Film In Music—Tell Tale (Drip Audio)

Film in Music, formed in 2009 and led by cellist Peggy Lee, includes a formidable bunch of heavy hitters from the local jazz/improv/creative music scene. When you note that Jesse Zubot, Chris Gestrin, Ron Samworth and Dylan Van Der Schyff all contribute, no preview listening is required. You already know this will be good. Seeing them perform this album live earlier this month reminded me of cinematic post-rockers Do Make Say Think (whatever happened to them?), albeit at a much lower volume. Other bands come to mind as well; for example, “Epilogue to Part 1” roils along like Tortoise. The album intersperses full-band material with individual or small group performances. On his solo piece “Gruesome Goo,” Torsten Muller (acoustic bass) produces squeaks, growls and rattles from his instrument—suddenly you’re trying to bunk down in the world’s most haunted attic. Equally eerie is “Egg Hatched” by Gestrin/Lachance/Samworth. Based on the threatening pulses, plinks, and echoes presented, you don’t wanna know what entity has pecked its way out of that egg, that’s for sure. To label Van Der Schyff’s “An Eyeball for Dan” as a drum solo is accurate but inadequate, such is the avalanche of sonic surprises that tumbles forth. The TV series Deadwood was the inspiration, says the liner notes. By and large, the album’s tracks evoke a kind of Old West desolation. Even the jaunty moments are undercut with yearning for better times. Bursts of dissonance generate tension, hinting that not everything will be all right.

A Difficult 2015—Reissues and Archival Releases

2015 was such a lousy year for music that I found most of my fun in the reissues pile. Each one of these was an exciting discovery.

 

Alice Coltrane—Universal Consciousness (Superior Viaduct)
This is a fantastic reissue of Coltrane’s 1971 album for Impulse!—one which Fact magazine declared the third best album of the 1970s. The music shimmers and prickles you, surging in ways that I can’t comprehend—how do you play like that? The spiritual journey that Coltrane describes in the liner notes isn’t something I can understand either, but I’m certainly glad it sparked the creation of this music.

Six Organs of Admittance—Dust and Chimes (Holy Mountain)
Ben Chasny is in full folk/psych acoustic splatter mode on this set originally released in 2000. A little frantic and spindly to really mellow you out, it’s mind-expanding stuff nevertheless.

 

Besombes/Rizet—Pôle (Gonzaï Records)
This French duo operated in the same synth/freakout realms as Klaus Schulze, Tangerine Dream and especially Heldon. It doesn`t sound like they had the latest gear (in an era when being two or three years behind could mean a lot), but they made the most of it. The original 1975 LP was a double. This reissue is a single disc, but you get the whole set of tracks with the download card.

 Soft Machine—Switzerland 1974 (Cuneiform)
Allan Holdsworth joining Soft Machine made for a heavy, volatile mix. Ace Soft Machine archivists Cuneiform Records have outdone themselves with this CD/DVD combo.

Sensations Fix—Music is Painting in the Air (1974-1977) (RVNG)
Italo/American outfit Sensations Fix were led by Franco Falsini, who returns to his cache of tapes recorded in the mid-seventies for this collection of lost tracks and remixes. The songs are driven by Falsini’s cosmic guitar playing and plentiful Minimoog. It’s whacked-out and hapless enough to have considerable obscurist allure.

2112: Side Two

There’s a scene in Freaks and Geeks where the geeks argue about the perfect movie. Sam says it’s The Jerk. Neil claims that it’s Caddyshack. No way, Sam scoffs. Caddyshack is totally inconsistent. It’s just like Stripes: “You cannot tell me what happened in the second half of that movie.”

2112 is the Stripes of classic rock albums. To say it’s front-loaded is an understatement. The first side so obsesses people that they forget that side two even exists. The 20 minute suite of songs that make up “2112” is the entire album to some fans. I’ve even seen the claim that 2112 is a concept album.

2112 is not a concept album. Side two has nothing to do with the side preceding it, unless I’m missing something. Maybe after the elder race assumes control of the solar federation, everyone celebrates by getting really high, as told in “A Passage to Bangkok.” This extension of the "2112" storyline hasn’t been widely accepted yet, so let’s go with the idea that 2112 consists of the title piece and unrelated songs on side two.

The songs in question aren’t the strongest stretch of material in the Rush catalogue either. Fly By Night might even have better short songs if you consider the kick-ass quotient of “Anthem,” “Best I Can,” “Beneath Between & Behind” and “Fly by Night.” Side two of 2112 is a mixed bag indeed. It starts and ends strongly with “A Passage to Bangkok” and “Something for Nothing.” Both were in the live set for years. “Passage…” is loveably dumb, seemingly written to get the Woodersons in their audience on board. I remember reading the lyrics for the first time and dealing with the realization that my heroes were stoners. As Morrissey once whined, I swear I never even knew what drugs were at that age.

This leaves a three-song ditch in the middle. Caress of Steel was dedicated to Rod Serling, and now “The Twilight Zone” continues the tribute. Unfortunately it’s a stitched-together and forgettable ditty. Also unfortunate is that it was the single off the album—not likely to send the roller rink into a frenzy on a hot seventies night. Frampton and Styx had nothing to worry about.

“Lessons” is a solid Fly by Night by way of “Ramble On” number elevated by Alex Lifeson’s acoustic rhythm guitar track. Peart, faced with laying down something basic in 4/4, sprinkles in a bunch of fancy fills to keep himself interested.

“Tears” is the sort of ballad they felt obliged to include for a while—think “Rivendell,” “Panacea,” and “Madrigal.” Best of the lot was “Different Strings” from Permanent Waves. For Moving Pictures and subsequent albums, the real ballady ballads were dropped.

After “Tears,” “Something for Nothing” swoops in to save the day, taking the album out on a triumphant, defiant note. Geddy howls like his throat’s about to give out, Peart throws in an 84-bar tom roll, and it’s hell yeah! Finally time to flip the album over and play side one again.

Uli Jon Roth’s Ultimate Guitar Experience, March 19 at the Venue

Any show at the Venue is a tradeoff. It’s a useful space with decent sound. I like that they do early shows. I’m totally okay with clearing out at 10:30 to make way for the clubgoers. That’s great. The down side is being merely tolerated by the club staff, who on this night left me feeling like a degenerate for daring to breathe the same air as them.

Andy Timmons started the show with a rock/fusion/Americana blend that reminded me of Morse and the Dixie Dregs at time. He played with a rhythm section who also did duties for Uli’s set. There was a tastefully arranged Beatles medley in tribute to George Martin. He talked affably to the crowd between songs and went up in my estimation by not walking off the stage when some asshat yelled for “Freebird.”

Jennifer Batten played solo, accompanied by backing tracks on a laptop and a screen that showed old film clips and animation. Her set emphasized fun rather than raw chops. For example, she mashed up Weather Report’s “Teen Town” with “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” and ended her set with a medley of 50 years worth of guitar riffs, from the Ventures to Van Halen. Quite a party piece.

Uli Jon Roth left no doubt who the night’s real guitar hero was. His set was like Christmas, New Year’s Eve and my birthday all in one. He wasted no time delivering the heavy hitters—“The Sails of Charon” was the second song, followed by “We’ll Burn the Sky”, “Sun in My Hand” and “In Trance.” The band numbered seven people at times, with the singer (a huge Native American fellow who utterly ruled!) coming and going depending on the song. I can’t say Uli's Sky guitar, with its dog-whistle tones high up on the neck, is my favourite instrument, but it’s part of Uli’s whole deal, and he’s undeniably a wizard on the thing. It was a thrill to watch him work. To end the night, Timmons came out again for an all-Hendrix encore of “All Along the Watchtower” and “Little Wing.” When the set ended, having gone 15 minutes over curfew, the Venue started blasting the shittiest club music imaginable to hurry all us gross old people out the doors.

 

(Photo by Bob Logan)

Bitches Brew by George Grella Jr. (33 1/3, Bloomsbury)

Talk about a daunting project! First, there's the album itself, and its dense, arcane contents. How do you even write about that music? Second, many brave people have written about that music. The corpus of Miles Davis literature is not small. There's gonna be a movie too.  Is there anything new to say about Bitches Brew?

To his credit, Grella does an excellent job within the 33 1/3 format. It does what I want every book in the series to do: hit me with a barrage of heady ideas while wedging in some worthy musical analysis.

He discusses Miles Davis's place in jazz musically and critically (he gets some good jabs in at Stanley Crouch) and within the broader popular culture. The book traces Davis's journey from Birth of the Cool into the electric era. Remarkably, Grella is able to cover all this territory without being rushed or perfunctory. When we reach In a Silent Way, Grella pauses to examine its creation, noting that it's the point where the music enters "a new and previously unimagined dimension," with Teo Macero's razor blade restructuring of open-ended source material. The music became radical, and the studio became an instrument, just as it had for most of the experimental music and cutting-edge pop of the day. Grella funnels these topics towards the book's final third, which is a dissection of Bitches Brew's two LPs and the impact the music had in the years after its release.

He even wedges in just the right amount of personal narrative. I especially liked the book's opening, which describes the author's efforts to understand the music as a teenager: "…we listened, because the dark beauty of the music and the unlimited possibilities it promised were irresistible."

Keith Emerson (1944–2016)

I listened to ELP's debut album the weekend before Keith Emerson passed away. It crackles with energy while still being suitably indulgent and show-offy. The schmaltz factor is minimal, all in all. I think it's their best LP. It'd been years since I put it on and damn it if I didn't know that music down to the last paradiddle.

I'm sure "Lucky Man" was the first ELP song I heard on the radio. It's a simple folk song—legend has it that it was the first song Greg Lake ever wrote—crowned (or marred, if you've an affinity for the Rolling Stone Record Guide) by Emerson's Moog solo exploding out of nowhere. A humble tune is suddenly fired into an unearthly realm. That's how the album ends. Zoom, whoosh! What a sound!

My Dave Smith Instruments Mopho comes with a preset called "Fortunate Guy" that replicates that square wave magic. Let's hear a sample:



You don't need a spare room and 50 grand to make that sound, but back then you did. A lot of people were offended by that. The same people were also offended by Emerson's rocking the classics, which started when he was with The Nice. Bernstein, Copeland, Mussorgsky, Holst, and Ginistera all got the Emerson treatment. I'd like to think that he performed that music not because he intended to improve or update it, but because it rocked, plain and simple. Pictures at an Exhibition is at least as doom-laden as any Sabbath album. Why not try it with a rock band?

Everything—the instruments, the technology, the notion of "art rock"—was new when ELP were coming up; it was all a big experiment. Amazingly, stadiums full of people were feeling rather experimental too. Hammonds were stabbed, pianos flew, tympani and gongs were bashed, fancy carpets got rolled out. Critics yawned… I'm not going to argue that all of it was in good taste, but the thing about good taste is, it stops you from enjoying a lot of excellent things. Thanks for taking the music where you did, Keith.

Magma—Üdü Wüdü (RCA France, 1976)

I'm no Magma expert, but do know that I love their whole deal. I'm still smiling from the show they put on at the Venue last year. What the what was that? All I know is we should do that again sometime soon.

You don't often see their albums out in the wild, so I happily forked out for this copy that turned up in the new arrivals bin at Dandelion Records.

Üdü Wüdü is their sixth studio album; a return to the studio after the release of Live/Hhaï. Side one features short pieces ranging from weird sort of samba music to weird martial songs, all accompanied by Magma's characteristic Kobaïan chanting. Side two is devoted to "De Futura," an impressive epic that actually rocks, powered by composer Janick Top's frenzied, fuzzified bass playing. Though it doesn't appear to be the most well-regarded Magma LP, it's fantastic stuff, and more approachable than Mekanïk Destruktïw Kommandöh (the only other Magma studio LP I own).

Low by Hugo Wilcken (33 1/3, continuum)

After the shock of his death subsided, Low was the only Bowie album I listened to. It felt like a good place to go—a mysterious, elusive album with no big hits on it. I didn't feel nostalgic about it. Emotional resonance was minimal. The whole album slips past you, surreal, the production and atmosphere taking you out of place and time. It's clearly brilliant, and invites repeat listens while still keeping you at a cool distance. It was recorded in France and Germany in 1976, but Bowie, still shaking off his role in The Man Who Fell to Earth, may as well have beamed it from a planet light years away.

This book does a good job getting into Bowie's headspace at the time, drawing from secondary sources to trace his post-Station to Station career in tandem with the origin and development of the music that became Low. It was indeed a low time for Bowie—addled by cocaine psychosis and occult obsessed, his marriage was dissolving and his ability to trust even his closest collaborators often faltered. Yet the work never stopped. With the help of Tony Visconti and Brian Eno, and keeping vampiric hours, he channelled bursts of inspiration to form Low's split personality—the alien pop songs on side one and the nearly all instrumental side two.

As Eno puts it: "He was pretty much living at the edge of his nervous system, very tense. But as often happens, that translated into a sense of complete abandon in the work. One of the things that happens when you're going through traumatic life situations is your work becomes one of the only places where you can escape and take control. I think it's in that sense that 'tortured' souls sometimes produce great work."

Wheels of Steel: The Explosive Early Years of the NWOBHM

Right when I think, "Somebody should write a book about x," Martin Popoff has gone and written it. My full review is at Hellbound.ca.

The Musical Box, February 17 at the Commodore

I had a dream…I had a awesome dream…that I saw Genesis on the Selling England by the Pound tour.

Wait, that wasn’t a dream. That was last night at the Commodore. It might as well have been Genesis on stage. After seeing Quebec’s The Musical Box, I can’t really call them a tribute act. What they do goes beyond that. Their show is more like a historical re-enactment or (and this is the first and last time you’ll see this word in this blog) LARPing. It’s not “Hey, guys, you wanna get together and play some Genesis tunes?” it’s “Hey, guys, let’s BE Genesis.” The level of detail was astounding, from the lighting to the drum kit (I’d wager even the cymbals matched the specs on Collins’ early '70s setup) to the clothes (right down to the white denim overalls that “Phil” sported). An immense amount of research and devotion to this period of Genesis has obviously gone into this production.

Good thing I believed the advertised 8 PM start time, because although I didn’t get a floor seat—yes, there were rows of chairs on the dance floor—I did get a good spot to stand behind the last row. I was glad to not be the oldest old fart in the crowd for once. The place was packed with geezers, many of them sporting shirts from the last King Crimson show.

Musically, the performance was beyond criticism. I haven’t done my research, but I’m guessing this was the exact setlist from the Selling England by the Pound tour. Every nuance was captured; nothing was glossed over. Even Peter Gabriel’s between-song stories were recited word for surreal word. The material is part of my DNA by now, so there were no big surprises during the show, just little revelations here and there. For example, “The Battle of Epping Forest” really isn’t that great of a song. It earned the politest applause of the night. And I never knew that the whole last section of "The Cinema Show" was performed by just the core trio of Rutherford, Collins and Banks. This was actually the highlight of the night—a passage of pulverizing beauty. The crescendo moment was too much for one lady, who jumped up and ran up and down the aisle in an ecstatic frenzy. It was all I could do to not join her.

Overall, I rate this show 5 GIANT HOGWEEDS out of 5.

Recent Viewing

The last Cronenberg movie I watched prior to this was The Brood. Maps to the Stars contains 100 per cent less fetus licking, but is just as sick. Trust me. Hail to the master, and hail to Julianne Moore, one of the gutsiest actors of our times.

Recent Viewing

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark—Organisation (Virgin/DinDisc 1980)

My 15-year-old self wouldn’t be impressed that I’m listening to OMD these days. To hell with that kid, though; he was no fun. I sometimes consider an alternate history for myself had my parents stayed in England. Maybe my teenage years wouldn’t have been so rockist; maybe my friend that had a job might have come home with a Wasp synth one day, and our basement band would have been based around that. Or maybe, because of genetic programming, I’d still have listened to nothing but Rush, Queen, and Iron Maiden.

I picked up Architecture and Morality a little while ago, and then found a copy of Dazzle Ships after that. What strikes me about OMD is that, for a synth-pop band, they sure revel in bleak, atmospheric sounds. Organisation, OMD’s second album, is quite meek compared to those two later LPs, and less prone to dark tangents. More conventionally organised, you might say. “Enola Gay” is the most famous track, of course, a chorus-free ditty whose simplicity only hints at later, more sophisticated hits like “Joan of Arc” and “Souvenir.”

My favourite tracks end side one and begin side two. “Statues" and “The Misunderstanding” evoke Joy Division and The Cure respectively, and paint the rest of the album in the deep gray that frames the cover photo.

Marc Maron—Attempting Normal (2013)

I’ve been a WTF Podcast fan for just over a year now—Maron’s interview with Paul Thomas Anderson was the one that hooked me—so I already know a lot about the guy. His past life is a constant hum in the background of every episode. However, opening this book at a couple random pages presented things I wasn’t expecting to see.

Agh! Marc’s having weird sex! Genital constriction is happening! Agh!

Quickly flip to another page…

10-year-old Marc is getting a rectal exam! Jesus!

Run away! I didn’t sign up for this.

Anyway, the book is great, if unpleasant at many points. He does lay it all out there, which is to be expected if you’re familiar with Maron’s show. The expected straight-up autobiographical narrative never really takes hold; eventually I realized the book is a series of wryly comic essays. The chapter describing his deployment of hummingbird feeders at his house cracked me up in particular.

He can construct a fine phrase. "This is what your heroes do for you—lift you victoriously above the dirty work of life and conjure a different way of being," he says about the Velvet Underground. That's a good way to put it.

You’ll recognize bits that he’s woven into his TV series, and whatever you think of the guy already, I can’t see this book changing your mind. You’ll just know more—a  lot more—about him.

Guapo—Obscure Knowledge (Cuneiform)

Obscure Knowledge maintains Guapo’s penchant for sinister splendour. The UK quartet mix genuine tunefulness with discord and drone, never shying away from unexpected transitions or joyous bombast. They always maintain a balance between psychedelic repetition and steady development during a piece of music. They’ll get stuck into a particular groove and then blow it apart at just the right time. Coming along relatively quickly after 2013’s History of the Visitation, Obscure Knowledge at first feels like the previous album’s close relative. They’re practically twins, if you just compare the track lengths: starting with a long 'un, followed by a brief, more abstract linking track, and ending with a mid-length track. Both albums are 42 minutes long. Uncanny! I don’t know whether this is coincidence or by design, and ultimately I don’t care. They definitely haven’t written the same album again. The tracks all cross-fade into each other, and a musical motif or two repeats from track one to track three, making the album a seamless listen if you so desire. (The album's press releases emphasizes that the album is in fact a single track indexed into three sections.) Obscure Knowledge sounds more assertive than its predecessor. Slashing, discordant moments abound. Guitarist Kavus Torabi gets in some screaming leads during the first few minutes of the untitled opener. Drummer David J Smith skitters around his kit with a more orchestral approach than the usual rock drummer. When he drops into a beat in the last few minutes of the opening section, its grounding effect is all the more pronounced. Since denting my brain with Five Suns (over 10 years ago!), Guapo are still the archetypal “heavy prog” band in my mind. Nobody that I’m aware of does what they do. Every release is a major event, and Obscure Knowledge is another album worth studying and savouring.

A Difficult 2014—Part Three

Sorry for the delay; there was a massive screwup behind the scenes with my year-end posts. I’d continued work on A Difficult 2014, writing some pretty comprehensive reviews for the remaining ten albums. The final two posts in the series were looking good...and then I lost everything due to a corrupted goddamn USB stick.

Motivation and inspiration are hard enough to come by these days, and this incident nearly finished me for good. However, I didn’t want to leave anyone hanging, so to salvage the situation, I’ve:

• Sacked the Difficult Music IT department.
• Reimagineered my top ten albums of 2014 and posted them below with pics and some half-remembered, half-assed blurbs below.

Taurus—No/Thing (self-released)

Definitely the most unsettling album I heard all year. The duo of Stevie Floyd and Ashley Spungin wield twisting riffs, spoken word samples and loops, and well-crafted noise to create their harrowing, intensely human vision.

Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell—Check ’Em Before You Wreck ’Em (Rise Above)

They’re rocking it loose and trashy this time out—more MC5 than Budgie, say—but these three greasehogs are loveable as ever.

Archspire—The Lucid Collective (Season of Mist)

Vancouver`s Archspire are resolutely inhuman and punishing in their approach to tech death. They also seem to be aware that they’re steering the genre down absurd pathways of speed and virtuosity. It’s those moments of breakneck eccentricity that make this album a thing of wonder and awe.

Earth—Primitive and Deadly (Southern Lord)

After taking their music to the brink of dissolution on the two Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light albums, I was hoping Earth would make a shift. Indeed they did. On Primitive and Deadly, the riffs are more vigorous, the songs more concise, and incorporating vocalists Mark Lanegan and Rabia Shaheen Qazi was a genius move. This is the closest thing to a real rock album they’ve made since Pentastar.

Wounded Kings—Consolamentum (Candlelight)

The Wounded Kings do doom with just the right amount of grandeur: not overly dour, with no trace of camp or archness. Sharie Neyland’s vocals are pitched perfectly atop the power-chorded riffs (shame she’s left the band). A touch of Mellotron adds a macabre edge. It’s odd which bands catch on and which don't. Consolamentum is as good as the Pallbearer album, yet The Wounded Kings remain a bit of a secret.

Opeth—Pale Communion (Roadrunner)

Reviewed in full at Hellbound.ca.

Morbus Chron—Sweven (Century Media)

Swedish death metal always had a pronounced weird streak, and Morbus Chron carry on that same mind-bending spirit. Sweven spirals up to the astral plane with unusual chord voicings (I understand the album features no powerchords at all), a murky yet listenable mix, and no choruses to speak of. It’s also worth mentioning that it’s a concept album. Is Sweven the product of alien intelligence or some youngsters raised on Entombed, King Crimson and Rush? Either seems plausible.

Pallbearer—Foundations of Burden (Profound Lore)

Regarding Pallbearer’s debut, Sorrow and Extinction, I decided that I liked the demo better. Yes, in that instance I had to be that guy. The demo was a pleasingly simple recording, while the album overcompensated, I felt, with production that smothered the songs with brutal volume. I was happy to hear that Foundations of Burden was sonically richer experience, and the songs had evolved to match the production. Factoring in a much-improved live sound, Pallbearer really deserve all the acclaim they're getting.

Yob—Clearing the Path to Ascend (Neurot)

Reviewed in full here.

Motorpsycho—Behind the Sun (Rune Grammofon)

My number one album of 2014 is a bit embarrassing to me... Embarrassing because I hadn't discovered Motorpsycho earlier. What kind of music nerd am I? This band has been kicking for 25 years and I didn’t have a clue. I think they’ve even played Vancouver before, the idea of which makes me want to punch myself in the face for missing out. I’d seen the name, but the name alone wasn’t enough to clue me in to how awesome they are. Motorpsycho may be veterans, but they sound fresh and vital to me. The songs on Behind the Sun embody everything I value: they’re varied, quirky but not cute, organic (they could have existed in 1974 or 2014), rocking, and wickedly played and crafted. They do not let up either; the quality never wanes as the record progresses. Each song, whether a ballad, rocker, or instrumental epic, declares its supremacy. “Ghost” will bum you out and bruise your heart (Mellotrons can do that); “On a Plate” and “The Promise” will set you thrashing upon your comfy couch. The album also features the inimitable Reine Fiske on guest guitar, for those who like to keep track of what he gets up to. Some of the best bands are like private societies, with their own discourse communities and iconography. I feel like I’ve learned the secret handshake after absorbing this album. My top discovery of 2014 is also my favourite album of 2014.

March into April

Achim Kaufmann/Jeff Younger/Dylan Van Der Schyff March 31 at Merge
Pianist Achim Kaufmann came to town for two sets of stormy improv at Merge. The music roiled and boiled as the trio pushed towards the limits of what was playable on their instruments. Younger grappled with his guitar and blew into its pickups. Kaufmann scraped cups and glasses along the piano's surface and crouched down to prod at the instrument's interior. Van Der Schyff used mallets, brushes and sticks to play the kit—I mean, literally the kit—the shells, the rims, even the threads on the lug nuts. He's a master, and was often the primary shaper of each piece as it unfurled. The direction and development of the improvisations was some of the best I'd heard in this particular genre/field/scene.

The Unsupervised, April 1 at The Emerald
The Emerald, tucked away on Gore Avenue in Chinatown, is a comfortable room with a decent beer selection. The Unsupervised are an excellent band whom I hadn't seen in quite a while. They look to be ramping up activity again with new material from bandleader Jeff Younger (him again) and a new bassist, James Meger. They got right up to speed with older numbers like "Inches" and "Strands" (from Elevator) leading into the new songs that they plan to record and release in 2016. The only bummer was the volume from the punk show going on next door, which was bleeding into the Emerald. While I enjoy "TV Party" as much as the next guy, it didn't mix well with the gig I was trying to listen to.

Magma, April 2 at The Venue
Jesus wept. This little band called Magma came to town. If you didn't see the show, I can't help you much. It was a normal gig in that I experienced (a) the ritual humiliation of trying and failing to get a t-shirt and (b) buying an overpriced can of good old Pilsner. Aside from all that, it was more like going to church than a rock show: a new kind of church where solemn, centuries-old European liturgical tradition crosses streams with the funkiest, most-inbred, taking-up-serpents, maniacal Christ-as-conjurer Deep-South God botherers. And then aliens arrive and tractor-beam the whole works into the mothership for some mind-melding and deep probing. It was kind of like that, but way better. It was rhythm, madness, skill, confusion, awe, joy, and just...holy shit.

A Difficult 2014—Part Two

A FORMAL HORSE—s/t EP (self-released)

I started to listen to these things called podcasts in 2014, and it was during Sid Smith’s Podcast from the YellowRoom that I first heard A Formal Horse. “I Lean” was the tune, and I immediately drove over to the British five-piece’s Bandcamp page to get their five-song EP. They combine metal, jazz, and prog rock into appealing songs that are complex, yet compact, full of shock dynamics and interesting diversions. The EP features three vocal songs and two brief instrumentals that highlight the band’s musicianship and restless, meticulous approach. “I Lean” is still the standout track for me, lurching as it does between an eeriness that reminds me of Thinking Plague at their most accessible and sections that attack with prog-metal fervour. And because I rarely hear vocalists who impress me nowadays, it’s worth noting that the band have someone special in Francesca Lewis. Her precisely sung, unaffected style is one of their biggest assets. Just to be able to apply gravitas to lines like “No-smoking signs on a sex booth/lackeys cooking cats on a tin roof” is no small feat. Based on the 20 minutes of material on hand here, A Formal Horse get 2014’s most promising newcomer award.

HORSEBACK—Piedmont Apocrypha (Three-Lobed)

The tension between black metal and Krautrock and post-rock in Horseback’s music is mostly gone now, yet Piedmont Apocrypha remains a compelling listen. Horseback sounds more grounded and comfortable. If I’ve read the liner notes correctly, Jenks Miller credits the musical direction to moving to the country “closer to the trees than to other people” and to the sight lines from his back porch. His approach focuses more on clean guitars and the lonely rural twang…reminiscent of mist hanging over barren fields. The spirits of Neil Young and Gastr del Sol lurk in the title track and “Consecration Blues.” The album embraces everything sparse and airy until the last track, the 17-minute “Chanting Out the Low Shadow,” where vocals get growly and guitars get dissonant and things get heavy in a primitive blues way, building up to a bombastic climax. Another fine example of American art rock, and maybe Horseback’s most distinctive work yet.

LED BIB—The People in Your Neighbourhood (Cuneiform)

I’ve been ladling praise over this hard-riffing British jazz quintet for a few years now, and I’ll continue to do so, because The People in Your Neighbourhood is another excellent release (they also put out a live record this year). There’s little to choose between this album and their last couple—they all deliver a walloping. Maybe they venture out further this time—the detours away from the head of each song are more severe. These excursions can range far and wide, but the tenor sax team of Pete Grogan and Chris Williams always snap you back to attention with their piercing attack.

ARTIFICIAL BRAIN—Labyrinth Constellation (Profound Lore)

Some of the best cover art this side of Effigy of the Forgotten is the first clue that this is pretty crucial tech death. In an attempt to describe their sound, I’d say Artificial Brain occasionally come off as a more accessible Gorguts. Their songs have dissonant and spacey parts, yet the structures are compact and anchored by powerful down-to-earth riffs. The recording is a little murky but still punishing, with vocals mixed low enough to complement, not annoy. Many thanks for their show (part of a surreal bill with Gigan and Pyrrhon) at the Red Room here in Vancouver, with a guest vocalist who apparently flew in for a single gig because their regular singer couldn’t cross the border. That’s dedication to the cause.

HEDWIG MOLLESTAD TRIO—Enfant Terrible (Rune Grammofon)

Headliners on an excellent day at the 2014 Jazz Fest, the Hedwig Mollestad Trio laid down pretty much what I later heard on this album: hard-rocking jazz fusion based around heavy riffs, a solid rhythm section, and Mollestad’s versatile guitar work. They get comparisons to Black Sabbath—fair enough, given their penchant for covering the Sabs—but mostly they remind me of the Dixie Dregs in their solos and song structures. If the riffs first get the head nodding, then what the band explores after the main themes provides the real substance and excitement.

A Difficult 2014—Part One

2014 had some ups and downs, like any other year. The ups were good, the downs were utterly terrible. Losing my father-in-law this summer was the biggest blow. It was awful, but he went out in typical Charlie fashion, calling the shots right to the end, and we were all there for him.

Overall, I had my health, my job, and my friends, I played plenty of music and took some nice trips. I got to see Yes, King Crimson, Nik Turner's Hawkwind and (Steve Hackett's tribute to) Genesis all in the same year. I'm truly a lucky individual.
 
I didn't make much of an effort to keep up with new music in 2014. This year's four-part roundup will comprise 21 albums that I bought and enjoyed. There's a bunch of honourable mentions and reissues that won't get full blurbs, but I'll which collect in a future post. As was the case last year, I'm not assigning numbers to these entries because honestly, I couldn't tell you if there was an appreciable difference in quality between album #12 and #11. Just assume that I'm saving my absolute favourite stuff for part four of the roundup.

SLOUGH FEG—Digital Resistance (Metal Blade)

 

The first song on Digital Resistance, “Analogue Avengers/Bertrand Russell’s Sex Den,” reels and jigs most proggily; a ways off from the Maiden/Lizzy galloping harmonies we’re used to from Slough Feg. The title track brings back the British/Bay Area steel, and we’re off on another solid collection of Slough Feg material. Some of it sounds a bit too familiar, but then a song like “Laser Enforcer” jolts you back to the reality of just how fine a band this is. Hats off to (now ex-drummer) Harry Cantwell for playing like a cross between Brann Dailor and Bun E. Carlos. Drum performance of the year! CD


GOAT—Commune (Sub Pop)

 

Commune is a solid album, but it didn’t blow me out of the water the way their debut did. The riffing is less chunky, moving instead towards airy trills that remind me of Six Organs of Admittance or Popol Vuh. Their rhythm section remains solid, though, leaving no doubt that this material would work live. “Gathering of the Ancient Tribes” concludes the goatritual in fine goatstyle, bringing back some of the afro-psych heaviness of the debut. GOAT are holding steady. It’ll be interesting to see if they find bold new ways to be weird on the next LP. Vinyl with die-cut cover and MP3 download

PINHAS/YOSHIDA—Welcome in the Void, PINHAS/AMBARCHI—Tikkun (Cuneiform)

"These two new albums...document two of Pinhas’s latest collaborations. Together they paint an expansive, vivid portrait of his globetrotting, playing-in-the-moment modus operandi." Reviewed in full here. CD/DVD

MOGWAI—Rave Tapes (Sub Pop)

Rave Tapes is confident, measured and often very pretty. Mogwai always impress me. By now it’s pointless to think of them as part of any movement. It’s not instrumental post-rock, it’s Mogwai music. They can do what they like. On Rave Tapes they’ve expanded their sound in subtle ways, working synthesizers into their music without changing their basic approach. They retain their eeriness and dark humour (on “Repelish” they sample a Christian LP warning against subliminal Satanic messages in rock music: “They sing backward in human voices”) and go brightly cinematic when it suits them, as on “Deesh,” which recalls eighties Genesis jams like “Home by the Sea” and “The Brazilian.” I’m more than OK with that. Green vinyl with die-cut cover and MP3 download

SHELLAC—Dude Incredible (Touch and Go) 

I kept up with Shellac through their first singles and couple albums, then I lost track of them. Dude Incredible’s arrival seemed a good time to catch up. Turns out they’re keeping it real tight. This excellent album’s main problem is that it never quite recovers from the excitement and terror of its opening track, which builds from a typically taut Shellac groove before breaking into a gallop that’s more like “Run to the Hills” than anything Big Black ever did, while Albini shouts about male bonding and hand-to-hand combat—I interpret it as a mock epic about a bunch of Jersey Shore rejects or businessmen out on the town...which is probably wrong. “Holy shit!” is the only possible reaction to the onrush. So what if the album never hits that peak again? Hearing these guys playing together is a pleasure, especially on some of the twisty bits on side two. Vinyl, includes CD

Tago Mago: Permission to Dream, by Alan Warner (33 1/3 Books)

One of the best things about Bloomsbury's 33 1/3 series is how much leeway the writers have. They’re free to use autobiography or fiction, or concentrate exclusively on the minutiae of rock lit—music analysis, interviews, an artist’s history, release dates, critical reception, press clippings—to tell the story of the album in question. Alan Warner definitely mixes his modes in his volume on Can’s Tago Mago (1971). We learn about the author’s developing musical interests and record-buying habits as a teenager isolated in small-town Scotland during the late ’70s. Stepping away from his personal history, he also gets down to the nitty gritty of the double album itself; for example, detailing the tape edits on “Halleluwah” (side two of Tago Mago) and interviewing several Can members about their time recording the album. The interviews are also tinged with autobiography, because as Warner explains, he has befriended and even collaborated with the band in the years since he dedicated his debut novel Morvern Callar to Can bassist Holger Czukay.

The autobiographical sections are fascinating and hilarious. I’m predisposed to being interested, though, as I’ve been an Alan Warner fan ever since my wife-to-be gave me The Sopranos to read right before we started going out. His descriptions of his interior life as an “aloof, pretentious, eccentric” boy fumbling his way towards musical sophistication are priceless. Curious to push through the heavy metal vernacular of his peers (“Each one of my friends was emotionally sympathetic and spiritually aligned to the activities of Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow,” he says) he buys dodgy post-breakup Sex Pistols albums and a Weather Report LP with a compelling and mysterious cover, and finds much of interest, especially in the latter. The search for anything by Can, inspired by John Lydon referencing Can and their drummer’s “double beats” in one of the weekly music papers, leads him to the big city, Glasgow, and the Virgin Megastore where he eventually acquires the holy grail—Tago Mago.

Any serious music fan can relate to the impressions that Warner describes on his journey to Can—the unforgettable impact of an album’s arrival, and the profound meaning that an inanimate object can instantly possess: “I remember the euphoria of being on the train home, splitting the cellophane wrapping all the way around, to peel it completely free and open up the concealed centrefold sleeve…” Passages like that make me I think, Okay, Warner, can we have 200 more pages of that, please? Tell us about all your records, man!

However, it’s a 33 1/3 book, and the format won't allow for 200 more pages, so Warner uses the second half of the book to discuss the history and philosophy of analogue tape editing, the evolution of the band, and the genesis of, and curiosities to be found within, the tracks on Tago Mago. He includes snippets of conversations with Michael Karoli, Irmin Schmidt, and Jaki Liebezeit, purveyor of the double beats. For some, having only half a book devoted in-depth to Tago Mago might not be enough. There is plenty more Can documentation they can seek out. I was left happy, and curious to hear more of the Can discography, as well as hear many of the members’ solo releases, which Warner often references. I was inspired to get out the album and listen along as he detailed each track. And by the end of the book I was an even bigger fan of both the author and his subject.