Stephen John Kalinich
A World of Peace Must Come
Light in the Attic Records (CD/digital download)
People throughout the world are taking in the results from yesterday’s election, discussing the implications of an Obama presidency on the economy, healthcare, and foreign policy. One goal I hope will be on the agenda in 2009 is promoting peaceful solutions. That’s why I’d recommend that president-elect Obama consider putting the recently released A World of Peace Must Come, by poet and musician Stephen John Kalinich, in heavy rotation on his Ipod; it’s been frequently playing on mine.
Recorded in 1969 and co-produced by Kalinich and Beach Boy Brian Wilson, the recording was slated to be issued on the Beach Boys’ Brother Records imprint. Somehow, it got lost in the shuffle. Nearly forty years later, Light in the Attic has given World of Peace its first formal release. Kalinich is well-steeped in the Beats; his combination of spoken-word and musical accompaniment shares an affinity with some of Ginsberg’s later efforts.
World of Peace is certainly a work of its time, with a trippy psychedelic aesthetic, countercultural rhetoric, and a questioning of business as usual and the powers that be. That’s part of what makes its long-belated release so poignant: Plus ca change… But in many ways, Kalinich’s poetry is fascinating in spite of the recording’s easily apprehended aural ‘carbon-dating.’ He eloquently espouses peace, compassion, and tolerance in a time when these virtues have been sorely tested both at home and abroad.
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Kath Bloom
Terror
Chapter Music
www.chaptermusic.au
On Kath Bloom’s latest CD, Terror, there exists an uneasy coexistence between folksong influences and harrowing vocal performances rife with disturbing images from contemporary life. While fans of traditional folk music may find some of Bloom’s reference points startlingly urban and dystopian, they reflect both her New Haven roots and an uneasy relationship with the mainstream music industry. Bloom took a long hiatus from recording: from the mid-eighties to the late nineties. Ironically, she’s an unobtrusive yet unmistakable Zeitgeist place-marker in the mid-nineties film Before Sunrise.
The material here was composed during the past three decades, but it is all previously unreleased. Like Jimmy Scott, another fine singer who combines the calamitous with the eloquent in his voice, there’s a careworn quality and vibrant warble to Bloom’s delivery. The immediacy of the CD’s performances lends an intimate, lived-in quality to the proceedings.
True, intonation can be problematic at times, which adds angst to some of the songs’ distressful messages. Still, there’s heartfelt feeling and heart-breaking phrasing underneath the sometimes roughhewn surface. Terror may not always be pretty, but it’s often moving.
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Matthew Herbert Big Band
There’s Me and There’s You
!K7232 CD
As this overlong electoral season nears its finish line, one might think that there would be few credos for action, change, and motivation left unexplored. But the cover of the Matthew Herbert Big Band’s CD There’s Me and There’s You adopts an attitude well-suited to the challenges that lie ahead. It reads: “We, the undersigned, believe that music can still be a political force of note and not just a soundtrack for overconsumption” (followed by eighteen signatures).
So, the players are angry at the current state of affairs, but do they swing? Yes indeed. Herbert updates the concept of a “big band,” mixing elements of large ensemble jazz, including a cracking horn section, with postmodern beats, supple singing, and splashes of world beat suavity. The CD thus juxtaposes two experimental traditions – IDM and avant-jazz – while placing protest song choruses somewhere between the two extremes. An unconventional amalgamation, but There’s Me and There’s You yields some very appealing material; highlights include “Regina,” “Yessness,” “The Story,” and “Rich Man’s Prayer.” Hot charts, vocal hooks, and a potent message: what’s not to like?
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