Sea of Bees, Songs for the Ravens (side A)

Sea of Bees is built around Jules's naïve, haunting voice, so when these vocals are the focus, 2010's Songs for the Ravens is something of an anachronistic surprise. Without hinting at any "New Weird America" or folk-psych revival, it recalls the layered vocals of Linda Perhacs and the crazed excursions of Erica Pomerance. It's unfortunately not as frenetic and perplexing as You Used to Think, and Shelly Manne never shows up to play percussion, but it fascinates me to hear a record steering toward a bit more accessible place from this starting point. Even the simple songs generally stay out of the way of the vocals, and the guitar sounds in particular manage to be texturally interesting without being distracting. The understated front cover draws little attention to the eccentric album contained inside.

Skullflower, Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament (disc 1)

Matt Bower's persistence amazes me—he's been making consistently blunt and heavy albums for over 20 years, with Skullflower (itself in constant flux) being his most frequent nom de plume. 2010's Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament appears to be a solo effort, with sheets of distorted guitar and occasional feedback. His mid-rangey, lo-fi sound has not changed even as many of his contemporaries have embraced more syntactically modern technologies. Despite the absence of any percussion, Strange Keys remains consistently propulsive and heavy. The packaging looks like a cheap CD-R, despite being a commercial release.

Brother Ah, Sound Awareness (side A)

1973's Sound Awareness is ostensibly an album by jazz/classical French horn player Robert Northern (Brother Ah), but in many more ways it's an exercise in excessive tape delay. Vocals, horns, and lots of percussion get swallowed by delay, which gives the album pulse and movement. It reminds me a bit of Sun Ra (with less keyboards) or Marion Brown's Afternoon of a Georgia Fawn (which was one of Manfred Eicher's earliest and best studio experiments on ECM). There's some compositional sense but a lot more ooze and drift. The nice vinyl reissue preserves the iconic cover (though I doubt the original was quite so glossy) and is mastered tastefully.

Guided by Voices, Bee Thousand (CD)

The unevenness of Bee Thousand is probably more obvious than when it came out in 1994. The other strange thing about it is that its aggressive rock moves are the surprising part by 2011 standards. The lo-fi and primitive qualities have come to seem almost normal for underground rock—the surprising part, if anything, was how much Guided by Voices infused their primitive work with 70s heaviness. The two seem less likely to coexist so naturally today. The packaging is generally typical for its era, but the iconic (if simple) front cover image still stands up today.

Kevin Ayers, The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories (side A)

Ayers's work after 1974 is often considered past his prime and the beginning of his decline, though it also marks the year of his fascinating involvement with the Lady June album. The Confessions of Dr. Dream and Other Stories is in some ways a more overt rock album than his early, canonical solo albums, even as the songs can be stranger and more chaotic. The rock elements include driving and aggressive playing, punchier sound with drums sometimes in the foreground. The strangest thing about the album might be a radical rearrangement/reworking of Ayers's Soft Machine Classic "Why are We Sleeping", now called "It Begins with a Blessing/Once I Awakened/But It Ends with a Curse". Nico, Lol Coxhill, and sometimes Roxy Music bassist John Gustafson all show up along the way to help out. And the cover image, while very stylized and of its time, is also distinctive and memorable.

Creedence Clearwater Revival, Cosmo's Factory (side A)

Perhaps the strangest thing about Cosmo's Factory is the reference to "Actors in the White House" from "Ramble Tamble"—1970 was 10 years before Ronald Reagan's election. I remain amazed by Creedence's ability to make timeless albums in such rapid succession, with Cosmo's Factory quickly following 3 albums in 1969. It includes a few blues and soul covers, but the consistency of Fogerty's songwriting given this prolific pace is still hard to fathom. Two extended songs ("I Heard it Through the Grapevine" and "Ramble Tamble") reflect an evolution in the band's arranging style, and a few extra instruments like horns and what sounds like piano also show efforts to extend the basic CCR formula. The cover image is funny and memorable with a great font over it, and the drums here have a bit more kick than on the earlier albums.

Bröselmaschine, Bröselmaschine (CD)

1971's Bröselmaschine, the group's sole album, is a primitive, meandering walk through folk-psych, vaguely reminiscent of the Incredible String Band, only stranger and even more awkward. There are no drums and little bass, and the tabla (which is more prevalent) does not provide any foreground pulse. The vocals, while sung by Germans, are in English when there are lyrics. All of the instruments are particularly bright and present, while the vocals sound duller and more traditional—the strange mix is somehow appropriate for this record. The cover image is such an exaggerated cartoon of the era/style, it can be hard to take seriously. The CD reissue from 1994 is nicely done, with good mastering and a nice Digipak.

Archie Shepp and the Full Moon Ensemble, Live in Antibes vol. 1 (side A)

Live in Antibes vol. 1 dates from 1970, and Shepp's records from this era tend to be rather chaotic affairs. He'd moved away from the more recognizable jazz structures of the 60s and had not yet begun working with the pop forms of his early-70s populist albums on Impulse. The group here includes 3 fairly obscure Frenchmen and 3 better-known Americans (Alan Shorter and Clifford Thornton are the other 2). Shepp clearly provides a building structure to the piece, which begins with a long percussion intro, and slowly evolves into more collective and energetic playing. Shepp is on piano through the build, and is clearly not the featured soloist as the ensemble falls into its groove. The cover photo is nice, and the design follows the standard white Actuel format. The vinyl reissues from the series (like my copy of this one) tend to sound better than the originals.

Marvin Gaye, Let's Get it On (side A)

1973's Let's Get it On reflects the emphasis on virtuoso musicianship that had begun to overwhelm R&B in the 70s. The arrangements can be heavy-handed as a result—there are a lot of busy layers overplaying similar parts. At the same time, the vocal arrangements are great, the strings & horns are tastefully subtle, and the kick drum has an amazing punch and tone. Marvin Gaye's vocals would sound good singing the phone book. The liner notes get a bit carried away, but the front cover looks great—even the overtly period font works and does not feel dated.

Cecil Taylor & Paul Lovens, Regalia (CD)

Cecil Taylor and Paul Lovens of course come from different threads of musical evolution, with Taylor's thread lying a bit closer to jazz traditions. They've collaborated in the 80s and with increasing regularity in the 90s. While 1989's Regalia predates the period of their most frequent collaboration, the synergy between them is particularly remarkable. Lovens matches Taylor's frenetic energy as Andrew Cyrille and Sunny Murray once did. Where those percussionists emphasized Taylor's flow, Lovens constantly violates it and instead emphasizes the disjunction and fragmentation in Taylor's lines. The textural detail in Lovens's work seems to inspire Taylor at times in this direction, but it does not lead him far from his recognizable style. The packaging and recording of Regalia both draw little attention to themselves.

Beach Boys, Carl and the Passions "So Tough" (side A)

In the Beach Boys' long and often confusing career, 1971's Carl and the Passions "So Tough" marks a particularly strange turn. By this point, Brian Wilson's creative output had diminished, and Dennis was injured at the time and unable to play drums. Carl Wilson asserted himself in a leadership role, with help from Ricky Fataar (who was later in the Rutles), Blondie Chaplin (who is part of the Rolling Stones' current tour line-up), and even Daryl "The Captain" Dragon (before he sang about muskrats). The resulting album is uniform in production (emphasizing 70s dry sounds with lots of panning and imbalanced mixes), but incredibly diverse and inconsistent in songwriting with so many personalities involved. Highlights include Brian Wilson's "You Need a Mess of Help to Stand Alone", and Chaplin/Fataar's "Hold on Dear Brother". The album gets even stranger in its packaging—the front cover does not mention the Beach Boys, but the US release was a double-album that included Pet Sounds, and the back cover features the classic image from that album cover with a different border and font (it's objectively a more tasteful design than the timeless green border).

Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet Plus Two, Broken English (CD)

The biggest thing that leaps out to me about Broken English is the dynamics of the recording. The Chicago Tentet in concert would move in volume from whisper to scream, and very little of this range is lost on 2001's Broken English. Digital recording and reproduction is obviously great at capturing these extremes, but listening at home can either annoy the neighbors or lose the quiet parts. The Chicago Tentet of course features an abundance of great musicians, and here they bring passion and great musicianship to Brötzmann's 42-minute "Stonewater" that makes up the bulk of the disc (and Ken Vandermark's shorter piece that follows). There's a bit of everything as the piece evolves, in fluid and always interesting directions, from an Hamid Drake's sufi chanting to intense screeches and wailing that recall Brötzmann's earliest work. The cover is on nice, textured paper, but the image and design are less exciting than the paper.

Charlie Haden, Liberation Music Orchestra (side A)

Liberation Music Orchestra always confuses me a bit. I'd expect a political statement to possibly make some populist attempt to reach an audience, or else perhaps to be an introspective, personal statement. Charlie Haden attempts neither here—the music is often blaring and extroverted, but it's also intellectually challenging, at times almost impenetrable. While it's a really compelling and fascinating listen, Haden's goals in creating it remain unclear to me. He enlisted a fabulous group for the cause, with Don Cherry, Roswell Rudd, Andrew Cyrille, and even Bob Northern (Brother Ah) among the many impressive talents who appear here. While it was released in 1973, the recording of Liberation Music Orchestra dates from 1970. It's unclear whether it was in front of an audience, but Judson Hall often serves as a live venue, and the recording is a bit murky from being in a large space that's not optimized for recording. The cover image and design are iconic and unforgettable.

David Bowie, Station to Station (side A)

1976's Station to Station is not a canonical David Bowie album, and it doesn't have any obvious hits. It is definitely a weird and interesting one with particularly extreme production techniques. The only word that I can find to describe the sound is hollow. The frequency response is a bit scooped in the mid-range, and all of the individual sources are very dry and close-mic'ed. Extreme artificial reverbs and delays isolate these components by adding unnatural space, rather than adding any contextual unity that might act as glue. There are occasional textural explorations, like the one at the album's start, that foreshadow the insanity that would turn up on Low. Bowie's vocals are excellent, and the musicianship is tasteful and serves the songs nicely. Despite the lack of obvious or memorable hits, Station to Station features consistently powerful songwriting—only "Word on the Wing" seems to have aged, and it's still an odd and remarkable song.

Steve Lacy, The Flame (side A)

While Steve Lacy's soprano playing evolved slowly over decades, his albums varied widely depending on collaborators. His choices in rhythm sections could either pull him too far inside or, in the other direction, overwhelm the subtleties in his playing. 1982's The Flame features an incredibly sensitive rhythm section of Dennis Charles on drums and Bobby Few on piano. Charles always matched perfectly with Lacy—1979's NY Capers is another Lacy highlight with him on drums. A bass-less rhythm section is atypical of Lacy's albums, and Few's playing fits seamlessly here. Lacy's playing through the 70s moved gradually from abstraction toward more controlled subtlety, and The Flame still includes traces of freedom and chaos that had diminished only a few years later. It's a diverse album with a Lacy solo and even Bobby Few's "Wet Spot" which spotlights piano and percussion. The recording captures the performances accurately, but the drums don't present a realistic impression of a kit and Lacy's saxophone is overly compressed. The fonts on the cover are even worse than the recording, but none of these problems diminishes this powerful example of Lacy's playing and leadership.

Brian McMahon, An Inch Equals a Thousand Miles (side A)

Through some bizarre twist of fate, one of my earliest recording gigs was a 1997 album for songwriter Brian McMahon, who had been in the Electric Eels 20+ years earlier. I was young and naïve, and in so many ways wish I could have worked through the whole process with my current skills and knowledge. Somehow, An Inch Equals a Thousand Miles manages to achieve a confusing blend of experience and naïveté that ends up making sense, at least to my ears, all of these years later. Brian's songwriting and the impressive talent of everyone who worked on the album really shine through (perhaps despite my frequent awkwardness in the control room). While the overt 60s influences are recognizable in both the songs and arrangements, An Inch Equals a Thousand Miles doesn't really look or sound much like anything else.

Television, The Blow Up (side C)

The Blow Up is a double-LP (or CD) reissue of an old live cassette from 1982. While bootlegs exist of the Richard Hell lineup, these 1978 recordings feature the final line-up with Fred Smith on bass. The performances aren't special or transcendent—they seem like a somewhat arbitrary document of Television as a live band. Their musicianship lacks the consistency of the classic rock bands that obviously influenced them (and that influence is emphasized here with covers of Dylan and the Rolling Stones). At the same time, it's fascinating to hear them work out arrangements and experiment, which leads to very different results than the measured precision of Marquee Moon. Along with the classics from Marquee Moon and the already-mentioned covers are the early single "Little Johnny Jewel" and an early version of "Foxhole". The sound quality isn't bad for a cheap live recording from this era, but the remastering (credited as digital, even for the vinyl reissue) seems unambitious as a restoration job.

XTC, Skylarking (side A)

Skylarking was obviously a huge album when it came out in 1986, and its sound remains really distinctive. It features, to rather illogical extremes, some of the characteristic sonic qualities of the 80s. The drums don't sound remotely like a drum kit—there's an obvious click track, sequences often interact with live drums, and the individual drums do not relate to each other at all in the mix (the snare in particular can just be way too loud). The other overtly 80s quality is the insanely lush digital reverb/delay combinations on many of the vocals—I tend to love these lush effects though they're mostly out-of-style today. In retrospect the songwriting is a bit inconsistent, but the highlights, like "Summer's Cauldron" and "1000 Umbrellas" stand up as timeless. People at the time were upset about the "commercial" version with "Dear God" replacing "Mermaid Smiled"—I now own both copies to satisfy my curiosity.

Van Oehlen, Rock & Roll is Here to Die (CD)

Van Oehlen is Albert Oehlen, who has played on the last 2 decades of Red Krayola albums, and his brother Markus (of Mittagspause), with guests including a bit of vocals by Mayo Thompson. 2003's Rock & Roll is Here to Die was their second album. It reminds me of early-80s albums on Ralph and Ata Tak, with simple use of electronics and an overt sense of humor. While it's not quite as memorable or innovative as the best of those records, it was certainly a strange notion in 2003 to borrow overtly from that sensibility, and these albums sound weird and distinctive as a result. The cover art seems to have been purposely terrible.

Jemeel Moondoc Trio, Judy's Bounce (side A)

On this 1982 LP, Jemeel Moondoc's alto is accompanied by the accomplished rhythm section of Air's Fred Hopkins on bass and longtime Ornette sideman Ed Blackwell on drums. It's obviously a fantastic trio and they play well together. At the same time, the concert (it was a live recording) seems like a bit of a pick-up gig—the players certainly know the tunes and play them sensitively, but the chemistry that all three musicians are capable of is not always manifest here. Moondoc's compositions are nice, and Blackwell's drumming is always special, but Judy's Bounce, while consistently enjoyable, does not always live up to the promise of its amazing line-up. The live recording is a bit bright and thin, and the non-descript cover painting doesn't flatter the contents.

Trash, Not Gate (CD)

New Zealand's Trash are probably best remembered for their drummer Robbie Yeats, of the Dead C and sometimes the Verlaines, though he's strangely credited here as Bo Martack. Trash were a trio fronted by Bruce Blucher, and they fit somewhere between the Dead C's heavy noise focus and King Loser's more classic/garage rock styles. There are definitely melodic songs with vocal melodies and accessible structures, and the guitars often play riffs. Juxtaposed with this almost accessible side, the music is buried under a layer of dirty heaviness, both in the recording and the thick guitar sounds. An influence of Evol era Sonic Youth is obvious, but Trash take it in a more primitive direction, where many other bands (including Sonic Youth themselves) have grown a bit prettier and more sterile in the years since. Not Gate, which is not even clearly the album's title (the cover features the word "GATE" crossed out) dates from 1994, and is the band's second album of three.

The Kinks, Muswell Hillbillies (side A)

It's probably common to consider 1967-1968 as the height of the Kinks' career, with the height of songwriting, production, and arrangement of Something Else and Village Green. Muswell Hillbillies dates from 1971, and the highlights are still special. While the songwriting is inconsistent, a song like "Alcohol" reflects a new refinement of Ray Davies's picadilly/music-hall influences, and it also makes great use of the horn arrangements that turn up throughout the album. The performances and arrangements lack the attention that made the bands' classics special, and the production is a bit flat in comparison as well. The cover image and design tie nicely with the workingman portraits found in many lyrics.

Rick Brown & Sue Garner, Still (side A)

Rick Brown & Sue Garner's persistence in making amazing music is particularly inspiring, and 2000's Still is no exception. From Rick's early-80s work with V-Effect and Information through their teaming up to form Fish & Roses in the mid-80s, they've had an obvious and often-overlooked impact on what is now considered indie-rock. The path indie-rock to becoming something of a calcified genre has moved far away from its creative and idiosyncratic roots, yet Rick & Sue continue to make inspiring and rewarding music. Still emphasizes their mellowest, artiest side, which was often overpowered in both Fish & Roses and Run On. It still has their uplifting energy, even in its artiest and most abstract moments, and it's always approachable. The album sounds small and present in a way that's slightly referential of 90s lo-fi, but the mixes are great, professional, and clear. The simple image on the cover art works nicely with the understated music inside.