White Fence, Is Growing Faith (side A)

White Fence borrows from the 60s by way of lo-fi revivalists like Guided by Voices, Strapping Fieldhands, and Bevis Frond.  Tim Presley and his collaborators replace these groups' outsider personae with a hip and very friendly façade.  Where Presley's 2010 debut featured more diverse digressions, 2011's White Fence is Growing Faith focuses more consistently on this core approach.  The resulting songs (if not the sonic palette) are a bit more refined and well-crafted — I miss some of the sloppiness, but at times the craftsmanship flatters his songwriting ideas.  Growing Faith is not completely uniform, fortunately, with asides into everything from a dense psychedelic swirl to literate Dylan-esque moments.  The sound is purposely lo-fi, in a stylized and modern manner — its excessive brightness makes me miss the four-track murk of some of Presley's precursors.  The cover painting is purposely unreferential, which I find surprising as White Fence's music is so referential.

Son of Earth, Improvements (side A)

Son of Earth have been a band for many years before 2009's Improvements — early releases include a 2001 CD-R and 2002's split LP with Double Leopards.  While their early work relied more on a drone-based palette, the pieces on Improvements often utilize more pointillistic sounds.  The album is split into six pieces, each feels like an improvisation around a consistent palette and theme.  One unusual track, for example, relies heavily on incomprehensible vocal noises more reminiscent of Berio than Jaap Blonk.  The resulting album crosses the most outside folk-psych groups like Lauhkeat Lampaat and The Hunter Gracchus with the minimalist, AMM-inspired improvisations typically found on Erstwhile releases.  The mastering job manages to both preserve too much murkiness and emphasize overly bright treble.  The cover images, and additional ones inside the booklet, reference Tony Martin's projections, which feels appropriate as he's worked with everyone from Morton Subotnick to 60s psychedelic bands — the inclusion of their photo inside of the abstract front cover feels stylistically incongruous.  The obi strip around the packaging is a nice touch.

The Who, Live at Leeds (side A)

The Who's prowess as a live band in 1970 remains legendary — judging from Live at Leeds, this reputation was well-deserved.  While their studio albums beginning with The Who Sell Out used some production tricks, the band is presented here as it performed live, and it's really remarkable.  All 3 musicians are constantly playing interesting parts, without distracting from the song.  Whether a 50s rock cover or a medley of Who originals, the material stays in the foreground.  Pete Townshend's guitar playing is especially humble, with an almost punk-like simplicity.  Daltrey's lead vocals are consistently compelling, and Townshend hits his notes on the harmonies.  The sound quality for such an early live recording is impressive, with all of the band's power preserved, though I'd have preferred a bit less creative use of the pan knob.  The iconic front cover is tasteful in its simplicity, but I can't discern what's happening in the insert poster photograph — only Keith Moon is anywhere near an instrument!

Pink Fairies, Never Never Land (side A)

The Pink Fairies 1971 debut Never Never Land is remembered as a heavy rock classic, thanks to the opening track and single "Do it" and the involvement of Twink (John Alder).  The album is not really as heavy as its reputation.  Paul Rudolph's guitar playing is overwhelmingly powerful, but even when drums and percussion team up, the rest of the band still feels like it's trying to catch up.  While the songwriting can fall a bit short in craftsmanship, it has charm and character to spare, which in many ways makes up for any limitations.  The sound is generally murky and raw — Never Never Land was lo-fi before that approach had come into vogue.  The extra-glossy paper used for the cover flatters the cartoon images on both sides.

Joan of Arc, Life Like (side A)

While the sequencing of Joan of Arc albums rarely follows a logical or narrative flow, 2011's Life Like chooses an especially confusing path.  The album opener, "I Saw the Messed Blinds of My Generation", is the longest and most abstract song on the album, with many jarring interruptions against the intricate and heavy musicianship which runs through it.  It's the type of songs that bands usually introduce after an album has established flow and momentum.  At the top of the album, it definitely does emphasize Life Like's sharp break from the prettier songs that were prominent on Flowers and Boo! Human.  Most of the other songs, while retaining this aggressiveness, follow more conventional structures built around vocal melodies.  A prominent exception is "Life Force", which interrupts the end of side A with a short, fairly rough acoustic interlude — it feels like a sketch when surrounded by such purposeful playing, and it too falls in an unexpected point in the middle of the sequence.  The album comes with a booklet of collages on thick, nice paper.  While the swirly cyan vinyl looks great, I'm guessing its poor quality causes the audible high-end breakup.

David Bedford, Instructions for Angels (side A)

The track titles of 1977's Instructions for the Angels introduce the album as a continuous suite.  It begins with an introduction of a theme, followed by a series of variations, and ending with a finale.  Side A follows this concept closely.  The opening theme is introduced with rich, trebly keyboard sounds accompanied by small percussion.  The variations that continue through side A maintain both the textural palette and the tonal center.  New melodies are introduced and the keyboard sounds vary, but the music follows a neat path without sharp turns.  Side B, however, adds several surprising turns that do not mesh neatly with the continuous suite concept.  Mike Ratledge's keybaord at the start of the side, while it sonically meshes with Bedford's underlying palette, plays far busier parts than the slowly-evolving music that preceded it.  It's then replaced by Mike Oldfield's guitar, which brings the only overt attack on the album, and also a more distorted timbre than any of the keyboards utilized.  Finally, a symphonic track builds slowly from silence, and has a much darker frequency balance than the electronic sounds that preceded it.  It has harmonic similarities with the rest of the album, but is both sonically and dynamically very incongruous, especially for a track listed as a finale — this title does not imply its wild departure.  The references to Kenneth Patchen in the liner notes are nice, but their relationship to the music is unclear.  The outer packaging looks like a generic new age record without any hint at Bedford's distinctive compositional style or accomplishments.

The Millennium, Begin (side A)

1968's Begin receives reverence in some sunshine-pop circles.  The Millennium's all-star cast contributes to the album's esteem.  Leader Curt Boettcher worked with everyone from Chad & Jeremy to the Byrds.  Gary Usher, who collaborated with Boettcher on those records and also wrote hits for the Beach Boys, is credited as executive producer.  Keith Olsen remains active as a record producer.  The oddest connection of all might be the rhythm section from garage legends the Music Machine.  This super-group of minor celebrities has made a tasteful, very well-crafted album.  The melodies and arrangements, to my ears, all feel a bit too methodically crafted.  Begin feels like a perfect album in a genre where human imperfections are an important quality.  Boettcher's lead vocals tastefully fit the sunshine pop genre and effectively deliver the songs, but, with the vocals in front here, he's not a magical performer carrying the music.  My reissue LP, while pressed on super-thick vinyl, is mastered with harsh high end and inadequate midrange.  The album cover, oddly, looks more like a 90s lo-fi album than a 60s pop classic.

Steve Lacy & Evan Parker, Chirps (side A)

1985's Chirps captures an duo concert with these two legendary reed players.  Parker plays only soprano sax here, and he achieves a slightly brassier soprano tone than Lacy's recognizable thin and pure sound.  Side A contains one long improvisation, while side B is divided between two shorter tracks.  The concert begins with Lacy playing slowly-evolving lines in the style of his 80s solo albums, like Hocus Pocus and Only Monk, and Parker follows along.  At some point on side A, Parker introduces a harsh, distorted tone, which overloads the recording system, and Lacy follows him.  It's a palette that Lacy had rarely used for nearly a decade.  On side B, the saxists achieve a more balanced dialog, with short, interweaving lines and percussive sounds alongside some flowing, complex lines.  The recording emphasizes the thinness of the soprano sax, except in the places where the system seems to distort from the loud overblowing.  The optical illusion on the cover is funny, but has little relevance to this music, or possibly any music.

Charles de Goal, Algorythmes (side A)

The first confusion about Charles de Goal is that, according to Discogs at least, it's a band with 4 members.  On their cover of Bowie's "Hang on to Yourself", where Bowie sang, "We're the Spiders from Mars," the vocalist sings "I'm Charles de Goal," so I always had assumed there was a person who assumed this identity.  Their debut Algorythmes dates from 1980, and the clever title is a cross between the French words for "algorithm" and "rhythm".  The music in some ways resembles a happier take on Grauzone or early Cabaret Voltaire.  There are short songs, usually with many analog effects and a propulsive rhythm.  Charles de Goal tend to reference older rock music more than those bands — there's a live drummer whose timing sometimes drifts, and guitars sometimes have little processing.  The Bowie cover also pulls Algorythmes back toward early-70s rock.  The mixes or mastering have an odd presence peak that lead to certain synthesizer lines jumping far out in front, but the sound generally preserves its clarity through the layers of extreme effects.  The simple, patterned cover design is both mesmerizing and off-putting.

Fire Engines, Aufgeladen und Bereit fur Action und Spass (side A)

Fire Engines are remembered for having placed particular emphasis on dance rhythms within their guitar-focused post-punk approach.  While dance music tends to boost low frequencies to draw attention to its pulse, 1981's Aufgeladen und Bereit fur Action und Spass has almost now bass in its mixes.  The electric guitars, which are the focus of the mix, are equalized to be incredibly thin and bright.  While the absence of cymbals leaves space at the top, the snare is also unnaturally bright, and it would sit above the mix if not for all of the other odd qualities.  The bass lacks low end, but it also lacks articulation at the top, and it sits in a narrow frequency band of its own.  The occasional use of synthetic strings feels a bit out of place for such a primitive album, and draws it more toward commercial new wave of its era.  Some songs are instrumental, and the vocals are not a featured element when they do appear — they add more rhythmic and structural content than melodic focus.  The bright-pink background of the cover seems to hint at a more delicate style, but the spartan layout and blurry photo leave the design more open-ended and confusing, which feels appropriate for this idiosyncratic album.

Air, Open Air Suit (side A)

Air's records are remarkably stylistically consistent, and 1978's Open Air Suit is no exception.  The liner notes discuss a compositional strategy involving a suit and cards, but it's hard to tell how literally these comments should be taken.  The pieces weave between jazzy propulsion, spacier slow sections, and subtle textural playing — all three styles are executed tastefully and effectively.  The distinguishing trait of Open Air Suit is the foreground placement of Steve McCall's amazing drumming.  He's compressed, bright, and always at the front of the mixes.  The snare cracks as if on a rock album, and the high-frequency EQ boost on the cymbals leaps inappropriately out of the mix.  His playing, fortunately, is great, and far more sympathetic to the rest of the trio (Henry Threadgill on reeds and Fred Hopkins on bass) than its technical placement.  The less said about the front cover image, the better.

The Jimmy Giuffre 3, Thesis (side A)

1962's Free Fall is generally considered Giuffre's canonical accomplishment of genre-defying innovation.  It's only fair to compare 1961's Thesis, which immediately preceded Free Fall, against it.  The two records are in many ways remarkably similar, with Giuffre, Paul Bley, and Steve Swallow stretching jazz to illogical conclusions.  The drummerless trio here also uses hints of jazz harmonic content and notions of improvisation to explore its distinctive musical vision.  While Thesis never explodes frenetically, it has moments of energetic playing that exceed anything found on Free Fall.  There are also surprising moments of extended technique here, with hissing clarinets and and clanking bass sounds.  Thesis is natural sounding and incredibly dynamic—it was hard to hear the quiet parts over the air conditioner without the loud parts blaring at a volume annoying to my neighbors.  The muted olive green cover and simple font only delicately stretch the idiom of a jazz record cover of this era, with only an understated hint of the innovation found within.  The 1992 reissue mix sounds a lot worse.  It sacrifices the period sound to emphasize high-end detail and a bit of fast compression—while it is in some places nice to hear new details of these amazing players' performances, it's far more distracting to hear such an unrepresentative mix.

In Camera, Fin (12" EP)

In Camera's song structures reflect the segmented compositional style of their era.  Instead of verses and choruses, parts repeat even numbers of times and change in neat succession.  Only the instrumentation follows rock conventions.  The A side of Fin is a long, slowly-evolving instrumental, while the B side features two shorter songs with vocals.  The sound of 1982's Fin emphasizes mid-range, with a lot of beater in the prominent kick drum and a very bright bass sound.  The BBC sessions otherwise sound fairly straightforward, though there is an odd acoustic strumming noise at the end, perhaps the inside of the piano strummed, with reverb added.  The black-and-white cover photo is beautiful but gives few hints about the record's contents, and it's printed on nice reverse-stock paper.

The Birthday Party, The Bad Seed (12" EP)

1983's The Bad Seed EP leaps out of speakers with its remarkable sound — I'm sure the 45 RPM cut helps.  The huge kick drum sets the tone of the EP, both in Mick Harvey's steady playing and in its punchy, consistent sound.  All of the drums sound a bit flat, with sustained impact and little attack, and the bass and guitar follow a similar envelope.  The bass equalization focuses on a narrow, low frequency, which leaves room for the kick drum to cover so much tonal range, and the explosive cymbals shatter the top frequencies with a slight distortion that's never harsh.  Roland S Howard's inventive guitar playing bears some resemblance to Keith Levene's work on Metal Box only a few years earlier, but its far from identical or overtly derivative.  Finally, the fairly thin vocal sound sits over the top without being loud in the mix, and it helps to hold the material together.  The iconic cover design, with bold, smeary colors surrounding the band members' photos, perfectly captures the energy of the music.

TV Ghost, TV Ghost (side A)

TV Ghost, the group's 2007 self-titled debut, recalls strange mid-90s rock bands who extended the grass-roots ethos of indie-rock after its initial impulse began to move in a more commercial direction.  The punkish aggression, awkward songwriting, and and primitive recordings reference bands like Splotch and Fat Day, though it's unclear if there was any direct influence from such obscure albums.  Where mid-90s indie bands made murky recordings, TV Ghost is harsh and bright, sometimes oppressively so.  The album's lo-fi qualities are derived from distortion and excess, not from sounds buried and obscured — this change relates to the evolution of cheap recording from cassette 4-track to computer software.  The mastering makes no effort to bring emphasis to what little low-end is present, and a very loud vinyl pressing is possible as a result.  The bright, chaotic cover art also does not reference the simplistic black-and-white designs of TV Ghost's mid-90s forebears.

Small Faces, There are but Four Small Faces (side A)

Small Faces' releases from 1967 are confusing to keep track of — From the Beginning collects early singles on Decca, Small Faces was the first UK album on Immediate, and the US release There are But Four Small Faces includes some different songs from the eponymous UK LP.  Notably, the UK version omits the hit singles "Here Come the Nice" and "Itchycoo Park", which appear on the US LP.  Rather absurd lyrics about drugs have not diminished these songs' lasting appeal, and the rest of the album matches their impact.  The band's obvious punch is dulled a bit by the recording of Kenney Jones's drums, which muffles a bit of their energy — with Ogden's Nut Gone Flake, a year later, the recording had caught up more with his powerful sound.  The creative solution of adding flange to color his tom part on "Itchycoo Park" has influenced mixing for decades since.  Steve Marriott's lead vocals sound particularly rich and great here, with the recording capturing his amazing talents.  The front cover photo and the band's amazing outfits in the picture are amazing and timeless — I particularly envy the floral blazer.