Welcome to The Long Player
Every day I listen to an album in full and write about it. Born out of a desire to reconnect with my passion for LPs, my stories are a mix of the informative and personal.
Here’s a funky introduction….
Hello! My name is Aly Gillani (aka DJ Gilla) and I’m a music fan. This has manifested itself in many ways over the years. I’m the founder and A&R of First Word Records, a London-based record label focussed on music with soul. We’ve released music from acts including Children Of Zeus, Kaidi Tatham, Don Leisure and Allysha Joy and we were named Worldwide Awards Label of the Year by Gilles Peterson in 2018. I was a regular on the recently mothballed Worldwide FM, and I currently host a WWFM segment on Japan’s J-Wave Radio for the daily Jam The Planet show. I also work for renowned music platform Bandcamp.
Throughout 2021 I listened to an album every day and wrote some thoughts about the LP on Instagram. It reminded me how important albums were for me growing up; learning the transitions from track-to-track and side-to-side to the millisecond. Poring over sleevenotes, re-reading reviews, scouring bargain bins in provincial record shops; soaking up as much information as I could in search of that magic surge of serotonin that can only come from hearing a great piece of music.
At the end of 2022 I collated some of my favourite posts into a zine and I’m now back posting every day over on my Instagram page. Every week I’ll collate these posts into a newsletter that will be delivered to you on Sunday morning.
I hope you find some music that you love, and that you get in touch if there’s anything you think I’d enjoy based on what you read. Thanks for listening….
You Can Get It If You Really Want…
Most of you getting this email have subscribed to receive updates from me via my Bandcamp page. If you don’t want these weekly missives, please scroll right to the bottom of the page and hit that unsubscribe button. There’s enough email in the world without me adding to your woes. However, if it does seem interesting please take a read and stick with me. The aim here is to share my love of music - hopefully I can switch you on to some LPs that you didn’t know about. I love doing that. That’s all the pre-amble, let’s get into it….
January 1st • Ramsey Lewis - Mother Nature’s Son
Don't call it a comeback....
Happy New Year everyone, I'm back by limited demand to write about records again. Not quite sure how it'll work out, but I think that this time around my purpose is geared more towards writing as opposed to listening. Possibly this will make things different, possibly not. We'll see!
Anyway, to kick things off I thought I should bring things full circle. When I wound up my initial run of listening in 2021 I closed with The Beatles White Album. To kick off 2023 I was drawn to this Ramsey Lewis LP, featuring cover versions of 10 tracks from The Fab Four's 1968 classic.
I only discovered this record myself back in September following Lewis' death. It's one of those records that I couldn't believe I'd not heard before as it's totally in my wheelhouse. Paring some of the greatest songs from two of pop's greatest writers with Lewis' deft piano skills and Charles Stepney's lush orchestration is a surefire hit. Highlights include the spritely rework of Rocky Racoon and the firing version of Back In The USSR (that's Maurice White from Earth Wind And Fire providing that killer backbeat by the way). Best of all is Dear Prudence, which puts me in mind of the classic Les Fleurs, which I learned today was first released on Lewis' 'Maiden Voyage' LP that same year, before Minnie Ripperton's version was released a couple of years later.
The album is punctuated with Moog interludes that are credited to Stepney, and his importance to the record being made at all can't be understated. As Lewis noted himself: "I wasn't a Beatles fan. I'd recorded A Hard Day's Night, Day Tripper and And I Love Her before, but I didn't really get them. But my producer Charles Stepney told me to think about doing a Beatles covers album. I didn't think that they had enough songs to do an entire album but he gave me a copy of the White Album and told me to listen. I did, but couldn't see how I could do anything with it. He was like 'You didn't really listen.' So he arranged a few songs for me and then it was, I get it now."
I'm glad that Mr Stepney persevered.
January 2nd • Maldib - High Jazz
This landed in the post over the holidays and found its way to my turntable earlier today. After listening I filed it away in my slightly haphazardly arranged shelves only to discover that I already have a copy. In my defence they are very different covers, and the sheer volume of Madlib material can make it hard to keep on top of his output.
This record lands in the middle of his Medicine Show series, which I realised today equated to 13 albums released in just over two years. This doesn't include three other LPs that he released with Stones Throw at the start of this period.
By modern standards this is almost comically prolific but if you compare it to jazz musicians of the 50s and 60s (as I suspect Madlib might) he isn't quite the outlier he seems. I think the comparison to jazz musicians is a valid one, both for his career as a whole and this particular release. Madlib is constantly creating, never dwelling on a particular idea for too long, and has a yearning for collaboration that Herbie and Miles would be proud of.
High Jazz is the culmination of music from the various fictitious bands that he'd released music on Stones Throw in the preceding decade, adding in real-life accomplices in the shape of Karriem Riggins and James Poyser (for some reason credited as Poysner on the sleeve).
Sonically it's wild ride through all corners of his jazz lexicon; loose-limbed wig outs sitting alongside percussive groovers and unravelling cover versions. The extra disc on the original LP veers deep into his more experimental side but is a worthwhile addendum to the main piece nonetheless.
It's another reminder of the singular genius of Otis Jackson Jr; in a world full of clones and sound-a-likes, there really is only one Madlib, whichever alias he happens to be using.
January 3rd • Felt - The Seventeenth Century
I don't know about you but I find the sheer amount of new music being released somewhat overwhelming. It's the same with old-but-new-to-me music; there are countless classic artists who I know very little of, some of whom I've no doubt could end up being amongst my favourites if only I got around to listening to them.
Sometimes I find artists nudging themselves into my periphery a few times which puts them firmly at the top of the 'to listen' pile. One such act is Felt.
I was dimly aware of them from my NME-reading years, although they were no longer a going concern by the time my tastes started developing beyond the top 40. I did pick up a couple of singles by Denim - a glam-rock influenced band fronted by Felt leader Lawrence, but hadn't really looked much further into his output.
Lawrence is a peculiarly quixotic personality. Now aged 61 he still dreams of pop stardom despite overwhelming evidence that this is unlikely. A recent biopic 'Lawrence Of Belgravia' prompted a round of press appearances six or so months back, and I checked the debut Felt album while on holiday in the summer. Despite enjoying it, it quickly faded from my mind (as is the way when I listen to music from my phone) until news broke just before Christmas of the untimely death of keys player Martin Duffy.
Duffy was a name I'd seen on countless record sleeves over the years, performing with Primal Scream and The Charlatans amongst others; forging a career defined by a deep respect from his fellow musicians. Never a star but always working, he typified the quietly heroic artist that I find so interesting.
Figures such as Duffy are never as celebrated as the frontmen and women that emblazoned the covers of music magazines when I was growing up. But those stars would be nothing without the modest geniuses in the background, making space for their talent to shine.
This record itself is a short set of instrumentals; jangly guitar and organ crafting delicate slices of hopeful melancholia. Like Duffy it's understated but no less captivating for it, gently imprinting it's easy chord changes and soft melodies into my mind. A fitting way to remember a real musician.
January 4th • DOMi and JD BECK - Not Tight
At the end of last October an unfortunate series of water-based events led to my hifi system being out of commission for 6 weeks or so. Mercifully all but two of my albums survived the leak in the record room but I really missed not being able to listen to music in the way I most like to. Consequently I'm now working my way through a backlog of records that landed towards the end of 2022, including this, the debut record from DOMi & JD BECK.
Like many others the first things I noticed about the duo when they started getting a bit of traction was their age, their frenetic playing style & their decidedly un-jazzy look. Their style (both musical and image) is important here; every review posits them as 'jazz for the hyperpop generation'(and variations thereof).
I'm interested to see if this really comes off. Musically there's not much to appeal to a wider audience, despite the Anderson Paak feature and patronage. (Side note here, I really enjoyed Busta Rhymes' verse on PiLOT which features neither shouty Busta nor rapping-fast Busta; a rare and welcome surprise.)
Sonically the album puts me in mind of Cosmogramma-era FlyLo, skittering drums & busy keys creating a cascade of modern jazz-fusion. It's a lot of fun, although despite its relatively short length it could probably lose a couple of tracks in my view. Nevertheless it zips along nicely with barely a moment's rest.
Speed is a recurring theme here. In interviews they've spoken about getting bored with the slow pace of RNB jam sessions that they went to as teens. Their reaction was to play fast, which is manifest across the 15 tracks in this set. For me there was real magic when they did drop the tempo, particularly in the Dilla-esque outro to the title track.
Whether it will truly connect with a younger generation beyond the viral videos is up for argument. I wonder if it's more likely that they become an act that older people (like me) celebrate, in part to show how down with the kids they are. Maybe I'm being slightly cynical here - time will tell! They're an interesting act for sure; I've no idea what they'll do next, but there's no doubt it'll be a wild ride.
January 5th • Dennis Bovell - Brain Damage
An odd thing I realised today is that all four records in this year's posts are instrumental, which is an unintended quirk. Today's choice changes that albeit in the shape of an artist who is more noted for their instrumental and production work than their vocals.
Dennis Bovell has become a name I look for in the credits of LP sleeves, hoovering up pretty much everything I find with his name attached to it. From Matumbi to Janet Kay to The Slits and The Pop Group, the South London based artist rarely makes a mis-step and I've enjoyed getting to know the weirder corners of his output.
As far as I can work out, this 1981 record is the first released under his own name, after numerous dub projects as Blackbeard and his prolific production work for other artists. Looking back at my previous posts I have written about the record he made with Marie Pierre and his soundtrack for Babylon, both of which came in the period directly before the release of Brain Damage.
It's a wildly varied record, taking in dub, lovers rock, ska, soul and rock'n'roll. Bovell explains: 'It was because we used to get all sorts of people at our shows, that I knew there was scope to try things out. We'd get punks or students, so I did a rock'n'roll version of 'After Tonight', then there was the Nigerian crowd, who went for the Afro soul beat of tunes like 'Aqua Dub', or there were a lot of calypso fans so I put 'Bertie' on there for them'.
I find it really interesting that several years into his career he was willing to consider his audience in this way. It seems that this came not from a desire to please as such, but more to push reggae in to new territory, messing with the form and style to, in his words 'fry a few crania'.
It certainly does that and whilst I am probably drawn most to the dub cuts, it hangs together surprisingly well. With collaborators including Drummie Zeb, Lora Logic and Rico Rodriguez it captures a moment in British culture that put me in mind of the recently departed Terry Hall. Artists like Hall and Bovell were at the vanguard of multicultural expression, paving the way for countless others; modern folk heroes that we owe a great deal.
January 6th • Rasa - Everything You See Is Me
A few records arrived this morning and I fully intended to make one of them the subject of today's post. I started listening to 3 different albums but couldn't get into any of them. My daughter was up half the night with a fever so consequently today I'm a little bleary-eyed and heavy-headed.
It got me thinking about the kind of mood I need to be in for different LPs. When I'm tired anything too frenetic is out, and equally things I'm not familiar with I find hard to stick with. I started to compile a mental list of records I can listen to no matter what mood I'm in. This contained a lot of obvious choices; The Beatles' Revolver, Curtis' Roots and D'Angelo's Voodoo being the first few that came to mind.
As I cast around for something I've not covered already in these posts that still retained that familiarity I settled on this 1978 LP from Rasa. Like many discoveries of recent years I found this on social media - a friend (I can't remember who) had posted one of the tracks on here and it piqued my interest. I copped the record last summer and it was an instant favourite. It also has an interesting story behind it.
One sunny afternoon, brothers Chris and London McDaniels (aged 16 and 17 at the time) were sent to a Hare Krishna event in California by their mother. It's not exactly clear what happened next but the musical siblings soon found themselves making a pop-funk record extolling the virtues of Krishna.
Similar stories have no doubt produced some questionable output over the years, but the McDaniels brothers had the advantage of some serious musical genes; their Dad was Eugene McDaniels of 'Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse' fame. The result is a sweet-natured almost naive slice of Californian soul pop. It's not the slickest record around but it has a warm charm to it that I can't help but love.
The title track and the contemplative 'Questions In My Mind' are great, but it's the breezy soul of 'When Will The Day Come' that does it for me. Four minutes of joyous positivity that demands you put the needle back to the start as soon as it fades. A song guaranteed to lift my mood, no matter how tired I am.
January 7th • Barrington Levy - Here I Come
An odd thought crossed my mind while listening to this 1985 LP from Barrington Levy. I wonder how he came to settle on his 'Woah-oh-oh' vocal signature? Did he try out a few other flourishes first that didn't cut the mustard? Or was it just a placeholder that gradually become the main event? It occurs to me how important these idiosyncratic ad-libs are in music, particularly in the competitive worlds of dancehall and rap music.
It becomes a way to stand-out, a vocal tic that serves as a reminder of who you're listening to. Think of D Double E's 'Oh My Gosh' or 'Oooh Oooh', the latter so powerful it once caused a wheel-up before he'd even rapped a bar.
Back to Barrington, this LP has two of my favourite cuts of his. Firstly the title track, which I discovered today reached the dizzying heights of no 41 in the UK charts. It isn't the version I love most, which has a slightly different intro and hits a little harder, but it's an undeniable track either way.
Secondly the brooding Vibes Is Right, which allows Levy's voice to take centre stage. It's only just occurred to me how daring it was to make a track for an artist like him with no drums; relying on sax, piano and guitar only, allowing his voice to soar to new heights. It's a standout moment on the record, and I'm not sure if he ever did anything like this in the rest of his career. If he did I'd be keen to hear it, so let me know in the comments.
Loved reading ur words on these LPs by a nice variety of names. The DOMi & JD BECK album was a definite highlight of 2022, High Jazz was one of the standouts of Madlib’s medicine show series and I just picked a copy up myself, and I’m now looking forward to revisiting the three albums from Ramsey Lewis, Dennis Bovell and Barrington Levy after this post. The only one I’m not familiar with is the Rasa album, until now. Happy new year, AG 🎊