2000 Reviews (R-W)
Timothy Renner
– Songs for A Sacred Memory
Stone Breath –
Lanterna Lucis Viriditatis
All released on Timothy's Hand/Eye imprint.
The first of Timothy's triple plays this month, "Sacred Memory" is an "anniversary present" to his wife, Alison and conjures up comparisons to (Green Pajamas frontman) Jeff Kelly's Twenty Four tape that he made as a birthday present for his wife, Susanne. Jeff's pretty much holding that one ransom, but the idea here is a selection of poetry put to music interspersed with love songs and intimate "Kodak moments" all accompanied by banjos, dulcimers, bells, tambourines, hamoniums and other exotic instruments Timothy seems to master as soon as he picks up. As with Kelly's other "postcards of love" on the recent Melancholy Sun box set on Camera Obscura, "Sacred Memory" finds Timothy locked in his bedsit, pouring his heart out to his beloved. The naked honesty and intimacy laid bare in these tracks is to be cherished and commended in light of the tough love and savage brutality rampant in so much of today's so-called modern love songs. No images of rape and battery will leap out of your speakers…no homophobic, macho poseurs hiding behind pseudonyms to get your testosterone in a tizzy. Just straight-from-the-heart emotions that everyone has felt, but few have dared share outside the bedroom.
"The music of the stream will echo our love on while smoothing all the stones as my love flows on and on," reads a lyric from "Windsong Streamsong Cloudsong Dreamsong." "She walked across the desert as easy as the wind. Silver-petalled flowers bloomed in her footprints" reads another ("I Shall Breathe Your Tears.") "I Am But A Flower At Your Feet" begins with the couplet "If angels are the eyes of God, you shine fallen in golden light." It may seem like the high school scrawlings of a lovesick puppy, but you and I have been there and never had the courage to share these thoughts with the world. Timothy does, and he is to be congratulated. Putting all this to melodies as childlike and simple, yet timeless as the best of Cohen, Young and Prine, Timothy has created fairy tales of love than even an adult could smile at. The Motown Sound is almost universally cherished for its rhythms and other musical innovations, but listen to those lyrics next time one comes on the radio. Rarely has the emotion of the human soul been so exquisitely captured, but Songs For A Sacred Memory can hold its head high in that company.
The first song I ever heard by Timothy was something about Honey Mushrooms, the lead track on Mourning Cloak's debut In Dreams You See. Expecting a simple, acoustic folk album, imagine my chagrin at listening to nearly five minutes of a stylus stuck in a locked groove! And this was a CD! A decade later, Mourning Cloak are still pushing the envelope when it comes to exploring the dichotomy between the conscious and unconscious minds, relative to their impact on our interpretation of events. Is it unfair or incomplete to accept only our "waking" perception of these events? What does the unconscious mind have to offer in our evaluation of so-called "reality" and are we correct to reject this assistance as the mere "stuff of dreams?"
Comprised of just five tracks, including reworkings of a previous 7" and a cut from A Silver Thread To Weave the Seasons by one of Timothy's other projects (Stone Breath), Beyond challenges us to redefine our perception of everyday events as simply the sum of "conscious" experiences by welcoming the "unconscious" mind's input into the equation. The sampled, Middle Eastern chants added to "Stargazer" (previously available as a '95 single on Timothy's Hand/Eye label) impart an ominous, otherworldly overtone and the air raid siren intro to "The Dreaming Mask" awakens us to the ethereal, spoken-lyric stream of (un)consciousness tale of Tim's encounters on the "other side," i.e., the "inner" mind. Church bells, sci-fi synths, bubbling electronics and feminine laughter beckon the listener into "Sidereal Shadows," continuing the dreamlike state established on the previous track. Sampled cuckoo clocks, violins, birdcalls and other inhabitants of the pre-awakening REM state of unconsciousness once again yield to Tim's tale of his visits to dreamtime.
Many artists will confess to this "intrusion" of the unconscious mind into their work (McCartney ("Yesterday") and Richards ("Satisfaction") both claim these standards "came to them in a dream,") but few have developed the visionary, often mystical quality of the dreamstate like Renner does here. "Words On A Petal" (featuring Stone Breath's R.A.Campbell on lead guitar – nepotism is alive and well in this little cult of ours known as The Terrastock Nation) warrants inclusion here for its reverse logic of taking waking events into the unconscious mind and attempting (as many of us, I'm sure, have done) to influence or "force" dreams, perhaps in the hope of resolving or understanding the conscious world with the unbridled innocence and clarity of the unconscious mind. Rather than using dreams as a means of escaping (in the sense of "copping out" or resolute abandonment – giving up, if you will) from the checks and balances imposed upon our wakened mind by the ego and superego, Renner seems to suggest that we must, in effect, be asleep in order to awaken our "selves" (i.e., our minds, for that is, after all, what we "are.") The traditional "waking mind" concept of "reality" must be re-examined to include, and equal weight must be afforded the experiences encountered by the unconscious mind. It is this totality which the aptly titled Beyond encourages us to confront and ultimately accept.
The final, 15 minute reading of "The Prayer of St. Francis" offers little to the proceedings, its message rendered nearly unintelligible by the heavily echoed vocals, delivered as a "round" over sampled electronics (a similar approach to a track on the album discussed below also suffers from the same disorientation.) Its questionable inclusion, other than to pad an excellent EP to full-length status leads to issues I've discussed before so I won't bore you with that here. Perhaps, Renner has stretched himself a bit thin across his three different projects (the wyrdfolk of Stone Breath, the trad. arr. Appalachia of The Snakeoil Jamboree and this more avant garde outlet.) A re-evaluation and refocusing of energy and a melding of MCs experimental aspects into one of these other projects may ultimately benefit all three. I hope to interview Timothy in the new year and I'll put this to him then. For now, the curious and adventurous among you are encourage to head for the great Beyond, but proceed with caution – the mind(s) you encounter may be your own.
Finally, like a woodsprite tripping through Nottingham Forest, Prydwyn "the pie-eyed" Piper leads his band of merrymakers past rippling brooks, tinkerbells and Timothy's custom-made banjo strumming chorus on "Sunshine In The Eyes of Death," the opening track on Stone Breath's latest, Lanterna Lucis Viriditatis (say that three times fast!) Immediately, the good vibes are cast amongst us like St. Peter casting for stray catfish. Timothy's newfound confidence with the latest addition to his instrumental bag of trips is evident on nearly half the tracks here. Recent activity peddling his Moonshine Snakeoil to the masses has served him well, but has also further blurred the boundaries between the respective projects' focus: think of this as a collection of mystical, medieval murder ballads.
The influences of old favorites, Gryphon (whose "Estample" is covered) play a stronger role and the medieval, biblical and Egyptian subject matter (songs about Soloman, Osiris, Horus, baptisms and red knights abound) further signal a move away from previous Stone Breath releases. Clive Palmer is once again represented ("Song of Soloman"), but, like his post-Incredible String Band material, the pastoral lyrical content has otherwise yielded to more somber readings of ancient texts (excerpts from David Wallace's The Dark Range and Edmund Spenser's "Red Crossing Knight" and an almost childlike, fairy tale rendition of "John Barleycorn" that is totally unrecognizeable from Traffic's interpretation) in a deadpan, monotonic, basso profundo timbre.
Serada Hart's lilting voice grace several tracks and lift them above the mundane murkiness they threaten to settle into, particularly her ariatic accompaniment on "Moongazer," the "dark side" of the above album's "Stargazer." The music this time out is indeed very somber and the delivery funereal with an (occasionally) overreliance on minor keys, harmoniums, drones and reed organs as musical acoutrements. The reading from Wallace's book, again delivered as a round as on the MC track discussed above is also disheartening. Granted, this was one of the major song structures at play when some of these tracks were originally composed, but I don't think it translates well into a contemporary setting. Let's just say I hope there's no Moondog tribute albums on the horizon, although Timothy could do worse than include a few of his madrigals and rounds on future endeavors!
This minor quibble notwithstanding, the use of recorders, whistles, flutes, dulcimers and weird sounding exotic pieces like butterfly and catfish guitars, ramyaj(?) and dumbek(??) open whole new vistas for Stone Breath to play in the fields, forests and woods of Our Lord. Cementing the release is the title track (gratefully translated into "The Lantern of the Greening Light,") Timothy's personal favorite. At 20 minutes, it ebbs and flows from a simple chord progression through a twin guitar call and response (imagine a 14th Century version of Television!) to an ellaborate wall of sound, with cascading tambourines, flutes, chimes, dulcimers and ramyaj(???) all coalescing into a sort of medieval Court of the Crimson King. Throw in Serada's backward vocals (like that little guy in David Lynch's Twin Peaks), add a touch of Tim's poetry reading about beheadings, locust swarms, ancient burial rituals involving candlewax droppings at graveyards and prophecies of the Green Lantern rising like the Phoenix, beckoning the righteous to walk among us, "knowing the path they walk is right" and your in for the trip of a lifetime! Who says the sixties are dead?!?
SubArachnoid Space
– These Things Take Time (Relapse)
A New and Exact Map
(September Gurls)
These simultaneous releases from San Fransisco's finest instrumental psych band signal a welcome return after a two year absence since '98s Endless Renovation. The first is actually a live recording originally broadcast over KFJC-FM in Los Altos Hills, California last December 11. I had the pleasure to witness its execution, huddled amidst the record racks in that station's fabled "Pit." Engineered by Grawer, recently the drummer with Primordial Undermind and currently a DJ at the station, These Things Take Time consists of seven segments, all titled with a letter of the alphabet (i.e., "A" through "G") and segued together to sound like one 45 minute psych jam. The mood and vibe of each piece changes almost imperceptibly to signify a new track, although I'm too musically challenged to recognize whether the track titles coincide with the major key that its accompanying segment is played in. "A" builds slowly as bassist Andey Stephens fumbles around for a nice rolling groove for Mason Jones and Melynda Jackson to serpentine their six strings aroun and drummer Chris Van Huffel provides a shuffle beat to carry things along. Jackson eventually breaks off to provide fills for Jones to sail off into the nether regions of a total white noise freakout. "B" is but a respite for the players to regain consciousness and features more sustained notes and less ferocious riffage from the double Js. By "C," Stephens switches over to Iron Butterfly-from-outer-space organ runs as Jones gets a second wind for the lengthy "D." It takes a while to get going and features a lot of aimless plucking and searching for the right feel/vibe to take off with (remember, this is a live and spontaneous composition), but midway through all cylinders are firing full throttle and Jones is wrenching blood, sweat and tears out of his Ibanez. "E" actually begins with th esound of rockets achieving liftoff (again, courtesy Jones' nifty collection of echos, distortion pedals, modulators and a whole shitload of delays and phasers verging into Hendrix-at-Woodstock territory.) He eventually yields to Jackson as he pops over to his theremin (I've officially declared 2000 to be "The Year of the Theremin!") and she doesn't lose a beat in carrying the track to its cacophanous conclusion in the rather aimless "F." Her style compliments Jones quite nicely, however, as her tendency to concentrate on more ambient, lengthier sustains allows Jones to strut his stuff in the more flashier role of lead guitarist. Staccato
Pluckings and Stephens' spacey organ fillers bring everyone down to earth for a safe and smooth landing in the finale, "G."
Comparable to the current Abunai! release, Round Wound (reviewed last month), I prefer this release if only because it is played as a whole rather than assembled from smaller jams and the flow is much smoother. The transitions, while at times awkward due to the nature of the single setting (Abunai!'s release strung together pieces of jams from different sessions) are still a little more natural, i.e., spontaneous. A significant entry in an already impressive catalog.
The September Gurls release is significant in that it offers a major directional shift for SAS, incorporating as it does Eastern influences, jazzy elements and film noir-ish dramatic pauses and leitmotivs. Let's call it "psychedelic noir." There's also full song titles! "Prism" may be there mellowest track yet – hell, it's almost a pop song! Shades of Tortoise peering out of their shell to look in on the proceedings, while not exactly original, indicate that SAS is emerging from theirs. As exciting as all of their releases have been, there is a sameness to them that starts to wear a little thin over time. "Exact Map" ups the ante considerably. It's certainly unlike anything you've heard from these folks before.
"Drink Me" is downright contemplative: mellow, ambient, spacey, ethereal are some adjectives that immediately spring to mind. Recorded live in Las Vegas (!?), it segues into the most unusual track in the SAS repertoir, "Indy Maru." Beginning with tinkling glasses, windchimes and other percussives that recall the opening of some ancient tea ceremony, this is the most cinematic I've heard SAS and is perfectly suited for late night chill outs and/or old Kurasawa films (with the sound turned off.) I've even used it as the soundtrack to "Blair Witch," although I'm not quite ready to rattle off one of those "Dark Side of the Moon/Wizard of Oz" connections just yet. The guitars throughout are so muted as to be window dressing; Doug Ferguson's Vox Organ carries the track and, I believe for the first time on a SAS track, all band members take to using synthesizers (!), although Stephens' rambling basslines are fairly prominent in the mix. Jones returns for some fine distorted guitar licks towards the end and the whole shebang eventually erupts in a volcanic explosion, scattering brain particles for miles around. Fading out as they began, Ferguson's organ wends its way through this haunted house ride like a canoe through the Tunnel of Love. One of my favorite tracks on any SAS album.
"Fruity Drinks with Little Umbrellas" reintroduces the guitar pyrotechnics we've come to expect, but splashes of synthy bleeps and manic drumming from Van Huffle (a typo? His surname is spelled differently on the two releases), all accompanied by Stephen's fluid basslines add up to a successful foray into the realms of "prog" rock tinged with vintage krautrock flourishes. The epic finale, "Melted" may be their lengthiest composition yet (18 ˝ minutes), but the band uses their time wisely. The opening third continues in the vein of ambient spacerock, with synthesizers, sampling and sound effects to the fore. The double Js guitars lurk in the shadows, popping into the light every so often with a wah-wah here, a shriek there, even the occasional "mwomp mwomp mwah." The final third of the piece begins with Jones literally making his guitar "talk" like some gothic Oracle warning of impending doom. Jackson continues throughout the piece to strum and pluck echoed chords – these sections remind me of Robert Smith's tunings and playing on several tracks of The Cure's Disintegration. True to its title, the track eventually is caught up in a field of quicksand and all participants simply "melt" into the background as industrial piledriving percussives fade into the murk. Recapping, then: elements of prog, jazz, krautrock, spacey ambient synths and organs without the usual flashy guitar white noise excursions signal a wonderful change of direction and augur well for future releases. A late, but definite candidate for my Top 10 poll.
Various Artists – Acid Jam 2 (Woronzow)
On the other side of the coin, Acid Jam 2 presents over 2 ˝ hours of music stretched across two disks. "Stretch" is the key word here, for that’s just what assorted permuations of Bevis Frond, Alchemysts, Lucky Bishops, Outskirts of Infinity and Magic Muscle do on this magnificent follow up to AJ1 from a dozen years ago.
Bevis Frond, Mk II (Nick Saloman, Ade Shaw, Bari Watts and Ric Gunther) turn Neil Young’s "Cortez the Killer" over, under, sideways and down into a funky, blistering trawl through the backwater swamps of the muddy Mississippi, dancing across the water, man, with "Reformation Blues." 14 ˝ minutes (and a couple of "three counts") later, the same setup (minus Bari’s second guitar) emerges with "Funeral Ballet Music." Imagine hiring The Cure and Black Sabbath to accompany your casket to its final resting place to the tune of the former’s "Funeral Party" interpolated through the latter’s "Electric Funeral." This "ballet" will have your mourners dancing in the aisles!
Before things deteriorate any further into Joy Division territory, Nick’s daughter, Debbie drops in to lighten the tension with her wonderful Jackie DeShannon-meets-Tracey Ullman-inspired "Long Velvet Sigh." The Saloman’s have recorded in this formation as Petrocat, a pleasant surprise at last year’s Terrastock 3 and plans for a full length (sans dad) are underfoot ("as soon as dad finishes writing it," Debbie recently quipped in an interview with KFJC-FMs Pete Dixon.)
Nick passes the baton to former High Tide guitarrorist, Tony Hill who, accompanied by the Frond rhythm section of Ade Shaw and Andy Ward, rips through a clinical display of a scales-defying, neck-wrenching, finger bleeding solo which definitely announces he hasn’t lost a trick over, lo, these thirty years. Ade’s rolling basslines lay the groundwork for Tony to get "High," but, wisely, he and Andy stay out of the way of the virtuoso’s six string juggernaut. Not much of a "song" to speak of, just a fine old "acid jam." Plans for a Woronzow release of a full length solo effort from Hill are also underway. This is just a (very) tasty teaser.
Magic Muscle stumble in next with an outtake from their Gulp sessions from a few years back. (Nick’s liners suggest that some of the tracks herein languished around in the Woronzow vaults, although just which ones are unidentified. Thanks to Rustic Rod Goodway for confirming the source on this one!) "Ice Plug" rides along Simon House’s sinewy, soaring violin solo as the aforementioned Mr. Goodway steps up to the mic every once in a while to bring us back to earth with primeval utterances about returning to the ice age. Unfortunately, the song wears out its welcome as the lads try and figure out when to stop. May I suggest about two minutes sooner.
Bevis Frond, Mk II returns with Alchemysts’ axeman Paul Simmons for "Change in the Weather," a straightforward three-guitar psych onslaught of the first rank. Groovy stuff. Had me reaching for my early Plan 9 records to compare mythologies and Nick, Bari and Paul measure up quite nicely with Eric Stumpo and his mates.
The Lucky Bishops close disk one with the 15 minute "Negative Blooty," which announces itself with a swirling Tom Hughes organ solo befitting their psych/prog leanings so excellently demonstrated on their eponymous Woronzow debut from earlier this year. Think of a Yes/Tull/Purple sandwich topped off with a heaping helping of Wallenstein kraut and let your taste buds and eardrums wallow in the ensuing pomp and circumstance. Occasional forays into arena-styled pyrotechnics aside, this tasty dessert wraps up platter number 1 on a high note.
"Second Verse, Same As the First"
A pattern emerges as BF, Mk II return on disk 2 for their fourth entry, kicking off what is essentially a full length BF jam: they appear (with minor alterations) on six of the disk’s seven tracks. "Deep Space Divers" takes Hawkwind’s "Space Ritual" to places Mr. Brock only hinted at with a 16 ˝ minute, balls on the floor, testosterone dripping headbangers’ delight, complete with appropriate synth warblings from outer space.
Ade Shaw switches over to keyboards and deputizes Mr. Hill's old High Tide partner, Pete Pavli to handle bass chores on Ade's "Tanz Mekkanik," a motor-riff-ik slice of krautrock highlighting Saloman’s not inconsiderable synth chops. [Historical note: Pete was once in a band with Rod Goodway called White Rabbit, adding to the marvelously incestuous Family Trees being rattled throughout this release!] Who needs Kraftwerk when Shaw and Co. can replicate their (late period) sound so well? Not a copy, but a well executed tribute to a style Nick and Ade have heretofore shunned. I’d like to hear them try this again sometime.
Tony Hill returns with the "b-side" of his contribution to the acid jam, "Tide." (You’ll recall his previous effort on disk one was called "High." Geddit?) This one’s a little more structured, hence a little more subdued, dude! Nonetheless, a fine workout that augurs well for the forthcoming full length. I shutter in an...tici….pation. [Petty complaint department: it would have been great if Nick could have gotten Hill and Pavli together on the same track. With all the reunions going on these days, the world could use a little High Tide reprise. As I recall, Mr. House also played with these folks as well?!? Maybe the full-length? Hint, hint!!]
"Deef." Dumb! Sorry, but the backward masked satanic mumblings approximating dogs barking "Jingle Bells" sounds like the brain droppings of a bad acid trip. 30 seconds of this is intolerable; 6 ˝ minutes is merciless. And inexcusable.
The same lineup (minus Watts) redeems themselves with a track that could actually work as a single, "Just A Point." Similar in feel to Vavona Burr, this may have been an outtake, gussied up here with full band accompaniment. Next, "Desert Sands" finds the Frond teaming up with the full Alchemical lineup for another Miskatonic Variation – I think Nick’s up to about Part IV of this acid fried jam par excellence. At thirty, yes "3-0" minutes (!!), it may try even the most patient listener’s endurance skills and you either drool over the latest installment or hit the skip button after about 10 minutes (remember, you’re not even at the halfway mark!). However, Nick’s been dropping these little indulgences onto his releases since the beginning ("Right On," "The Shrine" and "Tangerine Infringement Beak" all clock in at close to 20 minutes or more) and, after all, this is an "acid jam!" As an added attraction/collector's item, this one was recorded live in front of an appreciative audience at last year's Terrastock 3 festival at the University of London's Student Union. Just think – this "song" is longer than some artists’ entire output! Just think about THAT! I’ll give you a half hour to ponder that conundrum and be back to discuss the final track in about 30 minutes. See you then.
OK, how was the trip? Still among the living? Cool. Then
let’s wrap things up as we began over 2 ˝ hours ago with BF, Mk II doing
"Star Map." A short (3 minute) backward masked horror movie ditty,
this almost sounds like it could be the coda to the previous epic and, as such,
it brings us back to earth to chill out to the waning sounds of Bari Watts
exorcizing any demons encountered on our trip. Peace on ya!
Which leads us to a different type of “ASYD.”
Various Artists - ASYD Vinyl, A Tribute to Syd Barrett (Krank)
Or, the Beatification of Mad Syd As Performed by the
Inmates at the Psychedelic Asylum Under the Direction of the Norwegian
Wunderkind, Sir Filip of Kristenstat. Reading about Syd Barrett's slow descent
into madness was almost as painful as listening to some of today's finest
underground artists attempt to wrestle Syd's genius from the clues he left
behind. This is surely one of the saddest, most depressing tributes I have ever
heard. If your only exposure to Syd's music is via the first two Floyd albums
and the previous tribute, Beyond The Wildwood (Imaginary, 1989?,) then I must
direct your attention to the three solo albums he attempted to record after
being ousted from the band he helped create: Barrett, The Madcap Laughs and
Opel. For it almost exclusively from this oeuvre that ASYD's tracks are drawn
and, unlike the previous tribute, no attempt has been made here to sugarcoat the
fact that the chap was as mad as a March Hare. Dark; sombre; unintelligible;
stark; loneliness; desperation; resolute. These are the emotions that cry out
from the grooves of this double record set that has been lovingly assembled by
Filip Ring Anderson, mastermind behind Norwegian label, Krank. Let's enter some
exhibits into evidence:
Greg Weeks opening take on "Baby Lemonade" had me headscratching as soon as he opened his mouth. Where had I heard that melody before. It soon dawned on me where Brad Warner got his inspiration for "Mushroom Season" on his Dementia 13 Mirror Mind release. [His choice for band du plume finally hit me like a ton of bricks.] The longest track on the album sets the stage for most of what will follow: each artist has meticulously gone back to the source tapes and unrelentingly recreated the essense of what lay behind Syd's thousand yard stare. No glossy, pop arrangements to hide the desperation so clearly lyricized within. Each artist realises that madness takes its own sweet time to envelop your psyche. You don't just hop out of bed one day and proclaim, "That's it! I'm mad. That explains everything." Weeks and others wrench every nuance out of Syd's pleas/lyrics, allowing the listener to wallow within the vortex of senility. Care is taken with each chord progression and songs will often stop…only to begin again, often in a different key. Unease overcomes the listener as he/she realises that these artists have come as close to wearing the emperors new clothes as the man himself. They've each spent days, perhaps weeks with their chosen contribution, ferreting out the core of each synapse frying verse. Bringing up the rear on side four, The Green Pajamas, no strangers to madness themselves (lyrically speaking) manage to shed their trademark Beatles/Byrds/Paisley Underground shell and deliver one of their most disjuncted, hurky-jerky performances ever on "A Long Cold Look."
The aboutface works in the context of the subject matter and illustrates what went so terribly wrong with the aforementioned "Wildwood" release. Mining similar territory, participantwise, the earlier tribute featured some of the same hierarchy of underground artists of the 80s as this does woith the 90s. The major difference being that the "me" decade was all sweetness and pop – sugarcoated "white disco" and watch-you-don't-trip-over-that-12-string ephemera. The "oh, woe is me" 90s have put away childish things and attempted to come to terms with the excesses of the past. We've spent the last decade licking our wounds and ducking. We know something was wrong and we are just now realising that we are to blame for our current condition. In short, we've grown up and learned to accept responsibility. The Truth really is out there and we have to find it for ourselves. And it is this acceptance of the past and its repurcussions today that have influenced the approach these artists have taken to not gloss over Syd's music and make it acceptable dinner fare, but, rather, to get to the inside of the meddle of the song and drag the truth out, no matter what is ultimately revealed.
Between Weeks (whose track is way too long by half) and the
GPJs, a myriad of approaches with variable degrees of success is presented.
Paloma's "See Emily Play" sounds like a 45 played at 33 and
essentailly tears a page out of Low's interpretive playbook (cf. their takes on
"Transmission" and "I Started A Joke" among others.) Brother
JT uncorks his helium tank and whispers his way through "Flaming"
(from "Piper") while Stone Breath approximates Syd's stupor with an
emotionless, monotonic reading of "Golden Hair." Campfire catatonia
for the chemically challenged.
Oslo's Tables' straightforward reading of "Arnold Layne" adds little besides a Farfisa backbeat to SS 20s previous rendition and Providence, Rhode Island's The Iditarod shows signs of too much time out in the snow with the dogsleds: their "Long Gone" is both out of tune (vocally) and out of tone (about a full chord lower than the original.)
Simeon Coxe's reading (literally) of "Scarecrow" is memorable for his collection of percussive effects (screwdrivers, clocks, pieces of wood, spoons) and his trademark Silver Apples' oscillators and effectively recreates the "noise" inside Syd's head – think of it as a musical CAT scan. Reynols, a band (artist?) I'm unfamiliar with but who seem to have proponents on several discusison lists deconstruct "Interstellar Overdrive" to the point of total unrecognition and reminds me of Coltrane's "Ascension:" to wit, a high school band tuning up in assorted keys and rhythms with complete disregard for consistency, tonality and conformity. In short, absolute chaos. One could argue this arrangement characterizes Syd's mental state during composition, but that's like shooting ducks in a barrel and gives too much credence to incompetence as a viable form of musical expression and even the DIY punker in me rejected that argument 25 years ago. If that's your thing, proceed with caution.
Tim Renner returns to the festivities with banjo and Snakoil Jmboree partner Sereda Holt in tow for an old Appalachian hoedown version of "Dark Globe" (aka "Wouldn't You Miss Me" from Opel.) The musical tension and dichotomy between his upbeat picking and his monotonic vocals is disturbing – art perfectly imitating (Syd's) life. Oyvind Holm's Dipsomaniacs obliterate "If It's In You" (from The Madcap Laughs) as if Uncle Joe took too many trips to the grog barrel. This man's either drunk or insane and the lo-fi, distorted, backwards guitar and other musical drones render the listener into a similar state of despair.
"Ring"meister Filip Anderson's Daniel Johnston-on-'ludes rendition of "Late Night" is perfect for chilling and reconstructing the day's events that led to one's current state of catatonia, but his collaboration with Tor Ormkliev as Watersnake ("Octopus") reflects too many hits from the bong. It's a nice slice of life intrusion into a couple of buds sharing a couple of same, hanging out in the studio extemporaneously slurring through a few verses of a favorite song. Like naughty schoolboys, they throw in all sorts of vocal pyrotechnics, off-key warbling, moonhowlings, burps, snorts, etc. in an effort to crack each other up. The playful side of Syd is thus presented. He may be mad, but he's as sane as the rest of us and Filip and the other artists here are certainly none to quick to rush to judgement.
And that, warts, false starts, a/mono-tonal warbling and all is where this whole tribute ultimately succeeds. It eviscerates the dichotomy of Syd's madness/genius by examining the product of his troubled mind. And it is on that evidence that Syd's place in the rock and roll pantheon will ultimately be judged. Was he mad?…most probably; was he a genius?…on the basis of the material he left behind for these artists to interpret and on the variety of those interpretations one can only answer: most definitely.
Various Artists - Darla 100 - (Darla)
Four discs for the price of one is enough of an incentive
to grab this whenever you come across it. It can't be ALL that bad. Or, can it?
Well, let's see. In celebration of their centennial release, the good folks at
Darla offer up some of their greatest hits, near misses and a whole CDs worth of
exclusive, new tracks to entice the collector. However, getting things off on
the wrong foot, The Grifters' noisefest ("Holmes") is sub-Butthole
skronk and a nervous feeling of "what have I gotten myself into"
quickly takes hold. The Heartworms set things right straightaway with their
Sundays-inspired wispy pop ("Realy, Realy, Realy Sorry, Parts
1&2") and we're off and running in the right direction. Chisel have
been compared to The Jam in some circles. I don't associate with those circles
anymore, as "The O.T.S." is lame, tuneless, 80s jock rock. Fuck are
the antithesis of what you might expect (skateboardin' speedfreaks, perhaps?)
and "Love Me," with its whispered vocals and restrained, yet distorted
guitars is a winner. I haven't liked anything I've heard by the Photon Band and
their streak continues with the poorly recorded, live sounding "Be Careful
What You Wish." An alternate version of Guided by Voices' "Tractor
Rape" is nice for completists, but too lo-fi (even by their standards) for
repeated listens. The Heartburns return for a poppy "Bent &
Broken," which is a nice dose of Redd Kross California sunshine. Gotta find
the full-length.
Those Bastard Souls cross Ziggy with GbV on "Spaced Out," outperforming Pollard & co. at their own game. An early highlight of the set. A couple of Bright tracks aren't, but Orange Cake Mix is a new discovery and a welcome addition to my music library. On the strength of their many tracks here (eg., "Wings Greatest Hits," "Don't Ever Tell Me You Miss the 70s," "Heaven is Rising" are but a few), I immediately went out and bought a few full lengths. The prolific Jim Rao must have about two dozen releases floating around, so I have a lot of catching up to do. His marriage of pure pop for now people with the best of 80s white disco and Denim's irreverent tongue-in-cheek appreciation of 70s excess is right up my alley. Steven R. Smith's ambient guitar piece, "Spanning Provenance" seems out of place amidst all these pop nuggets until I realize that Darla inaugurated the Bliss Out series just for chill out tracks like this. Other contributers to that series, Flowchart and the aforementioned OCM are also represented (one of F/Cs tracks, "El Glacier-O" is from Volume 1 in the series, Tenjira.) Other ambient soundscapes by Transient Waves, Sweet Trip, Junior Varsity KM and Technicolor are sure to please the headphones (head) set.
Shoestrings are perfect for fans of twee power pop, rainy days and mushroom pillows. "Best Kept Secret" is another Sundays-styled gem. As are Holiday Flyer, who's "Clover Valley Road" (think Cowsills) and "Take Me Away" impressed enough to seek out their marvelous full-length, You Make Us Go. Debbie Saloman (aka Petracat) take note: you MUST add "Take Me Away" to your repertoire. As someone once sang, "baby, it's you!" Orange Cake Mix wraps up dis one with a light and fluffy Lightning Seed called "Hey Hey Galaxie."
The other three volumes in the set cover similar territory with additional samples from most of the aforementioned acts. So, if the foregoing drivel has enticed you at all, you'd be well advised to visit www.darla.com and pick this up. Like Stiff before them, Darla has lost many of these artists to more lucrative careers on other labels. Here's a chance to catch some of their formative creations while simultaneously building an excellent overview of the current state of twee pop, ambient and lyte psych music. The roster is impressive (Piano Magic and ISAN are prominently represented as well) and the price is definitely right. My only quibble is the absence of an informative track listing booklet (with band discographies,) but one can't have everything. And, while the infectious Hydroplane sound like a poppier version of Damon & Naomi & Windy & Carl (great movie title, that one!?), nothing from the latter's Bliss Out entry Antarctica is included.
Various Artists - Day Dreaming (Bedroom Ambience #2) – (Enraptured)
Let's get this out of the way right up front: I'm as prone as the next sucker to buy a CD or album based on the cover art alone. Besides a few other sites like this (most of which are linked on my main page), the latest releases by most of the artists I listen to aren't gonna pop up on "comme ci comme ca's" American Top 40 or Empty V. Therefore, a particularly psychedelic or 23 envelope or Peter Saville-type cover with no artist info might jump off the shelf into my take home pile. Hell, my music collection is full of such impulse purchases and sometimes the music inside actually gets a second spin before I "Odd Job" it out the nearest window. Why am I telling you all this? Well, unless the monkey on your back is into collecting porno soundtracks (not ALWAYS a bad thing), you might be tempted to put this CD back on the shelf (hopefully after wiping the drool off the jewel case for the next customer!) For there, lying spread eagle with an aerial view of Beaver Dam is one of the most voluptuous, er, cover models outside of the latest Victoria's Secret catalog. In Enraptured's defense, she sure sets the "ambience" that has me heading for the "bedroom." Presumably, once there, I'll want to immediately crack open (these puns are horrible, I know!) their latest comp and discover the charms that lie in wait (last one, I promise!)
And what charms they would be. Mall opens things up (so, I lied…oh, nevermind) by giving everyone their phone number ("386-2251.") This fairly mellow, jazzy, soft-techno instro actually sounds like it WAS lifted off a porno soundtrack. New Jersey's always wonderful Flowchart finds Sean O'Neal and co. spending a lot of time in The KLFs Chill Out room and "Y2AOK" sounds like an outtake from that classic ambient trendsetter. Not too far afield from their recent Bliss Out entry in Darla's excellent series.
Pete Bassman has kept himself busy since The Spacemen 2 turned into Cale and Reed and stopped speaking a decade ago. His Alphastone project contributes "Kubrick," another titular tribute (Mogwai were first) to the late director having nothing to do with his films (or revolutionary use of music therein.) This one actually lifts the riff from the extended break in Way of the West's "Don't Say That's Just for White Boys" (how's THAT for esoteric?) and wraps it inside a gorgeous cinematic tonefloat of atmospherics (OK, so maybe there is a LITTLE Kubrick connection!)
Yellow 6 is a band I'm unfamiliar with, but their
"Redlight Camera" is an intriguing mix of high tension electronics
with an Azusa Plane undertow. The DroneOn kids'll love this one. I have heard of
AMP, however – even got a split 7" or comp appearance by them lying
around here somewhere. "ICU" is a multi-levelled pun that features the
titular medical bleeps interspersed with a cooing baby (Little Josh according to
the liners) and percussive loops that really don't go anywhere. Now I know why
I've avoided them. As I recall, their other stuff was just as boring.
That exotic land referred to in the previous review (Cheltenham) is home to Longview, whose "Water Resistant (up to a depth of 3m)" sounds like it was field tested (and recorded) in the drink. Beginning with what sounds like someone tuning in a transistor radio, this ambidelic Floydian soundscape wafts its way inside your grey matter with assorted bloops, grunts and burps which closely approximate the inside of John Lilly's decompression chamber cum water tank. Put this on repeat and break out Altered States.
The wait for new material from Windy & Carl is
temporarily alleviated with "Mechanism" and I'm glad to report that
they're up to their usual high standards. Softer and mellower than Depths,
this ambient drone tiptoes around your brain like molasses dripping off a
cumulous cloud. Please hurry with that full-length.
Junkboy's "Space Modulation Pod" is a little self-confessed game that "anyone can play." Synth washes of krautrockian proportions envelop the listener with Fuxa-styled melodies and Junk's suggestion for headphone usage is well-advised. Acceleradeck wrap things up with "Vietnam," an epic dirge/eulogy in the mold of such tearjerkers as Welfare Heroine's "Cry – Blood" from the early 90s. Cinematic, expansive and heartwrenching are some of the adjectives that come to mind. If you're a fan of such electronic mystics as Aeoliah and early Kitaro, this is for you. Novices and the uninitiated may find this boring, but then some people think Eno retired after he left Roxy Music. If you've ever lost a loved one in America's quest for Imperialism, go visit the Memorial in Washington and play this on your discman. Tears are no disgrace.
Overall, one of the better compilations in my collection and a welcome addition to yours. All of these tracks are exclusives, so it's a must for completists. Anyone interested in the current state of snorecore, ambient, cinematic soundscapes are also well advised to seek this out. As one of the participants shared with me, they had a lot of difficulty with the cover. Years ago, this would have come in a plain brown wrapper. Hell, if Mrs. Gore knew about it, she'd be burning them in effigy. Thank god for small favors and get yours while you can.
Various Artists - The
Nature of Systems – (Carbon)
Available directly from www.carbonrecords.com.
In addition to drumming with Terrastock 1 performers, Hilkka, Joe Tunis also runs the Rochester, NY-based Carbon Records label and loops tapes and other exotic electrical and "found" instruments as leader of the algebraic equation, Joe + N (where n= his number of collaborators.) Talk about wearing your math rock credentials on your (CD) sleeve! For Carbon's 25th release, Joe has solicited contributions from several T'stock cohorts (and their various side projects) and Carbon label stalwarts and offers up this (mostly) successful experiment in the exploration of sonic textures. The Arthur Doyle Electro-Acoustic Ensemble break out their toy penny whistles on "Flue Song," while Andy Gilmore's "She's Settin' Her Ass in A Bathtub" gathers conch shells and warped Carribean-styled kettle drums (bathtubs?) and sets his ass down in a cone of silence. The dichotomy between sea and sky (or water and air, to be more precise) is simulataneously unsettling and fascinating.
Tom and Christina Carter will be making a rare live performance at Terrastock 4 in Seattle in November and "Mansfield Dam," recorded a mere six months ago is a tasty teaser of what fans may expect from this husband and wife duo who record under the enigmatic name Charalambides. Plucked guitar strings, recorded forwards, backwards and across all points in between are layered upon Christina's ethereal chanting, where notes and tones (not exactly "singing," per se) combine to form an angelic choir under the direction of ersatz Cocteau Twin, Liz Fraser. Christina may chastise me for making said comparison, but it is actually meant as a compliment. No amount of compliments, however, can save Finkbeiner's super distorted, melodic chaos, "Yes, It Can" from the obvious rejoinder. This sci-fi guitar extravaganza seems to be directed towards answering the musical question, "Can your guitar do this?" My response, "Perhaps; but maybe it just doesn't want to."
Staten Island's Golden Calves Eskimo Lime Band is represented with the mercifully short noise experiment, "Hostel Song." The Flying Luttenbachers' "Maximum Cruelty" lives up to its name as Einsturzende Neubauten meets Faust on the dissecting table under the musical direction of Coltrane in the throes of withdrawal. Painful stuff. Burlap drop by with the sound of a cassette tape fast forwarding over a Cure-like single bass note ("Coming Home"), while T'stock vets, Pelt present a Dream Syndicate drone accompanied by Amy Shea's Conradian violin touches. "The Dream of Leaping Sharks" even sounds like a title that escaped from the clutches of Young and co. and is the highlight of the first half of the disk.
Host Joe Tunis steps outside the skronk and squalor of Hilkka for some electro-astral projections which catalog certain "Types of Interference" and T'stock fave Loren MazzaCane Connors does the same with his guitar in "I've Had Trouble, I've Had Joy," a piece so quiet and meditative it lives up to the adage: I will strike no string before its time. The six string equivalent of a Low vocal. Nod break out all their Neil Young wah-wah distortion pedals and harps for a good ol' fashioned backporch, backwoods toe tapper, "John Henry vs. The Smog Monster." Can you say "Soo-eeee?!" Paging Mr. N(o)d Beaty!
We began with the carny-like strains of Arthur Doyle and we now present the carnival from hell strains of Mick Turner's "Carny's Dance." It'll scare the kids (and weak stomached adults) shitless! Hilkka's Rich Nuuja tortures his guitar in his side project, Sheet and "Quick Stomach" will empty even the staunchest NiN fans' and is strictly for Japanese noise afficianados. Carbon Record's SQ pours Borbetomagus into the Lhasa Cement mixer and the resulting block of musique concrete should have Neubauten and Faust fans quaking in their kneehigh goose- stompers, while Bardo Pond continue to expand the gap between the quality of what they're capable of delivering (Amanita) and what they're actually releasing as the two notes and a prayer "Vagabond" goes nowhere in a hurry. Side Projects 'R' Us continues as The (other) Dream Syndicate's Karl Precoda and Pelt's Mike Gangloff meet in a "Metal Shop," fire up the blade sharpener (which often morphs into a police siren and is actually – I'm guessing – Karl's guitar) and layer the whole shebang on top of Mike's extended drone (also, presumably, his guitar) and in the process forge a whole new entity I've christened Inside the Dream Syndicate, aka IDS. It sure beats the shit out of Table of the Element's recent snippet of the (other) Dream Syndicate (aka EGO)'s work in (and out of) progress.
Tunis and Finkbeiner (assisted by John Schoen on percussion) return under the guise of Pengo, whose "New Loft Elevation 2001" again begs the industrial comparisons with Neubauten although, instead of "collapsing new buildings," this approximates erecting them.
At the beginning of this review I referred to the sonic/texture exploration that can be found within these grooves (bits and bytes, actually.) Tunis has assembled a fine collection of pieces that, while occasionally derivative of areas that the past masters have delved into, offers a 21st century take on how music FEELS, as opposed to how it SOUNDS. To experience these pieces is to be enveloped within the machinery – the hardware – of the musical voices of their creators and not the typical heart (or software) that one usually expects from a composition. This is music of the body, not the mind. Don't spend too much time thinking about it (I've just done that for you), get out there and feel it. This, then, is the "nature of systems:" they act upon each other to "push society forward" as Joe says in his liners. Action, not necessarily thought (or discussion which, if you think about it, is actually IN-action or stasis) is the key.
Various Artists - Sculpting from Drake (Elsie and Jack Recordings)
Let me begin by confessing my fondness for tribute albums (yes, I'm the one!) With over a dozen in my collection, I find, if done well, they serve the dual purpose of introducing me to some new voices I might otherwise have overlooked, while at the same time RE-introducing me to nuances of a favorite artist I may have missed. Of course, if mishandled.... Let's just say that 's why I'm one of the few fans of this sub-genre and get on with it, huh? Ex-Marvel Comics colorist, Cocktails co-founder and current member of Sea and Cake, Archer Prewitt leads off this tribute to English singer/songwriter, Nick Drake (more popular now than he ever was during his short lifetime which ended over 25 years ago, thanks mostly to the VW ad using his "Pink Moon, the title of his final album, in recent commercials) with a reading of "Parasite" that is the closest to the original of all the tracks herein. He manages to capture the essence of Nick's relaxed, observational lyrical style, while occasionally drifting off into the melody for "Chimes of A City Clock" crossed with "One of These Things First." A perfect lead in, as it immediately gets the listener into the mood and frame of mind for spending (what the liner notes announce as) "52 minutes for his 52nd birthday" backtracking through his sadly limited discography.
Au Revoir Borealis manages to make Nick's "Fruit Tree" feel even more morose and foreboding, with atmospherics and an eerie, distant, repetitive plucking guitar recalling vintage Cocteau Twins or Vini Reilly/Durrutti Column. One of several tracks featuring femme vox, the gender swapping is noteworthy in acknowledging Nick's pan-sexual appeal as evidenced by the numerous postings from female fans to the Nick Drake discussion list, Place-To-Be. Nick is definitely not a "guy thing." A nice touch, also, is the carnival-like xylophone solo halfway through, reminding us what a game life really is. Flashpapr [sic] deliver an uptempo "Northern Sky," which again features a lilting xylophone motif. Funny, I never associated this instrument with Nick, but here, again, it works surprisingly well and augments the child-like qualities of so many of Nick's beautiful tunes.
Guitarist Ben Vida, unfortunately, seems lost with "Horn," which merely ends up as random finger picking - six strings in search of a melody it never quite encounters. Jessica Bailiff and Jesse Edwards (he of the.dithering.effect., who also accompanies Jessica on stage during her live shows) have combined forces as Northern Song Dynasty and together they tackle "Place To Be" with mixed results. Jessica has a beautiful voice, but the turning up of the reverb buries it in distorto guitar licks and distracts from the duo's presentation. Nick's lyrics are lost as the listener attempts to wade through the heavy murk. I'm unfamiliar with Jessica's two solo releases on Kranky, so I'm not sure how much of my reservation is due to Mr. Edwards' contribution, but I would have preferred to have heard this without the annoying guitarroristic pyrotechnics. Next up, Electroscope (assisted by Scottish singer Zurich) stretch "Things Behind the Sun" to nearly triple its original length, using it more of a heliport for their astral projections. Fans of the current droney, ambient space/psych explorations of Windy & Carl, Labradford, Stars of the Lid, etc. will be intrigued and mesmerized; fans of Nick Drake (especially the purists, who probably wouldn't be listening to a tribute record, anyway) will be wondering where the song is. One of the most ambitious deconstructions of Nick's work to date and, consequently, one of my favorite tracks here. Sadly, the group have decided to call it a day, so this may be their last recording - and a sad and emotional farewell it is, indeed!
His Name is Alive's Warn Defever also attempts to deconstruct Nick via "Which Will," but with the opposite result. Perhaps inventing a whole new sub-genre, "method singing," Warn struggles to capture the embodiment of Nick's pain and suffering, but only succeeds in inflicting it upon the listener. This demo quality tearjerk-off may be more painful to experience than Nick's original. At first, I was tempted to write off Drekka's "Know" as simply living up to his name (our German friends will understand ;->). But after wandering around aimlessly for a few minutes, he (the enigmatic Mr. Anderson from Bluesanct Musak) finds a groove on his guitar and nails it home, delivering the bluesiest version of Nick I've heard yet. Again, having always considered Nick primarily a folk singer, it's nice to discover another side of him and this, along with the jazz interpretations by Gilbert Isbin on another recent Drake tribute, have opened new vistas for my interpretation of his work. [The only live track included here (from November of '98), the ambience of "electricity in the air" courtesy of Mr. Anderson's monitors bursts through the speakers. It was also this track which inspired the good folks at Elsie and Jack to proceed with this tribute.]
The Autumns sent their rendition of "Time of No Reply" to ex-Cocteau Twin, Simon Raymonde and he rearranged and reassembled it under a muslin gauze of ambient atmospherics one might expect to find him adding to his work with This Mortal Coil. [cf., Au Revoir Borealis above. The Cocteau Twins' comparisons (and Warn Defever's participation as well) are apt, for the general vibe throughout a lot of these tracks is very 4AD-ish. It wouldn't be too far off to suggest this tribute reminds me of what Nick Drake would sound like if interpreted by This Mortal Coil and other 4AD acts.] Lastly (and leastly), Ray Speedway [for some reason, I originally misread this as REO Speedwagon!] decimates "Pink Moon" to the point of unrecognizeability, what with electro-techno 120 bpm distortion, Big Audio Dynamite-styled soundbyte drop-ins, scratching (Egad!) and cheezy piano tinkling that simply loops the gorgeous, by now overly familiar melody under Bonzo Dog Band shenanigans. Scary shit!
So, the ultimate verdict? Well, Nick Drake completists need this as much as they would want Brittle Days, Tanworth in Arden or any of Scott Appel's reinterpretations in their collections. The variety of approaches and executions (well, except for Messrs. Defever and Speedway, whose versions should simply be approached AND executed) will expand your appreciation of Nick's genius and influence 25 years after his originals were recorded. Interestingly, the release (Volume One in a planned series) concentrates primarily on Pink Moon, heretofore my least favorite Drake release. The triumph of Sculpting from Drake is that it introduced me to some new voices and artists that I'd like to track down, while egging me on to go back and revisit Nick's catalog.
Sculpting from Drake is available in a limited edition from Elsie and Jack Recordings (www.elsieandjack.com), who have offices in Grand Rapids, Michigan and Hartlepool, England.
Various Artists - Transmission One: Tea at the Palaz of Hoon [2xCD] (Cosmodemonic Telegraph)
T>A>Z was a New London, CT. hangout and rest stop (a Temporary Autonomous Zone, if you must know) for some of the finest contemporary independent artists (i.e., the Terrastock Nation) passing through the northeast USA. This double disk compendium of some of those artists (along with a LOT of locals) serves as a reminder of what once was a key venue for alternative envelope pushers. Frustratingly bereft of a number of my favorite artists whose tour posters are displayed in the photo-heavy 100 page booklet, T1 also suffers from an overabundance of what gave compilations a bad rap in the first place: too much filler from local wannabes in search of a record contract. But, the "names" don't disappoint (for the most part) and there are a few charmers amidst the flotsam and jetsam from the third divisioners that warrant further investigation.
Hakim Bey gets things off to a running halt with some ranting semi-coherent political diatribe about "Tong Aesthetics." For fans, he offers additional gobledygook to start off disk two as well. More politics (to a jungle/percussive ramalamadindong called "Storm") by Black Pig Liberation Front follow, aided and abetted by Thurston Moore and a cast of thousands (well, at least a dozen.) Things finally hit their stride with 33 1/3 and a smooth, contemplative instrumental called "Miles." Think Tortoise with violins. The pleasant pop of Connecticut septet, Butterflies of Love would not be out of place on the Elephant 6 roster. Some light, airy Witch Hazel-styled Beach Boy harmonics make "Complicated" perfect for backyard BBQs on a crisp end of summer eve.
Nick Saloman uncoils his Bevis Frond persona next with another of his classic 60s inspired psych ditties, recalling paisley flowers, mop tops and patchouli oils. Adding sitar to a familiar, name that tune guitar riff, Nick once again contributes an "A" tune where others may have saved their best for their own releases. If this toe-tapper came out 35 years ago on some small backroom label from some exotic locale like Cheltenham, it'd be trading for 3 figures right now on ebay!
Moe Tucker's take on "Crackin' Up" (not the Nick Lowe tune) reveals there's piss 'n vinegar in the old broad yet. Joan Jett take note: this honkeytonk saloon tune is right up your alley, but Moe delivers the goods with reckless abandon, which augurs well for her highly anticipated return to live performing at this year's Terrastock festival in Seattle (November 3-5.) The female duo known as Retsin prove worthy of that famed breath mint additive with a refreshing, clipclop run through the "Land of the Lost." They kinda remind me of an Appalachian Mary Lou Lord, who turns up with a blistering version of Wire's "Outdoor Miner." Recorded in London with Nick Saloman supplying brainsplattering pyrotechnical guitar histrionics, Ms. Lord demonstrates why she's one of the foremost interpreters of forgotten gems in the biz. If she owns even half the albums she gets her repertoire from, she's got one helluva record collection. Someone sign this woman. Like, NOW!
Things take a turn for the worse on the next few tunes. Mr. Ray & his Ramshackle Review is exactly that, while Mighty Purple's "Winter" is a little too much emotion and not enough soul. Arcaro sound like British pastoralists Hood fronted by Sting. As expected, they sound better when they shut up, but the Tortoise pretensions again take over and things quickly degenerate into interminable white noise before drifting away on the recurring sweet guitar riff.
I've heard OF Wheat, but never exactly HEARD them until "More than You Ever Knew." I think I'll return to lurking. Just one of the thousand soundalike pop bands jockeying for shelf life on Top 40 radio, this'll probably score points in dorm rooms across America, but to me its just sticky ear candy: disposable and terminally annoying. Serotonin's "Skullcrusher" fares a little better, but just barely. More testosterone, but too much posturing. Next….
New Jersey's Dalek rap their way through "Swollen Tongue Bum." Unfortuantely, not swollen enough. Shaddup already, I've got a splitting headache. Besides, this is totally out of place on this comp. Rap (still) sucks. Up next: The Weigh Down. Horrible name – horrible tune ("Whisperers Unite.") Sort of like Neutral Milk Hotel with Mangum cruisin' for a bruisin' (or a hernia.) Tuneless, Toneless…Another man's crap. Bright Eyes checks in next with the hidden gem of disk 1 (entitled Obliquity, by the way), a drunken, lover-in-a-gutter squalor called "It's Cool We Still Can Be Friends." It's so heartbreakingly honest and naked, even I want to smack the bitch that dumped him. Mental note: check out his full lengths on Saddle River. Lifting myself out from under the table to the gentle, Nick Drake-ish wispiness of the One AM Radio's "Shortest Day of the Year" is a fitting hair of the dog to Bright Eyes hangover and a wonderful close to disk one.
Disk 2 (entitled Ecliptic – geez, what's with these names?) begins with Maine's marvelous Cerberus Shoal and a compendium of their three part interlude "Changabang" off their current Crash My Moon Yacht full length on North East Indie/Pandemonium. Highlighted by the clock-like clanking of a music box (or is that simply vibes?), this Hitchcockian cinematic Chinese water torture is as unsettling as it is fascinating. I'm looking forward to interviewing these guys when they return from their European jaunt in early December. One of my favorite bands du jour.
Ted Leo/Pharmacist, however, is just plain unsettling. DIY, lo-fi emoting over a noisy guitar just doesn't cut it for me anymore. Back to busking, dude. The interminable guitar coda's gotta go, too. Positive-Negative Man are next. The Buzzcock's said it best: noise annoys. Atonal, sub-Suicide electonics and rap/chanting nonsense, on the other hand, merely pisses me off.
The Damn Personals' "Stoned" sounds like an 80s guitar band in search of a bad haircut to impress the chix. Reminds me of The Romantics. This is not a good thing. Harvey Sid Fisher's "F-Word" however, is quite a good thing. John Prine-quality rhymes delivered with a good ol' boy country twang over a Canned Heat boogie stomp puts an illegal smile across my face. And, no, he doesn't say it! Terrastock vets, Elf Power drop by with another of their nursery crymes from hell, "All Your Experiments." An updating of The Byrds' "Mr. Spaceman" (lyrically speaking) by one of the best of the E6 collective, this sea shanty singalong over distorted drone guitar/FX is a welcome addition to an already impressive catalog.
Another female duo, V for Vendetta deliver a quirky, disjointed "Providence is A Very Small Town." (Big enough to kick off Terrastock, though! In fact, they remind of T performers, Alva or Orans.) Think Crimson with a chick singer. It never really goes anywhere, but a game attempt at a unique approach may warrant further investigation. The same can be said about Century Project's "Goodbye." It sounds like The Chameleons' "Silence, Sea and Sky" and the similarly titled "P. S. Goodbye" from their underrated What Does Anything Mean, Basically. It begins with a promising wash of atmospherics in The Cure/Cocteau Twins mold, then veers into a Witch Hazel-meets-Tortoise (them again!?) chill out vibe. The Tiger Lillies' "Millionaire" is another nursery rhyme shanty, complete with TV Personalities/Kevin Coyne/Robyn Hitchcock surreal, vitriolic lyrics. Short and sweet, it'll appeal to kids from 2 to 92.
Ken Cormier's "Crazyhunger" initially sounds like 10 million other singer/songwriters pining for the babes, but his sincerity cuts through the misty-eyed delivery and the melody is catchy as hell. Chris Leo's Lapse (sic) into Vini Reilly territory is one of the better discoveries in the set. If he can sustain this quality, a full-length may be worth investigating. Jett Brando is not a porno star, despite that monikor. "Who is To Decide," from the same camp that brought us the horrific Dalek on disk 1, is a pleasant little Smog/Palace tale with just the right touch of Coyne-ness (Wayne this time) to raise it above the ordinary. Mark Mulcahey's inconsequential "Let the Cows Lead the Way" is a despearate attempt to combine Syd Barrett with Gorki's Zygotic Mynci with predictably dire results.
Danielle Howle does just that. She also appears to have a powerful music machine behind her career, as the credits for "The Kissing Game" take up half a page. No matter, the song still sucks. Finally, Two Dollar Guitar's take on Tex Ritter's "Blood On the Saddle" sounds like Camper Van Beethovan got into a suitcase full of bad 'ludes. Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley should be ashamed. He should also know better than to foist this "rarity" onto fans and then fail to deliver the goods. His record label is called Smells Like Records. More of this and I suggest he change it to Reeks of Ripoff.
So, let's tally the box scores. Obviously, this double disk would play better if trimmed down to one. However, completists will need it for the exclusive Frond, Lord, Elf Power and Bright Eyes tracks and experimenters with unlimited cashflow will probably find enough intriguing tracks to justify adding it to their CD racks. Listeners with limited funds, however, are advised to do their shopping elsewhere.
Vic Conrad & The First Third – Vic Conrad and the First Third (Woronzow)
Adelaide, South Australia native Conrad is the latest signing to Nick Saloman’s Woronzow imprint and his debut release offers a nice, albeit short (35 minutes) amalgamation of styles, tempos and influences ranging from the Beach Boys and The Kinks to Olivia Tremor Control, "Sweetheart"-era Byrds and Saddar Bazzaar! Vic not only borrows a page from the Olivia's style book, he shreds the whole damn manual in one svelte foop.
Vic and band shuffle into the studio on the opener, "Everyone" which features an overture of backward masked guitars and a general air of toe-dipping that never really takes off. He next offers up his best Ray Davies’ nasal delivery on "People Who Care," which segues halfway through into a nice Beach Boys harmony courtesy the Ice Cream Hands. Over a familiar piano pulse, the Hands return for more harmonic accompaniment on "See My Way." It seems Vic may also be a big fan of the Spacemen 3/Telescopes styled drone, as "Pulse" is a deadpanned lullabye delivered over the titular heartbeat. A laidback pedal steel (courtesy Mike Festa) and the Martin Butler Evidence supplied strings provide a perfect setting for sipping mint juleps in the backyard hammock, watching the sun set in the Old West. Festa returns on the finale, "Enough of This," which finds Conrad settling comfortably into a Bryan Ferry-styled lounge lizard looking for love in all the wrong places.
"Mr. V" breaks form with a heavy, punkish guitar based spit in the eye but, as with most tracks, there are more tempo changes and misdirections than Olivia Tremor Control orchestrating a Chinese Fire Drill. Another feature of several tracks is the recording process, which seems to find Vic in an isolation chamber, separated from the rest of the band. "I Love You" illustrates this unsettling dichotomy, where Vic seems to be laying down vocals in one room, while the First Third are busy recording tracks for an entirely different song in another and then the two are combined in a not-too-successful experiment in synchronicity.
Label head Nick Saloman provides a Saddar Bazzaar-style synth and sitar droney bed over the album’s centerpiece, the epic 8 minute "DNA for Alice," which is longer than about 5 other tracks combined and makes up about a quarter of the release. You can almost feel yourself swooshing through Alice’s bloodstream a la those scientists in "Fantastic Voyage." The LPs best track, but, like everything else, it seems out of kilter with its surroundings. This truly feels like a Greatest Hits package with a dozen selections from as many different albums and stages of Vic’s career all assembled together for our conspicuous consumption. While there are definitely some memorable tunes in here (often in the same song!), the uneasy vibe due to an overreliance on tempo changes makes it hard to relax and settle into an organized listening session. Is it a pop record? Is it a country record? Is it a bachelor pad lounge record? Is it a punk record? Is it psychedelic? Unfortunately, the answer is yes; and, bombarding us with this kitchen sink approach in a little over half an hour makes for one of the most unsettling releases of the year.
Voyager One - From the New Nation of Long Shadows (Loveless)
The Green Pajamas proved you didn't have to wear flannel to get noticed in Seattle. Now, along comes Voyager One to illustrate that faux British accents aren't a liability either. Their debut Loveless release kicks off with "Slower California," a track that beats Philly's Asteroid #4 at their own game of marrying Spacemen 3s narcoleptic, droney drawl with Luna's VU-inspired guitar licks. "(Bess)" combines Sabbath's balls scraping bombast with tremeloed wah wah and insipid vitriolic lyrics from a man who's obviously lost at love more times than he cares to remember.
It's a good idea to load your debut with as many styles as you feel you can pull off successfully without sinking into pretentious twaddle. It gives wags like me an opportunity to suggest what to focus on in the future. "The Burden of Hidden Tomorrows" floats out of your speakers and hangs in the air like recently extinguished incense. A laid back (almost to the point of catatonia) Tortoise-meets-Stereolab loungey groove serpentines its way through your head like a back country road, over which the unidentified vocalist (band members are uncredited) croons in his best Sonic Boom-disguised-as-a-lounge-lizard drawl.
"Intermission," a short, self descriptive "Green Hornet" guitar riff could easily be a Tortoise or Sea and Cake outtake, while "Young Halo" has hit single potential written all over it, with its Bunnymen filtered through Furs sinewy guitar breaks updated for the 21st century. Not a bad J&MC coda, either!
By the time we reach the epic lengthed "Ghosts Gone Quiet" and "Poisoner's Waltz" (the best indictment against junk since, well, since "Heroin,) you pretty much have accepted these folks into the "next big thing" sweepstakes formerly occupied by the Dandy's (see below) or you've written them off as a bunch of pilfering poseurs. "Ghosts" seems to take twice its allotted 7 minutes to induce cotton mouth and waft you up into the astral plane. Junkie warning #1: proceed with caution - you'll probably be nodding off in nothing flat.
Junkie warning #2: Wake the fuck up and LISTEN to "Poisoner's Waltz." Besides ingesting the S3 Perfect Prescription songbook for inspiration (always a good sign), it swoons L.A.M.F., sucking up Saloman, Ramon and Reed riffs in its wake. The whole shebang escalates into a black hole (in your arm) that fries brain cells and eats small animals, women and children with reckless abandon.
Next up, the centerpiece: the sloooowest fuckin' cover of "Daytripper" imaginable (at three times the length of the original, we're talking s-l-o-w) that ranks in the echelon of Low's "Transmission" and "I Started A Joke" and Red House Painters' "I Am A Rock," "Shock Me," "Roundabout" and "Silly Love Songs" on the unrecognizeability scale. Bonus points if you can stay awake for the segue into "Over and Out," a pretty, Felt-like piano/guitar duet that invites favorable comparisons with Eno's ambient excursions circa Music for Films.
"In City Light," the finale, is a "poppy" travelogue of a day in the life of a Seattle hangabout and wraps the whole session up in a feather boa and a cotton candy and shit-this-feels-good stoner mantra. Stick around, though, for the hidden track "Explains All Observable Phenomenon," a 7 minute tangerine dream and marshmallow sky electronic dronefest guaranteed to bring all comers to orgasm simultaneously if experienced too close to your woofers.
If the Dandy's latest mess was this good, they'd be among my favorite bands du jour. That honor now rests with Voyager One. Remember the name, buy the disk, burn the incense, outen the lights and waft heavenward on a day-glo candy colored cumulous cloud. Big things are promised on this, one of the best releases of the year. [NOTE TO BAND: Don't be shy. Tell us who the hell you are next time!]
& Windy & Carl & The Lothars [& Alastair Galbraith] – Blue Flea/Wobbly Music
This co-release on Windy & Carl's and The Lothars'
labels respectively is comprised of four tracks featuring various permutations
of the titular performers, all recorded live at Terrastock 2 and 3. Remember
"Walking with Dinosaurs," that amazing documentary from a few years
back with all those computer generated dinosaurs? I'm thinking to myself what a
great soundtrack someone could make out of all those howling, wailing, moaning,
grunting dinos. Well, the epic half hour opener isn't quite it, but it just as
well could have been. Carl Hultgren wends his guitar through the labyrinthian
maze of The Lothars' three-pronged theremin attack in one of the eeriest sonic
onslaughts this side of the Jurassic. Primordial…Primeval…Paranormal even
(as Snagglepuss would say.) Recorded on the "third stage" at
Terrastock 3 in London last year, I'd hate to have been the act on the main
stage! For years, Windy & Carl and The Lothars (individually) have been
treating us to cinematic soundtracks in search of a film and here, together,
they offer the most powerful evidence yet that someone out there needs to turn
these sounds into visions. File this one next to The Cure's "Carnage
Visors."
Windy & Carl's two tracks from Terrastock 2 in San
Francisco in 1998 are the live favorite, "Through the Portal" melded
seemlessly into a new song, "Balast." It's a testament to their
instrumental prowess that these two can creat such depth and majesty armed with
only a bass and guitar respectively. Windy's short vocal passage dwells
somewhere south of the Nico/Faithfull registers and, with all its
incomprehensibility, invites comparisons to Liz Fraser's use of voice as an
additional instrument rather than the traditional bearer of "lyrics"
on all those Cocteau Twins albums.
The finale finds Alastair Galbraith lending his virtuoso violin screechings to The Lothars' "Dust Mah Space Broom," also recorded at Terrastock 2. Ramona Herboldsheimer's six string wrestles Al's violin in a white noise death match guaranteed to shatter windows, eardrums and speakers alike, while Jon Bernhardt and Kris Thompson's theremins wail along like an ox and lamb keeping time on a starry, starry night in a galaxy far, far away. It all sounds like a cross between a high school orchestra tuning up and Coltrane's Ascension. It also sounds like they were having one helluva party! Permanent, legitimate recordings of the festivities from past Terrastocks have been dribbling out in limited quantities, so grab this one while you can. Just remember to lock up the dogs and bar the windows and be prepared to have your neighbors averting their glances and pointing at you, mumbling in hushed whispers. They'll swear you were sacrificing vestal virgins or something!