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.

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.

The Feelies - 'No One Knows' (Coyote)

There's not much to this 12" - it's an extended single, marked on the label as 45rpm but actually 33rpm, so you don't even get better sound quality on the two Good Earth tracks, 'the High Road' and 'Slipping (Into Something)'. Well, I guess you do, as a shorter run time means it can be mastered louder, but I couldn't tell. They are great songs, and the two b-sides are both covers - the Beatles, again, with 'She Said, She Said', not quite as luxuriously reinvented as 'Everybody's Got Something to Hide Except for Me and My Monkey' but with a nice psychedelic vibe - a thicker middle than most of the other songs from this period. 'Slipping (Into Something)' is a pretty great song, with very minimal vocals and a thick, accelerating ending that builds to an inevitable But then the kicker - a cover of Neil's 'Sedan Delivery', done in the same tossed off way as the Beatles cover. This is faithful, and the high pitched voice is even accurate, though out of character. The singing on both of these covers has an exuberance that hasn't been heard since Crazy Rhythms and that's very, very welcome - the saving grace of an otherwise unnecessary EP.

Essential Logic - 'Beat Rhythm News - Waddle Ya Play ?' (Rough Trade)

It's easily been a decade since I last listened to this, so it's like hearing it for the first time. Essential Logic is built around Lora Logic, the saxophonist in X-Ray Spex, who comes to the forefront here as songwriter and lead vocalist. It's much less herky-jerky than I remember it being. I daresay this is closer to pop music than anything radical or abrasive, though with weird punk girl vocals (not really a million miles away from Cyndi Lauper) and brassy jazz bits. But was 'punk', in the UK at least, ever supposed to be more than a new form of pop? Logic's songwriting is strong, which I've always overlooked about Essential Logic before. This isn't the verbal territory of 'O Bondage, Up Yours!', but one of more abstract, poetic observations (which is possibly why she clicked so well with Mayo Thompson). The catchiest tune is 'Wake up', which for some reason doesn't have lyrics printed, but it's a perfect guitar hook that moves quickly beyond any trappings of it's milieu. 'Shabby Abbott' does critique organised religion but it's not so obvious, instead built around domestic awareness. Logic is a saxophonist so that's featured on every song, with additional sax by Dave Wright, arranging songs like 'World Friction' into thick, big-band style interplay with a slightly discordant lean. 'Albert Albert Albert' is about as challenging as it gets, with some Sonic Youth chord cadences and some really distinct song structures; closer 'Popcorn Boy' descends into a marching band chant for the album's final moments, and it's an accomplishment, as is the album as a whole. Shit, this is a really great record, and it feels somewhat underrated now (as it's been a decade since all this stuff got reissued and hyped up). Let's keep it in our consciousness. I'm curious about finding a copy of Logic's solo LP, Pedigree Charm -- maybe by the time I reach the L's, I will have found one.

Can - 'Soon Over Babaluma' (United Artists)

I really like records that have that shiny, mirrored cover, even though when they are 35 years old (in this case) they really start to look shitty, almost like the sleeve is going rusty. I never know how to rate Soon Over Babaluma. This is Can's first album without an exclusive vocalist, but should that matter? Future Days, which somehow disappeared from my accumulation, is one of my favourite Can records, perhaps the one where they most truly explore the idea of 'Inner Space'. Soon Over Babaluma actually amps things up a bit, but there's a really strong Italian prog influence. It's heard most notably on "Splash', though since this LP is so beaten I couldn't get all the way though that track without having to pick up the stylus FOUR TIMES to circumvent skips. Michael Karoli and Irmin Schmidt are more than adequate vocalists for this type of music, which is frantic, yet horizontal; it finds a nervousness and stays locked between two poles, oscillating in a way that allows Karoli to do some lead guitar heroics. 'Chain Reaction' is the longest track here, at 11 minutes, but it doesn't really get into the more bizarre soundregions the earlier albums explore. When it breaks, it sorta rolls with a funk/jazz feel. The basslines are properly monotonous, but Can has migrated by this point into a (very, very good) prog-rock band. It's still great music on that level, but it's not the truly special sound explorations we heard on 'Peking O'. And I hate to say it, but it feels compositionally scattered. Jaki has moved from drums to "perc." and you can hear it here - this resembles King Crimson's Starless and Bible Black-style Fripp leads + wacky percussion. Or maybe that's Lark's Tongues, I always forget which one has the extra percussionist. The maracas and shakers tend to overwhelm things. There's not nearly as much space in these songs, but there's certainly a more sci-fi feeling (just look at the cover)! 'Dizzy Dizzy' and 'Come Sta. La Luna' are the two leadoff tracks and potential singles, though if you listen to a hit like 'Spoon' and then come back to this, well, it's just not the same. 'Come Sta. La Luna' is Irmin singing and it sounds like some dark miscreant horror movie spawn; it's oddball even in the diverse catalogue of Can and one that's sure to be repeated. 'Quantum Physics' is the closer, a dark piece that's hard to really sort out, but it has some nice textural work. I stop after this, with Can, though a bit of the later stuff I've heard is very very nice, probably in a way that if it were any other band, I'd listen to lots. But because it's Can, my standards are too high.