Dead Kennedys - 'In God We Trust, Inc.' (Alternative Tentacles/Faulty Products)

I forgot I had this DK's EP and then got pretty excited to listen to it when it came up next in this never-ending alphabetical death march. In God We Trust, Inc. is a major step away from the surf-bounce that underpins Fresh Fruit; it makes it's presence known rather quickly with 'Religious Vomit'. East Bay Ray's often inventive guitar leads are mostly absent on this record; instead we get the furious thrash-punk you know they were capable of (and is heard most certainly on Fresh Fruit songs like 'I Kill Children', but here it's more aggro, sharper). There's little correlation to the goofy, performative punk we heard before, except at the end of side two (with 'Bigger Problem Now' and the cover of 'Rawhide'). Side one blazes past; Biafra is spitting out words, often unintelligibly, and getting through a lot of lyrics in little time. The targets are the usual - religion, the medical industry, poor environmental regulations - and the subtlety nearly non-existent. But can you argue with lyrics like 'All religions make me wanna throw up / all religions make me sick' / All religions suck'? (I, more or less, concur). The production is piss-poor; everything is an indistinct cacophony of solid-state amps, and this platter spins at 33rpm for some reason when a faster mastering job might have helped. On side two, Biafra begins by commenting on how we're hearing take four of an "overproduced" Martin Hannett recording of 'Nazi Punks Fuck Off'. Of course, it's the best-sounding jam on the record, but it's not really produced by Hannett. 'We've Got a Bigger Problem Now' shines light onto why this is a tighter, angrier DKs; it's a redux of 'California Über Alles', this time chronicling the more terrifying reality of the Reagan presidency. And that's where it all makes sense; Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables was a product of the Carter administration; there really was a bigger problem by 1981, and it didn't turn out well for anyone. Except the super rich, of course. This version is practically a novelty track, beginning with a (actually lovely sounding) lounge/swing take, full of 7th chords and false swagger. Jello's doing his thing here, maybe the genesis of his spoken word/extemporaneous style he'd build his later career around; it actually reminds me of some of the Sun City Girls recordings featuring Uncle Jim. When it kicks in, we finally hear the scary clown-vibrato of his voice which is largely absent on this EP (or else it's just produced so badly we can't hear it). I remember when among the frustration of George W Bush stealing the 2000 presidential election, one of my friends pointed out that "Well, at least this will usher in a new golden era of punk and hardcore." This may or may not have happened (I largely checked out of that world, unfortunately), but it's interesting to think how this particular subculture might have developed had Reagan never taken office. I'm sure DKs would have kept writing songs like 'Let's Lynch the Landlord', but what about artists like Black Flag? The Minutemen? Camper Van Beethoven? I sure wish Reagan had lost, but let's at least see this as a (very very tiny) silver lining.

Dead Kennedys - 'Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables' (Cherry Red)

The first time I bought Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables was in 8th or 9th grade, at a local chain store called Camelot Music. The format of choice, of course, was the cassette, and I rocked the shit out of this tape in my high school years. The political-themed satire was not lost on my young mind, nor were the fast tempos and rocking guitars. I loved Dead Kennedys, even delving into Jello Biafra's spoken word records (which I actually used to own on vinyl! Hooray for podcasts in expensive formats). Listening now, I still think the band never made a record better than this, but they're also playing in a really weird style that I didn't pick up on when I was young. Dead Kennedys really don't sound like anyone else, ever, even in punk. It's too melodic for hardcore, and too theatrical overall. They have a strange surf-music edge that cuts through everything else, and then Biafra who sing-shouts like a rabid animal being electrocuted (which inadvertently made him one of the unique vocal stylists in all of rock music, though he'll never be recognised as such). Biafra actually wrote the words and music to the majority of these songs and he has tendencies towards Phil Spector-style 60s pop. If you don't believe it, listen to 'Let's Lynch the Landlord', which is pretty much a bouncy Ronettes song with novelty lyrics. But DKs are too sophisticated to be novelty music, even novelty punk, and there are moments of genuine anger at the forthcoming Reagan 80s throughout the lyrics. All are readable, of course, on the brilliant Winston Smith collage if your copy is lucky enough to have one included. Mine wasn't, but then a few years ago at a flea market in Scotland I found a copy of this record with the actual LP missing, but collage intact. And as political theatre, Biafra is hilarious, since the punk song is the perfect format to taunt without needed footnotes or citations. Some of Fresh Fruit's finest moments are the less pointed ones, such as 'Stealing People's Mail' or the brilliant 'Your Emotions' (written by guitarist East Bay Ray). But the high point of the whole record comes from former guitarist 6025's contribution, 'Forward to Death', which is a perfectly articulated burst of pure nihilism. It feels out of place on Fresh Fruit, probably suiting a different band, which is probably why 6025 was out of the picture by the time they recorded this. But thank Franken-Christ that they still recorded it. His other contribution, 'Ill in the Head', contains a bit of edgy guitar interplay that is another reminder how precisely good DKs are as a rock band. The two most famous songs from this album are 'Holiday in Cambodia' and 'California Uber Alles', both of which I've listened to so many times I can't even hear them anymore. That 'California' was articulate enough to critique Jerry Brown for neoliberal populism is remarkable, I suppose. But the twisted cover version of 'Viva Las Vegas' which closes the album is maybe the truest expression of Biafra's America - a messy ball of chaos and vapidity which, despite his anger, he secretly loves.

The Dead C - 'The Operation of the Sonne' (Siltbreeze)

An old friend of mine (who I have mentioned before, such is his influence on my own musical development - and he reads this blog. Hi!) once told me about a crazy drunken stoned fling he had. The woman in question actually had a Dead C tattoo, a story that I found incredible on many levels, but especially because it was not a tattoo of the Dead C logo, but of the band itself. On her chest, if I remember his tale correctly, she had the comic-book drawing of messrs. Morley, Russell and Yeats rocking out - the same drawing which adorns the label of side 2 on The Operation of the Sonne. If you're still out there, mystery woman, come to me. In the meantime, there's a tear in my eye for this, the last vinyl foray for this band that we'll cover. Operation is a departure, though that's an easy assessment to make for a record built around only three songs, and only one of them resembling a "regular" Dead C song (a la 'Power', 'World', etc). What really makes this a departure is the experimental nature of the jams. There's electronic elements present, spazzing everywhere on side 1 and dominating 'Mordant Heaven' (which may bear some resemblance to Trapdoor's 'Heaven'). Like a car alarm soaked in despair, 'Mordant Heaven' is about the battle between the guitar riff and the repetitive synth loop, or ring modulator, or whatever it is. But 'Mordant' is actually the most conventional Dead C track here. The opener, 'The Marriage of Reason and Squalor', is an epic, smashing beast where Bruce Russell recites some hermetic text, the biggest nod to his occultist tendencies we've yet encountered. It's deep, not necessarily in lyrical content but in thick slabs of low-mid greasepaint. It might be the most memorable track here, but it ain't the best - that award goes to 'Air', which is the entirety of side two. 'Air' is aptly named, and almost non-existent at points. The first 75% of this (as well as much of the record, to be honest) is Yeatsless, unless he is playing guitar or radio static or something. Throughout, guitars try to start a riff, actually proceeding from the more angular, disjointed side heard on the last track of Clyma. But do they get anywhere? It's hard to say - every bit of direction seems to change. At times they sound combative, at other times, unaware. There's a slow procession towards silence, and the middle section of 'Air' is a long, slow breath. This could have got them signed to Kranky, in 1994, if they cared. Then, the volume level jumps, like a recording error more than anything, and we get the group jam you've all been waiting for - except we really don't, because it resists every urge to thrash about and make a ruckus. It's not so much a kinder, gentler Dead C as it is a Dead C more interested in free currents. But there's something still so anti- about it all for me; you fill in your own blanks. Things change after this - The White House, Repent and Tusk close out their Siltbreeze years and also are CD-only I believe - and though those records have many, many, merits, it's really the beginning of Phase II.

The Dead C - 'Clyma Est Mort/Tentative Power' (Ba Da Bing!)

Here we go again, but I don't think there's anything I need to say about Clyma Est Mort again, since I posted a review only moments ago -- but I did listen to it again, and I must say the Ba Da Bing reissue does sound better: brighter, louder, and more dynamic. Whether this is due to some remastering job, the thicker vinyl, or just my own psychosomatic imagination, I don't know. But we'll talk here about Tentative Power, a 12" EP included here as the other half of the gatefold. At first glance this might appear to be some of the Trapdoor Fucking Exit tracks in a different sequence, but listening actually reveals them to be different recordings. 'Hell Is Now Love' and 'Bone' come from a 1991 Siltbreeze 7" and both versions are reedy and clangy compared to their TFE counterparts. The first featured an even more nervous run through 'Love' than what's on the CD, with Morley's vocals unusually high, causing me to double check that this was actually supposed to be at 45rpm (it is). 'Power' and 'Mighty' are always welcome - how many versions can there be? - and these come from a Forced Exposure 7" also from '91. 'Power' in particular takes it's time to get revved up, and the reverberations sound brilliant on this. The two obscurities are at the end - 'Radiation', an meandering jam with an organ, and another version of 'Power' from 2006 (!), subtitled 'Fallujah version'.  This is probably the least remarkable, apart from the presence again of an organ of keyboard in the distance -- but 'Power' always retains a certain, well, power. 

The Dead C - 'Clyma Est Mort' (Siltbreeze)

I suppose this is the live album that Tom Lax praises in the liner notes to the CD issue of Eusa Kills, which is a shameless bit of self-promotion since he was responsible for releasing it. I forgive him, cause he's right - this is an essential document of what a brilliant band sounded like at the peak of their powers. That it's actually a "fake" live album is irrelevant -Lax has detailed the construction and release of this record in a Volcanic Tongue column, which I can refer you to. But of course it's live - just not in front of an audience! The album starts off with a sludgy, dim wall of detuned guitar, and when Morley's voice breaks in, it's like dawn breaking through the clouds. How appropriate that the track is called 'Sunshine'! The improvisatory nature of Clyma Est Mort is evident and also familiar by this point. There's lyrics, though they seem fairly improvised on jams like 'Dirt for Harry' and 'Electric' : "Shave your legs, shave your arms!" It's a good mix of hits and less familiar tunes; side two gets into the more aggro/hardcore side seen on the Dead C vs. Sebadoh single ('Highway' and 'Ein Kampf, Ein Seig'), and this take on 'Sky' is probably their best recorded one (not counting the YouTube version already alluded to). This 'Sky' has a fat undertow that drags throughout, sputtering into a weirdly unidentified radio broadcast. And, how about 'Electric'? The guitar is a sinister buzz-saw and it slowly gurgles and erupts, like it never wants to end. On the flip is a slow, heavy take on 'Power' that might also be the definitive version. It sounds like 100 layers of screeching guitars, assembled in a raging maelstrom that takes the best Lee/Thurston jams and casts them into another dimension. Yeats propels it along, climaxing when needed, conveying the lyrics 'take your fucking shit out of here' with the utmost urgency yet languid thumping. The jam out on the end is utter fucking magic. After a nice take on 'World' (Lax's favourite tun of their) the album closes with 'Das Fluten, Das Fluten (Oh Mama I can't go)', a real Dead C oddity as it's a Beefheart styled jam. In a band with so many versions of their classic songs, and so much overlap, it might seem like overkill, particularly if you listen to a bunch of these in a row like I have. But like most of the multi-record gauntlets in this project, I've found a renewed passion for these records when listened to in a linear way, and right now I feel like I could keep going even if they had 100 more versions of 'Power' to sort through.

Dead C - 'Eusa Kills/Helen Said This' (Ba Da Bing)

I love this, and thanks to Ba Da Bing again, it looks and sounds great. The cover is the most beautiful blur, just like the songs: a building, swirling morass of dissonant guitars both cloudy and clangy. And the mastering job on this, certainly a front-runner for "best Dead C album", is sterling. Drop the stylus on 'Scarey Nest' and listen to how the screaming voices ring out of the platter, and then compare to the flat-sounding CD edition. (Don't worry, we will soon). This is probably the most song-based Dead C record but it's as uncompromising as Tusk. It's actually fairly minimal - the production is top-notch studio recording, much more hi-fi than our various versions of 'Max Harris', and for this I am glad. I had this for so many years on CD so I never thought of it as two sides, but it's a classic rock album structure. 'Now I Fall' is the epic to bring Side 1 towards it's ringing conclusion, titled 'I Was Here' in response. The two songs fit together beyond their titles, thanks to the distorted Bigmuff vocalising and juxtaposition of rhythmic repetition with free-form swirls. And on the flip is 'Children', the destroyed cover of T.Rex's 'Children of the Revolution' (no credit given, of course). Often forgotten as one of the greatest cover versions, the Dead C are actually quite faithful through their destruction. 'Maggot' is the side 2 epic, a seemingly endless journey through glue-soaked guitars soaked in glue. The elegiac 'Envelopment' is a perfect closer - a strange moment of serenity. New Zealand may have never produced a finer album than Eusa Kills. But wait, there's more! Ba Da Bing has lovingly packaged Eusa Kills with the Helen Said This EP as a 45pm bonus 12", thus pairing what's probably the Dead C's finest full-length with their finest short-length. I remember reading about how 'Helen' was the Dead C's greatest song, which I finally found on the Trapdoor Fucking Exit CD, and though I don't think it compares to 'Power' or 'Hell is Now Love' or maybe even 'Scarey Nest', it's sure fucking great anyway. And like 'Scarey Nest' it has a drilling one-note guitar solo, though it's not so much a solo here as part of the general jamm/mess. We're back to slightly-better-than-Wakman fidelity and it's great, never stopping the tune from churning, lifting off, and eventually reaching it's tranquil extended coda. I remember seeing them live, finally, at the big crazy Thurston-curated ATP a few years back, and their freefrom Language Recordings-style sound slowly built into the hits. And when they played 'Helen' I felt like I had completed some full circle. (If I was hip to their sound in 1995, I coulda seen 'em in a small club in my hometown, but unfortunately I was still in diapers then, musically). 'Bury's on the flip and this is the tranquil, Stars of the Liddy beauty that these guys rarely attempt, but they do it so masterfully it makes you wonder what other stars were aligned in 1989 down there. This was originally released on Flying Nun, which is almost as mind-blowing as the music.

Dead C - 'DR503 / The Sun Stabbed EP' (Ba Da Bing)

It starts off with another version of 'Max Harris', a bit shorter this time, and then segues into 'Speed Kills', as close to perfect as the Dead C could ever be. Because there's something contradictory about the idea of perfection here - this ain't Dark Side of the Moon, with it's overly-worked, carefully-EQ'ed guitar tracks. Yet the Dead C aren't a bunch of tossed-off nonsense, despite what many listeners might think. "Deliberate" is maybe a better word; everything you hear is done for a reason. These slow moans from the south island of New Zealand are as radical and distinct of an aesthetic vision as anything by, say, Black Sabbath or Van Morrison. There's nods to their predecessors, the Velvet Underground of course the obvious one (though I make the mistake of associating any spoken vocalisations with 'The Murder Mystery' - see 'The Wheel' here). But the interplay and dialogue of the guitars and the rhythms is so masterful that I actually put the Dead C on a level with artists like Can or the Miles Davis band - a total mindmeld of communication. This is another lovely Ba Da Bing vinyl reissue, combining the DR503 album (which is different, partially, then the DR503C compact disc that will be shortly addressed on Glass Mastered Cinderblocks) and the great, great 'Sun Stabbed' EP (which spins here as a separate 45rpm 12"). 'Three Years' appears on both, but I'll take the epic version of it from the EP. It's significantly more spacious, allowing Morley's voice to soar as only it can. Also notable is 'Bad Politics', a sloppy, awkward punk rock song that foreshadows the vs. Sebadoh 7" (which will be shortly addressed in Denial Embriodery soon). In between we get booming, lush guitars - how did Ba Da Bing manage to master these so well?  It's hard to believe this could even be possible given the source materia. 'I Love This' could work as a masterpiece of minimalist guitar composition if presented as such, but here it's "mere" filler. DR503 ends with 'Polio', which sounds like a remnant from Morley's association with This Kind of Punishment. Maybe that's just the sound of the south island, but these gloomy chord progressions are iconic of some lost mysterious soundworld and still speak volumes to me today. And this release just absolutely slays; there's enough of a song basis that we haven't merged into the territory of The White House yet, let alone Tusk (though those are also great records); and there's little details like the use of the acoustic guitar in 'Polio' and 'Speed Kills' that situates this in an ambience that is absolutely magical and odd.

Dead C - 'Dead Sea Perform Max Harris' (Ba Da Bing)

The heavens converged into a beautiful celestial jackoff a few years ago, when the Ba Da Bing label decided to start reissuing early Dead C work in 180g vinyl editions. This was truly a great decision by the label, and I've scooped them up enthusiastically; Dead C are one of those bands who I frequently return to, as they seem to get better with age. Chronologically we begin with Dead See Perform Max Harris, which is two side-long versions of the same song, sort of.  Both were originally released on cassette in '87 and these are (I believe) the earliest known Dead C recordings! What strikes me is how certain of an aesthetic they already have here, both in terms of songwriting, recording quality, and artwork.  'With help from Max Harris' on side 1 starts with a ringing riff and then proceeds to launch itself into it's own ass, thundering along with lots of detuned lower-string thud-thud-thud. Morley's vocals are the way we always love them - buried, atonal, and unintelligible. The overtones somehow coagulate even though this was probably recorded on a boombox, but there's the unmistakable presence of the room, which I guess was their practice space.  The song structure fades away and the jam rides out, but they never become a jam-band (a cohesion that i think remains through their entire career). It ends with a tape splice. On the flip, 'Beyond help from Max Harris' is a slightly more distant version; the plinking and chugging continues, but the song immediately starts to fragment, like Russell and Morley are pulling apart from each other, swerving around a centre, and occasionally converging in a beautiful harmony. Yeats backs off and lets the guitars create a downtune universe. Right when it's about to sputter out, he brings in the clicks and it starts to build up again (with some moments of tape flutters and hesitations). After years of listening to this band I still feel pinpricks of excitement on my arms sometimes; hearing this on vinyl re-inspires me because it's so boundary-smashing and expressive at the same time.

Dead at Twenty Four - 'Blast Off Motherfucker!' (Ride the Snake)

Here's another long-lost artist, reissued to enhance the world with what would have otherwise remained in total obscurity.  In the case of Dead at 24, the obscurity was a self-released cassette from the mid/late 90s, which is now probably only found in cardboard boxes located in dusty Pittsburgh closets.  Boston label Ride the Snake did a loving vinyl reissue of Blast Off Motherfucker!, in the process doing a bit of historical preservation of a chaotic rock band which feels strangely contemporary now, particularly in the age of Psychedelic Horseshit and bands like that.  Dead at 24 was centered around two songwriters, Alan Lewandowski and Ernie Bullard, and featured Steve Boyle on electronics, synths and other noises.  Boyle (who wrote the liner notes) is more of an Allan Ravenstein than an Eno-in-Roxy type, particularly with the heavy heavy Pere Ubu influence on this band.  But it's only in a few places that we really hear him let it rip (such as the brilliant 'Ladders to Fire'); otherwise his presence is mostly felt, some texture that maybe is just lost in the analog hiss.  The band lumbers between confident indie-style rock dirges and the psyched-out fuckery of tracks like '(Feels Like) Oedipus Wrecks'.  Lewandowski, who later employed a wicked-good country-folk direction in a band called the Working Poor (whose complete discography vinyl box set will be released in 2016 on Underbite Records), is the damaged poet laureate of Pittsburgh's grimy subcultures.  His lyrics range from experiential glossolalia to unrepentant negative romanticism, with the gleam of a marquee moon in his eyes.  Bullard's tunes, however, are somewhat more stream-of-consciousness and with some interlocking guitar wizardry - the tracks that feel more cohesively "band".  Drummer Sheryl Johnston glues it together with a tom-heavy monotony that pummels over any of the more lyrical subtlety.   A band out of time, for sure - their influences clearly harken back to the late 70s and early 80s, and their ramshackle give-and-take would situate them nicely now, but in the math- and post-rock infused Pittsburgh of 1997, there just wasn't anyone listening.

Edmond de Deyster - 'Selectie 01' (Ultra Eczema)

Ah, how one craves the archival obscurity, and the blossoming excitement that comes with a nice reissue. Edmond de Deyster is a Flemish synth pioneer who OD'd in 1999, leaving a massive pile of unreleased analogue synthesiser recordings.  This series of LPs (of which I only have the first, sorry) comes from the stack of reel-to-reel tapes he left behind, and dates from 1975.  Selectie 01 begins with a difficult side-long piece, a pure experiment, where high and low tones fight against organisational strategies, while ultimately assembling together.  De Deyster's edge is soft, with rounded hues that emerge in and out of hazy darkness.  It's a tough way to start a record, even a record of experimental solo synth marketed at fans of such a sound.  It takes ages to coagulate (or arguably, never does).  The flipside is a bit more palatable - split into three tracks, each with distinct compositional identity.  Side two cut one is a classic slab of slowly unfolding malevolence, packed with sounds eeking out toward murky unknowns.  It works itself out slowly, and while I'm sure most of De Deyster's work is largely improvised, this feels very certain.  Compared to the side two track two's ambulance-shards, beeping throughout, side two track one is relatively placid, a tone picked up again on the album's closer.  This could all be a hoax - an attempt to build a mythic legend, when these sounds were actually made in an Antwerp basement in 2006 - but does it really matter?  Would I have been as interested?  There's a certain gesture of faith in releasing an LP of an old, dead, lost artist - particularly if one still adheres to the standard routine that an artist must perform live to "promote" the record - an impossibility in the case of a reissue.  So the label sticks it out anyway and still produces the record, even though there's less chance to recuperate the investment.  I'm not the biggest fan of solo synth experimentation, so I hereby admit that I probably wouldn't have bought this if it was, say, a Dolphins into the Future LP.  As to how it affects my enjoyment of the record, well, I'm not completely sure of that either.  One purpose of this exercise is to listen to music as music, but then I've had trouble avoiding my own extrinsic readings filtering in.  So we'll leave this here and move on...

Miles Davis - 'Live-Evil' (Columbia)

It's to the other side of Miles Davis now, with this record proclaiming it's inner evil, or at least un-goodness.  But Live-Evil is just a palindrome, a title to reflect the dark-tinged yet inevitably circular musings found on these four sides.  There's slightly different personel on different cuts but the liner notes are written in a long, horizontal format that makes it too much effort for me to sort it out.  But all the titans are here - McLaughlin, Herbie Hancock, Airto Moreira, Chick Corea and Keith Jarrett. Here's what's really different from Sketches of Spain - this is rock music, with an aggressive rhythm section (drums are either William Cobham or Jack deJohnette; Michael Henderson, Ron Carter or Dave Holland on bass).  And you know what, Henderson's rockmonotony on 'What I Say' actually takes the cake over the more nuanced bass playing of the bigger names.  This lets Davis and later McLaughlin lay more flabbergasting solos without too much discordance.  It's the dictionary-definition of fusion, but it creeps close to the Dark Side without ever fully leaping in.  The fidelity is hot and I've always preferred this to Bitches Brew though both have that strong, surging riff to start off ('Sivad' here, which lays it on thick and lets the piece swell into a juggernaut, when you can actually feel restraint leaking out of the grooves).  We get solos galore here - deJohnette's lengthy, plodding one on side two is so brightly recorded that it really soaks into the air, and when Jarrett brings in the funky keys to reprise the theme, all is right in the world.  Jarrett also kills it on 'Funky Tonk', with a long, shimmering section of just he and Moreira, which burns like a warm winter radiator.  These are the most clichéd passages - the ones that rely on groove, momentum, and rhythm like we expect a jazz-fusion record to - but since it's records like this that define the genre, it all gets a pass.  But at it's most inventive, Live-Evil croaks, creaks and flounders under it's own rhythmic stress, like a lumbering behemoth of madness.  When Miles tries to cool it off - 'Little Church' and 'Nem un Talvez', for example - the elegiac tones just set up more distrust when the band comes back in.  But it's these moments of respite that make Live-Evil so complete, and such an oddball mishmash of live sessions.  It flows, and it's cohesive, despite being mashed together from different sessions and with different personnel.  Two LPs is a lot, and by the end of side 4, which is dominated by the lengthy 'Inamorata', I'm beached.  It's a record as pregnant with ideas as the fertile African goddess on the cover, and all of the swampy electric licks really create a beast that rages out of control.

Miles Davis - 'Sketches of Spain' (Columbia)

I've had this record for years but I never, ever listen to it. When I'm in the mood I pull out the other Miles Davis record I have, but today it's "hitting the spot".  You would think these Iberian-inspired melodies would conjure sun-parched images of Mediterranean cliffs and luscious scenery, but I'm staring out the window of a cold, grey day in Northern Europe and finding it equally beautiful as I stare at bare trees, pointing into a featureless wash of sky.  Davis's trumpet is of course the featured instrument, though he wrote none of the compositions.  It's mixed high over the session orchestra, and has a nice warm rolling momentum over the string washes.  The majority of the first side is a long piece by Joaquín Rodrigo, and it's Anadlusian grandeur is emphasised by the dramatic swells.  There's nothing jazz here until the second track, 'Will o' the Wisp', which has a swing to it.  Throughout Sketches of Spain, there's this little hand percussion that cuts through the whole mix - like an egg shaker or something.  It really grounds what could become an otherwise overblown sense of grandeur, and I award Gil Evans for his compositional taste.  Sketches of Spain is a certainly as far away from the exploratory, risk-taking Miles Davis as possible, but it's a textbook example of how trumpet can be a lead instrument.  That it was released in the late 1940's, just after the Spanish Civil War, makes me wonder about context and what sorts of statements Evans and Davis were trying to make.  We can turn to Charlie Haden and Carla Bley's Liberation Music Orchestra for a more overt form of that, but I want to believe this is more than postcard musical tourism.

John Davis - 'Blue Mountains' (Shrimper)

I usually try to post an image that actually looks like my copy, but in this case I'm lazy so I'm just using the only one I could find, which is the CD cover I guess.  The only difference is that instead of the title appearing left of the flower picture, it is split to be above and below.  So, imagine.  And then imagine a world where the effeminate open-folk stylings of John Davis are given a more solid indie-rock backbone, but enough to (mostly) maintain the spacious fragility of his songwriting.  Side 1 has two hit singles, or they would-be if anyone ever heard them - 'Jeep Cherokee' and 'I'll Burn'.  I should probably add that in addition to the general public having to hear these, they would have to really welcome a change in popular tastes to be proper "hits". But I find them catchy as hell; toe-tapping, too.  In between you get 'I Took Flight' which is about as beautiful and lyrical as anything I've ever heard from Davis.  'Sadness, well I knew ye...' and that's a lovely couplet;; but then, the aforementioned 'I'll Burn' which is (possibly) about Davis being thrust into a deep-fryer!  Blue Mountains is such an excellent fucking record that it brings a smile to my face every time I hear it.  It's a mixture of the studio stuff, recorded with Shrimper producer-god Bob Durkee, and some home recordings which resemble the fragile freakpulse of Pure Night.  There's nothing on these besides guitar or maybe organ ('Tethers' ends side 1 in a beautiful malestrom of darkness).  Flipping the record over we get more of a studio side, with some really singsong jams - 'The Way You Touch Me Makes Me Laugh' and the really underreated 'Ready', which reminds me of Warn Defever's songwriting for His Name is Alive from around the same era.  I'm not sure if John Davis was making a stab at commercial success here, though the hit Folk Implosion song that predated this may have had some influence.  Despite the more regular rhythm and hi-fi production, it still feels really homemade and honest.  His lispy vocals are rather uncompromising, though that word usually means an extreme/aggressive aesthetic and here, they're just, please forgive me, really wimpy. But my gosh, I love Blue Mountains, and Davis has been silent ever since which truly, truly saddens me.  You can't help but love a record with a song called 'I Freaked Out Like a Big Truck', and of course I have a major major soft spot for the whole Shrimper/Inland empire/bi-fi scene (though Davis is a New Englander as this title indicates).  This scene (which also includes Refrigerator, Simon Joyner, and the Mountain Goats, all of whom I love and will get to eventually) strikes a perfect balance and came at the right time; clearly people making amateurish-yet-sophisticated, romantic-yet-contemporary songs in their bedroom is still prevalent, and the democratising of this all these days, via myspace and the death of the music industry etc -- make the bi-fi scene  even more awesome to me, because it was happening in the mid-late 90s..  I think what did it for me (besides the fact this music hit me when I was aged 16-20, which was perfect formative timing) is the way these artists also took over the means of production.  Dennis Callaci dubbing tapes for Shrimper is a zillion times more inspiring to me than uploading tracks to Soundcloud.  Maybe this self-created scene seems better to me because it wasn't so easy; the Internet wasn't used, or maybe only in the most infant form; I realise this shouldn't make the music itself inherently better, but I'm just trying to figure out my own biases, I guess.