John Carter, A Suite of Early American Folk Pieces for Solo Clarinet (side A)

The title of 1979's A Suite of Early American Folk Pieces for Solo-Clarinet is misleading—all compositions on the album are by John Carter.  He does play solo clarinet here, and as with seemingly any open-ended jazz clarinet playing, Jimmy Giuffre's influence is obvious.  Carter's fluid playing tends to feel a bit less detached and cerebral than Giuffre's, even when the influence is most obvious.  He also stretches the idiom with more modern influences—the most obvious is where intertwines two melodies in a style that reminds me of Roscoe Mitchell and Evan Parker.  He also explores overblown harmonic timbres, which sound much more subdued on clarinet than the customary saxophone palette.  The back cover photo of Carter in a field is far more compelling than the close-up on the front.

Pere Ubu, 390 Degrees of Simulated Stereo (side A)

390 Degrees of Simulated Stereo, which was released in 1981, collects Pere Ubu live recordings, plus one practice tape, dating between 1976 and 1979.  The album focuses on concerts from 1978 supporting the Modern Dance, when Ubu were an incredibly powerful live band.  The performances sometimes lack the tightness of the studio recordings, but the noise/freak-out sections often feel particularly expansive and liberated.  The core band tends to play the sections with structure close to their recorded versions, while Ravenstine's sythesizers often sound very different than the recorded versions that feel so familiar.  Three songs date from an early 1976 line-up with a bit less chaos and abandon—they reflect the transition from Rocket from the Tombs.  The 1977 practice tape of "Humor Me" is a radically different song than the one that was finally released.  The recording quality is inconsistent and often primitive—the mastering, which emphasizes high-mid frequencies, exaggerates the lo-fi quality of the original tapes, as do the blurry black and white cover image and design.

The Baseball Astrologer, Famine of the Soul (side A)

Douglas Berman, the Baseball Astrologer, narrates in a distinctive style of long-form poetry that sometimes borders on prose.  1999's Famine of the Soul alternates short solo poems, which are more narrative in nature, with duets with guitarist Steven Wray Lobdell.  Lobdell is known for his work in groups like David Redford Triad and Sufi Mind Game, and he also played guitar with a line-up of Faust in the 90s.  The poems which Lobdell accompanies have a more performative aspect, with repetition and more fragmented phrases to match the guitar lines.  Lobdell's playing here falls somewhere between the delicate tendencies of his solo album and the noiser and more chaotic wails of Davis Redford Triad.  The influence of 60s psychedelia on his work is obvious.  There is a hint of paranoia about world affairs in Berman's recitations, but the stories emphasize his distinctive persona over any clear world-view—his delivery suits this combination well, especially when he interacts with Lobdell's dark guitar playing.  The lo-fi sound quality, which seems to have been made on a cheap cassette 4-track, places the album squarely in the 90s when it was made.  The amazing packaging features an image of a painting glued to the reverse-stock black cover, with a 70s baseball card (mine is Tim Foli, 1974) glued to the back.

U.S. Saucer, My Company is Misery (side A)

U.S. Saucer's 1993 debut My Company is Misery reflects less of the group's classic country influence than their later records, and fits a bit more closely with their indie-rock peers.  The vocals are lower in the mix, and the unusual harmonies that are central to the later albums appear less frequently here.  While no percussion is used, heavily distorted guitars feel more like rock music than the consistently clean sounds that U.S. Saucer would refine.  The sound and feel of My Company is Misery has a sense that layers are buried and hidden—on later albums, the arrangements are much clearer with everything up front.  The back cover photo of the group captures their aesthetic perfectly—it combines purposeful indie fashion with a genuinely old-fashioned feel.

Bruce Gilbert / Ron West, Frequency Variation (side A)

Bruce Gilbert is of course known for his guitar playing on classic Wire albums.  Ron West was in less-well-known bands during England's punk era.  If Gilbert did not go on to achieve such massive success, his electronic art school experiments from 1974 would have been forgotten.  In 1998, they were reissued as a vinyl LP, Frequency Variation.  The music here was made with an oscillator, a tape delay, some control over panning, and a filter.  The oscillator is used to create little melodic swirls that give the music structure.  It lacks the neatly-controlled patterns of a Subotnick piece, for example—everything is a bit more chaotic and unpredictable.  It definitely gives no hint that Bruce Gilbert would be a significant figure in the punk movement.  The reissue was mastered and pressed with impressive care, with a balanced and very clean frequency distribution.  The sparse, minimal packaging fits with the era of the album's release, not the era of the music's creation.

Archie Shepp, A Sea of Faces (side A)

The centerpiece of 1975's A Sea of Faces is "Hipnosis", a 26-minute long Grachan Moncur composition that fills side A—given the groove density to fit 26 minutes, the low-end on the bass is impressive.  Most of the track is a repeating rhythm from Cameron Brown's bass and Dave Burrell's piano.  Inexplicably, the random maraca playing is louder than Beaver Harris's typically excellent drumming.  Only at the end does the piece break out of its steady state, when Burrell's playing becomes free and chaotic and moves in the direction of Shepp's loose workouts over the top.  The B-side starts with two pieces with vocals that are less crazed than Blasé and less gospel-tinged than The Cry of My People.  The album ends with a more classic jazz tune in "Lookin' for Someone to Love".  The cover painting that wraps around the gatefold ties more to the populist bent of Shepp's early-70s work than to this album, where he moves back toward a jazz idiom.

Silver Apples, Silver Apples (side A)

Most reviews of this 1968 Silver Apples album emphasize its differences from everything else at the time.  I tried instead to think of its similarities.  The overt jazz influences in the drumming resemble some of Spencer Dryden's work with the Airplane.  The thin and largely unprocessed vocals are handled a bit like Lou Reed's in the Velvet Underground.  The songwriting sometimes reminds me of the United States of America, while Fifty Foot Hose might be a reference point for the electronics (or even Lothar and the Hand People).  While Silver Apples also remind me in ways of 70s albums from Sparks to Faust to Daily Dance, their debut feels to me, in many ways, a part of the American underground of its era.  The shiny silver cover is, of course, impressive.

John Fahey, America (side A)

John Fahey's style has become something of a reproducible idiom.  Many solo guitarists now create intricate, technically adroit acoustic guitar playing with a prominent American folk/blues influence in long, abstract, and slowly-evolving compositions.  It seems surprising in retrospect that few of Fahey's albums neatly fit this idiom.  After slowly stretching the concise forms of his early works, he branched far out of his usual element for 1968's Requia—his most daring and surprising album integrates tapes and found sounds.  Only four years later, he sought more commercial success with Of Rivers and Religions.  Only the classics in between, The Yellow Princess and America, follow the style closely associated with Fahey.  He had not totally abandoned technological experiments here.  "The Waltz That Carried Us Away and Then a Mosquito Came and Ate Up My Sweetheart" features prominent tape delay.  The 1998 reissue hides this creative anomaly by burying it after 70 minutes of guitar—the now idealized idiom of Fahey's work is uninterrupted by this oddity.  The impressive packaging of America contains a comic glued inside the album.

Jackdaw with Crowbar, Monarchy Mayhem and Fi$hpaste (12" EP)

Jackdaw with Crowbar's first 12" EP features 3 driving punk songs and a dub exploration.  The punk songs vaguely resemble Gang of Four-influenced contemporaries like Bogshed, but with less conventional structures or lyrical flow.  While the dub workout "Fourth World" is less evolved in execution than the group's later efforts in this style on their album Hot Air, it illustrates that the group's far-reaching creative vision dates to their inception.  The rock songs sound lo-fi and midrange-y, but "Fourth World" includes much richer use of high frequencies.  Monarchy Mayhem and Fi$hpaste has a collage on the cover—the images are historical and seem vaguely political, but it's hard to discern their exact meaning.

Unrest Work & Play, Informs (side A)

The song titles on 1984's Informs, combined with the "forms" hint in the album title, suggest that each individual track will reference a particular style, or perhaps form, of music.  I don't hear any strong differentiation between the tracks to identify "Ethnic" or "Ballad".  Unrest Work & Play feel to me like a cross between Etron Fou's playful intricacy and some of their Gang of Four-influenced contemporaries like the Noseflutes (whose drummer Roger Turner is now active in the free improv community).  Informs is a bit heavier, with more insistent rhythms, than Andy Wake's later work with Tim Hodgkinson in Momes.  Sonically, it seems closer to the group's post-punk contemporaries than some of the sterile late-era rock-in-opposition with which it an also be associated.  The packaging of Informs is impressive, with a giant metallic-silver sticker on the front and a silk-screened back cover.

Matching Mole, Little Red Record (side A)

Matching Mole is best remembered for Robert Wyatt's involvement, and his drumming on 1972's Little Red Record is instantly recognizable.  The songs often seem to be about rock music, more than actually existing within the genre.  Sections are full of volume, energy, and propulsion, and vocal melodies sometimes come to the fore.  These ideas are always undercut by abstract sections of floating organ or group singing.  The close-mic'ed recording style definitely borrows from rock music (though the high-end sounds a bit muffled—it seems like a bad pressing).  The packaging's Communist China reference bears little relationship to the music, but the red paper inner sleeve is a nice touch.

Pearls Before Swine, One Nation Underground (side A)

When I think of 1967's One Nation Underground, my initial memory is the outsider-folk classic "Drop Out".  It's thus easy to forget the album's remarkable diversity.  Alongside the folky guitars are droning organs and pulsing bass guitars.  Drums can sometimes move to the foreground, and  parts can feel surprisingly driving, like "Uncle John".  One song can feature jarring leaps between these approaches.  Tom Rapp's vocals vary a lot in quality too, from light and airy to thicker and darker.  The instruments generally sound clean if somewhat lo-fi, and it's hard to tell if whether the mixes' eccentricities are intentional.  I'm not sure what the Bosch cover painting has to do with Pearls Before Swine's music, but I like the font used for the band name on my copy (I've also seen a version without a border or text).

Africa: Drum, Chant & Instrumental Music (side A)

1976's Africa: Drum, Chant & Instrumental Music (side A) is a diverse and impressive album.  Its recordings cover a broad geographic section spanning 3 countries in northern Africa: Niger, Mali, and Upper Volta (Burkina Faso).  The music is similarly diverse, with percussion, melodic instruments, and vocals all sharing space.  The quality that unites all of the music is its rhythmic richness—no matter the arrangement, it grooves and flows with syncopation that feels unintuitive to a Western listener.  The highlights for me are the intricately layered drums, but it's also an impressively consistent album.  The simple field recordings capture the performances nicely, though sometimes the instrument and vocal balances reflect the limitations in the recordings.  The textured paper of the original cover is quite nice too.

Bobb Trimble, Iron Curtain Innocence (side A)

Bobb Trimble's 1980 debut Iron Curtain Innocence was released in a tiny vinyl run and reached wider visibility in 2007 with this reissue.  Trimble's high tenor and long-haired cover image draw obvious influence of power-pop bands like the Raspberries.  The bright, modern studio production of the album (which mastering seems to have emphasized) also owes an obvious debt to 70s commercial hits.  Juxtaposed with this pop music influence is a darker, stranger side to Trimble's persona.  He's holding a rifle next to his Guild guitar on the cover, and the songs deviate far from conventional pop structures and melodies.  Introversion and extroversion are utilized somewhat arbitrarily, without either side of Trimble's approach winning out.

The Beach Boys, Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) (side A)

Beach Boys albums before Pet Sounds tend to be critically dismissed, mostly accurately, for their lightheartedness and inconsistencies.  Today! and Summer Days, which were the transitional records to Pet Sounds, sometimes get lost in the shuffle.  Even at its lightest moments, 1965's Summer Days (and Summer Nights!!) features great craftsmanship and an interesting self-awareness.  Highlights range from the obvious ("California Girls", with its majestic intro) to the obscure (Brian Wilson's impressive falsetto on "Let Him Run Wild").  The record also has odd moments: the instrumental "Summer Means New Love" and the fairly ironic lyrical turns of "Salt Lake City".  The lighthearted sailing cover image de-emphasizes the album's mature aspects.  The sound quality, especially in the vocals, is impressively rich and warm, but my copy loses high and low frequencies.

Horace Andy, Skylarking (side A)

Horace Andy's collaboration with Massive Attack increased his visibility beyond serious reggae scholars to a mass audience.  Massive Attack benefited from his beautiful voice, which they captured and mixed in a modern fashion.  His 1969 debut Skylarking sounds like a murky old reggae album from its era, with only some of the magic of Andy's voice preserved.  His vocals sound great in this context too, singing everything from his classic "Skylarking" to a forgettable Cat Stevens cover.  My reissue pressing sounds particularly primitive—I can't guess whether the original sounded any different.  I also don't know if the faded cover images were already faded on earlier pressings, but they're fantastic pictures of a young Andy.

The Terminals, Last Days of the Sun (CD)

New Zealand's Terminals made two albums in the mid-90s, Touch and Little Things, that floored me when they came out.  The influences of Joy Division and Pere Ubu were both obvious, but a messy noisiness reminiscent of the Dead C moved them far from their canonical influences.  Apart from a live CD, they did not release a new album until 2007's Last Days of the Sun.  Steven Cogle's deadpan vocals retain their distinctive power, and the heavy noisy parts still can be overpowering.  Last Days of the Sun feels and sounds a bit less rough than the earlier albums, and while this cleanliness reveals the songs more clearly, the group loses some of its impact as a result.  While Last Days of the Sun has many great songs, I generally like albums under an hour in length, because they're better suited for one sitting.  The packaging here is far less distinctive than Touch or Little Things.

Wilhelm Killmayer, Fin Al Punto / The woods so wilde / Schumann in Endenich / Paradies (side A)

This 1973 album collects 4 diverse pieces that date between 1970 and 1972.  Each piece explores one focused concept for its duration, and each is distinctive and impressive.  "Fin al punto", for string orchestra, feels like the album's most ambitious piece—sounds climb out of a steady base drone and fall back in, and the dense atmosphere is maintained throughout.  "The woods so wilde" features piontillistic percussion sounds, only some of which are made with percussion instruments.  "Schumann in Endenich" is sparse with more tonal sounds exploding out.  "Paradies", for solo piano, is the most harmonic piece on the album, and likely the closest to conventional.  The clear recording, in a good sounding room, impressively preserves the space and dynamics of the more delicate pieces.  The funny liner notes about Killmayer are included in both German and English.

Roman Haubenstock-Ramati, Vermutungen / Credentials / Tableau I (side A)

This 1970 LP contains pieces by Haubenstock-Ramati over a 10 year period.  Side A consists of one long piece, "Vermutungen über ein dunkles Haus".  It's impressively dynamic and spacious, with great use of sweeping sounds and textures alternating with percussion and other discrete strikes.  The piece's excellent use of color does not provide a clear structure over its lengthy duration—it feels a bit more like a study than a finished work.  The two shorter pieces on side B are more uniform in style.  "Credentials" includes exaggerated vocalizing from Cathy Berberian and matches the instrumental arrangement to this style—while not to my taste, it's excuted well.  "Tableau 1" is a more uniformly dense and less dynamic piece than the first two.  The recordings are well captured in a great sounding room.  The album comes with 4 pages of liner notes that seem informative, but my inability to read German diminishes their value to me.

Lluis Llach, Com un Arbre Nu (side A)

Catalan singer-songwriter Llach is best known for having written the leftist political anthem "L'estaca", a metaphor for the fall of General Franco which became the anthem for Solidarność.  1972's Com un Arbre Nu contains anthemic moments, but it's typically more poetic and romantic.  The orchestral arrangements are unusual and beautiful, and Llach's vocal delivery combines a folk-y deadpan with a more emotive longing.  Com un Arbre Nu contains a series of short songs—by the mid-70s, his albums often contained expansive, sidelong tracks.  The large portrait of Llach on the cover follows folk conventions, but the grainy print quality and excellent font and layout choices tastefully avoid that idiom.  The spacious and rich recording flatters the songs and performances—it sound great.

Leonard Cohen, Songs from a Room (side A)

1969's Songs from a Room is Cohen's second album, and it begins with the classic "Bird on the Wire".  The accompanying arrangements, which often feature strings but can also stretch all the way to synthesizers, are incredibly well recorded and bring the album grace and beauty.  They often feel a bit too straightforward for Cohen's songs, and especially for his dead-pan delivery.  His vocals also sound somewhat too thin and present, which does not flatter them when juxtaposed against the lush string recordings.  Cohen's songwriting is of course strong and tasteful, and his literate lyrics have not grown as menacing as they would on later albums.  The cover design nicely references the tradition of including the songwriter's picture, while de-emphasizing it through a small, mostly black image.

The Soft Boys, A Can of Bees (side A)

A year ago, I wrote about a CD reissue of A Can of Bees.  Fortunately, my LP sounds a lot better—it's a bit too midrange-y if anything, which is a more appropriate problem.  Both the 1979 original and my 1984 pressing have a logical side A which plays to the group's strengths, with jarring rhythms juxtaposed against simple melodies.  While side B changed between the two pressings, it remains a bit awkward and incoherent in both cases.  The absurdity of the front cover cartoon feels more exaggerated in the 12" vinyl format.

Big Brother and the Holding Company, Big Brother and the Holding Company (side A)

1967's Big Brother and the Holding Company surprised me with its inclusion of Moondog's "All is Loneliness".  I still can't figure out how a West Coast group knew the round before Moondog 2's 1971 release—perhaps they learned it through their affiliation with the jazz label Mainstream?  The group's debut is diverse and uneven—songs like "Light is Faster than Sound" are incredibly heavy and abstract, while others are folky and friendly.  The performances are great, but the recording seems to have inappropriately softened the group's sound, in part by panning the drums hard left.  The cover design is appropriately of its era, if somewhat undistinguished, and my Columbia reissue is mastered competently.

Fred Frith & Rene Lussier, Nous Autres (side A)

On 1986's Nous Autres, Frith and Lussier play some guitar duets but are frequently joined by guests.  The result album is unsurprisingly diverse, and at times uneven.  It feels a bit like a stripped-down version of Frith's early 80s albums Speechless and Gravity, and Frith's guitar playing remains recognizable. Nous Autres is also a bit looser and more open-ended than its precursors.  A highlight is Chris Cutler's splattery percussion on the opening "Cage de Verre", which provides a melodic counterpoint to the guitars.  Several guest vocalists appear in diverse, but largely unreferential, styles: Tenko, Christoph Anders from Cassiber, and Genviève Letarte.  I'd been unfamiliar with Letarte, but her contributions here add a lot.  The recording and packaging are both competent but undistinguished, and they definitely reflect their era.

Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft, Produkt der Deutsch Amerikanischen Freundschaft (side A)

Only a few years after this album, D.A.F. of course went on to be known as a duo crafting lyrical, dance-oriented hits like "Der Mussolini".  In 1979, however, they were an instrumental rock band, and still featured Pyrolator (Kurt Dahlke), who remains active as a solo act.  Produkt der Deutsch Amerikanischen Freundschaft features a series of short instrumental ideas, typically with only tiny pauses between them.  The rapid succession reminds me slightly of Faust Tapes, though the aesthetic is obviously informed by the heaviness of punk rock.  It seems to have been cheaply recorded and compressed, though the sound, especially of the drums, fits the music perfectly.  The monochrome cover image is iconic and perfect.

Sandy Bull, Inventions for guitar, banjo, oud, electric guitar, and electric bass (side A)

Sandy Bull's 1964 synthesis of international instruments and ideas with Western folk and rock on Inventions predates even the Yardbirds' use of sitar on 1965's "Heart Full of Soul".  In addition to the oud mentioned on the album's cover, Billy Higgins's percussion seems to reference the style of (and perhaps use) a tabla.  Bull's lengthy "Blend II" uses a slow build structure that precedes 90s post-rock as the foundation of his flights, with Higgins's percussion sounding far removed from the famous collaborations with Ornette.  The reminder of the LP is a series of stylized covers ranging from Machaut to Chuck Berry—they reveal more of Bull's technical mastery than his innovative ideas.  His preppy appearance in the excellent cover photo references coffeeshop folk with only the oud in the picture hinting at his far-reaching ideas.

Contortions, Buy Contortions (side A)

Contortions are remembered as having been a radical band, in part because of James Chance's outrageous live performances.  On their 1979 debut Buy Contortions, some of the radicalism comes through, in Chance's jittery saxophone and in the often noisy guitar playing.  Other elements of Buy Contortions are almost excessively clean, and the juxtaposition is certainly interesting.  The recording is consistently sterile, with the saxophone and bass sounding almost weak.  The drums play precise and competent disco beats, and the bass often follows them.  The suggestive cover is certainly extreme, but it does not feel radical by today's standards—the photo and design are (ironically, given the content) quite tasteful.

Islaja, Ulual YYY (side A)

The strangest thing about 2007's Ulual YYY is the vocal melodies—they don't neatly reference anything recognizable.  The structures that they're in reference pop songs.  The song lengths and tonal coherence come from pop music, even as verses and choruses aren't obvious or neatly defined.  The songs are then built with a lot of cheap keyboard parts and some really nice-sounding guitar thrown in.  At rare points drum sounds turn up and give hints of propulsion, though they're so brief it's hard to be sure if they're drums or machines.  The resulting songs are as pretty and compelling as they are hard to describe.  Her voice, which seems to be singing in Finnish, sounds a bit thin and could use more body, but still conveys rich emotions when needed.  The cover image on reverse stock paper is rich with color, and the printed inner sleeve is nice too.

John Martyn, One World (side A)

1977's One World was a transitional transitional album for Martyn, drawing from his acoustic folk of the 70s and foreshadowing the more synthetic sounds of his 80s albums.  Many songs feature both electronic drums and live percussion, and the space left from an often-omitted snare leaves extra space for his rich voice to stand out.  The album's sound is exceptionally clear and bright—modern by the standards of 1977 but seemingly timeless compared to the exaggeration that has become popular since.  The stripped down arrangement of "Small Hours" stands out—the only consistent instrument is a guitar drenched in delay and recorded across a pond.  Martyn's resigned vocal take matches the arrangement perfectly.  The cover design fits more with the album's more contemporary aspects, and it stands up better for me than the stylized photos of him on the cover of most of his 80s work.  My copy clearly shows "Couldn't Love You More" as the album's first track, where Wikipedia lists the sides in reverse order.

Colin Blunstone, One Year (side A)

1971's One Year was Blunstone's first solo album after the Zombies parted ways.  Some of the Zombies relationships remained intact, with White/Argent writing several songs, and Argent as the backing band on two.  The biggest change is that while the orchestral sounds on Odessey and Oracle were played on a Mellotron, there are live string and horn (and harp) players on One Year, and these arrangements are really the focus.  Blunstone's voice still sounds great, with even more clarity and brightness preserved by newer technology.  He's also written nearly half of the album, including the classic "Caroline Goodbye".  The packaging has nice textured paper glued on to cardboard for the cover, and the front and back photos are both great.

Deep Dark United, Ancient (CD)

Toronto's Deep Dark United combine a strange set of ideas and influences on 2004's Ancient.  Alex Lukashevsky's complex compositions and narrative lyrics vaguely recall Peter Blegvad's work with Slapp Happy.  The arrangements seem to draw from rock music (electric guitar and piano are sometimes prominent), but the drive and energy is created without relying on a rhythm section.  The featured role of horns and winds playing abstract lines reminds me a bit of Henry Cow.  The close-mic'ed recording definitely borrows from rock traditions, though the sound quality itself is unremarkable.  Hints of a range of influences peek through, including perhaps Tom Waits, the Contortions, and Neutral Milk Hotel.  Ancient is a really distinctive album with great songwriting and playing, and the folded-up poster packaging works great too.

Moby Grape, WOW (side A)

Renewed interest in Moby Grape seems to have followed in part from a rediscovery of Skip Spence's Oar.  His diminished involvement on WOW leads to it receiving less attention than the first LP, and this is partly justified—the debut was the group's classic.  1968's WOW also included both gimmicks (a song where Spence sings over a found instrumental track that was cut at 78 at the end of side A) and bad ideas (an unnecessary re-recording of "Naked if I Want to").  Past the weird filler, there are a lot of great songs here.  The singing and playing remain great, and the creative string and horn arrangements add interesting character.  The low-end comes through amazingly on my pressing, and the gatefold cover painting looks more weird than dated.

Robert Wyatt, Shipbuilding (12" EP)

1982's Shipbuilding 12" EP features 3 surprising covers from Wyatt.  While Wyatt had obvious interest in, and associations with, both commercial new wave and classic jazz, it's still surprising to hear him venture quite this far in both directions.  His cover of Elvis Costello's "Shipbuilding" has a majesty that Costello's original drives through, and it's majestic and beautiful.  Both jazz standards on the back are tasteful and well-executed.  This 12" marks some of the earliest use of almost cartoon-like keyboard sounds, which have turned up on several Wyatt albums since.  The EP sounds great at 45 RPM, but I wish it had a more substantial sleeve than its rather flimsy packaging.

The Hunter Gracchus, Sacred Object of the Yiye People (side A)

The Hunter Gracchus follow in the path of groups like the Tower Recordings, Volcano the Bear, Kemialliset Ystävät, and the Jeweled Antler Collective.  2008's Sacred Object of the Yiye People is a fairly one-dimensional outing within the genre, but an incredibly well-executed one.  Everything here is played on acoustic instruments, and there are no vocals.  The performances are somehow both primitive and proficient at the same time.  Percussion is constant and often in the foreground.  The pieces evolve slowly and organically.  They're obviously improvised, but each piece stays within a narrow palette—the Hunter Gracchus sound like a regularly working group and not a one-off.  The recording is purposely lo-fi, though the boosted high frequencies, which seem to have happened at mastering, don't flatter this quality.  The simple front cover design and the photographed object on it fit the album perfectly.

Braxton & Bailey, Live at Wigmor (side C)

It's hard to imagine this concert happening in 1974, when the style of improvised collaboration between these phenomenal musicians had not fully calcified into an accepted genre.  While the years passed may have diminished the shock of Live at Wigmor, the playing captured remains particularly beautiful and expressive.  Bailey seems to be leading in the more pointillistic and textural sections, where Braxton moves to the foreground in the more harmonic parts.  My 1980 reissue looks a lot worse than the original albums, but it combines everything into a convenient gatefold and it features some nice pictures.  It's an impressive live recording for 1974, and the reissue pressing is nice too, but I wish the sides were not arranged with respect to a stacking turntable (1/4 on one LP, 2/3 on the other).

Joe McPhee, Alto (side A)

McPhee's classic Tenor seemed like a response to Anthony Braxton's early classic For Alto, so it amuses me to see McPhee cycling back to a solo alto album.  2009's Alto pains me, in that I did not even know about the concert here in NYC where it was recorded.  Like Tenor, it's a beautiful document of McPhee's grace in a solo setting.  It's a bit less lyrical and more subtle than his work 30 years ago, but no less beautiful.  The pasted-on cover is nice, and the liner notes even mention Nick Sakes!  The concert was competently recorded and nicely pressed to vinyl.

The Fall, The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall (side A)

1984's The Wonderful and Frightening World of the Fall is more aggressive and less catchy than its immediate predecessor, Perverted by Language.  Somewhat surprisingly, the aggression often comes from a distorted bass sound, as the two drummers are panned out and somewhat smaller in the mix.  The vocals are dark in color and also somewhat buried, without the hooks that made songs like "Eat Yourself Fitter" so memorable.  Guest vocalist Gavin Friday sounds a bit like Metal Box-era John Lydon on the two songs where he appears—combined with the prominent bass, the PIL reference is obvious.  Wonderful and Frightening World sounds rough and strange—it's a bit too low-budget to be recognizably modern and, despite some drastic use of the studio, neither slickness nor experimentation seems to be a goal.  The front cover painting is recognizably memorable.

Andrew White Quartet, "Live" (side C)

I first discovered Andrew White as a member of the Julius Hemphill Sextet, a group that preserves the late saxist's repertoire.  While Hemphill was an obvious influence on White's work, the closer analog for this album is definitely Sam Rivers.  Like Rivers, White falls somewhere in the middle of the avant—traditional continuum.  The rhythm section here often swings, and the structures involve development based on a head.  The musicianship, especially White's saxophone playing, varies wildly, from somewhat traditional to strident free-blowing.  Perhaps because he resides in D.C. and seems to purposely keep a low-profile, White seems comfortable defying any divisions or expectations.  The album design of "Live" is simple with a lot of white space (and a surprising calligraphy-like font choice), and the recording is a competent, if obviously low-budget, live recording from 1970.

Art Ensemble of Chicago, Certain Blacks (side A)

Certain Blacks originally dates from 1970, though my domestic copy came out in 1976.  The strangest thing about it might be the presence of drummer William A. Howell.  There is surprisingly little information about him on the Internet, and this appears to be his only collaboration with the Art Ensemble.  His drumming here is the most fluid and traditionally jazz-y of any Art Ensemble album, and it gives a strong sense of flow to the whole album.  The shorter pieces on side B are partly shaped around this flow, where the long "Do What They Wanna" on side A both follows and violates it at the same time.  "Do What They Wanna" resembles Ornette's Friends and Neighbors, which was also from 1970, with ensemble shouting alternating with heavy instrumental sections.  Guest contributors Chicago Beau and Julio Finn are often maligned, but their personalities are in the background here here, perhaps only prominent on the blues interpretation at the end.  The black and white cover of my copy looks worse than the original full-color packaging but better than the strangely modern CD cover.

The Temptations, Sky's the Limit (side A)

1971's Sky's the Limit is best remembered for containing Eddie Kendricks's magical falsetto on "Just My Imagination (Running Away with Me)".  While it was still part of the Motown assembly-line process, it's a remarkably distinctive record.  Barrett Strong's songwriting is impressively diverse, ranging from ballads to surprisingly heavy rock, and even the one reused Motown hit ("Smiling Faces Sometimes" is usually associated with the Undisputed Truth) works well in an extended 12-minute arrangement.  Norman Whitfield's production is interesting, combining some synthetic string and wind sounds that feel ahead of their time for 1971 with aggressive use of tape delay that seems like it should be on an early Funkadelic album.  The cover looks great, and like the synthetic sounds, foreshadows trends in soul from the mid-70s.

Kieran Hebden and Steve Reid, The Exchange Session vol. 2 (side C)

2006's The Exchange Session vol. 2 is a surprisingly impressive collaboration between these two disparate figures.  Reid is known as a jazz drummer who made several notable records as a leader in the 70s, while Hebden of course works under the name Four Tet.  The resulting album sounds unlike either of their work.  The electronics feel a bit more foreground in the tracks, both because they evolve over a wider palette and because the drums rely heavily on room mics and have less prominent attack as a result.  Everything sounds great and manages to sit really well together.  The electronics don't feel forced and don't hint at Hebden's dance background, and he and Reid follow each other seamlessly, in a distinctive and original style.  The design of the packaging is tasteful, with glossy inner sleeves, but the cover image with layered semi-transparent photos does not make much sense to me.

Etron Fou Leloublan, Les Sillons de la Terre (side A)

On 1983's Les Sillons de la Terre, Etron Fou focus on very busy and intricate interplay.  There are still song structures and melodic vocals, but these have a lower priority than the dense and constantly moving arrangements.  Despite the overly sterile sound, where the bass and saxophone particularly lack impact, the music moves nicely, as long as the tempos remain fast.  The few points where they slow down to a ballad-like pace, the frenetic energy is lost and the music definitely suffers.  The simple front cover image with the wolves is great, but the back cover design seems hastily assembled.

Spooky Tooth/Pierre Henry, Ceremony (side A)

The inspiration for this odd pairing is unclear.  Spooky Tooth played somewhat aggressive rock with a bit of a space-y feel, but were certainly less "out" than Hawkwind or the Pink Fairies.  Pierre Henry, of course, was best known for his idea of musique concrète.  While their parts play at the same time on 1970's Ceremony, there is little sense of collaboration.  Spooky Tooth's songs and playing are competent and tasteful but undistinguished here.  Henry's sounds often sit over top of the mixes, with technical clarity and detail, and also with a palette that draws attention to itself.  The extreme cover images don't relate to either Henry's abstraction or Spooky Tooth's hard rock.  The concept of a collaboration between these elements seems like a great idea, but the results are more weird than special.  Also notable is that Gary Wright from Spooky Tooth went on to have a huge hit with "Dream Weaver".

Comsat Angels, Waiting for a Miracle (side A)

1980's Waiting for a Miracle feels like a perfect encapsulation of production techniques that felt modern at that time.  Everything sits in a neatly-controlled place, using a combination of gates and compression to create space, along with drastic panning of guitars and keyboards.  Vocals sound thin and rest far out in front.  Drastic reverbs occasionally stretch these carefully positioned elements.  The song structures lend themselves to these austere arrangements, and the lyrics also match nicely.  The very tight and consistent rhythm section leaves room for the guitars and keyboards to be more textural and free.  The simple cover images look great and fit appropriately.

The Chills, Kaleidoscope World (12" EP)

Kaleidoscope World, which was assembled in the UK in 1986 and reissued in the US in 1989, collects 8 of the 10 tracks from the early Chills EPs (1981-82).  The biggest mystery of the compilation is why it omits the other two songs—there is plenty of room on the vinyl.  These singles capture the magic of the Chills.  The songs are always memorably catchy, even when weird rave-ups and break-downs interrupt the conventional structures.  Martin Phillips's lyrics are often sad in an accessible and human scale, without drama or exaggeration.  The performances and recordings aren't perfect, but the magic of the songs comes through, and the quirks always add to their humanity.  The compilation packaging does not flatter the great material herein.

David Thomas, Monster Walks the Winter Lake (side A)

While 1986's Monster Walks the Winter Lake gives little hint of Thomas's long-running involvement with early punk innovators Pere Ubu, it definitely does reflect his love of Ken Nordine's Word Jazz.  Thomas tells strange and funny stories here over a stripped-down and largely acoustic backdrop.  Ubu bassist Tony Maimone switches to upright, Daved Hild from the Girls bangs on chairs, and Garo Yellin plays cello.  While the instruments sound a bit processed (it's hard for banging on chairs to sound organic), they're also incredibly clean and well-recorded.  The influence of Rain Dogs-era Tom Waits strikes me here.  Even Allen Ravenstine's synthesizer falls into the mix, with far less of the chaos that it brought classic Ubu songs.  The strange cover design gives no hint of the record's contents.

Meat Puppets, Meat Puppets II (side A)

1984's Meat Puppets II sounds both ahead of its time and unlike anything else.  While Up on the Sun seems to receive more critical attention, it seems more like a consolidation of ideas and a step back.  Meat Puppets II establishes the band's direction and identity with attitude, energy, and a wonderful bit of chaotic uncertainty.  Nods to the messy hardcore of the band's first album are juxtaposed with banjo and hints at country or folk.  The hints at roots music are completely dissembled, without the referent or reverence of the band's more stylized contemporaries.  While it was obviously recorded carefully in a studio, Meat Puppets II still manages to sound appropriately primitive, capturing a band performing near the edge of disaster.  Both the front cover painting and back cover photograph are perfect for the album.

Robert Wyatt, Comicopera (side C)

2003's Cuckooland has always felt, to me, weaker than most Robert Wyatt records—it seems more like an exploration of new ideas than one of his definitive classics.  2007's Comicopera maintains some of these ideas, but brings them back into the amazing framework established with Shleep.  There are a lot fewer references to a mid-80s early digital synthesizer palette, but the contrast between synthetic and organic that was so central to Cuckooland is maintained here.  Unlike Shleep, Wyatt branches out to singing in many languages on both originals and standards.  The recording and pressing both sound amazing, despite much of the tracking having been done in Wyatt's home—I do wish the frequency balance had a bit thicker midrange.  The packaging is great too, with thick reverse-stock inner and outer sleeves, lyrics on a folding insert card, and a poem etched on the back of the second disc instead of grooves and music.

Robert Barry and Fred Anderson, Duets 2001 (side A)

Duets 2001 was released in 2001, but it was recorded in 1999.  It captures longtime Chicago staple Fred Anderson playing duets with drummer Robert Barry.  While Barry playing exhibits the freedom of his work with Sun Ra, it also owes an obvious debt to the sound of earlier jazz drumming, especially in his very dark snare sound.  His sense of timing feels precise, but without the martial rigidity that Andrew Cyrille sometimes employs.  The closest comparison to Barry's playing here might be Philly Joe Jones's work with Archie Shepp.  Anderson sounds great too—he's obviously comfortable with the collaboration.  It has a lot of energy and employs fast tempos, as the duo, even in their freedom, never lose a classic sense of swing.  The live recording reflects the limitations of its creation, but it captures the dynamics and detail of the duo's performance.  The photos on the cover look great, the design stays out of the way, and the glossy inner sleeve is nice.

David Bedford, Nurses Song with Elephants (side A)

Listening to 1972's Nurses Song with Elephant seemed sad and appropriate given Bedford's passing a few weeks ago.  His compositions here combine an overt focus on texture with complex layering that evolves drastically through time.  Sounds are not presented in pointillistic fashion—they're thrown at the listener in constantly-evolving clusters.  Bedford also exploited his interest in pop music—these abstract compositions could incorporate song-like structures and vocals in a rapid turn.  The recording is natural and stays out of the way, but some high frequency detail seems to have been lost.  The overtly-70s font on the front cover, while it's totally unrelated to more timeless material, is my favorite element in the packaging—the back cover does not look good.

Tom Waits, Alice (side A)

From Waits's vocals through all of the instruments, 2002's Alice is a remarkable record sonically.  Everything appears to sound natural, but on closer inspection is heavily compressed and seems a bit synthetic.  The entire frequency range is well utilized, and it translates nicely to vinyl.  The musicianship is amazing, from celebrities like Stewart Copeland to "our size" people like Gino Robair and Carla Kihlstedt, and everything always falls into place perfectly behind the vocals in the mix.  Waits's vocal takes are also special, ranging from incredibly gravelly to some of his prettiest performances.  The songwriting always plays well to the vocals, but its inconsistency might be the album's only weakness.  The packaging, with a glossy inner sleeve, looks great too.

Plants, Dunn-Olson-Ramirez — 12/15/93 (side A)

In 1993, when Dunn-Olson-Ramirez was recorded, the influences of Borbetomagus and the Dead C were prominent in the experimental noise community.  Plants feature sheets of guitar and saxophone noise, filtered through lo-fi recordings, with splattery percussive accompaniment.  By 2007, when this album was released, it was notable as an early release from the Wolf Eyes/Universal Indians/Ex-Cocaine axis.  Dunn-Olson-Ramirez is a bad sounding cassette recording of this heavy noise, and no effort was made to improve the quality in mastering.  The album was pressed cheaply, with excess vinyl sticking out from the edges.  The handscreened, black-on-black cover is perfect for the album, both imposing and beautiful.

The Wolfgang Press, The Burden of Mules (side A)

The Wolfgang Press evolved out of the beloved Rema-Rema and their more goth successors Mass.  1983's The Burden of Mules reminds me a bit of Metal Box, and maybe the Birthday Party's Bad Seed EP—songs are built around deadpan vocals and repeating basslines.  Unlike those records, a drum machine provides a foundation, with only minimal percussion around it, in an arrangement comparable to Ike Yard.  The track "Slow as a Child" has more of an arty feel, more like Lady June than the Art Bears, and a long way from post-punk.  The sound is a bit subdued, but it's hard to tell if that's on purpose or a reflection of technical limitations.  The dark, murky packaging, looks great.

John Wiggins, All the Truth at Once (side A)

1986's All the Truth at Once establishes an interestingly layered sound field with a lot of dynamics.  Rhythmic patterns appear frequently, but they never last long or establish any sort of groove.  Minimal vocals cut in and out, along with occasional phrases that are obviously sampled.  Analog synth drones and warbles also interact with the other sounds in passing.  The album is sparse and rapidly evolving, without ever resorting to the feel of quick-cuts that became popular a few years later.  It sounds murky, slightly lo-fi, and very distinctive.  The packaging seems to have used early, low-budget digital design software to achieve a look that seems dated but still graceful.

Flying Saucer Attack, Chorus (side A)

1995's Chorus features thick sheets of distorted guitar.  While these layers somehow sound more atmospheric than aggressive, it's heavy for a Flying Saucer Attack album.  There's a lot of reverb, bits of droning feedback, and buried vocals that sound far away.  A lot of tracks on Chorus employ drastic panning across the sound field.  The sound is thick and full of body, and the LP is cut at a loud volume.  The reverse stock paper captures the cover image nicely, and the design flatters the music nicely.

Charalambides, Historic 6th Ward (side C)

The 2002 vinyl reissue of Historic 6th Ward includes liner notes with Tom Carter's honest and accurate description of the album.  It collects a series of styles and ideas from a 3 1/2 year period.  The albums from 1994 and 1995 that followed, Union and Market Square, established the sound with with Charlambides would be associated—dark, psychedelic, and woozy explorations, with Christina's vocals merging into folk-tinged guitar.  Historic 6th Ward, which was recorded between 1991 and 1994, includes seemingly everything else, from fairly straightforward indie-folk to some harsh sonic extremes reminiscent of Chrome.  The somewhat uniform mood that characterizes most Charlambides albums is thus missing here, but their vision and talent shine through the breadth of ideas.  The reissue nicely preserves the primitive source material, and the hand-assembled packaging looks great.

Richard Youngs, Sapphie (side A)

Originally released on CD in 1998, Sapphie defined a stylistic break for Richard Youngs.  His more experimental albums sometimes included songs with conventional structure and vocal melodies, especially the amazing new wave-influenced Pulse of the Rooster.  Sapphie was a far greater leap, as there are no unusual timbres or even overdubs.  Youngs's simple songs are rendered only with acoustic guitar and vocals, and his earlier playfulness has been abandoned.  The long, slowly-evolving tracks on Sapphie are sad and beautiful, as they expose a different side of Youngs's personality and creative voice.  After Sapphie, he has made a series of records following this template.  The 2006 LP reissue looks great, with nice reverse stock paper for the cover, but it would have benefited from a bit darker frequency balance.

Riechmann, Wunderbar (side A)

Wolfgang Riechmann's 1978 LP was released at the same time as Michael Rother's Sterntaler and just after Ashra's New Age of Earth.  Both of those albums are often acknowledged as influential and ahead of their time—Wunderbar sounds perhaps more contemporary than either, but is often overlooked, perhaps because of Riechmann's limited output.  The drum machine programs sound great, and the layered guitar and synths are impressive, whether on faster, dancier tracks or moving at slower tempos.  "Abendlicht" is particularly ahead of its time—the submerged bass rhythm reminds me of Gas or Polmo Polpo.  The reissue is also impressive—the LP is on thick vinyl and is particularly well mastered, and the packaging looks great too.

Au Pairs, Live in Berlin (side A)

1983's Live in Berlin documents a 1981 concert—most material comes from Playing with a Different Sex, and the performances and arrangements are very close to those on the album.  The playing and singing are impressively focused and disciplined—it sounds like the band has been on tour a lot playing these songs.  The set ends with a fast-paced romp through "Piece of My Heart".  The sound is simple and not particularly impressive, but it also stays out of the way in capturing these strong performances.  The austere packaging looks almost like a bootleg (including failing to credit David Bowie for "Repetition"), but Live in Berlin appears to have been an official release.

The Ex, Catch My Shoe (side A)

2011's Catch My Shoe is a surprising departure for the Ex for many reasons.  Founding singer Jos has left and been replaced with Arnold from Zea, and the group is now a quartet with no bassist.  The resulting album is the lightest and most fun Ex record since their earliest, chaotic punk rock days.  The lyrics are still rich in messaging (except, perhaps, the ones in Ethiopian—I can't tell), but they're less blunt and more open-ended than Jos's overtly didactic tendencies.  The music has lost much of its darkness without abandoning its sheer intensity.  The drums are quieter than they were on the last few records, too, which is a relief, and gives the guitars more room to breathe.  The cover still looks like an old-school punk rock record, and I wouldn't hope for anything else from one of the last great first-generation punk bands standing.

The Ornette Coleman Quartet, This is Our Music (side A)

1961's This is Our Music is the third the famous trilogy of Ornette's quartet albums that captured his approach and in many ways created his legacy.  After two records with Billy Higgins on drums, Ed Blackwell appears here—Higgins's aggressively pulsing cymbal work is replaced with Blackwell's greater emphasis on toms and polyrhythms.  Ornette's compositions are still lyrical and can border on romantic, but they hint even more at the abstract ideas that would follow.  The amazing photo and cover design have grown canonical and been imitated.  My 90s pressing is mastered to make Haden's bass a bit more clearly audible, but it also emphasizes some of the harshness in Cherry's pocket-trumpet that I'd rather not hear so well.

Fifty Foot Hose, Cauldron (side A)

1967's Cauldron dates from the height of the Bay Area psychedelic movement, having been released between After Bathing at Baxter's and Anthem of the Sun.  While their work fits nicely alongside those famous records, because Fifty Foot Hose did not have a more commercially-viable career surrounding its release, they're seen as a bit more of an outsider band.  Cauldron includes short synth interludes and lots of long tape delay everywhere, especially on the vocals (an Echolette is on the instrument list).  The musicianship doesn't quite rival Airplane or the Dead, but the ideas translate through Fifty Foot Hose's technical limitations.  Longtime Grateful Dead affiliate Dan Healy appears in the credits, and the cover painting fits the era perfectly too.  Unfortunately, my 2010 reissue, which is pressed on nice thick vinyl, is mastered to sound bright and modern, far from the frequency balance of the original LP (and the EQs used to boost the highs distort a bit, too).

Popol Vuh, In den Gärten Pharaos (side A)

1971's In den Gärten Pharaos consists of two side-long tracks.  Both feature slowly evolving synthesizer drones over vaguely indigenous-sounding percussion.  The title track on side A rolls gently, while "Vuh" on side B is harsher and more aggressive.  My 1997 pressing features a nice reproduction of the original gatefold (the simple design on an orange background is tasteful and appropriate) and super-thick vinyl, but distorted trebly parts sound unnecessarily harsh and reflect an inadequate mastering job.

David Bowie, Diamond Dogs (side A)

1974's Diamond Dogs is a radical departure from Bowie's last album of original material, Aladdin Sane.  Gone now is Mick Ronson's powerful rhythm guitar, and it's been replaced, to some extent, by silence.  Any rhythm guitars are acoustic, and any drive from these or the keyboards usually sounds synthetic and slightly unflattering.  The vocals are also compressed with a more synthetic feel, and sometimes extremely processed with unusual effects like tremolo.  Layered keyboards, saxophones, and sparse guitar lines fill the space, but seem detached from the more conventional rock attack that the rhythm section often provides.  The gatefold front and inside cover images provide a wild and futuristic context that nicely accompanies Bowie's lyrics.

Javanese Court Gamelan Volume II (side A)

The style of 1977's Javanese Court Gamelan Volume II is subdued and calm.  The album contains two very short tracks and two very long ones—3 of the 4 have vocals.  The singing strikes me as an obvious influence on Sun City Girls' microtonal vocal excursions—it shifts and slides through a set of notes that seems like a scale, but it's clearly an unfamiliar one to Western ears.  The tempos are consistently slow, and the pieces give a sense of structure and composition.  The recording captures a nice balance, and I wish the photos on the back cover were larger.

Fairport Convention, Unhalfbricking (side A)

1969's Unhalfbricking is a stranger album than I had remembered it.  Fairly rigid rock drumming turns up at times, and then at others it's replaced by banging on chairs.  There's an eleven minute song (an ambitious arrangement of the traditional "A Sailor's Life"), and also singing in French (on a Bob Dylan cover).  It also memorably includes classics from Richard Thompson ("Genesis Hall") and Sandy Denny ("Who Knows Where the Time Goes").  The recording is simple and timeless, but the weird picture of elephants on the cover of my US pressing makes little sense.

The Band, Stage Fright (side A)

In the age of MP3s, I'm not sure how much artists worry about front-loading albums.  During the CD era, it seemed common to put the best songs at the beginning of an album.  1970's Stage Fright, from many years earlier, took a completely opposite approach—the weakest songs on the album are at the beginning, and all of the hits and even near-hits are on side B.  The recordings are a lot more modern and conventional than the first two albums, with more separation and less bleed.  The frequency balance is overly bright and present, at the very beginning of the decade where this trend was prominent (fortunately, the cymbals still sound dark and rich, without any shrillness).  The lead vocal on "All La Glory" (which sounds like Richard Manuel) particularly flatters his take, where on earlier albums vocal sounds were blended more.  The album cover is unconventional, and far less referentially old than the first two Band albums.

Robyn Hitchcock, I Often Dream of Trains (side A)

The songwriting on 1984's I Often Dream of Trains is of course great.  The arrangements are strange, but end up complementing the songs perfectly.  Nearly the entire album is built around a bright, obviously synthetic electric piano.  The performances and arrangements hint at Hunky Dory-era Bowie, but with the electric piano replacing Rick Wakeman's organic instrument, the sound changes drastically.  The acoustic guitar and vocals, which are often the only other instruments (as Hitchcock plays nearly everything) are mixed to match the weird sounding piano.  The frequency balance is overly present and lacks low-end, but the sound somehow matches the material, and contributes to the timelessness of I Often Dream of Trains.

Nick Drake, Bryter Layter (side A)

1970's Bryter Layter has gained canonical status long after its release.  Its vague jazz tinge reflects Drake's close association with John Martyn at the time, and Chris MacGregor's piano solo on "Poor Boy" is of course special.  My 1977 re-press has liner notes on the back from a music writer named Sam Sutherland make me laugh—they hint at the recognition he'd receive in the future, even as he was far less well remembered at the time.  In some places, the sibilance is too noticeable on the vocals—it might just be the mastering job of my re-press.

John Coltrane Quartet, Crescent (side A)

While 1964's Crescent receives far less press than its immediate successor A Love Supreme, it still feels like a canonical album that's hard to discuss.  Coltrane is grappling here with both freedom, on "The Drum Thing", and structure, through the rest of the album.  He's also balancing light and dark emotional content on different tracks.  I have a mid-90s LP—it's pressed on nice, thick vinyl, with a beautiful recreation of the gatefold cover.  The mastering does a great job of emphasizing Garrison's bass, but the mid-range is a bit thin and the highs on the cymbals were boosted too much.

The Soul of Mbira (side A)

1973's The Soul of Mbira dates from when the country of Zimbabwe was still called Rhodesia.  It documents four different regional mbira traditions.  While westerners typically find mbiras as small planks of wood, they were traditionally mounted inside of gourds for resonance.  The music is consistently uplifting and happy without feeling heavy-handed.  Vocals and shakers called hosho often accompany the mbira.  At times on this recording, the hosho overpower the mbira—the illogically bright mastering job on my 80s repress unfortunately amplifies this problem.  While the detailed liner notes are informative, I wish the musician images on the back cover were somehow larger.

Thomas Köner, Nunatak (side A)

2010 marked the vinyl reissue of 1990's CD-only Nunatak, which was originally called Nunatak Gongamur.  Nunatak's sonic environment evolves very slowly—there is usually only one sound at a time, and each sounds is long in duration.  Most of the sounds are in the high-bass/low-mid frequency range with limited, muffled overtones.  These warbles sound like the gongs that apparently created them.  The remaining sounds are high frequencies, of unidentifiable origin, are attributed to home-made woodwind instruments, and these sounds jump out a bit in the mix.  While the album moves continuously and organically, the 11 pieces on Nunatak employ a consistent enough palette and pacing that there is limited differentiation between them.  The blurry, black-and-white photo that looks like people leading dogs up a snowy mountain is a perfect cover image.

The Eternals, Approaching the Energy Field (side A)

On 2007's Heavy International, the Eternals emphasized their powerful rhythm section the most of any of their albums.  2011's Approaching the Energy Field marks something of a return to the electronic focus of their early 12"s.  Tim Mulvenna returns to drum on a few songs, but Wayne seems to play more keyboards and even guitar than bass this time, and it pulls the record in a much more synthetic direction.  The songs are dance-y without being bass-heavy, with lots of interesting detail that comes at least vaguely closer to hip-hop than the group's recent albums.  Damon's vocals, of course, are far more melodic and song-like than particularly resembling rap, even when they take on a sort of spoken quality.  Wayne handled all of the recording this time, and while it sounds a bit primitive (better mastering would help), it almost magically captures the ideas and the music.  The cover is a collage of photographs rather than drawings, a departure from the group's earlier albums.

The Weird Weeds, Help Me Name Melody (side A)

The Weird Weeds' musicianship and singing are remarkable—even as they've grown slightly heavier with 2010's Help Me Name Melody, the band's greatest strength remains their ability to leave space in their very controlled playing.  The references of the Art Bears and Low remain, even as they've added distortion and heavy drumming in places.  There's also now an upright bass, which ranges from simple pulsing to arco bowing.  Help Me Name Melody adds untitled, repetitive instrumentals alongside songs that more resemble the Weird Weeds's earlier material.  The recording sounds like a low-budget imitation of Steve Albini—the spaciousness, which fits the music well, is coupled with more compression and less airy high-end.  The distasteful album cover, which meshes somewhat ironically with the music, is printed beautifully on reverse stock, and it also appears on the packaging for the bonus CD of the same material that accompanies the album.
 

Gamelan Semar Pugulingan (side A)

1972's Gamelan Semar Pegulingan translates this style to "Gamelan of the love god'.  In Western culture, love songs are associated with ballads, but this gamelan has a much higher energy than the Javanese court gamelan captured on some other albums.  It's not as chaotic as the ketjak, but the tempos are consistently fast, with energy and drive.  The music is all instrumental, which I prefer to the gamelan with vocal melodies.  The recording is clean and impressive for a field recording, but the metallic instruments feel a bit harsh and I'd like to hear a bit more low end.  The back cover of my late-70s copy uses a badly-matched font to identify Nonesuch's updated address.

Califone, Quicksand/Cradlesnakes (side A)

2003's Quicksand/Cradlesnakes fully establishes Califone's mature sound as a departure from Tim and Ben's earlier work with Red Red Meat—it's also their first album to involve Jim Becker and Joe Adamik, who have since become full-time members.  The hints of rock music in the structures, while still present, have moved far into the background, with the music hewing much more closely to the poetic structures of Tim's abstract lyrics.  The line between percussive and melodic sounds has become fully blurred, with the entire arrangements appearing to have been built around Ben's distinctive approach to his kit.  The songs are great and beautiful, and the interstitial instrumentals add flow and cohesion.  The bright and recognizably modern sound somehow succeeds at creating a distinctive listening experience without feeling distracting.  The packaging has a lot of attention to detail, with a reverse-stock cover and printed inner-sleeve. 

New Dalta Ahkri, Reflectativity (side A)

While Leo Smith is credited with scoring the improvisations (and he also has a producer credit), his name does not appear as a leader on 1975's Reflectativity—it's credited to New Dalta Ahkri as an ensemble.  The group here consists of Smith along with Anthony Davis on piano and Wes Brown on bass and Ghanaian flute.  The pieces often involve a foreground instrument playing for an extended time in a fixed style with sparse accompaniment.  The ensemble sections between these solo-like periods are short and subdued.  The music is slight to a point where it nearly disappears, even as the playing itself is busy and full of detail.  The sparse silhouette line drawing barely reveals the shape of the players, much like the music, and the 70s font accompanies it perfectly.  The sound quality is good for a mid-70s live recording, though the bass sound captures too much mid-range and lacks low end.

Archie Shepp, Blasé (side A)

Blasé foreshadows Shepp's populist soul/gospel-tinged albums of the 70s more often than it resembles his chaotic energy jazz works that were contemporaneous with it.  Where Jeanne Lee often seemed out of place in her appearances on free-blowing records, Shepp uses her perfectly here—she sings melodies over mostly repeated grooves.  Chicago Beau and Julio Finn, who overwhelmed some records, fit nicely into the background here, and Philly Joe Jones shows his versatility in veering from swing to explosion to texture.  After Ellington's "Sophisticated Lady", Blasé ends with heavy wailing on the closer "Touareg".  The front and back cover photos are great, and my original pressing sounds surprisingly good.

Grachan Moncur III, Aco Dei de Madrugada (side A)

Moncur's quartet on this album includes two Brazilians, so it's not surprising that side A consists of two traditional Brazilian tracks.  There is even a short vocal stretch by pianist Fernando Martins at the beginning of the title-track.  1970's Aco Dei de Madrugada is low-key and pleasant, with melodic solos over a pulsing rhythm section.  Moncur's playing is predictably great, and the album is a fun listen, but the arrangements may be the least ambitious during his career as leader.  He's barely recognizable in the front cover image, and the mistranslation of the title to "Waked up" is amusing.

Mantronix, The Album (side A)

Mantronix coupled underground hip-hop with electro on 1985's distinctive The Album.  The bass has impact to spare, thanks in part to the simple arrangements.  Kurtis Mantronik's vocals sound great, and the lyrics are well-crafted.  Vocoders, sampling delays, and '80s drum machines were obviously state-of-the-art at the time, and while the dated technology can feel charming, memorable songs like "Fresh is the Word", "Bassline", and "Needle to the Groove" have aged gracefully.  Beck, of course, has given Mantronix pop-culture cachet by appropriating "two turntables and a microphone" from "Needle to the Groove".  The iconic cover emphasizes the idea of stripped-down simplicity.

Jefferson Airplane, After Bathing at Baxter's (side A)

I somehow found this quote on AllMusic.com: "this is not the album by which one should start listening to this band," and I couldn't disagree more.  1967's After Bathing at Baxter's, Airplane's third album, makes complete sense alongside anything from The United States of America to the Golden Dawn's Power Plant.  Like the Grateful Dead's Anthem of the Sun, it makes a very compelling argument that, at that time, even the most commercially viable bands could make genuinely inventive and damaged albums.  The band's excellent musicianship is manifest, though Spencer Dryden sometimes foregoes his precise drumming for subtler textures, and the guitar sound is blown out to extremes.  The compositions incorporate the blues riffs associated with Airplane, and sometimes even have recognizable choruses, but the majority of the album flows in a more linear and narrative fashion.  The sound is unimpressive for a commercial album of the late-60s—it seems that effort was focused on allowing freedom over any notion of technical mastery.  After Bathing at Baxter's is easy to overlook in the context of Airplane's less daring and inventive work, but it stands up as a genuinely original and powerful example of psychedelia's beautiful excesses.

Art Ensemble of Chicago, Live at Mandel Hall (side C)

Across its four sides, Live at Mandel Hall captures the diversity of an Art Ensemble of Chicago concert.  Parts are frenetic and resemble 60s New York energy jazz, while other sections are quiet and introspective.  Moments reminiscent of Dixieland Jazz coexist with long sections of ensemble hand-drumming that sound like a field recording.  Everything is executed with technical skill and sincere passion for what is happening, and the members' creative personalities always come through.  Live at Mandel Hall is a competent, if unspectacular, recording of a 1972 concert, though it was not released until 1974.  The side breaks in the middle of the performance, which had few pauses, can be slightly jarring.  Unfortunately, the CD, which omits the jarring side breaks, also replaces the classic and timeless needlepoint cover art with a design that lacks personality.

Ken Lauber, Contemplation (view) (side A)

1969's Contemplation (view) features a cast of amazing Nashville players who had worked with legends like Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison.  Familiar names like Wayne Moss, Kenneth Buttrey, Charlie McCoy, and Weldon Myrick contribute beautiful backing tracks to Lauber's understated songs.  When the songs grow too understated, they sometimes don't attract much attention, in part because Lauber's vocal style has limited character and emotional range.  When this understatement combines with a subtle majesty, on songs like "Undertow" and "Far Will I Travel", the results are haunting and beautiful.  While I'm  happy that Contemplation (view) was reissued on vinyl, I wish the label had invested more in mastering (the treble is a bit harsh, and the mids are too thin) rather than 180 gram vinyl.  I also don't understand the glossy finish on the cover, which was obviously not part of the original (the photos of Lauber still look great).

David Thomas & the Pedestrians, The Sound of the Sand & Other Songs of the Pedestrian (side A)

The Sound of the Sand dates from 1981, after Pere Ubu's The Art of Walking.  The strangest thing about it is its large cast.  In addition to both Pere Ubu drummers (it was made during the transition), the album involves Philip Moxham (Young Marble Giants), Richard Thompson, 2 members of Henry Cow, and the guy who played trumpet on "Got to Get You into My Life" (Eddie Thornton).  The rotating cast somehow ended up even making a song without Thomas on it for this album—an Anton Fier instrumental titled "The Crickets in the Flats".  The songs with Thomas have an almost circus-like quality—they're bouncy with energy and subtly angular melodies.  The sound is typically bright for the new wave era of the early 80s, but the bass does come through.  The cover image and design are fairly perplexing.

Eleventh Dream Day, Riot Now (side A)

I like Eleventh Dream Day most when they emphasize their more aggressive side, both through more raw mixes/production and through relying more on their faster songs.  I'm thus thrilled with Riot Now!, and not just because of the excellent painting of Matt Rizzo grocery shopping on the cover.  Where some of their albums have very pristine mixes, Riot Now! reminds me more of early '80s albums like the Gun Club's Fire of Love or the first Green on Red 12".  If anything, I wish it were a bit more polished, which works well for EDD (I do wish the vocals were a bit quieter most of the time).  Where records like Eighth rely more on mid-tempo songs, Riot Now! features a lot of faster tempos with drive and energy.

Emitt Rhodes, Emitt Rhodes (side A)

Emitt Rhodes, from 1970, is impressively consistent.  The songs, singing, and performances (all by Rhodes) are all impressive—the mundane pop-song lyrics may be the closest thing to a weakness.  Rhodes recorded this at home, though he did mix it in a studio, and the sound is generally good.  The drum hits (especially the toms) have a bit of a "splat" that might reflect an inexperienced engineer.  Also, the tambourine overdubs, presumably because of some technical limitation in the recording or transfer of basics, preserved a lot more treble than any of the basic tracks, and this was not rolled back on mix.  The front and back cover photos of Rhodes in a run-down old building are impressive—they provide a portrait of the artist which is beautiful but not overly sentimental.

The Shadow Ring, Live in U.S.A. (side A)

Live in U.S.A. is a 1997 release of a 1995 concert recording.  This tour predates Tim Goss's synthesizer work in the Shadow Ring, so Graham and Darren were backed by American musicians for this tour.  The concerts were a bit more organic and performed than the studio albums, where the 1997 tour with Tim Goss was more overtly electronic.  Live in U.S.A. features excellent performances of songs from Put the Music in its Coffin and Wax-Work Echoes (which was not completed until after this tour), along with some tracks not on any studio album.  The live recording sounds rough in a different way than the group's lo-fi studio albums sound rough—the sounds are combined more organically, even as there is not much low-end.  The simple, pasted-on cover features an image that was obviously taken after this tour happened.

Sun City Girls, Kaliflower (side A)

1994's Kaliflower includes a cross-section of many of Sun City Girls' approaches.  Frenetic guitar playing that borders on punk rock energy and volume is juxtaposed with tracks that include field recordings from Southeast Asia.  Long-winded rants set to music collide with intricate and detailed songs that seem to have grown in a non-existent culture.  Of course the sound quality is inconsistent and the mastering can be unimpressive, but Kaliflower captures the diversity and magic of three massively talented musicians.  I'm not sure which is more off-putting, the horribly clashing color scheme of the front cover or the genuinely unpleasant image.

This Kind of Punishment, A Beard of Bees (side A)

By 1984, the notion of post-punk had fragmented in many directions.  As far as these records deviated from the original impulses of punk rock, they tended to keep at least some of its extroversion and propulsion.  While A Beard of Bees reflects the influence of so many records of the early '80s, it couples them with pure notions of understatement and introversion.  The resulting album feels far less shocking in 2011, when notions of "lo-fi" feel commonplace, than it must have new, or even in 1993 when my reissue copy was made.  The songs on A Beard of Bees combine a diverse array of ideas, many of which had some association with post-punk: analog synthesizers and drum machines, vocals that cross speech with singing, and falling apart chaos all make appearances alongside electric guitars and pianos.  The simple cover design is both stark and beautiful.  The remastering and pressing job from 1993 at least preserves the distinctiveness of this primitive creation.

The Seeds, The Seeds (side A)

The Seeds are remembered as one of the heavier bands of the garage era, but by today's standards they seem a bit modest.  The tempos on 1966's The Seeds never reach a high pace (maybe in part because of the group's technical limitations as musicians) and the dynamics and timbres always remain contained.  Their ability to produce any drive is impressive given how weak some of the drum takes are.  Strangely, when the drumming actually picks up a bit in "Evil Hoodoo", they're buried by a gratuitous tambourine overdub—this droning and repetitive song, the longest on the album, hints at the Stooges' "We Will Fall" and the Swell Maps' "Harmony in Your Bathroom".  The music, while limited in propulsion, is notable for its darkness, especially in Sky Saxon's vocal delivery, and the guitar playing that occasionally falls out of line into chaos.  And I'm amused that the cover bothers to note, in a large box, the inclusion of "Pushin' Too Hard".

Gram Parsons, GP (side A)

The most prominent feature of 1973's GP is Parsons's voice.  It's mixed far out in front of the instruments, and as a result, no effort is made to fit it into the mix—his rich and thick voice is preserved and emphasized.  He's a great singer, and it sounds fabulous.  The music is well played by a set of talented sidemen, the most surprising being Barry Tashian from Boston garage rock legends the Remains.  The songwriting, which includes both originals and covers, is strong but not entirely consistent.  The front cover looks great with appropriate use of subtlety in its design.

The Beach Boys, Holland (side A)

1973's Holland reflects the chaos and diversity of the Beach Boys from this era.  "Sail On Sailor", which was a big radio hit at the time, kicks off the album with a great Blondie Chaplin vocal over an incredibly well-crafted song.  5 different songwriters are credited with contributions to this song alone.  The rest of the album sounds like radio music from its era, with an overly bright, present mix.  Instead of conventionally structured songs, however, the tracks themselves flow in a through-composed manner that seems more happened than intended.  Holland is definitely a strange record that resembles little else.  The front covers of both the album and bonus single are beautiful and confusing.

Martial Solal, Bluesine (side A)

Solal's distinctive voice in his piano playing stayed surprisingly constant between his earliest releases and 1983's solo album Bluesine.  At times, his piano is purely lyrical and beautiful.  In other places, though, without losing the beauty or pace, he breaks up time into fragments, often by using his left hand to create a counter-rhythm.  I'm less fond of the recording, which sounds too much like close-mic'ed piano strings and too little like instrument in a room—Solal's playing is about a big picture, not the microscopic sound of strings.  The front cover photo of Solal is subtle and beautiful, but the font selection makes no sense.

NRBQ, All Hopped Up (side A)

1977's All Hopped Up is a typical NRBQ album.  It combines mostly originals with a few obscure old standards, and they're a bit inconsistent overall.  Notable among the standards, Jimmy Logsdon's "I Got a Rocket in My Pocket" became a staple of NRBQ's concerts.  Al Anderson's "Ridin' in My Car', while not prominent in the group's touring repertoire, found a new life as a power-pop favorite, and was recently covered by She & Him.  I'm also fond of "Doctor's Wind", a lighter instrumental from Joey Spampinato that's atypical of the group's work.  Like so many NRBQ albums, the production of All Hopped Up has aged poorly—it tries to sound syntactically modern for 1977, rather than capturing the magic of their live performances.  Though the Q stands for quartet, the front and back cover images include members of the horn section.

dälek, from filthy tongue of gods and griots (side A)

In the early oughts, Anti-Pop Consortium may have received the most recognition for incorporating indie-rock aesthetics into hip-hop.  Where Anti-Pop focused on minimalist simplicity, dälek began to stretch hip-hop through a maximalist approach.  The densely layered rhythms of Public Enemy and the Bomb Squad were coupled with drones out of My Bloody Valentine or the Jesus and Mary Chain.  2002's from filthy tongue of gods and griots sounds neither primitive nor polished, and it definitely lacks the sterile clarity that has long been fashionable in hip-hop.  My disclaimer here is that I'm working with Chang/Still, who joined the group during the making of this album, on his new material.

Music of the Sea Ensemble, We Move Together (side A)

Perhaps from Donald Rafael Garrett's involvement with major jazz players like John Coltrane, 1971's We Move Together is often remembered as a jazz album.  In a way, it makes sense—the Sea Ensemble sometimes resemble Don Cherry's ethnic explorations, Pharoah Sanders's introspection, Sun Ra's cosmic chaos, and perhaps the Art Ensemble's work with "little instruments".  We Move Together, though, frequently lacks any pulse or hint of harmonic development.  Despite the obvious talent and experience of the players, it seems sincerely naïve and awkward, as reflected by the simple illustration on the cover.  This record is sometimes tied to the abstract folk-psych movement that sprung up in the mid-90s, and groups like Tower Recordings and even the Shadow Ring (who paid obvious homage to the "Music of the" moniker) owe a clear debt to the Sea Ensemble.

Massacre, Killing Time (side A)

The power of this high-energy group is slightly dulled by the weird sound of 1981's Killing Time, but not enough to lose the trio's impressive playing.  Frith, Laswell, and Maher weave easily in and out of each other's rhythms, without ever losing their force and drive.  The tracks are short, with ideas developing and completing quickly, before the next is unveiled in the next piece.  From the gated drums to the midrangy bass guitar, the sound is recognizably 80s and unflattering—at least the pressing quality is good.  The front cover image and back cover band photos are excellent, and they capture the group's intensity nicely.  There may be a vague political bent to the front cover, which makes sense given Frith's involvement with Henry Cow—it's hard to tell in instrumental music.

Tom Waits, Rain Dogs (side A)

In addition to being an obvious "classic", 1985's Rain Dogs feels like the definitive Tom Waits album.  It features many of his regular collaborators, including Keith Richards, and perhaps his best known song in "Downtown Train" (which was popularized by Rod Stewart).  It also covers a remarkably broad stylistic range while somehow maintaining a coherent sound and style.  The sound is interesting, coupling an obvious influence of then-popular production techniques with Waits's acoustic emphasis.  The strangest sounds are the clanging percussion splats, which are badly-compressed to sound completely unnatural even as they're obviously made by conventional collisions.  The mastering impressively captures good sound quality on very long LP sides, and the front cover image and design are iconic and classic.

DNA, DNA on DNA (side C)

The importance of DNA's fragmented art-damaged guitar rock in late-70s New York has been (appropriately) well documented, and founders Arto Lindsay and Ikue Mori remain musically active and relevant.  The 2008 reissue DNA on DNA enthusiastically collects the band's output, including many previously unreleased (and generally very strong) songs from live cassettes.  It's nice having everything in one place on vinyl, including all of the unearthed material.  The gatefold package with lots of concert flyers (including a show in Indiana with the Dancing Cigarettes) also reflects the care paid to this anthology.  The only unfortunate compromise on this reissue is the mastering job—everything sounds a bit overly present and weak in mid-range.

Stevie Wonder, Songs in the Key of Life (side C)

Famous and canonical records always leave the challenge of contributing anything meaningful about them.  On listening to 1976's Songs in the Key of Life, two things stand out to me.  One is how little impact the drums and bass have for a record in the soul genre.  It isn't just small sounding (if beautiful) by modern standards—it's even small sounding for 1976.  I also notice how many abstract and extended structures there are throughout the double album.  While it's remembered for hits like "Isn't She Lovely" and "Sir Duke", Songs in the Key of Life is a long and complex whole.  Finally, the packaging is really impressive, with a nice booklet (more thank you's than most hardcore records), gatefold, and bonus 7".

Insayngel, Insayngel (side A)

Calder Martin and Caitlin Cook were part of Excepter for a short time which may have been that group's strangest period.  For 2008's Insayngel, they teamed up with the Sightings' rhythm section.  The resulting collaboration is as heavy as Sightings, but less aggro and more confusing.  At times it reminds me a bit of the Scissor Girls, but Insayngel is thick and dense, where the Scissor Girls relied more on open space.  There are songs structures here, but they're unconventional and provide no hints to the listener about their flow.  The murky sound fits the music perfectly, and retains enough clarity for the performances to come through.  The simple cover design is interesting and reveals very little.

Dead Moon, Nervous Sooner Changes (side A)

Dead Moon were one of the most powerful live rock bands of their era, and their records capture that raw energy.  By recording at home, they achieved far from pristine fidelity (Nervous Sooner Changes would have really benefited from a better mastering job), but the comfort obviously brought out great performances in both instruments and vocals.  Their records were always a bit inconsistent, and they emphasized the same "hits" in live shows throughout their career.  1995's Nervous Sooner Changes might be their most consistent album, especially on side A.  The front cover photo captures the sweat-drenched magic of their live concerts.

Jon Hassell, Dream Theory in Malaya: Fourth World Volume Two (side A)

It's amazing how far Hassell's work was stretching the vague genre "ambient" in 1981.  Dream Theory in Malaya employs sounds that seem to have been cut-up and looped.  While an early AMS effect was credited on the back (and its owner was explicity thanked), it's hard to imagine how some of this palette was created without technology that is taken for granted 30 years later.  Hassell creates an incredible sense of space by relying on abstract sounds and repetition—this strategy seems obvious today, but resembles nothing else of its time.  The pressing is not great, but the record still sounds quite good thanks to an obvious attention to detail during its creation.  The cover, however, neither flatters the music nor looks appealing.

Big Flame, Two Kan Guru (10" EP)

Big Flame stretched Gang of Four/Nightingales style heavy-guitar post-punk to an even more fractured extreme.  The guitar sounds even more brittle (despite a surprisingly competent recording), the vocals are even more buried, and the lyrics are even more aggressively political.  The Two Kan Guru 10" captures the amazing performances of a band who clearly felt a strong emotional attachment to their music and lyrics, even as they made little effort to push this message to an audience—they seemed to perceive any effort to so as betraying their values.  The bright colors and strong image on the cover are perfectly attention grabbing.

Don Cherry, "mu" first part/"mu" second part (side C)

This strange Japanese double-LP combines the two more common French "mu" LPs from 1969 into a gatefold.  As is typical of Japanese jazz releases, the mastering and pressing quality is fantastic—it even masks some of the limitations of these recordings.  Over four sides, Cherry and Blackwell display the range of their playing, nearly all of it fantastic (though piano may not have been Cherry's greatest strength).  It ranges from full-blare energy jazz, similar to their work with Ornette, to more introspective and percussion-heavy pieces that remind me of Pharoah Sanders.  Blackwell can powerfully drive forward or provide a sense of texture and space where Cherry fills in colors and sustained flute.  The front and back covers of this reissue both feature images of Cherry, though Blackwell is clearly an equal partner in this duo.

The Peter Thomas Sound Orchestra, Chariots of the Gods? Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (side A)

Released in Germany in 1970 and the US in 1974, the Chariots of the Gods? soundtrack manages to combine bits of seemingly everything without sounding incongruous.  Some parts sound a bit like instrumental rock music, with guitars and a drum kit.  Others draw from a more traditional soundtrack palette, with strings and sparse percussion.  While they're a bit overly bright, the recordings are impressively consistent—it really helps to unite all of the disparate ideas.  The music is generally upbeat and engaging, and since it was made for a soundtrack, the pieces state their ideas in a concise and efficient manner.  The packaging emphasizes the contents of the film—apart from the obvious associations with its era, there is little regard for the music contained on the album.

Bee Gees, 1st (side A)

I find it easy to forget just how much 1967's Bee Gees' 1st impresses me.  The group went through a lot of stylistic changes, the debt to the Beatles is obvious, and the album is similar to the group's late-60s output.  Where albums like Horizontal and Idea are good, Bee Gees' 1st is particularly special.  The arrangements vary a lot between songs, with each one distinctive and well thought out.  The vocals and instruments are impressively recorded and mixed, with both body and space.  Even song titles reflect a lot of thought: "Criase Finton Kirk Royal Academy of the Arts" and "New York Mining Disaster 1941" are among the memorable examples.  Klaus Voormann's cover design looks great too.

U.S. Saucer, Tender Places Come from Nothing (side A)

U.S. Saucer might be best remembered for featuring Brian Hageman of Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 "fame".  1994's Tender Places Come from Nothing, their second album, reflects their uniquely reverent but still eccentric approach to country music.  The drum-less arrangements and careful vocal harmonies owe an obvious debt to classic country.  At the same time, the vocal performances and recording style are raw and purposely natural, with an obvious debt to the band's involvement with indie rock.  The playing is also both proficient and slightly awkwardly arranged.  Tender Places Come from Nothing includes both originals and creative covers, including "Silent Night" and the Beach Boys' "Hold on Dear Brother" (from Carl & the Passions/So Tough).  The recording style suits the material perfectly, and the cover design is simple and tasteful.

Mal Waldron, Moods (side C)

1978's Moods is a double-LP, evenly divided between a sextet and Waldron solo.  The sextet features regular Waldron collaborators in Steve Lacy and Cameron Brown.  The surprising part is that a third of the ensemble is Japanese, with Terumasa Hino on trumpet and Makaya Ntshoko on drums.  This half of the album combines Waldron's suspended and floating compositional style with propulsion and drive.  The sound of these tracks is overly bright.  The second half, on solo piano, provides context for the album title, as pieces include "Anxiety" and "Happiness".  Here, Waldron's suspended, slowly-evolving pieces have a lot more room to breathe.  He also brings in turns of stride piano, with a more classic rhythmic sense than is typical of his compositions.  The cover photograph and design, while beautiful and classy, have little relationship to Waldron's music.

Nine // Underground (side A)

1987's Nine // Underground collects the work of Atlanta bands between 1982 and 1985.  Other than Jarboe, none of the bands is remembered today, though they have great names like PVC Precinct, Young Schizophrenics, and Pillowtexans.  The music draws heavily from early Cabaret Voltaire, SPK, and the beginnings of the industrial genre, although the liner notes somehow reference AMM.  Analog synthesizers and delays are prominent, along with early drum machines.  Appropriated recordings of speech occasionally appear over the music.  The sound quality and packaging are both appropriately primitive.  While Nine // Underground is an obscure and forgotten regional compilation, the music stands up alongside better-remembered work in the genre.

DJ Marcelle/Another Nice Mess, Meets More Soulmates at Faust Studio Deejay Laboratory (side C)

2010's Meets More Soulmates reflects DJ Marcelle's idiosyncratic vision of a dance DJ.  There are beats here, and they morph and flow seamlessly.  The overlying music, however, is cacophonous and confusing.  She credits her samples, and the strangest might be avant-sound experimentalist Giuseppe Ielasi—any obvious techno or soul samples are consistently avoided.  The sound is a bit uneven, with occasional sub bass rumbles providing far more impact than any kick drum, and with highs that can be unnecessarily harsh.  The funny, appropriated front cover images give no hint of the contents inside.

Shrimp Boat, Speckly (side A)

Speckly reminded me how much the loosely-defined genre of indie rock has evolved since 1989.  Shambling performances and primitive recordings seem to have been common on both coasts, starting with then-prominent bands like the Thinking Felllers Union Local 282 and Uncle Wiggly.  In Chicago, though, Shrimp Boat must have stood out for following this style.  Speckly has a bit more of a rootsy, Americana influence, as they also drew from their midwestern home.  While not as diverse and jarring as early Thinking Fellers records, Speckly juxtaposes diverse styles, from driving rock songs with overly loud drums to a relatively faithful rendition of the old time standard "Shady Grove".  The cover design, which is obviously low-budget but also does not reference any punk rock antecedents, matches the music quite nicely.  And the mastering job with badly-managed high frequencies is typical of indie releases in 1989.

The Dead C, Future Aritsts (side C)

Despite the first tracking having the hilarious title "The AMM of Punk Rock", 2007's Future Artists reflects the breadth of the Dead C's work over its 4 sides.  The most prominent mode is long, slowly-evolving pieces with prominent drones.  Robbie Yeats's heavy and propulsive drumming is downplayed more often than not, with sparse percussion being common.  There are moments, though, that recall the more rock-informed period of "Sky" or "Helen Said This".  There are also moments where the drums are processed to sound more syntactically modern—these remind me more of Michael Morley's solo work than a typical Dead C track.  The recording, while still rough, achieves a higher fidelity than is associated with the classic era of the Dead C.  And the packaging, with a pattern of flowers (there's something behind the pattern, but it's hard to see) is hilarious—it lacks any text, even on the spine.

Gram Parsons, Grievous Angel (side A)

1974's Grievous Angel was Parsons's second solo album, after his time in the Byrds and Flying Burritos—it was released after his death.  The singing is of course what stands out about this album—Parsons, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt have their voices far out in front, and they all sound beautiful.  The playing is great too, from noted session players like James Burton, Bernie Leadon, and Byron Berline.  The album is beautifully recorded, though the low-end might benefit from a bit more impact.  Along with the vocals, the songwriting needs to carry an album like this, and it is consistently good, both Parsons's originals and the covers.  The truly special songs, like "Return of the Grievous Angel", do stand out from the rest of the album.  The simple cover photo of Parsons's face makes sense in light of his passing shortly before the album's release.

Joan of Arc, presents Oh Brother (side C)

Joan of Arc at this point defines a floating collection of musicians who surround leader Tim Kinsella.  After a series of relatively coherent and focused records under the name, Oh Brother is the first record to break this pattern in awhile.  In concept, it more closely resembles 2005's Guitar Duets.  Here Kinsella appears throughout, improvising with a series of changing line-ups tidily edited together.  One line-up features a large ensemble of regular JoA collaborators.  These sections appear alongside two duets (one with Robert Lowe of Lichens on electronics, the other with jazz percussionist Frank Rosaly) and a small ensemble featuring Jeff Bradbury from Need New Body.  The performances are generally recorded in primitive, lo-fi fashion.  The music emphasizes Kinsella's abstract and angular approach to guitar playing as it travels through a series of changing contexts.  The editing is both technically transparent and creatively well-executed, so it helps to unite the morphing styles.  The simple, abstract black-and-white drawings on the cover are tasteful and appropriate.

Martial Solal, En Solo (side A)

I first encountered Solal playing a duet with Lee Konitz at the Chicago Jazz Festival.  I was unaware that they'd been regular collaborators for many years, nor that Solal composed the soundtrack for A bout de souffle.  While I think of him as a lyrical player, En Solo, a 1971 concert recording, reflects a nice breadth to his performance and composing.  He often uses his melodic foundations as a base for more abstract explorations of interlocking rhythms, and pieces often evolve in unexpected ways from these foundations.  He employs a consistent  approach to his original compositions and the two standards found here.  En Solo sounds great for a live recording, with a nice natural space around the piano.  The bright tinting of the cover photo and distinctive orange font make the layout memorable without compromising the classic pianist portrait on the cover.

Sun Ra, Atlantis (side A)

1960's Atlantis, which dates from Sun Ra's time in Chicago, was reissued with much broader distribution, and an excellent mastering/pressing job, in 1973.  The album is divided among 3 styles.  The first two styles appear in short tracks on side A.  Atlantis begins wtih complicated instrumentals of interlocking tones and foreground keyboards that remind me a bit of Henry Cow, with their slightly awkward use of syncopation.  These are followed by tracks with densely layered, African-style percussion, a bit like Olatunji or Famoudou Don Moye's solo album.  Finally, side B consists of the long, droning, and slowly-evolving title track.  It would sound logical alongside Pelt, Double Leopards, or Robedoor.  Both the painting and design on the reissue cover, while cool and tasteful, are a bit too professional and polished for the album's clumsy and occasionally naïve contents.

The Ornette Coleman Trio, At the "Golden Circle" Stockholm volume one (side A)

The trio here, from 1965, features Ornette with David Izenzon and Charles Moffett as his rhythm section.  It's one of his more conventional, or at least less daring, ensembles.  The pulsing rhythms bring Ornette further into the tunes, and bring his focus more on rhythm and repetition than some of his more lyrical excursions from the era.  Izenzon sometimes seems to be laying a bit behind the rest of the group—it's hard to tell if this is purposeful.  Ornette stays only on alto here, though vol. 2 of At the "Golden Circle" Stockholm does include a track with trumpet and violin.  The front cover photo and design are beautiful, with the trio fashionably dressed to survive a Scandinavian winter.  The sound of the recording is great, especially for such an old concert document.  I do wish the introductory announcer had been omitted.