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.

Eno - 'Another Green World' (Island)

I think this was the first Eno record I heard, and I came from the ambient side, not the Roxy Music side. Another Green World was perfect - it was a mix of instrumentals that were futuristic, yet organic; heavily studio-based, yet didn't sound like music made by computers; and a few pop songs that were just so perfect that it didn't need any more singing. Years later I feel mostly the same way about it. 'I'll Come Running' feels a bit too rock-based to fit, though it's a great song; otherwise I wouldn't change a thing. What's funny is that for a record I think of as "half-ambient", it's surprisingly punchy throughout. The electroacoustic processing of the various guitars, keyboards, and drums don't shy away from sharp edges - 'Sky Saw', the opening cut, is aptly named. But the world painted here isn't so much a science-fiction vision as it's an alternate reality, rooted in an ethereal surrealism. This is truly music for the techno-hippies of today, for people who are into organic farming but use Twitter to talk about it. And yet, it was made 38 years ago. There's a few bonafide classics here, mostly 'St. Elmo's Fire', which is almost like a "benchmark" song you can play for someone to see if they are a good person or not. (If they like it, they're cool; if not, find better friends). Fripp's solo there is somehow the wankiest-Yngvie thing ever, yet doesn't feel gratuitous. Certain sounds on here, such as the pulsing organs of 'Golden Hours', are now inseparable in my mind from their placement in some of Peter Greenaway's early films, and The Falls in particular, which is about as cinematically precise of a depiction of 'Another Green World' as is possible. I know I just finished writing about how Taking Tiger Mountain was such a landmark record to me, but this would be the one I'd probably have to choose as Eno's most total and complete statement.

Tim Buckley - 'Starsailor' (Straight)

His curls are cropped a bit but his voice, inner and outer, is more wild than ever. This is Starsailor, a record where all the planets are in alignment. I know this is considered a groundbreaking avant-garde work, but it's not as insane as it's reputation might lead you to believe. This flips the inside/outside dynamic of Lorca somewhat, with 'Starsailor' (the titular track) providing the furthest foray into drone echo on side 2, and side one having rather "straight" songs that almost perfectly assimilate Buckley's ideas. Overall, Lorca's side one experimentation is the guiding light, but there's a remarkable concision to the way these songs are executed. Albumwide, nothing is longer than 5 and a half minutes, and the rhythmic freedom and meandering tearducts are largely controlled. And the songs are great. In retrospect, his debut album now feels like songs written for a less powerful voice. As Buckley grows into himself, his songwriting steps up to support, like a really fancy office chair that doesn't neglect the lumbars. 'Jungle Fire' synthesizes some of Happy Sad's 'Gypsy Woman' with side two of Lorca, but also allows Buckley to experiment with strange chord changes and voicings. 'Come Here Woman' is a great opener, setting a dark tone but then changing direction whenever it gets easy. 'Monterey' is a smashing riff-driven rocker where Buckley's pushing things with his voice. 'Moulin Rouge' is Buckley's foray into Kevin Ayers territory, with a village band feel carried by Mothers of Invention member Buck Gardner. Because I heard this record a generation or two after it was made, it's sometimes difficult for me to place what was an influence and what has been influenced by, follow? Though of course I can hear bits of Annette Peacock, US Maple, etc, it's really a singular work. Though who's to say that 'Starsailor''s layered fades aren't somewhat attributable to a healthy serving of Otto Luening? Of course we can't leave without talking about 'Song to the Siren', which by this point I should be tired of because of a million teeny mixtapes and This Mortal Coil's overblown (or brilliant, depending on my mood) treatment. But in reality, this is one of the most remarkably beautiful 3 minutes and 20 seconds ever put to wax, combining fragility, distance, depth, spookyness, energy and occlusion into something absolutely perfect. It is inspiring and devastating; it justifies the existence of the chorus effect; it is a raft from which I hope to never wash ashore, because with resolution comes complacency.

Art Bears - 'Hopes and Fears' (Random Radar Records)

Art Bears are the cream of the crop from that whole scene of musicians that are sometimes called R.I.O. I mean the intellectually-motivated, politically strident, highly prolific gang that stemmed out of Henry Cow (represented by one of those rock music "family tree" diagrams in an insert that came with the first Henry Cow CD boxset many years ago). And oh, what a crop to be the cream of. I don't need to list the many accomplishments of Messrs. Cutler and Frith, and Dagmar Krause is a figure who will pop up several times on this blog. And when I say Art Bears are the best, I don't mean to slight the Cow, the Work, the Lowest Note on the Organ, Lindsay Cooper solo, the Catherine Jauxniaux stuff, Aksak Maboul (who I'd probably have to say are worthy of joint 'cream' crown-sharing), La Societe des Oiseaux etc. It's just that Art Bears were particularly revelatory to me. Prog is a great egg to start chipping away at, and Henry Cow were one of the first prog bands that appealed to me, but Art Bears were ultimately more my thing. I guess it's because they adhered to song structures while maintaining an uncompromising approach to experimentation - not that they are the first band to ever do this, but they do it in a way that blends their incredible eclecticism with their own personalities. There are enough artistic brushstrokes to tickle under the testicles of the sublime, yet still with a coherence that is very direct. Hopes and Fears is their first album, and it actually emerged from Henry Cow sessions. It's funny that this is thought of as being a Henry Cow album since it feels like the most stripped down and simple Art Bears record to me (while Winter Songs, recorded as a trio, feels much more dense). Maybe that's because the songs on HaF have a somewhat folky feel, with a lot of guitars and keyboards, though they occasionally explode into anthemic, driving rock (check out 'In Two Minds', which Wikipedia claims is influenced by the Who but I think that's just cause the piano line is stadium-rockish). This album feels really pomo-rustic to me, like you're walking the Yorkshire Dales but still thinking about the contradictions of capitalism. The lyrics touch on self-reliance ('Labryinth'), surrealist feminist narrative ('Joan'), media ('The Tube') and I think romance though maybe just relationships between humans -- yet the whole album feels infused with someting distinctly British. It's like there's a current that drains through the whole history of music from the British Isles and Hopes and Fears is just another stone in that stream. Dagmar's German accent doesn't alter this, but maybe I just associate her with this sound so much that I've given her an honorary U.K. passport. The bouncy instrumental bits make distinct overtures to these antecedents, though I really feel it more in the lyrics, which often strike pastoral chords in me. Also, most of these songs could be set in any period in history; there are few words that indicate that this record was constructed in the late 1970s. The more wild musical adventures are really going to come on the next two albums, though there are some chilling effects on the instruments. 'The Tube' in particular is a clawing, braying maelstrom of dark drones, and if you mixed out Dagmar and told me it was late Shadow Ring I'd never doubt you.