Double Leopards - 'A Pebble in Thousands of Unmapped Revolutions' (Eclipse)

When I ordered this I only knew that it was a new band from a former member of Un, a semi-forgotten Siltbreeze band from the 90s built around chaos and beauty dissolving into each other. Double Leopards of course became one of the flagship artists of the 2000s, and this, their second album, was a major starting point for what unfolded. With drones built from vocals and other unidentified sources, Double Leopards are masterful in generating long, horizontal soundscapes. The first side is made up of delicate rumblings, deep echoing drones, and smaller detailed accents. The source material is undeniably organic, and it's bathed in a warm bliss. It moves quickly despite being so minimal, and this makes side two's opener, 'Garments In The Midst Of My Vestures', almost jarring. This track is heavily effected with phasers, flangers, and/or ring modulation, and the overt space-case approach puts this into a more complex acoustic realm. It stays within a strict dynamic range though - a product of the home recording, I'd guess - and while it likes to roar, it never violates its boundaries. The final cut returns to the organic warmth of the first side but from a much more yearning, crying voice. And while human voices are probably a major part of the source material, it sounds magically human yet inhuman yet probably human, a double inversion for these double leopards.

Tod Dockstader - 'Quatermass' (Owl)

Here's a classic of musique concrete where it's wonderful to have the original LP - not just for it's aesthetic value as B&W creepy otherworldly sound artefact, but for the liner notes. Sure, you can probably find them online, but it's wonderful to read them while hearing the nearly 50 year old drones and tones float off the surface of the platter. This is one to listen to with turntable dustcover UP! Quatermass sounds a lot like the other pieces of its time - the San Francisco tape music experiments of Ramon Sender, Pauline Oliveros, etc; the 50s work of Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luenig; and all the other stuff compiled on that Ohm box set from awhile back. It sounds a lot like them in that it's recorded to showcase the new possibilities of oscillators, close-mic'ing everyday objects (Tod says in the liner notes that some of the sounds are just balloons and adhesive tape!) and tape loops. But every one of these artists has their own distinct personality, which is why this is music and not just a technical experiment. Quatermass is a 5-part movement and it begins and ends with 'songs', the term used fairly loosely though there is a harmonic and melodic structure evident. Warbles, wiggles and burps underlie the soaring high-pitched assonance, and it establishes a mood, wrought with drama and lurching. Sometimes it sounds like a gong or some other acoustic percussion is used, often to quickly change the feel of a sequence - there's silence and then space, and the reverberation can take its course before the next sound comes in. When it gets thick, it's never too much - the dense slabs of sound have their place and the more active busy parts all have such clear purpose that it's not a noisy freakout. I love the motion here, particularly in 'Tango', when there's a dizzying array of back and forth. This is a stereo LP, recorded in 1966 though the original tapes were from '64, and I wonder how much variation we get. 'Parade' closes out side 1 with some of the harshest bits, a true cataclysm of darkness, though Dockstader's sci-fi tendencies are quite enjoyable, never as apocalyptic as they could be.

Deerhunter - 'Halcyon Digest' (4AD)

A disturbing, matte cover. White vinyl. Many typefaces. Sadness lingers, sticky from the residue of Microcastle just a few hours earlier. When it bounces, it bounces, but I keep going back to brittle suburban concrete, the sounds of parking lots strewn with tire streaks. Darkness always doesn't make much sense, or is it since? So many typefaces in conflict, but that's the errant afterthought of language which flows through this and so many other Cox-penned platters; words blow across this parking lot, carefully chosen as they are, and different bits stick. Bright lights, dim glows; it's not a contradiction. Memory is everywhere - it seeps through the cracks in the guitar arpeggios, dripping down like oil over every surface. Explicitly called in titles and lyrics, but that's always been there. Let's leave the death trip behind for the real pain is in living. Or something likethat. And yet this is done with so many major key uplifts, the delicate taste of building soundramps, a band coming together to create a vision with less reliance on the wet, processed soups and a strange drive towards, well, accessibility. It's not just a teenage nostalgia at play here; it's movies, shot on super-8, of dusty rooms slightly out of focus, with no people to be seen. There's an absence of affect at times, despite the strains of emotion in the voice ('Basement Scene')!  And when it's pointed - 'He Would Have Laughed', dedicated to Jay Reatard who after all covered 'Fluorescent Grey' so brilliantly - the loss is just all the more bigger, cast over with a withdrawn pallor. Halcyon it is, the next great step forward. The 'other guy' wrote two songs here, and my god are they great - 'Fountain Stairs' rings out like complex bubblegum, magic and delicate. It's Deerhunter at their best, and perhaps their masterpiece they'll never top. But I wait.

Deerhunter - 'Cryptograms/Fluorescent Grey' (Kranky)

Somehow Deerhunter have crept into my life and become this powerful, meaningful band - the kind of rich n' deep artistes that fulfill almost everything I'm looking for in music (but struggle to continually find as I get older). Big words I guess, but I mean them -- there hasn't been an indie/rock artist that I've connected to this much in years. My love affair really began with Microcastle, but Cryptograms, the predecessor, is also fantastic. It's a strangely structured album, and this 2xLP reissue spreads it awkwardly over three sides, making it even harder for me to view it through the traditional bipartite rock album lens. Deerhunter would have never belonged on Kranky during their early Labradford/Bowery Electric/Tomorrowland days, but in recent years the label has embraced more song-based efforts and this record's pretty much a perfect fit. Bradford Cox began his ascent into the pantheon of great contemporary songwriters here, but it was a sneaky climb. Some of the catchiest songs on Cryptograms are crammed into the back, like 'Strange Lights' and 'Haze St.' - the former could have been a bright, brassy college radio hit, at least in my college days. In terms of album sequence,  Deerhunter here continually shift between the songs and the more ambient workouts, of which 'White Ink' and 'Red Ink' are the centerpieces. The most brilliant thing about Deerhunter is not this dichotomy though, nor the moments of integration when the sound exploration is built around a strong song (such as the dazzling title track, or the thunderous 'Octet'); the brilliance is in Cox's songwriting, which attains some of the most true melancholy I've ever listened to, but in a subtle way. Emotionally, Cryptograms doesn't jump out at me as much as the later records, but I haven't really invested myself in this album as much as the subsequent two. I know that any investment will pay off as it has for Microcastle and Halcyon Digest - this is a band in a brilliant run of music right now and I don't know where it's going to end. Cryptograms is building up to this wave, but not quite there yet. However, this lovely gatefold release is packaged with the Fluorescent Grey EP, and this is precisely the moment where the brilliant run begins. These four songs are about as perfect as things get, Deerhunter's Watery, Domestic. I really do think of Deerhunter like Pavement because I think Cox might be my favourite songwriter since them, and there seems to be as much depth, to me, in these songs, as in Malkmus's 'Greenlander' or 'Home'. The title track of the EP is where the creep factor begins - it's an exploration of death and obsession, lyrics almost perfectly underwritten, and it's just a great achievement. 'Dr. Glass' sets down a misleading groove with a fun woodblock/handclap accent, though it's about useless bodies. And this is what I love again - the subtle darkness, disguised by a flamboyant, psychedelic colour, yet it's not exactly like other psych music. 'Wash Off' is among my favourite Deerhunter songs too, and an excellent way to end (more so than 'Heatherwood' ends Cryptograms, which seems to demand a nonexistent coda). It's sharp and smooth at the same time, twisting around with wicked caresses. "I was sixteen" is the refrain, the counterpoint to "You were my god/in high school", making this EP really about adolescence, which of course rhymes with fluorescence. So fucking good. Please keep it coming.

Elvis Costello & the Attractions - 'Armed Forces' (Columbia)

This time the Attractions get billed, showing a move away from the cult of personality created by My Aim is True. Maybe this is why I hear this as a more cohesive band record, in everything from the keyboard arrangements of 'Senior Service', the group playfulness of 'Big Boys', or the backing vocals throughout the LP. We are a tad closer to new wave but also with a musical sophistication not heard on This Year's Model. And lyrically, Costello is taking a step to more global themes with 'Oliver's Army', the memorable hit from this record, along with '(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding', which appears on this US pressing. 'Peace, Love and Understanding' is a great ending to the record, though to be honest, it doesn't fit; Elvis' snarled, bold vocalising is out of place with the rest of the LP, and it feels a bit tacked-on, despite being an iconic tune. There's quite a few great songs, because this was really the peak of his songwriting prowess, still poised on that balancing beam of relevancy. 'Army' is a somewhat complex one, dealing with Northern Irish political conflict but through the disguised format of the upbeat pop song. It pisses all over U2, but that's not tough is it? But despite this new theme, Armed Forces has plenty of classic Elvis Costello bile. 'Green Shirt' retains that jilted bitterness that made the first two records so great, even if the arrangement is more 80's radio friendly and the production infuses the song with a confidence almost disregarding it's lyrical angle. This confidence is heard in a strong drum sound (check out 'Chemistry Class' which has none of the ragged edge of a tune like 'Lipstick Vogue' or 'Miracle Man') and lots of keyboards - piano, and synth assonance between the gaps. The original title of the album, still printed in the liner notes, was 'Emotional Fascism' and that's a wonderful gem to chew on.

Shirley and Dolly Collins - For As Many As Will (Topic)

Dolly goes synth! Well, just a little bit. Though made with a small band, most of the cuts on the gramattically-confusing For As Many As Will are pretty stripped down, often with just Dolly on the flute-organ and some minimal cornett or recorder from the other guys (a band which again includes Barry Dransfield on fiddle, though he only appears on a few tracks (though he sings a bit, too)). Side one ends with a long medley of seven different songs (hailing apparently from 1728) and the flute-organ is the constant that holds down the segues. It's most evident how the addition of just a simple recorder can transform a vibe from cooky country-faire into total Defender of the Crown style. While side one starts with the beautiful 'Lancashire Lass', it ends with the medley, which starts to get a bit dense even with rests between it's four sections. The final piece of it is the instrumental 'Lumps of Pudding' (which sounds like the name of some bad prog-rock instrumental) and it's like a raw Third Ear Band tune, cutting through any sentimentality that might linger from the previous medley with sharp euphonium and shawm playing quite wonderfully with Dolly's synth. Her synth patches, of course, aren't exactly Dick Hyman -- they fit quite seamlessly with their sound. Side two beings with the flowing piano ballad 'Gilderoy', which has some rare double-tracked vocals by Shirley. Though over 100 years old now, it manages to stir something in me and that's without even really paying attention to the lyrics, which are surely tragic. Before you can get too used to it, it lurches into the courtly stomp of 'Rockley Firs', and then another circuitous instrumental jam called 'Sweet Jenny Jones', propelled throughout by euphonium farts. The instrumentalism continues through a German Xmas carol before getting back into a righteous Shirley delivery, 'The Moon Shines Bright'. Another medley takes us out, this one about the harvest, with the standout being the fiddle + gittern accompanied 'The Mistress's Health', where Dransfield knows exactly when to saw and when to let it lie. So another solid album closes - and the door closes Shirley Collins in these annals. After A Favourite Garland's somewhat confusing or incomplete liner notes, For As Many As Will overcompensates by listing every musician's instruments multiple times - at the top and bottom of the track listing, and then broken down on each track. Don't let it be said that you don't know who's playing gittern on this record!

Kate Bush - 'The Dreaming' (EMI)

She's a household name in the UK, but resigned to "cult" (or even worse, "college radio") status in the US. This is a US issue of The Dreaming, definitely my favourite Kate Bush record as it strikes the perfect balance between big bold glossy pop record and major weirdo art-statement. Production-wise, Bush is rooted in 80's drums and bass sounds - specifically the Fairlight synth which is just everywhere to be heard. This is Bush's vision of music, which she's stuck to fairly consistently - I love how her 'comeback' record, Aerial, is fairly timeless in that it could have been produced in 1987 at the peak of her powers. Her weirdly synthetic bass, heavily compressed background vocals, and processed instruments are a really distinct place on the electro-acoustic axis. This record isn't dripping with hits like Hounds of Love, but it's chock full of near-hits. 'Sat in Your Lap' and 'The Dreaming' were the big singles, and both are ferocious. The former is thunderous and pounding and I always sing along in falsetto to the 'Some say that knowledge is...' banshee screech. 'The Dreaming', well, it's just an amazing tune, a bit of car crash and murderous stalker at the same time. No one would typically compre this to Brian Wilson's SMiLE sessions but that's as close of an antecedent as I can hear - just bathed in minor key hysterics instead of sunny Americana. The Aussie coda blends into 'Night of the Swallow' which is more of the Never For Ever piano balladry - the signature K. Bush sound. It's here where the production really separates these cuts from her earlier works. The strings on this album sound fake - but they're credited as "strings" and "fiddle" so I'm sure they're not MIDI. It all strangely works. The Dreaming edges out Hounds of Love for me because it contains my personal favourite Kate Bush tune, 'Suspended in Gaffa', the most fractured piece of bubble-gum imaginable. It's direct and driving, and in opposition to the lyrical stasis described. I've listened to it hundreds of times and it never gets tiresome. "This album was meant to be played loud", says the liner notes, and that distinct Bush bass warble sounds absolutely sick when you crank it. But the lesser-remembered cuts on The Dreaming have beautiful, mesmerising passages. 'Leave it Open' is a wonderful bit of melting energy, and the dark edge of lyrics like "Harm is in Us" sets a nice element of unknowing. 'Houdini' touches on the canyon ladies vibe, though maybe not intentional - and has a great dark growl at times. 'Get Out of My House,' has a bit of crunchy wobble in the 'This house is full of...' part and I love how it's pretty much all tribal echo-drums. 1982 was a hell of a year and I can only imagine walking into a record store that year and leaving with both The Dreaming and This Heat's Deceit under my arm. It's even more impressive that this record ends with Paul Hardiman imitating a donkey.