The Momes, Spiralling (side A)

Tim Hodgkinson's albums after Henry Cow can be a bit hard to keep track of, and Spiralling, from 1989, is probably the most confusing I've heard. It's the only record of his that I can think of with overt vocal melodies and song structures. It reminds of the Red Krayola or The Scene is Now more than anything I'd associate with Hodgkinson—the songs are hardly conventional or straightforward, but they're definitely songs. It was recorded with Charles Bullen from This Heat at Cold Storage, and it has a very strange sound to it that I'd loosely describe as cold. The record looks and sounds like little else I can imagine. It's decidedly well executed and purposeful—it does not feel like an aside or one-off.