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.

Chico Freeman - 'Chico' (India Navigation)

The very lengthy side one of this starts out with an extended Cecil McBee bass intro, and it's a pleasure, as is his playing throughout the 16-minute medley of 'Generation' and 'Regeneration'. This slow, open piece has Freeman playing soft and cautious, setting down a tone that's intense without being gusty. I heard this years back and was intrigued by Freeman's playing, but to be honest, it's McBee that owns this side of the record. 'And All the World Moved' finds Freeman fluting over some deep bowed McBee hustle; sometimes it's all-encompassing and echoing, and at other parts it's rumbling like it's about to rupture. Their start-stop interplay is pushed to two ends of the audible spectrum yet it doesn't feel empty in the middle. It's neither excessively solemn not overly tradition-based - it feels personal, open, and inviting yet hardly light. On the flip we find a quintet, the two being joined by some AACM alums including Steve McCall and Muhal Richard Abrams. This swings, and Abrams is a bit subdued; second percussionist Tito Sampa adds so much to this, making it a Larks Tongues in Aspic feel. About 3/4 of the way through the side's sole piece ('Merger', recorded live in concert in NYC), Freeman explodes with what's one of my favourite sax solos in the whole of my vinyl accumulation - a twisting, explosive and yet extremely harmonic flurry of notes that ends just before making it's pattern obvious. The proceedings are brought back down to a sweet, smooth denouement and then the audience claps. 

Family Fodder ‎– 'ScHiZoPhReNiA pArTy!' (Fresh)

I rarely spin this 12" EP, mostly because it opens with 9 brutal minutes of 'Dinosaur Sex', a raveup that has energy and spirit but is just too utterly stupid for me to fully enjoy. There's the same creative pop production techniques at play here as on Monkey Banana Kitchen, though maybe a bit less vocal or structural experimentation. The dub/reggae influence is more subtle here, just being the undertow of 'Emergency' as opposed to an out-and-out rave. The flipside contains a few songs that predate fast, guitar-based indie rock, as well as the percussion blowout 'Silence', a memorable gem from the Savoir Faire greatest hits disc. There's a few songs that aren't that CD, and thus hearing gems like 'Tea with Dolly' (feeling like This Heat goes pop, with ascending and descending melodic steps keeping everything just off-kilter) and the closer 'Better Lies' (a tense hybrid between dream-pop and indie soul, with the line 'I am the sex pistol of dreams'). Schizophrenia may be appropriate, for that's the condition most associable with the tape-splice technique, though to be honest, there's less overt splicing and fuckery present here than on the full-length. It sounds great at 45rpm though!

Camper Van Beethoven - 'Key Lime Pie' (Virgin)

It's easy for me to think of this as something different than Camper Van Beethoven. Sure, it's most of the same band, and Jonathan Segel's is not reason enough to declare this to be the product of a different band. No, there's something else -something different about this record that makes it stand alone from the rest of their catalogue. So that's why I hesitate to call Key Lime Pie the best Camper Van Beethoven album, but the best and only album by this weird mutant formation that mostly resembles Camper Van Beethoven. Sure, the 'Opening Theme' sounds like a classic bit of CVB ethno-stomping, with maybe an even better raw production style than we've heard in a long time (Dennis Herring, you've finally got it!). But it's when the floortoms-and-brimstone of 'Jack Ruby' kicks in that I feel we have a different serpent entirely. Now, I first heard this record in high school so it conformed to the perfect model of art I imagined at the time; rock music against rock music, embracing neoclassical elements, traces of Americana, the Gold Soundz-grift that tingled me whenever I listened to 80s R.E.M. -- it's all here. In Summer of 1994 I was stuck in that awkward in-between time, unable to drive or do things on my own, forced to spend lots of hot summers in the minivan with my parents driving, my cheapo walkman providing my only escape until the batteries died and things got weird and slow. So I wore out my tape of Key Lime Pie. As we drove through Ohio interstate highways and suburban streets, with my body twisted sideways (ear against the backseat, constrained by seatbelt, looking up through the windows at sky) -- this is why 'Sweethearts' clicked into place. I would feel carsick but maybe just hot; the A/C never worked right, or just maybe didn't reach all the way to the back. I had to press my ear against the seat to keep one side of my $2 headphones from cutting out. I was confused by punk, metal, alternative music, the 60's, the 70's, the 80's, and my own adolescence. How could it all fit together? And did it matter? And at the time, 'Sweethearts' was the most magnificently beautiful blend of music I had ever heard. Greg Lisher's simple guitar lead said everything I wanted to hear; but the actual words were perfect too, steeped in some sort of American nostalgia that I invented myself a place in. 'Jack Ruby' now strikes me as even more than that - a pop song centered on searing darkness. 'All Her Favorite Fruit' is maybe the most celebrated David Lowery song and it's certainly the most confident step forward he ever made -it's delicate, and a bit magical too. And the humour is even more relaxed, as I wouldn't call 'When I Win the Lottery' or 'I Was Born in a Laundromat' particularly silly. The guitars have a heavy presence on Key Lime Pie, but when listening to this, I used to dream of becoming a violin player like Morgan Ficther -- it's funny how years later, I found out she barely even plays on this record apart from 'Pictures of Matchstick Men' (sadly, a hit, despite being the most throwaway track on here). The real violinist, Don Lax, contributes stunning sawing on 'June' (my pick of the litter for 2010) and the 'Opening Theme', and there's a chill that still passes over me when I hear 'Come on Darkness'. So forgive me if I sound a bit overdramatic or nostalgic about Key Lime Pie - it's not perfect, but it's perfect for what it is, and I don't think David Lowery (or any of these players) can ever top it.

Camberwell Now - 'The Ghost Trade' (Ink)

This is the second time I've journeyed through these six songs in the past week (see the Glass Mastered Cinderblock review of the discography CD) but I ain't complaining. I love owning this on vinyl even though the sound gets noticeably muffled towards the end of each side -- my turntable suddenly out of alignment or a bad mastering job? I rarely prefer the sound of a CD but this might be one case where the LP fails. It's most audible in 'Wheat Futures', where the sibilance of Hayward's croaking is a bit too piercing. I thought vinyl was supposed to have better low-end? Maybe Ink Records didn't have much of a budget for a mastering engineer. Actually the real reason is that I tend to jump around to the faster, more aggressive parts of this album, and when I have the turntable going, it skips when I hit the floor. What haven't I already said? Did I rave about the kazoo part in 'The Ghost Trade'? This is one part where the dirty vinyl sound is preferable, cause who doesn't like a fuzzy kazoo? There's some tape manipulations transitioning from the kazoo breakdown into the xylophone coda and it's just the right amount of damage to lay over a tune without totally disrupting the flow. But it all comes back to 'Working Nights', where the bassline is like a woodpecker beating against a shopping mall made of granite. The power of the songwriting here is the way the speeds shift; Camberwell Now mastered this "suddenly, we'll shift from warp speed to half-speed" thing, in a way that This Heat never managed. But the art-rocker in me loves everything, as there's traces of the magnificent 70s all over this mid-80s masterpiece. The harmonised voices in 'Sitcom' are a good example of this. Camberwell Now are like "secret" prog-rock -- they took things forward somehow and it's marvelously accessible. I've grown accustomed to 'Greenfingers' following on my All's Well CD, so when 'The Ghost Trade' ends with a melting, shimmering wall of keyboard clouds and some faint murmurs of free improv underneath, it feels like a million years of silence are about to begin. But that's why it's nice to have on vinyl, cause you can flip it over!

Anthony Braxton - 'Four Compositions (Quartet) 1983' (Black Saint)

The closing trilogy of our Braxton collection all comes on the Black Saint label, and they keep the flame alive in those dark 1980s. All three of these smaller group compositions pair Braxton with Gerry Hemingway on percussion, and this one with George Lewis on trombone and John Lindberg. It's a smaller lineup than the orchestra madness we just saw, but the side-long 'Composition - No. 105 A' that opens the record is pretty astounding in how diverse and, well, fruity it sounds. Braxton and Lewis explode in a cornucopia of sounds, and the rhythm section alternately prods and propels them, making the whole thing feel a bit like one of those Willem Breuker Kollektief records despite being only a quartet. It's notated to death but it feels so alive, bubbly, and strange that it can't really be placed into any easily definable category. It certainly feels more European than American, and it was recorded in Milano so maybe that has something to do with it. By the end of the 20 minutes you've been taken through flowering, natural gardens and calculated, man-made constructions - but you've never had to leave the tour bus. Side B slows things down a bit, allowing some more emphasis on technique though there's still a fairly plotted map to follow. Lindberg does some good slow sawing on the first track, and the second track ends with Lewis sputtering about his mouthpiece in a Derek Bailey style of liminal catharsis. The parts that circle around a theme are the most enjoyable, because there's a real sense of sugar-coated fun, even as the musicians try to pull each other away from sensibile behaviours. The lock-step 'band' moments, when they gel, are all the more powerful when juxtaposed against the games. But why this description should apply to this record any different than another (by Braxton, or anyone really) I can't really say; this is a time where words fail to sum up what I'm hearing and feeling. This is another recommended one, particularly for those looking for a mashed-up cocktail with a flame underneath.