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.