Bitch Prefect, Bird Nerds (side A)

2013's Bird Nerds is the second album from Australian trio Bitch Prefect.  Referentially, they fall somewhere between the splattery mess of Perfect Sound Forever-era Pavement and the concise, strummy pop of the early Television Personalities records.  The songs do not chase TVP's rave-up punk rock energy, and generally sit more at mid-tempo.  While the understated melodies are very well thought out and crafted, the songs float naturally through verses and choruses, without some of the surprises that made their historical antecedents so special.  The lack of attention to the musical performances contributes to Bitch Prefect's charm — the falling-apart quality is casual, and seems like it would be part of every take.  The vocals do seem like they'd benefit from more careful takes, though the first-take quality is charming, with even the flagrant notes feeling natural and unproblematic.  The mixes fit a modern lo-fi aesthetic, with particularly bright and chime-y recordings of guitars unlike anything in early Television Personalities or early Pavement.  The mastering disappoints me a bit, as the kick drum on some songs just leaps out unnaturally, and would benefit from being tamed, especially to match the more conservative mixes.  The museum-like design of the front cover emphasizes Bitch Prefect's levity, with the cover printed on impressively thick reverse-stock paper.

Sparks, Angst in My Pants (side A)

1982's Angst in My Pants falls chronologically between No. 1 in Heaven and In Outer Space, but it's more rock-oriented and bombastic than either.  Sparks remained modern after No. 1 in Heaven, with regimented rhythms (though it sounds like a drummer playing to a click and not a drum machine) and even dynamics with little range.  The renewed emphasis on guitars, when coupled with these tendencies, created a big-sounding album that's probably the duo's most emphatic.  While this approach de-emphasizes Russell Mael's amazing songwriting, Angst in My Pants still features some memorable classics.  Some songs, like "Sherlock Holmes",  retain the subtlety of Mael's early songwriting, while others, like "I Predict", entwine the compositional style closely with this new production approach.  Ron Mael's voice has been thinned and compressed to fit into this modern style, but his takes remain expressive and emotive.  The exaggerated cover image nicely ties Angst in My Pants to earlier Sparks albums, with the Mael brothers once again creating a narrative through one picture.

Colin Newman, A-Z (side A)

With 1980's A-Z, Colin Newman refined the more accessible elements of Wire's then-final studio album 154 to fit his coherent vision.  The songs, while still far from anything commercial, follow more consistent verse-chorus structures than was common for Wire.  Robert Gotobed's drumming remains recognizable here, though it's sonically more uniform and polished than on any Wire album, and the snappy snare is especially prominent.  Mike Thorne retained some familiar studio tricks, like the heavily-chorused bass guitar and the occasional use of looped backing vocals.  Newman's vocal moves a bit further to the foreground here, with a present sound that references commercial records of the time.  While the guitars often play simple, repeating patterns, their distorted timbres introduce A-Z's grittiest sonic element.  They also never provide the rhythmic drive that was common for guitar parts on Wire albums.  Desmond Simmons's involvement here is interesting, as his solo album Alone on Penguin Island featured the other half of Wire, Bruce Gilbert and Graham Lewis — apparently the members or Wire retained a close social circle even after their collaboration stopped.  The tiny, detailed images on the cover fit the album nicely — they're engaging but not overly friendly, with a pretty subdued palette.

Loudon Wainwright III, Album II (side A)

The first two Loudon Wainwright III albums are grouped together, perhaps because they predate his comedic hits like "Dead Skunk", or maybe even because they're on the same record label.  The first album, which is self-titled but often referred to as "Album I", is the one that I've grown particularly attached to, so I always think of 1971's Album II in comparison.  Sonically, Album II feels a bit brighter and more purposely modern, without the rich mid-range that makes the debut sound so timeless.  The songs here are also often structurally simplified past standard folk conventions, into a style that more resembles punk or indie bands for their sheer primitivism.  For example, the opener "Me and My Friend the Cat" rests on the same chord for the verses and a different single chord for the choruses.  While the sarcasm on the first album was complex and literate, the lyrics here just drip with tangible darkness.  Album II features "Motel Blues", which has come to be one on Wainwright's best-known and most-covered songs.  The portrait photo hints that this is a singer-songwriter album, while the quirkiness of the photo, coupled with the overtly '70s font at the top, indicate how arty and creative the contents are.

Jefferson Airplane, Bless its Pointed Little Head (side A)

Jefferson Airplane had several modes as a band that they navigate between and combine.  They're best remembered for their simple, radio-friendly hits, which are mostly missing from Bless its Pointed Little Head.  The version of "Somebody to Love" that's included here has Grace Slick drifting away from the signature vocal melody, and the instrumental interaction emphasized instead.  My favorite part of the band is their abstract and strangely-constructed psychedelic side, which often combined with pop songs on After Bathing at Baxter's, the album which directly preceded this one.  Here, the extended 11-minute exploration called "Bear Melt", with improvised vocals against a very loose structure, captures perhaps the most extreme example of the band's cerebral, open-ended explorations.  Most of Bless its Pointed Little Head emphasizes Airplane's blues-rock tendencies, which rarely turned up on their studio albums.  Kaukonen, Dryden, and Casady were all incredible players in the genre, who obviously had fun performing together live, and sharing a love of the style.  While this aspect of Airplane feels somewhat dated to me, the talent and enthusiasm always shine through.  The mix of Bless its Pointed Little Head is a bit bass-heavy — as great a player as Casady is, I'd like to hear a bit more of Spencer Dryden's drums.  The amazing textured paper cover changes subtly as ink is applied more in some parts than others, though the punch line of the image is unrelated to the excellent music here.

Dead C, Harsh 70s Reality (side A)

Extended over four sides of a double-album, 1992's Harsh 70s Reality presents an impressively broad, but still unified, insight into the Dead C's distinctive vision, and its widely-recognized distinctiveness and impact has not dulled with time.  The album sides are structurally very diverse — the abstract and extended "Driver U.F.O." fills side A, while side B contains pop songs with vocals, including a take on the oddly-catchy "Sky".  Robbie Yates's drums sometimes propel the music forward as the most central element, and other times are entirely absent — he is also credited with guitar, noise, and vocal in the liner notes.  While the sound is consistently lo-fi and rough, it varies from the narrow mid-range frequency range of "Sea is Violet" to songs that at least fill more of its limited sonic spectrum.  The most impressive part might be how all of the diverse tracks manage to achieve coherence.  The unifying element, across the different compositional approaches, is the playing — it's always chaotically improvised within each structure, with the awkward and distinctive personalities on guitar of Michael Morley and Bruce Russell bringing a consistently familiar sound and feel.  While all three members, and even guest Jean George, contribute vocals, the delivery and recording remains instantly recognizable, and also helps pull the album together as tracks change in style around these performances.  The stark black-and-white pattern on the cover and insert fits the music perfectly — it's both abstract and recognizable, confusing and engaging.

Pelt, Effigy (side C)

Over the nearly 20 years of Pelt's existence, their line-up has evolved, and their sound has grown more consistent and refined.  For 2012's Effigy, founding members Patrick Best and Mike Gangloff are joined by Mikel Dimmick, who first joined for 2005's Untitled, and newest member Nathan Bowles.  Where most early albums could be chaotic and diverse, Effigy varies far less across its four sides.  Each side contains one or two long instrumental tracks, and each track creates a feeling of drone and suspension, through the use of a consistent palette.  Most of the instruments employed produce overt attacks in their performance, so the idea of drone is more conceptual than a simple use of held tones.  The liner notes point out that all of the sounds were created with acoustic instruments.  The palette changes slightly from one track to the next, often with different instrumentation, but the overarching sound of the album remains consistent.  Each track moves through its space without having any obvious structure or logical progress toward an end.  Sonically, the album is slightly thin and bright, with limited low-end and very present treble — this is especially noticeable when the bowed cello is used.  The beautiful paintings on the packaging hint at the vaguely folk-y nature of the contents, but they're far more representative and narrative than Pelt's music.

John Fahey, Requia (side A)

1968's Requia has an oddly divided personality.  Side A closely resembles Fahey's other 1968 albums: The Voice of the Turtle and The Yellow Princess.  On it, he stretches his refined and developed folk playing into more extended structures.  While his guitar playing is careful and precise in defining tempo and structure, it also shifts drastically within a track, from section to section.  Tempos drastically change, and overt melodies will alternate with more droning and vaguely raga-like sections, all within one piece.  Side B, in contrast, departs radically from any of his other work in that era.  Most of the side is filled with a four-part piece, "Requiem for Molly", which is constructed primarily with found recordings.  Tape music does not fall neatly in line with Fahey's reputation or expertise, so the results resemble neither Fahey's other work nor much else in the tape music tradition.  He does play a bit of acoustic guitar to accompany this work, but its role is more accent than foreground.  The music is unusual and original, and it captures parts of Fahey's creative personality rarely heard on record.  The cover image is a portrait, but not a close-up, and Fahey holds a guitar in it — it matches side A nicely, but feels incongruous when coupled with "Requiem for Molly".

Peter Brötzmann, Wolke in Hosen (side A)

1976's Wolke in Hosen appears to be Brötzmann's first solo album — the cover merely states that it is solo, while the title appears on the center sticker of the vinyl.  Most tracks feature a lone reed instrument, but "Piece for Two Clarinets" and "Piece for Two Clarinets II" feature overdubs, as is evident from the titles.  While Brötzmann moves between reed instruments from track to track, the pauses between tracks are so short that the album sides give the feel of a continuous take.  Each track does have an internal logic — some evolve in a linear fashion, while others alternate back-and-forth between ideas.  While most of the concepts are abstract, there are occasionally folk-like melodies, which might be ironic in intent, and even a martial rhythm.  The album ends with a piano bit too, which seems purposely humorous, after so much serious and intense performance.  When clearly audible in a solo setting, Brötzmann's ability to coerce complex harmonic overtones from his saxophone is especially impressive, though sometimes it seems almost overwhelming when placed in such a stark context.  It's easy to forget the physical nature of tape recording in this era, but the empty spaces on this album leave print-through unavoidably audible.  The primitive construction of the cover design emphasizes these elements of Brötzmann's playing over the subtle beauty which is also obviously present.

Califone, Stitches (side A)

While still created under the name Califone, 2013's Stitches feels more like a Tim Rutilli solo album.  The cast of performers varies wildly from song to song, with appearances by familiar names like Ben Massarella, Wil Hendricks, and even Tim Hurley, surrounded by many new collaborators.  Rutilli's songwriting and singing remain strong, and his distinctive personality shines through.  The collaboratively layered rhythms, which often led to chaos on 2003's Quicksand / Cradlesnakes, and which percolated subtly but constantly on 2009's All My Friends are Funeral Singers, now show up infrequently.  Even the most propulsive moments, like the long outro of "Frosted Tips" feel much more controlled and methodical.  Stitches isn't void of weirdness — the song structures still intertwine conventional forms with Rutilli's personal, poetic vision, and synthesizer squiggles bring an element of grit amidst the beauty.  Despite having been recorded across multiple studios in different states, the airy sonic quality barely departs from Funeral Singers, as Rutilli has definitely developed a sonic vision for his songs.  The packaging is impressive, with beautifully blurry, washed-out photographs on both the reverse-stock cover and the printed inner sleeve, but its mysterious quality exceeds that of the more disciplined music.

Natsuhita Hetekata, Ki (side A)

According to the notes on the insert of 1996's Ki, Natsuhita Hetekata are a quintet with names that appear Japanese.  Rumors indicate that the band, who followed this album with the Rei! 10" in 1997, is a concealed side-project of the more-straightforward Finnish rock band Radiopuhelimut.  Ki consists of two side-long tracks which are identified as parts 1 and 2 of the same piece.  The instrumental music typically sits in a steady, repeating groove for a few minutes, and then moves through a brief open section to the next repeating groove.  While there are five names credited, it sounds like a quartet of two guitars, bass, and drums.  One guitar plays through a lot of effects, and seems largely disconnected from the rest of the group.  The core of the music has the other three band members moving in somewhat tight synchronization.  Natsuhita Hetekata are never precise like Circle or Gore, but it's also not as loose or chaotic as Mainliner or the Crawlspace albums of that era.  The recording is lo-fi and murky, which makes it hard to discern the parts played by the psychedelic noise guitar.  The glued-on front cover design is a lot more dizzying and chaotic than the music contained here, but the photocopied quality matches the lo-fi documentation of the performance.

The Cakekitchen, Kangaroos in My Top Paddock (side A)

Graeme Jefferies worked with his brother Peter in the mid-80s to create four remarkable records in the mid-'80s.  They wobble clumsily into and out of traditional song form, with deadpan vocals and primitive recordings emphasizing the group's rough-hewn tendencies.  After Jefferies titled his 1987 solo album Messages from the Cakekitchen, he adopted the shortened Cakekitchen moniker.  These albums gradually emphasized more his melodic tendencies, with an increasingly driving rhythm section.  At some point, though, the Cakekitchen lost much of this drive and volume, and 2009's Kangaroos in My Top Paddock in some ways reverts to the personal qualities of Messages from the Cakekitchen.  Some songs are particularly austere, with focus on Jefferies's blunt vocals — even here, though, his songwriting has matured, and it's noticeable.  Other songs seem to almost call for a more ambitious production, even as it's missing, and these songs often have an odd bossa nova-like beat that reminds me a bit of Mañanas-era Kevin Ayers.  Even with this variety, I find Jefferies's songwriting much more at home in these intimate arrangements and recordings than when he tried to surround it with a full rock band, and this chapter in his work feels to me like a return to form.  The quirky cover photograph and album title feel a bit like a warped take on a rock album, which seems appropriate here.

Günter Christmann, ..off... (side A)

I had been aware of Günter Christmann as an improviser with strong albums on FMP and Po Torch.  Even his first solo album, 1976's Solomusiken für Posaune und Kontrabass finds him playing a series of idiomatic solos — its most unusual quality is his alternation between trombone and bass.  I was thus surprised and amazed to hear 1978's ..off...  While it includes improvisations on both instruments, which are recorded conventionally, these tracks alternate with a series of far odder experiments.  The second track, "armade", is described in the liner notes as "composition for breathquartet and bottle with compressed air", and the breathing is all recorded very closely with added compression.  "po-sau-ne", with its layered renditions of the German word for trombone, reminds me of the sound-text pieces of Nono and Gaburo, more than anything from an improvised tradition — the liner notes here do specify that it's an improvisation.  Crackle box, transistor radio, close-mic'ed and layered mandolin scrapings, typewriter, and tape modulation all show up too.  The result is a crazy and chaotic record that bridges many traditions and does not neatly align with anything else I've heard from Christmann.  The remarkable cover photo, with a shattered image of Christmann alongisde his instruments, gives some hint of the contents, but it's far subtler than the wildly varying contents of ..off...

Basement 5, In Dub (12" EP)

The Basement 5's sole album, 1965-1980, is a fairly idiomatic and very strong post-punk record.  Its most recognizable trait might be vocalist Dennis Morris, who was better known as a photographer and graphic designer — his racial identity is perceptible in his vocal style, in a genre when most singers were white.  1980's In Dub drops Morris's vocals completely, for a set of remixes of songs from 1965-1980, in a style loosely influenced by Jamaican dub.  The remixes here employ heavy use of effects like delay to create a dense, standalone instrumental.  Where traditional dub plates had overwhelming low-end, the bass here is more controlled, with a more conventional rock frequency balance.  The remixes are interesting and engaging, if a lot more polished than might be expected from the dub reference.  The bassline does hold the melodic center of each track, with a lot less processing than on the surrounding instruments.  The bright colored and iconic packaging leaps out nicely, but it does not closely match the smeary and messy remixes inside.

Wire, Turns and Strokes (side C)

In 1996, Wire collected live and demo recordings from the period between 154 and their original break-up, to assemble the archival collection Turns and Strokes.  The earliest concert document was in July, 1979, and the last demo session was in spring, 1980.  Turns and Strokes is equally split between two sides of melodic songs and two sides of more abstract, extended pieces.  Of the songs, only "12XU" was previously released, though its extended instrumental section stretches nearly as long as the entire original recording.  The comparison also brings Lewis's evolving bass sound to the foreground — he's taken on a full and aggressive sound not unlike early Killing Joke.  Several songs initially performed here as a group would turn up, in wildly rewritten versions, on Newman's early solo recordings: "Lorries", "Remove for Improvement", and "Inventory".  It's easy to see Wire's breakup as tied to the two aspects documented here — Newman's first solo album A-Z collects melodic songs, while Gilbert and Lewis created abstract work on Dome 1.  The personalities, though, are somewhat more complex in retrospect, as Newman quickly took a less song-oriented turn with Provisionally Entitled the Singing Fish.  Both the Dome albums and Singing Fish feel more developed and refined than the sketches captured here — these sketches did not fully indicate how much these abstract ideas would grow and mature.  The restoration of the lo-fi live recordings was obviously done with care, but the mastering job, with particularly spiky hi-hats, feels less impressive.  Turns and Strokes tastefully reuses the "Crazy About Love" packaging, as the two tracks on side D originally appeared on that EP.

The Eternals, Heavy International (side C)

I always find double albums tricky to navigate, as an artist's vision can spread in too many directions and become unclear, or can grow repetitive.  At an hour in duration, 2007's Heavy International is short for a double album, which might help to retain its consistency.  The consistency here is in the palette of dubby bass and cheap-sounding keyboards, and the careful mixes successfully glue these disparate elements together.  There's a nice balance of songs with overt vocal melodies and pop song structures, against more abstract forms which are still well-developed to retain attention.  Most songs feature excellent drumming from Tim Mulvenna, who was touring with the duo at the time, but his drums move seamlessly between the foreground (like on the propulsive opener "The Mix is So Bizarre") and the background (on the Ralph Records-like "It's Later Than You Think").  Damon Locks's vocals manage to vary widely in style without creating tension between tracks, possibly because the variation often happens within the same song.  "Crime", which features some of the album's most overt melodies in Locks's high tenor, juxtaposes this delivery with more rhythmic and chant-like sections.  Locks's cover collage captures the album's contrasts perfectly, with energy, beauty, darkness, and a bit of grit.

John Prine, Sweet Revenge (side A)

While he's made albums for 40 years, John Prine will always be most associated with his self-titled debut from 1971, which contains many of his best known songs.  1973's Sweet Revenge, his third album, was a relatively modest departure.  The focus here remains Prine's darkly funny and personal lyrics, delivered in his distinctive deadpan persona.  The song titles reveal the humor ("Often is a Word I Seldom Use") and sometimes its darkness too ("Please Don't Bury Me"), and the liner notes have printed lyrics to follow along.  While Arif Mardin's smeary production values were prominent on the debut, Sweet Revenge has a bright and airy sound, apart from the solo live recording of "Dear Abby", which is acoustically incongruous.  Prine's songs follow relatively conventional song structures, which helps to draw the listener's attention to the lyrics, and the excellent musicianship borrows from country without growing idiomatic.  The funny cover photo captures Prine's rich personality — he's slouching in a convertible, wearing lots of denim, and smoking a cigarette.

Die Bilder, Schwimmen in der See (12" EP)

The diversity of Bill Direen's work feels immediately confusing, even when a record's packaging does not add to the confusion.  Schwimmen in der See appears to be in German, complete with a German-language lyric sheet insert.  The lyrics are in fact all in English, sung with Direen's pronounced New Zealand accent.  By 1982, his group Vacuum, with notable collaborators Stephen Cogle and Peter Stapleton, had split — Vacuum's Allen Meek plays organ here, and Malcolm Grant, later of the Bats, is the drummer.  There's a bit of everything across four songs here, from lilting, sentimental vocal melodies reminiscent of Jacques Brel to flat deadpan vocals over driving rock beats, sometimes all in the same song.  Sometime the very lo-fi mixes are buried in reverb and delay, while other parts are incredibly dry.  And while the songs mostly follow conventional structures, things completely fall apart at times too, with roaring guitar solos or even total abstraction.

Sad Horse, Purple on Purple Makes Purple (12" EP)

After various singles, cassettes, and a CD-R, 2012's Purple on Purple Makes Purple is a sort of debut LP for the Portland duo Sad Horse.  Its 14 songs would fill more than an LP in duration if they reached conventional song form, but only two tracks exceed two minutes.  The closest reference at times is Mudhoney's thick merging of classic rock forms with punk dirtiness, but without the machismo and angst.  The recording also harks back 20+ years — its simplicity is tasteful and competent, not at all slick, but also not purposely lo-fi.  The guitar / drum duo configuration, with boy–girl vocals and purposeful awkwardness loosely recall Kicking Giant, but Sad Horse are louder and less twee.  They even cover Andrew Hill's "Grass Roots" and hint loosely at Sun Ra's Night of the Purple Moon with the design.

Dr. John, Babylon (side A)

Dr. John is usually associated with his overwhelming debut Gris-Gris, or the more commercial turn he took beginning with 1972's Gumbo.  In between, he released two transitional albums that are less well remembered — Babylon is the first of the two.  Babylon quickly followed Gris-Gris, with both obvious similarities and radical differences.  The big similarity between the two albums is their use of simple, repetitive structures.  There are still few references here to pop song structures, verses, or choruses — instead, parts repeat to create slow builds.  The palette, however, is a big departure, with a lighter and treblier set of sounds.  Acoustic instruments create a more spacious atmosphere, and what sounds like a harp even pokes through in places.  The female backing vocals are also used to open space, and Dr. John's vocals have been largely stripped of their darkness.  The lyrics have an interesting poetic element, including the surprisingly pointed "The Patriotic Flag-Waver".  The front cover captures the feel perfectly, with a spacious, psychedelic design full of white and bright colors.