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.