The Aluminum Group

I haven't listened to or thought about the Aluminum Group in ages, but this weekend we went to the Kate Spade store, and while there the song Chocolates came on, and it brought back memories.

When Plano came out I instantly loved it, it reminded me of an American Belle & Sebastian, plus the band was named after Eames furniture. They were doing the sort of lushly arranged chamber pop that was popular in late-90s indie, but tinged with many of the elements of the Chicago scene of that era, and they did it really well. I sought out a copy of their first record, Wonder Boy, and really loved the direction they took when Pedals came out, but sort of lost interest after that -- Pelo and Happiness were serious shifts away from what had originally appealed to me.

Anyway, hearing that song brought back memories, and a brief search found that they haven't really survived into the blog age -- they don't even have a Wikipedia page! So here's the song that reminded me of how great the Aluminum Group was:

The Aluminum Group -- Chocolates

Archie Shepp

OK - so my original plan of updating this site daily didn't quite go according to plan, but whatever...

I recently got a new computer and as a result am re-listening to songs that I haven't heard in a long time, and this is one of them. This morning while getting ready for work my kids asked if I liked jazz, and my wife said "have you ever heard dad listening to jazz?"

Well, I do listen to jazz, it just skews towards the "free-jazz" end of the spectrum so I don't often listen to it while anyone is around/awake given that not everyone is a huge free-jazz fan (I still don't understand that one).

Anyway, this song comes from the 1969 album of the same name, Blasé, released on the amazing Actuel label -- a French imprint that existed from 1967-1971 and released mainly free-jazz, but also some nascent psych/prog stuff too...

Archie Shepp himself is a legend of the free-jazz scene having worked with Cecil Taylor, John Coltrane, Sun Ra, etc. as well as releasing some amazing music in his own right. He hasn't put out anything recently, but runs his own record label and apparently lives in Florida.

This song actually follow a pretty conventional path given his association with free-jazz, and has a slow sultriness to it that I always get a little lost in...

All of Ethiopia awaits you my prodigal son! Enjoy.

Archie Shepp - Blasé