Meek's use of sound effects and swathes of ghostly reverb, woven into seemingly innocuous pop songs and rock and roll instrumentals – as if the BBC Radiophonic Workshop was directed by Phil Spector – created a sense of the sublime and hinted at strange realities beyond our own. While they may appear jaunty and upbeat on first hearing, Meek's recordings are suffused with a deep melancholy that would have been largely unknowable to most of the teenyboppers who heard them, but spoke of his own sorrow and alienation and, that of generations still haunted by war.
all bootstrapped together on a fraying shoestring budget. Hailing from a modest rural background, driven by an unshakable need to create music while having little training, or formal musical ability of his own, he moved to London, set up his own independent labels, Triumph and RGM (for Robert George Meek), designed and built his own innovative audio equipment, developed production techniques that would become industry standards, wrote, recorded and produced music from his own home studio, and created visionary music alongside chart topping hits. Meek is, deservedly, a legend – a social, cultural, and sexual outsider who took on the music machine and, at least for a short time, appeared to be winning. One silver lining, or more accurately a brown one, is that the demolition work has helped to dislodge the 1,864 reel-to-reel tapes, originally packed into 67 tea chests, left behind when maverick producer Joe Meek fatally shot his landlady Violet Shenton, and then himself, on 3 February 1967 – eight years to the day of the death of his idol Buddy Holly. It's too soon to know how the destruction – sorry, regeneration – of London's Denmark Street will benefit the musicians whose legacy it has been sold and marketed upon. Joe Meek, lyrics for 'Loneliness', sung by Mike Berry. Loneliness - woh, woh - what's to become of me? Trumpeter Hermon Mehari produces a propulsive, jazz-inflected take on Eritrean folk music with Asmara (Komos), channelling a free-flowing swing on Call Me Habesha.Loneliness - woh woh - seems to be my destiny Sitarist Ami Dang brings her distinctive vocals to the fore on The Living World’s Demands (Phantom Limb), traversing ambience and experimentalism – although more focus on the sitar itself would be welcome. Acoustic textures are warped by digital distortion to create a deeply atmospheric and engaging 10 tracks. Like the palindrome of the record’s title, Korwar’s beats spiral outwards and fold in on themselves, creating a mesmerising story of their own.Ĭolombian experimentalist Lucrecia Dalt’s latest album, ¡Ay! (Rvng), is a gorgeous blend of bolero, salsa and modular synths, anchored by her crystalline falsetto.
It is a virtuosic performance, producing a hypnotic, endless rhythm.
That Clocks Don’t Tell But Make Time is the thematic centrepiece of Kalak, looping drum rhythms into each other as if playing out overlapping lines of dialogue. Throughout, Photay’s reverb-laden sound design provides a unique and sinister texture. Utopia Is a Colonial Project thunders over a rollicking syncopated beat and the thick buzz of synths played by keyboardist Danalogue, while the dubby bassline of Remember Begum Rokheya anchors a complex polyrhythm of handclaps, flute and chanted vocals. Opening with To Remember, a track that highlights the interweaving of Tamar Osborn’s flute and Korwar’s minimal tabla lines, Kalak deepens and darkens as it progresses.
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