Jailbreak - 'The Rocker' (Family Vineyard)

We haven't checked in with Mr. Chris Corsano for awhile, so this comes a nice a surprise. Jailbreak was a duo of him and Heather Leigh, which put out two releases in 2010 and then that was it; hardly a surprise as they were living on different continents so rehearsal must have been a bit tough. Leigh's pedal steel and vocals would threaten to take over the whole soundstage here if it wasn't for Corsano's thunderous drumming. It's safe to say that there's no other pedal steel player out there who sounds like this, as the strings are drenched in a fuzz pedal, amped-up just to the edge of feedback, and moving in 50,000 different directions at the same time. It would also be safe to say there's no drumming anywhere else like this, except on other records Corsano plays on; together, it's a balancing act that works well.  Yet this isn't to suggest that The Rocker is teetering or restrained; it's aggressive to the max, with building blocks of pure energy, forcing the listener to strain to find the subtleties. 'Brought Down' starts off with solo Leigh for a minute or two before the drums kick in, and there's no going back one this cork is pulled out of the bottle. The vocals are twisted and shouty, enough in the background to be lyrically unintelligible but directly conveying power, wonder and energy. It's reminiscent of hardcore punk, an influence surely felt throughout The Rocker, as if that anger was merged with a free music approach. The flipside, 'Sugar Blues', isn't a huge departure, suggesting that maybe these edits were made out of one massive, epic blowout recording session. The dynamics at play are unified; when Jailbreak shifts they do so together, thus the moments when Corsano drops out (particularly about halfway through side two) are the most dramatic; when he comes back in at the moment parenthetically referred to in this sentence, it's like a massive weight dropping, and manages to incur a jolt of higher-level energy into a record that at this point has been almost a half-hour of being cranked up to (presumably) 10. The sliding strings, when distorted like this, genuinely reminds me of the pick-slides used in a lot of 80s metal guitar bands, which I'm sure is a comparison Jailbreak wouldn't object to. When Leigh hits the higher register vocally, it's like a banshee soaring over this violent chaos, and that world of destroyed possibilities is a beautifully rendered one. The Rocker isn't an easy listen - or rather, it's not a relaxing listen - but it's a rewarding one, and one that may be forgotten already among the prolific output of these two.

Felt - 'Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty' (Cherry Red)

Before I ever heard Felt, I read a review of this record and decided they would get points for the title alone. Here's the establishment of the beta-male guitar-god; where jangle climbs the throne and the clean channel rules supreme. It starts with an instrumental, the lengthy 'Evergreen Dazed', which introduces the Felt sound - two tinny guitars, lots of reverb, and a plodding drummer. The lead parts are moody, built around descending melodies and never too flashy. Here, the instruments ring and ring and ring, and when the voice is present (all songs sung by Felt mastermind Lawrence, who I assume is the guy pictured on the front), it's breathy and minus any rock and roll histrionics. This is about as far from Led Zeppelin as rock music can possibly be, and is in alignment with the other plans for the genre established by their brethren of the early 80s - the Cure, Durutti Column, etc. I admit that even though the point of this project is to give these records the solid decent listen they deserve, I found myself tuning out the vocals entirely, letting the guitars carry me into some sort of somnambulistic state. Thus, I'm not sure if the poem 'Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty' printed on the sleeve contains actual lyrics (since there is no song by this name) or is merely a poem; it does contain the line 'Dazed like evergreen' at the end, but that song is an instrumental. So Lawrence writes and sings lyrics but then only prints entirely different ones on the sleeve - that's something Michael Stipe hadn't even thought of. But back to the music - six long songs, a half-hour total, and it melts into something that feels like a 'statement'. When there's rhythm guitar, it might have a little distortion but from the natural fuzz of an amplifier, as opposed to anything more grungy. The opening chugga-chug of 'Cathedral' feels like something solid you can dig your feet into, planting like roots, and the whole record ends with 'Templeroy', petering out rather than exploding or burning or whatever impulse rock music often tends to produce. This is their debut and I don't really know anything else by them, figuring I'd always find more Felt LPs lying around during my years in the UK (I didn't).

Essential Logic - 'Beat Rhythm News - Waddle Ya Play ?' (Rough Trade)

It's easily been a decade since I last listened to this, so it's like hearing it for the first time. Essential Logic is built around Lora Logic, the saxophonist in X-Ray Spex, who comes to the forefront here as songwriter and lead vocalist. It's much less herky-jerky than I remember it being. I daresay this is closer to pop music than anything radical or abrasive, though with weird punk girl vocals (not really a million miles away from Cyndi Lauper) and brassy jazz bits. But was 'punk', in the UK at least, ever supposed to be more than a new form of pop? Logic's songwriting is strong, which I've always overlooked about Essential Logic before. This isn't the verbal territory of 'O Bondage, Up Yours!', but one of more abstract, poetic observations (which is possibly why she clicked so well with Mayo Thompson). The catchiest tune is 'Wake up', which for some reason doesn't have lyrics printed, but it's a perfect guitar hook that moves quickly beyond any trappings of it's milieu. 'Shabby Abbott' does critique organised religion but it's not so obvious, instead built around domestic awareness. Logic is a saxophonist so that's featured on every song, with additional sax by Dave Wright, arranging songs like 'World Friction' into thick, big-band style interplay with a slightly discordant lean. 'Albert Albert Albert' is about as challenging as it gets, with some Sonic Youth chord cadences and some really distinct song structures; closer 'Popcorn Boy' descends into a marching band chant for the album's final moments, and it's an accomplishment, as is the album as a whole. Shit, this is a really great record, and it feels somewhat underrated now (as it's been a decade since all this stuff got reissued and hyped up). Let's keep it in our consciousness. I'm curious about finding a copy of Logic's solo LP, Pedigree Charm -- maybe by the time I reach the L's, I will have found one.

Box Codax - 'Only an Orchard Away' (Thin Man)

A strange side-project of a Franz Ferdinand guy, this record veers between goofy toy-electro ('Pollockshields Girls') to creepy, undanceable disco ('Naked Smile', 'Missed Her Kiss') to warped canyon-jams ('Like a Rock'). Does it ever stop to figure itself out? Does it have an identity? Not really, but there's some totally retarded drum programming to enjoy while you try to make sense of it. Ah, Germans. A few novelty bits like 'I Swam With the Otter' are just fucking unbearable, but then there's occasionally some goof-offs that work, like 'Do It With Charm', with European street music flair and extemporised lyrics. I mean, most of this record comes off like a total joke but one that is done quite strictly. If I'm struggling to find something kind to say, I'll comment that you can definitely hear the friendship of the participants, and the jokes are actually too strange (or too "inside") to be funny to anyone, so maybe you can reinterpret this as serious 'art' music. The voice of a new generation. What the kids are into. You know. I've been to Pollokshields and the girls aren't anything to write home about, but I'm strangely forgiving of this bit of goofing off.

Au Pairs - 'Playing with a Different Sex' (Human)

Ah, the sweet sound of 1981. An affected British voice, sneering lyrics with something to say, so topical and so danceable a la fois. Hard bass guitar lines, bouncing around a tight, forward-driving beat and the guitars are the mood here. Scratching and clawing in the image of Andy Gill, they're mixed a bit low sometimes but the angles are there for inspection. And if Gang of Four built the lighthouse, the beam was shined on 'Anthrax' for lyrical content to further mine -- how else do we explain 'Love Song'? Gender roles are explored in almost every song, sometimes explicitly ('I'm your erotic profit / a bonus from the rock & roll situation', from 'Unfinished Business') and sometimes philosophically. It goes global on 'Armagh', a precog's song for Donald Rumsfeld to sing 25 years later. Extraordinary renditions aside, male-female relationships are the name of the game and this mixed-gendered band throws up rhythms and textures that rival anything else from the period. If there's some criticism it's that the polemics might distract a bit from the fun; the disco/soapbox dichotomy is taken to the extreme here, though to be honest, the tunes really rank up there with the best of the era. 'Headache' has atmospheric scrapes over a motorik groove, recalling A Certain Ratio's most interesting experiments; most of the album is fun enough to play alongside Pylon. And just enough pop hooks to drill into those corners of the brain.