Gang of Four - 'Solid Gold' (EMI)

Jon King starts off Solid Gold without even singing, just intoning the poem of 'Paralysed' over a slow, start-stop rock beat that never quite lifts up. If I reviewed the last EP by complaining about how the fun was slowly disappearing from these guys, Solid Gold seems to further that tendency. We get 'Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time' and 'He'd Send in the Army', both from that yellow EP, and a few other memorable tunes, namely the secretly depressing 'Cheeseburger' and the iconic 'What We All Want', a brilliant deconstruction of desire under late capitalism, which slows down the disco fury of Entertainment to a crawl, allowing Gill's searing guitars to be layered in a way which sounds pretty great when turned up loud. No, it's not particularly fun, but there's enough of a hook (the chanted 'Could I be happy with something else?/I need some thing to fill my time', which is great because of the duality of 'something' and 'some thing', which not only questions the whole aspect of commodification but also introduces a sexual element into it) so this ends up being a record I've always kept around and enjoyed perhaps more than I should. A lot of the songs are stuck in the same template - jerky, not as musically satisfying as the hits on their first album, which makes the lyrical slogans stand out more - 'wasting time's a hole in the wallet', 'show me a ditch and i'll dive in it', etc. 'Cheeseburger' is definitely the highpoint, where Gill's harmonics give it a shininess that's ironic juxtaposed with its weary, wage-slave tale lyrics. You'll notice that I often follow the conventional wisdom, which is that after the original rhythm section changed, the band was never quite the same, and while their Marxist posturing was always clearly just posturing (after all this is EMI), it became too obvious to enjoy, as they strived more for pop hits. I don't know if that's actually true at all - I think I only heard Sara Lee-era Gang of Four once or twice - so maybe I should dig into Songs of the Free. We all know that the real radicals were just down the road -- the Mekons -- and yes, I will mention the Mekons approximately 40million more times here before we eventually make it to the Ms (2023?). There's a reason for that, though.

Gang of Four (Warner Bros.)

This EP came out between the first two Gang of Four records, though I always thought it predated Entertainment! for some reason. It's actually a step between the punchy, dancy iconic classic that is the aforementioned debut LP and the slightly less fun Solid Gold. I know this was supposed to be about revolution but "fun" is what I keep going back to, what's missing here. Yes, I want my Marxist disco to have some joy behind it! I understand the struggle was important to these guys (or at least they were very convincing) but 'Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time' is just a chore. I guess the terrifying reality of Thatcher's policies weren't anything to laugh about, but 'Armalite Rifle' manages at least to include some irony. If you've ever seen Urgh! A Music War (and you really, really should) then you'll know that *thwack!* sound at the beginning of 'He'd Send in the Army' is Jon King hitting the back of a chair. It seems menacing and powerful in that film, but on record it just sounds like something stuck to the needle. I'm not being kind to these songs, though I'd never part with this record. And they used to hang out with the Mekons so they get an eternal pass from me.

Gang of Four - 'Entertainment!' (EMI)

Entertainment! was so iconic when I was 19 years old that I can hear it note for note in my head without actually needing to listen to it. In recent years, the disco-Marxism doesn't sound so fresh, but I have enough nostalgia for being young and inspired that I can listen to this still with some sense of joy. Another good justification for dragging these heavy vinyl versions around with me, even though I could hear any of these songs on YouTube any time I wanted too - the fidelity, on a nice clean copy as I somehow procured, is just stunning. That gravy-sounding bass thud which opens 'Ether' is so clear and resonant when the record starts, and Hugo Burnham's drums actually sound like drums here, which presages the Steve Albini era of punk/rock production techniques. Does it all feel a bit silly now, like these guys really thought they'd change the world from their major label deal? Maybe, as a decade of unearthed gems from the true "DIY" scene reveal Gang of Four to be little more than pop-oriented hitmakers. But the edgy shards of guitar which came from Andy Gill's guitar meant something to me in the late 90s, just like it meant so much to those in the north in 1979. I recently watched that Mekons documentary which goes through their early years and particularly the friendship (or at least mutual scene-sharing) they had with Gang of Four, and it's clear that even then, people knew who was going to ascend to the charts and who would toil in decades of obscurity. I'm not sure why it matters; the slash and burn of 'Natural's Not In It' still brings a smile to my face, especially when coupled with Jon King's snarl. What more needs to be said about this record? Every song is a classic, and if it can turn one more teenager towards socialist politics, then it's continuing to work after 35 years. 'Anthrax' remains one of the more sophsticated deconstructions of romance put forth in the punk era, 'Damaged Goods' is the real hit, still played nightly in British discos (at least in the late 00s), and 'I Found That Essence Rare' coined a phrase I still use. I actually saw about six minutes of a reunion show (though I can't remember if it was the original lineup or the Songs of the Free one), at the legendary Thurston Moore-curated All Tomorrow's Parties in December 2006. I was pretty burned out having been on tour myself the last five weeks, and only stuck my head in briefly when Gang of Four was playing, precisely in the middle of 'Damaged Goods'. It felt rote, lifeless and formulaic, and though I realised that less than a decade earlier I would have been over the moon about it, at that point in my life, it just felt like another reunion cash-in. This isn't fair to messrs. King, Gill, Burnham and Allen, and certainly more a reflection of my own frame of mind than anything they may have intended originally or reunion-era, but something just hit me -- the real revolution would be aesthetic, and this danceaholic armchair leftism was just another opiate. I've mellowed since, and pleased to say how great this sounds again, in 2015.

Game Theory - 'Lolita Nation' (Enigma)

And here it is, the record that Game Theory's reputation is really founded upon, and Scott Miller's truest and most unencumbered statement of purpose. This is one of those cases where the notorious difficult double album really is their masterpiece; I'd say it's their Trout Mask Replica, except the length of Lolita Nation isn't due to impenetrable density (despite the bizarre avant-experiments on side three, one of which I will cut and paste the full title of here to make this post unnecessarily longer: 'All Clockwork And No Bodily Fluids Makes Hal A Dull Metal Humbert / In Heaven Every Elephant Baby Wants To Be So Full Of Sting / Paul Simon In The Park With Canticle / But You Can't Pick Your Friends / Vacuum Genesis / Defmarcos - Howsometh - Ingdotime - Salengths - Omethingl - Etbfollow - Afternoo - Ngetprese - Ntmomonti - Fthingswo - Ntalwaysb - Ethiswayt - Bcacausea - Bwasteaft - Ernoonwhe - Neqbmeret - Urnfromsh - Owlittleg - Reenplace - 27'). No, it's just kind of a LOOONG record, and new guitarist Donette Thayer is promoted to co-songwriter here, contributing a few like 'Look Away' and co-writing the brilliant opening hit 'Not Because You Can'. This is still an 80s pop record, so if you came expecting Schoenberg-influenced skronk, you've chosen incorrectly. Side one is about a perfect of a takeoff as you can get - the by-now standard Game Theory opening flash of amusical oddness, a brilliant first proper song ('Not Before You Can', which is all angles and tension before the singing finally delivers the money shot), and then it starts to get weird. But not too weird - the fragmentary 'Go Ahead, You're Dying To' is more like a hint of future worlds (some of which will be ruled by a certain Emperor Robert Pollard), and 'Dripping With Looks' is one of Miller's finest achievements ever, a fierce and soaring monster with a simple, drum-free arrangement that casts the song in a perfectly inappropriate heavy metal glow. As much as I've listened to Lolita Nation, I must confess side 1 has received about thirty times as much airplay as the other sides; 'We Love you Carol and Alison' and 'The Waist and the Knees' close it out, both amazing songs, and it would be a perfect, perfect EP if the other three sides were blank. But I'm not trying to diminish the rest of the record, which is consistent throughout, though there are a few dull spots (Thayer's 'Mammoth Gardens' is truly unremarkable, reminding me a little bit of Cyndi Lauper actually, and the instrumental 'Where The Have to Let You In', written by drummer/guitarist Gil Ray, feels like a wasted opportunity). The Thayer-sung contributions are mostly fine, if typical pop songs of the era, and neither can hang with heavyweight cuts like 'One More For St. Michael' or even 'Chardonnay' - there's an inventiveness, not just lyrically, but in how the songs fit together and are delivered, that is the Scott Miller Sound. Side three is the 'weird' side (aren't 'weird' sides always side 3??) but it just means there's more short experiments in between the 'real' songs, some of them perfect and some of them (such as the aforementioned  'All Clockwork And No Bodily Fluids Makes Hal A Dull Metal Humbert / In Heaven Every Elephant Baby Wants To Be So Full Of Sting / Paul Simon In The Park With Canticle / But You Can't Pick Your Friends / Vacuum Genesis / Defmarcos - Howsometh - Ingdotime - Salengths - Omethingl - Etbfollow - Afternoo - Ngetprese - Ntmomonti - Fthingswo - Ntalwaysb - Ethiswayt - Bcacausea - Bwasteaft - Ernoonwhe - Neqbmeret - Urnfromsh - Owlittleg - Reenplace - 27' being primitive and inconclusive, and not in a good way). The shorter song fragments are something Miller returned to years later for Loud Family's Days for Days, and a few (such as 'Exactly What We Don't Want to Hear') don't need to be any longer. Production-wise this is a bit glossier than Real Nighttime, with the keyboards and vocals even more prominent. The keyboard sound here is about as far away from the retro-hip analogue synths that became popular a decade later with bands such as Stereolab, Broadcast and the American Analog Set, and that's also part of the charm. Nothing here could ever sound like it wasn't made in 1987, but it's still somehow a unique beast that transcends the limitations of the zeitgeist. Miller's best work, probably, is really this, and it's not a concise or perfect vision - it's a sprawling, slightly messy cornucopia of ideas. But some artists are just more successful that way.

Game Theory - 'Real Nighttime' (Enigma)

Sometimes I feel like this is Game Theory's best record. It has a nice, full 80's pop production and a lot of guitars, and Miller's voice is given the right about of reverb and compression to make it really soar over these songs. And lyrically it also might have the right balance of the cryptic and relatable, though I like his more experimental verbal constructions. The text on the back cover is cryptic and feels like an Arno Schmidt translation, but the songs inside are only halfway there - 'She'll Be a Verb' is actually a fairly straight love song (if a slightly wistful one); '24' captures the confusion of maturity with no relation to the Red House Painters song of the same name. If you've ever read Miller's excellent book Music: What happened? you'll know he was heavily influenced by the dBs and Chris Stamey in particular; you can hear this influence probably most thoroughly on Real Nighttime of all his records, both in terms of melodic construction and the affect of his singing. Chilton and Big Star too, with 'You Can't Have Me' getting a cover version, though I'm not wild about this take, which seems to remove the pain from Chilton's delivery. The violent overtones of 'Friend of the Family' are echoed in the very punchy drum recording technique, a stomper that opens up in the chorus and is probably the best song on the record. But that's not discounting the brash opener '24', or the sinewy, chorus-laden riff of 'Curse of the Frontier Land'. The latter ambiguously questions success in the music industry or maybe it's just California he's talking about; either way, it's drenched in the imagery of decay and sadness, and odd and moving juxtaposition against Miller's youth-infused voice. You could argue this is almost overproduced, with phase and flange effects on the lead guitars, and keyboards pulsing in the corners of the mix. But I think it works really well. The concise 'I Turned Her Away' closes things out, and there's such a joyous feeling to this record that it makes me really sad Miller has left this earth. But there's even wilder frontiers ahead....

Game Theory - 'Blaze of Glory' (Rational)

'I never wanted to be tough', sings Scott Miller as the first line on this record, and that's sort of a career manifesto. It's not his debut release - there's the wonderful Alternate Learning LP from '81 - but it's the first one by Game Theory, and I've always viewed this as the Scott Miller band, so I take the Alternate Learning - Game Theory - Loud Family lineage as one more or less unbroken band (with apologies to Donette Thayer's later songwriting contributions). And it's impressive how fully-formed his vision is here. It begins with a snippet of more experimental sounds (like most GT records) before leading off with the one-two punch of 'Something to Show' and 'Tin Scarecrow', both brassy and buoyant. And the Sparks-like rave-up 'White Blues' follows, which ain't a bad tune either. Game Theory are such an exemplary band to me because they managed to sound very much of their milieu while being completely singular and remarkable at the same time - the cream of the crop, the crop in this case being early 80s college rock, or new wave, or Pasiley underground or whatever you want to call it. From this classification, I put them in the same league as This Heat, or the Art Ensemble of Chicago, or Animal Collective - brilliance within a vague framework of the then-'now' sound. The whole Paisley Underground thing I think came later and Game Theory were only really tangentially related to those neo-psych warriors; here, the psychedelia is restricted more or less to the lyrics, as the music is mostly bouncy post-punk with synth punctuations. Miller's voice has always been bright and somewhat effeminate (and an acquired taste which many people I've tried to turn on to his songwriting have never been able to develop), so any of the aggro edges from the fast-paced songs and bashing guitars are softened by this. This, like many first albums, is just a calling card for what's to come later with bigger and better production, which isn't meant to diminish the songwriting within; 'Bad Year at UCLA' is one of the earliest out-and-out classics by Miller,  and 'Stupid Heart' should make all the best-of mixtapes. His lyrics aren't yet as creative in terms of wordplay as what will come in the following decade, but even when grappling with the confusion of romantic feelings that takes place in one's early 20s, he displays a remarkable prescience and irony ('Date With an Angel'; 'All I Want is Everything'). I find myself listening to this just as much as the other ones, despite it's 'early' and 'rough' edges. Unfortunately my copy is packaged only in a plain 12" sleeve, so I'm missing part of the package.

Fugazi - 'The Argument' (Dischord)

The paradox about Fugazi is that as their records get technically better (meaning, more interesting, more distinct, more experimental and more mature) they become less enjoyable to listen to. Ah, I'm a product of my age, what can I say -- to me, the peak is somewhere between 1993's In On the Kill-Taker and 1995's Red Medicine (so, approximately 1994 - the year of In Utero and Bee Thousand). I'm probably still just kicking my pre-teen intelligence failure, because instead of going to see Fugazi in 1993, my MTV-addled brain chose to see fucking Porno for Pyros on the same night. I got my chance in '95 in a much larger venue, and suffered my first blast of tinnitus afterwards, from which I've never fully recovered. The next time I attempt a quiet walk through the forest and can't escape the ringing/hiss inside me, I'll think back to Guy Picciotto flipping out during 'Bed For the Scraping' 20 years ago and re-evaluate "was it worth it?". Anyway. I bought this record the day it was released and probably have played it twice since; this listen, here is like hearing a lost album by an old favourite, which is I guess what it is, though lost in plain sight. By 2001 I had moved on - it was all avant-drone and neo-psych and discovering the post-everything world. Anyway, you get my point - Fugazi didn't change, I did. Or, rather, Fugazi changed too but I wasn't listening; this album was bought mostly out of loyalty. Of course, it's good. It starts with some musique concrete, but no, it doesn't go that far, instead settling into a mid-tempo indie-punk sound with occasional moment of fire, what we now describe as Fugazi-esque. Guy sounds a bit like a cat being swung by its tail on 'Cashout', which follows the 'Public Witness Program'-esque precedent of track 2 being a Picciotto-sung stomper that most of their albums seem to have. Here, it's a tad bit slower, and the 'anthemic' elements are a wooooo-sound that could be background vocals but is actually just a droning guitar lead, I think. Actually, this sounds more like a classic "Fugazi" album than anything after In On the Kill-Taker, or at least side 1. 'Strangelight' opens side two with a moody, arepeggiated guitar line, and when it turns into a rock song, it resists the impulse to go for it. The overall sound of Dischord records really shifted in the late 90s, thinking about bands such as Faraquet and Smart Went Crazy, none of whom I really paid much attention to at the time but now strike me as brilliant, and almost forgotten.The Argument remarkably incorporates this influence while also synthesising it with the more aggressive roots; it's like the post-rock parts of Faraquet are left behind and the intangibles bleed through. There's no red meat for the kids (such as 'Great Cop' on Kill-Taker) but the evolution is felt, and the 'experimentation' is still quite palatable. The formula gets back on track with "Oh", where Joe Lally's bass is dominant and almost, I daresay, 'funky'. There's a fifth member (the guy from All Scars) present on most songs, not credited as a full band member but playing a second drumkit and percussion on other tunes, such as the aforementioned 'Strangelight'. It's not always easy to hear him, or know what he's really adding, but For many of us, who abandoned Fugazi by 2001, The Argument really comes across like a bizarro version of something familiar, and hindsight affords the space to start appreciating. Competing against the infinite streams of other tones available to these ears (and brain) is the true challenge.

Fucked Up - 'Hidden World' (Deranged)

When I heard Fucked Up it was a good five or six years after I had been semi-immersed into the punk and hardcore scene, and I was starting to feel a new wave of appreciation for these sounds. But the second time around, I didn't shy away from melody, I didn't care about the culture around this music - a new take on a familiar feeling was all I wanted, and thus I took interest in records like Jay Reatard's Blood Visions, and also this. Hidden World is arguably an updating of hardcore with contemporary themes circa 2006, shaking off the musical conservatism that saturated the HeartattaCk world and embracing any possibilities that were out there. These Canadians could certainly play with a fury, but they employed just enough pop sensibility to make them palatable to the Matador label, where they ended up after this - and soon started making weird pseudonymous fake compilations and concept albums. There's ideas bursting from both LPs of this set, and when they bring in, for example, a violin solo (at the end of 'Carried Out To Sea'), it feels like an organically integrated part of the composition and not just a gimmick like so many other "hardcore" bands use. The singer's name is Pink Eyes which is a nice take on all these bands from the time (Wolf Eyes, Frog Eyes, Black Eyes, Aids Wolf, Pink Frog, etc.) though maybe he just had conjunctivitis. It's a double album but doesn't feel long, presented well on nice thick vinyl with good mastering, as has become the fashion. I sort of remember the one after this, which I think got compared to Radiohead in the media, but I didn't hang with it for more than one listen, though I should re-visit it now. Maybe I'm most stimulated by records like this, where the really ambitious stuff is still following a template of a formula, a familiar sound; these subtle reinventions from something rooted are often the most inspiring (This Heat Deceit, anyone?). Fucked Up weren't the first hardcore band to have occult-leaning lyrics that deconstruct religion and myth, though maybe the way they do this without compromising their energy is what's special. Moss Icon's brainy, acid-drenched ramblings are maybe an influence, but there's a more coherent focus here, even if the lyrics are not necessarily more lucid. They also aren't the first band to have a mastery of rock songwriting, but they definitely do; the heard-it-before surface of 'David Comes to Life' or 'Two Snakes' belie the complexity underneath. When the bass and drums stop in the title track and a wall of strummed chugga-guitar builds up, and the band eventually comes crashing back in, it's tension-and-release straight from the Mission of Burma schoolbook - you know it's coming, but you're happy for the payoff (and then it ends with a melodic pattern of whistling). It all warps up with the 9-minute 'Vivian Girls', which is sadly not a Snakefinger cover, but an epic of its own, with march-like instrumental climax and a thick blanketing sound that's hard to escape from. This is such a great record, and thanks to this alphabetical project for reminding me it's here.

Frosted Ambassador (Kindercore)

The Frosted Ambassador is another in the long line of pseudo-anonymous LPs, except the man behind this one (Eric Harris of Olivia Tremor Control) never was very good at keeping the secret. Naming the project after an existing Olivia Tremor Control song (and one that Harris's drumming played a prominent role on) was a dead giveaway, and when I asked him in person years ago if this was his work, he denied it with a knowing smirk. Anonymity isn't necessary though; this isn't particularly mysterious music, descending from the Olivia's neo-retro-psych pop (and I realise 15 years after their heydey, the "neo" and "retro" parts of that silly descriptor are already anachronistic and meaningless). This is largely instrumental, but has a bit of singing on a few of the untitled songs (where space is provided on the sleeve to write in your own song titles) - mostly on the opener, which is a real barnstormer. This could have all the members of Olivia Tremor Control playing on it, because the trademarks are all there: 4-track psychedelia that pushes the limits of the format's fidelity in occasionally spellbinding ways; thick, fuzzy basslines; steady, often marching band-styled drumming, and lots of little instruments peering around the cracks. Everything is pretty organic, including the electronics, which are limited to tape manipulations,  simple Casio tones and beats, and effects-pedal processing. It's as colourful as the album art indicates, with fluttering rock chords offset by chimes, bells, ethnic instruments (though played in a fairly major-key manner), and the occasional field recordings or other samples. It's very palatable accessibility, and it really stands up nicely against the Olivia's "proper" albums. The more goofy, erratic parts are built around the tape manipulations, which even when they jerk around in a start-stop way, they have a warm melodiousness to them. The penultimate track is the deepest work, with thick slabs of sound over which a million melted video games battle for some sort of supremacy. Maybe this is the record for people who would like Olivia Tremor Control if they removed all of the Beatles influence - if you wanted OTC to sound more like Bügsküll, here's your ticket.

Edgar Froese - 'Aqua' (Virgin)

Your correspondent is not much of a Tangerine Dream fan, not really a massive fan of synthesiser records in general, with a few exceptions of course. I like retrofuturism as much as anyone else and I'm always intrigued by something that sounds novel and fucked up, but when it comes to sweeping, all-engulfing dronescapes, I generally prefer the reverberations of strings, guitars, and other acoustic instruments. This may be because I've owned a vinyl copy of Aqua for years, and this contains pretty much everything I'd want from a synth album. The title track's 17 minutes is almost enough - a slowly pulsing example of what the synthesiser is capable of. Lightweight, mid-range drones ascend and fall, and there's strange looping bubbles and gurgles overtop. The corners sound like the are infinitely expanding, making this a work of continual investigation rather than closure. The second side finds things getting a bit bouncier on 'NGC 891' and 'Upland', with more pings and pongs to go with the wet blankets. (I'm really bad at describing what synth music sounds like!) Despite being just over 45 minutes, Aqua feels long, with the two shorter pieces on each side feeling not superfluous, but like some sort of bonus track (on the original issue of the record). The liner notes suggest that side two should be listened to on headphones 'to appreciate fully the revolutionary artificial head system developed by gunther brunschen' but I didn't do this, because I'm terrible. and also cause my headphone cord isn't long enough. This is 1974, and while I've learned to mostly reject the dull narrative of rock in the 70s being all bloated cocaine music until punk came along, I can't help but feel that this must have been part of something, or at least seemed that way - it's not long after this that Eno's Discreet Music came along, and while that's a completely different beast, it certainly is within the realm of un-rock gestures. Tangerine Dream's output isn't wildly different from Aqua, at least from what I remember, but this is held together with the hand of a solo artist and that's clear throughout. I could probably learn to obsess over this record if I wanted to, but maybe that's a slippery slope to the whole genre.

Fred Frith / Bob Ostertag / Phil Minton ‎– 'Voice Of America' (Rift)

The melting radio pictured on the cover is a pretty accurate image for the sounds heard in the grooves - a mishmash of tape manipulations, found recordings, and radio static blended seamlessly with guitar, synth, homemade instruments and some vocals. It's two concert recordings, the first side being a duo of Frith and Ostertag and the flip adding Minton. The tone is, as you can imagine, pretty far from the more structured tonal material Frith was doing around the same time on Cheap at Half Price and very much descended from the modernist quilt of Cage's Variations IV. This isn't music for everyone, and even improv-heads might struggle to understand the interplay here, at least on the first side where warm, thick bands of the manipulated source material are often indistinguishable from the 'instruments' at play, though it doesn't matter much to me. This is highly politicised material (of course!), stemming from the Rock in Opposition thing I guess, because Ostertag made most of the recordings in Nicaragua and blends them in with recordings of Let's Make a Deal, and some chatter from Merlin Olson of the L.A. Rams. I know this because the liner notes delineate all of the source material and even 'lyrics', which is an impressive feat for an album of field/found recordings. The b-side, as a trio with Minton, is more sparse and 'classically' improvisational, at least in a Derek Bailey kind of way. It starts and stops in fits and feels more like the disjointed series of challenges that it is, at least compared to side one's thematic cohesion. Minton does some traditional voice work at the end but otherwise is happy to assimilate into Frith and Ostertag's cacophony. Frith only plays 'homemade instruments' here and they are skiffle-band sounding, with resonating thumps and plucks, suggesting maybe a wooden box with nails sticking out of it. Voice of America was, I believe, the name of a CIA-backed radio station, and this propagandistic element is turned inside-out through the extremely musical avant-garde, a technique which retains inspiration even thirty-three years later.

Fred Frith - 'Guitar Solos' (Caroline)

I have a near-reverential admiration for Mr. Frith as you probably saw way, way back when I "did" the Art Bears on here. The recent podcast interview he did on the 5049 podcast made me feel even more positive about him just from a personality point of view, and I daresay that listening to this record, his first solo release, I feel that personality come through. This is what its title purports it to be, and the liner notes explain how these are made without overdubs apart from the last track, and without editing apart form two notes removed on the beautiful 'Not forgotten'. Otherwise, this is pure guitar or prepared guitar, and while that purity doesn't matter so much to me these day, there's a certain 'what the fuck' sense on the first side. 'Glass c/w Steel' has an eerie echo throughout that maybe is from the glass or steel, but it sets an atmosphere that is still groundbreaking today in the realm of solo guitar, even today. The amplifier plays a pretty large role in 'Heat c/w Moment', where there's an almost gate effect caused by the overtones and whatever preparation is causing the strings to mute just after the attack stars. Frith's fingerwork isn't the centrepiece of Guitar Solos, though it's nothing to scoff at. But instead of going for dazzling, fast runs, he cuts the heavy motion with a strong sense of atmosphere. 'No Birds', the track with overdubs, reminds me of Pelt. It's actually two guitars played at once, at least on the middle part, and this part is smooth and nervous at the same time, two sliding lines trying to follow each other while skirting the overall orbit. It concludes with a harmonic finish, the sound of "pure" electric guitar ringing out, in a playful pattern with its own overdubbed partner; at moments Reichian, and throughout a work of utter beauty. It's easy to self-categorise records like this under the 'improv' genre, as if this was like an innumerable Derek Bailey release, but this listen (my first in years) reveals a stunningly careful construction that makes this feel closer to a modern classical composition (at least on certain tracks). It's crazy to me that this is Frith's first solo release because it sounds as complete and thought-out as something that a master would spend decades crafting, which is not to say that he didn't evolve further after this. That never-ceasing reinvention and evolution is something that inspires me as much as the music does. May he keep on going forever and may future generations have the same thrill of discovering his work that I did.

Friendship Next Of Kin featuring Selwyn Lissack - 'Facets of the Univers' (Goody)

I used to know a guy who used 'Selwyn Lissack' as his Internet handle, which is a wonderfully obscure choice. This is the only LP by this group, a free bashabout led by two South Africans, Lissack on drums and Mongezi Feza's inimitable pocket trumpet. There's a bunch of British stars of the time present, most notable Harry Miller and Mike Osborne, who are no strangers to playing with these South Africans. And unlike Miller's own band, or the Chris McGregor Brotherhood of Breath, this is much more akin to the continental sounds of the time (1971), sounding like it could be an Italian band with Steve Lacy or something like that. Side one gets revving with the title track, with 'universe' spelled correctly on the label and song title, just incorrectly in the album title. There's some piano that is uncredited, though the Internet tells me it's second bassist Earl Freeman, and it's sparse enough to really set the tone when it's audible. This has that sorta shitty recording quality that affects so many jazz records from the time; Lissack's clattering is all sticks and cymbals with some ramshackle thuds; the highs of Osborne's alto and Feza's toy cut through everything and there feels like no middle. But despite all of this, it's great. It rumbles and growls, and when the brass erupts it's pretty intriguing, though I'm not sure if my verbal description here differs from any of the other free jazz records I've written about in these annals over the past six years. The b-side is one long track bearing the name of the group, which starts as a quieter exploration under a long spoken poem. I'm not sure who is speaking - the voice is male, and sounds African-American - I don't think it's Lissack cause there's no South African accent, but possibly the American Freeman. The recording is still as lackluster as the first side, especially on the spacious parts, which sound like they were recorded from down a long hallway. The spoken word is one of the more colourful passages of its type, with spirited absurdities and an earnest timbre to the delivery. When the two basses take over (one bowing, one walking) it moves the proceedings into a somber area that feels incongruous with the first half. But then it explodes, and this is where Lissack shines, pounding away with determination and style. The piano makes long glissando runs and Feza is once again the star. At times, there is a 'swing' vibe to this, but it never goes out of control or becomes too formulaic. Despite the flaws of the recording this is a favourite of mine, particularly due to the quite impressive scope of sounds explored on 'Friendship Next of Kin' (side B). Lissack apparently turned to painting in the late 70s but also appeared on the über-rare Ric Colbeck The Sun is Up LP, which for some reason still hasn't been reissued.