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SYLVESTER Live At The Opera House
CRAFT
9/10 Sylvester gets the key to the city of San Francisco
It had long been disco diva Sylvester’s dream to perform at the San Francisco War Memorial Opera House, and on March 11, 1979, that dream came true. There’s a curious confluence of aesthetics and politics here, particularly given Sylvester’s significance to both black and gay communities as cultural representative; the Opera House, the space of normative high culture, rendered queer. For the show, Sylvester was on gloriously expansive form, from great versions of hi-NRG classics like “You Make Me Feel (Mighty Real)”, to a glorious mid-set run that reminds everyone what a great blues singer Sylvester was. It’d be good to think we’re well beyond the sentiments of the ‘disco sucks’ backlash, or narrow-minded dismissals of dance music as somehow mindless – in the hands of an artist like Sylvester, this music was elemental and erotic, as profound as it comes.
Extras 7/10: Liner notes from Sylvester biographer Joshua Gamson.
JON DALE
VARIOUS ARTISTS The Devil Rides In: Spellbinding Satanic Magick & The Rockult
1967–1974 STRAWBERRY
8/10
All the best tunes, from a generation of rock diabolists
The Devil Rides In captures a particular cultural moment, as the hippy dream withered on the vine and a generation of British bands swivelled their heads, Exorcist-like, towards the dark side. Compiled by industry lifer Martin ‘Cally’ Callomon, its three discs explore demonic and diabolic examples of rock’n’roll, running the gamut from freakbeat to post-Sabbath blues rock to dark prog invention – a broad church that Callomon, in his sleevenotes, dubs the “rockult”. Early highlights include Atomic Rooster’s “Death Walks Behind You” and The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown’s “Devil’s Grip” – both featuring the Hammond grooving of Vincent Crane. Elsewhere, we hear groups using the occult themes as a spur to invention: Zior fire unearthly shrieks and Hammer Horror cackles through an effects pedal on “Entrance Of The Devil”, while Van Der Graaf Generator’s imperious “The White Hammer” weaves a tale of witchcraft and heresy that builds to a smouldering, saxophone-squalling climax.