Groundhogs, Who will Save the World? The Mighty Groundhogs (side A)

1972's Who will Save the World? The Mighty Groundhogs was the final album from the group's classic trio line-up. While slightly inferior to its two predecessors (Thank Christ for the Bomb and Split), it's still a powerful and memorable record. The sound is thin and hollow, in a way that's probably a bit ahead of its time (but, unfortunately, is not a point in its favor). The music is tighter and more precise than the last two, and not as consistently aggressive as Split. The uses of synthesizer and effected guitar sound are really interesting. The result is a record that's in every way modern, without giving up much of the Groundhogs' classic character. The amazing fold-out cartoon cover is funny and memorable.

Graeme Jefferies, Messages from the Cakekitchen (side A)

In 1987, New Zealand's This Kind of Punishment released their final album, In the Same Room. A year later, Graeme Jefferies followed with his transitional solo album, Messages from the Cakekitchen. His later albums, made using the band name The Cakekitchen, included more overt rock elements such as solid rhythm sections and studio-quality recordings. This transitional album falls somewhere in between. The very primitive, willfully lo-fi sound resembles his earlier work with This Kind of Punishment. Melodic vocals and recognizable rock song structures have clearly been assimilated alongside the murk and haze. Some of the frenetic string playing literally leaps out between the hazy sound and somewhat delicate songs. The cover image is an early digital montage of photos—its relationship to the musical content seems tenuous at best.

Roy Harper, Stormcock (side A)

Much of 1971's Stormcock is simple and spacious, with bits of vocals and acoustic guitar poking through the air. As a result, the beautiful recording quality is particularly important—the guitars and vocals sound classic and amazing. Obviously, Harper's talent is central too. The songs are strangely structured and slowly evolving, and the melodies are beautiful and somehow accessible. Jimmy Page turns up for pseudonymous lead guitar on one track, and composer David Bedford contributes haunting string arrangements on another. The cover photo of Harper is uninviting, but the lettering above and below it looks great and contributes to a timeless design.

Archie Shepp, Poem for Malcolm (side A)

1969's Poem for Malcolm feels a bit less chaotic and cacophonous than was typical for Shepp's late-60s and early-70s work. The free playing is a bit more restrained and perhaps spiritual, almost like his take on the Art Ensemble's work of this era (Malachi Favors appears here on bass). Other parts include traces of mid-60s New York energy jazz and even earlier jazz influences, stemming perhaps in part from the presence of both Philly Joe Jones and Hank Mobley! I have an original pressing of this one, so the sound quality is particularly rough (the reissue likely sounds less bad), and the inner photo of Shepp cheering triumphantly if more memorable than the front cover image.

Joseph Jarman & Famoudou Don Moye, Egwu-Anwu (side C)

Jarman and Moye are 2/5 of the classic Art Ensemble of Chicago line-up. 1978's Egwu-Anwu, a double-album recording of a concert, sounds more like their mid-70s solo albums (Sunbound and Sun Percussion) than like any Art Ensemble album. Jarman and Moye emphasized the more abstractly spiritual aspects of the ensemble's output, so it's not a surprise that their duo album lands more on this end. It reminds me a little bit of People in Sorrow, without that album's remarkably plaintive austerity. Egwu-Anwu sometimes fun, sometimes plaintive, and often beautiful. It sounds pretty good for a budget live recording of its era, and the cover is classic and appropriate.

Fred Frith, Speechless (side A)

Like Gravity which preceded it by a year, 1981's Speechless features a different backing group on each side. This time it's Etron Fou Leloublan on side A and Massacre on side B (the Massacre album Killing Time also came out in 1981). While plenty of quirkiness comes through, Speechless does not venture as far in this direction as the cover of "Dancing in the Streets" on Gravity. Speechless is a strange and uninviting, but rewarding listen. It does not emphasize Frith's guitar playing, and the interest in pop songs that became so prominent on Cheap at Half the Price is also not present here. He instead acts as something of leader in a series of short ensemble pieces. The sound is a bit rough, especially the treble. The simple cover image is iconic and appropriate.

Robert Calvert, Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters (side A)

1974's Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters has many odd qualities. It's hard to figure out why Calvert was so interested in German history. The narrative between songs has vague connections to this military history, but it's very clumsily executed (by Jim Capaldi and Viv Stanshall, along with Calvert himself). The songs, which alternate with the confusing narrative, are generally hard rock with prominent bass grooves. The list of musicians here is pretty amazing—Lemmy, Paul Rudolph, Twink, Arthur Brown, and even a strangely credited Brian Eno! The songs are simple, tasteful, and of course well played. I encountered the mid-90s Hey Drag City compilation before I realized that its cover art was an homage to Captain Lockheed's odd cover design.

Andrew Hill, From California with Love (side A)

Andrew Hill is known for his mid-60s Blue Note albums, especially Point of Departure, so it's interesting hearing him on his own. In many ways, despite the passage of a decade and the absence of an ensemble, 1979's From California with Love is not a radical change. Hill still has a foot in the avant-garde, but balances it with lyricism and melody that at times feels almost romantic. His compositions reveal their structure slowly—both pieces here evolve over entire album sides. His playing is fantastic, both when he is destroying the piano's top notes (the recording of this part sounds great too) and in the more fluid sections. The postcard design illustrates the title but relates little to the music, and Hill's confessional liner notes inside of the gatefold are entertaining.

Henry Cow, Western Culture (side A)

1978's Western Culture seems to receive less attention than the first three Henry Cow albums, perhaps because it does not have a sock on its cover. While the earlier albums focus more on careful compositions, Western Culture emphasizes the group's chaotic performative style. It is hard to tell exactly where compositions intersect with improvisations, but one hint of increased emphasis on improvisation is a cameo by noted pianist Irène Schweizer. The album sounds pretty strange—the existence of lower-budget recording equipment by 1978 leads to a grainier and cheaper sound than was achieved on the earlier albums. Aggressive playing gives Western Culture recognizable references to rock music, and it also foreshadows some of the energy and abandon that Henry Cow's members would bring to some of their later projects outside of the group.

SRC, Milestones (side A)

SRC seem to be remembered largely as an early hard rock innovator. There's some truth to this image, including Scott Richardson's blunt lead vocal style and the driving rhythms of much of the group's music. At the same time, they were capable of tender ballads like "Show Me" and even a strange and sophisticated (if overtly aggressive) arrangement of "In the Hall of the Mountain King/Bolero". The foreground Farfisa also does not neatly match with hard rock (or proto-punk) that followed SRC. 1969's Milestones is an interesting and diverse album with some great songs. The cover design, like the album, does not fit neatly into a niche or genre, and has aged nicely.

Ilhan Mimaroglu featuring Freddie Hubbard, Sing Me a Song of Songmy (side A)

1971's Sing Me a Song of Songmy is a tough album to describe. Highbrow composers before Mimaroglu have experimented with incorporating jazz ideas. Milhaud borrowed from his understanding of jazz with La Creation du Monde, and Gunther Schuller proposed his ideas of a "third stream". Also in 1971, Krzysztof Penderecki and Don Cherry collaborated on Actions. Sing Me a Song of Songmy stands out because of the way Mimaroglu uses the jazz quintet as yet another contextualized sound source. Their playing, when surrounded by a crazy string orchestra and some very strange vocal samples, seems completely detached from the jazz idiom that they're creating. The album is incredibly well recorded, and the violent Picasso image used on the cover matches the rich content of the vocal samples and track titles.

Badfinger, No Dice (side A)

In 1970, when Badfinger released No Dice, the hit single was "No Matter What". Harry Nilsson's 1972 cover of the previously-buried album cut "Without You" was a marginally bigger hit than the "No Matter What" single. By now, "Without You" has become a canonical song featured everywhere up to American Idol, all far closer in style to Nilsson than Badfinger. The song's presence at the end of side A drastically changes the experience of listening to No Dice. Crazily recontextualized hit aside, it's a great power-pop album in every way—singing, musicianship, songwriting, and sound. The album cover predates Bowie and Roxy Music's androgynous gatefolds, but fits with the music less than their cover art did.