The Lavender Flu - 'Mow the Glass' (In the Red)

The sophomore effort from the Lavender Flu finds them congealing into a quartet (unlike the first double LP which is Chris Gunn + whomever) and tightening things up, while still leaving room for a ragged, open feel. This is heard right off the bat with 'Follow the Flowers', a total banger that provides the killer hook (something I felt was missing from Heavy Air) in its chorus. By also recording the whole thing in a proper studio, it's definitely a 'real' rock album, the product of a band that may be driven by Gunn's idiosyncratic vision, but remains sonically diverse. There's a haze that covers every track, or maybe it's more like a thin, wet film. Something, anyway, is coating the sound, and it's not lo-fi or murky, but rather a welcoming, comforting place that allows the shimmery guitar effects, background vocals, and guest pedal steel to combine for a maximally psychedelic effect. Yeah, there's that word again, so hard to avoid. Listen to the outro of 'Reverse Lives', where the song fades away into a pond of organic tones - it's electric, without being aggressive, and held in place by the really punchy bass playing. We get another Townes van Zandt cover ('Like a Summer Thursday', a song I always really loved), given a sprightly and optimistic injection, and an Eastern workout ('A Raga Called Erik') that perfectly segues into 'You Are the Prey', with the most shoegazery sound on the record in its intro. Gunn is still happy to hold his vocals back - the cohesive band feel doesn't like a blantant stab at commerciality, and by the end of it (a normal length, unlike Heavy Flu), Mow the Glass has picked up a melancholy, or perhaps an air of resignation. The other cover, Jackson C. Frank's 'Just Like Anything', contributes to this downer feel, despite the bouncy feel of the drumming. I am reminded again of Sic Alps and their West coast psych sound, which maybe was more influential than anyone would have guessed. Gunn's vocal delivery is similar to Mike Donovan and the guitar worship is of a similar ilk - fluttery, jangly, and affected. This builds to a crashing climax with 'Ignorance Restored', a track that could feel like a battle cry or summation except I'm already so satisfied by the rest of the record before it even gets there that I haven't even really digested that one yet. Mow the Glass was one of the high points of last year, a year in which I didn't buy too many records (couldn't afford to, really), and felt further away from 'new' music than ever. But now, if a proper band, that means Lavender Flu probably play concerts and I'd love to see them.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk ‎- 'The Art Of Rahsaan Roland Kirk - The Atlantic Years' (Atlantic)

The cover of this compilation makes this seem like a fairly average cash-generating release, with forgettable graphic design and all previous released material. But as someone who doesn't own any of the original Atlantic records this culls from, The Art Of is a real treasure. It's well-assembled, and shows an incredibly diverse range of Kirk as a composer, bandleader and player. Like most of his records, the tunes are pretty evenly split between his compositions and covers, and there's raucous takes of songs like 'Sentimental Lady', Dvotrak, and Bacharach and Davis-via-Dionne Warwick ('I Say A Little Prayer'). We get a medley of Coltrane songs at the end of side two, from a live concert (as so much of this set is live, it really adds some energy to the mix). The Coltrane takes are fine enough, but they aren't anything I'd go back to; however, the medley at the beginning of side four, which is Kirk playing two instruments at once, is pretty great, with a wooly fidelity and occasional bursts of applause. I don't have any of these Atlantic LPs but I used to have a dub of The Inflated Tear which I would listen to while driving. That title track and its followup Ellington cover open up the second record, just as they opened side two of the original. It's a hell of a composition, sharply focused on its theme but then letting it's own weight break into the more melodic sections; it conveys pain, magic and relief while always in pursuit of beauty. I like Kirk's compositions a lot, whether they be spry, pinprick soundtrack jazz ('A Laugh for Rory'), or the Afro-centric colours that open and close the whole 2xLP set. 'Volunteered Slavery' is catchy, driving, and manages to quote 'Hey, Jude' though maybe that's just an accident - Kirk's voice is echoed by a rocking chorus and actually nothing else on the two LPs lives quite up to its potential. Side four ends with 'The Seeker', a suite of poetic improvisations which are the closest to AACM-type material I've ever heard from Kirk. Behind the verbal intonations of its 'Black Classical Rap' we hear extended technique and enough percussion and little instruments to at some points, actually sound like some electro-acoustic/concrete mix. The hard bop sounds from earlier in his career are spread throughout this record, but even in, say, 'The Seeker' movement of 'The Seeker', they are just passages of colour among a more beauteous whole. His own voice pops up throughout all four sides enough times that he starts to feel like a crazy companion. Singing a barroom drawl on 'Baby Let Met Shake Your Tree', informing about how the audience doesn't know about enough great jazz saxophonists during the Charlie Parker tribute in 'The Seeker', or just hollering and shouting in the backgrounds of other tracks - it infuses a great deal of personality into a record which already has it dripping off the music itself, no small feat for a record with a lot of covers, and standards as well. I'm not familiar enough with Kirk's overall work to know how his Atlantic Years stack up against everything else, but I would grab any of the LPs whose tracks are featured here if I came across them, for sure.

Jackie-O Motherfucker - 'The Magick Fire Music' (Ecstatic Peace!)

Once one cuts through the duct tape, one can start working through The Magick Fire Music. Four sides is a lotta Jackie-O, and they use this larger canvas to take their time, spreading out, at least compared to their Road Cone releases from around this time (2000-2001), Fig. 5 and Liberation, which I'm somehow more familiar with despite never owning. Jackie-O Motherfucker are actually a lot more Apollonian their the name and reputation may suggest, as these lengthy pieces (about two per side) mostly improvise around groove-based indie rock instrumentation – a jam band! It's hardly Medeski Martin & Wood, but the foundations are easy to feel, and even when they bring in squealing saxophones, keyboards/synths and tape loops, it's only dressing on the surface of a harmonious path. Mostly, this is music of meandering, and it strikes a nice Morricone-esque vibe sometimes ('The Cage', 'Quaker') which never threatens to really challenge the omphalos. Yes, The Magick Fire Music takes awhile to get anywhere, and maybe once it does, if it does, you aren't sure if you're back where you started. For a band that's been just "Tom Greenwood + collaborators" for a long time, it's interesting to listen back here to when they were somewhat more collectively a group, or at least that's my impression. There's no personnel listed so it's hard to know who's actually on this recording - hell, it could just all be Greenwood solo - but it feels like more, albeit surely live studio jams, offered with some restraint and a surprising amount of polish. Maybe "meander as philosophy" is a lot more difficult than it sounds; the I-IV-V chord progressions reached here feel a bit too easy, in which case we should turn to mood/texture/atmosphere for our pleasure. Departures from this deliver the most joy: '2nd Ave 2 M' is a twisting maelstrom that veers into space-jazz territory; 'Lost Stone' goes for tremolo-driven sky paintings and eschews rock instrumentation the most, and is a beautiful moment. It all comes to a summation on 'Black Squirrels', the jam with the most energy, the most psychedelic use of layered sound, and the presence of a banjo to tie the band to the 'Americana' influence they expressed more strongly on other releases. I had no idea that these guys are still together (in some form) and have been putting out a steady stream of records ever since this; I'm not sure how this stacks up against their whole oeuvre but someone out there's gotta be a completist.

Dick Hyman - 'Moog: The Electric Eclectics of' (Command)

I've never had an amazing charity shop find - no rare private press Christian psych originals for $1, or even a decently obscure classic or anti-classic. About the best I can do is this, which was only $0.25, many years ago and has lingered in my collection even though I rarely listen to it. Moog is pretty good though, moving between novelty/lounge exotica sounds ('Topless Dancers of Corfu', 'Evening Thoughts') and pure synth fuckery ('The Moog and Me', 'Tap Dance in the Memory Banks'). 'The Minotaur' is the true killer jam, with an addictive pulse that reminds me of Can or some motorik Kraut thing, and noodling, melodic solos with huge tone sweeps that remind me of British (perhaps Cantebury) prog. Hyman's compositions have a lot of air in them, allowing the high and low tones to really reverberate. This record sounds beautiful, even when the vibe is a bit too goofy to fully enjoy. 'Four Duets in Odd Meter' is a sparkling adventure through ecstatic electronics; the titular odd metre gives it an unsettling feel that somehow is still inviting, drawing me into its imagination. I situate this as coming from the final wave of mid-century Americana, where there was some strange fantasy that this could be the music of the future - where machines and computers were distant dreams, rather than tools of enslavement or at least narcissism. And marketed, of course, through pop/sci-fi ideas as the album artwork indicates, but with a rather commercial (or perhaps a better term is accessible) musical edge, at least if you were to compare this to, say, Luening & Ussachevsky. And I suspect that as time passes, this will sound increasingly interesting, in a paleofuturistic way; we are definitively in an era where we cannot dream of a future any longer, unless it's cast as some Silicon Valley-driven capitalist bullshit. Aesthetically, we're stuck, which is what Mark Fisher wrote a lot about before he died, so this Dick Hyman record could be Exhibit A from the final generation of imagination, and inspire us to once again dare to dream.

Charlie Haden - 'Liberation Music Orchestra' (Impulse!)

Maybe it's a safe pick, a consensus one for sure - when Mr. Haden passed two summers ago, most of the online obituaries referred specifically to this record as his masterwork, along with the early Ornette Coleman recordings, of course. I often cite this among my most treasured recordings in the entire 'jazz' sub-section of my vinyl accumulation, though (like fellow Impulse genre-bender The Black Saint and Sinner Lady by Mingus), 'jazz' isn't the right term to encapsulate all the ideas at play here. So much could go wrong here - a white guy working with predominantly black musicians (though arranged by a white lady), directly addressing political struggles during the same time that Archie Shepp and the Art Ensemble of Chicago were radicalising their music. But Haden and Bley used the Spanish Civil War as their focal point, and somehow it gels in a way which survives the test of time and avoids musical-tourist trappings. Perhaps this was the Buena Vista Social Club of its day, but to me, there's a sense of adventure, and a unified feeling, a purity of vision, as well as a widening of musical possibilities. Bley's arrangements may be the secret ingredient but this is still driven by Haden's plucking -- bass is definitively the lead instrument here, and even on piano-driven segment such as 'War Prayers' or the choral elements, it clearly emanates out of his leadership. I found this record when an undergraduate, through Robert Wyatt's cover of 'Song for Che', and that song is still the most powerful to me - a warbling, fluid melody that spins around like a bead of water on glossy paper,  building through several dramatic peaks without giving in to melodrama. It's pure Haden for long stretches, and the melody (as dynamic as it is) stands up there with Ayler's 'Ghosts' for me as one of the most iconic compositions in so-called 'free' jazz. I don't mean to diminish the other players here: Gato's sax burns with its usual sizzling energy, not that it should be taken for granted; Don Cherry and Dewey Redman make this a proto-lineup of Old and New Dreams, where Coleman's vast shadow can be chucked aside.  Roswell Rudd is underrated here, as always, but trombonists are generally underrated, right? For all of the years I've spent exploring avant-garde/free jazz, the records I come back to the most are the ones which stand out against the skronky, blow-out-your-brains aesthetic so commonly associated with the genre. This record, the aforementioned Black Saint and Sinner Lady, Shepp's Blasé, Art Ensemble records, Escalator Over the Hill, Sun Ra's more doo-wop influenced pieces -- for someone who claims to love free jazz, my preferences are further away from the 'free' side of it, towards a little more compositional basis, or towards other genre-influences such as classical or folk. Liberation Music Orchestra is maybe as much about the idea, the image carried through by its cover - a ragtag-looking group of musicians united in an expression of solidarity for the underclasses, in a time when that still meant something, before the all-pervasive irony of postmodernism took over etcetera, etcetera. Of course, this ragtag bunch is made up of some of the most successful and well-respected musicians of their time, but that brick-wall cover photo still conveys something. It's like the free jazz version of the cover of the first Ramones album, maybe, but musically about as far away from that simplicity as possible. 

Green Pajamas - 'Book of Hours' (Green Monkey)

Scored this for $1 back in the day and I think I spun it all of 1.5 times, though I was quite fond of the Pajamas during their brief late 90s comeback run on Camera Obscura. By then they were embracing 6's throwback stuff a bit more, everything shot through a soft-focus lens, etc. -- whereas this album, I think their second, has a bright 1980s feel to it. This may be due to the balance of songwriting; main Pajamas muse Jeff Kelly doesn't have Joe Ross here, as he had temporarily left the band, but rather bassist Steve Lawrence and keyboardist Bruce Haedt. Kelly's songwriting is as sharp as always, though his style clashes with the others. Kelly's maudlin 'The Night Miss Sundby Died' feels very odd against Lawrence's 'Ain't So Bad' - the latter is a rave-up in the style of some 60s party jam, which is a bit jarring after the lush romanticism of the former. Haedt's 'Higher Than I've Been' also feels out of place, like some Nuggets-era forgotten tune, spry and bouncy, and really something that would be OK in a different context. Or maybe it's just that I associate Kelly's youthful voice with this band so much that other vocalists just feel like something wrong. Album closer 'Time of Year' (which has a great bagpipe part, probably the most successful incorporation of bagpipes into guitar-pop that I've ever heard, and a great chorus part to ride us out) has Kelly wistfully crooning 'It's the time of year / when everyone should be in love', which is pretty much a definitive statement of purpose for the Green Pajamas. Their custom brand of melancholy may not be present in these lyrics,  at least not obviously, but I assure you that it's heard in his delivery. The arrangements are really nice on Book of Hours, fleshed out with keyboards and multi-tracked guitars, yet never feeling too heavy. Even the horn section on 'Paula' supports the songwriting rather than just being a needless flourish. Their first album, Summer of Lust, was only released as a cassette and feels like one, so must be where they stepped forward with a bigger production because, well, that's what you do when you go to wax! A quick glance at discogs reveals a zillion albums since the last one I listened to (which was 1999's All Clues Lead to Meagan's Bed) and I bet they're all as enjoyable as this one - not an everyday pop album to fall in love with and learn intimately, but a pleasant jolt back to the less heralded side of the mid-1980s when I actually remember I have it. 'Kim The Waitress' was their first single, which Wikipedia refers to as a 'regional hit single', a term which is more of a throwback than their sound supposedly is. The photo on the back of the inner sleeve features them posing artfully on a hillside, clad in peacoats and cardigans, in case you had any doubt about where they stood against the backdrop of mid-80s punk/new wave/indie music: confidently and stridently out of time. And god bless 'em.

Game Theory - 'Lolita Nation' (Enigma)

And here it is, the record that Game Theory's reputation is really founded upon, and Scott Miller's truest and most unencumbered statement of purpose. This is one of those cases where the notorious difficult double album really is their masterpiece; I'd say it's their Trout Mask Replica, except the length of Lolita Nation isn't due to impenetrable density (despite the bizarre avant-experiments on side three, one of which I will cut and paste the full title of here to make this post unnecessarily longer: 'All Clockwork And No Bodily Fluids Makes Hal A Dull Metal Humbert / In Heaven Every Elephant Baby Wants To Be So Full Of Sting / Paul Simon In The Park With Canticle / But You Can't Pick Your Friends / Vacuum Genesis / Defmarcos - Howsometh - Ingdotime - Salengths - Omethingl - Etbfollow - Afternoo - Ngetprese - Ntmomonti - Fthingswo - Ntalwaysb - Ethiswayt - Bcacausea - Bwasteaft - Ernoonwhe - Neqbmeret - Urnfromsh - Owlittleg - Reenplace - 27'). No, it's just kind of a LOOONG record, and new guitarist Donette Thayer is promoted to co-songwriter here, contributing a few like 'Look Away' and co-writing the brilliant opening hit 'Not Because You Can'. This is still an 80s pop record, so if you came expecting Schoenberg-influenced skronk, you've chosen incorrectly. Side one is about a perfect of a takeoff as you can get - the by-now standard Game Theory opening flash of amusical oddness, a brilliant first proper song ('Not Before You Can', which is all angles and tension before the singing finally delivers the money shot), and then it starts to get weird. But not too weird - the fragmentary 'Go Ahead, You're Dying To' is more like a hint of future worlds (some of which will be ruled by a certain Emperor Robert Pollard), and 'Dripping With Looks' is one of Miller's finest achievements ever, a fierce and soaring monster with a simple, drum-free arrangement that casts the song in a perfectly inappropriate heavy metal glow. As much as I've listened to Lolita Nation, I must confess side 1 has received about thirty times as much airplay as the other sides; 'We Love you Carol and Alison' and 'The Waist and the Knees' close it out, both amazing songs, and it would be a perfect, perfect EP if the other three sides were blank. But I'm not trying to diminish the rest of the record, which is consistent throughout, though there are a few dull spots (Thayer's 'Mammoth Gardens' is truly unremarkable, reminding me a little bit of Cyndi Lauper actually, and the instrumental 'Where The Have to Let You In', written by drummer/guitarist Gil Ray, feels like a wasted opportunity). The Thayer-sung contributions are mostly fine, if typical pop songs of the era, and neither can hang with heavyweight cuts like 'One More For St. Michael' or even 'Chardonnay' - there's an inventiveness, not just lyrically, but in how the songs fit together and are delivered, that is the Scott Miller Sound. Side three is the 'weird' side (aren't 'weird' sides always side 3??) but it just means there's more short experiments in between the 'real' songs, some of them perfect and some of them (such as the aforementioned  'All Clockwork And No Bodily Fluids Makes Hal A Dull Metal Humbert / In Heaven Every Elephant Baby Wants To Be So Full Of Sting / Paul Simon In The Park With Canticle / But You Can't Pick Your Friends / Vacuum Genesis / Defmarcos - Howsometh - Ingdotime - Salengths - Omethingl - Etbfollow - Afternoo - Ngetprese - Ntmomonti - Fthingswo - Ntalwaysb - Ethiswayt - Bcacausea - Bwasteaft - Ernoonwhe - Neqbmeret - Urnfromsh - Owlittleg - Reenplace - 27' being primitive and inconclusive, and not in a good way). The shorter song fragments are something Miller returned to years later for Loud Family's Days for Days, and a few (such as 'Exactly What We Don't Want to Hear') don't need to be any longer. Production-wise this is a bit glossier than Real Nighttime, with the keyboards and vocals even more prominent. The keyboard sound here is about as far away from the retro-hip analogue synths that became popular a decade later with bands such as Stereolab, Broadcast and the American Analog Set, and that's also part of the charm. Nothing here could ever sound like it wasn't made in 1987, but it's still somehow a unique beast that transcends the limitations of the zeitgeist. Miller's best work, probably, is really this, and it's not a concise or perfect vision - it's a sprawling, slightly messy cornucopia of ideas. But some artists are just more successful that way.

The Family Elan - 'Stare Of Dawn' (Locust Music)

The Family Elan is Chris Hladowski, Bradford-born multi-instrumentalist and member of various groups in Scotland in the last decade including Scatter and Nalle; this is a totally solo affair showcasing his immersion in Eastern acoustic instrumentation and it fits in well with a lot of the new wave of ethnic-flavoured underground folk forms that hit around this time (2007). The recording is close and bright, and on most of the six tracks Hladowski jams melodically on bouzouki or dulcimer or oud or something - it's not easy for this ear to discern the different tonalities, but there's percussion (maybe a drum or maybe just the side of the wooden instrument being tapped, plus bells and shakers) and a bit of singing and some flute and it's all just very very nice. But that's not to diminish it - when the repetitive, trance-like riffs break down, as they do at the end of 'Over The Hills and Fields I Wander', there's a bed of free sonority for all of these errant string plucks to dance around in. It's reminiscent of some of Vibracathedral Orchestra's (un)holy ruckus, though more rooted in a pastoral song structure. When Hladowski sings, as on the opening and closing cuts, his voice has a mellow, smoky tone that floats in between the strumming, plucking and bowing. The songs occasionally shift towards less stable territory, and violins scratch about an elusive centre; it's occasionally beautiful beyond belief, and while somehow feeling akin to a lot of other artists, nothing comes to mind so there's a unique vision as well. 

Brian Eno - 'Discreet Music' (EG/Obscure)

A confession: I'm not wild about Discreet Music. The first side of this is lovely, sure, but the Pachabel redux on the flip takes so long to get interesting that I usually check out. Just as on his pop records, Eno's melodies are his strengths, but it's a fine line to walk. 'Discreet Music' is presented in the liner notes like some sort of revelation in music-making, but it's really built on the same principles that make the 60s minimalist canon so timeless - the slight shifting phases, the lingering pulse of the harmonies, etc. 'Discreet Music' is really a blueprint for artists like Stars of the Lid, which is not a bad thing - this delicate, group ambience has become old hat to me by now, though this was made by one person alone. Still, it's a lovely half-hour or so, which makes Pachebel's 'Canon in D' deconstruction so tiresome in comparison. By the third movement, which has the title 'Brutal Ardour' (which almost seems like a self-parodic Eno title), it has grown sentient and shaken off its host, but it takes so long to get there that I've lost interest when it finally comes around. Maybe I'm tired of 'Canon in D' from a lifetime of .MOD files, cheap keyboard demo modes, etc. At best, you could dive into this like some pure ear candy, similar to Van Dyke's cover of Donovan on Song Cycle, but the palette is too spare to stay intriguing. This never got classified as part of the 'ambient' series and that's fair enough, cause it's not truly 'ambient' yet, and it's not as consistently great as any of those records, or Music for Films. But side one is great enough that I hold onto this, and the relatively long running time for an LP (due to the low volume of the mastering job) means it's a dangerous thing to listen to, without nodding off and letting my stylus grind into oblivion for all eternity on the run-out groove. There's a big stupid sticker on my copy advertising the EG label (who reissued this from Eno's original 'obscure' imprint) as being a great source for 'new age' music. I guess all genre labels are equally stupid so why not?

Egg (Deram Nova)

Egg occupy a space somewhere between power trio and prog-rock. Dave Stewart's organ is the lead, and it sounds like an organ, mostly eschewing effects and other processing in order to construct creative, intelligent rock music where the keys are the lead instrument. The vocals are actually I've always liked most about Egg - Mont Campbell signs earnestly, with a deep reverberating voice and with lyrics, printed on the sleeve, that exhibit an honest creativity. His bass playing is essential though, being sinewy enough to push against Stewart's changes without being dominant. The structures are tight, but it doesn't feel overly rigid - maybe it's the jazz influections of drummer Clive Brooks, but it's responsive. This is Canterbury in a nutshell - the thinking man's rock, and a fairy early entry, from 1970, that avoids pompousness for the most part. Somehow they manage to cover Bach's 'Fugue in D' and it comes off as charming and cute instead of stuffy classical wanking. Egg are clear to separate their vocal-based songs from their more experimental instrumental excursions. Overall, they don't get too out there - this is definitely on the safe prog, so we have no completely free sessions or white noise blankets or musique concrete or anything like that, except for one dazzling movement of side 2. 'The Song of McGillicuddie the Pusillanimous' (and that's only half the title) is the best song on the album, with slicing organ riffs recalling 60's garage and a fairly intense lyrical bend. Side two is given over to the 'Symphony No. 2', where the Bachisms come to the forefront again, as well as the more atmospheric excursions as previously mentioned; sometimes the bass is just a low gritty hum, and the noisy passage just before the last movement has a great, chunky organ that does finally step on the ring modulation. It works a cohesive piece and ends a pretty solid album, I think Egg's only one - they soon went on to do Hatfield and the North and National Health, where a more strident professionalism stagnates things slightly. But we're still a few years away from the H's, let alone the N's.

Eat Skull - 'Wild and Inside' (Siltbreeze)

Eat Skull's second album is something I've consistently listened to since it came out almost four years ago, and it makes a lot of sense to me. This gang just pulls everything together in the right balance, making records that are strident, yet not cocky; welcoming but not obvious; quirky but not obtuse. 'Stick to the Formula' lays things out on side 1 track 1 with a knowing smirk, and listening back to back with Sick to Death, nothing has really changed, except the songwriting has leaped ahead a notch. There's perhaps a bit more of an embrace of the 80s Kiwi sound here - 'Heaven's Stranger' sounds exactly like early Clean. It's also my favourite song by Eat Skull, with it's slightly-too-many-words for the chorus line ringing out like an indefinite anthem. 'Happy Submarine' continues this feel - lay an earnest, upbeat male vocal over a reverb drenched electric guitar and minimal tambourine - it's followed by 'Talkin' Bro in the Wall Blues' which is a slow ballad, at least by Eat Skull standards, and like the first album, it ends with a more subdued, almost folky feel ('Dawn in the Face' and 'Oregon Dreaming'). The aggro side is most evident in 'Nuke Mecca' which somehow works despite it's ridiculous nature. The lyrics are there to be heard; nothing is hidden, yet it's still somewhat elusive. One wonders if Eat Skull could express some true pain, or show any sign of a struggle, but this is the bedroom psychedelia movement in a nutshell - good times on a pinpoint aesthetic. It's a very short trip, too. I remember that a good friend of mine did not match my enthusiasm for Eat Skull, citing this band as one of the reasons he felt alienated from contemporary underground rock; he saw this as vapid, cheap and empty music that played it safe and just followed a cookiecutter pattern. Maybe he's right, because I feel his alienation with much of the current wave, so i think I've just made an exception for Eat Skull because they push exactly the right buttons for me. This isn't meant as a criticism - their output since this has definitely tried to open some doors, and I'm glad to hear it.

Ducktails - 'Landscapes' (Olde English Spelling Bee)

This Ducktails record is such a pleasing style of provocative music. It's built around pure dreams, the sounds being made up of airy, warm comfort that is still psychedelic in it's overall assemblage. The guitars are strummed and picked as melodic chords, recorded in a hazy, phased-out lo-fi style which reminds me of Bügsküll or other remnants of DIY dream-pop. When Mr. Ducktails (Matt Mondanilee) sings it's like a sweet, hesitant demo tape. He's not afraid to go falsetto, but it's clear that the vocals aren't meant to be any more than another layer. The cheap rhythm loops, from probably built in keyboard beats, are a testament to this generation of thrift-store sound voyagers. But while many of his generation fixate on harshness and tension, Mondanilee glides along a soft, supportive wave. Even the technicolour artwork suggests a family holiday, the sweet sense of teenage nostalgia, and a place where no dogs bite. I don't mean to say this is pure ear candy - it eschews polish, consisting of dirty-yet-soft edges.  Where a lot of melodic loop-pedal kids end up stuck in go-nowhere harmonic noodling, Mondanilee has a sense of balance - these are pop songs, even if mostly instrumental, and they burn with a relaxed glow that channels energy inward instead of being lazy. Maybe that's what 'hypnagogic' means but I think people already stopped saying that a few years ago.

Leo Cuypers - 'Theatre Music/Jan Rap En Z'n Maat' (BV Haast)

I love Dutch jazz and one of the things I like the most about it is how melodic and beautiful it can be while being simultaneously exploratory - brash, confident, and sugary all at the same time.  Leo Cuypers I first encountered when Atavistic did that Unheard Music Series because they issued the Heavy Days are Here Again CD (which we'll get to on the other blog, soon).  His style was wonderfully melodic, but also really fast and dense.  This record is really just called Theatre Music (and it's exactly that) but side 2 is one long piece, belonging to one production called Jan Rap En Z'n Maat, and the spine has only that listed, so I'm not sure exactly what to call this.  The record is mostly a trio of Cuypers on piano, Arjen Gorter on bass, and Martin van Duynhoven on drums - but with Willem Breuker on side 2 with his various reeds.  Breuker produced the whole thing also.  The four tracks on side one must work well as theatre music as they are janty and rolling.  The trio is tight and there's times when the ivories are coursing with electricity, making me want to lie down and just feel the colours wash over me.  The flip side is almost narratively cohesiv.  The opener, 'Jan Rap at 8'30" a.m.' begins with the same trio as side one, with thick clusters of major thirds and perfect fourths, chopped out ferociously but without aggression.  When Breuker comes in, about halfway through the 7 minutes of the piece, it's triumphant.  Cuypers supports Breuker's sax with a bed of contrapuntal chords, and then when they temporarily go in diferent directions it's mesmerising.  Other highlights include 'The House (3 scenes)', which features some thick fuzzy synth underneath the piano, the first of 3 repetitions of a melody in three different arrangements - and the other long piece, 'Triste', a slow, moody exploration based around a rigid, descending theme.  This is the centerpiece of the side and indicates a dramatic shift, cause remember, this is theatre music, right?  It's revisited on synthesizer in the LP's closing minute, a fitting Vincent Price-style conclusion to this LP (and, incidentally, to my C-section [no, don't say it]).  Gorter and van Doynhoven are so crisp throughout that everything is on-point and accurate, yet somehow I wouldn't classify Theatre Music in the "Appolonian" side of the jazzsphere - there's far too much liquidity between the precision.

Lol Coxhill - 'Toverbal Sweet' (Mushroom)

Lol tells us in the liner notes that he's not really the band leader here, and if the record had come out in Holland it would probably be Pierre Courbois or Jasper Van't Hof listed first. This trio appears on Ear of Beholder and here stretches out a bit as a reeds/piano/drum trio. Side one is broken into a bunch of shorter tracks that really flow as one live performance. Van't Hof's piano is repetetive and melodic, owing far more to Mike Ratledge's Soft Machine style than any jazz precedent. Throughout the entire album, there's a repetitive four-note theme that sets an almost rock tone; when Coxhill is soloing over it, it really feels like a jam band, but with jazz instrumentation. Despite the melodic, chordal focus, this doesn't feel "easy" or cheap; instead, it's infused with a splendid history and awareness of antecedents. This is jaunty jazz that strides with a spring step; it's miles away from Miles, and only gets into out-scrapings on the last track, 'The Un-Tempere Klavier and Heavy Friends'. This Berrocalism recalls the 'Rasa Moods' piece on Ear of Beholder, and while not quite as distant (or verbal), it has that same casual quality that emphasis performance over studio fidelity. It gets ferocious only at the very end, and they show they can hang with the big dogs. There's a few solos on side one - Courbois's drum solos are understated, even feeble, but I mean than as a compliment. The hot piano sound is really going to make or break your feelings on Toverball Sweet; I myself find it pretty "sweet" indeed, but I'm a former ivory-pounder myself. Side one's closing minute, just titled 'Toverbal', is an elegiac moment of Coxhill's magical wind, and I don't know why they didn't choose to close the whole album with it.

The Ornette Coleman Trio - 'At the "Golden Circle" Stockholm volume one' (Blue Note)

This is the record on which the Izenzon/Moffett trio's reputation rests, for me (and I will spell their names correctly in this writeup, as this record's sleeve uses the correct spelling unlike Town Hall 1962, which I only just realised butchers it - great job, ESP proofreaders!). I actually have never heard volume two of this concert, and never remember to look for it, which is strange given how much I love volume one. Part of the reason is that I was surprised by this record. My father gave me this LP, from his very small collection of jazz records, representing his brief flirtation with avant-garde jazz in the late 60's which he quickly lost interest in. Actually, I think this might be have been the only record to remain, though he told me that he had both volumes of The Heliocentric Worlds of Sun Ra and swore they were upstairs (they weren't; what a tease!). Anyway, I took this somewhat reluctantly, during the peak of my interest in skronky out-jazz, figuring it couldn't be that good because the recording date was early and Blue Note wasn't a label I thought of as being representative of free jazz. So what a surprise to hear a hot-shit band disassembling the ghost of bop, propelling with energy and that agile, wispy tone of Coleman. The record starts with a spoken introduction in Swedish, after Izenzon tunes up and we hear Moffett adjusting his hi-hat - which makes me now realise that as much I love this trio, it's only these two live recordings I know by them. (I suppose I should start looking for copies of the Chappaqua Suite). Anyway, 'Faces and Places' quickly explodes, with Moffett drilling his ride cymbal throughout, propelling along Ornette's creaky explorations. Again, Izenzon is a little hard to hear, which is partially cause of this weird phasing effect caused by the ride cymbal, which I quite like - it gives the whole track a semi-metallic feel, a little bit like industrial music. It occasionally feels familiar, like quotations of Charlie Parker melodies, but then rips the rug from under itself as it goes along. 'European Echoes' begins with an almost intentionally crude pattern of toots and bleats from Coleman, his technique sounding quite amateurish as the swing slowly starts to take hold. It doesn't feel so much like an echo to me or even something European, but more like a training wheels on a bicycle that slowly rolls long, hitting some Moffett-driven potholes along the way. It sputters to a quiet bit and Izenzon gets plucky, and the whole piece feels like it's about to open up like the Art Ensemble of Chicago would approach it. Slowly the bubbly pattern comes back into place and we're at halftime, after a round of applause from a room of polite Swedes. On the flipside, 'Dee Dee' bursts out with the toe-tapping exuberance begun with 'Faces and Places', leading to a great interplay between the bass and drums when Coleman drops out. And 'Dawn' is a beautiful, slightly subdued closer, beginning with a long melodic improvisation where the bass echoes the sax melody at times, bowed in a way that resembles another horn almost. Moffett's sound is really tinny, with lots of fluttering around on the hi-hat and not much kick, probably a result of recording techniques of anything. It's a meandering tune, content to coast around peripatetically with lots of coffee breaks. It ends, essentially, in a restless, slow bass solo; Ornette returns to put a cap on it, and we're out. It's a downbeat closing, but it looks ahead to volume two.

Don Cherry - 'Blue Lake' (Get Back)

Here's another unearthed trio recording from '71, relissued on Get Back with nice thick vinyl and unreadably Japanese gatefold liner notes. This is the Dyani/Tamiz band we heard on Orient, recorded live and recorded well. After Cherry's title track (a bamboo forest of strange swampy delights), we embark into 'Dollar and Okay's Tunes', which Cherry introduces through a friendly, conversational spoken section. It sounds like we're getting some of Dollar's tunes first, though it's all a big medley -- at least I'm assuming Dollar Brand writes the more cyclical, melodic piano-driven tunes. It definitely veers into the 'Eagle Eye' territory we heard before, except the sound is much more huge - perhaps things are recorded better, or the band is better at multi-tasking. Regardless, it's a swirling ball of sound that sounds great - unified, cohesive and luxurious. Tamiz is a great percussionist who can ride the waves, driving things forward while still containing them. The melodic structures, resembling (in some ways) Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath with the repetitive, simple melodies and ebullience, are departure points. When Cherry pulls out the trumpet, suddenly we're skirted away into uncharted Oriental depths. But it shifts a bit; over the 1.5 sides of this suite, we're taken through worlds of childlike simplicity and then thrust into staggering dynamic complexities. There's a nice interaction between Dyani's bass and Cherry on vocals and I think xylophone near the end of side two, and it sputters into a bit of vocal babbling (or maybe its perfectly lucid and I just don't understand the language) -- which has soft, rubberised edges and is extremely welcoming, even though the music stops and Cherry thanks the interior designer of the venue. It's a bit of a strange ending, but all muscles are relaxed by this point. Platter two is one long piece, 'East', which begins with a bouncy groove and some sinister bass played, using deep bow strokes and occasional fiber scratches. Cherry is again on piano for most of this and by this point I've started to really feel his doubletracked vocal/ivory stylings. While 'East' at first suggests a more avant-free exploration, it doesn't take long til we've fallen back into the same song-based stuff heard on the first record, and indeed on the last one as well. But it's not a comfort zone, it's a truly passionate musical communication. The band really gets cooking around one of those chanted four-note melodies that Cherry's fond of; it sounds strangely familiar, like maybe something from Mu or Orient, but it's always evolving so much that it's hard to say. Maybe I'm feeling Cherry's eternal rhythm, or maybe it's just somnambulant melodies.