Bert Jansch - 'Birthday Blues' (Reprise)

Promo issue with white labels and no liner notes. Skipping ahead a little bit from the last few records, we now find Jansch immersed in the Pentangle supergroup, whose extremely rewarding records we'll get to in due time, but for those curious and unfamiliar, there's a new CD box set of essentially everything available. Back here for a solo record (perhaps songs that didn't fit into Pentangle's prolific output?), Terry Cox and Danny Thompson from Pentangle join Jansch, and with Shel Talmy's production, this is an entirely different beast than the folky, traditional-leaning content that came before. It's a bit like Dylan's similar stylistic change circa Bringing It All Back Home, I'd say. Acoustic guitar still dominates, but Jansch is content to pull back from the firestorm of fingerpicking and give more space to the songs, focusing on his delivery and letting the first-rate rhythm section drive things along. As a songwriter, Jansch has a clearly expressed romanticism with a dark edge. 'A Woman Like You' is a driving, melancholy force that is followed by 'I Am Lonely', one of the record's more delicate songs; the juxtaposition of the two is Jansch in a nutshell. His voice is so convincing on both tracks, warbling with vibrato that isn't overdone. Similarly, 'Poison' grinds forward with a mean edge, Jansch striking chords or sparse riffs while the song pulses along, driven by the full band. There's the presence of flute and harmonica on a few tracks, and a big saxophone part on 'Promised Land', but it doesn't feel overproduced. This was Talmy's genius, perhaps. Folk moved into folk-rock, but these Jansch records feel slightly resistant to it, hence the jazzy presence of the Pentangle team. This is expressed most overtly on 'Blues', a 12-bar instrumental with some improvisation, but as an album closer it feels a little bit, well, off. A record with such great songs ('Tree Song' should also get a shout-out for its childlike and earnest vibe, which also utilises the full band instrumentation nicely) should conclude with a bigger statement than 'we also like blues and jazz records'. Still, it's overall finely nestled into that sweet spot where bigger, more pop-orientated production dovetails with quality songwriting and thus it feels like a step forward, not a desperate commercial reach.

Heldon - 'IV' (Aural Explorer)

Apparently this isn't a proper release of the fourth Heldon album, but some sort of compilation, containing most of the fourth album but some other stuff. I've never noticed before since it's the only Heldon record I've ever listened to -- but why is that? This stuff is great, I want more! 'Chief Electronic Wizard' Richard Pinhas established a style of minimal electronic music that has been unbelievably influential, though quite singular for its time, so it sounds like a lot of things from recent years, except it birthed a lot of it. This slowly builds up a suite of songs called 'Perspective', with a weird interlude at the end of side 1 (which sounds like guitar-based post-rock twenty years early) that Pinhas neither wrote nor played on. But it's his band - the looming face photographed on the back cover is his, as if there was any doubt whose band this is. He's credited with electronics and guitar, though the guitar isn't that recognisable until the third track ('Perspective III'), where it roars and threatens to keep rupturing the vinyl, despite being pretty buried by the pulsing synth rhythm. In other places, things are more placid; 'Perspective I' could be something released on Kranky in the late 90s by a band like Tomorrowland or Labradford, and the synths are where it gets really crazy. 'Perspective IV' is the most wild, a precursor to all the 'ecstatic drone' stuff that came out of places like Leeds in the late 90s/early 00s. And what does this record make me feel like? Like bits of my brain are burning, and there's a wonder about my place in this world, suggesting that natural, pastoral beauty can find a new life through technology. The cover art is pretty fucking scary, like something you might see on a Voivod album cover, and directly inject this into the "science fiction" realm (as well as reish label Aural Explorer's typeface, which is so retro-cool it feels like it came out of modern day Portland). But I don't want to dwell on this easy sci-fi vibe - it's important to take music like this and make it your own, freeing oneself from the easy tendencies to associate it with soundtracks and other cultural offerings. Pinhas was a pioneering figure and never succumbed to easy New Age sounds or dance beats; this is electroacoustic music, truly, though it doesn't sound anything like AMM, or Cluster, or even other French weirdness like Mahogany Brain or Red Noise. I don't pay much attention to contemporary followers of the Heldon sound, but maybe I should; there's a whole soundworld that I must admit I am undeveloped in, as a listener.

Hampton Grease Band - 'Music to Eat' (Columbia)

You probably thought the last Gunter Hampel record was responsible for the months-long bottleneck here at the Underbite (if you thought anything at all) but no, that was written and just not posted for some reason, ages ago. It's the Hampton Grease Band that's kept this from going forward, and I'm not quite sure why. Music to Eat lies somewhere between 'funny thing to play people at parties' and 'something I genuinely love', but I vacillate between the two states, so maybe this is Schroedinger's LP. This is truly one of the stupidest bands to ever get a major label release, and I include the Barenaked Ladies and Green Jellö in that list. But the Hamptons fit into some sort of vision I have about late 60s/early 70s freak music, even if the music isn't particularly visionary. I love the whole lore around this band - that it was somewhere between prog-leaning bar rock and and dadist art experiment, that members of the band would invite their friends up on stage to eat breakfast in their bathrobes during live gigs, and that the drawing of the military tank on the back cover is because they forgot to send any artwork for the back cover and it was just a drawing one of the band members had lying around. But the music is a pretty intense jam. I've worn out side 1, 'Halifax', where the band teaches us all about that Canadian city and establishes their formula: jammy blues-rock, occasionally prog-leaning, and with random nonsense sung over top. Bruce Hampton's pipes are great though, a regular Robert Plant, and his cry of 'Wouldn't you like to come to Halifax?" is an all-time great album opener. Fifteen minute later they are still at it, and there are passages of this song that are totally great. The fast boogie guitar solo about halfway through sounds a bit like the Italian prog band Area if you're reaching, and I think I just always wished this band was just a tad more in the cosmic direction. But 'Halifax' and 'Herndon' (side 4) are perfect, glorious kitchen sink rock jams, embracing the absurdity of the era and probably deconstructing something at the same time. 'Maria' opens side 2, with a much more overtly novelty-learning song, drenched in sexuality and coming off as the alpha-rock counterpoint to the Holy Modal Rounders' 'Griselda', though I think this predates it. And then it goes on and on through a variety of shorter songs, and it's a maddening experience. The sheer ambition and lack of editing here are remarkable but it becomes quickly impossible to sort out the diversions and jams. The resulting mess is a bit too close to Zappa/Mothers from the same era for my tastes, though I'd by lying if I didn't admit the teenage me loved 'Billy the Mountain'. Anyway, there's a LOT of Music to Eat, and side two starts to wear out its welcome. Side three is mostly dominated by the 18 minute suite 'Evans', but there's still room for another nearly 8 minutes of 'Lawton'. Jesus Christ, is this record long. I swear I have triple LPs that feel shorter - Armand Schaubroeck's first one, for example, or that Daphne Oram set. But the endurance test is part of the charm, if ya feel it; the Hampton Grease Band, if anything, are underrated. 'Evans' feels like a blizzard of guitar solos but then the track that follows it up, 'Lawton', is probably the musically most interesting part of the record - a dark, jammy psych instrumental that sounds like the Davis Redford Triad or some murky space-rock outfit from the late 90s, only this is '71. It all builds up to 'Herndon', where Hampton sings the label from a can of spray paint, before it segues into more nonsense. It becomes increasingly hard to pay attention by the end of this record, after one has been listening to it basically all night long. The fortitude is astounding for both self and the artists themselves. Discogs shows some odd post-Hampton Grease Band paths for them. One guitarist put out a solo 7" years later on Hib-Tone, the label famous for releasing R.E.M.'s 'Radio Free Europe' single; another played with Henry Kaiser in a band called Obsequious Cheesecake. As for Colonel Bruce Hampton himself, he seems to have enjoyed quite a long career in various projects I've never heard. This is the infamous record, and maybe part of its infamy is that it's not a slam-dunk - it's no Trout Mask Replica, but it really has some pretty good parts. I feel like I've written this much about Music to Eat now and come nowhere closer to solving my 'is it actually good or is it a party record?' dilemma. But obviously I don't throw parties anymore, anyway.

Gastr del Sol - 'Upgrade and Afterlife' (Drag City)

This was the one that really did it for me - my first Gastr release, which is a near-masterpiece like all of the records that brought Grubbs and O'Rourke together. That's a pairing that seems to make no sense on paper and ends up being the greater than the sum of two parts. The formula of Crookt, Crackt or Fly isn't deviated from too much except there is maybe less acoustic guitar choppiness and more of a unified sensibility to create some pleasing compositions - works that are about synergy rather than difference. The tracks with vocals are placed in the centre, but the starting and ending cuts are masterfully lyrics despite being instrumental. 'Our Exquisite Replica of Eternity' - what a title, what a track. It's O'Rourke who clearly takes lead here, with his 'new music' composer chops in the forefront, building things around some electroacoustic drones which move and grind slowly as the piece unfolds. It explodes, an O'Rourke trick evident in many of his records, but here recalling George Gershwin heavily, which feels forward thinking in its anachronism. It's all spinning at 45 RPM (this is not a double album but a one-and-a-half record) which gives it a sense of momentum too. The ending track is a John Fahey cover, 'Dry Bones in the Valley' (from 1975's Old Fashioned Love, if you were wondering) and it's done pretty straight, breathing through the space in the acoustic strum and showing these guys as the virtuoso musicians that they are; once Tony Conrad's violin drone comes in, the track takes on a hypnotic and incredibly melancholy tendency that intensifies until the record is over. And these songs in the middle, with Grubbs dropping his Grubbisms everywhere? Great too, for the most part. 'These are shark fins/I believe the tongue propels them' is the most quotable and wonderful-ridiculous Gastr lyric ever, making 'Rebecca Sylvester' the single most iconic Gastr del Sol track. The piano psychosis of Mirror Repair is most evident during 'The Relay', and 'Hello Spiral' brings in the McEntire drumming (after a harsh, aggressive bit of tape work by Ralf Wehowsky, sounding like John Wiese's hand to me) for the indie rock sound (but only a bit). Actually, it's 'Hello Spiral' that sounds precisely like the LP is skipping, just off-kilter enough to make it feel maddening. I obviously love this record, to the point where I read great personal emotional connections into it despite it being relentlessly avant-garde and obtuse. But it's a warm avant-garde, a celebration of art and possibilities (as the famous Roman Signer photo on the cover indicates). and maybe it sounds a bit silly or dated now but you gotta believe this 18 year old was enthralled. Upgrade & Afterlife is a map of possibilities for what music and art can do, slouching towards the cerebral but never quite abandoning the guttural. And the crazy thing is that they followed it up with something even better.

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.

Felt - 'Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty' (Cherry Red)

Before I ever heard Felt, I read a review of this record and decided they would get points for the title alone. Here's the establishment of the beta-male guitar-god; where jangle climbs the throne and the clean channel rules supreme. It starts with an instrumental, the lengthy 'Evergreen Dazed', which introduces the Felt sound - two tinny guitars, lots of reverb, and a plodding drummer. The lead parts are moody, built around descending melodies and never too flashy. Here, the instruments ring and ring and ring, and when the voice is present (all songs sung by Felt mastermind Lawrence, who I assume is the guy pictured on the front), it's breathy and minus any rock and roll histrionics. This is about as far from Led Zeppelin as rock music can possibly be, and is in alignment with the other plans for the genre established by their brethren of the early 80s - the Cure, Durutti Column, etc. I admit that even though the point of this project is to give these records the solid decent listen they deserve, I found myself tuning out the vocals entirely, letting the guitars carry me into some sort of somnambulistic state. Thus, I'm not sure if the poem 'Crumbling the Antiseptic Beauty' printed on the sleeve contains actual lyrics (since there is no song by this name) or is merely a poem; it does contain the line 'Dazed like evergreen' at the end, but that song is an instrumental. So Lawrence writes and sings lyrics but then only prints entirely different ones on the sleeve - that's something Michael Stipe hadn't even thought of. But back to the music - six long songs, a half-hour total, and it melts into something that feels like a 'statement'. When there's rhythm guitar, it might have a little distortion but from the natural fuzz of an amplifier, as opposed to anything more grungy. The opening chugga-chug of 'Cathedral' feels like something solid you can dig your feet into, planting like roots, and the whole record ends with 'Templeroy', petering out rather than exploding or burning or whatever impulse rock music often tends to produce. This is their debut and I don't really know anything else by them, figuring I'd always find more Felt LPs lying around during my years in the UK (I didn't).

Electric Light Orchestra (United Artists)

Back before it was cool to like ELO, it was extremely un-cool to like them. Which of course made them cool, until they became cool, but by that point I was mature and confident enough in my tastes that I didn't really give a shit. The El Dorado/'Mr. Blue Sky' ELO is awesome and great too, but this early material, with Roy Wood in the band, is the logical continuation of the Move's more orch-tastic experiments and really must have felt like the world of pop music was going to change forever. When listening to side one of this record (sometimes called No Answer) it's hard not to be dazzled by the approach; Wood's cello saws through the first two cuts like a roundhouse punch, there's a shitload of ideas jammed into every crevice, and it just sounds HUGE, even when there aren't a zillion overdubs. Somewhere on YouTube there's a video of '10538 Orchestra' being performed by Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood and about 700 cellists (if my memory serves me right, though it's probably actually just a few) and it sends chills down my spine.  Lynne's taste for bubblegum merges perfectly with Wood's darker sonorities, and 'Look at Me Now' takes it even further, with a more spacious arrangement. It's a bit like His Name is Alive's 'Cornfield' as if it appeared on Wood's Boulders album, but with an English hunting horn thrown on top. The yin and yang of these guys worked in the Move but it really explodes here, just coming together perfectly. There's a tendency towards old English music-hall styles and relatively restrained production (especially compared to later ELO), and the gatefold cover has cryptic photographs for each song. It's really an art-rock classic, with major progressive tendencies but enough instant gratification to avoid it sounding anything like the bad side of prog. The contrapuntal violin runs, quotes of 'God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen', and hook-drenched breaks follow from 'Cherry Blossom Clinic' and other madness on the Move's second album; this is a continuation with purpose, and it's really sad that Wood and Lynne didn't stick together longer because they really tempered each other's excesses while simultaneously inspiring each other. And Lynne is great - 'Queen of the Hours' is maybe my favourite song he ever wrote, drenched in a poetic longing that is all flowers and razorblades, a far cry from 'Roll Over Beethoven', which only came an album later. It's almost sad that this perfect pairing only lasted for one album in full Electric Light Orchestra form (cause this blows away both of the Move records with Lynne). Every time I listen to this I want to hold onto it, because as great as Boulders is (and as 'pretty good' as Mustard is), that's really the last great Roy Wood work to me. Though, I never got into Wizzard properly - but there's still time in this long and lonely life to give them a chance.

Durutti Column - 'LC' (Base)

I never became a fan of this band but this record, which I just blew a decade of dust off, is pretty intriguing. Durutti Column probably have a place among the most psychedelic side of new wave fans - they seem like the type of band to get a cult around them, though I never really got it. This is instrumental music built around ringing guitars, throbbing basslines, and thoughtful, exploratory song structures. The notes ring out with chorus effects, not oversaturated and not at all hazy. The structures are deceptively simple, and the good nature of these tunes calls to mind acts like Young Marble Giants, making great things with careful brushstrokes. When there are vocals, such as on 'Sketch for Dawn (2)', they're as cryptically buried as you'd expect; these guys are clearly too shy to lay down some confident rock caterwauls. There's some adventurous jamming, of the clean-channel fast-strum type, and while it's easy to take this as a big 'guitar' album, this is really just as much about the bassist and drummer. The keyboards are a presence as well, whether contributing to the sky or being thrust, sharp detail notes (as found on the other vocal track, 'The Missing Boy'). I think LC is one of their more well-regarded records though it's the only one I've ever listened to, and I admit that by the end, I'm quite taken by their sound. There's a subtlety to this, a quieter vein of the 1980s that I also find in bands like Tirez Tirez; the production is important, the tones are carefully chosen. This is a new type of guitar god - one that paints on gauze instead of canvas. 

Michel Dintrich / Philippe Drogoz ‎– 'La Guitare Au-Delà...' (Classic)

The acoustic guitar is hereby reinvented; played in totality, an osteopathic approach to a sound instrument. Side A finds Dintrich tapping, wobbling, and breathing through his guitar. The strings are an essential component of a guitar, sure, but here they are not the only one. I'm reminded of Tetuzi Akiyama, who shares a similar sparse, minimal approach, but Dintrich is more woody, earthy; with deep reverb and bending harmonics, he stakes out a language of his own. On the flip is a collaboration, I think - it appears to be Dintrich on a 10-string guitar, performing a composition by Philippe Drogoz, though Drogoz is not credited on the front of the record and the whole thing confuses me. Here is some true dark yoga; Drogoz's tape work is sometimes screeching, sometimes plotting, and always a thick counter to Dintrich. In the middle of it all, things decelerate to nothing and then slowly build up again, based around an ever-so-creeping Drogoz drone. Dintrich here is going mad - thrusting backhands against the stringboard, scraping, bending, plucking errant notes out of the air and then receding back to nothing. It's a duo interplay unlike any other, a battle royale, but Drogoz's whirring wins out. Or does it? This was recorded in 1970 which is freaking amazing to think about, as it's so contemporary (or maybe contemporary is just so retro). An eBay search turns up some other work that seems to be straight classical guitar pieces, which I'd love to hear after this gem.

Burning Star Core/Comets on Fire (Yik Yak)

This collaboration between one of the mid-decade's underground stars and an ascendant Burning Star Core lineup of C. Spencer Yeh and Robert Beatty was clearly recorded in one long, fun session and sliced onto vinyl for the listening public to enjoy. The recording quality is a murky, overblown mess which is part of the appeal for Comets on Fire fans, though I must admit that I always prefer my Burning Star Core more Hi-fi'lutin. Side one is all crunch, driven around a raven riff that could be the Son of (Edgar Winter's) 'Frankenstein'. Some press referred to this as Hawkwind-esque, which I can see, though I must admit my knowledge of Hawkwind is surprisingly thin. But this isn't space-rock - it's very grounded, earthy, and and geological. Side two has a more chug-chug feel, revving up into the aggro-boogie that I associate with Comets on Fire, and you also get a little more breathing room for the electronics and (I guess?) violin of Burning Star Core. There also appears to be vocals in there, perhaps a taste of Yeh's predilection for odd-throat soundforms. The drums are thunderous but the midrange is so blown out that you can only really feel the kick and hear the cymbals flittering about. I'm not sure if the recording quality benefits this, because then it becomes some aesthetic statement, or if it compromises it. It runs at such an intense level that there's little dramatic impact, but it's also awesome to follow the piercing electronic tones that cut through everything and whizz and dance around like fireflies.

Bugskull - 'Snakland' (Scratch)

For this vinyl long-player, Bugskull (now sans-umlauts, perhaps due to Canadian importation laws, as this is on Vancouver label Scratch) step it up a notch. Things sound cleaner, though not necessarily studio-quality - just with better drum mics. There are crazier layers of psychedelic excess, like frantic synths and more clarity in these excursions, relying on timbre over fuzz. The songwriting feels a bit regressed, or maybe I should say that instead of concentrating on the lyrical side hinted at on Phantasies and Senseitions, there is more development of the musical sketches there. Lyrics are present, though often repetitive chants like 'We are coming' ('From the Skies') instead of personal lyrical material. But this suits the album's overall artwork and presentation - adorned with toys and stuffed animals, Snakland feels like a record that Jeff Koons would have made. There is still a band here, though a 3-piece, and the rhythm section falls into 90s indie swing occasionally. Sean Byrne keeps it interesting with all of the layers, and the buzzing and spurting electronics often give the record the vibe of a haunted Toys R' Us. 'Mind Phaser' is perhaps Snakland's most epic track, sounding like early Mercury Rev if the wordy guy was kept in-check. I'd say this is a 'transitional' album, but that's usually a term for lazy writing. 'Bouncer' certainly points towards the electronica direction they will take, but with a significantly more clubby feel than the mild textures to follow a few albums later (I guess that's why it's called 'Bouncer'). Underneath these beats are some thick My Bloody Valentine guitar smears, like traffic in a city tunnel. Don't blink or you'll miss it. 'Exit Wound', the closing track, is long and meandering, with the wound not far from "Nurse With", if you get my drift. And drift it does, through heavily modulated darkwoods with screaming (yet largely organic) murk behind it.

Glenn Branca - 'Lesson No. 1' (99)

I'd guess this is Branca's first record, cause he looks like such a strapping young lad on the back sleeve. This is 19 minutes of industrial music, masquerading as a serious chamber music ensemble masquerading as a rock band. The title track, which fills side 1, does little for me. If this is a lesson, what exactly am I learning? There's a manic energy to everything, or maybe I should say a pulsing nervousness; the two guitars chortle along and the tune occasionally explodes into ringing, frantic strumming. I know this is supposed to be serious music but it reminds me of the punkest parts of the Feelies' Crazy Rhythms. Some singing would really benefit this (O, sacrilege!); as an instrumental it feels like kindred spirits with those Birdsongs of the Mesozoic records I listened to awhile back. But side two, if a bit uncreatively named ('Dissonance') is a totally kickass dirge, based around Branca's attempt to murder his guitar. It's stapled to a monolithic 2/2 rhythm and punctuated by Harry Spitz's sledgehammer bursts! The effect is not unlike the VU's 'European Son' but also with a health dollop of Neubauten. When you turn it up loud, it just sounds evil and angry, and despite the relentless beat, somewhat unfocused. It's like Branca is moving through a catalogue of techniques on the electric guitar, and you can be sure the emphasis is on the strings, not the fretboard. I love music that can be slow and active at the same time; this manages to take an exploding ball of energy and hold it in stasis for 12 minutes. After this he started writing (mostly boring, in my opinion) "symphonies" for large electric guitar ensembles, spawning legions of bespectacled imitators (anyone remember that DC band called Tone?) and occasionally striking gold. But this is rooted in whatever rock (or I guess, no wave) scene he came out of and it recalls a time when New York City was still a scummy, dirty place. 45 rpm as well, and on the same label as ESG!