Ry Cooder & V.M. Bhatt, A Meeting by the River (CD)

Mohan Bhatt is already a fairly assimilated Indian classical musician—he's modified an acoustic guitar with resonant strings to make it into a guitar-sitar hybrid. The presence of Ry Cooder does not really add a Western feel, but it does pull Bhatt even further from a recognizable idiom. 1993's A Meeting by the River is beautiful and warm. I love that the liner notes mention having used custom microphones with Milab capsules and tube bodies, and the recordings do sound great, but the disc is mastered too quietly (perhaps because the bass tabla notes occasionally boom out too much). The insipid cover design and notes praising Coleman Barks are the only real flaws of this very pretty album.

The Styrenes, One Fanzine Reader Writes (12" EP)

Given the amazing survival of the Styrenes for 35 years, it should not be surprising that their sound has evolved over time. 1996's "One Fanzine Reader Writes" 12" stretches the idea of the Hudson-Styrene LP, with Mike Hudson rambling over even more abstract and extended compositions. Where the elements of rock and new wave were still audible on A Monster and the Devil, by this point the guitar and keyboard could fit as easily in an avant-classical texture as a rock record. Hudson's stories are amazing, and the band plays great. Apart from the illogical decision to put the better song on side B, my only real complaints are the blurry cover photo which has nothing to do with the music and the sterile but overly processed recording style. This 12" is a far more logical direction for growth than the LP that followed it (We Care So You Don't Have to).

Islaja, Meritie (CD)

While Islaja has grown into a more focused songwriter than some of her Finnish neighbors/compatriots, her 2004 debut Meritie is a bit more sprawling and messy. The prominent layered vocals resemble some sort of primitive approximation of Linda Perhacs, and the songs are generally built around tentative guitar playing. The album is weird, memorable and engaging, but lacks the sophistication that makes her later work stand out. The arrangements, while distinctive and interesting, feel more like Refrigerator's loose exploration of ideas than the refined focus she found by her second album. The fold-out packaging is particularly beautiful and fits the music nicely.

ICP Orchestra, Oh My Dog! (CD)

2001's Oh My Dog! finds ICP Orchestra at their most playful and absurd. There isn't a lot of recognizable jazz here, and the compositions meander through humor and insanity, with few listener-friendly stops. The musicianship is, of course, amazing, and when they do introduce more overtly musical ideas, it's always rewarding and fun. Oh My Dog! is a fun romp for existing ICP fans, but it's unlikely to win converts or even invite repeated listens. The cover art finds Han Bennink at his most playful, especially behind the CD in the DigiPak, and Dick Lucas's recording is clean and neutral (if a bit overly so).

Grifters, One Sock Missing (side A)

1993's One Sock Missing, the Grifters' second album, stands up as one of the more interesting of the "lo-fi" era of early-90s indie rock. It couples a bluesy classic-rock swagger with overt Chrome-like textural freedom. Despite the buried vocals (both technically and stylistically), the melodies can be recognizable and memorable. The drive and traditional riffs provide an emotional anchor, even as the album veers off into occasional bursts of oddity. The recording was, of course, purposely lo-fi, but the mastering could use some more bottom end. The cut-up drawings on the cover hold up nicely, but I'm not quite sold on the font.

John Butcher & Phil Durrant, Requests & Antisongs (CD)

While 2000 was the heyday of lower-case improvisation (or EAI, or whatever other unfortunate names people came up with at the time), Requests & Antisongs has aged nicely. The foundation for this one is really Butcher's creative sax playing—textural and extended in distinctive and tasteful ways. Durrant only contributes processing here, no violin, and it seems to stretch Butcher's technique further and more abstract, more often than it introduces a distinctive voice of its own. While it dates a time when electro-acoustic improvisation was focused on sounding as small and pointillistic as possible, Requests & Antisongs uses a broader palette. It's mastered at an unnecessarily quiet volume, and I really can't make sense of the cover art, but these facts may not necessarily be bad things.

Run On, On/Off (12" EP)

I like pretty much everything that Rick Brown & Sue Garner make, and On/Off still sounds as fresh and inspiring as in 1995 when it was released. For a new band's first release, Run On definitely did not try to constrain the scope of their vision or make it easy for a newcomer to their work. There's a bit of everything here, from a really catchy pop song ("Into the Attic") to a couple of textural workouts, to less melodic tracks with foreground vocals. It's all a bit raw-sounding without resembling the nominal lo-fi of its era, and all of the different types of tracks work. Adding as strong a personality as Alan Licht did not lead to a diminished band chemistry—everything really holds together. The blurry front cover image of a levitating body, which seems to have been appropriated, fits the music perfectly, but the font and colors don't mesh quite as well for me.