Gunter Hampel and his Galaxie Dream Band - 'Angel' (Birth/Jubilee Edition)

The 'classic' Gunter Hampel record is the first one, The 8th of July 1969, being a recording from just that day which merges the American and continental European approaches to free music of the time, with Anthony Braxton and Jeanne Lee meeting Willem Breuker and Arjen Gorter, among others. But his catalog beyond that record is worth a dip, especially if you can come across these 'Jubilee Edition' releases, reissuing some recordings from the early 70s at what was then a discount price. And also if you like vibes. Angel finds Hampel and Jeanne Lee working together again, with a young Daniel Carter on saxes and Enrico Rava, plus a few less known names (I thought bassist John Shea sounded familiar until I realised I was thinking of former Manchester United defender John O'Shea). This is recorded live on WKCR in New York, 1972, and thus has that raw, slightly scratchy sound associated with radio recordings - the energy of the live audience can't be felt, though I guess the energy of potentially millions of listeners could replace it, in a virtual sense. These guys were certainly up to the task, opening with a fluttery collection of wind instruments (there's five musicians here blowing into things, plus Lee's voice, Paul Bouillet's guitar, the aforementioned Shea, and Murugar's percussion hanging it all together on a wire frame). No one takes front and centre, until the middle of side one when the guitar chords have a 70s waka-chika sound and Carter's tenor repeats a three note theme over which everyone else goes wild, circling and circling and never quite coming to a test. Things evolve collectively, the digging of heels gradually lightening and a dare I say 'swing' feel coming in. Hampel switches to his vibes and makes a nice off-kilter groove with the rhythm section, though Murugar is fluttering about on the toms and making the rhythm felt through the absence of a strong drum pattern. It's masterful, and it's slightly sneaky the way it creeps out of the angry birds at the beginning. Side two continues, veering back and forth from open, quick jabs of winds and more fluid passages. It's all held together by Hampel's compositional sense, which is just there enough to be felt while allowing these musicians the full spectrum of expression. I'm not always sure who is who (Rava's trumpet is largely underrepresented) but as the Galaxie Dream Band, it definitely congeals into a band form.

hamaYôko ‎– 'Shasô -Train Window-' (Entr'acte)

Not really sure about this one - I think this was a promo that I never did anything with, or maybe someone sent it to me looking for a show. Thanks to it's generic white sleeve I never notice it, and it's likely lurked on this shelf back since 2009 when (according to the discogs authority) it was released. hamaYôko is the pseudonym of a Japanese sound artist and choreographer and this is a 45rpm EP of pieces I suppose are inspired by train windows. It contains semi-melodic electronic compositions (with spurting, extremely digital processing around warm sine waves), singing wordless female singing, and field recordings from around the world (dutifully credited in the liner notes). 'Akai Pool' is loaded with splashing water, mixed high above the rolling composition and sounding a bit like two recordings smashed together. 'Icewater's March' has some sampled tuba, and throughout you hear children's voices, because of course you do. I don't want to be too hard on this, but this record illustrates the difficulty in adeptly, not clumsily employing field recordings or musique concrete techniques. There's not much nuance here in terms of how the parts fit together, and it doesn't feel like there's any sort of 'vision' here beyond the discovery of computer-based editing and a curiosity about the world of overheard sound. Some tracks have a rhythmic momentum behind them ('Headeck' is almost a strange pop song, and probably the high point of the record, where it has that feel of things being pulled apart, yet still held together) but others seem to be potpourri-blends of recordings, without a sense of what it's actually trying to express. Or it could be that my white male Western ears are approaching this from my own biases, because of course I am, and if I was able to open up to the worldview of ms. hamaYôko then I might be more forgiving. But I'll take my field recording-based music more minimal than this (my own collaborations excepted, of course) and put this one on the sell pile.

Hair Police - 'Prescribed Burning' (Hospital Productions)

The cover of this is stark and minimal, and the inside of the rough cardboard is screened with a pattern that makes it almost the inverse of Obedience Cuts. On the first half, Hair Police is far away from the active machinations of Obedience - it's rather 'mellow', though that's probably not the correct word to use when describing music this dark and desolate. Prescribed Burning could work as a horror film soundtrack, except it's tonality is so low-key and it's accents come from processed, reverb-laden sounds of indeterminate origin (really, it's not even clear what is electronic here and what comes from acoustic or human sources) that I would imagine it would make any such film a distraction. And there's not necessarily a horror lurking here, just unease and confusion. The two lengthy pieces that start side 1 (untitled, as are all of them here) are spacious, with clanking sounds and drones ebbing and flowing. The third, a short track to lead into side two's more aggressive start, feels like something incidental that was scrapped from other material. If you listen closely, especially on the second track, you'll hear some backwards-processed sounds, suggesting this was more of a studio work than it may sound like upon first listen. Side two then explodes, at least relatively, with churning, grinding distorted sounds, beacons of higher pitched feedback, and the feeling of forces pulling themselves apart. It's closer to the 'Hair Police' sound, though it doesn't feel like the deconstructed "band" they do when appearing live, and it's not completely clear if all three members are actively involved in this. But kudos to Hair Police for not painting themselves into a corner, especially during this time, the peak of their self-described 'gnarly times'. Yeah, that infamous t-shirt they made became their unofficial slogan, written across the two sides here in the run-out grooves, and perfectly encapsulating the Bush/Cheney/Iraq/post-9-11 years in America better than any other two words could. I said before how the decline in output from this American noise underground was more likely an incorrect perception I hold based on my own waning interest/involvement, but I also tie it to the political changes in America - not that Obama's election in 2008 ushered in a progressive era, not by any means - but certainly the mindset changed in some way. And before y'all comment on how ridiculous this is, I'm not saying that noise music changed because of Obama, but that the music created during the Bush years reflected feelings of frustration, anger and hopelessness (at least to me) while never quite embracing nihilism or self-destruction, and one can connect this to a general cultural zeitgeist in a way that enhances the interpretation of such music via context, etc. None of which is really relevant to describing side two of Prescribed Burning, which apart from the first cut stays in the sparse groove of side one - not necessarily gentle, but spacious, with start-stop rhythm, the momentum being a lurching crawl. Not many distinct vocals are audible here - by this point it seems like Mike Connelly was using his voice purely as instrument so it's going to be processed beyond recognition (though some deeper, guttural growls are evident). I still hold onto this connection to free jazz - that Hair Police are in some strange way a jazz group - and think this would be like Marion Brown's Afternoon of a Georgia Faun side one if it were transposed to this time and place.

Hair Police - 'Blind Kingdom' (Ultra Eczema)

We only get one side here, but it's a doozy, 16 minutes of Hair Police creating another (I assume improvised) sound-based hellscape. This one starts slow, and finished slow, but uses the space to have screeching, maniacal vocals which sound more like highly compressed feedback, all manner of clanging, echo-laden percussion, and synthesisers galore. The opening moments set the tone with some bold synth notes and some of the most clear filter sweeps (or phasing, or whatever that effect is called) yet heard in the Hair Police oeuvre. At points the low end cuts out entirely and shrill oscillations fill the whole soundstage, waiting for the sludgy, static-laden undercurrent to rise back up to meet it. There's some pretty great interplay here, and not just three noiseniks playing on top of each other without listening. The electronic processing is more conventional compared to the earlier material's sound of circuit-bent toys, but this benefits the analog synth waves which rise up like the phallic urge depicted on Dennis Tyfus's cover art. Side two is all etchings and I suspect if I tried to play it, it might still sound like Hair Police.

Hair Police - 'Constantly Terrified' (Troubleman Unlimited)

A year later from Obedience Cuts and it's clear that Hair Police have definitely 'progressed' as a band, but describing exactly how can be a challenge. But why else do this if not to challenge myself, to attempt to articulate music into words, futile as it may be? Constantly Terrified is four long cuts, beginning with a low rattling and slowly building into the full-on assault of 'Rattler's Echo'. This is like one of those great free jazz sides from the 70s recorded live, where a group builds to a total interplay of free expression, except here the aesthetic is much more a white/basement/scuzz one. But that's not a massive depature from the world of ESP Records circa '68 - Trevor Tremaine's drumming is not unlike that of Sunny Murray, and if you replace saxes with homemade/hacked electronics, this really could be a bizarro, hung over Globe Unity recording. Connelly's voice is yelping and shrieking and everything seems so violent, yet cohesive. And then it fades out and we get 'The Haunting', where slowly bending tones make a warped bed for the buzzing, scraping and hiss to interact on. The drumming is fake primitive, lots of floor tom and stickwork, and the processed vocals (I guess?) give this a really nasty, sick edge which suits the cover art's portrayal of fear and helplessness. It suddenly ends, in a locked groove of bassy rumbling which mirrors the low rattling at the start of the side. On the flip, 'My Skull is My Face' is built around a monotonous rhythm, with echoing drones (so beautiful they could be taken from a new age record if not juxtaposed with such teethy bile) and more vocal caterwauling. And the title track closes it out, which is an experiment in stasis - a holding pattern which nonetheless has a great diversity of sounds within it's edges, but never giving into the clichés of dynamics. It's here that maybe Hair Police have set their M.O - that is to be 'Constantly Terrified', where the monotony and feeling of being trapped reigns supreme. Overall it's an utterly unpleasant LP, but that was the idea, and it's executed marvelously.

Hair Police - 'Obedience Cuts' (Gods of Tundra)

This is Hair Police's second full-length album but the first where they really found their footing, and it's enjoyable to revisit it after so many years. 'Let's See Who's Here and Who's Not' explodes immediately into a lurching, violent chaos, and it's home-recorded at just the perfect fidelity. A lot of warm, thick electronics blanket the sound - what I'm struck by on the first side is just how incredibly warm this sounds, which isn't all attributable to the vinyl version specifically but Hair Police's preferred frequencies (lows and low-mids). Trevor Tremaine's drumming is sometimes overwhelmed by it, and you can hear his cymbals and snare flailing about, cutting through the mix now and then, and he's content to pull back (or maybe he contributes some other role to the mix). The aesthetic is dark, as the puke-green ink on the cover hints, and unpleasant, but there's a life in this music that finds itself during the quieter moments. The title track is one such place, where the sturm-und-drang pulls back and lets the oscillations take over. This sound-soup is where I most enjoy Hair Police - there's a real subtlety to their interactions, a tension that swells and never releases in the way you'd expect from a regular 'band' vibe. 'The Empty Socket' on side two almost approaches the Dead C's 'Now I Fall' before it tumbles down the hill; 'Bee Scrape' likewise ends up in a rolling ball of noise, but one that has synths slicing through like a ninja throwing star. Robert Beatty might steal the show on this record, but it's hard to tell where his noiseboxes end and Mike Connelly's feedback guitar begins; even the drums get heavily processed with echo on 'Full of Guts', and it gels really, really well. There's a few more Hair Police records coming up and it's funny now to revisit this music after what doesn't feel like such a long time, but was over a decade. The American 'noise' peaked in popularity a few years after this and then seemed to fade away, though I think this may be more a product of changing marketplaces (and my own interests shifting) rather than any sort of decline in output. Still, among all the hundreds of projects and bands that came to prominence in the following years, Hair Police somehow distinguished themselves against the rest, and with fresh ears and a spin of Obedience Cuts, it's easy to hear the reasons.