^Nice songs
I'm familiar with Amoeba Split as they contacted me about writing about their album on Polite Force. I was hoping they'd offer to send me a copy of their album for reviewal, but that never came up. Instead, they just asked to have it entered into the releases part of the site which is more like
album fact sheets. I should still get a review for that.
An album I'm quite fond of at the moment is the previously mentioned Dirk Campbell's Music From a Walled Garden from 2009. In the late 70s, he retreated from the music business, but kept pursuing musical interests, just more privately. In 1996 came his first solo release, Music From a Round Tower. Then, a few years ago, he was in the Prog Rock Britannia documentary from BBC I believe it was and that inspired him to do a follow up album, which is the one I'm enjoying at the moment. During his exile, he's done a lot of research into ethnic instruments as it features a lot of exotic instrumentation. This is mixed with (imo) really good compositions for an interesting blend of world music and the more composed rock background he comes from with bands like Egg and National Health. Altogether, rock does not describe it, though, so world music may actually be a better term.
Highly recommended
I'd post a sample from youtube, but I guess the album's a bit too obscure as it seems noone's uploaded a bit. There's a good chance Dirk wouldn't like it if he found his stuff on youtube, so out of respect, I won't upload anything.
Instead, I can post a couple of favourites from Matching Mole.
I love Robert Wyatt's fine example of minimalist songwriting here, basically just singing about where he's at in the song up until the very end.
This song seems to be an old favourite with Robert Wyatt, Richard Sinclair and writer Phil Miller as several recorded versions exist. It's basically a drunken criticism of God and makes for an interesting song, both musically and lyrically.