Conversing Across Centuries, Part 1: Orli Shaham & Brahms

Assembling a collection of pieces from wildly disparate times and/or places can be a delicate operation. David Greilsammer triumphed in this area with last year's Scarlatti/Cage album, now firmly installed in my mind as one of the great piano records. So far this year we have two other recordings that successfully converse across the centuries - one is reviewed below and I'll get to the other next week.

Orli Shaham - Brahms Inspired I'll admit to being an inconstant Brahmsian. While I am devoted to his Clarinet Quintet and find Ein deutsches Requiem fascinating, not a lot of his other music has compelled me. I may even be guilty of selling back a CD of his songs, but digital music was expensive back then and I needed to husband my resources. Even now, if you don't move me you are gone. 

When I heard about Orli Shaham project, I was intrigued, however. She had obviously been on a very personal journey with old Johannes, even going so far as to commission works to aid her pan-optical view of his music. Also, the three Brahms pieces included were all late works and I thought I might find some of that spare and utter mastery found in the Clarinet Quintet with which to connect. 

The first piece on the album, a collection of six pieces simply called Klavierstücke, Op. 118, instantly pulls you into the world of romanticism, melodies and lush chords swelling and crashing like breakers on the beach. Listening to Shaham's assured and stylish performance I realized that, despite the efforts of the Second Viennese School and Stravinsky, the 20th Century was essentially romantic, at least until the Minimalists struck a chord (or an arpeggio, ad infinitum). This is the equivalent of realizing that all your favorite television character actors had already had full careers in vaudeville. In other words, the past is ever present and Brahms more than holds his own even now, in yet another century. 

After Op. 118, we get Bruce Adolphe's My Inner Brahms (an intermezzo), a short homage commissioned for the album. Adolphe is a New York based composer and educator known by millions of public radio listeners for his Piano Puzzler segments on Performance Today. A distillation of his improvisations on themes by Brahms, it's a lovely little bit of time travel. The three pieces that follow are all works that inspired Brahms - Schubert's Impromptu, Op. 90, No. 3, Schumann's Romanze, Op 28, No. 2, and Chopin's Berceuse, Op. 57. They all go down easily and give you an idea of what might have been swirling in Brahms's head as he composed. They also prove that I will always be a Schumann person - the clarity of his textures and conception is immediately evident and very attractive. 

Brahms's Drei Intermezzi, Op 117, follows and, if anything, it's Schumann's influence I feel the most. This leads me to start wondering how much Shaham's performances themselves might be influence by all the crosstalk between composers. Whatever the reason, the three intermezzos are simply, but never simplistically gorgeous. Shaham seems to find little stories between the notes, and to delight in their telling. 

Disc 2 starts with another commissioned piece, After Brahms - 3 Intermezzos for Piano, by Avner Dorman. Dorman is Israeli-a born and one of the most successful young composers in that country. He and Shaham have crossed paths before, with Nigunim, a violin sonata based on Jewish themes commissioned and performed by her and her brother, the great Gil Shaham. The first of his intermezzos really puts the "passion" in the Allegro con motto apassionato, with furious downpours of notes coming to a crashing halt on the left side of the keyboard. It's short enough that it's actually great fun and Shaham blows past the difficulties with aplomb. the other two pieces in the set profitably explore other variations on the "whisper to a scream" template.

After Dorman's romantic apotheosis, Bach's Partita No. 1 comes as somewhat of a relief, especially in Shaham's lighter than air performance. It feels like her fingers are just barely touching the keys. Even so, I admit to feeling a slight bit of ear fatigue at this point - but there is nothing saying you need to listen to all 120 minutes of piano music at once. However you get there, don't miss the Schoenberg miniatures that come on Bach's coattails. Schoenberg, one of my favorite composers, was a crucial bridge from the perfumed drawing rooms of the Romantic era to the spiky bustle of Modernism. He had cred in the new world partially because his early works were so accomplished. If he had composed nothing after Verklarte Nacht, Gurrelieder and Ewartung, he would be known as a major late-Romantic composer. 

Obviously, Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, Op. 19, is not one of Schoenberg's big deals. But mashing up six tiny pieces into a work less than six minutes long without it ever feeling frugal is no mean feat. Shaham seems to use a magnifying glass to find the individual character of each little section, like painting a Kandinsky on the head of a pin. Put down your phone, slow down, and observe the process with your full attention - trust me, you will be rewarded. 

The final piece is a true mash up, with Brahms's Klavierstücke, Op 119 interleaved with Brett Dean's Hommage à Brahms für Klavier. While Dean's work was originally commissioned by Emmanuel Ax, like the other new music here, this is a World Premiere recording. Dean's work is probably the most radical of the new pieces, finding the connection between modern cacophony and the 19th Centuries cascades of notes. There's also a touch of knotty jazz to his writing, bringing us right up to date. But Brahms, and ultimately Orli Shaham, have the last word. The third Klavierstücke, Rhapsodie in e-flat major, is so tuneful and open-hearted that you may be inspired (sorry) to go back to beginning of this wonderful collection. Thanks to Shaham, I think I'll be a better friend to Brahms from now on.  Brahms Inspired is out on June 9th. 

Holly Miranda Is Here

I've probably told the story of how I came to Holly Miranda too many times. Suffice it to say that I've been a fan since 2009 and that being her fan seems to involve a lot of waiting. At first I was collecting the free songs she dropped on the Internet, waiting for her to release something official. Then I got Sleep On Fire, her first EP, and found myself waiting for her first album (or her first "real" album, as she had recorded one as a teenager). The album, The Magician's Private Library, came out and, while it was quite good, I still found myself waiting for a record that reflected all of her talent. I was also waiting to see her on stage, and finally did in Prospect Park  as an opening act. Then, of course, I was waiting to see her as a headliner. 

Somewhere in there she started a Pledge Music campaign so I was now waiting for an album in which I was essentially an investor. Actually, that was in 2011, so it was there was a lot of waiting ahead. During all that time, I did get to see her headline at the Knitting Factory in 2013, which was fantastic. That same year, she released Everlasting and Desert Call, two of her best songs yet, featuring the kind of singing and emotion that just stop you in your tracks. That made 2014 the hardest year of waiting, because I knew she had finally figured out how to reveal her full talent in the studio. While she did let us pledgers know about some of the mitigating circumstances behind the delay, I did start to worry that she was stalling out somehow, getting lost in side projects and backing other musicians. 

Then, earlier this year, the dam finally broke. Some songs appeared on Spotify and pledgers were notified that the album was coming in May. I tried not to get too hung up on dates, to just let it happen, but it all happened on schedule: Holly Miranda was released on May 18th and it is brilliant. The waiting is finally over. 

Mark My Words opens the album with chiming guitar and sleigh bells, and then Holly comes in, intimately singing "Sneaking words into your pocket, bleeding lyrics from my veins," a perfect invitation for all that follows. The song is a slow build and her singing instantly impresses with its clarity, control and soul-singer phrasing. The song ends with powerful, chunky guitar, and drops us into the breezy strumming that opens All I Want Is To Be Your Girl  This is an instantly hummable  singalong: "The days are shorter but the nights are long/We could fuck in the sun and dance till dawn/And all I want is to be your girl." Of course, our puritanical culture will keep the song in this form off the radio, but this should be a pop hit. It goes down so easy that all those Swedes who machine-tool the Billboard charts will look up from their Pro-Tools and say, "Damn. Why am I working so hard?"

Then we get Everlasting, a swoon in song with no small debt to John Lennon at his best. The vocal arrangement is elaborate, with a chorus of Hollies and some deep male underpinnings just above the subsonic. Bowie does stuff like that, but few others even try. Whatever You Want has a touch of the 80's but is cheese-free, with Miranda more than holding her own with an army of guitars and clattering percussion. Come On alternates from spare to full-on, and there's a bit of girl-group innocence and yearning: "I've been waiting for a blue moon to cover me/Get me through this lonesome night ahead of me."

Pelican Rapids has the feel of a bedroom recording, in the best way, with Miranda singing along to herself accompanied by electronic drums and keyboards. It's an overture to Desert Call, which like Everlasting was re-recorded for the album. It's both longer and more luxuriant than the earlier version while still retaining the same classic, elemental feel. That great baritone sax solo (by Maria Eisen) I heard at the Knitting Factory is well-represented here and Miranda sounds so at home singing alongside the throaty horn, her true musical foil. 

The Angelo Badalamenti songs Julee Cruise sang for Twin Peaks have become more and more foundational, most recently (and unfortunately) in the faltering attempts of Lana Del Rey, who sings like someone who is never quite sure what's going to happen when she opens her mouth. Holly Miranda definitely doesn't have that problem and brings some of Badalamenti's dark romanticism to both The Only One and Heavy Heart. Each song is lead by rich piano parts, with that bari sax droning underneath, and features a bit of theatrical flair. Music supervisors take note. 

The penultimate cut, Until Now, is so good I almost don't want to share it with you, or anybody else. In a way the whole beautiful album builds to this point. It's mostly just Holly and her acoustic, with gorgeous touches of electric guitar swooping in the spaces between. "Never opened my eyes until now/Never really realized until now," are the opening lines and we're instantly plunged into the white-hot moment when friends become lovers. "You've got some kind of sweetness," she sings in the chorus, her voice ascending in a curlicue of pure longing  "Tied up in that string I've been tugging on/ But I'm pulling now." This is almost Nick Drake territory, where you get wrapped up in the song and wind up feeling protective of the singer. Then again, I've always been rooting for Holly Miranda, and my cheerleading will continue. But I have a feeling the real cheering is about to begin, and it will be louder than ever. 

Join the applause when Holly Miranda returns to the Knitting Factory on June 13th.

Hi Sheriffs, Lo Fi

Ever since the first groove was inscribed on a wax cylinder, there were conscious efforts to improve sound, to increase the "fidelity" of the recording to the originating sonic material. And things did improve rather rapidly, with excellent sound becoming a common possibility in the 1940's, leading to the HiFi movement of the 50's, which saw a barrage of albums released strictly on the merits of how well they exploited the possibilities of the modern stereo system.

For sure, there were still lousy sounding records released, mainly in the realm of burgeoning rock & roll, which got by on the charm, passion and energy of the performers and the indelible nature of the songs. But that was not for lack of trying, simply the result of substandard equipment and low investment in technology. By the early 60's, however, good and even great sound was to be expected, from the crystal clarity of EMI's Abbey Road Studios heard on The Beatles albums to the punchy but crisp Motown Sound.

That all changed with White Light/White Heat by The Velvet Underground, which sounded "bad" on purpose and had some record buyers returning to the store to exchange their "defective" purchase. From then on, all bets were off as producers and bands realized that murk, muffle and distortion could actually be an asset, giving their songs weight, depth and mystery. Low fidelity was also a way to grab on to the slipstream of past masters from the realms of country, blues, etc.

One band that sits at the nexus of all this is Hi Sheriffs Of Blue which had an incandescent, elusive existence in the early 80's. They arose from the ashes of Girls, the Boston band whose sole released output was the extraordinary single, Jeffery, I Hear You, produced by Pere Ubu's David Thomas. Due to the provincialism of pre-Internet society, I was completely unaware of this backstory when I stumbled on the Sheriffs in either Tier 3 or the Mudd Club and was smitten with Mark Dagley and co.'s almost ridiculously discordant and angular take on blues and country. Years later, when "country punk" became a thing, I talked up the Sheriffs till I was hoarse, but to no avail.

This was partly due to their spare catalog, traversing three labels and consisting of merely three 45's (one split with John Miller) and a 12". Ain't But Sweet 16 was their first single, a semi-rockabilly number with a thin sound that made the record sound like it was already used. My Big Vacation was on the flip, an even odder song that slotted in with some of the No Wave stuff that was bubbling up. The third held Cold Chills, one song split on both sides like an early James Brown single, a malevolent grind that might have given Howlin' Wolf pause.

I saw them any time I could and even talked to Dagley around the time of what would be their final release, the 12" EP, which contained the incendiary 19-80 Now! and three other songs. While still unmistakeably the Sheriffs in all their lurching glory, the sound was a little cleaner and richer, filling my head with visions of an underground favorite poking its head aboveground. Dagley seemed to indicate that they were ready to ride the wave wherever it took them and that there were imminent plans for a full-length follow up. It was not to be, however. By the time I started investigating why their fairly regular gigs had evaporated, word came down (might've been Ed Bahlman at 99 Records who told me) that Dagley had broken up the band and moved to an ashram.

I tried not to take it personally, but if you were a Sheriffs fan, it was a personal thing in the first place. So last year when I saw that the eminent Byron Coley was releasing something called NYC 1980 my music fan heart went pitta-pat and I ordered the thing with only a minimum of info. I figured it would be a collection of all their releases with maybe a live track or two. Turns out that Coley dredged up seven cuts of live and rehearsal room tape, all from before that first Sheriffs single. Even better, he hopes that NYC 1980, released in a limited edition of 500 LP's (download code included), is the start of a series.

It's all rougher than raw, cassette-deck, single-mic stuff and I wouldn't have it any other way. The first track is 11 minutes of live mayhem, comprised of five songs, including My Big Vacation. The hi-hat sizzles like static, the guitar hacks out chords, the bass throbs, the vocals howl and you are there: NYC 1980. But this is not pure nostalgia (although it is a little) because the Sheriffs were so on the edge of what was going on back then. Dust My Blues is a gritty take on the Elmore James classic that makes the Black Keys sound like Journey, while Big Duke is a nasty, spectral little boogie that barely grips the rails for 1:39. Blue Door, Black Door is a skronk western swing that's even shorter, a perfect overture to the real find of the collection.

White Street Shuffle, maybe part of a longer jam, fades in, and like your eyes adjusting to the dark, gradually takes shape in your ears as an improvisatory workout of the type only true masters ever achieve. Moments of it sound like Miles Davis in 1973, the Velvets in 1969, or Fela in 1977. In short, it swings, in a fractured way of course, and makes me feel fully vindicated in my assesment that the Sheriffs were one of the great bands. The dry, unfiltered sound means that the playing has to stand on its own, with no help from reverb or any other sweetening. Where Were You When The Lights Went Out comes next, a below-Fi avant jazz blast that barely holds together - even the tape sounds near the breaking point.

The album closes out with a live take of Cold Chills that staggers along, steady but almost enervated, until it just stops. While the Sheriffs were great players in their way, I realize now that one of the radical things about the project was the removal of virtuoso instrumentalists from the blues, and studio slickness from country. In the decades that followed the demise of Hi Sheriffs Of Blue, countless artists have gone back to that well in an effort to revitalize rock music from the ground up. But no one did it like them.

For a while I was monitoring Feeding Tube Records losing a little more faith in Western Civ every time I found they still had unsold copies of NYC 1980. So when I saw Byron Coley at the WFMU Record Fair recently, the first thing I said to him was, "Did you sell out those Hi Sheriffs albums yet?" I tried not to make it sound like an accusation. He assured me that they had and that he was still talking to Dagley, who's mostly a painter these days, about further releases. Whew.

Even if you can't get NYC 1980, Feeding Tube has much to explore "on the fringe of obscurity," as their motto would have it. Coley pointed me in the direction of a couple of gems you might want to jump on.

Owen Maercks is a cutting-edge guitarist who put together a band of Bay Area heavyweights, including Henry Kaiser, and made an album of left-field rock in 1978 called Teenage Sex Therapist. All the copies they pressed went for promotion and when that marketing plan failed, the album sank without a trace. No longer. Coley has resurrected the record, on gorgeous red vinyl (digital download w/extra tracks included) and it's almost impossibly great. Fans of Pere Ubu, early Talking Heads, Captain Beefheart, etc. will find it essential, but anyone who digs avant-pop or post-punk sounds will be on the edge of their seats. Thrilling guitar, quirky vocals, and angles everywhere await the intrepid purchaser - why not let it be you?

The other winner Coley handed me was a 40th anniversary reissue of Lost At Sea by Glenn Phillips, the guitarist for the legendary Hampton Grease Band. Part of their legend is for having the second-worst-selling album in Columbia Records history, a music-biz nightmare that led Phillips down a path of total independence.

Lost At Sea was self-recorded and self-released but is only slightly self-absorbed. Phillips is a great proponent of the high-technique, high-emotion style that devotees of Carlos Santana and Duane Allman will find instantly appealing. The songs on this instrumental album are alternately pastoral and ferocious and have an open-air feel that is truly lovely. This is a record made by someone who cares and I can't help caring about him in response.

The reissue comes with a second album of previously unreleased material, a side of studio jams that presaged Lost At Sea, and a side of live takes played in its aftermath. The first side is especially wonderful but both are welcome additions to what I hope will finally take its place as an American guitar classic - at least in the 500 lucky homes that get to own one.

No fear if you get sold out of Phillips, though. Byron Coley and Feeding Tube will sure to have something else to fill the gaps in your collection - even the gaps you didn't know existed.

Missy Mazzoli: Lush Rigor

 

The theme of the night at Le Poisson Rouge was lush rigor. Or at least that was a theme that revealed itself at the conclusion of three extraordinary performances in celebration of Missy Mazzoli's new album, Vespers For A New Dark Age, last Thursday night.

The house band, if you will, was Victoire, the sleek chamber ensemble led by Mazzoli and featuring a versatile lineup of violin, clarinet, two keyboards and double-bass. This group has only grown stronger as a unit since I last saw them at the River To River festival three years ago. 

At LPR they first took the stage in support of Noveller  the nom de guerre of Sarah Lipstate, a guitarist and composer. Noveller's loops and layers, played on a gleaming Fender Jazzmaster with a full assortment of pedals and boxes at her feet, interleaved seamlessly with Victoire's rich palette of sound. The collaboration had me paying full attention immediately, shaking off what my daughter calls "Thursday tired" without a thought. 

The real fireworks began, however, when Victoire exited stage right and left Noveller to her own brilliant devices. Each piece, many from her recent album, Fantastic Planet  featured precisely assembled components adding up to monoliths of extreme beauty. A fuzzed chord progression would become the underpinning for a diamond-etched light show of arpeggios, which would in turn support a soaring melody, sometimes played with a bow. 

Naturally, I couldn't resist mentioning Jimmy Page in a Tweet. Let's face it, he is the icon when it comes to bowing an electric guitar. But we also have to face the fact that much of the mileage he got from breaking out the horsehair was due to a certain transgressive thrill in addition to the suitably evil sounds he made. By contrast, Noveller's use of the bow is both technically more solid and musically more purposeful. Not the first time a student has overshot the master, if only in this one aspect.

Other reference points in her music are the classic albums by Fripp & Eno - No Pussyfooting came more readily to her mind when I chatted with her after the show. She also mentioned Glenn Branca, although thanks to technology and her skill she only needs one guitar and some boxes to sound like an orchestra. Good thing, too, because when I saw Branca at the Mudd Club back in the day, I worried one of his many guitarists was going to fall off the tiny stage. I heard echoes of Bill Nelson's more abstract side in her music but she hadn't heard of him. His stuff is just in the air these days, I think. Although Noveller is more than happy playing on her own, she could also probably sit in for David Torn in Bowie's band should the need ever arise.

Noveller has been honing her craft since 2007 and it showed in her precise touch and command of electronics, which combined with an assured flair for rock rhythms (and rock moves) made for a consistently exciting and involving set. Unlike some other recent artists who started out as "solo loopers," she seems to have no eye on the pop prize, which is refreshing. Needless to say I bought her last copy of Fantastic Planet and highly recommend that you find a way to hear it as well.

Mazzoli and Victoire had been watching, rapt, as Noveller dazzled the crowd and returned to the stage with barely a pause, along with three singers from Roomful of Teeth, to perform pieces from Vespers. While Mazzoli described the eight movement work as "irreverent," the result of her fine-tuned compositions and the rich billows of sound created by Victoire was moment after mesmerizing moment of rapturous sounds, often producing sensations of soaring and falling. In short, it was transcendent, which is what religious music was supposed to do in the first place.

Instead of any traditional Latin or hymnal text, Mazzoli has used poems by Matthew Zapruder for the words of her vespers. However, without the poems in front of us, this was a purely musical experience. The vocals were often in a style derived from plainchant and the words were not intelligible. I'm looking forward to enriching the experience with the poetry at a later date. The singing was virtuosic, in any case - bell-clear and impassioned. All of the players were fantastic, but special note must be made of Olivia De Prato's violin work, which was outrageously good. She's also a member of the Mivos Quartet and Ensemble Signal, so there are plenty of opportunities to hear her.

The album features Wilco's Glenn Kotche on percussion, although he was not present at LPR and no attempt was made to recreate his contribution. Nothing felt lacking, however. Note must also be made of Lorna Dune's role in Victoire, as keyboard player and all-around electronics whiz. Dune produced the Vespers album, which ends with her remix of Mazzoli's A Thousand Tongues, an older work originally for solo instrument (viola or cello), vocals and electronics. Dune's take, which also closed Victoire's set, is wonderfully fleshed out with layers of pulsing keyboards and somehow achieves an effect of featherweight gravitas. Watching Dune and Mazzoli performing it, one couldn't help but be moved by what appears to be a deep collaboration - long may they reign!

There was a welcome pause in the proceedings after Victoire left the stage, giving me a chance to collect my thoughts after all the intense music we had heard thus far. The stage was reset and Glasser was soon before us. Glasser is Cameron Mesirow, a phenomenally talented singer, producer and dancer who has been making records since 2009. While her albums have done well on the Billboard Dance charts, they are a far cry from the EDM that makes up most of that list. Her music is highly rhythmic, but also seeks to do more than just provide uplift or move the crowd.

She started her performance on the contemplative side, singing in her clear soprano to a backing of koto and clarinet, which somehow managed to be simultaneously spare and richly atmospheric. Her movements were precise and provocative, emphasized by her well-designed costume of a form-fitting sweater and a skirt slit almost to her waist. There was no hint of burlesque, however: this was artistry of a high order and almost entirely devoid of kitsch. She seemed sweetly surprised by the audience's explosive reaction and quickly nodded to the sound engineer to start the next track.

 Song after song followed, all with beats that could compete with the best out there and singing that sounded effortlessly beautiful. It was hard to sit still, but I don't think my neighbors at nearby tables would have appreciated me standing up. In any case, Glasser was the star and I was riveted. An appearance by her would be an event under any circumstance, but this was Missy Mazzoli's night and we were eventually treated to another collaboration when Victoire came back and supported Glasser on a couple of new songs. Just as when they joined Noveller, it was a perfectly beguiling combination and those on stage seemed just as pleased as we were.

The overwhelming impression of the evening was of musicians at the peak of their talents, supporting each other and exploring all the ways highly structured compositions and richly orchestrated sounds can create music that satisfies on a number of levels - emotionally, intellectually and even spiritually. 

Perhaps all of these joint efforts will appear on future releases. I'm especially eager to hear what Glasser does next as her last album was in 2013, and she seems to have even advanced since then. But these are all protean artists and where they go from here will no doubt be a complete adventure. For now, the lucky people of Minneapolis and Cincinnati will be the only others to hear what we heard at Le Poisson Rouge. If I could defeat the time-space continuum, I would sign up to do it all again in both cities.

Gecko's Pleasure Principle

Some of my earliest musical memories are of the Cuban drummers who used to play in Central Park all summer long. The sounds would drift up to my 11th floor aerie, forming an ambient bed of rhythm on which to fall asleep. Many of the drummers were recent immigrants, forced out by Castro's revolution and seeking a better life in NYC. 

The percussion circles made music strictly for themselves, tapping into long-held traditions that were ingrained from an early age, and they merged into my musical DNA alongside The Beatles, Pete Seeger and other household music. 

While my musical taste is now extremely eclectic and spans the distance from the cerebral to the cacophonous, I reserve a special place for people who could sit in with one of those Cuban drum circles and be instantly locked into the groove - and just as quickly be accepted as one of them. Leon Parker has it. Of course the Buena Vista people had it. And Gecko Turner, the Spanish shaman who just released his fourth album, has it. 

Gecko Turner has been plowing his singular furrow for more than a decade. His first album, Guapapasea was a shot across the bow, featuring breezy covers of both Bob Dylan and Bob Marley, and two politically charged songs, Didja Black Up Today, and Guapapasea, which sardonically celebrated the dead end lives of teen prostitutes in Portugal ("Guapapasea" translates as "beauty walking," which is what people shout when one walks by). Somehow, Gecko's light touch and musically omnivorous approach prevented any of this baggage from feeling at all weighty.

Chandalismo Llustrado was the second record and had no big baggage at all, just a pure exploration of groove-based songs, some tinged with heartbreak, all put forth in the relaxed fashion of a master. Songs like Monosabio Blues were deeply rhythmic dance floor devastators and the finale, Jogo De Calidade, was a samba march that practically ordered you to get down. 

Over the course of the two albums you become fully acquainted with Gecko's voice, which can be sweet like a Brazilian crooner, when he pushes it up into his higher range, or a gently graveled croak when he talk-sings. The lasting impression of the one-two punch of those albums is that Gecko is all about creating an environment where he can be purely himself, without any concerns about genre, radio play, or the demands of the music business. 

While a steady stream of stunning remixes (some of the best are collected on Manipulado) kept me happy over the next couple of years, it would be five years before Gecko released Gone Down South, which I compared to a "mainline dose of Vitamin D" and named one of the best albums of 2011. Perhaps his most delightful record, Gone Down South also had Gecko singing better than ever, with the flexibility and phrasing of a mid-sixties Miles Davis solo, all slurs and elisions. Widening his palate further, there were traces of Motown in the mix, as well as folk and pop. 

Aside from a few more remixes and some cute videos, Gecko went quiet again until just recently. When he leaked the first track from his new album, That Place By The Thing With The Cool Name, he told me on Facebook that he would be touring and doing radio appearances, including  a stop in New York. I insist that you all join me at whatever venue he books - doctor's orders, as this is a prescription for pure pleasure. 

You can start dosing yourself immediately by putting the new album in high rotation. That Place... starts, appropriately enough, with the drums, a tidy little rhythm that leads to an an ultra-cool jam, with Fender Rhodes chords, gentle whoo-whoo backing vocals, and even some tasty Walter Becker guitar licks. I'll Do That is a smooth as silk opener and the perfect way to ease into the world of Gecko. Like all of his albums, the sound is warm and organic but with a crystal-clear studio sheen that puts all sounds in a three-dimensional aural space. Bee Eater is hypnotic and will have you nodding your head and chanting "Take me to Africa...then back home." So it's classic Gecko from the jump, but also feels slightly more expansive. Bee Eater has two sax solos and more complex horn figures - jazz is definitely higher priority here. 

Corazon de Jesus is sunshine folk-pop with a Latin tinge. This is the side of Gecko that is seeking answers and solace, and he finds it in a gentle dialog with his backup singers. The introspection doesn't last long, though. Chicken Wire is a party, with whip-sharp drums, wah wah guitar and a slinky disco bass line. You will dance wherever you are. Just as it comes to a head it slams into a stutter-step coda that should make for some interesting moves on the floor. Medium Rare puts me back in Central Park, all percussion and incantory vocals, but it's just a fragment leading to Did You Ever Wonder Why?, another jazzy treat that's lighter than air, even if he is singing about Machiavelli and the pot calling the kettle black.

Here Comes Friday is a sweetly melancholy paean to the end of the week, lushly outfitted with strings and flute, and I think I'll be singing it every Thursday for the foreseeable future. Oye Muchacha is a funky little sketch, like something the JB's would warm up with - pass the Spanish peas. Extremely Good brings some reggae flavors and Little Sonny is stripped down to two chords and minimal percussion. Juanita has even more space, with a little built-in hesitation in the beat, Benny And The Jets style. I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think Juanita done Gecko wrong and all I can say is How could you?!

Gecko doesn't dwell, however - he dances away the pain. Rockin' Diddley is almost comically high-spirited, but stays to the right side of silly. The piano sparkles like a Fania record, someone blows on a flute, and the trombone tells its own little story. 

Gecko has some new tricks up his sleeve, too. This Is The One comes from a place of deep calm, with hints of Lou Reed, and features an epic shimmer - and tympani. Those big drums lead directly into the last song, The Strange Adventures Of Two Runaway Elephants In Kentish Town. The wayward pachyderms are represented by saxophones playing intertwining solos over piano and tympani while sleigh bells and a shaker keep time. Coltrane seems to be observing approvingly from a distance but you will be right there, breathing along with Gecko. 

The Place By The Thing With The Cool Name takes a firm place in Gecko's pantheon of life-giving musical pharmacology. It feels a bit more substantial than Gone Down South so it could be a longer acting dose. You may become addicted, but you can't OD and there are no side effects. So take your medicine and I'll see you at the show.