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.