funky instrumentals and epic jazz improvisation.

The La’s – The La’s (1990)

The sweet melodies and jangly guitars go down a treat on this underrated masterpiece.

The Meters – Rejuvenation (1974)

If you are into funk then this mid-70s classic is perfect for your summer party. Influenced everything that came after it within this style, including among others The Roots.

Nick Drake – Bryter Layter (1970)

People often associate Nick Drake’s music as being quite reflective and moody, which it is, but this jazz-influenced album would not feel out of place during summer, with its more optimistic outlook, something incredibly rear for Nick Drake’s music.

Primal Scream – Screamadelica (1991)

This album brought acid house into indie rock and its mixture of rock and roll and electronica combine perfectly to make a great summer album.

Rodriguez

Anything by the Searching for Sugar Man star would be perfect for summer gatherings. Cold Fact, Coming from Reality, or the film soundtrack would do.

The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses (1989)

The debut masterpiece by the Manchester group is just made for summer listening with its strong melodies, psychedelic guitars and swirling harmonies. If you can get a copy with Fools Gold as a bonus track even better.

Velvet Underground – Loaded (1970)

One would not normally associate Lou Reed’s music with summer, and this album is pretty much the closest you will get. But it is a goody and contains such summer classics as Who Loves the Sun and Sweet Jane. 

- Sam 

Sola Rosa - Get It Together (2009)

Summer’s coming in New Zealand, and I have found the perfect summer album. It is five years old, released in 2009, but as a music blogger things often come to my attention late, especially when you consider the vast amount of music there is floating around. But in the case of this seriously funky album by New Zealand collective Sola Rosa, the late coming has definitely been worth it.

Sola Rosa, led by Andrew Spraggon, as a collective has been around the music scene in New Zealand for over ten years exploring and creating a vast array of melodic and groove based sounds. Their music tends to follow a fusion pattern, mixing together more styles than you can count on two hands, including hip hop, jazz, reggae, soul and funk, something that features strongly on this album Get It Together. New Zealand seems to be a melting pot for these types of musical collectives, especially in the past ten years with bands such as Sola Rosa, Fat Freddy’s Drop, Trinity Roots and the Black Seeds pioneering an experimental fusion style of music, but also a no fear approach to composing music where anything is possible and any style can be mixed together. I guess this is also why many of these acts have had great success outside of New Zealand and why their music can often relate to many different types of music fan.

As for the songs on Get it Together, well the album kicks off with the very funky “The Ace Of Space”, a song which has an infectious bass groove, some pretty cool scratch work, as well as splattering’s of strings and horns. This is followed by “Turn Around” which features Iva Lamkum on vocals who does a nice job on this up-tempo R&B track. “Del Ray” is a sort of middle-eastern sounding track, especially in the horn riff which dominates the song, as well as the guitar part which has a slight Spanish flamenco feel to it also. “Humanised” which features Bajka on vocals is a soul-jazz track, with jazz-inspired horns and a raunchy vocal, while “Love Alone” featuring Spikey Tee is a fusion of dub, reggae and hip hop, although the results I find on this track are mixed. Thankfully, things get back on track with the brilliant six minute epic title track “Get It Together”. This instrumental has a Curtis Mayfield vibe to it, especially in the horns and percussion and represents an album highpoint with all the ingredients that make up a good fusion track in the form of jazz, funk, electronic and plenty of groove. I also love how out of nowhere the song transitions into a sort of samba for the last minute, showing that the band can also throw up plenty of surprises when you least expect it. “I’ve Tried Way’s” features Serocee and is a hip hop/electronic track which I thought failed to measure up to some of the other tracks, feeling a bit like a come down, especially after the previous epic. This mini-lul in proceedings unfortunately continues on next track “Lady Love”. However, things get back up and running on “All You Need”, which is another six minute track that has an experimental jazz funk vibe to it, while again showcasing the talent on display here when it comes to composition. I find that on listening to this album the instrumentals really stand out and the band do a great job in experimenting with different rhythms, textures, as well as moulding together different sounds, with this track being a prime example. Finally, the album closes with “Bond is Back”, the hint into what this one sounds like is in the title, and album closer “These Words, These Sounds, These Powers” which is probably the most reggae sounding track on the album.

All in all I found this a great album to listen to, and a perfect album to be played outdoors in the sun with a beer in hand and good food. The instrumentals on here really shine through and showcase just what you can do when you mix different styles of music together across one track. The results are quite simply stunning and in some cases quite mind blowing especially for musical nerds like myself. The rhythms of this album really stand out especially in the bass and percussion, rhythms which do a great job in driving the album along from track to track, just like the great experimental funk and R&B records of the early-70s. In conclusion, I may be five years late to the party but the wait was certainly worth, especially when the results are this good. 

A-

- Sam 

Various Artists - Country Funk 1969-1975 (2012)

What is country funk? Well that is the first question I asked before I had even listened to a single track off this 2012 compilation. As a style label, country funk has been coined years later probably by the people who conceived this compilation, and musically speaking is meant to encompass a range of different styles including gospel, blues, county, and roots rock which many American artists in the late-60s and early-70s were experimenting with and blending together in their music. At this time, artistic experimentation in music was rife, with many artists mixing things up and crossing over into different musical territories, something you can certainly here on this album with elements of country, gospel and funk featuring within a single track. So although country funk is not exactly a precise stylistic term musically, and I would argue has been used more so as a selling point for this compilation, the term does a nice job of describing the types of musical merging’s that were taking place in the States during this period.

Aesthetically I would also say the music termed country funk is linked together by the fact that the songs which fall under this umbrella term as witnessed by the material on this compilation tend to have groove, boogie, and an underlying rawness about them. I would say it is music from the country but with the feel of the city. Spiritually I also think the themes of the songs are coming from a southern perspective, and you can certainly see that in some of the song titles on this album, with things like “Georgia Morning Dew”, “Lucas Was a Redneck” and “Bayou Country”. As for the artists that feature, well they are not big names by any stretch, something that I actually find a good thing and is one of the reasons I find these sorts of stylistically-based compilations quite intriguing, as I come to listen with no real pre-conception of the artists themselves and what sort of music they play. This in itself can often make the listening experience that much more enjoyable. With this in mind, just some of the standouts for me on this compilation included Johnny Adams “Georgia Morning Dew” which is a sort of slide guitar country blues, Bobby Charles “Street People” which has a Band feel to it, the playful kick of Larry Jon Wilson’s “Ohoopee River Bottomland”, the southern soul of Bobbie Gentry’s “He Made a Woman Out of Me”, and finally a storming blues cover of Dr John’s “Walk on Gilded Splinters” by Johnny Jenkins.

This compilation for me represents a melting pot of those Southern styles of music that were often mixed and moulded together into completely new sounds, sounds which came to dominate the music scene of the late 60s and into the 70s. Artists might have been country at heart, but were filling to throw in a funk rhythm or bass line, or they might have been a gospel singer but the country came calling. This sort of musical freedom reigned supreme for a slight moment in time there, and for a fleeting second was the norm in the music industry until the corporates of LA came calling and one had to be pigeon-holed into a box to be sold. It is hard to pin country funk down, let alone describe it, so perhaps in conclusion it is best to simply acknowledge country funk for what it represents, and that is music which is fun, playful, and experimental. So credit to the folks at Light in the Attic Records for releasing this neat little set, and I certainly look forward to hearing volume two “Country Funk 1967-1974” which itself has just been released. 

B+

- Sam 

El Michels Affair - Enter the 37th Chamber (2009)

El Michels Affair started life as a house band for a small record label Soul Fire Records, before transitioning into a recording 9-piece musical collaboration led by saxophonist and organist Leon Michels. With this, Michels also started his own record label the Brooklyn-based Truth & Soul Records, a record label dedicated to producing and releasing soul and funk material. El Michel’s Affair play only instrumentals, and their style is a fusion of 60s and 70s soul and funk, Afrobeat and jazz, with some coining this mix of styles cinematic soul, something I completely understand as their music does sound very much like the soundtrack to the movie you have never seen. Their sort of loose, raw playing style is very much Meters-inspired, and perhaps also the Roots, something which I guess keeps with their house band origins and suits very much the sorts of instrumentals they play.

This brings me to the album itself, which aside from containing some amazingly good sounds, is also as a concept quite a clever idea and something which definitely caught my eye. This album Enter the 37^th Chamber is quite a unique album, as it’s a cover album of instrumental versions of Wu Tang Clan and Raekwon tracks, with the band putting their own jazz-funk slant on the backing tracks and beats of some of hip hop’s classic tracks. From my perspective, this is such a cool idea and something I have often contemplated when listening to hip hop. Leaving aside the amazing lyrics which you can get with hip hop, the one thing about this style of music which I have always been sucked into is the quality production, and amazing backing tracks and samples you can find on hip hop recordings, beats that I have often thought would sound amazing just on their own. This makes El Michels Affair’s attempt to recreate such tracks on this album even better, as they are recreating them by playing them live within the confines of a soul-jazz ensemble; and boy do the band do a more than adequate job in covering such classic tracks as Wu Tang’s “CREAM” and “Uzi (Pinky Ring)” and Raekwon’s (who incidentally helped oversee the production and recording of this album) “Criminology”.  

This is such a dope album both concept-wise and musically speaking. It’s music to chill out to, to relax to, to entertain with, and enjoy summer with. I am a big fan of artists who play instrumental music across all styles and these guys with their own unique interpretation of Wu Tang certainly hooked me. I look forward in seeing what else they have up their sleeve, and what they might put their funky, jazzy touch to in the future. DOPE. 

A-

- Sam 

Queen - Live at the Rainbow 74 (2014)

Queen Live at the Rainbow 74 is a newly released live album of Queen’s two 1974 shows at the famous Rainbow theatre in London, shows which took place during the bands Queen II tour in March which forms the basis of disc one, and the Sheer Heart Attack tour in November which features on disc two. The recordings capture the band at their hard rocking and theatrical best, when they were really just unknown novices and before they had broken through into the mainstream. The concerts were originally supposed to be released as a live album at the time but instead were put on the backburner with the band deciding to focus instead on the recording of their seminal album A Night at the Opera. Now forty years later, the original tapes have been re-mastered and polished up and boy oh boy do they sound good, with a crystal clear sound and fantastic mix which means you can actually here the individual instruments. This is something you don’t always get with live albums where often the sound is a bit muddled and not always the best. I am sure some pitch correction and other such things have gone on to get the sound up to a modern standard, but this is all in the name of getting a great sounding modern day historical release.

As for the material on this album, well the focus is the band’s first three albums Queen, Queen II, and Sheer Heart Attack, albums which if you know anything about early Queen are very heavy and quite progressive, something which may surprise people who only know Queen through their big late-70s and 80s hits. There are big vocals a-plenty as Mercury flexes is range, theatrics and banter with the crowd, something that occurs between each song and is a pleasure to listen to, heavy guitars, and a thunderous rhythm section courtesy of John Deacon and Roger Taylor, a somewhat underrated pairing. Song-wise, the highlights are for me mostly on disc one, the March concert with the band playing some stellar versions of tracks from their first two albums. There is the anthemic “Father To Son”, the early metal of “Ogre Battle”, the Sabbath-esque sounding “Son And Daughter”, along with two great versions of “Seven Seas Of Rhye”, “Liar” and a fantastic rollicking cover of rock and roll classic “Jailhouse Rock”. Disc two for me is the lesser of the two discs, but still captures great versions of the likes of “Keep Yourself Alive”, “Stone Cold Crazy” and “In The Lap of The Gods Revisited”. What is amazing about the material overall is how heavy Queen sounded in their early years, a sound far removed from what they became most-famous for later on. I would go as far in saying as a new band on the scene in 1974 following in the footsteps of the likes of Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Who and Black Sabbath, they certainly were footing it with the big boys of British heavy rock that had come before.

In conclusion, Live at the Rainbow 74 is a fantastic sounding record and offers up a great insight into early-Queen, a period in their career which has not really received much attention, especially in terms of re-releases. People forget Queen started as a hard rock band and this album does a great job in capturing their early sound. For people not familiar with the early part of the bands career, some of the material might fall a bit flat at times just because of their often theatrical and progressive nature both lyrically and musically, but this does not get in the way of what is a great 70s rock and roll show, featuring a band throwing everything they had in their arsenal out there on the stage. Little did they know that this was just the start of something much, much bigger to come, but as this albums shows, the marker was being laid down in a big way. 

A

- Sam