After a series of one-off releases on Holy Mountain, Woodsist & Sub Pop, Blues Control finally delivers on the greatness that those releases only hinted at on label where they couldn't possibly be more at home... thee mighty Siltbreeze!. Russ Waterhouse and Lea Cho clearly have been refining their craft and it pays dividends throughout the albums four tracks. From the relatively straight forward (for them) stomp of the opener "Good Morning" (feat. horns by Kurt Vile & Jesse Trbovich) to the Harmonia-esque "Tangier" Blues Control shows their stylistic range without ever feeling contrived or over staying their welcome. This is easily the best Blues Control release and a strong contender for the best Siltbreeze release so far this year. What are you waiting for? Download it. Love it and buy a copy right here.
Blues Control - Local Flavor (2009)
Sun City Girls - Grotto of Miracles (1986)
Even as far back as the mid-'80s, this group's versatility was the stuff of legends. There was the gig where all the Sun City Girls did was an extended cover version of an old soul song, forcing the entire audience of skate-punkers out into the street. There was the gig in the jazz club in Rochester, NY, where Rick Bishop stayed on piano and they imitated the Paul Bley trio all night. There was a gig in an Arizona wrestling rink, when the group's entire set consisted of a note-perfect cover version of the entire score from the surreal film El Topo. Okay, take a deep breath, here comes this album, cut early in the band's career for a combination music label and skateboard manufacturer for whom at least one bandmember toiled in the warehouse, packing boxes. Side one kicks in with a wonderful rock instrumental version of what is identified as the Tangier Radio Internationale theme. Wow. From then on it is a shift back and forth between superbly played trio tracks, often instrumental but also making use of vocals in an always creative manner, and passages of what is best described as weirdness. The group can be gentle, savage, rocking, funky, and swinging. Sure, the swing on "Swing of Kings" is more the swing of garage bands, despite drummer Charlie Goucher's ambitions to finally mutate Max Roach into Sunny Murray. Yet when this track goes into its herky-jerky, "out" middle section, the performance is brilliant. What the band always seems to do best is music coming from any kind of Arabic influence. In this context, the Sun City Girls simply have no peers. The traditional "Kal el Lazi Kad Ham" is given a magnificently intense ride, complete with wall of noise guitar buildup. Typical mid-'80s analog recording gear gives the music an earthy sound, helpful because of the sometimes thin sound of the band.
Sun City Girls - Fruit of The Womb / Polite Deception (1987)
Fifth reissue in the Cloaven Cassettes series by Sun City Girls. Both cassettes were released in 1987. About Fruit of the Womb: 'Recorded 1984-85 between the first and second Sun City Girls LPs in mono. The performances on this tape are superb. Near Eastern instrumentals, extended improvisation, ostracized jazz plus impossible versions of Sun City Girls standards.' Like the other titles in this series, some tracks from the original tape releases have been removed for the LP versions and some unreleased tracks are included, too. About Polite Deception: 'Side one is a continuation of the previous tape listed (Fruit Of The Womb). And side two was described by an Albanian diplomat as: 'An industrial Mesopotamian environmental piece followed by Egyptian trance jazz.' Of course, we all know that this description is false.' Recordings are from 1984-1985.
Status Update
Very sorry for the lack of communication recently. I've been traveling a lot in the past month and haven't had much time for this blog. Normal posting will resume on August 1st. Thanks for your patience!
Snapper - Shotgun Blossom (1990)
The tag that Snapper often got in retrospect was that they were the Stereolab before Stereolab, though that only captures part of what made them and the Shotgun Blossom album such a great listen. Certainly in an uncanny way the group musically found the feedback/organ drone/motorik drive combination that Stereolab had as an early calling card (the fact that the second song is called "Can" is also a fairly clear tip of the hat to a past inspiration). The fact that the glammy stomp of "What Are You Thinking" predates Stereolab's "Transona 5" by four years is even more striking in retrospect. Instead of sweet French singing or the like, though, Peter Gutteridge and Christine Voice's vocals were often lower-key purring, almost desperately whispered, drawing connections back to fellow Kiwi acts such as This Kind of Punishment (whose Peter Jefferies guests on drums for the concluding "Rain"). Also, Gutteridge and Dominic Stones' guitar work balanced between minimal obsessiveness and brawling, massive soloing, the latter kept as part of the mix instead of the standout element ("Eyes That Shine" is a perfect example of this, with its snarl/buzzsaw opening notes and almost liquid melodies flowing through the noise). The tension between overdrive and restraint on many levels recurs throughout Shotgun Blossom after being established with a bang on the opening "Pop Your Top." The soaring, meditative guitar lines cutting through the mayhem on "Hot Sun" is a prime example, as is the full-on space/motorik combination "Emmanuelle." The swagger on songs like "Telepod Fly" suggests even older rock roots -- the squeal/shout at the end of certain lines is a kick. When the band tries something different here and there, so established is the sonic template in general that the results are downright surprising, thus the sweet semi-Byrds jangle of "Dead Pictures" (immediately followed by "Snapper and the Ocean," which blends that with the usual sound in a perfect combination).
V-3 - Launchpad Explosion 2x7" (1997)
One of Ohio legend Jim Shepard's final releases before his tragic suicide -- mostly a straightforward lo-fi rock collection with some odds 'n' sods. This is easily up there with his best work.
Crime - San Francisco's Still Doomed (1976 - 79)
Being ahead of your time is often a bad career move, and Crime is as good an example of this theory as any band around. Crime was one of the very first acts to emerge from the West Coast punk scene, and certainly the first to record. But given California's reputation as the holy land of all that was mellow, it would take a few years for the West Coast underground to gain credibility, and record companies were ignoring the new California bands in favor of what was happening in New York City at the time. Crime only released three singles before calling it quits in 1982, and this collection of two sloppily recorded demo sessions, released by a small British label in 1992, is as close as anyone will ever get to a proper Crime album. But San Francisco's Doomed does manage to capture what a wild, powerful, and thoroughly unique band Crime was; Johnny Strike's guitar lines took a blues player's call-and-response style and stripped the structure to the frame after beefing up the body with a cranked-up Marshall stack, while Ron the Ripper's hyperactive basslines ran roughshod up, down, and around the melodies and neophyte drummer Hank Rank drove the songs home with lots of muscle and little fuss. The songs are manic bursts of pure energy that sound a shade more sophisticated than what the Ramones were doing at the same time, but with a surreal menace that's something else altogether, aided by the twisted but forceful vocal/lyrical style of Frankie Fix. It might not be absolutely clear just what "Piss on Your Dog," "I Stupid Anyway," or "I Knew This Nurse" are supposed to be about, but that won't stop listeners from trying to bellow along. Brutal, rough-edged, and with no audible sense of compromise, Crime was among the best and most distinctive of the early West Coast punk outfits, and while a deserved major retrospective has thus far eluded the band, San Francisco's Doomed at least preserves Crime's sound on plastic in all its abrasive glory, and it's a wonder to behold. San Francisco's Still Doomed was mired in legal hassles throughout much of the 1990s and was finally issued again on CD in 2004 with two bonus tracks in the form of alternate takes of 45 rpm tracks "Hot Wire My Heart," (later made infamous by Sonic Youth's cover version), and "Baby You're So Repulsive." Unfortunately, Crime's killer single "Gangster Funk" is still missing in action as are the original versions of the two bonus cuts, making this a welcome but still not definitive reissue.
Ash Ra Tempel - Ash Ra Tempel (1971)
In light of the 1990s post-rock scene and the often clear links back to Krautrock of all stripes, Ash Ra Tempel's monster debut album stands as being both astonishingly prescient and just flat out good, a logical extension of the space-jam-freakout ethos into rarified realms. Featuring the original trio of Enke, Gottsching and Schulze, Ash Ra Tempel consists of only two side-long tracks, both of which are gripping examples of technical ability mixed with rock power. If more progressive music was like it, there wouldn't be as many continuing complaints about that genre as a whole. "Amboss" contains the more upfront explosions of sound, though it mixes in restraint as much as crunch. Starting with Gottsching's extended guitar notes and Schulze's cymbals, it begins with a slow, ominous build that is equally haunting, as mysterious as the cryptic artwork of temples and figures found on the inside. Quick, rumbling drums slowly fade up some minutes in, with more crashing guitar mixing in with the previous tones, creating a disorienting drone experience. The active jam then takes over the rest of the song at the point, the three going off just as they want to (Gottsching's soloing in particular is fantastic) before all coming back together for an explosive, shuddering series of climaxes. "Traummaschine," in marked contrast, is a quieter affair, with Gottsching's deep drones setting and continuing the tone throughout. Fading in bit by bit, the guitars are accompanied by equally mesmerizing keyboards from Schulze, creating something that calls to mind everything from Eno's ambient works to Lull's doom-laden soundscapes and, after more distinct guitar pluckings start to surface, Flying Saucer Attack's rural psychedelia. Halfway through, soft percussion blends with the music to create a gentle but persistent intensity, cue for a series of shifts between calmer and more active sections, but all kept more restrained than on "Amboss."
The Fugs - The Fugs' First Album (1965)
A loping, ridiculous, and scabrous release, the Fugs' debut mashed everything from folk and beat poetry to rock and rhythm & blues -- all with a casual disregard for sounding note perfect, though not without definite goals in mind. Actually compiled from two separate sessions originally done for Folkways Records, and with slightly different lineups as a result, it's a short but utterly worthy release that pushed any number of 1964-era buttons at once (and could still tick off plenty of people). Sanders produced the sessions in collaboration with the legendary Harry Smith, who was able to sneak the collective onto Folkways' accounts by describing them as a "jug band," and it's not a far-off description. A number of songs sound like calm-enough folk-boom fare, at least on casual listening, though often with odd extra touches like weirdly muffled drums or out of nowhere whistles and chimes. Others, meanwhile, are just out there -- thus, the details of the perfect "Supergirl." Then there's "Boobs a Lot," the post-toke/acid lament "I Couldn't Get High," and the pie-in-the-face to acceptable standards of the time, "Slum Goddess." Throughout it all, the Fugs sound like they're having a perfectly fun time; the feeling is loose, ragged, but right, and while things may be sloppy around the edges, often that's totally intentional. Certainly little else could explain the random jamming and rhythmic chanting/shouting on "Swinburne Stomp." Good as the original album is, the CD version is what any serious fan needs to find, thanks to the inclusion of 11 bonus tracks. Some come from the original sessions, including the signature tune "We're the Fugs" and "The Ten Commandments," while others appear from various live jams. Then there's the self-explanatory "In the Middle of Their First Recording Session the Fugs Sign the Worst Contract Since Leadbelly's."
Husker Du - Land Speed Record (1981)
A brief live EP, Land Speed Record races through its songs without regard for melody or riffs. It's quite an impressive sonic blitzkrieg, so much so that the individual tracks themselves leave little lasting impression. Because of that, it's best to take in the album as a whole.