Gregory Jones & Roy Sablosky - 'No Imagination' (Vinyl)

There isn't much more one could want from a record of experimental electronics. No Imagination does quite a lot across its four tracks, and it's the only release by these guys apart from a new wave band called Standard of Living that they were both in; so this was probably seen as their experimental 'side project' if anything, which is a shame, cause I'd love to hear how their musical relationship may have developed over time. The four cuts traverse fairly different territory for a record that is built around two guys with electronics, though my favourite track is Jones-less, only featuring Sablosky plus James Gable on 'transducer guitar' and Marianne Fraenkel on vocals. It's a 15 minute long dirge called 'Intro (Summer Names)', perversely not the first track, but coming after 'No Moon No Mirror' (which is a proper intro). But 'Intro' the song consists of a heavily repetitive guitar strum, firing ecstatic overtones in conjunction with Sablosky's electronics, and the faint intonations of Fraenkel's spoken text. It's just there to feel more than listen to, obfuscating the urge to interpret verbal meaning. Her delivery reminds me of the voice on Blue Gene Tyranny's 'A Letter From Home'; this, to me, is an aesthetic device that I associate with the American avant-garde circa the time of my birth, when this was made. It's a beauty, a real storm of a musical work that feels romantic, adventurous, warm and cold all at the same times as it howls along. There's no acoustic presence on the other three tracks, but they're no less impressive; 'Diverted to Frankfurt (for Twelve Pulse Generators)' is, unsurprisingly, written for 12 pulse generators and the stark palette of their timbre makes this an active, complex convergence of sound. 'No Moon No Mirror' is an ethereal piece for synthesiser where the two musicians tease each other through space, sounding like something from the Kranky records catalog two decades later. It's marred only by a very audible scratch on my copy, which if it were on 'Diverted to Frankfurt' might not be so noticeable but here it shocks the stillness between the synth pulses. 'Forced' is the final cut, another long one, and it resembles the 'Amazon rainforest' approach to electronic improvisations. There's not so much a tonal basis as that of a swarm of insects, and it's as manic and active as the previous two tracks. It's best played loud - the whole record is - so the juxtaposing staccato bursts of static and square waves can get the resonance they deserve. This is a great record for turning your head slightly while listening, to change the way the overtones interact with one's hearing - the best minimalist/drone records have that, and it's nice to be achieved on something so compositionally distinct. Totally great and singular!

Tod Dockstader - 'Quatermass' (Owl)

Here's a classic of musique concrete where it's wonderful to have the original LP - not just for it's aesthetic value as B&W creepy otherworldly sound artefact, but for the liner notes. Sure, you can probably find them online, but it's wonderful to read them while hearing the nearly 50 year old drones and tones float off the surface of the platter. This is one to listen to with turntable dustcover UP! Quatermass sounds a lot like the other pieces of its time - the San Francisco tape music experiments of Ramon Sender, Pauline Oliveros, etc; the 50s work of Vladimir Ussachevsky and Otto Luenig; and all the other stuff compiled on that Ohm box set from awhile back. It sounds a lot like them in that it's recorded to showcase the new possibilities of oscillators, close-mic'ing everyday objects (Tod says in the liner notes that some of the sounds are just balloons and adhesive tape!) and tape loops. But every one of these artists has their own distinct personality, which is why this is music and not just a technical experiment. Quatermass is a 5-part movement and it begins and ends with 'songs', the term used fairly loosely though there is a harmonic and melodic structure evident. Warbles, wiggles and burps underlie the soaring high-pitched assonance, and it establishes a mood, wrought with drama and lurching. Sometimes it sounds like a gong or some other acoustic percussion is used, often to quickly change the feel of a sequence - there's silence and then space, and the reverberation can take its course before the next sound comes in. When it gets thick, it's never too much - the dense slabs of sound have their place and the more active busy parts all have such clear purpose that it's not a noisy freakout. I love the motion here, particularly in 'Tango', when there's a dizzying array of back and forth. This is a stereo LP, recorded in 1966 though the original tapes were from '64, and I wonder how much variation we get. 'Parade' closes out side 1 with some of the harshest bits, a true cataclysm of darkness, though Dockstader's sci-fi tendencies are quite enjoyable, never as apocalyptic as they could be.

Cassis Cornuta - '25 jaar de gebraden zwaan zingt' (Ultra Eczema)

The low countries are full of weird obscure electronic musicians whose early experiments have been seeing the light of day in recent times - for more, see the Edmund de Deyster record, when we get there, also on Ultra Eczema. Cassis Cornuta is a synth/electronics goofball who is still active in the Antwerp underground, though these recordings were made in 1985 for a radio show which is still running. Cornuta, whose real name is Daniel de Wereldvermaarde, mines some Anton Bruhin territory though with a significantly less refined approach. There's rhythms made from the difference between turntable needle and dictaphone static, with bursts of space between them to provide a curious momentum. The tracks are all untitled and flow together well - the middle of side one is probably the most feisty bit, where there's various objects bashing together to be heard, and they all are given their own voice. It's a no-style style, a celebration of cheap mass-produced consumer electronics and the pure, childlike experimental approach of shoving fingers and toys between the gears. There's nothing digital about this type of electronic music - it's a pure product of the early 80s, the Pride of the 80s Radio Hut magic. Some of the murky bumps on side two start to resemble a steel drum, though the resemblance to anything human is superficial. It's a good listen - difficult and harsh but not annoyingly so, and Cornuta resists the temptation to mix everything into a thick soup. If anything, this music is very democratising, in that it welcomes the listener to experiment, maybe even generating sounds from the very equipment on which the record is being listened to. This isn't to say Cornuta is an idiot savant or naive; there's a real beauty in what's here - a strong sense of curation, of not just selecting sounds but expressing himself through the tension. I've seen Cornuta live and he was more invested in analogue synths and complicated electronics, but this pause-button madness is much more charming of a clamor.

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.

The Can - 'Soundtracks' (Liberty)

The baton is passed from Mooney to Suzuki, though it's not sequenced this way. The back cover of this even indicates that this is "the second album of THE CAN, but not album no. two". So we're to view this as a stopgap collection, not an album proper but something to document the soundtrack work during this transitional time (1969/1970). You can hear the baton being passed most beautifully at the end of side one, though sequencing actually places Damo's underrated 'Don't Turn the Light On, Leave Me Alone' before Mooney's last gasp 'Soul Desert'. I'd have preferred the two sides of Soundtracks to be played backwards, because then you open the record with 'Mother Sky' and close with 'Soul Desert'. Which makes more sense, cause a) 'Mother Sky' is one of the greatest tracks in the history of rock music, a powerful tour de force that grows in stature with every play, so why not have it as a leadoff? and b) Mooney sounds at his most deranged, his most spent, as he hurtles through 'Soul Desert'. So a more grandiose entrance, and a more dignified farewell. Now I don't care much for the two 'Deadlock's or 'She Brings the Rain', and 'Tango Whisyman' is good but forgettable, so we're left with a strong EP and some padding. But when you have 'Mother Sky', with it's thunder and lightning and icicles and car crashes and momentum galore, why do you need to worry about anything else? We hear this track being approached like a dub track, showing Czukay's greater interest in studio fuckery. And the back cover photo shows an earnest young Holger, set much closer to the camera than anyone else, holding some wooden traditional thing that appears to be emitting a microphone for young shirtless Damo to croon through. Another reason for my side-b-should-be-side-a theory -- then, 'Mother Sky' would also be Damo's introduction to the world, and it's a hell of an entrance, much more so than 'Deadlock'! This is a dirty old Liberty record pressing that's creaking with surface noise, but it's not actually a bad way to listen to it. Also notable: Irwin Schmidt is holding a banjo in this photo, but I don't hear any (nor is he credited as such). 'Album no. two will be released in the beginning of 1971', and you know what that one is, right?

David Bowie - 'Low' (RCA)

The late '70s Bowie records are enduring favorites among art-rock scholars, Britheads who wear weird sunglasses and people who spend a lot of money on shoes. It's funny when listening to Low now because I don't really know where to place it. I don't think it's an amazing experimental depature but it is definitely cold and alienated. It's a tale of two sides though, positively Lorcalike in it's distinction. The 'rock' side, A, feels pointedly futurist, with a weird (yet Eno-driven) band. The instrumentals at the beginning and end are a little too polished for me; Eno's crazy synths (which are detailed in the notes for each track) recall the early Roxy stuff, but much more serious, much more pessimistic even. Though there are some searing guitar bits and occasional stadium-rock flourishes ('Sound and Vision', right??) I generally feel like I'm driving around some shithole Northern European city staring at concrete 90' angles through a dirty backseat window. I know it's probably side 2 that people get excited about, but 7 times out of 10 I'm gonna go for the pop stuff. The second side, well, it's bleak and intense and thick with synths. I think 'Warszawa' sets the tone pretty well, and you can probably argue there's a pretty good Eno/Bowie balance here. 'Weeping Wall' is the solo Bowie track, a rare example of pure experimentation, and the xylophone surely shows the influence of West Coast minimalism. Well, that and the dense, horizontal sound walls. This is a record that has a place in rock history I've never quite felt was something I could get behind; I must say I like party Bowie, so gimme Hunky Dory or Diamond Dogs any day. But I don't own those records; I own this and Lodger which is *not* me trying to show off my art-rock cards (I have enough other examples of that) but purely circumstance: I only got into Bowie in my late 20s (because as a kid I saw a horrible Tin Machine performance on Saturday Night Live and swore him off forever), and thus passed up all the classic glam-pop albums a million times in my record hunting days, only coming across these late in life at flea markets. This was made around the same time as The Idiot and Lust for Life by Iggy Pop and it carries that same hard, dark side of the 70s Eurotrash vibe that I learned to love about those albums. I assume this could grow to be a favourite, but Lodger goes just a bit further and maybe that's why I warmed to that more quickly. This is on the same shitty vinyl as all other RCA releases in the 70s so maybe it would sound better if I heard a decent pressing.