Anatomy of Habit, Anatomy of Habit (side A)

Anatomy of Habit's self-titled 2011 debut consists of two side-long tracks.  While the gradually-evolving builds and fades of these extended structures give a modern context that references bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor, the group's sonic palette draws from an older set of influences.  An obvious comparison to the well-executed, precise pounding might be the Birthday Party.  Blake Edwards's metallic percussion setup evokes obvious comparisons to Z'ev or Neubaten.  While Mark Solotroff presents a strong visual presence at their live shows, his consistently flat, off-key vocals reference later-80s, overtly goth styles that are less my taste than the instrumental parts alongside them.  The recordings have trouble capturing some of the harsh high-end, especially in the metal percussion, but they smoothly reflect the broad dynamic range of the evolving tracks.  The impressive packaging includes a simple die-cut cover through which a printed inner sleeve peeks through.

Art Bears, Hopes and Fears (side A)

Talented artists often try to show off their proficiency, and records that seem rough or primitive often are a result of naïveté.  As much as the Art Bears' talent is obvious on Hopes and Fears, they also made choices to conceal their talent, and other decisions that seem unflattering on the surface.  While even commercial records in 1978 did not sound as cartoon-like and huge as today's hits, Hopes and Fears often sounds particularly tiny and unimposing.  At the rare moments when rock-like textures do appear, it becomes obvious that the the restraint of most sounds was achieved very purposefully.  The songs themselves are often awkwardly constructed, with few hooks of any kind to draw in the listeners attention.  Vocal melodies are often arch and complicated, and sometimes subtle textural sections omit even these.  In his book File Under Popular, Chris Cutler emphasizes how political content should be coupled with a related form, rather than placed in a more palatable context, and the rich lyrics on Hopes and Fears follow his preferred approach.  The beautiful front and back cover are more approachable than most of the album's contents, but the inside of the gatefold, which is simple, raw, and handwritten, contrasts with these images.

The Eternals, Rawar Style (side A)

With Rawar Style, the Eternals found their creative voice.  The initial 12"s featured disparate stylized tracks, and the self-titled debut from 2000 took a step back, closer to Trenchmouth's punk rock.  With 2004's Rawar Style, Damon Locks and Wayne Montana pulled their influences together into a more coherent work.  Isaac Hayes-informed soul, Gang of Four post-punk, and bits of modern techno and dance music all manage to coexist in the same song.  Looped samples reference unknown musical styles, basslines provide a propulsive groove, and drums interweave with electronic rhythms.  Short, abstract tracks still coexist alongside structured and catchy songs, but the two styles borrow from a similar palette and flow logically together.  The sounds manage to somehow combine stark modernity with a cheaper lo-fi aesthetic, so that Rawar Style has a sonic character of its own.  While I wish the mastering job was a bit less scooped in the mids, it never sounds shrill or exaggerated.  Damon Locks''s collage on the front cover somehow looks both chaotic and simple at the same time—it's less referential than the music inside, but just as broad in its approach.

David Bedford, Star's End (side A)

1974's Star's End contains one continuous, 45 minute piece, that is divided in the middle between the two album sides.  The piece consists of a series of swells with quiet sections between them.  The palette of sounds does not emphasize an intricate or subtle set of textures, but at the same time, the piece focuses more on the shifting groups of sound than on tonality.  Sounds with tonal notes are used to create a shifting field, which draws attention to the dynamic shifts over time.  The piece is performed by a symphony orchestra augmented by Mike Oldfield and Chris Cutler.  Bedford seems to exploit Oldfield's personality as a guitarist more than Cutler's idiosyncratic approach to percussion.  Both soloists are featured prominently in the mix, with a more rock-like recording approach used to emphasize their contributions.  The packaging of my US copy is non-descript, but the original UK album had a more interesting cover image.

Hauschka, Snowflakes & Car Wrecks (side A)

In his project Hauschka, Vokler Bertelmänn approaches the prepared piano in a fairly novel context.  While the instrument is typically used in overtly jazz and classical contexts, Bertelmänn brings ambient and electronic influences to his pieces.  While the piano has been prepared, it is used here to play notes, and tonality of these pieces is consistently simple, at times recalling Eno's Ambient series in its narrow choice of notes.  The preparations are heard as the pieces build, in a style that borrows from contemporary electronic and techno music.  Subtly propulsive rhythms appear in most of the pieces, gradually adding drive using a repeating pattern.  The piano preparations often play a more prominent role through the build.  The music never approaches any real beat, but the driving movement recalls electronic artists even as it is created acoustically.  The recording also sounds modern and almost synthetic—heavy compression and limiting with fast attacks detach even the most organic piano sounds from their source of origin.  While artists like Sack & Blumm bring acoustic instruments into their arrangements, Hauschka is distinctive within the genre for working solely acoustically.  Several pieces on 2009's Snowflakes & Car Wrecks add sustaining string arrangements behind his now-recognizable approach to the piano.  The cover's simple geometric designs on reverse-stock paper fit Bertelmänn's melding of influences nicely.

The Red Krayola, Coconut Hotel (side A)

Coconut Hotel is of course a bit legendary—in 1967, it was too weird for International Artists, who were putting out plenty of weird records.  When it got reissued in 1995, the sources of the Red Krayola's inspiration were not exactly clear.  Coconut Hotel consists solely of abstract sounds, some in pointillistic arrangements and others more sustained.  Some sounds have a clear source of origin (including ones with titles like "Piano" and "Guitar") where others are harder to discern.  While the music has little to do with the group's rock background, it seems most logical to try to understand Coconut Hotel in this context.  As the Red Krayola collaborated with John Fahey at this time, they must have been aware of his tape-music experiments on Requia.  Founder Mayo Thompson seems unfavorably disposed to hippies, so its creation in the same year as Jefferson Airplane's sometimes-chaotic After Bathing at Baxter's might be coincidence.  An obvious reference point, with only tangential rock connections, AMM's first album came out a year earlier, but there's no way to know if it reached Texas.  Searching for references or influences proves difficult, and Coconut Hotel really can't be judged in any context but its own, which is how Thompson clearly intended it.  The blurry cover photo is funny.  To the extent that sound quality can be discerned on such an abstract release, the reissue seems to have been transferred respectfully.

Elklink, The Rise of Elklink (side A)

The 2010 reissue The Rise of Elklink adds a song to the original 1999 cassette.  The band consisted of Graham Lambkin from the Shadow Ring and Adris Hoyos from Harry Pussy.  The Rise of Elklink sounds like a cross between an Alga-Marghen sound-poetry LPs and Lindus-era Shadow Ring.  It's interesting that these recordings, which were made 3 years before Lindus, resemble it stylistically.  The primary sound source is heavily processed vocals, with occasional purely electronic sounds overdubbed to add color.  Occasional words interrupt the purely abstract vocal sounds, and these words often help to identify the distinct pieces.  For example, the title of opening track "Tension Tec" is audible at times.  The glossy cover is a startling pink color, with an unflattering photo of Lambkin in its center.  The recordings are raw, but at the same time they clearly capture the processed sounds—the mastering job for the vinyl reissue nicely emphasizes the clarity without drawing attention to itself.