Hüsker Dü - 'New Day Rising' (SST)

This is imperfect perfection, a joyous contradiction. Your surroundings are still a wall of screaming, distorted electric guitar, and the speed is always above average. Yet comparing this to Metal Circus is like comparing adults to kids. Of course, in between came a 70 minute double LP concept album which I don't have a copy of to discuss here (but I wish I did); that may have been a conditioning exercise. On the other side, well, it's a new day. The voices are a hell of a lot higher in the mix here, and it's like all of the screamy angst gets out during the title track. Mould's first song here is 'I Apologize', a great and catchy song that deftly analyses communication breakdowns in a relationship. Such mature territory! I don't like to oversimplify the intention of a pop song, but one of the things I love about music is how it can be so simple and so complex in a four-minute package. And what I love about albums is how they assemble to a narrative, even when not a concept album. This one has a really cohesive first side and then a messy, blocky second side. It starts and ends with almost abstract ragers, the title track a focused, monotonous banger and then 'Plans I Make' at the end, a total jam-mess with guitar that sounds like Lee Ranaldo is playing it, and a false ending too. Hart's songs are more schizo in tone; 'The Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill' is a perfect minor key pop song while 'Books About UFOs' has a lurching rhythm and even some honky-tonk piano in it. Mould is incorporating more arpeggios and chorus into his guitar sound than the earlier work, and understandable as the pace slows down a tad so there's actually space for it. 'Celebrated Summer' is a slice of gold, weaving together nostalgia and regret into something still uplifting, and with a beautiful acoustic outro. On 'Perfect Example' and '59 Times the Pain' he's mumbling, even moaning, as if Michael Stipe was crossed with a Beluga whale. It's a mid-LP mood slump, a vocal delivery that absolutely suits the songwriting, and by the end he crawls out and screams again to great effect. I've been listening to Mould for so long that I kinda forget how uniquely odd his voice is; his background vocals behind Hart's 'Terms of Psychic Warfare' are the secret ingredient that makes it click. It's amazing to me how far this band progressed in such a short time; I always think they broke up at the end of the 80s, but Warehouse came out in January '87 and they were kaput soon after. This is the first of two great albums in 1985 alone, and that's coming off Zen Arcade. This may be the peak, but it's a tiny peak among a long, high plateau.

Bill Fox - 'Shelter from the Smoke' (Scat)

I was just talking about Bill Fox with a friend from back home, and I called him "the Bob Dylan of the Rust Belt" which is a bit of hyperbole, sure, but who else would it be -- Donnie Iris? Scat reissued this a few years back on vinyl, one of the first in hopefully a growing trend of great 90s records that were originally released only as CDs getting the vinyl treatment years later. Because my dream of eventually having 0 CDs can be achieved! Fox is really a genius, and this is sort of what you'd expect from an aging punk rocker. Lots of acoustic guitars, to the point where it feels mostly like a singer-songwriter album, though a few rockers such as 'Way Way Down' (which could be a Vampire on Titus-era Guided by Voices outtake) and 'Let's Be Buried Together' (which sounds pretty much like the Mice). The opening track, 'Over and Away She Goes' sets the tone by sounding like a neo-Byrdsian folk number; tambourine and shakers and bright jangly guitars do wonders to mask Fox's raspy voice, though I love his singing and don't mean that in a bad way. The Dylan influence is most obvious when there's harmonica coasting over the strum ('Baystorm', most obviously), but the band-led 'Grand-Ville Blues' could be mistaken for the Hawks circa '65 if you squint your ears. Many of the acoustic songs have an almost fairy-tale like quality; a tendency towards sing-song cadences, which makes this a pretty catchy album ('Let in the Sun' is almost a hymn in its simplicity, but that's also not meant in a bad way). When he slows down and opens up ('Sara Page', the aforementioned 'Daystorm') the space really builds it. I'm not from Cleveland but close by, and listening to this transports me back there in some way, even though I first heard this years after I left home. This isn't a trailblazing record, nor a clear example of an artist baring their soul, but it's full of such strong songs that it congeals into a small masterpiece. If only Transit Byzantium could get the same reissue treatment!

Dreamcatcher - 'Nimbus' (Fluorescent Friends)

The cover of this is affable; two kids, really, looking like everyone else you know, honestly presenting themselves in front of their equipment. Dreamcatcher might already be forgotten, if they were ever remembered, but this Canadian duo released this pretty-solid LP of dark, improvised electornic noise. There's nothing easy about the sound but it's not needlessly harsh. There's buried, processed vocals, usually to create a sense of unease rather than abrasion. There's a good sense of exploration and freedom, with flowing, moving echoes of echoes juxtaposed with throbbing pulses and jerky, nervous fuckery. Nothing comes easy with this type of music, but in the wake of Wolf Eyes we found a lot of enthusiasm around this time (2005). The Throbbing Gristle influence is most obvious on 'Doctor Clawk', which uses shiny, clear beats behind aural terror. This evil sound accelerates on 'Eyes of Featherface II', the most screaming, dissonant piece on the record, and a beautiful closer (especially as the last moments are tranquil bird-like sounds), showcasing their ability to construct a dynamic sound range. What happened to these guys? I'm sure basic Internet research could unearth this but I like to wonder. The male member, Blake Hargreaves, made a brilliantly demented solo album that we'll get to in the H's, eventually, eventually.

Dodos - 'Visiter' (Wichita)

Dodos are from San Francisco I think and still at it; this is their second release, from 2007, and the only one I'm really familiar with. How that happened was somehow by accident - I overheard it at a bar or club and took a shine to one of the bouncier tunes, maybe 'Red and Purple' or 'Fools'. Not that I need to defend enjoying some indie-pop, but you have have me will notice my golden era was about ten years prior to this, so I'm just explaining how one artist broke through the glut of the Internet era to reach these ears. Visiter is a double LP collection that, on a fresh listen, holds up really well. This duo has a simple setup - acoustic guitar and drums - but builds strikingly complex songs with a huge amount of momentum, cause, let's face it, the drummer is shit-hot. He keeps a syncopated thing going throughout most of the toe-tappers. It's a lot of rimwork, and not much low-end, which speaks to these white ears. But the melodies are somehow clean and catchy, shining over the frantic guitar-strum and staccato beats. At two LP's, Visiter could almost wear out its welcome, but it never does, balancing the slower ballads amongst the energy ('Ashley' is quite moving, haunting really). There's not much beyond guitars and drums but the occasional intrusion of a xylophone or horn or even electric guitar adds a nice spice to the proceedings - on 'Winter', the horns really boost the nostalgic vibe. That thing about indie-pop that tends to annoy me - the overly cute, bland vocals - is only slightly slightly present, but it's saved by the music having some real energy and bite. Who would have ever thought indie pop would benefit from rhythm, rhythm, rhythm? Actually, it seems obvious in retrospect. Accessible and lively, 'Paint That Rust' even has a slight Hasil Adkins vibe to it. 

George Crumb - 'Music for a Summer Evening (Makrokosmos III)' (Nonesuch)

Crumb's composition is for two amplified pianos and percussion, and it sounds very much like the stretched night sky, with twinkles of light and the occasional meteor. The structure, as Crumb writes on the cover, is five-part; 1, 3 and 5 are the main themes and the interludes (separated by instrument-type) are dream interventions. So taken as a whole, we get a grand sense of wonder - a journeyman captivated by the natural environment, and fulfilling the greatest promise of electro-acoustic music. The pianos sound like pianos, mostly, and the energy of electricity coursing through them really does "amplify" the decay and fluctuations of the notes. There's trills, dips, and dots; the integration with the various percussive tools hits it's peak on track 3, 'The Advent'. There's actually a great deal of percussion in Crumb's battery, according to the liner notes, all played by the duo of Raymond DesRoches and Richard Fitz. "Metal thunder-sheet" is clearly the screaming that comes across the sky here, but there's also some kalimbas, alto recorder, slide-whistles, and the "jawbone of an ass" (really!). So as focused as this sounds on wax, Crumb is actually drawing from a lot of different sources. It's hard to know how structured the playing is - certainly the closing 'Music of the Starry Night' with it's waves of chop-chop piano glass is tight, but 'The Advent' is fluid and improvised. Crumb does explicitly thank the performer for their "critically important role ... in the evolution of any new musical language". I've always loved electroacoustic composition from this era (this is 1975) because of the critical balance between technological know-how and pure exploratory wonder. The imagery of the night sky is surely universal, and maybe a bit easy compared to postmodern symphonic works that are inspired by rutabegas, artificial intelligence research or clam chowder -- but that universality stirs an easy soup in my soul. I remember find this record over a decade ago in a very low-quality secondhand shop that was all CDs downstairs and forgotten, mostly worthless vinyl upstairs. I spent a hot summer afternoon combing through the entire room and found this and only this to reward me, but for $1.99 it was truly a bargain.

Ornette Coleman - 'Change of the Century' (Atlantic)

Change of the Century (another beautifully modest title) is go #2 for this quartet. Ornette ventures out with some call-and-response bluesy licks in 'Ramblin', almost like he's trying to prove he's linked to some soul. Cherry, still billed as the formal Donald here, steps back a bit and lets Ornette run here, but it feels a bit like a walk through the motions. Haden sounds somewhat more pronounced here, though in terms of production it's exactly like the first one. 'The Face of the Bass', despite the stupid name, is his time to shine but his punchy repetition over Higgins' jitteryjattery plinks at the end of 'Ramblin' is kinda nice too. But hey, I almost skipped track 2 which is called, yes, 'Free'. Ornette's liner notes claim that this is spontaneously improvised and perhaps so; it sure begins with a hell of a run, where you can practically hear the shimmery plastic of his alto breaking apart. Starts and stops, hesitations - this may be free but it's certainly anticipated by each of them, and the somewhat lumbering parts are my favourite bits. Haden knows how to ramp up the momentum and his tonal choices give Coleman room to run. Still not enough Cherry here, but he gets a few opportunities as the piece progresses and extensively on side two. Despite the loose feel to these runs, the music never gets too claustrophobic; this is probably somewhat due to the face that Coleman and Cherry rarely play at the same time, so it ends up with a much more "solo" type feel, just extended over two LP sides. There's some really nice cornet trilling on 'Bird Food' and the bouncing never really stops. The strongest TUNE on the record is 'Una Muy Bonita', which is kinda infectious and fun, and then the closing cut is probably the most freewheeling and expansive, but it wears out its welcome a bit. It is probably the most lively and spirited interplay we get between Cherry and Coleman, even if they are mostly darting around the same melody. It's a record of transition, but I certainly find it a lot more listenable than Free Jazz, (which of course someone had to go and make, and that's a good thing).

Chrome - '3rd from the Sun' (Don't Fall Off the Mountain)

Chrome in 1982 has taken on a somewhat more formulaic approach, though it's still a formula that is very distinctly and uniquely their own. There's some longer tunes here, such as 'Armageddon', that establish unrelenting horizontality. There's still the usual thick guitars, atmospheric effects, and slow-moving oscillators, but by this point they've been doing it for awhile and there's not such a strangeness to it. The vocals are frequently doubletracked, maybe both Edge and Creed in unison (?), but they tend to create a more robotlike effect, which is almost jarring on the opening cut ('Firebomb'). '3rd From the Sun' begins with an epic chordal progression, illustrating how much closer to traditional rock music we've gotten since Alien Soundtracks. When taken out of the bedroom experimentalist environment, the harsh vocal delivery and minor-key guitar leads draw this closer to horror-rock territory than I'd like. I'm not saying this sounds like White Zombie, but there are some affinities. Using chords isn't a sin; on 'Off the Line' a fairly standard progression becomes a workout in maximalism within a minimal structure, and it's one of the more rewarding (and lyrically slim) tunes here. There were guitar solos on Alien Soundtracks too, probably moreso than here; what's changed is that Chrome has figured out how to be 'heavy'. It's not thick or loud necessarily, but heavy in terms of speed and space. Parts of this record remind me of Voivod, who were surely influenced by Chrome. And there's a big scary head on the cover of this record (like there is on most Voivod albums).

Burning Star Core - 'West Coast Spring 2004' (What The --?)

Vinyl Underbite returns from summer holidays! With all apologies for the lack of notice, but, no, we haven't died or disappeared. So those of you clinging to our every transmission, seeking Underbite satisfaction, can now return to the regularly scheduled programme with this adventure. West Coast Spring 2004 begins with a quick line check before C. Spencer Yeh explodes into some skittery violin fuckery, with Robert Beatty's "acoustic appraiser" (that's big talk for a hearing test machine) counterpoints and understruts things. As a duo there's a lot of space, and it's probably the only way this cassette-fi quality is tolerable. Instead of being murky and disappointing, my attention is drawn to the movement, energy and interplay instead of the psychedelic aspets of the sound layers. That's not to say this isn't an outer exploration of timbre and tone - Beatty's ringing echoes are pointed and haunting, created a pretty bad trip that occasionally takes centre stage (Yeh knows when to drop back and let Robert "solo"). There are times when they get so busy chasing their own tails that it becomes impossible to distinguish the two instruments, and it's nice to think that these sounds, created six years ago, live on in this wax, to be replayed over and over. This was originally released as a cassette series and this LP collects the highlights, with Side A being from Seattle and Side B from San Francisco. The vocal-driven Yeh material is clunky and hoarse, again due I think to the recording fidelity, and it sounds less voice-like than other recordings of his, apart from a few breakthrough bits of gnarlanguage. Side B has a spoken introduction - the audience sounds small, but enthusiastic, which is the best kind, right? -- and then begins with some searing bright light drone, slowly opening and unfolding and pulsing. This is perhaps where the lo-fi nature leaves one wanting, as the distortion of the recording equipment prevents the blissout from taking centre stage. It's okay though, because by the end things have descended into a bit of a tussle, which is continued in the next (brief) track, another jerky free-for-all that blends dancing fingertrips with blurting electronic windbreaking and squealing glimmers. It ends before it really gets anywhere, and then after an unintelligible introduction we hear Beatty's angry toy arms and a megaphone-styled voiceline. It ends like a drunken remix of Bill O'Reilly's A Current Affair outbursts, and distance has truly been covered.

Masaki Batoh - 'Kikaokubeshi' (The Now Sound)

The yin (or maybe yang) to A Ghost From the Darkened Sea, Kikaokubeshi is another six tracks - though this time its longer, slower, and at 33rpm. As well as instrumental, dark, dense and minimal in comparison to Darakened Sea's folky songs. The raging storms of dark psych that Ghost are known for are more prevalent here, though Batoh avoids any obvious guitar heroics or vocalising. 'Magakami' brings in some rock drums and church organ, though it still maintains an anti-rock experimentalism, like a group improvisation to a dark film soundtrack. 'Ebb' begins the second side with some melting vocal mumbles that start to make sense after awhile, though its got that great sound poetry feel, filtered through the rising sun. I infrequently feel the desire to pull this one out, though in the organic drone/psych genre it's first-class. It's not actually all that droney yet it has that huge, expanding "ball of sound feel" and it reminds me of what the psychedelic/minimal underground was doing in the late 90s. It hurts to say this, but this type of music has lost a lot of its value to me. When this came out, sure, it was awesome and refreshing especially given what I was into at the time. But after ten years of a wonderful, dynamic, exciting underground of home-tapers and bedroom psych wizards, I'm no longer looking for this Out sound -- or rather, I don't really think of it as 'out' anymore. When I listen to Batoh's record I don't apply this criticism because it predates that stuff for me, but it's true -- instead of being excited at the nearly infinite amount of underground psych, I just find it all starting to sound the same and my jaded ears gloss over the nuances that make these records so rewarding. Avoiding that gloss is a major challenge for anyone in these media-saturated times and I try my best, but it's inevitable with the onslaught of effects-pedal guitar/synth ambience continually clutttering my inbox of consciousness. I digress, again, and unfairly so; Kikaokubeshi is a winner and I think these days you can get a CD 2-fer with this and Darkened Sea together -- truly the way to go, if you can't score the wax.