Fraction - 'Moon Blood' (Phoenix)

There's something that divides people about this Fraction record. Maybe I swallowed the Kool-Aid pushed by The Acid Archives (which calls tracks 2-4 "among the most powerful music ever laid down", and that this is the "underground heavy psych monster to conquer them all") and other such private-press aficionados. Maybe this is really a third-rate amped-up Steppenwolf ripoff, a bunch of Christian meathead biker-rock garbage that would be intolerable were it not obscure. But whenever I hear 'Come Out of Her' I realise I must side with The Acid Archives, even if they do say that this bootleg copy sounds terrible compared to the official pressings. I'm not even a huge heavy rock guy - I don't own any Sabbath records even, and my sense of 'heavy' is probably different than most folks (I often cite Richard Thompson's 'Calvary Cross' as one of the heaviest tracks ever). Yet something about this album rips me apart. It's not so much the earnest, religious lyrics (which could all be easily about sex if you just substitute "vagina" for "God", though I guess most hymns could work that way too) as the extreme way that Jim Beach belts them out - it's like an unholy merger of Robert Plant and Jim Morrison, except I don't like either of those guys much. The recording really is good, even on this bootleg pressing, and I can imagine how a lesser production would dampen the impact of this. (Or, we can wonder how many other half-decent obscurities would have benefitted from better production). I can't deny the obscure nature of this is part of what appeals to me, but it's not obscurity for obscurity's sake. What's amazing about Fraction was that they existed at all, and I wonder what their lives were (are?) like, committed to this very uncompromising style of rock music but fervently theological in their execution. Maybe, as a nonbeliever myself, I like flirting with the idea of Christianity because it's the most 'out' trip of all, and the truest rebellion that I could enact in my life. I wonder what, if any, drugs were consumed - you'd think their beliefs would forbid it, but this sounds hand-in-hand with so many other heavy psych records which quite frequently partook. I'm with the Archives on this - this is a beast, an utterly singular record that's not an every-day listen (and may not offer many lessons in 2015) but hard to ignore when it does see the turntable.

Fotheringay (A&M)

My copy of this is so beat-to-shit that it's buried in surface noise, and skips a good it bit too. I actually fear for the safety of my stylus and thus rarely listen to it. Also, despite being a pretty solid record, I never get any craving to hear it. This picks up where you'd expect it to - taking the Fairport sound but bringing in a stronger Dylan/Band influence, most obvious in the cover of 'Too Much of Nothing but also on 'Winter Winds', a less languid but otherwise derivative take on the 'You Ain't Goin' Nowhere' vibe. Co-lead vocalist (and Denny's husband) Trevor Lucas sounds pretty good against Denny; the timbre of his voice isn't a million kilometres away from Richard Thompson's, though, so this feels precisely like the second act it is. Additionally, naming your band after one of your iconic songs from your last band can't help but cast a cloud over whatever you do next. Through all the static I can hear how nicely this is produced; a good drum sound, lots of reverb on the guitar lines, and the voices soaring above it all. I think they only ever made this one record; Denny went solo with the excellent The North Star Grassman and the Ravens and I don't know whatever happened to Lucas. It's all what one might expect from a Fairport Convention spinoff, and that's perfectly OK. Denny's perfect touch is why this is remarkable; the Lucas-led songs barely stand out. There's some nice electric guitar leads, but it's the wispy, rolling Fairport sound that I like the most; Denny's 'The Pond and the Stream' being a great example of this. The cover art is pretty bonkers when you stop to actually look at it; on my beaten, faded copy it feels strangely, I dunno, authoritative.

Flying Luttenbachers - 'Destroy All Music' (Bourgeois / Elevated Chimp / ugEXPLODE)

I used to think of the Flying Luttenbachers and that whole Weasel Walter scene as some sort of 'death jazz', made the more extreme by his silly makeup and releasing albums with titles like Destroy all Music. Which makes this listen, a good ten+ years since the last one, so surprising - this is really quite goddamn musical. This is an earlier, more jazz-based lineup of Walter's ever-shifting ensemble and it's really just descended from the New York school of spazzy fusion improv, John Zorn and Massacre, Bill Laswell, etc. Despite the presence of Ken Vandermark, Dylan Posa's guitar is what really drives this (as well as Walter's strangely light touch on the drumset). 'Demonic Velocities/20,000 Volts' opens up the record with a pretty straight-up blueprint of what we'll get - tooting reeds, bumpy electric bass, and sheets of noisy guitar that is mixed low enough that everything else gets to breathe and find space. When Posa gets crazy strumming and picking the bridge, it works well with the chaos ('The Necessary Impossibility of Determinism' being one such example) but really, this is a pretty damn composed record. There's a joy throughout this, a real spirit of living despite the violent sonorities, suggesting that this is really a bunch of softies having a play at being extreme. The chops are undeniable, and when it drops into more traditional jazz swinging ('Tiamat En Arc') the inevitable descent into guitar noise feels integrated rather than sarcastic. Listening to this is fun, and not at all annoying which is how I remember later records like Revenge sounding. The final cut maybe is a preview of that direction, but in a small dosage, it's pretty fun. The synths add a nice touch as well, a bit of a Sun Ra Atlantis vibe (on 'Verlag Aus Den "Turbo Scratcher"'). I just watched Whiplash and decided I hate 'jazz', so this picked up my spirits somewhat. They aren't destroying anything, just creating something ephemeral and alive

Flying Burrito Bros. - 'Burrito Deluxe' (A&M)

And now a blast of west-coast country rock, here far more pushed toward the "rock" side of the equation. There's a pretty good reason why this is never put in the same rarified air as The Gilded Palace of Sin - because it's nowhere near as good. Unfortunately I've never come across a copy of Gilded Palace, but enjoy listening to this from time to time. Gram Parsons leaves after this one and you still get a few bright, strident Parsons songs like 'Lazy Days'; a lot of covers fill this, including a lackluster version of Dylan's 'If You Gotta Go' (which I don't enjoy hearing in English, thanks Fairport) and a great version of the Stones' 'Wild Horses' featuring Leon Russell on piano. Jim Dickson co-produced this and it sounds great, even on this beat-up scratchy copy; all the high-mids ring out and the mandolin strum in particular sounds as fresh as yesterday. The songwriting just feels a bit behind the pace - there's nothing as cripplingly contrived as 'Sin City' or 'Dark End of the Street' here; the most memorable tune besides 'Wild Horses' is probably 'Farther Along', a traditional arranged here in full Burrito fashion, or the bouncy 'Down in the Churchyard'. Bernie Leadon's guitar lines are sharp, overpowering the pedal steel on songs like 'Older Guys'; his 'God's Own Singer' here presages the Eagles. But overall, this record is just too goddamn upbeat to really stand up as a classic. I've seen this tacked onto CD reissues of Gilded Palace and that's a great place for it. It ends with 'Wild Horses' which really is the strongest song, done straight but with those beautiful American harmonies adding a level of gloss over the longing. Bonus points for the back cover where they look like members of some cult. I have no idea what the band has sounded like since; I guess there's been a zillion members and something tours now under that name with zero original members (my friend saw them by accident in rural Norway a few years back).

Fleetwood Mac - 'Tusk' (Warner Brothers)

What do we say about Tusk, now? For years it was mentioned by people like Byron Coley as a masterpiece, which I always figured was a joke or some sort of needless contrarianism; in those times of fear I stayed away and thus missed out on really absorbing this into my formative years. At some point curiosity took over, and its ubiquity in charity shops and secondhand stores means I eventually took the gamble (apparently risking $4, if this is my original price sticker). And then there was this gradual period where Tusk started becoming incredibly fashionable among my music-obsessed friends, as we finally learned to eschew the punk orthodoxy and listen for ourselves. Perhaps, initially with some degree of irony (though a variable amount, depending on the person). Hey, I actually liked this, I discovered; it's unsurprising as I love great pop music and fucked-up pop music, which Tusk is both; I found that the manic/ragged/experimental quality that made this so talked-about was really there. So now I would definitively say yes, Tusk is a great album, with surprisingly little filler given its length (I can only really count 'Never Make Me Cry' as such, as I'm sure many people would argue for its merits). The hooks are catchy, the production somehow both cold and intimate, and it contains a disjointed collection of songs that range from angry to disconnected and druggy. But most importantly, it was the followup to the most successful pop record of all-time, and thus it's 'edgy' qualities attain more sharpness in comparison. So yes, we may occasionally overrate it, but that's cause there will probably never be anything like this again. This isn't like Radiohead making Kid A and confounding their alterna-rock fans, or Lou Reed's obvious fuck-yous; instead, it's experimental precisely because its not, if that makes any sense. Tusk is a band who became so big that they no longer had to listen to anyone telling them what to do, and it turns out their inner path was a pretty righteous one anyway, but the pressures of stardom and interpersonal relationship fallouts inject so much conflict into this that it never quite lifts off cohesively. But unlike most sprawling messes, there's enough genius here and perhaps the external context of their previous success infuses a certain swagger into it all. If you told me that none of the three songwriters played on each other's tracks, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised; Lindsay Buckingham's tracks sound as fucked-up and home-recorded as most of McCartney II and I suspect he wanted to be nowhere near Stevie Nicks at this time. The fact that the title track was the biggest hit on the whole album is fairly incredible, since it's by far the most demented song. If you turn it up loud - and you should - you can hear all of these buried, twisted layers of gibberish vocals behind the marching band, sounding a bit like an anachronistic guest appearance by Dylan Nyoukis's Blood Stereo (actually, it kinda sounds like Animal Collective). Even the idea to lead off the record with 'Over & Over' - a great song, but hardly a side 1, track 1 - feels like a brick in the wall of perversity. Over four million people bought this record, and you can find it for pennies now (unless you live in Europe, where I regularly see it priced over 25€). As much as I'm a massive Camper Van Beethoven fan, their full-scale covering of the whole album never resonated too much with me beyond being a mere novelty. There's probably a whole bunch of people who have never delved deep into Tusk and I'm actually jealous that you get that feeling of discovery and fascination that I once had. This is one of the best arguments for cocaine use ever committed to vinyl.

Fläsket Brinner (Silence)

It's nice that the synchronicity of alphabetical order chooses this record next, as I just got back from a lovely visit to Stockholm, where I did not knowingly encounter any former members of Fläsket Brinner (but who knows!). The cover of this looks truly evil, though maybe it was just one of their dogs cast in strange lighting (are Swedish people ever evil, Nikanor Teratologen excepted?). This sounds like a live album throughout, at least for sure on side 1, and its built around thick instrumentals with searing and soaring guitar lines, that 1971 rock-organ sound, and solos galore. It's not nearly as far out as some other Euro-prog of the time (without vocals, 'Räva's chanting notwithstanding, a lot is actually lost for me when it comes to prog-rock). The legendary Bo Hansson appears here on organ on one track which he composed, though he was actually a full-time member of Fläsket Brinner, instead likely lending his celebrity to help sell some records for Silence. Most of side one is the epic 'Tysta Finskan' and it's melodic and driving, never letting up its momentum, while giving these guys a lot of space. 'Bengans Vals' starts like it's going to turn into some Don Cherry-esque earth mantra, but quickly seizes upon a double-tracked guitar line (as is the fashion so many times throughout). King Crimson was surely an influence (probably to everyone who made music like this in 1971) as well as some Canterbury stuff (I hear some Egg in this) and the reeds - sax + contrabassoon - give this a nice flavour halfway towards Henry Cow, never threatening to step into jazz. I believe this is a really well-regarded prog record (at least among Scandinavians) and I almost feel guilty that I've never been super into it; this has gravitated to my "sell" pile over the years but I always hold on for some reason. They can certainly get going with a lot of energy, though the rhythm section often takes on a boogie-rock feel. I'm not sure if I prefer 'Tysta Finskan's epic jam or the shorter piece that are dotted across side two. 'Bosses Låt' proves they can dig in and cut into granite, in a way that even Joe Carducci would approve of; 'Upsala Gård' is the most reed-heavy and occasionally feels like a Fela Kuti piece.

Paul Flaherty - 'Aria Nativa' (Family Vineyard)

Another solo saxophone record I must try to write about both intelligently and subjectively. I was just talking with someone who mentioned a solo saxophone 7" release by some current artist (I forget who) and we were remarking on how that's actually the perfect format for solo sax. Though I've already weighed in quite positively on a few such longplayers in these pages (David Boykin, Hamiet Bluiett) and we're only up to the F's. Aria Nativa has the live audience that Last Eyes lacked, though they are quiet and attentive, leading me to only surmise the energy they must be fueling; it's like listening to something invisible and possibly a cultural construct. But maybe that's one of the beautiful things about music - that an audience can generate an undeniable effect on a performer, and that relationship is symbiotic - yet it's not scientifically measurable. I dunno, maybe the crowd noise is fake like some live records do, but I'm going to buy into the idea that this is a unique contract between Flaherty and audience, documented on wax forever by the Family Vineyard label. Flaherty's warm as blood here, letting the circular note patterns attain their overtones which build into something inviting, yet still challenging. When they eventually constrain themselves into dying shrieks (such as at the end of Side 1, on the short 'I Don't Live Here Antymore' piece), there's a sense of resignation. Maybe the tone is set by Ken DelPonte's poem, 'No More America', which plasters the back cover of this record, a 5 part revisiting of the turbulent late 60s (though copyrighted in 2008). He wouldn't have included this were it not meant to relate to what he was trying to express, and the longer piece at the start of side 2 reflects the most onto the history of "jazz", meaning there's some identifiable swing and blues residue. It's faint, but it's there; this couldn't be mistaken for having emerged from any other tradition, as extreme and attenuated as it might seem. But this is the jazz of Shepp, Ayler and Sanders; a jazz built on the same late-60s consciousness change that DelPonte's poem reflects. This is forty years later but the fire is still burning, and it seems (at the moment) that there's still something to say.

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!

Fire Engines - 'Aufgeladen Und Bereit Fur Action Und Spass' (Fast Product America)

Here's a compilation containing most of the Lubricate Your Living Room record I just put back on the shelf, as well as a few extra tunes. It's bookended by the 'Candyskin'/'Meat Whiplash' 7", and 'Candyskin' is about as candied as the Fire Engines ever got, not just because of the melodic signing and relatively accessible lyrics but also due to the presence of a string section. It's a great, gorgeous meeting of orch-pop arrangements and post-punk snot, delivered with just the right amount of sarcasm. Listening to these songs right after just hearing them on the previous LP is actually fun. That's happened a few times throughout this project, with varying results, but this time I really notice a fidelity difference - how much better this pressing sounds than the Pop Aural one. I guess Fast Product America released this attempting to sell the Fire Engines to the American audiences, but I think the band was so short-lived that it barely mattered. Listening to 'Discord' twice in one night makes one really "get" the Fire Engines. And that's essentially all I can say here.

Fire Engines - 'Lubricate Your Living Room' (Pop Aural)

This first record by the Fire Engines doesn't feel fully-formed, though that's maybe just because it's mostly instrumental. My other Fire Engines record (we'll get to this in a sec) has most of this one on it, and that pressing sounds slightly better than this earlier effort. It's funny to think of this happening in 1980 Edinburgh, which means it's possible these guys played shows with the Exploited. You couldn't get further away from Wattie & co. while still being rock music (well, I suppose you could); the monotony and tight rhythm section + jagged, sharp guitars sounds not unlike Gang of Four's blueprint, though I guess this was the blueprint for about 70% of British bands at the time. Fire Engines really excel at the long instrumental jams - 'Discord' is an epic, seemingly endless bashabout, and the two-part title track is a long-form exploration as well. They aren't unmelodic, though they prefer to focus on pounding guitar licks than pop hooks. The monotony has a fun, poppy flavour, unlike the Fall's nihilism or Flipper's drugged-out dirges. It's a statement of a new musical frontier - where the rhythmic concerns are of foremost importance and the traditional rock frontman recedes to the distance (though singer David Henderson can yelp like the best of them, when he bothers). I remember these guys doing a reunion show when I was living in Scotland, maybe 8-10 years ago, and I skipped it because it was in Edinburgh and expensive. I think they were actually opening up for a Beefheartless Magic Band, or maybe I'm just conflating two shows around the same time, neither of which I went to. Either way, it would make sense, as there's some real spiritual unity between Fire Engines and the Magic Band's most notorious efforts. The brutal, plodding 4/4 drums that rarely break for fills or flourishes anchor the guitars, but it's somehow spirited and uplifting. A sarnie and tomatoes makes a nice album cover, too.

Fille Qui Mousse - 'Trixie Stapelton 291 - Se Taire Pour Une Femme Trop Belle' (Bichon)

I don't know anything about Fille Qui Mousse. This is something that appeared in my life around the time the early days of Internet filesharing opened up and you could start downloading all sorts of NWW-list items that you never thought would be heard. Napster, I think, or early Soulseek - it was before the Mutant Sounds blog, but the same online discovery time. Around then, a friend suggested I check out this album, and I did, and it hit the sweet spot, which is the more discordant, weird side of jammy 70's prog-fusion. It's French, obviously, and the 'Stapleton' in the title makes me really wonder about the Nurse With Wound connection, but I always liked it and therefore swept up the vinyl reissue when it appeared a few years ago. A few tracks on here and out-and-out sound experiments - the monotonous dronescape of 'Esplanade' which closes side 1 in a maddening fashion, or the tinny toy piano freakout of 'Transcription Interrompue'. Trixie Stapleton doesn't feel anything like a cohesive album, because cohesion was the enemy. This was outsider music, progressive without many chops, built around weird improvised bits and getting better the more fucked up it lurches. When it resembles rock music (which it actually does a few times), it's an album that sounds somewhere between Berrocal and a scrawny, withered Krautrock band. When it's looped electroacoustic weirdness, there's a primitivism that the French always do so well. The jazzy/fusion tendencies come through on the 'band' tracks like 'L'eau Était Vitale', but it's not really meant to feel like a band album, I don't think it's a band at all. This was one mad artist's project and thus the other members came and went, which comes through in the recordings. Time has been kind to this record, though since it wasn't actually released until the 90s (though recorded in the early 70's, allegedly 70-72 which would make this very ahead of it's time, even for that scene) I suppose we've had less time with it.

Fennesz - 'Endless Summer' (Mego)

This felt like a groundbreaking record when it came out, and probably represents my peak interest in whatever this genre was. I see it's been reissued since as a deluxe double LP edition so clearly it has some sort of place in history. By 2001 I had seen Christian Fennesz live a few times, and for a guy bent over a laptop he had the most performative presence I've still probably ever seen in, well, whatever this genre was. Endless Summer, as its title indicates, has a warmth and organic quality that doesn't jar with the 'glitches' and electronic crackle, but rather works with the qualities of that sound to complement the language of laptop-experimentalism. From the get-go, 'Made in Hongkong', Fennesz throws the listener into wet, warm tonalities with a burning digital ebb and flow. The achievement of Endless Summer is not the fact that it's trying to capture the same feeling as the Beach Boys or surf music, but rather that it is such a cohesive, expressive statement. The acoustic guitar strums on 'A Year in a Minute' have the languid quality of some of the Jeweled Antler pop bands or Dylan's more stoned moments, and it's remarkable that they achieve such a harmony with the gargling, folding-in-upon-itself undertow that is constantly fighting for air here. This type of wet electronic comfort (which I often associate with the Leaf label -- see the Eardrum review) can easily create a bath of thick mid-rangey tones, which can feel easy at times, like ear candy This doesn't hide it's digital manipulations - the pulsing of 'Before I Leave' is relentless, even annoying at times, and maybe the one track that feels out of place. But Fennesz is seeking new feelings, combining the familiar with the other, and this occasionally produces an exotica vibe ('Shisheido'), as if Les Baxter was being updated for the digital age. Repetition is present, nearly to the point of insanity on the lengthy closer 'Happy Audio', and this type of minimalism feels strangely maximal. Around the turn of the millennium we were lucky to find a lot of (mostly European) electronic artists trying to move away from the beats that characterise dance tracks, instead finding an affinity with post-rock by focusing on textures, colour, etc. I don't know how people more knowledgeable about this genre would feel about me lumping Fennesz in with Pole, Gas, or Oval, but to a young rocker seeking new musical languages, this stuff was magical. It's faded from my memory even though there's no shortage of great music being made today that picks up from where this left off. These descendants may be the proof of the eternity promised by the title of Endless Summer.

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).