Jotcamp is a pair of art students with some vague principles on media gluttony. We don’t want to just sit back and consume all the tasteful art we come across, so we’ve made this blog to compile and comment on that delicious media to keep our TV, music, and movies habit from becoming a one way conversation.
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26 posts tagged british
Ramases - Life Child
As usual I didn’t post these songs in the right order. I really thought I’d done something from Ramases’ Space Hymns before, but as I haven’t, here’s the opening track, Life Child. It has about 50 seconds of ambient flute stuff, but after that, it’s one of the best psychedelic guitar pieces ever recorded, and it has one of my favourite guitar solos.
Though Ramases died in 1978, a significant fan network has built up around his two albums. If you want to read about him and his career, there’s an extremely detailed fan site here run by Brian Currin.
13 Plays | Download
Ramases - Long Long Time
I’d never thought to look for another Ramases record after listening to the debut, Space Hymns, because it seemed so unlikely to me that a record company would twice back a guy who claimed to be the reincarnation of a Pharaoh, destined to spread through the world the truths he’d learned about the universe during his multi-millennia trip through the after-life.
But Vertigo was such a company, and apparently Ramases (Barrington Frost) had a fair bit of charisma since he scored the services of Royal Philharmonic Orchestra members for this record. I love Ramases’ first album for its unabashed strangeness and eclectic psychedelic moments, but Glass Top Coffin might actually be a lot better. Its songs feel more cohesive, all focussed on a progressive rock space opera that unfolds at just the right pace.
8 Plays
Lindisfarne - Meet Me On The Corner
Lindisfarne’s second album,Fog On The Tyne, was just as magical as the first, full of lots of short folk songs. I love the amount of harmonica that’s played on this album, and all of the vocalists have wonderful British voices. Some people think that most of the songs are short because their record company was pressing them to produce records too quickly, but I think some of it has to do with the band pursuing more of a traditional blues and country style without a lot of psychedelic touches like lengthy soloing.
4 Plays | Download
Michael Kiwanuka - Bones
Michael Kiwanuka is a soul singer based out of Britain whose career seems to be taking off. The record he released earlier this year, Home Again, is a fantastic showcase of his vocal talent. The backing instrumentation is great, featuring some seriously tasteful strings, but the band never really gets to let loose and so the album stays stuck at a pretty mournful pace. Despite that, I always seem to listen to the record all the way through, because, damn, his voice is beautiful.
31 Plays | Download
Elton John - Levon
Levon Helm, the drummer and sometimes vocalist of The Band, died today, so my blogging will be dedicated to him just like this Elton John song, Levon. Elton John also added Levon to the many middle names of his son; he kind of has a thing for referencing his heroes’ names.
20 Plays | Download
Stray - Suicide
Stray’s 1971 effort, Suicide, didn’t stray too far from material covered in their debut, but who would really want them to? This album is British hard rock at its finest: lead guitar domination, hoarse vocals, heavy rhythm section, and blown-speaker distortion. This is the album’s title track, an 8 minute long riff-fest. Sabbath and Judas Priest fans should enjoy this a lot.
45 Plays | Download
Iron Maiden - All In Your Mind
It almost seems irresponsible to not post Iron Maiden’s cover of Stray’s All In Your Mind. As with everything Iron Maiden, it’s nothing but pure class. Originally this was the B side on their 1990 single, Holy Smoke, but I don’t have that.
12 Plays | Download
Stray - All In Your Mind
Stray was hugely influential 70s psychedelic rock band that hailed from Britain. They get lumped in with guitar-focussed progressive rock bands like Captain Beyond and Wishbone Ash because some of their songs are similarly sprawling, but they just often wade through heavy blues riffs using as much distortion as possible like Toad or Leaf Hound. Iron Maiden fans might recognize this song, All In Your Mind, as the metal band did a cover of it on their Holy Smoke single, later included as a bonus track on No Prayer For The Dying’s reissue. This is the full on, 9 minute long meltdown version that kicked off Stray’s 1970 debut (Maiden covered the much shorter single version).
11 Plays | Download
Carolanne Pegg - A Witch's Guide to the Underground
Carolanne Pegg put out this charming folk rock album in 1973. She’d just split from her husband and the band project, Mr. Fox, that they’d begun together, so a lot of the songs are autobiographical about the tough time she had as a single mother. The record alternates between country-rock ballads and British folk arrangements led by Carolanne’s fantastic fiddle playing. She also dabbled in witch-craft when she was a busker, providing the inspiration for this song, A Witch’s Guide to the Underground. Unfortunately she didn’t manage to break into the industry, and when her musical aspirations didn’t pan out, she pursued a career in academics, studying Mongolian history.
0 Plays
Stackridge - Hold Me Tight
Stackridge’s 1976 album, Mr. Mick, has a slow pace, veering into Supertramp ballad territory on almost every song, so it’s a little harder to get into than their previous releases. But they kick the record off with this irresponsibly catchy cover of Hold Me Tight, so it’s hard not to love them.
12 Plays | Download
