Hevoset (Dekorder)

Two similarly named denizens of the Finnish early-00s tape underground made this collaborative tape, and Dekorder saw fit to reissue it on vinyl. Jan and Jani (from Kemialliset Ystävät and Uton, respectively) have similar approaches to sound, especially in how they make it, being solo artists who assemble crazy surreal soundscapes from tapes, loops, acoustic instruments and primitive electronics. I was reading an essay over the weekend which pointed out that the phrase 'lo-fi' is misleading, because fidelity refers to the ability of the recording to accurately reflect the actual sound, so therefore extremely overproduced studio albums by Queen or whatever are actually lo-fi, since they sound nothing like what those Queen songs sounded like when the band played in a room. This makes me realise that the Hevoset LP (as well as many, many others from the avant/tape underground) are actually extremely hi-fi music. I never saw Hevoset live, but I've seen Tomotonttu and Uton a few times and I know that what you hear is what you get. Perhaps 'tape-fi' is a better term, as this LP sounds like a cassette tape being played. The untitled tracks move from a variety of moods but it's always pretty thick, even when there's more spacious elements. The opening cut of side two is exactly that - tentative acoustic strings pinging around over a rumbling, narcotic drone, pulsing around a vacuous middle. Here the details are all there is, the central narrative is lost, and it's almost conventionally spooky, absent of the more gonzo elements I usually associated with Anderzen's work. Halfway through side 1 there's some crazy percussive bongos thumping around, a caterwaul vocal straining to get out through it all, and actually a good deal of space there as well. But then other tracks are screaming miasmas of affected keyboard tones, or maybe they are guitars or maybe neither; it's the Birchville Cat Motel school of soundscaping, though rough around the edges. The sound of the tape machine itself is often present, the same motor wheelgrind heard behind early 'bi-fi' (see, there's another one) recordings from the early 90s but here placed into an experimental soundnik scenario. I've always loved Jan's sense of motion and Jani's approach to texture; they combine beautifully on a track about midway through the second side where a melodic string figure is stumbling around a melting synth melody; they dart around each other and never quite converge.

Kip Hanrahan ‎– 'Coup De Tête' (American Clavé)

Coup De Tête is an odd one, and a record eclipsed by its followup, Desire Develops an Edge, if only because the latter got mentioned in The Wire magazine's list of '100 Records That Set the World on Fire'. It's hard to imagine anything about this setting the world on fire, though it's a hell of an interesting stab at bringing together a bunch of avant-leaning New York musicians and trying to create a new kind of fusion. Percussion is the main game here, with most tracks being built around Hanrahan and two or three other musicians on bongos, congas, and iya (plus Anton Fier usualy on trap drums). Both sides end with a drum-free cover version - Marguerite Duras' 'India Song' on side 1 (sung by a throaty Carla Bley) and Teo Macero's 'Heart on My Sleeve' to end the whole album (with Macero himself as guest). While listening to this you have to read the liner notes to follow who plays on what, as there's a bunch of big names almost hidden. Guitar duties are mostly Arto Lindsay but Fred Frith makes an appearance; their gutsy attacks are mixed quite low, almost inperceptible at times, underneath the percussion, but I think that was the right decision. Hanrahan is the wild card - when he sings, it's more like an earnest spoken-word chant, and as the record goes on he starts to disappear from it. He's really the producer, composer and Svengali here, more than he is an active musician, and some of the best tracks don't feature him at all. The standout is 'This Night Comes Out of Both of Us', featuring Lisa Herman (last heard on Kew. Rhone) and Bill Laswell's usual weird dub farts; somehow the percussion layers make this into a really dark, crisp, electric forest which sounds completely striking today, 36 years later. Herman's vocals are breathy and mysterious, getting into sexually explicit lyrics in 'A Lover Divides Time (To Hear How It Sounds)'. I've always really liked this record because it's a weird oddball - it feels like an environment where Hanrahan gave just enough structure to let the musicians really explore while sticking to a vision. It feels like a weird take on the idea of 'world music' while also having traces of rock and a lot of jazz but somehow not sounding like any of the above, which I guess is the best thing one could hope for from the idea of 'fusion' anyway. I don't think there's a lot of people repping Kip Hanrahan records in 2017 which means you can probably find them fairly cheap (if at all) and this and the follow-up are certainly worth your time -a rare case of a supergroup that works.

Hair Police - 'Obedience Cuts' (Gods of Tundra)

This is Hair Police's second full-length album but the first where they really found their footing, and it's enjoyable to revisit it after so many years. 'Let's See Who's Here and Who's Not' explodes immediately into a lurching, violent chaos, and it's home-recorded at just the perfect fidelity. A lot of warm, thick electronics blanket the sound - what I'm struck by on the first side is just how incredibly warm this sounds, which isn't all attributable to the vinyl version specifically but Hair Police's preferred frequencies (lows and low-mids). Trevor Tremaine's drumming is sometimes overwhelmed by it, and you can hear his cymbals and snare flailing about, cutting through the mix now and then, and he's content to pull back (or maybe he contributes some other role to the mix). The aesthetic is dark, as the puke-green ink on the cover hints, and unpleasant, but there's a life in this music that finds itself during the quieter moments. The title track is one such place, where the sturm-und-drang pulls back and lets the oscillations take over. This sound-soup is where I most enjoy Hair Police - there's a real subtlety to their interactions, a tension that swells and never releases in the way you'd expect from a regular 'band' vibe. 'The Empty Socket' on side two almost approaches the Dead C's 'Now I Fall' before it tumbles down the hill; 'Bee Scrape' likewise ends up in a rolling ball of noise, but one that has synths slicing through like a ninja throwing star. Robert Beatty might steal the show on this record, but it's hard to tell where his noiseboxes end and Mike Connelly's feedback guitar begins; even the drums get heavily processed with echo on 'Full of Guts', and it gels really, really well. There's a few more Hair Police records coming up and it's funny now to revisit this music after what doesn't feel like such a long time, but was over a decade. The American 'noise' peaked in popularity a few years after this and then seemed to fade away, though I think this may be more a product of changing marketplaces (and my own interests shifting) rather than any sort of decline in output. Still, among all the hundreds of projects and bands that came to prominence in the following years, Hair Police somehow distinguished themselves against the rest, and with fresh ears and a spin of Obedience Cuts, it's easy to hear the reasons.

Peter Gutteridge - 'Pure' (540)

And with this, we conclude the Gs. It's an oddball selection for the end of this underrated alphabetical segment, and an odd choice to have gotten a deluxe double-vinyl reissue. Originally released as a cassette on Xpressway way back in '89, the 540 label saw fit to give it a first-time vinyl pressing in 2013. I'm not complaining - Pure is a great collection of sketches, experiments and low-stakes hypnotica - but it feels a bit strange that during this wave of New Zealand greats getting issued in affordable (and more importantly, available) vinyl slices, that this was chosen. While other great material -- some would say 'greater' -- remains impossible to source (I'm thinking about Plagal fucking Grind, y'know). But I'm not trying to diminish Pure, in which the late Mr. Gutteridge steps away from the shadow of the Clean and the Great Unwashed and presents his own musical personality across 21 songs. I never listened to Snapper and I'm not so clear at picking out his own songwriting from the other voices in the Clean, but honestly, Pure offers little in the way of a singer-songwriter approach anyway. The majority of the tracks are instrumental, with thick, pulsing layers of electric guitar, organs, and shimmery keyboards. All the sounds come from the cheapo, Tall Dwarfs-esque approach, but the man extracted a wealth of diversity from the limited gear. The lo-fi recording helps and this feels almost odd to hear on vinyl (though welcome, thank you 540!). 'Planet Phrom' is the closest we get to the jangly feel of the Chills or Clean, as I expected from his background, and features Snapper's Christine Voice (whatta great name, eh?) helping with distant, echo-laden backing vocals. For the most part, the rest of the songs stay away from any twee, light sensation, the next closest being the lark of 'Having Fun', and the furthest away probably being the decidedly un-gentle 'Bomb' (where guest vocalist Bruce Mahalski intones a mostly-spoken vocal line over a casio beat with pulsing keyboards and a few theatrical glissandos). This isn't horror movie music or heavy metal or anything, but it's closer to the dour gloom I usually associate with the Xpressway label than one would expect from a musician of Gutteridge's lineage. Spread out over two LPs, Pure starts to feel like a patchwork quilt, stitched together by the thick instrumentals. If I were to reduce this to an 'X crossed with Y' analogy, I'd probably say it's like a cheap-ass Terry Riley meets Suicide vibe, which sounds pretty great, doesn't it? We're still filtering everything through the Flying Nun sunglasses of course, and maybe 540 was hoping that this would stand as the man's legacy rather than being a supporting player to the Kilgours or Martin Philips. I'm glad for it, and in some way it makes me think of the (equally underrated and obscure?) Jowe Head solo record, Pincer Movement, not so much in how it sounds but how it stands, in relation to the band which he is better known as a member of.

Gang of Four (Warner Bros.)

This EP came out between the first two Gang of Four records, though I always thought it predated Entertainment! for some reason. It's actually a step between the punchy, dancy iconic classic that is the aforementioned debut LP and the slightly less fun Solid Gold. I know this was supposed to be about revolution but "fun" is what I keep going back to, what's missing here. Yes, I want my Marxist disco to have some joy behind it! I understand the struggle was important to these guys (or at least they were very convincing) but 'Outside the Trains Don't Run on Time' is just a chore. I guess the terrifying reality of Thatcher's policies weren't anything to laugh about, but 'Armalite Rifle' manages at least to include some irony. If you've ever seen Urgh! A Music War (and you really, really should) then you'll know that *thwack!* sound at the beginning of 'He'd Send in the Army' is Jon King hitting the back of a chair. It seems menacing and powerful in that film, but on record it just sounds like something stuck to the needle. I'm not being kind to these songs, though I'd never part with this record. And they used to hang out with the Mekons so they get an eternal pass from me.

Flying Burrito Bros. - 'Burrito Deluxe' (A&M)

And now a blast of west-coast country rock, here far more pushed toward the "rock" side of the equation. There's a pretty good reason why this is never put in the same rarified air as The Gilded Palace of Sin - because it's nowhere near as good. Unfortunately I've never come across a copy of Gilded Palace, but enjoy listening to this from time to time. Gram Parsons leaves after this one and you still get a few bright, strident Parsons songs like 'Lazy Days'; a lot of covers fill this, including a lackluster version of Dylan's 'If You Gotta Go' (which I don't enjoy hearing in English, thanks Fairport) and a great version of the Stones' 'Wild Horses' featuring Leon Russell on piano. Jim Dickson co-produced this and it sounds great, even on this beat-up scratchy copy; all the high-mids ring out and the mandolin strum in particular sounds as fresh as yesterday. The songwriting just feels a bit behind the pace - there's nothing as cripplingly contrived as 'Sin City' or 'Dark End of the Street' here; the most memorable tune besides 'Wild Horses' is probably 'Farther Along', a traditional arranged here in full Burrito fashion, or the bouncy 'Down in the Churchyard'. Bernie Leadon's guitar lines are sharp, overpowering the pedal steel on songs like 'Older Guys'; his 'God's Own Singer' here presages the Eagles. But overall, this record is just too goddamn upbeat to really stand up as a classic. I've seen this tacked onto CD reissues of Gilded Palace and that's a great place for it. It ends with 'Wild Horses' which really is the strongest song, done straight but with those beautiful American harmonies adding a level of gloss over the longing. Bonus points for the back cover where they look like members of some cult. I have no idea what the band has sounded like since; I guess there's been a zillion members and something tours now under that name with zero original members (my friend saw them by accident in rural Norway a few years back).

Family Fodder ‎– 'ScHiZoPhReNiA pArTy!' (Fresh)

I rarely spin this 12" EP, mostly because it opens with 9 brutal minutes of 'Dinosaur Sex', a raveup that has energy and spirit but is just too utterly stupid for me to fully enjoy. There's the same creative pop production techniques at play here as on Monkey Banana Kitchen, though maybe a bit less vocal or structural experimentation. The dub/reggae influence is more subtle here, just being the undertow of 'Emergency' as opposed to an out-and-out rave. The flipside contains a few songs that predate fast, guitar-based indie rock, as well as the percussion blowout 'Silence', a memorable gem from the Savoir Faire greatest hits disc. There's a few songs that aren't that CD, and thus hearing gems like 'Tea with Dolly' (feeling like This Heat goes pop, with ascending and descending melodic steps keeping everything just off-kilter) and the closer 'Better Lies' (a tense hybrid between dream-pop and indie soul, with the line 'I am the sex pistol of dreams'). Schizophrenia may be appropriate, for that's the condition most associable with the tape-splice technique, though to be honest, there's less overt splicing and fuckery present here than on the full-length. It sounds great at 45rpm though!

Devo - 'Duty Now For the Future' (Warner Bros.)

The inexorable progress towards new wave! Devo's second album is pretty hot but it's definitely a change in sound. The really brutal, primitive broken stuff is less prevalent - no 'Too Much Paranoias' here -- and the keyboards are more prominent. Devo seems to have taken on their sci-fi influence more overtly, as these songs suggest robots and space travel more than they seem to be about Devolution. Exceptions, of course - opening cut 'Clockout' and 'Smart Patrol' have that sense of regression, but otherwise this is a 'Wiggly World', with faster and sharper guitar turns, thick digital keyboard assonance and a significantly more intelligent vibe. Don't worry, though - 'The Day My Baby Gave Me A Surprize' is about V.D. (I think) and 'Pink Pussycat' has the high-school sex-starved nerd imagery that began on the Hardcore-era cuts. 'Day My Baby' contains a 60s (or maybe 50s)-influenced chorus that shows Devo are capable of utter pop brilliance if they want. The opening "Devo Corporate Anthem' (surely performed at the beginning of every Devo cover band concert, or at least the two that I've played in and/or attended) sets the tone - Devo really are a corporation, active to this day in jingle-writing and other such work, and this philosophy seems to merge well with the misanthropic art-fuck of their origins. 'Mr. DNA' has a punk edge, and also contains the beautiful lyric 'He's an altruistic pervert', which is the best kind, right? Every song on here is a winner, pretty much, except for the cover of 'Secret Agent Man', which lacks the irony of 'Satisfaction' - though its still competent enough, I suppose. At the same time, this feels like the beginning of the end - I've never hung around for the 'Girl U Want'/'Whip It' era, though it's still wonderful and amazing that they found chart success. If I were a Devo conspiracy theorist, maybe I would point to this as being the point in which Mark Mothersbaugh asserts himself as proper 'leader' of the band, having swung away from Jerry Casale (where the balance was probably felt perfectly on the first album) - but that's not to say I don't like Mothersbaugh as a musician, artist, and overall renaissance man.