Official Release #96. Live recordings from 3 shows in Finlandia Hall, Helsinki Finland - August 23 & 24 1973. One year after the release of Frank Zappa‘s “Road Tapes, Venue #1” the Zappa Family Trust have announced a second volume in this series of “primitive audio documentary attempts to capture the essence of what was highly and improbably and even impossibly out there on the road in some of the worst audio terrain imaginable”.
Phronesis is my attempt to create a small musical unit with equally strong emphasis on each member/instrument in the group. Writing for this group I’ve tried to keep things relatively simple harmonically in order to open up for an exploration of what can sometimes feel like endless rhythmic possibilities. The music on the album is melodic and groove based and often plays around with repetition in order to emphasise and dramatize change when and if it finally occurs. Inspired by a world heritage of rhythms and sounds found in African, Cuban, Brazillian, Middle Eastern, Eastern European folk and traditional music, Phronesis strive to create original and meditative soundscapes fusing these rhythms with lyrical and atmospheric contributions from the respective members of the group.
Manchester’s The Slow Readers Club return with their fourth album, The Joy Of The Return. Opening to an energetic blend of driving drums and infectious guitar lines, the opening track builds through evocative verses and anthemic choruses, imbued with their idiosyncratic brand of insightful and confronting lyricism and set against relentlessly danceable and energy-provoking instrumentation. “‘All I Hear’ is about a lack of agency and an inability to affect change. That there’s something happening, and you have no choice but to go along with it,” explains singer Aaron Starkie.
Official Release #91. In October 1971, Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention played two shows in one night at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. The album, Carnegie Hall, celebrates that night's marathon – two shows (7:30 and 11:30 p.m.) with ticket prices ranging from $3.50 to $6 – featuring Zappa (lead guitar, vocals) with Mark Volman (vocals, percussion), Howard Kaylan (vocals), Ian Underwood (keyboards, alto sax), Don Preston (keyboards, gong), Jim Pons (bass, vocals) and Aynsley Dunbar (drums).