Four transporting and transformative tracks from GLOK aka Andy Bell, Rico Conning, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard and Julian Cope.
All clocking in at 15 minutes long, all locating and locking into an individual groove, ideal whether you're laid back, or stuck in a bank holiday traffic jam, trying to reach your destination. You will get there.
Invocation is the closing song from Pattern Recognition, Andy Bell's debut album as GLOK, unbelievably five years ago now. Andy has described GLOK as "all about the push and pull between electronic and psych in my music". The pulsating electronica, brief vocal snippets and hypnotic rhythms carry the listener along with no sense of the passage of time, just total immersion in the moment.
I knew of Rico Conning's work as a producer, starting with the limited edition remix 12" single of Sometimes by Erasure in 1986, which featured his work. I found my way back to Rico in 2022, courtesy of his remix of This Is Something by Summerisle Six aka Sean Johnston with Jo Bartlett on vocals.
I then tracked back to Rico's own releases on Bandcamp. Frogmore is a four-track album from 2017 and is a revelation. Rico describes the title song as "a kind of audio diary" of the time he had a cabin "in the misty mountains of Malibu" in the early 2000s. The song is broken down into three distinct phases, the first two mining individual (treated) guitar seams, the third a brief and unexpected vocal reprise. It's wonderful.
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are a band that I came to relatively recently and with some trepidation, not least because of the, let's face it, pants name, but also the daunting prospect of a back catalogue comprising roughly one million albums, EPs and live recordings.
Take the step beyond though and the rewards are immense. Laminated Denim is a two-song album from 2022, Hypertension comprising the second (digital) side. The most vocal-heavy of the four songs selected today, it's also unexpectedly easy going. With the song title, I guess I was expecting a full-on sonic assault, but despite being 15 minutes long, it's one of their most accessible songs that I've discovered to date.
Julian Cope's never been too bothered about being accessible. Despite writing some of the most catchy, melodic pop songs and being able to get away with ba-ba-ba's where other artists can't, he's also partial to a long-form drone and a dirge. Frequently, Julian's psych excursions can come over like a bad trip (road or otherwise), but when he's on, he's ON.
John Balance Enters Valhalla is the title track of an unexpected five-track album released in 2019; then again, most Cope releases tend to drop without fanfare or warning these days.
A tribute to Geoffrey Nigel Laurence Rushton (né Burton) aka Coil co-founder and "Visionary Voice" John Balance, who died in 2004 at the age of 42. Julian various describes the album as 'mesmerizing', 'upbeat', 'emotional', 'rhythm-laden' with 'hefty grooves', tracking "the various stages of the artist’s journey into legendary Valhalla".
The music meanders, the main groove even popping off into the next room about two thirds of the way through, before giving way to some radio chat, before returning for the final approach, leaving the listener behind and it forges on into the distance. Stirring stuff.
If any/all of this music appeals, I've provided links below to purchase the full albums digitally, although if you're snappy, you can get the last remaining copy of the GLOK album on gatefold double orange vinyl.
1) Invocation (Album Version By Andy Bell): GLOK (2021)
2) Frogmore: Rico Conning (2017)
3) Hypertension: King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard (2022)
4) John Balance Enters Valhalla: Julian Cope (2019)
2017: Frogmore: 2
2019: John Balance Enters Valhalla: 4
2021: Pattern Recognition: 1
2022: Laminated Denim: 3
