The Curtains - 'Fast Talks' (Thin Wrist)

Thin Wrist is an interesting label ; I discovered them cause of the two great Burning Star Core albums and then picked up a few other releases from around the same time.  Curtains was a band that featured some members of Deerhoof but was closer to the skittery, rambunctious sounds of US Maple or some late Skin Graft-label stuff.  There wasn't any aggression to it, so Curtains end up having an almost twee Beefheart feel.  It's all instrumental and the guitars and thin and wiry.  Keyboard pop in and out and there's a bouncy, tapping feel to the drumkit.  In sixteen songs, Curtains sketch out a musical world that is always about to sputter out of control but never does.  At their best bits ('The Divers'), it feels like vultures circling prey, but drunk.  This type of instrumental, brainy rock is something very much from my past and not anything I'd pull out, but this listen after howevermany years (about ten, amazingly) was kind of refreshing -- ah, yes, people do this kind of thing -- they always have, and they always will, and Curtains do it particularly well.

Birdsongs of the Mesozoic - 'EP' (Ace of Hearts)

I love Great Pop Things, the comic strip done by the dude from the Mekons, and if he ever did one for Birdsongs of the Mesozoic the subtitle would be "They tried to change the world through dinosaur masks and embracing chamber music!". Of course it's the Mission of Burma connection that lodged these records in my consciousness, but I'm glad for it. They came to me at a time when I was looking for something smarter to go with my meat and potatoes rock/punk diet. Instrumental rock music with synths, lots of tape manipulations courtest of Martin Swope, and synths/keyboards to boot - what could go wrong? Now I hear this as fitting into that whole New York school of art music, like Elliot Sharp and Glenn Branca, though I don't really know why since it's a lot more rock than I remember it being. Not stadium-filling, Aerosmith-style rock, but rather the Henry Cow/Crimson variant. Though they're not afraid to use canned/synth drums, which provide a weird plastic centre over which 'Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous' can ebb and flow. I also like how 'Transformation of Oz' has this manic piano breakdown where Roger Miller is bashing about on some tom-toms and then it cuts out into a more elliptical, neo-classical piano solo - and then the riff comes back in. Martin Swope actually plays electric guitar here, so all of the Burmaisms have been inverted. I used to spin the full-length quite a bit but this EP is less known to me. A shame too, cause 'Drift' is a truly lovely seaside raft in turbulence. This EP is rather dominated by Roger Miller's piano, which sounds great though slightly Windham Hill at times. When complemented by Karen Kaderavek's cello on 'The Orange Ocean', I can't help but think of this music as a reaction to punk's naievete. Birdsongs of the Mesozoic, despite their dinosaur schtick, are the first few steps towards the indie-classical hybrid that got big about fifteen years later - artists like Louisville's Rachel's and maybe even you could throw Godspeed You Black Emperor into that category. These five songs pass by relatively quickly, but there's a full-length just around the corner.

Art Ensemble of Chicago - 'Fanfare for the Warriors' (Atlantic Jazzlore)

There's something a little bit different about this album and I think it might have to do with move to Atlantic records, a proper major label. Yes, this is the "big studio" record, I guess, even though most of their other albums were recorded in a studio. There is something very classy and shiny at play here but it works well, almost too perfectly. Fanfare for the Warriors opens with Malachi Favors' 'Illistrum', an abstract bit of atonal 20th century art-pomp with dramatic spoken whatzit, and from the first resounding piano chord of guest artist Muhal Richard Abrams, we're pretty much aware that this is a grant statement. Everything sounds bright, alive like great jazz should, though not "live" like the last few records. Lester Bowie's 'Baryard Scuffel Shuffel' takes a ragtimish theme and decorates it with lopsided anarchy; it's a statement of his interest in traditional/Dixieland forms but integrated into a deconstructive group method. But it's Roscoe Mitchell's 'Tnoona' that blew my young mind when I first encountered it. The Art Ensemble sorta bridged the gap between minimalism and free jazz with this track, a fecund interstate highway in the direction of an unrealised potential for What Jazz Could Be. It's like the jazz Soliloquy for Lilith, or maybe I should say Salt Marie Celeste. I know I'm prone to overdo the superlatives but of all the tracks we've spun in the last few months, this is truly one of the greatest -- and there's been a lot of great ones so far. It bubbles, purrs and leaks, threatening to explode but staying under tight control. Which makes the jaunty 'The Key', also by Mitchell, feel so much more like a release at the end. Jarman's title track should also get mention here - it has a sinister edge we haven't really heard before, but then again, these are warriors we're talking about.

Art Bears - 'The World As It Is Today' (ReR)

A title like this would suggest a bold statement of an album, something both philosophical and direct. Well, sure, this is the pen of Chris Cutler, after all. If you didn't think the man who wrote File Under Popular could knock it out of the park, then you're truly underestimating him. This is concise - a 45rpm mini-album, maybe a long EP - yet leaves nothing to be desired. The lovely little booklet rearranges the running order into a three lyrical groups. 'Law', 'Democracy', 'Truth', 'Freedom', 'Peace', and 'Civilisation' are classified as "6 corpses in the mouths of the bourgeoisie", but despite this heavy concept, the songs are light as air. I often forget how traditional the Art Bears actaully could be, at least in terms of instrumentation; most of these songs are drums, piano and guitars and they achieve their innovation largely through structure, composition and affect rather than effect (if you get my drift). Though 'Civilisation', at the end of side 1, is a thick, slow composition that sounds like Morton Feldman pushing a pram. It hangs in the air and never lets go, always on the verge of resolution. Vocally, Dagmar is perfect -- I can't imagine anyone else interpreting a song that is somewhat anti-democracy and transforming it into something so magical. The second lyrical group is "4 songs" and contains catchy tunes like 'The song of the Dignity of Labour Under Capital' which is more like Brecht than Engels, thankfully. The final standalone song is 'Albion, Awake!', ending the album (and the career of Art Bears) on a platform of hope, though first transformed through the most tape-manipulated section of the band's ouvre. Perhaps this twisted unraveling is an abstracted musical story of the workers of the world. The final line is 'Let banners fly like shrapnel and efface the sky!' and while I jump up with my red flag, I then think to the reality of everything that has happened since 1981, and then I get depressed, and then I just listen to some more records to wash away the pain. The real pain, of course, is that my copy of this is slightly warped, which renders 'The Song of Investment Capital Overseas' and 'Democracy' rather unplayable.

Muhal Richard Abrams - 'Lifea Blinec' (Arista Novus)

Source: Ross, of course, on Aug 2, 2002 (the day that 3 MRA albums entered my life a la fois)

Muhal Richard Abrams really rips it up as bandleader, here flanked by Douglas Ewart and Joseph Jarman. I don't know what a "lifea blinec" is but I'm into invented languages, so why not? The Bud Powell tribute is enough to wake the guy from the dead - it ain't Chicago Eye and Ear Control style-energy but rather AACM alumni at their best. It bounces just right without that sheen that takes over jazz just a few years later. Whenever Amina Claudine Myers' voice pops into the mix it's great, though her contributions are more percussion and piano . Jarman and Ewart slice each other apart liked waxed-paper kazoos and Abrams has his moments too. It might be a bit easier to excel on a record when your solos are here and there (instead of 40 straight minutes of solo). The ending duos are maybe even the highlight; 'Duo 1' actually sounds a bit like Third Ear Band or some Swedish prog-folk band if they were trying to pay tribute to Coltrane. I was gonna try to end this with a horrible joke somehow involving the punchline "Muhal-land Drive" but instead I'll just quote the sleeve: ALL THERE IS OR IS NOT USING MUHAL AS A CHANNEL. Blinec, blinec!