Music I'm Listening To - 5th March 2013

1. "The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead" XTC
From the last XTC album ("Nonsuch") featuring full participation from Dave Gregory, Andy Partridge's searing evisceration of Roman Catholic and church duplicity and persecution of a real Good Guy. Excellent John Bonham impersonation by Dave Mattacks on kit drums.
A useful antidote to the current crap being reported about the Papal Conclave, yet more sex scandals etc. etc.

2. "Atavachron" Allan Holdsworth
One of the first LPs where Holdsworth used the SynthAxe extensively, "Atavachron" contains some great tunes, and the usual amazing guitar layering and solo playing.

3. "Krin" Brad Dutz
A fascinating solo CD by one of the truly quirkily talented modern percussionists. I first heard Dutz when he played with Tribal Tech in the late 80's and early 90's, where his ability to play tuned and untuned percussion gave a deeper richness to that band's considerable command of melody and improvisation. Many of his compositions, like "Snowy Egret" from this CD, feature long elaborate melodies that have very little in the way of repetition. "Snowy Egret" resembles "Robot Immigrants" from Tribal Tech's CD "Nomad", it has a similarly long and winding melody line. Dutz has made dozens of CDs over the years, solo and with an elcectic set of collaborators, all of them inhabiting the difficult to classify hinterland between jazz, avant-garde, and sound effects. This is in addition to what I suspect is his day job, playing percussion music for films and documentaries.