hamaYôko ‎– 'Shasô -Train Window-' (Entr'acte)

Not really sure about this one - I think this was a promo that I never did anything with, or maybe someone sent it to me looking for a show. Thanks to it's generic white sleeve I never notice it, and it's likely lurked on this shelf back since 2009 when (according to the discogs authority) it was released. hamaYôko is the pseudonym of a Japanese sound artist and choreographer and this is a 45rpm EP of pieces I suppose are inspired by train windows. It contains semi-melodic electronic compositions (with spurting, extremely digital processing around warm sine waves), singing wordless female singing, and field recordings from around the world (dutifully credited in the liner notes). 'Akai Pool' is loaded with splashing water, mixed high above the rolling composition and sounding a bit like two recordings smashed together. 'Icewater's March' has some sampled tuba, and throughout you hear children's voices, because of course you do. I don't want to be too hard on this, but this record illustrates the difficulty in adeptly, not clumsily employing field recordings or musique concrete techniques. There's not much nuance here in terms of how the parts fit together, and it doesn't feel like there's any sort of 'vision' here beyond the discovery of computer-based editing and a curiosity about the world of overheard sound. Some tracks have a rhythmic momentum behind them ('Headeck' is almost a strange pop song, and probably the high point of the record, where it has that feel of things being pulled apart, yet still held together) but others seem to be potpourri-blends of recordings, without a sense of what it's actually trying to express. Or it could be that my white male Western ears are approaching this from my own biases, because of course I am, and if I was able to open up to the worldview of ms. hamaYôko then I might be more forgiving. But I'll take my field recording-based music more minimal than this (my own collaborations excepted, of course) and put this one on the sell pile.

Don Ellis - 'Haiku' (MPS/BASF)

A record released on the BASF label?!? Was this primarily intended to demonstrate stereo equipment over its artistic goals? Ellis is a good choice for such an approach, because he has a really lush, psychedelic arrangement style and his compositions lie somewhere between Sketches of Spain-era Miles Davis and the more circular meanderings of Moondog, or even Lou Harrison. The Harrison connection is heard most obviously on the opening cut, 'Children', which is an exercise in pure, liquid beauty. There's no easy place to file this - it's trumpet-driven but it's hardly jazz - it's soundtracky, but not a soundtrack - and it's got classical overtones galore, but it's hardly classical music. The more orchestrated moments weave the ear candy into cotton forms, occasionally overdoing it with it's pouncing rhythms ('Summer Rain') but being delightful and elegant when stripped down - side one closes with 'Forest', built primarily around Ellis's trumpet and a bit of harp. But even the parts that sounds clichéd, I can't help but wondering if you threw Van Dyke Parks singing overtop and told me it was a Song Cycle outtake, if I'd be ecstatic. Ellis is probably most famous for the French Connection soundtrack, which has a dirtier edge than anything here. The liner notes talk about how influenced he is by Japanese culture, though there's hardly any Eastern flavour to the sounds. But the photo of a nude Ellis sitting on a rock, contemplating the mysteries of the universe (with those contemplations likely forming into a 5-7-5 pattern), tells me all I need to know. This has always stayed in my vinyl accumulation because even though it's pretty 'soft', it's sometimes just the right atmosphere for a lazy summer afternoon. There's too much work to be done, so instead of romping through the leaves and trees I can stare at the screen and let this carry me off to distant imagined corners of mainstream psychedelic circa 1971. I thought I had a copy of Electric Bath, which has a somewhat more Latin edge, but I must have imagined that.

Kevin Coyne - 'Marjory Razor Blade' (Virgin)

This is Kevin Coyne's masterpiece, and I'm lucky to have the double LP version. It's sprawling and messy, like all double albums, but compared to the spare Case History this is a rocker. Lyrically, Coyne's turning his gaze to the middle class as opposed to the deranged mental patients he chronicled before, but really, is there a difference? 'This Is Spain' in particular resonates with me because of a terrible business trip I was on once that had me stuck in Marbella, a touristy hellhole if there ever is one. I didn't think of that song then but how great it would have been to walk around listening to it on headphones. But what an awesome record this is - the blues edges are sharper, the drums give everything a pounding edge, and Coyne's distinctive voice is the powerful center (even though he's not mixed that high). The title track opens things up in a practically 'Dust Blows Forward' manner, an a-capella dirge with twisted aggro flavours. When 'Marlene' comes out of it, it's a magical explosion, and like the fellow side-A cut 'Eastbourne Ladies', Coyne really never sounds better. The album is back and forth a bit between the drum-driven electric blues and the mellow ballads, with two Carter Family tunes thrown in the mix. The 'blues' is rampant, particularly on side two. 'Cheat Me' is pure knife-edge; 'I Want My Crown' and 'Mummy' feel more like sketches than full "songs" - a place for the band to stretch out with some slide stylings and other affects. Because I tend to enjoy Coyne's acoustic side more, I find these tracks charming, and maybe Marjory Razor Blade is so perfect because the balance is just right. When there is a full band, like 'House on the Hill', it's a nice momentum-builder; this song, feeling like a holdover from Case History because of the frank way it addresses mental illness, is nonetheless one of the album's strongest. Record two begins with my all-time favourite Coyne song, 'Jackie and Edna', a song about loneliness and regret unlike anything else I've ever heard. There's some class consciousness sprinkled throughout Marjory Razor Blade but it's not overwhelming - we're not into Housemartins or Billy Bragg territory, though I suspect Coyne may have been an influence here. This was about as close to commercial success as he ever got, and while I'm not intimately familiar with his later output, the general wisdom is that he never bettered this -- who am I to argue?