Chrononaut Cocktailbar / Flight Of The Sloths. No Man's Valley

Quite a long title and one that made me think, what? The music repeatedly makes me think 'what' as well. In a very positive way, as I could not believe my ears because of the changing directions the music continuously takes. No Man's Valley is not in the music business it seems to play a variation on the same idea twice.

No Man's Valley is a new band on this blog, so let me introduce the band to you first. It is a Dutch band from Horst in Limburg about to release its third album, the first after the pandemic. Band members Dinand Claessens (drums), Rob Perree (bass), Christian Keijsers (guitar), Ruud van den Munckhof (keys), Jasper Hesselink (vocals) are together circa ten years and ready to take on the world judging Chrononaut Cocktailbar / Flight Of The Sloths.

Where to start? Certainly in the 1960s, from 1966 onwards. More specifically the psychedelia that started to seep into the folk and pop music made by, nearly all popular bands of the time. No Man's Valley picks elements that it likes and drops them into (slightly) more modern music, like symphonic rock and indie rock, even postpunk. Second song 'Love' attests to the mix of a Farfisa organ sound and a postpunk rhythm and guitar parts. It results in party time and loads of energy to live that party to the fullest.

Just as easily the band moves into a brooding slow song that faintly reminds me of songs like 'The End' and When The Music's Over' by The Doors. 'Creepoid Blues' is an apt title. The band sort of creeps up on me with this song, without convincing completely unfortunately. 'Seeing Things' fairs far better, as it creeps up in a far more relaxing way, surprising the more. 'Seeing Things' isn't a relaxed song at all. It just appears to be. In the meantime these two songs are far removed from the two opening ones. Everything has changed totally.

The next song is 'Shapeshifter'. This bluesy rock song changes the mood once again. The tempo is up to a moderate rock tempo. The mood is again dark but the sound is far dirtier. A warm organ, distorted guitars and vocals. It is like a giant slug coming your way to cover you in its slime, unable to escape from it. It's alright though as 'Shapeshifter' is the kind of song I wouldn't mind having to live in.

If I had to compare No Man's Valley to another Dutch band, it would be The Bullfight. Another band that is able to play with moods and darkness, while remaining attractive enough to listen to.

'Orange Juice' is another example that No Man's Valley is not afraid to strip a song to a near bare minimum for a five piece band. All play a minimum of notes, over and over. Until a Robbie Krieger inspired bluesy guitar solo comes in showering some confetti over us all.

The album ends with the second half of the albums title, 'Flight Of The Sloths'. This time an acoustic guitar opens the song, slow, in everything but a hurry. 'Flight Of The Sloths' is the most relaxed song on the album. Instead of creepy, it is dreamlike. Not necessarily a totally happy dream but certain one that brings calm. I love how the bass guitar changes the mood several minutes into the song. Be prepared though, this is by far the longest song on the album with 18.22 minutes. Expect the song to go, as 18 minutes plus songs are supposed to go. Slow build up, long solos, deep passions and relaxed interludes. If you are into long rock compositions, it is worth exploring alright. No Man's Valley knows what it is doing here and succeeds. Listening into the composition I get the impression that the band becomes more and more itself and leaves obvious influences by the way side. 'Flight Of The Sloths' is the real thing, musically and identity wise.

Wout de Natris

On Bandcamp Chrononaut Cocktailbar / Flight Of The Sloths are two separate albums. My impression is they are released as a double LP on a German label. You can have your choice of ordering it.

https://www.tonzonen.de/no-mans-valley

or download a digital version here:

https://nomansvalley.bandcamp.com/album/flight-of-the-sloths

A few new albums. Catching up day: The Black Keys, Elbow, Adrianne Lenker

Too many albums are released to keep up with as a, mostly, one person blog. Recently a few albums were released by artists that I like a lot. But the are albums that do not reach my digital mailbox well-before the release date, they are already "old" by the time I had the time to listen. So they do not always make it to this blog. To catch up, today a few together with a far shorter post. Not unlike the weekly singles post.

Ohio Players. The Black Keys

It took me two listen sessions to be convinced. Not really paying attention the first time, while working, the album did not register. The second session a few days later was meant to determine whether I was going to write any way. Today I bought the album, on cd. The price of a new The Black Keys LP went from € 19,90 to € 24,90 to € 34,90. That's a bit more than inflation, I reckon. I have 'Delta Kream' on cd also, so the price will have been somewhere in that region as well.

Enough complaining on the LP price. Ohio Players, also the name of a soul band from the 70s, is an enormously playful album. It is too early to tell but it may well become the duo's best album since 2011's 'El Camino'. Those three big hits is what is missing on Ohio Players. More than good songs there are in abundance. Take 'On The Game', a song somewhere between pop, rock, ballad and folk ("hey", but where is the ho?) with a golden, slow riff. It shows the songwriting prowess of Dan Auerbach.

Be prepared to hear The Black Keys divert to new chartered waters, like soul and rap, even Noel Gallagher and Beck. The guests on the album take their chance to turn the album in their direction for a while, making Ohio Players more surprising than could be expected. They even all have songwriting credits, so this is no guest role but a true addition to The Black Keys' modus operandi. The duo also certainly rocks in the way it is well known for by now. It pleases fans of old, fans of the 'El Camino' era and undoubtedly new ones based on the new avenues explored.

Yes, I'm very happy with the new The Black Keys album.

Audio Vertigo. Elbow

It may well be that I've skipped one or two Elbow albums. I had become saturated with the Elbow sound. When I read the review of the album in 'Oor', I knew I'd better listen anyway. Audio Vertigo did not disappoint. Elbow is Elbow. Slow, expanded songs with a strong focus on the slow voice of Guy Garvey, who as a vocalist never is in a hurry. It is what happens behind him immediately in the first song that convinced me.

'Things I've Been Telling Myself For Years' for starters is a title like 'Leaders Of The Free World' or 'The Take Of And Landing Of Everything'. It sounds ambitious and intriguing. The song starts with direct drumming, setting a different mood than in the average Elbow song. The slow three notes riff does the rest. When Garvey starts singing things are as expected but behind him is a female choir. There are some faint weird sounds, I think. The keyboards come in with some distracting notes and finally a blistering guitar solo, wah wah pedal and all flies from left off center. This is more than enough to start me listening to Elbow once again.

The rest of the album does not disappoint either. With Alex Reeves the band has a new drummer and this obviously pays off. On Audio Vertigo the band is exploring how far it can take its songs and perhaps even encountered a little Radiohead like music here and there. Weird rhythms can be heard and it suits the band well. In how far Reeves is responsible here I can't tell of course.

With 'Balu' the band goes 80s style synth disco, creating a hug sound. Again I notice how rhythmically present Elbow is. Not something I associated the band with over the years. A little horns are thrown in as well, making the song even bigger.

All throughout Audio Vertigo keeps surprising. This is Elbow and yet I'm listening to a newer version as well. Well 20 years into its recording career, Elbow manages to surprise once again. Something the world can be quite pleased with.

Bright Future. Adrianne Lenker

My introduction to Adrianne Lenker was, most likely unlike many other people, through a solo album, 'Abysskiss' in 2018. Of course I discovered that she played in Big Thief, but I never really found my way into that band until its last album 'Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You'. There is no review of Big Thief on this blog from my hand. They are all by Erwin Zijleman.

Today there's a new solo album. Again, I have to work my way through her voice, but I have gotten used to it sufficiently to not run away from it anymore. The album starts with a really small, yet intense song, 'Real House'. A piano and Lanker sings, well almost tells it all from her. Her youth, the strained relation with her mother, it is all there.

Adrianne Lenker decided to make music with three friends and see what happens. This is exactly what we hear on Bright Future. The music on the album is like a holiday where nothing had to happen and in the meantime lots did but all in an extremely relaxed way while absorbing one memory to treasure after the other.

Most of the songs are laidback while there is an intensity anyway because of the wobbly delivery of Lenker. And in the lyrics of course. Her acoustic guitar is the main instrument, besides that voice, which can be counted as one. Her friends join when there is a reason to. Singing or adding an instrument and it is enough. With Bright Future Adrianne Lenker shows once again that she is one of the greater singer-songwriters of the day.

Wout de Natris

Flying On Instruments. Vanessa Peters

Vanessa Peters maakte de afgelopen twintig jaar een serie fantastische albums en ook het deze week verschenen Flying On Instruments staat weer vol met songs die je na een keer horen eindeloos wilt koesteren.

De naam Vanessa Peters zal niet bij iedereen een belletje doen rinkelen, maar de afwisselend vanuit de Verenigde Staten en Italië opererende singer-songwriter heeft inmiddels minstens een handvol geweldige albums op haar naam staan. Ook het deze week verschenen Flying On Instruments is er weer een. Het is een wat voller klinkend album waarop folksongs worden omgetoverd in perfecte popsongs. Het is deels de verdienste van de warme klanken op het album en de fraaie wijze waarop piano en gitaren elkaar versterken, maar ook de stem van Vanessa Peters slaat zich weer als een warme deken om je heen. Flying On Instruments is het volgende prachtalbum van deze helaas nog altijd wat onbekende muzikante.

De Amerikaanse singer-songwriter Vanessa Peters debuteerde eenentwintig jaar geleden met het fraaie Sparkler, dat makkelijk overtuigt met folky songs, hier en daar een ruw randje en een mooie en aangename stem. Het zou vervolgens nog twaalf jaar duren voordat ik de muziek van Vanessa Peters ontdekte, want mijn eerste kennismaking met haar muziek stamt uit 2015, toen het prachtige With The Sentimentals verscheen. Sindsdien heb ik een enorm zwak voor de muziek van Vanessa Peters, die afwisselend in het Italiaanse Lucca en in de Verenigde Staten in Dallas, Texas, verblijft.

Op With The Sentimentals verpakte Vanessa Peters haar rootsmuziek in bijzonder lekker in het gehoor liggende popsongs en dat is ze sindsdien blijven doen. Het heeft sinds 2015 een stapeltje albums opgeleverd dat ik koester, want na With The Sentimentals werden de albums van de Amerikaanse muzikante alleen maar beter, wat prachtalbums als The Burden Of Unshakeable Proof (2016), Foxhole Prayers (2018) en Modern Age (2021) opleverde, maar ook het met covers gevulde tussendoortje Mixtape (2020) is me zeer dierbaar.

De opvolger van het inmiddels al weer bijna drie jaar oude Modern Age heb ik al een tijdje in mijn bezit en ook Flying On Instruments is weer uitgegroeid tot een album dat ik intens lief heb. Voor haar nieuwe album toog Vanessa Peters met haar Italiaanse muzikanten en echtgenoot Rip Rowan naar een studio in Dallas, waar de songs voor het nieuwe album zoveel mogelijk live werden opgenomen. Flying On Instruments heeft hierdoor een lekker vol bandgeluid, dat nog wat werd aangevuld met strijkers en dat fraai is geproduceerd door Rip Rowan.

Het nieuwe album van Vanessa Peters heeft niet alleen een mooi vol geluid, maar heeft ook een heerlijke flow. Centraal in het geluid staan de piano en de keyboards van Matteo Patrone, die in de meeste songs de lijnen uit zet. Het wordt prachtig aangevuld met de akoestische gitaar van Vanessa Peters en de elektrische gitaar van Federico Ciancabilla, die er af en toe heerlijk stekelige gitaarakkoorden tussendoor gooit.

Door de belangrijke rol voor de piano en de fraaie wijze waarop piano en gitaren blenden klinkt Flying On Instruments weer net wat anders dan zijn voorgangers, maar Vanessa Peters verleidt nog altijd meedogenloos met haar folky songs die zijn verpakt in nagenoeg perfecte popsongs. Die verleiding komt niet alleen van de mooie klanken en de melodieuze songs, maar ook van de zang van Vanessa Peters, die beschikt over een van de meest aangename stemmen in het genre en die alleen maar mooier gaat zingen.

Vanaf de eerste noten van Flying On Instruments had ik overigens associaties met de muziek die 10,000 Maniacs maakte in de jaren met Natalie Merchant, vooral vanwege het door de piano gedomineerde geluid, maar zeker ook door de zang op het album en door het snarenwerk. Flying On Instruments is echter ook weer een typisch Vanessa Peters album en het is een album dat de hoge kwaliteit van zijn voorgangers makkelijk weet vast te houden.

Ik heb het album zoals gezegd inmiddels al een tijdje en er staat geen song op het album die ik niet goed vind. Ook Flying On Instruments is weer een album waar ik heel vrolijk van word, maar het album bevat ook een aantal wat melancholischere tracks, die weer andere gevoelens raken. Vanessa Peters blijft helaas redelijk onbekend, maar ontdek haar nu en je krijgt niet alleen een nieuwe prachtplaat, maar ook een werkelijk fantastisch oeuvre cadeau.

Erwin Zijleman

Je kunt Flying On Instruments hier luisteren en bestellen:

https://vanessapeters.bandcamp.com/album/flying-on-instruments

Somehow, Here We Are. Faulty Cognitions

Faulty Cognitions is a band from San Antonio. It formed when Chris Mason packed up in Portland, Oregon and moved to Texas, where he formed a band with long time friend Yole Centeno. Together with Nick Obregon and Mike Nera they decided to start rocking. And is the world the better for it!

Of course, folks, there is nothing new under the sun on Somehow, Here We Are. Faulty Cognitions play punkrock with the heart in the right place and a beer in both hands (when not playing). Think of Dropkick Murphys without Irish stuff. Songs ready to shout along to in the local pub. Except that the quality of the band is obvious and way beyond playing at local pub level. This band can play and the singer has exactly the right voice for all of this.

More importantly, the band has the songs. In a way it is amazing that it is still possible to come up with great songs in this genre. Faulty Cognitions wrote twelve of them and plays them with pride and joy.

I had missed the origins of this U.S. alternative rock genre in the 1980s. Bands people are always on about like The Resentments, Hüsker Dü and The Pixies all passed me by. I was busy doing other things, without the money to keep up with music, like getting a degree. In the 1990s there was Slobberbone and that Texas band struck a chord for a while with me. Although Slobberbone remained an exception, with Buffalo Tom, deeper into this century, things landed where it should have been 40 years ago. (How long?) Like with bands like Faulty Cognitions.

Somehow, Here We Are is filled with U.S. rock somewhere between punk and country rock. In other words, at least two guitars, drums and bass that really go for it. The result is an energised shot of rock and roll for the masses. It looks like to me that this is really all the information you need. Listen to it, buy it, support bands like Faulty Cognitions.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order Somehow, Here We Are here:

https://faultycognitions.bandcamp.com/album/somehow-here-we-are

I Wish You More Than Luck. Lo Moon

Funny how a brain works when hearing music for the first time. Since I have read the bio accompanying I Wish You More Than Luck, Lo Moon's third album. It continues for pages explaining the inspiration for the album, the band's history, places where inspiration struck, the fears surrounding 9-11. All I heard was a modern make over of Peter Gabriel's characteristic songs. I'm a lukewarm fan of the British progrocker of old, at best. I fell for Lo Moon's latest with ease though, as the band brings so much more to the equation.

Lo Moon is songwriter and singer Matthew Lowell, keyboardist and bassist Crisanta Baker, guitarist Samuel Stewart (son of Dave A, and Siobhan Fahey) and drummer Sterling Laws. The band started in 2016 and formed around one song of Lowell 'Loveless'. He sought bandmembers to play it with and they fell for the song. For me it's my first Lo Moon, so there's no comparing as far as I'm concerned.

If I have to put another tag on Lo Moon music's, I end up more in the U.K. than the U.S. Surprising as Lo Moon is from Los Angeles. The name I pose is Elbow. Lo Moon, in part, has these slow moving, atmospheric songs as well. The arrangements are fuller than Elbow's, the mood identical. The Gabriel reference is in the style of singing and the deeper, more complex levels of playing music.

In the U.S./Canada region I will mention bands like Half Moon Run and City and Colour, because Lo Moon has that same kind of slow but rich balladry quality. It creates a mood that is comparable. The songs are allowed to expand in sound making listening to I Wish You More Than Luck a satisfying experience, because there is so much to enjoy,

Press photo

Finally, there is this 80s kind of pop the likes of ABC played. The 80s synths are all gone, so that I Wish You More Than Luck sounds far more modern. The pop element is present in several songs, in which the band has found several nice riffs that make a song so much more interesting to listen to.

All together it makes Lo Moon's album rich in sound and in songs. Although the album as a whole gives me a melancholy feeling, listening to it is extremely pleasant. The songs are inherently different. The band has managed to find a few voices for itself, and that is where Lo Moon found its own voice and strength. Not to forget that Matthew Lowell's voice is extremely pleasant to listen to. He dares to be totally vulnerable, like in 'Mary In The Woods'. The rest of the band totally matches this, with help from some horns and/or woodwinds. Until slowly but surely the reigns are loosened and all start up a storm in ballad form.

The differences in the approach to most songs on I Wish You More Than Luck makes for great listening. Lo Moon made one of those warm albums very much worth while getting to know intimately.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and order I Wish You More Than Luck here:

https://lomoonband.bandcamp.com/album/i-wish-you-way-more-than-luck/