MUSIC 2023: TOP 7 live albums

Ok, are any introdcuctory words necessary? My favorite live albums of the year. Only counting actual physical releases in my collection though. Otherwise maybe Emma Ruth Rundle or Lingua Ignota, would have made it on here too. But the tail end of these lists are always a product of hard decisions anyway.

TOP 7 LIVE ALBUMS 2023:

1. JOHN COLTRANE with ERIC DOLPHY - Evenings At The Village Gate
   
   
   
   Yes, the undisputed winner of this ranking is a previously unreleased recording from August 1961, which documents parts of two nights of saxophone legend John Coltrane's residency at the Village Gate club in New York. Coltrane is still playing some of his greatest commercial hits like "My Favorite Things", "Impressions" and "Africa", but in his mind he's already several artistic steps further and it shows in the wildly sprawling interpretations, which last from ten to twenty-two minutes. He respectfully plays eye to eye with his congenius guest Eric Dolphy (flute, clarinet, sxaophone) and in some instances his quartet, which already consisted of McCoy Tyner on piano and Elvin Jones on drums is sporting two basses, when regular player Reggie Workman and his substitute Art Davis perform together. The sound of this wonderful Jazz revelation can be described as very good bootleg quality. Yes, the drums are quite loud here and there, but it really feels as if you were right there and then. And come on - this recording only exists in the first place, because the sound engineer of the venue wanted to test one new microphone - yes, only one microphone! Especially considering that fact this gift from one of the greatest in music history is nothing but brilliant.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. DOOL - Visions of Summerland (Live at Arminius Church Rotterdam)
   
   
   
   I love Dool's magnetic Dark Rock on their two albums and  I love it even significantly more on stage. It's such a shame how the plague halted the Dutch band's momentum, when they should have stirred huge waves with "Summerland". "Visions of Summerland" not only marks the end of their postponed touring circle for the 2020 album, but also the departure of their drummer. And you can really feel that this intimate show inside a church is fueled by both melancholy but also the will to one last time give it all together. The result is a perfect performance with a truly special, feverishly burning energy.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. 李劍鴻 LI JIANHONG & 文智湧 WEN ZHIYONG & 鄧博宇 DENG BOYU - 歲​寒​三​友 Les Trois Amis de l'Hiver
   
   
   
   It comes on two CDs, yet still one track had to be edited down to thirty-three minutes to fit this giant transcendent performance into this beautiful release by WV Sorcerer Productions.
   "The Three Friends of Winter" sees three creative virtuosos on guitar, drums and trumpet/boneflute/synths play an improvised set far beyond common imagination. With an incredible communication and astonishingly symphonic approach  the Chinese-Mongolian trio flows through movements of Ambient, traditional ethnic moods, Free Jazz, Noise and so much more... An amazing, immersive and genre-defying experience!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. PHAROAH SANDERS QUARTET - Live at Fabrik Hamburg 1980
   
   
   
   It would be sacrilege not to feature another true Jazz giant, who had famously played with Sun Ra, John and Alice Coltrane in this list. This recording from 1980, which is meant to be the start of a series of Jazz recordings from the Fabrik venue, was already planned before Pharoah Sanders' passing and has now become a beautiful obituary. In five long pieces his quartet finds the perfect balance between wild Spiritual Jazz storms and inspiration in standards. Hearing this band just makes me want to travel back in time and drive to Hamburg. Absolute mastery!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. TEMPLE FANG - Live At Freak Valley / Live At Slachthuis
   
   
   
   Well, at this point what would a list like this even be without Temple Fang? Apart from one EP the Psychedelic Hard Rock band from the Netherlands has excusively released live albums so far. Does that mean they could be allergic against studios? Hardly, as their new magnum opus, the forty-five minute epic "Grace" actually exists as a studio recording. The band however liked it better on stage and released two seperate live albums consisting only of this one song instead. The decision to even play it at Freak Valley Festival being made only minutes before the show only adds to the myth-making potential of this. Both the big open air appearance as well as the sweaty club performance are equally awesome in their own way.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. ATONIA - Live at Roadburn
   
   
   
   Talking about things which just have to be on this list: What about at least one album recorded at Roadburn Festival? Here it is! Of course it's always a bonus if you have watched that performance from up close like this amazing collaboration of Five The Hierophant, Wyatt E. and Tomer Damsky. Post Doom Metal, Trip Hop, Near Eastern Folk, Jazz, Electronica and vocals crazily switching between angelic highs, horrifying screeches and fiery spat Latin and Hebrew scripture recitations. A great document of a unique, fascinating, powerful, awesome show.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. CAUSA SUI - Loppen 2021
   
   
   
   The Danish El Paraiso Records family released a pretty sweet triple star of live albums this year, including those of Edena Gardens and the London Odense Ensemble. They all surely are worthy of a place in the spotlight, but since there's only one slice of cake left to give away, that one has to go the label's mothership group Causa Sui who played in Copenhagen's freetown Christiana right after the lifting of covid bans in 2021. On this record their dynamic Psychedelic Stoner Rock with sprinkles of Latin music and - this time not as much as on "Live in Copenhagen" - Jazz exudes an especially hungry urgency and the warm alleviated joy of finally feeling and sharing the magic of live music again.
   
   
   elparaisorecords · Causa Sui "El Fuego (Live At Loppen 2021)"
   
   
   
   
   
   

favorite MUSIC 2023 - all my lists:

TOP 23 albums   |   TOP 7 live albums   |   TOP 5 reissues
TOP 7 non-album releases   |   TOP 23 live shows

WV Sorcery addiction feat. ALESSANDRO PARISI, 水門汀 CEMENTIN, COLD DEW, 李劍鴻 LI JIANHONG & 文智湧 WEN ZHIYONG & 鄧博宇 DENG BOYU and ZAGUŠLJIVI DIM

No, I'm not buying every release by the French-Chinese label WV Sorcerer Productions. But since all of them are interesting at least, I'm surely getting tempted a lot.

Additionally Ruò Tán doesn't only publish his own releases, but also distributes some great Asian treasures to the rest of the world. Among those is a double CD from Psych Delta Productions, which starts this little roundelay of reviews:

水門汀 CEMENTIN - 稍​縱​即​逝 糟​選​集 Worst of Cementin (CD) (2021)

Why waste time to find my own words, when I can just cite the Sorcerer's introduction to the band: Cementin was formed in July 2015 in Shanghai, combining Krautrock, Psychedelic Rock, ethnic music, and experimental music. Indulging in aimless improvisation is a katharsis and also the starting point of their creativity, and they keep exploring the fusion of traditional Chinese music and psychedelic sound.

As the title suggests this is a compilation, namely a collection of live recordings from 2016 to 2019, which means over two hours of sprawling jams with an ever-changing line-up, which includes guitars, sitar, keyboards, bass, drums and further percussions, but also occasional vocals and the bouzouki on one track. So yes, this is a lot of a lot - and it's all fantastic. The blend of Chinese sounds and melodies with Psychedelic Rock is a match I don't see myself getting tired of anytime soon, and these guys get the most out of it. Who even needs to record a studio album, when you can fill two CDs to the brim with so much and diverse awesome unfiltered live magic?

The double disc comes with a poster and postcard, which look nice, but also raise the question: Where to put all this stuff? Vinyl releases make this a little bit easier: If you don't hang it up your wall (which I would if I had a giant hallway with free space left), you just leave the extras in the record sleeve. But since CDs or cassettes are too compact for that solution, you always have to find another place to store these extras. At least the OBI strip fits inside the CD booklet. 

COLD DEW - Yuyu 欲欲 (Coral Pink vinyl LP) (2023)

[MY REVIEW ON VEIL OF SOUND.COM ]

Now let's get to the bunch of actual WV Sorcerer albums! Jumping from the continental mainland to Taiwan we encounter Cold Dew, whose album "Yuyu 欲欲" is based on the contemplation about the Buddhist concept of the same name, which describes a never-ending desire, growing so strong that it prevents us from actually being free.

Soaked in big watery reverb it opens with the almost too sugary and schmaltzy ballad "雲 Cloud", but then already in its solo part, yet especially during the course of the following kaleidoscopic long tracks "山​地​情​歌 San​-​Di Love Song", "溫泉 Hot Spring" and the live recording "六神無主 In a Daze" develops into a wild boundless ride through Psychedelic, Eastern and Western music, pulsating with energy and creativity. This album is the ideal medicine if you are looking for substitutes to fill the void which the departure of Kikagaku Moyo left and you don't want to rely on Minami Deutsch alone for that matter.
So far "Yuyu 欲欲" is the 2023 release which I have listened to on repeat the most. Which is quite unexpected for a work which on multiple occasions features vocal lines which in Germany would be filed under the dreaded category of "Schlager". But then they just work this in so fluently and there are also those big sincere emotions and raw chaotic Acid Mothers Temple excesses...

As you would expect the packaging of the beautiful record meets the label's high standards. It features liner notes, credits and a lyric sheet, all with English translations. As an original twist this is a gatefold where you put in the medium from the inside. You often see this with CDs, but in 12" format not so often.
(As always OBI strips are cool, but I just still wish they were glued to a complete ring like those from Guruguru Brain, so you could simply keep it on and didn't have to bugger about with it every time you you handle the record.)

ZAGUŠLJIVI DIM - Dolina Kralja Viktora (Blue Marble vinyl LP) (2022)

The focus on Far Eastern artists shouldn't cloud the fact that WV Sorcerer obviously understands music as a global language. So here are Zagušljivi Dim ("suffocating smoke") from Croatia!

Drifting between dream and reality, tangible grooves and surrealsistic ambience, the trio takes us through one beautifully crafted piece in two parts and multiple subsections. Sometimes light and hallucinatory, sometimes gripping and heavy (yet not going into Noise or Metal territory), it would already be more than enough, if guitar, bass and drums carried this wonderful album alone. Yet when they are aided by strings or Italian horror style synths, that's when "Dolina Kralja Viktora" has its most glorious and memorable moments. All in all a very substantial, meaningful Psych release with a noteworthy distinct atmosphere. Anyone with interests in that direction should check this one out!

ALESSANDRO PARISI - La Porta Ermetica (Sanguine Marble vinyl LP) (2013/2023)

Speaking of Italian horror: Let's switch the genre from all this psychedelica to... yes, an indeed Italian Electronic artists, who lets his synths creep and wail in the tradition of Goblin.
"La Porta Ermetica" celebrates its tenth anniversary this year, and this reissue presents the album in a remastered, rearranged and extended form. I don't know the original release, so there's no ground for comparison, but what I'm hearing from Alessandro Parisi here and now has me completely sold.

The selection of beats and sounds seems more retro than say Zombi or Carpenter Brut, so this music definitely breathes a lot of nostalgic vibes. But above all the whole production is just super tasteful and finds the perfect balance between danceability  and being scary. The "Profondo Ross" style artwork and vinyl colour certainly is a great match.
 
What? You have no idea what Italo Horror Electronic even is? Good, then start here, because this is such an exemplary album of its genre. It is as much that as Judas Priest's "Painkiller" is Metaaaaaaaaal!!! *screamsinhighpitchedHalfordvoice*

李劍鴻 LI JIANHONG & 文智湧 WEN ZHIYONG & 鄧博宇 DENG BOYU
- 歲​寒​三​友 Les Trois Amis de l'Hiver (2CD) (2023)

And so it ends as it began, with a double CD live album. This however is not a compilation, but one single full giant performance of experimental Noise guitar master Li Jianhong, drummer Deng Boyu and Wen Zhiyong on trumpet, bone flute and synths, recorded in Beijing in November 2021. This monumental improvisation session was simply too big for a reasonable vinyl release, the sixth track "銀島 The Silver Island" alone being an over thirty-two minutes long behemoth.

One thing is for sure: This album offers more than enough magic to nourish any fan of experimental guitar Noise and Drone (Li's sounds just as rich and satisfying as on "山霧 Mountain Fog"), Free Jazz drumming, smooth transcendent horns and Ambient passages with traditional Chinese atmosphere. And if you don't think that this descrption fits you, it still might. You just don't know it yet!
The communication and interplay, the organic melting of textures, unburdened by the pressure of catering to a specific genre... the whole symphonic approach of these three virtuosos is that sensational. 

"The Three Friends Of Winter" (referring to the plant species of pine, bamboo and plum, who all remain strong during the winter months) is a suite one could write whole chapters about. But that rabbit hole is too cosmically endless to even enter for me. This post already is long enough as it is.
And this recording defies an adequate account anyway. I'm asking myself: Hey, which live album is actually definitely not just on a par, but better than this one? And I know that there are probably plenty, but while I'm listening to this masterpiece I'm having an extremely hard time pinning only one of those down. It's such a breathtakingly powerful piece of art.

Even among the high-quality peers of this WV Sorcerer / Psych Delta haul this double album stands out as a class of its own.

The CDs come in a digipak, together with four fine matt postcards. Beautiful - but as I elaborated on earlier above: Where do I put all this stuff?