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.

Willem Breuker Kollektief, William Breuker Collective (side A)

The strangest thing about this LP is the translation of Breuker's first name in the album title!  While Breuker's early albums are stylistically more diverse and conceptual, by 1984, the Kollektief's style and line-up were more clearly defined.  The obvious antecedent here is Mingus's The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady, with a swinging rhythm section behind swirling horn charts, that is occasionally interrupted by breakdown sections.  Rob Verdurmen's drumming is more precise and less fluid than Dannie Richmond, and the horn solos tend to be more cerebral than Mingus's leads.  The sound of William Breuker Collective is overly bright and modern, with the bass sounding especially thin.  The explosion drawing on the front cover is tasteful, but the surrounding design makes little sense.  I appreciate the title "Women's Voting Rights" for an instrumental track.

Globe Unity, Improvisations (side A)

1977's Improvisations is purposely a cleaner studio recording than Globe Unity's earlier work, with more isolation, and even compression, for each instrument.  At times, some of the subtly detailed playing stands out nicely.  The loud parts, with less blending and space, sound confusing and messy, rather than emphasizing the glorious cacophony.  Paul Lovens's percussion is a bit buried in the mix, which reduces the propulsion that the group can create.  Minor complaints aside, Improvisations captures the magic of a large group of incredible musicians playing together, and their years of collaboration really show through.  Peter Brötzmann's simple cover design looks great too.

Guided by Voices, Bee Thousand: The Director's Cut (side C)

I listened to Bee Thousand countless times on its release in 1994, so it's hard to think of the album in a totally different structure, much less without some of its most memorable songs!  This 2004 reissue begins with a proposed double-LP sequence that preceded the final version.  The final two sides contain songs from the album that were not on this sequence, two 7"s from the era, and more.  The stylistic consistency between the group's countless songs from the era is remarkable, and songs that ended up on Bee Thousand sound very different when placed in a new context.  Hearing songs in this style that are not so familiar to my ears reminds me how surprising and fresh the juxtaposition of heavy rock and incredibly primitive recording/arrangement can still sound today.  The front cover is similar in style to the classic Bee Thousand cover, if less memorable/iconic, and the liner notes and accompanying images are informative.

Fred Frith, Gravity (side A)

The two sides of 1980's Gravity, which were recorded separately and with different line-ups, have similarities and differences.  Both sides couple Frith's intricate instrumental music with a new wave production style, and Frith's personality and levity appear throughout.  Side A, recorded in Sweden with Zamla Mammas Manna, contains more abstract compositions that reference Balkan folk and circus music.  Side B, where Frith collaborates with Aqsak Maboul, draws more overtly on rock music, and it includes a particularly demented instrumental cover of "Dancing in the Streets".  The recordings on both sides are clean, sterile, and professional.  The almost surrealist quality of the front cover emphasizes Frith's combination of humor and craftsmanship.

Captain Beefheart, The Spotlight Kid (side A)

When compared to the canonical Captain Beefheart records, 1972's The Spotlight Kid seems fairly straightforward.  When considered on its own, it's a pretty strange record.  It has an obvious rock undercurrent with an almost "boogie" feel.  The songs are strangely structured, the rhythms rely on almost incoherent syncopation, and Beefheart's vocals remain jarring and slightly unpleasant.  The songs resemble rock music, but there are not obvious verses and choruses.  The guitars, drums, and even marimba at times border on seasick in their counter-rhythms.  While Beefheart looks great on the front cover, the use of a portrait emphasizes the album's more commercial aspects.  The recording, fortunately, is excellent, with the guitars sounding particularly rich and full.

Jani Christou, Enantiodromia/Praxis/... (side A)

This 1992 LP collects 5 Christou pieces from the 1960s.  Christou hailed from Greece, though he was born in Egypt, and these are some of his later works (he died in 1970).  The recording seems to emphasize room mics, which make the treble sounds clearer than the lower frequencies.  Violins, cymbals, and shouted vocals jump out, while other sounds recede into the blur.  The pieces are woozy and hazy.  The clear intention of structure and dynamics produces a feeling of space and float—any other focus recedes into the background.  The cover design, which is obviously part of a series, reveals nothing about the record's contents.

Gary Wilson, You Think You Really Know Me (side A)

The impenetrable lyrics about girls might have been the initial draw for so many people to Gary Wilson's 1977 You Think You Really Know Me.  The song structures are, of course, perplexing as well, as carefully crafted pop alternates with mayhem seemingly at random.  What I'd forgotten until this listen is that the album consists only of synthesizers, heavily compressed drums (that sound borderline synthetic, apart from an organic snare), and vocals.  The "rock" parts are built out of layered synthesizer lines to resemble a real band.  Of course, Wilson's lyrics and controlled-insanity never fail to disappoint.  My 1991 vinyl reissue has very clear and present highs, but feels scooped and a bit bass-light.  Wilson is recognizable in the scruffier pictures on the back cover, but hard to discern on the front, where he's dressed nicely and has his hair neatly controlled.

Jad Fair, Everyone Knew... But Me (side A)

1983's Everyone Knew... But Me is Jad Fair's first solo album after several Half Japanese releases.  He plays everything here, and wrote most of the 29 short tracks.  Also included are the standard "Jambalaya", a couple of very un-soulful James Brown covers, and more.  Everyone Knew... retains the primitivism of early Half Japanese, but removes some of the rock referents.  Instead, there is more empty space, some simple percussion, and a little bit of studio processing.  The sound is very present and clear, but without much low-end.  The cover paintings and insert drawings, presumably also by Fair, fit the music perfectly.

The Tinklers, Saplings (side A)

Baltimore's Tinklers sang silly, child-like songs using simple, home-made instruments.  Despite this unfashionable approach, they managed to release 3 proper albums with real distribution.  1991's Saplings is the second of the three.  Despite having been recorded in a studio, it emphasizes the band's naïveté.  There are obvious effects in places, but the studio's capabilities are mostly used to exaggerate the voices and instruments' already absurd textures.  Side A includes a series of short a cappella interludes, while side B ends with a longer and more complex song (with synthesizer overdubs, even!) than is typical of the band's work—"Paul Bunyan".  The dimensionless cover painting and awkwardly-handwritten font on the front cover match the contents perfectly.

(various), Potatoes: A Collection of Folk Songs from Ralph Records (side A)

Potatoes is a clever idea for a label sampler—instead of assembling a set of overly disparate material, the label asked all of the bands to contribute covers of folk songs.  The results are typically recognizable in structure and melody, even as the timbre and arrangement choices tend to be fairly radical.  It can be hard to tell one band from another without carefully reading the liner notes.  The songs usually combine slightly processed acoustic instruments, unrecognizable sounds, and radically manipulated vocals to assemble an arrangement of a song with an overtly traditional core.  Song choices come from many parts of the world, including Venezuela and Japan.  The front cover is funny and recognizable, though Negativland's name is spelled incorrectly here (it is right on the back).  While slightly murky, the recordings generally seem competent in quality.

Double Leopards, A Pebble in Thousands of Unmapped Revolutions (side A)

A Pebble in Thousands of Unmapped Revolutions seems a bit darker than, but generally typical of, abstract drone music today.  The amazing part of the album is that it was released in 2001, when this type of album was far less fashionable.  The drones are dark and hazy, with processed voices occasionally peeking through the wash.  The recording is primitive, but the low-end comes through nicely—the pressing clearly preserves everything that was captured on tape.  The pieces evolve slowly and organically without noticeable structure, with slow and usually subtle dynamic shifts.  The simple dots and text on the cover mesh nicely with the music's primitivism, but otherwise give little hint about the contents.

Steve Lacy, Dreams (side A)

1975's Dreams reflects Lacy's structural and conceptual take on jazz.  The jagged melodies and syncopated rhythms clearly draw from jazz, but despite them, the music never finds a flow, instead repeatedly emphasizing their breaks and disconnects.  Like much of Lacy's mid-70s work, and unlike some of his later albums, Dreams uses relatively fast tempos to create propulsion and energy.  The sound of the record clearly emphasizes the front line of Lacy, Steve Potts, and Derek Bailey (!).  The rhythm section—both of Lacy's regular bassists, Jean-Jacques Avenel and Kent Carter, are here, along with lesser-known drummer Kenneth Tyler—is somewhat buried in the mix, as it's a primitive recording overall.  The front cover painting and design, while tasteful, adds little to the contents within.

Mikis Theodorakis/ Maria Farandouri, The Ballad of Mauthausen/Six Songs (side A)

This record confuses me most for having been released in Israel (according to the Internet), although the packaging does not indicate its country of origin.  I also cannot find a year of the pressing, though the earliest release I can find is a Greek cassette from 1974.  The Greek lyrics do not convey a clear meaning to me, though the cover design corroborates my quick research that The Ballad of Mathausen relates to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust.  Theodorakis of course was a Greek soundtrack composer who was also known, at the time of this music, for his leftist political activism and conflicts with the Greek government.  Vocalist Farandouri was his frequent collaborator.  The music here is typical of his work, with combining anthemic music reminiscent of classic Hollywood soundtracks with distinctly Greek stylistic references.  While some of his soundtracks evolve slowly and lyrically, the structures here are more song-like.  The pressing quality, unfortunately, is not great—I assume the orchestral recording is better than was reproduced on my copy.