Pumice, Puny (side A)

Pumice is New Zealand's Stefan Neville, and his coupling of lo-fi recording techniques with melodic songs places him squarely in a tradition of Kiwi songwriters.  The liner notes thank Chris Knox, and Neville drummed for Knox, but his work here as Pumice is far less overtly catchy than Knox's typical creations.  The vocals do follow lilting pop melodies vaguely reminiscent of Donovan, but the backing instrumentation does not follow the harmonic arc of the melody, and instead creates a more messy foundation.  Pumice keeps these slightly-chaotic arrangements simple, with enough space for his often-distorted palette.  Diverging from the vocal songs is the extended instrumental "Trophy", with a simple droning keyboard melody that loosely recalls Donovan's "Peregrine", only without the vocals.  The professional mastering thins the dense midrange of the lo-fi recording, and makes 2012's Puny sound a bit more like a commercial indie rock release.  The slightly blurry black-and-white cover photo nicely meshes with the music's smeary content.

Fat, Hit (side A)

The combination of a heavy rock instrumental palette with traditional compositional technique was a common idiom in New York in the 80s.  Prominent practitioners of this idiom, including Elliot Sharp and the members of Borbetomagus, make contributions to Fat's 1989 album Hit.  While Fat are one of the less-remembered acts working in the style, their music is as well-executed in the idiom as their more well-known peers.  Fat utilized a traditional rock power trio line-up, with Eric Rosenzveig's electric guitar providing the foreground melodic content.  As was typical in this idiom, despite the electric instrumentation, the rhythm section played with the precision typically found in classical and orchestral music, rather than the swing or groove traditionally associated with rock music.  Funnily, both rhythm players are also credited on the cover with "delay" in addition to their instruments, but Rosenzveig is only credited with guitar.  Fat's songs focused on the exploration of an idea, with a timbral and harmonic approach defining their space — there's rarely signs of linear evolution within a piece.  While Hit was recorded in an expensive studio, the final album sounds somewhat primitive and lo-fi.  While the music can transcend the idiom of its era, the primitive cover design feels more trapped in the past.

Leroy Jenkins, Solo Concert (side A)

Leroy Jenkins is best-remembered for his work with the Revolutionary Ensemble and Anthony Braxton, but his solo concerts were also always impressive and memorable.  1977's Solo Concert is the only released document of his solo performance, and it's quite impressive.  My favorite part of Jenkins's playing was when he would find an interesting texture on the violin and explore how it evolved as it changed frequency.  He demonstrates this technique in several places, including an extended section on side B.  More frequently on Solo Concert, Jenkins explores complicated melodic lines, where he radically exaggerates the timbres of different notes based on the overtone series the violin can create.  The melodic evolution and textural variation combined to create the lines on which he builds.  Liner notes also discuss themes and improvisations, though his playing often blurs these boundaries.  The live recording reflects some of the boxy room where Jenkins performed — I'm assuming "the washington square church" mentioned in the liner notes is in fact Judson Memorial Church.  The cover design couples an amazing font with a beautiful portrait of Jenkins holding his violin — its subtlety matches that of his playing.

Fred Frith / Bob Ostertag / Phil Minton, Voice of America (side A)

1982's Voice of America contains two very different side-long tracks.  The album title hints at political content, and side A overtly delivers.  A duet between Frith and Ostertag, "Voice of America (Part 1)" places long, narrative samples in the foreground.  All of the samples are credited, including "Chronology of the Chilean Coup, 1973."  Extended use of political folk songs also brings programmatic meaning to the foreground.  These samples are surrounded by textural improvisation, to create a flowing and extended piece.  The palette is thick and slightly aggressive, without reaching the purposeful harshness of the industrial idiom.  Side B employs a fuller sound, with the addition of Phil Minton's experimental vocals.  Minton fits his voice nicely into the palette, and on "Voice of America (Part 2)", the textural improvisation moves into the foreground.  While the liner notes again credit samples, they're employed more subtly, and draw less attention to themselves — the music has now overtaken the content, without abandoning it.  Voice of America nicely manages to work with its message within an equally radical context, without losing interest in either the art or the meaning.  The cover image of the melted radio reflects the distortions contained in the music, and the recording is simple, competent, and slightly primitive.

Roscoe Mitchell Creative Orchestra, Sketches from Bamboo (side A)

On 1979's Sketches from Bamboo, Mitchell leads a huge group through three of his pieces.  The ensemble leans heavily on brass, and features notable players like Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Kenny Wheeler, Leo Smith, and Marilyn Crispell.  In the two longer pieces, "Sketches from Bamboo", parts one and two, Mitchell appears to have been influenced by György Ligeti — fields of sounds float by, with highlights peaking out over the top.  Where Ligeti often achieves these fields with masses of strings, Mitchell uses a more modest set of brass.  Bobby Naughton's vibraphone often creates the high-frequency movement over the top.  The shorter piece, "Linefineyon Seven" feels less special — a simple and repetitive drum beat, which loosely references jazz, creates a foundation over which the waves of sound pass.  This constrained structure pulls the piece back from its floaty feeling, and creates an unresolved contradiction in the work.  The recording sounds great, apart from an unnecessarily exaggerated treble on the cymbals, and the unmemorable cover design matches Leo Smith's conceptually similar Budding of a Rose LP.

Joe McPhee. The Willisau Concert (side A)

I'm a big fan of McPhee's 1974 contemplative and widely-respected collaboration with John Snyder, Pieces of Light.  While 1976's The Willisau Concert came only two years later, and again features Snyder, this time with drummer Makaya Ntshoko, I expected a similar chemistry.  Instead, perhaps because it was performed in front of a live audience (with a murkier recording as a result), The Willisau Concert is both less-focused and more propulsive.  Side A includes what appear to be two duets.  "Touchstone", between McPhee and Ntshoko, alternates between FMP-style call / response and a jazzier, more fluid style.  Its energy remains consistently high, even in the less overtly-propulsive sections.  "Voices", between McPhee and Snyder, includes processed voices which slowly give way to analog synth sounds.  Both pieces on side B clearly feature all three musicians.  "Bahamian Folksong" has little relation to its title — McPhee and Ntshoko follow the flow of a modular synth improvisation from Snyder.  "Harriet" returns to the call / response elements of the opening track, now in a trio format.  The Willisau Concert features excellent collaborative playing from these great musicians, but it definitely lacks the magic that makes Pieces of Light so memorable.  The packaging fits the tasteful style of a series, with messy cursive fonts standing out in the design.

New Music for Piano(s) (side A)

1970's New Music for Piano(s) collects then-recent pieces where Yuji Takahashi's piano is the sole instrument.  The first three pieces are performed by solo piano, while Takahashi layers three pianos on the final Earle Brown piece using overdubs.  Xenakis's "Hérma" features his typical use of densely-layered fields, differentiated here by its simple instrumentation.  It's nice to see Roger Reynolds included here, as he sometimes seems to have been overlooked.  His "Fantasy for Pianist" impressively combines genuinely sentimental passages with a more jarring and inventive structural vision.  Takahashi's piece nicely emphasizes his remarkable piano technique, but it's hard to follow and easily the weakest of the four pieces here.  Brown's piece moves furthest from harmonic constructs, and Takahashi's use of technology to create its layering, rather than live performance, captures the piece's character nicely.  The idea of an overdubbed creation, while seeming obvious today, feels ahead-of-its-time when created in 1970.  The piano recordings nicely use the space, and the austere cover design of the series nicely fits the music here.

Siegfried Palm, Violoncello (side A)

This album collects five pieces, written between 1914 and 1966, which all prominently feature the cello — Siegfried Palm performs the lead role on all five pieces.  Side A collects two longer pieces where the cello is accompanied by an orchestra.  György Ligeti's "Concerto for violoncello and Orchestra" feels typical of Ligeti's work — the cello weaves beautifully among fields of sound created by the orchestra.  Krzysztof' Penderecki's "Sonata for Violincello and Orchestra" evolves impressively from a relatively conventional feel with slow tonal evolution, into a chaotic and jarring field of percussive movement.  Side B contains three shorter and sparser pieces.  Anton Webern's "Three small pieces for Violoncello and Piano, Op. 11" quickly moves through three jarring pieces that emphasizes his rigorous technical approach.  Paul Hindemith's "Sonata for Violoncello, Op. 25, No. 3" is the least inventive piece on the album, with an emphasis on classic tonality and linearity — certain points do draw attention to the physicality of the cello.  Bernd Alois Zimmermann may be the least well-known composer here, but his "Sonata for Cello solo" impressively explores the sonorities of the cello within a lyrical piece — it reminds me of Varèse's "Density 21.5", which it impressively predates by six years.  The body of the cello resonates clearly on the solo pieces, and it sits perfectly in front of a more spacious orchestra sound on side A.  My reissue copy blends into a series design tastefully, but it seems odd to me that it emphasizes such a blurry, poor-quality photograph of Palm.

Terry Riley, A Rainbow in Curved Air (side A)

I had always assumed that Riley sequenced analog synthesizers on 1969's A Rainbow in Curved Air.  I surprised myself when I looked at the back cover and saw the list of keyboards used on "A Rainbow in Curved Air".  On listening back, I could recognize both the electric harpischord and RMI Rock-si-chord when they jumped loudly out of the mix.  I'm now amazed by how accurately Riley played the layered sequences.  The electric harpsichord sounds more distorted than similar instruments on songs like "Because" and "Burning the Midnight Lamp" — it's not clear to me how it was recorded or whether this was on purpose.  The sparkly detailed tambourine also sounds especially remarkable.  Riley's soprano saxophone playing on side B also sounds amazingly like a synth — it directly foreshadows much of Jon Gibson's work.  The front cover collage design looks dated, and it also does not closely relate to the music.

Aribert Reimann, Konzert für Klavier und 19 Spieler / Engführung für Tenor und Klavier (side A)

This 1974 LP collects two relatively dissimilar pieces by Aribert Reimann.  Side A contains an instrumental piece for a sizable chamber group, while side B is a duo piece for vocal and piano.  Both pieces feature a piano defining the structure and tonal evolution, and both pieces use a complex, modern approach to tonality.  "Konzert für Klavier und 19 Spieler" surrounds the piano with drastic dynamics from the chamber group.  The textural variety and exaggerated use of dynamics fit nicely with the contemporary tonality of the piano part, to create a contemporary and inventive piece.  The traditional operatic vocals on "Engführung für Tenor und Klavier", which perform as a duo with the piano, pull the piece into a more traditional territory.  The structural and tonal innovations clash with the arrangement and the texture of the voice.  The recording here is remarkable, with impressive details of both the instruments and space of the room — the close-mics never seem exaggerated, and they blend perfectly with the room.  The simple, modern cover design is part of a uniform series, so it has no direct relationship with the pieces here.

New Music from London (side A)

1970's New Music from London collects four fairly quiet and introverted pieces.  Two of the pieces feature vocals, while the other two are instrumental.  Both vocalists sing in a traditional classical style, with lyrics from text poems.  While Harrison Birtwistle's "Ring a Dumb Carillon" has an excellent title, the foreground vocals do not neatly integrate to the more contemporary approach to tonality.  David Bedford's "Come in Here Child", with lyrics from a Kenneth Patchen poem, uses electronic amplification of John Tilbury's piano to create a more contemporary setting, where the vocals do not leap out.  While the liner notes explain that the speaker was far from the piano in a concert setting, it's hard to perceive resonance on this recording.  Of the instrumental pieces, Peter Maxwell Davies's "Antechrist" is the most dynamic piece on the album, using volume and propulsion at the beginning and end, from the largest ensemble featured here.  Richard Orton's "Cycle, for 2 or 4 Players" emphasizes its structural precision, with discrete changes happening against the flow of the performance.  The very simple cover design emphasizes both the seriousness assigned to the music and also the modernity of the contents.