Philip Glass - 'Powaqqatsi' (Elektra/Nonesuch)

Whoa, Powaqqatsi is pretty fucking awesome! I didn't remember enjoying this so much as it's a far more upbeat beast than Koyaanisqatsi, as I guess the film probably is too. (I know I saw it too, years ago, and it's more of the same time-lapse stuff meant to indict the Western world's behaviour). This is another record that keeps inspiring me to jack up the volume knob on the ol' Luxman, all the way to 12 O'clock (It's rarely ever past 10, normally) and it's the percussion that makes me keep wanting more and more and more. Powaqqatsi is mostly instrumental until we're about 75% of the way through, though in addition to the instrumentation (again, a mix of synths and instruments that sound like synths), there are some field recordings (possibly from the making of the film) mixed in, and some children's voices that are sort of creepy. Side one's 'Anthem' is split into three parts, intercut with some shorter tracks which take us around the world (as the whole album and film itself manages to do - 'Train to Sao Paulo', 'From Egypt', 'New Cities in Ancient Lands'). But Glass's compositions very delicately walk the line between ethno-musical forgeries and a minimalist composer's vision; you can maybe pick out hints of 'ethnic' melodies in these tracks, but that's pretty much a reach. It all feels united, with pounding drums (the presence of which are the major difference between this and the first soundtrack) and bright brass instruments driving the middle of the soundstage. 'Anthem' is the centrepiece, reminding me of some feeling I've only found in really random bits of music (some Vietnamese pop music, Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath, and I guess Arnold Dreyblatt as the closest composer influence though there's a feel of a harder-edge Lou Harrison to this music too); it has a pulse, a heartbeat, that is echoed in both the body and the head. See, Dad, minimalism is more than just an intellectual exercise! I suppose the pulsebeat is supposed to echo the relentless assault of modernity on traditional ways of being, or maybe that's just a childish interpretation - either way, it makes this sound so good. The record is well-sequenced (perhaps just matching the film, though the film would be longer than this and from what I remember it's all music throughout); the driving pieces are cut with the more restrained ones, though even 'The Unutterable', the first part of which is probably the record's most mellow point, has an unsyncopated pulse at its centre. More romantic elements enter - the string melody that opens 'Mosque and Temple' is wet and emotional, a million light years from the idea that many people have of Philip Glass as a cold and overly intellectual sound-lord. The 'New Cities' trilogy (which blend into each other seamlessly) also use flutes and some other higher wind instruments over all the synths, making a really accessibly sweet sound mix, but not one that feels manipulative or false. 'CAUGHT!' is the one for the mix tape, a fast-paced escalating maelstrom, just before the vocal-driven ('From Egypt'); but on either side of it, Foday Musa Suso plays guest kora and balafon on two very short tracks named after him, and it feels like a really short interlude that really should have been a lot longer. The track in the middle has an amazing use of a flutter echo/delay behind the Egyptian vocalist; it's one I completely forgot about and easy to overlook after all the dense, driving instrumentation. The only real disappointment is the titular closing track, which feels obligated to chant the title in a deep scary voice just like in Koyaanisqatsi; here, it just feels like an empty gesture, a repetition of an idea that doesn't work so well in this one. But the album, overall, is a zillion times better than I remembered it and maybe I'll even give the film another go.

Philip Glass ‎– 'Koyaanisqatsi' (Antilles)

I've seen the film of which this is the soundtrack, and it's pretty good! A bunch of crazy time-lapse stuff, showing people from all over the world working and living their lives; it's a real artistic vision of late capitalism, for sure. Not entirely unlike those videos Phill Niblock always shows during his performances, of developing nations toiling in fields of rice, etc. -- but maybe the short attention span theatre edition. The music sounds pretty austere though - a bunch of chanting in unknown tongues and thick, layered instrumentation (five trumpets, five French horns, four violas, two tubas, etc.) which makes it actually sound like synth music in a few places. There is a lot of keyboard, being pretty much equally lead instrumentation with the choir (courtesy of the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, none of whom are credited by name -- I guess when you join a choir you take a vow of semi-anonymity, sort of like playing offensive line for the Denver Broncos) and it all just sounds great if you turn it up LOUD. A reviewer's note here: I got a new turntable since the last post, so this is the first record listened to through the superior effort of the Rega Planar 3, and wow! The voices sound fucking intense, especially on 'Vessels' or maybe it's 'Cloudscape' - I wasn't paying attention. Turning up the volume knob makes the recorded human voice sound like I've never heard it before, perhaps the way he's layered them here or something to do with what they are singing. I assume it's the Hopi language that the title comes from, but maybe it's just gibberish, or maybe the Magma language -- who knows? who cares? It's a power that those Alabama Sacred Harp Singers records have, where you just feel an energy coursing through your body and ripping you apart. The sacred harp jams are about Jesus or salvation or something, and this is, I guess, about how the pace of technology-driven modern life is desiccating our souls (again, I'm not fluent in Hopi) so you can choose what's more inspiring. I'm not a Christian in the slightest (hail Eris!) and spend most of my time thinking about the aforementioned desiccation than any sort of Creator, yet I love Gospel music, which at its best, conjured the same shimmery whole-body magic that this does. Fans of that mid-70s Meredith Monk vibe will also find a lot to love here, as Koyaanisqatsi has a dour, medieval feel (despite its openness, or maybe precisely because of it); when the title track is chanted at the beginning and end of this record you know you're somewhere special. This has always been my favourite Philip Glass work, seemingly balanced between his more commercial efforts and the postmodern operatic work such as Einstein on the Beach (though, I remember that pretty fondly, too).

Giant Sand - 'The Love Songs' (Homestead)

It's exciting to review a test pressing, and a pretty good sounding one too - as far as I know the higher-ups at Homestead gave the thumbs-up to this. Somehow, this test pressing (I wonder how many were pressed) made it to Jerry's record store in Pittsburgh many years ago, accompanied by the 'one-sheet' promo text -  and I grabbed it, not knowing much about Giant Sand except they were supposed to be alt-country (but not the annoying Wilco kind). Between this and all of the subsequent Giant Sand records I've heard, this one is definitely the most 'country' sounding, though I don't know what that says except my own genre biases. It's an electric country record for sure, with lots of biting guitars, keyboard/organ drones, and other flourishes. It's a very well produced record, but somehow after years of casually listening to Giant Sand and Howe Gelb, I've never gelled with them completely. So I've always had this mild appreciation of his work without ever really loving it. A few years ago they made that Giant Giant Sand record called Tucson that was pretty ambitious and pretty great. But this is much earlier, and has some hard-rocking ballads, like the opening cut 'Wearing the Robes of Bible Black'.  The production is really top-notch, and nothing really indicates it's 1988 though I wouldn't know what alt-country is supposed to sound like then except for the Mekons. The drums are bright and crisp, and the arrangements are thick but tasteful. There's some waka-chika gutiar on 'Love Like a Train' which somehow works in the context and doesn't drag it towards a 70s porn sound. Gelb is a songwriter that lets his idiosyncrasies out; his vocals occasionally wail and contort, and he's not afraid to cop a classic pose, though it's always a little off-kilter. 'Almost the Politician's Wife' starts with a gentle acoustic strum and works from the position of a roving eye, never quite content, but not restless either. The album ends with a cover of 'Is That All There Is?', recently resurfacing in pop culture by its inclusion in the final season of Mad Men; here, Gelb is sarcastic, voice breaking into a million different directions. The album concludes by dissolving into a sample of The Honeymooners, which I guess means this is a reflection back on the past and the 60s in particular, though I don't really feel it. Are these actual love songs? They don't jump out as particularly romantic, but maybe that's the point. Giant Sand have always seemed to me like a band whose pleasures lie in subtlety, even if the songs aren't necessarily restrained; I think further time is required (even though I've had this LP for well over 15 years) to truly dig in.

The Germs - '(GI)' (Slash)

I never understood the title of this or why the parentheses/brackets are part of it. This is an iconic record in every possible way - the sound, the artwork, the premature death of the vocalist .... yet it never jumped out at me as revolution-inspiring. I, of course, tend to gravitate towards smart-guy punk like Wire or Alternative TV, at least as a younger man. These days, the fury of the Germs is something I connect with, though maybe in a nostalgic way for some life I never led. The lyrics are of course the best part, but not included here and not always so decipherable, so the Internet is helpful here, though I tend to focus on clunkers like 'Embracing my life / between your thighs' rather than the moments that are way intelligent and poetic. Crash's words deal with (among other things) the role of the self against the emergence of technology, the existence and viscerality of the body, and power relationships between people and systems. Which is not to dismiss the rest of the band - Pat Smear is somehow still an underrated guitar player, and his lines snake and crawl around Crash's delivery, which is what Carducci would write is great rock music (and he's right!).  The Germs are a classic case of a band that remains influential for the wrong reasons, but when you watch their performance in The Decline of Western Civilization the power of this band becomes abundantly clear. The record doesn't downplay it towards new wave or pop production sensibilities like so many other records of the time, which is a credit. And they put the short fast songs on side 1 and leave the slightly longer ones for the second side, which was a pretty good move, I'd say. 'Another day, another crash' is a lyric from 'The Other Newest One', perhaps Darby's titular line, and while the backstage footage in Spheeris's film shows him to be a confused and sad kid, here he sounds the force of pure nihilism come to life. It's heavy without being metal (it's a single guitar band, after all), and the songs are as sophisticated as they can be given the self-imposed boundaries. ''We Must Bleed' is pretty fucking incredible, and leaps out of the speakers with a cutthroat monotony. Songs such as 'Communist Eyes' actually have some pop hooks buried in them - the Germs were punk, not hardcore, at least to these ears, and that's a crucial distinction. And maybe that's what remains so valuable about (GI) thirty-seven years later - the idea of punk is manifested not by his sad death (which, to be honest, is the kind of death that defines clichés) but by the force that he became when put behind a microphone, on stage, and even in the studio. 

The Gerbils - 'The Battle of Electricity' (Orange Twin)

The Gerbils are pretty much forgotten now, but were pretty much forgotten when they were happening, too, at least outside of their Athens-based scene. They were dismissed as a Neutral Milk Hotel side project, one of the more obscure offshoots of the Elephant 6 thing, which meant they got lumped in with those bands just by their associations. And who can blame us? Scott Spillane and Jeremy Barnes are half of the Gerbils and also half of Neutral Milk hotel; the other two guys were certainly a big part of the Athens, GA pop scene around the turn of the millenium and the Gerbils managed to record two albums and a handful of 7"s before disappearing completely. And their sound is also pretty similar to their other bands, in that they are built around fuzzy guitar pop with some external instruments (horns, melodicas) as accents. This album is made up of ten songs with untitled interstitial tracks in between, some slow and dirgy and others a bit more spry. Vocalists Spillane and John D'Azzo harmonise in a very classic indie-pop singing style - not too gruff, occasionally reaching for low registers and helping to deliver the lyrics which are slightly dark and cynical ('The Air Up There' lyrically belies the jaunty shuffle of its music; 'Lucky Girl' is likewise more bitter than it's high-pitched, bright indie-pop cadence suggests). 'Snorkel', the title track, and 'Share Again' are a trilogy near the end, without these instrumental passages. The first of them is a slow song about going to the beach that keeps threatening to crash like a wave; for seemingly slight subject matter, it feels huge and monolithic. The interludes aren't filler; there's two in a row on side two, and they are lovely. They not only show some diverse musical influences with this limited palette (there's a pre-rock pop music feel at times, almost Tin Pan Alley, plus some funereal dirges and impressionistic sketches); they also serve to tie the whole thing together and make this feel like a proper band, despite drummer Barnes credited not with a kit but 'snare drum, floor tom, cymbal'. The Gerbils know when to step on their fuzz pedals and amp things up; 'Meteoroid from the Sun Strikes a Dead Weirdo' feels as punk as things ever get in this scene, and 'The White Sky' has some near blast beats behind it's shimmying keyboard licks and fast chord changes. The whole "indie pop" sound has been so maligned over the years, particularly by those who focus on the Calvin Johnson sweater-wearing cuteness that came out of the Pacific Northwest and all of the attendant developmental disorders that went with it. But I have a real soft spot for the bright lights of that movement, some of the 90s most memorable bands, who actually sound a lot more diverse and some, such as Tullycraft, even feel like spiritual descendants of punk. At its best, great indie-pop can convey a wistful sentiment such as  'Not a night goes by that I don't think of you / I watch you in my darkened room / Electricity was invented when I was left like this again' with a feeling of approachability, solidarity, and craft. The Gerbils had this in spades, and while it's hard to truly sonically separate them from that genre, they, like many of the best examples of any scene, stand apart.

Genesis - 'Selling England By the Pound' (Atlantic)

Forgot I Had This Department: Yeah, I have a Genesis record, and of course I like some Genesis, because they are good records that you can find in charity shops for very cheap. But I don't like them that much - even a cursory glance at the A through F's of this gauntlet will show my prog tastes tend to stay away from the bigger names and likewise from medieval and fantasy-leaning lyrics. Genesis were always just right in the middle of it all for me; I greatly prefer them to Yes or ELP or things like that, but don't enjoy them as much as I enjoy King Crimson. This record has some airy-faery stuff (mostly in the opening track, which is called, wonderfully, 'Dancing with the Moonlit Knight' -- and has some nice flutes and bells) but the real reason I have this record, honestly, is the song 'More Fool Me'. It's a cute little throwaway love song at the end of side one, and it's sung by Phil Collins in an affable, genteel croon instead of Gabriel's bombast. I wouldn't profess to know the entire Genesis catalogue or even much beyond this and Foxtrot and the 80s MTV hits, but it's undoubtedly my favourite Genesis song. If I remembered that I owned this record (which I don't, usually, unless an alphabetical blog-revue forces me to confront my accumulation), then surely I would pull it out occasionally just to hear that song. The rest of the vinyl is scarcely played, at least by my stylii. Though now, on a mandatory listen, it's clearly Genesis doing what they did best. There's some searing guitar solos (though they aren't as broken or blistering as, say, Area) and some epic key changes and some Mellotron and a very English feel to it overall.  'The Battle of Epping Forest' is a lengthy narrative about contemporary British unrest, which is an achievement in its own by putting street gangs into the usual medieval epic aspirations of 70s British progressive rock, but the song goes on forever (even to me) and I find it a bit unmemorable overall beyond it's conceit. This is going to go to the sell pile (or the give-away pile) not because I dislike it, but because I have too many records and can't justify keeping this for one song which I could just listen to via YouTube when I get a hankerin' for it.

Gastr del Sol - 'Camofleur' (Drag City)

More personal nostalgia (as if you haven't already endured heaps, if you've been reading this over the year): the release of Gastr del Sol's Camofleur in late 1997 was as impactful to me as Sgt. Pepper's or In Utero was to some people. Of course, there were very few people who I could share this with during my freshman year of college except a handful of friends. By the time this was released, the nascent Internet gossip (particularly the exalted droneon list, the archives of which from 1996-1999 I would kill to find) already indicated that the working relationship between Grubbs and O'Rourke had broken down, and Camofleur would be their last album. What I didn't realise then until it was released (and actually I forget about even now) is that Markus Popp joined as a full third member (or at least is credited as such) and whatever his impact was on the collaboration remains unknown - but the result is masterful. This is around (or just before) the time Jim O started producing Superchunk records and was talking in interviews about how much he loved Burt Bacharach, and this was not needless iconoclasm - it was an embracing of a plurality of sonic palette that served him really well on his first few Drag City solo albums, and surely influenced Camofleur immensely. What is more noticeable when listening to this, just five seconds into 'The Seasons Reverse', was how exuberant the sound was. Popp's digital glitching or whatever the hell he does (and that's not meant to be derogatory - I love me some early Oval) seems to propel these songs with a brightness that you could argue Upgrade & Afterlife lacked. It's not just that there was now a beat behind things, but that even Grubb's singing found a more conventional melodicism and while the lyrics are not necessarily any less cryptic, they feel truly like they support the musical idea rather than digging in their heels against comprehension. This opening track ends with an explosive cornet solo (one that I remember caused some controversy on droneon, cause after all, there are rules for experimental music, right?) and then it leads into a great bit of field recordings with O'Rourke attempting to communicate to a confused, non-English speaking child. 'Black Horse' is a thick, lush instrumental that sounds remarkably straight-forward compared to, say, 'Hello Spiral', but to me follows logically from that aesthetic. My local radio station used it as their station ID music bed for years so it conjures a special feeling; YouTube shows a live version from 1995 as just a guitar/bass/drums trio that feels like exactly the same song, yet completely different at the same time - so it's composition predates Upgrade but was wisely left off because (probably) it didn't fit the mood of that album. A song such as 'Blues Subtitled No Sense of Wonder' would have sounded like 'Rebecca Sylvester' on an earlier work, but the Camofleur transformation adds some fruit to this dinner plate; Popp's waterfall of digital effects feels as warm and organic as Systemisch and the cryptic, circular nature of Grubbs's worldview is something I love to lose myself in. 'Mouth Canyon' is the debut (as far as I know) of Jim O as a vocalist, and it also has this really wonderful opening passage that is like a series of breezes blowing against you - bleeping electronic tones and wind instruments come together in a magical harmony. 'A Puff of Dew' is the darkness before the dawn - a molasses-drenched swamp of stasis, with Grubbs intoning about staircases and mountains. I think Camofleur is by far the most American Gastr record, sounding influenced by landscape and other scenery throughout; 'A Puff of Dew' brings a dark undercurrent to the surface, and is one of the only mentions of an air mattress in a song that I can think of. And then it all comes to a summation with the instrumental beauty 'Bauchredner', the final march towards a higher consciousness. As it's the last track ever released by Gastr del Sol, it feels like a fitting conclusion.

Gastr del Sol - 'Upgrade and Afterlife' (Drag City)

This was the one that really did it for me - my first Gastr release, which is a near-masterpiece like all of the records that brought Grubbs and O'Rourke together. That's a pairing that seems to make no sense on paper and ends up being the greater than the sum of two parts. The formula of Crookt, Crackt or Fly isn't deviated from too much except there is maybe less acoustic guitar choppiness and more of a unified sensibility to create some pleasing compositions - works that are about synergy rather than difference. The tracks with vocals are placed in the centre, but the starting and ending cuts are masterfully lyrics despite being instrumental. 'Our Exquisite Replica of Eternity' - what a title, what a track. It's O'Rourke who clearly takes lead here, with his 'new music' composer chops in the forefront, building things around some electroacoustic drones which move and grind slowly as the piece unfolds. It explodes, an O'Rourke trick evident in many of his records, but here recalling George Gershwin heavily, which feels forward thinking in its anachronism. It's all spinning at 45 RPM (this is not a double album but a one-and-a-half record) which gives it a sense of momentum too. The ending track is a John Fahey cover, 'Dry Bones in the Valley' (from 1975's Old Fashioned Love, if you were wondering) and it's done pretty straight, breathing through the space in the acoustic strum and showing these guys as the virtuoso musicians that they are; once Tony Conrad's violin drone comes in, the track takes on a hypnotic and incredibly melancholy tendency that intensifies until the record is over. And these songs in the middle, with Grubbs dropping his Grubbisms everywhere? Great too, for the most part. 'These are shark fins/I believe the tongue propels them' is the most quotable and wonderful-ridiculous Gastr lyric ever, making 'Rebecca Sylvester' the single most iconic Gastr del Sol track. The piano psychosis of Mirror Repair is most evident during 'The Relay', and 'Hello Spiral' brings in the McEntire drumming (after a harsh, aggressive bit of tape work by Ralf Wehowsky, sounding like John Wiese's hand to me) for the indie rock sound (but only a bit). Actually, it's 'Hello Spiral' that sounds precisely like the LP is skipping, just off-kilter enough to make it feel maddening. I obviously love this record, to the point where I read great personal emotional connections into it despite it being relentlessly avant-garde and obtuse. But it's a warm avant-garde, a celebration of art and possibilities (as the famous Roman Signer photo on the cover indicates). and maybe it sounds a bit silly or dated now but you gotta believe this 18 year old was enthralled. Upgrade & Afterlife is a map of possibilities for what music and art can do, slouching towards the cerebral but never quite abandoning the guttural. And the crazy thing is that they followed it up with something even better.

Gastr del Sol - 'Mirror Repair' (Drag City)

Mirror Repair is a really solid EP that was probably recorded around the same time as Crookt, Crackt or Fly but has a very different feel. There's a little of the acoustic guitar interplay, but a lot more piano, and a somewhat throwaway 'rock' piece ('Dictionary of Handwriting') which, despite it's thin construction, feels like a defiinitive example of the post-rock sound. 'Eight Corners' is the centrepiece, build around a slowly looping piano figure, which gains a bit of air each time round, lifting up and then almost drifting back to the ground before finding another gust of life. Grubbs intones some Chicago geography, which the usual take-it-or-leave-it impact, and the piece ambles along until some crazy, cracked (or crackt?) electronics chime in. It's like Smegma or the Nihilist Spasm Band dropped by to do some overdubs, and this is where O'Rourke uses whatever digital technology he was surely innovating (in 1994!) to its full potential. It's avant-garde as all fuck, and probably one of the band's highlights, sounding especially great at 45pm because there's so much space and clarity to the recording. I actually listened to the second half of this song twice just now, once through speakers and once through headphones. It's magic. The rest of the EP ain't shabby; the title track has the most vocalising and might even seem to be about something if you slow down to figure out the intention behind the lyrics (I never bother, though). 'Why Sleep' is built around that slowly unfolding spatial drone that mid-period Gastr does so well. Maybe this is nothing more than taking Varese/Xenakis techniques and introducing it to the post-rock set, but it's fucking stunning to listen to, and still sounds like new (or at least underexplored) horizons to me, two decades later.

Gastr Del Sol ‎- 'Crookt, Crackt, Or Fly' (Drag City)

'In the museum / they set up the drums all wrong / reversed hi-hat and snare' is a lyric that, when you read it here, doesn't sound so odd. But once David Grubbs delivers it with his famous diction, and perhaps in the context of the overall song ('Parenthetically', which is clearly a hissy, caught-on-dictaphone improvisation) and the overall album (the sublime, strange and still singular Crookt, Crackt or Fly), it feels fucking alien. There's a forgotten generation of people like me, mostly male I'm guessing, and white, and quite a few who wear spectacles, who felt the power of the guitar but didn't want to sound like Yngvie or Satriani in our teenage aspirations. Gastr del Sol, and in particular this LP, was like manna from heaven. I never really listened to the first Gastr album, because it didn't have Jim O'Rourke on it. But here on the sophomore record, the two are equals, dazzling in their guitar interplay but not afraid of incorporating some piano or electronics when necessary. The thirteen minutes of 'Work from Smoke' make up the Gastr piece de resistance, the masterpiece that takes you through everything they do in a short period of time: Grubbs's idiot-savant lyrics, edgy acoustic guitar slashes, and a new dawn of droning electronics that sounds like George Crumb having a go at remixing the Spirit of Eden master tapes after drinking a few sixpacks of malt liquor. If this was the only track they ever cut they'd still live in eternal greatness for me, but there's actually the rest of the album to enjoy (and a few other records, too).  Side two's monster is 'The Wrong Soundings', a combination of processed ambient/field recordings (sounding mostly like somebody fucking around in a cave or other resonant space) with some circular insanity-guitar; the first half doesn't grab you by the throat and throttle like the best parts of 'Work from Smoke' or 'Every Five Miles', but it's a key transition to Upgrade & Afterlife's more O'Rourke-dominanted moments - and then the RAWK comes crashing in, and we remember the roots of this band (or at least 2/3 of them). It's not the most cohesive track, feeling a bit like a collage of several different parts, but the sum isn't shabby. I think part of the reason this record feels so perfect is that is sticks to a fairly limited palette, being mostly acoustic, though John McEntire shows up to rock out on side 2 for a bit. Crookt, Crackt or Fly breathes a heavy gust of the avant-garde into an indie rock carcass (remember, Grubbs was the dude from Bastro!) and if there needs to be a photograph of something in the dictionary entry for 'post-rock', this is a pretty strong candidate. You can laugh at Grubbs's vocal delivery (and I often do - it's great to open your junk mail and sing it in his style), and maybe the strangeness feels affected to some, but I'm never one to mock ambition and this is bathed in it, and I think confidently achieves its goals. Maybe it's mostly forgotten by now, but the legions of crookt crackt guitar players in contemporary bands (Dirty Projectors come to mind) surely owe some debt to this. It's absolutely wonderful, and despite the very distinct tone here, I'm almost always in the mood for it.

The Garbage & The Flowers - 'Stoned Rehearsal' (Quemada)

Were this a lesser band, Stoned Rehearsal would be a case of scraping the bottom of the barrel to release something, anything, by a band that (criminally) left too few recordings. It's just a dictaphone recording from what I assume was a practice space, but that's OK since almost everything on their "proper" album is also recorded on a dictaphone. The title's pretty much perfect as a description; a rehearsal this is, complete with stops, chatter, and tuning breaks. There's nothing provided to indicate when this took place, though we get a 4 page well-typed lyric sheet to sing along. This is great because it enables you to read 'Henry, Where is Lyon?' as a short story, which is really is - a long dark rumination on relationships set through some characters in a vague, gun-orientated narrative. It's the pick of the album for me, as it lumbers along it's chord progression, bassline meandering and the open hi-hat keeping time awkwardly - but over this, Helen Johnstone and (I'm guessing) Yuri Frusin take us through this journey, casually harmonising but not consistently. 'Though the world has come undone', indeed - this, like the rest of Stoned Rehearsal, is a song unique to this record, not appearing on Eyes Rind which suggests it was recorded later - and it feels like it's just teetering on a precipice of something intangible - but something that is welcoming and inviting. Other songs are less cohesive - 'River of Sem' takes some tries to get going (and Johnstone has some fun with her delivery);  'Call Out the Dogs Again' falls apart at the end - but this only serves to make this more intimate. 'Elisabeth' is adapted from a Herman Hesse poem and the vocal interplay, though barely above a murmur, is lovely, and the plodding drums (and dog barks!) are still forming the song. The one thing I find frustrating about this wonderful band is that everything feels so archival, like a document, rather than something living and growing. Or maybe that's exactly what the mystery is. I don't think a lot of artists could get away with releasing a practice tape on vinyl years later, but with Garbage and the Flowers it feels vital, like a missing piece. Johnstone is part of a new project called Caroline No that has recently released a (great!) tape, which retains some of the somnambulant motion of tG&tF's more genteel side. So, while I'm pretty sure this is all we're gonna get from them (the vault is surely dry), this feels appropriate as the final gasp.

The Garbage & The Flowers - 'Eyes Rind as if Beggars' (Bo'Weavil)

If you wait long enough, eventually everything gets reissued. I had this for over a year and only just now realised there was a CD stuck inside, but my CD player is broken at the moment so I'm not sure what's on it. Maybe I should pay closer attention to things I purchase. In the New Zealand hall of fame, this band occupies a special place, though really they should qualify for the regular ol' "music" hall of fame, if such a thing existed. Thank gosh it doesn't. Originally released in 1997, this double LP is mostly made of lo-fi live recordings, documenting this anarchic, shambolic mess of a band that nonetheless managed to captivate enough listeners to warrant this deluxe reissue, many years later. This is guitar music, occasionally erupting into piles of dissonant feedback and distortion, but it's not the slightest bit aggressive. This is dream music, though it never seduces you with anything too easy or too confectionary. Singer Helen Johnstone and guitarists Yuri Frusin and Paul Yates are the yin and yang, with her gorgeous voice and their hell-guitars pushing and pulling, but the drummer is nothing to scoff at either - this was really perfection, more than the sum of their parts, because of (not 'despite') the rough edges. The album feels more like a collection of whatever was lying around, a document that this existed, rather than a focused project, and I couldn't imagine it any other way. The notes bend and shimmer ('Holy Holy Blue' feels like it's barely held together at all), the recordings sound like their all made during the last night on earth, and the feeling is all warmth and magic, mostly creeping in from the edges. The walls of guitar on 'Nothing Going Down' and 'Rosicrucinn Lover' are almost devotional; they take over the space but never feel self-indulgent. Maybe it's just the Velvet Underground taken to the logical conclusion if it was 25 years later and on the other side of the world, but I love it. There's a quality to a lot of music from New Zealand -- Alastair Galbraith, I'm looking at you -- that is spooky, reverent, and open. This record is saturated in that, while seemingly laid on a fun jammy indie-rock structure. This is all romance without cynicism, a testament to the powers of noise and the energy within a band unit. And it's simple too - listen to 'Nothing Going Down at All' or 'Carousel' - this could be you or I. It's inspiring, and it makes me feel young and old at the same time, and I'm gushing here but I'm just so fucking grateful that this band existed.

Gang of Four - 'Another Day/Another Dollar' (Warner Bros.)

This EP pairs three new songs with two live ones, and the new songs are produced more intensely than anything before. 'To Hell With Poverty' is a fun song with the great refrain "We'll get drunk on cheap wine!". It's still built around the formula (Andy Gill's fiery swordstrokes of guitar laid over a thick, chunky and dancey rhythm section), but there's more studio affectations - some echoey yelps, served as accents on the melody, are really the calling card of this song. I was in a doctor's waiting room last week and they were playing Madonna's 'Material Girl' and I couldn't notice how similar the production techniques were to this. The other two songs remind me more of Einsturzende Neubauten or something like that - more industrial, churning out like they were influenced by that scene at the time, though maybe not. The live side is good enough - 'Cheeseburger' is fiery and it's nice to hear the intensity they brought to the more rigid songs. I never went past here but maybe it's time to overcome my fear of Songs of the Free?