Jefferson Airplane - 'Surrealistic Pillow' (RCA Victor)

OK, here's a bit of seemingly intentional nonconformity, but I don't think Surrealistic Pillow is all that great. Which leads to the followup question of why do I own a copy then, to which I cannot really provide an answer. This copy is beat to shit and the stereo pressing, and I love their subsequent release, but I think the record's notoriety probably stands in the way of me truly evaluating it, truly appreciating it maybe. Which is what I tried to do when it came up today, next in this project, another surprise of 'Oh do I have this still?' as happens so often here. I guess given the surreal, truly psychedelic sound of After Bathing at Baxter's I find the tepid folk-pop songs on here hard to sit through; the recording is also done in that too-echoey way that makes it sound particularly dated, the same way Moby Grape records sound to me, which is maybe just the 'psychedelic sound', at least the San Francisco variant. Speaking of Moby Grape, Skip Spence wrote 'My Best Friend', which is one of the more forgettable numbers here; it, along with 'Today' and 'How Do You Feel' steer Surrealistic Pillow far closer to sounding like a slightly amped up Mamas and Papas than the cabal of psychedelic visionaries they're supposed to be. The two towering songs here are of course 'Somebody to Love' and 'White Rabbit', and I don't know what I can really say about them that is an original take. The latter is of course a ridiculous work of music, immortalised by Hunter Thompson, and the former is, to me, merely a pretty good pop song of the era. That both of these are Grace Slick's contributions and that they have endured so much longer than anything else on Surrealistic Pillow probably indicates that having her join the band was a good idea. 'Plastic Fantastic Lover' is pretty good and 'She Has Funny Cars' is good music to play in a documentary when you're talking about the swinging sixties. Otherwise the pick of the litter for me is Jorma Kaukonen's beautiful 'Embryonic Journey', a bit of melting Vanguard/Takoma magic that works extra well before 'White Rabbit'. I know I'm being a bit hard on this because it's considered a psychedelic classic, but it hardly sounds like the Cold Sun LP. And better grooves are around the corner, for sure.

Idea Fire Company - 'Beauty School' (Ultra Eczema)

I don't know if this Ultra Eczema release is meant to stand as a 'major' IFCO record, since it doesn't come with a manifesto and isn't released on their own home label, Swill Radio. It also features two side-long pieces, with the core IFCO duo accented by Matt Krefting and Graham Lambkin, as opposed to a collection of shorter pieces (if that means anything - probably not!). Those two guys are a perfect match for IFCO's style of sound slicing, and the resulting record is aptly named yet monolithic in its glamour. 'Buzzbomb' is the thunderous, unforgettable track which feels endless, timeless and other such superlatives. Like The Island of Taste we find piano used prominently, played not rapidly but with a resounding certainty, anchoring the piece or rather keeping its movement adhering to a wobbly centre. The tapes and synths and other Idea Fire affects are layered without overwhelming, no single individual sound emerging to take over, and summing up to build a strong feeling of weight. If the track 'Island of Taste' was slowly floating skyward under its own breaths, maybe 'Buzzbomb' is where we come back down. It's a long track and the second movement of it shifts the tone towards something more claustrophobic; this is simultaneously a beautiful concoction to get lost in and a heavy, affecting experience. The title track on the flip is build around an indefatigable tremolo effect and thus continues the stasis. Dennis Tyfus's artwork is perfect for this - monochromatic, yet inviting, cartographic textures which imply a huge universe within to explore and probe. After 'Beauty School' and therefore Beauty School concludes, there's a ringing left in the room, the overtone hangover caused by the greatest recordings of LaMonte Young, Vibracathedral Orchestra, etc. Something else lingers long after this record passes, and that isn't just tonal but perhaps a changing of the air, or the molecular alteration of the walls and floor in here cause by these soundwaves.

Roy Harper - 'When an Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease' (Chrysalis)

I have the North American edition of this album, which is called HQ in the UK, but to be honest I like this title more. I think of this (roughly) as Harper's Rust Never Sleeps, with one side being electric and one side acoustic, but it's actually not true - the rock numbers have acoustic interludes and the second side actually rocks a bit on 'Hallucinating Light'. Yet there's something of a duality here - maybe because side A is largely uptempo songs about big topics, and side B is a bit more delicate, pastoral, and romantic. This feels like the summation of everything Roy Harper explored between 1968-1974, synthesised into one masterful album, yet despite this cohesion, I wouldn't call this his best record (but certainly a good one). 'The Game (parts 1-5)' opens it up, a 13-minute epic investigation of the mysteries of existence. He's done these deep, rambling philosophical numbers before ('McGoohan's Blues', 'The Lords Prayer') but here, the whole work is built around a Kinks-style 'You Really Got Me' riff, which keeps everything from spiralling out of control. I'm not sure which parts are which, but somewhere in the middle, things take a nice shimmery folk turn, and it builds up to the climactic, inevitable rock-out ending. The final lyrics are 'Please leave this world as clean as when you came', and this is reflected in the composition itself which is relatively tidy, closer to Zeppelin than to Yes. It sounds a bit like Harper has shifted beyond melancholy to a sense of resignation; the feeling of 'The Game' is of a narrator trapped in structures beyond his control, trying to determine what art means, what his relationships have been worth. It's much more existential than sci-fi, and it works pretty well, even if you won't find yourself with a catchy melody stuck in your head afterwards.The big themes continue on 'The Spirit Lives', which starts off pontificating over a slidey steel guitar bed before starting to rock out. Here, Christianity is his target, and his atheistic, humanistic assertions rank up there with Burma's 'New Nails'; Roy Harper is more punk than anyone realised, perhaps because he rarely wraps his observations in easy slogans. Anyway, I'm always up for some religion-bashing, so I like it. The weak part of side one (and the whole record, really) is 'Grown Ups Are Just Silly Children', which ends the side, again reminding me of Roy Wood and Wizzard in particular. This rave-up is a throwaway number but it's okay, because side two is so lovely. 'Referendum (Legend)' I guess is some reboot on Sophisticated Beggar's 'Legend', or maybe its just a totally different song. 'Forget Me Not' is a truly beautiful, psychedelic work to immerse oneself in, a totally simple love song where the chorus/echo effects of John Leckie's production work wonders (finally). These days, I tend to gravitate towards the more simple, strong 'songs' instead of the ambitious prog-experimental jams, and this is just fucking stellar. 'Hallucinating Light' is long and trippy, yet very subdued - it precedes mellow minimalist rock bands like Low and the Clientele by two decades and remains a haunting presence even once the record segues into the title track, which is a slow yet fierce dirge about aging, I guess, filled with sports metaphors. The back cover of this outlines the rules for cricket, I guess since us Americans wouldn't know, but I would have rather had the lyrics printed. I don't know if Chris Corsano's Young Cricketer is somehow a reference to this - the album artwork is a little bit similar.

Gong - 'Flying Teapot: Radio Gnome Invisible Part 1' (Charly)

I'm a bad Gong fan, because I don't own anything beyond this first part of the Radio Gnome Invisible trilogy, nor could I really tell you what it's all about, even though the story is written out, by hand, in the gatefold sleeve. But who's gonna take the time to read this? Instead you can drift off on the psychedelic voyage presented by Mr. Allen and friends, and listen to his voice, focusing on the lyrics when you want to and letting the guitars, flutes and echoing resonance take you to new dimensions of sound and spirit. This is a pretty solid album though, significantly more progventurous than Camembert, though at the expensive of, well, cohesion. We have two titular tracks here, 'Radio Gnome Invisible' which opens things up as a hard introduction to the Gnomish concept; then, the 12:30 of 'Flying Teapot'. Most of side one is taken up by this second cut, which shifts from movement to movement in an epic manner yet stays nimble - it feels almost like it doesn't repeat or go back into themes, but maybe it's because I feel my brain get baked just by listening. I like the diversity here, and we have long instrumental runs that take this record just a small step closer to Genesis territory than before - this isn't totally insane NWW-list Futura-prog at all, but feels druggier because of the cultural associations around this kind of music. Maybe it's the chord changes, or the modalities, or the saxophones and guitars interacting in a certain way, but it definitely feels like prog-rock, though Daevid Allen's singing brings things back to la-la land. There are slow, spacious passages with tape loops and wind instruments making abstract soundscapes, but then also lively and exuberant rock jams. If anything, it's a treasure map being laid out that has an irrepressible personality, yet fits well within the context of early 70s prog-space rock. Hawkwind are a good comparison perhaps, but Gong is goofier and therefore they've always been more to my tastes. Side two handily shifts between sounds - 'The Pot Head Pixies' has the same hooky/manic energy as Camembert's 'Fohat Digs Holes in Space'; 'Zero The Hero and the Witch's Spell' moves between exploratory noodling over a light jazz-rock base to a thick, slow space-dirge in just a matter of minutes. 'Witch's Spell/I Am Your Pussy' ends things with Gilli Smyth intoning about modern Wiccan rituals, or something - by this point you can practically smell the smoke wafting in from .... somewhere? Gatefold cover so you can roll your joints in it, of course. I don't have parts two or three so I guess we'll never know what happens to this invisible gnome, but I guess he probably starts getting really into jazz fusion.

Fucked Up - 'Hidden World' (Deranged)

When I heard Fucked Up it was a good five or six years after I had been semi-immersed into the punk and hardcore scene, and I was starting to feel a new wave of appreciation for these sounds. But the second time around, I didn't shy away from melody, I didn't care about the culture around this music - a new take on a familiar feeling was all I wanted, and thus I took interest in records like Jay Reatard's Blood Visions, and also this. Hidden World is arguably an updating of hardcore with contemporary themes circa 2006, shaking off the musical conservatism that saturated the HeartattaCk world and embracing any possibilities that were out there. These Canadians could certainly play with a fury, but they employed just enough pop sensibility to make them palatable to the Matador label, where they ended up after this - and soon started making weird pseudonymous fake compilations and concept albums. There's ideas bursting from both LPs of this set, and when they bring in, for example, a violin solo (at the end of 'Carried Out To Sea'), it feels like an organically integrated part of the composition and not just a gimmick like so many other "hardcore" bands use. The singer's name is Pink Eyes which is a nice take on all these bands from the time (Wolf Eyes, Frog Eyes, Black Eyes, Aids Wolf, Pink Frog, etc.) though maybe he just had conjunctivitis. It's a double album but doesn't feel long, presented well on nice thick vinyl with good mastering, as has become the fashion. I sort of remember the one after this, which I think got compared to Radiohead in the media, but I didn't hang with it for more than one listen, though I should re-visit it now. Maybe I'm most stimulated by records like this, where the really ambitious stuff is still following a template of a formula, a familiar sound; these subtle reinventions from something rooted are often the most inspiring (This Heat Deceit, anyone?). Fucked Up weren't the first hardcore band to have occult-leaning lyrics that deconstruct religion and myth, though maybe the way they do this without compromising their energy is what's special. Moss Icon's brainy, acid-drenched ramblings are maybe an influence, but there's a more coherent focus here, even if the lyrics are not necessarily more lucid. They also aren't the first band to have a mastery of rock songwriting, but they definitely do; the heard-it-before surface of 'David Comes to Life' or 'Two Snakes' belie the complexity underneath. When the bass and drums stop in the title track and a wall of strummed chugga-guitar builds up, and the band eventually comes crashing back in, it's tension-and-release straight from the Mission of Burma schoolbook - you know it's coming, but you're happy for the payoff (and then it ends with a melodic pattern of whistling). It all warps up with the 9-minute 'Vivian Girls', which is sadly not a Snakefinger cover, but an epic of its own, with march-like instrumental climax and a thick blanketing sound that's hard to escape from. This is such a great record, and thanks to this alphabetical project for reminding me it's here.

Charalambides - 'IN CR EA SE' (Eclipse)

Time has been kind to IN CR EA SE, which I remembered as being brutal, stark and difficult when I originally bought it. I probably played it once and shelved it, which is funny because it's the only record I have by this band, whom I actually like a lot. Well, it is brutal, stark and difficult, but that doesn't mean it isn't great too. Christina Carter is relegated to chord organ and vocal duty, which is a bit of a shame because her guitar playing is usually brilliant, even visionary at times. But Tom Carter is amazing too and his tonal bends, reverb-laden explorations and perfect scrapes get spotlighted here. Side one, 'IN', is a dense, dark storm, but it's slow as a worm, like everything on this record. It's the sunrise of the album, with plenty of references to 'that Charalambides sound' that they do in their live shows. His guitar is frantic and ragged, but it never is in excess -- every gestures is carefully calculated. 'CR' opens things up a bit, a more broad landscape bathed in bright white light. There's difficulties in navigation - though the instrumentation is very minimal, its well-explored. It's the second LP where things get much more unpleasant. 'EA' starts the wall of sound - of dissonant chord organ intervals and hazy, uncertain guitar twangs. Christina's voice soars at the end of both tracks, sounding possibly multi-tracked, yet thin - it's all part of the clouds. These four pieces are obviously improvised, though I don't think completely free -- there is a focus that is overwhelming, expressed as tension that never lets up. IN CR EA SE is a long, long listen -- I didn't time it but it feels like each side is over 20 minutes -- and it's hard to tune out or allow to become an ambient blanket because it's such an unsettling vibe. The title is pretty accurate as to how the record progresses, as 'IN' feels like a gentle, pastoral memory by the time you reach 'SE'. I love how Charalambides are so aggressively experimental, yet throb on a familiar pulse. They have a mastery of subtlety and technique, and maybe this is displayed more here than on their more familiar releases. There's clearly an appreciation of tradition - of psych, folk, and minimal precedents -- I see Charalambides as mining the drift between the notes of 13th Floor Elevators' 'Dust' , another Texas dark star.

Burning Star Core - 'Papercuts Theater' (No Quarter)

We've at long last reached the end of our Burning Star Core gauntlet, though if we were reviewing unspined CDrs we'd be here far longer. Look for Withholding Antiseptic Utilitarian Dental Inducers, our CDr blog, starting in 2013 after we get through everything else. But in the meantime we have this beautiful gatefold double LP of live material, where Yeh has taken the approach of collaging 11 years of various recordings together into four even sides. It's a 66-minute long behemoth that reminds me a bit of the Art Ensemble of Chicago's Live in Mandel Hall record from '71, at least in size, construction and density. Or maybe Metal Machine Music because that's also four evenly-split 16.5 minute sides that resist description. The bulk of the credits are the core Burning Star Core players since 1997 - Yeh, Trevor Tremaine, Mike Shiflet, Robert Beatty, Jeremy Lesniak and John Rich. There's some other notable guests whose contributions are indicated, but for the main players, they're anywhere and everywhere. Because everything blends together it's hard to tell what comes from when, but Yeh's assembled this with a sure hand, without any obvious drops in sound quality or levels. You can jump in at any place and swim as long as you want, and the mastering and vinyl really bring to life the dense arrays of movement carried in these grooves. Which if you think about it, is a real feat since I'm sure a lot of this stuff was sourced from minidisc and/or cassette. There are certainly bits I witnessed live or have heard before on other CDr releases, but it's impossible to say as everything has been transformed into a monolithic juggernaut. That's not to say this is an impenetrable, solid edifice -- there are moments of extreme delicacy, with swirling violins, spacious echoes and cavernous soundpits anchored by thundering rhythms. I'm not sure if this is a case of the sum being more than its parts or vice-versa, since I didn't hear all of the little bits that made this patchwork. If you think of Burning Star Core live as a certain thing, which this record clearly presents it as, then it makes sense to do it this way - it's an everexpanding sea of sound organisation, with various collaborators all anchoring around Yeh's own vision. There's glimpses of the rhythms we've heard on Operator Dead or the textural scrapings of Very Heart of the World, and though the vocal component is downplayed (or just buried), it's hard to mistake this music for anything else.

Bügsküll & the Big White Cloud (Scratch)

This is technically a collaboration with someone named the Big White Cloud, but it's hard to tell what Mr. Cloud actually brings to this that wasn't already in the Bügsküll arsenal (ah, those lovely umlauts have returned again!). This record begins with a driving stadium rock jam called 'Fair Are the Sails' (or at least, if Bügsküll played a stadium). The bedroom electro-psych we've heard emerge over the past few records (and we are missing Distracted Snowflake Volume Two, remember) is now emphasised with a driving 4/4 beat behind it and triumphant, anthemic riffs. The long second track, 'We Understand That', builds up on the thick layers of the opener with a goofy come-and-go electronic beat, and occasional vocal intrusions - a brief processed vocal part that serves as a type of hook, and then some murky megaphone speaking. The speaking continues on side one's brief coda, a plucky metal-tank inhabitor that somehow fits with the back cover text about whales and whatnot. Side two furthers the 'inside' psychedelia, as the layers are quite thick and the notes quite melodic. Whomever the Big White Cloud is, they certainly steer Byrne to a more fun, accessible direction - until the last track, 'Tweedlebug Jamboree', which is perhaps the longest and most out there piece heard on any of these records. There's no tonal center, and it's assembled from bits and pieces - and it's dark. As dark as some of Snakland's bad karma. As the sendoff track for our Bugskull run, it's a good choice, as it somehow encapsulates much (if not everything) that is great about Bugskull. And overall, this album feels like a logical place to go after Distracted Snowflake. It builds on the confidence of that record and the achievements of the early work, but without being repetitive. Mr. Byrne pretty much dropped off the map after this - nine years later, another LP was released, but it dates from the Snowflake period - so maybe this is a swansong not just of my own accumulation but of Bugskull in general.

Bügsküll - 'Crock: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack' (Pop Secret)

For years I thought Crock was a fake movie, since the names from the film credits sound made up (The Surgeon, Steve Sexx Stevens, Slats Grobnik) but the Internet tells me it's a real film. Prescott Sheng maybe didn't turn into the next Jean-Luc Godard, but whatever weirdness Crock was (the stills on the back suggest a wonderfully public-access aesthetic), it sure had a great soundtrack that probed the outer limits of bedroom psychedelia in 1996. Bügsküll (the umlauts are back!) are great for soundtrackin', as the longer instrumental jams first explored on Snakland seem ripe for arthouse cinema. The titles suggest a close affiliation with the film with Pretty Boy and the Lost Patrol being repeating names. 'The Cactus Corps' takes up most of side 1 and it's built over a crooked Casio beat with heavy guitar panning, disembodied affected ghostspeak, and sublimely accessible malevolence. The electronic beats creep in a good bit on 'Pretty Boy's Tent' but guitars, cheap keyboards, and consumer effects pedals beat all here. 'Maggot (heart)s Pretty Boy' is the most vocal we've heard Mr. Bryne in awhile, perhaps intending this to be the hit single. Through the gently plodding song there's bit of sun-starved twang guitar which cuts through those lower mids and opens a prism on things. I suspect this whole record is Byrne solo, a there are even less live drums. The drum programming, as mentioned before on 'Tent', is quite simplistic, almost like retarded proto-breakcore, but so buried in the drones and effects the effect is quite odd. 'The Lost Patrol Return Home' thuds along as an appropriate end-credits track, with a nice placid coda of perfectly placed tones. I realise with Crock how Bügsküll has too short of an attention span to properly "do" minimalist drone, and the results is a richer cornucopia of textures and melodies. Now if only Criterion will get on the DVD release...

Bongwater - 'Too Much Sleep' (Shimmy-Disc)

I'm not sure what's up with my bizarro version of Too Much Sleep, as it seems to have a different cover than anything I can find online, and is missing quite a few tracks from what Wikipedia/AllMusic reports. Which means I apparently miss a cover of 'Why Are We Sleeping?' but that's okay since the Slapp Happy tune 'The Drum' remains - probably my favorite of any Bongwater (or even Shockabilly) cover version. As if there was any doubt that these guys were into Blegvad! But they wear it well, cluttering up the lovely chord changes with sampled voices that are totally eerier instead of just superflous. But that's the name of the game with Bongwater. Too Much Sleep is a messy, goofy bundle of singsong flapping about, which has a lot of that Kramer reverb sound and enough double-tracked male-female vocals to totally drive a stake through the corpse of Sonny and Cher. There's a few tunes that have a proto-Chicks on Speed Eurotrash sound, like 'Talent is a Vampire', where Kramer seems to have calculated the right way to throw electric guitar shards in a way that conjures monster truck rallies, MA opening shows, and melting eyeliner. The spacey production occasionally works psychedelic wonders, particularly when keyboard/organ notes swell up and meander around the guitar-based rhythms. Dave Rick, who played in King Missile, shreds all over this record and I wonder if people would revere him the same way they do Alan Licht if he hadn't played in such goofy projects. 'Mr. & Mrs. Hell' is like an American reboot of the Mekons' 'Trouble Down South', and the electronic resonance has it's complement in side 2's 'Khomeni Died Tonight', a bit of Ralphy weirdness if I've ever heard it. 'One so Black', a Dogbowl-penned composition, has a lovely vocal arc and more of Rick's enlightening fretboard scratching. It all ends with the creepy, yet strangely affecting 'No Trespassing'. Overall I think this is Bongwater's most solid album though I can't say I've heard any of the others in recent years. The logo's designed by Gary Panter, who 20 years later has enjoyed a hipster resurgence though those kids probably wouldn't touch a Bongwater record with a 20 foot pole.