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.

Hair Police - 'Blind Kingdom' (Ultra Eczema)

We only get one side here, but it's a doozy, 16 minutes of Hair Police creating another (I assume improvised) sound-based hellscape. This one starts slow, and finished slow, but uses the space to have screeching, maniacal vocals which sound more like highly compressed feedback, all manner of clanging, echo-laden percussion, and synthesisers galore. The opening moments set the tone with some bold synth notes and some of the most clear filter sweeps (or phasing, or whatever that effect is called) yet heard in the Hair Police oeuvre. At points the low end cuts out entirely and shrill oscillations fill the whole soundstage, waiting for the sludgy, static-laden undercurrent to rise back up to meet it. There's some pretty great interplay here, and not just three noiseniks playing on top of each other without listening. The electronic processing is more conventional compared to the earlier material's sound of circuit-bent toys, but this benefits the analog synth waves which rise up like the phallic urge depicted on Dennis Tyfus's cover art. Side two is all etchings and I suspect if I tried to play it, it might still sound like Hair Police.

The Dead C - 'Clyma Est Mort' (Siltbreeze)

I suppose this is the live album that Tom Lax praises in the liner notes to the CD issue of Eusa Kills, which is a shameless bit of self-promotion since he was responsible for releasing it. I forgive him, cause he's right - this is an essential document of what a brilliant band sounded like at the peak of their powers. That it's actually a "fake" live album is irrelevant -Lax has detailed the construction and release of this record in a Volcanic Tongue column, which I can refer you to. But of course it's live - just not in front of an audience! The album starts off with a sludgy, dim wall of detuned guitar, and when Morley's voice breaks in, it's like dawn breaking through the clouds. How appropriate that the track is called 'Sunshine'! The improvisatory nature of Clyma Est Mort is evident and also familiar by this point. There's lyrics, though they seem fairly improvised on jams like 'Dirt for Harry' and 'Electric' : "Shave your legs, shave your arms!" It's a good mix of hits and less familiar tunes; side two gets into the more aggro/hardcore side seen on the Dead C vs. Sebadoh single ('Highway' and 'Ein Kampf, Ein Seig'), and this take on 'Sky' is probably their best recorded one (not counting the YouTube version already alluded to). This 'Sky' has a fat undertow that drags throughout, sputtering into a weirdly unidentified radio broadcast. And, how about 'Electric'? The guitar is a sinister buzz-saw and it slowly gurgles and erupts, like it never wants to end. On the flip is a slow, heavy take on 'Power' that might also be the definitive version. It sounds like 100 layers of screeching guitars, assembled in a raging maelstrom that takes the best Lee/Thurston jams and casts them into another dimension. Yeats propels it along, climaxing when needed, conveying the lyrics 'take your fucking shit out of here' with the utmost urgency yet languid thumping. The jam out on the end is utter fucking magic. After a nice take on 'World' (Lax's favourite tun of their) the album closes with 'Das Fluten, Das Fluten (Oh Mama I can't go)', a real Dead C oddity as it's a Beefheart styled jam. In a band with so many versions of their classic songs, and so much overlap, it might seem like overkill, particularly if you listen to a bunch of these in a row like I have. But like most of the multi-record gauntlets in this project, I've found a renewed passion for these records when listened to in a linear way, and right now I feel like I could keep going even if they had 100 more versions of 'Power' to sort through.

Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby' (Straight)

It's been a bit of a holiday for the Underbite corp., for which I can only offer my heartfelt apologies. Life, reality, circumstance, etc. often combine to prevent the listening required to properly assess these records and without being physically near the accumulation (or a turntable), this service had to just lie dormant. But Lick My Decals Off, Baby is a hell of a way to return. A lot of people hold this up as the pinnacle of Van Vliet's musical work and I wouldn't argue against it; certainly it's an essential piece of the puzzle, at least along with Trout Mask. It's single-album length and general diversity (and marimba!) make it a somewhat more palatable record to throw on when craving a blast o' Beefheart. I think there's a greater merging of the dismantled visionary (heard on Trout Mask) with the raw rock of the earlier stuff; somehow the overall product isn't compromised. 'Doctor Dark' is a great indication of this sound - it drives forward like the most raw, guttural riff-based rock but also mangles the fence. Even though this is one of the most listened to Beefheart records, there are some songs I always tend to forget about, like the brilliant 'The Clouds Are Full Of Wine (Not Whiskey or Rye)' or 'Petrified Forest'. The lyrics sheet prints some additional poems mixed in, which deny the normality of the font with the freelancing apostrophes and choppy fragments. It's a pleasure to read these, something I can't do for Trout Mask because (my copy, at least) doesn't boast a lyric sheet. Listening to 'Bellerin' Plain' is like proto-Pollard - the casual falling off in pitch at the end of each line as he sings "Foothills, locomotives walked n' sugar beets rolled down the tracks/Sunbum bounce soot off the black smokestacks" is practically 'Dusted' to me. And how about the sense of assonance in 'Doctor Dark's "Tear apart 'n black 'n white 'n like / The moon on a pail of milk spilled down black in the night / little girl lost a tear 'n her kite/ T' the night 'n like 'n light" -- I know it's boring to quote lyrics here but that's some fucking Bruce Andrews shit there. 'Woe-Is-A-Me-Bop', 'Space-Age Couple' and 'I Love You, Big Dummy' are the rawest songs, I think, perhaps of Beefheart's entire catalogue. It's not that they are simplistic or particularly carnal; rather I think they just communicate most directly. There's some brilliant shifts in 'Woe-Is-A-Me-Bop' - listen to the way the intro bars set a tone and then as soon as Don's voice comes in, it totally contorts itself in a different direction. There's a lot of cadence shifts in this song as it goes along; perhaps the limited set of lyrics on this one makes it easier to concentrate on the tonal lurches. But somehow, by the time of 'Flash Gordon's Ape', the lurching feels more like a snowmobile running through the desert, hitting irregularly spaced rocks. It's enough to see your own shadow and know when to confront it.

Air - 'Open Air Suit' (Novus)

Source: Ross, 22 August 2002.

Another group of AACM-related records that fall into the 'A's, Air is Henry Threadgill, Fred Hopkins and Steve McCall, a stripped down trio (and not the French artistes that found their fame 20 years later). Hiding behind the erotic animal stylings of the front cover, Air attempt a Cobra-style game piece here, something based around a deck of playing cards. Four of the five pieces that emerged are presented here; gotta love the wordplay between 'suit' and 'suite' ... I'm not so clear on the rules but it's a surprising listen cause McCall is doing his best Drumbo impersonation. Maybe this is the 'open' feeling hinted at in the title and liner notes- lots of space, where Threadgill and Hopkins stab at each other and dabble in melodic themes. Henry switches to the flute for a bit at the end; it's more Herbie Mann than Aqualung but I'm cool with that. I generally like the Threadman though this showcases his improvisational abilities more than this writing; when paired with McCall though, there's always a strong connection to groove on.