Kemialliset Ystävät ‎– 'Ullakkopalo' (Fonal)

Hi there. It's been awhile; a month+ break taken for no particular reason except sometimes you just need a break. There were some dark days in between this and the last transmission, quite literally dark as recovering from a minor eye surgery led to some light sensitivity, which would have been the perfect time to just sit in the dark and listen to records. Yet, no, it didn't happen, and I actually blame the timing of Ullakkopalo being drawn next in this deck. This is a dense masterpiece, where Jan Anderzen has put together a zillion layers of strange interacting sounds to create a tapestry that is dizzying and awe-inspiring, if you can stay focused enough while listening for awe to form.  And I couldn't, which is why after years of technically loving this record, I rarely listen to it; I don't spend as much time as I'd like parsing through its various confounding movements. Sure, there's a lot of horsin' around, but it's all in the service of something complete. With a load of guest musicians, spread throughout the tracks in a manner where their contributions are pretty much impossible to distinguish from Anderzen's own fuckery, this is a real 'Who's Who' of the Finnish freak underground, except all blended together. I first heard Kemialliset Ystävät about five or six years before this, but that was another world entirely. Then, KY material was based around a loose thrashing about, with a lot of acoustic instruments, a lo-fi texture, and no particular hurry to get to any destination. But by this point (2010), it had become a symphony of precisely assembled sound matter, still based around weird experiments and uncertain tonal sources, but concerned with plot, not just feel. I'm reminded at times of Ennio Morricone scores, Albert Marcouer's great 70s art-pop, shoegaze textures and the Residents, but that's just a few points of reference. Really, this is such singular music that it does it a disservice to compare it to other artists. There are moments where the cheap synthesisers swirl around in a carnivalesque manner, but there's a clarity to it all, and as said above a precision, which hides behind the surface-level madness. Singling out tracks is difficult but a few weeks back a Pekko Käppi record was reviewed and even though they're pretty different in temperament, there's a similar sense of eclecticism to how it's all put together. And now that I've gotten here, reaching the end of this, it wasn't so hard after all to write something about, though I don't know if my words add much value to the listening experience.

J.D. - 'Warsaw' (RZM Productions)

The band mysteriously known only as 'J.D.' chose not to release these recordings, which is understandable; they're the dictionary definition of 'raw', in terms of recording, performance and composition. This is punk rock, though - the year '1977' has been mythologised by the mohicans and their descendents, or maybe it was '78 when these were recorded - I dunno for sure, but the anger is sure there. The band that was to follow shed a lot of these influences, making this little more than a curiosity for diehard fans (which I'm not) or for people who revel in early, raw obscurity. As the record progresses it starts to get closer to the Factory sound, but side one has a surprising amount  of chugga-chugga punk rock. The opening cut ('All Of This For You') is great in a primitive way and sets a tone that doesn't sustain itself throughout, as if this is sequnced in the chronological order of how it was written. 'Failures' has a Stooges-like sound, and 'Novelty', though later reinvented as a much more well-known song, is delivered vocally like it's the Descendents or other early 80s American HC act. Reportedly they were unhappy with post-production techniques, but I'm not sure any are evident here - this is rough sounding, maybe because of the bootleg mastering job, or maybe this wasn't actually the album they intended. Omission can sometimes be a good career move; as much as 'Transmission', 'Interzone' and 'Living in the Ice Age' foreshadow what was to come, certainly the myth was amplified by holding these back. The Hooks and crannies are already obvious, the early synth pulses ('No Love Lost') and the overly dour vibe, but the vocals are the main thing that are not quite there yet.  They're angry, yes, and captivated by strange ideas of isolation and collectivity, images of war and order ('Leaders of Men', 'They Walked in Line') no doubt a byproduct of the late 70s British culture and the difficulties of the economic reality of the time. Manchester was a hell of a lot further away from London culturally than geographically; its hard to see this occupying the same stratosphere as the whole Sex Pistols/Vivienne Westwood/Siouxsie aesthetic at the same time, but it technically did. If it reminds me of any London band it would be Killing Joke's first album, which we'll get to soon. But maybe this is a solid document of what they would have been like live - a bit more raw, the drums flailing rather than crisp.

Eyeless in Gaza - 'Drumming the Beating Heart' (Cherry Red)

My other experience with Eyeless in Gaza comes a year after Photographs as Memories, finding a bolder production, maybe slightly toned-down singing, and some long-form instrumental explorations in 'Dreaming at Rain'. (Great choice of a preposition there, guys!) Maybe the 80's changed everyone because I hear a more 4AD sound here - not that Photographs didn't had a liberal use of synth textures and reverb-laden vocals, but it has the more polished, more churchy vibe here which makes me think of Dead Can Dance or Dif Juz. 'Veil Like Calm' sounds practically epic, compared to the first albums relative raggedness; there's not only more confidence here, but a more unified vision perhaps. At this point, Eyeless in Gaza sound like Eyeless in Gaza and no one else. It's still unmistakably capturing a mood and time that is long past, yet elements surface in the popular sounds of today. I keep going back to the aforementioned 'Dreaming at Rain' - it's clearly the dark horse on the album, yet feels a product of writing the rest of the songs -- the end of an organic process, perhaps. I don't mean to harp on Bates' voice, which is wonderful and expressive - but here, especially on side two, he stretches it into something flowing and responsive rather than just over-the-top dramatic. There's more instrumentation that guitars here (as there was on the first, but even moreso) and the plinky-plonks and bells and whistles occasionally create a tapestry of pure tortured beauty. Despite these new romantic tendencies (and the album title) this never strays into too maudlin territory. An underrated gem.

Blues Control - 'Puff' (Woodsist)

Hazy, murky tape ambience with thick layers of keyboard and slowly repeating melodies. The sensation of a music box being run over by a steamroller. And heavy, thick guitar strings reverberating with distortion, delay and echo, chopping through the stasis like a bloody sledgehammer. Puff is five compositions, built, no-doubt, from improvisations; it's a sound-world constructed with blind precision. Rhythms build from tape loops, felt in the distance as the tracks march toward Valhalla. I guess I'm not describing anything too groundbreaking given the utter glut of these practitioners in the past few years, but Puff is truly a high-water mark the whole 'movement'. And movement indeed, for Russ and Lea are masters of brownian motion. This is one to enjoy loud, or with headphones on, because it's so nice to sink into. The five tracks blend into each other and have pretty similar approaches anyway, giving the album and overall thematic cohesion, but the final song, 'Call Collect' is fucking amazing. It's wispy; simultaneously raindrops and black magic, tip-toeing around the stereo field. At times this could pass for some detached German electronica; it's music that somehow trasncends time, as it could have been recorded 30 years ago or 30 years from now. These two used to have another band called Watersports that was similarly amazing at the way they constructed sound. Maybe Watersports just renamed themselves, though Blues Control have less of a focus on environmental recordings so maybe it's a distinctly different project with the same lineup. Regardless of their moniker, I think these two are incredibly underrated, and I think Puff is one of those records that people will still be listening to in 15-20 years. Which is more permanence that most of us could ever hope for.

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band - 'Safe as Milk' (Buddah)

Here's an eccentricity of my filing - I file Beefheart records under B, not under C. Usually I go by surname, ie: Roy Harper under H, with exceptions if the name is fake (Henry Cow does not go under C). By this logic Captain Beefheart is a C, yet I just so completely think of them as "Beefheart" records that B is what's natural. Safe as Milk is pretty visionary, if not totally 'unfuckwithable'. Part of what makes it great is the uncertainty of that vision. Here we have nascent Van Vliet which is the first of many periods. Nascent, then Singular (Trout Mask + Decals of course), then Fumbling (to which I'd even add The Spotlight Kid and Clear Spot to the two that everyone disowns) and then that wonderful late period Rebirth. Safe as Milk lurches around between post-garage tunes teetering on the edge of novelty ('Yellow Brick Road') to absolute scorchers ('Electricity', 'Zig Zag Wanderer'), with a few diversions into balladry ('When There's Woman', and 'I'm Glad' which is like Tom Jones channeled through the ol' brickbats). And then songs that seem to fall in-between, like 'Autumn's Child'. Many of these songs are a lot more complex than you would think, full of changes and weird melodic movements, but it still sounds 'direct' (probably because I'm comparing it to Trout Mask). 'Electricity' has this squealing guitar that sounds like a theremin or something, and it pops up throughout the song, which is one of those details I try to listen for when hearing a record I've heard a bunch of times before. There's a cloud of 60's production haze around these songs that Beefheart never really revisited; Strictly Personal goes off the deep end with studio effects and then the 60's were over, weren't they? I like that - at times you could almost imagine these cuts alongside something by Love, maybe on a California radio station.