Parasites of the Western World, Parasites of the Western World (side A)

The Parasites of the Western World's self-titled 1978 debut obviously dates from a time when small-town US bands borrowed from a huge range of influences without a hint of self-consciousness.  Parts of this album have the aggressiveness of Chrome, with heavily distorted guitars, shout-y vocals, and driving beats.  Other songs sound like instrumental versions of 70s AM synth-pop.  This extreme juxtaposition reminds me a bit of Gary Wilson, though the album also seems to presage Bobb Trimble's more seamless assimilation of radio-friendly and jarring ideas.  The recording is generally competent, though it's hard to guess how the record was made—no credits indicate whether the group recorded themselves or went to a studio.  The 2010 reissue's mastering leaves the songs sounding extremely different from one another, which is likely true to the original creation, if it's also somewhat jarring to experience.  The packaging comes with nice posters and inserts.

Ty Segall & White Fence, Hair (side A)

White Fence's 2010 self-titled debut impressed me enough that I've continued to follow his work.  Hair, which is my first exposure to Ty Segall, still captures Tim Presley's songwriting and arranging talent, but it lacks some of the ambition that made the debut special.  Presley's songwriting voice is obvious here—references to the psychedelic 60s are filtered through a more contemporary lo-fi aesthetic.  Where artists like Brother JT or Strapping Fieldhands emphasized their outsider, record-collector personae, Presley and Segall ooze fashion and slickness.  Hair loses the broad palette and range of ideas that made White Fence special—the weaker points even sound alike and interchangeable.  Some songs combine a slack aesthetic with a keen attention to detail that makes them special, but at other times the slacker persona grows overwhelming, as if they rushed to finish the album and get on tour.  The packaging captures the record's personality perfectly, to a point where it feels obsessively stylized.  The lo-fi sound quality has charms, but in some ways it can also sound bad—a professional mastering job did nothing to tame the out-of-control treble.

M.L.A. 'Blek', Blek (side A)

1981's Blek features an interesting line-up with 3 brass players plus Fred Van Hove's piano.  All four have excellent facial hair in the back cover photo.  The most surprising thing about Blek is that it still dates from an era when Radu Malfatti played audible notes on the trombone and not just pointillistic, minimal textures.  The improvisations here are incredibly diverse—each short track has a coherent idea and palette.  At its least interesting times, Blek sounds like a lot of other improv records from this era, with an emphasis on call-and-response.  Other parts sound very contemporary, with van Hove creating textures inside the piano that pull the music far from tonal references.  The piano is recorded with more space and less presence than the horns—it almost sounds like it's on a different record.  The understated cover drawing is both beautiful and appropriate.

Cleared, Breaking Day (side A)

The most surprising thing about 2012's Breaking Day is how much its personality reminds me of Holger Hiller.  He's hardly an obvious influence to reference, so I have no idea if it's on purpose.  The compositions here generally rest on a foundation of a looped drum beat—the sounds have a distinctive metallic quality that seems to come from a cheap looper pedal.  The patterns are plodding, vaguely heavy, and simple rhythmically.  Some tracks have a low-frequency drum wildly exaggerated in the loop.  Over top of these patterns are often a field of textural sounds that makes for an engaging foreground.  Sometimes there is a distorted, rock-like guitar riff that replaces the textures with a simple, vaguely melodic pattern.  For me, the textural concepts feel far more distinctive than the distorted guitar melody.  Apart from the weird metallic sheen on the drums, everything here sounds a bit compressed, the high frequencies can be slightly brittle, and the midrange frequencies are a bit scooped.  The photos on both the cover and the inner fold are particularly beautiful, and the super-thick cardboard used for the gatefold is impressively glossy on both sides.

Tim Hecker, Atlas (10" EP)

2006's Atlas is a great distillation of Hecker's approach and palette.  He nicely juxtaposes fully blown-out and distorted sounds with prettier and more natural sounds.  Even in the dynamically static sections of the two pieces (one per side), there is a lot of subtle movement.  Each piece includes unexpected and drastic dynamic shifts.  A particular highlight is in "Atlas Two", when the piece moves from full and loud to a much quieter volume—the sound surprisingly transforms from a prettier palette to a very harsh, if still quiet, timbre in the foreground.  The component sounds are consistently compressed, so that dynamics shifts are radical when sounds enter, exit, or change drastically.  The frequency distribution emphasizes high end a bit heavily, with the mid-range scooped to give this space.  The bright colors of the packaging have a very different character from the narrow palette of the music inside.

Sack und Blumm, kind kind (side A)

Sack und Blumm were a duo of German musicians who worked on the remote periphery of minimal techno.  Their music involves looped patterns that create a sense of rhythm.  On kind kind, the patterns never create a sense of a beat, so much as a feeling of constant movement.  Many of the component sounds are recognizably organic, like fret buzz or an mbira melody.  They're recorded in a dry, rigidly-compressed manner that almost makes them sound electronic.  The frequency distribution is a bit bright and modern sounding, but the low-end is not at all pronounced.  Some tracks feature deeper sounds like bass notes on the mbira, while others are fully missing low-end.  This sonic spectrum removes any hint of techno from kind kind.  The sparse, hand-drawn design on the packaging reflects the handmade sounds, not the processes used to assemble them into repeating structures.

Nico, The End (side A)

While there was a 4 year lapse between 1970's Desertshore and 1974's The End, the two albums feel stylistically contiguous.  Both feature Nico's slow, sparse songs gently arranged by John Cale.  Some songs are built around Nico's voice and droning harmonium, while others feature a slightly more propulsive structure from Cale's piano.  Brian Eno and Phil Manzanera, who both played on Cale's album Fear at roughly the same time, both contribute layers and textures.  Nico's sad, haunting voice remains the focus, and the music barely hints at her past involvement with rock music.  The End includes covers of both the Doors' "The End" and the traditional German song "Das Lied dr Deutschen".  John Wood's engineering captures Nico's voice beautifully, and his mixes flatter the arrangements perfectly.  The blurry front cover image reflects Nico's musical personality, though the film metaphor in the layout feels far more clichéd than anything else about the album.