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

purchases

From the CD cellar:

Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me
Flamin' Groovies - Red Hot Flamin' Groovies (collection of first three albums)
Radiohead - In Rainbows

Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Mambo Nassau

Out in some alternate universe, where old songs float around in space, there is a bridge that links Talking Heads' "I Zimbra" to the same band's "Born Under Punches." That bridge is formed by nine of the ten songs that make up Mambo Nassau, Lizzy Mercier Descloux's second solo album. Whether or not Descloux's severe yet foreseeable change in approach had anything to do with Talking Heads' own development is not (widely) known. It is known that she had become inspired by the traditional world music released on France's Ocora label, and in 1980 she took drummer Bill Perry down to Nassau to record at Compass Point, where she was aided by a number of people, including keyboard wiz, arranger, and -- ding ding! -- future Talking Heads associate Wally Badarou. The intent was to incorporate African elements into Descloux's existing vibrant mix of arty funk, disco, and film music, and the result was an album that nearly rivals just about any other rhythmically inventive release that came from the rock world at the time. Naturally, Mambo Nassau is even more adventurous than Press Color. The instrumental setup -- with the exception of some of the percussion -- is completely Western and rock-oriented, with Badarou's excitable synthesizer often figuring prominently, whether churning out squiggled melodies or affecting the mood of the song with sensitive accents. The interplay between all of the instruments is positively acrobatic, including off-kilter time-keeping, wriggling guitars, and plump basslines that seem to twist in place. And, of course, there's Descloux's voice at the center of it all, adding even more life to the material with infectious wide-eyed exuberance. Eight of the album's ten songs are originals. Once you hear the cover of Kool & the Gang's "Funky Stuff," you'll realize that no one has ever had as much fun as Descloux had playing that song.

(Lizzy Mercier Descloux - Mambo Nassau)

Allen Toussaint - Complete Warner Recordings

Collecting 1972's Life, Love and Faith, 1975's Southern Nights and 1978's Motion, as well as a bonus disc of a complete 1975 concert, The Complete Warner Recordings is the rare compilation that serves as both highlight reel and in-depth tutorial. To call Allen Toussaint "underrated" is both fitting and a slight understatement, as though his recorded output over the past 50 years has been incredible (for those who've been keeping track), he's best known as the writer of other people's hits. Glenn Campbell made "Southern Nights" his own in his 1977 album of the same name, Bonnie Raitt used "What is Success" as the centerpiece to her 1974 Streetlights LP and just about everyone has their own version of "Working in the Coal Mine." Looking back on his string of LPs for Warner/Reprise in the mid 70s though, it's amazing Toussaint didn't hit it big in his own right. The first of the bunch, Live, Love and Faith, overflows with hits, touches on tripped out funk and, though bordering on genre exercise, manages to hold together quite nicely, but his second LP for the label, Southern Nights, is the true masterpiece. Held together by the title track, sections of which weave in and out of the LP in ghostly apparitions, Southern Nights is a classic fusion of southern soul and tasteful psychedelia in the hands of a true master - impeccably arranged from end to end and fascinating through a set of headphones. Its follow up, Motion, doesn't quite move me as do its predecessors, but I'm sure it will eventually, so it's great to have on deck. Highlights of the live set include "Last Train" and "Southern Nights," but really, it's incredible all the way through to Toussaint's closing statements. A massive collection and one I've been planning on posting here for a long time. Enjoy it all.

(Allen Toussaint - The Complete Warner Recordings)

Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head

Miriam Linna once opined that the Roy Loney-era lineup of the Flamin' Groovies suggested what the Rolling Stones would have sounded like if they'd sworn their allegiance to the sound and style of Sun Records instead of Chess Records. If one wants to buy this theory (and it sounds reasonable to me), then Teenage Head was the Groovies' alternate-universe version of Sticky Fingers, an album that delivered their toughest rock & roll beside their most introspective blues workouts. (In his liner notes to Buddha's 1999 CD reissue of Teenage Head, Andy Kotowicz writes that Mick Jagger noticed the similarities between the two albums and thought the Groovies did the better job.) While the Flamin' Groovies didn't dip into the blues often, they always did right by 'em, and "City Lights" and "Yesterday's Numbers" find them embracing the mournful soul of the blues to superb effect, while their covers of "Doctor Boogie" and "32-20" honor the originals while adding a energy and attitude that was all their own. And the rockers are among the best stuff this band ever put to tape, especially "High Flying Baby," "Have You Seen My Baby?," and the brilliant title track. And unlike Flamingo, Teenage Head sounds just as good as it deserves to; Richard Robinson's production is clean, sharp, and gets the details onto tape with a clarity that never gets in the way of the band's sweaty raunch. While Flamingo rocks a bit harder, Teenage Head is ultimately the best album the Flamin' Groovies would ever make, and after Roy Loney left the band within a few months of its release, they'd never sound like this again.

(Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head)

Pretty Things - SF Sorrow

Who could ever have thought, going back to the Pretty Things' first recording session in 1965 -- which started out so disastrously that their original producer quit in frustration -- that it would come to this? The Pretty Things' early history in the studio featured the band with its amps seemingly turned up to 11, but for much of S.F. Sorrow the band is turned down to seven or four, or even two, or not amplified at all (except for Wally Allen's bass -- natch), and they're doing all kinds of folkish things here that are still bluesy enough so you never forget who they are, amid weird little digressions on percussion and chorus; harmony vocals that are spooky, trippy, strange, and delightful; sitars included in the array of stringed instruments; and an organ trying hard to sound like a Mellotron. Sometimes one gets an echo of Pink Floyd's Piper at the Gates of Dawn or A Saucerful of Secrets, and it all straddles the worlds of British blues and British psychedelia better than almost any record you can name. The album, for those unfamiliar, tells the story of "S.F. Sorrow," a sort of British Everyman -- think of a working-class, luckless equivalent to the Kinks' Arthur, from cradle to grave. The tale and the songs are a bit downbeat and no amount of scrutiny can disguise the fact that the rock opera S.F. Sorrow is ultimately a bit of a confusing effort -- these boys were musicians, not authors or dramatists. Although it may have helped inspire Tommy, it is, simply, not nearly as good. That said, it was first and has quite a few nifty ideas and production touches. And it does show a pathway between blues and psychedelia that the Rolling Stones, somewhere between Satanic Majesties, "We Love You," "Child of the Moon," and Beggars Banquet, missed entirely.

(Pretty Things - SF Sorrow)

Clouddead - Clouddead

Culled from a series of limited 10" releases, Clouddead's eponymous debut isn't so much a fully formed album as it is a well-executed exercise in seasick, proggist psychedelia. With background textures that rival Boards of Canada in pastoral, tree-lined opacity and an obvious predilection for boggy atmospherics, Clouddead handily distances themselves from the rest of their hip-hop brethren. Indeed, this is something more considered and sinister -- less about wayward braggadocio than it is about keeping your doors deadbolted at all hours of the night. Even their less-is-more approach to vocalism eventually starts playing tricks on your mind; when lyricists Dose and Why? emerge, it's usually to puncture the pleasant fog of some dulcet, wavering sample. The whole album reads like that; the sonic equivalent of your first legitimate drug trip as narrated by two jittery but triumphant kids who can't bear to keep their choice hiding place a secret any longer. While it's perhaps a tad overlong, Clouddead doesn't suffer from any shortage of great ideas. It's menacing, it's enthralling, and it's one of few modern-day records (hip-hop or otherwise) that honestly doesn't sound like anything -- or anyone -- else.

(Clouddead - Clouddead)

XTC - Skylarking

Working with producer Todd Rundgren didn't necessarily bring XTC a sense of sonic cohesion -- after all, every record since English Settlement followed its own interior logic -- but it did help the group sharpen its focus, making Skylarking its tightest record since Drums and Wires. Ironically, Skylarking had little to do with new wave and everything to do with the lush, post-psychedelic pop of the Beatles and Beach Boys. Combining the charming pastoral feel of Mummer with the classicist English pop of The Big Express, XTC expand their signature sound by enhancing their intelligently melodic pop with graceful, lyrical arrangements and sweeping, detailed instrumentation. Rundgren may have devised the sequencing, helping the record feel like a song cycle even if it doesn't play like one, but what really impresses is the consistency and depth of Andy Partridge's and Colin Moulding's songs. Each song is a small gem, marrying sweet, catchy melodies to decidedly adult lyrical themes, from celebrations of love ("Grass") and marriage ("Big Day") to skepticism about maturation ("Earn Enough for Us") and religion ("Dear God"). Moulding's songs complement Partridge's songs better than before, and each writer is at a melodic and lyrical peak, which Rundgren helps convey with his supple production. The result is a pop masterpiece -- an album that has great ambitions and fulfills them with ease.

(XTC - Skylarking)

Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms

The history of rock music is filled with one-hit wonders and debut albums left without a follow-up. Most of those just had the fate they deserved, some were the results of early disbanding or mismanagement. Linda Perhacs' Parallelograms belongs to none of those categories. The singer/songwriter spent all her inspiration on this gem, simple as that. It sits there on the shelf, a life's compendium, stunning in its beauty and the fact that no later albums can frame it in a historical context, or diminish its impact. Softer, less declamatory than Joan Baez, more daring than Joni Mitchell, Perhacs' songs are psychedelic on a daily, domestic basis. Originally released in 1970, the album had been lifted from the LP and reissued on CD by The Wild Places in 1996. Informed by the female singer/songwriters of the late '60s, and the sonic experiments of the West Coast psychedelic scene (just listen to the title track, its abstract lyrics and beautiful, intertwined atonal melodies), Perhacs has created 40 minutes of music out of time.

(Linda Perhacs - Parallelograms)

purchases

From SoundFix in Brooklyn, again:

Byrds - Fifth Dimension
Smith, Patti - Horses
Siouxsie and the Banshees - The Best of

Coming soon: discards...