Philip Glass - 'Glassworks' (CBS)

I screwed up the chronology - this came before both soundtracks so now I either tackle it out of order, or I alter Blogspot's published-at time to make it look like I hit it before Koyaanisqatsi. The truth is, I've just put this on after listening to Powaqqatsi and it's a hell of a lot less interesting, though maybe more singular as what I tend to think of Philip Glass's music as sounding like. 'Floe' and 'Rubric' are two pieces that sound almost cliché at this point, though I'm trying to put myself in the late 70s or early 80s when this was at the forefront of "new music" (a term I loathe). Those Michael Nyman soundtracks which we'll eventually get to are really similar, with the lush, romantic strings pulsing back and forth and the movement not as minimal as you think, but more romantic. 'Facades' is downright gentle, rolling along like a baby breathing, and with even some soloing, or at least with instruments taking the lead. It's a small collection of musicians here - Jack Kripl on winds, two French Horns, and Glass himself on the synthesiser.  I'm kinda lukewarm on Glassworks as a whole; I think the recording leaves a bit to be desired, sounding like a pretty straight modern classical studio session. Maybe the LP is dirty or something, but after just feeling those two Godfrey Reggio soundtracks exploding from my speakers, full of space and breath, this feels a bit claustrophobic and dead. The music isn't particularly icy - the sonorities are not really breaking away from a romantic/classic tradition - but it just feels a bit too tight. Maybe it's in the performances - you won't typically think of Philip Glass's music as a type which can really benefit from interpretation, but the dynamic shifts here, even say when the piano pulls back and slowly crescendos again, feel a bit robotic. The opening cut is actually probably my favourite one, a solo piano prelude composed by Glass but played by Michael Riesman. It doesn't get caught in its own motion, instead allowing some tonalities to slowly develop; sure, there's repetition, but it's not monotonous. And it returns, in the 'Finale', with the other musicians accompanying it, though it doesn't breathe so much with the bed of sound under it this time. The feeling is that we've taken some journey, but I'm not really sure what we learned during it. The back cover of my copy has the ink smearing slightly up from the letters, subtle enough you would almost think it's by design except there's no way it is. The music maybe reflects this rigidity - I wish there was just a little more smearing between the notes, in a way that some other minimalists (Terry Riley, for sure) built into their compositions.

Coxhill/Miller Miller/Coxhill (Virgin)

Of course I (like everyone) thought this would be 'Fly Like and Eagle' Steve Miller, but sadly (or happily?) I was wrong - this Steve Miller has some connection to Hatfield and the North, I think. This record invites two titles and two entrances, eschewing the side A/side B malarkey that has plagued records for so long. I chose Miller/Coxhill first and it's a sneaky beginning - 'Chocolate Field', a somber piano piece that Lol comes in on at the end. Coxhill doesn't appear on the lengthy second track, 'One For You', but we get Phil Miller, Pip Pyle and Richard Sinclair, making this a solidly Canterbury track, as you can imagine. It sounds pretty good though - composed by Miller, it's clearly built around his piano, but with some lovely, ripping guitar notes from the other Miller. It's definitely that rolling, brainy yet easy limey prog vibe, and while a forgettable track, it sets the vibe for Coxhill's re-entry on 'Portland Bill'. Instead of a a full drum kit, this has frantic cymbal playing from Laurie Allen and Lol and Miller finally start to open up a bit, like a catamaran traveling through a cloudy tunnel. The cymbals give the piece more velocity and nervousness than I think a full drum kit could do; Lol is much more sidewinder than tunesmith here, and it serves the group dynamic very well. But then flip it over, and holy christ does it get nuts. 'Will my thirst play me tricks?/The ant about to be crushed ponders not the where withal of bootleather' is some outer limits madness, where our eponymous band leaders play 'Wurlitzer percussion', which I guess means bashing on a Wurlitzer. This sounds like nothing I've ever heard from the genre of Bumpy Rambling Bashing; it's nervous and driving, and it blends seamlessly into 'Maggots', where some 'messy phones' are played and then we finally get to 'Bath '72' which is a warm, wet solo Coxhill piece with 'children, tapes and motors' (though these elements are merely a gurgling presence in the background). This is the most adventurous side of vinyl yet from Coxhill, and there's hardly any trace of his music hall leanings -- yet it carries through the joy found on Ear of Beholder, coupled with innovative exploration. Exciting stuff, for sure. The last two tracks, 'Wimbledon Baths' and "Gog ma Gog' take things down a notch, but this somber, moody ending is kinda nice after the highs heard before. The end result of this meeting is something inconsistent, and hardly unified enough to stand as the double-titled dual-entry record it's presented as, but the gems shine bright.

Anthony Braxton / Derek Bailey - 'Duo 2' (Emanem)

This is the second half of a concert, which was split onto two records, but we only get to hear the second. It starts slow - slow enough that you can imagine they are just getting warmed up again after an intermission. Braxton shifts around between flute, soprano clarinet, regular clarinet, contrabass clarinet, soparino sax, and alto; there's a good bit of flute to start off, as he navigates the edges of the hall's ambience. And how you can hear it! Derek Bailey is dicking about with some prepared fretboard stuff, and the sputtering really echoes, to the point where you can imagine how well-behaved (or non-existent) the audience must be. Bailey is never exactly a smooth operator and here is no exception. When Braxton is flowing, Derek's like ripples in the stream, and when in the middle of side 1 Braxton gets into some proper sax bursts, Bailey feels totally lockstep with him. There are points where it sounds like Braxton is blowing through some cheap plastic tube - whether this is an effect of the clarinets or some weird form of technique, I'm not sure. The choppyness recedes a bit and the two end the side in some sort of dysfunctional harmony. I like it; it's a hell of an exploration of their instruments and it's nice to hear Braxton in a purely improvised setting, so far away from the jazz idiom. On side two, Derek is playing electric and he's rocking that tone/volume knob, creating tonal ebbs and flows that offset Braxton's shrill trills. The reverb, though electrified, still has a mindbending effect. These are birds, covered in coffee grinds, flying into mattresses. At some poinst there's a muddy pond that someone is skimming rocks across, and it ain't always Derek throwing them. By the end of these 43 minutes these guys have gone, almost hyperactively, through almost every sound you could imagine. There's a frantic buzzing alto section at the end during which Bailey is going all Django on us, and you realise why Emanem felt the need to document this meeting for commercial resale - because it is immense.

David Bowie - 'Lodger' (RCA)

Lodger's a weird one because it's not actually that weird; it's considered part of a trilogy with Low and "Heroes" but it's not as dense and avoids the extended synth instrumentals. But there's something simultaneously wooly and rusty about Lodger which is why I've always had a soft spot for it. None of the songs are really catchy enough to be hit singles, and I guess the charts felt this way too. There's a turn towards multiculturalism, such as 'Yassassin' and 'African Night Flight', so this feels nothing like the concrete Berlin walls of Low. Maybe more like a Peter Kubelka film! But motion is the name of the game - 'Move On' and 'Red Sails' grip onto the way the world was becoming smaller at the end of the century. There's something very temporary about the whole thing - the band never gels, the lyrics suggest there's not going to be much happening tomorrow and the album is called Lodger, after all. The post-apocalypticism is most evident on the opener, 'Fantastic Voyage', but I think this track is brilliant because it sounds like it could be on John Cale's Paris 1919 album. So even though we're talking about bombs dropping, time unraveling backwards, etc. it's still has that feeling of sipping a cup of tea and staring out the window at the English countryside. I think Lodger is also interesting because even though it's the most pop-oriented of the trilogy in terms of construction, it's really hard to interface with. Adrian Belew plays guitar all over it and there's a few laser beams poking through the ozone layer, but generally George Murray's farty bass and Carlos Alomar's rhythm guitar keep things relatively contained. There's a lot of creaking in the edges; Eno's presence is so well-integrated that it's possible to ignore him. 'Red Money' is a great closing track that still escapes my brain as soon as it's heard; this is the detached, difficult Bowie, the one from The Man Who Fell to Earth. I've always felt like I never dedicated myself enough to Lodger, merely proclaiming it as "great" and then filing it away before I really could creep into the cracks. The distinct feeling that maybe there's nothing on the other side of the artifice should be troubling, but instead it's where the pleasure lies.

Blank Dogs - 'On Two Sides' (Troubleman Unlimited)

The cover art to this feels a tad silly now, as the identity of Blank Dogs was shrouded in mystery at the time of release -- though now, it no longer is, so an opportunity for a cool album cover was squandered by putting a photo of a dude with a blanket over his head. But at least it's designed nicely, just like the bumpy post-punk-influence pop ditties here. These "bedroom punk" tunes are probably quick to record and he sure pumps them out on this (and other) releases, but they're really solid here. 'Ants' kicks things off with the formula that works, unchanged, across 12 songs. Canned drums, cheap synth icing, repetitive simple melodies, jangly guitar notes around the edges and some killer guitar crunch when the time is right. Vocally it's moaning, affected, distorted, and weirdly catchy. 'Blaring Speeches', 'Calico Hands' and 'The Lines' are particularly strong, and when you've listened to this a few times they all start to blend together into a mishmash of hooks. I don't find myself singing along as much as I tap/bash my fingers on the desk when listening. But maybe that's cause I have to strain to understand the lyrics, which is more effort than I'm willing to put in. Could 'Pieces' be the pinnacle of office punk, perhaps? Though the obvious comparisons are early 80s mileau like Magazine, early Cure, New Order/Factory stuff, etc -- I actually hear a bit of 90's indie rock in 'Three Window Room', the closing track. For some reason this unfolds like a classic Magnetic Fields track to me, maybe just in the way the chords move. I admit I haven't kept up with the slew of output to follow this but at some point I could see myself needing more.