Monday, 25 October 2021

Forest - Forest (1969)

Most records you own for the music, some for the artwork, a rare few for the liner notes – say, Pynchon’s prose on Nobody’s Cool, and Spiked!, Geoff Dyer on Rabih Abou-Khalil's The Sultan's Picnic, or perhaps most notably (I mean, who would have guessed?), Dave Stewart’s heart-warming and mouth-giggling recollections on some National Health reissues (not that the music within wasn't reason enough as well for owning some of these).
I’d place Forest’s debut firmly on that pile. Musically it was yet another good-natured, if rather naïve, take on late 1960's expanding (and often simultaneously simplistic) notions of what constituted folk music (from which any correlation with hand calluses (other than guitar-inflicted) was swiftly removed); but most memorable about it is definitely John Peel’s early creative writing workout on the sleeve, beginning with: “In the autumn of a year which historians have, with the aid of carbon dating, pin-pointed as 1968, I was in the gay carbon-monoxide cloud some authorities call Birmingham, in pursuit of a ladye with what I considered to be a dangerously high nubility quotient.”
I’ll take a copy, please.

Thursday, 7 October 2021

Black Bombaim - Far Out (2014)

Stoner rock trio, with a collaborative mind, this time featuring electronic warping (from Luís Fernandes) and a free(ish) sax (from Rodrigo Amado) - which make a considerable difference from their stonier, rockier releases (also aided by the unusually short running time, preventing things from getting too dragged-out (perhaps almost an inevitability for the genre) even if they are concentrated in two long tracks). 
Black Bombaim's subsequent star-power reunion with Peter Brötzmann, from 2016, constitutes a more obvious (and self-serious) entry point for the skronky music lover, but Far Out just might be a tighter and friendlier affair, with all participants in more or less equal footing, with no particular pedigree qualms about who goes on top. 
Particularly good for when you want to take your socks off but don't feel like bending down.