The Cure - 'Boys Don't Cry' (PVC)

And here we go again, through most of the same record. Though the awesome Hendrix cover has been removed (too much for American audiences to handle, perhaps?) we do get 'Killing an Arab', a song which I don't need to hear again, despite how cool I thought it was in high school when I was reading Camus. Actually, in the Mark Pauline interview in the RE/Search Pranks book (aka, my bible) he talks about how he dressed up all of these dead pigeons like Arabs and then built some machine/assembly line to decapitate them as a performance piece, while playing the Cure song, and no one quite knew how to interpret it. Hmmm. Anyway, I certainly didn't mind hearing 'Accuracy' or 'Grinding Halt' again - it's great how poppy, yet dour, these tunes are; just enough to sing infectiously after the record has stopped playing. I couldn't really tell much distinction between the mastering/fidelity of the two pressings; they're really interchangeable, and it just comes down to whether or not you want to hear 'Plastic Passion' (I don't) or 'Boys Don't Cry' (I do; so it's a coinflip for me). The artwork reminds me a bit of Ashley's Automatic Writing but there's nothing that avant-garde to be found in these grooves. It's silly how two of the three Cure albums I own are mostly the same, but that's my fault for not snatching up the (very good, from what I remember) Faith and Seventeen Seconds when I had a chance.

Camper Van Beethoven - 'Key Lime Pie' (Virgin)

It's easy for me to think of this as something different than Camper Van Beethoven. Sure, it's most of the same band, and Jonathan Segel's is not reason enough to declare this to be the product of a different band. No, there's something else -something different about this record that makes it stand alone from the rest of their catalogue. So that's why I hesitate to call Key Lime Pie the best Camper Van Beethoven album, but the best and only album by this weird mutant formation that mostly resembles Camper Van Beethoven. Sure, the 'Opening Theme' sounds like a classic bit of CVB ethno-stomping, with maybe an even better raw production style than we've heard in a long time (Dennis Herring, you've finally got it!). But it's when the floortoms-and-brimstone of 'Jack Ruby' kicks in that I feel we have a different serpent entirely. Now, I first heard this record in high school so it conformed to the perfect model of art I imagined at the time; rock music against rock music, embracing neoclassical elements, traces of Americana, the Gold Soundz-grift that tingled me whenever I listened to 80s R.E.M. -- it's all here. In Summer of 1994 I was stuck in that awkward in-between time, unable to drive or do things on my own, forced to spend lots of hot summers in the minivan with my parents driving, my cheapo walkman providing my only escape until the batteries died and things got weird and slow. So I wore out my tape of Key Lime Pie. As we drove through Ohio interstate highways and suburban streets, with my body twisted sideways (ear against the backseat, constrained by seatbelt, looking up through the windows at sky) -- this is why 'Sweethearts' clicked into place. I would feel carsick but maybe just hot; the A/C never worked right, or just maybe didn't reach all the way to the back. I had to press my ear against the seat to keep one side of my $2 headphones from cutting out. I was confused by punk, metal, alternative music, the 60's, the 70's, the 80's, and my own adolescence. How could it all fit together? And did it matter? And at the time, 'Sweethearts' was the most magnificently beautiful blend of music I had ever heard. Greg Lisher's simple guitar lead said everything I wanted to hear; but the actual words were perfect too, steeped in some sort of American nostalgia that I invented myself a place in. 'Jack Ruby' now strikes me as even more than that - a pop song centered on searing darkness. 'All Her Favorite Fruit' is maybe the most celebrated David Lowery song and it's certainly the most confident step forward he ever made -it's delicate, and a bit magical too. And the humour is even more relaxed, as I wouldn't call 'When I Win the Lottery' or 'I Was Born in a Laundromat' particularly silly. The guitars have a heavy presence on Key Lime Pie, but when listening to this, I used to dream of becoming a violin player like Morgan Ficther -- it's funny how years later, I found out she barely even plays on this record apart from 'Pictures of Matchstick Men' (sadly, a hit, despite being the most throwaway track on here). The real violinist, Don Lax, contributes stunning sawing on 'June' (my pick of the litter for 2010) and the 'Opening Theme', and there's a chill that still passes over me when I hear 'Come on Darkness'. So forgive me if I sound a bit overdramatic or nostalgic about Key Lime Pie - it's not perfect, but it's perfect for what it is, and I don't think David Lowery (or any of these players) can ever top it.

Camper Van Beethoven - 'Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart' (Virgin)

The big sound of Dennis Herring rips out of the speakers here. This is Camper Van Beethoven's major-label debut, the last record with Jonathan Segel, and the first time the band will stack the cards in favour of non-funny songwriting. This is also the first Camper Van Beethoven album I ever heard, and I was lucky enough to check it out from the public library some fateful day in the early 90s. This is a damn solid set of songs, though it pains me to realise now that they are a bit less meaningful to me than they used to be -- despite being probably more meaningful to D. Lowery, get it? For while 'The History of Utah' might be a bit of nonsense, it's was dramatic, inspiring absurdity at one point in my listening days. And now it's easier for me to recall than feeling than to connect with songs like 'One of these Days'. It's like stepping halfway towards true expression - but don't worry, we'll get here. There's still surrealism all over Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart. 'Eye of Fatima pt. 1' is an 80s reinvention of Blegvad's 'Casablanca Moon' and 'She Divines Water' is maybe the most perfect merging of sentimental acoustic-janglestrum and epic nonsense. The instrumentals are decent enough - sounding not a million miles away from Telephone Free's sound but with far more baroque production - the power-folk of 'Eye of Fatima pt 2', the rolling 'Waka' and the dirge-like 'The Fool' are all excellent (and the traditional 'O Death' fits better with these than the other vocal songs). 'The Devil Song' has a meandering modal guitar line that makes it a keeper, and the stunning gypsy stomp of 'Tania' (a song for Patty Hearst that's just as much history lesson as fingerpicking madness) is still breathtaking. 'Life is Grand' seemingly addresses their major label sell-out in the same chuckling way that all of their other albums end, bearing a structural resemblance to 'No More Bullshit' but with the maturity of a few more years packed in. The horn sections are the most obvious sound of WEA/Virgin/Atlantic's investment, but on 'Turquoise Jewelry' they sound kinda cheap and fake, like some thin ska-core tune. It's when the band slows it down a notch that I enjoy this record the most -- 'Change Your Mind''s lyric of 'How far can you walk/in a night so restless?' presages the beauty to come one album later. But don't worry, we're almost there.

Birth Refusal/Cassis Cornuta (Ultra Eczema)

A one-sided LP of synth repetition, slowly expanding feedback phase and the occasional flanged out space warble. Near the end the back and forth accelerates but it doesn't conclude, pause or stop to reflect at any point. The sleeve folds out into a 36" x 24" color poster showing various oozing swamp things knifing a pregnant woman in the woods. An apt band name, I suppose - it's some Michigan dudes, and Cornuta is an Antwerp weirdo that occasionally pops in Belgian underground clubs, armed with banks of synthesizers. This was recorded live for the radio and the whole thing feels like it's been run through some heavy limiters, smashing all fidelity into a narrow band. It still manages to be nasty; the malice is contained too, even in the more aggressive parts. It's a focused attack on civility, but forgive me if it feels a bit rote. I can't tell what's Cornuta and what's Birth Refusal as it's all fairly electronic (or electroacoustic) in origin, but there's no good times to be had here, for sure. If you turn it up loud, the ringing sine waves leap from the speakers slightly more, though it still has this weird feeling of middle-band. For artwork that is all body-flesh-corpuscle horror, there's something distinctly mechanical about this.

Albert Ayler - 'Witches and Devils' (Arista)

The date shows that this was actually recorded before Spiritual Unity but I've always thought of it as later. 'Witches and Devils' begins with a very dark, slowly unfolding dirge with Norman Howard's brutally shrill trumpet fluttering around Ayler's painful tones. Its a phenomenal track, showing not just a great depth of spirit and character but also an incredible level of musical interplay. Earle Henderson and Henry Grimes are both playing bass on it though they keep clear of each other, and let Sunny Murray switch his focus at his own will. But like all of Ayler's greatest tunes, there's something to connect to - a very emotional, soulful piece that is still exploratory in an unflinching manner. 'Spirits' bears no resemblance to the track on Spiritual Unity, instead being a somewhat jaunty, upbeat number with Ayler busting into the higher register. Side 2's 'Holy Holy' continues this high/low dichotomy. At times Ayler drops into familiar melodies ('Ghosts') and Howard takes a pretty squawky, flutter solo that sounds like an eagle caught in a cement mixer. The rhythm is upbeat throughout the whole piece and the liner notes claim this is the same tune as 'The Wizard' though the presence of the trumpet and a different bass player make it unrecognizable to me. The solos are long but the musicians all feel when to occasionally slow it down and start a new movement, based around a strong, melodic gutpunch. 'Saints' is the closer, and it's a beauty - another sad, open, slow, reflective number but whereas 'Witches and Devils' had something focused about it, this is on the verge of falling apart. Ayler's melody is truly beautiful here, and Howard squawks around it over Henry Grimes' slow, walking bass. It's a bit too haphazard to really touch you but that's what I love about it. If I have one complaint about this record it's the recording quality, which puts the bass(es) quite low in the mix and takes away the power of Murray's drumming, which I imagine (if you were actually there) was always a pretty forceful, explosive thing to witness. But now that I think about it, Murray's drumming is underwheming (on a fidelity level) on most of these classic 60's free records. You can hear Al's vibrato expanding and contracting haphazardly, even within the same note; I've always loved that because it just throttles you - but I wonder if the saxerati at the time just saw it as sloppy playing.