RIP Evan Johns, 1956-2017

Sadly, guitar great Evan Johns passed away last night. Here's a rippin' performance from Oshawa's Star Club in 1987.

Happy Birthday Neal Sugarman!

Celebrating the birthday of the Dap-Kings' tenor titan with his Grammy performance alongside Sturgill Simpson. 

One For The Weekend: Nidia Góngora & Quantic

 "Que Me Duele?" is off the new Nidia Góngora & Quantic album Curao out May 12 on Tru Thoughts. 

Rare 70s cassette-only Turkish psych/funk riches recirculated

The lost albums of the Turkish cassette heyday return on the new Uzelli Psychedelic Anadolu compilation.

In the early 70s, a little shop opened in Frankfurt. It sold the small comforts many Turkish guest workers missed in Germany: tea glasses, carpets, art for their walls. It also sold music. The shop became a hub for Turkish migrants, and the cassettes it sold morphed into a label, named for the its founders, the Uzelli brothers.

Now the label is starting a new chapter, uncovering forgotten gems and funky classics in its vaults with the release of Uzelli Psychedelic Anadolu (out March 17). This 10-track compilation spans the label’s heyday: the period between 1975, the high point of vinyl culture, and 1984, the culmination of the cassette industry.

“Vintage Turkish music is undergoing something of a revival,” notes compilation curator Kornelia Binicewiczj. Uzelli’s massive, 1,300+ album catalog, slated for digital re-release, will certainly help fuel this new interest.

The ten years of Turkish history covered on Psychedelic Anadolu were times of political chaos, divided into two periods by the military coup in 1980. After the coup d'etat, those citizens who felt ignored, for whom politics had never been the most important part of their daily lives, became more and more visible. They demanded their music be heard in their new urban environment.

The political circumstances transformed everyday routines, culture and music. Rock was expanded to make a place for new musical genres that more accurately reflected people's social and economic positions, their innermost feelings and moods. Psychedelic music of the 1970s combined instruments such as electrified bağlama, moog and synthesizers with sweet melodies and heart-braking lyrics, and these sounds became even more radical and edgy in the 1980s.

“The design of Uzelli cassette tapes also set them apart,” Uzelli notes. “It was Armagan Konrat – a left-wing painter from Istanbul – who took Uzelli to another level. His unique style of graphic design is a great example of Turkish pop art from the late 1970s to the early 1980s.”

Uzelli’s releases might have faded into obscurity, had it not been for Metin Uzelli, son of one of the label’s founders. Born right as the label launched in the mid-70s, Metin saw its rise and transition, from LPs to cassettes, from family shop to international enterprise, with warehouses and manufacturing plants in Turkey.

The tracks on Psychedelic Anadolu are selected from the best psychedelic arrangements of rock, pop, and folk songs. They also represent a unique combination of personalities and characters, from giants of the Turkish Psychedelic scene like guitar great Erkin Koray and Ünol Büyükgönenç of Kardaşlar, to the overlooked Kerem Güney; the ephemeral band Zor Beyler with Ayzer Danga from Mavi Işıklar and Moğollar on drums; Ali Ayhan from Urfa with his unique voice from the folk scene; and Akbaba, the extreme wedding duo. This compilation would not hit so hard without two ladies: the mysterious Elvan Sevil and Neşe Alkan, accompanied by Zafer Dilek Orchestra. You can hear a sampling of the tracks below.

After its 1980s heyday of cassettes, however, the industry declined. Most Turkish labels found themselves sidelined. Uzelli, now guided by Metin, took a different tack. When CDs started to replace cassettes, Uzelli opened its first modern music shops in Turkey. When the world started to move into digital music, Metin became the exclusive representative of The Orchard, the US digital content distribution company, in Turkey.

Up until the late 1990s, Uzelli continued to make records. The label produced major stars, as well as less well-known musicians and undiscovered talent in Turkey, such as Esengul, Ferdi Tayfur, Gulcan Opel, Erkin Koray, Gonul Akkor, Gulden Karabocek, Mustafa Kandıralı and Muslum Gurses.

“The original album cassettes from Uzelli, however, have yet to be re-released,” says Metin Uzelli. “These albums are still undiscovered by contemporary audiences, while there are many hidden or bonus tracks and can still be found on sale at some old record stores, a musical window on a period of social upheaval in Turkey’s history.” This stands to change, as Uzelli opens up its treasures to listeners worldwide.

Happy Birthday Gabor Szabo

Remembering Gabor Szabo on his day with his 1972 version of Mizrab off the Small World album.

Mark Lanegan's Gargoyle out April 28 – listen to "Beehive"

Early in 2016, Mark was at home in LA, working on some ideas for what might turn into his next album when he got an email from a friend, an English musician named Rob Marshall, thanking Mark for contributing to a new project he was putting together, Humanist. The pair first met in 2008, when Marshall’s former band Exit Calm supported Soulsavers, who Mark was singing with at the time. Now Rob was offering to write Mark some music to return the favour: “I was like, Hey man, I’m getting ready to make a record, if you’ve got anything?’” Mark recalls. “Three days later he sent me *10 things… !”

In the meantime, Mark had written ‘Blue Blue Sea’, a rippling mood piece that he thought might be a more fruitful direction for his new record. “It’s almost always how my records start,” he explains. “I let the first couple of songs tell me what the next couple should sound like, and it’s really the same process when I’m writing words. Whatever my first couple of lines are tell me what the next couple should be. I’ve always built things like that, sort of like making a sculpture I guess.”

Within an hour, Mark had written words and vocal lines for two of the pieces Rob had cooked up at Mount Sion Studios in Kent and pinged through the virtual clouds to California. Rob's music fitted perfectly with the direction Mark had been pondering: in essence, a more expansive progression from the moody Krautrock-influenced electronica textures of his two previous albums, ‘Blues Funeral’ and ‘Phantom Radio’. Eventually, Rob Marshall would co-write six of the songs on the new Mark Lanegan Band album. “I was very thankful to become reacquainted with him,” Mark deadpans.

The remainder of the album was written, recorded and produced by Lanegan's longtime musical amanuensis Alain Johannes at his 11 AD base in West Hollywood. Everything was done and dusted within a month, unusually fast by Lanegan’s recent standards. “I definitely feel like I’m a better songwriting than I was 15 years ago,” he says. “I don’t know if I’m just kidding myself or what, but it’s definitely easier now to make something that is satisfying to me. Maybe I’m just easier on myself these days, but it’s definitely not as painful a process, and therefore I feel I’m better at it now. But part of the way that I stay interested in making music is by collaborating with other people. When I see things through somebody else’s perspective it’s more exciting than if I’m left to my own devices.”

While sharing roots with its two predecessors, on Gargoyle there’s a significant up-shift in the swaggering powerlode of such keynote songs as Nocturne and Beehive, while the lyrics’ tonal palette is more varied. The album title comes from a lyric in Blue Blue Sea – “Gargoyle perched on gothic spire” – and was chosen for its hint of self-deprecation. “I’m most proud of the songs that are atypical to stuff that I’ve done in the past” says Mark. “So I really like Old Swan, because it’s an expression of positivity, which is completely anti-anything I’ve done before!” He laughs. “Y’know, I haven’t played this record for too many people yet. I played it for Greg Dulli, who played on some of it, and he was like, ‘Wow, I had to listen to it twice – it sounds like he’s having a good time…’ Listen to "Beehive" below.

Whaddya mean you don't know Edith Peters

Cotton Club regular Edith Peters cut this psychedelic soul corker in '73. Gerardo Frisina provides a new mix.