Hugh Hopper - '1984' (CBS)

'This is a very angry record,' starts the liner notes, though I don't really hear it - I hear something exploratory, cautious, and with great moments of drama. Maybe Hopper's found a way to process anger, to work with it and churn it into something beyond piercing bile. Hopper's the bassist from Soft Machine and on this first solo record he really goes into the outer limits, taking the (then-)sci-fi theme of 1984 as a starting point and really running off to create something otherworldly. There's a lot to be said about CBS releasing a record this experimental in 1973 - all of this from the corporation who would later bring you Kevin Can Wait! Hopper spends most of this record attacking his bass guitar from a gestalt angle, generating soundscapes with additional percussion and something called a mellophone. The long, moody opener 'Miniluv' sets the tone, consisting of deep bass drones that slowly explore the available space - it's a track very rooted in physical existence, reminding me of Maryanne Amacher's drone installation pieces, or something that would be on the French Futura label in the same decade. The second side's 'Miniplenty', also a long one at 18 minutes, picks up where this leaves off and incorporates some weird percussive sounds. There was an occasional twitchy, staticky sound that kept making me jump, mixed in a way suggesting that there's something happening on the other side of my flat and not in the record itself. It's a great effect and it adds to the nervousness of the buildup, which eventually gets resolved at the end of the record in a cacophony of sounds. There's some thick synth riffs, sound a bit like square waves, and other parts that you swear could be lifted from a Wolf Eyes cd-r circa 2004. There's only one track which stops this from being a total new age, dark psychedelic abstraction from start to finish, and that's 'Minipax I', which resembles a bit of a jazz-rock thing. It's not bad and has some sharp soprano saxophone playing by Lol Coxhill, but it sticks out like a sore thumb. I don't know if this was pressure from CBS to make something that would be more palatable to Soft Machine fans (and could actually be played on the radio) or if Hopper really wanted to include this - the same band works out more extended techniques later. And I suppose the only thing that makes it so identifiably 'jazz-rock' is that the instruments sound like the traditional instruments they are, and not like a Heldon outtake; as a composition I guess you could say it fits the mood of the record, with crunchy guitar chords and a slightly motorik beat. It's a minor quibble; 1984 is a great fucking record and doesn't really need those few extra minutes but they're not without their pleasures.

Guru Guru - 'Dance of the Flames' (Atlantic)

Guru Guru, on a wider release (and American major label) get back to business with the crunchy rock-riffage found on side one of the self-titled album. It's not a genre I'm super qualified to critique, but after typing this I realise how 'rockist' this vinyl accumulation is. I've always liked things on the cerebral side, but weirdly as I grow older the gut-punching guitar epics make more and more sense to me. It's like I'm aging in reverse, or maybe the few times I've read Carducci's Rock and the Pop Narcotic sunk in, and I have a real appreciation/understanding of what makes a rock band great (and ignore all the homophobic stuff in there). So yeah, Guru Guru know how to shred and this for the most part resembles the first side of the previous record, not the spacey, sci-fi second. But things start opening up a bit on 'The Girl from Hirschorn', containing a long, long shredding guitar solo before a nice singing part comes in, the pieces slows to a gentle 60's psych vibe, and concludes. It's well-recorded too, sounding like a psychedelic rock record should, and maybe the two sides of Guru Guru find symbiosis here. 'Samba Das Rosas' is the album's other wildcard, being a genre exercise in samba, with the guitarist singing in a falsetto and a nice atmosphere - no one does samba like a bunch of Germans from Heidelberg!  'Rallulli' is the record's most collectively improvised feel, sounding like Dutch free jazz in the beginning before the almighty rhythm comes in, though it stays acoustic (including upright bass) and sneaks around without ever getting settled. On the rare times I listen to Guru Guru this is a record to skip around rather than play straight through - I prefer the previous record's second half for the focused listen and there's about 40 other albums I could investigate were I so inclined. This band still exists! And when one thinks about how a rock band can persevere for almost a half-century without major commercial success, it makes one see a sort of musical purity there, even if that's just a bit of hindsight and conjecture. Sometimes I like to pronounce the word 'guru' as guh-ROO, like if I'm describing some weird yoga instructor in a mocking way; and saying guh-ROO guh-ROO as a band name is almost as funny as saying "zed zed Top". If I were to rank my favourite rock bands Guru Guru are probably somewhere around 286th, or maybe lower, but that's still pretty high if you think about how many rock bands there are.

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!