Kommissar Hjuler / Mama Baer - 'Amerikanische Poesie Und Alkoholismus' (Feeding Tube)

I'm not sure what this became a roadblock to the project because while it's certainly a slab of extremely dissonant art-brut Fluxus madness, it's not the most difficult thing to write about. The truth is, I found myself listening to side A, by the Kommissar and Frau ('Once Again Concrete Poetry') repeatedly, injecting a musical reading onto something that probably was not intended to be seen that way. But this side-long live performance, a mixture of American poetry records, static hiss, and shouted readings through a low-quality amplifier, somehow succeeds in attaining some sort of mantra-like resonance. Hjuler's voice often resembles a comedic parody of a James Bond villain (like something out of Austin Powers) and it's lurching into 'ONCE AGAIN! CONCRETE POETRY' approximately eight million times starts to take on a visual element. By the end I feel like I'm there, imagining this surely big, sweaty and hairy German bounding across the stage behaving badly in the tradition of all central European performance art. And then on the flip is his partner, Mama Baer, though this is properly a split LP and not a collaboration. 'Alcoholisme - brut' parts 1 and 2 are somewhat more obtuse. It's collaged from tape material, in the greatest of pause-button edit styles, with splices and other distortions providing the rhythmic muscle like a Tall Dwarfs song on downers. Over this are various found materials, high pitched howls and whistles, and likely the wooden recorder on the cover. Baer sings in places, in English, and it's ragged and haunting, with words that comes surprisingly fast and deny any attempt to find narrative. A good use of the stereo field too; the little bursts and buzzes of static dance back and forth across the field and the tape-manipulated squealing making a lovely counterpoint. The second part builds in intensity, with Baer's chant of 'anymore, anymore, anymore' (I think) becoming hypnotic, and the recorder getting as aggressive as you've ever heard such an instruments. Through it all lies a good deal of space, however, and both sides of this record are remarkable in how they maintain a sense of control, never piling things on even when the aesthetic often drives towards it. I give the nod to the Mama Baer side here, as it seems to offer the most encouragement for repeated listens, even though I gave Kommissar & Frau more time myself.

Gregory Jones & Roy Sablosky - 'No Imagination' (Vinyl)

There isn't much more one could want from a record of experimental electronics. No Imagination does quite a lot across its four tracks, and it's the only release by these guys apart from a new wave band called Standard of Living that they were both in; so this was probably seen as their experimental 'side project' if anything, which is a shame, cause I'd love to hear how their musical relationship may have developed over time. The four cuts traverse fairly different territory for a record that is built around two guys with electronics, though my favourite track is Jones-less, only featuring Sablosky plus James Gable on 'transducer guitar' and Marianne Fraenkel on vocals. It's a 15 minute long dirge called 'Intro (Summer Names)', perversely not the first track, but coming after 'No Moon No Mirror' (which is a proper intro). But 'Intro' the song consists of a heavily repetitive guitar strum, firing ecstatic overtones in conjunction with Sablosky's electronics, and the faint intonations of Fraenkel's spoken text. It's just there to feel more than listen to, obfuscating the urge to interpret verbal meaning. Her delivery reminds me of the voice on Blue Gene Tyranny's 'A Letter From Home'; this, to me, is an aesthetic device that I associate with the American avant-garde circa the time of my birth, when this was made. It's a beauty, a real storm of a musical work that feels romantic, adventurous, warm and cold all at the same times as it howls along. There's no acoustic presence on the other three tracks, but they're no less impressive; 'Diverted to Frankfurt (for Twelve Pulse Generators)' is, unsurprisingly, written for 12 pulse generators and the stark palette of their timbre makes this an active, complex convergence of sound. 'No Moon No Mirror' is an ethereal piece for synthesiser where the two musicians tease each other through space, sounding like something from the Kranky records catalog two decades later. It's marred only by a very audible scratch on my copy, which if it were on 'Diverted to Frankfurt' might not be so noticeable but here it shocks the stillness between the synth pulses. 'Forced' is the final cut, another long one, and it resembles the 'Amazon rainforest' approach to electronic improvisations. There's not so much a tonal basis as that of a swarm of insects, and it's as manic and active as the previous two tracks. It's best played loud - the whole record is - so the juxtaposing staccato bursts of static and square waves can get the resonance they deserve. This is a great record for turning your head slightly while listening, to change the way the overtones interact with one's hearing - the best minimalist/drone records have that, and it's nice to be achieved on something so compositionally distinct. Totally great and singular!

Roy Harper - 'Folkjokeopus' (World Pacific)

I wish I had the UK edition of this because the cover is nicer - this has a circusy typeface that jars against the moody, moustache-heavy photo on the cover here. Actually, Harper looks like Howard Moon from The Mighty Boosh on this sleeve, though the sounds herein are far from the scat-jazz stylings the fictitious Mr. Moon would endorse. This is Harper's third album and I'm sad not to own the second as Come Out Fighting Genghis Smith is a fantastic album where the Harper sound begins to come together and emerge as a distinct vision, rather than a 'product of the times'. But Folkjokeopus ain't bad at all, probably one of my overall favourites, and Shel Talmy's production is really evident - generally a good thing, except that  some of the rockers start to sound the same. The unnamed rhythm section has a real boogie-woogie bass player and several songs' reliance on minor key strummed acoustic chords before a major resolution leads to a samey feeling throughout. One would be forgiven for confusing snippets of 'Seargent Sunshine', 'Zaney Janey' and 'She's the One', although they are pretty different compositions. The first two are fun and pleasant pop songs, one the perfect album opener and the second perhaps Harper's counterpoint to Nick Drake's 'Hazy Jane' - I like to think they are about the same woman and reflect the dispositions of the songwriters and how they interpreted her. 'She's The One' is the all-time most-played Harper cut in this house. My vinyl is worn a bit thin here, but it sounds great, and I just want to keep listening to it over and over. A paen of jealous appreciation to a friend unhappy with his marriage, it seethes with fantasy, passion and life, even with cryptic lyrics I've struggled with for a decade ('She's the one who buys the comics, drops the kids and knows the con', but maybe I'm trying to read in too much). It's major hook ('Ah how can any man talk like you / with a wonderful wife like yours?') is impossible to not sing along to, bursting with such exuberance. The momentum keeps this going and it doesn't even begin to wear out its welcome despite it's seven minute length - but if we want to talk about duration, well this is the album with 'McGoohan's Blues', the 17 minute epic loosely inspired by The Prisoner. As length Harper compositions go, this is one of the strongest, built mostly around a stark, tinny strum and his voice. This is borderline conspiracy theory soliloquising, with the Prisoner imagery slowly fading into a full-fledged psychedelic mess (rainbows, toadstools, silver water, etc.). Because of this, it's not that easy to grip onto, but clearly lashing out at social conventions, religion, conformity, and government - what else ya got? It's not as much as protest anthem as a Theory of Everything, and it helps that the song is pretty great too, with the nearly shrieked chorus anchoring the long slow journey til when the band finally kicks in. But the full band part of 'McGoohan's Blues' isn't some payoff, just a plateau, and not what I tend to remember. As a whole, Talmy holds Folkjokeopus together well, and there's very little throwaway beyond 'Exercising Some Control', about a dog (which does sound the most like the music-hall influenced Kinks of anything here). Eastern raga influences rears its head on 'In the Time of Water', though it's too brief to really notice; 'Ballad of Songwriter' casts the songwriter as the bringer of light, and may be the predecessor to the 'Dayman' song from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia; it's also where, on this listen, I started to hear a similarity to another eccentric English Roy from the same era, Mr. Wood, who shares the slight hint of the carnivalesque with Harper. 'Composer of Life' is another nearly forgotten cut, a twee, falsetto sketch that is actually fucking beautiful and one of the other underrated gems on this record. I gave this three full listens just now, which may seem a bit silly since I have 8 more Harper LPs to plow through, but I keep wanting to go back to 'She's The One'. Maybe because of the presence of 'McGoohan's', this would be my pick for the Roy Harper album to get, if you are only seeking one, since it feels pretty evenly dispersed over all of his different approaches. The one thing this lacks is some of the stunning fingerpicking from Sophsticated Beggar, but Stomcock lies ahead....

Flaherty/Corsano Duo ‎– 'Last Eyes' (Records)

This live recording was made during a radio station session for MIT's station so it has a nice live sound, but no presence of an actual crowd. This doesn't seem to be a problem in generating energy between these two, though the key significance of Flaherty and Corsano together is how much they are able to channel their fiery explosiveness towards more fluid interplay. 'Sign Your Name in the Sand, Please' has exactly this - it opens with a flurry of cataclysmic sound and then refines itsel into some very melodic push and pull between Flaherty's earthy, low tone and Corsano's tom-tom pulse. The two sides of this are up and down in mood, but always maintain a good bit of space. A good solo bit in the middle is chunky and barren, inspiring Corsano to rejoin with aplomb. Side two's 'I Miss Jimmy' finds Flaherty clamping down on the mouthpiece and delivering some real shrill blasts, which will somehow bend back on themselves and pull these lovely complementary melodies from the lower register, darting between the two extremes instantly but somehow not sounding too discordant. There's a long drum solo as well on this track, and Corsano often sounds like two drummers playing at once anyway - this just affords the listener more space to perceive it. When I first put this record on I thought that I would end up writing a bit here about the meaning of 'jazz' today and what this type of free music means in a cultural context, but I don't have the energy for it right now. Listening to Last Eyes takes energy from the listener, though it's not the most abrasive work by either of these two; it's more because the momentum that never lets up, even if the tonality shifts. And recorded by an old buddy of mine!