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Baker's Dozen

Psychedelic Meditation: Kurt Vile's Favourite Albums
Laurie Tuffrey , November 11th, 2015 13:13

As he starts the UK leg of touring b'lieve i'm goin down…, the Philadelphian singer-songwriter goes from live free jazz to dry-humoured piano sketches in picking 13 albums that steered the sound of his sixth album

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Alice Coltrane - Ptah, The El Daoud
I got it and I burned it and listened to it on the plane a lot. That one, for her, it goes back to trying to play more old-style jazz and she's playing incredible piano on it and the drummer's incredible. It's just a sick record. When you listen to an incredible jazz record, it's just undeniable, nobody else can touch it, no white dude - and if they can, it's too schooled. That's why I like that one - I can reference the later, freer ones, but I listen to a lot of older records. There's obviously Love Supreme, but that's obviously a transitional record from [John Coltrane's] earlier ones, Soul Train and Giant Steps. This is more advanced than that: they're definitely alluding to older jazz and taking it to another place, but they never go too apeshit, they never start squealing, but that's a special record.