J.D. - 'Warsaw' (RZM Productions)

The band mysteriously known only as 'J.D.' chose not to release these recordings, which is understandable; they're the dictionary definition of 'raw', in terms of recording, performance and composition. This is punk rock, though - the year '1977' has been mythologised by the mohicans and their descendents, or maybe it was '78 when these were recorded - I dunno for sure, but the anger is sure there. The band that was to follow shed a lot of these influences, making this little more than a curiosity for diehard fans (which I'm not) or for people who revel in early, raw obscurity. As the record progresses it starts to get closer to the Factory sound, but side one has a surprising amount  of chugga-chugga punk rock. The opening cut ('All Of This For You') is great in a primitive way and sets a tone that doesn't sustain itself throughout, as if this is sequnced in the chronological order of how it was written. 'Failures' has a Stooges-like sound, and 'Novelty', though later reinvented as a much more well-known song, is delivered vocally like it's the Descendents or other early 80s American HC act. Reportedly they were unhappy with post-production techniques, but I'm not sure any are evident here - this is rough sounding, maybe because of the bootleg mastering job, or maybe this wasn't actually the album they intended. Omission can sometimes be a good career move; as much as 'Transmission', 'Interzone' and 'Living in the Ice Age' foreshadow what was to come, certainly the myth was amplified by holding these back. The Hooks and crannies are already obvious, the early synth pulses ('No Love Lost') and the overly dour vibe, but the vocals are the main thing that are not quite there yet.  They're angry, yes, and captivated by strange ideas of isolation and collectivity, images of war and order ('Leaders of Men', 'They Walked in Line') no doubt a byproduct of the late 70s British culture and the difficulties of the economic reality of the time. Manchester was a hell of a lot further away from London culturally than geographically; its hard to see this occupying the same stratosphere as the whole Sex Pistols/Vivienne Westwood/Siouxsie aesthetic at the same time, but it technically did. If it reminds me of any London band it would be Killing Joke's first album, which we'll get to soon. But maybe this is a solid document of what they would have been like live - a bit more raw, the drums flailing rather than crisp.

Peter Jefferies - 'Electricity' (Superior Viaduct)

I got rid of my CD copy of The Last Great Challenge in a Dull World, figuring I could easily upgrade to De Stijl's 2013 vinyl reissue, but I was slow and now it doesn't seem to be available so easily. That's a shame since it makes a nice pairing with Electricity, the first two solo Jefferies albums and two of the finest dark piano and drums-based New Zealand songwriting records of the early 90s. This Superior Viaduct reissue is lovely as it comes in a nice gatefold, the kind of special nice printing where the inside of the cover is coloured (in this case the deep rich blue) and it sounds great, taking the time to stretch the album over three sides; plus it tacks on the awesome Swerve EP (with Robbie Muir) as the fourth side. The mastering and pressing is nice enough that the 'mid-fi' qualities of the original recording shine through. You can hear the clipped compression of Jefferies voice, as this was recorded to a 4-track reel to reel and that was clearly the aesthetic he was going for. But then sometimes the drums sound amazing, the 'digital cello' on 'By Small Degrees' is eerie, and the piano of course usually rings out magically. These songs are in the vein of his usual writing, as heard from Nocturnal Projections through This Kind of Punishment; slow, meditative musings on the self and human relationships, never crystal clear but not too esoteric either. The title track is a beauty, racked with self-awareness and a menacing, yet modernist edge. 'Don't Look Down' is a ballad of pure delicacy, fragile under it's own beauty but confident as well. There are experiments in loops and samples, static and distortion thrown about liberally, and a few bits of messy chaos. Bruce Russell joins for 'Just Nothing' and it sounds exactly like you'd imagine their collaboration to be like. 'Next' and 'Snare', in the middle of the record, provide some damaged art-rock, the most fragmentary tracks. It's sometimes a bit jarring how the songs will shift between delicate, introspective piano ballad to distorted stomper and then back for the next one, but they're all clearly executed with such a vision from Mr. Jefferies, even when that vision is improvisatory and experimental, that it functions as a cohesive whole. The mood stays dark since he favours minor keys, his voice has that timbre to it, and that Peter Jefferies musical signature (when piano and drums pound in unison) is hardly a walk in the park. As the record goes on it seems to diversify its sound, bringing in more guitars (played primitively by Jefferies on 'Couldn't Write a Book',  demonically by Russell, and in a solid folk strum by Paul Cahill on the strident 'Crossover'). It ends with a Barbara Manning cover, 'Scissors', sort of an odd choice, but it somehow works. The bonus tracks on side four are all from Swerve, which is a great EP. Muir's guitar and bass fleshes out these songs, and they're recorded a bit less cleanly than the album (which came after this EP). With the piano not necessarily the lead instrument, it is able to add great bits of colour to 'Don't Call Me, We'll Call You', and the whole suite feels like a brighter take on the usual Jefferies outlook. This isn't to say that his music is exceptionally bleak, but that the light shines through in concentrated rays, which can be an enormously powerful effect. 

Home Blitz - 'Out of Phase' (Richie)

Before this album came out, Daniel DiMaggio had already released a handful of 7"s which affirmed Home Blitz as prime progenitors of a new wave of post-indie-post-punk, the mid-to-late 00s explosion of bands that descended more from the Swell Maps than the Sex Pistols. But this LP masterfully merged his more experimental tendencies to carefully selected hooks and home-recording choices, which makes it an extremely fucking satisfying listen. DiMaggio was becoming obsessed with Game Theory and Scott Miller, and you hear that right away in the opening cut, 'Nest of Vipers', but only after it first moves through a patch of Beefheart/Skin Graft skronk. It's all tension and release, and 'Two Steps' hits next as a slice of perfect, ragged lo-fi guitar pop, a 'Box Elder' for a new generation. As an opening gambit 1-2 punch, it's amazing. If I sound hyperbolic it's only because today's listen to Out of Phase comes at the right time; enough years have passed to put this in perspective and show its staying power, and the songs sound phenomenal in 2017. The 'experimental' tracks here, 'Live Outside' (the next descendent of titles that are ambiguous to whether the word is 'live' or 'live', after Joan of Arc) and 'Three Steps', are more than mere filler; they are moody field recordings that put the pop constructions into the context of New Jersey life, and they're essential to the flow of the record, much more than (for example) the jazzcursions on the Tenement 2xLP. DiMaggio's drumming isn't exactly Steve Gaddesque but it works, flailing on the cymbals and providing a bumpy bed for the pop hooks. His guitar playing is like a Dionysian Peter Buck, spazzing chords and frantic arpeggios, which inject the songs with the right amount of nervous energy. 'World War III', 'Nighttime Feel' and 'Other Side of the Street' could be parallel universe classics, saturated in the early 80s DIY aesthetic but married to more contemporary concerns. There's even a Cock Sparrer cover, 'Is Anybody There?', reimagined as a yearning plea for connection. The run-out groove on side A says 'Perpetual Night' but that was released as a separate 7", a shame since it's a great, great song too. Oh, I have an extra copy of this LP for some reason; if anybody wants it, make an offer in the comments!

Egg, Eggs - 'The Cleansing Power of Fruit' (Feeding Tube)

I'm enthusiastic for any band who features punctuation in their name. Egg, Eggs are as confusing as their name, built around free electric rock, random electronics, and babbling nonsense vocals. There's parts here that start to resemble song structures, certainly with repetition in the voice, but it beelines for absurdity as soon as it can. Recording techniques are scattered, with lots clearly sourced from practices and open jams, edited into a whole that is just as incoherent as fragments, but longer. I admit I ordered this because I was getting stuff from Feeding Tube anyway and it sounded intruiging; the first two listens did nothing for me, but this time through I'm really grooving on it. There's people from the Western Massachusetts scene all over this, though the only name I recognise is John Maloney from Sunburned Hand of the Man, whose drumming here is crisp, light and evasive. While the vocalist is chanting about feathers and seashells, you get some shit-fart bass, clattering snare, and a general discordance. If your only influence was reading old issues of Bananafish and then you decided to start a rock band, it would probably sound like this. I love most forms of absurd nonsense, and I also have a high tolerance for curious vocal techniques; singer David Russell is quite the tenor, squeaking around almost like a caricature while obsessively intoning mantras like 'My name's Mr. Eat Candy, I'm pleased to meet you mystery candy". I'll imagine that is actually Hollywood director David O. Russell, who swung by while filming The Fighter to record these sessions. If you like Starship Beer or large parts of the BUFMS box set, then this is carrying the torch. It's also endless, or feels that way; it's really long, for a single LP, and varied enough that the more driving parts ('Foul Chinese Waterfront Pig') offset the more spare elements, and it feels like a true compendium of madness. It's hard to pinpoint what Egg, Eggs are striving to express here - there's a strong sense of game-playing, of course, and a collage aesthetic throughout; but I can't help but wonder why they chose these edits over the surely hours of other sessions they had.

Rhys Chatham - 'Factor X' (Moers Music)

We have reached post #200, this early LP by Rhys Chatham which I've always enjoyed for it's bleak walls of seamless surfaces. Side one is the real monster, 'For Brass', written for 4 trumpets, 3 trombones, a tuba and a percussionist. We get Anton Fier banging the skins, and because of this it feels like a product of the early 80's New York new/no-wave scene. Despite the dissonant layers of the brass instruments it could pass for a nihilistic, bleak rock group. Olu Dara and George Lewis play on this, and it's a way I've never heard them before. Trumpets have the tonal range to cut through all of the dark layers (which seem to be built from the 'bones) so you get these moments of hurtling through a giant sheet of waxed paper, only to be caught in another net for awhile. It's mesmerising. Side two starts with 'Guitar Ring', which has echoes of 'All World Cowboy Romance' and the obvious Branca comparisons. Moers Music did a nice job on the mastering so this does ring really well. I can't decide if it would be more enjoyable without James Lo (of Live Skull fame) drumming throughout it. That would be certainly create a wider plane to stretch out on, but then the nervous pulse would be absent. And it's that pulse that really pulls this away from other minimalist explorers like Niblock, et al. Clean channel electric guitars always sound good to me, and the way that these sheets of glass crash around is enough mystery for me. Near the end a little riff peeks out, and y'know it wouldn't be out of place on a Burma record or even something more pop-oriented ... but it sinks back in before establishing any sort of anthemic tendency, and it's a nice detail. 'The Out of Tune Guitar #2' and 'Cadenza' fill out the LP. The former is a two minute rave-up that scatters sparks all over the place before fizzling out - it's pretty damn impressive, but it also sorta sounds like Polvo. 'Cadenza' draws out a long long single note pathway, allowing ghosting overtones to build up, with James Lo doing what rock drummers do in these situations. It's the other side of Chatham, one that is more open and gracious, but it's deceiving cause there's actually five guitars the slowly add to the pile until it cascades over the dusk. I don't think to pull this record out very much, cause the images and sensations I get from it (similar, I think, to Birdsongs of the Mesozoic) aren't something I think I'm in the mood for. But this doesn't disappoint on any level, and it's a nice contrast to the ten Don Cherry LPs that lie ahead.

Burning Star Core - 'Three Sisters who Share an Eye' (No Fun)

Three Sisters is a somewhat less grandiose approach to art and packaging - coming from the minimalist paste-on style like the West Coast live LP. For all voice and electronics, Three Sisters is also a minimalist approach. Both sides begin with throaty, reverby sounds that coalesce into some thick, ecstatic drones. Side A's is dirty and low-level, while side B's is more deep-listening and mellow. Both drift into the ambient distance, but not without recalling thick caterwauls of machine-driven forcefield exoticism, tender pulses, emphatic murmurs and gestures galore; it's a recollection of potential futures and ad-hoc journeys. When you pick up the LP and tilt it, the grooves are uniformly spaced - an encouragement to feel, rather than to hear. Fuzz on stylus or uncomfortable crop-dusting? This is a humongous sound flattened between two slices of all-grain bread. It's not ever going to be the Burning Star Core records that jumps in my mind as "definitive", and after the schizophrenia of our last review this one feels also intentionally focused. But while album-length, this may always be relegated to 'sketch' territory for me.

Anthony Braxton - 'New York, Fall 1974' (Arista)

This radio statio promo copy fails to put the graphical notation of the titles on the label, so I will use the same standards here. This is Braxton's move to a major label, and from listening to side one you'd think it was a blatant stab at commercial success. The three cuts here are based around a traditional rhythm section (Jerome Cooper and Dave Holland) and it swings quite nicely in post-bop quartet mode. The chord changes are somewhat golden, and it goes quite well with the ghostlike autumnal walk in the woods on the back cover. "Side One, Cut Three" gets the most intense, with a mind-numbingly repetitive bassline over which Braxton's alto and Kenny Wheeler's trumpet can scratch at each other. It's remarkably Apollonian but then again, Braxton is generally somewhat Apollonian (at least compared to other "difficult" composers). Side two introduces some crazyness -- a Braxton/Richard Teitelbaum clarinet/Moog duo opens up, and it's slow and exploratory, with lots of bubbling, gurgling sounds and fast/slow clarinet doodles. It's more of the push/pull we heard in the album with Jarman, but they occasionally lock into sync and make some amazingly mindmelded tunes. Overall, it's the highlight of the record and a nice entry into the Arista catalogue. "'Side two, cut two' is a predecessor to the World Saxophone Quartet, but with Braxton subbing for David Murray. The piece is kinda goofy, almost like an experiment of what they could get away with, with four saxophonists. Braxton's on soparino (which is even higher than soprano), leaving Hemphill to play alto and Oliver Lake on tenor. Hamiett Bluiett's baritone is quite restrained but occasionally it blasts a jarring jolt that makes me sit upright and pay attention. By the end it's an exercise in repetition with everyone playing staccato notes at the same time, and it's not the most enlightening of the man's works, to put it mildly. 'Side two, cut three' returns to the quartet of side one, but with Leroy Jenkins added. It's now 6 years since his contribution to Braxton's 3 Compositions of New Jazz and I daresay it shows a new sense of resignation. It's as slow as the duet with Teitelbaum, but this time there's a full band to enforce the misery. Maybe this bird gets unhappy when he leaves Chicago, or maybe he's anticipating the financial pressures that would virtually kill avant-garde jazz a few years later. Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but, my point is, it's a sad and oblique ending to a mixed grab bag of an album.

Aphrodite's Child - '666' (Vertigo)

Any record that starts out with a chant of 'defile the system!' before exploding into a trumpet-accented psych-pop song drenched in fake crowd noise is A-OK by me.  Add in the presence of a young Vangelis Papathanassiou (yes, that Vangelis), a weird inner gatefold painting of a car jacknifing through a brick wall, and the cryptic liner note of 'This work was recorded under the influence of "Sahlep"' and I'm even more interested.  Did I mention it's a double-LP concept album based on the book of Revelation?  While not as Satanic as the cover/title suggests, it's a scorcher.  The album, while long, is pretty evenly split between catchy songs, instrumental  rock, and a few 'out' jams thrown in, most notably the song that is just an infinity symbol (awesome idea, dudes!) which has the sexiest female orgasm vocals this side of Brainticket.  Though there's some slight Jesus Christ Superstar tendencies, A.C (hey, another A.C band!) employ enough wigged out guitar solos and perfect psych production to make this a total classic.  The bass thumps in just the right way, and there's some obligatory Greek instruments to remind you of the flavor of this trip.  What strikes me now is how catchy these songs are - Vangelis has some real pop hooks up his sleeve that are best situated alongside West Coast psych like Moby Grape or Jefferson Airplane.  There's a few goofy genre excursions, such as 'Who Can Find the Beast?' -- which is a bit too 'Bad Bad Leroy Brown' to be convincing (these are Greeks, after all).  Side four opens with the big jam, with some axetastic riffing and mixed-in moments from earlier in the record, before ending with the pure pop of 'Break'.   This was a smash hit and deservedly so; if you haven't heard this, seek it out and hold onto your (Greek Orthodox) Bible.