on deck

Gas - Pop
M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Pisces - A Lovely Sight
Polystyrene - Translucence
Television Personalities - Privilege

Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Volume 2: Judges

Admittedly I didn't really get this the first few times around. I had it on in the background and thought it was just another dude making some abstract noises electronically. There were some spoken word bits that sounded an awful lot like Laurie Anderson. It sounded interesting, kinda Aphex Twin-y, but with all the tools available to musicians today, it didn't sound like anything mind-blowing.

Which is why it's a good idea to read a bit about stuff sometimes. What's going on here is mind-blowing on both the inhale and exhale. It turns out these songs are done by Colin alone with no overdubs or loops. It's just him, his saxophone, and about 20 well-placed mics. So in a sense the only manipulation here is in the mixing.

So now knowing that, I wish I could go back to ignorance and try to listen to the music just for what it is. Now when I hear it I have difficulty getting past the question, "how in the hell..."

I'm not too familiar with the sax but what he's doing must destroy the reeds. So witness the music of destruction:

on deck

John Fahey - The Transfiguration of Blind Joe Death
Mark Hollis - Mark Hollis
Sigue Sigue Sputnik - Flaunt It
Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring for My Halo
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Solid State Survivor

to revisit

It's not really fair to call these dead ends, but they've been in the rotation for a while and I wanted to get them out. So, temporary dead ends, perhaps to be revisited.

Right now I am initially dismissing Robert Fripp and Brian Eno's No Pussyfooting as an album that never risks dabbling in the world of the interesting. Apparently it's better known for the way it was recorded rather than, you know, how the music actually sounds. And Ash Ra Temple's debut album I'm thinking is too cosmic, not enough rock. I need more Gottsching, less Schultze.

I'm having trouble with finding a good version of the Ellen Foley / Clash album to listen to so I'm pausing on it, too.

New York Dolls

The Ramones' first album came out in 1976. "God Save the Queen" was released in 1977. So sometimes it blows my mind that, the Stooges' Fun House came out in 1970 or T. Rex did Electric Warrior in 1971. In a similar feat that makes me double-check the chronology, the New York Dolls' first album came out in 1973. It was produced by Todd Rundgren in the same year he did A Wizard, A True Star, an album that seems the polar opposite of punk's straightforwardness.

I can't really say I like this better than the Stooges or T. Rex or whatever but it's still pretty amazing for what it is. I'll check out their second album as well. In the meantime, here's some trash:

Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells

The theme for The Exorcist is one of the most recognizable movie themes in American history. But it's not as well known that the theme was from an early album of prog rocker Mike Oldfield. Oldfield came out with Tubular Bells in 1973; it was used in The Exorcist in the same year. So the first few minutes of this album, at least, are already familiar. The rest of it, perhaps not so much. Tubular Bells is nearly ubiquitous at used record stores, so I decided to give it a try.

What a treat! At first, the unusual time signatures and general repetitiveness of the music reminded me of Steve Reich and other classical acts. With time, though, the way various instruments are introduced, the way things culminate, peak, decay, soar, and disappear reminds me more of prog rockers like Soft Machine. It's rock, it's kinda jazzy, it's well-composed. Tubular Bells is only two tracks; each spans the entire side of a record, much like Soft Machine's Third album. So it's not surprising to see that Oldfield has some connection to Kevin Ayers. (The surprising bit is that he was 16 [16!] when he went on the road as part of Ayers' touring band.)

There are about 50 different instruments that come into the mix here, and Oldfield is playing the vast majority of them. It seems in the early 70s there was this trend of a self-made album, like Paul McCartney's McCartney, Stevie Wonder's Music of My Mind, Roy Wood's Boulders, and Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star. There's a level of ambition and talent in those albums that seems absolutely inconceivable today.

Really, the more I dig into this album the more amazing it seems. For instance:

Tubular Bells, originally dubbed Opus 1, grew out of studio time gifted by Richard Branson, who at the time was running a mail-order record retail service. After its completion, Oldfield shopped the record to a series of labels, only to meet with rejection; frustrated, Branson decided to found his own label, and in 1973 Tubular Bells became the inaugural release of Virgin Records.

Yowza.

Edith Frost - Calling Over Time

I came to this one when trying to find other albums produced by Jim O'Rourke. I had never heard of Edith Frost before. Calling Over Time is her debut, released in 1997 on Drag City. It's pretty sparse, usually just a guitar and/or piano, sometimes with another instrument or two low in the mix. Chicago being an incestuous pit of musicians, some other members of Gastr del Sol were involved in the recording, but this doesn't really have the feel of something like Camoufleur.

This normally isn't something I would seek out, but I'm glad I found this one. It's a fantastic winter album, incidentally. Maybe I'll try some other Drag City stuff I haven't tried before, like Palace Brothers, and/or revisit some more Smog and Will Oldham / Bonnie Prince Billy / whatever albums. As for Edith Frost, she only has three other albums, I might as well check them out, too.

Yellow Magic Orchestra

Coming across something like Yellow Magic Orchestra vindicates this dumb effort to keep finding new music.

As much as I enjoy Krautrock, I never really want to listen to much Kraftwerk; I find it too uptight. YMO is like a Japanese Kraftwerk, but fun to listen to. This, their self-titled debut, is considered the first computer-themed album. This came out in 1978, the same year as Space Invader!

I came to YMO in a fairly roundabout way. Basically I got to this through Destroyer, via Japan. Destroyer came out with Kaputt either early this year or late last year. In an interview with Dan Bejar about the album, he mentioned something about David Sylvan records. So that got me to his solo career as well as the band Japan. On some of those records, Ryuchi Sakamoto was listed as a collaborator and YMO in general was considered an influence.

Pitchfork: Back in your twenties, would you ever imagine that you'd make an album like Kaputt?

DB: No, not at the time. When I got into the American scene, I put aside a lot of stuff that was dear to me. There was this 10-year period where the idea of putting on a David Sylvian record was ludicrous because it was just too lame. I banished Morrissey from my life in favor of Sun City Girls, so I only really discovered Your Arsenal in my thirties. It's embarrassing.

Pitchfork: Do you think your 25-year-old self would think Kaputt sounds lame?

DB: For me to bother with it at 25, someone would have had to sit me down and said, "No, you should actually listen to this." Maybe I'm selling myself short. At that time, I was almost exclusively listening to classic rock records from the 60s and 70s.

Yeah, that's where I am, or where I have been for the past five years, listening to classic rock records from the 60s and 70s, really in need of someone to sit me down and tell me to listen to stuff. You'd think the internet would make it relatively easy to find where to go next, but it's not that simple. If anything, it provides access to too much. It would be overwhelming to take that much in.

Anyway, this is definitely one of the better finds. Last weekend I was giddy when I saw the translucent yellow vinyl version for under 10 bucks at the local record store. I fully expect to check out some more YMO and related stuff like Sakamoto's solo work.

Nilsson Sings Newman's 12 Songs

Getting into Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman have been two of the better things I've done this year. I knew Randy Newman was writing songs for others in the late sixties; he penned the intro to Van Dyke Park's Song Cycle, "Vine Street" as well as some songs for Harpers Bizzare and similar bands. And even though he had his first solo album in 1968, it wasn't until Nilsson came out with Sings Newman that Randy was introduced to a wide audience.



It seems hard to imagine why Nilsson would've done such a thing at that point in his career. He had some success with his first three albums and his big single that he didn't write, "Everybody's Talkin'" but Nilsson Schmilsson was still to come. So maybe he hadn't reached the peak of his success but he was definitely on the way up when he drops an album of songs written by some no-name guy, Randy Newman. Just the idea of doing that seems unheard of in today's world of constant self-promotion.



Listening to Randy Newman is strange. He has a unique style and relies on similar melodies in some songs, most of which (for me and others around my age, I expect) well-associated with the Toy Story movies. I know that may be unfair, but it's hard to listen to songs like "Yellow Man" or "My Old Kentucky Home" or whatever without thinking of Woody and Buzz Lightyear. Still, I've severely enjoyed his early albums, which can usually be found for under five bucks at vinyl stores.

Boom Bip and Doseone - Circle

I came across this one from two directions. One, I'm slowly going through the cLOUDDEAD-related works beyond Why?'s solo work. So eventually I would've gotten to this Doseone / Boom Bip collaboration. Circle also came up on a list of song cycle albums, so that brought this to the top of the list of things to check out.

This one is super weird. It's so left-field it makes cLOUDDEAD sound like Will Smith. I think there's a part where Dose raps about laundry instructions. Even though it's just Dose One on vocals and Boom Bip supplying the backdrop, it seems that each of the 29 tracks has some different genre or bent. Occasionally it returns to a theme about a birdcatcher, but only briefly.

Boom Bip does some pretty amazing work here; the Allmusic review mentions DJ Shadow and Aphex Twin, that sounds about right. Overall it's undoubtedly the most unusual hip-hop album I've ever heard, and one I'll keep coming back to.

on deck

Ash Ra Tempel - s/t
Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen
Michael Rother - Flammende Herzen
New York Dolls - s/t
Why / Odd Nosdam - Split EP

Jens Lekman - An Argument with Myself

It's hard to believe it's been four years since Night Falls Over Kortedala. He was fairly prolific from 2003-2007: only two real albums but plenty of EPs to fill the gaps. But Jens does great stuff so I'll take what I can get. Here I like the title track but nothing else is particularly note-worthy. I just hope he's got another album on the way soon.

on deck

Edith Frost - Calling Over Time
Ellen Foley - The Spirit of St. Louis
Randy Newman - 12 Songs
Subtle - A New White
Yellow Magic Orchestra - Yellow Magic Orchestra

dead ends

Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies

I think I tried to get into Spiritualized once in high school, then again in college, and even this third time around it's not really clicking. This dreamy-pop, soft psychedelic, spacey shoegaze is nice to have on in the background but I can't ever focus on it enough for active listening. Also, I'm constantly comparing it the Verve's self-titled EP (which also came out in 1991) and their first full album, A Storm in Heaven. I listened to those so much in high school that I basically can't hear anything but Verve when listening to Lazer Guided Melodies. Oh well.

Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht

Holy moley this is creepy. I was listening to it at home alone in broad daylight and I had to turn it off because I thought I was going to get murdered. It's perhaps unfair to call this a dead end; I'll still check out some of his other works. I reckon I checked this out due to his history with Ash Ra Tempel, but it turns out Schulze wasn't involved with my favorite album of theirs, Schwingungen. Since it's Schulze, I expected it to be synth-heavy, but instead there are no synths to be found here on his debut album. It's all organic, both in the sense that there's no electronic manipulation and that an organ drone is the dominant instrument. It's amazing how evocative this album is, but it's not something I'll return to often.

Duran Duran - Duran Duran

I gave it an honest try but this doesn't do much for me. I'm still going to check out Rio, so if that one clicks, I may return to their self-titled debut.

Prefab Sprout - Two Wheels Good

I've been listening to this almost non-stop for weeks now. Seems like an appropriate fall-weather album. I suppose the closest thing that comes to mind is the Smiths, with a bit of the Mekons thrown in for fun on songs like "Faron". Very clean and polished, though. Thomas Dolby produced!

Two Wheels Good was known as Steve McQueen in the UK; the name was changed stateside due to a legal conflict with the McQueen estate. (Steve had died five years earlier; I never knew how he died--that is a story definitely worth Wiki'ing.)

I don't remember how I came across this one. It was probably searching 'sophisti-pop' on AllMusic, trying to find anything similar to Scritti Politti's Cupid & Psyche 85. So I may end up checking out some other Prefab Sprout albums, as well as other sophisit-pop albums.

on deck

Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol 2: Judges
Duran Duran - Duran Duran
Klaus Schulze - Irrlicht
Prefab Sprout - Two Wheels Good
Robert Fripp and Brian Eno - No Pussyfooting

dead ends

Time to clear out a few things...

Harmonia - Musik von Harmonia, Tracks & Traces

These two albums chronologically sandwich my favorite Harmonia album, Deluxe. Deluxe is upbeat, melodic, elegant, and interesting. I expected something vaguely similar from Harmonia's other two albums but even after revisiting them multiple times I never form a better impression of them.

Dollar - The Dollar Album

I'll be talking more about the source for this one later but basically I've been looking for some more synth-pop and wow, this one is too much. If you were looking for a soundtrack to parody the '80s, this is a good choice.

Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro

After reading a good bit of Julian Cope's music reviews, I wanted to check out some of the music he made. During the first few listens, I thought this sounds too much like U2; once I made that connection I couldn't get past it.

Psychic TV - Force the Hand of Chance

OK, so this is instructive. Psychic TV's Force the Hand of Chance was a blind download. I knew nothing about this other than it was suggested in a thread I made about 'song cycle' albums. This, by the way, explains how I come across about 5 percent of the albums I try.

Van Dyke Parks' album Song Cycle is undoubtedly a top-10 album for me. Going by the definition I found on Wikipedia:

A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's second Liederkreis, by the atmospheric setting of the forest. The unity of the cycle is often underlined by musical means, famously in the return in the last song of the opening music in Beethoven's An die ferne Geliebte.

The term originated to describe cycles of art songs (often known by the German term "Lieder") in classical music, and has been extended to apply to popular music.

In that case, some of my favorite albums would be considered song cycles: The Clash's Sandinista, Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star, and perhaps Allen Toussaint's Southern Nights. (VDP's album, ironically, doesn't really fit the definition.)

I listened to this on repeat today, perhaps four or five times all the way through. I rarely do that with a new album, so this is what qualifies as excitement for me. I've been intrigued to research this album that I've never heard of before, but before I do that, I wanted to try something.

This is my guess: I'm thinking this album is from the UK and released in the span of 1988-1993. Influences include Television Personalities, Public Image Ltd., This Heat, and Bill Holt's Dreamies. I'm betting this was the band's only album. The genre is avant-garde post-punk, although it's a bit later than most post-punk albums.

So now I'll actually research it and see how close I got.



Update: Oh bruddah. I was right about the UK post-punk bit, so I should've known it was even earlier than I guessed. This was released in 1982, after Genesis P-Orridge was out of Throbbing Gristle (a band whom, despite their appearance on several post-punk compilations, I've never been able to get into). This album is as old as I am.

I was way off the mark thinking this was a one-off album. Then again, it appears Psychic TV is more of an audio/visual house collaboration among dozens of artists. They described themselves as a video group who does music, rather than a music group which makes music videos. In the mid/late-80s, they set the Guinness record for most releases in one year. Perhaps the rest of their work doesn't sound much like this one. Without digging too deep, it appears the rest of their work is more industrial and exotic before transitioning to house and techno in the 90s.

Something I don't yet understand is that Wikipedia describes this as a single album with 8 tracks. That's certainly what I've been listening to today. Yet AllMusic refers to a double-album with 13 tracks. I guess I've got to find the other five tracks.

sources

One of the sources for exploring Krautrock music was Julian Cope's Krautrock Sampler, which can be yours for a few hundred bucks. Or you can try to find the PDF online. Or, if you just want some album recommendations with minimal text, there's a list of his Top 50 Krautrock albums.

My favorite Krautrock albums all appear here, with the exception of Cluster and Eno, which perhaps is more ambient than Krautrock, but that's a blurred line anyway. Off the top of my head, my own top ten would include:

Ash Ra Tempel - Schwingungen
Can - Ege Bamyasi
Can - Future Days
Cluster - Zuckerzeit
Cluster and Eno - Cluster and Eno
Faust - IV
Harmonia - Deluxe
La Dusseldorf - La Dusseldorf
Neu! - Neu! 75
Walter Wegmuller - Tarot

I've tried a few of the other albums on this list from Amon Duul, Popul Vuh, and Tangerine Dream without much success, but I may try revisiting some of those while I'm checking out un-heard albums from Cosmic Jokers, Witthuser & Westrupp, and Tony Conrad.

on deck

Finally got a new computer and worked through the backlog so that I only have five more to comment on. So it's time to work new stuff into the rotation:

Dollar - The Dollar Album
Harmonia - Tracks and Traces
Mike Oldfield - Tubular Bells
Nilsson - Sings Newman
Psychic TV - Force the Hand of Chance

John Foxx - Metamatic

After leaving Ultravox, lead singer John Foxx debuted his solo career with Metamatic. It generally occupies the same space as Ultravox's Systems of Romance, perhaps a bit more sparse and unfeeling. In many ways, this is stylistically similar to Gary Numan's The Pleasure Principle, released months before Metamatic, but Numan has admitted his debt to Foxx and 'Vox.

I think when it comes to synth pop, I need a bit more emotion than these guys want to conjure up. They're more in the meat-locker cold, Kraftwerk aesthetic with JG Ballard-inspired lyrics. Also, just way too repetitive. Come up with a song title and just repeat it a lot, huh.

Which isn't to say this is a terrible album; it's just not something I ever really want to listen to unless it's winter, much like Magazine's Secondhand Daylight.

Dieter Moebius - Tonspuren

Tonspuren is considered the first true Moebius solo album and--if AllMusic is to be trusted--his best. This release, in 1983, would've been well after Cluster and Harmonia had done their best work.

Which is not to say this sounds like the work of a has-been. Indeed, it's helpful to know what kind of album Moebius would make on his own. Some of the pleasant toy-sound rhythms in Cluster / Harmonia works seem to be Moebius contributions. Actually, there are a few songs here that wouldn't sound entirely out of place on Raymond Scott's fantastic Soothing Sounds for Babies releases. These songs aren't incredibly dynamic, though, so really these work best as background music.

dead ends

Gastr del Sol - Serpentine Similar

Too much solo noodling here. I need the crazy interplay / transitions of Camoufleur. Jim O'Rourke wasn't involved in this one; perhaps I'll stick to the other Gastr del Sol albums he was involved in.

St. Vincent - Strange Mercy

This did nothing for me. It will undoubtedly end up on plenty of year-end best-of lists and I'll shake my head like an old fogey.

Atmosphere - Lucy Ford: The Atmosphere EPs

This wasn't that bad but it's still a dead end. I can't avoid the mental image of a white guy who wears a hoodie in the studio and feels that he needs to yell all his lyrics. I prefer a more relaxed-to-the-point-of-indifference delivery.

exploring: Krautrock

For the next few months I'm going to try to have one or two Krautrock albums on deck. I have a few favorite Krautrock albums I'd consider among my favorites, but they're the usual suspects the better-known albums of Neu!, Cluster, Can, Faust, Harmonia, La Dusseldorf, among others. So I'm looking to dig a bit deeper, especially with some of the solo works of the major players.

What I'd really like to see is a Venn diagram of some of the main guys in those bands, as there's a good bit of overlap, either through band break-ups or side collaborations. Harmonia is a good example, formed of Cluster's Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius and Neu!'s Michael Rother. Their 1975 album, Deluxe, is one of my favorites. But I'm not sure what, for instance, Rother brought to the group compared to Roedelius or Moebius. So part of the exploration will be listening to solo albums in an effort to parse out those contributions.

Otherwise I may revisit Julian Cope's Krautrocksampler and some other sources of recommendations. I've also seen some recent reissues that look interesting. At any rate, I've probably have a list of 40-50 albums to check out before I feel like I've got a better grasp on the genre.

Nilsson - Pandemonium Shadow Show and Aerial Ballet

So after having not enjoying Nilsson's Son of Schmilsson, I'm glad I went the other way in his discography, as his first two albums are pretty swell. These two were loved by the Beatles, and it's easy to see why, with all the Beatles-baiting here, especially on Pandemonium Shadow Show.

Apparently at the height of Nilsson-mania, or around the time of his Grammy for "Everybody's Talkin', " Nilsson re-worked material from these two albums, re-recording some parts and crafting new intros, and merged these two albums into one album, Aerial Pandemonium Ballet. I think I'll explore his other albums, like Harry and Nilsson Sings Newman before I get to that one, though. [For some reason I've also been on a bit of a Newman kick lately.]

I'm glad I came across Nilsson; his brand of ambitious, if sometimes indulgent brand of singer-songwriter, pop/rock style places him a similar league to one of my faves, Todd Rundgren. But Todd never had a lullaby like this:

Deep Puddle Dynamics - The Taste of Rain...Why Kneel?

Clouddead (or cLOUDDEAD, more accurately) is one of the few hip-hop groups that would show up among my favorite artists. A brief collaboration between Why?, Doseone, and Odd Nosdam, only produced one album and one compilation of singles. And other than exploring Why?'s fantastic 'solo' career, I haven't explored other albums related to Clouddead or the left-field hip-hop label Anticon.

Deep Puddle Dynamics is Doseone and three other Anticon artists, Sole, Alias, and Slug. This album, named after one of Jack Kerouac's "western" haiku, came out in 1999, predating Clouddead's work. The first half was recorded in a week in 1998, and the last four tracks recorded in one day a year later, June 26th.

I suppose it's interesting and there are some memorable moments (beyond the sometimes annoying ping-ponging nasal delivery of Dose) but ultimately it's not as cohesive as I was looking for. It's essentially an Anticon sampler, so perhaps it wasn't a bad place to start. I'm still going to try to find some other related acts, though.

on deck

Atmosphere - Lucy Ford: The Atmosphere EPs
John Foxx - Metamatic
Spiritualized - Lazer Guided Melodies
St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Teardrop Explodes - Kilimanjaro

And my computer died so it will be a while before I have anything else to listen to.

Japan - Tin Drum

Japan's Tin Drum is nothing like the glam swagger of their debut, Adolescent Sex. Their trajectory across albums seems to run parallel to that of Talking Heads. Around 1980, when the Heads turned to Africa for rhythmic ideas, Japan turned to, well, Japan. Really, this is the only thing I've heard outside of the Eno-related sphere that comes close to what the Talking Heads were going for at the height of their arty new-wave, taking-funk-seriously success. But in the decades since, Remain in Light has achieved mythical status while Tin Drum is lucky to get an honorable mention among the best albums of the '80s. Granted, there's no "Once in a Lifetime" here, but "Ghosts" is pretty phenomenal.

Part of the eastern influence here is credited to lead singer David Sylvian's connection to Yellow Magic Orchestra's Ryuichi Sakamoto; I expect I will seek out some YMO and Sakamoto solo work later on.

Suburban Lawns - Suburban Lawns

Hey, this one's fun! Their sound is a bit like Devo, but with Mad TV's Ms. Swan on vocals. The hype was strong with them early on, with Jonathan Demme directing the video for their debut song "Gidget Goes to Hell," which was premiered on SNL, back in the pre-MTV era. This is their sole album, but the lead singer Su Tissue later came out with a solo album which I acquired a while ago but have not gotten around to checking out.

The best song here is "Janitor" which plays on a mis-heard response to the question "What do you do for a living?"

Gruff Rhys - Shampoo Hotel

Gruff Rhys is better known as the lead singer of Super Furry Animals, but I came to know him through his first solo album, 2005's Yr Atal Genhedlaeth, which is still one of my favorite albums of the 2000s. I love singing along, even though, perhaps especially because, it's sung in his native Welsh. A few years ago he had Candylion, an English-sung album which I thought was a bit too pink candy, too sweet and saccharine, too junior-high mixtape. He sticks with English for Shampoo Hotel but I'm liking the songs a bit more this time around.

The opening track samples Cyrkle's "It Doesn't Matter Anymore," penned by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, which reminds me I need to explore some B. B.

Let's trace the song...

Emitt Rhodes - Emitt Rhodes

I came across this one in a search for other classics of baroque pop and sunshine pop. No doubt this is among the best in the genre, but I don't think it's one I'll be returning to much. His sound borrows heavily from Paul-penned Beatles songs. I imagine for those lamenting the left-turn the Beatles made in the late-60s, this 1970 debut album was a welcome return to the familiar.

So what was the turn-off here? The music is straightforward and takes no risks, so there's that--perfect for Wes Anderson. And the lyrics are even more bland. You must live 'till you die? Huh, cool. (And if "Fresh as a Daisy" hasn't been used in a feminine product commercial, that's a missed opportunity.)

Still, there are a few nice songs on here, and I always have respect for multi-instrumentalists who record their own stuff. Ultimately, I hope this guy paid McCartney royalties, even as Sir Paul was making his own sub-par one-man-band albums along the same time.

on deck

I'm a bit behind on assessing what I've been listening to, but here's more to that pile:

Boom Bip and Doseone - Circle
Harmonia - Musik von Harmonia
Japan - Tin Drum
Jens Lekman - An Argument with Myself
Nilsson - Aerial Ballet

Ultravox - Systems of Romance

This was Ultravox's last chance, having previously struck out (in my mind) with their debut, which I think is called David Bowie's Players, and their Vienna which, other than the phenomenal title track, didn't seem like the New Wave statement I was searching for.

Systems of Romance was produced by German Conny Plank, who is better associated with Krautrock and early electronica.  Here, Plank grafts Ultravox's guitar lines onto a more synthetic backdrop.  Indeed, take out the vocals and some of these tracks might as well be a Neu! outtakes.  Basically this is a sound that others would put to better use on some of the best albums of the coming decade.  (Gary Numan in particular credits this album as his Polaris for Pleasure Principle; Julian Cope hints that Numan's 'inspiration' was closer to 'duplication'.) 

So Ultravox finally delivered on the kind of album I was looking for.  It's unlikely to displace anything in my list of favorite New Wave albums, but Systems of Romance works as a bridge between two genres I severely enjoy: German motor-tik Krautrock and New Wave/Romantic.

on deck

Deep Puddle Dynamics - The Taste of Rain...Why Kneel?
Gastr del Sol - The Serpentine Similar
Moebius - Tonspuren
Emitt Rhodes - Emitt Rhodes
Suburban Lawns - Suburban Lawns

dead ends

Adam Ant - Dirk Wears White Sox

This one didn't do much for me. A bit awkward and all over the place. I'm probably done with Adam Ant.

Cluster - Cluster '71

This is beatless, distorted ambient. I need the beats. I'll move on to other Cluster-related albums.

Peter Hammill - The Future Now

This one didn't immediately strike me but I may give it a few more listens. Also, I'll probably check out Hammill's group, the Van der Graaf Generator.

Public Image Ltd. - The Flowers of Romance

Like Metal Box but without the good parts.

David Axelrod - Earth Rot

No, not that David Axelrod. The one who produced and composed some pretty fantastic music in the '60s and '70s, working with Lou Rawls, Cannonball Adderley, the Electric Prunes, and many more. His first two solo albums, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, still sound fresh. The break-beat rhythm style he favored became staples for crate-diggers like DJ Shadow; listen to "Holy Thursday" and you'll hear the foundation of the future of hip-hop.

So his third album, Earth Rot, is a bit of a weird turn. Labeled as "a musical statement on the state of the environment," it's basically an album about environmental destruction--the first side is about warnings, the second about the signs themselves. The music here is amazing. It's jazzy, it's funky, the arrangements are amazing, it's all very fluid; parts of it I like even better than his first two albums.

But there's a catch, and that happens to be a choir that delivers the vocals. Lordy, they are annoying. Just when you start to enjoy the music, the choir comes in, singing about the decaying environment: "There! Is! A! Grow! Ing! Rahhh! Tennnnn! Nesssssss!"

I so wish there was an instrumental version of this album; it would be really phenomenal. As it is, the vocals are just too distracting and I can't get past them.



Allmusic characterizes this as 'obscuro'--a label they also applied to Bill Holt's Dreamies. I imagine I'll be checking out a few more obscuro albums in the near future.

on deck

Cluster - Cluster '71
Gruff Rhys - Hotel Shampoo
Nilsson - Pandemonium Shadow Show
Public Image Ltd. - The Flowers of Romance
Ultravox - Systems of Romance

The Mighty Sparrow - Hot & Sweet

I came across the Mighty Sparrow, also known as the King of Calypso, through Van Dyke Parks; the Sparrow sang the first song on Parks' 1972 album Discover America, "Jack Palance." VDP also produced this album (also in 1972) for the Mighty Sparrow, and recently Parks has re-released it on his very own Bananastan label.

Apparently if there's one calypso album to own, this one is a top recommendation. It's not just straight calypso all the way through, as the styles are more diverse than one label can convey. And there's quite a mythology to this album as well; allegedly it was recorded during the middle of a hurricane. At times the studio was running on a backup generator while recording. VDP worked with those sessions and added his own flourishes, resulting in a really fun listening experience--perfect for being stuck inside until the hurricane blows over.

The Wedding Present - Seamonsters / Watusi

I've had The Wedding Present on my computer for years; I probably came to them from a thread on albums produced by Steve Albini, and maybe I found the cover art enticing. I'm relatively sure I had tried these albums before but nothing really stuck. So upon revisiting these and giving them dedicated, relatively focused listens, well, I arrived at the same conclusion: nothing really sticks here.

Seamonsters is the one produced by Albini, and I don't think he did the band any favors. Sure, by placing the guitars and drums at the front of the mix, you get a pretty amazing sound, but since there's not really much range to their sound, the songs tend to get samey. The vocals are mumbled anyway, so Albini relegating them to the background doesn't help. The opening track is impressive for it's slow build; don't expect this much action on the rest of the album, though.



Watusi is a bit more varied and the production is a bit more balanced, bringing some definition to the vocals. Still, I don't expect to really return to this band. It's not that their sound is bad--I just don't find interesting enough for multiple listens.

Toro Y Moi - Causers of This / Underneath the Pines

The hype is strong with this one. Instead of starting with his most recent release, I went to his 2010 debut, Causers of This. On the first few listens, it sounded pleasurable enough--very relaxed, fuzzy. With repeated listens, though, it seemed nothing really emerged from the muck. The initial track, "Blessa" is representative enough.

So I approached his 2011 follow-up expecting more back-up music. Underneath the Pines, though, is a step in a slightly different direction. Most of it sounds reminiscent of indie-electronic bands from prior decades, like Stereolab, Air, and Broadcast. That sound wasn't exactly new when those bands were doing it, so it's not like Toro Y Moi has conjured up a distinctive, new sound. But still, this album is well-produced and at least offers some memorable moments.

The penultimate track, "Good Hold," offers the best example of a memorable moment. It's a short track; in its two and a half minutes, it builds a hazy melody from a dissonant piano loop. Just when things get nice and breezy, the sound becomes muddled, as if you've been plunged underwater and your ears are adjusting to the pressure. There's no drowning here, so you're allowed to surface just in time to catch the coda. The submerged effect doesn't translate too well through speakers, but the effect through headphones will leave you wringing out your ears.

on deck

Adam Ant - Dirk Wears White Sox
David Axelrod - Earth Rot
Peter Hammill - The Future Now
Mighty Sparrow - Hot and Sweet
Toro Y Moi - Underneath the Pine

Ultravox - Ultravox!

Two strikes so far for Ultravox. I'll try Systems of Romance before I call it quits, though. The two Ultravox albums I have tried seem too inconsistent. Most of this album (their debut) sounds like Space Oddity leftovers, so if there's something special here, I'm missing it. Brian Eno is credited as a co-producer on the album, but as far as I can tell, only the closing track "My Sex" has his touch. Compare that track with what Eno did two years prior on Another Green World:

dead ends

Gong - Camembert Electrique
Hawkwind - Space Ritual

I suppose the genre here is space rock. Gong was formed by a co-founder of Soft Machine, which seemed promising. And Hawkwind was a name I saw as an influence of several prog and even (inexplicably) some punk bands. But really both albums are of the wankish prog/hippie jam band variety; I have little tolerance for that.

Nilsson - Son of Schmillson

Most of what I had read about this album characterized it as the indulgent follow-up to his most popular work. That description also fits two of my favorite albums, the Clash's Sandinista! and Todd Rundgren's A Wizard, A True Star. But if Schmillson sounded just as charming as Nilsson looked on the cover of that album--waking up in a bathrobe, hash pipe in hand--then Son of Schmillson sounds like what he probably smelled like later that day. Perhaps I'm going in the wrong direction with his discography; from now on I will only venture into the albums leading up to Schmillson.

'O'Rang - Herds of Instinct

This band is basically the rhythm section of Talk Talk, and the album was 'written' in much the same way as later Talk Talk albums: improvised sessions were recorded then pieced together. But unlike Talk Talk, they didn't really have a rough blueprint prior to the sessions. Also, the sound here is much more diverse than Talk Talk's. Later Talk Talk albums were already treading delicately on a tightrope above a vast pit of pretentiousness; 'O'rang's more esoteric approach is just as audacious but not quite as skillful.

The Art of Noise - Who's Afraid of the Art of Noise?

This is a bit frustrating, but I'm trying to remember how I came across this band. I know I had seen a few of their albums when flipping through the 'punk / new wave' sections of record stores, but unless an album has a very distinct cover and I made a note of it, that's typically not the way I find things that might be worth exploring.

Every now and then you come across something that sounds as if someone made a mistake somewhere and perhaps time and space are not one-way vectors, as surely for an album like this to have existed in 1984 is evidence of a rift in the space-time continuum. It's not that it sounds way ahead of its time; it's just that assigning this to any specific point in time seems arbitrary.

Who's Afraid is best described as a sound collage, two words that normally translate to 'stay away'. But what a mistake that would've been--I wouldn't have heard the full 10-plus minute version of "Moments in Love," a beautiful, chilling opuses of avant-garde synthesized goodness. Of course it has been sampled numerous times since then; even the band made dozens of different versions of the song.

(Ignore the video; it's the only full-length version of the song I could find on YouTube)



But really, most of the album isn't really like that. The remainder is closer to the other big hit from this album, "Close (to the Edit)." By no means is that a bad thing; it's just been copied so much that it's hard to separate the original from the cliche imitations. Witness the fables of the deconstruction:

on deck

Hawkwind - Space Ritual
Nilsson - Son of Schmilsson
Toro Y Moi - Causers of This
Ultravox - Ultravox!
Wedding Present - Watusi

Japan - Adolescent Sex

YES, how did it take so long to come across this. An album from 1978 that straddles funkish punk or glam-rock of the 70s and the synthesized New Romantic movement of the 80s, confidently dipping its essence square on your head. It's as if Nile Rodgers of Chic produced a David Bowie album...except that actually happened in 1983 and it's not as good as Adolescent Sex. Or if Gang of Four sang about sex instead of politics, although Japan does have a song about "Communist China." Maybe I'm not good at analogies. At any rate, this album is swagger incarnate. Witness halfway into "Performance," when those high xylophone notes hit. YES.

Pure X - Pleasure

I want to aim for new music to be about 10% of the albums I'm exploring here. Finding new music is not an easy task, and I find Pitchfork to be unreliable and too scene-happy. So when Pure X's debut album Pleasure was mentioned in a thread about how Pitchfork's Best New Music category seems to skip over the, um, best new music, I thought this might be a good one to start with.

At first glance, there's a lot to like about this album: a swirling, pedal-heavy guitar sound, peaceful vocals that might as well be Sigur Ros, and simple, clean songs. In reviews you'll see mentions of 'beach album' and 'rainy day', two seemingly contradictory moods that nonetheless are simultaneously conjured up here. On repeat listens though, that swirly sound blurs to the point where it's tough to distinguish tracks. It's strange--for an album that rewards headphone use, it still never seems to emerge from the background when played through speakers.

Overall I think favorably of the album and expect it will end up on several year-end lists, but I hope they can expand their palette, as Pleasure is proof that guitar pedals do not an album make.

Ultravox - Vienna

When exploring synth-pop, Ultravox was a name that came up often. I believe I briefly tried their best-of, Dancing with Tears in My Eyes but I don't remember. Any anyway, if a band is worth a damn, their albums are usually better than best-of compilations. So I started their 1980 album Vienna, as it was rated the highest on AllMusic. Because iTunes is generally worthless, my first few listens to this album were with an out-of-order tracklisting, and I was not impressed.

It's amazing what a difference the tracklisting can make, but even upon correcting the mistake, I still feel like this is a pretty inconsistent album. The opening track is great, as are the two penultimate tracks, "Western Promise" and "Vienna"; really the album should've ended with the title track. The remainder of of the other songs are cringe-worthy ripoffs of other synth-heavy bands, like Kraftwerk ("Mr. X") and Devo ("All Stood Still"). Vienna ends up as a slight disappointment, as this album easily could be sliced down to a very solid EP.

Still, I expect I'll try some other Ultravox albums and will hopefully have better results. If not, then I guess it's back to Dancing with Tears in My Eyes.

In the meantime, I could live in this song for quite a while:

on deck

The Art of Noise - Who's Afraid of (the Art of Noise)
Gong - Camembert Electrique
Japan - Adolescent Sex
'O'rang - Herd of Instinct
Wedding Present - Seamonsters

Squarepusher - Music is One Rotted Note

I'm guessing this one came up in response to the question, "What else sounds like Bitches Brew?" Some come close: Squarepusher is a drum'n'bass guy, but the majority of this 1998 album falls squarely in the jazz-funk fusion camp. While some is reminiscent of late Miles, I'd say it's even closer to some of Crossings and Sextant-era Herbie Hancock, as there's a good bit of keyboard noodling served up here.

Still, if I wanted to hear this kind of sound, I'd rather reach for any of about half a dozen Miles Davis albums. Which is not to say I'm done with Squarepusher, as I may check out the album that came before this one, Hard Normal Daddy.

The Monochrome Set - Strange Boutique / Love Zombies

Some members of the British art-school punk band the B-Sides became Adam and the Ants; others formed the Monochrome Set. I'm not familiar with Adam and the Ants, so perhaps this wasn't the best place to start with these guys. Anyway, the compilation Colour Transmission is basically their first two albums, 1980's Strange Boutique and 1981's Love Zombies; the latter being the better of the two.

I'm not 100% sure of the chronology, but my impression is that these guys heard The Feelies' "Fa Ce La" when it was released as a single by the Monochrome Set's label Rough Trade in late 1979, and generally ripped that off, as much of their sound reminds me of Crazy Rhythms. Apparently the two bands did tour together in 1980, so perhaps it's unfair to say either stole the other's sound, even though they're nearly identical. At any rate, I think The Feelies did it better.

Here's the Monochrome Set's song "RSVP" where they sing in French, a la "Fa Ce La".

Directions in Music - Directions in Music

I'm not sure how I came across this one, but Directions in Music was a one-off album from three guys in the Chicago post-rock crowd, done in 1996. They got together just long enough to make an album of eight instrumental, untitled tracks. Imagine a post-rock impromptu jam session after hours at the Grand Ole Opry, and you'd be close...and perhaps disappointed. Much of the album sounded like a less interesting version of Gastr del Sol's Camofleur, or early Tortoise, which makes sense given the people involved. Overall, a nonchalant pass.

Here's Directions in Music


Compare that with Gastr Del Sol's "Black Horse"

a new approach

Taking a different approach with this site...

I've stopped tracking my purchases, as I'm essentially no longer buying CDs now that I have a turntable. And now, about half of the time, the vinyl I'm buying is just duplicating what was already in my CD collection, which is dumb; I should be exploring some new music.

So now just going to post five albums to listen to over the coming week. If any are worth writing about, I may make a short note of it here. Otherwise, I'll consider them dead ends.

To start:

Directions in Music - Directions in Music
The Monochrome Set - Colour Transmission
Pure X - Pleasure
Squarepusher - Music is One Rotted Note
Ultravox - Vienna