Lucid Culture reviews "13 Blackbirds"

17 Pygmies
"13 Blackbirds"
2007 Trakwerx

17 Pygmies is the name of the band. Former Savage Republic-an Jackson Del Rey and Louise Bialik’s long-running West Coast outfit started out as a skewed new wave/pop band but has gravitated toward art-rock since. This new cd has been a long time coming, and it’s been worth the wait. It’s a beautifully rustic, mostly acoustic record with vocals generally by Bialik, austere fingerpicked guitar, autumnal melodies and light percussion in places. Think of it as the thinking person’s alternative to Hem. It picks up steam as it goes along.



The understatedly memorable opening theme, Heavenly Intro is reprised at the end of the initial tracks as Heavenly Creatures. In between, we get the pretty title cut and the absolutely gorgeous Tree of Life (if this is about pot, it must be seriously hydroponic). After that, the stately waltz Get Out!, the haunting 6/8 ballad Water Carry Me with its pastoral blend of guitar, piano and violin and then truth in advertising with A Brief Interlude – more 6/8 time with beautiful fingerpicked classical guitar, sounding like a good baroque classical piece. The next song, 125 History has ghostly vocals set to stark strings; Lila Paosa, which follows, is another quiet pretty song with ringing overtones from the guitars and organ adding just a tinge of disquieting dissonance. Strings come in toward the end and build to a crescendo. Ubi Sunt (Latin for “where are then”) and Heavenly Creatures feature both piano, voice and strings. There are three bonus tracks on the first cd – quite possibly left over from a previous project – which make a good triptych in 6/8: an instrumental with piano and strings, an original song, and a cover of the McCartney chestnut from the White Album followed by a piano instrumental to close it.

This is a double cd: the second one is called 13 Lotus which (seems to be) 13 remixes of the song from 13 Blackbirds. It’s pretty much all hypnotic, sleepy, downtempo, mostly instrumental trip-hop variations except for a rather disturbing version with sirens phasing from speaker to speaker which will quickly have listeners rushing to the window and then wondering where all the emergency vehicles are. It’s all well worth owning and comes in a charmingly illustrated, Edward Gorey-esque double cardboard sleeve. CDs are available at better retailers and online.

The Big Takeover Reviews 13 Blackbirds + Battleship Potemkin

Del Rey & The Sun Kings
Battleship Potemkin (CD & DVD)

17 Pygmies
13 Blackbirds (Double CD)

The return of '80s L.A. underground fixture Jackson Del Rey (AKA Philip Drucker) has been welcome. Known for his membership in Savage Republic, Del Rey eventually split off to pursue 17 Pygmies, and is represented on LPs by both. Dropping out for 15 years, he resurfaced two years ago with the solo I Am the Light. And from these two releases, both out a while (apologies, I missed them before), and two more out now, he is even more prolific than he was.

Battleship is his most fascinating work ever. A new score for early USSR director Sergei Eisenstein's 1925 propagandist masterpiece of early cinema, it reinvigorates the instrumental music backing the historical tale of 1905 revolutionary mutiny against Tsar Nicholas II's naval officers, and the Odessa street massacre that followed. The music is repetitive, circular, and full of tones in sequential, near -Eastern drones, the bed for orchestral lines lined on top. (Great example: "All for One and One For All"). It's impossible not to visualize the movie's slaughter, new to cinema, when hearing the death knells and terrified synths of "Suddenly...The Czarist Soldiers" - even if you just listen to the CD. But watch the DVD instead, it's an incredible movie(!), and like Tom Verlaine's recent solo guitar soundtracks for pre-talkies, you get the full effect of the aural massage. Otherwise, even on CD, Del Rey's work is like a film in of itself, sparking wild imagination. Good pressed cardboard sleeves for both, too.

As for 17 Pygmies return after 17 years gone (fitting), this finds Del Rey picking up not where early, well-admired, more clashing works such as Jedda By The Sea left off, but more later works with lovely voiced Louise Bialik such as 1988's penultimate Welcome (only without that LP's breaks). The backgrounds are playful, just as full of an unnoticed lushness, and (again) repetitive backgrounds underneath Bialik's cooing. Few groups manage such immediate songs with such artistic backing tracks, yielding new possibilities and sounds every time you delve deeper into them. Only a faithful, hidden bonus cover by Paul McCartney's White Album Beatles acoustic track "Blackbird" is exactly what it seems on first blush. (The second disc is 13 remixes of one song, "Lotus" - highly creative, though way too exhausting. Another artful pressed sleeve too.)
As we went to press, Del Rey completed a new soundtrack, this time for F.W. Murnau's 1922 vampire horror classic Nofseratu, and a new LP under the modified name The 17th Pygmy. Wanna bet they are both inspired, too? (trakwerx.com)

BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN REVIEWED IN HARP MAGAZINE

Del Rey & the Sun Kings
Battleship Potemkin Trakwerx
Del Rey & the Sun Kings, Battleship Potemkin

Jackson Del Rey was a founding member of L.A. experimental rock combos such as Savage Republic and 17 Pygmies. If you’re familiar with these bands, you’ll understand this gives him a very good pedigree for undertaking his new project – creating a soundtrack for Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film about a shipboard food protest that results in carnage, and brings the seeds of revolution to the port city of Odessa. Instrumental, incorporating a variety of Del Rey’s expected pan-national musical influences, and relentlessly dark, this is wonderfully crafted chamber prog of the highest order. The disc is beautifully packaged, and a great addition to Del Rey’s canon. He was off the music scene for a decade and a half, and it’s nice to have him back.
By Byron Coley

First printed in November 2007
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Harp on

* Del Rey & the Sun Kings

Americana-UK reviews "Ballade Of Tristram's Last Harping"

Giants in their field?

I like it when everything about a CD is in perfect harmony - the band name, the title, the Aubrey Beardsley illustrations, the poem in a scroll, the sleeve-notes, the song titles (how about ‘Just Like Brian Jones’) and the music. Have you guessed it yet? We’re in psychedelic territory.

The songs don’t disappoint, they’re perhaps a little more reflective than you might think and the guitars little more Roger McGuinn – which is certainly not a bad thing. There’s a slow-burning quality to many of the songs: ‘Beautiful Lie’ and ‘Last Train’ take the time to explore themselves. The worse thing you can say about ‘Just like Brian Jones’ is that it sounds just like you’d expect it to, indeed it sounds a little like ‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’ twisted in a paisley cravat.

Gentler poppier songs fare well ‘It’s Only Love’ with its sitar sounding guitar gently scrapes away at the underbelly of the summer of love. Retro it may be, enjoyable it certainly is.


Date review added: Friday, December 21, 2007
Reviewer: David Cowling
Reviewers Rating: 6 out of 10
Related web link: A quest for the tribe

New review for Cult With No Name

Cult With No Name - Paper Wraps Rock (Trakwerx) Cult With No Name were formed in London by Erik Stein (lead vocals/piano) and Jon Boux (lead piano/vocals). Sounding strangely like those semi-classical 80s artbands like Japan, The Blue Nile or maybe even later era Talk Talk but without the guitars, the "post-punk electronic balladeers" have released this great late-night debut. From the gentle drone/avant-garde instrumental opener The Morning After The Night Before Last, we are lured into a world of piano balladeering with a twist. With More Of The Same the (electronic) drums set in, making a nice change. Stein's singing style is slightly affected, which is something you either love or hate. Most of the track hover around a slow, reflective pace, so slightly more upbeat tracks like Business Is Good or Product Of are a nice change. The keyboards in Operation Failed are a welcome addition to the sparse instrumentation on this album. In the end, Paper Wraps Rock is a good debut album though it would have benefited from a bit more variation in pace and instrumentation. Personally speaking, I like my albums what these days would probably be considered "short" - say 35 to 40 minutes max. With 55+ minutes, Paper Wraps Rock is in my opinion too long. Some trimming would have made the album more cohesive, but that is minor quibbling. A strong debut, with lots of possibilities for an even better follow up in the future. File under semi-classical lounge-pop with an avant-garde twist (FK)
www.trakwerx.com

Airplay for Trakwerx artists on KKFI.org

Retro Red-Eye Express Playlist Blog
Monday, December 10, 2007
Playlist Dec 8, 2007 (+update)

Due to icy weather conditions and a pending ice storm threat, R2E2 pre-empted The Justice Files and did a 5 hr show. However, look for Michael T. to return next Sunday morning at 1am!

Also, a relatively new feature of the KKFI.org website is that you can now view the prior week's playlists for all your favorite KKFI programs! Go to KKFI.org, click on On-Air Guide, and navigate to your favorite program's page by selecting the day and time it airs as listed in the guide. Here's mine: Retro Red-Eye Express. I'm not sure what day of the week these lists are posted.

Title / Artist / Album / Label

- Maslow's Dog / Cult With No Name / Paper Wraps Rock / Trakwerx

- She Gets High / The 17th Pygmy / Ballade of Tristram's Last Harping / Trakwerx

Mick Mercer Reviews "Ballade Of Tristram's Last Harping"

THE 17TH PYGMY
BALLADE OF TRISTRAM’S LAST HARPING
Trakwerx

By rights I should be considering forwarding my medical expenses to our pygmy chums as I had to have a whole emergency back-up team monitoring my health while this was on, the resuss squad jittery, almost nervous. I get physically sick when exposed to the Sounds Of The Sixties, which is why Punk made so much sense to me. Sergeant Pepper needs putting up against a wall and that era of milky pop and bearded men, it makes me shudder to this very day. Well, the emergency passed and I am of an essentially forgiving nature, so I will go easy on The 17th Pygmy, mad though they are, because this is a bizarrely beautiful record. I don’t approve of it, as I am sure the same ideas and melodies could have been crafted in another manner completely, but I do recognise its delicately gleaming quality.

Apparently the title comes from an actual poem, by one Gertrude Bartlett in 1916, and there’s Aubrey Beardsley illustrations involved to boot. I never liked the name Aubrey, it even sounds suspicious, like the name of a spy. (Tristram’s okay, conjuring up the image of someone feeble, but loyal.) There’s also, as you’ll see from my scan, a small scroll included but I haven’t opened that in case I can’t close it again. Anyone know what’s inside, is it some dastardly spy trick?

Anyway, they admit to being folk rock and psychedelic so I’m not blaming them although I did think today was Wednesday, in part because I thought yesterday was Tuesday, but that’s probably down to them as well. These people have no conception of time, it’s all the drugs, taken by the shovelful, don’t forget. And they’re old, being Jaxon Del Rey (Savage Republic), Meg Maryatt (Swivelneck) and all of Jeff Brenneman, Tony Davis and Drummer Dirk Doucette coming from something called White Glove Test. Without an ounce of shame they fully admit to elements of the following being heard on this record; Phil Spector, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the Kinks, The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Nick Cave(?), on what they claim is a musical pastiche. Pastiche my arse, he roared, not entirely sure what the term relates to. Let us explore.

‘New Generation’ gets us off to a sickeningly sweet start, dreamy and flowerchild-like, which should set alarm bells ringing; insidiously, obscenely catchy. ‘She Gets High’ is just as hideously effective, and in the same mould, like a Nesmith Monkees outtake, and apparently she, who I have always been led to believe is ‘the cat’s mother’, gets high in the velvet sky, whatever that is. ‘Last Train’ is less hidebound to Hell and has a leisurely acoustic majesty all of its own, instantly captivating stuff.

‘Beautiful Lie’ is a romantically curdled lament over doomed emotions, and while it trundles along there is something unnervingly hypnotic about it which probably means the drugs are in the ether by now. ‘Let It Shine’ twinkles easily with Meg calmly marshalling the soppy sentiments, ‘Just Like Brian Jones’ gets the old guru vibe going for its weird existence, and then ‘Dig It (Quentin’s Theme)’ simpers skilfully like a Madchester dance thing combined with groovetastic Kylie, but adhering to strict Sixties principles too, so it’s got a triple-puke thing going on, and yet it makes it all work, which is insane! Where’s my lawyer?

‘It’s Only Love’ is a plainer thing but no less charming with cooler male vocals, and then Meg returns to set ‘Paint Me’ oozing along with both a dour side and an uplifting sense of optimism, which is not you could really say about the closing lilt of ‘Like This Train’ which has our protagonist threatening to come after someone, even though it seems a reluctant hunt of convenience. He doesn’t sound threatening exactly, more like an irritation, although everyone in America has guns - I read that somewhere – so you never know, but this achieves a weird, slowly deflating end to a very strange and horribly successful record. Seriously, it is utterly brilliant despite the form it frequently takes, so I shall huff petulantly and hate them for it.

ITALY'S BLOW UP MAGAZINE INTERVIEWS JAXON DEL REY

DECEMBER 2007 ISSUE
BLOW UP MAGAZINE interviews Jaxon Del Rey and plays "She Gets High" on PODCAST

See Ghost Rock #5 di Stefano I Bianchi.
http://www.blowupmagazine.com/radiozine.php


http://www.blowupmagazine.com/

The 17th Pygmy & The Spirit Girls Downtown Holiday Spectacular

WHAT: The 17th Pygmy Record Release Party & Holiday Spectacular with the Spirit Girls
WHERE: Dangerous Curve, 1020 E. Fourth Place, LA, CA 90013, 213-617-8483
WHEN: Saturday December 15, 2007, 7:00 p.m.
COST: $10.00 Suggested Donation

LOS ANGELES- After a possibly symbolic 17 year hiatus, influential L.A. postpunk band 17 Pygmies has regrouped under the name of The 17th Pygmy. Now with "Ballade of Tristram's Last Harping" (Trakwerx) they release their second CD of 2007, a follow up to the well-reviewed "13 Blackbirds." Still led by guitarist/provocateur Jaxon Del Rey (late of Savage Republic), the new name reflects the growing influence of late 1960s psychedelia and early 1970s classic rock.

Of their live show, Lucid Culture raves "If it's possible for a sometimes quirky, often transcendentally beautiful art-rock band toslay, [the 17th Pygmy] slayed, bringing to mind other great, artsy jangle bands like the Church, the Byrds or Fairport Convention. Mixing major and minor chords, verses that built slowly to towering refrains and then subsided again, the band held the audience spellbound. If the live show is any indication, the new album must be amazing. This is a
band you should get to know."

Appearing with The 17th Pygmy at their record release and holiday spectacular is The Spirit Girls, multimedia artist Marnie Weber's experimental pop combo whose Noh-style masks and ghost girl gowns lend an eerie visual impact to their avant-prog compositions. Billed as "something of a cross between Sonic Youth, King Crimson and 17th Century French Romantic paintings," the Spirit Girls present songs from their recent Trakwerx release "Forever Free." Reviewing the album, Jack Rabid of The Big Takeover says "Not quite goth, this still conjures the post-Bowie/Eno Berlin collaboration '80s, when dark-chilly post-punk employed murky, doomy edges against textural beauty, like The Cure, Red Temple Spirits, Strange Times Chameleons,
and Shiva Burlesque. This is a tribal ritual and child nightmare about scary hobo clowns, haunted horses and worried bears; music that makesyou feel strange."

For more on Trakwerx and the 17th Pygmy, visit
http://www.trakwerx.blogspot.com
http://www.trakwerx.com/label.htm
http://www.myspace.com/17pygmies

For more on Dangerous Curve gallery, visit http://www.dangerouscurve.org

Jaxon Del Rey (AKA The 17th Pygmy) is available for interviews, and review copies of the 17th Pygmy's "Ballade of Tristram's Last Harping" and the Spirit Girls' "Forever Free" are available upon request.
Contact Meg Maryatt at Trakwerx, info@trakwerx.com

WPRB plays "Beautiful Lie" Nov 7, 2007

Jon Solomon on WPRB : 11/7/07 : 19:00 - 22:00 pm ET :

The Rub - The Death Of Pop - Bikini Gospel

Smart Remarks - Falling Apart - Teenline 102 - C
Clint & Amy - Doubles - S/T - Lovely.
Normal Love - The Signal’s Coming From Pittsburgh (Part One) - 2007 - N
Health - Heaven Stems - mp3 - Pink Skull remix.
Iron & Wine - House By The Sea - The Shepherd’s Dog - N
5 Miles Out - Super Sweet Girl Of Mine - Absolute Funk - C - 1972.
Psychedelic Horseshit - Nothing Is Revealed - Magic Flowers Droned - N

The Lame Drivers - Change Your Mind - mp3
Tom Brosseau - Instructions To Meet The Devil - Cavalier - N
Villa Allegre - Theme - Songs From TV’s VIlla Allegre 1
The Swimmers - We Love To Build - Fighting Trees
Limp Wrist - I Love Hardcore Boys, I Love Boys Hardcore - Thee Official Limp Wrist Discography
The Wishniaks - Wishful Thinking - Teenline 105 - C
Tre Orsi - The Illustrator - 45 - N

Red Eyed Legends - Live on WPRB - 28:41 - 4.3.05

Violent Minds - Bloodsucker - S/T - N
Marlena Shaw - Woman Of The Ghetto - Psychedelic Jazz & Funky Grooves - C
Rob Sonic - Brand New Vandals - Sabotage Gigante - N
Os Mutantes - Tempo No Tempo - S/T
Om - Bhima’s Theme - Pilgrimage - N
Tracy Jordan - Werewolf Bar Mitzvah - mp3
Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Precious Rose - S/T - N

Teengenerate - Pushin’ Me Around - The Early Ones - C
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings - Nobody’s Baby - 100 Days 100 Nights - N
Ted Pauly - Your Mix Tape Broke - mp3
The Underpainting - What Am I Going To Do Now? - S/T - N
The 17th Pygmy - Beautiful Lie - Ballade Of Tristram’s Last Harping
??? - Rocky Theme - Flaming Hotz 001
Circles - Away With The Tide - Where The River Floods - N

Jim Robinson - Atlanta Blues - Economy Hall Breakdown - N
Sian Alice Group - Contours (Second Mix) - mp3
The Kyle Sowashes - The College Try - What’s Important & What’s Not
Shark Quest - All Ball - Man On Stilts