Kark - 'The Hermit' (HP Cycle)

Time has forgotten Kark already and this, like so many HP Cycle releases, exists in the utterly weird vacuum of mid-00s experimental music which sort of congealed around a 'scene' but also sorta didn't. File alongside the Maniacs Dream record or the Boots/CC/Snake & Remus box - what a great fucking label, and I wish it was still operating. Kark were from Louisville and may have been 100% the same lineup as Sapat, a band which has been kicking around forever and who released two great LPs that also are never talked about. Of course, Sapat was a shifting lineup of just about every weirdo freak who ever picked up a sound-making device within the greater Louisville region, so Kark being 100% overlap doesn't really mean anything. More likely, Kark are just the more jazz-orientated members of Sapat emphasising the horns and the swing or whatever characteristics make one file a record in the 'jazz' section instead of 'pop/rock'. As faithful readers realise by now, I make no such distinctions by genre and only trust the infallible alphabetical order as my organising principle, but I would still call Kark 'jazz' or at least 'jazzy'. The first side opens with a slow, creeping modal workout that is heavily middle-eastern in tone and builds into an explosive cacophony. For a few minutes in the centre of the side every goes at it with MAXIMUM ENERGY which means skronk, squeals, screaming and blast beats underneath it all. When this movement passes, it starts to get really interesting and wobbly; you can hear the big, cavernous space they are all jamming in and the ensemble is large, I'd guess somewhere between six and fifteen people though it's hard to tell for sure. This circling around a pulse eventually takes form as a thick, stomping dirge that's rhythmically so primitive it's brilliant, and around this you hear horns and cymbals and bowed bass finding a centre again. It's a beautiful side of music created by a bunch of outsiders to the jazz context, as far as I know, since the musicians are uncredited (the only liner notes being a cryptic strip of doodle-on paper). By the end it slows down to an ambient whisper, a fadeout drone, which segues nicely into the flip, an unbanded side-long piece that starts from a spare, spooky room jam. This continues the vaguely middle-eastern vibe heard on side 1, but for a longer stretch, with the musicians giving each other lots of space to probe and resonate. It's a beautiful slice of Kentucky exotica, and when it again swells into a huge epic blowout, it's actually a bit disappointing, though surely cathartic for the musicians – but the space is what's so beautiful and unique. This is a live recording, though a pretty clear one, where the echo of the room is very much a part of the music and somehow things don't get too lost once the drums start to rumble. A surprising breakdown into a double-bass driven riff, counterpointed by electric piano or some other form of keyboards, recalls the Art Ensemble/Fontella Bass's 'Theme de Yo-Yo' for a second or two, and an enthusiastic audience is audible during a momentary lull. The Hermit breathes with life and is really fun, fierce in places but neither overly groove-based nor head-scratchingly avant. It seems to assimilate a lot of influences into a group approach that shares a view about music, and it's obscure status relegates this surely to the 'hidden gem' category, after only a decade.

Eyeless in Gaza - 'Drumming the Beating Heart' (Cherry Red)

My other experience with Eyeless in Gaza comes a year after Photographs as Memories, finding a bolder production, maybe slightly toned-down singing, and some long-form instrumental explorations in 'Dreaming at Rain'. (Great choice of a preposition there, guys!) Maybe the 80's changed everyone because I hear a more 4AD sound here - not that Photographs didn't had a liberal use of synth textures and reverb-laden vocals, but it has the more polished, more churchy vibe here which makes me think of Dead Can Dance or Dif Juz. 'Veil Like Calm' sounds practically epic, compared to the first albums relative raggedness; there's not only more confidence here, but a more unified vision perhaps. At this point, Eyeless in Gaza sound like Eyeless in Gaza and no one else. It's still unmistakably capturing a mood and time that is long past, yet elements surface in the popular sounds of today. I keep going back to the aforementioned 'Dreaming at Rain' - it's clearly the dark horse on the album, yet feels a product of writing the rest of the songs -- the end of an organic process, perhaps. I don't mean to harp on Bates' voice, which is wonderful and expressive - but here, especially on side two, he stretches it into something flowing and responsive rather than just over-the-top dramatic. There's more instrumentation that guitars here (as there was on the first, but even moreso) and the plinky-plonks and bells and whistles occasionally create a tapestry of pure tortured beauty. Despite these new romantic tendencies (and the album title) this never strays into too maudlin territory. An underrated gem.

Car Commercials - 'Eric's Diary' (Soft Abuse)

Clearly this is some sort of companion piece to Judy's Dust, as it has a similar title, the same style of paste-on covers and the same inversion of teenage nostalgia/futurism. The sounds inside, though, take such an alien, unsettled gambit that it's almost impossible to reach inside this bauble. The few vocal hooks that peer out of Judy's Dust feel like Top 40 compared to Eric's very strange Diary. It's a bit hard to tell what's what, since there seems to be an extra song on each side, but there's much more of a keyboard presence here, though played somewhat ironically on the (aptly titled) 'Teenage Pact' -- the Casio sounds are pushed to the forefront over manic drummin' and strummin', and it serves to isolate Car Commercials' apparent disinterest in their own music. There's less warbly walkman shit here, but the fidelity isn't any better - this is almost like the outtakes of Judy's Dust. 'Bad Plans in Action' and 'In A Hallway' use maddening guitar figures - any sort of riff has disintegrated, leaving only the excess gestures. Vocals, as well, are far more in the stream-of-consciousness/yelping style, though the lyrics are clear enough if you want to suss out whatever these guys are on about. The snare drum and feedback squeals are the punctuation of this otherwise unending miasma. It's a strange and challenging trip, for sure; and though it has the same sonic elements as the 7" and first LP, yet somehow it feels stark and bare. There's a part just before 'Oh My God, it's happening' where my record skipped and it made a rather infectious rhythm loop, but the rules of this game dictate that I had to bump the stylus along. And what came next? More feedback, muttered words and cold clattering. The closing tracks on each side are the most extreme of any Car Commercials vision to date. 'Everything Hurts Me' is long and tough-going -- it's attenuated towards painful yelping and frustrated outbursts, and it starts to take on a hall of mirrors quality. The end of side 2 ('Blew It') which may actually be two tracks (it's hard to tell) is the opposite - sparse, bare, and the most Shadow Ring-style they've ever done --- except minus all the attitude, just bathed in awkwardness. in the middle is a huge piece of silence, and then a fragmentary church-organ coda (maybe this is the bonus track? ). The typewritten track listing has what's clearly intentional typos, certainly a metaphor for the music, so maybe this is Pussy Galore refracted through 15 subsequent years of avant-damage. This is the type of record that I could become easily obsessed over, as it makes me want to keep exploring it's unlit corridors, even though I know there's no fun there.

Burning Star Core - 'Brighter Summer Day' (Thin Wrist)

Has this been ten years already? Thin Wrist catalog #B, a label that does them alphabetically, which will have to fold after release #Z? This is C. Spencer Yeh's first vinyl long-player, with two side-long beasts showcasing the sound construction of his project back in 2000. As elegantly-packaged as LPs come, this is a super thick vinyl pressing that really makes the deep tones ring, particularly on side A's 'A Brighter Summer Day'. This track is immensely powerful, with thick layers of violin constantly combining and recombining microtonally into a bulldozer of sound, simultaneously occupying every available frequency. There are electronics as well, and additional electronics by another player, though it's hard to distinguish what is what. There's a percussive element to these "electronics", sounding like a rollercoaster ripping through the sun. The electronic sense is far more prevalent on the B-side, 'Baybe It Wasn't Meant to Me', a 16 minute set of 'sleep deprivation experiments' performed on a 'computer', of course a catch-all for who knows what source material. We get synthesisers, field recordings, and natural acoustics but heavily processed and constructed in a piecemeal manner. Unlike side A's horizontal vision, this does a few abrupt about-faces, challenging in its internal logic. Circular, maybe, or a spiral that changes direction a few times? An underrated track for sure, and one that certainly feels influenced by Oval as much as Ash Ra Tempel. There's a sealed envelope in here that I never broke the seal on, not that I am typically collector scum but I saw what was inside someone else's (back when this came out) so I never opened mine. Of course, I've forgotten what was in there, and now I don't want to open it cause this is a nine-year old antique LP! As a first LP, I think it's an impressive debut. It certainly suggests both sides of what is to come - side A presages the violin-driven improvised elements (often now performed under his own name) and side B hints at the incredibly constructed, composed soundworlds that populate later LPs like Challenger. If anything, these two sides have become intertwined and indistinguishable.

Anthony Braxton - 'Six Compositions (Quartet) 1984' (Black Saint)

Just a year later and we find Marilyn Crispell's piano replacing George Lewis's trombone. And what an incredibly different quartet this is, with just that one change! Of course, this could be attributed to Braxton's compositions, since these six compositions are much tighter and more darkly inflected than 1983's double-pair. At the end of the liner notes, the man thanks the performers for their contributions on this record, with the telling: "After all is plotted and theorized it is still the musicians who must in the final analysis 'make the music live'." My point is, these contrapuntal chord changes, heistations, and slow embarkations into modal melodies can only be written off as improvised to a certain degree. This was recorded in New York so maybe the ugly spectre of mid-80's Reaganism hangs over everything like a cloud. This isn't to say these pieces are miserable or depressing, just not as quirky and bombastic as the band with George Lewis. 'Composition No. 110D', or 'Nickie Journeys into the City of Clouds To Make a Decision' might imply something in its title; of these six pieces, this one straddles the dark and somber tones with some lively, snare-drum accentuated songclouds. Most of these pieces have these very unified moments where the musicians rise and fall together, turning on the same chords in a very regal, march-like manner. Repetition, when used, takes on an almost mind-numbing quality. And Braxton's horn has a much richer reverb on it than what we're used to -- and when he plays flute, it's practically ethereal. Pictorally, the titles are less based on geometric shapes but actually employing weird little icons - a bicycle, a dove, a trapeeze -- and a hooded figure giving a blessing, which also helps with the medieval vibe I get from this. (Just like the robes on the back cover photo of the 1980 piano record!). Side one is actually the slower side, as the last two pieces at the end of side two get into some fairly free-form and dare-I-say "jazz" moments - Hemingway and Lindberg lumber around but can't deny their impulse to swing. Solos are few but nice - Lindberg has a particularly knee-slapping, nervous one that has a pretty nice tinny underbite to it. And we like underbites here. But if this is the second part of a trilogy -- admittedly, not a real trilogy but one that I have invented, where these three album are linked by being a) all quartets, b) all on Black Saint in the mid-80s, and c) all purchased at the same time for £4 each -- then it's fine for the second part to be a bit ponderous.

Birdsongs of the Mesozoic - 'Magnetic Flip' (Ace of Hearts)

Fast-forward to 1984 - Burma is pretty much done and now Birdsongs of the Mesozoic can open up their wings and soar. This record explodes, sounding a zillion times more confident than the debut EP does. Partially this is because of the recording - the drums are pounding, the electric guitars burn, and the you can feel the energy coursing through the microphones. But the band's performances are far more lively, feeling like a dynamic unit here instead of a series of academic overdubs like on the EP. The mix-tape highlight is the cover of the theme from Rocky and Bullwinkle, but they tackle Rite of Spring too. And they do it well! But the original compositions have much more of a flow to them. The opening cut, 'Shiny Golden Snakes', is built around shards of electric guitar that sound like they're sampled from a Gang of Four record. There's confident RIO/prog strides here but there's still a heavy focus on tapes and collages. I think if anything, Magnetic Flip sounds more like Mission of Burma, but if Chris Cutler had replaced Peter Prescott. 'The Fundamental' is a crashing cacophony of thunderous density that explores rhythm, texture and tone all at the same time. The piano is no longer the lead instrument, sharing time equally with everyone else, but when it's played there's less flowery runs and more punchiness. It's like Miller feels that he is running out of time, or something. The last cut, written by organist Rick Scott, takes on a somewhat new-agey feel through it's synth clouds. Perhaps this presages the crystal/jazz direction they went towards after Miller and Swope left. Supposedly Miller quit Mission of Burma because of his tinnitus, but Magnetic Flip is a loud record. Given the progression from Sproton Layer to MoB to BotM, you can certainly hear the sound of someone who is relentlessly looking for new directions in music; I suspect this need for self-reinvention was somewhat of a motivation for his departure from both bands. Of course the reformed Burma probably destroys that bit of pop-psychology. There's probably some good stuff in the post-Swope/Miller Birdsongs records just like there's probably some good jams on those late-70s Soft Machine records; but with all the other stuff out there to hear, I'll probably never find out for sure.