It’s no mean feat tapping into the spirit of GONG, yet artistic conglomerate CYMBALIC ENCOUNTERS led by drummer and composer Mark Murdock have never shied away from creative challenges, and their new album is an alluring tribute to Daevid Allen’s collective. Titled “Vents Cycloniques” and comprising ten fresh cuts, it even features one of the classic ensemble’s members, bassist Dave Sturt, alongside Murdock’s regular facilitators, guitarists Fernando Perdomo and Joe Berger.
A famous Blockhead, Chaz Jankel is not too well known for composing music for movies, yet he does that – and back in 1988 the guitarist came up with an orchestral score for the film “D.O.A.(Dead on Arrival)” which his sister Annabel directed and which featured such luminaries as Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan. The results of Chaz’s works saw a CD release, but the disc quickly disappeared and couldn’t be reissued, so Jankel’s fans didn’t have the opportunity to enjoy this opus. And now, finally, there’s a chance to listen to a fresh version of the long-forgotten gem.
There’s hardly a musician out there who doesn’t have unfinished tracks, either abandoned or waiting to be completed, in their cache, yet some of them have entire albums languishing away. Oftentimes such opuses get dusted off years later, accompanying deluxe editions, but once in a while artists pick up where they stopped and bring their erstwhile creative impetus to a close. That’s what happened to a project Duke Robillard started tinkering with in 2005 for Stony Plain Records only to switch over to something else after laying down nine tracks and remain too busy for two decades to return to the not-forgotten work – until it was time to deliver his last offering to the label.
Even the most loyal fan won’t be able to fill half a shelf with books about WISHBONE ASH, as there’s not a lot of those apart from a tome penned by bassist Martin Turner and an autobiography of guitarist Andy Powell – yet this will change on August 30th with the publishing of “No Easy Road”: the first official volume dedicated to the quartet’s touring life between 1970 and 1980. It’s a limited-run coffee table title whose 216 pages are filled with photographs from such masters as Jill Furmanovsky and Barry Plummer and images from the musicians’ private archives and contributions from the two aforementioned players as well as drummer Steve Upton and axeman Laurie Wisefield, all of whom also signed the ensemble photo that accompanies each copy.
There’s no abundance of books dedicated to Rory Gallagher, and what tomes are out there seem to be sharing the same flaw: casting but a cursory glance at the last ten years of the late great guitarist’s life. Not surprisingly, given quite a lot of the Irishman’s listeners thought, for whatever reason, that his career ceased to exist after 1987’s “Defender” which some of them were not really aware of anyway, and all such followers knew was that Rory became ill and bloated – as if it could restrain Gallagher’s creativity. Upon discovering these opinions, two of his faithful fans, Lauren Alex O’Hagan and Rayne Morales, decided to remedy the situation by writing a new volume on the fallen hero.
