Guided by Voices - 'Propeller' (Scat)

Eventually, everything from my formative years will be reissued in some deluxe vinyl package. I'm not unhappy about this; owning an original of Propeller was an impossible dream, and I never jumped on the twofer CD with Vampire on Titus since I had already had an original LP of the latter. Scat reissued this a few years back, selecting cover #14 for immortality (a good choice!) and thus enabling me to complete my dream run on vinyl of GbV's most fertile, amazing period. Except my original-ish white vinyl Bee Thousand disappeared mysteriously some years ago, leaving me with only Scat's Director's Cut, which is not bad and has 'Shocker in Gloomtown' on it, after all, but doesn't have the original sequencing which makes me feel that I need both. Anyway, we'll get there. But yes, this is the start of a fertile, amazing period which I would argue is not just GbV's finest era but one of the finest eras of any artist ever, in any medium. Yeah, 1992-97, starting here and going through Under the Bushes, Under the Stars, including most of (if not all) of the EPs and singles from this time - it's a run that is just utterly perfect. Now, Propeller I had listened to a zillion times on a dubbed Maxell type II (high bias!) cassette I got in high school from some enterprising soul online, back when I was actually trading dubs of albums through the mail, such was this high school kid's budget. It's a record that is so brilliantly conceived from start to finish that by the time I finally got this vinyl version, well, I didn't even need to listen to it. I could go through song by song and try to describe them, or even better describe what they mean to me, but maybe that would be boring or pointless. I could try to write something smart about the ironic rock and roll chant that opens the album, the arena-rock aspirations of these basement dwelling weirdos from Dayon, Ohio, and something about the failure of stardom being what makes this great, blah blah blah, sprinkle in some comparison to Kevin Coyne, and we're done. But what's the point? When they broke in '94 or '95 everything that could have possibly been written about them already was. And I can't even really say how great this sounds on vinyl cause it really just sounds like the cassette did - after all, it was recorded on cassette to begin with. So while the pressing is lovely enough (and includes a collection of some alternate handmade covers), it's not like the discovery of some great lost soundworld. OK, here's something I'll actually say: I love Pollard's more optimistic songs, and this record is covered in them: 'Quality of Armor', 'Exit Flagger', 'Unleashed! The Large-Hearted Boy' - these and most of the other cuts have been live staples for 25 years, through various lineups, and these must be songs I have listened to 3000 times each and I'm not the slightest bit tired of them. If I remember correctly they were gonna 'quit' the band and this was to be their final album, though given how many times Pollard has broken up and reformed the band, at this point I just see Guided by Voices more like a celestial force than a band, so I don't take that too seriously. I was just talking about the pre-Propeller Box that had all their albums up to this point, and was thinking about how actually great a lot of them are; I made a great mixtape of the best 4 or 5 songs from each of those. But Propeller is a step forward beyond belief; this is where Sprout really starts to shine ('14 Cheerleader Coldfront'!) and the band became, to me at least, the greatest fucking rock band of all time. Even the weakest cuts are epic soundworlds to me - the collage 'Back To Saturn X Radio Report' is made up of fragmentary songs that are found on King Shit and the Golden Boys, Static Airplane Jam, and other outtakes compilations from this era, and somehow the clumsy pause-button editing just strikes me as a brilliant vision. This is the first cornerstone of an amazingly rewarding vision, and I'll just knock off the superlatives now because I got a few more albums to spread them over.

Albert Ayler - 'Lörrach/Paris 1966' (Hat)

There are bands and there are great bands and there are bands that literally shred everything that came before them and churn it into some new musical buttersoupmelée and marry that to the some incredible fifth dimensional soundwaves that simultaenously occupy all of time and space and whatever comes after. So here's the Underbite Hyperbolé in action again, because wasn't I saying such great things one or two mere posts ago about the classic Ayler/Peacock/Murray trio? Well yes, that's all well and fine and earthshattering in a certain way, but for me, the band from '66-67 with Don Ayler and Michael Sampson is the one that blows it all apart for me. When you drop the needle on 'Bells', side one track one from the 33rpm Lörrach platter, the air you breathe takes on a shiny new curved dimension and your bones literally throb with excitement and energy. Or at least mine do. Maybe I'm just a sucker for the strings because they give everything a very, I dunno, regal quality, like this is something truly triumphant and celebratory. Or maybe it's that it just took Albert a few more years to explode like this, and the synergy created by his brother is what allowed that to happen - I mean, it's not like Sunny Murray was ever holding anyone back -- but pure freedom isn't what I listen for in Albert Ayler's music. Or maybe it's got something to do with the fidelity of these live recordings - and of the Impulse! discs from Greenwich Village that come next on the CD blog. These recordings are so rich that every note can sing. The moments of utter cacophony are so clear and righteous that even the most conservative jazz listener would have to admit there's something magical there. And the craziest thing of all is that they're mono! (Or maybe that's exactly why). 'Our Prayer' is religious music that'll make anyone melt into a blubbering mess no matter how much you've tried to excommunicate yourself. The 45rpm Paris platter has two versions of 'Ghosts' on one side (though titled in the singular 'Ghost' here, certainly not a foreshadowing of the 1990 Patrick Swayze/Demi Moore vehicle) and even though we've heard this tune few times now we haven't even begun to get sick of it. Each one is different than the last; you could play 'Ghosts' a million times and never tire of finding ways to breathe life into it. The goofy military march at the end of the second version here is a good segue into side D's 'Holy Family', which occasionally breaks down into neoclassical madness with William Folwell and Sampson providing a thick bed of strings for Albert's suddenly aggressive vibrato to rage against. No one ever says that Don Ayler is a great trumpet player and that always gets my hackles up - sure, he lacks the technical ability and versatility of a Lester Bowie, but I don't believe that anyone ever clicked with Albert better. Blood is thicker than water I guess and there's a serious mindmeld that can only come from sharing DNA. You can try to do an analytical breakdown of why this music is so communicative (for example, the tempo slowdowns I think lend a hell of a lot of gravitas to it) but I think that picks apart the moment, which should just be experienced. Or maybe this leads to deification at the expensive of independent thought. If Ayler had lived and made competent-to-passable records into the 90s (like McCoy Tyner or somebody equivalent) would we still hear the magic and fire in this? I say yes, although I realise my own enthusiasm is furthering the myth a bit, but deservedly so if you ask me. The only real question for me is what's better - this record or the Greenwich Village discs? And does it even matter, because I'm lucky enough to be able to listen to both of them, any time I'd like.