Crate001
out of the box this week
The great rasta vocal group The Gladiators doing the ultimate early Bob Marley song. Soul Rebel. This descriptor resides in many places; reggae, punk rock, house music, the terraces. Trainers. Hats. A soul rebel is to feel the roots deeply, to trust the roots and be loyal, and to disrespect authority.
Nala Sinephro, on Warp Records. I write about Nala and her wonders in detail in The Monthly, in tandem with the Canadian composer and musician Sarah Davachi, who makes oceanic drones with famous church organs. Davachi is locked into that idea; Sinephro is free within spiritual jazz, electronica and ambience to follow the sky and her idea of endlessness. The cream of new UK jazz players help take her there.
Doomed end-game psychedelic Americana from the King, Gene Clark, who co-wrote Eight Miles High way back in ‘66. I like birds too and the way they fly and the way they sing in the morning in spring and light up the earth, the first singers always. Ravens - death, portent, black magic. In Ukranian legend, before the Fall of Eden, ravens had brightly coloured feathers, but after that Eden was spoiled, and the chase for redemption began, their feathers turned black and they began to eat the decaying flesh of dead animals. Gene Clark’s raven is silver and a Bad Prophet, aloof : “…have you seen the silver raven, she has wings that barely gleam, they barely gleam, they barely glimmer, as she circles past the sun and she tries to tell her sister that her trials have just begun…”