Ear Candle Radio's Top 20, May 2010

The clattering sounds of two giants jamming top our chart this month with John Cale and Terry Riley's Church Of Anthrax, followed closely by one of Neo's favorite Experimental Bunnies tracks, a barrelling gem from 21st century Wire, and a great Robert Wyatt song featuring the late Ivor Cutler smashing up the telly with what's left of the broken phone, and who can blame him after all? Leonard Cohen just nods and says "everybody knows".

We were very lucky to find a very rare vinyl copy of the Holy Sisters Of The Gaga Dada album and it's gratifying to see that Jill Fido's sultry psychedelic love ballad connects with our listeners, as do our own Granite Countertops and their smoochfest "Haystack". The Vivian Girls set the controls for the heart of the sun and ride a chord to infinity, while Slapp Happy's Dagmar Krause sings sweetly over a clattery VU-esque backing provided partly by Faust, who also make an appearance of their own with an extended epic jam.

Along with the Holy Sisters (as well as J Neo Marvin himself when you get right down to it), another group of veterans of the Santa Cruz scene are early 80s sax-bass-drums trio The Love Dogs. Dutch anarchist avant-gardeners The Ex show their quieter side, lo-fi wonders Wavves (who we first discovered via our sometime commenter Ian) make a showing with their catchy hit, Led Zeppelin appear from the distant past and still can't find the confounded bridge, SF's Society Of Rockets serve up some lush harmonies and promote new beginnings, and Robert Wyatt surfaces again with an expansive jazz setting of Alfie's poem about the woman wishing for wings.

Howlin' Wolf howls for his darling and, by proxy, for all of us and all of our darlings. Brian Eno and Cluster rhapsodize about the machinery, the Detroit Cobras put the pogo into the shing-a-ling, and Daoud & Saleh Al-Kuwaity represent the Iraqi sound.

That's it for this month. Keep listening!

1. John Cale & Terry Riley - Church Of Anthrax - Church Of Anthrax
2. The Experimental Bunnies - Uncertainty - Music For The Integrity Tone Scale
3. Wire - Our Time - Read & Burn 03
4. Robert Wyatt - Little Red Robin Hood Hit the Road - Rock Bottom
5. Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows - The Essential Leonard Cohen
6. The Holy Sisters Of The Gaga Dada - Beside You - Let's Get Acquainted
7. The Granite Countertops - Haystack - Crashing Into The Future
8. Vivian Girls - Out For The Sun - Everything Goes Wrong
9. Slapp Happy - Blue Flower - Sort of...Slapp Happy
10. The Love Dogs - Oh, I Have To Think - The Love Dogs
11. The Ex - Oskar Beck - Dizzy Spells
12. Wavves - So Bored - Wavvves
13. Led Zeppelin - The Crunge - Houses Of The Holy
14. Society of Rockets - Circulate and Sing - Future Factory
15. Robert Wyatt - September The Ninth - Shleep
16. Howlin' Wolf - Howlin' For My Darling - Howlin' Wolf: His Best (Chess 50th Anniversary Collection)
17. Faust - No Harm - Faust/So Far
18. Eno, Moebius & Roedelius - The Belldog - After The Heat
19. The Detroit Cobras - Shout Bama Lama - Life, Love & Leaving
20. Daoud & Saleh Al-Kuwaity - Shwy shwy - Masters of Iraqi Music