Analog Adventures: BALTHVS, The Jackson Five, Michael Giacchino, and more new vinyl for August 2024

Welcome to Analog Adventures, where we run down the latest stacks of wax to hit our mailbox. Reissues, new releases, and more are all on the turntable as we spin these records.

BALTHVS
Harvest
(Mixto) 

On their fourth full-length album, Harvest, Columbian trio Balthvs leans heavily into their mix of “Middle Eastern music, disco, house, Funk, psychedelia, indie, dub reggae, surf rock and cumbia,” resulting in a record that feels very much like Khruangbin, while also existing on a plain somewhere different. It’s such a vibey record, down to the sigils and symbols that adorn the album artwork. The whole aesthetic, visual and sonic, makes Harvest seem as though it was released both this month and also pulled from a dusty shelf somewhere in Bogota to be rescued from unjust obscurity.

There are five songs out of the ten on this LP with vocals, although maybe the two lines in “Sun & Moon” barely count toward that total. On my first listen, I vastly preferred the instrumentals, but when ensconced in the easy chair sitting before the speakers in my office, hearing guitarist Balthazar Aguirre and bassist Johanna Mercuriana trade lines and harmonize on album closer “Aio,” I sense a feeling of peace that only ends when the track concludes.

The Temptations
Cloud Nine
(Elemental Music) 

In the inaugural installment of this column, we took a look at The Temptations’ I Wish It Would Rain—the last record by the group to feature David Ruffin—and now we’re listening to the first to feature Dennis Edwards. The Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong title track would set the psychedelic soul template that would define the group’s direction for the rest of the ’60s and well into the ’70s.

The nine-minute track “Runaway Child, Running Wild” previews what The Temptations would later explore on their classic “Papa Was a Rollin’ Stone” a few years later, and a straightforward pop take on “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” ably showcases their vocal prowess, although it’s a little less exciting musically than Cloud Nine’s two big singles.

The repress here is a reproduction of the original LP, without any additional material, save for an insert promoting the entire line of Elemental’s Motown reissues, as is included with every release in the line.

The Supremes
I Hear A Symphony
(Elemental Music)

The eighth full-length from Motown’s top girl group The Supremes released in 1966. Containing the number one titular single and a selection of other tracks that showcase the Diana Ross-fronted vocal trio’s massive singing abilities. A cover of the Beatles’ “Yesterday” is yearning, yet hopeful, while the Johnny Mathis chestnut “Wonderful! Wonderful!” is revitalized with some exuberant delivery. “Unchained Melody” gets a gender flip from the Righteous Brothers’ best-known interpretation, and the sweet harmonies feel like an embrace.

The Elemental reissue is pressed on lovely green vinyl and is otherwise identical to the original.

Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells
Together
(Elemental Music)

While Marvin Gaye would be best known for his later duets with Tammi Terrell, this debut outing with a singing partner showcases the singer’s ability to play off another vocalist. Mary Wells’ voice might not be as forceful as Terrell’s, but at the time, she was a bigger star than Gaye, thanks to “My Guy,” and the pairing works well.

The two singles from Together, “Once Upon a Time” and “What’s the Matter with You Baby,” would chart in the top 20 and further illuminate Gaye’s rising star. While some songbook selections such as “(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons” fail to eclipse versions by Sam Cooke or Ella Fitzgerald, “After the Lights Go Down Low” has a crackle and spark to it that is a pleasant surprise.

The repress comes in a mono version that really showcases the vocal pairing of Gaye and Wells.

The Jackson Five
Get It Together
(Elemental Music)

The Jackson Five’s first “adult” album, with Michael Jackson all of 14 when Get It Together was recorded, manages to be a glimpse into the musical near-future, with the title track lively, almost disco, and the original version of the smash “Dancing Machine” a full-bore funk jam. Throw in two Norman Whitfield songs previously recorded by The Temptations—”You Need Love Like I Do (Don’t You)” and “Hum Along and Dance”—and a lack of track separation, and Get It Together is two sides and 36 minutes of party music from start to finish.

The LP comes pressed on red vinyl, with a die-cut cover. It really pops when you have this out on the turntable with the jacket displayed. I know these things are for listening, not ogling, but damn, if it isn’t a visual joy to stare at while you listen.

Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
Make It Happen
(Elemental Music)

Later retitled Tears of a Clown to reflect the success of that song in the United Kingdom three years later, this 1967 album manages to be both unsurprisingly good, due to the still-wonderful “The Tears of a Clown,” and a surprising number of songs you wonder why you haven’t heard before.

It’s a testament to what a hit-making machine Motown was that the Holland-Dozier-Holland penned “It’s a Good Feeling” never found its way to the charts, nor did either of the other Stevie Wonder co-writes, “After You Put Back the Pieces (I’ll Still Have a Broken Heart),” and “My Love Is Your Love (Forever).”

This mono repress features an alternate Smokey Robinson lead vocal on “The Tears of a Clown” from the single release, offering a different listen at a song you’re sure to have heard many times before.

Michael Hutchence
“One Way” b/w “Save My Life
(Boss Sonics)

Produced by Black Grape’s Danny Saber, these two tracks initially recorded for Hutchence’s debut solo record didn’t make the cut when it was released posthumously in 1999, two years after the former INXS frontman’s death.

The A side, “One Way,” feels very INXS, although slower and grungier, with a guitar line during the middle breakdown that lifts equally from Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” and Rage Against the Machine’s “Wake Up.” It’s sludgy in pace, and I kind of dig it, repetitive as it might be. B side, “Save My Life,” has been kicking around online in various forms for years, and it’s nice to hear it fully mastered, elegiac as it might be.

The 10-inch picture disc sounds pretty solid, with “One Way” in particular fairly leaping out the speakers. It comes in a stickered plastic sleeve which sticks to the record, so finding an alternate means of storage is very necessary if you’re going to play this in the future—even if it means obscuring the singer’s face as presented on the A side.

Michael Giacchino
Exotic Themes for the Silver Screen Vol. 1
(Mutant) 

Composer Michael Giacchino has reworked some of his back catalog in the lounge and exotica style of Les Baxter and Martin Denny, popular in the ’50s and ’60s. The mix of music from television, video games, and film scores all are given glistening treatments, feeling as though these pieces might once have played as your grandparents sipped cocktails in a Trader Vic’s.

Some pieces work better than others. The music from The Incredibles Suite was already most of the way there in its original form, homaging as it did vintage spy flicks, and the jaunty Parisian vibe of Ratatouille is a solid match, as well. Unfortunately, once you’ve made it through the first disc, you start to notice an overabundance of certain tropes, such as a heavy reliance on a steel guitar slide on many tracks. Baxter and Denny were, of course, cultural raiders dressing up sounds from other cultures for middle-class white acceptance, but they were nothing, if not varied, in their approach. A bit more in the way of bird chirps or wordlessly harmonizing choirs, to say nothing of going a little harder on the bongos, would’ve gone a long way to mixing things up.

The packaging is about 50/50 in terms of successful presentation. The album artwork feels fully of the era to which it pays tribute, and the Mutant webstore exclusive pressing is on 140-gram swirl vinyl, with disc one pressed on blue and disc two pressed on orange. They look like they were snatched right out of a candy dish, with lovely pastel hues, and come housed in plastic antistatic sleeves that are a pain to slide back into the jacket.

The obi strip does a nice job of hyping up the album, although it does hide the track listing on the back, unless slid way over, although that makes it to where you can’t read the hype press paragraph on the back, either. Lovely liners from writer Charlie Brigden inside, though, and the timeline included shows just where these pieces fit in the composer’s career.