Singleversity #35

Audiversity’s weekly column, slightly modified, on random music in a predetermined number of words between 1 & 150. This week's randomly generated number: 110

MA:



One of Don Cherry’s first releases after relocating to Europe in the mid-70s, Brown Rice from 1975 is a fascinating display of jazz-fusion in a post-Bitches Brew scene. Joined by Charlie Haden and Billy Higgins among others, Cherry blends elements of Davis’s electrified jazz (especially the production tone) with Indian, African, and Arabic music, and of course his own accessible free jazz approach to the trumpet and keys. Though the two extended workouts, “Malkauns” and “Cherezig”, are a bit more hypnotic and groovy, the title track concocts a sound somewhere between Funkadelic, Manu Dibango and Gato Barbieri. Funky, pulsing and somewhat surreal, Brown Rice is certainly one of a kind.

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When did My Bloody Valentine find the future? Listening to Japancakes’ Loveless cover recently inspired me to give the source group a refresher listen. Though 1990’s Glider EP is generally accepted as the milemarker for a new direction Isn’t Anything’s raw noise only hinted at, I’d forgotten “Instrumental B” from a 7” accompanying the first 5,000 vinyl releases of their 1988 debut. A Public Enemy drum loop (from “Security of the First World”) and ambient textures contrast sharply with the more grating, feedback-drenched “Instrumental A” for a clear delineation between what had been achieved and what was still to come: excellence and immortality. I wonder where those 5,000 people are now.