Philip Glass ‎– 'Koyaanisqatsi' (Antilles)

I've seen the film of which this is the soundtrack, and it's pretty good! A bunch of crazy time-lapse stuff, showing people from all over the world working and living their lives; it's a real artistic vision of late capitalism, for sure. Not entirely unlike those videos Phill Niblock always shows during his performances, of developing nations toiling in fields of rice, etc. -- but maybe the short attention span theatre edition. The music sounds pretty austere though - a bunch of chanting in unknown tongues and thick, layered instrumentation (five trumpets, five French horns, four violas, two tubas, etc.) which makes it actually sound like synth music in a few places. There is a lot of keyboard, being pretty much equally lead instrumentation with the choir (courtesy of the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, none of whom are credited by name -- I guess when you join a choir you take a vow of semi-anonymity, sort of like playing offensive line for the Denver Broncos) and it all just sounds great if you turn it up LOUD. A reviewer's note here: I got a new turntable since the last post, so this is the first record listened to through the superior effort of the Rega Planar 3, and wow! The voices sound fucking intense, especially on 'Vessels' or maybe it's 'Cloudscape' - I wasn't paying attention. Turning up the volume knob makes the recorded human voice sound like I've never heard it before, perhaps the way he's layered them here or something to do with what they are singing. I assume it's the Hopi language that the title comes from, but maybe it's just gibberish, or maybe the Magma language -- who knows? who cares? It's a power that those Alabama Sacred Harp Singers records have, where you just feel an energy coursing through your body and ripping you apart. The sacred harp jams are about Jesus or salvation or something, and this is, I guess, about how the pace of technology-driven modern life is desiccating our souls (again, I'm not fluent in Hopi) so you can choose what's more inspiring. I'm not a Christian in the slightest (hail Eris!) and spend most of my time thinking about the aforementioned desiccation than any sort of Creator, yet I love Gospel music, which at its best, conjured the same shimmery whole-body magic that this does. Fans of that mid-70s Meredith Monk vibe will also find a lot to love here, as Koyaanisqatsi has a dour, medieval feel (despite its openness, or maybe precisely because of it); when the title track is chanted at the beginning and end of this record you know you're somewhere special. This has always been my favourite Philip Glass work, seemingly balanced between his more commercial efforts and the postmodern operatic work such as Einstein on the Beach (though, I remember that pretty fondly, too).

Gang of Four - 'Another Day/Another Dollar' (Warner Bros.)

This EP pairs three new songs with two live ones, and the new songs are produced more intensely than anything before. 'To Hell With Poverty' is a fun song with the great refrain "We'll get drunk on cheap wine!". It's still built around the formula (Andy Gill's fiery swordstrokes of guitar laid over a thick, chunky and dancey rhythm section), but there's more studio affectations - some echoey yelps, served as accents on the melody, are really the calling card of this song. I was in a doctor's waiting room last week and they were playing Madonna's 'Material Girl' and I couldn't notice how similar the production techniques were to this. The other two songs remind me more of Einsturzende Neubauten or something like that - more industrial, churning out like they were influenced by that scene at the time, though maybe not. The live side is good enough - 'Cheeseburger' is fiery and it's nice to hear the intensity they brought to the more rigid songs. I never went past here but maybe it's time to overcome my fear of Songs of the Free?

The Cure - 'Boys Don't Cry' (PVC)

And here we go again, through most of the same record. Though the awesome Hendrix cover has been removed (too much for American audiences to handle, perhaps?) we do get 'Killing an Arab', a song which I don't need to hear again, despite how cool I thought it was in high school when I was reading Camus. Actually, in the Mark Pauline interview in the RE/Search Pranks book (aka, my bible) he talks about how he dressed up all of these dead pigeons like Arabs and then built some machine/assembly line to decapitate them as a performance piece, while playing the Cure song, and no one quite knew how to interpret it. Hmmm. Anyway, I certainly didn't mind hearing 'Accuracy' or 'Grinding Halt' again - it's great how poppy, yet dour, these tunes are; just enough to sing infectiously after the record has stopped playing. I couldn't really tell much distinction between the mastering/fidelity of the two pressings; they're really interchangeable, and it just comes down to whether or not you want to hear 'Plastic Passion' (I don't) or 'Boys Don't Cry' (I do; so it's a coinflip for me). The artwork reminds me a bit of Ashley's Automatic Writing but there's nothing that avant-garde to be found in these grooves. It's silly how two of the three Cure albums I own are mostly the same, but that's my fault for not snatching up the (very good, from what I remember) Faith and Seventeen Seconds when I had a chance.

Don Cherry - 'Orient' (Get Back)

Orient's title track, split over two sides, is a rambunctious and sprawling improvisational duo with Han Bennink (or technically a trio, as there is very minimally contributed tambura). Cherry and Bennink both move between instruments, with a heavy emphasis on repetitive, circular piano melodies to open and close the piece. In the middle is where the meat is, though it's always changing. One memorable part on side 2, near the end, finds Bennink's trashcan cymbal style as a nice ridge against an otherwise hypnotic, stuck-record piano riff. It's great to see these two together; the most interesting bit is where Cherry is singing (in a sharp yet earthy caterwaul) over Bennink's xylophone/steel drum freakout. Or at least I think so; it actually sounds like both of them are playing this demented afrorhythm, but Bennink is the master of sounding like two for one. The hybrid world-fusion than was begun on the Mu records feels like it's found a more confident footing while simultaneously being more loose -- such is the power that someone like Bennink can contribute. I always tend to equate Bennink with a more humorous playfulness than Cherry often displays, and the beginning of 'Orient' on side 2 has a Dadaist call and response horn part that is reprised at the end with Bennink emulating brass instruments with his own voice. It ends the whole collaboration on a goofball moment that's a new direction for Cherry, yet somehow not incongruous with his eversought earthpulse. 'Eagle Eye', a trio recording with Johnny Dyani and Okay Tamiz, is the next split-across-two-sides piece. It's significantly more meandering and less propulsive, but shows another side of Cherry. It unfolds slowly, with some bowed bass and a much more languid drum style -- in some ways I think Tamiz is more attuned to Cherry's heartbeat, though perhaps the results are less intriguing than with Bennink's iconoclasm. Some moaning/chanting gets the energy level up before it settles into a nice piano riff groove, spoiled only by the platter-dividing fadeout. On side 3, the groove returns and so does the chanting, with a few James Brown-style interjections ("Help me out! I need help!", to which Dyani responds with his bassline; "I've been trying to learn to sing, y'know, but I really need help...." and then more pleas for vocal assistance, assuring the listener (or the band) as to how simple the song actually is). Soon, some live crowd sound is mixed in, sounding like a huge cavernous space, almost like a fake studio effect but maybe they just swung the microphone to face the other way. But it is a live performance, as the ending applause reveals. 'Eagle Eye' does start to become tiresome, but at some indeterminate point the tune turns into 'Togetherness', where Cherry busts out the pocket trumpet and gives us some of what we've been waiting for. This is another solid piece, and a nice crowdpleaser as the aforementioned applause indicates. Side four reunites Cherry with Han Bennink, and the tambura is a bit more audible here (or maybe only present here and not on 'Orient' at all, I'm not sure). 'Si Ta Ra Ma' is a side-long song structured around a four-note melody which is extended through piano, tabla, singing and other formats. It's a minimalist deconstruction of a melodic figure not unlike the work of Henry Flynt or, much later, Richard Youngs' Advent record. It does feel like Bennink has to take a backseat and given my stereotype of Dutch free jazz, it almost feels weird to imagine him embarking on this chant. But that's a stupid preconception to have about someone as fluid and shapeshifting as Bennink, and he manages to refute it throughout the duration of the side. He's in pitter-patter mode consistently, whether it be tabla, steel drum, or blocky-sounding drums. His nervousness plays off Cherry's calm, and when the melody returns on piano, it's like the sun setting over the harbour.