Jason Lescalleet's Due Process - 'Combines XIX, XX' (We Break More)

It appears that Due Process was previously a trio or quartet featuring not just Mr. Lescalleet but also Ron Lessard of RRR/Emil Beaulieu fame and some other collaborators. This is billed as being led by Lescalleet so I've always filed it under L next to his others. But while the first moments of 'Combine XIX' suggest the ringing, haunting resonance of Electronic Music is going to be the vibe here, it quickly combusts into a grab bag of layers and intentionally conflicting ideas, containing some vocalisations even which give it a nice throwback 80s industrial feel. The name of this group draws attention to their working and editing methodology, though I guess almost all music is just 'processing' now, and maybe it always was. The middle drops back to breathe, and it really does, gaining some wind through a chilling, distant echo that started to bring in ringing ghost echoes. It's not a long side, and the short runtime is probably partially responsible for it sounding so good - this is experimental electronic music (you can call it 'noise' even, if you insist) that really has a great mastering job. 'Combine XX' opens the B-side with a wavering, uncentered continuation of the previous side's feel. I'm not sure what the material comes from –– if the processing in question sticks to strict source material, or if it's incorporating the work of other artists, or if it lacks the formally defined rules. But the palette is stark, carefully chosen, for this is the deep listening part of the record. Static is there as on Electronic Music, not so much a foreground element here as a mood, a colouring. About halfway through it fades into a more demonic movement, with an Ash Ra ambience, a pulse that slowly becomes relentless, and disembodied, unarticulated voices that combine with mysterious higher frequencies to resemble a malfunctioning shortwave radio. This is night music, all the way, and the explosive bursts, French accents, and squealing pitches recall the greatest mysteries of the evening sky, transcribed into sound and funnelled through a vision of these Northeastern guys. I tend to overlook this record as it's filed between two bigger 'statements' by Lescalleet, but it's a pretty well-structured and complete work of its own that was really nice to revisit here. 

Jason Lescalleet - 'Electronic Music' (RRRecords)

The title of this, a record that I guess now would be classified under 'early Lescalleet', is deceptively simple. For all recorded music is electronic, and there's surely meant to be a tongue-in-cheek sense of that meaningless descriptor being applied here. The electronics presented here were (I assume) designed and performed by Mr. Lescalleet, and across four tracks he shapes their possibilities into compositions that come to blossom slowly, expanding with cinematic flourishes. This is heard probably most evidently on 'Litmus Tape', the second track, which builds off the static bristles of the opening cut, but introduces a shifting, tonal echo that comes and goes, providing just enough narrative to serve as a central guiding principle. This track recalls third-album Labradford in some way, which is probably the only piece I've heard from Lescalleet that I would compare to them, or anyone else on the Kranky roster. Side two on this beautiful, marbled grey vinyl record begins with the most minimal piece, 'Accidental - Oriental'. This demands intense focus, and it's easy to let the mind wander while waiting for the slow, increasing presence of flickering square waves or whatever electronic sources make up this work. It eventually coalesces into a roar, a hell of a roar actually, one that really shows the full dynamic range of vinyl as it moves between nothing and something so fully over the course of about seven minutes. But it doesn't explode, nor does it seek a cheap soft-loud effect; it just grows and evolves, and then goes away just when I'm about to turn the volume down because the windows are about to shake. This is a hint of the pyrotechnics to come on the last track, 'Beautiful Whore', where the lurching, discordant electronics that are present in much of his other work come to the forfront. Despite the deep-listening lay down of Electronic Music, the tools and palette make him a closer fit to the 'noise' underground, and I'm not just saying that cause this is on RRR and because of the transgressive titling of that track; there's a sense of raw energy here, even though most of the record is quiet, that Lescalleet manages to turn inward and make into something different than a typical amped up banger. The cover art of this record has always greatly influenced my listening of it, and I'm nt sure why. Perhaps the porcelain plate is a good representation of the brittle, carved in fire nature of the sound here; perhaps the bespoke detailing on its rim is an echo of the careful considerations put into Electronic Music's assemblage. Or maybe it's just a nice plate that he saw somewhere and thought looked good. 

Lemonheads - 'It's A Shame About Ray' (Atlantic)

I alluded to in the Lick post about how I think this record holds a special place in the hearts of many people from my age and background. I base this assertion on an ongoing, continual discovery of peers who share a my unbridled love for this record. Which is understandable - it's not only the only consistent Lemonheads album, but it's absolutely the peak of Dando's songwriting power, where a perfect storm (no doubt driven somewhat by his descent into heavy drug addiction) converged and he turned out a bubblegum-punk masterpiece. But it's also a product of its time; that time for me came when I was 13 years old, and my days were spent dreaming of a greater life ahead –– one that would be entirely achieved through music. The alternative/grunge explosion happened and Ray was no doubt a part of it, even though the sounds within are just pure pop, borrowing deftly from other genres (country-rock in 'Hannah & Gabi', folk-blues on 'My Drug Buddy', and a nod to light opera with the cover of 'Frank Mills'). The marketing arm of Atlantic records was clear to position Dando as an alterna-hunk heartthrob and sure, he was fine at that. But I never cared about pin-up mags or pop stardom; to me, Ray was a roadmap to exploring my adolescence through the culture of then-underground white guitar music. The air of mystery surrounding this record evoked more questions than answers (who were these characters: Ray, Fiona, Allison, etc. –– and that mysterious car photograph on the back?) so it felt like a complete world, one that I wanted to dive into. I'd like to say that twenty-five+ years of hindsight have shown this wonder to be superficial, but I still feel something every time I spin this. Expanding my knowledge of music has only brought me around to appreciate this more; maybe he just struck lightning in a bottle here, but I think there's a sophistication to these songs, at least some of them, that can be found after they sink in a bit. It's a nostalgia trip, sure, but the way I've shared this nostalgia with peers who grew up in different places and different environments says something about the connecting power of music through subculture, something that has likely been eroded by the Spotify generation. I don't even know if I have specific memories of this record, or more general ones; of being 14, taking the bus to the University campus and walking around the buildings, sneaking into the computer labs, looking at magazines and records in the various independent shops. Looking at the fashion I aspired to ape – Doc Martens boots, carefully-curated t-shirts, the choices that declared 'indie' rather than hippie or metal or punk, while conveniently overlooking that this record was on Atlantic. Dreaming of finding love, or rather companionship, and wondering if there was someone out there like the woman on the cover, with a minimal approach towards style, a take on femininity that rejected make-up and hairspray, and an intellectual sophistication that could be conveyed through the symbols revealed - backpack, shoes, haircut. I didn't model myself after Evan Dando, not in the slightest, as I think even then I found his cute-dumb smile annoying; I loved It's a Shame About Ray despite Dando, and still do. Even back then I had the pre-'Mrs. Robinson' version of the CD, and now I have the LP which also omits that unlikely hit, and that's the only way I know this record. Was I 'starting to happen' at this time? Absolutely, and I wonder now when I stopped. 

Lemonheads - 'Lick' (Taang!)

The Lemonheads mean way more to me than they should, but I suspect a lot of people of my demographic cohort (white middle class American born 1980) feel the same way. None of this has much to do with Lick, or their other earlier records, but everything to do with the one that comes next (in this project, not Creator). But Lick has stuck around in my collection for awhile because I get a kick out of it, though there's only a few songs to justify keeping it. I think Ben Deily's songs are generally OK though the Lemonheads of course improved when he left and the Juliana Hatfield lineup happened. Some early Deily punkers such as  'Second Chance' are pretty great, and 'Ever' is his gem here; but Lick starts to bring in the jangle on Dando's songs, which are reaching towards the beauty he'd find later, so the distance between the two as songwriters is really made more evident. Deily's are just kind of a mess here – the Italian language 'Cazzo di Ferro' is bad throwaway soft metal, sounding like what happens when pop-punk bands try to get heavy (the post-Descendents band All is often guilty of this); '7 Powers' is driven by his reedy voice and a savage guitar solo, which disguises the fact that it's not so well-writtenng.  'Anyway' approaches replayability, but it's a stretch as well; we have to wait to 'Ever', the closer, for his peak. But Dando here really starts to shine. His gentle drawl, when combined with the amped up energy behind opener 'Mallo Cup', makes instant punk bubblegum magic; that's one of the best Lemonheads songs and the best song on the album, so it's a shame it comes first. This is the one with their cover of Suzanne Vega's 'Luka' on it, which starts with a 'noise' guitar intro and gets pretty crunchy during the choruses; it is not one of my favourite Lemonheads songs, but I guess the one that people remember most from this record. After 'Luka' though, it's hard to get through the next few songs until 'Ever' arrives, but maybe I'm just excited to get through this LP so I can write about the next one that's on deck. The real joy of Lick comes from flipping over the cover and looking at the band photo on the back, which sums up the Lemonheads perfectly. They're young as hell, and cute, and just a little bit of faux-tough there too; they could be a youth crew band or a Christian rock ensemble, and that also sums up the musicianship – they could have gone in a lot of directions, and on this record they started to.

Lemon Kittens - 'We Buy a Hammer for Daddy' (United Dairies Produce)

The Lemon Kittens only made two records before disbanding, though Danielle Dax went on to a somewhat more renowned solo career. It's a shame, because their art-school outbursts feel remarkably prescient in 2019, and (to my ears, today) especially British. United Dairies released this, and there's certainly a feel that is closer to early Nurse With Wound than anything appearing on Rough Trade at the time, although it's far more song-based and rock in nature than Chance Meeting. I hear the undeniable influence of the Residents, at least in tone and instrumental interplay ('The American Cousin' and 'Rome Burning' could be featuring Snakefinger as a guest musician, though everything played on this record was either Blake or Dax), and there's an energy in the more madcap tracks that definitely is fuelled by some frustration, even there aren't overtly social-leaning tendencies in the lyrics. More reference points can be teased out (Beefheart, early electronic composition, probably Throbbing Gristle) but it's not necessary to place this into a lineage, even though that's my vestigial habit. Time has been extremely kind to We Buy a Hammer for Daddy, and this feels like a crucial piece in that wonderful, fertile period of British music where the avant-garde collapsed onto rock forms and a lot of weird stuff snuck through the cracks. Today's pop scene, at least the kind of pop that gets written about in publications such as The Quietus, surely has the same sense of freedom and juxtaposition, though I feel far closer to older material, personally. And there's just so much going on here, vocally especially ('Motet' is just magic, where Dax/Blake have a pretty great interplay that complemented each other well). Even the loose and exploratory parts (side two opens with 'Pain Topics', which flutters around under the shouted vocals and razorblade guitars, which eventually cascade into a wall of sound) feel like they have a vision, a pathway towards something that is never without consequence. Furthermore, it feels like a balanced duo – I don't know enough about either musician outside of this record, so I shouldn't make this declaration, but I feel like this is a pure 50/50 mix between their two personalities. There's a wonderful world envisioned here, and I want to explore it.

Leadbelly (Archive of Folk Music)

There's something 'problematic' about Leadbelly, right? I mean, he did kill a guy, and John Lomax basically turned him into a star and got his sentence commuted (or something). Or was the relationship between Lomax and Leadbelly what was problematic - Lomax took all the cash, exploiting him, or something like that? I definitely read something somewhere about this being problematic once, but I prefer to write these posts just from my memory instead of actually looking up the facts, or the prevailing opinions in this case, so I'll just assume that somewhere in this story is some controversy. None of which affects my enjoyment of listening to it. This anthology was released about two decades after his death and there isn't any info about how its culled. Most of these recordings sound pretty 'field', even when they are clearly in rooms, almost like he's been recording in the prison cell. My copy of this is filthy and beat to hell, so it's perfect, like a 78rpm only at 33 (and that's what these are sourced from, 78s, I assume). This is the stereo edition, so audiophiles will probably grumble, but they wouldn't enjoy a record as battered as this anyway; beyond the dirt and scratches on the vinyl, the cover has some water damage. I think I got this from my father, or maybe a garage sale. So, the music – I daresay that Leadbelly might be a bit underrated, actually. For while he's been established and canonised plenty, in recent times he doesn't seem to get talked about as much as other folk/blues guitarists from the 20s and 30s, at least not in the texts that turned me onto this music in zines and online publications in the early 00s when the indie/experimental kids like me all went searching for some roots. His guitar style, while not the most dazzling in terms of fingerpicking complexity, is really rapid, to the point of being frantic, and it's usually a 12-string so it sounds extra crazed. 'Green Corn' and 'The Gallis Pole' have some zigzag chording that's really propulsive, driving his manic yelps. Vocally, Leadbelly sounds more earnest than mysterious, and there's a spirit of fun in the more fast songs, like 'Looky Looky Yonder Black Betty'. Opening cut 'The Bourgeois Blues' drops a few n-bombs and lays down a socioeconomic commentary that's still powerful, and a bold choice to open this collection. No doubt his recordings have been packaged and repackaged numerous times and this is far from being representative, but something about the weariness of the beat-up record itself (and the water damage on the cover, even) makes this feel like the right (correct) way to listen.

The Lavender Flu - 'Mow the Glass' (In the Red)

The sophomore effort from the Lavender Flu finds them congealing into a quartet (unlike the first double LP which is Chris Gunn + whomever) and tightening things up, while still leaving room for a ragged, open feel. This is heard right off the bat with 'Follow the Flowers', a total banger that provides the killer hook (something I felt was missing from Heavy Air) in its chorus. By also recording the whole thing in a proper studio, it's definitely a 'real' rock album, the product of a band that may be driven by Gunn's idiosyncratic vision, but remains sonically diverse. There's a haze that covers every track, or maybe it's more like a thin, wet film. Something, anyway, is coating the sound, and it's not lo-fi or murky, but rather a welcoming, comforting place that allows the shimmery guitar effects, background vocals, and guest pedal steel to combine for a maximally psychedelic effect. Yeah, there's that word again, so hard to avoid. Listen to the outro of 'Reverse Lives', where the song fades away into a pond of organic tones - it's electric, without being aggressive, and held in place by the really punchy bass playing. We get another Townes van Zandt cover ('Like a Summer Thursday', a song I always really loved), given a sprightly and optimistic injection, and an Eastern workout ('A Raga Called Erik') that perfectly segues into 'You Are the Prey', with the most shoegazery sound on the record in its intro. Gunn is still happy to hold his vocals back - the cohesive band feel doesn't like a blantant stab at commerciality, and by the end of it (a normal length, unlike Heavy Flu), Mow the Glass has picked up a melancholy, or perhaps an air of resignation. The other cover, Jackson C. Frank's 'Just Like Anything', contributes to this downer feel, despite the bouncy feel of the drumming. I am reminded again of Sic Alps and their West coast psych sound, which maybe was more influential than anyone would have guessed. Gunn's vocal delivery is similar to Mike Donovan and the guitar worship is of a similar ilk - fluttery, jangly, and affected. This builds to a crashing climax with 'Ignorance Restored', a track that could feel like a battle cry or summation except I'm already so satisfied by the rest of the record before it even gets there that I haven't even really digested that one yet. Mow the Glass was one of the high points of last year, a year in which I didn't buy too many records (couldn't afford to, really), and felt further away from 'new' music than ever. But now, if a proper band, that means Lavender Flu probably play concerts and I'd love to see them.

The Lavender Flu - 'Heavy Air' (Meds)

I don't feel guilt about the non-diversity of this vinyl accumulation, or even see my tastes as homogenous. Someone recently said something to me about the whiteness of it all, which pissed me off a bit. I was quick to point out that despite being largely rooted in rock and folk, there is a  proliferation of jazz and other black American forms here, as well as African and Asian indigenous musics – plus other outliers. What he really meant to say was that because I don't really like reggae and have few hip-hop or soul records, and my vinyl accumulation is so heavily weighted towards rock, that it was somehow racially problematic. Fuck that. We like what we like, and we like what we grow out of, and I come from a background that led to a heavy interest in indie, post-punk, and psych. This is a weird intro to write about the Lavender Flu's first album, a double LP collection that I would cite (along with its followup) as one of the finest examples of modern-day psychedelia. I bring up the whiteness of my records because this record definitely comes from the same lineage that I do (Flu leader Chris Gunn was a member of the Hunches, whose last album is a brilliant slice of post-garage energy), and that's probably a lot to do with why I like it; no one would describe this as 'urban'. This made me think about the very word 'psychedelia', which most people would probably use to describe Heavy Air, and what it even means anymore. It might be best to retire this term, unless you're using it to describe a very precise and historical time in rock music (like 13th Floor Elevators or the Nuggets collections). I don't hear many thowbacks to that era in the Lavender Flu, except for the cover of Bo & the Weevils 'My Time' here. Heavy Air is a lot to take in, and it's a bit of a mess by definition - a 'kitchen sink' approach that mixes half-formed songs, full-formed songs, and bedroom experiments into a lengthy sound quilt. The band name is apt - colourful and lush, but also with an undercurrent of instability. A lot of these tracks wobble on their hind legs, and even the more straight-forward presentations have a detuned viewpoint, not intentional obfuscation but just a nice, new angle. There's a few covers here - the Godz, Townes van Zandt, and John Fahey, but these are given the Lavender take. Home-fi techniques abound, though overall there's a clarity in the soundstage that avoids this being murky tape-piss, but also has an intimacy. A lot of these tracks are Gunn with just one other musicians, rather than a cohesive band (that comes on the next record). The scraps, on their own, wouldn't add up to much, but as incidental pieces tying together a whole it gels, and these smaller movements don't feel like throwaways, or even like there are two tiers of composition on the record. Whispered spoken voices, melting bells, reverberating string plucks, slow-paced rock drumming, droning organs, tape treatments that sound like birds – from this description and the length of this, it might sound like I'm describing some Elephant 6 style band, like the first Olivia Tremor Control record. But while Gunn is no stranger to melody, earworm hooks are largely absent, making this a pleasant mystery of a record that demands repeated listens. Overall it's quite an accomplishment, feeling like the summation of a lot of things that have been happening on the West Coast in the past decade. Scott Simmons, who put out this record, plays on a lot of tracks and also had a hand in Eat Skull and Helen, and the relationship between the three can be felt despite the different applications. Yes, it's white music, 30 tracks of it, and it's pretty fucking great. 

Ken Lauber - 'Contemplation (View)' (Dynamic)

I've known this record for a few years but only recently realised its title come from a popular translation of the I Ching, at least popular at the time this was made (1970). A friend recommended this a few years back when we were both discovering music from the country-western genre and particularly lonely obscurities of the late 1960s-early 1970s. This isn't actually that obscure or lonely, nor is it even super country-fried. It's a Nashville album though, or close enough (recorded in Madison, TN) and it's driven by Lauber's raspy, smoky voice and his piano (even though he poses for the back cover with a guitar). As 'alternative country' artists go, at least among those who existed before that term did, he's from the piano-driven honkytonk side as opposed to the outsider/freakazoid scene. But despite the piano being his instrument, Contemplation (View) is nothing like Terry Allen, leaving behind (for the most part) narrative cleverness in favour of sweet romantic wistfulness and a hint of new age stargazing. At least I pick that up in both 'Wander On' and 'Far I Will Travel'; there's a similar openness to darker numbers like 'Undertow'. 'The Disabled Veteran' is the one foray into narrative character building and it's a little bit much for me, but more genre-leaning cuts ('Mama, It's such a Long Ride Home', for example) are such solid band efforts that they could be cover versions and I mean that in a good way. I've listened to this a fair few times over the years and it's always a pleasant, rollicking dip into the country-rock sound, a template taken straight from Dylan's Nashville Skyline, of which this bears a shocking resemblance to. The Gray Speckled Bird Band (actually listed as the Gray Speckled Bird Brand, but I assume that's a typo) are pretty hot though, assembled I think from mostly session guys and some members of Barefoot Jerry. Bassist Wayne Moss is one of the strongest forces, as his confident walking and thumping holds together the whole unit and he brings a subtle uncertainty to 'Mama', playing the notes with a bit of hesitation or nervousness. There are guitars everywhere - steel ones, dobro, and regular - some of which are played by Nashville legends, I have no doubt. Lauber's cadences are sophisticated and his underwhelming vocal delivery takes away any commercial edge this might have had. I guess the guy made some more records but I've never heard them, nor do I ever think to seek them out. But Contemplation (View) has stayed in focus for so long because there's a certain raw honesty in these songs, heard immediately in the first line of opener 'When I Awake', and carrying through its entirety.

Last Exit (Enemy)

I wonder what motivated this 'super group' to form - who phoned who, where the inspiration came from, etc.? Were Peter Brötzmann and Sonny Sharrock just hanging out one night and decided that the world needed more hot, swampy electric freak fusion music? If so, they were right; or at least the world of 1986 sure did, and maybe in 2019 (despite having more music available than ever, despite the nature of streaming having transformed music itself into something disposable for the majority of people, despite the plethora of niche choices available to all reducing if not outwardly eliminating the idea of 'obscure' or 'inaccessible') we do too. Last Exit were the greater than the sum of their parts, I think, and the group is unimaginable without any of the four members, so prominent are their contributions, almost perfectly balanced. Yet somehow, Ronald Shannon Jackson's drumming is the crucial element here. Even though no other guitarist sounds like Sharrock, no other saxophonist quite sounds like Brötzmann, etc., I could at least deign to imagine this record with, for example, Fred Frith instead of Sharrock; and that would be probably pretty great too. But if you swapped out Jackson for another drummer, even a great drummer, it would fundamentally change the group so much because his propulsive, machinelike approach is what most thrusts this record away from any semblance of swing or blues and into tortured, primal viscera. This is made clear about two seconds into 'Discharge', the opening cut, where the drums sound like gunshots and everyone is thunderously blasting notes to the point where it becomes a sort of drone, though one with a punchy staccato texture making it up. 'Backwater' seems to pull things down a notch, with a skittery interplay between Brötzmann and Sharrock around a spacious atmosphere. The feeling is of a cold storage locker, steam rising from dirty urban manholes, and a hopeless pallor over everything. It builds to a full-band freakout, and while Last Exit resemble jazz occasionally in the sense that there are solos and no vocals and a saxophone, they resist showy musicianship or navel-gazing noodling. There's no shortage of notes being played, most of all by Laswell, on an electric six-string bass, but it's perfect for this band. I was out with my parents recently and I saw a fusion trio play, who were led by an electric pianist, with a drummer and six string electric bassist (I won't name names here). It felt like endless samey talk show background music, and despite my best efforts to enjoy it I could not. The motivating drive of those musicians seemed to be to cram as many notes as possible into each composition, without any regard for personal expression or musical diversity. For me, growing up PUNK (or at least PUNK-adjacent), I subscribed to all sorts of clichés about jazz and chop-based music, a result being there were instruments I considered acceptable to play and ones that were not. The six string bass was clearly banned from my teenage idea of good taste and the trio I saw with my parents illustrates why. But Laswell, who has occasionally overstepped his boundaries in other projects, demonstrates on Last Exit precisely why it's childish and reductionist to dismiss any sound, and why my favourite era of musical discovery was when I learned to cast off my PUNK-adjacent hangups. When Laswell enters the soundspace (with Jackson) on 'Red Light', his technique is a torrent of thumping physicality that would be unimaginable on any other instrument, and it's awesome. Especially on vinyl, which emphasises low-end in a way that CDs never can. All of the churning and grinding within these songs is still driven by tempo and rhythm, rather than tone, and while chaotic, it never feels messy. The first side alone is near-exhausting to listen to closely, and the second in no reprieve. But that's what I want here - thunder, acrid smoke, sharp edges, and something sinister glowing beneath it all.